Ed? That motherfucker's still around, man.

When I was eleven years old, my mother game me three George Carlin recordings on tape in my stocking for Christmas. An Evening with Wally Lando Featuring Bill Slazo, On the Road, and the classic Class Clown. I don't think my mom knew much about him, and I would imagine that her purchasing them was inspired by my requesting "comedy tapes" for Christmas. Whatever spirit of serendipity guided her hand the day she bought those three tapes, a deep love was built that Christmas.

I suppose I already had an affinity for words, but Carlin taught me how to play with them, how to manipulate them, how to love them. He showed me how beautiful English can be, and how absurd. He dealt in honesty and pinpointed how language can be exploited by the dishonest.

I've tried to read a couple of obituaries for him today, but I just can't. Surely, other heroes have died in the past, but none of them meant as much to me as Carlin.

Of course, in his own words, thanks to the language in this country, Carlin didn't die. He passed away. Or expired like a magazine subscription.

I'll bite your face!

I know there's a correlation between weight training and increase in testosterone, but I'd never experienced it until I actually started lifting weights in earnest. I tend to be on the angry side, but it has always seemed like passive anger. Now I feel more aggressive. It's the difference between wishing I could stab someone in the face and actually thinking I could do it.

I've been reading Final Truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer and although it doesn't mention that Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins did any weight training, he was a pretty aggressive fellow. What I find most disturbing about the book is the blandness of it all. Gaskins' account of his murders is done in a plain, straightforward way. Also, his language is blunt and cartoonishly rednecky in support of completely irrational thought. You get this sort of "she was a bitch, so I killed her" vibe with little to no explanation other than that he suffers from what he calls a "bothersomeness" which eventually bubbles up into uncontrollable, murderous rage. I guess we're so inundated with psycho-babble in regards to this ilk of horror that the absence of analysis leaves a massive, eerie hole in the reader's vision of the story. It can't be that simple, can it? I got angry, so I butchered her? Apparently, for the truly insane, it is.

Starbucks rubs it in

Ubiquitousness can be an imposition after all:

Keeping America Safe

This isn't the first time I've seen this ad on the subway, but for some reason it made me chuckle Friday afternoon so I took a hot pic. Although, for accuracy, the sign should probably read: "Last year, 44 brown people were needlessly harassed and 1900 people freaked out over abandoned Duane Reade bags."

Teach those terrorists to save big on sanitary napkins...

Dan Patrick: Comedy Writer

I have to call bullshit on Dan Patrick. The former ESPN host now works for Sports Illustrated and has won the opportunity to regale us with his veteran wit. It seems, however, that he doesn't read his own column. In the May 19 issue of SI, Patrick criticizes Yankees relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain for his "spontaneous displays of enthusiasm" after striking people out (specifically, pumping his fist after fanning David Dellucci a few weeks ago). According to Dan "Catchphrase" Patrick (thanks for introducing "en fuego" to American pop culture, by the way. I had to hear that shit throughout high school. I prayed that your face was en fuego), these young ballplayers should save their celebrations for "meaningful occasions." Fair enough. But how does one explain Dan Patrick's handling of Manny Ramirez in this week's SI:

I'm sure you saw the clips of Manny Ramirez giving a fan a high five last week after making a catch - but before he threw the ball to first to complete a double play. The knee-jerk reaction for many is to shake their heads: Hey, he's not taking the game seriously. But I like it. Whenever I watch Manny, I'm entertained: He's having fun.

You see how he had to add that "before he threw the ball to first to complete a double play" in order to justify championing this bullshit? So fucking around while the ball is in play is adorable while celebrating a strike out is excessive. Manny Ramirez's high five was ancillary to the play: He did it to see if he could do it. Manny has always been beloved for his childlike personality (indicative, possibly, of an extra chromosome swimming around, know what I mean?). I don't feel it's entirely fair to condemn Joba for a game-related expression of emotion (which can only help a team and its fans get excited about a last place performance) while looking at Ramirez like a lovable scamp whose antics often cost his team.

Of course, Dan Patrick admits that Manny does sometimes blow it. He then compares him to Brett Favre and how he used to "goof around." But, WHATEVER! It's CUTE!!! What does Dan see in them?

