Hello my vacuous ninny you're a lily-livered face painted moron, more on with a good sense of diction- airy light brains
Scribbled on a wall, she wondered if this poem was about her. Sure, it was signed "for a good time, call Alice Sacks" but maybe it was another Alice Sacks. Sure, under Alice Sacks was her phone number...but maybe someone named Alice Sacks used to have her phone number.
Yeah, probably not.
Why did everyone think she was stupid? Was it that she occasionally spelled words with a 7? Spoke with a British accent even though she wasn't British? Limped for effect?
Or maybe it was just because she was really fucking stupid.
Either way, she had to prove to people that she was as smart as a wh7ip.
So she sat down to write a masterwork; a great novel that transcended genre and classification. When she was done, her 569 page piece of Doctor Who fan fiction, "The Attack Of The Zygons" was greeted lukewarmly amongst even the most diehard Whovians.
She moved on to Music. By creating her very own "Sgt. Pepper", she would show everyone what a unique, Thom Yorkian talent she was.
So she sat down and started to compose. After three months, working 22 hours a day, this is what she came up with; "Sing Songs":
After playing it for her friends and family, they realized that she wasn't stupid, just mildly retarded. That's when they had her committed.
Unfortunately, the disparaging graffiti continued.
Alice unlike wonderland wonder when you'll realize you're as vapid as you are ugly and you're really fu7cking ugly.
Turns out, in a Fight Club-esque twist of events, it was Alice writing the graffiti all along. She thought insulting herself was good motivation to write books and music.
She was last heard from after marrying a 35 year old Labrador named Harold in a mixed-faith ceremony. She, a Catholic, he a Dogmatist.
After he signed the Devil's contract Jack had a slight twinge run down his spine. Perhaps he shouldn't have done that. "Soul For All Eternity"? That sounds like a long time.
"Fuck it", he thought to himself. "I want to be a successful-type Hollywood guy; this is the only way it's going to happen, even if the Devil fucks me over with one of his patented 'Evil Twists'".
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he was sitting in the office of Shlomo Steinberg, the #1 agent at CAA. Chomping hard on a big stogey, Shlomo looked at Jack with awe.
"This is seriously the worst fucking script I've ever read. You've removed every semblance of heart, personality and intellect".
Jack sighed. Maybe this is the Devil's evil twist. He knew it must be coming.
Shlomo continued "...welcome to Hollywood, my boy. This is almost as impressively bad as Paul Blart: Mall Cop. You're a fucking genius. We'll fast track this sucker for a summer release".
"Shweet!" Jack exclaimed.
"Shweet!" Jack exclaimed later that day when the blond spray-tanned plastic person yanked softly upon his dangly nether regions.
As he climaxed, the plastic person pulled down her pants and showed off an impressively erect wang. "I fuck screenwriters", she said. "I also have a penis".
Jack sighed. This must be the Devil's evil twist...it was bound to happen.
That's when he got a great big look at the Tranny's wang. "Wow!", he thought to himself. "I guess I'm gay, because I'm in penile-love!". That's when Jack realized he was unbelievably gay.
"This isn't so bad, except for the rectal stretch marks".
"This isn't so bad, except for the rectal stretch marks". Jack's actor said the line perfectly. It's a new-millennium catch phrase; irritating, vacuous and offensive. The film, "Irritating, Vacuous and Offensive" was a fart-riot-a-thon which debuted at #1. Jack had finally made it.
Or did he?
In the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't that easy. The Devil twists and turns like a twisty turny thing, and there was sure to be some sort of backfire. But what?
"Maybe I'm just being paranoid. After all, I did just start a raging coke habit to keep up with my friends in the business. 'Friends'? Fuck that, competitors. If they get a job, I don't; so even though we might talk politely at parties; discussing vaginas, oral herpes and ways of acquiring cocaine; they aren't my friends, but my friemies". He took a toot and tore up a torn tee.
Naked, he made love to his tranny high on cocaine while thinking about what he was going to write next. "A Group of Teens Have 2 Days to Lose Their Virginity, Or Terrorists Will Blow Up The White House; I'll Call It Sexxorist".
He realized that that was the worst idea in the history of ideas; even worse than The Turd Twister, which allows you to make shapes out of your poop. He also realized that the film would be made, probably starring J.K. Simmons as the stodgy, but lovable high school principal.
He thought hard to himself; "do I have any good ideas? OK...think...A Blind Policeman has to team up with a Deaf Musician to...FUCK!!! I have no good ideas. Maybe I'll call a friend and talk about this. Oh, wait, I don't have any friends, just frienemies. FUCK!!!!".
Looking in the mirror, he realized that the Devil's Twist was that he had no creative talent whatsoever and treated all his friends like they're your enemies. That was the only way to make it. Blast!
Later that night, Jack killed himself because spending the rest of eternity in Hell was way better then spending 15 minutes at a Hollywood party.
According to academic study that I read last year, humans find things attractive because they are easier for our brain to process. So, the simpler something is to look at, the more sex-licious it is for us. If something is out of the norm (and our brain is saying, "really? I have to actually pay attention to this?"), then we don't find it attractive. A wart, squinty eyes, a bigger-than-usual body part, etc...
I mean, I'm fucking hotter than a supermodel spitting Jay-Z lyrics on Venus, but for those that aren't; a few existential questions must come up: Why don't people find me attractive and what can I do to make people find me attractive?
Well, if you have money you can do this: Yeah!!!! Get those lips a-pumped! I've heard of penis envy, but lip envy?
Do people find big, thick lips sexy? Apparently. Every woman that I've ever met has a hang-up about the size of their lips. That's why so many MySpace/Facebook pictures have girls giving their best "trout pout" or as I like to call it, "Mick Jagger impersonation": Are women more attractive with 'em floppy lips? Let us go experimental and take two of Hollywood's sexiest sexpots and see what happens when we rid them of their pair of pouties.
Scarlett I. Johansson: Now which do you find more attractive? Seriously? Be honest with yourself. She's very attractive, but I do believe that a lot of her appeal is her wondrously luscious labia oris.
Sure, she's still a beaut in the second picture, but "guest spot on Bones" beaut, not "Scar-Jo" beaut.
Angelina Jolie: Now, I really only remember her as "the sexy chick from Hackers" but she's apparently made a career for herself and her 15 African children. Her lips are so famous that insanely unstable octo-mommies feel the need to collagen-cop them.
