Now I have two readers!/Clay Aiken/My economic bailout plan

So, on Monday I had one reader. By Tuesday I had two readers. I've done some conservative readership estimates based on the current trends and I think I can predict with some degree of confidence that I'll have 549,755,813,888 readers by Halloween. I'm excited because that's 100x the number of people currently living on the earth, so, you know, I'll be pretty popular. I think it might behoove me at that point to get some google ads.

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Clay Aiken is gay! And... the world shrugs. I personally think the bigger news is that Clay Aiken thought that there were people who didn't know that he was gay. Seriously, you tell me which is the more surprising headline:

1. Clay Aiken gay.

2. Clay Aiken hardcore heterosexual sex tape found! Sex-crazed maniac Aiken the new Charlie Sheen says Hollywood madam who supplied Aiken with his never-ending supply of barely-legal girls!

Yeah, I thought so.

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If you've been reading my other posts, you're aware that I've been keeping a wary eye on Wall Street for the last few weeks. See, for whatever reason, I've been worried since i was a kid that there might one day be another Great Depression (my other worries as a kid: nuclear war, the dying of our sun, and/or a highly contagious fast spreading super-virus killing everyone -- incidentally, I was not a very happy kid). As the world economy teeters and our leaders try to decide the best course of action by letting a monkey point randomly at 1930s economics textbook, I find myself as worried as I've ever been. For all my joking about it, I'm legitimately afraid of what the next few years might bring.

It's starting to get ridiculous. I've got a life to lead; it's stupid for me to worry about decisions that I can't control and whose impact on my daily life is hard to parse even with an economics degree. It's like worrying what Scarlett Johansen will think of my penis.

This, then, is how I plan to cope with my worry: I'm going to stop paying attention to it.

That's right, I'm taking an "ignorance is bliss" policy regarding all the world's problems. I figure, shit, if it works for our president, it's good enough for me.

From now on, no more stock ticker, no more CNBC, no more Drudge report. Further, you won't be getting any more updates from me via this blog about our impending economic disaster. So far as my brain is concerned, the only thing in this world is talking about is Clay Aiken's sexuality.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find me a fiddle to play.

To Megan, quite possibly my only reader

Just got your comment on my God is Pro-life? post and figured I'd write you a thank you. Originally, I was going to reply to just the comment on that particular post, but I figured that would be kind of like pulling someone aside to tell them a secret in a giant, empty auditorium. It's not like anyone else is listening, right?

Thanks much for the encouragement. I've been trying to be semi-regular in updating this thing and it's nice to know that there's at least one person out there reading this stuff. For a while writing for it felt like masturbation in the truest, saddest sense of the word.

So, for you, Megan, quite possibly my only reader, I will continue this half-dead dog of a blog!

"God is Pro-Life"

I've been seeing a lot of this slogan lately. The anti-abortion crowd seems to think that just because they're more religious than the average pro-choicer, God is on their side in the abortion debate.

I'm not a religious person, so I can't claim to have any special insight into the mind of God. Just judging from His track record, however, I don't think you can say that God is pro-life. In fact, I think you'd have to say that God is pro-death.

Think about it: every living thing on this planet will soon die. In order for we humans to even live the brief time that we _do_ get on this planet, we have to engage in at least a little killing (even vegetarians need pesticide!) And, finally, if you believe George Bush Jr., the war in Iraq was God's idea in the first place.

No, God likes death. A lot of it.

Even if you make the argument that God is also responsible for life (you know, by creating it, if you're so inclined to believe that sort of thing), you can only convince me that God is neutral on the subject of life and death. If He was so in favor of keeping things alive, He never would have invented arsenic or lightening or forest fires or cancer or winchester rifles or turbulence or any other way in which people die.

So, might I humbly suggest anti-abortionists to cut it out with the whole God thing? I mean, until He communicates to me directly (through an image on a piece of toast) precisely what His feelings are with regards to abortion, I can't take your opinions on the subject seriously.

Live from the dungeons below Boston

Sometimes I'm not sure the how and the why of where I wind up in stand-up comedy.

My schedule this week looks like this:

Monday: Wooster, OH
Tuesday: Greensburg, PA (morning); Edinboro, PA (evening)
Wednesday: Sharon, PA (morning); Boston, MA (evening)
Thursday: Altoona, PA
Friday: Erie, PA

Anything look out of place?

