A Nameless Blog

I was talking to the ladyfriend about the unfortunate passing of Andrew Koenig, for it really bummed me out.  No, I never watched Growing Pains, but he was the producer of a podcast I listen to semi-regularly.  Titled Never Not Funny, the show is comedian Jimmy Pardo’s forum to crack wise with friends and celebrity guests.  I tried to explain to her how much I enjoy the podcast and how much I admire Pardo (and sympathize with him for the loss of his brother-in-law and producer), but I had some trouble putting it into words.

The thing is, Jimmy Pardo is a good comic, but not a great one.  His act is fine, but what sets him apart from others is his manner.  He has an energetic style that tells audiences that he’s the entertainer.  Thus, he is at his best when riffing with the crowd or other comedians.  I can’t think of many people who are more comfortable with an audience in front of him.  Watch any episode of his version of “You Bet Your Life” to see him in action.  His jokes don’t always work, but their purpose is always clear — keep the audience entertained and on Team Jimmy.  It struck me that this is a talent that very few people have in show-business.  Surprisingly enough, I would put Jimmy Pardo on a very short list of people I’ll refer to as consummate entertainers.

It’s a tough balance to be a truly consummate entertainer.  You have to have a light attitude, but not too light.  You should be consistently amusing, but able to defer to those who share your stage.  Most importantly, every decision you make should be in the interest of the audience.  Based on these strict criteria, the only  consummate entertainers (among living non-musicians) I can think of are as follows: Jimmy Pardo, Regis Philbin, and Conan O’Brien.

That’s a surprising list to come from me, especially for its omissions.  For example, why not include David Letterman, a comedy hero of mine?  Well, he’s cranky and intentionally inaccessible to many.  He likes having a slightly offbeat, selective audience so he can rant about his personal life and not worry about entertaining every single person.  His attitude is one of, “if you like me, great; if not, screw off.”  That can make for a very funny person, but not a consummate entertainer.

In a similar vein, why not Jay Leno?  He’s always brought big ratings, and he always tries to appeal to the largest audience.  The problem isn’t just that he isn’t funny anymore and tells the same four predictable jokes over and over.  The real problem is his interviewing skills.  His mission in interviews isn’t to entertain the audience, but to allow the guest to recite his prepared bits and stories.  Sure, talk-show hosts have to do that to some degree, but that’s all Leno does.  (And it’s so awkward: “I understand you built a shark tank in your house…”)  Also, Jay Leno doesn’t make the list because I want to distinguish “consummate entertainer” from “middlebrow sense of humor”.

Missing the list also is Ryan Seacrest.  He’s a capable host, but that’s it.  He doesn’t sing, dance, tell jokes, have interesting opinions, or do much of anything.  He gets a mention, though, because he hosts our nation’s most popular show, which should be worth something.

I thought about putting Oprah Winfrey on the list, but quickly declined because I don’t remember being particularly entertained by her at any time.  I admit that I don’t watch her show, so I might be missing a lot.  She isn’t known for any talent besides incredible business acumen, so I doubt it.  But if someone would like to write an impassioned defense of Oprah as a great entertainer, I’d like to read it.

Come to think of it, I could probably cite ignorance regarding most women who might have made the list.  I like Bonnie Hunt on Letterman, but I’ve never seen her show.  Joan Rivers was funny in her day, but I was too young to have seen her host The Tonight Show.  I think I know enough about Ellen DeGeneres to leave her off — the American Idol watchers I know haven’t been blown away by her performance this year.  Sarah Silverman I love, but she’s too niche (the same can be said of Amy Sedaris, Maria Bamford, or a host of other comediennes).  Call it the innate sexism of showbiz, but most women are either too underexposed or simply unworthy of this arbitrary title I just made up.

Almost making the list as a surprise entrant was Howard Stern.  Full disclosure: I’m not a fan.  His humor is mostly lowbrow, his interview style is exploitative, and his fans aren’t usually people I associate with.  That said, he’s very close to being a consummate entertainer.  Everything he does on his show is designed to keep listeners’ attention.  Remember in Private Parts (a good watch if you haven’t seen it) when the radio producer says that the people who said they hated Howard Stern listened to him over twice as long as those who liked him?  If that’s the case, he’s doing something brilliant.  Even on others’ talk shows, he brings something to the table beyond lame-ass stories.  I had to leave him off the list, however, because he turns off too many people.  Too much of his brilliance comes out of making vast swaths of people uncomfortable, and no consummate entertainer would sacrifice that much of his audience.  Plus, he very rarely performs onstage, which, the more I think about it, should be a requirement.  Sorry, Howard.

The “stage performers only” requirement eliminates many others who might be more than capable of becoming consummate entertainers.  Steve Martin used to be, but not since he retired from stand-up.  Alec Baldwin is close, but he’s only onstage the days he hosts SNL.  The same problem keeps Christopher Walken off the list.  I’m super-tempted to put Justin Timberlake on the list, but I told myself I’d eliminate musicians, and most of his stage time is musical.

So let’s get to who’s on the list.  These are three very different entertainers, but I think they’ve all earned their spot.  Pardo I’ve covered.  Regis should be easy: he’s proven himself every day for almost fifty years.  No matter his role (talk-show host, talk-show guest, gameshow host, comedic actor), he’s always a delight.  He’s a ridiculous man, but his attitude is perfect for the occasion.  No one in history has logged more hours on television, which is fitting because he seems to be the only person who truly belongs there.

Why Conan?  It’s not just because I love him.  Watch his show… er, watch clips of his old Late Night show.  Even when he tells bad jokes, he twists them into an entertaining moment.  He does his fair share of mugging in these moments, but he knows when to stop (something that keeps Robin Williams off the list forever).  In interviews, he often does the Leno-esque setups for guests, but he plays with it a lot.  He’ll make fun of the fact that a celebrity has a prepared story, or (if he’s feeling more Lettermanish) he’ll try to interrupt and screw up what was likely to be a snoozer.  Plus, his humor is apolitical and mostly silly, which makes it easy to keep most people on board.  I think that makes my point about Conan — I’ve written enough about him already, anyway.

So… whom am I missing?  I’ve racked my brain for the last few hours, but I’m sure somebody slipped through the cracks of this steel trap of mine.  (Ah, how I love the nonsensical mixed metaphor.)  What do you think — good list?  Should I add Don Rickles… or Bill Cosby?  The answer to both is “probably not”, but help me flesh this out.

-Darrell

Every two years, I get a bad case of Olympic fever.  This year, it’s just of the winter variety, which isn’t as severe.  However, it is bad enough that I need to write a bullet-style blogpost about the events I’ve had the fortune to witness over the past fortnight.  Let’s proceed in no particular order.

BOBSLED/SKELETON/LUGE: I might as well start with the event that first made headlines.  I won’t get into tsking the event coordinators or the track designers; we’ve read all that shit enough.  I’m still surprised and amazed that sports like luge and skeleton exist in the first place.  Who decided that sledding should be absurdly treacherous?  Why would anyone intentionally build a track that allows brakeless sleds to top 100 MPH?  Those people have a thrill-seeking gene that I lack.

Another thing about the sliding sports: they’re probably the hardest to watch.  Even something like figure skating, which has its own arcane set of rules and jargon, can be followed pretty easily: if the skater lands awkwardly, that’s a bad thing.  With the sliding sports, I have no way of comparing people’s runs or being able to tell whether anyone has good technique.  It just doesn’t translate to television.  Besides the horrific crashes, of course.

SNOWBOARDING: I hate to admit it, but I have jumped onto the Shaun White bandwagon.  For the longest time, I thought he was a doofy-looking stoner with an irritating manner about him.  I still kind of feel that way, but after watching the halfpipe finals, I also believe he is far and away the best in the world at his sport.  In the medal round, his jumps were noticeably higher, his tricks more impressive than all the rest.  And even though he had already sewn up the gold medal, he went all-out for his second run and gave everybody a fantastic exhibition.  Respect for that damned flying tomato.

SNOWBOARD/SKI CROSS: This is the type of skiing I’ve wanted since I was a lad: head-to-head racing down a hill.  It’s obvious who’s doing well because everyone’s going at once.  It’s a race — not the speed contest that is every other skiing event.  Plus, there are more crashes, and they aren’t as gut-wrenching as those in regular downhill.  Win-win.

CURLING: Bill Simmons has already devoted a lot of column space and podcast time to the sport of Scottish kings, so I’ll try not to be unoriginal.  First off, I agree that it’s fun to play along and talk strategy.  I agree that it’s easy to follow.  And yes, I agree that the Canadian skip is a sexy number.  All that said, I have one nagging suspicion that sweeping the ice is a lie.  I understand that sweeping gets rid of ice particles and may possibly melt a tiny layer, allowing the rock to slide farther.  But how much of a difference does it really make?  A bad shot is a bad shot, and sweeping ability can’t be so good as to turn it into a great shot.  Right?  I heard one of the commentators say something about how a thrower should have gone short because he had “such good sweepers” who could have placed it better.  How can you tell a good sweeper from an okay one?

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING: Everyone rightly says that it’s less exciting than downhill skiing.  It is impressive, however, to see top athletes gear up and do what probably amounts to a frozen marathon.  I’ll never forget the sight of five skiers plodding toward the finish, then immediately collapsing as if they had crossed the Others’ security fence from LOST.

SHORT-TRACK SPEED SKATING: Super exciting, seemingly inconsequential.  Based on the disqualification rules and the behavior of the participants, it seems to me that luck is the most important element of short-track.  Apolo Ohno won his first silver medal this year because two Koreans tripped over each other on the final turn.  The Chinese women’s relay team won gold because a Korean slightly nudged someone along the way.  J.R. Celski got held by a Canadian who was falling behind; for some reason, the Canadian was automatically advanced to the final, while Celski was disqualified.  What?  Your sport is exciting, but too maddeningly random for me to take seriously.

BIATHLON: Every winter Olympics, I encounter another person who is unfamiliar with the biathlon, even though it’s one of the oldest events.  What’s so strange about the combination of cross-country skiing and riflery?  It’s a great synthesis of two important Nordic skills.  I’m sure hours of flat-land skiing followed by patient tracking and shooting of animals is how generations of northerners fed their families.  Anyway, my other point is similarly unnecessary: NBC did an excellent job making the biathlon watchable.  An event like that begs to be misunderstood, but the coverage made sure the viewer knew what the hell was going on.  Well done.

NORDIC COMBINED: Now here’s a combination that makes little sense to me: ski-jumping and cross-country skiing.  The worst part is, the ski-jumping appears to be completely unimportant.  Competitors first have a ski-jumping competition in order to determine the orders and headstarts for the lengthy cross-country skiing race to follow (much like the Eliminator on American Gladiators).  The thing is, if I remember correctly, the gold was won by someone who did rather lousy on the ski-jump.  So really, the Nordic combined is just a more complicated cross-country skiing race.

MEN’S HOCKEY: I can’t get enough Olympic hockey.  The ice is bigger, so the puck moves quicker and more freely.  There aren’t TV timeouts, so viewers never lose a sense of urgency.  Everyone’s playing for national pride, so every team takes the tournament seriously.  It’s my favorite form of hockey; the NHL could learn a lot from the IOC.  I love it so much, I don’t even have a snarky comment about it.  Okay, maybe just one for Jeremy Roenick: J.R., you’re retired.  Get those teeth fixed.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY: The trouble with women’s hockey is that only the U.S. and Canada are any good.  Games aren’t watchable because either you’re watching a blow-out or two teams that screw up a lot.  Also, checking isn’t allowed, which seems antithetical to hockey, women’s or not.

ICE DANCING: sucks.  You know it; I know it; the American people know it.  It’s just about footwork and timing.  It’s synchronized swimming with a frozen pool.  No jumps?  The dudes aren’t tossing ninety-pound girls ten feet into the air?  Nobody’s falling down?  No thanks.

