Your friend Venkat should make a sitcom titled "Spice it Up!" about the harsh realities of the condiments business.

Um, I meant ogged's friend. Should have checked the byline.

Also, I can't watch that stuff here ate work, but I will later. Congratulations, Joe-D, hope it takes off (mostly so I can say I knew you when).

Vertical integration!

Also also, I can't spell here ate work.

WTF, is this Brown People Spice Month? Razib is doing it too. (I haven't checked Cosma, Amardeep, Aziz, et al.)

I'll give a plug for the show: it really is funny and well done.

I'm confused about Venkat. Was he, in fact, ever a commenter here? Or was that just some weird joke of Ogged's that I failed to get because I'm humor-impaired?

Actors on the New York stage don't make no "six figures" -- not even the ones working on Broadway. See:

http://playgoer.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-much-does-actor-make.html

or

http://www.actorsequity.org/Benefits/contractbenefits.asp

Some nice shots of the cast members (and of our own JD) at their opening party. Also, Behind the Scenes.

I can't watch it now, since I can't find my ear plugs, and I don't have actual speakers on this computer. Plus, I need to finish up my taxes.

What network will it be on?

Venkat is Unf? Or is Venkat Bob?

10: Not a network, they're doing it as a YouTube based independent show. Although I think there's also supposed to be a podcast and other ways of viewing it, though I forget what they are.

You guys rock.

So, the deal is, me and Ryan pretty much wanted to create a cult hit among the theater community to get ourselves attention and to make the industry think we're cool. We're getting great press so far. We're not really trying to shop this around, since we don't think it has much commercial potential. It's a pretty specific show about a pretty specific group of people. But the episodes are going to come out once a month (we have a 6 episode season scheduled). The best place to watch is google video, which our site links to. Supposedly it's available on itunes as well, but I literally know nothing about how to access it there.

The next 5 episodes will all feature cameos by Broadway names (the next one is going to feature Robert Cuccioli, who was the original Jekyll & Hyde). The guest stars all parody themselves, a la Extras.

Oh, and I think the pilot is pretty good, but we really hit our collective stride on Episode 2, which we just wrapped. Everything -- the performances, the writing, the directing, the editing -- will be better. The pilot is everyone's first attempt at a 1/2 hour sitcom.

Hey, how is everyone?

7: I've seen posts here by Venkat. He also used to be a regular at Begging To Differ.

#9 - wow, what a bunch of skinny, ebullient men.

Oh, julian --

Stars make that much. John Lloyd Young is making his Broadway debut playing Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, and his salary is $20,000 a week.

A week, people.

Woot! Go Joe D. I don't think you'll ever top "casus belli button ring," but these are some worthy efforts.

Venkat was a commenter here, way back in the early days of the blog, usually posting as Balasubramani. If you had a spice store (and if the spices were any good), I'd be showing you the love too.

Venkat is a real-life pal of ogged's too, I thought.

Nope, never met.

But if we had, 19 probably would have been an Indiscretion Error. You're hopeless.

I thought you had copped to it in comments.

But you were way wrong. Had you only been partially wrong -- that is, if -gg-d and Venkat were real-life buddies but they had not mentioned that in comments -- you would have been outing them.

(If they had mentioned it in comments but it was not in fact true, I'm not clear what your status as truth-teller/rat/delusional would be.)

Venkat's site only has two spice mixes for sale?

Inadvertent outing doesn't count as an indiscretion error.

So, the deal is, me and Ryan pretty much wanted to create a cult hit among the theater community to get ourselves attention and to make the industry think we're cool.

I'm glad to read that, as my first thought when reading about it and watching the trailer was, "Oh my god, they're doomed--the theater geeks are gonna love it, but who else will care?" But for your purposes, that's just fine.

Venkat's site only has two spice mixes for sale?

Three, actually, but to get the third you have to buy the other two and mix them yourself.

It would if this were baseball.

29 to 26.

28 -- if you follow that path, infinitely many spice mixes are available from Venkat's site.

29 -- but if that were true many things would be different.

("infinitely" s/b "uncountably")

28 -- if you follow that path, infinitely many spice mixes are available from Venkat's site.

You need an extra premise there, viz., that changing the ratios results in a different spice mix. But this is precisely what I deny: changing the ratios doesn't change the spice mix, it just changes whether you've made the only spice mix possible correctly or not.

So what's the correct ratio?

