Hey John Cusack…

Did you blow your coolness wad on High Fidelity? Of course I don’t expect you to do something as resplendent again, but you’ve let yourself go more than Mo’Nique at a BBW party held at a Chinese buffet in Paramus.

Let’s look at your recent works:

America’s Sweethearts (2001): Wow, this was a Category-5 hurricane of a disaster. Julia Roberts barely recovered from this with Ocean’s Eleven. Billy Crystal hid his face in shame and did voiceover work for Monster’s Inc. Whatever, one flop is forgivable.

Serendipity (2001): IMDB synopsis—“A couple reunite years after the night they first met, fell in love, and separated, convinced that one day they'd end up together.” A movie about a Craig’s List Missed Connection coming to fruition. Ouch.

Max (2002): OK, not a rom-com. So far, so good. Synopsis? “A film studying the depiction of a friendship between an art dealer named Rothman and his student, Adolf Hitler.” You played Hitler's art dealer. You’re not getting this: you played the most incompetent art dealer in recorded history. Let me put this in High Fidelity terms: it’s as if you played the guy who signed The Eagles to Epic Records.


Johnny Suck Lately

Must Love Dogs (2005): Original title: Must Hate Good Scripts

The Ice Harvest (2005): A movie about Christmas crooks? What’s the sequel? The Ramadan Robber?

Martian Child (2007): It’s not about a kid from Mars. It’s about a kid who thinks he’s from Mars.

So let’s look back at the past five years: you’ve played a romantic cornball; an art dealer for a fascist dictator; an attorney for Christmas criminals; the adopted father of a would-be Martian son.

All this from the man who was in Say Anything, Being John Malkovich and Grosse Point Blank. Your film career is “better off dead.”

Punch Lines Take A Beating In The Press

SHECKYmagazine shines when it tackles the media’s apparent bias against punch lines. In January, they called out the LA Times’ bias against mainstream comedy and now they caught this article in Philly.com attacking punch lines in television shows.

From the article:

Comedy isn't dead, it's just been outsourced - to shows more like Weeds than Everybody Loves Raymond. Shows that are not so much sitcoms as sitcomish, single-camera conceits that are slick and dramatic (but not quite so dramatic to be considered dramedies) - but also consistently funny. Like 30 Rock or The Office. Shows that do not pause for three seconds after the joke, shows that don't acknowledge there's been a joke at all. Shows that on paper might not be funny at all.

Now I appreciate awkward comedy, anti-humor, avant garde comedy, etc. as much as the next bitter, media-obsessed scribe. But do we really have to choose? Is it so wrong to have punch lines? Must everything be subtle and dry? Must everybody be a disciple of the Del Close/Andy Kaufman School of What The Fuck?

Consider the great comedians who use punch lines (Demetri Martin, Patton Oswalt, Doug Benson, Chris Rock). Are these comedians wrong for entertaining us with written jokes that have set-ups and resolutions?

Of course, critics have a built-in postmodern, academic bias against resolutions. Everything must be open-ended. No resolutions or statements allowed.


Ironically, I can’t find a satisfying resolution for this blog post. Happy now, you joke-hating fucktards?

Comedians Are Bad Porn Actors

We’ve all heard that old canard: people become comedians because they want to make people laugh. That’s like saying people get into porn because they like to fuck. Who doesn’t like to fuck or make people laugh?

Just like almost every porn star was sexually abused, 99 percent of comics were verbally abused. Good comedians want to make people laugh; great comedians want revenge.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the porn and comedy industries are filled with fuck-ups; the industries themselves are capitalist perversions of things that humans have naturally enjoyed. Getting a rim job, sharing a laugh—these are intimate moments that normal people are content with experiencing without an audience or a paycheck.

And just like a porn actor’s worst nightmare is impotence, a comedian’s worst nightmare is being successfully zung by the school bully.

Sometimes those bullies aren’t people but institutions (religion, capitalism, Aerosmith). From Richard Pryor to David Cross, comedians have had a chip on their shoulder.

Aerosmith: the reason for alternative rock and comedy

So do I like to make people laugh? Almost as much as I want to make bullies cry and porn stars cum.

Line Of The Millenium

"Bret Michaels Will Not Be Played!"-Bret Michaels, last night's episode of Rock of Love

Yeah, if you mean your solo album, Songs of Life.

