Leslie Hall is at the Hammer this week. Weds March 21, at 8pm. Good times ahead. O.M.G.

Tonight I caught a magical wave of events…
It started by spending a delightful hour and a half in my car to go just 16 miles across town. I HEART LA! Then I parked behind the Scientology Celebrity Center. After some birds from BIRDS, we went to UCB to see Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall sweat through a short stand-up set which was mostly about genitals. To be honest the best bit, which I won’t ruin was something about HIV and a Zombie. This went over really well with the dude behind us, who had that kind of obnoxious comedy-club laugh, where he laughs when nothing is going on in a crazy way that says “hey listen to me, I’m wild and totally comfortable with my self”. After the show we came home and I watched Top Model, then 9-5, followed by the documentary on the Half Ton Man, then a little of Letterman to see Dave eat a goat eyeball, then I switched over to see the E! True Hollywood Story: Tyra Banks. Ugh. I need to wash my insides.

Oh crap, that movie the 300 is loud. Like louder than anything would ever need to be.
I don’t want to be an old dude who hates loud things, but I ended up sick, with a level 10 migraine, and unable to see out of my right eye after enduring this movie. I’m pretty sure nothing actually happened in the movie – it was like stitching together all the weird interbits of a video game – you know where they tell the back story or give you the mission to free the Skrulls from Galactus. Anyway – I was going to post my favorite bit from the Improv class, which can’t really be quoted here due to its graphic nature, but it involved Michelle Dean fake smoking a cigar.

Because this is LA, I enrolled in Improv Classes at Upright Citizens Brigade. Our big graduation show is this weekend – tomorrow at 3pm at UCB Theater on Franklin. I’ll post my favorite part of the show on Sunday night, but for now my select memories of the class include the lines “TOOTIE! You got me the biggest pickle…and it’s a DILL!” and “That’s unfortunate”. Proving the point that maybe improv is more fun to do than to see. Or read about. On a blog.

Kellie did some sweet Asst. Art Directing on the Phantom Limb video by the Shins. Check it out on the Tube here. (Note the able sword-on-string work!)

Welcome to my official site. I feel all 1998! I’m going to consolidate all my projects here past and present and hopefully add some wicked cool web-effects like that cursor that leaves a trail of swirling pixel dust and lots and lots of pop-ups. But in the meantime, heartfelt thanks to Jenny V. and the team at ALSO for putting this site together.

Strindberg looks rather like photos of that morose, visionary late-19th-century Swedish playwright and novelist, as rendered by somebody paying homage to the campily creepy cartoons of Edward Gorey. Helium is a little pink round floating balloon, with eyes and eyebrows and a red mouth with little teeth when she smiles and flipper-like wings and tiny feet tucked away like those of a bird in flight.

They are the protagonists of four miniature animated films viewable on the Internet under the title “Strindberg and Helium.” In “Absinthe and Women,” Strindberg tries to pick up a woman in an opera box; she flees. In “The Park” Strindberg wanders among dead leaves, Helium floating helpfully nearby. In the third, “At Home With the Kids,” Strindberg finds the cheerful cries and intrusions of children upsetting. In the last, “Sulphur and Iron,” he tries to make alchemical gold of those elements, fails and is rewarded by Helium drifting down with a cupcake on her head.

Each film begins with little Helium floating up to Strindberg’s cheek and planting a kiss on it, accompanied by the sucking pop sound familiar from all cartoon kisses. Thereafter, Strindberg intones funereal pronouncements like “the fallen leaves are rotting” or “the whole of nature stinks of decomposition and decay” or “we are already in hell” or “the agony becomes intolerable.” Cheerful Helium echoes the ends of his sentences, several squeaky octaves up: “rotting,” “hell,” “decay, decay.”

I find these films, which can be seen and heard free on www.strindbergandhelium.com, funny and sweet and adorable. They were conceived by two members of a San Francisco comedy troupe called Killing My Lobster, most of whom went to Brown University in the mid-90’s. Erin Bradley, who wrote the text, is the voice of Helium, and James Bewley is Strindberg. The films were animated by Eun-Ha Paek, who is part of a computer graphics collective called Milky Elephant, then in San Francisco, now in Brooklyn. Strindberg’s words are drawn from his novel “Inferno” and his “Occult Diary.”

Some reasonable (if humorless) people might find “Strindberg and Helium” trivial. For me, these films represent a delicious skewering, affectionate and satirical, of European dead-white-male pretensions by American pop culture by way of Japanese anime (its not far from Helium to Kitty, as in Hello, Kitty), with no slight, and all due deference, to Europe, Japan or the United States.

