from 6/30/09

Mommy, He's Got The Same Name As Me!

Before I go, I just wanna say something about Michael Jackson. I was never really a fan of the guy's music, except for Off The Wall and a few songs here and there. But when I was a kid, I grew up loving the Jackson 5. Some of you might not remember, but there was a Jackson 5 cartoon. And I used to watch that show every day. It was like clockwork, literally, I knew it was 5 o'clock because The Jackson 5 was on. And the whole time, the very idea that they were black was something that never dawned on me; it wasn't what mattered, it didn't merit any thought. And when Michael died, it made me think about that, and then I also realized how back in that decade, there were so many pop culture figures who were beloved by children, who were african-american. Besides The Jackson 5, there was Bill Cosby, we loved him. And Muhammad Ali; not exactly a children's figure, but he was so larger than life that he was the closest thing there was to a living superhero. So, when you have a generation of children growing up like this, well, we still have a long way to go, but maybe that's part of the reason racism has declined in this country. And I'm not saying that Michael Jackson was some kind of civil rights leader, but, and while he's probably got some time in Purgatory to serve, if there is a paradise up there, just for that, I hope he ends up in it.

Cheers,

Namaste.

I NEED YOUR OPINION!!!


My novel is in the Marketing Copy stage. I need an excerpt for the back cover and would like to know which one you find the most compelling. Is it:

Excerpt Number One (the opening passage):

There was nothing unusual about the day I died. My death didn’t happen because I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been, or there at the wrong time. I wasn’t on my way to dinner to celebrate a job promotion, running to save a child in danger, or carrying out any abnormal, “if only he hadn’t” kind of circumstance like you always see on TV medical dramas. Those shows may not have taught me anything about medicine, but I did learn that for every unfortunate loss, there has to be some kind of irony to compound the tragedy or regret for someone left behind to dwell on. But, having my skull bashed open in the middle of the street didn’t create either of those things. My life was an insipid exercise in monotony, and its ending didn’t come as the result of anything more interesting. I was just walking home from the subway after work, the same way I did every night, Mondays through Fridays, week after week, month after month, and so on. Early on, I didn’t imagine my existence would turn out to be so dull, but I wasn’t expecting it to end so soon either. At least my life and death weren’t predictable.


Or is it Excerpt Number Two (introduction of lead female character and true start of the major arc):

“Hey. What’s your name?” I asked.

She picked her head up so slowly it looked like she had weights on her forehead. Some strands of hair fell between her eyes, running down the side of her nose and past her mouth, but she let them stay there without brushing them away. Her hair looked even darker lying against her skin, which was so pale you’d think she was still sick from whatever had killed her. She obviously wasn’t, though. She was a soul rookie too, and apparently that was how she wanted to look.

Her face was pretty, but blank, without a single sign of emotion. With what appeared to require considerable effort, she forced a slight smile and said, “Marlene.” Her voice was warm but very soft, as if she was happy to answer but didn’t really want to be heard.

I waved at her. “Nice to meet you, Marlene.”

“Marley.” The word barely escaped her, and I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her right.

“What?”

“People call me Marley.”

“Well, nice to meet you Marley. So how’d you die?”

The smile retreated and her head took a freefall back down. “I OD’ed.”


Please leave a comment here or on facebook. Which one's better? Why? Your help would be most appreciated

Baconnaise and Happiness

Watch and enjoy (hopefully).

from 12/23/08

You're Not Majoring In Rocket Science, Are You?

Abby, that’s so funny, you ended your set with being Jewish on Christmas, that’s what I’m starting my set with! No, seriously, I’m just gonna touch on a few of these things cause I got other stuff to talk about, but as a Jew on Christmas, I can tell you about the mild undercurrent of Anti-Semetism found in the movie A Christmas Story. Yes, we all remember Schwartz, snotty little rat kid, you know, they didn’t even give him a first name for fuck’s sake! And they gave him the most Jewish sounding name possible. When Ralphie says the word “fuck,” it might has well have been like, “Where did you hear that word?”

