Ream My Meme.

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Normally ignoring the trends of the interwebs with my blog…other than, you know, having a blog in the first place…I long ago swore that I would never do a meme.

Or a mime, but that went out the window in university.

I have an foolishly long list of blogs that I visit and atop that list is the work of my blogging patriarch, Paul Gorbould over at Gor[b]. Now admittedly, Paul is not a member of the secretive humor-blogs syndicate, and he got the meme from over at Culture Kills, but he’s still okay in my book. Currently, that book is a re-issue of The Turner Diaries, so you may want to take that with a grain of salt.

The meme is ‘Make a Band’, or ‘Make an Album’ depending on who you ask.

The steps are simple:

1. Go to Wikipedia and hit the random page function; this is the name of your band.

2. Similarly, go to QuotationsPage.com and take the last four words of the very last quote; this will be you album title.

3. Finally, go to this link at Flickr and use the third image; this is your album cover.

The results are alarmingly impressive and confirm that the people who made album covers were third rate hacks who never understood really Hemingway and just smoked too much weed.

Here’s what Paul made:

Matt from Culture Kills hits a home run as the beneficiary of a great photo from Flickr:

Seeing these I felt very good about running this down into a half-post. But it was then that the thing got really, really weird.

Seriously, this is on the upper limit of probability calculus.

Anyway, the freak-fest started when I went to Wikipedia and sought out a random page. I got Leon Trotsky. This struck me as pretty neat; I knew people in university who would have named their band Leon Trotsky had they owned an instrument and had any talent other than buying heavy, black sweaters.

Then I went to QuotationsPage.com and found my quote. I cannot tell you the pure burst of gobsmackery that ensued when the quote was from; you guessed it, Leon Trotsky. The original random quote isn’t there anymore, but I found it here at BrainyQuote.com.

“Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.”

I paused for a few minutes before looking up the random images on Flickr. Now I am not a superstitious man, but I honestly feared that if I went to Flickr I would be drawn into a technology driven coincidence thriller that would inevitably have Sarah Michelle Gellar in it.

I don’t see an upside in all of that.

But it struck me as unusually odd that anyone would have a picture of Leon Trotsky on Flickr, and even less likely that I would find it on a random hit.

Anyway, this is my result, the spookiest damn thing ever and the reason why I never do a meme;

Now I need to go and lay down.

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New Hampshire: Not Important Very Often.

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I’ve been watching American Presidential elections with the single mindedness of three-pouch-a-day Tang addict since 1992. In that time, I have become really, really tired of New Frikkin’ Hampshire. Seriously – the Granite State primaries can drink plumbing seepage as far as this impartial and aloof commentator is concerned.

Plumbing seepage with a skin on it…

Otherwise, I like New Hampshire. As a Canadian, I find the lack of sales tax both delightful and a little creepy. However, once every four years this little bump of a state becomes the center of the electoral universe and the only fuel in the tank of the 24/7 Cable News Hole.

The worst part of all of this is that New Hampshire is not always a key to victory, except when it is. It’s true that almost every candidate who wins Iowa and New Hampshire usually wins the nomination; but let’s think about that bit of greasy wisdom for a second: if you win the first two elections, your chances of winning more of them are very good.

It should be noted that if you fall down two stairs, you may roll down all of them. Thanks, Gandalf.

You SHALL NOT PASS!! Sorry.

So New Hampshire is really the key to an area adjacent to the kingdom – remember that girl from high school with the really big boobs that you wanted to fu…ahem…to date? Well, New Hampshire is her pal with bad hair and orthopedic sweaters who tells her that you have head lice.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans will go forward regardless of what happens in New Hampshire, and they will probably do so in basically the same order that they entered. But since I’m feeling tricky, let’s break this down so you know what I knew would happen before it did.

I guess I should finish this before the polls close.

1. Barack Obama will win New Hampshire by about 10 points as everyone predicted (or not). Upon winning, Senator Obama will give a speech about change and hope. We hope for change, and we change so that we might hope. We hope that the attention span of the voters does not change or else Mr. Obama may need to eventually have a point. Soon after this speech he will repair broken watches with a smile, make sweet love to both Oprah and Dr. Phil and then get to work on finishing the Grand Unified Theory before midnight. Remember, if you vote for Obama, you will no longer need yeast or sugar to make bread. Yes Jim, he is that good.