They also seem to encapsulate a lovely image of male-female characteristics and relationships (no matter that Helium might be interpreted in some scholarly quarters as Strindberg’s own basso voice jacked up to stratospheric levels by that very gas). It’s probably no accident that Ms. Bradley and Mr. Bewley have a comedy act called “The Man/Woman Show.” These films contrast male moroseness with chirpy female supportiveness from a decidedly female perspective.

I also love them because they represent something rather wonderful among the Youth of America. This country has a penchant for sweet silliness, like the new sport of extreme ironing. People tend to cling most closely to the art and entertainment of their generation. It’s nice to be reminded occasionally, and forcefully, that young creativity is bubbling up all over the map, and not just in San Francisco — in indie films, in garage rock, in dance, in comedy, in video, in animation.

A lot of this new art is abetted by the Internet, which is both a curse and a blessing, mostly a blessing. It’s a curse because people create lovely things like “Strindberg and Helium,” post them on a Web site and then — what? They could get lost.

Except insofar as they may serve as calling cards for commercial work, be it in film or television or rock videos, they don’t make much, or any, money. Ms. Paek said on the telephone the other day that while the three creators have vague plans for “Strindberg and Helium” sequels, they’re too busy with other, presumably more remunerative, projects. At least their site has links to a merchandising arm: you can purchase T-shirts and thong underwear and baby bibs and mugs and mousepads and lunchboxes and Frisbees, all with Strindberg or the cuter Helium or both emblazoned upon them.

In terms of mainstream media attention, these films have been pretty much ignored. There have been short mentions in USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, and that seems to be about it, along with appearances, among many other entries, in a couple of film festivals and museum shows.

But the Internet is a blessing because this kind of work can reach a whole new constituency, on its own terms and its own timetable. It is passed from hand to hand, like a prized secret. Secret sharing. These films came out two years ago but are still percolating through the Web. Google lists almost a thousand sites, 33 pages’ worth, nearly all blogs and personal online exchanges. People love these little films and want their friends to know about them. And if newcomers respond to them as I have done, they think kindly of the friends who called the films to their attention.

The Internet (like radio and television before it) has been lamented as a force encouraging the grim atomization of society. Before, legend has it, we happily congregated in cafes and theaters, building communal solidarity. Now, we sit forlornly in front of our monitors, logging on to nastiness. For me, it’s just the opposite. Reading books is a solitary activity, and few lament that. The Internet reinforces community; it builds new communities. Just as e-mail has led to a rebirth of the epistolary impulse, the Internet creates new bonds between people who share their passions. Of course, those passions may include darker impulses as well as the utterly innocent “Strindberg and Helium.” But that’s democracy, the kind we’re trying to build worldwide.

So one more thing: It’s been sometimes difficult in recent months to feel good about America. One needn’t recite the litany of pride, arrogance, stupidity and cruelty. But while wallowing in our well-justified gloom, its salutary to come across something as sunny and sweet as “Strindberg and Helium.” It doesn’t hurt anything (including Strindberg’s august reputation; it may even lead some to “Miss Julie” and “A Dream Play” and all the rest). It’s creative and nurturing, and we need all of that we can get.

Ben Westhoff gets inside the odd mix of cerebral and naughty humor that’s taken S.F. comedy troupe Killing My Lobster to the edge of national fame.

(We hear the sounds of a couple engaged in lovemaking. Tossing, turning, soft grunting. Rene is a French prostitute. Pedro is a Spanish stranger.)

Rene: Oui! … Yes … Paco …
Pedro: Pedro.
Rene: Pedro … Pedro … Parlez anglais, si’l vous plaît …
Pedro: Eh … No hablo inglés.
Rene: Hablo inglés! PLEASE! Ohhh … J’adore la langue d’anglais …
It make me CRAZY!

(Intrigued but reluctant, Pedro reaches for his knapsack on the floor, pulls out an enormous and unsexy Spanish/English dictionary, and tries to place it somewhere discreetly on the bed …)

Pedro: (reads) Where can I buy a postcard?
Rene: OOOOhhh!
Pedro: (thrusts) I am attending a convention.
Rene: Oui! Yes! Convention!
Pedro: (thrusts again) I want to press these clothes!
Rene: Oui … Oh! … OH!

(Rene rolls over so that she is now on top.)

Pedro: Is there a cost for children?
Rene: Parlez, parlez, vite! … Plus vite!
Pedro: (frantically flipping through the pages) Do you have a safe for valuables?!
Rene: AAAiiii!

