My Science Fair Project

Title: Deviancy in Craigslist as Determined by Intelligence

Abstract: It comes as no surprise to anyone that the internet is an open sewer, a chunky blend of sex and horror like a bad Rob Zombie movie but real. It’s hard to just fabricate something so mind-blowingly grotesque as that .gif of that guy who split his penis 4 ways or that one of the guy cutting off a live pig’s head with a chainsaw. No. That shit really happened. The internet is not an art but it certainly mirrors the worst of humanity. Craigslist is the Joe Every-Man’s face of internet depravity. It is the Robin Williams to www.northeastbearticklesexpartymeetngreet.org’s Lenny Bruce (I don’t give a damn if you get that analogy or not). Anyway, Craigslist serves its purpose as being horrible but not so horrible that I need to clear my browse history and shower after surfing its pages. There you can find real people looking for sex among joke posts, bots, and men pretending to be women. And boy are they not afraid of showing you some home-grown porn! There is definitely a geographic component as to what they are willing to show you.

Hypothesis: The less educated a metropolitan area is, the more naked pictures you’ll find on craigslist

Elaboration: People with a higher intelligence have either developed a more acute sense of shame or a credible job where naked pictures floating around on the internet are a liability.

Experimentation: According to a bizjournals.com article that I’m not going to cite, the two smartest cities in America are Seattle and Washington D.C. based on percentages of people who hold advanced degrees and those who passed the “Hey you, eat this thing!” test. The two dumbest are Miami and Santa Ana. This will make for an easy comparison of blah blah blah blah blah….

I’ll do a quick scour through each city’s Casual Encounters page on Craigslist; the first 100 ads with photos. Gays and lesbians have no shame, so trying to quantify their naked pictures is like counting sand one grain at a time. I’m not a fucking super computer, here. And fuck looking at “Men seeking Women”. Besides, it’s way harder to get a straight woman to post her naughty bits online. It’s a challenge. She has to be a huge dullard to not see the inherent creepiness of that.

There are a lot of fake ads on Craigslist. The way you can tell is if the person in question is ugly. Are they ugly? Yes? Then it’s real. I will only count the real photos. I’m sorry, but the naked photo of Tiffany Sparxxx does not count because A) she didn’t post that herself and B) she doesn’t live in Seattle.

Data Collection:

Seattle – 3 homegrown pics per 100
D.C. – 5 homegrown pics per 100
Santa Ana – 15 homegrown pics per 100
Miami – 77 homegrown pics per 100

Data Analysis: Damn there are a lot of naked Cuban moms in Miami. It’s like Castro was having a total liquidation sale down there at the Desperate Mom Store. Jesus. Speaking of which, every single one of them had Mr. Jesus around their neck. AND ONLY DUMB PEOPLE BELIVE IN JESUS AMIRITE?! YEAH!!!! *high fives room*

Conclusion: Looks like I was right. In your faces, you crybaby sociologists! I am the best! I am the greatest social commentator since Limbaugh! The gays want to convert your children to work as slaves in their sex dungeons! Feminists were created by the liberal Jew-cabals of the world to eliminate dinner time! Black people smell funny!

Feeeeeeeeeeeed……………meeeeeeeeeeeee…..

Black Presidents

It MUST be the future. We have a black man running the free world. Even though I want to say “oh this is completely unexpected; I NEVER thought I’d live to see the day”, I can’t. Actually, I’ve seen it all before. Several times, in fact. It’s like in 1969 when we put a man on the moon with less technology than a calculator, people lost their shit. “Oh groovy man; the Jet-Age! How futuristic! Trippy.” Uh, sorry to harsh your buzz dude, but Jules Verne predicted nearly the exact same shit happening 100 years prior (3 men + huge explosion + Florida launch pad = moon landing).

It’s weird, but the farther back in time you look, the further into the future you see. And it seems there’s always been a depiction of a black president. So, is having one really a new concept? Is it really that revolutionary? Sorta.

Barack Hussein Obama
For those of you in-the-know, Barack Hussein Obama, the current and first black president of these United States, has been tearing ass lately. He just nominated the first Latino/third woman to SCOTUS and…some other stuff. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing as president for the sake of this article. Dude is a half white, Pakistani Muslim from Indonesia/Africa with a Chinese sister. And Rush Limbaugh says he’s the greatest living example of a reverse racist. The best part is that you know President Obama hears all this and just goes “Pfffthththth” while doing the Jacking Off gesture.

David Palmer
Democratic President David Palmer, doin’ his thang, helpin’ Jack Bower save the free world from tear-ists ‘n’ shit. I watched my first episode of 24 and, now this is probably racist on my part. I didn’t see the leader of the free world in David Palmer. I saw the guy who’s trying to get me to switch my car insurance over to All State. But I finished the episode and became a true believer. Oh, David Palmer. I know your stance. I’m always in good hands when you’re president.

Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
Words…should have…sent…a poet…


Lindberg
The president in The 5th Element is such a minor role that the writers didn’t bother giving him a first name. Shit, they didn’t even bother giving him a last name that made sense. Lindberg? I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Space Blacks immigrating from neo-Germany to the 77 United States of America. Whatever. There are no such thing as small roles, and at least he got to see Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich make whoopie in a tube.

101

National Public Radio is really good at taking a simple concept and then dissecting, analyzing, and breaking it down to the point of oblivion. The concept then loses all meaning and you never ever want hear about it again, much less sit through another 2 hour long pain-marathon of “what is the meaning of zero?” because SOMEONE left the door to your car unlocked (CHRISTINE) and some vagrant accidently kicked the center consol as he tried to steal your super rare and valuable half-empty can of Pringles so now the radio is permanently stuck on NPR. It’s a common phenomenon. You can hit your head so hard you become retarded. Radios work the same way. For my 101st blog entry I thought I would explore the personal meanings the number 101 holds for me because, well, it’s a dumb idea and I hate all of you. In my last semester of college, I was basically done with my major. All I needed to take were some filler classes for credits, so I took two 101 classes; some sort of intro to biology and one enigmatically called “American Society”.

