So, things are back to normal (I hope)

I think we're all set with my website being virus free, so it's back to blogging as usual!

I'll have new content up later in the day. In the meantime, please check out my latest column for AOL. I think it's one of the better ones (and not just because it has a wicked cool Star Wars reference in it).

Why you're seeing this page!

So, this is my blog. If you clicked on www.jayblackcomedy.com, you were redirected here, temporarily, because the main site has been infested with a virus. Not sure what happened, exactly. Perhaps my web site connected to a website in Amsterdam and made some bad choices about how to spend its time there.

Or, maybe a bit more realistically, I'm maintaining my own site and don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I've sent an email to the web hosting people, so the problem should hopefully be taken care of shortly. In the meantime, feel free to explore this blog.

If you're looking for a free CD, just comment on this post and I'll get it to you ASAP!

Thanks much.

(PS to my regular blog readers -- both of you -- we'll be back to normal soon. Maybe this temporary redirect will lead to hundreds of new readers. Or, uh, not. Hope is, of course, the thing with wings.)

Taco Bell "Supreme"

I ate breakfast this afternoon at 1 PM at a Taco Bell. This kind of eating is not uncommon among comedians; it's probably why the average comic rarely lives past his mid 30s.

After I ordered, the person waiting on me asked "regular" or "supreme". I asked what the difference was, she said: "Supreme is the same taco except with sour cream."

I'm sure you already knew this, but I want you to think about it: according to the people who run Taco Bell, the only difference between an ordinary something and a supreme something is sour cream.

Here's what Webster's has to say about the word supreme:

"Supreme (adjective)

1. highest in rank, power, authority, etc.; dominant
2. highest in quality, achievement, performance, etc.; most excellent
3. highest in degree; utmost
4. final; ultimate"

Or... sour cream.

I realize that it's just some stupid sour cream, but I think this might be a big reason why our country has been slipping a bit in recent decades; the devaluation of our superlatives. For instance, "awesome" used to be a word that was once reserved for acts of god; now it's routinely used to describe pizza.

Advertising plays a large part in this. When you're trying to sell, you can't be reasonable. You can't say: "Mop and Glo: it'll make your floors temporarily less dirty." You have to say "Mop and Glo: It's so unbelievably awesome and astounding, it will literally knock the shit right out of your colon" or some such.

Eventually, all the good words get co-opted for silly things. You do this enough and the good words don't mean anything anymore. How can you give someone a compliment that has any kind of real resonance?

"Dr. Jonas Salk will forever be remembered for his supreme accomplishment: curing Polio."

It's not unreasonable for the average kid to think that all Salk did was take Polio and pour some sour cream on it.

God hates me...

Well, maybe not hates me, but He's certainly in a mood.

Let's pick up the story Thursday morning. I woke up at 3 AM because I went to bed the night before at 5 PM (due to my skinned-knee cornea and all).

I had a gig at 9 PM that night in upstate Vermont (like, really upstate, near where Superman keeps his Fortress of Solitude), but I couldn't leave extra early because I had 10 AM follow-up to make sure that I wouldn't be going blind any time soon. No biggie; even if I left at 10:30, I'd be in VT by 5:30 and be able to squeeze in two or three hours worth of nap time.

At 11:30, I was at exit 11 of the New Jersey Turnpike, making good time. Then, every single "you're car is about to die" light came on at once. My Jetta did everything except shout angrily in German at me. On top of that, the car wouldn't go faster than 40 MPH without making all sorts of scary noises.

I briefly considered pulling into oncoming traffic, but figured I wasn't going fast enough to ensure instant death.

I pulled over and consulted my GPS. There was a Volkswagen dealership in Linden, at exit 12, four miles away. I limped up there and explained to them my situation.

See, I needed to know right away whether I ought to get the car fixed right then or if I should get a rental car and pick the car up later. Comedians only get paid when they show up at a place at the agreed upon time (actually being funny is less important than being punctual). I had a three hour window.

The dude -- Billy, one of the nicer humans on the planet -- jumped me to the front of the line and had one of his guys look at the problem. The guy told me that my issue was one where 99.9% of the time, it was just a dirty valve. .1% of the time, there was a need to replace the entire valve, but let's not think about that until we have to.

He cleaned my valve (and yes, I realize how gay that sounds), and we test drove the car. After about 15 miles this is the exact conversation we had:

Me: "What do you think?"