Don’t let the edgy sketch fool you. The members of Killing My Lobster are not the punk rockers of sketch comedy. They do not have messy or greasy hair. They lack the brazen cool of the Ramones, the “fuck you” attitude of the Clash, the technical ineptitude of the Sex Pistols.

No, if Killing My Lobster were a band, it would be Weezer: larger than life onstage, borderline geeky in person, and evidencing a surprising longevity.

The revolving cast of about 12 members of Killing My Lobster has produced at least two full-length shows of new material every year
since the group’s inception in 1997. Their last, Circus of Failure, sold out three-quarters of its 20-performance run at A Traveling
Jewish Theatre, which houses 88 seats — despite competition from the World Series — and some shows were so crowded that people had to sit in the aisles. Film versions of their sketches have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival and featured on Comedy Central’s Web site, where they were described as “An orgy of comic genius.” The critical response to the Lobsters’ shtick has been almost universally positive, and they count Robin Williams among their fans.

So does that mean, as suggested by the title of their 2001 show, that the Lobsters are Breaking the Bank?

Not exactly.

“They’re paying me 200 bucks,” says new Lobster Gabe Weisert of his two-month commitment for the group’s newest show, Tales of a Lonely Planet. His duties include four or five rehearsals a week now, and five performances a week when the show opens, all on top of errand-running and envelope-sealing duties.

If being a Lobster in 2003 is a labor of love, when things got started back in 1997, there was even more labor for even less love. The
Lobsters’ first show was at the Grasshopper Palace, a tiny performance space in the Mission where they recruited 20 of their friends to fill the seats. The group’s nucleus was just forming, and even the name itself had only recently been conceived.

“We’d all had a few drinks,” says Daniel Lee, describing a get-together where the group was playing the name game Celebrity.
“Some of us had had more than a few drinks. I wrote down Lauryn Hill on a little slip of paper.”

The task fell to group co-founder Paul Charney to describe the singer without using her name.

“She sang the song ‘Killing My Lobster,'” blurted out an intoxicated Charney, referring to the song “Killing Me Softly,” then a hit for
Hill’s band, the Fugees. The phrase was oft repeated by the group, and members used it to mean “bumming me out,” as in, “Cheer up, man, you’re killing my lobster.”

Before it became the troupe’s name, Killing My Lobster was actually the title of the group’s first show. Back then, they called themselves
“Are You There God? It’s Us, The Art Collective.”

The first script read-through for the Lobsters’ new show — Tales of a Lonely Planet — is conducted on a rainy mid-January night in their
office on the second floor of the Digipop building at the corner of 17th Street and Folsom, a corner popular for, among other activities,
prostitution.

The cast and crew — writers, directors, DJs, costume and set designers, and five new actors — are by and large clean-cut, with jeans and tennis shoes the favored fashion statement. Individually, in passing conversation, none of them comes across as particularly hilarious. But the neon-green walls of the office seem to draw comedy out of these middle-class Ivy Leaguers.

Tales of a Lonely Planet has a travel theme, and promises “sketches and shenanigans all about the hazards of over packing, under
budgeting, and being a Middle American in a far away land.” In addition to the Spanish spoken by Pedro and the French of his prostitute Rene, British, Scottish, Japanese, and Inuit accents make appearances in the show. Exotic locales are the norm; complicated premises that depend on semantic miscommunication abound. If you were to accuse Daniel Lee, the director of the show, of having a penchant for highbrow humor, well, you wouldn’t be the first.

“A lot of our humor can be a little bit cerebral, in good and bad ways,” he says, admitting that he almost majored in art semiotics before focusing his studies on political science at Brown University in Rhode Island. “Language seems to be a thing that we’re interested in: the use of language, the communication issues.”

But Lee, a lanky Korean-American who’s studied voice at the Juilliard School and acting at the American Conservatory Theater, doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a comic intellectual. “We try to offset [the cerebral humor] with more physical humor. We also have naughty, dirty sketches.”

Humiliating ones, too. Just ask James Bewley, a goateed, smirking Lobster who carries around a few extra pounds. While he played a
dancing student who goes to great lengths to please his instructor, Bewley was nude onstage for an entire six-performance run seen by
thousands. “Most people thought I was wearing a ‘naked suit’ until I turned around,” whereupon the audience saw his bare, very real ass. He grins. “But why would I wear a suit like this?”

The non-cerebral strand of Lobster humor was foreshadowed by Out of Bounds, a comedy group founded at Brown University by many of the core Lobsters, who attended the school in the early ’90s. Perhaps the most notorious incident was a sketch that called for actor Jon Wolanske to literally piss his pants onstage.

