Happy Birthday 2 Mes.

Reading over my 25th birthday entry from (gasp!) 5 years ago, one think that 25 is some big mysterious birthday signifying an imminent death/the end of everything as we know it. I'm not one to be hyperbolic, so I'll just write a little note to my 25 year old self: 25 isn't old, nor is turning that age some sort of indication of the "beginning of the end".

No, kind readers, 25 isn't old...30 is. So despicably old that I'll be surprised if I don't put a bullet in my head at some point during the remaining 18 minutes of my 20s.

I guess a 35 year old me would say that I was being hyperbolic again, and I probably am. I mean, is 30 old? It was to a 25 year old me! It was to a 29 year old me!

I remember a time when I visited NYU at the ancient age of 25 to meet with an agent. A few other kids were sitting around and I joined in their conversation. Frightened that someone was sitting with them who might actually be able to grow a beard, they cautiously asked me how old I was. When I told them, they were gobsmacked - legitimately jaw-dropped.

"Holy shit! 25 - that's sooooo old!", said the 21 year old girl who is now 25.
"I thought 25 was old until I turned 25", said the 25 year old me who is now only minutes away from being 30.

Time has a funny way of making you feel both incredibly young and incredibly old, depending who you are comparing yourself to at the time. I guess it's all a matter of perspective - with the exception of my grandmother who died at 98. She was really, really old. (But I love(d) her!)

Now I look at people who were born in 1990 and am completely blown away that they are 20. Did people feel that way about me after finding out that I was born in 1980? I mean, 1990 - Tiny Toon Adventures, HammerTime!, fades. Those kids have never experienced that particular cultural Renaissance. They grew up in a time during which they can now look fondly back to their youth and say "boy, I loved N'Sync when I was but 7!". Of course, if they talked like that, they'd probably be talking to themselves because who the hell would hang around someone who says "when I was but"?

Anyway, my life seems to be going pretty well right now - with the sole exception of my lack of blogging prowess - so I'm not going to complain too much. I hope my 30s will be at least 33% more productive then my 20s.

So goodbye 20s - the last decade I had bad acne, pursued a higher education (though that might change one day), and enjoyed a chocolate martini. Choco-tinis, by the way...not as delicious coming up as they were going down - let's just leave it at that.

I guess, in the end, the end of a decade makes you put some things to rest, and knowing me and my countless neuroses and oddly people turning-off habits, maybe that's a good thing.

As the year ends, think about how it's not worth thinking about too much.

Cake, the Velvet Underground and what that means to today's youth.

In yet another one of those ubiquitous hipsteriffic iPod commercials, I noticed a song I had heard before...except that I hadn't heard it before. That makes no sense, but then neither does the popularity of neon v-necks. Totally fucking baffling.

Anyway, allow me to explain:

Tell me if you can sense a similarity between this song, Short Skirt Long Jacket by Cake. (especially around the :28 second mark):



...and this song, Sweet Jane by the Velvet Underground (starting at the :16 second mark):



Now, I think Cake's a rad band, so they must have done this on purpose, right?

Either way, I really hate the "stupid kids not knowing what good music is" syndrome that these sorts of things foster. I'll give you two examples of what that means:

1) My Freshman Year of college, I was listening to David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World. I asked my roommate if he knew the song and he said, and I QUOTE: "yeah, it's a shitty cover of a shitty Nirvana song". I cried for three weeks after that.
2) 2003: I put on Iggy Pop's The Idiot, and a friend who was sitting in the same room as me said, and I QUOTE: "cool! Is that the new Strokes album?" I cried for three months after that.

I guess the lesson here is that I do a lot of crying. Read the damn URL, sucker.

WEIRD INTERNET PICTURES

Found some weird crap online over the past few months. I keep telling myself that I'm going to create an epically hilarious post showcasing said crap, but instead I'll just post said crap.

So here ya go, kind reader, and I do mean reader (singular). My blog has been emptier than the mind of someone who argues against the "Mosque" "at" ground zero.

Potentially Pornographic Greeting Card: I was looking for an ecard for someone's birthday, and I reached this page. What exactly is going on in the second picture on the bottom on the right, and should I report it to the police?

Tiga Twitter: This guy makes his money writing songs that "our" presumably in the English language, but based on his Twitter page, it looks like he's speaking huhglish.

I wager that Tyga wants to leave it all in the pass.

AOL is For Perverted Old People: I know it's funny that I even still have an AOL email address anymore (I'm actually from the year 1995), but this link to an article popped up in my inbox recently. That's quite the double entendre if I've ever heard one.

I had a bra worth "splurging on" once. It didn't feel like cuddling afterwards, called me a selfish lover and made me apologize for all of the crying during sex. It left without a word in the morning, the only communication a post-it note on my door that simply read "I'm never dating a Jew again".

Conversations with sleeping people

Sometimes sleeping people have insights into life that no waking person could ever have. I'm a firm believer that the subconscious is a lot more interesting and insightful than the conscious. At least, I'd rather hang at a dinner party with my subconscious...my conscious is too unbearably cute.

Either way, I had a conversation with a sleeping person, which I recorded on my computer as it happened, and here's what I heard:

Friend: You wrote a note about being fat. I thought you were going to go get pizza.
Me: What?
Friend: YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO GO GET PIZZA? WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT THAT?
Me: It's not funny, I'm lactose intolerant.
Friend: You said you had a very serious slow-down disease.
Me: Slow down disease? Is that like being tired?
Friend: I thought you were going to work.

Read between the lines; think philosophically...it just might blow your mind.

Dear Overweight Woman with a Spiderweb Tattoo on your Shoulder and a Mermaid Body Tattoo on your Upper Thigh Wearing Revealing Clothing,

Dear Overweight Woman Wearing Revealing Clothing with a Spiderweb Tattoo on your Shoulder and a Mermaid Body Tattoo on your Upper Thigh,

Really? At some point in your life, you said to yourself: hey, my stubby body can barely contain its 200lb frame, why not accentuate that sexiness by adorning myself with the most unnecessary and meaningless body art that one could possibly get? Surely no one will notice the goo-like stretching of my tattoos caused by a combination of flab rolls and flop sweat!

