Weinin'

F&@kers, I'm back!

2011-12-01T14:41:00.001-08:00

Here's a fan fave to get you back in the weinin spirit for new posts after the holidays.

Yes, I've been away far too long.
but trust me, it was a necessary break for two reasons...
1) It allowed me to put my creative energies into a far more important activity
2) It allowed a cloacal of rage, fury and hatred to build up like a hardened artery; a cistern of ignorance that has been blessed with a torrential monsoon after unseasonable drought.

IF I DONT KNOW YOU....DONT TALK TO ME.

Remember those videos we had to watch in 2nd grade? The ones that looked like they were filmed on the ends of 8mm film left from cutting snuff films?

About how it's important NOT to speak with strangers?

No? Well I do. And that's why I mind my own business. I don't get on an elevator and turn to the person CLEARLY TRYING TO MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS next to me and with a twinkle in my eye, and a sickening shrug of my bony shoulders say, "At least it's Friday, RIGHT?"

WRONG ASSHOLE!

I don't do that for two reasons:
1) I respect people's privacy. Especially people I don't know.
2) I don't wash my face with douchebag cream every night.

But let's get down to what's REALLY bothering me this morning, that I had to interrupt my vacation for ranting and raving on this site like a lunatic and return to the forum.

I'm casually stopped at a light in my car. You know the one.

Right. Except, mine has Jersey plates. Because even though I live in Los Angeles, I refuse to accept the fact that I do and prefer to live with the pipe-dream that in the next few months I shall return to the east coast.

ANYWAY, I'm stopped at the light and this nice looking 40-year old or so woman coming the other way stops her car and starts talking to me through the window.

Now of course I don't hear her at first b/c i'm listening to some awesome tunes on the radio--

So I politely lower the volume and my window.

"Yes?"
"Are you lost?"
Strange question. I'm braked at a light. How can one look lost. But hey, she seems like she wants to help. And so I reply in kind.
"No."
"Well, you're in the wrong state. Get out!"
And she proceeds to then gun it and take off, making her escape with all the maturity and subtlety of a fifth grader who just TP'd his neighbor's house and saw an upstairs light come on.

What the fuck was that about?
What would possess a grown person to do that?
And how long had she been holding on to that gem to try out?
Was I the first to befall her vacuous wit? Or are there others out there like me. With Michigan plates. Texas. Florida.

Is there a support group out there for us. I need to coalesce my own feelings with other victims and maybe together we can find some answer that will help us move on.

Ma'am in the black sedan at the light on Wellworth and Westwood, you have turned my blogging vacation into a nightmare leave of absence Weekend at Bernie's style.

I guess I should say...thanks?

The Big Picture Show

2011-07-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Movie Employee who speaks to the audience before the film. You, Sir, are a tool.

When did movie theaters decide a movie needs an opening act? And why did they decide that instead of a talented comedian the pre-show announcements should be made by some fat, pockmarked, greasy haired college dropout in a maroon dress shirt and orthopedic-correcting shoes, complete with a haircut courtesy of Helen Keller?

"I don't understand; I just asked for a little off the top."

Do we need to be reiterated what movie we're seeing? And what time it's showing? Honestly, this isn't the episode of Full House when Stephanie and DJ end up on a flight to Auckland, New Zealand instead of Oakland, CA because there wasn't an early warning announcement.

This is a fucking movie probably starring either Ryan Reynolds or Bradley Cooper with a fat, lesser attractive friend whose last name is Goldbergsteinowitzenfarbrieich-Jew.

"Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, sex, dialogue, wingman, cockblock, dialogue, Torah portion."

If someone is too stupid to correlate the theater number on their ticket to the theater number they're actually walking into, then they deserve to accidentally watch an 8-hour long Serbian documentary shot in cinema verite about goat herding through the Balkan Wars.

"Goofier than my whole antiquated look. It's my 'thing', you know?" -- Gene Shalit

We're all excited that you're in the Groundlings class—the one where as long as you pay you can be part off—but if I wanted to laugh then clearly I wouldn't be sitting in a theater showing a movie co-starring Dane Cook. WOULD I?

"Career?"

I Say, I Say, I DO Declare!

2011-06-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

If I have to hear one more person say that they've self-diagnosed themselves with some droopy, emo-moody disorder, I'm going to have to self-diagnose you as a lousy piece of trash and prescribe you a bullet in the fucking brain.

"Hold it, hold it. Will my insurance cover this?"

You're not even smart enough to know that weed I sold you was just pencil shavings and poison ivy, suddenly you're the medical consultant from the set of Diagnosis Murder?

"The real medical mystery is how this show ran for 8 years."

And of course you never, EVER self-diagnose ailments that aren't stress or depression related. Ailments that don't require drugs like xoloft, xanax, valium, aderall, etc. Or as I call them: Ian's FuntimeHappyJuiceNoBadFeelings Tonique.

My Actual Likeness

I've never once heard someone walking around telling people they self-diagnosed themselves with anal warts and elephantitis.

"WebMD says it's probably just the flue, but...I have my doubts."

It's the attention-seeking, pitty party diseases that you want to enlighten people you've contracted. Sure. Boohoo, you're feeling sad this week.
You want to prove to me that you truly are a self-diagnosed bipolar manic depressive? Let's go have an awesome time at an amusement park and just when we're laughing it up on the top of a roller coaster you jump off it.

"Either of you two have some vicodin?"

Only then will I have them put " , MD" at the end of your name on the tombstone.

The Thin Caffeinated Line

2011-06-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

Do you know what a line is?

It's a queue of a diverse group of people waiting to achieve a goal of some kind.

A common line is one at Starbucks, when it's 830 in the morning, I've been up since 530 for the gym--

--and I want my God damn caffeine before the rage I withhold for this blog works like radiated gamma rays to transform me into a maniac so crazy that he wears purple slacks.

So I'm in line, doing what one does in line, moving forward until the obese woman in front of you orders a caramel macchiato frap (but with only a little whip cream — because she's on a diet, you see)--

--and it's your turn to order and pay for your over-priced, burnt, bitter beverage.

BUT NO ONE ELSE IS DOING THAT?

The barista is not your homeroom teacher taking roll call. They should not be repeating the same thing over and over and over again?

"Next in line...Next in line...Next in line"

You know you're getting close to the front of the line, so why are you not paying attention to the line but twiddling around on your phone, checking your OKCupid messages.
(Between you and me, he's NOT the one)

"I enjoy light jazz, dry comedy and strangling women with telephone wire."

I believe Ned Beatty (the more attractive Beatty in my opinion) said it best:

"YOU ARE MEDDLING WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE! AND YOU WILL ATONE!"

This isn't just your line, to keep at a pace of your liking. It's all of ours. We share this experience together and communally, but still have a personal responsibility to do our part to keep it flowing perennially to its forgone conclusion — MY GOD DAMN COFFEE.

I think it was Marx who originally said that.

No, not that Marx, the other one.

Eh, close enough.

A Confederacy of Twits

2011-05-18T12:24:00.001-07:00

Don't forget, Pilgrims-- You can follow me on twitter @Ianisweinin.

It can be difficult to translate my verbose rants into concise 140-character bon mots, but I never run from a challenge...

Save for that half-marathon. I ran 13 miles to avoid showing up to that thing.

Keep on Rockin'

2011-05-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

As a way to cast the shackles of intermittency aside and get more posts out there for you, my precious Pilgrims, I've decided to throw in a couple new "bits" in the coming weeks. While off topic of mass ignorance and ubiquitous human stupidity, I still think they'll jive quite well with the disdain which I hurl like a lightning bolt from atop Mount Olympus.
And…….Go!

FAMOUS SONGS THAT I CAN'T STAND:

American Pie by Don McLean

God, I hate this song. Maybe it's because I don't have a Jesus fish on the back of my car, or because that I believe unless your nickname for your Johnson is "South," it will indeed NOT rise again, but the forced patriotism this song has wrought as its legacy is thicker than the fried pork sausage red-blooded white-trash American fans of this song will eventually choke on.

I also don't like that it clocks in at over 8 minutes. It's a personal belief that a song should not last longer than I can in bed. Unless that song is Free Bird, in which case I take a break to air guitar out the solo.

This might also explain why I keep an album only of itunes 30-second samples playing whenever I ~~drug~~ seduce a girl to bed.

The song famously refers to "the day the music died." Which in Don McLean's opinion was February 3, 1959 — when the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper crashed.

Really, Don? Rock's really struggled to limp along for the last 52 years somehow, despite this tragedy. Yes, the loss of Buddy Holly was a blow to original voices in the nascent years of popular music.

But Richie Valens? Name any other song besides 'La Bamba' that he sang? If your answer was anything but the track 'Donna' then Mrs. Valens, I'm not going to tell you again, please stop reading my blog.

And the Big Bopper?

I love, love, LOVE 'Chantilly Lace.' It was one of the first songs I remember hearing, but any man who needs to be SO literal as to use a telephone as a prop while performing a song frankly deserves to die and I hope he burns in hell.

The only time the music dies, Don, is when I'm sitting at a karaoke bar and two sloppy drunk latently-homoesexual best buds join together to belt out this track.

You want to impress me, Don? Name another Don McClean song.