I got a fucking C in bio. HOW?! Well, for one, there was no science in the class. None. Ok, like, I’m a pretty liberal guy. I’m all for saving the whales, give a hoot; don’t pollute, all that jazz. My professor was such a bleeding heart, faux hippy, bearded granola-munching commie pinko leftist that he made me feel like John Wayne voting for Regan on a horse, all punching the hole in my voting card by shooting it with my .45. It was kind of hard to pay attention to all of the “Why the fishing industry has completely fucked the planet” articles which our tests were based off of.

My American Society class was pretty cool. Little work, easy tests and I took that shit pass/fail. When our final rolled around, we were given our essay questions a week ahead of time. How easy is that? So easy that I didn’t even write them. I traced an outline of my hand and turned it into a turkey. I was done in 2 minutes. Passed.

I remember watching 101 Dalmatians as a kid and thinking what a dumb movie it was. First, I was bummed that all the dogs did not come from the same litter. They were adopted. Pfffffff whatever. That one female dog gave birth to like 25 puppies as a nod to the fertility branch of the pharmaceutical industry which helps finance Disney. And then there was that bitch Cruella De Vil. Her thing was that she wanted to kill the puppies and turn them into a coat. Uh, hey slag, that shit would look horrible all Frankensteined together like that. A pelt needs congruency. It needs to be made from one giant animal. What New Jersey based fashion school did you flunk out of? Imbecile.

Obama’s first 100 days were being talked about by political sophists since day 3. After it came and went, we had to face reality and know that day 101 for Obama would be no different than day 33, 79, 666, or 1024.

You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you already knew the answer. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world. Under the spreading Chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me, there lie they and here lie we under the spreading Chestnut tree.

Gangbangin’ 101 is the best Snoop Dog song, ever.

The T-800 Model 101 is the end result of a bunch of confusion and fanboy bullshit born from the Terminator series. Let me explain. See, in Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, Schwartzenwhatever’s character is referred to as the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 and T-101 respectively. BUT, in Salvation, T2 Extreme Edition DVD and the Terminator 2 video game, he’s called the 800 series. They use T-800 and T-850 to refer to the same character (what). So yadda yadda, some more detective stuff in DVD commentaries, interviews, a stork comes and visits, Santa Claus…and now the unofficially but widely recognized nomenclature is the T-800 Model 101 to describe the Governor. And that’s how bills are made in California.

To Serve and Protect While Impractical

I don’t know what’s to blame these days for the slew of lazy cops the states’ been churning out. Maybe lazy is the wrong word to use. Is there a single word that encompasses the mentality of wanting to pilot recreational vehicles and have a fun-in-the-sun good ol’ time instead of your job which is to protect society against thieves, murderers and rapists so guess what you disguise as fucking police work? “Effete”?

The following are all different types of police officers, sworn to serve and protect, who have chosen a means of transportation that causes more problems than they solve. Their main problem is namely, how to do you detain a perp IF you even manage to catch him (it’s never a her). No one has even bothered to point out that hey, you’re not solving crime; you’re just being a self-indulgent jackass wasting time and energy on my dime. These are all real I swear to God.

Motorcycle Cops
To be fair, if I was a cop I would dream of being one of these until, in a ceremony held at the community center in front of the mayor, city council and the town elders, Commissioner Gordon hands me a motorcycle and says “go get ‘em, son!” But the job is limited. The only job a Hog-Pig can do is tag speeders. That’s it. But riddle me this: what happens when drivers stop being polite and start acting real? It’s not like you can pull a PIT maneuver on a Cadillac Escalade with a vehicle that weighs about as much as a really really fat person. Being a motorcycle cop would be awesome as shit if you could work like you’re life is the game Road Rash. But noooooo. This “society” we “agreed” to live in has a “social contract” and we “can’t” be “dicks” like that.

Mounted Division
Horses are cool dudes. They can give off and sense powerful vibes. Like, I used to get blitzed and wander around Colonial Williamsburg at night when I went to college. They kept the horses out in fenced-off enclosures so without the hustle and bustle of a million 9-year old tourists; it was just me and the horses. They’d be all “aw Jesus man. This guy is so high he could shit off the moon right now. Better go let him pet me. If I was his mom I’d make him a sandwich. Poor guy.” And that’s cool. I truly believe if criminals could pet a horse before their crimes, they’d never get around to committing those crimes; their hearts would be too full of warm horsey fuzzies. Unfortunately with the mounted division, you run into the same problems as the motorcycle cop except now you need to deal with your motorcycle pooping when it walks. Don’t those things need to wear diapers? And what if a perp runs into a building? It’s not like there are keys to take out of your horse when you park it. Good luck not having that shit stolen.

Bike Cops
Who among us hasn’t seen these short-shorts wearing recreationalists and thought out loud “PPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF!” Someone needs to tell them that the Jim Dangle character on Reno 911 is a character of a gay bike cop and should not be interpreted as a blueprint for effective law enforcement.

Segway Cops
And you thought bike cops were bad. These guys have to be live performance artists or Andy Kaufman whatever. They cannot be real. It’s as if someone took a bike cop, rolled it around in powdered sugar and then neutered it. Ok, see, cops are supposed to be intimidating signs of authority. It is literally impossible to look tough on an 8mph moving podium especially when Segway cops are required to wear helmets! They are police officers, not 5 year olds. Seriously, what a fucking waste. What a fucking joke.