FIGURE SKATING: It’s the most popular winter sport, but I’m far from in love with it.  It’s an impressive athletic feat, but I can’t help but get frustrated at any sport that depends on judging.  I prefer sports to be objective — cross the finish line first and you win.  Avoid debates, controversies, and bribes.  Even beyond the judging, I think I’d appreciate a little more detail about the standards that the judges use.  There’s occasional mention of how skaters have to pull one skate over their heads during the bridge of the song, but I’ve heard nothing about what the penalty would be if an Olympian did it, say, during the coda.  Give me figures, Scott Hamilton!

AERIALS: Add this to the list of sports that I will never try.  I can see how it evolved.  “Hey, see that ramp I built?  I’m-a go do a backflip.”  Competition ensued.  Meanwhile, people like me stayed in the ice-fishing cabins to nap, read, and masturbate.

I think that’s about every sport.  Wow.  The Winter Olympics really don’t have that many sports.  I guess there’s only so much you can do with ice and snow.  Below are a few suggestions for the IOC to consider for future Olympiads.

SNOWMAN BUILDING: I suppose this would be a judged event, which isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t have to be.  It could be devoid of design; teams would have to build a six-foot-tall snowman comprised of three large snowballs at least two feet in diameter.  First team to stick a carrot in the top snowball is the winner.

SNOWBALL ROLLING: Competitors start at the top of the hill.  Whoever’s ball is most fit to crush a cartoon coyote at the bottom of the hill gets the gold.

ALPINE MIXOLOGY: Athletes must use natural ice and snow to concoct the ideal gin and tonic.  This event is here exclusively so the Brits can have an event to dominate.

SNOWSLIDING: We’ve seen people go downhill with two skis, then one board; let’s continue the trend.  No skis, no board: just a pair of water-resistant boots.  Athletes need not remain upright all the way down the hill, but they must not burst the water balloons attached to their helmets.  Pundits will call it “controlled falling”, but I’ll just call it “endless drama”.

CLOCKWISE SPEED SKATING: Why must every track sport go counterclockwise?  Maybe we’ll get a new pack of athletes who are more suited to turning right all the time.  I’m just saying it’s worth a shot.

Okay, enough nonsense.  I have more curling to watch.

-Darrell

Ah, love is in the air.  I mean that literally — the day after Valentine’s Day always has a distinct bleach aroma outside, if you catch my drift.  It’s like the atmosphere got laid yesterday.  World, you need to bask in that post-coital glow.  You deserve a blogpodge.

Do any of you read xkcd?  It’s a nerdy web comic that’s occasionally funny.  But do you know what’s even better?  xkcdexplained.  It’s a simple premise — three guys explain the jokes in the latest comic.  The execution is brilliant, though, as it’s clear that these guys find xkcd predictable, childish, and unfunny.  It’s become the most amazingly mean thing I’ve seen in a long time.  Instead of nerds versus jocks, we get intellectual nerds versus socially awkward nerd.  Reading both the comic and critique is win-win — if the comic is bad, the snarky explanation is that much better.

It’s also President’s Day.  We all pitched in to give Obama that tie, right?  I want to be sure that my name was on the tag.

My opinion of John Mayer is pretty much the same opinion I have of Justin Timberlake.  I can’t stand their music and I’m envious of their sexual resumes, but I find them both to be immensely talented people who seem to have good senses of humor, particularly about themselves.  Knowing that I’m okay with them as people makes me feel smugly enlightened and open-minded.  Anyone else feel similar?

The universe is big.  The universe is small.  Here’s a flash widget to help you put it in perspective.  It’s not as grand without Morgan Freeman and a gigantic screen, but it’ll do.

Internet, you’ve finally done it.  You’re in the process of creating a website entirely for me.  You see, people are starting to make charts and graphs about the greatest, most fascinating band of all time.  Check out the Flickr page if you like; my favorite addition is the analysis of the Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ Americanized pronunciations of the letter R as their careers progressed.  Turns out they got more British as time passed.

Hot damn, it’s Lupercalia today, too.  All told, I have my American flag out front, pink hearts still hanging in the window, a Happy Birthday banner for my brother, and on top of all that, I have to sacrifice a goat and a dog?  This is just too much.

Remember Biff from Back to the Future?  His name is Tom Wilson and he’s tired of your questions.  So get off his back.

Hey, the Olympics are back!  My three favorite things about the Winter Olympics: hockey, hockey, and hockey.  What else do I love?  Short-track speed skating.  Elated Swiss people.  Dick Button’s name.  There are so many things to list, I might have to devote a full post to it in a week or so.  Until then, perhaps the Summer Games can tide you over.

I give up — everything I think is real is actually manufactured by computer programmers.  Here’s proof.  (Here’s the full version.)

I’ll leave you with some interactive animations.  They’re better left unexplained.  Just explore and enjoy.

-Darrell

Yes, yes, it’s been awhile.  I have no excuse beyond my own laziness.  Don’t worry, though — I have a doozy of a post for you.  Well, it’s a post that was requested almost a full month ago, but still just a post.  You see, over New Year’s I went on a roadtrip to beautiful Brownsville, Texas, and my company requested a post about it.  As you know, I avoid diary-style posts, so much like the Mexico post from 2007, I shall skirt this pledge by avoiding strict narrative and sprinkling the post with lies.  Enjoy.

On the way to Brownsville, we made our first daylong stop in San Antonio.  It took fourteen hours, but it only felt like thirteen and a half.  The following are observations exclusively about the roads of New Mexico and Texas:

Arizona highways are scattered with signs that read, “Blowing Dust Area”.  New Mexico phrases such signs differently: “Dust Storms May Exist”.  It’s so Zen.  Dust storms may exist… somewhere.  Coupling the Zen sign is the warning, “ZERO Visibility Possible”, which feels like an error in syntax to me.  I know what they mean, but if zero visibility is possible, then all visibility is impossible, right?

The truck stops in New Mexico love to advertise.  Every half mile is an ad for some gas-stop/tchotchke mart.  Most advertised tchotchke: agate bookends.  Toppling books must be a major problem among the travelers of America’s highways.

As we passed through Las Cruces, New Mexico, Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” came on the iPod.  It seemed apt.

Texas knows how to organize a fuckin’ highway system — they’re much more explicit about keeping slow traffic in the right lane: “Left Lane is for Passing, You Inconsiderate Pussies”.  That sign is every five miles along I-10 in Texas.  Arizona could use that kind of firmness, for as long as I was in Texas, I was never annoyed by a slow driver in the left lane.

When iPod music grows monotonous, stand-up comedy is great at keeping a driver alert.  The star of the trip: Paul F. Tompkins.

San Antonio’s highways have a convenient innovation: turnaround lanes.  If you miss an exit, you can turn around without running into traffic lights (it’s even called a Texas U-turn, evidently).  Maybe Texas has a lot more people who miss exits, but Arizona could still use them.  (Note: you can take the Texas U-turn concept way too far by utilizing it on every surface street, but that would be stupid.  I’m looking at you, Michigan left.)

Okay, enough about the highways.  Let’s go to the Alamo.

First off, I’m glad I went.  I learned a lot of little details I never would have cared to know otherwise — like how small the actual mission is, or that it’s right in the middle of downtown San Antonio.  Seriously: stand at the giant stone sculpture of Davy Crockett et al and you’re fifty feet away from a steakhouse and a Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

So as not to bore you with details, the salient fact of all Texas history is the following: there is murder and destruction at every turn.  As someone who’s only visited, I’m surprised that so many people have died for the honor of one of the six (six!) flags that have flown over Texas.  As far as land goes, it’s pretty much the same as the rest of the Southwest.  What’s so damned special?  You guys didn’t even have the Cowboys back then.

We went to a pizza place in San Antonio called Big Lou’s.  It was featured on Man v. Food for having gigantic pizzas (their biggest at forty-two inches).  Since there were only five of us, we conservatively went with the twenty-incher.  Still, it was a little too much pie.  It was delicious, but needlessly huge.  Also, they should make their ordering system a little friendlier.  (That last sentence was written in case Big Lou himself is one of my regular readers.)

As unapologetic tourists, we went on the Riverwalk boat tour.  Again, so as not to bore you with details, here’s the biggest fact: San Antonians (San Antonites?  San Antonioats?) are ridiculously proud of their city.  The Riverwalk was a WPA project during the Depression; ain’t that neat?  Carol Burnett was born in that hospital right on the river; ain’t that neat?  We don’t tear down buildings; we reuse them.  That used to be the library, but now it’s (something I’ve forgotten); ain’t that neat?  Every time, I had to admit that yes, that is neat.

We also went up the tower at Hemisfair Park.  The park was built for the 1968 Hemisfair, which is one half of a World’s Fair.  The tower is 750 feet tall, the tallest point in town, and not particularly interesting otherwise.  It was nice to see an unfamiliar city from above, but I’m sure I’d appreciate it more if I were from there.  Here’s a simulated conversation I had atop the tower:

“That over there’s the Alamodome.”
“What, that big stadium-lookin’ thing with the poles?”
“Yup.  Two thirds of those beams are underground.”
“Mm.”
“They built this place to try to attract an NFL team.  Now they just use it for boat shows and George Strait concerts.”
“Well, maybe they can convince the Jaguars to move.”

I almost forgot the best part about the Hemisfair tower — the 4-D movie!  A lot of tourist attractions have this, so you might be familiar with the concept.  The idea is that they show a short, uninteresting 3-D movie while also jiggling the chairs around and occasionally spraying you with water.  This time around, the water was purportedly bull snot.  That’s right — in the Flying Over Texas (or whatever the fuck it was called) movie, the viewer at one point is suddenly a rodeo clown.  You hide in a barrel, look up, and see a bull just in time to snot on you in four dimensions.  As fun as that was, I’m most satisfied to know that the fourth dimension is snot spray.

The next day, we went to Austin.  We walked around the Capitol, strolled the UT campus, had an authentic faux-Polynesian lunch, and arrived at the LBJ library just in time to see it close.  The two salient facts from this day: Texans love statues, and Texans still have an uncomfortable attachment to the Confederacy.  The Capitol and the campus had the expected statues of people in the Alamo (nope, you can’t escape the Alamo), dedications to lost firefighters, and Sam Houston.  Sprinkled throughout were Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and a few dedicated to lost Confederate soldiers.  I understand appreciating history and all that, but let me ask you something, Texas.  After the Texians finally established the Republic of Texas, did remaining Mexican apologists erect statues of Santa Anna?  If so, then we have no issue — you just have a weird way of recognizing history.  If not, maybe you should consider replacing that Jefferson Davis with an LBJ or a Troy Aikman.  I don’t want to sound like a dick or nuthin’, but give it a thought.

The rotunda at the Capitol had portraits of every Texas governor.  I sent a picture of Dubya to the ladyfriend as a joke.  Joke’s on me, though, because now that picture comes up every time I call her.  It makes me wonder exactly what she thinks of me.

After that, we made it to Brownsville for some delicious home-cooked meals.  The four-hour trip features pretty much nothing, save the outskirts of Corpus Christi.  Though, we did pass a gas station/truck stop called the Kuntry Korner, which sealed the Most Unfortunate Spelling award for the week.

Brownsville has a great little taco place called El Rey de Taco.  Amazing tacos with tasty meats.  There’s a restaurant in Sunnyslope called Los Reyes de la Torta, which might be Phoenix’s best Mexican restaurant.  It seems that if you call yourself the king of some Mexican dish, you have to mean it.

One night, I was reminded why I hate Monopoly.  Twenty minutes in, everyone knows who’s going to win, except it takes three hours for it to finally happen.  It’s mostly luck-driven, and it’s completely joyless.  I’m pretty sure only board design kept it popular for so long.