So, what does our celebrity look like without the lips?
Kind of becomes a bootleg J-Lo, no?
I wonder what our obsession with pout is? Maybe it's easier to look at. Certainly, my lips are so delish that they could be sold at Greenblatt's on Sunset with a side of Cole Slaw and a pickle...
Well, I'm unrelentingly sexy, right? Let's photoshop those big lips out and see what I look like...
Bored and sick, I thought I might just have a little fun on Craigslist. Now, granted, "a little fun on Craigslist" for most people usually involves buying teal-colored teacups or cruising the "causual encounters" section for some pretend action, but I thought I might try a little social experiment.
"What if I post a repulsively surreal ad, but use an attractive picture of a woman; who would respond?"
Well, sadly, the CL community is quick to flag posts, so my various attempts at posting surreal, entirely offensive personals were largely unsuccessful. ("read me the bible while I call you Uncle Steve" just didn't fly)
This was the best ad that I could come up with that was able to remain up for more than 15 minutes (it was up for about an hour):
What did I find in the responses? Well, first off, most people online either can't spell or aren't interested in spelling correctly (who knew so many words were spelled with numbers?). Second off, it appeared that most people were typing with one hand/while orgasming.
Not a shock there either.
Out of about 70 or so, here are my favorite responses:
1) THE CHEF: Look out for his Joycean prose, especially in the line "soooooo good like a cornicopia of wonderful herbiliciousness".
2) MR. PUT U TORKEY IN THAN OVER LIKE 2 HURS: Mmmm...just say it out loud with me: "put u torkey in than oven like 2 hurs"...if that smooth talking doesn't get you sizzling hot, I don't know what does...
3) THE GAMBLER: There's B, who wants to meet me at Granny's Doughnuts so we can take the bus to a casino together. Mmmm...doughnuts, a bus ride and an inveterate gambler...what could be hotter?
4) THE SWIFTIAN WIT: Why this man isn't writing for The New Yorker is beyond me...
What else did I find?
1) More wangs than you can shake a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time. 2) A lot of "military servicemen" are trolling CL for hot action. They all have six packs and a tongue like an electric eel. 3) A lot of earnestly horny people who will look past the fact that this odd, obviously fake woman wants deli meats rubbed all over her body for sexual pleasure.
As a statement of our life and times, this ranks slightly below "TMZ".
Here are three more great sitcoms that you probably haven't seen, unless you're me, in which case you should definitely get out more. Oh, and get that weird thing checked out. You know what I'm talking about.
4) PEEP SHOW (2003-present): "Peep Show" is probably the most innovative sitcom to come about since "Seinfeld"...at least up there with "Arrested Development" in terms of sheer originality.
Sure, it's got all the trademark awkward ingredients of a 2000-era sitcom; uncomfortable sexual situations, characters doing extremely embarrassing things, et al...but unlike other single camera "awkwardfests", this show does something unique: it's shot entirely from the point of view of the characters. This, combined with a good deal of "uncomfortable internal monologue" voice over, makes for a suitably original show that really allows you to understand, identify and empathize with the main characters.
Also, the dialogue is pretty fucking sparkling. I'm glad it's lasted as long as it has. US stations have tried a few pilots, but it was never picked up. Surprise! Can you imagine a major network taking a risk on something like this?
Again, like "Black Books" embedding was disabled on all youtube videos...so this was all I could find...
The premise: one of the characters wants to trip on acid with a bunch of his friends, while his roommate is sick and needs the living room to watch training videos to prepare for a big conference. Solution: he drugs his roommate and contemplates raping him.
5) ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (2003-2006): OK, you've probably seen this, thought..."hey, this is funny", then turned it off and forgotten about it. Seriously, this might be one of the top three or four sitcoms to have come around in the last 20 years.
What's so amazing about it? Well, first, the cast. Each and every single actor is hilarious. Even the kids; sure, everyone thinks Michael Cera is guffaw-inducing now, after "Superbad", but he was even funnier as the awkward George Michael. Jason Bateman? Who knew that one of the "Hogan Family" would end up being so naturally jocose.
Second, the scripts: as tight and plotted as a late-season "Seinfeld", but with enough room to allow the actors to improv and squeeze every last bit of funny from each quip. The jokes felt natural without that sickening "babbling improv" crap that most single camera comedies have now.
Third, the style; yeah, almost every sitcom on TV is single camera now...but that wasn't the case in 2003. Why are shows single camera now? Because...it's what's popular. Why was "Arrested Development"? Because, narratively, it was a mockumentary. The verite style MADE SENSE with a single camera. Why is "Kath and Kim" a single camera? Because 3 camera shows don't sell anymore.
Much like Jesus, "Arrested Development" had to die in order for lesser single camera shows to live. Watch this clip...but better yet, catch up with this show on Hulu. I believe every episode is available.
6) SPORTSNIGHT (1998-2000): Aaron Sorkin's version of a network sitcom. To my knowledge the absolute first single camera "situation comedy", although it felt much more like a dramedy than anything else.
Kind of like a funnier version of "The West Wing" the show never really felt long enough, but on the plus side, it made you always want more. Intellectual, emotional, and occasionally overwrought; this was a show about 10 years ahead of its' time.
Put it on now, and it's a thinking man's "30 Rock". 10 years ago, it was just super confusing (is it a comedy, is it a drama? why aren't there 3 cameras?). So confusing, in fact, that ABC thought it needed a laugh track ("see, this is supposed to be funny!"). Can you imagine a single camera show having a laugh track now? Thankfully, it was removed after a few episodes or so.
In any case, totally worth Netflixing, if just to get a lesson in intelligent, witty dialogue. Thank God Sorkin was still on the crank when he was writing this!
What I truly love about Sorkin's writing is that he's able to squeeze mini tangents into his dialogue. As a writer, you're tempted to put something off-topic, but interesting and amusing into your conversations, even if it's not germane to the scene. Invariably, you take it out because...it's not germane to the scene.
Sorkin, somehow, manages to keep them in AND make them germane to the scene, at least emotionally. Take the "what's not an insect?" line in this scene. What does that have to do with the conversation? Nothing. Is it a cherry on the delicious conversation cake? Definitely.
I promise to never, ever refer to anything as a "delicious conversation cake" again...
