A NonProductive Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 19, 2011

Our Next Non-Productive Comedy Show is Full of Pride!

The Non-Pro Comedy Show, now in its third month, features the finest comedians NY and NJ have to offer. Unlike your typical comedy show, this performance channels the classic ambiance of 50’s and 60’s era comedy clubs. In honor of Pride Month, our show will feature an homage to one of the greatest gay entertainment traditions.

(New York City, NY) - The Non Productive Comedy Show - the biggest, hippest, flashiest comedy show in New York City, will be dazzling the Midtown crowd once again on July 26th, 2011 at Tobacco Road, 355 West 41st St in NYC. Showtime is 7PM, admission is $5.

The amazingly talented cast of this month's NPCS includes:

Gordon Baker-Bone (Winner 2011 NJ Comedy Fest, Co-Writer of the webseries "Hater-Bot")
Molly Austin (The Peoples Improv Theater, Writer, Star of the musical comedy, "Girls On The Side")
Mike Brown (Prolific Comedian and Writer)http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Sassi Keegan (MTV, Adult Swim, and Host of SEVERAL comedy events in and around NYC)
Mike Lawrence (John Oliver's New York Stand Up, Nerd of Mouth Podcast)
Esther Ku (Finalist in NBC’s Last Comic Standing Season 6, Finalist in the Hottest Funniest Chick Contest on Sirius Satellite Radio)
Vicky Kuperman (Nationally touring Comedian, regularly seen at large venues in NYC such as Gotham and Broadway Comedy Clubs)
GRITS Sketch Comedy (Hot and Tasty Sketch Comedy team)

For more info about the comics and video links, Click Here.

Vintage pinups and fans of great comedy alike will be fully satisfied by the NPCS. This is different from a normal comedy show in that we have more glitz, glamor, and most importantly, sex appeal than you'd find at a regular comedy show.

About Exit Eleven:
Exit Eleven Productions encompasses all of the creative endeavors of John Minus, as well as producing the projects of other talented young people, especially people of color. We also specialize in supporting and unifying artists from New Jersey. John writes, hosts a podcast, the Alter-Negro Sho, and performs stand-up comedy all over the tri-state area.

Contact:
John Minus, Executive Producer
Exit Eleven Productions
908-812-8612
http://exiteleven.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/AlterNegro

Here are a couple of my latest clips, I hope you like them I did.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This one is from Broadway Comedy Club

And this one is from Comedy Night on the Lake

Hey boys and girls, I have 3 shows this month so far, and it would be awesome forhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif you if you came to them ;)

The closest is Comedy Night on the Lake in Milltown NJ this June 4th, 2011. Here's the Comedy Night Event page on FB

I need at least 4 people to come to enter the competition, but the more people I have the better my chances to win! Audience Favorite wins CA$H PRIZE! And FEATURED SPOT at the next “Comedy Night”. $10 cover, 2 item minimum. If I win I will be donating all of the prize money to The Valerie Fund a charity for children with Cancer and Blood disorders. To find out more about where the money will go, click here.

My next show is at Broadway Comedy Club, and is a really important audition show. The winner of this show gets a regular spot at BCC for the whole Summer, and PAID comedy gigs. I need at least 7 people to come to enter the contest, so go to this site to see my beautiful face and purchase tickets: John Minus Page for Best Young Comedian Contest

Last but not least is this months Non Pro Comedy Show, which will be the best one yet! More details on that to come.

Hears the flier for the Non Pro Comedy Show, share with your friends! Like an STD!

To be honest, I'm not a movie person. This is not to say that I do not have movies that I like. I have a fairly large movie collection, full of movies you have never heard of or never seen. Most of my favorite directors are either dead or extremely elderly. Also, a lot of movies I like most people consider to be dreadful. I haven't seen many Hollywood staples like "Rocky" or "Top Gun". But even I have noticed that Hollywood is on a losing streak of unheard of proportions. This year has been one enormous yawn on the movie front. I can't remember a period of months when absolutely no big movies have come out. Think about it, have you really looked forward to a movies since Expendables/Scott Pilgrim/Eat Pray Love weekend? Absolutely not.

And we go. We still go. Well I should say you go, because I don't support that crap. The last movie I saw was "The American" which wasn't exactly a blockbuster. I know that it seems like a George Clooney Spy Thriller seems like it would be pretty damn hard to mess up, but they found a way. They did so by producing and directing the entire film in Italy, land of moody, morose, and macabre movies. "The American" will forever be known as the movie so moody they gave out Zoloft at the door instead of 3D glasses. That picture up there? Clooney is aiming for the audience's Joy. They chose to release it in the Summer, when people want fun movies! The damn movie started in the Winter! Any joy and good feeling the audience had when going into the theater was definitely assassinated by the time they left.