Yeah, so, this is what happened: my agent got me into the Boston comedy festival. I agreed to it because, hey, I've always wanted to be in the Boston Comedy festival and it's a good credit feather to put in your hat. It screwed up my fairly beautiful routing, but I'm a mountain man, so I toughed it out.

Now it's after my showcase and I'm at the airport. Why? Because I have a 6 AM flight, which would necessitate a 4:30 AM arrival at the airport. That means that if I were to get a room at 10 PM, I'd be paying $200 for what amounts to 6 hours of sleep (assuming that I fall asleep instantly upon arrival in the room). I'm not paying $35 an hour for anything that doesn't end in a handjob. So, douchebag (me) decided the best course of action would be to stay in the airport for 8 hours and just "hang out." I'm currently seated across from the US Air baggage claim in Terminal B wondering if now would be a good time to start a crystal meth addiction.

I had a good time in Boston and met a lot of good guys. I plan to come back next year... unless of course, Wall Street keeps sliding towards oblivion. If things keep going in _that_ direction, I and the rest of the comics at tonight's show will be scavenging the wilderness for carrion meat. If the internet's infrastructure isn't pulled from the ground during the coming food riots, please stop by this blog next year and see how everything turned out.

The Express/AIG

I've been seeing commercials for "The Express" about Ernie Davis. It looks okay, I guess, but is anyone else having period-piece-sports-movies-with-heavy-racial-overtones burnout? I mean, I'm _against_ the Confederate Flag, _for_ black athletes getting along with white athletes, and very much in favor of kickass 60s soundtracks. This movie should be right up my alley, but I just can't help feeling like I've seen this movie a thousand times before.

UPDATE:

The world financial markets did _not_ crash completely last night, which means that the world did _not_ collapse into a post-apocalyptic doomsday scenario. This is good news for me as I spent the night in Ohio and would not have liked to kicked off Armageddon there. You want to be home for that kind of thing.

I'm not sure what to think about the AIG bailout. Is it good? Is it just a stop-gap? I'm beginning to get the feeling that the people at the Fed don't know either. I think they've never seen anything like this market and are approaching it like I used to approach text adventures back in the 80s... random guesses. If you see Bernanke trying to spray the CEO of AIG with Grue repellant, head for ze hills.

Hopefully things will get better from here. If not, I suggest you pick up Cormack McCarthy's _The Road_. Not for entertainment purposes, but for a practical guide in how to get along in the years to come.

Apples anyone?

Just practicing for the inevitable. "Apples! Get your apples here! Tasty tasty apples."

You know how annoyed I am that I spent a night following a good show in Wooster reading thousands of words about AIG, liquidity and something called "counterparties"? Apparently the entire financial world is going straight down to shitsville and there are approximately four people in the entire world that even know why.

That's the disturbing thing about this: that people are going to lose their homes and have their lives ruined for reasons that no person on the planet can actually articulate. At least on 12/07/41 and 09/11/01 there was an enemy we could point at. This crisis might affect the day to day lives of the average American just as much as 9/11 did, but for mysterious voodoo economic reasons.

I mean, if you're gonna punch me, punch me. Don't ruin my life with financial magic.

I wrote earlier (like months earlier, but I reread the whole blog today, so it feels fresh to me) that having a kid makes you more connected to the universe and thus more scared about its outcome. God is that true. I feel it today. I was born with the idea that one day I could grow up to be anything I wanted (like professional dick joke teller or Extra pop culture correspondent), but will I be able to tell my son the same thing?

It's starting to look less likely, huh?

That's why I'm rooting for Obama this year. The Republicans dismiss him as a Hope Peddler and nothing more. Well, you know what? That's all I want right now.

Jay Black: Extra Pop Culture Commentator

So, today I started side-career #41 and had my first ever pop culture comment on Extra television. I haven't seen myself on TV yet because in Cleveland (where I'm kinda-sorta at tonight), Extra doesn't air until the wee hours of the morning.