Well, I hope if you've read this far, I've managed to pique your interest in at least one of these tasty shows. If not, EPIC FAIL...as the kids these days say.
A lot of the dreck that passes for comedy theses days makes me vomit uncontrollably inside my mouth, which in turn makes me cry, which in turn makes me vomit some more.
There's a lot of stuff most Americans have never seen which is pretty friggin funny (and smart) and would blow certain unnamed, wretchedly unhilarious shows out of the comedy waters. Here are a few to get you started.
1) THE YOUNG ONES (1982, 1984): Without hyperbole, this is the greatest show of all time. OK, that was plenty of hyperbole and it's probably not the greatest show of all time. It is, however, the most wickedly insane situation comedy of all time. The show is basically indescribable, but the essential premise is that four college students live in disgustingly wretched student housing together. There are 4 archetypes; The Hippie, The Punk, The Cool Guy and The Poet Socialist.
The brilliant people behind "The Young Ones" discovered that variety shows got bigger budgets. So what did they do? They turned their sitcom into a variety show. A regular 1/2 hour will contain a wildly odd sitcom plot...and also a musical performance (from some great 80's bands), stand-up comedy, puppet asides and general madness. This, combined with the unrelentingly surrealistic situations (including a lion tamer moving in, a vampire sent in the mail, the house being transported back to the middle ages, etc) make for a wonderfully entertaining, yet compellingly unique, viewing experience.
2) BLACK BOOKS (2000-2004): If you think alcoholism, surrealism, narcissism, and people being really fucking awful to each other is funny, than this is the show for you. A situation comedy set in a tiny independent bookstore run by an alcoholic, chain-smoking Irishman named Bernard Black, it's kind of a 21st century "Fawlty Towers".
I'm always a big fan of big, broad surrealist comedies with an intellectual bent and plenty of self-loathing from the characters. Bernard Black is the ultimate alcoholic/comedic anti-hero. He just wants to read, drink, smoke and be left alone. Don't we all?
Why this isn't on TV more, I'll never know. From the same group of comedians that brought you "Shawn Of The Dead" and "Hot Fuzz".
Here's a clip (unfortunately, some evil soul went on to youtube and blocked any clips from this show from being embedded. Here's a whole episode...skip to about 5 minutes or so if you want to get a feeling of the humor):
3) NEWSRADIO (1995-1999): There was a palpable alternative comedy movement going on in the states in the 1990s represented by shows like "Mr. Show" and "The Ben Stiller Show": Newsradio is the culmination, and only mainstream example of this type of alternative comedy. How it lasted as long as it did on network TV is beyond me.
Basically creator Paul Simms hand-picked some of the best and brightest comedians of the 1990s (SNL's Phil Hartman, "Kids In The Hall"'s Dave Foley) and put them together in an office sitcom. Sure, most of the standard archetypes are there, but the characters and humor were original, unique and often absurd.
Take one plot from the final season; office dullard Matthew is given a drink that was invented by the office handyman to make him smarter. It does make him smarter, however the drink is just a placebo...he's just so stupid that he only becomes smarter because he thinks the placebo is the real thing. Paradoxical logic like that is always comedy gold.
That sort of humor combined with the fact that Dave Foley is one of the greatest straight-men of all time and Phil Hartman was one of the greatest funny-men of all time mean that there were a lot of memorable moments.
This is definitely a show worth revisiting, and now, thanks to Hulu, most of the episodes are available online for free.
Here's a quick clip; the premise of the episode is another one of those delectable, illogical situations: the boss wrote a book, had it translated into Japanese, then had it translated back into English...then had a public book reading.
Also, Ron Jeremy is in the audience as the book is being read. Delicious.
It was late 2005. I was sleeping in my warm, comfy bed in an extremely reasonable sized apartment in Astoria, Queens.
My eyes shot open.
"I'm going to die and there's no afterlife".
This was probably the first time that I grasped the full enormity of that statement. Sure, I tacitly understood it somewhere deep down inside me, but I never really digested it fully.
But there it was; obvious like the Octuplet lady's disfiguring plastic surgeries. Sitting there like a moist pee stain on the crotch of a homeless man on Sunset Boulevard.
Life is one big ball of nothingness. Unimportance, insignificance, week-old rice pudding.
The next day, I went to my weekly poker game to discuss the previous evening's epiphany. After a chorus full of "yeah, duh, obviously!" (I was in NYC, after all), I began to realize; this was something I needed to accept.
Have you accepted it? Do you agree with me in the first place? Am I randomly inserting questions in the middle of a blog to give me time to think of what to write in the next paragraph?
Life is probably a long journey to answer a single question; "what is life's long journey?". While the accomplishment of personal and professional goals are nice...they are not the solution; just the distraction; things to keep us busy while avoiding thinking about the greater context (or lack thereof) of our own lives.
My 98 year old grandmother passed away last year; and perhaps she gave me the greatest insight into an answer for the seemingly unanswerable.
In our last conversations, she provided me (and herself) no great wisdom, just a lot of love. But there was one thing; she was ready. Ready to accept life's ultimate fate. There was no if ands or buts. It was her time.
Maybe that's what it's all about. Acceptance. Understanding. Welcoming.
I'm certainly not there, or even close to being there. I doubt most people are, but perhaps to truly live a full life, you must accept that it's over. Accept that your time has come.
So love a fuckload, live a fuckload and enjoy a fuckload, because it's a pretty good distraction.
He asked her what she felt about Nietzsche, post-modernism and potato bread. Her answer to all three: delicious.
She was a worn out, run-down, nogoodnick who stole candy from babies and gave it to diabetics. Peculiarly cruel; her idea of 'a good time' was misusing pronouns in polite company.
This is exactly what turned on Schmenderson, professor of Advanced Complicated Things at Columbia University. Sure, they were both married, and he was pretty sure he was gay, but there was just something about her that was a turn on.
Maybe it was the gallon of cheap-swill vodka he drank, or maybe it was the fact she was lying on his bed, completely naked except a dollop of vegan sour cream; but whatever it was, he was about to make a difficult life choice.
He wasn't entirely sure why she was so into him; paunchy, balding and with a penis the shape of a 7, he wasn't exactly a 'catch'. But, he figured, there must be some sort of raw animal sexuality about him. Yeah, something that the ladies love. "LL Schmenderson" is what he was going to call himself from now on.