So what does Hollywood have planned to bring us back? Sequels out the ass. I for one am glad for the sequels because I would rather see that than take a chance on something, ahem, "original" from these people. And for me I see no difference between big studio movies and indie movies. At their heart most "indie" movies follow similar tropes just like the big movies do. Indies movies are all heart and emotion and guts and tugging on heartstrings. There are very few indie movies that are straight out action films, and I know you can say that that's a function of budget, but really that is just a cop-out. It can be done, see "Black Dynamite". As with everything connected with the film industry, the creative people just are not trying hard enough. I know people who are beginning filmmakers, so I am under no delusions about how difficult it is to make a movie. It's slightly less involved than planning an amphibious assault against an entrenched enemy fort. Still, whether the budget is $120 million or $120 every crew has a responsibility to the public to put out the best product possible, and that just isn't happening.

This has been a depressing movie year in many senses of the word. Along with "The American", the year started out with "The Lovely Bones". Anyone see that? Well don't if you are having a bad day. Or have children. Or ever plan on having children. The unintentionally funny commercials for "Extraordinary Measures", "I ALREADY WORK AROUND THE CLOCK", got more attention than the movie did. "Repo Men" repo-ed the plot from a previous movie. "Kick Ass" made me angry and sad for reasons none of you will understand, and it just goes on and on. This was the Summer of disappointment and, except for Harry Potter, it looks like the rest of this year is going to be blowful as well. I wish that we would all just boycott Hollywood for a month. One month if we all got our shit together the quality of movies would increase substantially wouldn't it? Ah, it's fun to dream.

What I am undertaking here is, at best, quixotic, and at worst, impossible. I want to make a list of the top 10 best Hip Hop beats ever. Once I started upon this task I realized how foolhardy it was. I mean, it would be hard enough to make a list of top 10 Bad Boy beats, or top 10 Violator beats (including Missy, Timbaland, and Busta Rhymes songs). It would be damn near impossible to make a top 10 list of Dre beats, or Snoop songs, or Eminem songs, but that is exactly what I am attempting to do here. If you disagree with my list, (and you are almost destined to) I encourage you to make a list of your own. I am a beat connoisseur, a beat junkie, a beat-nut, if you will, and I would love to hear other people's opinions on this matter. To be honest, I probably won't even completely agree with my list, but I figure this is a good place to start. Oh, and PLEASE keep in mind that though there may be better SONGS that capture some of the moods I'm talking about, I am making an attempt to separate the beats out from the flows, featured artists, etc. So without further ado, here we go...

10. Is a Three-way tie by Dipset because they are all TV related samples. Of course I mean .357, Let Me Know, and the Horse and Carriage remix. They are (in order; Magnum P.I. Theme, the MNFootball theme, and the Night Court theme) some of the best TV music around. I am slightly disappointed that they never got around to sampling the “AirWolf” theme, but it could still happen, right?

9.“What Up Gangsta”, 50 Cent - If you have some nefarious actions planned for the night, there are few songs that will put you in the proper frame of mind faster than this song. Runner-up – Quiet Storm, Mobb Deep, Ante-Up Remix, M.O.P.

8.“Fire”, Joe Buddens – This may be the Jersey in my showing, but the hardcore House pedigree of this songs makes me put this song on repeat consistently. If it comes on while I'm driving I instantly speed up 10-15 mph. It's that kind of song. If you can sit still during that song, check your pulse.

7.“Never Let Me Down”, Kanye West – It's fairly well known if you know me that I drink the Kanye Kool-Aid. I say that I am to Kanye as “Stan” was to Eminem, without, you know, the homoerotic letters and suicidal tendencies... But I digress. The problem with me and Kanye's songs is that I find it impossible to separate the flows from the beat, so I can't really be impartial. “Never Let Me Down”, I believe to be an amazing song, with or without words, which is why I included it here. Still, I feel like I'm violation my own rules here...

6.“Bitch Please Pt 1 and 2” - Want to talk about epitomizing the West Coast sound? I don't think it gets much closer than these two songs. They fairly beg to be blasted at high volume in a low rider, sans top, in a low income neighborhood. You can throw Xzibit's “X” in here as well; what, that was an enjoyable song...