Powered Parachute Cops

What do you get when you cross a giant fan, a go-kart, a parachute and redneck ingenuity? Why, just the best darn tool for cheap, lazy law enforcement that’s what! Cops are starting to use what is essentially a toy tourists pay $50 in Cancun after their 6th mojito, in lieu of helicopters. Yeah, it’s their job to patrol the skies and take out rogue pterodactyls or whatever, but their main job is to keep an eye on fleeing criminals, and then radio ground forces with important information. Right well, I know for a fact that I have nothing in my arsenal that can take out a helicopter, but I’m pretty sure an easily accessible hunting rifle is all I need to end Mr. I-Have-Absolutely-Zero-Protection-From-Man-Nature-Or-God-Tattle-Tale-In-The-Sky.

P.S. Don't shoot cops or commit crimes. Be good.

Jackie Chan Adventures

Remember that old cartoon show? It was on the air from 2000 to 2005, mainly on Kids WB. What a golden show in a golden era. Just imagine all the historic things that went on in that period: 9/11, Operation Red Dawn, Joe Strummer dying, Subway’s 5-Dollar Foot-Longs. I never experienced any of those things. I just found out about all that stuff. I was too busy watching Jackie Chan Adventures.

In an effort to stop being bored at work, I decided to pick an old cartoon from way back in the day and overload on its respective youtube channel. After a long selection process, I narrowed my choice down to either Jackie Chan Adventures or Muppet Babies. But what to pick? I flipped a coin. It landed on tails. I realized that selection process was retarded, so I picked the cartoon that would give me the least dirty looks if someone at work caught me watching it (“Why are you watching a cartoon about monsters in diapers?”)

Jackie Chan Adventures is a cartoon where Jackie Chan is a young, not-ugly archeologist who speaks English. In ways he is actually similar to his real counterpart, they are both big on the martial arts stuff. The series revolves around Jackie Chan, his niece Jade, and his uncle Uncle as they battle ancient demons, ninja armies, international crime syndicates, magic, and latent racism. They don’t always win.

Magic plays a major role in the series (like in Jackie Chan’s real life). For the most part, the gist of the show is that the heroes scour the globe searching for things called Talismans, magical octagonal rocks each bestowed with an animal power of the Chinese Zodiac. For example, the Rooster Talisman gives you the power of flight since roosters totally fly. The Sheep Talisman gives you the power to astral project into people’s dreams since the writers are HUGE dorks and like obvious jokes. And the Pig Talisman gives you laser eyes because why the fuck not?

Epiphany:

I am sitting at my work computer. I’m supposed to be working right now. Instead I’m watching old racist cartoons meant for children and writing about it.

Is this really where my life has taken me? I am a healthy, red blooded, free 22 year old man! I should be out there, there in the real world, having my own adventures! Discovering my own magic! Taking chances, making mistakes, getting messy! What the fuck am I surrounded by? What is this gray material that comprises my cubical cell walls? Broken dreams? Behind me is a window to the glorious world outside, just waiting for me…

Man was not meant to housed, no, caged like this. We are creatures of desire, of passion, of fire. To deny our essence is to be dead inside. To wander the earth as mere ghosts of our spirited past, echoes of jubilation that ran free in glorious Eden. Here we are all slaves to the Three Masters of Money, Want, and Time.

The problems we face as a species arise from agriculture sustenance, exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution, waxing forth until the enormity of suffering and pain destroys us all! My friends, this is the source of social stratification, coercion and alienation! This is the evil which lurks in the hearts of men! We must strike now while the pistol remains cocked! Cut the head of the snake known as Civilization and watch it writhe in its blood and end-trails. I call upon you all to de-industrialize, abolish the division of labor, end specialization, and abandon large scale technologies! Take action now! Go out and throw a brick into a Starbucks! Burn your boss’ car! Destroy something beautiful…

The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference…all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Central Pennsylvania

Although it might not appear to be so to the untrained laymen eye, central Pennsylvania is a microcosm for heartland America. And because the heartland is the most important part of any country or person, central Pennsylvania is quite possibly the physical manifestation of America (besides the actual America). And out of all the countries God put on this planet, America is the most important and least-smelly one, so Cen-Penn is pretty much the world incarnate. And because the bible tells us so, we are the happy little nougat-y center of the universe. Indeed, central Pennsylvania is the totality of existence; the alpha and the omega.

Now the important question: how do I get the F out of here?

Super Secret Blog Spy Message!
(Here’s a little how-to on the what-to-dos-and-don’t-do should you find yourself stuck in this how-do-you-do poo-poo voodoo skip-to-my-lou skinamarinkidink-skinamarinkido human zoo)

Hitchhiker’s Guide to Central Pennsylvania
There’s a saying about Pennsylvania: They’ve got Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and in the middle is Alabama. Take comfort in the fact that when hitchhiking, your chances of being picked up by either an honest-to-God redneck or an Amish buggy driver are 50-50 regardless of your proximity to Amish country. Take a chance, stick your thumb out and hop on it. You will either be treated to a lengthy story about the ’05 and ’08 Steelers or no story at all.

Etiquette is as follows. First find a deserted piece of shit of a road. You won’t have to look far. Thumb down a ride and tell them were you want to go. If you say “anywhere but here” or “just get me out of the state” the driver is then protected under Pennsylvania state laws from being accused of assault. He can legally beat your ass. Just try to be specific. Be like, “Yeah, take to that gay-bar in Scranton, you know what I’m talking about. The Man Hole. Yeah that’s right.” If you get beat up then at least it’s a no-no.

The Restaurant at the End of I-79
Interstate 79 runs the back spine of the state and then unceremoniously dies at Erie, Pennsylvania. You may have heard about it’s relevance in the news recently; it is ranked the 55th most deadly highway in the country. Some people say it’s because of all the drunks on the road. Others say it’s the Jersey Devil’s fault. I like to think it’s because of the highway herself. Once you start heading north, you’re hypnotically drawn towards oblivion. Your only options are to crash your car into one of the three great bastions of void: Lake Erie, western New York, or Ohio.