2. Hillary Clinton will lose and not understand why New Hampshire humans persist in not voting for her like she told them. Hillary Clinton will declare that she is on the comeback trail even if she loses by 32 points, her headquarters burn down and former President Bubba has an act of carnal knowledge with a wedding cake during her time at the podium.

3. John Edwards will tell you a very sad story about someone who died, followed up by a heartening tale of pithy survival about someone who also died, but voted for John Edwards before they did. He will also explain why he hates corporations – in a fit of confusion, Mr. Edwards will beat his pharmacist with a club.

4. Bill Richardson will negotiate with himself.

On the Dark Side;

1. John McCain will win by three or four points (or not) and claim that he is back on the rise while he fires up the Straight Talk Express into three States that he cannot possibly win.

2. Mittens “Mitt” Romney will not win, but he will sell you shingles that tell you that he did. He’ll also explain that everyone is out to get him and that despite being an awful automaton bred with well-coiffed rodents, that you should make him your first entirely synthetic President.

3. Mike Huckabee will do better than expected and his speech will consist of nothing more than Chuck Norris doing 67 year old spin kicks while the former Arkansas Governor plays Black Dog on the bass guitar. One or both of them may be nude. Neither of them will realize how lame it is to have Chuck Norris on your side.

4. Ron Paul’s supporters, regardless of the outcome will continue to scamper around scaring the hell out of everyone like the vomiting zombies from 28 Days Later.

Good for them.

So long, New Hampshire. Hopefully my resentment will have cooled by 2012. But don’t bet on it.

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When Writers Attack

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Unlike most of you, I am not a TV writer. As such, I was appalled and surprised to find that many of the fine people who write the scripts for shows that I do not watch are no longer working.

Why are they not working? Because of The Man, that’s why.

The Man, in short but fair terms, is stealing from the writers because The Man is also The Greedy Bastard. The writers agreed to a progressive increase in monies paid for their products being shown in other venues, and The Greedy Bastard Man did not live up to this agreement.

Why? Well, just look at his name.

I mostly watch news, cooking shows, NFL football and Eskimo porn. These are largely unaffected by the writer’s strike. I also watch too many documentaries, but these are in a dark netherworld since most of them only air 13 years after they are produced. As such, I’ve just programmed my TiVo to capture the Discovery Channel premiere of The Magic of Netscape 1.0.

This might also serve as a good indicator as to why writers are so important. I once heard someone say that “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage”. The more I think about it, I think it was an actor reading lines given to him on a DVD commentary.

So yeah, writers matter and they matter a lot. Without writers, we are faced the with spittle and mumbling on Fox News, or worse, reality television. People say that reality TV is written, but I don’t think so. It might be planned, rigged and outright false, but it is not written.

Written things cannot hold the premise that a British cook screaming at stranger for 47 minutes of network prime-time is a good thing. Without writers you get things like a dancing Osmond, most instances of the Emmy Awards, and (I’m pretty sure) cholera.

Additionally, putting a writer near or in your stereo speakers will result in an erection lasting longer than four hours, but you will not need to consult a physician.

Speaking of which, without writers, you get the Viva Viagra commercial. If you watch this, you will see a group of happy, middle aged suburban dudes who traveled to a deserted roadhouse so they could jam out a bastardized ode to the pill that re-galvanized their Love Gun.

I find this all very suspicious. If you’re snorking it up that well, you may sing a song, but you’ll be naked, at home and playing a decidedly different instrument. Also, since I know that you were wondering, I do know what song they were singing back when the lightsaber needed new batteries;

Limp thing
It’s like a wet string.
My gear is all noo-oo-oodly
Limp thing

You get the idea.
So, for the third time, writers matter a lot. They matter so much that unlike pretty much everyone else in TV and movies, if you don’t have them, you don’t have a product. Now before anyone jumps on my head, I’m sure you are right that ‘Designing Women‘ was a complex tapestry woven from the collegial activities of dozens of professionals all of whom are indispensable.

Except for the day when Annie Potts stabbed Jean Smart on the leg for calling her short.

