Heath Ledger Is One Dry Joker

In one of Heath Ledger's last interviews, he briefly discussed Australian humor:

What do you miss most about Australia?

HL: Hmm...Probably the sense of humor, I really do.

How is the humor different?

HL: There's quite a cultural difference. The Australian sense of humor is very dry, sarcastic, and very undercover. Like if I tell any jokes here, people just think I'm...serious! So I just quit telling any jokes whatsoever.

Hopefully he wasn't telling jokes about spiking Gotham's water supply with LSD or throwing smoke bomb baseballs at major league games and mysteriously escaping.

Condescendingly Racist Laptops For Kids

Reading this interesting NY Times blog post on the One Laptop Per Child project, I caught this:

Like all artifacts designed and disseminated by missionaries, Negroponte’s XO laptop reveals a great deal about his worldview and how he and his colleagues perceive the benighted people they seek to enlighten.

Neither I nor the author of the above line, Virginia Heffernan, believe that M.I.T. rock star Nicholas Negroponte is a condescending bigot. But what if one were behind this project?

Sticks and stones may break your bones—or be the foundation of your home, if you live in a third-world nation. We can’t in good faith blame the hordes of godless heathens in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East for not understanding basic abstract concepts. That’s why we designed the ButtonBox.

Since children in developing nations are only familiar with bright colors, tree branches and pebbles (not even tree branches if we are talking about those li’l desert dwelling critters) we added a wooden stick with each laptop. Since the ruddy faced mongoloids may be intimidated by a case that flashes and makes noises, the stick is used as an extension of the finger, to make sure the laptop is safe.

Once the kids are comfortable enough to use the laptop, we make sure children are greeted with a luminous wallpaper. Though the children are free to choose any wallpaper they would like, the default image is that of Jesus Christ trampling the soft skulls of “bad cowboys” like Heath Ledger.

An instructional video then pops up, teaching children how to read blogs chronicling the throbbing hustle and bustle of advanced civilizations (New York, Los Angeles). This way, children can be introduced to more appropriate, pop-inflected African music like Vampire Weekend.

Don’t drop the plates out your mouths parents—sites such as MySpace and Facebook are blocked, as are any porn sites. Who needs porn when everyone in Africa is naked anyway?

And for you shrewd bargaining Arabs, we included a free goat. A robot goat that acts as a GPS locator for your little rug (riding) rats. That way, you can stone your daughter to death if she sneaks off to a jazz club.

So please enjoy this ButtonBox; it’s better than food!

Naughty Right Wing Acronyms

A political organization has been launched called Citizens United Not Timid. Yes, the acronym resulting from that is no accident.

Here are some other ones the Mo! Action! News! TEAM! unearthed:

Council on Unassimilated Muslims

Federation Against Gays

Conservative Organization Condemning Kissing

Against Social Services

Conservatives Loathe Income Tax

Mundane Dream Journal: Brokeback Parents

I had a dream I saw Brokeback Mountain with my parents in the theater


They dragged me to see it

I was all "NO"

But they insisted

This means I have the repressed desire to dress like an adult baby with latex diapers

Hey Indie Comic...

You're not Doug Stanhope or Dan Bialek so shut your rubbery, foetid trap about how you are going to book your own stand-up tour or how you are going to get 50 fans to pay 10 bucks to see you at a bar, whatever.

I'm all for talented people doing this. People with discipline who have a voice and impressive stage presence. A point of view.

But no one wants to toss any smackaroons your way to hear your jibber jabber about how Williamsburg is annoying or how many Sylvester Stallone films you saw this morning. I'm a recovering Marxist materialist, so the last thing I want to tout is individuality or having a soul.



But could the reason you tell so many alterna-hacky robot sci-fi jokes be that you are, indeed, a robot? If so, I have news for you: you won't make money off anybody. American Apparel and Vice Magazine are reaping glittering fields of lucre off your android ass.

Seriously, are you a fucking replicant? Did you ever have your heart broken? Does anything upset you? Are you really so oblivious about the impending recession that you think people will temporarily put aside their fears of finding affordable housing or having bad credit so you can act out a scene from Styx's "Mr. Roboto?"

It's alterna-clones like you that will lead to the alternative comedy bust. What was meant to allow comics with unique voices a chance to be heard will eventually become a hipster circle jerk.

So think twice before you spam all fifty of your fans about your upcoming show at some faux-dive with a $10 cover. The "fans" may really be blade runners.


NOTE: This is not directed at anyone reading this through FaceBook.

My Mind Is Like A Race Car

Fast and fueled by Arab blood.

