Origin

Reactions to my file photo have been mixed. I’ve noticed that the people, who dig it the most, know about The Moose in the Closet. You see, some of you feel that The Moose in the Closet is just some name I came up with for my blog. That is incorrect, The Moose in the Closet is actually an alternate persona, an entity that emerges from time to time and has only one goal: to produce something so bad it transcends bad and becomes good.

The Moose first came out of the proverbial closet in 1996, my senior year in High School. We were having a party in my parent’s yard; the radio had microphone inputs. I plugged in and started freestyling to Beastie Boy’s The In Sound from Way Out under the persona The Moose in the Closet. We began recording and what came from that session was the Midwood High School ’96 underground smash hit self-titled debut album, featuring songs such as Dogfood, Ravioli and Sesame’s Treat (A Man’s Big Meat).

G (my beatbox master that presses “Play” on the CD player at the appropriate moment) and I decided to record a follow up album and we scheduled a session in the basement of our boy Brian’s house. However, as with most bands, a woman came between us. G stood me up that day and went on a date. The Moose in the Closet was dead.

But out of the ashes of The Moose in the Closet came my new band, R.A.I.L (Random Acts of Illegitimate Lyricism). We formed the same night that The Moose in the Closet broke up, Brian picking up his acoustic guitar and Jeromeo making use of his drum machine a hybrid hip-hop/rock band was born. On that very night we recorded The Ho’s we Knows, I’m so Gay and Fucked in the Ass Again (Bob Sagat).

After five minutes out of the spotlight, The Moose was once again reborn, like a Pheonix out from the ashes and into the ears of every Senior at Midwood High School ‘96 that was in Mr. Snyder’s homeroom and sat at the back of the class.

R.A.I.L’s follow up EP came out the next summer, featuring the death metal mix of Strangers in the Night and Euonym (Is There an Alternate Definition?). The lackluster response of the new EP combined with the not-so-good Moose the Movie, our friend Mike getting shot in the neck and G and I allegedly playing strip poker with Brian’s ex-girlfriend and her DOPE best friend, R.A.I.L. broke up and The Moose went back to the closet.

Now it is 1999. Guam and I have just finished a season of Improv and theater at college and we filmed a movie called Mr. Sandman. We needed a production company name. I suggested Moose in the Closet, Guam suggested Velvet Elvis. And like that, Closet Elvis Productions were born and make no mistake, The Moose was back.

Closet Elvis Productions produced a play in Boston called Jesus Christ Megastar, a well received musical that is already pretty much forgotten. Guam broke off a splinter production with Greg Oreo, long time collaborator and continues to make “artsy” plays in the Boston area. We all met up again under the Closet Elvis Productions website, a humor magazine that was becoming immensely popular until The Moose forgot to reregister the domain name. This summer, however, we relaunched the old Closet Elvis Productions crew under the banner Closet Elvis Living and we are slowly rebuilding our fan base.

So that is the story of The Moose in the Closet. I am going to find all of the old media and post it up here from time to time. I will even post the raw, uncut footage of Moose the Movie, a movie which was designed with one goal in mind: to look as bad as a movie can possibly look. Interestingly enough, neither Brian, Jeromeo nor G were in Moose the Movie. It was RJ, Lou-Lou, Elizabeth (my sister) and I. So the movie really had nothing to do with The Moose in the Closet.

Now, do you see why the picture need to be bad? It’s The Moose. And The Moose is so bad it becomes good.

read a book, fanboy: A Confederacy of Dunces

turn off the metallica, fanboy: Blazing Arrow

Labels: mitc

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