Mo!

Thank you! Big round of applause for Mo!, everybody. I don't get the exclamation point at the end though. Maybe if he put an E in that exclamation point, he would be on the E television network.

OK. Smart crowd. Smart people use computers you know. No ding-dongs on the dot coms!!!

Anyway, this is an open letter addressed to the New York Times. It's all about the 'downtown comedy scene.'

My wife -- hoo, my wife -- she really tries to get me all hoity-toity. First, she orders a Tom Collins for me at dinner. Then she makes me read the New York Times.

Now I read the news anyway, but she said AOL news don't count.

OK. I find this pablum-puking commie garbage in the NY Times about alternative comedy. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/fashion/sundaystyles/29Comedy.html?_r=1

Headline?

Seinfeld it ain't.

Huh? What's wrong with Seinfeld? Seinfeld gets me hot under the collar cuz he cockblocked me for that HBO special back in '88, but he's still one of the best.

I read some more.


At that point Brett Gelman, a 29-year-old comedian from Brooklyn, bounded onto the stage wearing a studded black leather vest and pompadour, as favored by Mr. Clay, and a Hitler moustache. He regaled his audience with a monologue that combined the thoughts of Hitler with the tough-guy, streets-of-Brooklyn accent of Mr. Clay.



Now he's making fun of Dice? Dice and Seinfeld? These guys are legends. They are to comedy what ELP was to rock: radical!!!!!!


Well who's better than Dice and Clay? Not their audience that's for sure.


There's a decent chance that Mr. Gelman's over-the-top Hitler bit wouldn't play well among the tourists at Manhattan's traditional stand-up clubs, places like Caroline's and Stand-Up New York, a universe where Seinfeldian observational humor still reigns and the only costumes comedians wear are jeans and T-shirts. But among the young comedy fans who frequent Rififi, Mr. Gelman's gag was an unqualified hit, and he left the 10-foot-by-10-foot stage to a rousing ovation.


OK, so an old guy like me making observations while wearing a T-shirt and jeans is old hat huh? Well whose the new guy?

These dumbells!!!!


There was a satire of a Christian music duo, a Nascar-loving septic tank cleaner from North Carolina named Louis Harken who had come to New York to pursue his dream of becoming a slam poet, and a character named Stanley Hope, an inspirational speaker whose claim to fame was surviving 22 suicide attempts, including a leap in front of a subway train — at the Transit Museum.


But this is what made me want to wear my wife's pantyhose over my head and throw these dingbats against the brick wall of a comedy club -- let's let Frenchy McFrench speak for himself:


Any attempt to define the term alternative comedy was doomed, Mr. du Bouchet said before his Tuesday night show, but he gave it a shot anyway.

"Alternative is a catchall phrase for 'not stand-up,' " he said.


Not stand up? Let me get this straight -- an old guy doing stand up wearing a t-shirt and jeans is not cool anymore? Since when did stand-up not become cool?


The world is pretty messed up," Mr. Gelman said. "People are pretty frustrated and they like to see people letting out their frustrations in an unbridled way. As far as making people feel less depressed, that in and of itself is a political act."

Commie cocksuckers! Oh how I'd love to take your floppy, faggoty alternative asses by your moppy hair and throw you against a brick wall at a stand-up club after which I eat a meatball sandwich. Looky, I'm a poet and I don't know it!

Here's my set which I did on Carson in December, 1983:

Hello. Big round of applause for Johnny Carson everyone (the crowd goes apeshit). And Ed McMahon (the crowd goes wild). And Doc with the band (crowd goes wild). And Paul Anka, who wrote the Tonight Show theme (crowd claps). And Burt Reynolds if he's backstage (applause).



White people and black people have differences (laughs). White people can't dance, black people can't stand white people (laughs). You know what the difference between a black guy and an Italian guy is? The color of his skin. (laughs) If the Italian is Sicilian, not even that (laughing, clapping and knee slapping -- oh and a lot of whoos).

So rock and roll? What happened to rock and roll? (applause) Remember the good old days, when you dropped acid and music was scary? Like Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath?(applause) You don't even need acid to be scared nowadays. I saw Kiss without their make-up on and I got scared. (laughs) I almost got a heart attack.