“It was in the script but unrehearsed,” recalls Wolanske, who is tall, innocent-looking, and almost unnervingly sincere. “I drank four or
five beers before going onstage in an effort to work up the fluid count.” As well as, presumably, the nerve.

“In the scene I was really nervous about asking a girl for a date. She said yes, and I said I was so excited that I was going to piss my pants. And then I did.”

So much fluid came out onto the floor that people thought it was fake, he says. The rest of Out of Bounds’ performance that evening was done with the urine pooled onstage.

“I still have the underwear,” Wolanske adds.

Out of Bounds-ers Daniel Lee, Marc Vogl, and Paul Charney left the East Coast for San Francisco the year after their graduation from
Brown in 1995. They launched Killing My Lobster with fellow alums Brian L. Perkins and Mike Zurer. Brown graduates Wolanske, Mara
Gerstein, Erin Bradley, and Bill Donohue, Vassar alums Abby Paige and Maura Madden, and Rhode Island School of Design alum Bewley joined in the next few years.

Gerstein had pulled in Madden, a hometown friend from Manhattan, who brought in Paige, a fellow comedienne from Vassar. Bewley had met the Brown group members through participation in a production of Six Degrees of Separation in Rhode Island.

But why San Francisco, when New York would seem the obvious destination for East Coast collegians looking for a comedy career? For
one thing, Lee says, he spent a year after college there and found it overwhelming. Also, Vogl says, San Francisco had a lower cost of
living than the Big Apple and a reputation as a supportive environment for the performing arts. And finally, many in the group had a desire “to get 3,000 miles away from our families and hometowns,” says Vogl.

Once here, they had immediate intentions to start performing together. “We were just at an age when we thought we could do stuff,” Charney asserts. Without consulting the others, he reserved the theater space at Grasshopper Palace — with no performance planned. Essentially, he dared the Lobsters-to-be to improvise. “I told them, ‘Either you can do something with me, or I’ll be doing a really bad one-person show.'”

The performance went reasonably well, but the group toiled in near-obscurity for the next few years. Vogl and Charney in particular
contributed large amounts of their own money to the organization, which was run out of an apartment shared by a few members in the Lower Haight. The costume room was the back porch. All 12 members had their own apartment keys; someone was there almost every hour of the day making press kits, sending out postcards, or honing sketches. The Lobsters, then as now, were disciplined about their work, and stories of wild parties and debauchery are few and far between. When compared to the wild times of comedians like John Belushi and Chris Farley, the Lobsters’ lives seem downright tame. “No Lobsters have been to rehab,” says Vogl.

The seriousness of their effort paid off, however, when a performance at the 1999 San Francisco Fringe Festival called Killing My Lobster
Boards Flight 354 finally propelled them into orbit. The Fringe Festival booked them at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which, at 300
seats, was the biggest space they’d ever performed in.

The hourlong show took place in an airport and was highlighted by a skit about a Palo Alto high school Spanish teacher who called herself
Señora Lori Dow-Moore. Sra. Dow-Moore, played by Paige, was leading her “Spanish Dos” class when she mistook a man reading a Gabriel García Márquez novel for an actual Colombian. She pestered the man ad nauseam with rudimentary Spanish questions; of course he didn’t speak a lick of the language.

The sketch went over so well that the group received a “Best of the Fringe” award and was invited to do three more performances for the
festival. The Lobsters wrote up 354 as a pilot TV script, and, at the instigation of Wolanske, who lived in Los Angeles at the time, they acquired an agent and found themselves shuttling between Northern and Southern California on an almost weekly basis.

They ended up doing a showcase for HBO executives at that network’s performance space in Hollywood, and for a year were in contact with them about the possibility of filming a series à la Mr. Show or Kids in the Hall. In the end HBO didn’t bite.

Vogl, the most caffeinated and hippest-dressing of the group and its main public-relations person, seems uncharacteristically reluctant to
talk about the disappointment. “When it all came down, our first obligation was to do good work here,” he says. It seems likely that had the HBO gig worked out, the Lobsters would have flown the Bay Area coop. But they’re still here, and trying to make the best of it.

“We want to keep establishing a strong audience base, to grow into an institution, to make [the Lobsters] a part of what the San Francisco experience is,” Wolanske says.

Vogl’s long-term goal is for the group to own its own performance space for live shows and the hi/lo (that is, high concept/ low budget)
film festival, which the Lobsters organize. To make this happen, they are relying on a disciplined work ethic and business model emphasized since the inception of the troupe.

