Too Cool Not To Post

Interviewed by MoreIndieThanYourCat.com

Our engrossed (and quite comfortable, thanks to the bean bag chairs) audience at NYCC 09 (photo courtesy moreindiethanyourcat.com)

Crew members Juan, Leslie, and Evan (and maybe Heather, I can't quite tell) were interviewed by these dudes from Moreindiethanyourcat.com during our intensive sweeps of the convention room floor at the 2009 NY Comicon.

Go here and listen to the crew's whipsmart comments on green ladies and the appropriateness of "throwing down the gauntlet."

Here are some action shots courtesy of one of the homies from MITYC.com. Note Juan's excellent on-stage slouch. Also, picture 3 presents a rare shot of the elusive producerus trekkinus, Lauren Hunt. Click photos to enlarge.

Capt. Ben Sterling interviewed in Backstage.com

The Capn (with assistance from Timmy the Orb of Zeti Alpha 9)
wrestles giant poop meteor to save all inhabitants of the museum of natural history in NYC.

Our courageous captain Ben was recently featured in an article in Backstage Magazine (both print and on their website) with the subtitle "Geek-friendly performers use comic book and sci-fi conventions to build their audience."

The captain drops pearls on his interviewer about the practice and pitfalls of performing at conventions and creating sci fi theater in a digital world.

"It's a safe place for geeks," quoth El Capitano. "It's a place where you can go and be a kid and be ridiculous and it's okay. Not only do people not care; they celebrate it."

For the full article, please click here

The beautiful, horrible struggle.

FREE STNY SHOW this Sat March 21 @ the Tank

Sci Fi improvisation fanatics! Your dreams (well, maybe one of them) have come true!

FREE Start Trekkin NY show THIS SATURDAY, March 21st, 7pm, at the Tank!

The Tank -- 45th St Theatre -- 354 West 45th st btwn 8th and 9th aves in NYC.

STNY ready to THROW DOWN!

Start Trekkin NY is proud to offer you a TOTALLY FREE SHOW! That's right, priceless live entertainment to take you where no one has gone before! A full length, completely improvised Sci Fi extravaganza brought to you in the style of the original Star Trek series!! EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!

We've really appreciated the support of everyone who's made it to our shows over the past few years, and we love makin' em for yous. As a way of saying thank you, we are offering an hour (or more) long improvised masterpiece for absolutely no clams, or shells, or your preferred local money euphemisms! This is not a hoax!! It is strictly for your enjoymentationalisms.

Come join in on the mythical potency, the primary colored uniforms, the short skirts, the damned logic, and the opportunity to see your suggestions transformed into an INTERGALACTIC MIASMA OF DAY GLO FUNTERTAINMENT! We will actually, quite literally, knock your dang socks off. But we'll give them back. I promise.

Also featuring: Cheap booze! Is good! You like!

Start Trekkin ClusterF#@% at the 2009 NY Comicon

Start Trekkin NY performed two crazy shows on the upstairs stage at the 2009 NY Comicon at the Javitz Center in Manhattan. This was our second year in a row at the con, we had huge crowds this time, a better sound system, a stage set up specifically for performance and demonstration away from the main floor of the con, and as you will see, a much larger cast of characters.

These shows tend to be quite chaotic, as we're sort of competing with the throngs of passersby and fascinating costume designs constantly walking past the stage during the shows, plus, we are playing to a big crowd in a sound destroying room, as well as trying to fit an hour's worth of story in a half hour show. So its really just get to the conflict, hit the right notes the throngs of fans are familiar with, fight it out, and find an ending, without a lot of room for subtlety. Not that I'm making excuses. I think these kind of shows are a lot of fun, and good for the group to find the core of the what makes the show go, so to speak.

And sometimes it just turns into a big rumble.

Here are some clips of both shows, recorded on a friends regular digital camera (not a movie camera), so we have some cool, sort of non-linear snippets of both shows. Dig it!!

Here's show #1











Here's show #2













posted by Lt Droog Marlarken

Captain’s Blorg...Dammit! whatever happened to a good old fashioned Log?!?

A brief sojourn into the ethical and spiritual riptide of the blogosphere

I have been pondering recently. Mining the rich seams of intellectual pay-dirt that run ever deeper into the confines of my soul. Asking myself the fundamental questions: Do Blackula's get foot fungus? If your house is made of brick, can you throw as many damn stones as you want? And if Gravity is so cool, why doesn't our body fat all roll down and fill up our ankles?