“JEW!”

I can also tell you about the mental instability of the doll from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. That’s right. Everybody asks why the doll is a misfit toy, she seems like a perfectly normal doll, well, she has mental problems. My personal theory is she’s a cutter. Because she fits the cutter profile: young, female, depressed.

Here’s what fits the Holiday Fear theme: Bill O’Reilly’s attempt to exclude all non-Christians from the holiday season by saying that the phrase “Happy Holidays” is an attempt by the political left-wing to destroy the great “American” tradition of Christmas. I wish I was kidding. Never mind that it originates in the Middle East, celebrates the birth of someone who’s Jewish and is essentially the co-opting of the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. Fucking asshole, I fucking hate him.

Now, what I also want to talk about is, one of my favorite shows ended last week: Celebrity Rehab. As a writer, reality TV offends me, but I love Celebrity Rehab. When it started this year there were a few people addicted to painkillers. Now, I work for a pharmaceutical advertising agency, and one of the drugs I work on is Opana, which is a painkiller. An Opiate painkiller, like Vicodin and Oxycodon, very addictive. Unfortunately, none of the cast members were addicted to Opana, so we missed out on that chance for free advertising.

My favorite person on the show is Amber Smith. She a model, very beautiful, and an actress, and I use the term loosely, she basically just sits there and smiles, although, I gotta give her mad props because she was in LA Confidential and that’s one of my favorite movies. She was the hooker cut to look like Rita Hayworth. Anyway, it turned out, on the show, she said that she’d prostituted herself, and as soon as I heard that, I went running for the cash machine. I mean, I probably couldn’t afford a whole session, but I should be able to scrape together fifty dollars, that ought to get me thirty seconds, that’s all I need. Twenty seconds even! Just in, bam, boom, out, there you go. Aw, doesn’t matter, if you have dvr you can freeze frame and take care of business for free. It’s good too, it’s also a good idea to get all your porn online, without magazines you’re saving paper. It’s masturbation gone green. So when you forget to throw out a can and someone hassles you, you can tell them you’re doing your part every day. Sometimes twice, it depends on the person.

Anyway, one of the other people is Gary Busy, because apparently he has nothing better to do than star in anti-American movies from Turkey about the Iraq war. Yeah, he played a Jewish doctor who vivisects Iraqi prisoners to sell their organs to people in New York.

(pause)

I realize that’s not a very happy story, so moving on, one of the things they did on the show was, they thought it would be nice for him to have a screening of The Buddy Holly Story. His defining role, his high point as an actor, Oscar nominated role. So Rod Stewart’s son, who as far as I know has never done anything except be in another reality show about being Rod Stewart’s son, says, “What’s it about?” As if the word, “Story” didn’t tip him off. It’s about dinosaurs. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IT’S ABOUT?! So they told him it’s about Buddy Holly, and he goes, “Who’s Buddy Holly?” And Gary just stands there staring at him like he’s gonna stab him in the head, like he’s gonna punch him in the throat. Then he says,

“BUDDY HOLLY IS ONE OF THE FOREFATHERS OF ROCK AND ROLL.”

Which he is, Buddy Holly’s awesome. How much time do I have left?

“One minute, three seconds.”

Ok, that means I have time to sing a little Buddy Holly. This is my favorite song of his. I had to look up the lyrics on my phone.


(singing)
Dun dun dun dune
Be ne ne, be ne ne, BE NE NE

Blue days, black nights,
Blue tears keep on fallin' for you dear,
Now you're gone

Blue days, black nights,
My heart keeps on callin' for you dear,
And you alone

Memories of you make me sorry
I gave you reason to doubt me

But now you're gone
And I am left here all alone
With blue memories, I think of you

Thanks.

Namaste.