Him: "It's looking pretty good. I want to do one more spin around the block."

Me (checking my watch): "Okay."

Him: "It was nice being able to help you. I was worried that we were gonna have to replace the valve. I think you're gonna be oka ---"

It was at this point that all the lights came back on again.

Him: "Shit."

(To understand that "Okay", imagine that the first syllable, the Ohhhhhhhh, came out in slow mo over the course of like twenty minutes. That really adds to the drama).

So, I needed a rental car and had already blew an hour and a half watching another man clean my valves. By the time the rental car got there, I had seven hours to drive the six hours to Vermont, made worse, of course, by the now heavy New York City traffic.

By the time I got above the traffic, I had exactly 5 hours to drive... 5 hours. That's right, no stops allowed if I was going to get there on time. Five straight hours later, I arrived at the college -- 8:57 for a 9:00 show -- and did my time. Luckily, the kids at Lyndon State College were awesome and made my job easier, but still, one day removed from a missing cornea, it was a less-than-fun experience.

Okay, enough of my rambling. I'll get back to trenchant observations about the universe tomorrow. I just had to vent today.

Too tired to post...

Hey gang, no new post today because I'm very tired. Like, Jenny from Forest Gump tired. I'll explain in a detailed post tomorrow (I've already got a title: "God hates me"), but for right now, if you need some new content, I urge you to go to head over to TV Squad, where my brand new Office review will be posting any minute now.

Hope you enjoy and more tomorrow!

(PS Thanks so much for all the kind comments, Meg and Tony. Sometimes a blog can feel like an echo chamber; it's good to know that all this stuff is actually being enjoyed by some people. If I could, I'd sing "Wind Beneath My Wings" right now, loudly, to you both!)

Apparently, you need your cornea

Remember how I was bragging about what a great juggler of OTC medicine I was? I believe I called myself the "Elvis of Advil". I was particularly proud of that phrase because it combined three of my favorite things (apt metaphor, pop culture reference, and assonance; had it also contained peanut butter and no-guilt orgasm, it might have been my favorite thing of all time!)

I didn't quite think through my metaphor: did you know Elvis died!? From drugs!? Well, he did.

And, though I didn't die, there was about an hour last night where I wished I would.

Here's what happened, in order:

1. I got sick on Saturday.

2. To reduce the amount of snot in my sinuses -- at one point enough that Michael Phelps could have used them as a training facility -- I took OTC drying agents like Sudafed.

3. On Monday, due to a particularly rough game of Baby Wrestling, my son knocked off my glasses, snapping one of the lenses out of its frame.

4. Because of this, I took to wearing my contacts.

5. Due to my laziness, I didn't get a chance to head over to the eye-glasses place to get my frames fixed. Also, due to my laziness, I have yet to clean out the attic, write or even begin to write a novel, learn how to cook, finish learning sign language, or any other number of things that I'm sure I'll regret on my deathbed one day.

6. The combination of drying agents and continued contact usage led to a severe drying of my contact. That led to it kind of, well, fusing to my cornea.

7. Because I didn't know that the phrase "fusing to your cornea" could possibly exist in any kind of reasonable universe. I took my contact out at a 1 PM yesterday.

And holy shit. Holy. Shit.

It hurt so bad that I started giving away state secrets in the hope/fear that I was being interrogated and this was all a Vanilla Sky type creation of my brain in order to better deal with the torture. No such luck.

I went to the eye doctor and he told me that I had taken off the top layer of my cornea. With a smile: "Like skinning your knee! Except in your eye!"

He said it would stop hurting after I went to sleep because the cornea can regenerate itself in about 24 hours.

That seemed like a very optimistic assessment to me. How could something as complicated (and as goddamn painful) as your cornea regenerate after 24 hours? I can't even get a cable guy to my house in less than a week. But my eye doctor looks very smart (he has glasses and a white coat), so I trusted him.

He prescribed an antibacterial cream and sent me on my way. He mentioned that maybe I'd want to take some sleep medication to help speed along the process. Well, you don't need to tell me twice to take OTC sleep aids.

Here I am, 12 hours later. My cornea still feels a little raw, but on a pain level, it's at a 1. Before I went to sleep, it was, without hyperbole, a 313,179,993.

Take my advice kids: drying agents and round-the-clock contact use don't mix. Friends don't let friends take Sudafed while also wearing contacts.

