Comedy Magic Really Happens 16 April 2008

The other day I was driving to work and in the middle of the road there was a truck that was sitting sort of sideways, no driver in sight, as if it had been in an accident and the driver had gone to find help. And next to the truck on the street there was a banana peel.

Ta-da!

World’s oldest and still funniest joke: 1; Truck: 0

That should be the end of this post. But it reminded me of another anecdote which I will now share because I can. I have that kind of time!

In college I worked at a truck stop that had a cafe in it. And I very often worked the graveyard shift (Hello, serial murderers!!).

One night during a rainstorm, the power went out for about 10 minutes, which is a bigger deal when you’re at work. You have to secure the place and make sure people don’t steal shit (like your ass-virginity) and then make sure everything’s up and running once the lights come back on. My division manager called to make sure we were okay, and I happened to be in charge at the time, so I spoke to him and reassured him that the gas pumps were working, the customers were fine, and that everything was cool.

He then asked me, “Are the refrigerators running?” There were several industrial sized refrigerators in the back room, where we stored the food that we served in the cafe. I asked him to hang on and I put the phone down, walked into the back room, opened and closed every single refrigerator door, and verified that they were, in fact, running. I then walked back into the office, picked up the phone and answered in the affirmative, to which he replied, “You better go catch ‘em!”

I had just been totally and completely 100% duped by the oldest phone prank in history.

At the time it seemed like a totally valid question — we’d be in a real pickle if the large refrigerators full of prepared foods were somehow affected by the power outage. You don’t want to deprive a meth-fueled truck driver his nightly serving of chicken salad and curly fries. It can get ugly.

But imagine you were the guy who asked me if the refrigerators were running. You expect a simple “Yes,” or even a snort + rolled eyes + “gimme a break” response. Instead you get full on fridge inspection! That never happens! No one EVER falls for that joke. Not even little kids!!

But I did. You win, dude. You’re the henway.

Newfound Sympathy for MJF 23 January 2008

So this morning i was running late and had to postpone my 8 Minutes in the Morning workout until I got to work. But it’s no problem — we have a gym at work. So I go to my 9:30 status meeting (at 9:36!) and then head to the gym immediately after.

Today’s workout included 2 exercises building arm muscles by pumping cans. Not “cans” like “check out my muscles,” or “check out her tits,” but soup cans. It’s a very “Hey you can work out with household items!” spirited book, which is nice, but I’m in a gym, where they have actual weights. So I decide to use the smallest ones I can find.

The smallest I can find are 8 pound weights. Zorg.

So I do one “rep” of each exercise (60 seconds each) and I can already tell there is no way my sad out-of-shape arms are going to be able to repeat this three more times. So I go to the kitchen in search of cans. Can’t find any normal size cans, but our chef (yeah, we have a chef at my office) brings me two family-size cans of chicken broth. They’re a little hard to grasp, but they only weigh three pounds, so I figure its doable. Meanwhile, my arm muscles are throbbing from the one rep using eight pound weights.

Back to the gym and I’m pumping my chicken broth cans, while people occasionally walk through and muse over my choice in weights. “Yes, hi, I’m a nerd.” And not only is it somewhat embarrassing to be lifting giant cans, but its also hard. The eight pound weights left my muscles all jiggly, so now even the three pound cans are killing me.

During my last rep, a coworker walks through the gym and points out that she had misplaced the REAL three pound weights. Oops. She finds them for me, but I still feel like a dork (”Oh, we had 3 pound weights all along…?”) — a dork that can barely hold three pound weights at this point, much less move them up and down repeatedly. But I soldier through (like the lamest soldier ever) and finish my fourth rep and move on with my day.

Its now been like 20 minutes, and I can’t lift a plastic fork. I was trying to eat half a bagel and I kept involuntarily jerking it around in my hand like an epileptic with Tourettes. Eight fucking pounds for 120 seconds + three pounds for 360 seconds = my arms are made of jelly. My boss came over and asked me to work on a headline and I couldn’t write on the piece of paper. My handwriting reminded me of the time I let one of the Special Ed kids sign my yearbook on a moving school bus. It hurts to answer the phone.