Author's Note:

I realize this rehashes some material from the previous post, but it seemed appropriate, timing wise. The person referred to in the beginning was the previous performer. I know it seems esoteric out of context but I like to transcribe the sets as accurately as memory allows.

from various Decembers over the past five years

Drop The BB Gun And Step Away From The Synagogue, Ralphie:

Answers To Various Christmas Special FAQ's

Q: How do you know so much about Christmas specials when you're Jewish?

I'm very much the pop-culture fan, and they're awesome, plus they virtually define the television experience in December. And there aren't too many Hanukkah specials, except for the Rugrats one. But most importantly, I grew up with Italian relatives. By marriage, my uncle, like a like of Jewish boys from Brooklyn, married an Italian girl, one Marie D'Natalie. We used to go to their house every year on Christmas Day. Then, when I was fifteen, they got divorced, and that was the end of my Christmas celebrations. I think I've been overcompensating ever since.

Q: What's your beef with A Christmas Story?

A Christmas Story is a great movie, and, this is in spite of its mild undercurrent of Anti-Semetism. Yeah I said it. Oh no? When Ralphie says the word "fuck," and his mother asks where he heard it, instead of admitting it's his father, who does he blame? SCHWARTZ. Ralphie blames the jew. And Schwartz, you'll remember, is also best known in that movie as the kid who got Flick to put his tongue on the flagpole so it'd get frozen. They made him a snotty little ratboy, the conniving cheater who jumped from the double-dog dare to the triple-dog dare. And not only him, his parents are so wicked and evil that without proof, they beat him so mercilessly that his screams are audible through the phone. And does Ralphie have any regrets? No, he lies in his bed that night and says that across town, Shwartz was, "getting his," despite the fact that in this instance, he didn't do anything. But he makes the jew the scapegoat. You know who else did that? Hitler. So, am I comparing the film's author Jean Shepherd to Hitler? Yes I am.

And if you want to talk subtle, they fucking named him Schwartz. They don't overtly say he's Jewish, but they not only gave him the most Jewish sounding name possible, they didn't even give him a fucking first name. They would have been more subtle if they'd just named him Christ-killer.

Still, great movie. Directed by Bob Clark, who also directed . . . anyone?

"Porky's."

That's right. Ralphie was played by Peter Billingsly, who's a producer now. He still acts occasionaly, most recently in "Elf." If you're thinking of seeing that, don't bother, it fucking sucks. The kid who played Scott Farkas still acts, he played the brother on Titus and has been in movies like Resident Evil: Apocolypse and Transformers. And Scotty Shwartz, we all know what happened to him.

"From child star to porn star."

That's right. Glad to see things worked out for him too.

Q: What were the Snowmeiser helpers?

I don't know, but those things freaked me the fuck out. They're mini-Snowmeisers or something, but when I was a kid, they gave me nightmares. I had this fucking dream that, not them, but this little creature like them, tiny little things moving around in that freaky stop-motion manner, had grabbed me and immobilized my arms and legs. Snowmeiser was cool but those little ones just looked fucking evil. I think that nightmare is the reason I didn't remember that special with the Heatmeiser and Snowmeiser, "Year Without A Santa Claus," I must have blocked it out of my memory. I didn't see it again until I was in college and when I saw those fucking things dancing with their hats and canes, my fucking jaw dropped.

Snowmeiser was played by Dick Shawn and the cool thing about him is that he died on stage. Not just on stage, he had a heart attack and nobody helped him because they thought it was part of the act. That is punk as fuck.

Q: In Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, is the elf's name Hermy or Herbie?

This is probably the most asked question, and there's a definite answer. It's Hermy. It sounds like the elf nazi taskmaster calls him Herbie at one point, there's a theory that the name was changed mid-production.

Q: On the Island of Misfit Toys, what's wrong with the doll?

This is the biggest mystery of Christmas special lore. The dolly for Sue. Why is she a misfit? She looks like a perfectly fine doll, what exactly is wrong with her? Well, there's an official and an unofficial explanation. The official explanation is that, for whatever reason, she was cast off by her owner and is a misfit by virtue of being a reject.