I don't know why I watch Rock of Love. Suzanne Somers Bret Michaels is not as charismatic as Flavor Flav. The girls are not as unruly as Charm School's.

And every other song sounds like "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." Seriously. I think one of them is called "Every Row Has Its Corn."

Every Bro Has His Porn

You're in your goddamned 40s Bret. How do you explain to your kids that their potential stepmother's crowning achievement was saying "I want some rocker ass" during a 30-second promo? I know it's embarrassing to work as a temp. Fuck it dude, join the Army. Be a special breed of Motorcycle Soldier. Keep it smoothed out on the Captain America tip and shit.

Or better yet, be Bush's brain; take Karl Rove's job. Be a "poison"-ous turd blossom.

Start a Rudyard Kipling book club.

Enter the Chinese toothpaste market.

Fuck it dude, just take some UCB sketch classes. You would bump David Cross in a rock musical with Yo La Tengo.

Anything but bitch and moan on VH-1 about a starfucker.

Yes, that's what he means by "I will not be played." Some woman is not there for him, but because he is a star.

The rest of them are not star fuckers however. Seriously, they never heard of you.

Hey Bill Richardson...

One fat dude to another -- you're too fat to run for President. Seriously, look at you. We want a movie star for president, not Checker's Most Valued Customer. I mean sure you might be against the war. BFD, fatso. Republicans are burning flags over this war. Sorry Rotund Richardson, but you better drink soy milk and eat rice cakes before you consider your bid. I promise you that you will not be in the White House. Maybe the White Castle, but not the White House.

Good thing this guy has no embed code -- I don't want his blubbery mug on my template.

Hey DJ Who Leaked Icky Thump...

Don't act like you be surpreezeed that Jack White got mad you leaked his album. Yeah, I said it, Jack White's album. It's as much Meg's album as it is Mark McGrath's.

Here are some other things that may, believe it or not, put Whitey in the throes of homicidal rage:

- Screaming "Detroit what" at his kitten's funeral.

- Describing his music as a mix between Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan.

- Giving him a drive-by manicure at a strip mall.

- Locking him in a charnel house. Yup, that alone will do it.

One of these has a Pepsi Rewards bottle cap*


- Saying he's too "white," hyena laughing it up and giving off one of those fucking grating post-guffaw sighs that let everyone know your laugh has come to an end. Really, your quasi-epileptic seizure is over now? Good cuz without the sigh you would be perpetually laughing. No, go ahead, sigh it up you brazen laugh whore.

- Thinking about your doorbell. Don't do it. You just did it.

- When he finally gets in your face, breaking the tension by saying "I guess a 'Seven Nation Army' can't hold you back. Hyuk hyuk sigh."

- Calling him at 5:30 in the morning like a coked-up tranny talking about your favorite Family Guy episode.

- Telling him he's the cutest Stroke.

* Photo courtesy of Meneldur through CC license

Hey Mobile TV Developers...

If you'd like to make a call please hang up and try again. If you need help please dial the operator. TV networks must be insecure to think that less and less kids watch TV and more and more kids watch their cell phones. Maybe they are flocking to the World Wide Web, but not to their wireless provider. I ain't watching any supplemental episodes of "24" on my cell phone. Like that show needs supplements. Cuz we need to know what Jack Bauer does between 8:59 AM and 9:00 AM. Is that why they are always using cell phones in "24"? To catch up with the plot?

I can't hear myself talk in my own mobisode. DAMMIT!

Of course some people inisist comedy is perfect for mobile phones. It's quick and to the point. Point taken. But this idea will work when the iPhone comes out. And that's just because it will be like a mobile computer. Where I can download shows off iTunes or stream them from the network websites. But this idea of original cell phone content produced for cell phones? The only demographic you're gonna reach in this country is the obnoxious fucktard who wants to show off their cell phone demographic. Maybe there's a comedic genius out there who's a cross between Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton who's gonna make a brilliant cell phone comedy called "The Thimble vs. The Shaker of Salt," brilliantly utilizing the 1 inch cell phone screen for subtle sight gags and new ways of looking at comedy. But do you think for a second that Verizon or Cingular will bankroll this kind of comedy? Or will they only have room in the budget for "Valley Girl Meathead Poolside Awesomenity!"