I won’t go into detail about every party, family member, and delicious meal, but I will hit some high points.  First of all, everything was outstanding, except one thing: menudo.  My lily-white tastebuds evidently aren’t primed for intestines.  I wanted to enjoy what was probably a good batch, but alas, menudo is what separates the honkeys from fully embracing Mexican cuisine.

The New Year’s Eve party was a big’un: fireworks, grilled meats, tamales, and a bounce house.  I could write paragraphs about each, but I’ll winnow it down to a sentence apiece.  Here goes…  Growing up in Arizona, I got to remedy my inexperience with fireworks by making an acre lot look like a WWI battlefield.  Nothing tastes better than carne asada pulled fresh off the grill.  That is, except for homemade tamales with chicken and/or beans inside.  As for the bounce house, the kids said it smelled like dog poop.

My roommate’s family came in droves.  I met mustachioed uncles and mothers relieved to let their kids loose on the bounce house.  There were friendly brothers, interesting cousins, and delightful nephews.  Clearly, the lesson of the trip is to appreciate your family and cherish the times you spend with them.  Nearly every adult I spoke with said something to that effect.  All told, I’d say there were at least a hundred immediate and extended family members at the party.  I was told that it’s “only a fraction” of the whole crew.  I guess the real lesson of the trip, then, is that Mexicans love to fuck.  Who can’t get behind that?

-Darrell

My my, how the time flies.  We’re already living in the future — a future whose dates now start with a two, then a zero, then a one!  I remember when dates started with a one, a nine, and another nine.  Those were some days.

As you know, I like to start the new year by looking back at the year that just left us.  The following are the major headlines from 2009 as I remember them.  My memory is impeccable, so don’t bother checking any of the facts.  Let’s begin.

—————

JANUARY

Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States.  Because he is the first Hawaiian President, retired golfer Fuzzy Zoeller worries that Obama’s first state dinner will serve poi and roasted pig.

Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is impeached and removed from office.  Blagojevich faced numerous charges due to his efforts to sell President Obama’s vacated Senate seat to a corporate sponsor.  Reasoned Blagojevich, “We’re in a recession — it’s good business.  Right now he could be Senator Pepsi Roland Burris and Illinois would have a new expressway.  Fuckin’ sue me.”

Electronics store Circuit City announces that it will cease operations and close all its stores, but not before it lets its customers wait in line for another forty minutes.

US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is cited for violating hunting laws when he uses an airplane to kill three geese.

FEBRUARY

The Arizona Cardinals come within moments of winning Super Bowl XLIII, stunning the world (particularly Arizona).  Pittsburgh’s last-minute victory is called into question by many, however, as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced a pregame requirement that all Super Bowl participants must successfully spell “Roethlisberger” before suiting up.

Barack Obama addresses Congress for the first time as President, though the speech is not considered a State of the Union address.  When asked what the distinction was, Obama said, “In a State of the Union, I address a joint-session of Congress about our status and future goals.  In this speech, I… umm…”

During what had to have been a slow news week, actor Christian Bale makes headlines after a web video surfaces showing Bale berating the crew of Terminator: Salivation in an obscenity-laden meltdown.  The meltdown began when Bale heard several crew members mocking his gravelly Batman voice.

Due to recent woes, President Obama signs a $787 billion package designed to stimulate the economy.  Funds were allocated to banks to increase credit, manufacturers to spur job-growth, and prostitutes to increase consumer confidence.

MARCH

President Obama lifts former President Bush’s ban on embryonic stem cell research.  In the announcement, Obama calls the change the first of many major changes he intends to bring to the health care industry, and that he expects “little to no” resistance in the future.

Ray “Hops” McGee becomes the first one-legged man to play in the National Football League when Al Davis signs him as the third-string quarterback for the Oakland Raiders.  The move did nothing to bolster the confidence of starter JaMarcus Russell, who faced constant “We Want Hops” chants during games.

APRIL

Somali pirates who had hijacked an American cargo ship are thwarted by Navy snipers.  The action would not have been possible, however, were it not for Counter Terrorism Unit agent Jack Bauer’s rogue questioning tactics that allowed the Navy to find the cargo ship in the first place.

The Drug Enforcement Agency announces that an outbreak of the so-called Swine Flu has occurred in Mexico and is being smuggled across the American border.  DEA agents soon arrest, imprison, or kill all border crossers with the sniffles.

New Yorkers receive a big scare when a fighter jet and Air Force One are seen flying at a low altitude near the Statue of Liberty.  The White House explains that the incident was merely a photo-op for that year’s Christmas cards.  It has not been revealed what the image will be on next year’s cards, but rumblings include the words “George Washington Elementary School” and “stinger missile”.

The Republican Party trades Senator Arlen Specter to the Democrats for two infield prospects and a paper shredder.

MAY

Pope Benedict XVI announces that he advocates the creation of a Palestinian state.  In response, Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he advocates the creation of a pagan state in the middle of Rome that would offer free abortions to all comers.

Record producer Phil Spector is sentenced to 19 years in prison for murdering actress Lana Clarkson.  He is still awaiting charges for murdering the Beatles’ Let it Be album.

The South Africa Bulls defeat the New Zealand Chiefs to win rugby’s Super 14.  I’m not sure exactly what that means, either, but congratulations to South Africa.

Rock ‘n roll king Elvis Presley, who had been in hiding since 1977, passes away in his bunker underneath Graceland.  Presley becomes the first American legend to be mourned by his fans twice over.

JUNE

Another music king, Michael Jackson, dies at the age of 50 of an overdose of anaesthetics.  Coroners report that his death was entirely preventable if only Jackson had not hired a ten-year-old boy to administer his I.V.

South Carolina governor Mark Sanford adds a new slang phrase to the lexicon, causing “I am hiking the Appalachian Trail” to mean “I am using government funds to screw an Argentinian bimbo.”  Soon after, New York governor David Paterson suggests holding the annual National Governors Association meeting in Buenos Aires.

Financier Bernard Madoff is sentenced to 150 years in prison for bilking hundreds out of their savings as part of a Ponzi scheme.  The bad news is that in 120 years, Madoff will be up for parole.

JULY

After much legal squabbling, comedian Al Franken is inaugurated as the junior Senator from Minnesota.  “This victory is inspiring to bad political comedians everywhere,” said fellow comedian Bill Maher.  “He proves that it’s better to be earnest than to be funny.”

In a farewell speech described most often as “meandering”, Alaska governor Sarah Palin announces her resignation.  The speech greatly increases interest in Palin’s potential presidential run in 2012, with supporters citing it as the kind of public speaking the country has been missing since January 20, 2009.

The U.S. government institutes a “Cash for Clunkers” program designed to bolster the ailing automotive industry.  In the program, Americans with inferior automobiles could turn them in to receive a government bonus toward the purchase of a new car, plus a coupon worth one free back massage from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

AUGUST

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il frees two imprisoned American journalists after he is granted a request to meet with former President Bill Clinton.  Clinton attempts to convince Kim to cease his nuclear weapons program, but Kim states that he would consider it only if he were granted a meeting with Michael Jordan, Chuck Norris, and Santa Claus.

The health care debate rages in Congress, with vitriol and misinformation flying like monkey poop.  Most popular among the propaganda is the idea that socialized medicine would result in so-called “death panels”.  Hysteria was far from eased when it is found that a patient’s right to life would not be determined by a panel of bureaucrats, but by a wheel spun by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Longtime Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy dies at the age of 77.  According to friend and colleague Chris Dodd, Kennedy “went out just how he wanted: neck-deep in Jameson and pussy.”

Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as the newest Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Her confirmation comes without much Senatorial contention, save for one incident regarding a previous comment Sotomayor made about race.  As a law student, Sotomayor wrote that “a retarded Latina” could show more jurisprudence than the average white male.  The Senate Judiciary Committee ceased questioning her on the issue when she simply challenged the Senators to prove her wrong.

SEPTEMBER

In unabashed rudeness news, South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson bares his buttocks to President Obama as Obama speaks to Congress about health care.  Stunningly, the act results in increased donations to Wilson’s reelection campaign.  Meanwhile, Russia experiences a similar incident, in which a deputy to the Duma publicly calls Prime Minister Vladimir Putin a liar.  The deputy has been missing since September 17.

Leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies meet in Pittsburgh for the G-20 Summit.  President Obama states that he chose Pittsburgh because nothing better symbolized the world economy’s futility than the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team.

Rapper Kanye West interrupts an acceptance speech by Taylor Swift to suggest that MTV’s Video Music Awards might not have the best taste with regard modern music.  MTV’s entire board of directors resigns in the face of such an accusation.

OCTOBER

Talk show host David Letterman reveals that he had been the victim of an extortion attempt, in which a shady figure threatened to make public that Letterman had had a sexual relationship with producer Biff Henderson.  After the news breaks, deli owner and neighbor Rupert Jee is seen crying into his chili.

The Nobel committee announces that it will give its annual Peace Prize to President Obama, despite the fact that he had been in office for less than nine months.  After he accepts the award, Obama uses his prize money to help pay for the American military surge in Afghanistan.

Cable television comes to a screeching halt when news breaks of a wayward homemade weather balloon.  Considering it a possible threat to national security, the National Guard shoots down the balloon, not knowing that it was being piloted by a four-year-old boy.  No charges are expected to arise from the incident, as the boy’s body was found with a map of a local shopping mall and a copy of the Koran.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin tours nationally to promote her book, Going Rogue.  Each tour stop is attended in protest by thousands of former supporters, who consider writing a book too “elitist”.

NOVEMBER

Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan goes on a murderous rampage at Fort Hood, killing twelve.  The incident leads many House Democrats to recommend a ban on all firearms at military bases.

Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad is executed in Virginia by lethal injection.  Just before the needle is inserted, Muhammad receives a call from Virginia governor Tim Kaine granting him a five-minute stay of execution.  Later, Kaine admits that he was merely “fucking with the bastard”.

Golfer Tiger Woods crashes his car outside his home as part of a domestic dispute with his wife.  Soon later, it is revealed that Woods had maintained extramarital affairs with at least three thousand women spread across fifteen countries and all fifty U.S. states.  When asked for comment, Woods was unapologetic: “You all know I’ve strived for Jack Nicklaus’s records.  I want Wilt Chamberlain’s, too.”

DECEMBER

The United Nations Climate Change Conference takes place in Copenhagen.  While the conference fails to curb first-world carbon emissions in a significant way, it does lead all U.N. countries to agree to snip the plastic rings that come attached to soda cans.

Actress Sandra Bullock takes a young minority into her home and turns him into a successful professional athlete.  Kate Hudson attempts the same thing, not knowing that Alex Rodriguez is already a baseball MVP.

A Nigerian on a terrorist watch list trains in Yemen, flies from Amsterdam to Detroit with no bags, and attempts to make his underwear explode.  The incident forces American journalists to search for Amsterdam, Nigeria, and Yemen on a map.

—————

So that was twenty-oh-nine, complete with a radically inaproppriate Kennedy joke.  (I had to take advantage — it might be years before we can make any more.)  May your twenty-ten be as odd as the last year.

-Darrell

Acceptable Holidays, everybody.  I’d wish you all Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas or whatever, but most people I know aren’t too keen on holiday spirit.  A better wish, then, is for an acceptable winter season that is free from hassle, annoyance, and bottled rage.  By my guess, this will probably be my last post of the year.  I’ll be out of town until New Year’s, upon which date it’ll be Year-in-Review time again.  (I’m excited too.)  To get in the spirit, then, allow me to present a holiday blogpodge.  Consider it the nutmeg on your nog.

