Epic Magazine

Jeph Porter is a comedy director in the same way Winston Churchill was a public speaker: it’s something that comes so intrinsically that it’s often hard to tell just how easily it comes to them. I’ve known Jeph since college and was interested to see his new venture, directing his friends in the comedy troupe Lady Parts who have a webseries on Blip Tv. The series is all over the place in terms of influences and well worth a watch. I interviewed Jeph regarding the show. He’s a real class act.

EPIC: Lady Parts. Did you guys pick the name to look good on a flyer or what?
JEPH PORTER: Yeah, I’m not going to pretend it has any deep significance or anything. The name came about purely as a way to get people’s attention. I attribute it to 99% of our success. The other 1% is definitely NOT Justin Howard.

Tell us about the start of the group.
I had done a web show once before with Justin and Dane called The Dirty Cricket Show that was literally shot in my apartment in a day. It wasn’t much more than an experiment to see if we could get something on the web but it was fun. In the year and a half that elapsed before we started Lady Parts a few things came together. One: Justin had begun to take classes at the Annoyance Theater in Chicago and was really developing as an actor. When we did the Dirty Cricket Show I think it was literally his first time acting. He had been bugging for sometime to “do something creative again”. Also my brother’s girlfriend, Leslie Baird another member of Lady Parts was in Chicago for the summer and was interested in working on some sort of project to complete her theater training for school back in Alabama. She kept telling me to “let her know” if I had anything. I was also interested in getting a project going and was exploring options when I started working with Jessica Christopher and Jayme Joyce of Joone Studios in Wicker Park. They where in the midst of filming their own webshow - Wet Dream (not pornography unfortunately). I came on and helped them a few days and we started talking about the idea of doing some sort of live show at their studio space. So yeah all these factors where going on and eventually it all came together when I summoned Leslie and Justin together one night at his place to talk about some ideas. I had managed to fill a notebook with little skit ideas and when we got together and improved some of them out we sort of figured out we could make this work as a group. It was like a month later we’d filmed a handful of skits and came up with another handful to do live. We did out first show on Sept. 25th 2009 at Joone Studios to a packed house.

As an transplant to LA, what’s different out there than in the midwest?
What is most interesting to me about the west coast is the parts that are the same as the midwest. This area of the world is probably more media soaked than anywhere else. And for a generation that grew up on MTV and reality shows I feel like I’m practically at home out here. But when you see, say, a Target store thats the same layout as the one back in your hometown? That freaks me out.

Comedy influences?
I’ve just always been attracted the the comedic value of the taboo. It’s funny to me when people place importance on stuff. I guess I’ve always been that kid who wants to freak everyone out by saying the worst thing possible at the worst time possible. Andy Kaufman, The Daily Show, Mr Show… those are all big influences.

Can unfunny influences transfer to comedy? Your shooting style is more cinematic than regular sketch comedy.
They totally can. One of the biggest difference between what we’re doing with sketch comedy and what is normally out there is our emphasis on style and quality of the finished product. We shoot on the Canon 5d Mark II which makes such a beautiful image that it’s hard not to doll it up. But it was a conscious decision to try and make the quality of the footage top notch. I work with an amazing DP, Corey Powers and we’re both highly influenced by traditional cinema. Terry Gilliam is a big one (it’s probably that Monty Python connection) as well as work by Alfonso Cuarón and P.T. Anderson. All three filmmakers that I respect and admire and who’s influence can’t help but bleed into my work.

What are some unfunny influences to your shooting style / the troupe?
Might sound weird, but Kafka and Bret Easton Ellis. Alan Moore (wrote The Watchmen, V For Vendetta), and Gilligan’s Island, too.

We’ve had a terrible election that tore the country apart. So, funniest U.S politician.
 I’ve certainly laughed more at George W than any other president but I have this sinking suspicion that Reagan was a pretty funny guy too.