(This all begs the question: why did the school system waste my time with an anti-marijuana curriculum when it could have been teaching me real-life skills like not wearing contacts while also taking cold and flu medication?)

No real update today...

But I added a bunch of stuff that should make the blog a) look better and b) actually help people to find it. Let me know what you think of the changes!

The Pick Up Artist

Have you seen the show "The Pick-Up Artist?" If not, it stars Mystery as a guy who wears a funny hat and is somehow able to magically make women want to have sex with him. He takes a group of nerds and then teaches them the mystic art of seduction. The nerd who proves himself to be most adept at learning the routines Mystery gives him is crowned "The Pick Up Artist."

I became interested in this show last year because it had the kind of "so bad it's good" vibe that you can't get from a lot of other reality TV. For as mind-blowingly retarded as, say, Flava Flav might act, on some level I think he's in on the joke. Whenever self-awareness creeps into my ironic viewing, it's time to change the channel.

Mystery, though, actually believes that his collection of magic tricks, mind reading gimmicks, cold openers, and sociobiology crib notes will somehow take these nerds to a better emotional place. It's self-help via vagina.

It's that sincerity that I find delightful in a show I want to mock. Thus, I watched last season and all this season. Curious, I bought "The Game", a book by Neil Strauss about his time with Mystery. I even went a little further and listened to a few podcasts by some self proclaimed PUAs. This is what I've learned:

1. We are all a slave to our biology. PUAs trick women into being interested in them the same way Venus Fly Traps kill bugs.

1(a). No matter how much a woman protests that those approaches "would never work on her", she's lying. The lines work because they've been brutally beta-tested by hundreds of horny men. Even my wife admitted recently that Mystery's ridiculous hat and/or boa would catch her interest if she were in a club.

"I'd ask him why he was wearing that," she said. I died a little inside.

2. Men evaluate themselves solely on how attractive they are to women. Everything a man does on some level or another is, however misguided, an attempt to attract women to them. What this show does is make naked this fact.

3. Silly hats are somehow sexy. I haven't quite been able to figure this out, but that's probably why I went dateless through four years of high school and a freshman year of college.

4. I hate clubs.

That last point is something that I didn't really need the PUA to explain to me. It's something I've known for a long time - clubs are Kryptonite for someone like me, who, if he is to have any chance with a woman, it has to come from his wit. The loud, brain-rattling thump of your average nightclub dulls all but the most routine of observation. Anything more complicated than "nice boobs!" runs the risk of being lost in the music.

Because of that, women tend to rely on sight first, thought second in those kind of scenarios. I am therefore forever second best to the silly hat and square chin brigade. Lucky I'm married (or at least, WILL be married, until my wife falls for some PUA's dumb line!)

For some reason all of these things make me depressed even as I know that they're true. It's kind of like a fat person being upset at the realities of gravity.

---

A note to my Cleveland fans (well, fan): I'll be back in your hometown (at Hilarities) the week leading up to Memorial Day. I'll be headlining Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, and then middling for a celebrity act (TBD) Thursday through Sunday. If you're inclined to get a group together and come on out, please let management know that you came for me. That's the kind of thing that gets me invited back!

And... I'm trying to get more readers. Honest!

Oh, and one more thing...

One of my favorite people in the world has just started a blog. If you ever get tired of my ridiculous ramblings, I urge you check it out. Check it out here! You won't be disappointed!

Ain't no sick in showbiz

A few months ago, Chris Rock was on Howard Stern. He said he knew that Artie Lange -- the lovable, self-destructive comic who is a big factor in Stern's current revival -- was back on heroin because Artie had started calling in sick to the show. Rock kept repeating, "Ain't no sick in showbiz."

He's right. It's an interesting thing since I've become a full-time comic: I don't call in sick. Ever.

I used to call in sick to my teaching job if someone sneezed in the same room as me (can't be too careful, after all). Now, I could be fighting off fever shakes with my head encased in a solid block of snot -- like I was last night -- and I'm good for two shows of 45+ minutes plus four hours worth of driving.

There's a couple of reasons for this that are probably not that interesting to the non-comic. Since my brain is currently soaked silly in over-the-counter cold and flu remedies, I'm going to go against my better judgment and list them:

1. We're contract workers. We only get paid when we show up and do our job. Teaching, which has the nice double whammy of being both a union AND government gig, pays you for pretty much everything, whether or not you actually do it. I think I got six hundred sick days a year.