One of the few shows that I do watch whenever I’m able is The Late Show. I’ve been a Letterman fan since he was merely an abrasive transplanted Midwesterner with funny teeth and inexplicable hair. Now he’s a late night legend, the progenitor of the likes of Jon Stewart and an old, abrasive transplanted Midwesterner with funny teeth and virtually no hair.

That’s an awfully long time. Back when I first started watching Dave he was actually slightly less obscure then Oprah, who was then working on the A-Team as the body double for George Peppard. Jay Leno, the snooze-inducing king of midnight hour talk shows was plying his trade as a really good stand-up instead of…never mind.

The Late Show writers have started a blog in order to write about not writing. It’s worth the read just for the funny, but it also gives you a pretty interesting (albeit reluctant) look at what this is about. Read that blog, find other ones and read them too. Make up a show, pretend to be a writer for it and blog about that (the ‘Whimsy and Passion of Maggie Thatcher’ is taken).

TV and movie writers are not rich, they do not generally have secure employment and they do the best part of what brings the crap you like to the screen so that you have a noise to distract you between handfuls of Cheez-Its and the speeches you regularly give to your kitty.

That was more auto-biographical then I had wanted.

 

 

 

 

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I Watched It, Now You Read It.

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I’ve again spent a Sunday watching Meet the Press and This Week – but I’m okay, thanks for asking. I did not watch Face the Nation since I live in constant fear of Bob Schieffer telling his story about how he dated Lee Harvey Oswald’s mom.

In an ongoing an attempt to drive me mad, Tim “Big Potatoes” Russert is interviewing another candidate for the 2008 Presidential election. In this instance, it is the ever more puzzling Fred Thompson. Now Fred has roughly the same chance of becoming President as former slugger Mookie Wilson, but I guess it’s easier for Russert and crew to interview an also-ran than discuss any actual news.

I don’t know if Mookie Wilson really was a slugger, but next to Ickey Woods, he has the best name in sports history.

Fred waited about 12 years between hinting that he would run, and actually announcing it. Now we can see why; the man is exhausted. While being grilled by Tim (speaking of which, I bet Russert and Thompson could do well at an all-you-can-eat rib dinner), Fred honestly seemed as if he could not care less. Maybe he’s on medication, maybe he was up all night giving Sam Waterston tips on scowling but he was pretty sedate through this appearance. I’m not entirely sure, but maybe I like this.

A disinterested man is probably a man too hard to corrupt or co-opt. Fred has an aide with a conviction for a drug crime. Fred doesn’t care – in the most sincere statement in this campaign, he just really doesn’t care; “he’s my pal, he’ll remain my pal…did your producer said that I would get a mug? “

As President, he’ll get done precisely what he needs to and not one more damn thing. Now I’m sure – that does appeal to me. A guy worried about getting the day done by 2pm will not start a war. Those late night sessions in the Situation Room are just too much work for President Fred.

The second half of the show was then devoted to Tom Brokaw, and Potatoes spent a great deal of time fawning over Tom’s book about Baby Boomers. Brokaw had already written a volume on the Greatest Generation and now he’s on to this. In a few months he’ll issue a volume on guys who are frightened of geese.

This Week had former senator John Edwards, who seems like a genuinely nice man – but most charming, vote-wanting rich guys do. I’ll make a bold prediction now and bet that come January of 2009, President Edwards will be settling in at whatever huge corporation places him at the head of their board. I was very interested to hear what Edwards had to say since he’s stalled in the polls, but that changed and within about thirteen seconds as his Carolina drawl rendered me insensible, having shut down my entire nervous system. Soon, I sat pith-eyed and wondered how much John Edwards and George Stephanopoulos, combined, spend on hair conditioner.

Really, it was all I can do to remember anything other than the commercial that split Edwards’ interview; Flomax.

Flomax – unless you’re a woman who is pregnant or may become pregnant – helps you pee. Other than that, I can’t distinguish between these ads and the ads for power-washing attachments for the garden hose.

There’s an odd and vaguely troubling equivalence in these ads being manliness and how well you shake the dew off of the lily. There are genuine medical conditions that I’m sure need to be taken care of, but when did “stream strength” get added to the list?

