The Importance of Being an Assistant

If you have any aspirations at all about working in the entertainment industry you will probably spend some time as an assistant. One of the things you will notice as an assistant in Hollywood is that everything is important. “Shit, Julia they still haven’t delivered that three-hole paper! Get them on the phone and don’t let them hang up until you get a straight answer from those assholes!” or “Where are the good forks! The meeting is in 5 minutes and I’m not going to have it with these shitty plastic forks!” Another thing you might notice is that your definition for what counts as a good joke will alter drastically, “We took Jeff’s precious tricolor highlighter and… get this… hid it! He’s going to be looking for that fucking thing forever *snicker snicker*!”

Also people swear a lot.

Cat out of the Bag

Who let the cat out of the bag? I think the more important question is who put the cat in the bag in the first place. If there is some maniac running around shoving cats into bags I think it would behoove us all to figure out who this guy is. And how did somewhere along the line letting the cat out of the bag come to mean ruining a surprise? Was there any doubt in anyone's mind what was in the bag? A writhing meowing bag. Hmmm... I wonder what's in it. You know who let the cat out of the bag? A hero that's who! Poor cat.

Not to mention the bag is ruined now.

Mathlete Charged With Drunk Driving

Scandal once again rocked the University of Michigan's mathematics department as charges were filed in Ann Arbor's 5th District Court against sophomore Vijaya Patel pertaining to his involvement in an August 15th incident that left his car totaled and his life in disarray.

Details of what happened that night are sketchy, but preliminary accounts indicate that an inebriated Patel drove his 1999 Ford Explorer into a fraternity house that, for reasons unknown, was already burning. Two bystanders were injured in the accident, and the entire evening was ruined for all.

Patel, Michigan's Math team captain, led the squad to a Big 10 title last season and helped them place 4th in the Putnam International Math Contest. Despite their disappointment, few are surprised by this latest display of drunken behavior. "He's a wild man," stated senior team member Reshma Raj. "I remember last year when he found out we placed fourth at Putnam, he just went postal. He punched his agent, trashed his hotel room, and then stormed out. We had to bail him out of jail the next day for solicitation."

Wild conduct and mathematics seem to go hand in hand recently, as incidents continue to escalate in both frequency and intensity. "Back when I solved we had a few social outliers," remarked former math star Gary Blanton. "Occasionally someone would get beaten pretty badly with a compass or a TI-92, but nowadays kids are insane," he said, perhaps referring to last week's arrest of Cumberland University's Ki-Yan Pang after he used a protractor to beat his pregnant girlfriend outside of a Charlotte, NC Sizzler.

"This violence is simply a by-product of the many stresses student-mathletes face," continued Blanton. "Subtraction of a girlfriend or the division of parents entangled in divorce only multiplies the probability of these scenarios taking place. Add in the sudden celebrity status often achieved through collegiate mathletics along with corporate endorsements and other variables and it's a difficult equation for an eighteen to twenty-two year-old virgin to solve. Understand, it's often difficult to separate real life from the violent pleasure evoked while solving third order differential equations. Rough kids like these often go on to be engineers, physicists, and avid supporters of dice-run fantasy card games."

Questions surrounding the totaled Explorer will only add to the University's woes. Earlier this semester the NCAA imposed sanctions after finding that players unlawfully accepted internships with Texas Instruments, Intel, and Kentucky Slide Rule. This is another black eye for a team still under investigation for using QWERTY calculators in competitions, and whose coach was suspended after strangling a player who failed to attend practice problem sessions.

In the end, Blanton feels that some kids are thrust into the limelight too early and should consider prep school before beginning math at the Division I level. As for Patel, the future looks grim. If convicted, he could lose his Angell Scholarship, forcing him to leave college, move to sunny California, and earn $80,000 programming in a Java-based language.