At the end of I-79 is a restaurant. It’s called Zero’s and its open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is inhabited by a cadre of spooky trucker patrons, wait staff, and yokels, (figurative) ghosts of their formal selves, like the whole thing is a scene from a Tennessee Williams play if it was directed by Tim Burton. They are not dead. They are survivors. They are the few who stared directly into the quantum singularity of nullity, went past the event horizon and lived to talk about it. They will tell you to order the cherry pie.

I have no fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean. I’m just saying, these guys’ brains are seriously fried or they’ve acquired some sort of super sentience through this exposure and it just seems like their brains are sizzling bacon. Either way, you don’t fuck with people like that. Just order the pie.

Life, the Road, and Um, Like Everything
So um, like, apparently? You gotta walk down some roads…before you can be called a man? And chickens cross roads? So like, um…uh….we’re all like these chickens crossing roads…? And like, the more roads you cross, um, the more you’re a man? Like it’s a man thing? Yeah, and uh, um, it’s like spiritual, man. Aaaaaaaaaand, you gotta man-up and cross the road. It’s like, everything is the road and…the road is everything. Right? Uhhh…ummmm……So uh, when you’re like walking down “that road of life,” like, don’t be a faggot.

Dust in the wind, man.

So Long, and Thanks for Nothing
A thousand thank you’s, m’Lord. How gracious of you to permit me, a humble traveler, stowage in your mechanical vessel for 10 miles. I’m so glad you didn’t over-burden your heart by driving me to my actual destination which was where you were going to fucking anyway. No, we wouldn’t want that, would we? You gotta keep that extra seat open for some skanky road-head you’ll pick up along the way to Trenton, so shit, thanks for what little you did give me. I know it was tough. If you catch a homeless person begging on the street, don’t shill out more than 35 cents for him. You’ll crush him under the weight of your enormous generosity. Hey, man. Don’t worry that you dropped me off in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. It’s cool. Totally chill. I always wanted to know what Satan actually looked like. I’ll just crash in that coal mine tonight.

P.S. suck my ass, your ’90 Honda Civic smells like stale McDonalds.

Mostly Harmless?
A quintessential riddle for all hitchhikers: will the hitchhiker or the hitchhike-ie be murdered first? We’ve all seen The Hitcher. Some sketch guy travels the roads, get’s picked up by a car full of sexy teenagers who are really in their late 20’s, and he kills them all with an axe. And we’ve all seen the ending of House of a Thousand Corpses where after being the sole survivor of Dr. Satan’s said house of 1000 dead bodies, some half naked chick gets picked up by clown named Captain Spaulding and is promptly taken back to the house. Presumably to die. Point is all that stuff, crazy murdering hitchhikers and crazy murdering clowns who pick up hitchhikers, exists in central Pennsylvania.

But come ON. That’s 2 guys in a state of, what, like 12.5 million people? And let’s assume not everyone in the state hitchhikes or gives rides like that. Say, 1000 people in the whole state. Let’s do a really conservative estimate because it’s totally way more than that. That’s 0.2% chance of dying. That means you have a 99.8% of living (winning). Those odds are great. Shit are you kidding me, those odds are fantastic! You WISH you could have odds like that in Vegas. You probably won’t be brutally murdered so don’t be such pussies.

And Another Final Thing…
You need to walk a fine line when it comes to wardrobe. It needs to be durable, yet comfortable. Don’t come off as too hardened, or something that screams “take advantage of me.” Don’t wear any sports stuff: Pittsburgh fans hate Philly and vice versa, and you’re stuck in the middle. I suggest a Canadian tuxedo with a pair of comfortable boots lined with some of those Dr. Shoals pads. And maybe a musical instrument, even if you don’t play it (lie and say its broken when they ask).

Drink from the Septic Tank of Defeat

Here’s an analogy (or metaphor or whatever):

When you imagine drinking from the chalice of victory, what does that look like? I see the happiest man on earth, drinking, no, pouring, liquid glory all over his face. It’s bright gold, almost glowing. A silky concoction that’s a cross between liquid butter and milk. It goes down smoother than water and tastes a little like a steak made from a cow that Leonardo da Vinci personally slaughtered. And brandy. All from one of those garish, diamond-encrusted pimp cups a-la Lil’ John that were popular for like 3 seconds. It’s a quick drink.

But what does losing look like?

I see a man being handed a shovel and told to dig somewhere slightly off-site from an Arkansas trailer park. He’s digging up the park’s big 2,000 gallon septic tank. Once unearthed, he is instructed to drink liquefied redneck shit until it’s empty. For the entire duration of this torture, the shit will stay at a consistent luke-warm 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s too heavy to lift and chug, so this man has to lay belly down on the ground and scoop raw shit directly from the tank to his mouth using his hand. It takes a long, long time to finish.

If this man lost with honor, he gets to use a dirty old Dale Earnhardt plastic cup instead of his hand.

The Washington Capitals are chowin’ down at the ol’ septic trough cup-less right now. And they've only got about 6 months to finish and put it behind them before we start this thing all over again.

Fuck did they ever lose. They lost big. On home ice. In the most important game of their lives. I’ve never seen a hockey team down 5 goals before (for my Canada-hating readers out there, most games are decided by 1, maybe 2 goals). The final score was 6-2 in favor of the smelly asshole Pittsburgh Penguins.

Being accustomed to choking is a thing every D.C. sports fan must condition themselves to, because it happens allllllllllllll the fuckinnnnnnnnnnn’ time.

Fight Night

Are you ready…for some HARD HITTING, BONE CRUNCHING, FACE MELTING, (hypothetical) MATCH-UPS?! Oh YEEEEEAAAAAAH!!! That’s what I’m talking about! If your soul has a seat belt then you better buckle up, Bessie May, because I’m about to drive this car made out of nonsense into a brick wall made out of testosterone and some brick!

The rules are simple. I pair up two legendary fighters in an arena of my choosing. Each fight adheres to rules 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 of Fight Club. I will use logic to decide who wins based on logic which I will logically ‘splain. Let’s get it on!

