April 8, 2013

Todd Dakotah Briscoe

Today marks the official release of the Political Subversities: Live at Joe’s Pub Album.  You can purchase the album on iTunes, Amazon or Google Play.  Just remember to rate us and leave a comment in the store!

Now, you’ve made it to this blog post presumably because you’re a fan of Political Subversities, or because I’ve “tagged” this blog post with “Jon Hamm Penis” over 300 times.  If you’ve come here to look at Mr. Hamm’s bulge, then I give you this.:

If you are here because you are a PoliSub fan, then maybe you need extra convincing that the Joe’s Pub album is a record to add to your collection.  Here are the top 10 reasons you should own this album.

10. If you start playing the album and the film From Justin to Kelly  at the exact same time, they start to synch up.  You can tell we planned the entire concert around synching it up to the movie.

9.  Listening to up-tempo selections like “Islamic New York”and “Americans are Fat” while exercising has been proven to increase the effectiveness of your workout by 78%!  (This information is from a 2012 study published by a drunk nicHi Douglas at 2AM in “texts to Todd.”)

8. Reports show that playing Beethoven for a baby in the womb makes the baby smarter.  Playing Political Subversities for your baby in the womb makes the baby more socially aware, funnier and forever fucked-up sexually (“Shave Your Hooha,” “Touched by The TSA”—both were written by Andrew Butler.  Hm.)

7. Chris Brown is a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible human being and we take him to task on that in “We Don’t Like Chris Brown.”

6.  If you play the record backwards you can heard Emma Tattenbaum-Fine whispering “Andie McDowell” is the devil.  Emma has a thing about Andie McDowell.

5.  Because you’ll get to enjoy the look on your parents’ faces when you get into your car with them and you turn it on and suddenly the car is full of the sound of Shaina Taub belting “THINK OF THE FETUS” or me singing the lyrics “CATHOLICS THINK THEY DRINK JESUS’ BLOOD” or Emma screaming “I CAN MAKE YOUR PENIS BIGGER.”

4. Because listening to us rant about there being a “Special Place in Hell” for rude people on the subway WHILE you are being squished by rude people on the subway will make that morning commute a little sweeter.

3.  I guarantee that the latest fun. album or Gotye or Tegan and Sarah or Shania Twain (or whatever the kids are listening to nowadays) won’t have passionate ballads defending Sarah Palin or mourning the loss of Osama Bin Laden.

2.  I gave you that picture of Jon Hamm’s penis.  What else do you want from me?

1.  Because we can SING.  And we’re funny.

…

Convinced? Click on your digital music purveyor of choice to buy our album! Amazon - iTunes - Google Play

March 26, 2013

Todd Dakotah Briscoe

I was asked to create a March Madness bracket for Political Subversities.  Now, I’ve never done one before and I didn’t bother to google it so I’m just assuming it’s a fight to the death between between people who went crazy in March.  So, here is Round One of Todd’s official March Madness bracket for PoliSub.

1) Justin Bieber vs. Miley Cyrus

They’ve battled it at the Teen Choice Awards, and now they’re battling over who went craziest in March.

 Justin Bieber- verbally assaulted a paparazzi, showed up 2.5 hours late to a concert because he was playing video games, tweeted shirtless photos of him in a hospital, went on an incoherent twitter rant about haters.

Miley Cyrus- Posted videos of herself in a unicorn costume “twerking” and posted photos that showed her similarities to Tolkein character “Gollum.”

The winner?

2) Sandy Rios vs. Hillary Clinton

Representative of the American Family Association, Sandy Rios, has release a 6 minute video in which she suggests that Hillary Clinton came out to support Gay Marriage because Hillary is, in fact, a lesbian.

Hillary Clinton release a video stating her support for Gay Marriage… 5 years after she said she was supporting gay marriage during her presidential campaign.

Winner?

3) Nazi Saluting Soccer Player vs. The KKK

Giorgos Katidis, a 20-year-old Greek soccer player was banned from the game for life after giving a Nazi salute on the field.

The KKK handed out white-bread sandwiches in an attempt to show the world what good guys they are.

Winner?

4) Producers of Mad Men vs. Editor of Esquire UK

The producers of Mad Men have asked Jon Hamm to start wearing underwear after it was concluded that Mr. Hamm’s “enormous talent” was too distracting in the tightly tailored clothes.

The editor of Esquire UK recently said at a panel that they viewed women in the magazine as “ornamental” and only meant to be “subjects.”

Winner?  

JENNIFER WESTFELDT.

Tune in tomorrow for part two of March Madness!***

***Editor’s Note:  Please don’t.  We apologize that Todd didn’t understand the assignment and also didn’t bother to Google “March Madness.” We promise we’ll have things sorted out in time for the start of our next live show, running every  Saturday in April at The PIT. 

February 7, 2013

Briana James

After days of investigative investigating by PoliSub’s Investigative Investigations Team, we finally got answers about the Super Bowl blackout. One of the many wardrobe assistants for the Super Bowl, who has chosen to identify herself as Shirley, gave us the inside scoop on the power outage. See below.

“So I was like backstage and everyone was there and I was like kinda doing work but mostly listening to the conversation and Beyoncé was like “So you bitches ready?” And Alicia was like, “For what?” And Beyoncé was like, “For me! Duh. I’m bringin it bitches!“ So Jennifer goes, “Oh you mean like that time at the Oscars…when I won-?” And then Beyoncé was like really quiet and then Alicia goes, “Probably gonna lip sync again.” And then outta nowhere Beyoncé like lost it and punched Alicia like for real punched her in the face and then Alicia got all rah-rah like all angry and shit and all like omg and she started screaming for security and then security ran in— like five of them— yeah! That shit was cray. And then they were like asking what happened and Alicia was like, “Oh my freakin’ god she punched me!” And then security was like, “Oh.” And then they left because like they can’t do anything to Beyoncé though like no one can and then Beyoncé left too. 