Taco Bell Dads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htasoS8GWbc

Ostensibly this is a candid video of a Dad’s first trip to Taco Bell after six years in prison. The Dad complains that he can’t remember the name of what he has been craving for years. He remembers that it had ‘a soft shell and a hard shell’ (a strange and perhaps impossible duality). He cannot remember the name. In his haste he orders something other than what he craved. Beneath this seemingly banal exterior there lie deep philosophical statements about longing, the nature of justice, and identity, all reminiscent of Kafka’s The Trial.

The Father wants something with a name he cannot remember! The significance of this nameless longing becomes apparent when it is juxtaposed with the fact that throughout the narrative we never learn why the father has been incarcerated. His crime (real or imagined), the source of his yearning, even his name have been meticulously erased. The father is faceless, obscured by shadow, and the glare of the Taco bell lights. One wonders how justice could have been served; everything that ‘Dad’ was has been monstrously erased by the inexorable push of ‘traffic.’

Dad bemoans the fact that he thought he would have been able to ‘Go inside’ and ‘sit and figure out what it is he wanted.’ But there is no time. Dad has no agency; he politely accepts his meal and dives off into the darkness. He asks his son to ‘turn that camera off’ a thinly veiled reference to suicide.

McMom

So I ran across on the McDonald's Website a section where mom's find out all about the health benefits of eating at McDonald's called McDonald's Mom.


Here is an excerpt from a recent mom factory visit.

"I was most surprised to learn that breast meat for the Southern Style Chicken Biscuit and Sandwich are infused with marinade then further mixed in a tumbler with more marinade to ensure a good blend. But what surprised me the most was that Chicken McNuggets are made with grounded breast meat, not 'strips.' This explains their internal texture."

And my reaction was pretty much the same as hers. "Holy Shit! I cannot believe that McNuggets aren't made out of strips." When you eat McNuggets their internal texture is exactly what you would expect from eating strips, but McDonald's has gone and found some kind of chicken miracle to do it with grounded breast meat. I mean who the fuck do McDonald's think they are not going with strips. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they took the road less traveled, but I just want to point out that it was ballsy.

I can't wait to read about the moms next trip to see how McDonald's World Famous Fries® are made. I bet instead of freeze dried potato strips, they use partially dehydrated potato sticks. God I'm excited.

The Earthquake

This month, when I felt the earthquake, for some dumb reason my thought process was as follows: "Hey this is an earthquake. I hope this gets exciting!" Those were my immediate thoughts, even before I got to: "um should I stand in a door or something?"

Then it was over, and for a second I felt disappointed.

What? That doesn't make any sense! Clearly any form of excitement that's earthquake-oriented is a very bad thing! There's never an earthquake that turns out exciting for a happy reason. Like an earthquake that gives everyone a dollar, or explodes skittles from the groud, or the crack itself starts talking in the form of a mouth that says really smart stuff about unsigned bands that you'll like.

Obviously my disappointment was unfounded. If you were disappointed, I suspect yours was too.

The Olympics the Drinking Game

Happy Olympic Weekend everyone. We present to you a drinking game to celebrate the occasion.

The Theatre

“Hey everybody thanks for coming out and supporting live theatre!” Does anyone else find it weird how often they hear that at Comedy shows? Like by listening to dick jokes for an hour and a half you’re somehow donating to charity. Spoiler alert: The comics, i.e. the ones actually doing the live theater, are almost never paid.

Speaking of not being paid, I’m actually doing some live theatre now in the form of a play. It reminds me of when I was performing in Boston, in that no one ever reads the stage directions, or in fact, the play, before rehearsals start. Here’s the way a lot of my rehearsals would go back in Beantown.

Director: Let’s put you in this scene.

Me: Ok but, just so you know, in the next scene I ask “What happened in there?” referring to what happens in here now, in this scene. And they lie to me, and I believe them.

Director: Yeah, but the stage just feels empty right now.

Actress: That was good, but this time don’t hand me the book.

Me: Ok, sure. Just so you know though, the stage directions say ‘he hands her the book’ and your next line is, ‘thanks for giving me this book.’

Actress: Fine, let’s try it your way.

Me: My way? Do you mean the way the play was written? Ok sure let’s try it that way.