I mean this as no disrespect to Venkat, but I would not buy a spice mix that had no indication as to what spices were in it. I've looked around his site a couple of times now, and if there's even a partial list of ingredients, I haven't found it.

25: There's a backstory of how he's doing the US distribution of the spice his mom makes in her kitchen. Or something like that.

If there's no list of ingredients, how do we know the two mixes contain distinct ingredients instead of just different ratios?

Is Venkat's online store one of those online stores where you cannot actually buy anything?

I don't have an MBA, but it doesnt seem like a great business model.

You just don't understand the new economy, will.

18: No spice store, just my own lovable self.

We are all aware you don't have a spice store, b.

And I am aware that you are all aware of it.

And we are all aware that you are aware etc.

Whether you have a spice store or not more or less depends on how you interpret the Song of Solomon.

41 -- but did we all previously know that she is, per 40, selling herself?

45: Anyone who didn't obviously wasn't paying attention.

45: But will she tell us what she is made of?

47: Again, not paying attention.

Ah! But does not the proverb say: Sugar and spice and everything nice? QED, B is Venkat.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

The proverb does say this, but I fail to see its relevance to b.

...since she is, of course, not a little girl.

No spice store, just my own lovable self rack.

51: Did you just call B fat?

I'm going to let my words speak for themselves. Also, I have a meeting in a few minutes, so as much as I've enjoyed hanging out here again for a little while, I'm going to have to be leaving soon.

Another clue: So teofilo has an actual job. No wait, teofilo said "meeting." Teofilo could be someone famous. Now who could teofilo be....

Thanks for giving us a heads-up, teo. We do worry.

Congrats, Joe. The pilot is funny! Coincidentally, I know one of your actors.

Also, there are a number of people of my acquaintance who are filled with rage/exasperation at the very mention of the name "John Lloyd Young."

I think Teo's point is that I'm self-involved. But really, that's part of my charm.

Speaking of people's personal lives, btw, Teo, how is your dad doing?

58: I was wondering about that too Teo. Were you able to spend spring break at home?

mrh - which actor do you know?

I don't know any of the actors but found the pilot funny regardless.

Tra/cee Chi/mo. I "know" her in the sense that I do her website, although I don't necessarily want to take credit for the ... visual design aspects of it.

Are all actors and writers so ungodly skinny? Why is it that the critic is the only healthy eating one?

I "know" her in the sense that I do her

Hey come on man, don't kiss and tell.

63: I think they can't afford to eat very much, mostly. Either that or Joe and Ryan are totally sizeist.

Probably the latter, come to think of it.

Was he a critic? I figured he was the woman's agent -- because she said to the composer her agent was in the audience.

65: That might be the ultimate bphd comment ever.

Hey, it's a real word. I didn't make it up.

I'm not a theater person by any stretch of the imagination, but I have hung out with enough of them to find the pilot episode cringe-inducingly embarassing. I can't imagine people in the theater scene, esp. in New York, not finding it similarly unbearable and fascinating. And of course, real theater people have a higher tolerance for embarassment than I do.

So, it was excellent. Good show, Drymala!

58, 59: My dad's doing pretty well, but he doesn't have much energy these days. They've got him on a new chemo regimen that's a different mixture of drugs he's already taken, and it actually seems to be working pretty well; today he apparently got a call from the clinic and they said one of the indices of tumor size they can determine from his blood has gone down a lot. I was home for Spring Break and he was in pretty bad shape then (tired basically all the time), but he seems to be doing better now. Thanks for your concern, everyone.

I've been way remiss in reading the threads for at least the last several months, due to general busy-ness, so I didn't know your dad was undergoing chemo, teo. Best of vibes to him and you and everyone else who's a part of his life, and glad to hear that he's doing okay.

Yowza, Ogged seems to be taking grief for hyping the spice rubs.

There's really no backstory. These are spices that are old school South Indian spices. Over the years I started using them in my cooking and people started asking me about them. So finally, I decided to get some bottles, labels and bottle them (my mom makes them although she's passed on the secret mix to me). Initially I tried to take the grocery store distribution route, which looks bleak. I have a bunch of stock so I decided to sell them online. I used to read/comment and for some reason I decided to send Ogged some.

The site needs some work (Jackmormon I agree - I'll include some details).

M/tch M/lls: your comment was cold - although it was spot on.

Venkat, Ogged takes grief about everything here. It's his role in life.

Didn't mean to be cold, Venkat. I was just riffing on the Drymala situation. Anyway, I'm all vinegar and no bite, so pay it no nevermind.