August 2010
28 posts
IMMACULATE CREDENZA
My parents are obsessed with the periphery.
That newscaster? That thing he’s saying? That country he’s talking about? The controversy it’s creating? My mom and dad ain’t about that. They wanna know about his tie: where he got it, what color it is (because sometimes you can’t tell; sometimes the color of that tie is a brand-new color that has not been named yet, that may not exist), who made...
"CHARGED!"
I was getting money out of an ATM once and I swear that when the money shot into my hand I heard the ever-so-slight sound of “Charge!” being played. It came out of the machine itself, the whirring of the wheels out of which your money flies, as the machine pukes out its bills, I’m telling you I heard that six-note passage that could only be identified as “Charge!” And then to see my money with...
"LET'S SEE SOME SMILING, JERK FACE!"
What. I don’t smile? That’s not entirely true. I’ll do it every now and then. If there’s something in it for me. See? Especially if there’s an outright command to do it printed on a wall behind me in red. With an exclamation point. That’s a command to me. Look at it, dog! That shit’s an order! That’s a red alert step-to, an asses and elbows decree to jump around like a fairy. Even...
ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, KNEE TO THE BALLS
I remember a This American Life where some gambler played Rock Paper Scissors for a lot of money, something like five thousand dollars.
I never wanna be like that.
I remember a game of RPS where both guys kept picking rock seventeen times in a row and when it got broken, when they stopped both picking rock, it stopped being fun. In fact, everyone watching booed. Years later, they would recall...
BAGGIN' ON BONES
Kathy Reichs, the producer of Bones, was on NPR the other night. She’s also the author of the Temperance Brennan crime novels. Temperance Brennan is the main female character on Bones.
(By the way, I was listening to her talk about forensics and violent death right as I was trying to find the 5 in a really scary part of industrial L.A.; all these signs saying the 5 is this way and you go that...
"GET YOUR CRACK-JOB OUTTA MY WHACK-POT."
People are dying to get on television. I get on television to die.
Ever seen Monk? Been on that. Got killed. Dead.
Ever seen Numbers? Been on that. Got killed. Dead.
Ever seen Reaper? Been on that. Got killed. Dead.
Ever seen Ghost Whisperer? Been on that. Didn’t get killed per se, but I was dead. Dead.
Whenever I go in to read for something, I never think the odds of getting the...
"WELL, THE WORD 'GROUNDED' IS IN THE TITLE."
About ten years ago I got hired to play a Catholic priest on the Fox show Grounded for Life.
About ten years ago I got fired from my job to play a Catholic priest on the Fox show Grounded for Life.
I was supposed to be the old boyfriend of the mom on that sit-com (never saw it) and for some reason I’m there for a visit and it’s all weird because this guy she used to date is now a priest. ...
"HANDS UP, WHO DOES HEROIN?"
I was once in this creepy acting class a long time ago and, before we started, this girl got up and announced the following:
“Hey, guys! I’m doing a scene in a couple weeks where my character shoots heroin and I was wondering if there’s anyone here who knows anyone who actually does heroin so I could watch them because I need to learn how to do the rubber tie thing and what the needles are like...
YOU GOTTA DIE A LITTLE.
You gotta die a little. You know? If the only stand-up you do is in one zip code (or two, or three), you gotta kinda kill yourself on stage a little to feel alive.
(Seriously: I’m gonna do the best I can not to sound like a beleaguered, war-torn, road-smacked comedian here, because I’m not, by any means. I am a cheese-ball commercial actor who does stand-up to feel good about himself and...
AN OPEN LETTER TO THAT GUY TALKING TO THAT GIRL IN...
Hey, man. I saw that. What happened? At first, you were clearly winning. I mean, between you and me, you were winning. You were the one talking to a girl, not me. I wasn’t there with anything but a book and I’d already moved twice because everywhere I sat was too close to couples clearly having private conversations and people know when you’re trying to listen. I always try to listen. You...
"IT'S A TRIP!"
I sat in a weird creek after taking shrooms (and by shrooms I mean half of one; I was very proud of myself; no freak outs) on a camping trip and showed this picture of Akbar I had taken back at the campsite to my friend Shawn who had also taken some shrooms and he couldn’t stop looking at it because I don’t think he knew exactly what he was looking at because I think he thought it was a real...
YOUR SHITTY SPY RING
If your spy ring is featured on the news, your spy ring sucks.
Here are some other signs that your spy ring sucks:
—If your spy ring has an annual picnic.
—If you refer to your spy ring as a spy ring.
—If you allow people to audit your spy ring.
—If you keep the minutes of all the spy ring’s meetings.
—If your spy ring has meetings.
—If your spy ring has an...
SPANGLISH
Watching this movie for two hours and eleven minutes is like getting your back waxed for two hours and eleven minutes. (Back-waxings normally take about fifteen minutes, by the way.) This gigantic piece of nut-filled dookie flops around like a stinky, freshly-caught fish desperately hoping for a quick death. The people in it are cloying, sniveling, slobbering, pathetic babies, blubbering...
THIS CAP IS ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OPPOSED TO...
If this cap was good enough for British motorists in 1959, why can’t it be good enough for brazenly dangerous cyclists in 2010?
Not a day goes by where I don’t see a sunny-cheeked, easy-going, breakneck bicyclist pull some ridiculous move in traffic that makes me go: “Can he do that? I mean, I know he can do it. He just did it. But is he allowed to do that?” Weaving through cars stopped at a...
IT DOESN'T GET EASIER.