Short of saying “Hey, Mr. Pissy Pants!” this commercial really avoids any attempt at either subtlety or dignity. Replete with pictures of happy and vigorous men doing manly things and ALWAYS holding ninety-seven ounce beverages, the message of this add is clear:

Unless you are a four-year old sissy girl, you should be able to drink a Dr. Pepper of the same volume as a Panamax oil tanker and watch 11 NFL games back to back.

When you finally release the precious contents of your vault-like bladder, if your urine is not flying out in such a mad torrent that you are aggressively chipping away at porcelain with industrial force, then you sir, are simply not up to snuff. You and your fragile, meek trickle of non-masculine urine are a dead give away that you don’t make enough money, that your wife is not satisfied with your mojo and, by the way, your accountant told me over coffee that he just thought you were ‘maybe kind of gay’. You know that thing in Ghostbusters where you couldn’t cross the streams? Well, it turns out that you can.

Flomax knows. Your friends are laughing at you.

That was my Sunday morning – pity me.

 

 

 

 

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The Sinister Sunday.

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Unlike most of you, I don’t have that much in common with god. I have never impregnated a carpenter’s wife by remote control. You want loaves and fishes? Get your own. I’ve also never leveled a city because I didn’t like the way some of the folks get jiggy. But like The Jeebus Daddy, (acts of transubstantiation notwithstanding) I do take Sundays off.

And on the seventh day, I slacked the hell off. My slack-assery will become more evident as you examine the product. Without further biblical reference, let’s hit the Sinister Six; those news stories from the last little while that I enjoyed, but not enough to warrant a full post.

1. In Arkansas, six nuns from an order known as The Army of Mary were excommunicated from the Catholic Church because their leader claimed to be possessed by the Virgin Mary. Normally, I eschew these kinds of things, but the Church has rules and they don’t want to come off looking stupid. If they don’t draw a line here people might start believing in really weird stuff like people rising from the dead. Wait…what?

2. Michael Vick answered the question “is he really that stupid?” by getting caught reefer-laden while being court supervised. But let’s look at this for a minute. He’s home with a lot of money and a great deal of free time on his hands, what did you expect? At least when he’s floating through his THC-fueled haze, he’s unlikely to kill anything. He’s the victim here; he’s taking reasonable steps to ensure that he’s a threat nothing more than a two-pound bag of Cheetos and now the court sticks him with this. If we don’t treat him more carefully, he might go out and do something unreasonable.

3. The makers of Miller and Coors beer brands have united to better challenge the competition. Now, as a Canadian beer consumer, I can only assume that the real outcome of this will be that all the cats can now whiz into the same vats.

4. JK Rowling, apparently in the fear of having a week when she is not featured in the news, announced in a reading that the wizard Dumbledore is gay. I have enormous respect for what Rowling has accomplished, and her words on this are better than mine:

“Oh, my god,” Rowling concluded with a laugh, “the fan fiction.”

Eeeeeewwwwww…and, yes, I’m the one person who’s never read a Harry Potter book.

5. Hillary Clinton (D – Catch me if you can) announced that people should eat more carrots. In addition to making her sound like the Field Marshall for the Army of the Nanny State, it also misses a more pressing concern; the things that her husband asks people to put in their mouths.

6. The Anglican Church has reached some sort of compromise to keep the British and American wings of the assembly together after having differing practices on homosexuality for a number of years. The result is apparently less moderate and tolerant than was hoped.

There’s not much funny here, and I realize I’m taking a double whammy at religion. It does make me think of that Biblical story where Jesus sent away all those people who smelled funny, had big noses or used the word ‘irregardless’ since its not really a word at all. He was like that, you know.

The Sinister Single.

Normally, my weekend posts offer a nod to six decidedly less lame offerings. I have been away from TRE for about three weeks and I read several very good posts that I wanted to write about – some of them were even free of nudity. However, what also happened in the last three weeks was the delivery of my copy of Antisocial Commentary: From the Secret Files of the Mattress Police. As you may know, this book was written by my blogger pimp, Diesel who still considers that name to be a good idea. Diesel also runs the site splattered across my sidebars: Humor-blogs.com.