Just a question: what sort of message were you going for? I mean, I guess the spiderweb tattoo on your shoulder might implicate that if a man were to actually touch you, he would invariably be stuck to your skin owing to the thin layer of sugar which must coat your epidermis, but the mermaid tattoo on your upper thigh? Just not getting it.

And another thing: why must people who have tattoos wear clothing that shows off said tattoo no matter where the tattoo is and what the weight of the person is? A tattoo on your inner-thigh? Surely one must wear ripped short-shorts. A tattoo slightly above your private area? Surely one must wear low-cut jeans. A tattoo inside your vagina? Surely one must affix a micro-camera inside said vagina that broadcasts over the air in HD. Yes, I get it, you have a tattoo. So do 50% of people aged 18-29. It's not special anymore. In fact, if you have spiderweb and mermaid body tattoos, it was never special to begin with.

Anyway, Overweight Woman with a Spiderweb Tattoo on your Shoulder and a Mermaid Body Tattoo on your Upper Thigh Wearing Revealing Clothing, you've obviously got your life planned out and who am I to criticize? You've made your decisions, stuck to them, then made more decisions, and for some inexplicable reason, stuck to those as well.

I wish you the best, and give me a call when you get your Asian lettering or Dolphin jumping over the sea tattoo. I'll be there for you.

Father Knows Best-ish

Every father has an olde tyme-y thing that they like. Something that their children find endearing, yet beguilingly dated. For my dad, it was Old Time Radio. If you're curious to know what that is, simply imagine a time when every single person in America sat down in front of their radio to listen to ripping yarns spun about superheroes, gritty cops and middle aged ex-vaudevillians emphasizing their punch-lines with puns that were dated in 1940.

It's a pretty endearing genre of entertainment, and I specifically remember every weekend taking a car trip with Dad where you literally couldn't speak because he wanted to listen to a cassette tape of "The Shadow". Now this wasn't a "hey, shut up" type of "couldn't speak", it was a car full of 5 people (3 kids, a mom and a dad) sitting in abject silence; hanging on the every word of this completely antiquated, almost cringe-worthy form of entertainment...and you know what? I loved every minute of it.

How can you not look back fondly at things your dad loved? Does it really matter what it actually might have been? I mean, seriously, if my dad had a hankerin' for watching Hitler's famous Reichstag speech in December of 1941...I would fucking love Hitler's famous Reichstag speech in December of 1941. Why? Because my dad's...my dad. Admit it: there was something your father loved that other people might consider odd or dated, but you consider the jewel of your childhood.

I look back on this because I might potentially at some point maybe be a father in the extraordinarily distant future. I had a meta moment the other day while watching Channel 4's delicious 1990s sitcom "Father Ted" (brought to you by the same folks as "The IT Crowd"). There was a shoddy set which was shot crappy video, peppered with what one might call "dated 90s references". Yes, one day I will watch shows like that, shows like "The Young Ones", "Blackadder", and "Fawlty Towers" in front of my children. They will watch, mouth potentially agape, and realize that their daddy is into really old stuff that no one watches or even talks about anymore.

I mean, those aforementioned shows are dated in 2010...what are my love-children going to think in whatever year it will be when I actually have children (I'm bargaining on the 22nd century)? I hope they look at it with the same reverence that I looked at my Dad's Olde Time Radio. I'll be their dad, after all.

Watch S03E01 Are You Right There, Father Ted? in Comedy  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I Write Like...

I have no idea how this site actually works or if it's even accurate in the slightest; but I'll take this assessment of my writing style as either a huge compliment or a bitter confirmation of my suicidal tendencies. Either way, I'll be up cryin' tonight!

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Guy Who Urinated In Jars and Left Them In His Room

I had a roommate once who stored several huge bottles of urine in 2 gallon jugs of Poland Spring around his room.

He didn't think we knew, but we all did. One time I dared the boyfriend of another roommate to open a bottle and smell it. He did, and based on his reaction...it definitely was piss.

Yes, I do mean BOTTLES. The guy had no bed in his room, just a mattress, several indie rawk show fliers strewn around the floor, 4 empty bottles of Jack Daniels and about 30 huge bottles of piss. He was 27 and lived with 4 20-21 year olds.

We postulated that he perhaps needed it for some sort of drug test; but he was a bouncer, so that didn't really make sense.

Anyway, I never did find out much about him after I escaped the Kafka-esque nightmare that was that apartment. He recently added me on facebook and told me he lives in an "Artist's Loft" in Downtown LA, which is code for a commune filled with a group of broke-ass losers.

Here's the first page of a sketch I wrote about him in college:

INT. SMALL BEDROOM-NIGHT
Girl (23) sits, folding clothes. A Boy (24) stands, unpacking. Small room with a bunk bed.

GIRL
I'm so glad that you're normal, you know.
It's just so hard to find a good roommate.

BOY
Yeah. I totally understand.
I'm the good roommate. (note catchphrase)

He takes some money from her wallet without her noticing.

BOY (CONT’D)
Now let's turn off those lights and get some sleep.

He hops up on the bunk bed. Lights flick off.

Sounds of urination

Girl flips light on.

GIRL

What are you doing?

Boy is filling up a water bottle with his own urine.

BOY
Nothing. I'm certainly not filling up this
2 liter bottle with my own waste.
Now flip off that light, I need to get some sleep.

She flicks the light off.

Masturbation sounds.

BOY (CONT’D)
That’s right, bitch, suck it.

Girl flips light on again.

Boy throws copy of JUGS up in the air.

GIRL
What the hell is going on up there? Are you masturbating?

BOY
No. I'm just slapping my cheeks together.

He turns light off.

Girl SCREAMS!

Lights flipped on. He's mounting her.

GIRL
Now you're having sex with me!

BOY
No I'm not! What the hell's your problem?
I'm the good roommate.

Ahhh...Memories...the thing the brain does to fool us into believing we've accomplished something and done interesting things in our lives.

Airports

In my profession I end up sitting around a lot of airports. I know what you're thinking; "you have a profession?". Well, yes kind reader: sobbing uncontrollably while drinking my tears in order to taste pain is a profession. Shows you what you know.

Anyhoo, I travel a lot and I think nothing tells you more about a city than the book selection at its airport Hudson News.