Fight 1: Batman vs. Spiderman
Arena: New York City
Winner: Batman
At a first glance, you’d probably think of picking Spidey for the win. He outclasses Bats in speed, strength and stamina, plus he’s got that spidey sense thing, AND he can climb walls AND he’s a smart guy. But it’s that last part that does Peter Parker in. See, he’s book smart. Batman is not only 10x as book smart, he’s got street smarts, and the street he lives on is “How to Completely Fuck Up a Meta-Human’s Shit Ave.” Dude can take out MF Superman if need be. All it takes is one well-placed, tricky batarang to the face and Spiderman’s down for the count, and Batman’s got the dexterity to pull it off.

Fight 2: Joe vs. The Volcano
Arena: The Volcano
Winner: Joe (by default)
Tom Hanks, you asshole. Why can’t you ever play a bad guy in any of your movies? *sigh/grunt*. I’ll spare you the details of this horrible 1990’s wank-fest of a movie, but all you need to know is that Tom Hanks voluntarily jumps into a volcano with Meg Ryan. The volcano erupts, blowing them into the ocean unscathed (impossible). The volcano then sinks into the ocean (more impossible). I assume that since Abe Vigoda was also on the volcano, he dies as well (super impossible: Abe Vigoda cannot be killed without the use of sorcery). Logically the Volcano should have won. No, effin’, shit. But you cannot argue with the results of the movie, written by some Hollywood suit between hours 4 and 6 of a coke bender.

Fight 3: Coke vs. Pepsi
Arena: My stomach
Winner: Pepsi
Hey, I don’t care if Coca-Cola is one of the 3 trigrams in the pillar of evil American capitalism (the other two being McDonalds and Wal-Mart). Pepsi, tastes, better. Done. Both of their advertising departments suck. Pepsi and Coke can take Justin Timberlake and Santa and shove it up their respective asses. Coke should just work on making a product that doesn’t taste like Atlanta hick spittle.

Main Event: Washington Capitals vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Arena: Verizon Center
Winner: Stay tuned tonight because this is going to be epic. C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS! I hope Ovechkin caves Sidney Crosby’s face in.

The Scotsman, The Blue Collar Man, and Dick Cheney

(To the tune of "The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan)

Three men traveled long
From far far away
To ask a blind shaman
What creatures they display
Their spirit animals
This Indian will say
They must know
To make themselves happy
Sight beyond sight is
What they’ll see today
Because they know, their lives are crappy

The Scotsman stepped up
And said “nutin’ ta loose!”
The shaman said “great!
Your animal’s the goose!
You’re ornery, loud,
And prone to abuse
When you drink with your wife
You get slappy
Now get out of here
Before you drop a huge deuce
Because you know, your life is crappy”

The blue collar man
Was just a bit timid
And repulsed to find out
That inside he’s a squid
Spineless and gray
Screwed by takeover bids
His story is sad
And sappy
“I never wanted this
When I was a kid!”
Because now, his life is crappy

Dick was expecting
To be a lame duck
But shocked to learn
He’s bacterial muck
A parasite disease
Spreading horrible luck
A cancer on Earth
Mr. Cheney
An epiphany this grand
He let out a “FUCK!”
And now he knows, his life is crappy

And they all knooow, their lives are, craaaaaaaaaaaaa-ppy

Bitch Squad

Have you seen my dog Oskar yet? He’s a 1 year old Great Dane and he’s amazing. Sure, the sight of a 140lb dog contorting himself into a sleeping position where his head rests on top of his turgid nutsack is gross as hell (albeit impressive), he’s still a sweetums.

Because of his size and cuddly disposition, my 10 year old neighbor said “He’s like a cross between a bunny and a horse! A Bun-orse. A borse!” As she tried to combine the two words I was like, “No, he’s a horny.” Smooth.

There’s this crazy lady who lives in my neighborhood. Like straight up Loony Toons, cuckoo la banza nuts. She love’s my dog. I mean, loves, my dog. I’m really hesitant to say “oh well this lonely pile of sad just needs to get laid” because seriously, I am concerned that she would try to fuck my dog. No I am not being cynical. No I am not exaggerating.

A typical “conversation” with this very, very creepy lady is full of inappropriate words and touching. I put conversation in quotation marks because in a, let’s say 5 minute, interaction with her she will say maybe 1 thing directly to me.

I’ll be walking my dog down the street, plastic bag on my hand, waiting to pick up a duce, and all of a sudden I’ll hear a loud, piercing “Hiiiiiiii boyfriend!!!” I don’t think this woman has a ring on.

It’s her, the one that constantly refers to herself as “Oskar’s girlfriend”. Iiiick. Then she’ll bend down, pucker her lips so my dog will lick them, rub all over him and I’m pretty sure I once saw her cop a feel of his junk. Dude. It’s a dog. Not even your dog. It’s my fucking dog, and I’m standing like right in front of you.

Talking to this woman is impossible. Even if you ask direct questions she’ll do that stupid baby-voiced vicarious puppet thing through the dog. I’ll be like “so nice day huh?” and she’ll be all (again, in a baby voice) “Oskar thinks is going to wain day. The clouds ahw dawk and stoh-mi. Yes dey ahw. Yes dey ahw! Who’s my boyfriend? Who’s my boyfriend?! *tries to make out with my dog in front of me*”

Ew, sick. I seriously gagged typing that up. For real.

