May 2013
A guy walks in. . .
Posted on May 31, 2013 | Leave a comment
. . .so I ask how he’s doing. He says he’s fine, the chemo makes him tired but it’s not too bad.
“How do I look?” He asks.
“Great.” I say not too far off the scale.
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“Hell no!” I cry. “You think I would have passed up the opportunity to tell you you look like shit? Hell no. I’ve been waiting for years for that opportunity.”
Leave a comment
Posted in Comedy
Tagged bound and gags, Comedy, funny, humor
Strap In
Posted on May 22, 2013 | 3 comments
This one could get ugly.
To those writers who believe in the perfection of their words, the loftiness of their craft, the calling that is theirs, please, may I have a moment of your valuable time?
Thank you.
Go fuck yourself.
Wait, that’s too on the point. Let me back up a smidgen, if you’ll allow.
Let me start by saying I have the utmost respect for anyone who tries to cobble together a coherent line or two; fusses over syntax; ponders a new paragraph. Many friends write in many different disciplines. I do so look forward to their latest creations and the glee it brings them. I can sit for hours listening to them wax poetic, if you’ll pardon the hackneyed cliche, over their reason for a poignant plot choice. I have commiserated over cups of disconsolation while they’ve mourned their latest rejection notice.
It’s not a life for the thin-skinned.
Let’s try an analogy, shall we? I truly enjoy them analogies. The late, great Mickey Mantle (so as not to get bogged down in discussion, we can all agree he was great and is currently, and for the foreseeable future, late) was enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY with a batting average of .298. That means he failed seven out of ten times when he attempted to ply his trade.
Then what makes you think every word, or even every third word, you write is a fucking gem? It’s not. It’s not for lack of trying, The Mick tried every time (even when he went up there drunk), but it’s the law of averages. Sometimes you’re going to get a vicious curve that drops off the plate and makes you look like a total doofus.
It’s the same with writing. Sometimes you’re going to write a line that moves your soul to a better place. Your soul. To other souls? You cracked an egg open on the paper, locked it in your car, let it sit in the parking lot of the biggest mall in Arizona in August guarded by a lactose intolerant dachshund with dysentery.
And do you know who’s right?
That’s right!
Both of you. It’s all due to perspective. That’s why there are so many books out there. You like that one, I like this one, and that idiot over there, who we both find plebeian, just loves that hack. See? There’s no accounting for taste.
The bottom line is no one is wrong. Writing is all about communicating. Getting a point across. Did you notice I didn’t say your point. Although it is your point, to a point, it’s conveyed through a character and their voice.
So you’ve got to make that point feel alive in that moment for that character. Sometimes you’ve got to finesse it. Sometimes it flows. Other times you may have to leave your comfort zone. A phrase that’s perfect for one character changes drastically from the lips of another.
” Yippee ki yay, motherfucker.” Sounds perfect in the voice of John McClane. A rallying cry. But in Hans Gruber’s mouth it’s a garbled and gnarled joke. Yet they both work for that character in that moment.
And that’s why you self-absorbed dweebs had better stop thinking every word that slips out of your holding tank is sacred. If they were there would be no positions in the world such as proofreader or editor.
Words are tools. Nothing more. Words are used to create something where there is a need. A shopping list, a poem about a dusty road, The Preamble to the United States Constitution. And they all started with a single word: Eggs, Rustic, We. And they are all mere tools to communicate a specific thought: Eating, Driving, Liberty.
But none of those things are perfect. What’s this ‘soy milk’? To quote Lewis Black, there’s no such thing as soy milk ’cause there’s no soy titty. Did he actually try to rhyme ‘rustic’ with ‘busted’? And the granddaddy of all imperfecting, ah, imperfection, ‘. . .in order to form a more perfect union. . .’ It’s sounds like a schoolyard taunt.
“Nah, nah, nah nah, nah. I’m more perfect than youoou!”
So even in something that gets the point across, perfection is a difficult and slippery slope. So use the tools you have or those you can borrow from a neighbors dictionary. But don’t get your panties in a bunch because people don’t ‘get it’ because if they don’t ‘get it’ the fault is plainly ‘yours.’ In your pursuit of more perfection you wandered off Get The Fucking Point Across Avenue.
So dig in and get ‘r done. Don’t try to explain why someone is wrong about your work because it’s futile. If you put a door in my house and it doesn’t close properly you can give me all kindsa reasons it should but if it doesn’t fucking close you. . .fucked. . .up. Don’t try to distract me with the louver windows which work just fine.
A slight breeze blows the door open so who needs a fucking window?
Words are tools, like a hammer or ladle. Don’t tell me you have be so fustian because words piss diamond and shit gold ingots because that’s bullshit. They want to be used and abused. They want to get a happy thought across just as well as a vile.
And they don’t care who uses them. Words are the whores of the tool shed. A hammer cares if it’s used to bash in someone’s skull because it’s going to live out the rest of it’s days in the police evidence locker. But words? Nig. . .I think we’ll save that one for another time.
I have friends who write lovely and touching prose. Some of them try to persuade me to come to the bright side and ply my trade in a bed of roses. I have plenty of thorns in my side right now, thank you very much.
I like using words to hammer someone until their skin sags in horror. It’s in my wheelhouse. I’m the Mickey Mantle of telling you to go fuck yourself. Which means three out of ten of my quips find purchase in the filthiest of soil.