2. Club owners are generally soulless. This wasn't the case last night -- the club owner is actually one of my best friends -- but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. Screw them once, there's a good chance you'll never work for them again. (Interestingly enough, it doesn't work in the other direction; club owners feel entitled to screw you repeatedly without concern that you'll stop working their club. It's in this way -- and only this way -- that club owners are exactly like hot women).

3. It's easy to talk yourself into a show. Driving isn't really that hard. Talking isn't really that hard. That's about all you have to do for a comedy show: drive, then talk. You figure that so long as you're drugged to the appropriate degree, you can get through it. If there's anybody on the planet that knows how to properly calibrate OTC medicine, it's me. I'm the Elvis of advil.

4. This is going to sound sappy, but it's true: there's a sense inside of all showbiz types that the "show must go on." Even the cynical comic types; if there's a stage, some lights and an audience, we feel obligated to put on the show, regardless of how many gallons of snot there are clogging up our sinuses.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the NyQuil is kicking in. I need to get to my happy place.

Turkeys

Just a quick note before I collapse into sleep:

My soon-to-be brother-in-law scored really good tickets to the Eagles/Cardinals game tonight. The Eagles won and the weather was (relatively) mild, so it was a good night.

Except...

There was a dude there dressed as a turkey. Not a turkey hat or some make-up to suggest that he was a turkey, but an actual, full blown, head-to-toe turkey costume. It looked like the kind of thing that you would rent for a Halloween party if you were one of the world's biggest douchebags. Except this guy wasn't at a Halloween party, so I'm not sure if science has a douche-richter scale comprehensive enough to contain this guy.

My buddy Vinnie Nardiello is similar to me in our unwavering hate of people who dress like turkeys or vampires or cowboys when there's no godly reason to. His theory as to why it bothers us so much is this: people who try to be interesting through their choice of clothes are compensating for their inability to actually be interesting. If you see a dude in, say, a top-hat, there's no point in talking to him; he's already done the most interesting thing he'll do all night when he picked out his top-hat.

I guess I feel the same way about those who are artificially interesting as women do about breast implants. It's cheating, yet people still fall for it. The Turkey Guy was talked to all night. I'm not sure what was being said to him, but since none of the conversations ended with the Turkey Guy being lit on fire, I can only assume that no one said what needed to be said.

But other than that it was a great Thanksgiving. I got some great pictures of my son. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

Hope your Turkey Day didn't involve a dude dressed as a Turkey.

To my several ones of readers...

If you get the chance, check out my latest column for TV Squad:

TV 101: How beer commercials got Barack Obama elected (OR: Presidential Drinkability).

Also, if you have several million friends, please pass the link along to them. Thanks!

Does anybody else miss the Soviet Union?

Yesterday, Russian ships began a series of "maneuvers" in Venezuela. Other than the way gay implication of the word "maneuvers", the action has foreign policy types a little concerned. Assuming the world lives through this latest economic crisis, they're worried that a newly aggressive Russia, flush with petrol-dollars, might be anxious to heat up another Cold War.

I say, bring it on.

I miss the Soviet Union. As a child of the eighties, I grew up secure in the knowledge that every day we were one satellite error away from global annihilation. I knew exactly who my enemy was; it was made clear to me by movies like Red Dawn, Rocky IV, and The Experts. The Soviet Union was always there, like an iceberg: giant, cold, forbidding, solid.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we've been saddled with something George Bush Jr. likes to call "Islamo-Fascists" as an enemy. I think you'll agree with me that they suck, completely and absolutely.

They're the worst kind of enemy, with their weird beards and funny hats and religious fervor. Fighting the Soviets was like fighting a bear -- you always knew when it was coming at you and you could prepare for it. Fighting terrorists is like fighting a rat -- you can't see it and if it bites you, there's a good chance you'll contract some sort of disease.

I want the bear back.

Sure, it might things a little more uncomfortable for us, but look at it this way, if they make a Day After 2, at least Steve Guttenberg will get to work again. And that's something.

My dog, the money pit

So, here's where men and women differ:

Our dog, Rudy, is a terrible dog. I got him eight years ago and essentially, his entire existence in our family has been to a) shit all over our house and b) need operations. If you were to make a pro/con list on Rudy, you would never actually get to the "pro" list -- it's like the canine version of Zeno's paradox.

As if Rudy wanted to cement his place in the pantheon of terrible dogs, he's recently decided to start growling and snapping at my son. He hasn't broken the skin yet, but it's only a matter of time.