What’s next for Lady Parts? What’s next for you?
Lady Parts is looking into continuing to do some live shows in Chicago and eventually a second series of the webshow if all goes well. We’re trying to keep the momentum going basically. For me  - I’ll be working on Lady Parts and hopefully getting some other projects going. My company Dirty Cricket is currently developing a few projects that may or may not see the light of day. Hopefully you’ll get to see some of that sooner than later!

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Photo by Ian Broyles for Epic Magazine.

(Source: epicmag.co)

America has ceased to be about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the year of Our Lord, 2010, we are primarily focused on the God™-given American right to say “fuck you” to whoever we want, whenever we want.

Now that we have that on the table (look! look at that on the table!), let’s ask ourselves how and why we got this far up our own asses - how we went from being the home of freedom to now being scared outright of our own genitalia. How fucking backwards we are that an errant nipple during the Superbowl* six years ago caused a furor best reserved for school shootings? It’s a fucking nipple. It’s not going to hurt you.

We now live in a world where it’s perfectly OK to carry a gun to a political rally but - HOLY SHIT - IF SOMEONE GOT THEIR DICK OUT THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM MIGHT FALL APART SAVE US OBI WAN YOU’RE OUR ONLY HOPE (etc etc). I mean, really. What’s wrong with nudity? I’d much rather my kid saw a few tits and a couple of dicks than watching people get their heads getting blown off night after night - which is shockingly more acceptable in America in 2010. The culture around us is becoming more and more hyperbolic in that it’s becoming more encouraged to beat the living shit out of eachother than it is to practice safe sex or even so much as teach it. 

Don’t believe me? Children are being taught that pledging abstinence is the only acceptable thing. Do you want to know what that’s doing to kids? It’s teaching them that fucking eachother up the ass is better than vaginal sex.**.. so you can save yourself for marriage. It’s also teaching them that fisting is a good idea***. Combine that with this statistic from USA Today:

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge. The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the study found. (source)

Sex is a natural thing and needs to be taught that way. With the advent of high speed internet we’re being brought up to believe that sex is a bad thing while simultaneously being three clicks away from the most graphic of graphic pornography imaginable. It’s a double standard that teaches children that what is between their legs is a terrible thing that you should never touch****.

This isn’t just a Conservative issue, either. Extremist progressive teachings veer into the same puritanical areas: that sex is fundamentally wrong and that we must shelter ourselves from sexual stimuli due to puritanical idealism masking itself as extreme progressivism, the age old “pornography is degrading to women”***** argument, or… hey… a human example…. someone simple too scared by body image issues to wear a bathing suit in public - we’ve become a mixed up country full of contradictions.

What does it come down to? Extremism. The American mindset is prone to being much more aware of the appeal its emotions than the appeal to its own reasoning. Extremist thinking is ruining America from the middle outwards, slowing eroding away a place for the middle 74% of us to stand. It’s killing America. This is the cancer of our time.

America is turning into a pressure cooker of epic proportions with half the country thinking the other half is their enemy. Progressive vs Conservative? Fuck right off. It’s not our war. You’re an American, not a goddam statistic. And this extremist thinking is making us all prudes: America needs to realize that a non-violent release is imperative to the well-being of its people. Get that release and prove the extremists on both sides wrong. So, do as I do******, America. Salute the flag with one hand and empty that canoe with the other. For you. For us. For America. USA! USA!

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* I’m not talking about Tom Brady. Ba-Zing!

** Anal sex is like vests. The only people that can rock it without looking awkward and stupid are gay dudes and maître-d’s.

*** Believe me, it’s not even worth bringing up unless you’re willing to buy her the complete Gilmore Girls gift set as a trade-off. And it’s not even that fun. Cue the mud-fishing video. Yeah.