Some highlights of the experience so far:

1. Setting up a full blown digital camera in my hotel room. Because my wife destroyed our MacBook with nothing more than a spilled glass of water (*sigh*), I was forced to film the piece using a tripod, mini-DV camera, and computer. After I did the piece, I looked at the set-up, with the camera pointed at the bed, and I realized that it looked like I had filmed a snuff film in my hotel room. I'm glad housekeeping didn't walk in by accident and start demanding where the dead hitchhiker was.

2. I got to talk to Mario Lopez (Slater) because he was hosting the segment. Do you know what this means? It means that I've gotten to appear on TV with _both_ Slater and Screech. I'm 1/3rd of the way to completing Saved by the Bell bingo.

3. With my ascension into the ranks of television pop-culture commentators, I've officially tipped the US Economy to being almost entirely run by a) the creation of pop culture and b) the commenting on said pop culture. You were wondering what followed the Information Economy? The Pop Culture Commentary Economy, that's what.

4. I got to work with my good friend, Producer Steve Sunshine. He's a great guy and I hope to do a million more of these things for him. It was a lot of fun.

If Extra hasn't aired in your neck of the woods yet and, for some strange reason you decided to check a blog that hasn't been updated in three months today, I urge you to go and watch the episode. If not, let's hope there'll be more of these for me to write about.

My least favorite people on earth...

Okay, drumroll....

My least favorite people on earth are...

(And remember, this includes an earth with George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and the producers of "Farmer Wants a Wife")

... the subscribers to The Onion's "Personals" section.

I don't read personals as I'm married and am therefore dead inside, but from what I understand about them, they're usually reserved as a last resort for sad people desperately looking for other sad people to share their holiday depressions with. I'm fine with that. Seriously, in this world, connect with people however you can.

The Onion personals are not regular personals though. Because I read The Onion I get a daily glimpse into the kind of people who are looking for love via headshots and pithy paragraphs. Here's why I hate them:

1. They're all basically attractive people. I've yet to see one fat Onion personal, one ugly Onion personal, or one pock-marked Onion personal. Why do these attractive people need to advertise for love on the internet? It doesn't make any kind of sense to me.

2. They're all hipster-ish. Approximately 98% of the people featured in the Onion personals are wearing Buddy Holly glasses. this shatters the hipster douchebag scale established at the Hipster Summit (held back stage at a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah concert in 2007).

3. They're all desperate to prove how cool they are. One of my least favorite things is the "five things I can't live without" phenomenon, where the text accompanying the headshot is just a list of hipster douchebag essentials. I guess this is a quick way to show others insight into your alternative (yet affluent) lifestyle. Example: Five things I can't live without: The latest album by [insert obscure yet recognizable band name here], My favorite copy of Camus' The Stranger, my cat Angry Sam, my lucky fedora, and a good bottle of [insert little-known brand of Japanese soda here].

Why do these people need the power of the internet to find love? Can't they just walk into the alternative bar in whatever city they're living in and find their perfect someone to share an overpriced loft with? Why am I subjected to their artistic black and white headshots every goddamn day?

So, you know, let's do something about this. And by "do something", I mean a lazy blog entry. There, I've done MY part.

Cleveland, the environment, Kurt Vonnegut, Fannie Mae, Screenplay

So it goes.

I reread The Avclub's very excellent article entitled "15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else" today. Vonnegut was the first person that made me realize that sad-eyed and cynical secular humanism wasn't something that I invented when I was 15. Apparently, he had been doing it a lot longer than I had.

"So it goes" has probably been the title of about fifteen billion livejournal posts from emo kids who "found" _Slaughterhouse Five_, so I kind of hesitate to make too much of it now. That said, it really helped to get me through the day. The mounting evidence that we might be facing the worst economic collapse of my lifetime coupled with ongoing reports that everything man has ever made is both toxic and creating greenhouse gases really got me down.

I've always been the type to worry about these things. I remember in '87 when the stock market went kablooey, I went to school the next day with a stomach ache. I couldn't understand why all the other kids weren't upset. Didn't they realize that we were all about to be turned into chimney sweeps and pickpockets by nefarious cockney ne'er-do-wells? I mean, when the economy collapses, that sort of thing happens.

Now that I have a son, the worrying is worse. My connection with the universe - always pretty tenuous - was increased against my will when he was born. I now have to not only think about myself, I gotta find a way to feed and clothe that little bastard.

It's a common complaint parents make, but god, I had no idea how powerful the emotions were.