Circus Friends

O.K. so here's my idea for a kids book. There will be these cats and they will all be in the circus right? And one of the cats will be the ringleader and another one will be a clown. The clown cat will have a cute cat name like 'Whiskers the Clown.' And their will even be a lion taming cat but instead of a lion it would tame another cat that they would dress like a lion. So there are all these cats in the circus when all of sudden a dog comes and opens up his own circus next door. It would be just like the cat circus except with dogs. Dog ringleader and instead of 'Whiskers the Clown' there would be 'Wags the Clown.' At first they wouldn't get along but then they would at the end cause they would have learned to get along and that inside each other they are basically the same. Then they would have one big circus. What do you think? Fucking genius right? It's like the Clifford the Big Red Dog meets the circus but with cats and he's smaller. Plus it will have these awesome morals. I already started to do the pictures.

The End of Comic Book Movies

Batman, Iron Man, Hulk, Wanted....with so many of this summer’s movies being based on comic books, the film industry now appears to be running out of comic books to borrow from and is forced to turn to other types recreational of print. Here’s a preview of next summer’s top films:


Michael Bay’s: Let’s Get Ready To Color
Massive amounts of coloring-action here. Bay spent over 25 million dollars on sea green, and brick red alone! Nick Nolte stars as a a cop in Crayola Town who can’t stay on the same page with his department. When the mob shreds his partner in a crayon sharpener, he has to go “outside the lines.”

The Passion of the CrossWord
Jesus Is beaten up like...a lot. Then they give him a crossword puzzle that kills him. Then he comes back to life and solves it. God wins! Suck it heathens!

Sense and Sudoku
Clint Eastwood directs this heartwarming tale as Robert Redford and Maryl Streep, both aging an lamenting their loss of mathematical and cognitive abilities, form a bond over sudokus gone by. Is it love or a little bit of dementia that will ultimately teach them that one plus one equals one?

Word Search for Atlantis
In this National Treasure spin off, Nicholas Cage discovers an ancient 60 foot tall box of Honey Nut Cheerios who’s word search yields the secret location to Atlantis. Can he get to the bottom of this mystery, solve the puzzle, and find the prize inside?

Would you Rather

So I saw a board game today that was based on the idea that asking people ‘would you rather’ questions is fun. I can get behind that. Nothing entertains like hypotheticals, but the ones they showed on the box all ran along the lines of ‘Would you rather fart during a job interview or on a first date?’ or ‘Would you rather do something homosexual or kill yourself?’ Not really the stuff of legends. I decided to provide you with some of my own to help spice up your next party.

Would you rather catch your father masturbating to a picture of you or have your mother catch your significant other pooping on your face?

Would you rather blind a deaf person or cut off a one armed man’s remaining arm?

Would you rather tell your significant other that you have herpes or tell your boss that you will murder his family if he ever fires you?

Would you rather have a side salad or a cup of soup?

Would you rather know what day you’re going to die or what your best haircut would be?

Make sure to tell us what your answer would be.

The Ed McMahon Effect

When you're up late and wistful, nothing makes things worse than seeing commercials with Ed McMahon selling those bathroom remodels that make it so old people so that they don't fall and break their hips. Aging is sad because when you're seventy, you mostly sit sleepless on your couch at 3AM and dream about being able to afford a bathtub that won't break your hip.

Boba!

DRINK THIS!

In case you don’t know what boba (or ‘bubble tea’ for the round eyes) is, it’s a tea or fruit drink with tapioca balls in it. It’s super num!

I love boba, but I have to wonder who the first person was to say, “Hey this smoothie is great, but you know what would make it even better? If it had something black in it that you had to struggle to suck up through a straw.”*

The other Day I was talking on the phone and my girlfriend mouthed the words “do you want? ...” and then made this ‘sucking gesture’ and bobbed her head up and down. I hurriedly hung up the phone and was all exited, then I found out she meant ‘Do you want to get some Boba?’ I wasn’t even mad! We were going to go get Boba!

How can you not like boba? It’s a drink with Puddin’ in it!

*Translated from Taiwanese