Then it crossed his mind she might be throwing herself at him because he had said "I will pay you 10 thousand dollars to have sex with me" less then ten minutes beforehand. Oh, right, that's probably it. "LL Schmenderson's Money".
Actually, now that he thought about it some more, he didn't really have 10 thousand dollars to his name. He was so poor that his dinner consisted of eating glue out of a light fixture with a matchstick. He worked in academics, for Christ's sake!
All his thinking made her nervous. What was his game? Was he going to renege on the deal? Does he realize I have crabs? Can I make a California Roll from my venereal disease?
She didn't like thinking, which was a problem because thinking about it gave her a headache. This happened a lot when she went fishing, especially when she caught a haddock.
She was concerned that he might be catching on and realizing that she wasn't quite as smart as she pretended. Her usual 'nod and repeat the last three words he said' works for a few hours, but one can only repeat 'are you listening?' so many times until people realize you're not.
This professor thought he was getting an intellectual, and this dullard thought she was getting money. This is a common theme in sexual relationships.
The only thing left was to come clean.
Him first: "I'm broke, but I think I love you."
Next, her: "Sean Lennon is the least talented of all the Beatle children"
"What?" "I mean, I'm fucking stupid. Sorry, I'm so stupid I forgot what we were talking about. French Maid TV?" "No." "iPhone applications?" "No." "Reality television?"
At this point, Schmenderson realized he wasn't dealing with someone who had a full deck. He slowly backed away, returned home to his wife and watched Gay Porn over and over again in an attempt to remove the image of the vacuous pudden-head that he thought he was brilliant.
"Welcome to the World of Inconsequence and Banality".
What a life we lead! We're lucky enough to have been born, which is a 1-10000000000 chance, so what do we do? Squander our time farting around. "Did you see the latest '24'?" "No, but because I spent last night counting my rancid hangnail collection!".
If we create religion to ease us into death, we create banality to ease us through life. We THRIVE in banality; because, like religion, it distracts us from the inevitable truth that we are about as transient and meaningless as next season's ABC comedy lineup. Whatever happened to TGIF, for that matter? For Family Matters, actually.
Maybe I'm a pessimist, but the only difference between a pessimist and optimist is that one is a realist and the other is an idle dreamer trying to convince themselves that life is more than a deadening spiral of disappointment leading to inexorable pain and loss. That, or a box of chocolates.
In any case, this is probably why bleak humor appeals to me. Dave Foley has always been one of my favorites; so back in college, I thought I would honor him and one of my favorite NewsRadio quotes.
Here is something I did while squandering my time idly farting around. I think I was about 20; I know that there is a sample or two mixed in with a very cheap drum beat that I wrote with my neighbor's very cheap drum machine.
So, enjoy! I spent about 10 minutes making it into a wondrously craptacular video:
Last night, I had some friends sleep over. This morning, instead of primping and glossing my normally perfect self, I jumped out of bed for the requisite Los Angeles Brunch (co-starring super douches!). My sweater has huge rips in it around the collar and my hair looks slightly more barmy than Nick Nolte's after a coke bender.
In any case, 10 hours later (haven't changed or combed my hair), I'm stuck in my house waiting for a 10PM party. I think to myself: what can I do that will kill some time?
I know! A late 80s Doctor Who adventure.
Amoeba has a ton of DVDs but it's about a 20 minute walk away, so I have to sprint over there. After all, I want to see Doctor Who AND go to a party! (that might be the first time anyone has ever mentioned those two events in the same sentence)
Arriving even more disheveled, I pick up some Doctor Who goodness. I get to the checkout counter...
The checkout girl is a Janeane Garofalo sarcastic/monotone-voiced almost hipster, wearing a tight flannel button-down that obscures the lettering on her Ironic Tee.
I speedily saunter over to the counter. She looks at me and laughs. I'm not sure why.
Then she looks at the DVD.
"Oh, I'm kinda into 70s Doctor Who. I don't know much about the 80s stuff".
Surprised and vaguely embarrassed that buying Doctor Who DVDs at 7:30 on a Saturday was part of my routine, I played it naive-like.
"Oh, yeah, I just heard that it was a good show and I thought I'd check it out...or something..."
"Someone told me that the 80s episodes are as good as the 70s, but I wasn't sure if I believed them".
Confusion set it; do I reveal my nerdiness, or do I play it cool? I tried to do a little of both.
"Yeah, I mean, how could it be better than the floppy hat guy with the scarf?"
She vaguely cracked a half smile, as if to ask the question: 'if you just "heard that it was a good show", than why do you know exact references to it?'. I tried to uncontradict my contradiction.
"Uhh...but yeah, my friend said the 80s episodes were good, and I thought it was worth checking out."
That did it; I'm a filthy liar and she knew it. I gave her my credit card and she stared at it for a long while. My guess? The name Manson brought a slow realization that, to her, explained my bindle-lugging hobo appearance and pronounced awkwardness.
She peered over at a bus pulling up next to the store and said: "I love to look at the people in the bus when they look into the store; really confused and miserable. Just how I look on a bus". Maybe she was describing me.
Smirking, she handed me my receipt.
I guess I get extremely uncomfortable sometimes and harp on unimportant minutiae. Maybe that's what makes me such a gas at parties. Or maybe I just pass gas at parties. Either way, there's an empty 10 foot radius around me.
After his 6-pack was cashed, he put some toast in the blender, but sadly it didn't become beer. Also, he probably should have taken the turkey and mayo off the bread before sticking it in the blender.
Disappointed, he went back to bed, where his German wife lay, gently sleeping.
He was Jewish and his mother never quite approved of her; but there's one thing his mother never truly understood. Subconsciously, every Jewish man wants to be murdered by their spouse. If he's with someone who could somehow commit genocide on him, that's even sexier.
Of course her grandparents, Klongdongle and Jewhate, were Nazis, but he forgave; "forgive and forget" that was his mantra. Well, more precisely; "Forgive and forget, but don't actually forgive and forget, just pretend you are if asked; continue to harbor ill will and seething anger. Let it slip out during calm, unrelated moments, like during a discussion over who finished the milk".
He started to caress her as she slept. Sneaky, nasty thoughts popped in and out of his head. Mostly about butterscotch and right wing bloggers, but that got his mind a-thinkin'. Could he get away with it?
She was sleeping, would she wake up? What were the odds?