For example, I'm sitting in San Jose airport right now (sobbing uncontrollably, of course: a dude's gotta make a living!), and after drinking my weight in whiskey-chased tears I strutted over to the local Airport Bookseller. What books do I find? Timothy Ferriss' 4 Hour Workweek, Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright's Tribal Leadership, and various other "how and why people are successful and how to use that information to make shit-tons of money" books. That selection both underscores and reenforces the notion that the Bay Area is the Progressive, Thinking Professional Fun-Guy I WANT FUCKING MONEY capital of the world. Not a bad place to be (at least if you're my brother).

As a contrast, I usually fly out of Los Angeles and I think the book selection at that airport is pretty telling; adorning the wooden shelves are such pulitzer-winning masterpieces as Mommywood by Tori Spelling, the ingeniously titled Beckham by David Beckham and Angelina Jolie's: Notes From My Travels by...Angelina Jolie, which begs the question: how many notes of Angelina Jolie's can you read without having a complete existential breakdown?  These books solidify LA as the HOLY FUCKING SHIT WE'RE FULL OF HOLY FUCKING SHIT capital of the world. A terrible place to be (but only if you're me).

 

Next time you fly somewhere, check out what books are prominently displayed at the airport bookseller. It'll tell you more about local culture than any guidebook. That, or I'm full of it.


Now as a treat, listen to my favorite Beach Boy track off the oddly weird 1977 craptacular masterpiece Love You: DING DANG. 





It has nothing to do with my post, but then again, neither does my post. If you understand that you're a better man than I, sir.

WARGASM!

Today my friend Jake and I were discussing the relative merits of terrestrial radio. I asserted that with the exception of NPR and Pandora (which I doubt actually counts as radio), there is nothing on the airwaves worth listening to.

Jake said that his local college station played songs that were both good and unheard. Doubting him, I demanded evidence. He immediately emailed me this song, which for better or worse, pretty much makes me believe his radio-positive message. In any conceivable world, would I have ever heard this song? Not so much. Is this odd, borderline out-of-tune song worth the continuing the frankly antiquated concept of a radio station? Probably.

The band is called "Dynasty" and the song is called "Wargasm"...so you know it's good. Recorded in 2003, I can only assume it's about the benefits of copulation as opposed to invading Iraq. I'll go for that.

From it's Eno-ish middle eight breakdown to it's slightly punkish off key angsty Erase Errata singing, Wargasm has my vote. 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.

Buy the album here!

Why I quit Facebook and Why I'll Probably Return

Today is a very special day for me. No...I didn't rape and murder a transient; it's the one month anniversary of being Facebook Free.

At the beginning of May, I noticed that I was spending a good 23.9 hours a day on Facebook (due to some sort of secret privacy setting, my dreams contained Facebook ads on the right-hand side). 

I thought I was due for a Facebook Break; some time for "myself". No longer would I be encased in the oppressive shackles of an all-too-ubiquitous social networking website; I needed to better myself...like, you know, read a book or talk to someone that wasn't just me in a mirror, sobbing uncontrollably. Yes; like "Watching Ellie" and Jesus, I went on a hiatus for "retooling".

Here are the top reasons I left Facebook:

1) Wasting Time: I can't tell you how many times I said to myself "let's get started on that work...right after I check the Facebook status of each and everyone I am randomly connected to on Facebook"...then got stuck for hours down ye olde "looking at pictures of people I have not yet and never shall meet" rabbit hole. Hey, that comedian is randomly friends with this other comedian I met once at a party who knows that girl who was friends with that guy I kinda didn't like in high school. CA-RAY-ZAY! Pics or it didn't happen.

2) Getting Invited To Things: I know you're supposed to "support your friends", but I live in Hollywood where "supporting your friends" doesn't mean "being by their side when they need you", it means "showing up to every stand-up comedy performance and checking out every band at that 20 seat venue". I would literally get about 10 "event invitations" a day and I was running out of excuses as for why I couldn't make any of them (there's really only so many times you can use "sorry! I was crying profusely while looking at pictures of sumer camp from 1996" as a viable excuse). If you are friends with me, I most likely consider you to be the talented sort, but it's occasionally hard...especially considering that LA is a city full of 9.8 million people who play instruments and attempt to say potentially funny things. Not everyone can be talented. In fact, I'd say it's a good 1 in 10,000.

If, as the artist, you don't find the 10 other performers performing that night "funny" or "talented in the slightest"...how on earth am I supposed to sit through them? I'm just one man, not some sort of shit-comedy watching Robot, programmed to suffer the world's most unhilarious comedy lineup with the "I should really be saying this to a therapist" opening act. Seriously though. Not you...you're funny.

3) Not Getting Invited To Things: Hey, you know what's worse than being invited to things? Not being invited to things. Sure, I don't mind missing out on the odd "boys night out" or "strip club-extravaganza", but when I see a picture of 5 people I consider close friends all getting beers together and writing comments like "I sure had a great time last night...without Matt!" on each others wall, it brings me straight back to middle school where my nickname was "Jewy Mcbignose-nofriends" which was quite the nom-de-plume. Seriously, they coulda just called me "loser"...but it was New York and everybody's gotta be fancy in the City of...larger than average fruit. 

Yes, Facebook is the great equalizer: it's the place where you find out if people you meet at parties like you, and the place where you find out your "good" friends...kinda don't like you...

Now...that isn't to say I won't sign back into Facebook sometime soon. In fact, I probably will. Maybe even by tomorrow.

Sure, I'm a turncoat hypocrite, but it's worth examining why:

1) I Still Waste Time: Yeah, it's kinda nice to think that I stopped going to a social networking website. I certainly possibly might have potentially bettered myself. I spent less time on Facebook, but really...Facebook is kinda like an Island surrounded by pornographic shark infested waters. Anytime you try to leave, there's a shit load of "youjizz.com"-type websites out there to engulf you in masturbatory distraction. Anytime I started typing "facebook.com" into my browser, I said "no, fuck Facebook, I'll just google something to learn about...you know...something about the world!". So a google search about "flotillas" will undoubtably lead me to an article including links to "other headlines" which will undoubtably lead me to a story about a knife-wielding porn star...which, of course, leads me to look at porn, which...kinda really distracts me just as much if not more than Facebook does. Damn you, Internets.