I gotta start one of those neighborhood watch things but instead of outing pedophiles we go after nutty spinsters that would molest a dog. I’m thinking it’ll be called Bitch Squad and the tools of the trade would be stun guns, net guns, and the Holy Bible. We would travel around in a van with giant “No Means No – BITCH SQUAD” written on the side in red Veranda letters. The crew would be me, the self-righteous leader of the operation with a personal score to settle and a devil-may-care attitude. Then there’s Jones, an ex-dog catcher who’s trying to go straight in this dog-eat-dog world. And finally that Dog Whisperer guy Caesar Millan so he can consult the dogs and see if they were inappropriately touched, all Pet Psychic-ish. BITCH SQUAD will be appearing on CBS’s Fall 2009 lineup after new episodes of CSI: Milwaukee

(Note: for the sake of my dog's privacy, the dog pictured above is not Oskar)

The ABC’s of Stand Up, Part 3

Road Gigs
What would you say if I told you driving half way across the country to Bum-Fuck Nowhere, Illinois to MC a sports bar comedy show for a bunch of judgmental rednecks all for $25 is what I’m shooting for? I already know what you’re going to say and you can “kiss my grits”. You might fancy yourself a worldly traveler for backpacking through Europe or Spring Breaking the hell out of Cancun but try becoming the culture of your foreign destination, just for one night. I’m just glad to get the fiz-uuuuuuuck out of the ‘burbs.

Silence
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received (and continue to routinely neglect) is “enjoy the silence on stage”. The problem a lot of new comics have is that when they go up, they are so nervous that they rapid barf their rehearsed set into the mic and then immediately retreat off stage. Dude, slow down. Relax. Find some awkward pauses and sit on them. They might even turn out funny.

“Tell me a joke!”
I hate telling people, especially co-workers, that I do stand up. The first thing they want is for you to tell them a joke. “Tell me a joke!” Actually it doesn’t work like that. See, stand up is- “No common I bet you’re really funny tell me a joke!” Dude, I’m just sitting here trying to eat my breakfast burrito- “Well you told Jessica a joke!” No I didn’t. “Yes you did! You went over to her, told her a joke and then you guys laughed!” Well it wasn’t a joke from my routine. We were actually making fun of y-…Bush.

Sean Gabbert has a really funny bit about this. “Tell me a joke!” Alright. A man walks into a bar…I make $25,000 a year. Knock knock? I don’t have health insurance. Wakka Wakka (It’s better when he performs it. See? That is exactly why this shit doesn’t work)

Unintentionally Funny
Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. Fall on the floor and find $20 why don’t you? Go with it.

Videos
Back in ancient times (re: 1989), if you wanted to get in a new room they’d ask you to make a tape and send it in. Like, tape tape. VHS. Electronic images and sounds recorded on strips of magnetic tape and housed in a cassette. Jesus, grandpa. Talk about freaking cave people. Then somewhere in the 2000’s that switched over to DVD’s for like, a month before bookers were just like “email me your best 8 minutes doood I’m streaming Heroes.” I can’t wait to see what the 2010’s will be like when a booker is all “hey, just brain zip me your best 30 seconds of Moon Jokes. I’ve got another showcase lined up for the Galaxy Rocket Cruise and I can only get 50 comics on board.” Haha just kidding. We’ll all be dead by then.

Web Stuff
I don’t feel like making the same joke about technology, the future, comedy, and all our imminent deaths (it’s totally going to be Terminator style) so all I’ll say is that promoting yourself and creating your own little fan base has never been easier. Shit, I might as well go back into Time magazine archives and pull out something from 2001 about the technological revolution or something. Web. Make. Comedy. More. Best.

eXperience
God, I remember the first time I tried stand up. December 19, 2005 at this little Monday night open mic in this little DuPont Circle coffee shop called SoHo. It was cold, miserable and hosted by Erin Jackson. People are going up before me….and just absolutely bombing. I think the guy right before me ended with his rendition of the Aristocrats that involved an aborted fetus. I was covered in paper cuts after his edgy set. Anyway, I go up, I’m nervous and I’m doing, OK. Not great, but not terrible either. I’m getting a few laughs here and there. Half way through my set, I pass out and fall off the stage. I was in the middle of a bit. I was like, “You know, dating is really…oh shit” and I keel over sideways, smack my head on the table, and I’m out. The thing is, NO ONE did anything for about a good 10 seconds. They were looking around to see who was in on the apparent joke. When they realized “oh shit, this kid really fainted” they helped me up. I remember waking up and thinking, “Oh wow. How did I get back to my bed? What’s this thing tangled around me (it was the mic cable). Oh shit I’m still there…” Some guys were like “all right, give him a hand every body.” I was mortified. I have never been that embarrassed in my life. I went over to where I was sitting to brood a little bit and try to play it off as if nothing happened. The guy who went on after me passed me and jokingly said “how am I supposed to follow that?” Then the ambulance came. I had to go outside and deny medical treatment from the paramedics. I told them what happened and they thought it was hilarious. One of the guys took a print out of my EKG and said “Now who says white boys don’t have rhythm?” Apparently this story has made it all the way up to New York. Yes. I’m that guy. I’m still meeting people who are shocked to discover that was me.

I don’t faint on stage anymore and I can only chalk that up to experience.

Yuck Yucks
A lot of (B-room) comedy clubs have goofy names like Yuck Yucks, Wiseacres, Magooby’s, Sir Laughs-a-lot, etc. The higher up you go in the comedy club echelon, the stores that are actually franchise chains, the more respectable sounding the names are, like Improv, Funny Bone, Comedy Factory. This is all totally worthless knowledge because stage time is stage time, and you’ll be surprised at just how good (and bad) some crowds can be, regardless of what club you’re at.

Zilch

When you first start out, this is how much you get paid, this is how much you are respected, and this is how many funny jokes you have. You are the living embodiment of that concept Tyler Durden talks about in Fight Club about once you lose everything you are free to do anything. Chuck Palahniuk is deep.

The ABC’s of Stand Up, Part 2

Impersonations
Ugh. I saw this headliner once. The last part of his act he did impersonations. His first impersonation was a dead on Homer Simpson. Everything else he did, I swear to God, I thought he was deliberately trying to sabotage his own career. He couldn’t do any impersonations! He could only do the one and he thought that was enough to waste 20 minutes of the crowd’s time. And they were bad, too. Like Jack Nicholson and Bill Cosby re-enacting Pulp Fiction scenes bad. The Evil Knievel of hack premises got on a soviet made joke-motorcycle and tried to jump and land in Laughter Town but ended up falling into Failure Gorge. And then he repeated the stunt until he alienated every last audience member. Even if you can do voices, just please, please for my sake, be funny.