Here's what I see in each: one of the best of his generation, playing like a kid.

Well, Dan, kids also pump their fists after strikeouts. Kids get excited. Kids also whine and cry and choke and fuck up. I'm just looking for a little consistency here, Dan. Like George Carlin says: Let's not have two standards here. One standard will do just fine.

BLASINGAME!

One of the perks of being an XM subscriber is being subjected to the dulcet tones of Jim Blasingame. He does adverts for his radio show which, from what I can gather, has something to do with either helping small business owners succeed or annoying the shit out of XM subscribers. His voice seeps into my brain through my nose and just SITS there droning on like some prison camp survivor telling stories about how severely he was beaten. He has this Droopy Dog cadence to his voice that inspires nothing but violent anger in me. Even though he talks like a tired victim of a bus crash, to be fair, it isn't just his mouthnoise that eats at me like a sleepy vampire. It's also his unBELIEVEably shitty analogies that he hamfistedly applies to running a small business. They range from marginally unrelated to batshit insane. They sound like this:

When a young kitten tries to lap milk from the other side of the bowl, he gets milk all over his chest fur. When running a small business, sometimes we try to lap our net income from the other side of the ledger. Write this on a rock: the closest milk is the sweetest.

ARGGHHHHH!!!! WHAT?! Even though I can't remember an actual quote from his dumb ads, the above example captures something he would say. Somehow he manages to be obvious and convoluted at the same time. I guess from this simpering drivel, we're supposed to get the idea that he's some kind, sagacious old man whose wisdom is brilliant in its simplicity. In reality, it's babble that makes you want to stab him in the mustache.

Sometimes when a man bends down to pick up a penny from the sidewalk, he misses the bigger picture. Like the other man sidling up behind him to slip in ol' Yeller. Write this on a rock: don't get fucked in the ass by being cheap.

He's infuriating. Next up, Suzyn Waldman.

Oh yeah?

I was watching an episode of WWE's ECW brand and saw Matt Striker pull off the official Jordan Barker "Look of Disgust." It was so close to Jordan's that I had to vid cap it:



This was the same look Jordan gave me when I was convinced that Rich Hall was the guy with glasses and a mustache on Not Necessarily the News (answer: Rich Hall is the Sniglets guy. I was thinking of Danny Breen).

E-pissed-temology

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit my girlfriend's sister's family in Long Island. Luckily, my girlfriend came along or it would've been CREEPY. The family includes a three year old girl who has a Herculean amount of energy and, as a result, is the source of nonstop entertainment. Rather than focus on her antics, however, I thought it would be super fun to talk about epistemology and identity for the purpose of boring everyone's fucking faces off.

I wondered aloud, much to the chagrin of the child's mother, when a young mind gains a sense of identity. According to this girl's mother, at about two to two and a half years old, the infant recognizes herself as a distinct personality. Things become "mine." In fact, the idea of "me" becomes overwhelmingly important, so much so that I marveled at how often the idea of "sharing" comes up in the age-targeted media she watches. What's amazing is that her self, her personality, her identity is, at this moment, at its most malleable stage. It's a tabula rasa. From here on out, her experiences inform her very being.

But how does that work now? In 2008? When I was three, I was inundated with the constant barrage of stimuli from various media sources. But however influential that was, it doesn't begin to touch what an infant mind has to contend with now. In an existential sense, the mind manufactures itself, identifies itself, with external "things." My name is Gabe. I have brown hair. I have brown eyes. These are facts that are identified with me, but at the same time aren't "me." The "me," in this sense, is a strange nothingness around which these identifiers adhere.

What makes this problematic is that the sense of identity in today's day and age seems in a constant flux. Don't like your hair? Change it. Don't like your eyes? Change them. Don't like any part of your body? Switch it out for something slimmer or stronger. And despite this bottomless well of choice, at the same time, we are encouraged NOT to consider ourselves different from one another. Categorizing by age, sex, race, or ability is ultimately, we are told, insensitive. It seems that all of these things that make us unique, that distinguish us, are at the same time liabilities.