“A lot of people we work with aren’t comedians at all,” says Vogl. “Some of our friends are MBAs, they sit down with us once in a while
and say, ‘If you want to do all this, this is what you have to do.'” The Lobster Theatre Project is now a nonprofit arts organization, of
which the Killing My Lobster sketch comedy group is the “comedy subsidiary.” The Lobsters receive foundation grants, and in 2003 are, for the first time, able to pay members a stipend.

Vogl takes as a model the Second City troupe in Chicago, which was founded by University of Chicago students but now has franchises all over the country. In the short term, however, Vogl would just like to quit his day job. “Nobody can survive in San Francisco doing Lobster
stuff,” he says. “But that’s the goal.”

They aren’t Second City yet, but the Lobsters now have their own office space, complete with a scanner, copier, computer, television,
VCR, and some floor area in which to practice. The performance venues have expanded over time, too. The group’s 19th full-length show begins this week at the Brava Theater, a one-time Mission District movie house with approximately 370 seats.

The humor has grown up, as well. One of the group’s signature sketches, performed recently at S.F. Sketchfest, is called “Sunday
Afternoon.” Starring Charney and Lee, it focuses on the breakup of a gay couple who do not speak actual dialogue. Instead, the characters mouth semantic descriptions of platitudes:

Man 1: Awkward greeting.
Man 2: Nervous greeting.
Man 1: Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit …
Man 2: Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit …
Man 1: Awkward pause.
Man 2: Filler, filler, filler …
Man 1: Obligatory comment about the weather, obligatory comment about the weather.
Man 2: Insincere laughter.
Man 1: Probing question.
Man 2: Evasive remark.
Man 1: Confusion … slightly suspicious.
Man 2: Blatant lie.
Man 1: Acceptance. Second thought, probing question.
Man 2: Restructuring blatant lie.
Man 1: Recognition of blatant lie … expressing doubt.
Man 2: Defensive remark.
Man 1: Accusation.
Man 2: Irrelevant counteraccusation.
Man 1: Shock. Thoughtless remark
Man 2: Sigh of utter disgust.
Man 1: Fake apology, fake apology, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit …
Man 2: Serious remark.
Man 1: Shifting into serious tone …

Man 2 eventually breaks up with Man 1, who slaps him, and who then is given an “obligatory offering of continuing friendship,” which he
refuses.

In late January, the group takes a night off from rehearsals to work on a side project. The Killing My Lobster Cabaret is a variety show
put on the last Wednesday of every month at the Make-Out Room, a Mission District bar. It is a benefit for the Coalition on Homelessness and features local sketch comedy groups, stand-up acts, short films, bands, and, sometimes, yodeling.

Though many of the Cabaret’s performers are Lobsters, its spontaneity and anything-goes mantra are a big departure from the carefully crafted sketches of the group’s stage performances.

January’s show is hosted by Bewley, in character as his alter ego Dale, a parody of a host you might see as a comedy act in a
second-rate Reno casino. Dale wears oversize, tinted sunglasses and a cheap suit, and spouts the type of one-liners that are normally heard with a drum tap afterward.

“I’ve had a few drinks,” he says lazily, climbing onto the Make-Out Room’s elevated stage with exaggerated difficulty. It is the first
Cabaret since its venue changed from Cafe Du Nord, and about 30 people are in the audience.

The crowd is never quite sure when Bewley is being serious and when he isn’t. He says he does caricatures, and calls up a young woman who sits patiently while he draws a figure that looks nothing like her and is wearing pirate garb. “I only know how to draw pirates,” Dale/Bewley finally admits.

He calls up Wolanske twice to perform, first as the character Alden Mount, a soft-spoken gentleman who recites terrible puns from his
“pocket book of boners.” Wolanske’s enthusiasm never flags, even when a flutter of boos hangs in the air. His second character is an inept impressionist who attempts to portray Eleanor Roosevelt and Beverly D’Angelo, but can’t even do Jack Nicholson right.

This goes over fabulously, but not every part of the Cabaret is received as well. A duo calling itself “The Doctor and Captain Show” organizes a laborious multimedia game involving members of the audience playing a variation of Scrabble. The video screen is blurry, and the game drags out for more than 15 minutes.

Comedy perfection is not the Cabaret’s aim, says Gabe Weisert, an admirer of the variety show before he joined the Lobsters. “They take risks; they’re not afraid to go out there and bomb in search of something different. They’re not afraid to die for their cause.”

Bewley gathers much of the talent for the Cabaret through connections made from his day job as program director at New Langton Arts, an art gallery and performance space South of Market. Other Lobsters work as waitresses, freelance writers, film and video teachers, and in public relations for the American Conservatory Theater, among other professions. Although none of them has been able to quit a day job, almost all the Lobsters have been able to avoid desk work of the downtown, mind-numbing variety.