The unofficial explanation is that she has mental problems. She could be bipolar because she obviously suffers from depression, and it's triggered pretty easily; one minute she's joyously singing, the next she's crying. My personal theory, I think she's a cutter. Because she fits the cutter profile: young, female, depressed. If she was constantly cutting herself and always needing to be stitched up, that'd be a pretty sensible reason to throw something out. Hopefully the child Santa found for her has access to psychiatric medication like Seroquel. That's the stuff Brittney Spears takes and you can see how well it worked for her. Maybe some Ambien too, at one point she says she doesn't have any dreams left. As long as she doesn't start doing any crazy shit in her sleep like climbing into Barbie's car, driving down the fucking stairs and crashing into the basement, she should have a happy existence until the kid grows up. Then she'll get her ass kicked out again and probably feel even worse, but hey, no one ever said sanity wasn't fleeting.

from 10/14/08

Why Don't You Forget The Moose For A Moment

Fear.

Republicans scare me, because they look just like people. The next and final presidential debate is tomorrow. I won't be watching, because they just infuriate me. I think the reason I get so filled with rage when I hear these motherfuckers talk is because I know there are people out there who believe their bullshit. Now, Obama has a lead right now but it's important that we stay on this course, because, there's still this cadre out there of undecided voters.

Now, undecided voters are the biggest fucking idiots on the planet. After all this time, how can you still have no opinion? And you probably know an undecided voter, you've talked to them, or you hear them ranting at a bar or something, and they'll say something like, "Well, I DON'T like John McCain, but Obama, I just don't know!"

"So your solution is to vote for McCain?!"

"No, I'm saying I just don't know."

"What the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

It's obviously difficult to get through to these people, and I'm here to help. Now, if you're trying to sway one of these people, don't try to discuss the issues, because you're only gonna confuse them. Pick a superficial story, one that relates more to the candidate themself. A good example is the Gravina Island Bridge. You probably all know the story by now; in the 2005 Highway Bill 233 million dollars was earmarked to build a bridge to an island where fifty people live. It became a symbol of wasteful pork barrel spending and a national embarrassment, especially after congress wanted to divert part of it to help Katrina victims, and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens stood on the floor of congress shouting, "NO!!!." (pounding fist) You know, Ted Stevens, the one who's in jail now. So after it became embarrassing, they removed the earmark.

Here's what you might not know, "THEY KEPT THE MONEY!!!" Not earmarked for the bridge, but Alaska still kept the funds. Here's what you might not realize; they didn't give a fuck about a bridge. They didn't want a bridge, they wanted to bleed money from the government. And still, Sarah Palin,within a week of her candidacy, said in six or seven of her speeches, "I tooled the kengress, 'thenks, bet noo thenks." And by the way, let me just say, god bless Tina Fey for pointing out that Sarah Palin talks like a fucking reject from the movie Fargo. The press doesn't want to say that, it's not nice. They say it's "folksy." What the fuck is that, "folksy?" Woody Guthrie was folksy. Bob Dylan is folksy. Susan Vega is folksy. Sarah Palin should have been the one in that fucking wood chipper!

Aaaaaand I sense I've gone too far. Morbid sense of humor. Don't judge me.

So anyway, to explain this issue to an undecided voter, you've got to give them a way to relate to the material. So just say,

"Ok, so, Paris Hilton asks her dad for five thousand dollars to buy an iPod. He says ok, and lays five thousand dollars on the table. Then somebody, I don't know, maybe Nicky, says, 'Paris, wait a minute, iPods don't cost that much. Plus you only have two cd's and they're both Maroon 5.' So Paris proudly says she's not buying the iPod to TMZ or Page Six or whoever the fuck it is these people talk to. She KEEPS the money, and spends it on what she really wanted to: shoes, cocaine and crates of condoms."