To my male way of thinking, the best solution to this problem involves a burlap sack and a trip to the nearest rushing river. My son (and wallet!) is safe from Rudy forever and Rudy, if all the dog theologists are right, will be going to a better dog place. Problem solved.

My wife has a female brain though, and her solution is this: spend $150 to have Rudy's teeth filed down.

I tried to put my foot down last night. I really did. I had every intention of saying "No!" that we've already poured enough money, time, and effort, down the bottomless Rudy hole. The result? In four minutes, I leave for the vet.

Bah, humbug.

"Proverbial"

Here's a quote from a review of Chinese Democracy (the album, not the political construct):

A million monkeys with their million proverbial typewriters would have taken far longer to create something as good as this.

It's not a bad line, but certainly not a genius line. With the possible exception of the book Crank, it's a line that could be applied to just about any piece of art.

What annoyed me about it is the use of the word "proverbial." I decided today that I hate that word. It's a big long bit of pretension that never adds anything to a conversation.

Here's why: you use that word to denote that the phrase you're referring to is not your own, but rather some well worn piece of wisdom. ("I looked around the discount whorehouse like the proverbial kid in the candy store.") But if that wisdom is so well-worn, why would you ever need to inform the audience about it? If they already know it then they know it's "proverbial." If they don't already know it, then the phrase isn't proverbial.

The only reason to use "proverbial" then is to come to terms with your own inner cliche monitor. Writers -- especially those poor MFA bastards -- have been told in countless books and seminars that cliched phrases are bad. "Make it new!" as Ezra Pound might say between anti-Semitic rants. Thus, when the need arises for a little cliche in their writing, they balk; who's going to kiss their ass at the Writer's Conference if they're using stuff like "raining cats and dogs" in their essays?

So they cover their ass with "proverbial." Because if you say "T-Pain celebrated his appearance on Saturday Night Live by making it rain proverbial cats and dogs all over the strippers at Scores", it somehow pardons the sin. It's a big pretentious band-aide of a word.

But here's the thing: so what if there's some cliche in your writing? Sometimes, for clarity's sake, it's the best way to write. Look at the line I quoted again: you get immediately what the writer was saying. If he had gone for something a little more original ("A million yaks shitting a million different indigestible AlphaBits...") it would have looked silly and the sentence would have been harder to parse.

So there. If you're a writer that happened to stumble upon this blog, take heart: a random blogger says it's okay to be cliche sometimes. Like Dumbo, it's okay to drop the proverbial feather.

Where have I been?

Ah, kids, it's been a long month for your old pal Jay. Seriously, I think I logged approximately seven hundred million miles in airline miles over the last few weeks. Just yesterday, I received a thank you call from the president of United Air; apparently, I single handedly kept them in business during a late October slump.

But I'm home now. You can always tell I'm home because my wife is wearing her "brave smile". You can also tell I'm home because I'll be blogging more regularly!

Yay?

The Third Debate (my impression)

OBAMA
(continuing; beat)
Colonel, I have just one more question
before I call Airman O'Malley and Airman
Perez: If you gave an order that Santiago
wasn't to be touched, and your orders are
always followed, then why would he be in
danger, why would it be necessary to
transfer him off the base?

And MCCAIN has no answer.

Nothing.

He sits there, and for the first time, seems to be lost.

MCCAIN
Private Santiago was a sub-standard
marine. He was being transferred off the
base because--

OBAMA
But that's not what you said. You said he
was being transferred because he was in
grave danger.

MCCAIN
(pause)
Yes. That's correct, but--

OBAMA
You said, "He was in danger". I said,
"Grave danger". You said--

MCCAIN
Yes, I recall what--

OBAMA
I can have the Court Reporter read back
your--

MCCAIN
I know what I said. I don't need it read
back to me like I'm a damn--

OBAMA
Then why the two orders?
(beat)
Colonel?
(beat)
Why did you--

MCCAIN
Sometimes men take matters into their own
hands.

OBAMA
No sir. You made it clear just a moment
ago that your men never take matters into
their own hands. Your men follow orders
or people die. So Santiago shouldn't have
been in any dangor at all, should he have,
Colonel?

Everyone's sweating now. Everyone but OBAMA.

MCCAIN
You little bastard.

FOX NEWS
Your Honor, I have to ask for a recess to--

OBAMA
I'd like an answer to the question, Judge.

