Activity Of The Day: Ask A Hooker For Gum

(NOTE: This is recommended only for those who carry video phones or video equipment) After you check out the Creek and Cave’s wonderful comedy shows in Long Island City, cruise around the Astoria projects and ask hookers for gum. Make sure your camera phone is on so when the coppers pull you over and accuse you of soliciting prostitution, you can prove that you were innocently asking for a stick of gum. Don’t forget; before you drive off without an appearance ticket, ask the cop for gum.



Then return the next day and give every hooker and cop a stick of gum. Garlic knots will also suffice.

Do This On Thanksgiving And I Will Pay You One Massachusetts

Buy everyone in the family presents. When you get no presents in return, let out an exasperated sigh and say, "Figures."

I will pay you
one Alaska as well if you produce a live turkey to your girlfriend's (or someone else's girlfriend's) father and ask for her hand in marriage.


See you (not pay you, see you) Monday.

Activity Of The Day: Put Rubbing Alcohol On Your Rubbing Lunch Meat

Remember when a man could commit adultery without no childish biznazz? It’s called adultery, not third-gradery. Now there is this method that more and more partners are using to detect infidelity on their man: smelling the salami to see if it’s been in another sandwich.

So rub alcohol all over your dingelberry and your queen will think you just came back from, like, the hospital or something. For those who may be sensitive to alcohol, try chicken noodle soup so you counter one cheesy rap reference with another one. Plus, it will smell like you just went to the hospital or whatever.

Comedy-Reality? Really?

OK I'll cough up the JuJu Beans: some cool things have come out of this strike. SNL at UCB, Daily Show taking to the YouTube streets. On the flip tip, like a Freedy Johnston song, the sweet is always laced with the bitter. If the WGA does not get their contract soon enough, expect more comedy-reality.

I know, comedy as an adjective with a hyphen, uuugggh.

Though the genre began in earnest with Blind Date, The Surreal Life helped define the genre. Flavor of Love, I Love New York and Rock of Love continue to define the genre.

What genre?

A comedy-reality show is marked by the following characteristics:

music that manipulates viewers to laugh at reality show thespians by playing carnival music in the background

OK that's actually not more than one characteristic. My bust. Much as I hate to envision a future in which such cynical, silicone (CyniCone?) dreck becomes considered the gold standard of TV comedy and scripted comedy goes the way of the Laserdisc ViewMaster, here are some pitches for comedy-reality shows that I would like to pitch in a high pitch drinking a pitcher in a stadium of pitch-black tar:


Smack My Pitch Up: A bunch of hot models pitch reality shows. They pull each other's hair and call each other bitch. Think of the tagline: "These bitches got pitches." At the end of the show, the celebrity judge (Joel Schumacher) says "The End" if you're voted off and "To Be Continued" if you stay.

Municipal Council Of Love: Ten municipal council members get voted off by Pia Zadora until a municipality in the suburbs of Southern California becomes a dictatorship.

She was in that movie.

Love of Love: The hearts of ten different species get systematically punctured by Raquel Welch until one of them is picked as her heart replacement. The black baboon hearts are allegedly represented unfairly.

Out Of Network

Thank you all so much for your e-mails and support. Those who don't know, I've been in the ER. I am currently attached to an IV. While I was in the ER I realized that alternative medicine is like alternative comedy and western medicine is like mainstream comedy.

Both mainstream comedy and medicine are overpriced.

Both alternative comedy and medicine are associated with noisome subcultures (hipsters, hippies respectively)

Mainstream: Accused of valuing money over quality
Alternative: Accused of unlawful posession of marijuana

Mainstream: practitioners make money, getting more respect from society
Alternative: practitioners get more bohemian poon than Vince Gallo at SXSW, getting respect from Fleshbot

Mainstream: make loads of money
Alternative: make loads of money at day job

Mainstream: someone somewhere has morphine
Alternative: someone somewhere has morphine

Remembrance Of Videos Past #52: Metallica, “One”

The video for this had footage spliced in from Dalton Trumbo’s early ‘70s anti-war film Johnny Get Your Gun. Imagine if different film/TV clips were mixed in with the footage?