So I’m out of shape, is basically what I’m saying. I mean, I knew I needed some work. But I’ve clearly been in denial as to just how little I’m working with. I would continue, but I’m starting to lose sensation in my fingerti

If Only It Starred Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem 28 November 2007

I was getting all giggly about the trailer for the new movie Teeth about a girl who has “vagina dentata” (a toothy hoo-ha). And then Matt and I had this conversation:

• Me: Lenny Von Dohlen is in the movie!!!!
• Matt: Yeah, great reviews out of Sundance
• Me: And also, there’s teeth in a vagina. So honestly, if you hear that and then have to ask a question like, “Well, what are the reviews like?” then you’ve already missed the point.

A Cautionary Tale? 18 October 2007

I remembered this story today. It is totally 100% true, and awesome.

When I was in college I was in at least four classes with this guy Ben* who knew several of my close friends. He lived around the corner from me and he hung out with my roommate from time to time. And yet every time we ran into each other at a party or a show he would introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Ben,” to the point that I finally I was like, “DUDE. I FUCKING KNOW YOU!!”

Anyway, we were in a film analysis class with one of my favorite professors, Dr. Wyatt. For the final, we watched Slaves of New York and then were given a question about the film that we would answer in essay form. That was our whole final, and a big part of our grade.

So after the film, before we started writing, Dr. Wyatt allowed us to ask him questions, about the movie, and about the test. And everyone’s all serious, because we’re about to take our final exam. So Ben raises his hand and asks, “I was wondering, is that guy who played the doctor in that one scene - isn’t that the same actor who played Long Duk Dong?”

Dr. Wyatt paused for a second, I assume to consider two things:

1. Is that seriously the question you need to ask before you take this exam? I mean, is that at all relevant to your analysis of the film? Because, if so, nevermind. You’ve failed. Society has failed.

2. That actor was Indian.

So his answer to Ben was, “Um, the Indian guy?”

And Ben said, “Yeah. He played Long Duk Dong, right?”

And Dr. Wyatt says, “The actor you’re thinking of is Asian.”

And Ben still wasn’t getting it. He was like, “It looks like the same guy, right?”

So now, a visibly irritated Dr. Wyatt is all, “No. They’re not the same guy,” and moved on. You could tell Ben wasn’t totally convinced.

Anyway, Dr. Wyatt wrapped up the Q&A session and then allowed everyone to take a bathroom break before we got started. I went out to get a drink of water and as I walked back toward the classroom I saw that Ben had Dr. Wyatt cornered by the bathroom door and was pressing him: “You don’t think it was the same guy…?”

A couple years later Ben moved to New York and committed suicide. I like to think that he was on a quest to find the actor that played the doctor in Slaves of New York, and upon discovering that he was not, in fact, the same actor who played Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles, was too disappointed to go on living.

*Not his real name.

(Stop) Making Whoopi (Talk) 4 September 2007

Will someone tell me why people put Whoopi Goldberg on television? File this little nugget under, “Oh, but she’s got you talking about her, so doesn’t that count for something?” (Answer: no)

Whoopi Goldberg used her first day on [The View] Tuesday to defend football star Michael Vick in his dogfighting case.

Goldberg said that “from where he comes from” in the South, dogfighting isn’t that unusual.

“It’s like cockfighting in Puerto Rico,” she said. “There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country.”

Me: Like slavery, for example.
Matt: Cannibalism isn’t that unusual in some places. Also Eddie is probably a good movie somewhere.
Me: Equally disturbing.

I Do Not Understand 20 August 2007

Two things:

1. In the middle of this guy’s increasingly agitated rant the video stops and asks you to subscribe to his site. Like a rapist stopping mid rape and asking you to tell him you love him. This video plays the whole way through, but at the end of listening to it you’ll have hives and a pinched nerve in your neck.