SCHIEFFER
The Court'll wait for answer.

OBAMA
If Kendrick told his men that Santiago
wasn't to be touched, then why did he have
to be transferred?

MCCAIN is looking at BOB THE PLUMBER and PALIN.

OBAMA
(continuing)
Colonel?

MCCAIN says nothing.

OBAMA
(continuing)
Kendrick ordered the code red, didn't he?
Because that's what you told Kendrick to
do.

FOX NEWS
Object!

SCHIEFFER
Counsel.

OBAMA will plow through the objections of FOX NEWS and the
admonishments of BOB SCHIEFFER.

OBAMA
And when it went bad, you cut these guys
loose.

FOX NEWS
Your Honor--

SCHIEFFER
That'll be all, counsel.

OBAMA
You had Markinson sign a phony transfer
order--

FOX NEWS
Judge--

OBAMA
You doctored the log books.

FOX NEWS
Damnit Obama!!

OBAMA
I'll ask for the forth time. You ordered--

MCCAIN
You want answers?

OBAMA
I think I'm entitled to them.

MCCAIN
You want answers?!

OBAMA
I want the truth.

MCCAIN
You can't handle the truth!

And nobody moves.

MCCAIN
(continuing)
Son, we live in a world that has walls.
And those walls have to be guarded by men
with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You,
Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater
responsibility than you can possibly
fathom. You weep for Santiago and you
curse the marines. You have that luxury.
You have the luxury of not knowing what I
know: That Santiago's death, while tragic,
probably saved lives. And my existence,
while grotesque and incomprehensible to
you, saves lives.
(beat)
You don't want the truth. Because deep
down, in places you don't talk about at
parties, you want me on that wall. You me
there
(boasting)
We use words like honor, code,
loyalty...we use these words as the
backbone to a life spent defending
something. You use 'em as a punchline.
(beat)
I have neither the time nor the
inclination to explain myself to a man who
rises and sleeps under the blanket of the
very freedom I provide, then questions the
manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer
you just said thank you and went on your
way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a
weapon and stand a post. Either way, I
don't give a damn what you think you're
entitled to.

OBAMA
(quietly)
Did you order the code red?

MCCAIN
(beat)
I did the job you sent me to do.

OBAMA
Did you order the code red?

MCCAIN
(pause)
You're goddamn right I did.

A late-night list of things I hate.

1. Any public event in which men dress like women (usually cheerleaders) and the people who think this is somehow clever or funny.  I'm thinking specifically of "Mr. [insert the name of your school here] events" and Halloween.  It's mildly funny to dress like a woman if you're a. Tony Curtis or b. Jack Lemmon.  It's never clever.

2. People who think that Native Americans are somehow more spiritual than any other race of people.  Yes, it's tragic what happened to them, but, they're not, you know, _magical_.  You do realize that for all their supposed "connection" to nature, they still use closed circuit cameras in their casinos, right?  It ain't dreamcatchers that they're hanging over the blackjack table, I can assure you of that.

2a. People who claim a small percentage of Native American in their ancestry as a way to garner a little of that supposed spirituality for themselves.  Usually presented like this: "I'm mostly German and Irish, with a bit of Russian in there.  Oh, and a very small part Native American on my mother's side."  They then cry a single tear for the way the White Man has polluted this planet while accepting an Academy Award for Marlon Brando.

3. People who insist on using Barack Obama's middle name as if this is supposed to mean something.  A lot of people don't know this, but John McCain's middle name is "Slobodan Milosevic Kim Jong-Il Hitler Mussolini."  Seriously, though, if you think a man's middle name has any bearing on whether or not he ought to be president, then you ought not be voting.

4.  That all human beings are cognizant of the fact that they're going to die.  I mean, one second you're having some sugar-free yogurt in the cafeteria of the Tropicana, the next you're having an existential crisis about the meaning of life.  Medical science needs to find a way to burn this out of us.  You know who doesn't know they're going to die?  Dogs.  You know who doesn't need any kind of sleeping medication?  Yep, dogs.  Think about it.

5.  People who give you poetry to read and then, when you don't understand it, they say: "Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of really deep symbolism in there that you kind of have to know me to understand."  Here's a little tip: if something doesn't speak for itself, _don't share it with anyone_.  In fact, if you have a stash of pornography, keep your poems in there as they're both pretty much masturbatory material.