Every day, I read more and more reports about how everything is spiraling out of control: the economy, the environment, the war in Iraq. I try to imagine what my son's life will be like. If things are as bad as the people posting on Digg and the Drudge Report make them out to be, he won't even have apples to sell when the next depression hits. If I had a nickel for every time I've shuddered at the thought at where we're headed, I might be able to buy a gallon of gas.

So, rereading Vonnegut's phrase came at a very necessary time for me. So it goes. There's nothing I can do about it, and the greatest achievement I can hope for as a human is to just accept things. I won't lie to you, I'm still scared to death, but thinking about that phrase - even saying out loud, like a prayer - helps just a little bit.

It's cheaper than drugs, I guess.

I'm in Cleveland right now working with D.L. Hughley. He's a great guy, a class act, and a hell of a comedian. It's nice working with a celebrity who doesn't act like an asshole. It's not a common thing.

(And, as a super-awesome side note, his bodyguard/manager/brother-in-law was Jaxx in the Mortal Kombat games. Yes, you read that right, I got to hang out with Jaxx this weekend. Comedy might be a scary game and I might never make it in this business, but shit, I got to meet Jaxx. That never would have happened if I was teaching still.)

The second draft of the screenplay is out and being read by the fine folks at Mandalay. Let's hope they love it as much as Brian and I do. It'll make next week a lot nicer if they do.

All right kids. I'm off to sleep.

Not Really Producing

Well, that's not exactly true -- I've been producing tons. Between my stand-up, my screenplays and teleplays, and my blogs for TV Squad, in the last three months I've written more that has actually been read by real, actual people, than at any other comparable three month span of my entire existence.

Here's the problem: It's not as much as it should be. I've got more free time than anyone this side of a Hilton sister. I always imagined that when I was finally set free from the day-job shackles that my response would be to fill both house and hotel room with eight hours a day, six days a week of gentle click-clackings from my keyboard. It's been close to a year now; I should have a novel or two finished. I should have enough blog posts to shut shut down the single ISDN line that all of China shares. I should have five more screenplays that my agent can't sell. I should have 30 more minutes of stand-up that my old friends don't laugh at (but that strangers, strangely, do).

But I haven't done it. I've filled the time with digg.com, endless replays of movies that I've seen more times in my life than I have my cousins, and enough masturbation (both mental and physical) to piss off even the hard-to-piss-off gods (like Budha).

I just got back from a gig. I've spent the last three hours in my hotel room doing the following: one poop (enormous and well deserved), one hour watching Sportscenter (and on a Wednesday during football season no less -- we're talking 20 minutes of _hockey_ highlights), and one hour and forty five minutes watching the last one hour and forty five minutes of Fight Club (while I read about Fight Club on wikipedia).

I am officially useless. If I even wrote one page an hour, I could be three pages closer to finishing the screenplay I promised my partner I'd have done by the 17th. If I had written 150 words an hour, I'd have another post for TV Squad finished and some extra spending loot in my pocket. If I had worked on my act, I'd by icrementally funnier for the drunks and punks I'll be performing for this weekend.

What do I have to show for it? Nothing at all. I mean, other than a sexual confusion over my feelings for Brad Pitt's torso.

So, I decided to creep over here to the one semi-public piece of writing that I have that truly doesn't matter. I mean, it matters if you're reading it right now, but my feeling is that no one is reading this, so, you know, it doesn't matter.

It's good. It's gotten the ball rolling. It's allowed me to entertain the idea of sleeping without the usual two doses of self-loathing that I've been bringing with me lately to bed time.

Maybe I'll get off my ass now and write something worth reading.

Observations from Columbus, OH

Well, I'm in Columbus! The Paris of Ohio! The city of (a) light!

I had a gig last night in a place called Tiffin, OH. Tiffin is between Columbus and Toledo, yet hasn't been able to absorb any of the high culture that both of those cities are known for.

That being said, it's a nice little town and the gig was fun. Since I'm pressed for time before my flight leaves, I wanted to drop just a few quick observations about life in Ohio:

1) I'm seated next to a Wendy's. The Wendy's has a very cheap cardboard cut-out of a guy with a Wendy's wig on (if you've seen the relatively obtuse commercials that Wendy's has been running of late, you know what I'm talking about). There's a hole where the guy's face is supposed to be, with the idea that people can put their own head through the hole and become a part of Wendy's marketing scheme. I scoffed when I saw it, being under the impression that even retarded mutants wouldn't be so irony free that they'd actually put their head through the hole.