Second Anniversary Of My Blog

On Jan. 12 2006, I launched this digital scroll of cybernetic humor. Two years since I started I have been a contributor for the Apiary as well as Dead Frog, I have been interviewed in Time Out New York and I'm actually getting some real spots (see the upcoming shows category).

Here's a look back at two years of the worst thing to happen to comedy since the Internet. What a LOLlercoaster it's been.

First Blog Post Ever


The Decline Of Porn


Kidz Bop Trend



Remembrance Of Videos Past

New Hip-Hop Subcultures


Maniloween

The Rudest Pan Asian Cuisine Menu


How To Build Your Own Interrogation Room


In The Future Everything Will Play Music

Maxim's Review of Dane Cook's Performance in Mr. Brooks

What Ahmadinejad Said Off-Stage At Columbia University


Worst Funk Awards

Do This On Thanksgiving...


1990: Worst Year In Pop Music History?

The Clinton Guide To Revisionist Black History

The Clintons have been backpedaling more than drunken water bikers at the Poconos after they made their comments implying LBJ was more important than MLK in the civil rights struggle. No surprise to anyone who’s read The Clinton Guide To Revisionist Black History. Here are some excerpts:


The CIA stole their recipe for crack from James Brown’s liner notes for Sex Machine

Public Enemy is really Anthrax in blackface.

How low can you go, indeed.



You know that joke about Bill Clinton being the first black president? Guess who wrote that?

One Bear Don't Stop No Show

Perhaps we could have avoided this kerfuffle if the teddy bear was not named Mohamed




but was instead named Showhamed.

My Stab At Microblogging

I'm as stoned as a Brian Jones biopic.

Transcript Of Family Guy Without Writers

Peter Griffin: Remember that time when everything we said was scripted?

(cut to flashback)

HOWTO: Log Off The Web

Look we all know computers are humming golems waiting to pummel us into demented, techno-utpoian submission. But minding that, you have to find a way to work your way back from the web.

The first step is to take one hand off the keyboard. There actually is a keyboard shortcut to closing what's called a browser window, but let's focus on the more straightforward approach. When you move your hand (or hands) off the keyboard, place one hand gently (do not slap, smash, poke, goose, pinch, swat) on the mouse.

Now--and this part is very important: place one finger on the left mouse button. DO NOT SNAP YOUR FINGERS. When you move the mouse, you will notice something moving simultaneously. The cursor is not mimicking you as in a 19th century dumb show; you indeed control the cursor.

If you look closely, you will notice an x in the top right corner of the screen. Sorry, an "X." Remember how I told you to use your finger to click the left button on the mouse (on top of the mouse not on the side of the mouse [the top has the click wheel on it])? Now gently press the button while the cursor (by now a white arrow) is over the x ("X"--gah I keep doing that) and voila! You have successfully logged off the web.

Now that you are successfully logged of the web, I can lay in my white cotton briefs and listen to the mellifluous G-funk of "Pumps and a Bump."

Oprah vs. Chuck

The victories of Obama and Huckabee at the Iowa caucus may delude mainstream media outlets to believe that they are about to butt heads. But let’s cut the kerfuffle and get down to brass tacks; this is really a stand-off between Oprah Winfry and Chuck Norris. Who gets the brass ring? Let’s wheel out the wave pool and see which one floats.


ChuckPhones answer to him.


OprahEats phones and wheels out the excrement onstage for audiences to marvel at.

ChuckRecycles bottles and cans with his forehead and takes whatever deposit he deems fit.

OprahRecycles the same book of the month all year round.

ChuckBuys a falafel sandwich, dumps out the falafel, leaves “Norris droppings” in the falafel and sends it in a Christmas stocking wrapped in bacon to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

OprahKissed Ahmadinejad when he chewed bacon for her and spit it in her mouth.

ChuckLiterally kills at comedy clubs when he reads Neil Simon out loud.

OprahLiterally cries in public when she imagines Obama whistling Paul Simon to himself

ChuckRetrofitted his F18 so the seat is now a marble toilet
OprahJust gave free F18s with marble toilets to her audience



Who’s the big winner? Vote in the comments!

Remembrance Of Videos Past #53 & #54: Melissa Manchester, "You Should Hear How She Talks About You"; Laura Branigan, "Gloria"

In 1982, I heard these two songs during a car ride from Jersey City to Queens with my mom and my Turkish grandmother that was as long as a coked-up Dennis Miller rant. When we stopped at Fontana’s Finest Gyro and Pizza on Northern Blvd, I ran to the Pac-Man machine. This was my first time playing it.

Three years later, I escaped the clutches of my mom, who forced me to watch Dynasty and Falcon Crest, to play Nintendo games.

What I didn’t know then was if it weren’t for video games, I would have ended up gayer than an English professor at the Halloween Parade.