He pulled out his iPhone and ran the brand new Sexual Situation Cost/Benefit App. These were the results:
Situation:
Benefit:
Drawback:
Gentle Caressing and Deep, Thoughtful Staring
Sweet Emotional Connection
Sweet Emotional Connection
Casual Boob Grab
Boob Goodness
If she woke up, she’d be all like “why are you touching my boob?”.
Penetration
What You've Always Wanted: Sex With Something That Won't Be Horribly Disappointed Afterwards
Jail time, potential prison anal rape
Then he realized something; he mistook boredom for horndoggery. Maybe it was the fact that he was drunk on turkey, mayo and white bread, but he was just so fucking bored that he thought he was interested in the manipulation of the fleshy parts belonging to the opposite sex.
In reality, he just wanted to sit back, stare out the window and wonder why he was so bored. So that's what he did.
Sadly, this made him more bored. His mind wondered and wondered, but it never really reached a destination; it just sorta ran out of gas.
He got so bored, in fact, that his brain started to leak out of his ear. Not knowing what to do, he grabbed the closest thing to catch it as it seeped out. That closest thing was his blender.
After a few minutes the leaking stopped. Unfortunately, he was so dumb from boredom by this point that he grabbed some bread, threw it in the blender and drank a brain/bread concoction.
It might have been the lack of brain cells, but that shit got him fucked up. He got so drunk that his wife found him the next morning; naked, covered in marmalade, and stuffed into a USPS box addressed to Camarillo, California.
She sent him away (he somehow had put the right postage on himself) and casually walked into the bedroom. Her mission was accomplished; she drove her Jew husband crazy by falling asleep early and being German. She immediately went to JDate to begin anew. Drive 'em crazy, send them to Camarillo, California and...well, there's a third step somewhere, but she'd figure that out later.
If you've bought an iPod Touch from a crackhead or some sort of ne'er-do-well in the Hollywood area, looked at the back, and noticed the engraved name "Michael Manson"; congratulations! You've purchased the iPod that was stolen from my car this weekend.
It was a present from my father that I will gladly pay fair market value for, so if you have googled this page, please contact me at: cryingwhilemasturbating@gmail.com.
Also, if that person tries to sell you my gym membership, keep in mind they check your ID at the door, so it's pretty useless.
Sitting in Starbucks this evening, I was having an intellectual-type conversation with a good friend of mine. A frequenter of Silverlake clubs, she postulated that she might be miscatagorized as a hipster.
But there's a fine difference. Hipsterdom is a societal identifier rather than a cultural identifier. What do I mean by that?
I personally love being identified as a New York Jew. I was born and raised in New York and I'm Jewish. It's as simple as that. That's a cultural identifier. It's my honest and true culture; it's who I am.
Now, that sleeve-tattooed, parent-supported, John Lennon glasses-wearing, ironic facial haired hobbledehoy is not honest and true. He is wearing the uniform of a societal identity. He's the person who MOVES to New York from Ohio thinking "this is what I must dress like to look like a New Yorker"; when all the actual New Yorkers are just...New Yorkers wearing whatever it is they wear.
There's something inherently false about these layabouts. They dress and act a certain way because they think they have to dress and act a certain way to fit in to their society.
This doesn't stop at Hipsterdom. Take a Douchebag (all props to hotchickswithdouchebags.com): You've got the pouty lips, bright orange out-of-the-box spray tan and the greased, spiky hair that reminds one of a certain lovable hedgehog from our collective youths.
But surely these gentlefolk were born in suburban New Jersey to affable, wealthy proctologist-types.
So what would make them want to dress like John Gotti's retarded, mayo-drinking half step cousin? They actually want to be douchebags. They want people to look at them and say "gee, that kinda-sorta looks like someone who watched an episode of the Sopranos once". They dress like that, find other brain-dead non-entities and go to parties where they take pictures with women who are paid for their ablity to stand within 5 feet of them for more than 10 seconds.
They are not who they are, they dress like who they want to be.
Douchebags and Hipsters (and douchebag hipsters) are not the end of the road; they are the beginning. Posers: I dealt with this sort a lot in middle school; I thought I was all awesome spending the entire summer of 1993 getting into Guns N' Roses; everyone had been into them for years, so now I would finally fit in; finally be accepted!
But what happened? Everyone spent that summer trading in their bandannas and tight jeans for baggy pants, White Sox hats, and blue flannel coats with three buttons buttoned.
These people self-identify with people who wouldn't be caught dead in the same vacuous backcountry strip mall as them. "Oh, I'm from Indiana. WEST SIDE, BITCHES!" No, "MID-WEST BITCHES!". Wait, it's not cool to say that? You can't self-identify with...yourself? So you need to create an identity that's not yours...to self identify with?
This is the crux of the biscuit. People hate who they are or where they're from so they need to create a new brand. "Oh, daddy fucking yells at me in Ohio, so now I'm Silverlake tattooed synth pop player!" "Daddy can't yell at me anymore, because I'm not me anymore!"
Last one! The Wes Anderson Artster (I'll copyright that fucker): Uncomfortably tight blazer and thick glasses along with rockstar haircut? Do lots of coke and into the writings of Sarte and the films of Fellini? You're an Artster, fucker.
Is that who you are or do you just enjoy having people see you on the street; identifying you as "an artist of some type"?...well, here's news for you; it gets REALLY FUCKING HARD after film school. You might think you're hot shit, but when your 12 minute, $75,000 epic parable about the "modern condition" plays three film festivals, you're going to have to actually get a job. Save the blazer for when you're sweeping up at Insomnia, the 24-hour hot cookie store.
So if you're looking into the mirror, having an existential moment, thinking "maybe I'm just a [hipster] [douchebag] [poser] [artster]", ask yourself one question; "am I me?". If your answer is YES, than you're just a dude who's trying to live his life.
Rachel Slotberg came out of her depression just in time to get depressed again.
This time it was different, however. She was usually just morbidly depressed, but now she was in a macabre-like gloom. The cloud over her head was a darker gray; her poetry began to use phrases like "unending punishment of being alive in a Godless, pain-filled universe" instead of the usual "me sad!".
She hadn't gotten out of bed for three weeks and her boyfriend, Steven Eydie, was beginning to grow concerned. She hadn't been happy since March 12th, 2008, which, coincidentally, was the day after their first date. Come to think of it, she was pretty miserable on their first date too, but who could tell? She was too busy vomiting naked on the floor of his bathroom.