2) I Kinda Miss Getting Invited To Things: Yeah, Facebook invites me to shit like "CRAZY WACKY STAND UP FUNNY TIMES!", but it also invites me to shit like "My Birthday Party" and "Anything involving friends from the age of 18-49". The days of email invitations are, basically over. Evite? A ridiculous dinosaur-like fossil, frozen in useless time, a joke of museum-esque proportions. So yeah, if like...I don't know, I want to find out if I'm invited to something, Facebook's gotta be the website. I don't like it, but I'm a lonely human being; thirsty for contact with the outside world, and if I'm not invited to your pool party; I might as well have functionally ceased to exist...kinda like Aerosmith.

3) I Still Don't Get Invited To Things: So yeah, avoiding Facebook doesn't prevent me from not getting invited to things. Just take a text message exchange on a Saturday at 8pm that I had recently with a friend who came in to LA from NYC:

Friend: Hey Matt, I'm In LA. Just wondering what you were up to tonight!

Me: Hey (friend!), being that it's 8pm, I have plans tonight, but would love to catch up another time. How's tomorrow?

Friend: No problem, I knew it was late notice and would have felt bad if you found out I was in LA and didn't contact you!

So yes, friends still do let friends feel like shit. I wish there was some sort of multi-million dollar ad campaign to combat this scourge, but there ain't. Somehow or another I will still find out that I wasn't invited to something and somehow or another there is still some uncoth malcontent intent on pointing it out. At least with Facebook, I didn't need to learn about it by watching you.

And it's true, I will be logging on to Facebook again soon, in part to keep up with my hobbledehoy acquaintances; but mostly because I've got some awesome pictures to upload to prove to these hobbledehoys that I actually somehow have friends...

...and isn't that what Facebook is all about? Proving you have friends?

Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.

Suicide Notes to Random Acquaintances

Dear Facebook Acquaintance,

Yes, that's it, I'm killing myself. I can no longer take this unending misery that is existence; goodbye friend...on Facebook.

You knew this was coming the one and only time I met you when you looked at me and said "nice to meet you": remember the sorrow in my eyes? Remember the painful sigh when the bartender told us that the mixer was over and the drinks were no longer half price? Remember how I added you on Facebook with my iPhone less than 10 minutes after meeting you with a morose emptiness?

Wait, that wasn't you. How do we know each other again?

Signed,

Matt


Dear That Producer I Worked With Who Also Sold Drugs,

I'm writing you this note to say goodbye, that Producer I Worked With Who Also Sold Drugs. I will miss all those times when a small group of 18 year old boys came into your office and asked for "Shine", then, when you told them you were "Shine", you opened a giant box full of Marijuana and Magic Mushrooms, then told me to never say anything about this..."or else".

Remember the group gatherings? All those poker games you invited me to that ended up being 10 minutes of poker, 45 minutes of 30-somethings smoking Pot and ordering Cocaine, and another 20 minutes of said 30-somethings doing cocaine while discussing all the producing they'll be doing and all the great projects they're working on.

You're still the most professional guy in Hollywood.

Signed,

Matt


Dear Guy I See At A Party Every Once In A While,

I hope this note finds you well. I thought it would be important to tell you know that I will be missing you, whatshername and that dog or maybe cat you showed me a picture of a few times.

It's always good to be around someone who enjoys eating carrots with hummus, talking in broad terms about one's professional life and someone that knows the right time to say "this is a great song" when something comes on the mix that they like.

My one regret is that I didn't go to your Housewarming party, which may have been an Apartment Warming Party, or an Apartment Painting Party. Either way,...sorry I missed it, I just thought it might be a little awkward.

Yours in the afterlife,

Matt.

Elena Kagan looks like David Mitchell

Anyone else out there think that Obama supreme court nominee Elena Kagan...

looks like British funnyman David Mitchell?

Just sayin.

Our Generation Is A Joke

WARNING: I'M ABOUT TO SOUND LIKE AN OLD COOT.

How did we go from "The Greatest Generation" to "The Do-It-For-Me Generation" in less than 60 years?

I think it's because our generation has single-handedly redefined the definition of "success".

In 1940, success was "putting food on the table and keeping your family warm". Now, success is something intangible; a vague inkling of a concept. Something frequently hypothetical.

Let's start with a very simple statement: things are easier today. Maybe it's just because I live in Los Angeles, but it seems like parents have made money for their kids; parental support at 20-something seems less like an exception and more like the rule.

What do kids spend that money on? Things like iPhones that tell them where to buy the food, how to cook it and who to serve it to (both metaphorically and literally). The act of doing something for yourself is no longer an act: it is information stored away in a tiny little microchip, easily accessible by a slight stroke of your index finger.

Learning a trade is now a laughably futile exercise. Perhaps the famous phrase will now be "Jack Of All Internet Search Engines". When things are this easy, we take them for granted. We expect them rather than work for them. Our entire lives revolve around discovering faster, lazier ways to do the things we should probably get off our asses and do ourselves.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as wiki-friendly as the next bloke, but there's a difference between "looking stuff up" and "using the technology as a crutch". My grandmother was the world's greatest cake baker, and she definitely didn't have allrecipies.com. She did a little thing called "trial and error" which, if I'm correct, will be an obsolete term by 2020.

I am constantly amazed at how easy it is for our generation to simply accept something for nothing (and your chicks for free). We sit around; fat and lethargic, picking dry the bones of yesterday's innovations. Regurgitating Googled insight instead of gaining insight. Technology has created a CliffsNotes civilization of impatient, narcissistic busybodies who have nothing better to do than to sit staring at a metallic box, figuring out faster ways to get nothing done .


Maybe our parents were too forgiving. Maybe they spent too much time in the shadow of "The Greatest Generation" : knowing that living up to unrealistic expectations causes pain and stress; so they told us that success lies in the ability to "do whatever we want". To figure it out...to be yourself.

Well, it turns out that we had to Google "how to be ourselves".

Maybe success has been redefined by our generation as "doing whatever we want, as long as you do it for us". Just a group of disaffected kids limping aimlessly through life, searching for a purpose. The problem is that search cannot be done on Google. Our grandparents found purpose in work and our parents found purpose in family. Now our purpose seems to be finding a purpose.