Taking those identifiers out of the mix, it seems that what remains is harmless tripe. What television shows do I like? What music do I listen to? What sports team do I follow? But ultimately, who am I? Does it matter anymore? The cold, stale formula for the "self" becomes identical for every person, save variable "x" in his case stands for "Good Eats" while for her it stands for "America's Next Top Model."

However dismal my outlook is, I have hope. As I watched the three year old girl atop her playset, she paused for a moment and stared out into the row of trees that line her driveway. Her eyes flickered. She was daydreaming. And for a moment, I understood that consciousness was more than simple formulas.

Everyday Normal Guy

Andy Samberg doesn't come close to comedian Jon Lajoie:


Also in the rap department, a video that is hilarious but I'm not sure is meant to be, rapper Riskay's "Smell Yo Dick:"

New Podcast

My friend John and I discuss comic books! Well, John discusses comic books. I babble on like a retarded Andy Richter.

Podcast!

There will be an exclusive feed for this soon.

Scattershot

* Most Yankee fans despise John Sterling. He's been the radio voice for my favorite team since I was a little boy. I have to admit that I have a soft spot for him and his hokey bullshit, which includes his tendency to emphasize the wrong words in sentences ("IT is high, IT is far, it is...GONE"), his quaint, ol' timey phrases ("They went back to back...and a-belly to belly"), and his sometimes painful catchphrases. What fans seem to forget is that Sterling wasn't ALWAYS delivering awful catchphrases. Growing up, he had a smattering of them, but it wasn't nearly as manufactured as it is today. Someone sucking on a cigar somewhere in the Yankee head office must've encouraged this behavior, because listening to him now is embarrassing. Most of his ridiculous t-shirt oriented slogans revolve around homeruns:

- "Bernie goes boom!" (when Bernie Williams hit a homerun)
- "It is an A-bomb...from A-Rod!" (when Rodriguez does same)
- "The Giambino!" (this couldn't be more awkward if Jason Giambi's face was actually grafted onto Babe Ruth's asscheek)
- "It's Robbie Cano, don'tcha know!" (we're stretching here)
- "It's absolutely Damonic!" (this I heard for the first time today when Johnny Damon hit a homer. This should be punishable by vasectomy)

They just get worse and worse. I'm half expecting him to eventually get weird:

- "You never know a girl until J-eter!"
- "A thrilling hand Joba!" (Or "What a blow Joba" when he blows the game)
- "Don't just stare at it, Pettitte."
- "What a play by Giambi! Mekka lekka high, mekka hiney ho!" (PeeWee reference? Anybody? Get it? I also would say "mekka lekka high, mekka hiney homer")

* The Marvel Secret Invasion story line is pretty great. I'm 31 years old.

* GTA IV has earned $500 million dollars in its first week. I earned significantly less than that.

Grand Theft Fuckface

There are moments in one's adult life that define who he is. Penning a novel. Saving a crippled child from an oncoming train. For me, it was standing with a bunch of teenaged animals outside of a Gamestop on 86th street awaiting the official release of Grand Theft Auto IV. And by "animals," I mean a rowdy slew of just the worst kind of quasi-criminal dirtbags you could possibly imagine. Illiterate, ignorant shitheads whose highest aspirations are to one day "get paid, son" and, maybe, manage a Denny's. So there we were, thugs, myself, and one fifteen year old boy with his mother biding our time until a video game came out. And I couldn't help but wonder if the fiftyish mother was starting to second guess her decision to vouch for her son's purchase, seeing as everyone around us were obnoxious gangbangers.

I heard a young punk behind me mutter to his friend, "Yo, I can't wait to shoot someone in this shit."

Then I felt sick to my stomach. Not because I was offended or because I was disgusted by this bottom feeder's lack of sophistication. I felt sick because that's what it all boiled down to, really. That was the experience we were all hoping to get out of playing this game. The freedom to act out the violent fantasies of some devilish thug without any real consequences. Despite whatever morality tale lies at the heart of this game (and there always is), these kids surrounding me don't care. They don't care about the story or the elaborately constructed virtual New York. They just want to shoot someone in this shit.

As I walked away with my copy, I couldn't help but think that maybe we're now beyond desensitization to violence. We crave it.