"What's wrong?" He brought her favorite; a breakfast in bed of a ham and bacon omelette with a side of prosciutto. It was strange to him, because she didn't eat pork, but she asked for it everyday. Unbeknownst to him, she was playing a cruel existential game with her imaginary pig friend, Mr. Oinkers. It got brutal.
"I won't answer you unless you tell me three things wrong with my appearence." She frequently wouldn't answer a question unless insulted beforehand.
"Thanks", a brief, crinkly smile played about her face. "There's nothing wrong; the question you should be asking is what's right? The answer is nothing. Except the first season of 'Flight Of The Conchords'...that shit is funny".
This was too much for him; her depression made him depressed, which in turn made her more depressed, which in turn made their kitten, Floppycakes commit suicide last month by drug overdose.
Turns out you can get really fucked up by sticking catnip up your ass; but Floppycakes was a veteran and knew how much was too much. Her suicide note simply read " ", which is nothing because she was a cat and couldn't write.
Anyway, things were getting a little too much for old Steven Eydie. He didn't sign up for this. In fact the contract that he signed when they started dating only stipulated "No Anal Sex" and something about owning his "chest hair in perpetuity".
He decided it was time to have a serious conversation with Rachel.
"Rachel, I'm sick of this! If I have to masturbate in the bathroom one more time to drown out the sounds of your violent sobbing, I think I'll go crazy!"
"If you could have sex with a tranny or a gay man, which would you choose?" it was obvious to him she wasn't listening.
"I suppose if the tranny was pretty...HEY, let's stay on topic here...we need to talk about what's going on."
"Listen, let's just be honest with each other; life is meaningless. We try and try and try to find a reason; a salient significance; but in the end, fate is fallacy. We are just little unimportant nothings waiting out our lives while distracting ourselves with trifles like work, friends and money".
This got Steven mad; "this is exactly the problem. Isn't life just what you make it; you have to find meaning yourself?"
"No, it's meaningless. Things don't matter".
"What proof do you have that there's no meaning to life?"
That's when Rachel opened up her laptop and showed Steven "Star-Ving" the new webseries written and starring former "Married...with Children" star David Faustino.
After 7 minutes and 45 seconds of watching it, both Steven and Rachel agreed that life had no meaning. They were found dead three days later; "Star-Ving" episode 2, featuring Gilbert Gottfried on infinite repeat.
Their suicide note read "Nietzsche was right: 'Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you'; maybe web comedy will make sense to us now. Goodbye cruel world...
The world is a-buzz with news of Mariana Bridi, the Brazilian Miss World contestant who passed away this week basically from an advanced case of necrosis, which is essentially a syndrome in which your skin dies, leaving your insides...out. If you feel like googling it, don't; because you'll end up with images that will sear your retinas and cause you to drink bleach to cleanse the filth.
In any case, her necrosis was a result of a rare infection. There are a lot of rare disorders, and being the morbid type I decided to do a little reading up on some of the more interesting ones.
So, here they are:
1) Foreign Accent Syndrome - This one is really weird. Due to severe brain trauma, people begin to speak in a different accent (a British person will speak with a German accent, etc.). Not only that, but they will also use phrases that someone from that culture would use (you would begin to use the word "lift" instead of elevator if you spoke with an English accent).
People who suffer from this are unaware of how they speak. Apparently, there's a part of your brain that says "I will speak this way" and when you're around a foreigner, your brain says "I won't speak that way". And if someone puts on the band Foreigner, you just cry and cover your ears.
But, if that part of your brain is destroyed, you end up talking like you're from anywhere, at any time. There's about 50 people who have suffered from this in about 65 years.
Here's a video of someone afflicted:
2) Stendhal Syndrome- This one is really strange. Have you ever gone to a museum and seen a Van Gogh or Picasso and been overtaken, almost mesmerized by its' beauty? Me too.
Have you ever been so mesmerized that you develop a rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and hallucinations? If you have, then you're a victim of the Stendhal Syndrome. Also, if you have, you probably need to get out more.
OK, art is beautiful, but seriously; take a deep breath and remember that life is more beautiful than any piece of art.
Here's a clip of a no doubt hilarious movie that was made about someone with the Syndrome:
3) Argyria - OK, you're sitting on your portch, sipping some scotch, and you say to yourself; "you know what would be a good chaser? Some liquefied silver. Yum!" Then you wake up a few months later looking like this guy: Yeah, that's right, your skin turns blue because you love the taste of that delicious alloy. Here's a lesson for ya; don't drink silver, no matter how tasty it is.
4) Morgellons - A sort of, but not really (yet) disease where patients believe that there are bugs (or parasites) crawling underneath their skin. Little fibers start to appear underneath your skin (sometimes coming up through your skin) and you get really achy.
No one has quite figured out what's going on (this is a rather recent phenomena) but scientists are divided between "this is a bunch of hooey" and "there's something spooky going on".
Here's an interview with the chief CDC person in charge of researching Morgellons:
5) Congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis - This disorder makes you unable to feel heat, cold and pain. The anhidrosis part means you can't sweat. Obviously very dangerous, because pain can save you from getting really badly hurt.
I just wish they had a disorder where you couldn't feel exhausting emotional pain. Sign me up.
I love my horse, Monsieur Putain de Camion. He reminds me of my first wife, except his penis is larger.
We have a transcendent connection. When I look into his eyes, I see my own weary existential soul; an inquisitive being looking for a singular, unquestionable truth. When he looks into mine, he urinates uncontrollably.
Why is it that horses understand me, but humans don't? Why don't my constant complaining and violent mood swings endear me to people? I wish there was some sort of book that could condense my thoughts into a single page. Then people would understand me better. Of course, my face would have to be in that book.
How would one get a face into a book?
I know, I'll mix silver and chalk, expose it to the light and see what happens! I'll call it "photography" because anything with the suffix -graphy sounds really impressive. Typography (the art of writing with a lot of mistakes) is where I learned that.
And if I could get my face into this book, it shouldn't just be a picture of me. That's boring! It would have to be something exciting like me from a really high angle, so I look much thinner than I am, or something that makes me look cool, like a picture of me with an attractive woman I've met three times.
