Comedy still ain’t pretty

I'll just say it: This being funny shit is hard. If my colleagues and I make it look easy, it's because we don't want to spoil the illusion. But in an effort to "keep it real", I'm pulling back the curtain to give you all a look at the process, the rules, and the curse. Clip and save, because this is the last time this happens pre-sexual congress.

1. You can't turn it off. As soon as you establish yourself as a grade “A” comedy saying man, people never expect you to turn it off. Most laughstronauts like myself developed their skills as defense mechanisms early on, then parlayed these skills into the savvy yuk-fests you love today. But, it's not always like that. Sometimes we want to open up about our childhood and about how we were dressed as girls because boys are dirty and that disgusting little sausage between our legs is like the devils tongue- Full of lies! Stop laughing! I'm sharing...

2. Girls (part 1). The myth that girls love a funny guy is a half-truth. The whole truth is that girls love a guy stupid enough to help her do heavy lifting, and has a good attitude about doing it. Face it, Chortle king, no amount of joking is going to make her realize that having to listen to her go on about finding a guy "like you, just NOT you" is no laughing matter. So, just get ready to be that shoulder to cry on the next time her true love snogs another chick, you hilarious loser.

3. Comedians are Losers. There are two types of people: Those that moan and complain about the shit that's wrong with life then does nothing about it, and the kind that does everything I just said THEN adds a bit of sarcasm and splits the take with the management. That's the American way! Both of these people are losers, only one is getting paid for their trouble.

4.Agreement forged with old Gods of "Chaos" a bunch of shitI can't speak for everyone, but when I forge an uneasy alliance with Ynyir, the Doomed faceless, i expect his end of the deal to come of without all that bitching and Moaning about how he was "Born before there was birth" and "All that is, is but a speck upon his infinate vessel". Whatever, man. You gonna smite my enemies or what? Shit or get off the pot, son.

5.You can't turn it on. You have not known hell until you're sitting on the perfect zinger directly after a national tragedy of a sad situation, and the "too soon" light keeps going off in your head. Trust me, though, too soon is better than too late. John Mark Karr, the Andy Kaufman of toddler homicide, publicly LIED about killing a small white girl, and was NOT beaten to death for his trouble. Instead, he was released. The police are after me now for even typing the words “dead” and “White girl” in the same sentence. Where’s the justice?
In comedy! …But I’m not gonna touch it!

6. The Stark Reality (girls part 2). Hey, Baby...Everyone has their Albatross. And everyone’s got their self-medication- But the Comedian masks his
“Crying on the inside" by sharing his silly little pain with the world. (see points 1 and 3) The stark Reality is, once you walk off that stage, the suck of the world is still looming. Example: a few years ago, I had a particularly rough breakup with one of Satan's chew toys. I wrote a show about it, and attempted to exercise her smell from me through the scrubbing bubbles of comedy. It was a dark show, but for the time I was on the stage, I felt great. Then the show ended. There I was, facing the Stark Reality that snapping on that hooker from stage was only a quick fix. Then the doubts started in... "Was I funny?" "Was I ever funny?" "I'm a hack!" "Women hate me!""Somewhere in the world, right now, there is a woman having sex with a horse...and I can't get a date..."

7.You get a Spidey sense...for Comedy!One of the best things about being a wise guy is that eventually, you can see the funny in everything. The esoteric surrounds you in a glowing sarcastic light. You are one with the shtick.Let me go off topic a bit here...Family Guy is not funny.Sure, Greased up Deaf guy was funny at first, but it got run into the ground. Comedy is more that just mentioning things in hopes that the audiences recollection will get a giggle. No one wants to see a Mentioning show. What if you came to my show and all I did was material like "Kool-aid! Huh? Remember Kool-aid? Remember Mr.T? What if he drank some? What if he drank some Kool-aid? Huh? Huh? That would be a hillarious juxstoposition of childhood memories!" yeah, the popular culture is full of cool crap to be mined, but add to it! Hey, remember the Punky Brewster cartoon? How crazy was that show!?

8.You have to pretend to hate things you really,really love.
Example: I have seen so much of Britney, Paris, and Lindsey’s reproductive organs over the past year, that I think I’m immune. Contrary to popular belief, a man kind of has to WANT to see hoo-ha for it to mean anything. These constant surprise attacks of skanks and their sugar walls are putting me off! It’s just like when I was seven and I tried to see how many marshmallows I could eat at one time. I hate marshmallows now.