Jokes
I’m not going to sit here and type up how to write a joke because A) I don’t really know how do that and B) No, so I’m going to use this slot to logically explain why Dane Cook is not a comedian. Comedians tell jokes. Jokes are funny. Dane Cook is funny****, but Dane Cook does not tell jokes. He is a performer. He is a yammering jack-in-the-box with as much insight and creative intelligence as a fart in the wind. Case in point: watch a stand up special of his. You may or may not get a chuckle. Now, try listening to it on tape. Nothing. Wanna know why? It’s because there’s no substance behind his flailing limbs and shit eating grin. If you can write something and it’s funny without you performing it, it’s a joke. That’s all I got.

****to those who are too young to legally buy alcohol

Killing
The exact opposite of dying. This is when you do super well and everyone loves you. You murder the crowd. There’s this thing where if you do really well you’ll get a knick name of a serial killer like Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. If you’re even better than that you get a handle like Stalin or Pol Pot. Then it moves on to infectious diseases like Bill “Malaria” Hicks or The Black Plague Chris Rock. It keeps going on an on and before you know it you take the mantle of Death (former Deaths include: Margret Cho; Andrew Dice Clay; and Bozo the Clown).

Laughter
Ah, the laughter. The sweet nectar of ambrosia that validates our existence. Just be sure they’re laughing with you, not at you. And if you can’t manage that…fuck it. Have them laugh at you. One of the weirdest things I’ve discovered doing stand up is that you can play in front of a crowd who will be “crypt full of deaf mutes” silent but they will still like you. Not only like you but think you did an excellent job. Well thanks for giving me live feedback, Harpo. I could have done the same thing and received the same reaction if I performed in front of my stuffed animal collection, and I always kill in front of them.

Master of Ceremonies
MC for short. The host of the show. It’s the MC’s job to do an opening few minutes and introduce the acts. It’s shitty work because you are the transitioning agent for the audience. They’re going from sitting around complaining about their outrageously priced, horrible food to being a captivated, attentive little angel seat fillers. I’ve been told a few times that it’s not the MC’s job to be funny. It’s their job to dive on a grenade so the other comics, the ones people are here to see, can shine. It’s a lot like being a camp counselor except not nearly as bad.

"Don't be so quick to write off the role of MC. The MC is the audience's first impression. It's also the MC's job to make sure the show runs smoothly. I know it's everyone's goal to get past MC to feature because it's easier...more time to play...no pesky announcements, but MC skills are invaluable. Besides if you can go up cold and make 'em laugh, imagine how that'll translate when the crowd is warmed up for you. Not a sermon, just a thought.--Jared"

Thanks, Jared Stern

Nobodies
99% of people who regularly go up in front of strangers and try to make them laugh are nobodies. Just because you haven’t seen them on Comedy Central doesn’t mean they’re unfunny. It just means they haven’t made the right friends or sucked the right dicks to get that far. Or they in fact are unfunny. Whichever. But just like the Free Masons, there are varying degrees of how much you un-suck.

Open Mic
It’s the first step on a long, long, demoralizing, soul crushing, never-ending road to stardom. We all start here. Open mics are fantastic because you get to see some of the best and most of the worst of what the stand up world has to offer. On the good side we have: comics who have been at it for a while and are trying out new stuff. They are typically hysterical. Alright cool. And on the bad side (whoo boy) we have: the alcoholic, disgruntled white guy who runs a terrible open mic inside an even more terrible Italian restaurant telling you for the 8th time how he was the first white guy on Def Comedy Jam even though that episode never aired; the crazy homeless man wearing jorts, shin guards and rubber gloves running around making everyone so uncomfortable that the owner of the place won’t touch him because we all think he’s covered in AIDS needles, and almost never an audience. Welcome to the sewers of comedy. We all float down here.

Prop Comedy
This used to be really gay but somehow it’s evolved into certain aspects of the alternative comedy scene where people will do funny power point presentations or slide cards or something. It’s almost a theatre production. The problem is that it’s really hard to start off doing the alternative thing. Most open mics that are in the dingy basement of some bar called Spy Longue don’t have a multimedia projector to plug your macbook into; just a mic, some lumpy seats and thousands of invisible rats.

Quitting
This can be nearly as hard as starting stand up. Once you start comedy you kind of revolve your personality around it. You are _____ the Comedian. It’s what separates you from all your boring, uninspired friends who were too chicken shit to take a dare with their lives and try to eek out a living being creative. Comedy itself is hard, often thankless work but the ones who stay in it the longest usually prosper, even if their decades of zero comedic growth indicate that they should have quit a long time ago.

The ABC’s of Stand Up, Part 1

Whoever said “everybody’s a comedian” didn’t know shit. No, it’s “everybody’s a smart ass prick who thinks they’re funny.” Being a comedian involves way more than being the zany guy at work. The zany guy, the class clown, and the drunk yuppie in the audience who feels the comedian is getting more attention from his girlfriend than he is, you can all go to hell. You’re not comedians; you haven’t read this guide yet.

Audience
There are 3 variables to any stand up performance: what you write off-stage (the prep stuff); how you perform it (the in-the-moment stuff); and the audience. It may sound like an entire third of a set is completely uncontrollable, but you might as well say professional poker players aren’t skilled; they’re simply the luckiest bastards in the world. There’s always a way to control a crowd, but it involves “reading” the audience. This is “hard” and when you suck at it, it leads to “mental breakdowns”. Even if these humorless, uninspired nobodies hate you, remember what George Carlin said about the audience: “I am here for me, you are here for me. No one is here for you.” Yeah. Fuck ‘em.