Welcome to Columbus! At least three different couples have laughed and taken pictures of themselves with their heads in the hole in the last hour. Seriously. The end is nigh. Sell your stock and head to the Bunny Ranch.

2) Almost all of the restaurants and stores at the Columbus airport are outside the security checkpoint. If you want to experience American Mall culture, you have to do it before you get screened by the (ahem) qualified and highly trained TSA agents. After the checkpoint? It's like a Turkish airport.

Why is this? I suppose the terminal was built pre-9/11, but guys, it's been six years. Can we either move the checkpoint up or put a goddamn store or two after it?

3) We're still on orange alert. That's high, for those of you keeping score at home. It's been this way for as long as I remember. Eurasia is at war with Oceania. It's always been that way, right?

Okay, that's it. Gotta catch a jet plane.

Red ring of death or just red ring?

Sometime in the mid-eighties every news report in America seemed to carry something about Lyme's disease. Apparently if you caught it your brain could melt or some such (as I write this, it occurs to me that I have absolutely no idea what happens to you if you catch Lyme's disease. Is it bad? Do people die from it? Perhaps nothing happens at all except that your blood all of a sudden takes on a delightful and refreshing citrus flavor.)

All of the reports said to look for the same thing: a red dot with a red circle around it. "Like a bullseye" the mid-80s TV reporter would say with gravitas.

I never worried about Lyme's disease because like any sane person who grew up in the era of air conditioning and cable, I never went outside. Like Ronald Reagan thought that AIDS was punishment for the sinful lives that gay people led, I too felt that any idiot that spent enough time outdoors that he had to worry about ticks got exactly what he deserved.

Now, thouogh, I finally understand how those people must have felt!

See, I have an XBOX360 and today I saw a red dot surrounded by a red ring. A bullseye that might as well have been pasted over my heart.

I turned off the machine and turned it back on and it booted up just fine, but now the idea is planted in my head: this XBOX360 mght be on the verge of death. I just spent 3 weeks in May without an XBOX360 because of an incurable red ring and... well, I just don't think I could go through that again.

It would break my heart. Like a disease. Like a Lyme's disease.

I'll keep you posted on whether or not the 360 lives or dies. I'm going away to Pittsburgh for a few days and maybe the time away will cool the machine down so much that any hint of a problem will simply disappear.

I don't have high hopes.

Gibbstown -- The place comedy went to die

I'm going to preface this by saying that I think the people in Gibbstown are good people. I mean that -- they all shook my hand before and after the show and I think none of them would intentionally stab a newborn.

That being said -- holy shit! If there's a center of fun in the universe, Gibbstown is at the point furthest from it.

Here's what I don't get: it wasn't a free show. The people who were there tonight had to pay a fair bit for their tickets. Many of them, I imagine, had to plan to be there (meaning they had to get babysisters or at least put food in their children's cages). So why would they choose to make the show unwatchable by getting so drunk that they wouldn't have paid attention to me if I was on fire? Why would they all talk on their cellphones constantly? Why would they shout and scream at each other during the show?

This would be like renting a movie, then drinking yourself into a stupor in your kitchen, only sort've half listening to it in the other room.

Why would you do that? Why not just set fire to your money? At least that way, I don't have to come to your town and have to go through the motions of putting on a show!

I wondered to myself on the way home if I'm getting too much of an ego. In the old days, I would've blamed the poor quality of the show on myself. I would have taken a sad bath and recommitted myself to becoming a better comedian and looked forward to being invited back to Gibbstown so's I could show 'em how good I really am.

Now, though? I was angry at them for wasting my time. Maybe I need the humility.

I don't think I'd be so mad if it wasn't for the following reasons:

1) I would have had more sleep this week if I was in a Turkish prison.

2) I'm still getting minor headaches and am having problems concentrating. Because my MRI says I don't have a tumor, I'm convinced now that I've given myself some kind of brain damage brought on by continued use of Simply Sleep (tm).