All in all, though, Comedy has been very, very good to me. It brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. I thank you all.
But we are, all of us, dancing towards doom.
Thank you, and good night.

Creep a day #7 "Simple Hoover"

Simple Hoover lives to suck information into the vac tube he's attached to his head- unfortunately, he forgets anything he's learned when he hits his power switch!

Simple!

Thanks to Emma Shurley (age 4) and Papa Neil!

Creep a day #6 "Dark Mouth"

Dark Mouth
Likes: Eating, dripping, brain altering
Dislikes: Sherrifs, Talking dogs, Meddling kids

Everything I Own

The Blues Brothers (1980)

For those of you that have not been paying attention, I am a bit of a media junkie. I love collecting television on DVD, movies, and music. I have a decent sized movie collection limited only by the fact that I have no money to nourish it properly and by that a few years ago I was stupid enough to believe that love was more important that having every season of Futurama on DVD. So, in a fit of emotion and hormone fuelled stupidity, I sold about 200 movies and shows online and to friends that took advantage of my situation.
What did I learn from all of that? Never give up your loot for a dame. At the end of the day you’ll just be alone with no woman and no copy of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or Wild Things.
I’m sure there are lots of guys that would agree, including my idol Nicholas Cage who, in a brief moment of weakness, sold a great chink of his very rare and expensive comic collection because Elvis’ daughter told him to.
I don’t know what Lisa Marie was like in the sack, I couldn’t even guess. Unless she had a womb made of cotton candy and one-hundred dollar bills, there is no way that she was equal to or even slightly comparable to owning a near mint copy of The Amazing Spider-Man issue number one. I know my half-witted ex-girlfriend wasn’t, and she wasn’t even remotely related to Elvis or any celebrity, sports star, or person that had ever done anything worth note.
My point is I have yet to meet the girl worth giving up my current stuff for. Trust me, I’d love to be proven wrong on this point, and soon. But, Chances are I’ll never give up my stuff again. In the immortal words of everything in the Lillian Vernon catalog, love me love my mess.
And that’s why I’m writing this article- my beloved stuff.
Periodically I plan to give you folks a heart felt look at some things that I own and cherish as a way to give you a glimpse inside the mind of the coolest black guy you’re probably ever going to know, seeing as Lando is still only fictional.
Or, if you like, you may think of this as a sort of retro-active critiquing; you will learn about things you may have not known exist, and you’ll learn exactly how I feel about them.