Some “One” Lyrics

I can't remember anything (Christina Applegate looking dazed in Samantha Who?)









Can't tell if this is true or dream (Harold wakes up getting his face licked in Harold and Kumar)







Deep down inside I feel to scream (Macauley Culkin in Home Alone)









This terrible silence stops me (Fatty Arbuckle does a pratfall)








Back in the womb its much too real (Look Who’s Talking Too)

Just like a wartime novelty (“Springtime For Hitler” number, The Producers)








Tied to machines that make me be (Lawnmower Man)







Cut this life off from me (Sklar Bros. on Grey’s Anatomy)


Oh God, help me hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God help me (Jessica Alba getting date raped by Dane Cook, Good Luck Chuck)












Darkness
Imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror (Fat chick hugging Norbit)





Landmine

Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in Hell (America’s Funniest Home Videos)

Remembrance Of Videos Past #51: Beach Boys, "Still Cruisin'"

The Beach Boys had a comeback in 1988 when they put “Kokomo” on the Cocktail soundtrack. The Beach Boys were suddenly dripping off every Hollywood shark’s lips in Hollywood. John Stamos was their drummer, after all.

The Beach Boys’ answer? “Still Cruisin’.”

This song reminds me of Mel Gibson copping a feel on Teutonic (word of the day?) blonde femme fatale Patsy Kensit in Lethal Weapon 2; the film it was featured in.

The first Lethal with Joe Pesci.

Kensit eventually moved on to frolic with Liam Gallagher of Oasis. Mel Gibson was arrested for a DWI. During his arrest he made anti-Semitic remarks.

Is it possible that Gibson looks back on the arrest and sings this tune while driving?

Short Story: The Improvisers

It’s been a minute and a mile since I’ve written a short story. This work of flash fiction is inspired by the WGA strike

Barton Chesterpiro’s jaw dropped when he saw the TV set.

When he first looked at the wall of TVs, he gave a warm, knowing smile while drawing from his Chesterfield.

All smoke breaks from writer’s guild strikes should be so poignant.

The knowing smile evinced his beatific understanding of how vital television was; of how TV would never be replaced by the ugly, deformed twin of TV that was YouTube.

But when he focused his eyes on the news story, his jaw dropped.

The Improvisers had taken over.

Improvisers?

Every good-looking improv student was cast on every narrative show on television. What’s more, networks did not conceal the automatic, unconscious nature of the programming. There was CSI: Improv. Lost: Improv Island. 24: A Day For Improv was a runaway success; callers would give Lower East Side celebrity Reefer Mutherland improv suggestions. One week, he wrestled a crestfallen, morbidly obese dingo nestled in a sequoia.

People loved this more than reality TV.

Reality TV had confessionals, which were a relatively distancing device. I Love New York looked more and more like a cold, Teutonic, Brechtian drama.

Who's the mack tonight?


Improv involved the audience. It meant spontaneity; being in the moment; audience control.

There was even American Idol Improv, where singers had to sing whatever callers requested. Or even make up songs based on viewer suggestions. Like the one time Amber Bambrella sang an impromptu ditty about cancer cells metastasizing. So awkward (the camera cut to an 8-year-old chemo victim with a “Tommy, Can You Hear Me?” sign), yet so addicting.

Hellfire and damnation, I am sick of writing for free; I’m going on strike.

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.”

Nothing Funny About Comedy: David: Seinfeld/Lennon: McCartney

This section is where I give serious essays on comedy.

This past weekend’s mixed reviews of Bee Movie confirm what seemed obvious to anyone who’s watched Seinfeld reruns in the post-Curb Your Enthusiasm-era: Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were like Paul McCartney and John Lennon—they worked best as a team, but as solo artists, David and Lennon would prove the better artists while McCartney and Seinfeld were panned as the Tin Pan Alley pop hacks.