3) I have an audition tomorrow that's kind of a big deal. The last thing I needed was a thorough soaking of my ego in some small-town acid.

4) When I came home, my wife and brother-in-law were watching America's Funniest Home Videos and wouldn't change the channel (because it was the finals).

So, anyway, that's where I am right now. If I were a teenager, I'd try to figure out how to give this blog a mood rating. Somewhere between "grumpy" and "suicidal". Because I'm an adult (and a father!), I think my response will be to watch Sportscenter... angrily.

What it's like to be a father (week one)

Remember when you were little and you'd get sick? The days were okay -- you'd eat toast with jelly and watch the Price is Right. The nights, though, the nights were terrible. Lonely, wheezing -- just you and your humidifier.

That's what fatherhood is like for me so far. The days are great. Keane swaddles up and gets so cute that sometimes I hear God Himself up in heaven going, "Holy shit, that kid is cute!"

But at night? I catnap while keeping one ear on radar duty, every little fuss the potential harbinger of screams. My TiVo is straining to keep up with the crap television I require to get through the nights, but even it eventually runs out of Mythbusters or X Play.

It's not a ringing endorsement, I know, but it's hard to write about the flood of emotions you drown in after becoming a father without sounding like you're writing another 200 pages of Mitch Albom style claptrap. I thought I'd give you the physicality of the experience, you know, just to keep you coming back for more!

(Speaking of which, is anyone reading this blog? I'm not publicizing it except as a link from my website and I don't expect it to grow but slowly. I'm just curious: if you're out there, write me!)

I suck at Fifa '07

A quick story: World Cup '06 was wonderful, soccer seemed interesting, my favorite sportswriter Bill Simmons decided to follow the EPL as a result, and I wound up a soccer fan. I even got the Fox Soccer Channel and a Robbie Keane shirt and am thus completely on the other side of the soccer douchebag fence.

So in February when EA Sports released Fifa '07, I bought it the first millisecond it was available. I played approximately nine hundred hours a week and became, I thought, an unstoppable Fifa force. I imagined myself like the Christian Bale Batman, studying bad-assery in the far off reaches of Asia, readying myself for a triumphant reveal to the online community.

When my Xbox died in June, Microsoft was kind enough to replace it and send along a free month of Xbox live. I thought my training was complete and it was only a few weeks before I was atop the leaderboards and a feared whisper among the other players. "I played jayblackcomedy yesterday. My thumbs are still bleeding."

Uh, no.

I'm getting my ass kicked so severely and regularly it's actually affecting my offline self esteem. I feel like a case study in a bleeding edge psychology journal. These people are crazy good and my single player experience lied to me!

There are two major emotions at work when I play, both of which I'm very familiar with. The first is the "I need to get better at any cost" emotion. This is the feeling where I want to abandon my wife and child, quit my career and become one of those people that do nothing all day but play video games (i.e. college students). The second is the "Who gives a shit" emotion where I want to embrace life and love in a fit of sour-grapes superiority over the people who are better than me at the game.

I'm probably too saddled with Irish guilt to follow the former path, but I don't know if I'll be able to overcome my addiction to the game to follow the latter. It's the major dilemma of my life right now.

I piss off the Lactating Lady

So, if you didn't know, they have about a million consultants that show up after you have a baby. My personal favorite was the "Shaken Baby Syndrome Specialist" whose job it is to tell you not to shake your baby. I'm of the opinion that if you need to be told that, you might as well go ahead and shake your baby and get your genes out of the pool altogether.

The one I managed to upset was the Lactating Lady. She comes in and shows your wife how her nipples can be used to keep your baby alive. As the husband, you watch as your wife is shown proper technique as you slowly realize that the part of your wife you loved the most is no longer yours anymore. And they say women sacrifice during childbirth.

Anyway, I sit nicely during the entire nipple-manipulation presentation and play the part of the happy and supporitve husband. As she's leaving, I figure I'll make some small talk and I say: "Hey, what do you think about those whackos that breast-feed their babies until they're like 3 or 4?"

Apparently, I'm an asshole.

This woman getsall huffy about how that's an ignorant and stupid way to look at the world. It takes me approximately half a millisecond to realize that this woman obviously breast-fed her babies well into their forties. I probably should have surmised that from the fact that she's made a career out of being the Lactating Lady, but I had just become a father and my brain wasn't working properly.