I’ve gotten a steady dose of Bill Simmons in the past few weeks.  I bought his The Book of Basketball and am only 400 pages in.  His points are valid and more well-researched than I could ever muster, but I have one complaint: he should be nicer to Steve Nash.  Corrolary: he’s too nice to Shaq.  Shaq ruins basketball, while Steve Nash saved it.  Simmons ragged on George Mikan for being slow and boring — pre-shot-clock Minneapolis would run its offense around the lumbering lug because he had long arms and a sharp left elbow.  Well, Shaq has a big ass and takes advantage of unreliable referees.  Yeah, I know, results are results and titles are titles, but I have never enjoyed a Shaq-led team, including the Suns team I reluctantly cheered for last year.  So Simmons, could you spare some of the vitriol you save for Kareem and give a little more to Shaq?  Also, you’re wrong about Nash’s hair — it’s faaaantastic.

Have you ever noticed that the constellation Orion is really well-hung?  Don’t tell me that’s just his sword.

I’ve seen a lot of best-of-the-decade lists lately.  (I wonder why.)  I won’t be as ambitious as most websites, but I will be sprinkling a few top-fives in this post.  Starting… now.

TOP FIVE IRRITATING NEWS STORIES OF THE DECADE
Balloon boy
Paris Hilton’s sex tape
Every well-known kidnapping of a young girl
Every celebrity rehab story
Duke lacrosse non-rape

What’s your favorite holiday treat?  Mine is my mom’s standing rib roast with horseradish sauce and Yorkshire pudding.  I will have it in less than 24 hours and I’m drooling already.  Second on my list is probably the classic peppermint candy cane.

TOP FIVE STAND-UPS OF THE DECADE
Louis CK
Paul F. Tompkins
Anthony Jeselnik
Mitch Hedberg
Patton Oswalt

Not being a huge fan of Christmas, I’m not a huge fan of carols either.  It should come as no surprise, then, that my favorite Christmas song is Mr. Garrison’s “Merry Fucking Christmas” from the South Park Xmas album.  I also have a soft spot for “Nuttin’ for Christmas”, if only for the dated feel — “bought some gum with a penny slug” is a lyric that shall never age for any reason.

Bowl season is underway.  As I write this, the Hawaii Bowl between Nevada and SMU is about to start.  Exciting.  As pointless as the games are, it is nice to know that from now until after New Year’s, we’ll have college football to watch.  And Christmas gives us five NBA games.  Avoid your family all season, America!

TOP FIVE LIVE ACTS I SAW THIS DECADE
Tim and Eric
Rilo Kiley
Stars
The Flaming Lips
George Carlin

Do you know anyone who makes New Year’s resolutions?  I never have, and I suspect that it’s just a fictional construct used for commercials and sitcom plots.  That said, I resolve to watch more commercials and sitcoms.

Who’s a good boy?  Who’s a good boy?  You are!  Merry Christmas, loyal readers.

-Darrell

So… Tiger Woods is a philanderer.  Oh boy.

My first reaction to the scandal is, “I don’t care”.  My second, third, and fourth reactions were similar.  For a minute after that, I thought a little about it.  Like how amusing it was that we were given a fishy story about a one-car accident in a person’s own driveway.  Man, it was so severe that a professional athlete’s tiny Nordic wife had to drag him out of the back window of his Escalade?  Man.  She must’ve gotten some o’ that superhuman strength that old women get when their grandbabies are caught under burning wreckage.

I also considered his loss of sponsorships.  Corporations are distancing themselves from the Tiger name in the wake of these events, and it’s completely understandable.  I guess.  I first thought, “Why would it matter to Accenture whether Tiger Woods has a baffling number of mistresses?”  Then I wondered why Accenture sponsored him in the first place.  I realize I’m not in need of business consulting, but if I were, I doubt my decision on a provider would depend on the paid opinion of the world’s greatest golfer.  It’s all just empty dollar-flexing, and I don’t care for it.  Harumph.

As fascinating as these observations are, however, I can’t escape the overwhelming feeling that none of this is my business.  Sure, he’s a public figure, but he isn’t a public husband, and he isn’t a public father.  It’s not my business, and I refuse to have an opinion.

Having said that, it’s clear that this scandal is the confluence of our two most prominent societal tendencies: instant communication and schadenfreude.  The instant-communication point is obvious: When Mickey Mantle was off “shootin’ beaver” under the bleachers at Yankee games, we heard about it in a book that only baseball fans read.  If that happened today, the internet would explode with “Mick spied on me with a telescope” memes.

The schadenfreude part is just as obvious, but way more troubling when our entire vapid culture gets to bathe in it together.  Too often in the last few weeks I’ve heard reporters and pundits say something to the effect of, “This is a big story because people love to see the mighty fall,” as if they’re apologizing for reporting it.  That just makes me wonder who these short-sighted, selfish “people” are.  Do most of us really want to see people fail just because they’ve succeeded in the past?  Tiger never did anything to you — he’s boring and might be a bit of a dick, but why would you want him to show such weakness?  The part of you that relishes in the Tiger Woods scandal is the same part of you that laughed heartily when Windows Vista was universally panned.  I understand that you want the world to be just, level, and square.  I understand that it’s selfishly satisfying when a Great Man has a Not-so Great Day.  It’s a natural sentiment, but it’s shameful if you can’t squelch it.

Let’s shift gears, lest I start to defend Tiger too vigorously.  Know that I don’t feel sorry for him in the least.  It’s his fault that he betrayed his wife’s trust, and it’s his fault that he’s lost his sponsorships and sullied his public image.  But really, why does a sex scandal still sully a person’s image?  The sex scandal is so played out that none of it could be shocking or disturbing.  Every sex scandal is the same — attention-seeking woman comes out of the woodwork to tell the world of her escapades with a celebrity.  She shares some naughty quotes, photos, phone messages, emails, or text messages to add spice.  Perhaps surprisingly, she’s mostly complimentary about the celebrity’s manners and prowess.  Soon later, a handful of other women admit to similar encounters with said celebrity.  The trash media and empty-headed public swallow it up, shit it out, and forget about it until the celebrity tries to make a shamed public appearance, upon which time the one-liners flow anew.  Ho fucking hum.

The only difference among these stories is how the wife reacts, and even that follows one of only a few predictable channels.  Option one: wife stands by husband, humiliated yet proud of her own power of forgiveness — this option is most common among wives of politicians.  Option two: wife quietly divorces husband — happens occasionally, but isn’t as buzzworthy, so we don’t hear about it as much.  Option three: wife attacks husband with blunt objects.  For awhile, I thought Hillary Clinton would be the only person to pull off all three in a single lifetime, but #2 never came.  Maybe there’s still hope.

Perhaps the only interesting thing to come from all this nonsense is the knowledge that Tiger has a type.  I’m not sure why, but it’s something that interests me.  I have a friend/relative/acquaintance who’s been married twice.  Both wives look very similar.  I have another friend/relative/acquaintance who, over the years, has introduced me to two different, yet similar-looking girlfriends.  It’s always fun to able to say to myself, “Oh, you like eastern Europeans with large builds and square jaws.  Interesting.”  Now we know that Tiger likes busty young girls with service jobs and low self-esteem.  He has a type.  Interesting.  Even still, it’s none of my business.

-Darrell

I’ve spent the last two Saturdays watching my Wildcats play football.  Last week, we lost a heartbreaker to Oregon.  This week, we beat our in-state rival, Arizona State, in a game that was far too close.  Both games were fun to watch.  However, I’m finding myself sour on sports — particularly college football — based on the behavior of its fans.

Let me paint the word picture for you from last week.  Arizona was ahead by seven against the 11th-ranked Oregon Ducks with time winding down.  The Ducks were driving and based on their speed and consistency, I was nervous that they would tie the game.  They reached the twenty(ish) yard-line with about forty seconds to go.  Anything could happen here.  Suddenly, our student section decided that this would be a good time to attempt to rush the field, since after all, a one-score lead with the opponent very close to scoring is a surefire victory.  Once they did that, I just thought, “Great.  Now we deserve to lose.”  Guess what happened — Oregon tied the game and eventually won in two overtimes.

I’m not that upset about the game, but I am still steaming about the immaturity and idiocy of the UofA students.  They exhibited a kind of extreme exuberance that abandons all logic and forethought.  They ignored the very real possibility of defeat in favor of a desire to run onto the field and maybe be on national television.  It’s a mindset that doesn’t just confuse me; it appalls me.  First of all, it’s a stupid tradition — your team won unexpectedly, so you’re going to run onto the field and do… what?  Oh yeah — be on TV and let ESPN make it look cool with its overhead shot.  Stupid.  Second of all, shouldn’t the University of Arizona football program be beyond that?  Yes, we’re historically bad, but we’re in a major conference and we were playing a game that everyone agreed was winnable.  Beating Oregon would have been big, but it wouldn’t be like Delaware State beating USC (no, non-fans, that never happened).  Third of all, you don’t try to rush the fucking field when the game is still in doubt.  That the students did so proves that they have no appreciation or knowledge of the game of football.  They just watched some big upset on ESPN Classic, surmised that beating #11 Oregon would be on par, saw a seven-point lead with less than a minute remaining, and assumed that it was time to act just as excited.  You, Arizona students, are uninformed phonies and I am embarrassed to root for the same team as you.

Then came this week.  Like I said, we beat ASU, which is always nice.  But the smack talk between some of the Cats and Devils fans was disgusting.  It’s one thing to belt our your fight song, lustily jeer the opposing team, and hope upon hope that your team will destroy its rival.  That’s good rivalry.  It’s another thing to yell obscenities and intentionally make opposing fans feel bad.  Wearing red doesn’t mean I’m a faggot — it means I went to a different school.

What gets me is the number of ASU fans who yelled insulting things to us UofA fans after the game.  Yep, some of them kept shit-talking even after they lost.  Things like, “enjoy the (insert bowl game that isn’t the Rose) Bowl!” or something about losing to Oregon.  Okay, yeah, we didn’t make the Rose Bowl or beat Oregon.  Um… did you come even close to either?  That’s not just rude, it’s silly.  Also, I still think we had a pretty good year — I’m happy that we’re going to a somewhat decent bowl game and that we beat ASU.  It’s had some disappointments, but this year has given me more reason to remain optimistic about the Mike Stoops era.  Dumping on my general contentment doesn’t make sense.

What confused me the most, though, were the UofA fans who bothered to respond to such drunken idiocy.  Do you think shouting a half-thought version of the above paragraph will change this asshole’s mind?  Is pointless confrontation somehow thrilling to you?  Show some class in victory, fans.  We won the game; we should be happy.  Let us ignore the jerk-offs, enjoy the win, and look forward to another good game next year.

Ugh.  I love and hate college football.  The pomp, the circumstance, the bands, the speed, the strategy, the personalities, the beer, the tailgating, and the friendly rivalry make it so much fun.  Then again, there are those who take it too emotionally, who lack decorum and good sense, who use it as an excuse to act poorly.  Those people have made college football — and life — a little less fun for me every year.

In case you were keeping track, this marks yet another step on my way to complete anti-social hermitism.  Thanks, college football fans.

-Darrell

Awhile back I took the ladyfriend to see Maria Bamford at the Tempe Improv.  (She was very funny.)  It occurred to me that the Tempe Improv is something of a misnomer, as very little improv comedy is shown there.  It’s mostly stand-up (and pretty good stand-up, at that).  It might be the most pleasing misnomer I’ve encountered.  I’ve written before about improv comedy — and subsequently amended my comments — so I won’t belabor the point with bitching about shitty improv comedy.  I will, however, do what most “improv” comedy fails to do: actually improvise.

So, I shall now write a short story completely off-the-cuff.  I have no plans, points, or jokes prepared.  My head, like normal, is effectively empty.  Now… can I get from the crowd an animal, please?

“GORILLA!”
“WILD BOAR!”
“AARDVARK!”

Okay, I heard gorilla.  Now can I have an occupation?

“OPTOMETRIST!”
“SCREENWRITER!”
“TAXIDERMIST!”