6.  Any item of enjoyment that people claim you have to "get" to enjoy.  I'm speaking specifically of high end trendy food, weirdo movies and TV shows, and thick unread "literary" fiction.  No one ever had to explain to me why chocolate cake is good.  You know why?  Because it's actually good.  This is not to say that trendy food, weirdo movies, and literary fiction is inherently bad, just that a lot of people are pretending to enjoy them because they want to seem better than us common folk.

I've got more hate in me, but my OTC/Prescription Pill cocktail of Benedryl, Muscle Relaxers, and Melatonin is kicking in big time right now and I'm about to head to bed.  Just one last thing I hate:

7. When you're OTC/Presciption Pill cocktain of Benedryl, Muscle Relaxers, and Melatonin kills you.  More on this tomorrow... uh... maybe?

Live from Las Vegas!

I'm in Vegas all week headlining a series of shows at the Tropicana.  (You can see my name on the Tropicana board there.  And, uh, no, that's not _my_ butt above my name.)

It's a lot of fun, but there are three main problems:

1. I'm away from my family.  I know that sounds lame, but it's been almost two weeks now and I'm pretty sure that my son's first words are going to be "Cats in the Cradle..."  I miss the spud.

2. Internet access costs $12.99 a day!  How can that be?  How can I be at a hotel where I can get a buffet of prime rib and shrimp (_shrimp_... in the desert!) for like $4.99, but high speed internet access costs almost $13?  I know it probably has to do with the casinos preferring me out of my room and gambling instead of inside of my room and blogging, but it's still pretty annoying.  Don't they know that in this economy $13 is what you'd pay for a nice three bedroom in the suburbs?

3. Speaking of the economy, I think it's hitting the prostitutes pretty hard.  I mean, I've been in Vegas before, so I've been solicited (it's impossible to be a male by himself without it happening), but this week it's been ridiculous.  Last night I walked from the Tropicana to the Mirage and on the bridge there must have been ten hookers pressing their wares to every man who walked by.  I felt like I was fighting off vagina zombies.

Before I sign off, I'd like to welcome Allison, our new reader from Vegas.  Thanks for finding the site.  I think that means I officially have four readers... let the journey towards world domination begin!

Also, Megan was curious about the new blogging venture I'm a part of.  I haven't left TV Squad -- I'll still be banging out Office Reviews for them -- but I'm also writing for a brand new site called...

Cliqueclack.

It's a neat new site that I think has a great amount of potential!  Please go on over and check it out when you get the chance!

All right, I'm off to the Tropicana employee cafeteria to eat some taquitos and take a real hard look at the choices I've made in my life.  

There is no such thing as liberals (or conservatives)

If you didn't know, "Am American Carol" was released on Friday. It's a right-wing themed take on "A Christmas Carol" with a Michael Moore-style documentarian being set straight about why he shouldn't hate America.

I haven't seen the movie, but I did read this review by William Gross over at Cinematical.com. Take a gander at the review and then read the comments: holy shitballs, do the commenters ever get mad at him! At least twenty people call Gross a "liberal" who didn't understand the "conservative" comedy that was at play in the movie. There was no chance that Mr. Gross simply didn't like the movie, his negative review had to be a function of his liberal agenda.

Hasn't this bullshit gotten out of hand? I mean, really.

Labeling yourself a "liberal" or "conservative" means allying yourself with the marketing techniques of those who profit (both financially and politically) by dividing this country. It's like rooting for "Bud Light" in the Bud Bowl, except, you know, you actually really care about the outcome of the game.

See, once you officially ally yourself with a group, it's human nature to start to look at the other group as being stupid, simply because they didn't make the same choice as you. You start to lose any kind of objectivity and begin to view everything through the lens of your politics.

And what does that lead to? Calling a blogger an elitist liberal because he didn't think a movie was funny.

I'd like to get rid of the labels. No more liberals, no more conservatives. It's too limiting. Just because you criticize the actions of our current administration doesn't mean that you're a half-terrorist who secretly hates this country. Just because you favor oil drilling and enjoy the occasional Toby Keith record doesn't mean that you're a slack-jawed moron who wants to shoot Bambi's mom from a helicopter.

Are we really so empty-headed as a society that we think that people can only fall into one of two categories?

Enough already.

Mr. Gross, should you read this (google alerts style), my bleeding heart goes out to you. As a fellow WIN blogger, I know the damage the commenters can do; substitute teachers get more respect than we do sometimes.