Think about prom. Specifically think about the dinner before prom. You’re—I don’t know—seventeen, eighteen. You’ve got a date (you actually got one) and you’re in some expensive-esque restaurant with a name like The Rusty Albatross or Plates or The Big Idea or something. You’re there with, say, three other couples. You’ve never worn a tux before. Your boutonnière looks stupid, especially so...
FREEDOM! FREEDOM!
I wrote this a couple years ago, but recent news of the show’s imminent demise bears its repeating:
***
I was recently watching a nature documentary about the mating habits of the dung beetle. Did you know that after mating, the female dung beetle will fashion a large brood ball of dung, lay an egg within it, then coat the ball with an antiseptic mixture of more dung and saliva? She...
WHAT THE TELL?!
In poker, a tell is any bit of behavior a player exudes that gives away what kind of hand he’s holding. There are all kinds of tells in poker. Sometimes someone will do something like fidget in a certain way and that might mean he’s got a really good hand. Or he’ll start to laugh in a weird way and that might mean he’s got a really lousy hand. There are all kinds of tells.
What follows is a...
"THIS IS YOUR SPEED"
If ya wanna be Depressed beyond belief I’ve got a flick that makes The Ice Storm Look like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. It’s stronger than A raging pack of bulls It takes your heart and rips it out And hurts way more than sitting through Showgirls.
Not since I was just a kid Have I been so frighten-ed. Makes me wonder what I did To deserve the fear and dread
(Of) Requiem For a Dream! I’d...
GIVE JAMES HIS SHIT BACK.
Wait. He’s offering a reward for the return of his laptop? So he’s gonna pay the guy who took it to give it back? James (and forgive my arrogance in thinking you’d ever be reading this), remind me to steal your laptop when I get a chance. This might be a new livelihood for me. Stealing your Toshiba laptop, giving it back to you for money, stealing it again, repeating ad infinitum, assuming...
"IF I COULD FLY, THAT'D BE GREAT. BUT IF I HAD A...
Shot a commercial with a kid named Anthony yesterday. Seven years old. He asked me “What girls did you like in school?” and I went through all of them. I remembered all of them.
He’s got three ideas for movies. Two movies and a cartoon actually, but that’s more than I’ve got. He’s got an idea for a movie called Ninja. Another idea for a movie called Eight. And another idea for a cartoon...
I LOVE WATCHING FIGHTS OVER DUMB STUFF.
I don’t love being in commercials. I love making my living from them. But I don’t love doing them for a minute. If, however, my involvement in them can continue to stave off reality, can keep the threat of ever having to get a real job at bay—then so be it. I’ll be in them until someone discovers my secret, which is my complete and utter disdain for the way just about everything...
HUH. "MO-FO" IS HYPHENATED.
“Steven Slater was having a bad day.”
Sounds like a movie trailer, don’t it? Nope. This be real damn life, kids.
Yesterday, as Jet Blue Flight 1052 was taxiing after landing at JFK, flight attendant Steven Slater told a passenger to sit back down when she tried to grab her luggage early from the overhead compartment. She didn’t listen. As Steven approached her, he got hit in the head with...
ALARMING DEODORANT
Did you hear that I bought deodorant at Rite Aid? You didn’t? You didn’t hear that alarm go off when I opened that clear plastic door to get the Degree Invisible Stick for Men? I assumed a police report had been filed. Not because I stole the deodorant. Just because I bought it.
There’s a clear plastic door you open upwards to get the deodorant. When you do, an alarm goes off. No, not the...
EYE OF THE RENTER
I’ve been living in my building for six years now. That’s the longest (apart from growing up at home) that I’ve lived in any one place. I was walking out to my car one day and saw this girl I knew walking to her car. “You live here?” I asked. “Yeah! Just moved in!” I hadn’t seen her in a few years so we hung out in her apartment and talked for a while, catching up and what-not. Jokingly...
NO CHARITY HERE
Was getting some wrong numbers from a woman named Kuma for a woman named Charity. Kuma left voicemails. Here’s one:
“Uh, Charity. This is Kuma. Give me a call. Me and China are gonna be doing the master cleanse this coming week and we’re gonna try to draw up support. So lemme know if ya wanna work with us and do that as well, all right? And lemme know all is well. Talk to ya soon. ...
AN OPEN LETTER TO THAT GIRL I HEARD YELLING AT HER...
Hey. I couldn’t help but hear your end of that cell phone conversation you just had with your mom. And the reason I couldn’t help but hear it is because I literally couldn’t help but hear it. I really tried not to hear it, but you wouldn’t let me. You forced me and everyone else in that place (including the poor guy you were with) to hear you yelling at your mom. And can I just say...
MUTANT RADIOACTIVE WILD BOARS!
I saw that and at first I was like: “Well, I gotta see that shit! When did Roger Corman do that one? It’s probably playing at the New Beverly at midnight or something. On a double bill with Huge Triceratops Accountant.
But nope! The shit’s real! In Germany too! Germany finally got funny!
The number of animals in Europe contaminated by radiation left over from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986...
A GOOD EIGHT
I’m good for six hours. I don’t get eight anymore. Sleep. Can’t get eight anymore. “Maybe you only need six,” said my doctor—my doctor, who looks like the main bad guy in Witness and sounds like the peppermint schnapps-swigging uncle in that documentary American Movie. “Nope. Six ain’t enough.” I said. “Take a nap,” said my doctor. “I have.” “Take naps. Take more than one,” he said. ...