Instead, they satirize it.

Their short film 8+4, which aired on Comedy Central’s Web site, recalls the movie Office Space in its “Why are we here?” ponderings of corporate life. But the Lobster critique is more ruthless.

In the first scene, an anonymous and slightly dim office worker played by Wolanske is taking an order from a corporate client. The caller says that he wants four more “units” to go along with the eight units he ordered last time.

“OK,” says Wolanske, thinking hard. “That’s just simple math.”

He writes “8 + 4” down on a scrap of paper. “OK. Just need to run the numbers now.” A confused look comes over his face.

“So you ordered eight last week. I’m just trying to, you know, sort this all out now. Trying to get a good picture of where you’re coming
from.” Under his breath: “Eight, and then, you’re calling back because you need four more ….”

He takes out a set of Popsicle sticks. “Just walk with me here for a second. Because oftentimes when you do the math, you forget that
you’re working with real things.” He counts out sticks for a few moments, but this doesn’t help either.

“It could be a negative number, couldn’t it?”

He looks around frantically for assistance.

“Can I put you on hold for a second? I just want to run it through our accounts-receivable department and get a more accurate number from them. OK? I’m just gonna put you on hold for one second. I think it’s some nice music today, Yanni at Red Rocks.”

Someone from accounts receivable enters, and then soon the head of accounting. The group discusses possible methods for determining the sum, including the use of multiplication, subtraction, and Venn diagrams.

Eventually an entire task force is assembled to seek a solution, but it fails, bounced from one meeting room to another by departments that have already reserved the rooms. Meanwhile, the client stays on hold.

It’s a simple joke, and over the course of the 20-minute video, it gets pounded into the ground, again and again, in unconscious reflection of the Lobster comic aesthetic and work ethic. They may seem like slackers, but they’re not going to quit telling jokes until you start laughing.

Sketch comics are masters of the absurd. They portray peace-loving hippies coming to blows over a J. Crew roll-neck sweater and dot-commies frantically selling the genius of a Web site called e-potato. They expose devious kids who hoodwink the Make-a-Wish Foundation and play “Dueling Banjos” on the scantily clad bottoms of corpulent Asian men. Unabashedly spreading their irreverent brand of screwball humor, sketch artists can make audiences laugh at virtually anything, from presidential assassinations to George Foreman grills. For the final part of Callboard’s Bay Area comedy series, sketch groups Killing My Lobster and 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors (with the Plethora Comedy Troupe and Kasper Hauser chiming in) stepped gamely forward to offer their wit, wisdom and ramblings.

By all accounts, sketch comedy is character-driven madness, perpetuated by a skewed view of the mundane. It thrives on the unexpected. Enter Killing My Lobster’s den and you may see a guitar played precariously on a unicycle or hear “Black Hole Sun” sung as a love duet by two aging Vegas loungers. You might even catch a Kasper Hauser invasion in the persona of Abe Lincoln’s chatty and indiscreet PR man.

“Sketch comedy is related to vaudeville and variety shows–it’s eclectic and noncommittal,” explains Killing My Lobster’s Abby Paige. She continues, “Comedy is all about creating and violating expectations. All comedy has something of the element of surprise to it; with sketch comedy the surprise is created by the variety.” At its most basic, sketch comedy depends on a few characters and an absurd yet strangely recognizable scenario. Clocking in at 5 to 10 minutes, these twisted shorts are fast-paced, clever and chucked straight at the funny bone.

Well-versed in the fine art of boiling comedy down to its essence, sketch groups find life’s peculiarities and put them forth in record time. Kasper Hauser’s James Reichmuth says, “The thing that differentiates sketch is that it tends to have short discernible comic ideas. It allows people to accept an art form that occurs in five-to-six-minute bursts.”

Persistently molding the ordinary into snippets of surreal strangeness, Killing My Lobster’s universe is one of wicked satire and un-self-conscious musical numbers. As longtime member Jon Wolanske explains, “We’re really geeky weirdos absorbed in making each other laugh.” And laugh they do–at Pygmy foreign exchange students, nuclear physics, mischievous alien crank callers–whatever tickles the Lobster fancy. Laughter is the yardstick used to gauge whether or not an idea will ever hit the stage. If the joke provokes hilarity three or four times later, they know a script will hold up under the scrutiny of an audience who expects to be amused.