But how would people know that I'm popular in this book of face? I would have to show myself with friends. YES, "friends"! That way people who might look at my book would think that I'm cool enough to spend time with, and not an inveterate masturbator who is slowly dying inside.
But wait; I don't have any friends (except for Pierre the 'touched Belgian' who thinks I'm a Schnauzer in my mid-30s named Flopsy). I guess I'll have to take a picture with the next best thing; my horsey. At least he doesn't mind my gentle sobbing and awkward strokings. I must remember to wear my finest tri-cornered hat (or wearable Hamantashen, as I like to call it).
Then once I've put together this book of face, I must spend time decorating it with make-believe games like "throw a snowball with a hobo pirate" and then jot non-sensical notes in the margins like "just got home, now time to drink #mayo with @disappointment".
Picture it: Cold winter night in New York City. It's 5:06AM, quickly approaching 5:07AM.
You're lonely, it's cold and the swill beer you drank 3 hours ago has rushed all your blood down to your pant region. Now all you can think about is the stomach ache from your drunken falafel misadventure and 'where's my local handjob massage parlor?'.
Oh, and you're a student at NYU.
So; what's the best way to find a "handjob massage parlor New York"?
And guess what you find? My website. Yes, my website, where 95% of the views come from people googling "handjob massage parlor". I guess if you're looking for a handjob, a website called "crying while masturbating" might appeal to you because that's what led you to looking for a handjob in the first place.
Anyway, someone at NYU just found my site via that search on google. Sure, I had some dry spells at NYU, but the only thing I was googling at 5:06AM was "how to strangle your hipster roommate with his own ironic mustache".
What do you google at 5:07AM? Old camp friends? Naked Vagina? "Why has my life has become a string of meaningless conversations that attempt to distract me from the fact that I will inevitably die and leave behind only shame and disappointment?".
Ex-girlfriends? Ex-boyfriends? Ex-transsexuals you met at the bar that one time? Ex-lax?
Me? I just google myself. It's better than finding a massage parlor to do it for me.
This just might be the shortest post I've ever posted.
Another stage of my creative bankruptcy? Perhaps.
I was just reading something and came across this word, and I've firmly decided that I would like to use it in a conversation in the near future. I present it to you, dear reader, as: The Coolest Word I've Newly Come Across In 2009.
Hobbledehoy: –noun an awkward, ungainly youth.
I'm not the sort of layabout hobbledehoy you'd expect to find drinking a PBR at Barcade.
1) Because it's so good, it doesn't need to be "finished" or in "acceptable shape to show someone". 2) Because I'm a Misunderstood Genius who won't be fully appreciated until my death. Better kill myself fast! 3) Because I'm too busy with...that thing that I was doing. 4) Because I'm all set for a Career Of Massive Disappointment And Unmitigated Failure. Why screw with fate? 5) Because I don't have to worry about Anything! Barack'll fix it!
STAGE 1: "Hey, I'm at a bar with friends. This will be fun. Maybe I'll get a drink"
STAGE 2: "Well, I've got that drink now, now it's time for small talk and posed pictures!"
STAGE 3: "Oh hey, more people came! I'll have to up my drinking to tolerate their company!"
STAGE 4: "Now I must sit to concentrate on drinking. Let this beer represent my happiness; transient, but immediately invigorating. I'm completely oblivious that those around me are sad and bitter!"
STAGE 5: " 'Pointing at nothing' stage; My favorite! Am I pointing at you or the last vestige of my dignity running out the door? Either way, it's pure excitement! Let me buy drinks for people even though I barely know them/they have more money than me!"
STAGE 6: "Oh boy, 'contemplation stage': should I keep drinking to kill the pain, or kill the pain with drinks? It's a Catch-22 of personality flaws!"
STAGE 7: "Boy, I love the 'slouching and shoegazing' stage; I can't look at you in the eye: but I'm telling you my innermost secrets and desires! Boy, I'll certainly be neurotic that I revealed too much in the morning!"
STAGE 8: "Now let's touch each other weirdly/give man-ssages while making hilarious faces! Let's talk about how we never see each other and get names to add to our Facebook."
*FINAL* STAGE 9: "Let all heterosexual men unite in highly effeminate bonding and uncomfortable closeness. No worries, it will be forgotten by morn!"
FINAL NOTE: I love everyone in these photographs, and putting them up is to merely illustrate my own feelings about drinking and getting drunk.
As over 2 million rabid fans descend on Washington, DC this weekend to hear Barack Obama, we here at Crying While Masturbating are lucky enough to have gotten hold of the full text of his address.
Below is the first five minutes:
"My Fellow Americans, this is our time. A time for peace and unity; a time where we show the profound strength of the American people; a time to define change not just as a slogan or a bumper sticker, but as a tangible call to arms. America; this is your time; this is our time, a time when we are called to a unique and singular duty: to make our great country great again. A time when we restore the greatness of the three simple words: 'I am American'.
America; can we do this? (pause for crowd: "Yes We Can")
Yes we can.
America; can we be great again? (pause for crowd: "Yes We Can")
Yes we can.
America; can we rid this country of the filth that has stained it for years? (pause for crowd: "Yes We Can")
Yes we can.
America; can we detain all Jews in work camps and strip even their children of basic human rights? (pause for crowd: "Yes We Can")
Yes we can.
America; will we brutally and illegally quell the decent of all those who oppose us? (pause for crowd: "Yes We Can")
Yes we can.
(pause briefly as police disperse into crowd and forcibly remove all Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and all those who oppose).
Yes we can!"
A controversial move, for sure, but Obama is pragmatic; he knows that his rabid base will say "yes we can" if asked a question filled with soaring rhetoric.
As a Jewish Obama supporter that spent time canvassing for him, giving money to his cause, and generally holding his name sacred for the past 18 months, I'm definitely there. Now, the soaring rhetoric will be nice, but can we actually accomplish something? This country is currently lying next to last night's Mexican in the filthiest rest-stop bog on the north east corridor and it needs more than a youtube, "I feel your pain" president.
Back in college, for about a minute and a half, I was really in to the literary "cut-up" method, practiced by such authors as William S Burroughs.
The method is really quite interesting, at least to me (that's not saying much; I think NPR is interesting); you write perfectly good prose, then randomly cut and paste words and phrases around until you get something you like.
Since Burroughs and his contemporaries used typewriters, they were literally cutting and pasting words on a piece of paper; ransom note style.