Hands of Fate

2011-05-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Let's get something straight here:

Quit telling me to wash my hands after I take a leak.

I don't use my hands to build some kind of filtration system for which to piss through, keeping minerals and nutrients aside to be digested later.
Also, my penis is probably the cleanest part of my body. It's been in my pants all day, unexposed to the elements. I don't shake hands with it. Unfortunately. I don't take it out to weigh down raw meat on the counter. You can see your reflection in my cock. That's how clean and shiny it is. My girlfriend uses it as a vanity mirror to re-apply her make-up in the car sometimes.

Feel free to eat off it. Please?

And most urinals are automated now, so it's not like gripping a clammy, sweaty palm down on some kind of flush mechanics, covered in the grime and piss of the special needs kid who just walked out wearing a helmet with chocolate(?) smeared all over his shirt and hands.

Maybe when you piss it's like the Exxon Valdez, spraying everywhere, killing local marine life.

But since I don't have a degenerative nerve disease like Parkinsons, when I shake at the end, I'm more than capable of doing it carefully enough not to spill any drops out.

So next time I come out of the bathroom and you don't hear the sink, maybe instead of saying, "Don't you wash your hands???!!!" you should be saying, "I'd like to shake that clean hand of yours."

"Thank you," I'd reply graciously. "And might I add, your lipstick looks a tad smudged. Why don't you reapply it. Here, use this..."

Think Before You Speak

2011-05-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

You might think my near two-month absence might be due to the fact that I've grown as a person and have learned to deal with people's faults and their careless ignorance with more zen-like forgiveness and ability to see past such things.

Ha!

On the contrary, I've actually been overloaded by the worst of humanity lately and haven't figured out even where to begin.
But now that I have a second, I think I'd like to start with this person, certainly deserving of their own private viewing at a Ripley's Museum.

So because I'm such a nice guy, I agreed to meet this Morlock for a drink the other night. She originally suggested coffee, but…come on, I would need at least 90proof in my cup to get me in any kind of mood to want to talk to this person. And last I checked, Starbucks wasn't pouring moonshine into their lattes....Yet.

This particular character is—by YOUR definition—very attractive. But we all know I have my 'type' and to the untrained eye, it's not always what you'd expect. But it can be agreed on that she was cute, and so even though her personality was the physical manifestation of masturbating with a cheese grater--
--it didn't begin as an awful evening. Until she dropped this bombshell on me:

"I'm pretty much a glass is half-full/half-empty kind of person."

Ehhh…huh?

If I may translate, she said: I'm optimistic about some things and pessimistic about the others.
Your outlook on life can be one, or the other. Not both, sweetheart. You just made yourself the broadest, all-inclusive, most oblique and obtuse person I've ever met in my entire life.

How else might you be, dear? What else do we have to choose from? I understand you are vapid and vacuous with enough room in that head of yours to serve and entire Ziggy Piggy in...

...but please, at least strive to squeeze something of weight out of that toothpaste tube you call a soul.

Now some of you may be thinking, "Ian, come on, what she meant was that she doesn't see middle-ground between anything."

And to that I say, NO, fuck you. Because that would mean she was engaging in some self-examination of her psyche, and I think the only self-examination this broad gives herself requires two fingers and a poster of Justin Bieber aligned in the vanity mirror on her nightstand.

Weinin' in the Rain

2011-03-23T11:37:00.001-07:00

“This rain, huh?”

Yes, YES, I get it Los Angeles. It doesn’t rain here that often.

But, but you’ve seen rain before, yes? Ah, yes. Granted it was from a giant machine to film an emotional scene in some nondescript Ryan Reynolds rom-com filming on your block.

But you’re aware of the concept behind rain? Maybe you’d have the right to act confused and surprised if instead of tiny droplets of water falling from the sky, it was a torrent of those little toasters with wings that used to be your screensaver.

That would throw me. Then I might be disturbed by the weather. But honestly, quit acting like it’s suddenly become Day After Tomorrow out there.

It happens. Throw on a coat, grab an umbrella and just keep your mouth shut.

But you know what’s worse than that?

“I mean, I’m from the East Coast, so this is nothing. People don’t know how to drive out the rain here.”

First of all, you’re not here on sabbatical from your position as headmaster of Exeter. Okay?

"The janitorial workers latrine is named in honor of my family."

You’re from Camden, NJ.

So enough with the self-aggrandizing posh, okay?

That being said… I’m from the East Coast and guess what?

They drive like shit there too.

People can’t drive ANYWHERE. It’s not a regional thing, like lobster rolls or okra.

Have you ever driven on the Jersey Turnpike? I’ve sat in so many hours of traffic b/c of rubberneckers looking across the divide at accidents that I’ve managed to study for two degrees from University of Phoenix Online in the process.

Multi-tasking. That’s how I roll.

Pushin' My Buttons

2011-03-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

Once.

Just once.

That’s the amount of times you need to hit the button on the street light to alert it there are people waiting to cross.

But does the Troglodyte who just rolled off the bus like the boulder at the beginning of Raiders hit it once?

No, she plays fucking the snare drum beat she learned from rewatching her favorite scene in Drumline 500 times.

"Half-time IS game-time."

What do you think happens when you do that? Do you think the computer program running ALL OF LOS ANGELES TRAFFIC comes to a halt? “Whoa, this woman on Wilshire and Westwood REALLY needs to cross the street in a hurry. We better get on this.”

"You may now cross. Also..what is feeling?"

No, you Morlock. Nothing happens. NOTHING. Did you not pick that up after the first 30 seconds of no change in the light while you were smacking the flat of your hand against that button like you had a bad case of palsy?

And then, at long last, the lights changed and that enmitious red hand turns into a nurturing white chalk outline—

--and you waddle through the crosswalk briskly to the soup kitchen you ~~eat~~ volunteer at. (I say briskly but we all know you only add a spring to your step when you’re 2 back in line at 10:28 and McDonald’s is about to stop serving breakfast coronary patties).

And here’s the worst part. The WORST.

You think it worked, don’t you? You think all that tap-tap-tapping, endless, ENDLESS TAPPING, is what actually caused the light to change allowing us to cross safely? Don’t you?

I almost wish I had your ignorance. What a mitzvah you think you must’ve just done for your fellow man.

But alas, I actually possess that 2% genetic disparity between myself and a monkey, and so I’m cursed to live my life knowing the difference between right and just plain god damn stupid.

"Hmm...maybe if I just KEEP hitting it...?"

No Business Like Shoe Business

2011-01-31T10:21:00.000-08:00

I was heading up Wilshire early this morning to ~~panhandle for bus fare~~ to my cushy office job when I saw a startling line outside on the sidewalk.

Since this is Los Angeles I’d normally assume a line outside a set of doors was for a movie premiere or screening. But this was before 9am, and not even the porn theaters are open yet.

How do I know that? Because they're the only place to see films that adhere to the Brechtian ideals of Epic theater anymore.

"Golden Shower Highlights 3 provides the exact kind of climactic catharsis I was actually referring to."

No, this line was waiting outside the Nike Store. And why? For a new sneaker release.

I want to set the record straight about sneaker obsession. And not just to my Asian and African-American readers, but to people of all races because ~~I’m legally obligated to~~ I think it’s an issue that we are all responsible for.

It’s really f*cking stupid.

If the only way you can get people to notice you, is by having them stare at your feet, I think you should be spending your money on therapy and not over-priced swatches of leather and lace that some overpaid basketball player let his agent and manager work out with overpaid art designers at Nike.

These aren’t shoes he personally wore and sweat into. That I could almost understand. ALMOST, I said.

I was on line at a Foot Locker recently, wondering why they only sold basketball shorts that even the Elephant Man would find too baggy—

"But won't these fall off when I try to dunk?"

--when the guy in front of me buying the $200 pair of Lamar-whoevers that will get scuffed up the minute he steps out in them, glancing at an ad for a player’s newly dropped sneaker, was aghast to hear from the Cashier that they were selling extremely well.

“People are sheep, man. People are sheep. They’ll buy anything,” he said, shaking his head. If I thought he could wrap his head around the concept of irony, I would have mentioned it to him.

Remember when in the 90s when Reebok Pumps were the greatest things out there. So great in fact, that there was an instance of someone getting killed and his Pumps stolen.

How stupid do you think those thieves feel today? They risked the death penalty and killed a guy over SNEAKERS that would only look right if they were on display in the same antique store Marty bought the Sports Almanac from.

This Blog Was Inspired By True Events

2011-01-28T17:53:00.001-08:00

Here's a rule--
If you're movie contains an image like this...

Or, say, a woman throwing up crucifix nails...

...Then you are not allowed to say it is "Inspired by True Events."

I'm pretty certain if an event even closely resembling this happened, I would probably have heard about it. Hell, all this guy did was have a drug habit with a deep voice and I've been hearing about him for weeks.

Horror movies are at their scariest when we believe it could actually happen. That's why films like The Exorcist and Poltergeist continue to haunt me, because they were made to feel "real."

This is also why the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter continues to haunt me. Too Real. Even though I'm succinctly told not to believe it.

Sure, if we're told in The Strangers that it's inspired by a true story, we might actually think Live Tyler still has a career.

That was its message, right?