Seinfeld was obviously their Sgt. Pepper’s: most of it was attributable to Seinfeld, just like Pepper’s was ultimately McCartney’s triumph. Still, McCartney’s peppy “Getting Better” chorus was grounded by Lennon’s weary “can’t get much worse” back-up vocals. Respectively, Seinfeld’s safe, quotidian observations of everyday life were stale without David’s bile and vinegar.

As Lennon’s solo work became more introspective and stripped-down in his solo years, David offered a darker, personal vision. If Seinfeld prided itself on observations that all of us can relate to (understanding low talkers, scratching your nose in front of a lover), Curb Your Enthusiasm was an unapologetic look through David’s wire-rimmed glasses (another similarity between Lennon and David).

Though I have not seen Bee Movie, the words used to malign it have been identical to the ones used to denigrate McCartney’s output in the ‘70s: “ho-hum;” “bland;” “middle of the road.” The short of it is, no one has been outraged enough to give it a scathing review, which paradoxically makes the film seem worse.

This does not mean I agree with the McCartney/Seinfeld haters. I will still watch Bee Movie and I will still post this Wings classic:

Guest Blogger: Retarded Vampire

I am very busy at work today so my guest blogger is Retarded Vampire, who is not gainfully employed.

Good evening dear readers. How, you may ask yourself in your head, can me, who feels burny in the light that comes not from a flashlight but from a sun, how me can blog in the daytime? I don’t know. I am burning. Donate blood real quick to 14 Driggs Ave., Williamsburg, OOO!OWWWW!!!!!!

Wait; I am now moved computertop lap into darky loft. Good. So anyway please donate your blood to me. This feels like I should call it a blood pledge drive. So please donate your blood to reader-supported Mo!Comedy.

WIAT! Let me think hardy about things that are interesting – make that Internetisting.

Do these guys think of Blackula funnily?

Wait for it- Robert Ghoulet. I kill me—WIAT I’m immortal. Bwahaha!

Webmaster I want for site idea: BloodFeed

How come no Undead Frog?

This site will make you tremble with laughter in way that you clutch your sides and go to hospital because your stomasch is ripped open. Then maybe you can find it in your heart to donate blood?

Vampire cell phone sucks electricity. Ooh, never tried electricity. Meh, tastes like battery.





VAT! Make fun of foreigners? I will bring my Freddy Krueger ventriloquist doll to your show, slice you with ventriloquist doll then, ok I forgive you. Please send me blood as Facebook gift. Vampire poke!

Cereal Offenders

In the ‘80s there was this strange Saturday morning commercial trend of cartoon characters stealing cereal:

The Cookie Crook stealing Cookie Crisp




Barney Flinstone stealing Fruity Pebbles



The Trix rabbit stealing Trix.



These animated promos often had a humorous tone, which is odd because I find nothing funny about someone so desperate to eat that he steals food. Not money, food. Most starving robbers are OK with stealing money. Stealing food is many things—pathetic, baleful, an altogether gut-wrenchingly miserable affair. But funny? No. Throngs of people die from hunger.

If someone stole my bowl of cereal, I certainly wouldn’t chase him. I’ve lived with roommates before; roommates steal cereal from each other time and again. No big. The only reason I would chase after someone famished enough to steal my box of Honey Smacks is to tell them they forgot the milk.

Remember when kids voted for the Trix rabbit to eat some Trix? Of course they did—what kind of malevolent degenerate laughs at a starving rabbit?

So help yourself to some Cookie Crisp. I need a new roommate.

