The Minor Prophets - History

History

2008-09-07T14:00:00.003-04:00

A Minor History

I

The History of The Minor Prophets begins in an email.

But how? you ask. How could a medium so fragile, so stricken by abbreviation, give life to a cause so strong and solid, so indestructibly good? The answer: loneliness.

Trapped against his will in Bowling Green, Ohio, pursuing a degree in a field he thought he loved, Dave longed for his friends. He worked part-time at the campus Writers Lab, helping non-native speakers compose resumes and argumentative essays. Most of his tutees were Asian. They smelled like sweet and sour sauce poured over vacuum lint. He disliked being mean to them, but often couldn’t help it. He yelled at them to comb their hair, and made several of them cry. He cried with them, as his life was barren, a wasteland of days.

It was September of 2000, and he missed his good buddies back home in Pennsylvania. He sulked down the avenue, weeping and farting, picturing their faces smiling through the window of an abandoned pizza shop. At his apartment, he worked joylessly on his thesis, a book-length collection of above-average stories entitled I Don’t Know Why, But I Can’t Stop Laughing At This Funeral Procession. After dark, when there was no sun, he tried his hand at meat loaf, and went to bed starving. He contracted a dose of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and suspected his long-distance girlfriend was rampantly cheating on him.

Dave was at the top of his game.

Meanwhile, Steve, a friend of Dave’s since middle school, was jailed inside a cubicle, embittered toward an office and a job he knew he loathed. Monday through Friday, he drove his Saturn to a non-descript building in the vast exopolis outside of Philadelphia. He drank to excess every night, and many a morning showed at work dragging half a load. He hoped his boss would find him sleeping in his cube—a limp finger threaded through the handle of his mug—and fire him on the spot. Instead, he bunched him by the collar and growled into his ear, “You stink like poop and tonics. Leave your cube and you're fired.”

For reasons he could never explain, Steve enrolled in a post-graduate course at West Chester University, an independent study with an overweight professor of Stats and Sociology. All of a sudden, Steve fancied himself a scholar.

Freed from his cube for one night a week, he passed quiet hours in the fat doctor’s office, staying up late, culling reams of data. He and the professor smoked cigarettes together, and made plans to drive to Pittsburgh for a three-day symposium. They were eager to announce the results of their ground-breaking study: something about interracial relationships—how they are good for some people, and not so good for others. Tragically, the duo made it only as far as Hot Dog City, the first rest stop heading westbound on I-76. After eating a Texas Tommy, the elder academic suffered twelve strokes, and died in the parking lot. The EMT arriving on the scene was a fairly attractive black woman, and Steve made it a point to kiss her on the lips before the dead doctor’s body was heaved onto a gurney and abruptly driven away.

II

A day later, Steve returned to his cube, the whites of his eyes still yellow with gin. He put on his sunglasses, and checked the contents of his inbox. Waiting for him there was a familiar surprise: an email from Dave. Ever since his move to Ohio, Dave had been in the habit of sending goofy/serious emails to his brethren back east. It was all he could do to pass the hours cooped up alone in his apartment. He had zero friends in Bowling Green, save a lanky man of letters from Lincoln, Nebraska named Christof Scheele. Christof spent a large portion of the day trying to master his epilepsy, so Dave was left to hang with a personal computer and stare droopy-eyed at a list of e-addresses, one of which was Steve’s.

This particular day’s message took as its subject an idea for a skit. The previous summer, Steve and Dave had collaborated on a pair of informal movie projects: Einstein Takes The Trolley, a sodomystery, and One Hot Piece, a short about guns. Never before had they put time aside to discuss an idea prior to filming it. They knew nothing of scripts. They simply walked into a cemetery, or a local convenience store, and began shooting. Therefore, the subject of the email was strikingly strange.

Nevertheless, Steve opened the electronic envelope by clicking on it with his mouse. He read Dave’s idea, “What, Do You Have AIDS?” and laughed once or twice through his nose. The skit was about as funny as a garage door opener, but more importantly, it started a dialogue which for seven straight months did not let up, the duo swapping ideas almost weekly, concepts ranging from meat-flavored cigarettes to homosexual car dealers. And while in retrospect, each consecutive idea seems worse than the last, this did not halt the dialogue from carrying on with gusto even after Dave came home, when, in May, he and Steve agreed they must find two others—two more associates, a camera, and some tapes.

III

The camera and tapes were easy enough to locate, as were the troupe’s two remaining members. Steve and Dave weren’t looking for the two funniest candidates. They were more intrigued by those individuals who exhibited strains of deep-seated anger and/or frustration, men who at one time in their lives had thought themselves funny, but somewhere between the last year of college and the brink of adulthood had lost their sense of humor to marriage, migration, or too much cocaine. They sought out men who were almost gone, who were near their heart’s depletion, men who had but minutes left to save their souls from slavery.

Upon waking each morning, Gil would ask himself the question: Why did I get married and father a son? The answer to this question eluded him like a wriggling eel. He threw over his head an unsightly sweater, pulled on a pair of wrinkle-free khakis, and chased the creature-answer all the way to work. His job plucked the hairs from his head, while simultaneously planting new ones on his chest and back. When he arrived home from the office, he found his wife pouring bleach onto his X-rated videos and stabbing them with a screwdriver. It had been so long since he had last had sex—he felt like a neutered dog. His son was standing on the dining room table in only a diaper, his face tensed and red from pushing out turds. The eel slithered over Gil’s Rockports and hiked up his wife’s stubbly thigh. He knew that in nine months she’d be delivering its baby. When the phone rang and Dave asked him to join his comedy troupe, Gil said, “Yes.” He then hung up the phone, kissed his wife, and changed the baby’s diaper.

