Trigger Harpy

I am feeling negative. Stop me feeling negative. It would be nice for my negativity to have an outlet today. An AC outlet, please. Direct current is too direct for me. Doesn't it know? Jokes about one's sexuality are the new sarcasm.

However, there is no outlet for me. I have given away my show today to a pixie from the Northeast. He will leave hair all over my pillow & drink all my soy cheese. Worst of all, he will prove more exciting than my own show, so I'll have to spend the evening drinking toasts to my inadequacy. Then, of course, I'll get arrested for mowing the lawn at 4am. It'll be my 36th birthday all over again.

The goodest news is that I'll be seeing Patton Oswalt on Sunday. He'll make me have funnies. The other goodest news is that I'll be back next week with a special heartfelt Self Help Radio which will touch the hearts of all the children & their friends in the Travis County Monsterplex, now surrounded by the George W Bush Memorial Moat, & this very special Self Help Radio will be all about traffic.

Traffic! You know what it is, but you don't know what causes it. Also, you sometimes see people in traffic who are apparently having sex. What's up with that? How are they having sex in traffic & you couldn't get laid if you owned a yacht & your face cleared up? We won't be talking about that, actually. Nor will we be making fun of people with really black circles under their eyes. They don't deserve it, & they're still stuck in traffic.

Have a good weekend! Listen to KOOP! Don't get incarcerated!

Online Toffee Makers Revolt

I've been taking a lot of online "tests" that ask questions like "Are You A Homosexual In Your Own Pants?" & "Which Character On Law & Odor Are You Most Like?" & "How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up, Coma Boy?" They're a great way to wile away the time if you're afraid of the work you must do to satisfy the demon lords, but I was most excited recently to discover this particular survey, which has since mysteriously disappeared, as if I dreamed it & it never existed on the Interweb ever. I'll reproduce what I remember:

HOW MANY BRAINS CAN YOU USE TO COLONIZE GLIESE 581C?

This test determines whether you, unlike your roommate, have enough brains to colonize an Earth-like planet before supper. All responses will be considered final. You cannot go to the bathroom. While taking this test, humming is encouraged.

1) I know what boys like.
a) Boys like me.
b) Boys, like me.
c) Boys like meets.
d) Boys like meat.

3) Given three sides of a four-sided triangle, you can compute the fifth side:
a) On Star Trek.
b) On Star Wars.
c) In your dreams.
d) In your underwear.

7) Recent science indicates that RC Cola never really existed. That means that:
a) I've never been loved.
b) Sixteen dead blackbirds are all I have to show for my college education.
c) George Orwell was an a-hole.
d) The delicious taste of Flapdoodle is responsible.

8) Two trendy people live in Austin. They automatically:
a) Think anything they're told is good is good.
b) Think anything they're told is good is good.
c) Think anything they're told is good is good.
d) Think anything they're told is good is good.

10) I like mayonnaise...
a) In Springtime.
b) On long drives.
c) With news of dead Playboy centerfolds.
d) On long sandwiches.

12) A carpet is to a lizard as a picture of you in high school is to:
a) Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado
b) A caterpillar
c) Mud
d) Whistling

13) Which of the following is generally known as a gerund?
a) Not this one.
b) Unh-unh.
c) Not even close.
d) Wrong

17) I have never really felt love.
a) Boo fucking hoo.
b) Have a little something to drink, pardner.
c) Take back what you said about Avril Lavigne.
d) Two words: hooker party!

21) Finish this sentence to form the punchline of a famous Milton Berle joke: I can't go to the theatre tonight, sugar tits, as I am sitting on the toilet because of _______
a) Screaming Shits
b) Pulsating Piles
c) Rocketing Rectum Disorder
d) Lonesomeness

24) Which famous Hollywood United States Walt Disney President is best known for drinking his own semen every morning before running the world?
a) Dick Cheney
b) Ronald Reagan (the Gay One)
c) Ronald Reagan (the Straight One)
d) George Bush (either one)

26) This survey is attempting to help you access parts of your mind you didn't think were active because you believe nonsense like astrology & "The Secret" & people who get you high & say dumb shit like "Dude, we only use 90% of our brains - what would it be like if we used ALL ONE HUNDRED PERCENT." When you realize how incredibly much you've wasted your life, what will you most likely do?
a) Go on pretty much the same way.
b) Become your parents.
c) Kill yourself.
d) Kill as many people as possible before you're caught.

29) The number of bumper stickers I have on my car in no way reflects my crippling insecurity.
a) False
b) What?
c) They're funny!
d) I wish I had a car.

34) The number of divorces in the United States keeps rising. Why do you think that is?
a) Just write it down.
b) Seriously, we can't figure it out.
c) It's not one of these answers, though.
d) So this question won't count.

37) To answer this question, you'll need to think logically. Gert has five frisbees. All five frisbees are weighted down with Gert's tears. Gert's girlfriend of seven years, Nan, left him last night for a window washer. Gert wants to throw all five frisbees on the tops of the roofs of the five friends who knew about Nan's treachery but didn't tell Gert. Gert has been drinking for the past seventeen hours. The neighborhood in which Gert's friends live has seventy-four houses. Assuming the wind is light & breezy from the southeast, & the frisbees are flying at only 75% of their potential, & Gert sees one-hundred & forty-eight houses, whose windows will Gert NOT break?
a) The Nelsons
b) That Sex Offender With The White Van
c) Old Mister Woods
d) The Kaiser

40) Life on another planet will most probably be either much less complex or much more complex than human life. We're just saying. It's not like you're going to meet a Klingon or something. It's going to be algae or a being nearly Godlike that thinks you are algae.
a) I hope we meet the algae.
b) I believe Jesus wouldn't do that to me.
c) I'm so alone.
d) Leave me alone.