The person who yelled taxidermist sounded drunk, so we’ll go with that one.  Now, can I have a location?  Anywhere at all…

“HELL!”
“KING OF PRUSSIA!”
“GILA BEND!”

Ooh… Hell’s a nice choice.

Okay.  What follows is completely improvised; I have no idea where this is going, but I imagine the answer is “nowhere”.  Let’s begin.
———
Believe it or not, my gig isn’t so bad.  Sure, the title “Satan’s Taxidermist” causes alarm when people see my business card, but all in all, it’s pretty good.  At least I get a lot of stories out of it.

Like this one time Satan came back from a big unicorn hunt.  Relatively speaking, it was pretty early in my career — I had only done about twenty unicorns previously.  He said that this herd was particularly defiant.  The alpha male reared up a few times, stabbed a few demons with his horn, and even sprayed Satan himself in the eyes with magic dust.  After the Dark Lord finally bagged the creature, he gave me a special request.  I must have done a good job, since he put my work in Hell’s entryway.  Now, the newly damned are greeted by a stuffed unicorn fellating itself.

In life, people often talk about wanting to be the best.  No matter his field, man strives for greatness.  Linebackers want to play in the NFL; mathematicians want to work for NASA.  It so happens that my field is taxidermy, and that my big leagues are where no other soul wishes to find himself.  Thankfully, I’m on the staff, so the Mandatory Constant Torment Doctrine doesn’t apply to me.  It’s just one of the perks.

It’s not all fantastic, though.  As you might imagine, Satan has some lurid tastes, so I’ve had to make some unsavory stuffings.  The fellating unicorn was fun; simulating a massive dog-cat orgy using the deceased stars of The Adventures of Milo and Otis — less so.  Remember Ruby, the elephant that painted abstract pictures?  She’s in Lucifer’s den, still holding a paintbrush… except she’s entirely inside-out.  Why inside-out?  I don’t know, ask the whimsical Satan.  Ugh.  I’d hate to see what he’ll have me do when Koko the gorilla dies.  He hates famous animals.

That elephant was hard, too — what taxidermist is ever asked to turn a two-ton animal inside-out so that “you can see all the muscles and shit”?  I had to invent a new preservative so that could even be possible.  Things rot in Hell, too, you know.

People always ask me what it’s like to work for Satan.  They want me to put him down; say he’s a bad guy and a horrible boss.  I hate to disappoint you, but he’s not Rosie O’Donnell — he’s a perfectly fine boss.  Yes, he’s a tad demanding, and you learn to stay out of his way.  But that’s the price of greatness — he’s the best in creation at what he does.  He can make outrageous demands because he earned it.  He’s the original Tormentor.  He invented suffering.  Give the man some credit.  If he wants Murray from Mad About You getting dry-humped by a griffin, he’s gonna get it.

To answer all the questions, no, I don’t fear him.  I respect him and make sure he’s pleased with my work.  He knows I’m the best in the world at what I do; otherwise, he wouldn’t have hired me.  That said, there was one time when I was in fear.  About two years ago, Satan and Jesus were in a squabble over animal rights — that is, who gets the rights to fallen animals.  Since, technically speaking, animals lack souls, they’ve always been considered up-for-grabs.  Satan being the hoarder he is, pretty much every animal ever has ended up in Hell.  (Sorry, Timmy, there is no doggie heaven.)

Anyway, Jesus tried to argue that all of God’s creatures should get a fair shake.  For a moment, it seemed like he had a point.  That made me fearful — if Hell’s animals get taken away, what is there for the underworld taxidermist to do?  My contract, like those of every minion, is for eternity.  Would it mean I’d keep the cushy position, but lose all responsibility?  More likely, Satan would ensure that his most useless employee would enjoy his days getting sodomized by white-hot pokers.  I wasn’t eager to find out, no matter the case.

A week later, they had another meeting, but this time Satan came prepared.  Armed with the original Deed to the Underworld, Satan found that the Heaven-Hell distinction applied only to ensouled beings, so God’s power-grab was baseless.  What a relief.  It’s a good thing God has a shitty lawyer.  I mean, really — you sent Jesus to negotiate with Beelzebub?  What rank, foolish nepotism.

Well, that’s the long and short of it.  I have a few more stories of animals frozen forever in unspeakable positions, but I don’t want to bore you.  Besides, the monkey from Friends just died; I’m guessing Satan already has big plans for him.
———
Hey, I was right — it didn’t go anywhere.  At least it was funnier than most improv comedy.  I realize that that’s not saying much.

-Darrell

It’s been about two years since I started teaching people how to take standardized tests.  It was a switch that was financially inadvisable, but otherwise fantastic.  I work almost every day, but I get to make my own schedule.  As I look back, I’ve found that I’ve gained a lot more than sleep and sanity.  I’ve learned a lot with this job.  Granted, not a lot of it is fascinating or applicable to real life, but some of it is.  At the risk of sounding autobiographical, I’ll tell you some of the more useful pieces of knowledge I’ve learned over the last two years.

No matter how good a student may be at grammar, nobody can adequately explain the difference between “who” and “whom”.  Most take a wild stab at it, then I’m forced to say that it’s the same difference between “he” and “him”.  Even then, I have to take it that final step and explain that one’s a subject and the other’s an object.  Every time.  “You see, he stabbed him in the eye.  Who stabbed whom in the eye?  He did the stabbing.  Him got stabbed.  Now, reflexive pronouns: the tutor stabbed himself in the eye…”

Rich people love Halloween.  Seriously.  I go to a lot of fancypants houses in Scottsdale, Phoenix, and Chandler (mostly Scottsdale).  It seems like every single one of them has gone overboard with decorations.  Bloody skulls, Frankenstein monsters, grim reapers, ghosts, spiderwebs, and creepy hags adorn them all.  Idle rich, my ass — these people work tirelessly to make their homes into shrines for death.  And most of these people live in gated communities that have very little auto traffic and zero pedestrians.  Maybe they’re just trying to impress the tutor: “That’s a nice hanging corpse out front, sir.  The eyeball popping out of socket was a nice touch.”

The vast majority of people seem to like me, except those who totally hate me.  My students generally act like I’m helping them and not making them feel bad about their less-than-ideal test scores.  I’m pretty good at adjusting my tone, patience, and attitude accordingly.  About every six months, though, one student comes around who absolutely hates me.  Maybe they think I’m arrogant, or maybe they don’t like my plaid shirts; I don’t know.  It doesn’t bother me much; I still have a pretty high approval rating.  It just amuses me that the people have decided that if you’re gonna hate Darrell, you might as well go big.

Most people aren’t very good writers.  You know it’s true already, but it bears repeating: it’s hard for most people to put things concisely.  And to spell things correctly.  Probably the hardest part of my job is refraining from saying, “Come on, just fucking write it!  Organize your thoughts and make them make sense.  Geez…”

It takes half an hour to get anywhere in the Valley.  I live in Tempe.  I’ve had students and classes in north Phoenix, central Phoenix, Chandler, super-southeast Mesa, Ahwatukee, Paradise Valley, and north Scottsdale all the way to Fountain Hills.  Regardless of traffic or distance from freeways, it takes me almost exactly one half-hour to get to each of those places.  Only the class in Goodyear and the student in Carefree took longer.

A student will forget at least half of what I say.  No matter the student or the test type, I have to repeat myself a lot.  Even the most studious kids who do all their homework and have noticeable score improvements will completely space on something that I thought I emphasized pretty well the week before.  I’m not horribly frustrated by it, but I do wish people would retain info a little better.

High-school kids lose patience with their parents a little too easily.  Look, I understand — your mom can be a little bit much every now and again.  You’re tired of her scheduling your every moment and you’re right to tell her to relax about some of the details.  But there’s no need to get petulant.  It only reminds me that you are, indeed, only sixteen.

The older the children, the neater the house.  Dealing with rich folks, I would say that the houses are much nicer and cleaner than most.  However, there is a slight difference in neatness depending on the ages of the kids.  If my student has younger siblings, there will probably be crap lying around.  Not a lot, mind you, but the occasional backpack or pile of shoes will make an appearance.  Of course, the one exception to this rule is among the Indian families, whose houses are always impeccable.

Clinton references go nowhere with high-schoolers.  During an SAT vocab game, I quizzed a class on the word “censure”.  Nobody knew it, so I said, “remember when Clinton was impeached?”  Blank stares.  I even had to inform some that they were alive when this happened.  Ugh.  I am not looking forward to having explain George W. Bush.  “He was the president, kind of a doofus, couldn’t pronounce ‘nuclear’… come on, you don’t remember?”

High-schoolers are great, but only one at a time.  Get more than one in a room and suddenly the delightful, agreeable young’ns are the most irritating people on the planet.  I guess it’s true — birds of a feather flock together… and annoy the piss out of anyone of a different feather.

The most frustrated students are the ones who have problems with geometry.  Every student has at least a couple speedbumps.  I don’t know why, but if one of those speedbumps happens to involve finding the area of a shaded region, the student will get more frustrated than normal.  He’ll clam up, stare at the figure blankly, misremember formulas (particularly area/circumference of a circle).  It makes no sense to me, since it’s the only type of math that gives you pictures to look at.  “Do you see any smaller shapes in here, like a triangle… with two equal sides… and thus two equal angles… come on now, stay with me.  The picture won’t hurt you.”

Grad students care more, since they’re the ones paying for it.  My last observation is also my most obvious.  Getting an ACT or SAT student to pay attention in class is the most frustrating part of my job.  Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that for GRE or GMAT classes.  It’s funny how a little maturity and a lot of financial investment will alter a person’s behavior.

Hmm… that wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped.  I guess that’s why I don’t write about myself.  Next time, I’ll write a story.  About a klutzy drunk.  Or maybe not!  Now, I must bid you adieu.  Ted’s Hot Dogs is calling my name, so I’d better get over there before they get cited for causing a disturbance.

-Darrell

I have nothing specific to report or winge about, so I guess it’s blogpodge time.  Try to control your excitement.

I started to write a post entitled “Five Perfect Songs”, in which I explained why I considered certain songs “perfect”: Not too long, not too short, no embarrassing lyrics, flows beautifully, tone and message are in harmony, nobody could perform it any better, etc.  After a few paragraphs, I choked on my own boring pretension.  So instead of a dozen paragraphs, here’s a quick list of five:

Red Hot Chili Peppers — “Californication”
Stars — “Your Ex-Lover is Dead”
Audioslave — “I Am the Highway”
Arcade Fire — “Intervention”
Radiohead — “There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)”

Be glad for what you missed.

Today I talked to my mom on the phone.  Apparently, my sister requested that Ma watch the news in order to find out why there was a Channel 3 van outside her workplace.  My mother mused that I would never ask that of her, as I am normally uncurious.  In her words, “She sees a fire truck and wants to chase it.  You just say ‘Eh, let ‘em burn’”.  I know I’ve talked about my own apathy before, but never so concisely.

After one episode, I’m a bit concerned about what’s happening to Dexter.  I’m optimistic about John Lithgow, but the writing’s fallen off, and Dexter isn’t as dark and creepy a character as he used to be.  I could go further, but someone else beat me to it… and paralleled Dexter’s decline with that of 24.  It makes me wish I thought of it first (because I would have written it better… right?  Right?).

I went to Sport Clips to get my hair trimmed yesterday morning.  For a company that purports to be just for men, they don’t quite capture the ideal experience.  True, the decor is almost insultingly cool — the whole place has a locker-rooom theme.  The lobby chairs are stadium seats, each stylist has a locker, etc.  The problem is, they over-sell everything.  They go out of their way to explain the unique cocktail of tea-tree oil, Head and Shoulders, and rhinoceros sperm that gives your hair that tingly feeling.  They give you the stylist’s business card, three referral cards, and one of those stupid punch-card dealies that I never use.  Then, they show you that the fancy shampoos are, indeed, on sale for only $7.50 per tiny bottle.  Ugh.  Guys like sports on television, yes, but they also like to be left the fuck alone.  Just cut my hair and let me leave.