**** How the fuck can we be so backwards as to even think about electing Christine O’Donnel? Anti-masturbation? Please. Do you know what happens when you don’t masturbate? You go fucking insane. Look at the Taliban. Yes, I’ll go there. That’s what happens when you’re brought up in a society where you’re forbidden from a woman’s gentle touch (or - hey! - a man’s gentle touch, but for arguments sake lets say women) touch. You. Go. Fucking. Insane. You know what those guys need? They need to go home to a nice girl who says “whats wrong, honey?” “oh, man, babe, work was terrible!” or something. You need that release. You need that soft nurturing touch. You need a velvet glove on the iron fist.

***** Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! I’m not saying all pornography isn’t degrading. That is certainly not true. There are extreme examples on both sides of the argument (which, when the argument is played out, becomes as circular as a snake eating its own tail). What I am saying is that there is a right way to do pornography. Women’s bodies are beautiful and amazing and to put the kibosh on a woman’s own decision to show it is, quite frankly, not up to you, but to the individual.

******* In a closed room. With candles. And my favorite Sade song playing.

EPIC has an exclusive report from Ecuador about the coup currently going on against the President by the police forces. Francisco Aguiñaga (pictured above) writes to use from the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.

You usually see these things coming, especially in Ecuador. Just like that, something similar to a coup d’etat surged, and suddenly we didn´t know what was going on. Police officers dissatisfied with a veto into a law from the President, turned out to be the instigators of an attack full of fists and teargas inside a police quarter against the President of Ecuador Rafael Correa; and also are responsible for his kidnapping from inside the Police Hospital, where he had been seeking medical attention due to his injuries sustained during the attack.

As an Ecuadorian I’m used to witnessing similar situations (such as protests), but I had never witness the police giving up their obligations and take the wildest measures to express their discontent. The situation was not about citizens claiming some kind of right; it was a group of angry cops taking up arms against citizens and their element to submit Rafael Correa to a litany of ridicule as a means to  reach their own benefits.

The chaos didn´t wait for the confusion to settle in. The speculations of such an agitated nation drowned the social networks and took the fear levels to ridiculous heights, letting us now recollect some stories about what Ecuadorians did during the main event which will keep us laughing for hours as all TV networks linked their signal with the state Television network almost all day long; the whole nation depended on the slow trickle of any new information. Government militants expressed support to the kidnapped president with an almost universal rhetoric. The police eventually took down the state TV and now the non-information was complete, like a magazine collage. The taste of not being well informed was all around and nobody wanted to get out their homes because of the fear of whatever will come, the panic took the whole nation.

As the hours went by, a heavy military operation tried to violently free the president Correa. Ecuadorians against Ecuadorians killing themselves in front of everybody. A tragic and harmful day for our history. On one side, what a joy to keep current the state of what is right … and  to end all this craziness; on the other side, what a sadness to had have to watch so much violence, hurt people, principals and rights broken, as collective hysteria settled in.

Once in Carondelet (the Ecuadorian government building), from his balcony which faces the Plaza de la Independencia, the President communicated to his sympathizers gathered there what had he had experienced during his kidnapping, throwing hard criticism against ex president Lucio Gutierrez, accusing him of being the leader of a trick to blind the police forces which led circumstantially to unchain all this hell; something, admittedly that is yet to be proven.

This shows the levels of harm that can reach because of speculation, something that is already becoming into a common bomb of every negative political and social episode of Ecuador. Very interesting to analyze it socially and it wouldn’t be hard to find material for that, the last decades of democracy in this country had be written based on speculations, a parade of presidents passing by Carondelet without thought to the political concerns of the Ecuadorian people, and also, it should be worth noting, the loss of our the value of our national coin as evidenced in the economy.

Schools are closed and military custody will guard the streets until second order. This country is resoundingly tolerant in front of the political and social agitations; I hope not for the rest of our lives, as that would be a ridiculous waste.

And as suddenly as it began, the conflict is over, everything is all right, the soap opera was shown as the TV program established, just like nothing happened, all of this was just another suddenly added to the other “suddenlys” that this country experiences.