Good gravy, am I sick of this woman

There is a middle-aged woman in my office who is the epitome of a washed-up actress and she drives everyone up a wall because she is an insufferable busybody. She openly eavesdrops on private conversations and hovers where she's not wanted. She's the same woman who a couple of weeks ago "overheard" my conversation with the office manager about Kath's show. The reason why she didn't hear it from me directly is because she is the last person on the planet I would invite to ANYTHING remotely drama related. Why? Because when she does turn up to these things, no matter how small or low budget, she insists on getting comped because she's "in the industry" and she offers unsolicited criticism after the show. Simple-minded, niggling snipes from a embittered nothing of a woman. I hate her with all of my might and want nothing more than ill fortune to rain down on her.

The only reason I brought this up is because she made a characteristically snide comment to me about a half hour ago. This older gentleman in the office was wearing the same colored shirt and pants that I had on and he drew attention to it, saying "Hey, we're like brothers! Could you tell the difference if I weren't as old as fuck?" Of course, this woman immediately said "the only difference I see is that your wife ironed your shirt."

Why you miserable bitch. Oh, my shirt's wrinkly is it? Well, so's your face. The trouble is, I can actually iron my shirt if I thought this job really mattered at all. You can't iron your face...though I suppose I could give it a shot for you. Rather clumsily and with great force.

Ugh. I hope she gets a paper cut. In her heart.

My first lolcat

moar funny pictures

Lots of time on my hands...

He could bear it no longer

I didn't see the latest "Will Ferrell is a hapless champion at some quirky sport" movie, but apparently the former SNL star wrestled a bear in one of the scenes. The bear, it turns out, was upset with its contract:

Yahoo News: Bear gave off no reasons for concern before trainer's death

Shockingly, a trained grizzly bear can be unpredictable. Unfortunately, a bear makes for a poor vampire as its attempt to draw blood from its trainer ended in the removal of the entire neck. If you ask me, the bear's fit of rage was exactly one scene with Will Ferrell too late.

ADDENDUM: Notice how in most cute, fun articles about animals they use the third person personal pronouns "he" or "she." "Tommy the bear! He's just like one of the family!" When the bear rips some dude's throat out, though, journalists go straight to the third person impersonal. "The bear murdered its trainer by taking his head in its paws and tearing out his lymph nodes." Not so cute anymore, I guess.

*********************

And now that I'm on the topic of annoying celebrities: Hey, Kanye West, WE GET IT! YOU LOVE LOUIS VUITTON! Does his name have to appear in every song now? Jesus Christ in a pickle jar, are you THAT strapped for words that rhyme with don? How about:

- I met a guy named Ron.
- My father is an ex-con.
- I love jerk chicken, mon (if you're Jamaican)

And to tell the truth, I'm not too impressed with rappers who rap about what they did in the club the night before anyway. Guess what?! Telling me what French fashion designer you were wearing while you sipped expensive cocktails isn't very interesting. In fact, it's pretty gay. Very gay, now that I think about it. (And I mean "gay" in both that eighth grade "going to the mall is so gay" way and, of course, "homosexual.")

Don't rappers kill each other anymore? That's what we want to hear.

Cottonelle? More like Cotton Swell!

I cannot begin to express my pleasure and gratitude that baby wipes are now accepted as suitable for adults and infants alike. You don't understand...regular toilet paper now seems BARBARIC. I mean, what were people doing before? I'll tell you what: pawing at their brown eyes with burlap sacks. Finally, dignity has arrived at the bathroom. It's like leaving the stall with a freshly polished nickel.

Speaking of disgusting, a fellow on the train into work this morning was digging deep into his nose as if looking for loose change. Apparently, he was unaware of the other fifty commuters around him and their good taste to not jam digits into their uncovered orifices. Of course, he went on to shove his pointer finger into his ear as well. I half expected him to go the whole nine yards and ram a thumb up his ass. I would have then recommended Cottonelle to him.

New York is a hell of a town.