2. Someone left a National Examiner in the smoke room — apparently OJ’s friends are worried that he’s an alcoholic. It’s weird what bothers these people. The drinking? A serious problem. The murdering? Not so much. I heard Jeffrey Dahmer’s pals were concerned about his seasonal weight gain. Next week: Al Qaeda terrorists: Are They Getting Enough Vitamin C?!!!

Shithouse Rats Now Sane By Comparison 16 August 2007

You know who’s crazy? South Carolina inmate, Jonathan Lee Riches, who’s suing Michael Vick for $63 million-billion dollars. In a handwritten lawsuit (click the link above to see it), Riches claims Vicks stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to buy “missiles from Iran.”

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year. “Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint.

This guy is obviously the greatest legal mind of our time. He’s inspired me to write my own lawsuit in which I will sue 1979’s Matt Dillon for not loving me. I expect to receive infinity-plus-one dollars for emotional trauma and expenses. See you in court, Rumblefish!

Oh, and guess who else is crazy! This dude keeps asking me for Gary Gygax’s email address, because I interviewed him once in 2001. Besides the fact that I explicitly refuse to give out contact information for people I interview, I explained to this person that I no longer have Mr. Gygax’s email because I contacted him through his website (six years ago) that no longer exists.

So then he writes me back, “Wouldn’t you have something in ’sent items’?”

Thanks for paying attention to how email works, handsome. The URL no longer exists. What, have you lost your cape or something? If you want to contact Gary Gygax so fucking bad, why don’t you conjure up a level 5 wish spell or some shit?

Some Random Shit About Comedy and Film 15 August 2007

This probably isn’t the appropriate blog for the following crap, unless you think that, as a whole, I am a crazy person for mentioning it in the first place. Which I guess I am. Silver lining, here I come!

I listened to this Paul Rudd interview on Fresh Air and Terry Gross asked the most annoying questions ever. As much as it’s fun to hear Paul Rudd talk about his teen acne, it seemed to go on longer than an anecdotal aside and felt uncomfortably forced. Plus, she describes the movies that Rudd is in (Anchorman, Knocked Up, and The 40 Year Old Virgin) as if the entire audience is blind and hasn’t left the house in 20 years. Who doesn’t know about these movies already? I told my friend Matt that she reminded me of Chris Farley’s character that would interview celebs by saying, “Remember when you did that thing? That was awesome!” If that character was impersonated by Ana Gasteyer, that would be this interview.

I guess it’s mean to armchair quarterback another person’s interview, especially when I’m sure some of the ones I’ve done were less than stellar. I was just craving the funny Rudd stories and he kept getting sidetracked by some really uninteresting questions. Also, it might be hard to be a good interviewer when your subject is mildly dreamy. Most of mine happened through email, so I suppose it’s easier to stay focused.

Yesterday Matt sent me this video link and in commenting on it, I inadvertently invented the phrase “Haverchuck’s cameo” which I now wish would be used as a euphemism for some sexy sex thing. For the record, back when Freaks and Geeks first aired, I totally predicted that Martin Starr would grow up to be a superattractive nerdhottie one day, and although this short dosn’t present him as such, I still think he’s way hot. Anyway, when Jay Z manages to work the expression “Haverchuck’s cameo” into a song, I’ll know my wish has come true. I tried to write a samply lyric for Jay (cameo rhymes with “Grammy, yo!”) but then I realized that he probably doesn’t use an online rhyming dictionary to write his songs, which is why he’s a billionaire rapper and I’m not.

But that’s the only reason.

Judd Apatow is like comedy Hitchcock.

And totally unrelated to all of the above comes this story, as a warning, to anyone attending open mic nights. My first year in NYC (1996), I had never been to an open mic comedy show. But my roommate’s boyfriend was visiting and he had a friend who was going to perform in one, so we all went to support him. A bunch of us got a table right up front — right next to the stage — so we could clap hard and laugh a lot in solidarity.