Sometimes you end up with words that paint a beautiful abstract painting, and sometimes you get an indecipherable mess; but it's generally interesting. A sometimes frustrating read (SEE: "Naked Lunch"), but interesting nonetheless.
Anyway, I mention this because I was going through some old files on my computer and remembered that I used to write, then cut-up, hiakus when I was trying to get myself into the mindset of writing a script.
Here are some I put together; I preferred a more random way of cutting; without much thought put into which lines I placed where; Too much thought and you lose the spontaneity of it. For this, I would close my eyes, pick a line, then without looking, paste it. The only thing I tried to keep a mind on was the haiku structure.
ORIGINALS:
quiet confusion for some it clogs up the mind for me, clarity
time like ticking clocks words are wordless afterthoughts circling above
smile like curves of lips expressionless desire until teeth are chipped
closing eyes rolled tight desire fades into the night silhouetted spite.
CUT UPS:
for me, clarity words are wordless afterthoughts smile like curves of lips
until teeth are chipped expressionless desire quiet confusion
circling above desire fades into the night time like ticking clocks
closing eyes rolled tight for some it clears up the mind silhouetted spite.
Kinda interesting. Something I might want to return to one day. It's a very web2.0 thing to do. I wonder if there's an iPhone app for it? Maybe a youtube plug in to cut-up different vloggers' videos.
Now we're talking masterpieces of Western culture.
If you're anything like me (hopefully not, because per Darwin's 'only the strong survive' theory of evolution; my incompetent, neurosis-ridden DNA should be a sparse rarity), then you say to yourself 'what is that strange itch in my pants area'?
After 8 hours of uncontrollable sobbing and 7 hours of sobbing uncontrollably, you indubitably turn your attention to the watching of online stuff.
Then, after viewing the crud-like crapfilled putrid nonsense, you turn it off. You wonder: "I've been steadily employed making web content for 3 years now and I've yet to figure out why people watch most of this stuff. Show me someone who watches vlogs and I'll show you an inveterate pervert who jerks off to fully clothed semi-attractive women talking into a webcam*."
Look at the most-viewed videos on youtube today; aside from several videos from the vacuous-fest also known as the "Golden Globes" (gee, nothing like an awards show for narcissistic multi-millionaires! let's give them more stuff), we've got really, really terrible videos of girls looking into cameras, "unproduced" vlogs from celebrities or politicians (they just "grabbed a camera and shot themselves being real"), sporting event clips and one "celebrity comedian" sketch.
Now, far be it from me to judge other content, because I know mine is mostly crap, but wasn't there a time when online content was richer, more varied? When creativity ran free? When people pushed the limits of what they could do in a little 360X240 box? When there were imaginative, interactive videos that took full advantage of a boundless, exciting new media?
Oh, there wasn't a time like that? My bad.
Someone please explain to me why this video was almost five million views? PLEASE!
late night addition: In a further "buh?" moment, I give you this quote from a cnet article I was just reading.
"Most_uniQue" said he used Crackulous, "one-tap" cracking software developed by Hackulous, to crack the app. After cracking 35 apps, he is retiring, he told Bossert in their surprisingly friendly e-mail exchange.
I mean, just the mere fact that this sentence is in a news report makes me want to vomit from my eyes while clumsily shaving my chest hair with a rusty slice of glass.
*Of course the kind people who watch Upright Citizen's Brigade sketches, Zappos commercials, Thrive webspots, Twitter Music Videos, FrisbeesandFlipflops, and whatever else I've worked on in the last 8 months are totally exempt.
"I wish I was 28 again. It's all downhill from there".
Which leaves me 356 days before my life inexorably spirals into some sort of Kafkaesque abyss.
I'm unsatisfied and everyone I know is unsatisfied.
We set unrealistic goals for ourselves because our generation is both blindly hedonistic and brain-numblingly lazy; and the only way to actually fulfill all you set out to accomplish is to fight the urge to settle with the mundane; fight the rot that sets in when you find a groove.
We settle for 50% because 50% and complacent is easier that 100% and painful.
Life is full of annoyingly distressing decisions; easy road and leg-stretching relaxation on the couch watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm", or difficult road and canceling cable because you can't afford it.
For example, last year I was offered a six figure job heading up production at a web start-up. I hemmed and hawed for about two weeks and eventually turned it down. I knew that the hours would have been prohibitive, stress high and personal satisfaction nil. I hemmed and hawed for so long because I knew that job could lead to other six figure jobs heading up production for other web sites; but that wasn't what I wanted to do.
In any case, I made the hard decision to turn down that job and, I think, in the end it was probably the right move. For all the stock options and personal power, I think the idea that I'd be doing something I really didn't want to be doing for a living is too much of a downer.
Of course, now that I have a little more free time than I would have, the real challenge is to sit down at my Mac and write. A friend told me recently that he has the following schedule:
7:30-9:30 Running 10-7 Work at Production Office 7:30-11:30 Write Scripts with Writing Partner
Now my schedule is a tad different:
11ish: wake up sometime before 6pm: stare at my computer, pray to the flying speghetti monster that I can accomplish something 6pm-10pm: "socialize", which in this case, means "playing with my rabbit" 10pm-1pm: google "cute puppies" and "mudflaps", drink whiskey
But the hypothetical situation is set; I'm 28; obviously my last year that I could ever accomplish anything, it's a new year; so there's 11 and 1/2 whole months of saying "at least it's not 2010", and I'm relatively unencumbered with burdensome tasks.
So the time is right to actually accomplish something this year. Not "lose 10 pounds" accomplish, which, although nice, isn't really setting the bar high enough. Don't get me wrong, the gym is going to be a crowded mess for the next three weeks (before all the fatties go back to Häagen-Dazs), but I'm looking for something that's more self-satisfying then "looking good in my Facebook profile".
We're all too concerned about the little things (and this micro-celebrity youtube, facebook, vlog world certainly isn't helping)...
...sometimes it is good to take a step back and say to yourself; do I give a shit about what's going on at Facebook today? Do I really need to worry about work after I get home?
It's time for me and you to stop counting virtual friends and worrying about the guy at work who isn't responding to my emails. It's time for me and you to do something we're proud of.
That or download porn. Either way, it's better then having cable.
If you feel like writing a comment, virtual reader, please tell me what you plan to do this new year...
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