ANYWAY, so I understand the urge to try to convince an audience that what you're presenting possibly occurred. However, a line needs to be drawn somewhere for what actually "inspired" these events.
The word itself is vague and shadowy. They couldn't say based on true events, because that would present a simulacrum which would hold some weight of reality.
To the layman: Something resembling this ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
Hell, anything can be drawn from an inspiration.
Picasso looked at a woman and was inspired to draw her as an aberration with both eyes on one side of the face.

And unless you count my last girlfriend, such things do not exist.

The Eyes Have It!

2011-01-18T12:35:00.001-08:00

"Are those prescription?" the pregnant(?) woman behind the counter asked me, referring to my glasses.

I told her of course they were, because, you see, I'm not a huge douchebag.

Glasses are a handicap of sorts. You wear them because without them one cannot see very well. Yes? All agreed? Right. So then why have they suddenly become some fashion accessory that people believe make them seem more hip or intellectual? Ray Charles wasn't wearing sunglasses 24/7 because they helped define his cheekbones better.

If you wear glasses without prescription lenses as a fashion statement, they do not make you look more intellectual. They make you appear about as dumb as the guy playing bass whose head is turning blue because his blood flow is being cut off by wearing his girlfriends jeggings.

"My parents lie and tell their friends at the Club that I'm away studying in Europe."

It's getting close to the point where I expect if I ever get in a car accident and need crutches, I'll be stopped and asked by some hipster street urchin off the street if they're "from Urban Outfitters or Hot Topic??"

"OMG, can I wear that to the Echo on Friday?"

Helen Keller is not a fashion icon for a reason. Handicaps are not accessories.

"I TOLD you. No PLEATS this season!"

I agree that I look good in glasses. They take the attention away from my more...semitic...facial properties.
But wearing non-prescription ones is actually a cowardly act.

Otherwise....you'd just wear frames w/o any lenses at all. If you're that proud of how you look with black plastic wrapped across your head, and don't care that you don't need them, then just take those little glass lenses out.

Or are you keeping them in there so they'll be a guard for when people walk by and spit in your face?
And if you can't hear me tell you this, it probably means you forgot the batteries for the retro vintage designer hearing aid you picked up in Venice last weekend.

Twister Sister

2011-01-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

Hey. Tornadoes.

Why the hell do we still study you?

I mean, sure, they look cool, but I think once I was taught that they don't actually transport me and my little dog to magical lands ruled by power-hungry singing midgets, but just crush you with 200mph winds, I pretty much think...yeah, I got it.

"We had a 4th member in the Lollipop Guild. But Earl was a diabetic and well...well, we don't like to talk about what happened to him."

So what do we expect to learn from funneling (get it?) research and grant money into studying something that we seem to already clearly sort of get? Unless there's some theory that magical AIDS-curing genies live inside tornadoes and if we could 'just get our sensors a little closer, we may be able to capture one,' I'm really not sure I understand what we're learning from these menaces of weather.

"I can supplement your T-cell count. But you have to catch me first! Aha!"

Oh sure, people will tell you that by further research they may one day be able to predict where a tornado may form and land with more accuracy. But, I mean, it seems like we can do that pretty well right about now.

Sure, if a batshit crazy tornado suddenly popped up in Malibu, I might say, 'you know, maybe some further research is needed here.'

"I thought I was the only batshit storm combing through Malibu?"

But there's an actual area called Tornado Alley. That's a pretty good place to just avoid all together and simply say, 'Hey, you know, with a name like this, maybe we should just build that Dairy Queen/Strip Club on Route 34 instead. You know, over by Generally Mild Weather Alley*? Just a thought.' Problem solved.
*P.S. Be careful of Generally Mild Weather Alley. They have a highest report of rape cases in the county there.

There's a trailer for a movie actually called Tornado Alley that I just watched recently. And the way they carry on, you'd think tornadoes were as foreign to this country as fish & chips, driving on the left side of the road, or...not being morbidly obese.

"No foreign tornado gonna make me exercise and get off my couch to safety. Tornadoes are Muslim, by the way."

I ask again, what is left to learn about tornadoes that we don't already know? It's a mass of wind and pressure, that forms with a specific weather pattern that we can pretty much predict down to a--dare I say--science? If we haven't figured it out by now with the technology we have then I just say scrap the whole project and use the metal from your vehicles to build those cool fighting robots on Comedy Central.

"Hey Bob? Why are we being shown on Comedy Central again?"

I actually have a friend who works on one of these storm chaser shows. And hey, chasing tornadoes seems dangerous and cool. I love huge storms. But that Tornado Alley movie is narrated by Bill Paxton. So, I guess since he starred in that movie about CGI tornadoes 15 years ago, I'm supposed to just go ahead and accept that he's suddenly an expert on the topic?

"Would you believe I actually do have a PhD in Meteorology? Acting was a fall-back."

I mean, I love Weekend at Bernie's 2, but does that mean I'm going to take Andrew McCarthy's word on reviving the dead with a voodoo curse??

Well, he was pretty good in Mannequin, so...probably.

Rip Van Weinreich

2011-01-04T17:32:00.001-08:00

I've been criticized more than once recently for the fact that I have just a plain, standard, run-of-the-mill cell phone.
You know, one that makes phone calls, tells me the time, and on occasion receives text messages telling me to call back and leave a voicemail so they can email me back.

"Totes skype me back l8terz. ROFL, LOL. BTW. BBW. I CAN'T STOP. AHHH! SOMEONE HELP ME!

Hey, it can even take pictures. But it's NOT a Smartphone, which apparently means I'm like some extra in Medieval Times, walking around town with some archaic piece of technology that only some luddite out-of-touch with modern times would use.

"Ha! That's for calling the Droid Carrier Pigeon better than the Apple Carrier Pigeon. Dumbass!"

Gimme a break. It's not like I'm pulling a Sports Illustrated football phone out of the back pocket of my MC Hammer pants in order to make room for those pogs I just bought.

"I'm not getting any bars."

This isn't some piece of Amish hardware. I didn't whittle it out of a piece of wood while rocking back-and-forth on my porch, waiting for Eliza to bring out a pitcher of lemonade.

It's a God damn cell phone.
I shouldn't be looked at as some technological pariah, living in a forgone time, just because my phone doesn't have an app for writing music in braille while it cures HIV by downloading last night's Pretty Little Liars at speeds hitherto unknown before.

Hell, the most popular thing with that camera is hipstamatic, which ages those crummy wide-angle photos of yourself to look vintage in order for tasteless 20-somethings to convince themselves they're artistic photographers.

"I knew my parents didn't throw away all that money on my liberal arts degree."

So if anything you should respect my "vintage" cell phone as hip and a throwback, like those vinyl records you lie to yourself about sounding better.
Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll get so old and senile it'll ACCIDENTALLY delete your number.

To Natalie, With Love

2010-12-28T09:43:00.001-08:00

When news broke that Natalie Portman was pregnant, the outpouring of ~~support~~ resentment and unfathomable anger was unjustifiably outrageous.

"Worst News of the Year," one facebook status read.
"This is how dreams die," one friend eloquently put it.

Because Natalie Portman was waiting around in her nunnery like the old Knight in Last Crusade, just waiting for the first eligible man to choose the right chalice and win her heart?

You're talking as if by chance had your paths crossed before that egg was fertilized, the highly successful actress would give it all up for the chance to be Mrs. Part-time Assistant-Though I Also Write Specs For Galactica 1980 That Are Going To Get Me On Staff Any Day Now.

"Hmm, but what if Starbuck DID have a homo-erotic relationship with the Cylon after crash-landing together?"

I never understood the hysteria that follows when an attractive celebrity finds some semblance of happiness. Are we really that jaded and selfish that the idea of "if" convinces us that we deserve something that's not owed to us?
"If only WE were co-stars on a highly successful television show together where sparks could fly...," "If only Kristen Stewart saw how irreverent my youtube skits were before she met Robert Pattinson"If only Michelle Williams found my kitchenette and shared bathroom quaint, as opposed to say, filthy, or, as my last girlfriend put it, 'capable of giving Clive Barker nightmares starring Edward Gorey and HP Lovecraft.'"

"No, really, it's fine. We'll just...add some drapes to open the space up."

Get over yourselves. Nothing in your life has changed.
And if it makes you feel any better, she used to have sex with this...

On a regular basis. Using mouths and beards to do Lord knows what.
So, actually, maybe you DID have a shot. Oh well, too late now....

Give Us, Us Free!!

2010-12-21T10:12:00.001-08:00

The Free Sample....

Just because something is offered without a price, doesn't mean it's necessary for you to accept said offer.

It's not even like they're giving you the fresh chicken teriyaki. You're getting the neck and gizzards at the bottom of the pan that got sluiced through the grate into the coagulated lard that has been collecting there since the Sankarra Teriyaki was a Nathan's Hot Dogs.

As soon as those trays of free samples get unloaded onto the cart at Trader Joe's, you'd think they were offering tickets on the last shuttle off Krypton before its red sun explodes. Grown men and women pushing ahead of others to get a dixie cup-sized taste of a microwaveable veggie lasagna.

And any other day of the week they HATE VEGGIE LASAGNA.