Now that's funny! Here's how these alternative fruitcakes would probably do it:

Hi. I'm a calculator that listens to Nirvana. I'm better than you. I'm richer than you. I'm skinnier than you. I'm younger than you. But I'm still sad cuz I have no life. That's why I have no observations. So Nirvana is cool. I have shaggy hair and wacky t-shirts. I'm a commie who likes Saddam Hussein. I laugh at hard-working Long Islanders like me. Billy Joel is not cool.


Know what Tony Danza said about Andy Kaufman? Andy would not have made it in Tony's neighborhood. These guys would probably get cut up in my old neighborhood, or in the 90210, or in the OC or in the 90210-C.

I've still got it!

It's me, TV. Remember me? No. You've been on the web looking at woodchucks, reading about a black guy's average-sized penis or buying books recommended by Osama. Maybe you don't like my book recommendations -- the last time someone on me recommended a book, you felt cheated. But joining Osama's club? That's overcompensating, man.

You could watch an hour and a half of funny stuff with me, but you prefer a quickie with the web.

I think it's obvious I have to use the one weapon the web doesn't have on me: nostalgia!

Remember when:

* you bought the home version of Operation Wolf for Nintendo? You didn't play that on the PC did you? Yes, PC games still suck!

* Arnold and Dudley were trapped in the bike shop?

* porn was good? The web has ruined porn!

* Weird Al Yankovich made a movie called UHF? You wouldn't get the title of that movie if you did not own a TV!


I get it though: you want to be on Blogebrity. Guess what? No one -- and I mean no one -- will read your blog unless you've been on Best Week Ever!

So why am I writing on this jerk's blog? I'm talking to you Mo!! No one else reads your blog. The few hapless fucktards who do are REALLY wasting their time.

Except for now of course.

Look, I'm sorry for Skating with the Stars. I'm sorry for Bush press conferences.

Is this about Arrested Development? Look, Arrested Development was like a member of the Bluth family. It made no money on its own and constantly mooched more money than it made.

OK. I guess I got you mad.

Well, if I got you mad, let me get the last word in:

People who use computers are nerds.
You are on the computer now.
Do the math, nerd!

Don't ask.

I used to play a game in my head (which is technically different from "mind games"). The game never had a name. I would just come up with films with titles and plots that were the opposite of the current blockbusters.

Old Example

Original: "Good Will Hunting"

Opposite: 'Bad Fate Fleeing'

'Bad Fate Fleeing' (opposite films only get two quote marks, as opposed to the standard four quote marks for a real film) was about a rich guy whose dad got him a job at some huge company. He voluntarily calls an uninterested psychiatrist in the middle of the night to tell him how smart he is. The psychiatrist says one line ("I can't go back to sleep now. It's your fault!") and hangs up. The guy still thinks he's smart until a girl rejects him at a bar -- then he realizes how stupid he is and farts.

Let's try this with "Brokeback Mountain":

Title: 'Fixedfront Hole-in-the-Ground

Plot:

A Native American gay man and a Native American gay woman -- Manny and Carol -- meet at MisShapes. They realize they are straight and kiss in front of everyone. Cobrasnake takes a snapshot of their kiss and puts it on his website. Manny and Carol want everyone to see this pic, so they e-mail it to every blog on the planet (except Gawker, because they are now too homophobic to do so). Their respective gay friends are mad, but they don't care. After a few nights of meaningless sex, they break up via e-mail postcards and lead separate sex lives with heterosexual strangers in the city.

Status: After making its debut in theaters everywhere, it is out of theaters in a week. Poor box office and poor reviews bring it to the attention of the Razzies, who nominate it for worst picture. Any stand-up comic that tries to tell a 'Fixedfront' joke is greeted with blank stares and the comedian is officialy banned from any and all open mikes in the state of New York.

You would think that the Internet would have made porn cooler. Perhaps you knew that it might not do so. You never thought it would ruin porn.


I find hipster porn sites (Suicide Girls, Burning Angel, Last Night's Party ) aesthetically interesting, but they don't turn me on. The whole purpose of porn is to feed your egotistical delusions. The model should have a "come hither" look, like she actually wants you. These punk porn sites, they have Polaroids of girls with these vacant stares, like they had chloroform-soaked napkins cupped over their mouths and they were dragged into the bike shop where Arnold and Dudley were held captive twenty years ago. I don't need Polaroids of dour girls. I get enough blank, uninterested looks when I ask a girl out. I don't need Polaroids by some Larry Clark wannabe to act out my fantasies of rejection.