By definition, the word sketch means rough and incomplete. In the case of sketch comedy, however, this could not be further from the truth. Painstaking thought (and sometimes energetic argument) goes into the conception, writing and rehearsal of sketches. Killing My Lobster’s writing process has historically been a democratic one, roping witty and creative people into an environment conducive to tossing out half-baked thoughts. Wolanske describes it as “the ability to have a germ of an idea and trust people enough to bat it around until it grows into something bigger.” Fellow Lobster James Bewley admits, “Most of my sketches are no longer than half a page.” He tops that admission by declaring, “Most ideas happen for me in the bathroom. I can’t write unless I’m improv-ing in front of the mirror. Then I try to recapture the best parts of what I toss off there.”

Paige asserts, “The importance of writing can’t be overemphasized–creating a cohesive scene where characters are established, tension is built and resolved and lots of funny things happen in between, all in three to five minutes, is a pretty specific skill.” Cutting the fat is brutally essential because of these very specific parameters. “Every word, every sentence has to serve the sketch,” says Bewley. For Killing My Lobster, idea and script development usually take about a month, culminating in a reading day to pool together all submissions. “We once had 80 scripts that we read for six hours,” Wolanske admits. “We’ll sit in a room for however long it takes.” From the collected efforts, the top 10 to 12 favorites are voted on.

Good sketch comedy utilizes all the usual suspects of narrative: beginning, end, climax, protagonist, antagonist. “Great sketch comedy takes all that and throws it out the window,” says Michael Premsrirat of the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors. He continues, “It surprises you. Challenges you. Pisses you off.” Proud of their ability to provoke audience thought and reaction with in-your-face social and political satire, the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors prove that–as long as people keep laughing–sketch comedy shouldn’t be afraid to poke at a sore spot or two. Though predominantly of the Asian-American persuasion, the 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors are equal opportunity humorists, merrily plunking whites, blacks and San Francisco parking law on their skewers for a light roast. Harold Byun, one of the founding members, explains that their comedic style is rooted in breaking down cultural barriers. “By putting the stereotype out on stage as a caricature, we use the context around it to undercut it. People laugh, but it’s not until a little while later that they scratch their heads and say, ‘Wow. That was messed up.'”

A skit can be nothing more than a guy walking like an idiot. But sketch comedy also attacks relevant issues. “I try to put in some kind of message under the jokes. Even if it’s not something explicit like ‘racism bad,’ at least I always try to reveal new images of what Asian-Pacific Islander Americans are and can be,” says Premsrirat. Wolanske feels, “Sketch comedy should be able to communicate a point of view in a very compelling way. Like a slap in the face. There should be a vision, something representative of a point of view that is distinct and sticks through really bizarre characters or satirical situations. Otherwise it may as well be a lecture given by a driving instructor.” Of course, chances that everyone in the group are going to agree on the message and the way it should be put forth are fairly slim. Byun says, “We have tons of arguments over material, staging and portrayal. This is good, because when stakes are higher you know you’re getting closer to something of import.” By tackling fear through comedy, the Mighty Mountain Warriors hope to raise awareness of world events and social realities. For Byun, however, “The bottom line is to make people laugh. When you can do something that is dark but still have people rolling with laughter, you know you’ve hit that magical combination.”

Message or no message, comedy is not the place for the self-conscious. Commenting on the vulnerability of being under the scrutiny of countless eyes, Paige says, “With drama, there’s a kind of safety net for the actor–it’s possible to look good while doing it. You can’t do that in comedy. You’re offering yourself up for judgment.” As anyone who’s seen (or performed in) a sketch show knows, it’s very difficult to look cool while breathlessly reciting craigslist-inspired poetry or, as Bewley can attest, prancing about the stage naked.

Reichmuth believes that great sketch comedians are character experts, adept at morphing into whatever bizarre persona is required. “It’s finding that interesting borderline character and putting him in front of people and seeing what happens,” agrees Bewley. Hopefully, what happens will be surprising. Eric Glaser of Plethora Comedy Troupe calls it “the kamikaze approach to comedy,” explaining, “A good sketch comedian is the one who is willing to take that extra risk and just go for broke.”

Inexperienced daredevils, fret not: it is possible to jump into sketch without comedic background. Byun calls his training “Pretty much zero” and his subsequent experience “learning by the trials of fire.” After sketch comedians have wet their feet in the medium, they discover the many ways in which sketch can challenge those skills. Lara Kehoe of Plethora says, “Sketch comedy is a wonderful opportunity to play a lot of different characters in a variety of situations–it stretches you as an actor. It’s ensemble work on the edge of a knife. Like improv, you have to trust your fellow players to have your back. Live comedy is dangerous because anything can happen.” Paige notes, “There’s a careful balance between cold calculation and happy accidents in sketch comedy.”