So why do they even bother? Because free tastes good? Good enough to turn rational customers into the Lord of the Flies with shopping carts? But instead of a conch shell we get half a mouthful of pasta shells & cheese?

Which makes me Piggy I guess, my glasses thrown off my head by the rush of customers fighting their way to the front of the line before the last sample is gone. It's only a matter of time before they push me off the side of a cliff in order to get their hands on the spork in my hand.

My favorites are the "unsuspecting customers" who just happen to be browsing nearby and "Oh...oh my, well, I mean, sure, I GUESS I could try this sample. Normally I wouldn't even bother, but, well, I wouldn't want any to go to WASTE."

You're not fooling anyone. I saw you standing at 3:00 from the cart for the last five minutes, examining the same loaf of bread as if Jesus's image was baked into it--

--your eyeballs breaking over its horizon as you 'clandestinely' scoped out your target--the emergence from the microwave...of the turkey meatloaf. And yes, please, wave your kids over to try, because I know Little Jimmy has had a craving for a bite-sized portion of haricots verts since soccer practice let out.

We're a country that believes in two things: Something for nothing; No one has the right to tell me I can't be obese. To people who hold this creed the free sample is a red, white and blue firework being shot from a Revolutionary War-era cannon while a socialist runs underneath it's glow being chased by a pack of wild jackals.

"Give me Diabetes, or give me death, or...both, I guess."

Has Anyone Ever Told You That You Look Like....

2010-12-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, you imperceptive bastard, YES THEY HAVE!

Unfortunately I left my 50 year old woman costume back home on Earth--

--so you see, I've looked as I do for quite some time now. So chances are, if someone as unimaginative and hackneyed as you think I remind you of a certain celebrity, chances are that SOMEONE HAS TOLD ME BEFORE.

You're not even using your head. You go for the obvious:

Tall and skinny and jewish.

Swooped back hair and big glasses.

Bearded and curly haired.

Wow. Look at you! Finding patterns quicker than John Nash after two Four Lokos and a high ball.

Don't fool yourself into thinking you're deciphering the Antikythera Mechanism by connecting who I remind you of.

I've heard it all before, sweetheart, so let's dig deeper into history next time and impress me.

You know who no one's ever told me I look like? Guy de Maupassant.

Did I even know what he looked like? No.

Do I think I even look like him? No.

But at least it would show me that you make an intelligent effort to not be so obvious. And you actually know who Guy de Maupassant is, so I'd easily forgive your myopia.

Actually, now that I think about it, if I just grew out my mustache a bit.....

Peep Show

2010-11-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

Everyone's complaining about these new TSA body scanner at the airport. They say that its too invasive and gives people a nude view.

Good! Why do you think I do all those sit-ups? Let SOMEONE enjoy this body.
The most action I've seen all year is the vigorous pat-down by the security agent after they mistook my spare iPod charger for a 5.45mm Russian semi-automatic Kalashnikov.

And bless you dear, for thinking anyone REALLY wants to see you nude. Security had to stop you twice because the fat at the bottom of your KFC bucket had congealed to over 3 ounces.

NO ONE is eager to look at that screen.

"They could leak out onto the internet," they say. I know there's a fetish for everything...

...but people are done idolizing the Venus of Willendorf. Those images are about as sexually arousing as an 8mm scat-themed snuff film starring Benny Hill.

There's one way to make people happy about this. Just have the image skewed so everyone looks 15 pounds thinner.
People would be LINING UP to get through security.

Oh...Nevermind then...

All Together Now

2010-11-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

Great concert.

Good tunes.

But who the fuck are all these yokels singing?

I paid 145 bucks to hear YOU sing, Bono.

Not 10,000 drunken idiots who think "to really experience the Joshua Tree album, you need to hear it AT Joshua Tree, mannnnn."

So can you please stop inviting a stadium of tone deaf, grunting morlocks to "sing it now!"

It's bad enough I've got some high school kid on a date making out with the fat goth girl he brought with him standing on my toes, but do I want to hear him screeching the lyrics to Mr. Brightside in my ear?

"My mom's waiting in the parking lot, so we gotta make this fast."

I don't see a dime out of this, so please don't ask me to do your job for you. Next time my invoices start to stack up, can I call you to take over for a few?

Not to mention the awkwardness of the people who DON'T know the lyrics, but still want to feel involved. Mumbling half-spoken words in Esperanto between stealthily chosen sips of beer between verses. It's bad enough I get stuck next to these people at red lights.

I don't think your Fiat has soundproof glass, dipshit. Line that clunker with some eggshell foam.

I didn't fake sick to leave work early, sit in traffic on the Turnkpike for 90 minutes, spend 30 bucks for a tshirt that after the concert will only be 10, and drink all this beer to see a god damn karaoke show.

You wrote the friggin' lyrics. YOU sing them. That's what you're paid for. No union 15's, man.

Get off your ass and sing the fucking song.

Yes, please...

2010-11-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzAc053vygY

Wouldn't you, or Couldn't you?

2010-11-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

I love when I hear someone say or write "I couldn't have said it better myself."
I find it's one of the few times that the dying embers that power the cold icy planet that was once my heart stirs with heat (save for AT-AT blaster fire on its surface).

No, you couldn't have said it better yourself.
Because you're a fucking retard.

And the person who said THAT, whatever that is, they are smarter than you. So why would anyone expect you to say anything better than them?
Other than these words: Would you like fries with that?

Posting a link to a caustic political/social commentator's well-crafted tirade and saying "I couldn't have said it better myself"above it as your way of inviting yourself into the conversation doesn't make us think you're as smart as the person saying it.
Plus the video's been removed from this site for copyright infringement.
Can't you at least get the link you're pretending to be associated with correct?
Intelligence doesn't travel through osmosis, sweetheart. It also doesn't travel vicariously through that Haagen Daz butter pecan ice cream either, so you can probably stop shoveling that into your mouth while you're at it.
I'd take the spoon away from you, but I fear you might mistake my hand for a cutlet and go Donner Party on me.

Shakespeare sums up the perils that come with the responsibility of great power in Henry IV with his line "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."

You know what, I can't say that any better. I just can't. Will never happen.
Because he's William fucking Shakespeare. And I'm not.

But I'm okay with that. Because at least I'm not you.

Well, here's a new way to waste time...

2010-10-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7376837/

So here's the problem...

2010-09-24T12:12:00.001-07:00

Okay, well, I've been lazy, I've been busy, and I've been stressed out.
Spewing vitriolic musings can drain a man.
I wish I could be updating this as often as I have been in the past, and maybe I can again still at some point (I know all 8 of you are excited to hear that).
But for now...it's time for me to take the plunge and start ranting and raving in a much shorter, twitted form.
I will hopefully be able to update this much more often and share my hate on a regular basis.
So you can start following me, you know...if you want, at or @ or however the hell it is "ianisweinin"

Book 'em Dano

2010-09-09T09:04:00.001-07:00

Ohhhh, excuse me from TEARING you away from that enrapturing tome you hold between your palms??

All I politely asked was "What are you reading?"

And you FLASH ME THE COVER??

If I had asked "Excuse me, what is the douchiest way you can show me what you're reading?" and you responded in kind by staring up menacingly over the upper-binding of your 8th grade summer reading list idea of "young and intellectual" (we all read Of Mice and Men when we were 14, buddy, congrats. Maybe my little sister can help you with a five-paragraph essay on it ) and show me the God Damn BOOK COVER as your answer, then yes, you'd be correct.

"Let's talk 'thesis statement', please."

I asked what you were reading, asshole. If I wanted to read right now, I would be the one not working at 3pm b/c my failed audition ran late and could spend all day with a book.

It's a direct question. Has the miasma of your just sheer, powerful hipness glued your mouth up so tight that you don't have the fucking ability to say the words "Something Something by Dan Brown-rip off"?

Don't flash me the cover. Just tell me the fucking title. I know--IT'S SO TAXING.

This isn't the fucking Library of Alexandria, okay? And you're drinking coffee with whip cream on top. Get over yourself.

If you didn't want someone to ask you about it then you shouldn't be sitting in the faux-intellectual/douche section at Starbucks with your SCARF ON INDOORS---

--and charcoal banana republic sweater hanging loose past the fingerless gloves you picked up off a delinquent cockney child from Edwardian England.

AND GET A FUCKING JOB.

Sign Language

2010-07-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

First of all....Not impressed, buddy.
You know how tough it is to ride a bicycle? Ask my 5-year old cousin; we just took her training wheels off last weekend.

You want to impress me. Ride this down San Vicente.

And cut the shit. Don't shake your head at me you pretentious sonofabitch. I see your helmet bobbing back and forth in condescension as I try to pass you. Ride near the curb, not the middle of the road.

I don't need to be 20 minutes late to dinner just because you want to pretend you're athletic in that spandex suit you bought. You know what? I've ridden a bike too. And I did it in regular clothes. Do me a favor, Boy Wonder, hug the sidewalk and leave the tights at home.

Or so help me God I'll run you right off this road like you were Brand Walsh.

"I want my bike! I want my bike!"

Also, do you think we know what those signs mean?

Are you telling me you want to make a right turn? Then why is your left hand still out? I know it's not complicated but I haven't had my morning coffee or a refresher course on bike etiquette since third grade.

The only people who know what those hand signals actually mean are other bicyclists.