The hipster porn sites can be intellectually stimulating though. Suicide Girls has interesting articles and I like reading the journals of the models. Sometimes, I am even turned on by their playlists ("Wolf Parade, '60's Who, [pant], don't stop!," I sometimes say while twiddling my knob -- I mean tugging my whammy bar.)

But these Bang Bus websites? Again, porn is about self-delusion. Usually, I don't like to see the girl with the guy -- I like to imagine that the girl wants me, not some human/stallion hybrid. Whether she's alone or with the guy, I at least want to believe that she wants to have sex because she's horny. These websites ruin that illusion. How? By showing the guy waving the money to the girl like a steak in front of a coyote. Let me get this straight -- you are showing me a guy pay a girl for sex and you want me to pay money to watch him pay her to have sex? This transaction is too complicated for me, bus boy.

Contrary to what you might have learned in Boogie Nights, the '80's was the golden age of porn. First of all, the girls were awesome. They had big hair and big tits. It was like watching a girl from a hair metal video backstage. The VCR meant you could watch Christy Canyon and Ashlyn Gere oil each other up without going to the theater surrounded by balding, stubbly chromosomal anomalies and without the President knowing about it. These movies not only indulged your ego, they glorified some occupations along the way (pizza boy, teacher, detective, prisoner).

Then there was scrambled porn on cable. Remember that? You would watch these squiggly, purple images, the audio would clue you in to the action so you knew when to look for fingers or bobbing heads. The best, of course, was a stormy night. That's when the porn channel would come in for free and your parents had no idea. You know what the Playboy Channel (the only cable porn channel in the '80's) had on almost every single time this happened?


Electric Blue.

It was a video sex magazine that had sex shorts, centerfolds and sex news coverage. Think of it as Real Sex meets The Spice Channel.

Best of all was the theme song. It had this throbbing synth line and some girl would
whisper "Electric Blue." Then the inane lyrical barrage began:

Now the time has come
To see the show (the show [unneccessary reverb])
The girls, the cars, the dreams
Electronic centerfolds
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah blah blah
The truth is sex and cars and dreams
Electric blue
The one with the new girls performing
FEEL THE WARNING!

Got to go -- my mom just came back home.

If so, then I can understand why Oprah and the rest of the world are so mad at James Frey.

What? A drug addict who lies? Well fuck me up the ass with an unlit marijuana roach!

I'll tell you why everyone is so mad -- drug adddicts are usually caught lying. See, drug addicts lie all the time but are such bad liars.

Here's an example:

When you came back home from smoking up with your friends in high school and your mom/guardian asked you what you were doing with your friends, what did you say?

"We were just hanging out."

A little prevarication, not a big deal. Except while you were saying it, you had five Ding Dongs and a spare rib jammed in your mouth. This gave away the fact that you had the munchies.

Maybe if James Frey were simply telling his story at an open mike with no editing instead of writing it, his lies would have been more obvious.

"I am an Alcoholic and a Drug Addict and a Criminal. Oh, and ... uh ... I never hang out. I always do drugs ... with my mouth jam packed with Krispy Kreme donuts ... and foccacia bread."

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Jigga.
Jigga who?
Jigga what.

Wired News covers the 100th aniversary birthday bash of Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD.

"Herbert, who lives in Santa Cruz, California, joined 2,000 researchers, scientists, artists and historians gathered here over the weekend to celebrate the 100th birthday of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD here in 1938."

Herbert, who was an early employee for Cisco Systems, had some amazing discoveries on LSD.

"When I'm on LSD and hearing something that's pure rhythm, it takes me to another world and into anther brain state where I've stopped thinking and started knowing," said Herbert who intervened to ban drug testing of technologists at Cisco Systems.


Anther brain state. Those of you who don't know what an anther is, check out m-w.

"the part of a stamen that produces and contains pollen and is usually borne on a stalk"

I've had anther brain state on LSD before. Time and again, my thoughts have turned into specks of pollen on LSD. Which is why I prefer bud brain state.