I’ve found that for some items, the shittier version is the one I prefer.  I thought of this as I was drinking from a styrofoam cup while walking in a gravel parking lot.  From what I understand, styrofoam is cheaper — only the independent, low-rent places use them in favor of branded paper cups.  But they insulate better, and they don’t leak if you accidentally leave one in your car.  As for gravel parking lots, I just like the sound that tires make as they slowly roll over the broken asphalt.

TOP FIVE SONGS THAT WOULD BE PERFECT, IF NOT FOR A TERRIBLE ENDING
Dire Straits — “Money for Nothing”
Steve Miller — “The Joker”
Beatles — “Hey Jude”
Queens of the Stone Age — “In the Fade”
Sunset Rubdown — “The Mending of the Gown”

All right, that’s enough for now.  I’ve had a super-busy week, and I think I deserve to watch some college football.

-Darrell

As you know, I take requests.  Normally, it’s a bit odd and I try to make it work.  This time, though, the request was for more of the same.  The inimitable Rated X Super Mex requested that I write twenty-five MORE random things about myself.  I guess he feels like he just doesn’t know me well enough.  So while this might be the most unnecessary post in Nameless Blog history, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share more juicy details about my life.  Let’s begin.

1. Last week, I ate two boxes of Cheez-Its, a half-gallon of orange Gatorade, and a bag of Cheetos.  My puke was used to color the Cincinnati Bengals’ alternate jerseys.

2. For weeks, I told people that I grew my hair out for charity.  That stopped when I was told that the Foundation for Lookin’ Sexy isn’t an actual charity.

3. Some British newspaper stole my idea from three years ago, but did it in a slightly less amusing fashion.  I haven’t decided whether this counts as actionable plagiarism.

4. When I was ten, my mother played a rather cruel joke on me.  Every time I entered the room, a horrified expression came over her face and she attempted not to look directly at me.  She kept this up for four months.  It started to bother me until my birthday, when she finally gave up the ruse.  She said that she had been preparing for a background role in a theatrical production of The Elephant Man, but she was never in any such play.  In fact, nobody in the family has ever seen her act.

5. I once beat Garry Kasparov at Scrabble.  Who’s the Grandmaster now, bitch??

6. I’m a long-time friend and confidant to Steve Jobs.  The idea to slap video cameras on tiny iPods?  Yeah, that was mine.

7. I lived in a three-bedroom house in Tucson for my senior year of college.  I always thought that the walls would look better in an off-white, rather than the eggshell white that they were.  Not painting those walls is probably my biggest regret in life.

8. Some sports fans collect ticket stubs or pennants; I commemorate my experiences a different way: I collect hot-dog wrappers.  That plain square of foil with the mustard stain shaped like Greenland is from a Diamondbacks-Cubs playoff game in 2007.  The paper sleeve that still smells of sauerkraut is what remains from the Fiesta Bowl in which Ohio State beat Notre Dame.  I’ve noticed that the ones that still smell remind me of specific moments in those games.  Thus, I consider it a collection that pays dividends.

9. I like to make sculptures out of paper clips.  They’re all abstracts, and I haven’t been able to sell any of them.  Maybe some day.

10. I once peed next to Ron Jeremy at a urinal in Vegas.  I noticed it was him, but made sure not to glance downward.  He was not so gentlemanly; by the time we were washing our hands, he was recommending pills and exercises to increase my girth.  Otherwise, he was quite charming.

11. I almost never eat breakfast, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.

12. Like most men, I think about sex several times an hour.  When I’m not thinking about sex, though, I’m probably thinking about Art Garfunkel.  So much talent, such crazy hair…

13. I once tried to count the number of different types of animal I’ve eaten.  I think my latest count was close to thirty.  The weirdest one I can’t tell you about, but it rhymes with “dotted trowel”.

14. I’ve long thought our country is in need of re-branding.  Accordingly, I designed an updated flag and sent it to my Congressman.  He didn’t care for it, but I still think purple polka dots and “USA” in a jazzy typeface would show the world how hip and modern we really are.

15. I’m not some crazy religious person who thinks dinosaur bones are part of a huge, elaborate hoax.  I do, however, think that paleontologists are figments of our imagination.

16. I’m having a very hard time coming up with twenty-five more interesting things about me.  When I come across moments like this, I utilize my foolproof cure for writer’s block: I down a bottle of Colt .45 and jog around the block in my underpants.  It doesn’t help me come up with ideas, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

17. Sometimes I wonder why turkey tacos haven’t caught on yet.  Maybe a little cranberry salsa… admit that it sounds delicious.

18. With all my exploits, people often ask me who is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.  I always tell them the same thing: “Why the fuck do you care?  Make your own judgments.”

19. My favorite facial moisturizer was recently discontinued.  It was forty dollars per eight-ounce bottle, probably because it was infused with orangutan semen.  My skin hasn’t had its normal glow for weeks now.

20. Thanks to my buddy Tim, I played Beatles Rock Band before it was released.  Naturally, I loved it, but was disappointed that “Revolution 9″ wasn’t on there.  I could dominate the lilting “number nine… number nine… meedle-dee dee-dee backwards strings”.

21. Don’t ask me how I know this, but dental floss is not a suitable murder weapon.

22. I’m pretty fortunate in that I haven’t had anything major stolen from me.  My secret?  In grade school, I learned that nobody will steal anything from you if you’ve licked it.  So just as a warning, if it’s mine, I’ve licked it at least once.

23. I’m the chief heir to Elton John’s fortune.  We aren’t related; he just digs my style.

24. I was once offered a position on the board of directors at CBS.  That offer was quickly rescinded when they found out that I was briefly married to Jennifer Love Hewitt.  They were afraid that I would cancel Ghost Whisperer out of spite.  I tried to convince them that I wouldn’t, but deep down, I know I was lying.

25. As you might know, I’m a tutor.  As you might imagine, the hardest part about my job is telling students that they’re going to die.

Jesus, that took awhile.  As interesting as I am, even I sometimes have trouble coming up with readable things about my winning personality.  I hope you enjoyed this list of 25 — I promise it’ll be the last one I write.

-Darrell

One of the greatest men in history died recently.  It’s not often I can say that, but it’s true, as Norman Borlaug passed away last week at the age of 95.

Who’s Norman Borlaug?  The fact that you (probably) asked that question is a tremendous shame.  Norman Borlaug is responsible for saving more lives than anyone in history.  He was an agronomist who developed high-yield, disease-resistant strains of wheat and introduced them to impoverished areas around the globe.  He is credited with preventing hundreds of millions of people from starving to death, and likely curbed deforestation by making available farmland more valuable.  He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.  And, by the way, he saved a billion people from starving.  (It needed repeating.)

Nothing I say can do his contribution to humanity justice.  He is a hero in the truest sense of the word — a man who selflessly improved countless lives in need… and he used science to do it.  He made providing food worldwide his life’s work; none of us could ever hope to do a fraction of what he did.  RIP, Mr. Borlaug, and may your good name grow over time.

-Darrell

Over Labor Day weekend, it seemed like every FM station had some gimmick going.  One station played its entire catalog from Z-to-A by song title.  A Tucson classic-rock station gave all its DJs a vacation and called it a “no talk” Labor Day weekend (they also played bands in foursomes without any explanation).

I love it when radio stations have silly weekend gimmicks.  I remember fondly when our alternative station played only songs from the early nineties.  They also do a thing every day in which for an hour, they play only songs released in a certain year.  If I catch it in the middle, it’s fun to guess which year they’re doing.  The aforementioned Tucson classic rock station also had some sort of Super Bowl of Rock (or maybe World Series or Grey Cup of Rock) that paired off classic artists.  This hour, it’s Ozzy versus Zeppelin.  We’ll play only those two for the next hour.  Cast your votes!

On the radio, gimmicks are normally interesting and fun.  They force stations to stray from their normal playlist, so listeners get to hear songs they normally don’t.  They make the listener more active, as well.  Even if it’s something as inane as, “which REO Speedwagon song will be the fourth in this set?”, you’re still thinking more about the music than you normally would.

So my question is, why is it that gimmickry is so embarrassing in every other medium?  Think about it: car dealerships have countless gimmicks that rarely make any sense — Come out to Great Neck Lincoln and the kids can ride an elephant!  Why should hot dogs and balloons sway a person’s decision to spend thousands of dollars on a vehicle?

The worst offender, I must admit, is professional wrestling.  In recent years, they’ve avoided gimmickry for the most part.  But remember that Kane’s first character was Dr. Isaac Yankem, Jerry Lawler’s dentist.  Don’t forget that WCW once had a “mysterious egg” that birthed a dancing turkey called the Gobbledygooker.  Right now, the WWF has had matches between Chavo Guerrero and Hornswoggle, a bearded midget (sorry: leprechaun).  Every match is handicapped in some way (hand tied behind Chavo’s back, Chavo gets blindfolded) and Hornswoggle somehow outsmarts Chavo in a cartoonish manner in order to get the unlikely — yet all too predictable — pinfall.  It’s gotten so bad that fans have started a backlash against these matches.  Ugh.  Sure, some gimmicks work, but they’re quite often a terrible idea.

Let me amend my question from a couple paragraphs ago.  I shouldn’t wonder why gimmicks are normally horrible — they just are.  If I want a car, I’ll choose a dealer based on normal consumer reasoning, not whether they have a bounce house.  I just find it interesting that something that’s normally horrible can be so entertaining in the format of an FM radio station.

No earth-shattering observation here.  I just want to be on record about my preference for twofer Tuesdays and British Invasion weekends.  I’ll talk at you again soon.

-Darrell

As you probably know, I don’t like most people.  It’s not that I’m unfriendly; it’s just that it tends to take a lot for for me to consider someone interesting.  That said, I only rarely dislike people.  I’ve found that most of humanity tries to get along with people and doesn’t want to be hated.  That’s no reason to like people, but it’s certainly a reason not to hate them.  So even if I don’t necessarily like you, I probably don’t hate you, and will do my best to reserve judgment regarding your personality.

There are certain people, however, I can’t help but judge and dislike.  Of course, there are obvious members of this clan: murderers, pedophiles, televangelists, the members of Nickelback.  Those types.  But there are some people I hate who, I must admit, aren’t entirely deserving of my hatred.  This is a post about these people.

Take, for instance, bathroom attendants.  They’re normally pleasant enough folks.  It’s their job to offer small talk and give you a towel after you wash your hands.  Occasionally, they’ll have a tray of cigarettes or mints for purchase.  They have a tip jar, yes, but they never overtly beg or give you too much shit for not tipping them.

But seriously, fuck bathroom attendants.  They provide a service that’s completely unnecessary.  What, you don’t think I should be able to grab my own fucking paper towels?  I’m a modern American — I’ve been well-trained with regard to hand-washing technique.  Even the cigarette/mint tray is superfluous, considering these bathroom attendants are always at joints that can sell you such wares at the bar.  And that way, you won’t have to suck a cancer stick that you know has been handled by a strange man in a public bathroom. 

Don’t let me forget that they’re always jammed into an already crowded bathroom.  I’m surrounded by sweaty, half-drunk dudes with piss on their hands, and now I have to tiptoe around a wrinkled towelboy who tries to spray me with cheap cologne?  Fuck off, bathroom attendant.

Who else gets my undeserved hatred?  Ah, yes — the guys who sell roses at restaurants.  Again, they’re just trying to make a buck, so I shouldn’t heap on too much hatred.  But can’t they come up with a better way?  First of all, they’re a bother, which doesn’t help.  No, leave us alone with our linguini, thank you.  Second of all, like the bathroom attendants, they offer a superfluous service.  They might as well exclaim, “Thoughless gifts here!  Get your date a thoughtless gift!  Make her carry around a plastic-encased rose that I bought from the 7-Eleven!  Show that you’re making kind of an effort to express your love!”  Fuck off, rose peddler.