And the back-up dancers from the Vogue video.

F%CKERS, I'M BACK

2010-07-23T08:40:00.000-07:00

This Song Makes Me Want to Ralph

2010-03-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

Sure Ralphs, my Deloreon doesn't travel through time, but it's like turning on the radio to 2003 whenever I shop in your store.

If I wanted to listen to outdated, horribly maudlin pop songs while out of the house, I'd get to he movie theater an extra half hour early and sit through samples from K D Lang's new album.

K D waves goodbye to her fan(s) and relevancy.

But then again I've always enjoyed bleeding out of my ears.

Why can't you play current music? Did you make a deal with some horribly bankrupt, insolvent music publishing group trying to sell of its back catalog from the late nineties?

It's almost as if the music is being sent via Alpha Centauri and it's taken 10 years just for it to reach Earth.
(also if you listen closely behind the Deli Counter, you can hear the underlying message giving us instruction to build an FTL Drive).

"Okay, now we just have to line the whole thing with that egg shell foam to dampen the bass."

Not that it's your job to entertain me, but you've got me stuck in line at the self-checkout for half an hour while The Old Lady Who Lives in a Shoe tries to figure out how to scan her turnip and beet roots without discharging her pacemaker. You owe me Top 40 at least!

"Kasey Kasem? It's nearly three. Shouldn't Alan Freed be spinning LPs by now, Roger?"

Can you not find like a 3 dollar compilation CD to put on instead? Something current. I know where you can find one.

YOUR OWN STORE.
See--there it is, right there in the bargain bin, right next to the 10 dollar Inspector Gadget 2 DVD you've been trying to get rid for the last eight years.

Of all his gadgets, the one he could never develop was the ability to achieve theatrical distribution.

Blinded by the Puppy Love

2010-02-17T21:21:00.001-08:00

Whenever I see a blind person struggling to walk down the street with their seeing-eye dog, I get a pain in my heart...

Because I feel bad for that poor, damn dog.

It's bad enough it's being pushed and pulled around like a retarded kid with one of those vacuum cleaner toys...
But the blind person puts a sign up on its harness that reads, and I kid you not, DON'T PET ME. I'M WORKING.

Okay, first of all, if I'm working, and someone wanted to come pet me, by all means.
Just because I'm on the clock doesn't mean some light foreplay is going to throw me from finishing these expense reports.
Secondly, unless you were blinded by a chemical explosion in your secret laboratory where you were on the verge of a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence that is not a Robo-Dog you have there.

"Don't use them too often, or you'll go blind!"

It's a living, breathing dog. And you know what dogs crave above anything else?
Being pet!
(also eating their own defecation, humping my leg at dinner parties, and opening doorways into other dimensions where Mesopotamian demigods await the end of the world)

So I'm sorry that you're down to only four senses (not including that special one you use to see murders in your mind before they actually occur)

But this is a cute dog. If you don't want people wanting to play with him, get some ugly dog that survived being hit by a car.
And I don't care if his ebullience to getting a scratch under the chin sends him across the street against the light with you attached.

It's happening.

"Lost? I'm...I'm actually right behind you, Sir."

Oh, and by the way....HOW ABOUT YOU FIGURE OUT A WAY TO PICK UP AFTER HIM?

Can you even see the irony of that? Oh, wait....

The Fine Art of Nonversation

2010-02-17T09:56:00.001-08:00

Nonversation: \ˌnän-vər-ˈsā-shən\ noun 1. A hollow, vacuous form of communication between you and the most vapid person you've ever met at a party before in your entire life.

The subject could be anything: sports, college, drinking, etc. Words are coming out of their mouth, their order succinct and grammatically coherent, and yet, I could find more meaning from a drag Monty Python sketch.

As you jabber on and on like some child's toy that's been wound too tight...

...I can see the seconds of my life ticking away on a giant clock, dying incrementally, moment by moment from your incessant, empty conversation about NOTHING.

NOTHING!!!

You see this table?

It was empty before you arrived. And it continues to be so. You have brought nothing to it.

"Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy and your conclusions are highly questionable."

I'm only talking to you because I want to get laid with the girl sitting down the bar and looking at you gives me perfect line of sight at her. So you're already going in with a rock around your ankle, at least make the effort to have a personality and hold my attention.

Your about as transparent as the body figures used in advil commercials.

"No, yeah, I'd love to hear about your drive up on the 405. Please, regale me with your oratory gifts."

You Shall Not Pass!!!

2010-02-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

Dean Martin sang that everybody loves somebody sometimes. But here's a list of people who you should never bother hitting on because they will never love you anytime.

1. Bartender/Waitress

These should be givens.

You're right, she's cute.

You know who agrees with you? Every asshole in this God damn bar.

And you know what, they're all more successful and more attractive than you are.

Someone mentioned to me recently that you might find a positive situation in this, in that most guys will probably think they're unattainable and not even bother, leaving you with an open net.

Maybe in Kansas, when the only guys in the bar are vitamin deficient to the point where nothing grew in after they lost their baby teeth.

2. Friend of Friend on Facebook Who Always Comments on the Same Post as You

Let it go, my friend.

You might think that the girl w/ the uber-hot facebook profile picture who almost always ends up commenting on your mutual friend's post when you do thinks this is a rapport being built.

She doesn't.

And it's not.

Her post of agreement under yours of "Sam! Totes agree! LOL ROFL" isn't the go ahead to message her independently and try to strike up a conversation.

You are nothing but a 2inch by 1inch thumbnail to her.

You don't actually exist in the real world. To her it's like having a conversation with those computer programs that beat Russian chess champions.

3. Hot, Drunk, Engaged Girl w/ Out-of-town Fiance

Her constant nagging about how much an asshole her fiance is, means nothing.

"He left to go snowboarding with these GURLS in Tahoe for the weekend! Let's get drunk!"

The fiance, the one snowboarding in Tahoe, what she isn't mentioning is that he's a professional snowboarder, with endorsements...

And he drills her deeper than the locator device up Arnold's nose in Total Recall.

You can't even figure out how to get to your action-thriller spec to its climax, let alone a chick who's been banging dudes left and right since 7th grade.

"I know an agent who will read it when I finally finish it...What I mean to say is one could physically read it, if they chose to do so."

To her, the tool that slipped a rock on her finger being gone is a vacation not to fool around with an unemployed jackass who lives in his parent's basement, but a vacation to be a cocktease freely again and drive you mad.

See, what you're forgetting is-Even if she were single, she still wouldn't want you.

4. Elevator Chick from the 13th Floor

Sure, she's gorgeous.

And yes, you let it slide when she fires a "Thank God it's friday, right?" rocket at you because you're just glad she's noticing you.

It's bad enough that you're sweating in front of her because you're nervous someone better looking than you is going to get on between the 7th and 8th floors and disrupt this little danse d'amour you think you got here.

But it usually takes you three strong cocktails and a couple of clandestinely slipped ruhypnols in a girl's drink before you work up the courage to ask for her number.

"We should do this again sometime."

So what do you expect to gain in the 35 seconds it takes for the elevator to get to the lobby? The only way you're even getting a first name is if you lucked out and she's on her way down from a company meeting and had to wear a nametag.

So either let it go or follow her down to her car and "accidentally" ram into her when she's pulling out to prolong the conversation.

"We should exchange insurance info...and each other's turn ons/turn offs."

5. Cool Girls int he Apt. Down the Hall

Yeah, they are cool, aren't they? Always throwing "mixers," the perennial sound of their blender stirring up margaritas for drinks on the balcony, the effervescent giggling that follows that zinger you tell one of them as you pass on the stairs.

But...you're also forgetting the steady stream of douchey guys in baggy jeans and flip flops that go in and out of their place frequently enough that you'd think they were running a brothel in there.

Which is too bad, b/c paying for it is the only way you're going to get hot girls that cool.

6. Wanna-be Model/Actress Waiting in Your Office Lobby

Her=Unsuccessful but uber-hot girl whose agent cashed in a favor w/ an exec at your office to get them a meeting.
You=Front Desk Guy w/ an ironic Star Wars shirt on under your blazer

"Some Like it Hoth."

It doesn't matter that her biggest gig to date was as background in a youtube sketch with less than 80 views.

As far as she's concerned, that's like winning an Oscar compared to what you'll ever accomplish.

And that witty banter of yours as she waits for her meeting...it ain't working.

The chuckle she gives when you make a joke about LA traffic...that's called pity.

"Yeah, I mean, why call it the 5? They should call it...the 5mph."

Here's what you should do. Take a mental image, Or, if you're like me, an actual image with that pen camera you keep on you at all times should you drive past your ex-girlfriend's house on your way home...

...now lock your bedroom door, open up that image, and do what you do best. B/c that's as close as you're going to get to her.

Especially after that restraining order is signed off on by a Judge.

Harvey Two-Facebook

2010-02-03T16:23:00.001-08:00

I wasn't going to originally, but let me just discuss with you my opinion of facebook Doppelganger week just briefly with a few key talking points...

1. Quit Fucking W/ Me.
Now as I sneak past my restraining order and troll through my ex-girlfriend's facebook page for new location information under the guise of a fake profile in her network, I'm inundated with all these really attractive friends of hers in thumbnails.