I try to apologize. She says: "You know, in 3rd word countries, the average age of weaning is 5 or 6." I say, "Oh, well, sure, I didn't know that." And she says "Yeah" in that way that people do when they're suddenly on the moral high ground and enjoying every second of it.

Now that I've had a day to think about it, here's my feelings on the subject:

1) I still think that people that allow their kids to titty-feed into their tweens are nutto. Maybe it's the fact that I was raised in a prudish, puritanical nation, but the only time a person should be able to vocalize their need for boobies is when they're fourteen and in their girlfriend's basement.

2) From now on, I don't care how many liberal arts colleges you've graduated from, you're no longer allowed to use the third world as a reason for us in the first world to do anything. If you're doing something because third world villagers do it, you also have to poop directly into your fresh water supply. Because, you know, the third worrld doesn't have any concept of the germ-theory of medicine, because they're, uh, purer than we are.

3) Motherhood is a glorious and wonderful thing. In all honesty, watching my wife become a mother has been magical. That being said, people that try to extend the experience beyond when it's appropriate are doing it not because they love their kids, but because they want to continue being the all-giving MOTHER that they were when their child was completely dependent on them. It's about maintaining their own power. A self-respecting woman maintains her power not from the milk that exits her boobs, but from the cleavage those boobs make when they're strapped together in a too-tight push-up bra. At least that's what my good friend Betty Friedan always used to say.

Alright, all that being said, I have to go get my wife nipple-soothing cream. Yeah, baby, sexy.

Keane Robert Black

Keane Robert Black (or Keano as he will be known to his legions of fans in the EPL or KB as he will be known to all the girls that will have crushes on him or Keane Bean as he will be known in our house until he is old enough to complain) came firing into this world at 3:42 PM today, July 22, 2007.

He's already fed for the first time (he enjoys both boobs and food, just like daddy) and he's now resting comfortably waiting for whatever the world has to offer him.

By the way, to any comedy bookers currently reading this blog, Keane assures me that he's got a tight 5 that's PG-13 but can be cleaned up for church shows. He usually features, but he's willing to emcee just his once.

More to come...

Waiting for my wife to pop

So, I'm currently in the waiting room of Virtua Hospital in Voorhees waiting for my wife to give birth to our first child. A couple of things:

1) Thank god for drugs. Drugs are wonderful. Drugs take a screaming, unhappy woman and make her a weepy, thankful woman. Why would anyone give birth without them?

2) We were originally supposed to have all of this filmed by "A Baby Story", the TLC show. The hospital decided that no, they didn't want the camera crew here because it would "be a disturbance." But, when we got here this morning there were two scary-looking union guys taking up tile in the main hallway. They were using what sounded like helicopter engine to do this. Now, let me ask you how are cameras a disturbance and that engine not? I mean, I'd be okay with the hypocrisy it if the tile-scraping engine could get me some cheap publicity.

3) The whole birthing process is completely inefficient. Seriously, we've been here for like 5 hours and we still have like 5 hours to go (not to mention the eighteen or so years of actually raising the child). Why can't she go, "Ooh, that smarts a bit", head into the bathroom and pop out a kid? Wouldn't that make more sense from a design perspective. I hope I'm not coming off as too much of an Apple fanboy here, but I think that we should let Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive design Woman 2g.

4) But at least the hospital as WiFi, which is nice, even though they have a block on pornography. I don't know this because I tried to look at it, but because there's a big message that comes up telling you that you won't be able to surf for it. I understand that they don't want an open access point to be used for prurient interests, but there are a lot of guys in this hospital on their deathbed. They should get a special password that lets them get access to the porno. They're dying! Let 'em see a little pink before they see the white, you know?

All right, I'm back into the birthing room now. Hopefully, the next time I post, I'll have some pictures of my son to show you!

So, I don't have brain cancer

According to my neurologist, I'm clean as a whistle.

In case you didn't know, a few months ago, I went to the neurologist complaining of headaches. He said it could be one of three things: my sleep apnea, a poor glasses prescription, or a giant, pulsing, tomato-sized tumor in the center of my brain.

I went to the sleep doctor and she said: yes, I do have sleep apnea. I trusted her, even though she was a woman, because according to science women and men are equal.