Lastly, I think being a cell phone celebrity is the lowest form of celebrity imaginable. I write for The Apiary. I know enough people who don't understand the significance of this, even though it is easily one of the most important comedy websites - let alone blogs - on the Internet. Try telling people you have a hit cell phone show. Eventually your cell phone will say "Life failed" instead of "Call failed."

Honey I got my own mobile phone sitcom! Now I get free nights and weekends!

Hey Online Media Divisions for Corporate Megaliths...

Fire your IT departments. MTV, your site takes so long to load, I refuse to link to it. Same goes for you, National Lampoon's Toga TV. Why would I ever visit such a shite? Because Hollywood Reporter discussed "some other corners of the Internet's ongoing funny fest." Here are the other corners:

Super Deluxe
Tim and Eric
A Week of Kindness

Mysteriously, those sites do not make my browser crash. But the more your site appeals to meatheads (MTV, National Lampoon's) the more time it takes to load (The Meathead Time Ratio). I do not know if I like Toga TV or not; the videos never loaded. But I did catch an Axe body spray ad. Perfectly targetted for the meathead demographic.

Shoot, it's like your online division is run by slow-witted meatheads who sing folk songs about vagina and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
NOT RESPONDING
END NOW/CANCEL
SEND ERROR REPORT?

Hey Studio 60...

I know I gave you the Jim Belushi Award for Least Funny Show of '06 but that was '06, before that unintentionally hilarious Matthew Perry-as-speed-freak subplot. You can't stop now; I'm starting to like S60. It's like every episode is an entry in Aaron Sorkin's rehab journal. Every other minute there's a drug reference. "Fridays" and "That '70s Show" had less drug references.

Here's what you need to do to change Studio 60 before it gets confiscated by the cops cancelled by NBS:

Change the Title: I think "Matthew Perry: Speed Freak" would get more eyeballs, but "Studio 60 on the Cocaine Drip" would probably make a smoother transition.

Replace the Theme Song with a Bong Hit: Worked for Cypress Hill and Black Sabbath as an intro to their songs.

Have the Staff Talk About Writers, Artists, Philosphers Who Did Drugs:

Jittery Staff Member #1: Didn't Picasso smoke hasish?
JSM#2: No, he did absinthe.
JSM#1: So he couldn't have done both?
JSM#2: Only Fatty Arbuckle and Captain Beefheart did both.
Heartless Suit: He didn't make big bucks!
JSM#1: Jesus sucks. You got a spoon I can borrow?

Next Week on "What Were They Smoking?"...


Write Wacky Sketch Titles About Drugs Without Showing Sketches: "Speed, Schmeed," "Crazy Crackheads," "Dopamine Girl;" the possibilities are endless (but supplies aren't).

Have Tokin' Black CharacterDL Hughley Talk About How Brothers Love Them Some Weed: Just play around with the intro to Friday. "It's Friday and you know I need to smoke. And you know this, maaan."

Give Viewers a Five Minute "Smoke Break" Intermission Before Musical Acts Come On: There's only one way to appreciate Eagle Eye Cherry and Sting.

Never Stop Focusing on Matthew Perry: Just give him a bottle of speed, a backwards baseball cap and a pogo stick. Then let 'er rip.

Hey New York Times...

It's OK if you don't know what a hipster is. You're known as "The Times," so you feel this burdensome pressure to keep with the times. Sometimes, you are on the money (hipsters like Williamsburg, I must confess). But between last week's black hipster article and this week's "hipsters love JT" article, I'm left with no choice but to question your knowledge of what a hipster is.

Where the Old Gray Lady Gets All Its Hipster Knowledge

In the black hipster article you mentioned something about how some black kids love The Killers and Coldplay. Neither of these bands get hipster love. Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy is not a hipster - or indie rock - authority either but you used him as a source to prove that hipsters love Justin Timberlake. Speaking of evidence, aren't newspapers supposed to, like, have statistics or polls to back up their arguments? Neither article has them.

There are some subcultures which you are completely ignorant of. Maybe it's latent racism. Here is my coverage of a subculture which you have inexcusably overlooked. (Full disclosure: I am Egyptian).

Walk Like an Egypster: Egyptian Hipsters are All Over Astoria
by Mo Diggs

Tariq Mustafa works in a hookah shop on Ditmars Street. Union's been on strike, he's down on his luck. It's tough, so tough. He has a white ironic t-shirt with a red ringer and Buddy Holly specs. He listens to Peter, Bjorn and John on a white iPod. "In a time of war this music is peaceful," said Tariq.