The local Fox News affiliate in New York talked about fancy hoity-toity sports car racing and how it's all the rage on the streets of New York.

A man named Lou Devito was talking about his passion for cars.

Here was the caption for Lou Devito

LOU DEVITO

LIKES FAST CARS

Now, perhaps they wanted to hide the fact that he races cars, but I fail to see why "racing enthusiast" would have been a poor caption.

What's next?

MAYOR BLOOMBERG

LIKES NEW YORK SUBWAYS

PRESIDENT BUSH

LIKES "MY PET GOAT"

Went to the Juan McLean concert @ Supreme Trading. Mostly an awesome night.

Awesome music (vocoders are so back)

Free beer (open PBR bar from 9-11)

Took a poll underneath the white canopy outside and got a free pack of cigarettes (Macdonalds Export 'A' Ultra Light)

Free smokes, free beer, free concert, detect a pattern?

Well, when I was on the line for the bathroom, people cut in front of me. THRICE!

1) A couple of girls cut me in line. I just said "What the fuck" over and over again, but accepted my fate.
2) A bespectacled gentleman from the British Isles cut in front of me. I told Harry Potter Senior he cut me in line, he said "You're full of shit." I said, "If you're really British, shouldn't you say full of shite?" Later on, I yelled at him again, saying, "You don't cut lines in Brooklyn, motherfucker," which might be the lamest threat I've ever made in my life (insert coke joke here).
3) A girl asked to cut in front of me. Before I said no, she offered to pay me twenty dollars. I accepted and asked the British guy to ante up too.

So

Free concert
Free beer
Free cigarettes
Line so long a girl gives you twenty dollars to cut you

Yeah, the Juan McLean concert was great.


Thanks, Supreme Trading!

Gelf Magazine interviews Jelly D, a guy dressed up as a donut who is no munchkin in the SF Bay Area battle rap scene.

This is pretty funny, but Gelf's little double dip is even funnier. At first, you notice an interview with Jelly D. Then, on the left, you see (I know you love the second-person narration [reminds you of those Choose Your Adventure books or Bright Light, Big City ]) a side bar which has an interview with Andrew Bancroft, the man behind Jelly D. I mean, you have to explore the mercurial genius that gave us such fresh (fresh like donut fresh -- someone stop me) rhymes as "Your girlfriend wants some lovin'/You come once/But I come by the dozen."

Article ok.

Headline?

Jack White Gives Japan Silent Treatment

Let's hope US and Iran also opt for silent treatment.

Sinful gossip of Gotham site Gawker links to Last Night's Party's blog.

Mr. Bronques finds a girl and a guy, whips out his camera and photographs them in a fictional tantric sex position.

Curl up your legs and get out the pink phone, here comes the hot gossip:

"The next day I talked to Angela and wondered if anything came of it. 'You guys went home together and fucked right?' She said 'I don’t think he was interested. He didn’t even get hard or anything during the shoot.'"

Why didn't he get hard? Maybe he's gay. Maybe it's for the same reason I can't stand hipster porn: the vacant stare. Good porn models have a "come hither" look, like they want you to give it to them. Click this and choose Angela and Pete from the drop menu. Look at that stone face. It's like Steven Wright taught her how to shoot a sex scene.

In case I hurt Angela's feelings, I never have sex. There, I put my diss and your comeback on this post, Angela.

Know that hot alt-comedy ukelele/Casio act The Hazzards? Who are in the WYSIWYG Film Festival? I asked to be their friend on MySpace. Not only did they accept, they commented on my page BEFORE I COULD COMMENT ON THEIRS! Click here for comment.

BTW, they don't technically heart me. They used hearts, which is plural. Dynamite!

Stay Free! editor-in-chief Carrie McClaren talks about some highlight's from Stay Free's! past, when it was only a zine.
One issue had a parody of The Gap's Khakis Swing ad where a stool is kicked over and a man's feet are dangling towards the top of the frame. He obviously committed suicide. A co-worker of Carrie's thought this was a sincere ad for The Gap.

Well, the parody almost fits in with the song the Gap used in the television promos:
"Jump, Jive an' Wail." If you take out the "jive" part and just call the song "Jump an' Wail," it's a dead ringer for a real Gap ad.

