We caught up with Marcus Gilmer before his big show at The Paper Machete tomorrow. Gilmer is an editor at AV Club. He has performed at The Paper Machete before and tomorrow afternoon, he joins these great writers performing original work. I caught up with Marcus yesterday afternoon on IM to get a preview of his piece.

4:17 PM Kate: Hi Marcus Marcus: Hey!

Kate: So you’re doing The Paper Machete this weekend…are you excited?

4:17 PM Marcus: Of course, I always am for the Machete. There’s always a great lineup for each show that succeeds in completely humbling me.

4:18 PM Kate: Can you tell me a bit about what you’ve been assigned? Without giving away the farm…so to speak…that’s not really a saying

Marcus: Heh

4:19 PM Well, this week I’ll be touching on abortion laws/rights and protests, because a straight white middle class male is the best source on such things

4:20 PM Kate: So we can expect a first-person narrative about the time you went to Planned Parenthood and someone outside egged you?

4:21 PM Marcus: Ha, not exactly. There won’t be much first-person narrative, a bit of that, but I’ll do my best to tie it in to the current slate of ultra restrictive abortion laws that have hit states and even the notification law that’s still going through the courts here in Illinois

4:22 PM Kate: So less A.V. Club, more Chicago Tribune.

4:23 PM Marcus: More Slate meets The Moth, I think, as Christopher Piatt said.

4:24 PM Kate: Fair. Can you tell us, on the scale of Cats to August: Osage County, where will this fall, quality-wise?

(Or maybe hilarity-wise)?

4:25 PM Marcus: Quality-wise, I hope August: Osage County, though I doubt it’ll win a Pulitzer

Hilarity-wise, it’ll still be funnier than Cats because Cats is the worst thing in the history of the world.

4:26 PM Kate: Agreed. Only this girl disagrees with you

Terrible viral joke. Moving on.

Marcus: Yeah, but this video is funnier than EVERYTHING:

4:27 PM   Kate: Embarrassingly or not, this is entirely new to me

Marcus: I found it by accident one day, I swear

4:28 PM Kate: Maybe I believe you.

So what else are you doing this weekend, besides potentially burning the Horseshoe down?

With your BRILLIANCE

4:29 PM Marcus: I will become engulfed in golden flames and ascend to Heaven

Failing that

4:30 PM I plan on hitting up the Ultra Violet Petting Zoo Fest with Tom Schraeder and White Mystery on Sunday

And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll land tickets for NEXT’s new menu this weekend, but that’s pretty doubtful. And it would bankrupt me.

Kate: Yea get in line…tickets launch at 4:45 right?

4:33 PM …the internet line, that is. Let’s hope this isn’t Dark Lord Day 2010 part deux.

4:34 PM Marcus: Yeah

4:35 PM ALlegedly

I’m not holding my breath

More taking a stab for the heck of it

4:36 PM Kate: Well, excellent. Have a calm ten minutes until you make a mad dash for the gate, and we’ll all try not to egg you on Saturday.

Marcus: I appreciate your altruism.

4:38 PM Kate: No problem.