"Hot! Let me just get NASA to redirect the Hubble telescope to be sure."

So now I'm like 'Whoa, I could definitely see myself developing an unhealthy obsession with THAT girl.' So I click her profile and.....

Yes, Admiral Ackbar, you're right. Because it turns out, she's not a drugged-out, sex-in gutters years Drew Barrymore-lookalike...

Just your nasty looking friend who looks nothing like Drew but more like a post-op Tranny who used a cheap Mexican doctor in Rosarito to do the job.

2. The Shit, Cut it.
Simply by writing "I've never seen it, but people tell me all the time that I look like her," promptly as you post a photo of Natalie Portman doesn't make you seem any less vain or unattractive. Your shameful chicanery just proves how ignorant you are that you'd think such a transparent ruse would actually get people to stop and say, 'well, she's such a humble girl to not see that herself that way.'

That sentence would be factual if you the word 'I' was switched with 'People', 'Me' with 'Myself' and 'All the time' with 'while shoving handfuls of red velvet cake into my mouth inbetween sessions of self-mutilation.'

3. Where are all the ugly celeb lookalikes?
Apparently every girl I know is a spitting image of Liv Tyler, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz, and Amanda Seyfriend.

And yet, I have not seen anyone compare themselves to the Heather Matarrazos..

The Cherry Jones...

The Kathy Griffins...

And I know you do look like them, because we've discussed this cattily behind your back. Just like we've also equated you to being the spitting image of the Crimes-Against-God failed Ripley clones from Alien Resurrection.

"Kill me! Also, here's my evite to "Lost My Phone...AGAIN. Plz send digits!!!"

4. The week is over.

And yet...this tomfoolery continues unabated.

Do you know what a week is?

No, that's an apple pie. Put that apple pie d--Okay, or just shove it into your mouth and eat it. Whatever.

My point is, it's time to move on. You've indulged yourself with enough fantasy to fill one of those 2,000 page convoluted Dune sequels I can never wrap my head around.

"Kate Hudson? Really? Yeah, I mean, I guess a little, huh? I get that all the time."

Just be yourself and let the world see you for who you really are and not conform to the standards of beauty impaled on us by society.

Ehhh, on second thought, let's go back to the poorly lit, awkward angled profile pic of your head that hides the bad skin, double chin, sagging gut, and FUPA that you've been using for years. Okay, Morlock?

The Planeteers Are Kind of Dicks

2010-01-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

First off...why just Captain?

Was there no higher-ranking officer of Gaia's ranks to take on this mission?
Damn, that Thing-ripoff that had no pants and spoke like it had a stroke from Ninja Turtles was at least a General.

Does anyone else feel sorry for Captain Planet? He's basically a prisoner, summoned to reality ONLY when the Planeteers combine their powers.

Well, okay, but...where is he the rest of the time?
Some may argue that he lives a similar life to that of a genie in a bottle. One may imagine that then when he's not saving the planet, he gets to relax in a plush, Playboy-esque room of velvet, velour, satin, and lava lamps.

But what if we're wrong. What if he has to wait out the call in some S&M torture chamber out of some Clive Barker novel where the Captain is forced to find pleasure through hellish pain and subject himself to the whim of the nanonbites?

So while Wheeler is putting his best moves on that blond chick in the daisy duke hiking shorts (the sexual tension between those two is ELECTRIFYING!!!) poor Captain Planet is stuck reenacting the ship's log footage from Event Horizon.

Lastly, this show is bigoted, racist, and an example of first-world hegemonic superiority.
Not only are Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water a kickass disco band...

But they are some kickass elements to have control over. Superhuman even!
So of course Ma-Ti, the "latino hybrid character" who trawled through a river of mud and shit in the middle of the night, pursued by Border Troopers, getting separated from his family in the process gets....heart?

What the hell does that even mean? Oh, he gets to communicate with animals? Well, I never see him communicating with cool animals. Like a fucking cougar or bear.

It's always like a badger or squirrel. This poor sonofabitch probably has had to get so many rabies shots from being in close contact with diseased forest vermin for so long.

So while all the other "hip" Planeteers get to basically control weather and literally move mountains, they stick the foreigner with some esoteric, meaningless bullshit power.

Plus they make him do their landscaping as well.

If I were Ma-Ti, I'd just go straight back to the Home Depot parking lot, and wait for a better opportunity.

Keys to the Kingdom

2010-01-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing I hate more than waiting in a line of absent-minded obese women ordering diet caramel whip cream dairy-based coffee beverages at Starbucks....

It's waiting in that line when I have to go to the bathroom, and there's a fucking flea-infested hobo in there bathing themselves in the toilet water.

If they beat me in there I know it's going to be a twenty minute wait, and when they finally do come out, that poorly-ventilated room looks and smells like an abattoir that was used as the basis of contempt for Sinclair's The Jungle.

You know what I love?
The smell of danishes and frsehly brewed coffee (or in Starbucks' case coffee burnt worse than a meth-addict short-order cook.)

You know what I hate?
The smell of bum piss spilt over the toilet seat, floor, and something in the sink that looks like a mixture of dirt, semen, and that one-eyed dumpster alien from Star Wars.

So I was thankful that Starbucks is now making the effort to add coded locks on their doors to keep out the riff raff.

Though...now where the hell do I go when I have to take a leak?

Shit! Starbucks...you bastards. I feel super-guilty now to just wander in to a random Starbucks to use the bathroom if I really have to go. Before it was my go-to place for random bathroom use, now I've been reduced to feeling like a fucking transient that has to leave his self-respect at the door and act like some god damn secret agent, typing in codes, faking perusing the menu, sneaking past Baristas.

The only thing worse than this is the Starbucks on Wilshire by the Grove which DOESN'T HAVE A BATHROOM!!

I've only been sitting here for two hours drinking coffee, lattes, and eating high-fiber muffins, I'm sure it comes as a fucking Brainteaser to you...

"Braingames is now.......oveeerr"

...that I now have to purge myself worse than the back-pressured pipes under the Sports Club in Goonies.

Potent Quotables for 800, please.

2010-01-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

Oh, I didn't realize your email about your opinion on the Coachella line-up was the epigraph to an important work of fiction?

Oh, it's not? Then why did you add a quotation beneath your signature at the bottom?

Oh, because you're a pretentious jackass?

Ohhhhhhh. Okay.

Now, we all know I never finished my thesis for Dr. Jones' PhD program in Medieval literature...

"Let my armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the sky."
-Charlemagne

But I know you didn't either.

So do you think by adding some esoteric piece of wit you Bogarted off the cover of a 365-Quotes A Year desk calendar under your name is going to make people forget you're a fucking ritard.

Quotes are good for two things:

1-My court-appointed attorney to use sparingly in his closing arguments during my trial for kidnapp--er, romancing Marion Cotillard with rope and gag in the trunk of my car.
2- The epithet on your tombstone--one I hope is erected in the very, very near future.

-Ian Weinreich

"Insert ironic quote that I hope will
impress upon you how mature and
intellectual I can be here."

La Perfumerie

2010-01-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

Listen Old Ladies,

An elevator is not much more than a small mausoleum. Except instead of seeing Lenin's body in repose, I have to listen to some asshole on his bluetooth shouting about how bad his fantasy football team is going to his fantasy friend on the other line.

But like a mausoluem, an elevator has no ventilation.

Nowhere for that acidic, putrid formaldehyde you call perfume to filter through other than my big, Jewish nostrils.

Perfume is supposed to be splashed on, not splashed IN.

Let's face it: You're ancient.

I understand that the odor of your desiccating organs and epidermal system wafts off your wrinkled, dry flesh like Metamucil powder caught in a strong wind...

And that you think bathing in perfume like it was gasoline and you're a protesting Buddhist monk with a penchant for self-immolation hides the Grim Reaper on your shoulder...

But it doesn't. Perfume is like my high school stalker Lawanda...

It leaves a trail behind you no matter how fast you run to the Paramus Municpal Court to file a restraining order.

This means that even after you leave the elevator, your stench does not.

I'm still smelling dead ovaries and osteoporosis mixed with Chinatown Chanel-knockoff an hour after you've traveled up to see the "girls" for your Mahjong tournament and to be served by "that colored girl" who you suspect steals money from your jacket in the coat closet.

"I don't care if Rochester can hear me, Eliza; All I know is someone or some thing has been pilfering food out of the trash heap by the stables and I can assure you 'twas not I."

A potpourri this does not make...

Bill and Ted Are Kind of Dicks

2009-12-23T10:49:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, I've decided to repost one or two of my own personal favorites from the past six months in an effort to both make up for my lack of new entries this past month...

And to also remind myself how clever I am.

Dudes, so congrats passing that history exam of yours, but all those hilarious, goofy guys you travelled back in time to help you, most of them get seriously fucked up after this so-called “excellent adventure” of yours…

The least you could have done is warn them or something.

Let’s take a gander…

Socrates: People in Athens got pissed b/c he was smarter than them and had him tried, found guilty, and forced to drink deadly poison.

Joan of Arc: Maybe if you weren’t so busy trying to get under her chainmaille, you might have remembered to give her a heads up on that whole ‘tried as a heretic and BURNED ALIVE AT THE STAKE’ thing she’d have endure down the road. How painful do you think that was for her? But yeah, she probably didn’t want any kind of warning or anything.