Worst Funk Awards

Worst Funk Philosophy Book: I Think Therefore I Jam, written by Dr. Souls

Worst Funk President: Abrajam Stinkin

Worst Funk Novel: Jamerican Psycho, Bret Easton Smellis

Worst Funk Comedy Tour: Non-def Comedy Jam

Worst Funk Vegan Band: Beat Is Murder

Worst Funk Social Networking Site (three-way-tie): MyBass; BassBook; Funkster

Worst Funk Computer: The Mack 3000

Worst FunkGadget: The iFunk

Worst Prime Minister of Funk: Mahmoud Ahmadineslam of Ijam


I want you to join Uncle Jam’s Army

Happy Birthday Song vs. Superbug

Did you know that singing the “Happy Birthday” song to yourself while washing your hands can help you fight off the deadly staph infection that’s killing more Americans than AIDS every year?

If you just touched a toilet seat with fluorescent-colored ectoplasm, you might want to add the “How Old Are You Know” remix.

Now whenever I celebrate birthdays, I am reminded of the gruelling battle against MRSA, which makes the cake that much sweeter.

What's happening now is that every now and again, I sing "Happy Birthday" out loud while washing my hands, which draws many a puzzled look in my direction.

That said, fight staph today by wishing Giulia Rozzi a happy birthday!

Lyrics:

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Giulia Rozzi
Happy birthday to you

How old are you know
How old are you know
How old are you know
How old are you know

Happy birthday to you
You live in a zoo
You look like a gorilla
And yo mamma does too

Happy birthday to you
Staph might just kill you
Wash your hands every time
You go to the loo

Who Wants To Be My Online Comedy Partner?

TSOYA has done it again with another amazing link, this one to Stylus magazine’s list of comedy duos. Which gave me the idea: who wants to be my blogging comedy partner? I post funny comments on my partner’s blog, my partner posts bon mots on mine. Who’s gayme?

I’m the one on the right

Who’s The Suge Knight Of Alt-Comedy?

TSOYA linked to this splendid SF Gate article on SF alt-scene when I found this little nugget:

Along with playing indie clubs, comedians have been signing with indie labels. Major independent labels such as Subpop and Drag City have comedians on their rosters, a trend that Rian Murphy of Drag City says is very much in the tradition of his label, although the practice has "a lot of room to grow."
Drag City's flagship comedian is the droll and often disgusting Hamburger, who works a lounge-lizard persona and is one of the few comics to make a career out of touring nonconventional venues.
Record labels have also, logically, signed acts that fuse music and comedy. There are numerous examples, including Subpop's Australian duo Flight of the Conchords (who also have a show on HBO) and "SNL's" Fred Armisen, who has recorded under numerous musical pseudonyms and has teamed with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein as ThunderAnt on Drag City.
"Tenacious D signaled a turning point in musical comedy," Murphy says of the faux metal band consisting of actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass. "It brought the two things together. You didn't have to choose between being a musical act or a comedy act."
It's hard to say what makes for good chemistry between a label, a band and a comedian, but it somehow makes aesthetic sense for hip, sarcastic nerds like David Cross and Eugene Mirman to tour with indie groups.

So who is the Suge Knight of the alt-comedy labels?

Tony Kiewel, obviously. Why else can’t you find a good picture of him online?

America Loves Watching Hot Women Get Eliminated

Looking at some of the biggest reality shows in America (America’s Most Smartest Model, Rock of Love, Flavor of Love), one can’t help but conclude that Americans' cockles get warm every time they see hot women get eliminated. The epistemological truth about reality, according these shows, is that it is our intrinsic, biological imperative to systematically eliminate a house infested with a bevy of alluring ladies until there is one left.

I have always assumed that this is not the case, but perhaps I am being too cynical and close-minded to accept scientific evidence. Maybe this is why women in fundamentalist Muslim countries are told to wear burkas; so they can be eliminated indiscriminately.

This is why each week I will ban one hot woman from writing comments on my blog.

My girlfriend, Amy, will be the first one eliminated.

Watch your back, Jerell.

Oh, I'll moderate your comments, all right

Harvard Comedy

Just read this article on Shecky envisioning a future in which stand-ups are all from Harvard.