Bookers
A booker is like something J. R. R. Tolkien would write about. They are these disgruntled, elusive trolls that will give you riches if you can first catch them, then pass their many trials of fire, then they will finally pay you. If they fucking feel like it. If you’re a nobody like me, trying to get in with a booker can be a lot like chasing the invisible man. Or trying to get back together with an ex girlfriend. They want nothing to do with you. But once you’re in, man, get ready for the floodgates to open. It’s nothing but milk and honey from here on out! Long swims through a beer river in a magical forest of BJ’s every night times a million! Just kidding. They’ll (probably not) call you back in 6 months because they can’t over-expose the scene with you or whatever half-assed excuse they give.

Corny Shit (Hack Material)
You’ll hear a lot of this stuff. This one time I was at a show and a marine was there with all of his marine buddies. They just came back from Iraq and I guess he was The Funny One and wanted to try his hand at stand up before going back and making more killer jokes about the smell of dead insurgents. Anyway, he did that joke about fucking fat chicks and how it’s like riding a moped. Notice how I don’t even need to finish the joke. He said it like it was an original joke that he wrote and then proceeded to get drunk with his asshole friends and pollute the room with shitty music and the word Fag. The point is, if you manage to write a joke that is at least 75% original then you’ve won half the battle. P.S.: puns, “whites do this while blacks do that”, “what’s the deal with?”, etc all are dying a slow, agonizing death. They need to die faster.

Dying
Yeah, I know it sucks. I know what it’s like to work on a set for hours, thinking you’ve crafted the most brilliant rape-joke of all time just to go up on stage and stand in front of a firing squad of pissed off statues. Every single comic has died a thousand deaths on stage. But that’s fine. Just don’t make a habit out of it. The worst is when you do well and think you’re bullet proof. That’s when you get lazy and start blaming the audience for not thinking crib death is funny (it’s not). Dying can be a good thing if you’re smart enough to be introspective and learn from the experience. So, yeah. Don’t be retarded about it. Be like a glorious zombie phoenix named Lazarus.

Edgy
I was kinda alluding to this a second ago, edgy folk usually suck. You know, white boys saying Nigger, talking about rape, baby deaths, nigger babies raping each other to death. With AIDS. Shocking =/= funny. If it were then we’d all be standing around looking at pictures taken by the death squads in the Congo laughing our fucking asses off. Only smart people are able to write jokes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write clean stuff? If you are one of those guys who can write clean stuff and it’s actually funny, then you need to quit comedy and go work in the Obama administration or as some advice-giving guru on top of a mountain or something because you are one of the smartest people on the planet.

Fuck
I love this word. Many other people don’t. Tread lightly.

Groupies
This one’s easy. You don’t get groupies. Musicians get laid all the time because they can take their loneliness and inner turmoil and turn it into a beautiful, melancholy ballad that makes girls want to reach out and touch their heart. Comics turn theirs into fart jokes. It’s also worth mentioning that the vast majority of female audience members are there with their boyfriends, so unless he hit her before the show and one of your jokes makes him cry you’re not getting shit.

Hecklers
I have a real love/hate relationship with these dicks. First off…they’re dicks. They are drunk morons who think they can be funnier than the guy whose job it is to make fun of drunk morons. Sometimes it’s warranted; most of the time it’s not. All I know is if you’re up there and some stupid heckler starts giving you shit, and he gets a laugh, and you, just, absolutely slam him into the ground, there’s nothing better. It’s Revenge of the Nerds as ordained by God.

Music Sucks

I’d like to start right off the bat by admitting that I have no musical talent whatsoever. Despite the fact that I’ve been playing musical instruments since I was 10 and I was a founding member of the greatest band to ever leave SLHS (“The Mildreds”), I write music and songs with the proficiency of Miley Cyrus.

By my own admission I can’t write for shit. Just look at the abomination I wrote yesterday. But I can rip stuff off.

Here, for the first time ever, I’m going to write a song that I’ve Frankensteined together from other songs. But not just other songs: other shittier songs. Will this score be greater than the sum of its parts? Or am I just collecting shit-animals to put on my shit-ark? I don’t know I haven’t “written” it yet.

"Yo VIP let's kick it

Ice ice baby (x2)

All right stop collaborate and listen

Ice is back with my brand new invention

Something grabs a hold of me tightly

Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly

Will it ever stop yo I don't know

Turn off the lights and I'll glow

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal

Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle

Dance go rush to the speaker that booms

I'm killing your brain like a poisonous mushroom
In the name of the witch

I cut the head off a mule I gutted it out

Put it on and then I wore it to school

That ain't the only thing I wore

I wore a clip and some rounds

A fuckin killa with this mule head

And I'm clippin' em down
I'm falling

Every way I turn the same disease

But I like it

Brace myself and hit the wall with ease

Colliding I'm not minding the pain

I've been down here before

All my bones and joints are sore

Find my way out of the wreck again

I've been down here before

Lost myself and so much more

Find my way out of the game again

Open up my head and take it in
And I cant help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer

It's driven me before, it seems to have a vague

Haunting mass appeal

It's not like you to say sorry

I was waiting on a different story

This time I'm mistaken

for handing you a heart worth breaking

and I've been wrong, i've been down,

to the bottom of every bottle

these five words in my head

scream "are we having fun yet?"

No no no

You don't love me and I know now

No no no

You don't love me so let me go now

(I can't let you go, can't let you go)

If you ask me, baby

I shoulda left you along time ago, no
He was a sk8er boi

She said see you later boy

He wasn't good enough for herS

he had a pretty face

But her head was up in space

She need to come back down to earth

Every night in my dreams

I see you, I feel you

That is how I know you go on.

Far across the distanceand spaces between us

You have come to show you go on.

Near,Far, wherever you are

I believe that the heart does go on"

I’d like to thank Vanilla Ice, Insane Clown Posse, Finger Eleven, Incubus, Nickelback, Rihanna, Avril Lavigne and Celine Dion for being such huge assholes and shitting up the music world. Without you this abomination would not have been possible.