Tariq is one of many Egyptian hipsters, or "egypsters" (a term submitted tofound on Urbandictionary.com) living in Astoria and Long Island City. Usually you expect Egyptians to fuck goats, deny the Holocaust or blow themselves up. But these Egypsters are nice people who like electro hip-hop like Egyptian Lover and smell just as bad as their cocaine-white Williamsburg brethren.

When I ask the Egyptian man selling gyros and kebabs on Steinway Street whether he listens to TV on the Radio, he nods and smiles. I get the same response from every Egyptian street vendor I ask.

"I love Peter, Bjorn and John," says Tariq. "That's all that's on my girlfriend's iPod." When asked whether we can speak to his girlfriend, Tariq says "OK, she's my ex, but I'm holding her iPod hostage so she can come back."

This reminds one of the old Carl Sandburg poem about Egyptian jazz hipsters from the '20s called "Egyptian Finger Popping Daddy! Yes!":

Egyptian finger popping daddy, yes!
Broad shoulders, cat-like feet
Play that jazz, eat that shawarma
Tough, finger popping muscles
Yes!

PREVIOUSLY: Hey LA Times...

Hey "Lost"...

Don't dumb yourself down for the audience when you come back tomorrow. Fuck those dimwits who want answers right away. "Lost" is the greatest television drama. On TV or on HBO. Unlike the HBO dramas, "Lost" is open-ended. It trusts the viewers to make connections; to find their own answers.



These people who whine about "Lost" stringing viewers along are the same people who:

* hate Shakespeare's sonnets because he may or may not be talking to a dude
* need every joke to start with those three magic words: "What's up with..."
* hate Rocky because Balboa loses at the end
* think the morals of a "Full House" episode are too ambiguous

"Lost" is a character-driven show. Yes, there is the occasional mind-blowing plot twist. But this show was always more concerned with atmosphere than action. So take your time explaining the smoke monster. Or don't explain it at all. Andy Kaufman didn't dumb down his act after becoming one of ABC's biggest money makers. Neither should you.

Hey LA Times

Recently you had an article about the LA alternative comedy scene. Very good in that you covered all the major alt shows. Too bad you spewed all that editorializing jizz on the story. Shecky says it best:

In thie piece, the regular clubs are the enemy-- The clubs have "rules and restrictions" (?), the comics only want a sitcom (horrors!) and the glasses clink too loudly. The alt venues are idyllic-- young, smart, idealistic comedians mingle with sweet, young, hip patrons in an atmoshpere reminiscent of Paris in the 30s or San Francisco in 1956. Of course, the reality is somewhere in between, but that wouldn't make for very good copy.

I guess Jen Kirkman's (one of the comedians quoted in the article) true thoughts wouldn't make for good copy either:

I am just having a knee jerk reaction to my quote because out of context it sounds like something I'd have said at age 21 when I first started doing comedy...I told this crazy East coast alcoholic in my monologue that I didn't want to be on SNL because I already have a job not because I'm opposed to television.

I am definitely not anti-mainstream or opposed to the typical comedy career trajectory. In fact, I hope I'm lucky enough to have it.

There you have it: even one of the alt-comics you covered (an excellent one by the way with an album coming out on my birthday) thinks you're being more hyperbolic than a coked-up WWE writer.

My take: did you want to talk to some club owners or club comics? No, that's like (gum snap) toooootally bo-ring. Why would you want to interview the people you indiscriminately malign? That would be awk-ward! This is the new age in which snarky 'tude is all the rage and asking tough questions from the people who are too unhip for the room is sooo 60 Minutes.

Here's a new scene I discovered in NY.


Young Urban Punchlines
by Mo Diggs

Did you hear the one about the underground comedy scene that went bust? Probably not; it wasn't mainstream enough for you. As the evil scenesters' necrotic tissue decomposes a new comedy scene is developing: Yuppie comedy.

More and more comedians and comedy fans are tired of the hipster scoffs and anti-humor of the alt scene; they just want jokes. While most alt-comics dream of advancing to performance art or playing Coachella, the yuppie comedians simply want to tell - and hear - jokes.

Away from the trendy cabarets and performance spaces, yuppie comics tell jokes at various midtown Starbucks. "We like it because it reminds us of the show 'Friends'," says Trevor Van Nilla, host of the yuppie comedy show "Central Perk."