That certainly looks like fun, no? Thanks guys.

Billy the Kid: So not only was he a wanton murderer to begin with, he was also violently gunned down in New Mexico at 21.

Abe Lincoln: I mean, really? Not even like a “You probably should avoid Ford's Theater if you can”? The guy brought an end to slavery…no heads up?

Sigmund Freud: Granted Freud lived into his eighties, he was alive to see his books burned by the Nazis and then had to flee to England once Hitler annexed Austria. Oh, and he also committed suicide to avoid a battle with oral cancer.

Beethoven: Basically the guy shat and vomited himself to death.

But I’m glad you had a good time at the mall with him.

You guys are always saying ‘Be excellent to each other.’ How about you start by being excellent to your friends?
Fucking dicks…

The Lost Art of Stalking

2009-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, I've decided to repost one or two of my own personal favorites from the past six months in an effort to both make up for my lack of new entries this past month...

And to also remind myself how clever I am.

Kids these days don’t know how easy they have it.

Stalking used to mean something.

People used to care. People used to make an effort. Now, like much of the 21st century, it has become an automated, disconnected experience where efficacy and quality’s been replaced for expediency and ease.

It’s laziness.

In the post-Obama world we should be standing up, getting involved. But it is a lost cause.

As a youngster, if someone wanted to stalk me, they’d have to put some time into it. Follow me after school, figure out ways to leave me notes in my text books so that I’d find them when I’d open to a specific chapter for that day's specific lesson (diabolical!), waiting outside my house with binoculars, hoping to spot me in case I was home, or at least to wait patiently upon my return. This is an impressive obsession.

But now facebook, twitter, myspace, IM, etc., they’ve done half the job for you. You’ll know where to find me simply by looking at my status.

You’ll know who to duct tape and leave in the trunk of your car for days by checking who I’m “in a relationship” with.

Why bother clandestinely following my route after school if you see on Twitter that "ianweinreich@twitter: seeing startrek at the plaza this afternoon." It's like being handed a road map.

Before, in my day, if I didn’t have the same feelings for you, I could easily just ignore you at school. And then have my mom answer the phone at night to screen the calls.

Caller ID was the impetus for the fall of stalking.

“Oh it’s that Dayna broad.” Ignore. Click.

We didn’t know how good we had it.

Now there’s IM, email, skype, facebook chat, texts, facebook message, wall posts...the ability to ignore you has become something of an uphill battle with the myriad of outlets for communication to be facilitated from your end.

A key element that used to drive obsession and turn a crush into an infatuation into a dangerous broad ready to kill my little girl’s rabbit in a boiling pot of water then bring her onto a roller coaster ride? (b/c I base much of my knowledge on stalking on the idea that Fatal Attraction is a realistic, down-to-earth depiction of just this), is not being able to expel the feeling for me inside you. having it bottled deep inside just drove you ever the more insane and furious with lust.

But there are just too many forums for you to blog, instant messange, or twitter me about that it’s cut the legs off a lot of that old school ferocious crushing (not unlike how you wanted to cut the legs off from me to keep me from leaving your bedroom after having me ‘study’ that one time in 8th grade – I know what you were thinking, I saw the axe in your closet, the iodine, and the chains).

When I want a stalker I want someone who goes the distance. I want to see her out there, waiting for me to come home at the end of a long day, following me haphazardly, not knowing my final destination.

That’s obsession.

This, today, this…it’s just such a sadness.

Little Drummer Boy

2009-12-23T10:13:00.000-08:00

So it looks like Ringo has a new album coming out soon...

Y Not

Y Not, indeed.

Well, I can think of a few reasons. First of all because your clever parlance of using the letter Y to represent the word 'why' is as about as hollow and meaningless as your career for the past twenty-five years.

Do people show up to see you perform these days in the off chance that Paul McCartney might show up as the surprise guest for the encore?

I kinda think that's the best you can hope for these days. Especially since you made a public announcement that you would NO LONGER BE SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS.

You don't even need to sign your full name. Just R-I-N-G-O. Five letters.
But apparently years of holding up peace signs to cameras have rendered your wrist muscles as weak and tenuous as your lyrics.

But I shouldn't be too hard on him. It must be tough to know an entire generation of people joke that someone should have shot him in the back of the head instead of John Lennon.

Or at least one person.

Shirt Off Your Back

2009-11-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

So I'm at a concert last night for Ray Davies from the Kinks...

And needless to say I'm the youngest person there asides from the stray ten-year old whose abusive father forced to accompany with him under penalty of the belt.

And I'm sitting in my seat amidst a sea of gray hair and paunchy guts, when this guy walks past with me a fucking Who tie-dyed shirt on.

Now, let me first be clear. This is not about the fact that a grown man was wearing a tie-dyed shirt. No, this is not at all about some loser who grew up in the sixties and used to dip his white shirt in multi-colored inks and paints to achieve a rainbow effect that makes Paul Lynde about as masculine as George Clooney.

Not about the tie-dyed shirt man who then sold out his entire generation when he finally put down his hash pipe, stopped mourning over Mama Cass and her ham sandwich

and finally went to work, eventually voting for Reagan and taking out a loan to buy a three-story house in Long Island.

No. But...fuck that guy. Tie-dyed? Ugh, punch yourself in the face.

This is about the Who shirt. At a Kinks concert.

Ok, so they're both British based bands. And they both came to prominence at the same time. And they both played a similar type of British rock for at least awhile.

Now, let me ask you- if you went to a Blur concert, would you wear a Pulp shirt?

If you went to a U2 concert when they supported joshua tree, would you wear an Alarm shirt?

No. You're going to support the band you're here to see by wearing a shirt by a band from a similar genre??

Now, they're selling the shirts outside for 20 dollars, and I'm amazed enough that people are already wearing them and not carrying around the shirt they changed out of. Did you show up bareback for this concert, Lady Godiva?

It's obvious you're just trying to appear hip, like you have an encyclopedic knowledge of musical trends and genres, and you seem like the asshole who I'd hear at the urinal discussing with some stranger the ethereal significance of Satanic Majesties Request when looked at through the kaleidoscope of time and changing music tastes and production techniques. Thanks, Professor.

You have kids for christ's sake. Take off the tie-dye, at the very least throw on a shirt for the band you're here to see, and sit the fuck down in front of me- you're stupid old man comb-over is flapping in my purview of the stage.

All Dogs Go To Hill Valley

2009-11-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

If you're like me....and for your sake, I hope that you are...

Then you're plagued by the thought that maybe dogs dream the future.

Why not? Would we really know one way or the other if they did?

"You're gonna die up there."

No, we'd be fucking clueless.

You know that Chihuahua that trembles terribly every time you pick him up?

Well now you know why. The poor thing dreamt about the pick-up truck that is going fall off the overpass and crush you in your mini-cooper in a couple weeks.
All he wants to do is warn you. But he can't. Because he's a FUCKING DOG.

They shake themselves because they're trying to wipe the vision of their loyal master being paralyzed in that elevator accident three years from now clean from their minds.

Canines are out there left and right, just getting prescient temporal visions of their masters futures...

...and we're up here walking around on two feet like we own the world, when our fates and destinies are being played out by an animal that given the choice, would eat it's own defecation.

Though who knows? Maybe they're on to something. If they're smart enough to see into our futures, who am I to resist?

So next time you're lying in bed and your dog comes up to the side, sits down, tongue dangling out of the side of his mouth, what he's probably thinking is, "I KNOWZ HOW YOU GONNA DIE!"

Bag It & Tag it

2009-11-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

Cashier: Do you want a bag?
Me: Do you want a punch in the face?

Look at how much shit I just bought?
No, I don't want a bag. I'm a fucking traveling circus performer and prefer to live my craft by juggling these 13 items the three-mile walk back to my house.

Look, I'm a big Ringo fan too.

But we don't live in the fucking Octopus's Garden.

I only have 2 arms. I know your remedial math class through high school was basically just watching reruns of Sesame Street.

But I think the Cookie Monster would spit masticated, partially digested Oreos into your face if you asked him such nonsense.

Just give me the benefit of the doubt and assume I'll want a bag. If I was only buying one god damn tube of toothpaste, maybe I'll live dangerously and say I don't need a bag.

Or maybe you can just go back to whatever bridge it is you live under thinking up riddles and go fuck yourself.
And no Rite Aid, no I will not be taking the online survey you pointed out the number for on my receipt.

INVICTUS!

Spare Some Change For an Old Altar Boy, Fad'r

2009-11-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

You ever notice how the palm one of one's hand can be formed into a perfect little cup?

And that when you're counting out my change and I hold that chalice beneath your face, I'm miming that "this is where my change goes."

Now, I understand that since you're working behind a register, those Master classes at Harvard Business School you're taking haven't gotten to the important curriculum yet.

However, unless your depth-perception has been fucked with by the asbestos in the walls of this needs-to-be condemned building, you see the cup I'm holding out to you.

So then why the FUCK do you drop the change all over the counter instead??

Now It's sliding all over the god damn place; that dime just fell on the floor; a nickel's rolled beneath the counter. I need this?