I like ladling gallons of spew down the gaping maw of those who find insipidness in my method of communication. If you give me nothing else, you’re very seldom unsure of what I am trying to communicate. Although I don’t take pleasure in it, I’m not bothered when the blood drains from someone’s face when I use a word they find offensive.
What ever happened to ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’? Have we devolved so far it’s become ‘sticks and stones can break my bones but words can leave invisible scars that will stay with me for life and be the cause of all my future failures and woes’?
Don’t get me wrong, even I can find words offensive. But, although I’ve tried, I just can’t seem to get anyone to stop using that motherfucking word? You know what that word is?
Cancer.
So please, all I’m saying is words aren’t special and you don’t have magical powers because you can type them. Feel free to use them. Shit, you can even revel using them. I sure as hell love writing Heineken on the shopping list.
But don’t coddle them. Let ‘em out to communicate. Don’t try to impress with your inspissate that and belomancy this until there’s grandiloquism up the wazoo. Get the words out, get the thought out and stop being a poopiehead.
If you disagree, if you feel every word which floats from that tar pit brain of yours is a gem to be savored and honored, you are delusional and little more than a lusus naturae.
Oh yeah, and go fuck yourself.
This Time It’s Differences
Posted on May 8, 2013 | 2 comments
Would you believe it! I just remembered what I wanted to talk about last time. You remember, that important subject. You remember, don’t you? The differences between man and woman? That’s right! You remember. Yes, I did go a little off topic last time but this time, trust me, eye of the liger. I’ll be sticking to this topic like a booger on a beggars finger.
The main difference between man and woman is tasks. That’s it. For the most part the rest of it is the same. I know women who laugh at the most disgusting things and men who cringe at the mere hint of a testicle smashing joke. I know men with stellar fashion sense and women who are mechanics.
It’s when we go from A to B is where the difference is most visible. When a man needs to go from A to B he starts at A and goes to B as swiftly as possible. When a woman has a task that needs to go from A to B she begins at A then goes to A1 where she thinks about B’s feelings then to A2 where she wonders if she is dressed properly for B then to A3 where she worries about the environmental impact of traveling from A to B then and then and then. It can go on endlessly and it may never come to a satisfactory conclusion.
I can best prove this by going back in time. Back to a time when I (sometimes) wore a tie to work. It was in a big building with many different companies. The weird thing about working in a building is you run into the same people every day. You don’t speak to them, maybe you’ll nod, but they seem like the usual background players in the sitcom of your life.
The day after I broke up with is girl I went to work bummed. No, that’s not true. I was relieved. I would have broken it off a few months before but it was wedding and communion and bat mitzvah season. Every weekend during that time there was something. I’d already committed to it all so was just waiting until that last damn wedding to break it off.
See? I am a nice guy.
That day I saw this woman I’d see every day. We’d had some pleasant conversations over the time. She was funny and smart and cute. We’re in the elevator doing the small talk thing when it dawns on me that I can ask her out. She’s about to exit the elevator when I say,
“Hey, you leave at five, right?” She nods. “If you can, don’t leave without seeing me, okay?” She said she’d try and we go our separate ways.
Now here is when the differences between men and women clearly erupt. I’m telling you this as a public service. The next time the gender you are not does these things you can now relax in the knowledge that it’s just them doing what comes naturally and there’s nothing you (or they) can do about it. They’re not doing it to piss you off. They’re not doing it ‘to’ you. They just are and you can’t change it. It’d be like trying to teach a manatee to juggle. Sure, it’d be fun but, in the end, you’d be frustrated and the manatee would develop a searing sense of low self-esteem.
Later she told me about my asking her out and how she processed it. She said she spent the day thinking about it. She convinced herself that I was, indeed, asking her out. Then, just as surely, that I wasn’t. Then she figured I was just seeing if she wanted to get an after work drink. Nothing weird about that. Most people in the office hit one of the bars to kill time before getting the train. Then she figured I was looking for a new job so was just going to ask her if there were any openings. She went as far as going to human resources to get a job listing sheet. All day long these scenarios flopped back and forth in her head. She said she got next to nothing done all day because of the distractions.
As five drew near that’s when she kicked it into high gear. She made sure her clothes were presentable. Spray a little eau de stink nice on her. Put on a fresh face. One last check to make sure she’s ready. Then another one just to be sure. One last go round in her head. Then she was ready. Unsure but sort of ready.
She was standing near the front door when I got off the elevator I saw her and thought,
“Oh yeah. I’d forgotten I’d asked her to meet me.”
And that is the exact and only difference between men and woman.
Once he puts the ball in motion he doesn’t think about it until it’s back on his side of the court. Because he knows once the ball is in flight it’s out of his control.
Whereas a woman believes once the ball is in play she can change it’s course through will or desire. And the whole time the ball is in the air she feels that with one more adjustment she can bend it to her will.
I’m not saying men are better or even less thoughtful or women care more about things. It’s just the way of the wiring. And, let me tell you guys, you’re lucky it goes that way. Because if women didn’t think it through and take so much time to make a decision, if they went straight from A to B, not one woman in the world would say yes to any of your stupid invitations.
Think about it, men. Do you know what a leap of faith it is to say yes to some random guy, who probably has a visible stain she’s seen but has decided to ignore, who walks up and asks her out? And do you think you’re the first? Not even today, Sport. So what’s she’s done is distill years of ham-handed pick-up lines into an intricate flow chart that she works out to see if you fall into the yes or no category.
So, men, relax when your woman takes forever to make up her mind. After all, she chose you, right? So give her all the time she needs. Maybe next time she’ll make the right decision.