It's this notion of the hypothetical that is so distasteful for me. If you can't define what success is, you'll never be successful. If our grandparents could see us now, they'd tell us to shut the fuck up and get to work. Then again, maybe they'd be downloading the new "I'll do all the work for you" app for your iPhone. It does all your work for you AND gives you a handjob, cookies and a meanlingless sense of self-satistfaction.

Welcome to 2010.

PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES SUCK

LA is filled with narcissistic, self-obsessed broken shells of half-people. The sort of people who wear sports blazers even if it's 90 degrees out. The sort of people who discuss the remotest hypothetical taste of success as success. The sort of people who have the encyclopedic knowledge of which production company is looking for what type of script, but have not even a remote understanding of the health care debate.

"Tort reform? Is that the new cop procedural on ABC?"

This is why I have almost no friends here. I'd like to pretend that I do; and yes, I do end up "hanging out" with people...but I'd say 9 out of 10 of them interest me slightly less than having my balls shaved clumsily by a rusty exacto knife. Seriously. (but not you)

What's worse is that I can feel my brain turning into a mushy porridgy type substance. Before I left for LA, I was able to have a basic conversation about a wide array of subjects; history, science, politics, hardcore pornography...but now? I'm about as verbose as an anxiety-ridden deaf-mute who speaks Taushiro, the rarest language in the world.

So what to do? Hire friends? Pay for intellectual discourse? Find an intelligence whore? I mean, it's gotten to the point that I read the comments for articles on nytimes.com while fondling myself and running a knife across my wrists. This isn't a life. This isn't a half-life. It's gotten to the point where I have to look up what a "half-life" means! I mean, I used to know, but the fact that Steve Levitan is the show runner on Modern Family has knocked that little tidbit out of my brain.

There is no solution. I fear that I must stay in Los Angeles in order to get to be successful enough so that I don't have to live in Los Angeles. It's the macabre realization that your life will be nothing but empty pleasantries about weather and your commute that pours the salt in the wound. Pours sulfuric acid into the wound. Rips the wound open and holds sex orgies in the wound. Rapes the wound and then claims it was "consensual". "Yo, wassup buddy! Can you believe the 101! Fucking bumper to bumper. Did I tell you that Paramount expressed interest in a treatment I wrote? I'm so fucking successful".

This is the end, my only friend.

The end.

I was a much better writerer then

I just wrote two blogs, but realized I couldn't publish them, because if anyone actually found this blog who knew me in the work sense (as opposed to "biblical sense") they might abuse me viscously with a pitchfork-like weapon.

So today, I don't update my blog.

I'll just attach a script of an unfinished scene for an unfinished script. It's about a brother and sister living together.

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - MORNING

Matt walks in, angry.

MATT

Could you please stop having loud sex in my house? I spent last night crying with earmuffs on.

JACKLYN

Yeah, fair enough.

MATT

Seriously?

JACKLYN

Yeah, bro. I'm sorry. There's probably nothing worse than hearing your sibling having sex.

MATT

Except when we heard mom and dad doing it.

CUT TO:

INT. APARTMENT (1994) - DAY

A YOUNG Matt (12) and an even YOUNGER Jacklyn (4) stick their ears up to a door to hear:

MOM (O.S.)

Bentsen's really helping shepherd Clinton's budget through congress.

DAD (O.S.)

I'm really concerned about NATFA's impact on industrial jobs.

Matt and Jacklyn open the door and come in...

CUT TO:

INT. PARENTS' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

They see their parents DOING IT...

Completely dispassionately...

Mom is reading the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

MOM

You're such an economic protectionist.

DAD

If your family worked in industry, you would be t...

He pauses for a second.

DAD (CONT'D)

(matter of factly)

I just came.

Little Matt looks on, confused by "came".

MATT

Where did dad go?

CUT TO:

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

JACKLYN

Hard to believe they got divorced that very same day.

MATT

So no, sex...OK?

JACKLYN

Scout's honor!

CUT TO:

INT. MATT'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Matt is WRITING on a notepad, when he hears...

JACKLYN (O.S.)

Fill me up!!!

He throws down his note pad and gets up.

CUT TO:

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

Matt BURSTS in the door and sees:

The SHADOW of a hipster jumping out of the window.

Jacklyn, covering her NAKED SELF under the covers.

MATT

OK, that's it. Evacute your filth and leave!

JACKLYN

What? 

MATT

You were just having sex!

JACKLYN

No I wasn't!

MATT

You're naked!

JACKLYN

That's how I sleep.

Matt runs over to the CLOSET.

MATT

OK, fine. This little device will help...

He pulls out a BLACKLIGHT, plugs it in...

And turns off the lights.

MATT (CONT'D)

We're just going to see what sort of nastiness is on these sheets.

Nothing comes up...

JACKLYN

I'm innocent!

Matt moves the blacklight over to Jacklyn's face and sees:

HUGE WHITE STAINS.

MATT

Christ.

JACKLYN

What?

MATT

I just vomited a little bit in my mouth.

Road Rage

Yes, I'm updating for the first time in two months or so. Are you still checking the site, gentle reader? I hope so. I also hope you're gentle, otherwise I shouldn't be referring to you as gentle. Maybe a gentile? Either way, you probably aren't circumcised.

So, you uncircumcised bastard; you judge me and my lack of updates. Well, I've been busy. Busy as a busy bee on a particularly busy day at the honey factory.


One thing I about being busy is the fact that I am so frequently stuck in traffic...busy. This doesn't really bother me. Just like how "guns don't kill people, people kill people"...traffic doesn't get me angry, LA drivers do.

I don't know if it's because LA is filled with ego-centric, broken half-people caught in a narcissistic industry that slowly eats away at their already damaged souls; but people here drive like impatient lemmings, eager to commit vehicular suicide.

Yesterday, I went to get my laundry...usually not a life threatening task (unless you're smelling the crotch of my workout jammies), but yesterday was different. Yesterday two drivers attempted to kill me.

I was driving leisurely down La Cienega Boulevard, waiting for Beverly so I could make a left turn and head home. There I was, my precious laundry in the backseat and me waiting eagerly to change clothes that I've worn for 12 days straight.

I'm in the left hand lane, and of course, no one wants to stop, even after the light turns yellow. "Oh well!", I say to myself..."guess I'll just turn right after the light changes to red. That's almost legal!"...and that's what I did...

