Wasn't Bob Ross also an Afro-American?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Michael Richards lost his fucking mind and peppered the audience, Dick Cheney style, with a smattering of racial slurs. What he's paying for, here, is that his comments weren't funny. There was clearly no joke behind them, and that makes an audience, especially one with actual "tinted Americans" in it, a li'l nervous. But what offends me in the clip above is Seinfeld telling Letterman's audience to stop laughing because "it isn't funny." Isn't it? It's not funny when an entertainer, whose career has been ironically crippled by its own success, has a total breakdown and starts doing David Duke impressions only to nervously apologize for them days later (the apology, of course, getting more laughs than Michael Richards' actual routine ever would)? Isn't Larry David working on a script like this every day? Weren't the awkward repercussions from one's personal quirks, fears, and problems the building blocks for your show, Jerry? COME ON! Won't somebody at least give me the small comfort in having the only good aspect of this ridiculously oversensitive society be the depths to which its celebrities must sink in order to gain forgiveness? Can't I at least have that? Can't I be allowed to laugh at Michael Richards for screwing up so badly that he is reduced to a quivering, teary-eyed baby in front of a national audience?

In unrelated news:

As I stood in Pennsylvania Station awaiting my train to Philadelphia on Saturday, I watched as an obese woman plodded down the corridor. As she passed, a single dime sprung from her fingers and fell to the marble floor with a distant tinkle (ooh! Urine from beyond the grave!). She hunched forward slightly, heaving her weighty skull over the precipice of her bosom just enough to get a decent view of the fallen coin. In less than a second, she determined, with a sort of strange weary familiarity, that the dime was lost forever. As she wandered off, I could only imagine a small fortune scattered about the streets and sidewalks of New York that this woman had somewhat begrudgingly donated because she was simply unable to reclaim it.

05:13:24

Net time: 05:05:46

Next year: Toronto

Dirty knees, look at these

Dear Cat Fancy,

Attached please find the best thing I have ever seen. It has long been said that the Japanese sense of humor is peculiar. Most of it involves terrifying pedestrians, kissing massive insects, and screaming women (note: I have no concept of parallel structure. In fact, how'd I even make that joke?). I have long resisted the Japanese, or indeed, all Asian comic sensibilities (I was All Asian in high school) as they seemed bizarre and macabre. Fortunately, the steady string of Will Ferrell vehicles has made me doubt American comic tastes and seek out and embrace alternative comedy sources.

It's not that I don't like the King of Queens. Far from it. Situation comedies have been my passion since I was a smallish child watching I Love Lucy reruns in an abandoned warehouse (I was an orphan/dock worker). It's just that if I have to endure yet another clumsy plot line about the ignorant husband unwittingly dismantling a time-honored family event only to learn deep values that actually bring his family closer together, I'm afraid I will be forced to hunt Kevin James down and feast on his succulent flesh. Do you see? Do you see how it's easier to laugh at the heart-wrenching yelps of frightened Japanese preteens than to admit that Jerry Stiller is funny?

In closing, I love your magazine. It's written purrfectly (feel free to use that). Maybe you can do an article about the woman in the picture I've sent. Maybe I can find more interesting cat torture pics and I can write for you! It could be a column about cats in comedy! Called That's My Pussy! Or Pussy Chuckle! Or Elbow Deep in a Pile of Pussy! Think about it.

Pussy,
G. Gordon Liddy

It's a corpse on the course, of course

The very fact that I haven't been able to train for Sunday's marathon in Philadelphia has built itself in my head as a somewhat comical truth which has gone on to become a more successful and grand joke, a joke that has no doubt bought a house in the Hamptons and brand new Porsche with which to torment me (its license plate would read: "ULLNVRFNSH"). To be sure, it has gone beyond the sobering reality of "running a marathon" and has achieved the loftier ponderousness of "wrestling a pack of wolves" or "fellating a demi-god." Still, the sheer lunacy of participating in a marathon (I am loathe to use the word "competing" as I'm concerned that such a lie would make even liars blush) with very little training does have a certain charming appeal. Kind of like watching a fat man ascend stairs. You're pulling for him, but you know that he'll be ducking into the fifteenth floor elevator as soon as he becomes disgusted with his own chunky heaving.

This time around, however, I am orchestrating a bigger support team, lead by my family who will be holding signs reading "Don't Die" and "You can do it, Grabe!" and maybe even "I'm glad it's not just cancer that runs in our family." Ho Ho Ho. I hope to equip them with various elixirs, tonics, and spells to sustain me at key elements of the race, like, you know, the whole thing. I also hope that I can keep from sharting out bloody stool and vomit (that's right, ass vomit) like some hairy, red-cheeked version of Uta Pippig.

As race day approaches, I find myself torn between nervousness and almost irrational hysteria. But, I know that, on the day, I will try to have fun. As I bleed. From my eyes and skin.

That shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly

Wow

Every once in awhile, a bit comes along you wish you'd written. This is one of those bits (forgive me if you've already seen this, but I don't have cable, so, you know, frankly you can go pound sand):

Oddly fitting...

You are Alison Parker, alcoholic tragedy case in heels. It's not that you're dramatic, right? It's that your life is. Work, love, the apartment ... you can't keep it all together. Know that while you can't control everything, you are responsible for own life.

Which Melrose Place Character Are You?

Thanks, Anju.