I went to the eye doctor and he said: yes, I do have a poor prescription.

Finally, I went to get an MRI and my neurologist said: no, I don't have a giant, pulsing, tomato-sized tumor in my head.

I'm disappointed about this for a few reasons:

1) I'm a drama queen. Imagine how much sympathy I could elicit with an inoperable brain tumor. Seriously, I'd never have to worry about a social misstep again ("Oh, I'm sorry that I made a retard joke and your brother is 'special' Larry, but, you know, I'm dying from brain cancer, so it's a little hard for me to worry about being politcally correct, okay!?")

2) There's always the chance that the brain tumor isn't just a kill-you kind of cancer, but that it's a Phenomenon type cancer that gives me super powers before I die. I mean, we all have to die, but how many of us get to die knowing that we learned Portuguese in a truck ride or that we were able to name mammals alphabetically with Brent Spiner?

3) As many of you know, I'm about to become a father. Dying of a brain tumor is a hell of a lot easier than packing for Mexico and it doesn't even look like you're shirking your responsibilities.

4) I'm not that attached to being alive anywho. I've already reproduced. I leave behind a legacy of like 3 unmade screenplays and about four thousand handjob jokes. What more can a man ask for in a single lifetime? I mean, I don't want to be greedy.

Of course I say a lot of this with my tongue firmly in my cheek -- I have to put that caveat because it's likely my wife will read this blog and she takes this shit seriously, so if I ever want to have her tongue in my cheek again... well, you understand.

So, if you were worried, you can stop worrying. I am upping my cell-phone usage though. There's always next year.

monday night football (enough already!)

alright, i realize that the saints coming back to the superdome is (kinda) a big deal and (sorta) symbolic, but enough with the artificial pomp!

i mean, let's be real: the saints were never really all the important to the city of new orleans. in fact, you can make the argument that the girls gone wild videos were a better representative of the city than the saints. certainly, they captured the spirit of the city better (saints: a long history of apathy and losing. ggw: boobies).

so the fact that they're back... well, okay. i suppose that means something to the sixty or so _actual_ saints fans.

as for the deeper meaning that espn is trying to wring out of this with the same desperation that the alcoholic tom hanks played in family ties tried to find something to drink when he finally realized he had a problem (or the desperation that i just showed in trying to come up with a simile)? it's just not there. sure the NFL threw tons of money at getting the superdome ready for some football, but new orleans itself is still knee-deep in its own shit. it's hard to get excited for a city's rebirth when there are still cars hanging in trees!

and that's the thing that really irks me. espn has always been particularly at fault when it came to creating drama where there really wasn't any, but this situation is a bit different. you have so many storylines collapsing into one place: the superdome, new orleans, reggie bush, espn getting monday night football, michael vick -- it was, pardon the pun, a perfect storm of overhyped sports bullshit.

the first half of this game has _reeked_ of faux pious "news" about the rebirth of the city. they even brought in spike lee to... what? plug his documentary? talk about the power of sports to revitalize the cit? show off his circa-1981 elton john glasses? i dunno. even spike didn't seem to know why he was there. i kept rooting for him to pick up a trashcan and throw it at joe theisman, do the right thing style.

i could be wrong. maybe there are people out there watching this game and wiping tears away from their eyes as they think about man overcoming tragedy. believe me, i'm not against a few non-ironic throat lumps (i got misty recently listening to the replay of howard stern's 9/11 broadcast!) it's just that espn's whole approach to this game has had the taint of opportunism. it just feels like when an unpopular kid dies suddenly and all the kids suddenly "need" to go to his funereal. everyone knows that they're just trying to get the day off, but no one has the guts to say it.

best,
--jayblack

(PS i've written this quickly and in the middle-stages of a simply sleep (tm) coma, so i'll be anxious to re-read this tomorrow and see what it looks like!)

(PPS did anyone else notice in tonight's parade prior to the game, the first responder who was pushing past 400 lbs? the guys a hero and all, but do you really think that a guy that big should be a _first_ responder? i'm just saying that i'm sure it would take a _long_ time for him to get from the ambulance to wherever the problem is... but, you know, as i think about it, i guess a 400 lb EMT is exactly what you want during a class 5 hurricane. NOTHING is moving that dude)