Barreling towards me at 45 miles per hour is "Guy who thinks approaching the light when its yellow means that he can accelerate and go through the light after it's turned red". He makes this decision even after the light was red and I was 90% through my turn; as if to say "our lives are but pittance compared to my desire to get to my destination 14 seconds earlier."

Surprisingly, I survived: his car stopped about 2 feet away from mine. He looked at me with a "hey, why didn't you let me go through the red light?" look. I looked at him with a "why did you want both of us to die?" look.





That was my first brush with death. You might be saying to yourself, "this blog is boring and I want to erase it from my web browser post-haste!", well you're impatient and deserve to be strung up by your floppy parts.

My second brush with death was more threatening and immediate, like an episode of "24".

About two minutes later, I was driving down Beverly in the right lane. In order to turn onto my street, I have to make a left; so about a block before...I signal left. Of course, the guy in the left lane speeds up so I can't get in. I wait until he's past...then I start to turn into the left lane.

I notice behind me is a guy in an 80,000 dollar Mercedes. He's gotta be about 3-4 car lengths away as I start to turn into his lane. He puts his FOOT TO THE PEDAL and speeds up to my backside, after I'm almost completely in the left lane.

After I've finished my turn he starts HONKING at me and HONKING at me. I did not cut him off; rather switched lanes, I suppose, at the point when he felt like going 45 in a 25 zone. He was never less than 1 car length away from me.

Anyway, he swerves into the right lane and pulls up next to me and starts SCREAMING and waving his fists. I flip him off and turn onto my street. He makes a left from the right lane to turn onto my block as well.

At this point, I'm wondering what this guy in an 80,000 dollar Mercedes wants from me, but I also remember I'm in the "Land o' the broken folk" AKA Hollywood, so I am cautious. He could be a music producer or athlete; and if so, there's gotta be at least an 85% chance he's carrying a gun.

I drive past my house and turn around the corner...and he follows me. He rolls down his window screaming and yelling furiously. I keep driving around in circles for about 5 minutes...with him following me...continuing to scream and yell furiously.

I manage to do some swift maneuvering and lose him for a moment. I figure I'm in the clear, so I head back to my block. That's when I notice him across the street, doing a U-Turn in the hopes of finding me.

At this point I'm wondering...what exactly causes this type of anger in people? I mean I scream and curse at passersby on a daily basis...well, not "me" per se, more the voices in my head, but either way I don't follow people even if I think they cut me off.  In fact, I cannot imagine a situation in which I would follow someone; perhaps if I see them hit a small child or if they've strapped a puppy to their roof...but beyond that, it's live and let live.

I mean, I admit I will occasionally carry on pretend races in my car with people who drive like assholes, but those are mere pipe dreams, idle reveries; like the idea of a functioning political mechanism or a dateable porn actress.

So why do people drive cray-cray...and why does it seem like all the cray-cray drivers live within a seven mile radius of Hollywood?

Something to chew on, I guess.

Anyway, I finally lost the guy by pulling in to my secluded local Wine Store, which was a great excuse to buy a Chardonnay from France and get tipsy at two in the afternoon.

So I guess alcoholism is the sweetest blessing from all of this...and the sweetest curse. Well, you know what they say; wine doesn't kill people, alcoholic Jews do.

BTW, if this harrowing story of potential death while traveling sounds slightly familiar to you, then you know me well...

Philosphy on Craig's List

The passage of time brings change; birth, death, the ironic popularization of mustaches.

An external change can sometimes bring about internal questioning; who am I? Why am I here? What's up with all those hipsters with mustache tattoos on their finger?

Lately, I've been experiencing a lot of external events and it's causing a hunger for philosophical self-reflection. That, or a chicken salad sandwich on Rye.

Being cut from the "stay up late googling myself and crying" cloth, I thought I would see if my self-reflection was part of a particular American Zeitgeist tied into the changing decade, or if it was just good ole "morbid Matty Mansene" thinkin' bout downer-type stuff!

So I placed a fun ad on Craig's List to see where our communal minds were at. To get responses, I placed a picture of a smexy sorta chick and posed the following question;


It's just after midnight on a Monday morning and I'm wondering what sort of people are on craigslist right now.  


Yup, I'm a sweet, good natured inquisitive person and I'd like to get to know more about you.  So, shoot me an email with the answer to one simple question: What's the meaning of life? 


Tell me in one sentence and if you want, I'll write back and tell you what I think it is. 


Of course, pretty much no one answered in one sentence, and most people included the words "thick" "boner" or "clam juice" in their response, but such is life.

I am going to go over them tonight and give you the best responses. It'll be great, the Nazism or the Hindenburg disaster!

The World Is Wrong and You're Right

I awoke with a giant chicken salad sandwich in my mouth. Next to me; a yellow sticky note, which simply read: "I am a yellow sticky note". Needless to say, it was a confusing morning.

When I looked at my clock, it said that the time was 10:45 in the afternoon. Never trust a talking clock.

Something was fishy and it wasn't the salmon juice that I rubbed all over my thighs last night to "frighten the demons away". No, something was not right.

That's when I grabbed my phone and called my ex fiancé. After she said that we were never engaged and we only went out on one date 7 years ago, she asked "shouldn't you be following the stipulations of that restraining order?". That's when I figured out what the problem was:

Everything else in the world was wrong except me!

Yes, I am right and you are wrong. Did we just go out on a date and did you think that "it was the worst date you've ever been on, and Matt's breath smelled like fetid milk mixed with rabbit turd?" Well, date: you're wrong! It was a great time, we'll probably be married next week and my breath is as sweet as seven Lifesavers mixed with rose-flavored tulips.

Did you just look at me and sneeze, but I thought you said "ahh-Jew"? Did I call you anti-Semitic? Did you just call me a "stereotypical paranoid Jew with an inflated sense of ego?" Well, you're wrong because you hate Jews! Everything you say is wrong because you hate Jews and everything I say is right because I'm Matt.

If I walked into my couch last night and stubbed my toe, it isn't my incessant clumsiness...it's because that fucking couch doesn't know when to get out of the way. Fucking couch.