The Blues Brothers
It only makes sense that we start off this experiment in controlled semi-narcissism with my most favoritest of inspirational flicks.
The Blues Brothers fits snuggly into the trilogy of reasons I want to make movies- Goodfellas inspired me, Dawn of the Dead showed me that anything can have deeper meaning, and Blues Brothers taught me that you can never have too many elements if you know the pattern.
The film is based on the characters created by Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi during the so-called glory days of Saturday Night Live. They were popular enough to have an album, A Briefcase Full of Blues, a full three years before the release of the film.
The film is flawless. I don’t mean that there aren’t a few noticeable gaffes here or there. The film existed long before the days where everything could be CGI’d into a dead sheen of perfection. I mean that in my mind, as I’ve watched the film hundreds of times in my lifetime, I can find no fault within its tight 133 minute running time.
This is a beautiful thing, especially due to the fact that by during time the film was being shot, Belushi had become the coke fueled comedy and party machine he’d be when he died. But you could never see this onscreen- probably because the duo wears sunglasses for all but 30 seconds of the film.
Here is the formula for what made the Blues brothers such a great film: Credits, song, mission, car chase, song, build a team, song, car chase, song, car chase, song, car chase, song, song, car chase, complete mission, song, credits.
Change any of these elements, and you have a failure on your hands. As an experiment, Chris Columbus tried this formula but replaced all the car chases with AIDS. The result was Rent, and it was an epic failure.
“One Hundred Thirty Five Minutes/how do you measure/measure a waste of time?”
Philadelphia? Success. Why? No singing and gallivanting around. You see my point- some elements just don’t mix.
John Landis discovered the perfect formula and format to tell the tale of two criminal orphans on a redemptive mission from God, and wrapped it up with the classic Landis styled “No holds barred/bat-shit fiasco” climax he’d started to perfect with Animal House, and later toned down a bit with American Werewolf in London.
I love the Blues Brothers. When I was younger I had the poster in my room bearing one of the most famous quotes from the film, you know, the one about cigarettes, sunglasses, and the distance to Chicago. If you don’t know you’re more than likely some sort of pinko and I have no use for you. I truly do not.
The Blues Brothers are the reason I only wear white socks when I wear a black suit. The Blues Brothers are the reason I know the address to Wriggly Field (1060 West Addison). The Blues Brothers are the reason I want to make movies.
I only own a copy of the film on VHS. While there have been many special releases of the film on DVD, I choose not to own it. Why? Because even though I have a lot of movies that are in normal rotation, the Blues Brothers always comes as a happy surprise whenever I’m flipping through the channels and notice that it’s playing. It’s like finding a five dollar bill in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in a while. Being surprised by a Blues Brothers showing is better, to me at least, than being able to see it whenever I want. And it doesn’t matter how far into the film the showing is, I almost always have to stop and watch it to its touching and controversial end.
As I said, I do have a copy on VHS; a ratty semi dead copy that looks just as grimy and film-like as the day it was released almost thirty years ago. This is the way it should be seen. It’s the equivalent of loving the pops on a vinyl record and listening to Led Zepplin through one speaker- this was the way it was originally presented- this was the way I learned it.
I once made the mistake of buying a re-mastered copy of Night of the Living Dead on DVD. The case boasted that you could now see all 175 shades of grey! I didn’t want to see all this clarity in my 40 year old zombie parable. I grew up with the version sporting one shade of white and one shade of black. This was the version I loved, and believe me when I tell you that it is scarier this way.
There have been a few people in my life that have not shared my love of two orphans from Chicago on a mission from God. In High-School my English teacher snarled that the only thing ruining the Blues Brothers as a film were the Blues Brothers themselves.
Recently, while having a conversation about favorite movies, my confession of love for Jake and Elwood was met with a frown from the person I was talking to. Of course, I just had to ask what this person considered to be her favorite film. Her answer was a confident and embarrassment-free “Willow”. You remember, Willow: the midget fueled Ron Howard directed film written by George Lucas following his failure to procure the rights to make a movie based on the Hobbit. I won’t take any time here to bash Willow, for time, box office receipts, and the occasional intelligence of the of the American movie public has done a better job than I could ever try to.
As far as the person in question, see any other articles I’ve written about my taste in women (READ: comparable to RENT- sickeningly terrible).
Anyway, I think you’re picking up what I’m laying down- I love the Blues Brothers and it is an inspiration to me. See it if you haven’t. If you have seen it, see it again. If you don’t like it, I’m sure Netflix has plenty of copies of Howard the Duck for you to enjoy.

Creep a day #5 "Calvin Breedlove"

Calvin Breedlove, Evil Butler.

That is all.

Creep a day #4 "Fish-Kite Mud-Slug"

"Hey! Look at those awesome Fish-Kites over there!"
"-Just coming out of the Mud. Hmmm. I wonder who'd leave their Fish-Kites around like that?"
"Think I'll walk on over and take a closer look..."

The end.