As opposed to the surrealism and anarchy of the downtown scene, these comics tell jokes about how annoying that lady in accounts payable is. Or how gentlemen's clubs charge too much for lap dances. You know, stuff that working people - not smug, trust fund douchedrops - can relate to.

See how manipulative that article was? Shoving great comics like Doug Benson and Eugene Mirman underneath some lazy, blanket stereotype? Valorizing a bunch of comedians for what they stand for rather than what they actually say? Here's the truth: many alternative comedians and club comedians are friends. The Greg Giraldos hang out with the Liam McEneanys. The Patton Oswalts shoot the shit with the Lisa Lampanellis. Apparently, the Jen Kirkmans even run into the lazy journos.

Hey Muslim Protesters...

Stop whining about "24." I've been writing this blog for a little over a year without writing about Islam or about myself. Well times have changed and Muslim protesters have opted to protest "24." Not terrorism, (which I vehemently oppose as an Arab-American who was raised Muslim), not the Iraq War (which I vehemently oppose as an American leftist) not even the decline of American values under Bush or Islamic values under the fundamentalist imams. No, please, I insist, let's cry about cartoons and TV shows.

Olbermann and the Muslim groups don't get it yet do they? "24" always does this. They start roping in the bigots who hate Muslims like my Mom or Arabs like me. Then by the eighth hour some white boy conspiracy is revealed.


Nobody knows, indeed.

But even if the Muslim terrorists were the bad guys...what do you suggest as a serious alternative? Pretend there are no Muslim terrorists? Perhaps "24" should go all the way and pretend all Presidents are outstanding individuals? That the detainment of innocent Muslims should go unquestioned?

"The overwhelming impression you get is fear and hatred for Muslims," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. She said Thursday she was distressed by this season's premiere. "After watching that show, I was afraid to go to the grocery store because I wasn't sure the person next to me would be able to differentiate between fiction and reality."

I assume this means the woman was wearing a hijab. Interesting because the Koran says nothing about wearing a hijab so she wants the attention. And incidentally, does she really feel there are people out there who were previously ambivalent towards Muslims but now have an axe to grind after watching "24"?


Ambivalent White American: What's on the news? Lemme see here..."Muslim Cleric Calls Death to America?" Ah, whatever. Wait turn up the TV Lois. Huh, Kumar is holding a family hostage? That's it. I shall dress like a beast. A vengeful marauding beast hellbent on striking terror in the hearts of Muslims everywhere. From this day forth I shall be known as...The Crusader! Nya-haha!


Look I am an atheist but my mom is Muslim and she is a good person who opposes terrorism. I am not against Muslims. But just like I can both love my country and denounce the PresiDunce of the United States, I can respect most peaceful Muslims and say without the slightest quark of circumspection that these protests are dumber than a kangaroo in a boxing match.

Hey Pundits

Shut your fly catchers about "24." Keith Olbermann is the Edward R. Murrow of our generation. Or he was until he decided to give a shrill, apoplectic tirade denouncing "24" - one of my favorite shows - as fear-mongering propaganda that advocates torture. Yes we are living in Orwellian times, which is why a man of Olbermann's stature should know better than to stare down a fictional super agent/vampire.


Jackula's Backula

The right-wing chickenhawk neocons add a dollop of creepiness to the hysteria. That porkpie-hat-wearing-pig-fucker Matt Drudge decided it wasn't enough to reveal the biggest spoiler in television history, but he also had be the mouthpiece for a Fox source implying that the "24" shocker would wake the nation up.

"Time to wake the country up!" a top FOX source told the DRUDGE REPORT over the weekend. "I do not think there has ever been TV done like this, the viewer is going to be completely riveted."

Because 9/11 and the color-coded alerts weren't enough to keep us terrified. Maybe this time we'll get the message and we'll realize that it's dangerous out there. Perhaps we can maybe watch "24" while we are cooped up? Just a thought.

I wonder what these pundits would say about other shows.