Don't mention the war

I have realized that my ideal haircut is very similar if not identical to those favored by Germans around, oh, say, 1941. It's difficult to relay this image to the all-Jewish barbershop I go to on 44th Street. I would imagine that "I would like the SS officer, please" would swiftly mutate the normal clip-clip motion of the scissors to more of a stab-stab stroke somewhere around my temple.

They say clothes make the man, but does that idea extend to the haircut? I'll keep you posted if I happen upon any notions of a national socialist party.

Enfermería General

I normally hate doing my laundry in Washington Heights, in part because doing one's laundry is one of the more tedious activities in his life, but mostly because the Heights is full of degenerates and scumbags. In fact, I find it hilarious that there's a musical about the Heights out right now. Somehow, I'm not sure that putting sexual harassment, littering, and gang violence to music makes anything better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not familiar with the rich culture all around me that, as a white man, I simply can't appreciate. Well, all I know is what I've seen. And I've seen lady friends move out of the Heights because of the constant barrage of aggressive men, glass bottles being thrown at passers-by, raw chicken being "delivered" to chimichurri trucks by having it thrown on the street, and a steady line of makeshift memorials to dead gangbangers. I've lived there about six years now, and I fail to see the charm.

Especially in the laundromat, which, in the Heights, doubles as a recreation center (read: place to dump one's obnoxious children). Even though last night's trip to the laundromat was relatively hassle free, I'm always amazed at the idiosyncrasies these people have simply doing the wash. Such as jury rigging EVERY machine in the place so only Fonzie could make them work properly. And, instead of putting a decent amount of clothes in a few dryers and drying them for a half hour, they like to put two or three items in each of fifteen dryers and dry them for five minutes. This practice leads to not only dryer monopoly, but it also makes one wonder why there's a single sock and a pair of shorts tumbling alone together, as if dancing a forbidden dance that only clothes understand. But the best laundromat quirk HAS to be the Spanish language soap operas they have BLASTING on the television in the corner. Last night's exciting tale involved women SCREAMING in some sort of dungeon while this borderline gay villain in a cape kept mildly threatening them. And despite the drama, the music would occasionally switch to a sort of bumbling, cartoon lilt and the prisoners would have exasperated fake fights with each other. And, my Spanish may be shaky, but from what I could make out, the theme song to this televisual gem involved the devil and love.

For all I know, that's what it was called. The Devil and Love. Anybody know if that's a show?

Boyd, howdy!

When I was a mere boy and a beardless youth, I was an avid L.M. Boyd fan. His column out of Seattle was a collection of trivia, a simple list of odd facts. And I loved it. I found a website that has amassed a smattering of his trivial records. Here are some of my favorites:

* Mythmakers of ancient England spoke of a monster in the shape of an emaciated cow called "Chichevache" that ate nothing but faithful wives. The bit of lore eventually lost currency. Some English say it was too silly. Some Irish say the old cow starved to death.

* It's only a coincidence that "nasa" in Hebrew means "to go up."

* Makers of medieval calendars marked two days of each month as evil days. Called them the "Dies Mali." During which nothing good was supposed to happen. Their label came down as our word "dismal."

* Yes, as reported here, anthropologists know of no human society whose children do not play hide and seek. But I left something out. Other animals play the game, too. Otters do. So do young deer.

* "Preposterous" comes from Latin meaning "before and after." Originally it was supposed to convey how ridiculous it is to put something first that ought to be last. Such as a cart before a horse.

* The old Romans thought a person's health changed every seven years. They also thought a mirror reflected a person's health, good or bad. It was a twist on this combination that gave us the superstitious notion that a broken mirror foretold seven years bad luck.

* Before people gave up meat for Lent, they celebrated with a "carnival." That word stems from "carne vale" meaning "goodbye, meat."

And for my lawyer boss:
* The original "esquire" — the man, not the magazine — was a young noble apprenticed to a knight. "Esquire" was one rank below "gentleman."

Ain't that the truth.

Only four more shows!

The first four shows were amazing and now you only have four shows left to see:

My Dead Mother is Funnier Than You

ArcLight Theatre, 152 West 71st Street (b/w Broadway and Columbus)
April 3 - 6 and April 10 - 13
Thursday through Saturday 8pm, Sunday 3pm

Tickets available through TheaterMania.com

Seriously, people like it.