The rose guy falls under the umbrella of all bothersome beggars.  Be it a crazy balloon-animal guy at a family restaurant or a street performer on Fisherman’s Wharf, anyone with that chosen profession (if you can call it that) will earn nothing from me but my ire.

I could go on.  I could rant at length about precocious children, overconfident college students, people who tell only inside jokes, cable-news addicts, John Cena superfans, methheads, Americans who embrace their foreign heritage a little too much, and elderly voters.  None of those people have ever done anything to me, and I doubt any of them will (except for the methheads, who will probably steal from me).  Yet I have specific reasons to hate every one of them.  My question to you, the loyal reader, is this: should I feel bad?

Should I feel guilty that the dude with a faux-hawk and a six-foot-thick cloud of Axe body spray annoys me so?  Should I have any remorse for fantasizing about him getting hit in the nuts by a foul ball?

I ask because, on most levels, it’s a completely irrational hatred.  It isn’t too far from straight-up bigotry — arbitrarily categorize people, then hate certain categories.  I’d like to argue that “these people are making society dumber” is a better reason than “foreigners are taking our jobs and stealing our women”, but the distinction is pretty fine.  I’m starting to think that maybe pretension is the New Bigotry.

You know what?  Fuck it.  So what if it’s the New Bigotry?  This kind of bigotry is good for people.  We need a smarter, more enlightened, more perfect society.  Unacceptable behavior should be discouraged, and unacceptable people should be reeducated and sent to camps and… wait.  I think I went too far there.  I gotta keep that in check.  Everything in moderation, after all.

-Darrell

Hello, loyal readers.  It’s been a fantastic week (or so) in the life of the Darrell.  The start of fantasy football drafts, a Green Day concert, the return of Mad Men, a near-perfect game of team trivia, a WWF SmackDown taping, a human female is pretending to enjoy my company… things are looking up.  In fact, it might be the best fortnight since Rilo Kiley and the New Pornographers released new albums right on top of each other.  What better way to celebrate than with a blogpodge?

So Ted Kennedy died.  I wasn’t a fan of his, but this doesn’t add to the greatness of my fortnight.  Anyway, I don’t have a lot to say about him that hasn’t already been said, but I must draw your attention to this 1990 GQ article by the also-departed Michael Kelly.  It’s a long read, but it’s too well-written to gloss over.  What a fascinating, tragic, loathsome, pitiable life was his.  Considering his lifestyle and the innumerable hardships and family curses, I’m amazed he made it to seventy-seven.  RIP.

I know I mentioned it above, but if you have a chance to see Green Day in concert, do it.  They played for two-and-a-half hours, involved the fans throughout, and Billie Joe showed his ass at least three times.  Quite a show.

This just in: Joss Whedon regains a member of his collection of tiny women who will kick your ass.  I can’t decide if he’s planning to start an army or just film drunken lesbian porn.  Either way, we should fear the Whedon.

Football season is on the horizon, and people are actually predicting good things about the Cardinals.  Not the usual “maybe this will be the year” hype, but real-life “if they don’t win at least ten games, then something went wrong” talk.  It’s a strange feeling.  At least nobody expects the Wildcats to be great.  Bold college football prediction: USC will lose out on the BCS Championship Game after its final game against the Cats (the strangest scheduling decision in years, by the way).  I’m not saying we’ll beat them at the Coliseum, but we’ll look just good enough to sway the votes in favor of other one-loss/undefeated teams.  I think something like that might make me happier than beating ASU.

I probably should have mentioned this before it went off the air (potentially) forever, but Regis returned for eleven broadcasts of Millionaire that ended Sunday.  I enjoyed it — it was yet another plus in this, my Finest Fortnight in recent memory.  The game was vastly improved by the addition of a clock, and the celebrity question at the end wasn’t as unbearable as I had feared (all they had to do was involve Steve Nash to get me to shut up).  The capper was the very last contestant — a complete tool who became the first person ever to guess on the million-dollar question and miss.  My schadenfreude meter went off the goddamned charts.  The question (which I inexplicably kinda knew): In order to get his favorite beverages on demand in the Oval Office, LBJ had taps installed marked “water”, “tea”, “Coke”, and what?  The choices were Fresca, V8, Yoohoo, and A&W.  If you don’t know it, you can look up the answer yourself.

Aw shit, I’m already getting visits from people searching Google for Star Wars fan-fiction!  I hope I get at least one angry nerd to post a comment.  Oh please oh please oh please…

Which reminds me: as you probably know, a nice feature StatCounter has given me is the ability to see what people are searching for in Google that led them to my blog.    I have a few others that, surprisingly enough, led somebody directly to zazzumplop.com:

nuns fucking laymen
wwf trees bidet toilet paper consume
christian bands that sound like nickelback
ginger one liner jokes
capital letters are redundant
dan brown leaked

All of those were real searches, and I’m guessing all of them realized quickly that this site is nothing like what they wanted.  And yes, people still find this page searching for the masturbation scene from Mulholland Drive.  As of yesterday, I’m third on Google in most variations of such a search.  The internet never ceases to amaze me.

It’s so nice when the world changes its tune and agrees with me.  In my most recent case, society has finally turned on Brett Favre.  It took a lot of doing on Favre’s part, but the seemingly endless Favre-love might have died down for good.  Now if only John Cena would sign with the Vikings…

This seems like a decent place to stop.  A relatively short blogpodge this was, but it’ll do.  More nonsense to come more frequently; I promise.

-Darrell

As you know, I’ve been in something of a rut creatively.  Coming up with new ideas for the blog is tough when you have all these self-imposed restrictions: no personal minutiae, nothing unoriginal, etc.  Today I realized an entire genre of writing that I’ve ignored this entire time: Star Wars fan fiction.

It’s such a rich subgenre, I couldn’t resist dipping my toe in the water.  Granted, I’m not a Star Wars fan.  I’ve seen only the first movie, and didn’t particularly like it.  Everything else I know has been gleaned from shows like Robot Chicken.  But I think I can try my hand at some fan-fic, even if I’m not a fan.  How hard could it be?

———

“Man, I hate this star system,” said Luke Skywalker as he leaned forward in his captain’s chair.  “It brings back so many bad memories.”  Luke hoped for a response from Leia, but she had long grown tired of his empty ramblings.  So there they sat, cruising toward Endor like they do every year.

“Do we really have to do this every year?” an annoyed Leia spoke up from the galley.

“Of course we do!  It’s a reunion of all our buddies!  We’ll get to see Han Solo and Chewbacca, and that fat guy…”

“Jabba.”

“Right, Jabba.  It’ll be like old times.”

“Dammit, Luke, you say that every year, and every year we have the same overcooked steaks and I have to listen to you tell the same stories about you blowing up the Death Star.”

“You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

Leia shook her head, adjusted the croissants attached to her ears, and muttered, “I can’t believe I agreed to this again.”

The lull in their conversation came to an abrupt halt when their spaceship received a signal.

“Luke!  Leia!  Help us!”

Luke grabbed the radio and looked at his video screen.  It was mostly static with only a faint outline of a figure.  “Who’s there?”

“It’s-a me, Luke!  Jar-Jar!  Me and Yoda have-a been kidnapped yes we have!”

“Kidnapped?  Who kidnapped you?”

“The Dark Lord himself, Vader did, mon!”

“Oh dear, not him again.  Where are you–”  The ghost image of Jar-Jar quickly turned to static, then popped up a clear picture of the smoky-voiced evil incarnate himself.

“Luuuke… I am your father.”

“Hi, Darth Vader.  I know.  Let Jar-Jar and Yoda go!  Why are you doing this?”

“To add… to my collection, of course.”

“Collection?  I never knew about any collection.  You never let me be part of your life!  Some dad you are!”

“BEEP BOOP GLEEP GLORP” said R2D2, which is robot for, “What’s all this commotion?  I was having a nice nap.”

“Sorry, Artoo.  Jar-Jar and Yoda have been kidnapped by Darth Vader.  We have to go save him.”

“BEEP BOOP GLEEP GLORP” (“Fine, wake me when we get there.”), he said as he rolled back away from the cockpit.

Luke turned his attention back to Vader.  “Where are you, you worm?”

“Wouldn’t you… like to know…?”  As Vader completed these cryptic words, Luke could hear Jar-Jar’s voice in the background yelling, “GARNEK!  GARNEK!  GARNEK!”  Visibly annoyed, Vader turned his back to the screen, said, “Shut up, you,” and Luke’s screen went blank.

“So,” Leia drawled, “I guess they’re on Garnek.”

“Where’s Garnek?  I’ve never heard of it.”

“Really?  It’s a planet made entirely of sugar.  Jabba had a vacation home there.  Absolutely dreadful.  The novelty of licking the ground gets old pretty quick.  Anyway, we’re not far — it’s just south of Naboo.”

Luke made a quick turn with the spaceship, and toward Garnek they flew.
———
As they landed on the sugar planet, a chill ran over Luke’s spine.  “I hope this planet doesn’t aggravate my diabetes.”

“Wait a second,” said Leia.  “You’re diabetic?”

“Yeah, all my life.  You’ve never seen me inject myself?  You never noticed that I only drink diet soda?”

Leia’s surprise quickly turned to suspicion.  “But… aren’t you a Jedi Master or something?  Can’t you ‘use the force’ to make your body produce more insulin?”

A considered look came over Luke’s face.  “You know, I never thought of that.  Lemme try something.”  Luke gritted his teeth and looked intensely for ten seconds.  His torso shuddered and a sense of peace overcame Luke’s face.  “Oh my god.  I think I’m cured.  Leia, you cured my diabetes!  Thank you so much!”

“Uh huh.  Vader’s lair is right there.  Let’s go.”

Torches in hand, Luke, Leia, and R2D2 entered the gumdrop cave.  They were immediately spotted by storm troopers, who began shooting lasers at them.  Fortunately, Luke used the force and laid them all to waste somehow.

After a harrowing battle that spanned less than one paragraph, Luke was spent.  On his hands and knees, he crawled toward Vader’s final lair.  Leia tried to pull him up, but he was too big for her to lift.  “Come on, Luke, we’re almost there!  Jar-Jar and Yoda are counting on us!”  Luke steeled his resolve, took a breath, and stood up.

“BEEP BOOP GLEEP GLORP” (“Hooray, Luke!  Now let’s get that black bastard!”)

“Artoo!” Leia scolded, “the racism in this story is supposed to go unstated!”

Luke turned the wheel on the huge, metal hatch that separated them from Vader’s inner sanctum.  As the hatch swung open, Luke and Leia couldn’t believe their eyes.  Vader had taken dozens of creatures and sealed them in cardboard and plastic display cases.  There were Jar-Jar and Yoda, yes, at the front of the room, but along the sides of the great hall were Ewoks imprisoned individually and in groups of five.  Luke and Leia passed a dazed Chewbacca and a powered-down C3PO.

“BEEP BOOP GLEEP GLORP” (“He was supposed to be on a cruise!  Oh no!”)

The three continued their uneasy walk past a Tauntaun and a bucket of tribbles when Vader appeared from the shadows of the balcony above.

“Luke… I am your father…”

“I know!!!  Come on, man, you gotta let these creatures go.”

“I can’t… they’re all finally… back in their original packaging…”

“It’s wroooong!”

“But they’ll be worth… hundreds some day!”

“So you’re not gonna play nice, huh?  That’s it.”  Luke pulled out that unmistakeable device from his robe — a glowing green light saber.  Vader produced a light saber of his own, his a brilliant fuchsia.  What followed was a battle unmatched in the history of light-saber duels.  Leia and R2D2 cheered on as the battle went back and forth.  There was even a point when Vader got Luke to drop his light saber, but Leia tossed it back to him just in time.  It was exciting.