According to Jim




Keith Olbermann: Even if "24" is Fox's way of scaring people, at least it increases awareness. "According to Jim" aims to keep our nation bedraggled in a pool of its own idiotic slobber. The show has no ostensible political stance but its assumptions speak volumes. Whites stick with whites, minorities are rarely seen and nobody seems to mind the current state of affairs. Plus, Belushi is such a man's man, with his googolplex of football references. And look fat guys, you too can snag a hot babe. "According to Jim" is a witless sitcom that teaches apathy, complacency and poor mating choices for our already devolving species



Deal or No Deal




Matt Drudge: A show about people nervously having suitcases opened and awaiting surprises? Have these idiots not heard of suitcase nukes? This show promotes a very lax attitude towards terrorism. Besides, any show that attracts black viewers should make red-blooded American conservatives skeptical.






American Idol





Al Gore: This show sucks.

Nothing Funny About Comedy: How Teenagers Have Ruined Funny Films

This section is where I give serious essays on comedy.

My Taiwanese-American friend Mike and I went to a theater once to see a movie. There were loud teenyboppers yelling into their cell phones. Mike said "I gotta leave this theater," so we left. David Denby of the New Yorker recently wrote an article on how the multiplex experience is getting bad even for Hollywood studio heads. The article mentions cell phones. If he had courage he would have specifically blamed the teenyboppers on their mobile phones.

Cars was the highest-grossing comedy of '06. The top live-action comedy was Talladega Nights.Pretty funny, but neither Borat nor Little Miss Sunshine are on the list. Worst of all, there were three more computer-animated cartoon comedies beating it: Ice Age, Happy Feet and Over the Hedge. Even Seinfeld, who once said in Rolling Stone that comedy isn't ready for the movies, has decided to act in only one feature: Bee Movie, a computer-animated film.

You and I hate the glut of these films. But what do teenyboppers have to do with the success of these films? Surely teenagers aren't the ones seeing Ice Age - families are. That's my point: teenagers have been so obnoxiously loud on their cell phones before and during the films that people are avoiding teen and adult comedies like the plague. Studios insist on marketing to teens. Why? Teen comedies have flopped one after the other. Remember Accepted, anybody? No. That's why the American Pie sequels are moving to DVD; teens are busy watching Nick Cannon films while fatigued, ruddy-faced fathers let out relaxed sighs at the latest computer-animal revue.

Kids are just as noisy as teens, of course, but teens go to the movies themselves more and more, especially with GPS-equipped cell phones ensuring their parents can check up on them without hearing that dreadful tinny emo music. However most parents don't drop off their small children at the movies. Thus parents prefer to take the family to kids' movies with children only as opposed to teen films where they might run into some delusional suburban brat who thinks he's gonna make the draft pick for Dipset.



In the '80s some of the greatest blockbusters were teen/college comedies. Ferris, Revenge of the Nerds Back to the Future . Now we toss Dane Cook films at the multiplex like burnt French fries at overfed seagulls. When they don't stick we wonder why.

So what's the future of comedy blockbusters in the movies? Not on the iPod or on the PC or the TV; I don't want to derail here. In the multiplex, what will bring in the laughsmoney? Night at the Museum was number one last week. It's a live action film about museum figures coming to life. So it had better be a family comedy with a few ironic asides for the adults. Oh, and if you see my friend Mike looking relaxed on the line for the movie, you know you've got a solid gold comedy hit.

Hey Pauly Shore and Michael Richards

You're not Andy Kaufman. For those who don't know, Pauly Shore got punched by a "heckler."



Guess what? It's fake. Who pretended to confront hecklers? Andy Kaufman. But Pauly's not the only Kaufman biter: Michael Richards, a friend of Kaufman's, was obviously trying to antagonize the audience Kaufman style. Kaufman, like the Beatles, were revolutionary artists that spawned the awful genres of art-comedy and art-rock respectively. Pioneers open the gates for opportunistic hacks. Psychedelia begets art rock, punk rock gives birth to mall punk and yes, one day, all comedy shows will become festering sores all over the cityscape full of talentless "performance artists." Andy Kaufman was the first of his kind and the last. So for the few earnest artists left who want to prevent their seemingly inevitable descent into Kaufmania, here's a list of do's and don'ts so you can be a respectable comedian not a washed-up hack relying on confrontational (read: desperate) gimmicks.

Do: Have a character. Richard Pryor and Peter Sellers had characters.

Don't: Act as if the character is not really a character. Even Sacha Baron Cohen puts his name in the credits. Please don't answer your phone as "Manifred Chesterton, Peoria's #1 Evangelical Pet Psychic."