"But sir, I went to Oxford. Please listen to my Facebook joke."

"No dear lad, only Harvard grads. Give it up for your next comic, Poindexter Rutherford."

"Thanks. So who here has worked on a game theory problem, huh? This guy's like 'Shut up, my wife is here!'"

Moby Schtick Part II: This Time It’s Personal Chapter 7

Yes, I’m repeating that gimmick exploration of longform joketelling again. This time, you the reader can participate. Just “fill in the blank” in the comments section. I will of course use the first comment I see. In the next post, that comment will be in bold After I complete the sentence I will write a new one with a new blank—and new BBQ chicken McWraps. Here goes.

No one at the press conference knew why Jessica Alba thought it was funny to ...show up wearing a L.A. Gear acid washed denim jacket from 1989 with white fringe dripping from the sleeves, while screaming "LET'S GO TO THE MALL!"

A reporter asked her which mall and she said “the Sky Mall silly. It’s got all the best stuff.” All the reporters gasped in horror when all of a sudden they saw…Seth Green.

But not just any Seth Green—it was Can’t Buy Me Love–era Seth Green. Worse, he was riding piggyback on a 1987 Patrick Dempsey/Ronald Miller. Alba tried to make an R-rated, unfunny Idle Hands joke (is there any other kind), but Young Seth said she was “icky.” Jessica Alba was bewildered. Was there a mad scientist on the loose turning celebrities into their younger, more awkward selves? A mad rejuvenator?

Meanwhile, at a nondescript strip mall in Edison, New Jersey, two frat boys walked out of local strip club, Juggles. When Amir got in his car, he turned on the car radio and felt like he was in a movie. According to CBS News Radio… a white undercover officer and a wise-cracking black undercover officer were involved in a shoot-out at Juggles the night before. Police were investigating how Baby Eddie Murphy and Baby Judge Reinhold entered the strip club. And more importantly, where did Baby Eddie Murphy learn those filthy Idle Hands jokes.

Amir had a look on his face similar to that of someone… who can't figure out why New York from I Love New York is having such a hard time finding love. All she has to do is call herself Tiffany and sacrifice her mother at the Temple of The Goat (not to be confused with Seattle grunge outfit Temple of the Dog).


When Amir asked his friend if he just heard the news report, his friend Kyle said “Dude, what kind of faggot listens to the news and not the sports," to which Amir responded…

"A faggot with a heart of gold and a B.A. in Criminal Justice! Come on, we're going to White Castle."

“Figures, a queen wants to go to a castle.”

“Well what do you suggest?”

“Jessica Alba is in town giving a press conference.”
“Yes, so what do you wanna do?”
“Dude, I wanna ram my mayonnaise gun in her baloney taco.”

As Amir drove down the New Jersey Turnpike, he had a frightening moment of clarity. Time seemed to grind to a halt. Looking to his right, he saw mad scientist cackling in his Dodge Ram. The mad scientist beamed with pride as he looked at his custom-built... .. miniature diorama of the Camp David accords, accurate right down to Zbigniew Brzezinski's adorable little novelty cufflinks, which were in the shape of two penguins kissing.

As Amir focused his binoculars on the novelty cufflinks, Kyle said “Light’s green, cock vein!” A half-mile past the Camp David van (which has Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter holding hands and crossing a finish line while riding three conjoined unicorns airbrushed on the side), Kyle asked Amir, “Wait, wasn’t that the host of Tic Tac Doe in that diorama?”

“No,” Amir shot back. “That was Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Adviser.”

Circle gets a square...I mean Israel and Egypt get a peace treaty.


“Oh,” Kyle murmured with his head hanging low. “Well who was that guy behind the van with the Mad Rejuvenator machine?”

“MAD REJUVENATOR,” Amir exclaimed. “Describe this Mad Rejuvenator!”

Kyle described it as…