And Alicia was so serious about like getting back at Beyoncé and then she went to Michelle because Michelle is like you know like in the shadows and tired of that and like she was already mad that Beyoncé was going to dismiss her from the stage before the finale you know like only give her a few minutes onstage so they figured out that Michelle could pull the plugs in the power room because all the power was under the stage and Michelle was under there for rehearsal and had to like come onstage from underneath so she knew. So after Michelle got dismissed from the stage by Beyoncé she went down under the stage again and she was like planning to ruin the finale and she pulled the plug on the power in the stadium but she was like two seconds too late… so Beyoncé got her finale and Alicia was like “Dang michelle…dang.”

December 25, 2012

Cyndi Perczek

On Christmas Eve my Latino-Jewish family and I had rented two romantic comedies, poured some champagne, sat down on the couch and were about to throw in a movie when I thought of a fantastic idea.

“Why don’t we sing some Christmas songs?” I said to my family.

“Sure!” said my mom. We sat there in silence for a moment trying to think of any Christmas songs we knew.

‘Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ popped into my head so I started to sing it.

Everyone joined in but then something shameful happened. When it came time to sing “red-nosed reindeer” I heard my mom say “ red-nosed rainbow” softly in her Colombian accent.

“What did you say?” I said with a horrified look on my face. “It’s Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer and how can a rainbow have a red nose? Where did you come up with this?”

My mom had no idea what she had said wrong but I knew Jesus was looking down on us. We started the movie and never spoke of it again.

November 25, 2012

Shaina Taub

You may remember hearing several weeks ago that seven current members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six, including one involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, have received punishments for having served as paid consultants for the video game “Medal of Honor: Warfighter.” The SEALs were punished for having violated their nondisclosure agreements and for having revealed tactics, techniques and procedures.

And now, just a few weeks later, it turns out these seven SEALS weren’t the only ones on their ranks to sell out their secrets for entertainment purposes. Three members of the prestigious Navy team were punished for divulging classified information to the collaborative team behind the upcoming Broadway musical, ‘SEAL TEAM SIXSICAL! THE MUSICAL!’. 

When previews of the show began on Tuesday, a senior Navy official happened to be in the audience, and spoke to us on the condition of anonymity. “My wife got tickets - I thought we were seeing Book of Mormon! Imagine my surprise when the curtain rose on a chorus line of dancing boys in uniform, performing our most classified drills, in tap shoes no less! And the lyrics to the act two opener, ‘Manhunt’ divulge addresses to top al Qaeda operative’s compounds. It’s an outrage, but I can’t stop humming the damn tune!”

At a press conference held yesterday, the chief producer of the musical commented, “Those lovely SEAL guys shouldn’t be punished - their story deserves to be told! Hollywood’s doing it, video games are doing it - and what better venue than on a Broadway stage. Plus, it drives recruitment! How wonderful if some high school theater club geeks join up in the armed forces after having seen our show? Lord knows this business has enough hopefuls as it is - better for them to pursue a career with a higher survival rate than trying to make it in musical theater!”

Songs from the musical include: ‘Somalia? (I Hardly Know Her!), ‘The Raid Rag’, ‘You Just Got Seal Team Six-ed’ and ‘Osama bin Laden Dream Ballet’.

The director of the musical, Julie Taymor, could not be reached for comment.

…

Check out Political Subversities live at Ars Nova in NYC on December 12th and 13th!

August 2, 2012

Andrew Butler

I have a few issues with this summer’s tween hit “What Makes You Beautiful” from boy band One Direction, mostly with the refrain, which goes, “you don’t know you’re beautiful/that’s what makes you beautiful.” 

First off, YOU FOOL! WHY WOULD YOU TELL HER?!? NOW SHE KNOWS SHE IS BEAUTIFUL AND THUS CAN NO LONGER BE BEAUTIFUL WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!

Secondly, a quick breakdown: One Direction’s proposal is not that a lack of self-awareness is creating beauty, but rather that if the subject is aware of her beauty (however it may have been created, be it by god, nature or science) then she can never truly be beautiful. Those are high standards. She’s gotta be really pretty AND too socially incompetent to ever understand how others perceive her AND can’t have enough self esteem to consider herself beautiful without regard to the perceptions of others OR she must be beautiful and unaware of the concept of beauty entirely, which might imply a significantly lower than average level of mental development. That’s controversial stuff, One Direction. Bold move.

In terms of finding a soul-mate, or at least someone to make out with on class field trips to the aquarium, that’s a pretty tall order. I’m not sure that this choice is really serving you well, One Direction. Besides, there are other attributes that far more elegantly and accurately fit the equation, “you don’t know you’re X, that’s what makes you X.” Thus I proudly present my life’s greatest work to date:

Other Personal Attributes Created by Your Lack of Awareness of Said Attributes

You don’t know you’re an idiot, that’s what makes you an idiot.

You don’t know you’re (literally) an animal, that’s what makes you (literally) an animal. 

You don’t know you’re gullible, that’s what makes you gullible. 

You don’t know you’re slowly making everyone around you hate you with every word you say, that’s what makes you slowly make everyone around you hate you with every word you say. 

You don’t know you’re an embarrassment, that’s what makes you an embarrassment. 

You don’t know know you have amnesia that’s what makes you have amnesia.

You don’t know you sound desperate, that’s what makes you sound desperate. 

You don’t know you’re being exploited by record companies, that’s what makes you exploited by record companies.