"Funny As A Crutch" comes to Cambridge 6/13/1

"Funny As a Crutch" performer Natureman, aka Kevin Kennedy. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Kevin Kennedy] [more press photos below]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2011

**For more information or to arrange interviews with the performers, contact Ethan Gilsdorf at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com 

**For compromising press photos of the performers holding vegetables, dressed in chain mail and stuck in back-yard composters, see: http://www.ethangilsdorf.com/ethanfreak-blog/2011/5/23/funny-as-a-crutch-comes-to-cambridge-6131.html

EVENT LISTING

What: The Drum Literary Magazine presents “Funny As a Crutch”

When: Monday, June 13, 7pm 

Where: The Enormous Room, 567 Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square, Cambridge, Mass.

Brief event description: A performance of dirty limericks, educational raps, recipes for cooking raccoon, Dungeons & Dragons-inspired poetry, children's stories that shouldn't be read to children, and fiction about the miracle of motherhood as seen from the bottom of a martini. Performed by Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine residents Kevin Kennedy, Ethan Gilsdorf, David Petrie, Carol Hammond, and Jeff Stern. Presented by The Drum (http://www.drumlitmag.com), the “literary magazine for your ears.”

Cost: $5 donation encouraged

More info and press photos: ethan@ethangilsdorf.com or http://www.ethangilsdorf.com/ethanfreak-blog/2011/5/23/funny-as-a-crutch-comes-to-cambridge-6131.html

download "Funny As a Crutch" poster here

PRESS RELEASE

“Funny as a Crutch”: Writers, geeks, bloggers, musicians bring their funny to Cambridge’s Enormous Room

Dirty limericks. Educational raps. Recipes for cooking raccoon. Dungeons & Dragons-inspired poetry. Children's stories that shouldn't be read to children. Fiction about the miracle of motherhood as seen from the bottom of a martini.

This deep, dangerous vein of comedy and music and more will be mined by the five performers of “Funny as a Crutch.”

The event unites authors, bloggers, geeks, actors and musicians from Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine, who will be presenting their funniest work at the Enormous Room (567 Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square, Cambridge, Mass.) on Monday, June 13, at 7pm.

“Funny As a Crutch” is presented by The Drum (http://www.drumlitmag.com), the  “literary magazine for your ears” that publishes short fiction, essays, novel excerpts, and interviews exclusively in audio form.

“I’ve been to enough solemn literary readings to appreciate the value of getting goofy,” said Marlboro, Vermont, resident Kevin Kennedy, founder of the event whose alter ego, Natureman, blogs about tapping trees with a 30-30 Winchester, cooking raccoons and building a flamethrower to get rid of the snow in his yard.

Kennedy, who lives in Marlboro, Vermont, has worked on the fringes of marketing and journalism for most of his professional life and is currently the communications director at the Five College consortium in Amherst, MA. His articles, columns and cartoons have been enjoyed by dozens in a variety of obscure trade journals. He has eaten raccoon, moose, bear, goat, cattails and milkweed. 

Natureman will be joined by Ethan Gilsdorf, David Petrie, Carol Hammond, and Jeff Stern.

Ethan Gilsdorf is the Somerville-based self-professor geek, gamer and author of the award-winning travel memoir/pop culture book “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms.” A regular contributor to the “New York Times,” “Boston Globe” and “Washington Post,” Gilsdorf’s blog Geek Pride is a frequent feature at PsychologyToday.com. He plays with his dice as often as possible.

Brattleboro, Vermont, resident David Petrie writes about parenting on the Huffington Post. Even though he worked on a locked adolescent psychiatric ward and managed a program for juvenile delinquents he learned the most about kids while driving a school bus through the cornfields of Iowa. David now lives in Vermont with his wife and four children and works as an editor for an educational publishing company. His stories appear in places like The Rumpus, The Good Men Project Magazine, the Springfield Republican, and The Commons. Petrie will be reading selections from “The Big Book of Children's Stories That Probably Shouldn't Be Read To Children” and “Daily Affirmations for Tired and Worn-Out Parents.”

Carol Hammond is a writer from Portland, Maine, where she cobbles together a living helping businesses present themselves as far more exciting and successful than they would otherwise seem. She also blogs at unworkinggirl.wordpress.com about the travails of being hopelessly unemployable. Carol will read a story about a woman contemplating the miracle of motherhood from the bottom of a martini.

Jeff Stern is a Cambridge-based director, screenwriter and actor whose work has screened at the Woods Hole, Olympia, New Hampshire and Boston Underground Film Festivals, among others. After stints as an ice cream truck driver, brickstacker, lead singer, and hotel AV guy, Stern has settled into an all-too comfortable life as a filmmaker and teacher. Always on the brink of disaster, Stern believes this could be the night when everything blows up and he again finds himself wandering the streets, unsure where his next sandwich will come from, not a friend in the world. At the event, he will be administering self help, dirty limericks, and educational raps.

The Drum is an online literary magazine that publishes short fiction, novel excerpts, essays, and interviews exclusively in audio form. You don't read The Drum. You listen to it. Since launching in May 2010, The Drum has published new work by New York Times best-seller Jenna Blum, PEN award-winner Jennifer Haigh, New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, and other notable writers like Ben Percy, Bret Anthony Johnston, Lauren Grodstein, and many more and interviews with authors such 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction winner Paul Harding. Visit www.drumlitmag.com to hear The Drum's brand of Literature Out Loud.

“Funny as a Crutch” will be presented at the Enormous Room, 567 Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square, in Cambridge, Mass. (T: Red Line, Central Square, http://www.enormous.tv/), Monday, June 13 from 7 to 9pm.

A $5 donation is requested to cover expenses.

For more information, contact Ethan Gilsdorf at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com or http://www.ethangilsdorf.com/ethanfreak-blog/2011/5/23/funny-as-a-crutch-comes-to-cambridge-6131.html

PRESS PHOTOS:

download "Funny As a Crutch" poster here

"Funny As a Crutch" performer Carol Hammond, with Spider-Man. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Carol Hammond]
"Funny As a Crutch" performer Natureman, aka Kevin Kennedy. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Kevin Kennedy] "Funny As a Crutch" performer Natureman, aka Kevin Kennedy. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Kevin Kennedy] "Funny As a Crutch" performer Natureman, aka Kevin Kennedy. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Kevin Kennedy] "Funny As a Crutch" performer Jeff Stern. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Jeff Stern]
"Funny As a Crutch" performer Ethan Gilsdorf. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Meg Birnbaum] "Funny As a Crutch" performer Ethan Gilsdorf. Click to download hig res version. [photo courtesy of Meg Birnbaum]