Once you look at life and realize everyone and everything is totally and completely wrong except you, the world opens up. Failure is no longer an option, because you aren't the one failing...everyone else is simply failing you! I win and you lose because I LOST!

When you look at things this way, it really helps that you realize the world revolves around you. Yes, you are the sun and the world is but a man-servant, following you around, asking "hey, what can I do for you today?". And you can't really do all that much because the world is so fucking huge that you're like "oh shit, world, I can't even get around because you're always up in my grill".

In fact, I wasn't able to exercise today because the world kept me from leaving the house. The only thing within arm's reach was that giant bottle of Whiskey and a box of Oreos. Don't blame me, it's the fucking world revolving around me.

Thank goodness that's all cleared up. Now nothing is my fault, because it's your fault. I don't know who you are, but sometime, some place, you could have done something to prevent me from failing, so it's all your fault.

Just ask the world.

So-shall Not-work

Social Networking has brought us an inch closer to everyone in our periphery, but has flung us miles apart from the people closest to us.

The concept of "being close" has inexorably changed. No longer does it mean hours gabbing on the phone about your innermost thoughts and insights, no long, humorous emails belabored over, no quiet lunches spent recounting what happened to you during the week.

These things don't really matter anymore. If someone attempts to catch up with me, let me know what they thought about during the week, the places they go/people they see...I'll say "oh, right, you mentioned that on Facebook". "Catching Up" is an outdated social convention that has gone the way of Print Media and Betamax.

"Here are pictures of my kids! Aren't they cute?" yeah, I've already seen your kids on Flickr and they look like every other kid I've seen on Flickr. And that video you uploaded of them on youtube doing that thing that 1,000,000,000 other kids do on youtube...saw that too.

Do I get to see the kid in person? Not a chance. I'm busy and I feel like I'm keeping up with him because you just Twittered "my baby is brilliant! he can clap his hands!!!" Is he brilliant? Is he just doing something that every other baby in history has done? I'll never know.

We find out that people are pregnant the second they find out they're pregnant, we find out people are getting married as they're being proposed to: "OMG! Bill just proposed! What should I say?"...cue impromptu comments-section Facebook poll.

So while it's great I know what all my high school friends look like now....it's also a pretty big drawback that I know what all my high school friends look like now. Sure, they "pop up in my feed" and it's great that I can keep up with their thoughts and what's going on...but because of this, I will never feel the need to call them, email them or...*gasp*...attend my high school reunion.

I am not the only one who feels this way; 2 people showed up to my 10 year class reunion this past year. I remember at my 5 year reunion, the 10 year was packed (well, as packed as it could get for an 80 kid graduating class)! Time has changed; no longer is seeing someone in person revelatory, no longer a prerequisite for keeping in touch.

"Who got fat?" "Who got married?" "Who stands outside a middle school, clad in jodhpurs, stroking a giant sack of potatoes while screaming 'Jesus is Lord!'?" We already know the answers.

So while social networking makes it "pretty awesome" (sarcastic quotes intended) that I can keep in touch with pretty much every single jackass I tangentially meet at a party; it's pretty un-awesome that it's also the only way I seem to be able to keep in touch with people I care about.

It also makes it seemingly impossible to put myself in a situation to get close to jackasses that I tangentially meet at a party: perhaps what's written in their profile turns me off, perhaps it's because their status goes in my feed and I am able to keep up with them, so I have no need to try and find out more about the person, perhaps it's because they belong to a Facebook group called "Require Drug Tests For Welfare"...either way, bringing us close in this way is distancing.

So maybe it's worth not status-updating for a week, no @replying today...just sit down and think to yourself: who do I actually want to talk to?

Pick up a phone and find out something more about a person than can be summarized in a 140 character witticism. Pretend like you care about their stupid ugly baby, because you were once a stupid ugly baby and your parents had friends that pretended like they cared.

?

Have you ever wondered how many eggs you can feed a chicken before she realizes that she's eating her children? Are chickens capable of realizing such a thing? Do you find yourself spending a lot of time asking yourself questions instead of figuring out answers?

What is an answer? Given that there can be questions without answers, can there be answers without questions? Can you think of an answer without a question?

Have you ever given thought to the idea that life might be a bit easier if we just asked ourselves answers instead? Would life actually be easier or would it just be one long game of Jeopardy where all the categories are things like "14th Century Architects", "Obscure Molecules" or various other things you wished you knew about but go above your head?

Is an answer a solution to a question, or is it actually just another, potentially larger question? If I said, "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" would both possible answers be wrong? Would they both be right? In religion, are there answers that aren't subjective?

Do subjective answers require subjective questions, or is it possible to ask an objective question and receive a perfectly reasonable subjective answer? Do you believe in God?

If God exists, does he/she/it mind that we eat boiled chicken ovulations? If he/she/it came to our house for dinner, would he look at a chicken salad sandwich and cry for the grains that were slaughtered to make the bread? What if God came to your house and said "the only thing that exists in this room is the bread"? Given that God is obviously God and cannot be questioned, would he/she/it be right?

Can you think of the right question that has a wrong answer? When you asked yourself that, did you think "right" meant morally right? Did you think it meant "correct"?  Is there a difference? Does that difference matter in the grand scheme of things?

If I was to tell you that it takes 6 eggs for a chicken to realize that she's eating her children would I be wrong? If God told you, would you be wrong?

Google Voice Voicemails...

I love his messages. Don't you?



Google voice thought it was:
Keith, period. Hi period. Yeah period.



Google voice thought it was:
But you. Terry is a.

13 Year Old Girl

I wrote this one very late night in July of 2009. I apologize for the crappiness of the post: I'm putting it up because I haven't been updating a lot recently and there's probably an idea or two that I feel like, given a few more hours, could be fairly pithy. But for now...just read, if you dare:

"I am thirteen years old", she thought, as she looked out into the sea of acne scarred, crossed eyed, baggy-pantsed kids. It was the first day of 8th grade.

"Most of them are thirteen. Another year has passed for me while they are trapped in their blissfully vacuous youths". "Plus," she thought, "school is way less cool than my Bat Mitzvah".

The rest of her friends wondered why she was so constantly dour. Except they didn't say "dour", they said things like "sucktastic", "EPIC DOLPHIN", and upon occasion, "TEXT FART". Did I mention that this story takes place in 2019 and slang then makes even less sense than it does now?