Do: Innovative crowd work. I agree, sometimes stand-up feels like the least funny thing in the universe and you need to resort to non sequiturs and anti-humor to cleanse the palette.

Don't: Yell at the audience or, perhaps worse, pretend to fight the audience. This isn't the seventies, when most people predicted we would be talking into radio wristwatches. We have cell phone cameras and Google caches. Believe me, the audience will know if it's a prank.

Do: Performance art, as long as it's funny. Just remember: everything is art, but not everything is funny.


Don't: Suddenly "take an interest" in "performance art" eight years after your last hit show or film. We have enough trouble imagining you in a different Hollywood role, why would we possibly think you are the second coming of Vito Acconci?



Do: Be yourself.

Don't: Be Andy Kaufman. Or Tony Clifton. Or Pauly Shore. Or Michael Richards. Or Vito Acconci.

Hey Sony

Stop trying to give us next-gen video formats. Betamax was a nightmare and according to this Dark Horizons article Blu-Ray is the next video format to go kerplunk. All because it was included with the PS3. Sony assumed that using their PS3 as a Trojan Horse for the digital video pestilence that is Blu Ray would be a sharp idea. Nevermind the fact that, uh, PCs, digital recorders, laptops and all other video game systems play DVDs. Did you really expect a nation to become early adopters so soon? Especially when the competing format is called HD-DVD? Do you think an Amsterdam resident would move to New Amsterdam or Red Grass? Nevermind.

Maybe Sony needs to put their video formats on the Surreal Life.

Betamax: Ooh, you like hot tubs, huh?
Vanity: Yes, but - wait-I'm born-again! Oh what the hell, let's go.
Betamax: Best part: I can get it all on tape-(sobs uncontrollably, runs away)

(cut to Vanity confessional segment)

Vanity: I was sooo boored. Until YouTube showed up.

Hey Veronica Mars

Stop meeting new people and taking GHB. Not only does the new theme song suck major Dick Casablancas, but the show sucks. You worked with a great ensemble (Logan, Wallace, Weevil, Duncan Kane, Mac, your dad). Now you have all these new distractions like Piz.

Yes his name is Piz.


You Sure You Can't Snap a Piz's Neck and Get Candy?


And then we have that newspaper editor, Nish (is Rob Thomas running out of names? I don't think there's a Steve on "Veronica Mars"). I am a freelance contributor for mystery I'mnottelling newspaper and I promise no editor talks like that.


Nish? C'mon Now, Sugar.

Besides Veronica, aren't you in college? Smoke some grass. Maybe have an opium dream and solve crime like Johnny Depp in that shitty Alan Moore adaptation . Or make out with Ms. Napoleon Dynamite.


Sweet!

But do something radically different from what you've been doing. You can't pass/no credit a TV show.

Hey Poetry

Stay dead. Adrienne Rich has written a dull essay on how we need poetry.



She quotes Shelley's "Defence of Poetry," natch. Shelley also said:

To what but a cultivation of the mechanical arts in a degree disproportioned to the presence of the creative faculty, which is the basis of all knowledge, is to be attributed the abuse of all invention for abridging and combining labor, to the exasperation of the inequality of mankind?

Short of it: the more technology, the less poetry. Never mind that there is probably more poetry online for the world to read. But Rich doesn't take this into account. She doesn't even talk about Def Comedy Jam. Noooo, she is talking about snooty academic poetry.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe poetry is, how do you say, too fucking elitist? Even artists are having fun with video games. I have actually spent time with poets. I was a TA for a poetry professor (redundant, wouldn't you say) and you know what these professors poets do for fun? They have wine and cheese parties.

But I'm not asking you to drop the pinot, babe. Truth is, though there are many poems online, there are more blogs. And deep down inside, we all know that, for the past forty years, the majority of poems have been written by frustrated teenagers. So are LiveJournals. If blogging has killed print, it has cremated poetry and flushed it down the public university toilet.





LiveJournal Killed the Poetry Star

Perhaps it's impossible that modern poetry sucks right? Here's a sample of spoken word.




I'm sorry, I keep zoning that guy out. Can anyone in the comments tell me what that beatprik is saying?



via Largehearted Boy

PS: Those who say "But what about hip hop" need to stop listening to Jay Z and start listening to Nas.

Hey Douchebag

Don't quit your day job.