But then we found out that before comedy comes an hour of musical open mic. So these musicians got up - this one hippie couple looked like they had closed their eyes somewhere on the Haight in 1972 and opened them in this club a few minutes later. He had shaggy hair and an acoustic guitar and she had long blonde hair and a flowy dress. And they were so fucking sincere. They meant every word. Which was why it felt so totally rude to laugh at them. It was just so jaw-achingly, hard-to-breathe hilarious. And every note was funnier than the last. And we sat two feet from them onstage. Oh, so painful!

Most of us just stared down at the table, trying not to smile. I held it in as long as I could, but I looked across the table and my friend Peggy had tears streaming down her face. She had a vice grip on the table and was trying so hard not to laugh that she was crying. That did it for me. I just turned around in my seat so that my back was facing them and started to laugh uncontrollably into my hands. Not-on-purpose mean, but unfortunately unavoidable.

Ironically, the comics that followed them were the least funny people I’d ever seen. So terrible. But hippie couple was, admittedly, a hard act to follow. The moral of the story is, sit in the back.

FYI - the guy who sits near me at work plays the worst music ever. Like Avril Lavigne and what must be the entire Bratz soundtrack or something. This is not funny at all. This should be illegal.

P.S. David Cross as Allen Ginsberg:

Potential is the New Accomplishment 7 August 2007

Potential is tricky. Having potential is great because you get to celebrate something that you haven’t actually done. It’s an extra-large hook to hang your hat on.

I’ve been stuck in this potential rut for quite some time with regard to Kittenpants. I haven’t written a new issue in over 2 years now. I have some great interviews lined up (Patton Oswalt, Neil Hamburger) that I can’t follow through with and some ideas about redesigning and relaunching the site that I can’t commit to. I have a book that I haven’t gotten around to promoting - it’s printed but I haven’t sent it to a single publisher or distributor. All the things that could be potentially good, satisfying, exciting — I’m just finding more and more reasons to postpone.

Like, I’ve been reading interviews and books about interviews and then feeling self-conscious that my interviews should be better and then promising to work harder on my interview questions, which puts off actually conducting interviews.

And now, I realize I don’t have any funny story to tell or anecdote to close this blog post with, which makes it kind of lame that I wrote it in the first place. So I’ll tell you something that is totally unrelated. Today, at work, I was asked to create a smoothie name for a black raspberry smoothie — a name that fits into a theme of “recharge” and “re-energize.” So I called it “Black Power!” and I really hope they use it.

A Hoser By Any Other Name… 5 July 2007

Have you ever been crippled by your own nerdiness? A latecomer to the whole phenomenon, I still find myself ultradorked-out over the impending release of a new Harry Potter movie and book. Sometimes I say things that make my insides want to stab me as the words escape my lips. Like, every sentence is prefaced and epilogued with shameful apologies for my gushing spazmouth. For instance, I actually said this out loud to someone the other day:

“It would be interesting to see a parallel universe in which Harry was placed in Slytherin house instead of Gryffindor.”

That part of me that super-hates Ren Fairs, hippies and jam bands wanted to murder my brain for allowing such a thought to be expressed out loud. And as much as I want to really have this conversation, I feel like I can’t - my nerd brain is stuck in an attic, writing a diary, and all it wants to do is go outside and play. But it can’t. The “please — try to retain the faintest glimmer of cool” gestapo is waiting downstairs.

It’s not just me, though. The other day I asked my friend if he wanted to see Transformers with me and he was all, “Yeah I totally want to see that - the kid that’s in that movie [Shia LaBoeuf] is really good. I like what he’s done, so I definitely want to see it.”

I was like, “Um.. Dude, there are giant fucking robots that turn into cars and planes and shit.” He just sort of nonchalantly answers, “Yeah, that too.”

Compared to this guy, I’m the goddamn Leather Tuscadero of cool. “Oh, if Even Stevens is in it, then I’M THERE!!” I love him, but I also can’t wait til he starts reviewing movies on whether or not they were “So Raven” or “Not So Raven.”