Dexter Pepper and Bookie

Chapter Three: Red

The woman couldn’t have been any older than 40. She looked good, Dexter thought to himself as he cased her home.
Maybe, one day when all this bullshit was over, he thought, he could find himself a woman. If he was lucky, it’d be one like her; one that cared about her appearance. The dame did her sweating to the oldies in what looked like bike pants. Dexter pleaded with his loins to keep their mind on the job at hand. The house seemed good enough. He was too tired, too drowsy to look for an empty house. He had to act quickly if he was gonna find Bookie. He took one last look at her through the window, and ever so casually made his way to the front door.
The front lock was easy.
Suburbanites were a little too secure in consumer grade security systems. The world would shit a collective brick if it knew who really designed these things. People just like Dexter.
Sixty- eight seconds.
Not a world record, but pretty damn good considering his present condition. The lock never stood a chance. He quietly clicked the door closed behind him, and stood perfectly still. He could still hear her exercising in the rear of the house, which was good.
If she’d heard anything, she would have stopped. He released the deep breath, and started for the stairs. The picture on the telephone table, just before the stairs, offered up a brief family history. She had a husband. One that Dexter hoped, for the husband’s sake, was not at home. He tipped his way to the top of the stairs and waited again.
There was no sound.
The door across from the stairway was the bathroom; Dexter assumed the door at the end of the hall was the master bedroom. He began to make his way towards it.
The Businessman waited across the street from the house for at least ten minutes before he decided to see what Dexter was up to.
He had hid there in the bushes, waiting for Dexter to emerge from the house. Then for whatever reason his mind had convinced him of, he would squeeze the life from Dexter’s neck until he was dead. He charged across the street to the front door.
The Businessman noticed Dexter’s blood on the doorknob as he reached for it and this made him withdraw his hand.
He felt around in his inside pocket for a handkerchief.
The thought of getting someone else’s blood on his hands, when it wasn’t on purpose, was simply disgusting.
He walked into the kitchen and searched the drawers for a suitable weapon. He had guns on him, but guns were passé. Every wannabe tough guy in the world was using guns, and he wanted to rise above it. Then, there were the knives. Knives with serrated edges, knives for meat, knives for vegetables… but knives had all been done. The Businessman reached for the serving fork atop the counter and smiled as he wiped it on his pants. As he tipped from the kitchen, he heard the movement from the den. The Businessman slinked along the wall in the direction of the den, and peeked in through the crack in the door to see the exercising woman. She continued her routine, ignorant of the monster that was bearing its teeth not three feet away from her.
There wasn’t a particular dress she wanted to get into. She wanted to get into them all. This had gone on long enough, this weight problem of hers. She ate when she was upset; she ate when she was bored. She just loved to eat. And while others would contest the fact that she even needed to be on any sort of diet, she had to do this. She had stopped smoking three months ago and started her aerobics as a way to feel better about herself, about who she was.
This was all moot as soon as the Businessman burst through the door and buried the serving fork into the base of the woman’s skull. She then began the spastic dance he enjoyed so much as she tried to reach the fork that was implanted in the back of her neck.
Then there was the delightful look of shock as she turned and saw her killer. He loved it, the fact that her eyes, all their eyes always seem to say so much… what has just happened? Why has this happened? Who are you? Why did you do this to me? Am I going to die?
Uh-oh, this one was a fighter!
It happened; sometimes they tried to get revenge on you for killing them. They tried to fight back, in their final few minutes. She screamed, she gagged, she scratched at him, and she pulled at his hair.
He laughed.
As much as he wanted to play with her, he just had to get this over with.
He reached around and pulled the fork from her neck and pushed her away by her forehead.
When she finally let her fight die, she fell against the door and slammed it closed. Her syrupy red ran slowly underneath the door as she lay limp. The Businessman stood there and cocked slightly, examining his most recent work of art.
Again, a smile eased its way onto his face.
Dexter found a shirt in the closet that fit. Actually, it is the exact same shirt he was wearing.
Was this another one of fate cruel set ups? The delivery was more than likely a whole bunch of pain for Dexter before the night was through.
He had decided, though, that he’d give it as good as he got it, tonight especially.
He had to find Bookie.
The man pulled into the driveway of his home, set for a night of casual conversation, and if he was lucky enough, a little sexual attention from his wife. He had to admit, she was beginning to look a lot more like the woman he had married since she began her new health kick. He had been thinking about her all day, that smile of hers. The way she cooed whenever she’d walk past him.
He wanted her tonight more than he’d wanted her in a long time. As he stepped from his car, he noticed that the front door was slightly ajar.
Instantly, panic overcame him.
He approached the door carefully, quickly looking around him to make sure nothing was out of place in the yard. As he entered the door, he could hear the infernal sounds of badly synthesized music and nearly incoherent rambling of Richard Simmons that had been a staple in the home since the big health kick.
Once inside, the sight of blood flowing underneath the den doorway did not immediately catch his attention. Nothing seemed to be amiss. In fact, everything looked exactly as it had when he’d left for his flight three day’s earlier.
He called out to her in a loud whisper.
There was no answer.
He started for the doorway, one million scenarios filling his head, all of them the stuff of his worst nightmares; his wife was dead.
This was when he saw the blood.