Initially, I felt I had nothing to learn reading this article about pogo dildoes. Then I read this quote from Regina Lynn in the article:

"For me, the Jack is a perfect example of how sexual technology evolves. We all know the cliché that high-tech starts with porn before moving into the mainstream."

Of course! Today's pogo fucker will be tomorrow's pogo proctologist.

I was going to look at further mainstream possibilities for the Pogo Prick, but I'll leave it to the experts. Suffice it to say next time the jack for your car breaks, instead of jacking up with your jack,...,

Sonic Fabric allows the wearer to roll a tape head over it (Sonic Fabric is made from audio cassetes) and play music.

From what I understand, conceptual artist Alyce Santoro chooses the music, which means you can't request a tape-suit that plays ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man."

Bright side: you don't have to press "eject" to take the dress off.

Down side: You want to wear a tape dress, you analog-lovin' pervert.

but the Nintendo DS actually plays video games. My friend Mike has a PSP. I checked it out on Tuesday. You can watch mini-discs, watch shows and movies off the web (I saw Demetri Martin's Comedy Central special on it), play music on it and surf the web on it.

Indeed, you could be reading this very post on the PSP right now, which means you aren't playing a video game. Mike told me there are more movies for the PSP than there are video games.

Nintendo DS is only good for video games.

First, Kirby's Canvas Curse, in which you "paint" your way out of a jam, using the stylus.

Next Nintendogs, which makes you scream "Sit!" at your portable video game console.

Now, Electroplankton.

"Let's get this out of the way first: Electroplankton isn't a video game.

The best way to describe Nintendo's latest software for its DS handheld system is that it's like an interactive art installation that you hold in your hand. Tiny life forms swim around a virtual aquarium, and you can interact with them by touching the screen or making noise.

Electroplankton is a love-it-or-hate-it experience. I love it. When it's in my Nintendo DS, I keep reaching over and turning it on to experiment 'just one more time.'"

WHAT! It's not a video game, Mr. Kohler? Thanks for shattering the premise of my blog post.

I should have gotten this out of the way: this is not a blog post.
Might as well cough this one up while I'm at it: this is not funny.

Check out the "This is So Fuckin great" animated Ecstasy video, Eugene Mirman's Pot video and all sorts of great music/comedy videos on this Quicktime show. Video Power Hour, hosted by stand-up comedian Patrick Borelli (featured on Invite Them Up) and his homeboy, Matt Hall, is like Monty Python meets New York Noise. Episode two is awesome.

let me explain.

Pitchfork, which I usually like, writes an unnecessarily harsh review of Morningwood. NY Times goes BIKING with Morningwood and doesn't judge (I found this out on Brooklyn Vegan.)

Imagine if the NY Times decided to go biking with Led Zeppelin in the '70's? They would have been biking through the land of ice and snow (groan) with hooded figures all around an old man carrying hay walking slowly behind them, telling the journalist that the article should be untitled. "At least call the article 'Zoso'," he says with an exasperated sigh later on.

One more reason NY Times is cooler than Pitchfork -- NY Times recognizes Demetri Martin's genius ; Pitchfork rips David Cross a new hairless asshole.

One more reason and that's it, I swear: Pitchfork is cool in that they let David Cross roast them; NY Times is cooler because they have an essay from Demetri Martin on sledding.

Biking? Sledding? Now that's what I call action news!

be taken seriously ten years from now. In 1996, we thought Oasis was going to be the next Beatles. Exactly. Look, I like their music and I like their video, but I can't help but feel that The Boy Least Likely To will be regarded by the next decade's hip kids with the same scorn that the punks in the '70's had for the Grateful Dead.

How to watch this video: Pretend you took a time machine from 2016 back to 2006 and you are watching yourself clap your hands and say yay! as you watch this cutesy puppet video about staring at the stars and falling in love. Point at yourself and laugh. Since you have no time machine, and there can only be one of you in the room at the same time, just direct your index finger towards your face and laugh as you watch this video. Call yourself a dirty, commie hipster. You will look less silly than the guys in this video. Hell, the puppets are less silly.

Ha! Made you point at yourself!