I don’t normally even entertain the idea of doing reviews (see what I did there?). In this case, however, I think that I probably should. As a caveat, very few things make me laugh; I’m a tough room. If you can force a snicker out of me, then you did good.

Diesel’s book is funny. I laughed out loud every few pages and I chuckled more often than not between every flip. More importantly, the book is very, very readable. To collect 150+ pages from hundreds of posts and have it flow from start to finish is quite a feat. All in all, this is a good read and an anthology worthy of purchase.

The number of chapters devoted to hard core pornography and scrotal abuse were really out of place, but I understand they’ve been taken out of the current version.

Good work, Diesel.

 

 

 

 

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The Long Arm of the Blog.

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The universe needs order. For instance, gravity is pretty keen and you don’t want to try to get by without it. But when’s the last time you thanked the force that keeps you from stepping out of your car and straight into Low Earth Orbit? Yeah, that’s what I thought, you inconsiderate cretin. Regardless, this post is about Very Serious Rules; namely, the laws of this blog. It’s important, so pay attention.

There may be a test, but there will be no prizes.

My good pal Paul over at Gor[b] recently posted a follow up that highlights the official blogging guidelines for the federally mandated funhouse at the CBC. And yes, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has become such a profitable, relevant and dynamic broadcasting juggernaut that blogging is its biggest concern.

Personally, I’d like to see them first find a solution to showing re-runs of The Red Green Show, but I’ll shut up before I get my taxes audited.

Having been exceptionally busy in The Real Damn World over the past three weeks (result: hung jury!), I have had many blog ideas and my choice of topic for this blog was not an easy one. I’ll waste your time with these other ideas later, but I could not in good conscience go another day with out filling up a blog entry with a half-assed list of cheap jokes.

That and I need a mission statement.

For those of you who aren’t reading this from prison, you know that every business bigger than a wiener wagon has a mission statement professing some high-minded philosophy. Of course, all of these are lies. Every company should be required to end their mission statement with the following:

“Having said all of that, we want to become fat and bloated on money – your money. Now please proceed quietly to the counter and buy a six dollar crappaccino.”

That way, after blathering on about positive community footprints and reducing razor burn for all of the world’s orphans, you’ll know what the score is.

The Reasonable Ego: Our Mission Statement

When I’m not too busy, and my wife lets me, I am committed to bringing you the best humor commentary that I can. When not playing Rhinoceros Man with my daughters, I will labor at this with all of my will, but let’s not go crazy. When I don’t have anything better to do and when my new recliner doesn’t lull me to sleep with her devilish siren-song, you guys are on deck. I’m apparently giving this away for free, but I’m desperately in need of the validation of perfect strangers.

The Reasonable Ego: Our Alternate Mission Statement

I’m afraid o’ da goofa man!

You can apply whichever of those suits you best.

I don’t know about you, but I feel much better having taken care of that business. I’m sure that you, my beloved and pious reader, will now understand more clearly where I (as a lunatic blow hard) am coming from.

…but probably not…

As immaterial as this may seem (or not, since I have no idea to what I am referring) I must now press forward and outline The Very Important Rules of my blog.

1. To present the reading public with the most responsible and fair content possible, I will never cry in public because of my adopted dog. Seriously, this is why the camera has an ‘off’ switch. This is why you hire executive producers; this is why directors first started using the word “cut”.

2. If you promise not to stare at it, I promise not to rub it.

3. Because I have such tremendous respect for my reading audience (the gentler reader will ignore that if I respected you that much, I would write more often), I will never rarely try not to use excessively coarse words. If I must use foul language, in the interest of all parties, I will wear a condom.

5. I will not, nor will I permit others to misuse the terms ‘ointment’ and ‘unguent’.

6. Mittens!

7. When I show you a picture of a scantily-clad woman, I will freely admit that I am pandering.

8. As a strident proponent of the free market, I will continue to give this material away for free, proving that you do indeed get what you pay for.

9. Any list that I compose will have at least nine entries.

10. I promise never to do this again.

I hope that this brief dissertation has made clear that with a little time spent on clarifying our first principles, laying out a set of procedures and establishing a basic model for content that anyone can fill up an eight hundred word blog post which is truly half-assed.

But remember, you must promise not to stare at it.

 

 

 

 

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