Now, the Republicans are content to let Sarah Palin settle in this role of mudslinger so McCain can appear to be taking the high road. And the issue she was bringing up last week was Paul Ayers, who was a member of the Weathermen back in the fucking '60s. They're making a big deal over the fact that he and Barack were on the same charity board ten, fifteen years ago, and he threw him a fundraiser or something. So Sarah Palin goes on about Barack pals around with terrorists. This is when her husband, who I assume she pals around with, was part of an Alaskan separatist group. Fucking Alaska. You know, they keep saying she's a former beauty queen. Yeah, in Wasilla, a city with the same population as this fucking block. She wasn't Miss Alaska, she took third. She got Miss Congeniality. If there was ever a time when Sarah Palin was the most congenial woman in Alaska, I say, let it go. Fine, see ya. I don't a fuck about your polar bears, your ice fields, I don't care how much I loved the show Northern Exposure, let Alaska go.

And speaking of that, remember Cynthia Geary? The blonde actress, she played Shelly the dumb waitress. She wasn't really acting. I remember she was on the Arsenio Hall Show back in the day, and she was saying how much she liked living in Seattle, that's where they filmed the show. And she goes, "And there's cool music! You know, Nirvana's from Seattle."

Nirvana's from Seattle? Really? Wow, I never heard that. Like she's making a fucking revelation. I know I sound like I've gone off on an irrelevant tangent, but I said that to tell you this, these are the motherfuckers who vote. So stay the course, ROCK THE VOTE, AND FUCK THE REPUBLICANS!

NAMASTE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

from 4/23/08

Michael Stuart, You Hurt My Feelings

Last summer, I was over at Slainte, with some of our friends, Michele was there, Courtney was there, and a few others, I don't remember. And I started talking to these two girls. I was drunk, yes, but not drooling crazy fall down drunk or anything. We were having a pleasant conversation, they were actually doing most of the talking, so I know I wasn't bothering them. Then out of no where, for no reason at all, the bartender appears and says, "You have to leave."

I was stunned, so I just said, "Excuse me?"

He said, "Yes, you have to go away."

I was too shocked to say anything, and since I was gonna go in a minute anyway, I politely said, "Nice to meet you," and went back to rejoin my friends. After about an hour, everyone left. Before I did, I had some unfinished business, so I went back to the bar, went to the bartender and said, "Hey." He smiled and leaned in, and I said, "You're a fucking asshole."

I turned and walked out, and I'm halfway to the door, he comes up behind me, grabs my belt and collar and pushes me out. And I didn't fall, that was my personal victory. But it was like, ooh, big man, you pushed me out as I was already leaving, you made me . . . leave faster, by creeping up behind me where I couldn't see you, wow, way to go tough guy, you FUCKIN' pussy.

I vowed never to go back there, but hey, it's right next to the fuckin' Bowery (Poetry Club), and after a few months, I popped in to catch the end of the Giants game one night. The asshole wasn't there, so went back a few more times. One night last month, this is about nine months after the big incident, I'm in there with a beer, waiting for some food, and this guy appears, and I think, "Is that the asshole?" I can't really tell, it'd been such a long time, but he sees me and says, "You have to leave. You finish your beer but then you get out of here. I don't want any argument."

Then he grabbed my beer and poured it out, and I said, "I thought you said I could finish my beer."

He said, "No."

Now, I'll add, this is nine months later, I hadn't cut my hair that whole time so it's much longer, and this guy, who'd seen me for a grand total one minute at the most, still recognized me, like he's obsessed with me or something. I guess I emasculated the poor fuck. I got up to leave, and before I go, flash a huge smile, wave, and yell, "GOOD NIGHT!"

So evidently, those four words I said to him have gotten me banned for life. For four words. What a fucking asshole. So I call upon all of you, at your leisure, whenever you have time, go over to Slainte, and look for the tall, thin, slightly spiky brown-haired guy. Have a beer or two. Chat a little. Gain his confidence. Then, before you go, loudly, so that everyone can hear it, say,

"BYE! HOPE YOUR RAPE TRIAL GOES OK!!!"

Namaste.