When they mentioned this to Jen, she just retorted by saying that "my feelings don't matter because this world is dying in a sea of loneliness anyway".

When she was told to "lighten up?", she snorted: "like a bulb that will burn out like a flash the day I die?". Jen was the death of the party; an abstract ornament on a mantel of unimpressive misfires.

Jen knew her friends were probably pretty sick of her, so she figured she should at least TRY to win them back.

That's why she spent her Friday nights planning the perfect 140 character (or less) Tweet. After 7 1/2 weeks of trying, she felt she had something pithy that would impress all the tweeny boppers: "Tweeting is like whispering really quietly; people can't hear you and you're probably saying something you shouldn't anyway."

No one @ replied and it made her even sadder. "I'm not even worth an @ sign!"

"It's time to reevaluate my life", she thought. "It's time to fucking DO SOMETHING MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCKER!"

She took a deep breath. "I think I'll just write a great American novel".

So she sat down and channeled her abstract miserable misery into poetic prose. Words poured out of her like unusually brown urine from an alcoholic.

Her final work, "Pork On My Plate: Confessions Of A Guilty Jew", was a macabre, depressingly insightful book, made all the more compelling by its jacket: a pig eating a pig in the stomach of a Rabbi with irritable bowel disorder.

It was never published, and seldom read; but one advertising executive saw it and figured Jen's passionate, "from-the-heart" approach to writing would be perfect for his new "Schlumpy's: the world's 15th best mattress outlet" internet campaign.

Jen signed on the dotted line and began attempting to work her insightful insightfulness into Schlumpy's. She wrote and wrote and wrote; weeks turned into months, months turned into years, years into decades.

Suddenly she was 43; her friends from 30 years ago had all moved on; had kids, got married, vacayed on tropic island paradises while dining largely off the backs of well-oiled Pygmies...yet she still wrote.

And wrote.

and Wrote.

Jen began to think that writing for a living was actually worse than being a depressed teenager. It was more equatable with running on a giant gerbil wheel, except the gerbil wheel was made from barbed wire and covered in loose stool. And the loose stool was poisonous.

All of this made Jen a very philosophical person. "Where am I going? Where have I gone? Can anyone explain the popularity of neck tattoos? If a pimp has hemorrhoids does his "bottom bitch" become his "bottom bitch?""

Unable to figure out the answers to these questions, Jen sat down and wrote a big book, aptly titled "Questions I Can't Answer": 146 pages of questions.

It immediately caught favor. Soon, she become a major national celebrity (especially after starring in Oprah-Bot's daytime talk show) and all those 13 year olds who asked her why she was so dour asked themselves why they asked her why she was so dour (that was a question on page 142).

Jen finally understood: the people who had answers all their lives were the people that never bothered to ask any questions. People who are satisfied just don't think hard enough, until it's too late.

Things tend to even themselves out, and in her middle age, Jen was finally happy and satisfied, while all her old friends began to be massively depressed.

Life has a funny way of making you the same person that you've always been while everyone else changes around you. This is true for everyone.

Big Fat Sexy Lips

Jim, an amiable 30-something slouchy/phlegmy type stood idly waiting for the elevator door to close.

That's when a girl with big, lusciously delicious lips walked in. When I say big, I mean inflated to the point that one might seriously believe that Phileas Fogg could ride them around the world in 79.54 days. If they were breasts, a new bra size called "Flappy McBiggums" would have to be created to hold their ample bosomage.

Some men find these sort of trout-pout lips attractive. Why? Not really sure, but it might be worth checking this article out if you're curious as to an intelligent person's thoughts on the matter.

Jim was excited, (he, of the "big lips = big boner" extraction), but also slightly turned off. She was talking loudly on a cell phone in a small space, which was a social faux pas right up there with cutting in line or invading Poland. For some reason or another most people are annoyed by these things, but rarely do anything except cough loudly. The world is going to Hell in a handbasket, or at least heck in a decorative purse.

Big Lips eyed Jim and spoke up, "Rach...I gotta get off the phone. Yeah, there's a cute guy here and I gotta get his number".

Jim's heart raced faster than anyone's heart ever raced in the history of heart racing. He momentarily thought he could get it sponsored by Armor All, but with the next words out of Big Lips' mouth, his heart would slow to a tortoise-like crawl.

She hung up and looked at him with a slightly quizzical grin, "Oh, I'm lying. I just wanted to get off the phone with her".

"Really?" Jim asked. "Because it sounded like..."

"Nope...didn't sound like anything."

Jim deflated like Big Lips' lips had they been punctured with some sort of lip puncturing machine. Sunken, slunk and drawn he sign a thousand sighs at once.

Noting the awkwardness, Big Lips hit "door open" and got out on the 13th floor, which was weird because the building didn't have a 13th floor. Her body was discovered about an hour later.

As for Jim, it reminded him of the last conversation he had with his ex-girlfriend when he ran into her at "Liberal Outrager '08: The Only Kegger for Angsty Upper West Siders"

JIM: I fucking love you, Jacklyn.
JACKLYN: Love me? We slept together once.
JIM: Yeah, but it was so amazing. I felt like I was a stroke victim after we came.
JACKLYN: We came?
JIM: Oh come on, you were moaning like a banshee.
JACKLYN: We were fucking in a kitchen, I was being punctured by a fork.
JIM: That was my penis.

Realizing that these two moments underscored the fact that his life was becoming a neurotic hodge-podge of misadventure, Jim knew it was time for a change. Yes, he was going to stand up straight, irrigate his sinuses 3 times a day, and use toilet paper rather than the "oh, no one can smell that" method. He was to be a new man.

He exited the elevator with the newfound confidence of someone who was lying to themselves.  Deciding this was a great moment for him, he coughed loudly: FUCK FAUX PAS! The world was his oyster and nothing could take that away from him.

Unfortunately, he coughed so loudly that he didn't hear passersby screaming, "look out for that falling Big Lipped Woman!" or indeed the Big Lipped Woman above him, screaming "Ahhh! There's no 13th floor!"

She hit him with dead accuracy, her lips exploding on impact, landing square on his face. His last thought was "ahh, the truest of true love...the kind that kills you."