Steve and Dave were well-assured of Gil’s allegiance to the troupe. Even at his wedding, two years before, they could see in his eyes an invitation, a desperate call to anyone who might lend him reprieve in the future.

It was Brian of whom they were not so sure. He was a powder keg, a live wire, a dude, like Gil, they’d known for years, a veteran of volume, violence, and vice. Without word to his family or circle of chums, he moved to Colorado in the fall of '97. There, he stung his nose with devil powder, and drank until he barfed. Whenever he wasn’t pickled, he dreamt of means to assassinate his biological father, who had left him years ago, and whom he believed was selling trash trucks on the Mexican black market. His favorite scheme involved throwing his father into the back of a trash track and flattening him like garbage. Unable to find the bastard through various web-based search engines, he returned unexpectedly to Delaware County in the spring of 2000. At first, Steve and Dave were reluctant to give Brian a call, familiar with his flightiness and ambition to abandon. But then they considered the scope of his rage, the swath of resentment he’d cut for his father. If he could rightly channel those volts of anger into a five-minute skit, the troupe would be invincible, par excellence.

IV

So, in the summer of 2001, five months before the Towers were struck, the Prophets assembled to shoot their first short film, Keg Runners. Since then, the Prophets have written, directed, and produced over 35 short films, and have performed at select venues in Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and New York.

God has counseled them to set their sights high. They want a T.V. show, a movie, and more money than they can count. And why will they achieve these goals? Simple: The Minor Prophets are not a dinosaur. They are new. They are not a sketch comedy troupe, nor a quartet of filmmakers, nor a team of handsome jokesters. They are the real fucking thing.

If you’re afraid of the messiah, then close your eyes, and wait for the fun to blow over.

Brian

2008-09-07T13:00:00.002-04:00

Brian was born an hour and a half before April Fool’s Day, 1973. He was raised in an apartment with one mother, two brothers, one sister, and three others. He played with Transformers and G.I. Joes until the age of sixteen, when his mother decided enough was enough and made him give his toys to the neighborhood kids. Being the only girls he knew were Lady Jaye and The Baroness, she hoped this would help Brian meet some “real” women. Her wish was granted, as, the next night, Brian fell for a girl at a high school talent show whose only skill was dancing to Paula Abdul’s “Cold-Hearted Snake.”

Upon graduating college with a degree in something, Brian moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked as a gas station attendant, pizza delivery boy, movie store clerk, and finally, an environmental scientist. It was in Boulder that Brian became his own person, learned to snowboard, abused various substances, and incurred a large amount of debt. After three years in the Rockies, he realized he was bred to be in the Philly suburbs with his family and friends. His pals often tell Brian he is their closest friend, yet he has never been anyone’s best man.

Brian enjoys listening to Ben Harper, wishes he were Don Cheadle, and will read anything but the Bible.

Dave

2008-09-07T12:00:00.005-04:00

Dave was born on August 10, 1975, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. Much happened in the years following his birth, but not a single milestone was achieved until the summer of 2001, when David received his M.F.A. (More Failures Ahead) in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University.

For the record, David is neither gay nor Jewish—though his two favorite pastimes are dancing and complaining. Other favorites include Raisin Bran, Killer Whales, and the Old Testament book of Joel.

Though he has never sought treatment for them, David suffers from a series of mild phobias. He is afraid of the dark, afraid of commitment, and perhaps most intensely he is afraid of people not liking him. Upon meeting David for the first time, do not be alarmed by his talkativeness. He does not have autism, nor is he a victim of Asperger’s Syndrome. He is merely insecure, and as a result his mouth runs marathons.

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Gil

2008-09-07T11:00:00.002-04:00

Gil was born on June 21st, 1973. Gil's father passed onto him DNA so rich in testosterone that Gil found himself reaching puberty two to three times faster than his more normal peers. Because of his size and temperament, he could at times be found bullying children in the schoolyards of Aronimink Elementary. Gil was a very sensitive child and would frequently cry for his victims, suffering from feelings of guilt, remorse, and regret for having beaten them.

It was these two childhood traits that led Gil’s father to nickname him Fatners Baby Cry. When Gil got to Middle School, the name was amended to Fatners Poppin’ Pimps Baby Cry.

Like it does for many, the experience of Middle School sucked for Gil. In a vain attempt to be accepted, Gil learned to mimic the voice and gestures of popular SNL character Ed Grimley. This act merely led to routine beatings. Afterward, Gil attempted to be himself, and this plan failed just as miserably at gaining popularity – but the beatings did subside.

Gil made it through High School and College without the popularity he sought when he was younger, but managed to maintain some dear and long-standing friendships. Gil joined three of these friends (and with the help of countless others) to form The Minor Prophets, and now aspires to become a member of a funny comedy troupe.

Steve

2008-09-07T10:00:00.003-04:00

Steve was born in August of 1975, and spent the first six years of his life in Southwest Philadelphia. The block he lived on was harmless, but he feared it nonetheless, rarely going outside. Alarmed by this trend, his parents moved the family to Secane, a suburb not fifteen minutes from the old neighborhood. There, Steve was safe, and free to flourish.

Throughout his adolescent and college years, Steve earned his spending money working at a sandwich shop and officiating ice hockey games. He was once verbally assaulted and threatened by a parent during a middle school game. Soon after that, he hung up the stripes for good. (Steve still makes the best Italian hoagie in the tri-state area.)

The other Minor Prophets and his wife can all vouch that Steve has severe passive aggressive tendencies. In spite of this, and a slight martyr complex, he is generally a nice guy.

He wears shorts and flip-flops year-round, is good at math, and likes to drink.