Postscript: The score I received on the "test" said:

You are ready, willing & able to colonize another planet. You think clearly, you are able to solve complex problems, & you believe it when people tell you things like this. You'll make a great guinea pig when we start shooting people in the general direction of that planet. Contact NASA right away. Go on. Do it.

Guess what! I am going to Gliese 581C! Yay!

Whither Ken's Last Ever Summer Invasion Extravagander 2007?

I first met Ken Lastever at a Hollywood Dachsund Party hosted by Carl Reiner. Both of us had been brought there because of a deep, abiding fear of John Locke. Also, two very different judges - the Honorable Nelson Motherfucker of Garland, Texas, & the Right Justified Honorable Elvis Twinkie of Brooklyn, New York - had sentenced us to Hollywood for youthful indiscretions which the two learned justices hoped we could turn in lucrative careers. We failed, however, & after an abortive attempt to drown Robin Williams in a punch bowl filled with his own ego & unfunniness, we fled, hoping never to see each other again.

Years after that, but before now, I ran into Ken Extravaganza at a Bush Election campaign fundraiser. It was four hundred million dollars a plate, but Ken had had a plate pre-installed in his head, & he was showing it off to the faith-based-inclined. I had been attempting to make a bong out of a Bible when none other than Karl Rove came by & showed me which of the epistles made better rolling papers & the man himself, Laura Bush, came running into the gala event like a cat at a rocking chair fire. Using soothing words & a hand pump, Ken was able to calm the crowd & insert post-hypnotic commands into their brain, which would make them feel something akin to joy when they saw draft dodgers clear brush. This, like many things Ken did, would backfire later, & he testified his regret at the Cindy Sheehan murder trial in Dimension X a few months later.

While I rightly admire Ken for his radios, I am at loggerheads when it comes to his shows. Or maybe it's the other way around. However, he did cure me of the brain hiccups, & though he has not promised to meet me in the People's Court to settle our bills, the assistant pastor at the church by the bus stop to which I am constantly late has let me know that he thinks it would be the organic thing to do to let Ken Radio steal ninety minutes of Self Help Radio this week while I sit in the corner & really, really think about my life, & how much of it I've really enjoyed, & how little of it I have left, especially if I lose my left eye.

So I ceded one week to Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, the Summer 2007 Invasion Tour. & like all those Democrats who voted to give George Bush a war, I will regret it & it will hurt my chances to be president. But only for my Block Association.

Preface To Ken's Last Summer Radio Invasion Extravaganza: Embedding Secret Words In Plaintext

After forty-three years of stand-up, I decided to enjoy the leisure of a more supine comic. It coincided with the tenth anniversary of my third anniversary of forgetting that I was in medical school. Which is one of the main reasons I didn't need to be around this week. It's not just the loneliness of the applause - or the long-winded runner - or the man who has the "cleaning" job of scraping the fake blood off the wall on television crime shows - though all those things did contribute. Sometime in the past. When you still cared.

The years go by, & your blessings are counting on you. You're the main authority on the subject matter of shit that's been happening to you. Unless you are being filmed, in which case there'll be lots of footage. & not just footage. Headage. Breastage. Torsoage. Hipsage. It's the age of the bodyage.

I wish I could tell you more about Ken's Last Ever Radio Extravaganza, but we've only known each other for a short time. I'll meditate on it tonight, & tomorrow, I'll throw all caution to the wind & make up several lies & one important truth. Like I am the president of Venezuela!

My Name, Your Newspaper

It's happened to almost all of us almost once: local notoreity in the local news magazine. (Some of the rest of us appear on local children's shows when we are local children.) (The rest of the some of us appear on a pederast's blog accidentally because we're standing next to the child at the beach where the pederast is secretly taking pictures with his patented "towel-phone" (tm).) It just so happens I've appeared in the local rag holding a mop & pail for my middle school's "Clean Up The Filthy Mouths Of The Unbelievers" event, where we went to local non-Christian churches (of which there weren't a lot, so we ended up outside of Catholic schools) & we did minor custodial work on their front steps, at which places our Youth Minister, Pastor Demon, screamed if there was press present. Interestingly, one of the kindly old friars who worked at one school always gave me a couple of bucks for my work; since it was sinful money, I spent it on porn.

Anyway, this is just to say that ONCE AGAIN, I don't appear at all in the newspapers. Why is that? Certainly not for lack of photogenic qualities. I'd suggest a conspiracy, but I am afraid of the sort of people that attracts. Besides, I know the reason why. I'm too edgy. Too cool. Too mediocre at what I do. Too forgettable. & that's just something they can't get past. They're looking for real newsertainment - all I can give them is enternews. & their figure of speech department is cash poor at the moment.

Speaking of, how long does it take you to eat a muffin? I have discovered that, in a morning where there are lots of muffins, I can normally finish, say, half a muffin in a little under thirty seconds. But give me a whole muffin (after the half muffin), & I'll nibble on the whole muffin for hours. That means that I spent five hours on a muffin & a half today. For fuck's sake! That's newsworthy!

But ring the village bells & call home the village whores, I am announcing that last Friday's show, which looked at popcorn in a way that no other radio show that's dealt with popcorn ever has, is now available for podcasty downloading on my site. It's at the top of the archive page. Go listen. There's a free muffin with every download!*

* If there's someone around to give you a muffin.