Thursday, January 31, 2013

Kabaddi


I've never heard of this sport before, but apparently it's pretty popular in India and Asia. Each team sends one person, a "raider," over to the other team's side. He has to tag someone and then run back to his side while holding his breath. Bizarre.

Monday, January 28, 2013

I don't see color.

Friday, January 25, 2013

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."
--Mike Tyson

The Bill

I like the officious air we unconsciously slide into when we're handed the dinner bill. You can't help it when the waiter solemnly hands it to you inside that little black folio.
"I'd like to thank everyone at the table for attending this meeting to examine our quarterly stock reports . . . Hmmmm . . . interesting. Looks like reuben prices are on the uptick."
"I'm feeling bullish. Let's tip twenty percent."
"All those in favor?"
(show of hands)

Great Movies, Google Street View


No Country for Old Men and Goodfellas, via Gawker

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Gay Bomb

The proposal came from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, which requested $7.5 million to develop a so-called "gay-bomb." Using the Freedom of Information Act, Edward Hammond, director of the U.S. office of the Sunshine Project, obtained a copy which was "part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons." If completed, the bomb would release a chemical aphrodisiac "and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical... soldiers would become gay." This would cause their units to break down as the troops "became irresistibly attractive to one another." In addition to a "gay bomb" the proposal also mentions using chemicals which could make bees angry so that enemy forces would be attacked not only by our troops but also swarms of stinging insects.

Monday, January 21, 2013

The weiner dog in the wild.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

ancient Japanese xenomorph painting, via designyoutrust

Back from Vacation

I'm back from vacation! Did you miss me? Did you count the days? Here's a list of things I bet you did while I was gone:
1. Counted the days (already mentioned that one)
2. Gave your sadness a name (Clark)
3. Wrote lots of bad poetry
4. Stared out the window
6. Forgot how to count because you were so stricken with grief

I started my "vacation" by flying to Portland on Thursday, and doing three lovely days of comedy in that rainy town. The photo at the top of this post is a cappuccino from the famous Stumptown coffee. SO MANY BOOKSTORES in Portland. I swore I wouldn't buy any books since I was trying to travel light, but I bought two, which is practically nothing: Tenth of December, by George Saunders, and The Magicians, by Lev Grossman.

Anyhow, the shows in Portland were great. Kevin Pollak and Sean Jordan (the host) were both cool to work with. It was a real pleasure spending three days working on comedy during the day and performing at night, and I wrote a couple new jokes:
• Le Dump (my favorite new joke)
• Fancy Hostel
• Columbo (really more of a segue than a joke)
• Please turn off all electronic devices (I wrote this joke, tried it twice, realized it wasn't funny, and unwrote it—nevertheless, it was written, and therefore counts)
• Check under the bed (new segue into Ghost Possum)
• Life of Pi (new joke within my old Misogynist joke)

I realize that bulleted list means nothing to you, since you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all my jokes and the bulleted names I give them on my set list. But, since you're a purely hypothetical person in the first place, I'm kind of writing this for myself anyhow.

After Portland I flew to Montreal and Jen and my brother-in-law Mike picked me up. We drove to Smuggler's Notch, Vermont, and skied with their family until Saturday. After a couple days without performing I started to get the shakes; luckily we did karaoke Friday night which tided me over.

The second day skiing I took two nasty falls on Madonna (the central, highest mountain at Smuggler's), so I couldn't snowboard for a bit. Instead I did a little snowshoeing, a little hot tub soaking, and a lot of complaining/wincing in pain. Totally worth it for the last day of snowboarding though, which was awesome. Beautiful conditions with mounds of buttery powder coating the trails.

I'm happy to be back in Philly, surrounded by all my familiar things—my big bookshelf, bed, grapefruits, and lapdog—but I sort of miss snowboarding. Maybe someday it would be nice to live somewhere with more nature? I can't believe I just said that. I must've fallen off my snowboard harder than I realized. Nose bleeding. Getting sleepy.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

"If you have a negative tendency and you deny it, then you’ve doubled it. If you have a negative tendency and you look at it” — which is, in part, what the process of writing allows — “then the possibility exists that you can convert it.”
George Saunders, from an interview by Joel Lovell

Out of Town

Hello gaping maw of infinity that is the internet! For the next week or so I will not be throwing as many things down you, unlucky pennies in a bottomless well. Tomorrow morning I fly to Portland to perform the comedies with Kevin Pollak. Then I'm going to Smuggler's Notch to snowboard for a week. THAT'S RIGHT, I SNOWBOARD, so you can take your preconceived notions about my fragile nature and put them in a low draw full of bottle caps, pennies, and faded ticket stubs.
David Bowie and William Burroughs, photographed by Terry O'Neill and hand coloured by Bowie (1974) from The David Bowie Archive, courtesy of V&A Images, via dezeen

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Monday, January 7, 2013

Friday, January 4, 2013

In 1980, Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the city.
via Mental Floss's awesome list of trivia
"There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality."
Seneca
When something becomes
familiar enough
it stops existing.
"Man is the cruelest animal."
Nietzsche

"Hey Nietzsche: It's 6am. Wake the fuck up and feed me or I'll claw your face off."
A cat
Too much is never enough.


New joke. This one's about art school.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Terry Gross, mid 1990s. WHAT A BABE! Image courtesy WHYY

Penguin Great Ideas







Great series, by a great designer, David Pearson.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Back from Groundhog Day

I'm back from the holidays! I took a little break from blogging. Sorry I was gone so long.
"But Doogie, we didn't notice. This is our first time here. We only arrived accidentally after googling 'comedy/yardsale.'"
Why would you google that?
"I was looking for a copy of Don Knotts's comedy album An Evening With Me on vinyl."
That's a good album.
"Do you have a copy?"
Yes.
"Can I buy it from you on your front lawn for $3?"
No.
"I AM GOING TO WRITE A NEGATIVE YELP REVIEW OF YOUR BLOG RIGHT NOW."
Don't forget to write it in all caps, that way people will know your opinion is well-balanced and not insane.
OH, by the way, above is a photo of me performing at the Philebrity awards as Santa Claus, insult comic. I have video, but I'm not sure if I want to put it up, because it's mostly me asking people "What do you want for Christmas?" and then, no matter what they say, I scream in their face and tell them that's a stupid gift idea. I also use the f-word A LOT.
People tend to not enjoy the character.
And yet I trot it out annually! Why? Because it's a tradition. Telling a stranger "You remind me of the three wise men, except there's only one of you and you're stupid," while he glares at me is part of the season.
Ho, ho, ho: You three ladies in the front row.