Along with those questions came the fundamental blogosphere conundrum...what makes me think I'm so important that I should scratch my thoughts onto the worldwide bathroom stall, and shout my inner demons into a series of tubes. Then it struck me...I'm a Starship captain. I'm the most important person in my relative spatial bubble. Hundreds of theoretical lives hang in the balance according to my every whim. Sure, you may be saying to yourself, "It's an improv ship...its make-believe." But the only important part of that phrase is "believe." (My power animal is a Unicorn) As an improv captain as well as a Starship captain, literally trillions of people are dependent upon me for survival. Without me they cease to exist, or get trapped in a neural memory, fading with each passing moment. With me, they can go on to suffer starvation, be morphed into a super-being made out of people parts, lose their self-will to a hive mind, or any number of exciting outcomes. The point is that spiritual Destitution and social irrelevance can be bridged directly to Megalomaniacal Despotism and all powerful Delusions of Godhood simply through the agency of that little word "believe." And that means that I am someone worth listening to. My thoughts are no longer a quiet ticker-tape of undiscovered genius, now they are the catalog of an entire dimension of existence. So, just remember that I control the fate of trillions of people...and I will kill off each and everyone of them unless you keep reading this Blorg.

-Captain Kierkegaard

If you didn't understand this entry, trying reading it again, out-loud, to a group of school children, in the voice of Kenneth Mars playing inspector Kemp.

If you don't know who Kenneth Mars is, repeat out loud three times fast, "My soul is empty" and then go watch a Kenneth Mars movie.

Not exactly about improv, but...

I think this video perfectly captures my kind of humor. Which, of course, speaks directly to the kind of improv I enjoy most - as long as it's all in line with the story, of course. So...enjoy: someone's sick edit of a Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode. --Heather

New York Comicon 2008 Hijinks Spectacular #1: Killing the Messenger

Cover art from Star Trek: Countdown #4 by illustrator David Messina, who is 2 dope.

Howdy Kidz! Lt. Droog Marlarken reporting for duty!

In an effort to document Start Trekkin NY's grand adventures at the 2008 New York Comicon at the ginormous Javitz Center, (and in preparation for our triumphant return to the NYCC in Feb of 2009) we here at the Spaceblorg are starting a multi-part blorg called (you guessed it) New York Comicon 2008 Hijinks Spectacular (this entry being entry #1: Killing the Messenger).

The NYCC is perhaps the most sensory overload you can have without a doctor's prescription. Everywhere you look, you're geek-mind is blown: costumed science hero freaks, superstar graphic narrative tale-spinners, wanton Jedi scum, scantily clad lady-nerds, vidi-gang-bangers, and all around goobers wander the alleys in search of a good time and an emptying of pockets for something plastic and shiny. Its a freakin' trip. And every 15 feet or so, you bump into some serious talent. Such is the case with our first encounter--the great Star Trek comic book artist David Messina, fresh off the boat from the land of Futurists, food, and fascism (that's Italy,
folks).

More of the Awesomeness by David (click pic to enlarge)

I don't remember how David approached our small band of Trekkins as we proudly parted the waves of wastoids and strode the lanes looking for a red shirt to sacrifice (another story, maybe that'll be part 2 or 3?), but he got the gist pretty quick and offered to take some snaps with us phasering him to kingdom come. We gladly obliged, not knowing that we were in the presence of some serious Trek talent. I mean, shit, the guy spoke one of them foreign languages.

Weeks later I believe David contacted our dear captain with some of his photos, cleverly altered to create a pictorial narrative. The catch: the descriptions below the pictures were in
Italian! AHA! Yours Truly (Marlarken), like a good Star Fleet officer, had the solution. My sister, the graceful Christine, has been an Italian professor for many years. She kindly offered to translate the narrative, and viola! The circle was completed. Thus, with the one true ring cast triumphantly into the carbonite pits of the temple of Doom in a sort of mixed metaphor stew, I am now able to present to you the complete tale of NYCC 2008 Hijinks Spectacular #1: Killing the Messenger.

Get down with your bad self, beeyotch!

"...A group of perplexed Star Trek fans don't know whether to be happy or not to have met the designer of the series..."

".... until it dawns on them who he really is...."

"... and their furious reaction!"