5. “Clint Eastwood”, Gorillaz – This is the first Gorillaz song I ever heard and still is by far my favorite. I don't know what it is about this lazy meandering baseline that gets me, but like a good point guard this beat makes whoever is working with it look better. I think maybe it is the harmonica that lends the song a sort of otherworldly feel. Either way, this one deserves to stand among the best.

4.“I Can't Stand the Rain”, Missy Elliot – If anyone ever coins the term “Beat Minimalist” (which I should) Missy will be the primary example of such an artist, and this song will be the primary example. A song that's as great for what isn't there as for what is, Missy definitely explored the space with this one. This beat is the musical version of a Sundress; you had better be talented, because this beat will not hide any of your flaws. Beautiful bare bones music.

3. “You're All I Need”, Method Man, ft. Mary J. Blige – The most gangsta love song of all time, there is really no way to get around how hard this beat is considering the subject matter. If you separate the two and listen to them separately, you are put in the mood to do entirely different things. By “different” I mean, do a home invasion or write a poem for your beloved different. It's a good thing this song is about love, because this beat is about grimy, illegal things.

2.“Who Shot Ya”, Notorious B.I.G. - Speaking of bad intentions, this song has nothing but bad intentions. Again, I maybe unduly prejudiced towards this song because of all the yelling of “J.M. MUTHAFUCKA” (my initials) but this beat influenced a lot of hip-hop that came after it. An original product of the Minimalist School, this beats' scarcity of decoration allowed B.I.G. To fully display the breadth and range of his lyrical ability. I can imagine the shock to the status quo when they first heard this song. So, what's better than this?

1.“Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”, Busta Rhymes – What is it about this song that was/is so special? What is it that, when it comes on in clubs or bars, produces some kind of positive reaction in every patron, male, female, old, young? This song, I think, was something of a musical breakthrough for hip-hop. Definitely Minimalist by nature, I think this song made producers change what they thought a hip-hop beat could be. “Put Your Eyes” was off-beat; slower than usual, and had odd pacing, but it worked, oh boy did it work. The song showed off Busta Rhyme's ability to rap over pretty much everything, but, I believe, it showed the hip-hop world that there was a lot more room for creativity when it came to producing tracks.

So that's my list. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am.... now.

An Alter Ego is a second self, a second personality or persona within a person. An Alter Negro is the new definition of what it is to be Black, the Negrona within the Negro. I am of my Race, Gender, and Species, and not of them at the same time. The Alter Negro Show is the Internet Radio Broadcast manifestation of me, John Minus, the Alter. It is everything in my head wrung out and put on display for the world to see. It is my way of changing the world.

There are a lot of people like me out there in the world, people who don’t quite fit in, who are underrepresented, marginalized, and labeled Deviant. To all of those people, I say; this is the Show for you. The Alter-Negro Show, hosted by John W. Minus. The Grand Premier is in 3 weeks, November 23rd, 2009 on the Non-Productive Network, www.non-productive.com.


Go ahead, try and not listen. You’ll regret it.

He/She would be a perfect 1/4th combination of Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Janeane Garofalo. Except, you know, Black. It's not a racial thing, I'm Black, it's a Genetic thing... by definition my child would have to be at least half-Black. There may be some danger to having a child who is snarkier than I, but the ever present battle of wits would keep me on my toes and keep my brain sharp, preventing me from ever going more senile than I already am. I think this is a good plan. Now all I have to do is find an incredibly sharp, witty, and devestatingly beautiful woman... Any suggestions?

Hello True Believers, I know you all have a big empty space in your life, a hole if you will that just needs to be filled with something. Well we, your friendly folks at Non-Productive (Sam, Frank, Lindsey and John) are here to fill your vast emptiness with our big meaty show. Now I know you people all have busy lives and can’t always listen to us live when we broadcast… at least that’s what you say, and hey; who are we to doubt that you are actually out having a life on Thursday nights…

Anyway we, your Radio Lovers on Non Productive, every Thursday night at 8PM on http://www.Hearnewbrunswick.com or http://www.non-productive.com understand that you can’t always be next to a computer on Thursday nights to hear our sexy voices, that’s why we have Non-Pro On Demand, AKA Podcasts available for download! You can get to them by two methods, either one works fine. 1. You can go to http://www.non-productive.com and Click on the Record Player on the top of the screen. That will take you to the podcasts page, or just go to podcasts.non-productive.com. Both methods work. Once there just scroll down until you find the shows you want, or, as I recommend, download them all! Come on, as if you have something better to do?

John