The battle culminated in Luke chopping Vader in half.  As his torso slid off, Vader’s last words were, “You dared to kill… your father?”

And they all lived happily ever after.

———

Pretty good, no?  I think I’ll submit this one to the Star Wars message boards.  It’s sure to be a big hit.

-Darrell

This is a first: I have multiple requests for blog posts at the same time.  One of them I’ll fold into this post and needs no mention; another I refuse to do (a tribute to Henry Waxman?  Uh… long-time politician, polite Democrat, strange nostrils… he seems like the type I could disagree with amicably.  There’s your tribute, G-bomb.); and the third… well, the third confused me a bit.  Brain-cell restoration movies/music/etc.  In other words, movies (and the like) that make you smarter, rather than the dumbing-down that Transformers gave her. 

At first, I thought she meant that I should list movies about brain-cell restoration, or maybe make a post of my own.  I like that idea, too, so I might run with that on a day when I have more time and creativity.  You know, sort of a reverse of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Here’s a preview:

HARRIED MAN: Help me, doctor, I can’t remember who played shortstop for the 1983 Philadelphia Phillies!
DOCTOR: Let me zap you with this laser.  Hold still.
HARRIED MAN: Ivan deJesus!

It’s a work in progress.  But since Gretchen’s request was a little more literal, I’ll fulfill that one first.  What are some movies, albums (or whatever) that I feel have made me smarter?  It’s a good question, since ideally, all the art we consume should do exactly that.  Art should make us more thoughtful, critical, and enlightened.  So here’s my hastily assembled list of pieces of art that I feel have improved my intelligence in some way.

WAKING LIFE — It’s as thinky as a movie can get.  Richard Linklater directs this live/animated set of vignettes that surround the nature of dreams and reality.  (What I mean by live/animated: You know those kind of irritating Charles Schwab ads that are animated, but are clearly drawn over actual video?  Those ads are a rip-off of Waking Life.)  The long-haired kid from Dazed and Confused tries to figure out whether he’s dreaming.  Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have their umpteenth lengthy philosophical conversation in bed.  It’s 90 minutes of philosophical dorkdom, brought to you by the same man who gave the world Matthew McConaughey.  Imagine that.

THE FOUNTAIN — In what I consider Darren Aronofsky’s triumph, Hugh Jackman takes us on three concurrently presented storylines that center around man’s quest for immortality.  The modern-day (or slightly in the future) storyline has Jackman as a doctor trying to find a cure for Rachel Weisz’s inoperable disease.  The historical example has Jackman as a Conquistador searching for the tree of life in the name of his queen, Rachel Weisz.  And in the distant future, Jackman floats naked and hairless in space with the aforementioned tree of life.  It’s wonderfully strange, gorgeous, and thoughtful.  The storylines, disparate as they seem, intertwine nicely.  You’ll be hashing out the story and the philosophy for days after you see it.  Perhaps most impressive is that he used virtually zero CGI.  That’s right — Aronofsky didn’t use computers to make this.

NEARLY EVERY NON-FICTION BOOK — I could go on about anything by Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Lewis, or David Halberstam, but I don’t have the time or energy.  It should be obvious to you that an informative book will make you smarter.  Go read something.

MEMENTO — Just keeping track of events is mentally demanding in this, Christopher Nolan’s first feature film.  If you aren’t already familiar, Guy Pearce plays a man with a form of amnesia that prevents him from making new memories.  Even worse, the last memory he has is the brutal murder of his wife (he was hit in the head during the struggle).  So he goes on a quest to find the killer, even though he can’t keep his train of thought for more than ten minutes.  The movie’s big gimmick is that Nolan expresses the feeling of amnesia by presenting the film’s events backward.  It’s disorienting to great effect, and it’s a nice exploration of memory and cause-and-effect.  If you haven’t seen it, I’ll lend it to you.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF GREGORY CREWDSON — I could go on for years about his beautifully staged, surreal photos.  His milieu is normally the beautifully unsettling.  Sometimes the unsettling is more obvious than other times, but I think you can already see the surreal quality.  There’s nothing that unusual about a man looking sad in his garage, but to have him pile sod inside is a bit off.  He loves colliding the wild with the domestic, the indoors with the outdoors, the beautiful with the disturbing.  What strikes me most about Crewdson’s photos, though, is that it seems that he’s slyly damning his own medium.  Nearly every photo is lovely to look at, but also reminds you that you’re looking at a static image.  There is almost never even the suggestion of motion in any of his images.  The cities are empty; the cars and sundries are abandoned; the models are slouching, bored, sad.  It’s all a reminder that photography is inherently limited; that no matter how you might suggest motion, a still image will never adequately capture it.  Maybe I’m misinterpreting, but I’d rather Crewdson be subtly self-deprecating.

RADIOLAB — The best, smartest program NPR has to offer.  Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich explore all manner of curiosities from time to laughter to sperm.  It’s basically two laymen making science even more amazing.  Also, the presentation is more artistic than any talk-radio show has business attempting.  You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or visit radiolab.org for past episodes.  Listen to them all.  Repeatedly.

ARTS & LETTERS DAILY (aldaily.com) — My favorite aggregator.  They cull articles from all over the internet for new books, ideas, and essays.  If I start a blog post with a link to an article that made me think, chances are I came across it on Arts & Letters Daily.

That’s all I have for the moment.  I couldn’t think of a suitable album that I feel made me smarter on a level beyond “well, now I appreciate music better”.  Sorry about that.  Now it’s your turn — what movies/albums/whatever have made you smarter?

-Darrell

Hello loyal readers.  Sorry it’s been awhile, but I just haven’t been able to get over killing Michael Jackson with my last post.  I called him “probably the most talented person we’ll ever see”, talked about him like he was already dead, and then he dies two days later.  I guess I’m gonna have to start being careful about whom I effusively praise on this blog.  That said, I think Carlos Mencia is the greatest person ever to live.  Well, him and Pat Boone.

Anyway, on to an actual post.

I just saw Funny People this afternoon and it was quite good.  In fact, I think Judd Apatow might have made it for me.  I always hated the term “nerdgasm”, but it might be apt here.  If you know me, you can follow the logic here.  First of all, it’s a wry movie about bachelors fucking around.  Add to it that these bachelors are stand-up comedians, which opens the door to scenes about the joke-writing process and cameos from a handful of stand-ups.  Now put Jason Schwartzman in it.  Throw in a few Warren Zevon songs, some Wilco, and a bit of John Lennon.  It even had a topless scene.  So I get great writing, a plot about comedy, an actor I like a little too much, awesome music, AND I get to see somebody’s tits?  Thank you, Judd Apatow.  You’ve made my month.

I like it when multiple pleasures collide unexpectedly.  It’s better, though, when the pleasures are personal.  Because everybody loves chocolate and peanut butter, but not everybody loves both Warren Zevon and stand-up comedy.  Not everybody loves both Neko Case and Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me (she was the celebrity guest a few weeks ago… simply delightful).  Peanut-butter cups are nice, but the personal moments are special.

I know I mentioned this phenomenon before, but I made the post about something different, so I’m giving myself a pass.  I want to explore in more depth these splendidly serendipitous syntheses (alliteration alert: can you tell that I’m currently reading Moby-Dick?  Seriously, Melville goes overboard with alliteration.  I needed to say that.) 

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  Part of why I like life is that it’s both structured and random.  We lack the capacity to predict anything, but everything apparently has a cause.  As far as we’re concerned, everyone’s path is circuitous and haphazard.  We seem to fly around at random, occasionally affecting others as we go.  It feels so arbitrary, so it’s nice when two or three paths collide to form something great.  Call it inevitable, random, or serendipity.  I don’t care what you call it.  It just makes me glad to be alive.

-Darrell

It’s late June.  The sun beats down on us as it always does.  Our electric bills are soaring and our genitals are even sweatier than normal.  The only relief, of course, is a cool, refreshing blogpodge.

In case you don’t know of him already, allow me to introduce you to Cliff Johnson.  In 1987, he made a low-res puzzle game called The Fool’s Errand.  It’s pretty fantastic — all the puzzles are fair and enjoyable, and to top it off, it’s one of the first meta-puzzles of the technological age.  If you like puzzle games that make you say to yourself, “Holy shit, I’ve been at this for five hours”, download the game for free (follow the instructions — the game’s so old you’ll need a Mac emulator to run it).  But first, read these two Wired articles about the game’s legend (don’t worry, they’re brief).

If you poke around Cliff Johnson’s site, you’ll see that he made a couple other games in that era.  I played At the Carnival — don’t bother.  It’s too repetitive and easy.  But so far, 3 in Three is great.  It’s a ramped-up Fool’s Errand (at least in the sense that there’s actually color and sound).

I’ve said this before, but do you think that if I asked really nicely, Shakira would have sex with me?  She’s not at the top of my fantasy list of unattainable celebrities, and she doesn’t strike me as particularly slutty, but something about her makes that thought pop into my head.  Like she’d agree if I just told her, “Have sex with me.  I’ll say nice things about you to all my white friends…”

In the last week I’ve gotten a handful of new followers on Twitter.  The funny thing is, I’ve never twittered (tweeted?  Eh who cares…) to that account even once.  I got the account twitter.com/zazzumplop in case I ever decided to jump on the bandwagon.  You know, spread your unique domain name thin and all that.  Well, now that people are actually following me for some reason, I’ll start posting to Twitter.  Granted, the only posts will be along the lines of, “New post at my actual blog.  Read some full sentences for a change”, but at least it’s something.

Speaking of Twitter, let me be the umpteenth person to praise Conan’s new Twitter Tracker bit.  I don’t think I can describe it without wringing out all the funny, so just watch the first one on Hulu and enjoy (after sitting through a twenty-second ad).  You can also check out the new Twitter Tracker website, but please, only in small doses.  It’s only so many times you can read the likes of the following without liquefying your brain: “WHAT’S THIS?!? ROB THOMAS LIKES THE CITY OF CHICAGO?!??? EXCITEMENT!!! RT @ThisIsRobThomas I could see myself living in chicago.”

I just caught up with all the aired episodes of Dollhouse.  It’s an excellent show, but it’s been kinda weird for me.  I let myself fall months behind, episodes piling up on my TiVo, without much desire to watch them.  But every time I watched an episode I came away extremely entertained.  The next day, I’d see Dollhouse on the queue and think, “Eh, I’ll watch it later.”  I don’t understand it.  Most shows that I love I can’t wait to watch.  If I have to record Lost or House, I watch it the minute I get home.  I can give you a host of reasons that Dollhouse is an exciting, moving, funny, enjoyable show.  I like the regular characters, and I like that Eliza Dushku has no consistent personality (it helps hide that she’s normally the worst actress on the screen).  I also like the hot, empty-headed women in tiny clothing.  (If you haven’t seen the show, “empty-headed” is meant literally.)  So I highly recommend the show, even though it hasn’t reached Appointment TV status.

I’ve been meaning to post this awhile, but I think I neglected it.  It’s high-speed video of bats in motion (and a fascinating article).  The best part isn’t watching them fly or land upside-down, which is still cool; the best part is watching different bat species walk.  This is why nature is awesome.  And yes, Eddie Izzard, I’m using the word ‘awesome‘ properly, thank you.

To keep the parade of links going, read this British article about the King of Pop.  It’s written quite well, and it reminds me of something I dare not forget: Michael Jackson is probably the most talented person we’ll ever see.  If you’re angry about Heath Ledger’s death, it should pale in comparison to the anger you feel about what has happened to Michael Jackson.  He had so much talent, and none of us could handle it.

On that cheery note, I’ll bid you all adieu.  Well, not before I leave something on Twitter about how amazing this post is.

-Darrell