The real reward for the countless hours spent writing, rewriting, rehearsing and banging your head against the wall? Being on stage. According to Byun, “Performance is the payoff. Getting the laughs we want is the best part.” Bewley says, “It’s so much fun to be onstage with my talented cohorts that I turn sort of pink and giggly at the very thought of it.” (It should be noted that Bewley feels “being the pink and giggly one beats being the ‘smirking, goateed, nude one’ by a long shot.”)

Outlandish and experimental, sketch has been vastly influential in the world of comedy over the past few decades. Ever since Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater (generally credited with bringing sketch comedy back after its disappearance with vaudeville) made San Francisco its base in 1976, the Bay Area has been home to a great many up-and-coming sketch groups and comedians. With a two-year-old SketchFest that has been quickly gaining in popularity and acclaim (Mad TV attended this year) and Bay Area comedians who have made it big, we are living in a hot spot of fresh comedy. The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors have toured internationally, Kasper Hauser earned raves at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (the heart of the sketch comedy world) and Killing My Lobster‡s cerebral loopiness has made fans of both Robin Williams and Comedy Central. Wolanske says, “It’s like a dog. It has its own life. You have to feed it and watch it and sometimes get away from it. But it’s a lot of fun to play with.”

The ghosts of burlesque and vaudeville that no doubt haunt the elderly Victoria Theatre were grinning in the rafters this weekend when the San Francisco-based sketch comedy group Killing My Lobster opened its new, anything-for-laughs piece, “Walks This Way.”

To call this “something for the whole family” could be the kiss of death for KML and it Mission District location. The busy weekend scene there is aimed primarily at twentysomethings, who were evident in big numbers and laughing heartily. But what I mean by “the whole family” is that the show not only appeals to young people whose experience in sketch and blackout comedy is rooted in “Sesame Street,” with its lightning fast vignettes and non-sequitur, but also the older, more sedentary family members who were laughing at this style of stuff about as long as people were trying to make giggles a by-product of being silly.

Of course, back in the days of vaudeville circuits and the burlesque shows, nobody was doing bits about Donkey Kong, cell phones and restaurants that are cloyingly fun, fun, fun.

But bring the grandparents and parents, anyway — they need to get out, and if they have any energy left after the show, they’ll fill you with tales of how they used to see this downtown at the vaudeville theaters or on televisions with “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” If they are a bit more cerebral, they will remark how much of the style is reminiscent of Bob and Ray on the radio, “Tonight Show” era Steve Allen, and some of the pioneer video comedy of Ernie Kovacs.

What you youngsters might want to point out to the older folks is that there really isn’t anything new under the sun, all comedy is derivative, and “Walks This Way” is one of the freshest, funniest and cleverest shows playing in the Bay Area right now.

What KML has done with the piece, assembled by Lobster guest director Peter Glantz, is shelved all the angst, bitterness and politics that tend to bog comedy down in most hands, and concentrated on simply being funny. There is little politics here and even less bitterness. The prevailing attitude in “Walks” is we’re all pretty doggone silly, no matter how we try to hide it behind our veneer of cool du jour.

So the group built brief sketches and blackouts on improvisation around ordinary life, tweaking it ever so slightly and making it, for the most part, wonderfully hilarious. And despite what the demographers lust for, there appear to be no particular age limits on the targets for Lobster bites. If you’re breathing and the least little bit silly, you are fair game. No mater what your walk in life, you will see yourself stroll by on the two-level set by Aiyana Trotter, and you will laugh.

OK, not every bit hits a home run, but if this were baseball, the Lobsters would be batting about .800, and the pieces race by so quickly, you hardly notice the ground outs and double plays.

Adding immeasurably to the evening’s fun is the music of Adult Rodeo, a two-piece band that includes, as part of its music, rude noises, strange electronic sounds and the sort of take-no-prisoners attitude that makes the group the perfect accompaniment for comedy.

You may notice at this point that no single performances have been mentioned. And that is for the simple reason that the Lobsters are identified by name, but not by their roles or pictures. They are: James Bewley, Melanie Case, Tonya Glanz, Daniel Lee, Ian Scott, Sarah Mitchell, Becky Stark, Shaye Troha, Rufus Tureen and Gabe Weisert. They are all funny. (For the record, the bits that made me laugh the hardest were Donkey Kong, the visitor at the side of the door, the restaurant, and two comic strip-teases, including one by a man in a bear costume).

This is a show that deserves a long run in a permanent home. And with work like this, Killing My Lobster should really be a full-time fixture on the Bay Area comedy scene.