NO, NO, NO, I AM RIGHT

Over the holiday season I left the beautiful city of Chicago to visit friends and family in the Ozarks. While I was in Springfield I met up with my closest friend Jack Bonneman. We came up with some awesome green screen shorts and kicked them out one after another.  We have often been partners in comedy, most notably when Jack had a college radio show where I would force my way on the air.  I guess that was more comedy date rape than comedy partnering, but I digress.  Bonneman’s most recent claim to fame is his hard-hitting Nickelback interview:

The reunion was glorious. The shorts were turning out awesome. Then, towards the end, things took a horrible turn for the worse.

I started talking in a ridiculous accent that fluctuated rapidly between Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Tony Danza, and one of Da Bears guys from SNL.

I became so enamored with this voice that I refused to speak in any other way.  This voice, originally meant only to speak thirteen words, took a life of its own and we parlayed it into an idea for a 10 minute mock infomercial.  We decided Justin Evangelista would be a great counterpart for the character and I had to act in a quick scene for him anyway, so the recruitment was easy.

Justin grabbed his lab coat, then he, Jack, and I ventured out to gather props.   Our first visit was a thrift shop where we grabbed some handsome glasses for Justin’s character and a shirt for mine that was 96% spandex, 4% nylon, and made the most disgusting noise I’ve ever heard when I peeled it apart to wear it.  This, by the way, was the first shirt I’ve ever owned that I had to peel apart to wear.  Justin, camera in hand as always, noticed a some shirts that reminded him of Matt Darst.  If you don’t know Matt, he directed The Dead Shall Rise, a movie that I acted in and is currently in post-production purgatory.  Justin snapped this picture of Jack and I with the shirts:

Jack and Carson Posing with the Darst Shirts

I was still speaking in my annoying accent, making sure to be heard by as many Ozarkians as possible and talking to every clerk and customer that walked by.  Once we left the DAV Thrift Store, Justin donned his old lady glasses and we all went to the grocery store across the street.  Justin decided to start speaking in a ridiculous accent that he claimed to be German, and Jack tried to pretend that he didn’t know us, which in turn caused me to constantly ask him questions about the way things work in the Ozarks.  I said “Thanks toots” to the cashier and we were on our way.  Justin and I continued to embarrassed Jack as we made our other stops.

Filming mostly consisted of me abusing Justin in various verbal and physical ways.  We got about an hour of footage of him talking nonsense that we will never be able to use in any way, but we had an awesome time doing it.  Eventually I drove him home and sang Christmas songs in my new dialect.  He recorded the entire thing.  I kept expecting to see it pop up on facebook and bring shame to my family.

The shame did come, but not in the way I expected.  Last night I noticed Justin had tagged me in the picture I posted earlier where I pointed at the Darst shirts.  I looked at it and was immediately horrified.  I had to fire up Photoshop to confirm my suspicion.

ShameWow!

I, completely on accident, was behaving like Vince Offer from the ShamWow! ads.  This is the only photographic evidence that I have, but I have to assume that I was doing this kind of thing the entire day.   An entire day I was walking around acting like Vince Offer.  Dozens, maybe hundreds of people saw me that day for the first and only time.  They saw me as Vince Offer.  ShameWow.