Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

As the summer of 2003 set in, Steel & Marsilio was, at best, in limbo. Back then, uploading content to the internet was not so easy as it is today, so any potential projects Garrett and I might make had no clear method of distribution. Since we had never exactly been renowned for our productivity, the fact that anything we produced might never be seen by anyone (although, given the viewership of public access, one might venture to say no one had ever seen anything we’d done) meant that we simply didn’t do anything. Well, we went to Rasputin Music a fair amount, but I’d say that doesn’t really apply. One day, our fortunes shifted, as Garrett received a letter from the public access station in Mountain View, KMVT15. Apparently, since the De Anza television station closed, the responsibilities for Cupertino’s public access now fell to KMVT, a larger and presumably more financially secure station. When Cupertino closed, I guess the Mountain View staff asked our old

Immediat- ely (relatively, at least) after the third episode of Steel & Marsilio wrapped, Garrett pitched a theme for our next project: “The Steel & Marsilio Halloween Spectacular.” My lifelong love of Halloween put me on board without hesitation. The idea of having a central theme for an entire episode was new to us, but we had made great strides in finding our voice, and it seemed like a good idea to take our usual random pastiche of skits and have some unifying factor tying them together, albeit loosely. That the factor in question was my favorite holiday made it all the more appealing. The pieces were in place for our best work ever. Mikey agreed to continue handling our editing, so the usual scramble to find an editor was not an issue, and Garrett and I had a wealth of ideas. In addition, we had learned from some of our past mistakes, so we decided from the outset that this episode would be comprised of a greater number of shorter skits rather than our previous handfuls

With the upcoming release of the Steel & Marsilio: Season One DVD, several people have expressed curiosity as to what exactly Steel & Marsilio is all about. This, in conjunction with a puzzling lack of interview requests, has spurred me to pen a series of articles about S & M ’s rich history, as well as its bright future. Without further ado, allow me to present Part One of the Steel & Marsilio Companion. I may as well start in the halcyon days of my youth, before Steel & Marsilio (as a televised program, anyway) existed. Garrett Wroblewski and I met in 1999, when I was a senior and he was a junior at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, CA. Destiny, for whatever reason (ed. note: Money. It was money) led post-graduation Joey to De Anza, the local community college, and Garrett followed me there soon after. Though in the interim year we hung out quite a bit and collaborated on some things (a skit wherein we played the biggest Kriss Kross fans in the world, co