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In This Issue

• Getting Wet at Gethard's
• Columbia Secret Societies
• Blood Donor Laws Become More Strict in the Year 2010
• Valentine’s Day Box-Office Success Spawns a Succession of Sequels
• Thoughts in My First Snowstorm

On February 20th I found myself naked in comedian Chris Gethard's shower.

I wound up in this situation when I won a raffle to "shower where Gethard showers" during a "secret" episode of his monthly show that was hosted out of his apartment in Woodside, Queens. The Chris Gethard Show is a comedy show that, in Gethard's words, was created as "a talk show that's kind of trying to make an effort to get the audience involved and blur the line between what the show is, what the audience is, and how much they can participate."

During my shower, a crewmember filmed me from the other side of the curtain, harassing me with questions about how I was feeling and what I thought Gethard's shower said about him as a person. As soon as I finished I was pushed back into Gethard's living room to be interviewed. I stood wearing only a towel in a cramped room of sixty-plus clothed individuals, knowing this was weird as shit, but also finding it hilarious. After questioning me about my bathing experience, Gethard asked me how old I was. I answered "nineteen" and he immediately told me I needed to put some clothes on. He was right.

As strange as it is for Gethard to invite people into his home and bathroom it is just part of the logical progression of weird events Gethard hosts. In addition to his shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater here in New York, demand from his fanclub, the "GethTards," prompted Gethard to organize "The Magic Bus of Stories," a tour of the places he grew up in New Jersey; "The Haunted Bus of Stories," a bus tour of haunted places in New Jersey; and a contest for the opportunity to drive around with Gethard in his "Magic Nissan Sentra of Stories" all day.

These tours sprung from audience interest in the places Gethard mentioned during his routines at UCB. "They said they wanted to go to New Jersey and see all of the different spots I talked about," explains Gethard, "so I called their bluff and said ‘If you rent I bus I'll do it' and they did."

And so in March of 2009, Gethard and his fans traveled to his dorm at Rutgers, where he attended college, and his childhood home. "There was this one uncomfortable moment" while at his old house, Gethard recalls. "I was standing in the basement and I was like, ‘Okay, the spot where I'm standing, there was a couch right here and in 1997 I lost my virginity on it,' and the guy who owned the house was just like, ‘Come on man.'"

When I rejoined the group after the shower Gethard spontaneously paid a visit to Chatroulette.com where our partners were unknowingly confronted with a comedy show instead of the normal slew of guys jerking off. We saw a lot of penises and tried to raise the self-esteem of a pair of tween girls. Then special guest Seth Meyers swung by for a quick interview before darting off to present an award at the Writers Guild of America.

Gethard is fond of finding interesting guests to appear on his show-past guests have included the girl he went on the worst date of his life with and the coolest kid from his high school. "I'm willing to be 100% blunt and honest and forthright," describes Gethard, and "it has gotten me a lot. So it's kind of painful to sit there and talk to the girl that I went on the worst date of my life with when I haven't seen her in eight years and we haven't talked about it because it was so uncomfortable, but I think that the audience really appreciated that I was willing to go there, and that they got to witness that awkwardness and pain come back."

While most of Gethard's guests are relatively unknown, he is also in the process of recruiting better known people to appear on his show. On Christmas night he started a Twitter campaign to recruit Al Roker to be a guest. When Al Roker declined, Gethard decided to shoot even higher and he asked Sean "Diddy" Combs to appear on the The Gethard Show. "My last name spells out the words ‘get hard' phonetically and he told me he thought it was some weird sex thing." After clarifying the situation Diddy agreed to come on his "shitty talk show in the basement of a supermarket" sometime in 2010.

At the secret show, Gethard interviewed Meyers about disaster experiences at Saturday Night Live but the conversation quickly turned to their friendship. "You do more weird shit than anyone I know," Meyers told Gethard before the two of them began a trivia contest about each other--audience members who answered questions correctly won Gethard's personal belongings, like a track jacket that no longer fit, an empty bottle of his anti-depressants, the molded mouth guard he uses when practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (which I won and returned to Gethard a week later because I found it too gross to keep), an old pair of glasses that were broken when a girl punched Gethard in the face in high school, and autographed MRIs of Gethard's knee.

When the show finally concluded, Gethard suggested restaurants nearby "in the hopes that you will meet as strangers and live as life long friends." I did not eat with any of the strangers who were at the show because while they departed I was still trying to find a sock that went missing sometime between when I took my clothes off and went to put my shoes on. Gethard generously wound up just giving me a pair of his socks, saying, "You should never leave a comedy show wet and missing a sock."

Chris Gethard can be seen performing regularly at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Asssscat 3000, The Chris Gethard Show, The Nights of Our Lives and The Stepfathers. For more information visit ucbtheater.com.