And look, your empty apology to me...just don't bother. I know you're not sorry. I can tell by the look on that Stars Wars mask you wear as a face.

It's bad enough I had to listen to you give me your sales pitch on the CVS card I should get with all the oratory eloquence of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot....

You know, the void in the art of raconteuring by the death of Spalding Grey may just have been filled. My spidey senses are tingling that there's a career change in your future!!

Just put my pack of Camel Lights and box of condoms in the plastic bag and let me be on my day, Morlock.

Congrats on your role in Precious, by the way.

Food for Thought

2009-10-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Chubby Whole Foods Cashier: And would you like to donate a dollar or more to Feed Africa Now.

Me: Look at my face. This is the face of a man who will not be donating a dollar to Feed Africa Now.

Okay Whole Foods, let's cut the shit.

If I wanted to give money to African kids, I'd rewatch movies taped off commercial TV in 1986 and wait for that Sally Struthers infomercial to play every five god damn minutes.

For starter's, don't blindside me like that. It's bad enough I've got the homeless guy with a skin disorder barking at me for change by the carts outside the entrance.

Now you're trying to make me out to be an asshole b/c I don't want to fork over a buck even though I already have to deal with spending half my paycheck on your organic Paul Newman's Own Pretzel Crisps?

And at least tell your cashiers HOW to beg for money. I'm not about to fork over another dollar when the woman at the register, who looks like she eats only non-organic cheetos for three meals a day and speaks with about as much eloquence and coordination as the Elephant Man is the one wheeling and dealing here.

It also doesn't entice me to donate money when the incentive is explained as "you can sign your name on this paper cut out int he shape of Africa and it'll be put up around the store."

FUCK YOU.

You think I want my ex-girlfriend to see that shit? That i donated one fucking dollar?? Have the balls to ask me for some real money.

You won't get it.

But you'll get my respect.

Now where the fuck are the god damn mini brie in filo bread brunch appetizers??

I'm starving!!!

Straight to the Dome

2009-10-12T16:38:00.001-07:00

There's a lot of people out there that deserve nothing more than a delicious punch to the face.

It was the one dish that I would have went to see Julie and Julia if they'd shown it being served.

I would do this but there are several things holding me back:
1. Cowardice

2. Imminent Awkward Situation (IAS): Most of my life is about avoiding choices that will somehow lead to an awkward situation between myself and another. My life is guided by doing anything possible to reach as few of these as possible. Needless to say, frequent facial punches will probably start to draw me into a long string of IAS's.

This will be an ongoing entry that I continue to update with more and more people who could a learn a thing or two about the world by getting kicked in the gut by a man with elephantitis.

#1. The "IF IT WAS SO IMPORTANT YOU WOULDN'T HAVE FORGOTTEN" Guy.

You know what? Fuck you.

Maybe it was important. Who said it wasn't? Maybe I've got a lot on my mind and whatever it was I had to tell you just isn't my top priority. Doesn't meant it was something menial and irrelevant.

It slipped my mind as well that you've never forgotten anything in your entire life. You're biography is just like that animal that never forgets...the name now escapes me.

People forget important things all the time.
Like your mother and birth control.

I really just can't remember. Back the fuck off.

Or you're really tempting fate for an unforgettable affair between a fist and that pock-marked mess you call a face.

Fly the Friendly w/ Benefits Skies

2009-10-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

So I've got an 90 minute layover in the Phoenix airport and grow bored standing in front of the CPK ASAP, pondering just how hungry I am and if 18 dollars for a 4-inch diameter microwaved "lactose-based italian themed bread disc" is worth it...

When I decide to just hang out in one of the stores that sells magazines and books and trinkets with cool tourist spots in Phoenix silk-screened on them, such as...

So anyway, I grow tired of reading the backs of the three new John Grisham thrillers out, or their Christian-themed counterparts...

Who knew International intrique in Morocco is really a metaphor for the quest we all must venture on to find God within ourselves?

When I hit the magazines: GQ, Esquire, Details, Maxim, Penthouse, Black Beauty, Hustler..

Ehhhh, what?

Is this really proper reading material at an airport? It's bad enough I have to sit next to the smelly indian dude with dandruff using up both armrests b/c of his expansive laptop. Now I have to worry about him rubbing one out next to me?

This is a bad combination. There's already women whipping out breasts to milk their babies.

No, seriously, that happened to me. There ARE bathrooms on planes you know? I think you can drop the whole "This is what mothers DO" bullshit and just take it inside.

So i got a woman with an exposed boob on one side, and some dude who's now aroused enough to whip out the copy of Rear Entry he picked up at the terminal store on the other and start pounding his meat.

And thanks, I'm sure the majority of ADULTS on this flight really wants to watch Hotels for Dogs as their in-flight movie.

I'm WALKING!

Trailer Trash

2009-09-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Fact: Unless ELO is playing in the trailer for your movie, it is NOT a quirky, indie fantasy film.

Eternal Sunshine

Stranger Than Fiction

The Invention of Lying

Can we not figure out the genre or tone of your film without Jeff Lynne singing a song so saccharine it could kill a diabetic?

There are songs with more adult lyrics and themes being sung by puppets on Sesame Street.

Don't get me wrong- ELO is one of my favorite bands of all time, and this song is amazing. how could you NOT love this face?

However, what is it about a song that's basically only a hair or two more mature than "Rain, rain, go away, come back again some other day" that makes it the only song possible to get the filmmaker's point across that, "Okay guys, this film is quirky, annnnd it's also sort of low-budget, oh, and it also kind of bends genres into sci-fi, but just a bit."

Oh, and Under Pressure- yeah, we get it, this is that 'tough' end of act 2 point in your life, when everything is getting you down and thinks just aren't going your way.

But we know you'll rally back to come out on top. Why? Well, because Walking on Sunshine just started playing over the trailer.

Gimme a break.

Bonfire of The Vanity...Plate

2009-09-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Your vanity plate is LUV2LAF...

....are you fucking kidding me?

It's called a personalized license plate for a reason.

Because it's supposed to be 'personal', i.e. about YOU.
Not unlike these gems...

Oh, you love to laugh do you? That's such a unique characteristic and personality trait. Never in my international travails in my stately hot air balloon, "The Cody," have I come across such an exotic specimen of Man as one who finds laughing an enjoyable hobby.

This find truly rivals any anthropological discoveries made by my competitor, the abominable Dr. Igrid Fallswell, in his mad globe-trotting escapades.

Who the fuck DOESN'T love to laugh. Anyone? No, we all like to laugh. It's one of the few things every fucking human on earth craves to do.

Why not just have a license plate that says BREATHE2LIVE or 2EARS2EYES.

I think you act this way because you're afraid if you got a truly personalized license plate it would have to say IB-DOOSH

By the way, this would be mine if i didn't loathe personalized license plates so much....

The Great Glass Elevator

2009-09-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

If you get in an elevator in the parking structure...

And you hit the button for Floor 17...

Chances are, when the elevator stops 8 seconds later...

It is NOT your floor.

So then why do you make to get off like it is? "Oh, woops, this isn't me."

No shit it's not you.
We've been in this thing long enough for it to travel five feet. This is an office elevator not the fucking Event Horizon.

Unless we're actually all lego people who think we're real (not unlike the film The Thirteenth Floor-underrated)...

And work in a structure that a five-year old built with those big clumsy legos that only the slower half-retarded ones ever used...

Then it takes a wee while for this thing to move several hundred feet vertically. Cool your jets.

And while on the topic of elevators...why have they never invented the ERASE BUTTON for when that fucker hits the wrong floor on your way down?
"Oh...oh, my bad. Sorry guys...sorry. I meant lobby, or was it PA? Hmm.."

And of course he apologizes glibly every time the elvator doors open on the empty floor.
Just...just shut up.

Fried Chicken Little

2009-09-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Listen, sweetheart. You live in Los Angeles. If you think a little ash in the air for three days is going to destroy your lungs, think about what 10 years of sucking down carbon monoxide from the broken muffler of the MetroBus you've been stuck behind for two hours in rush hour traffic on the 110.

At least invest in an actual surgical mask. Might I suggest one of those freaky, designer ones the SARS epidimeic helped create. (They do say despair brings out the best in the art world)

But the crumpled up blue plastic bag (what DVD did you just purchase at Best Buy?) you have shoved over your mouth makes me think more of a rapist on the prowl with a bottle of chloroform, then of actually doing you any good.

And is that an oil-stained Burger King bag i see gripped between the meaty digits of your other hand?

Why yes, of course it is. I can see you have your priorities straight. Protect your mouth from the dirty air of the LA fires, but roll your eyes at the person smoking a cigarette outside a bar, and then stuff your face with chemically altered food by-products.

Because you've worked hard today at being a complete tool. And you deserve to treat yourself.

The Public Option

2009-09-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Forgive my tardiness, by the calendar on my wall I see that I've taken a hefty 4 week vacation from entertaining you with my misanthropic neuroses.
You'd think in all that time I'd have found some extremely amusing anecdotes to unleash on all of you.
Alas, I have not.
That's why you're stuck with this instead.

Let's get something straight...
The website where you participate in a poll about which FRIENDS character you are in real life (I'm a total Chandler, btw)...

...is not the website you use to inform people of a death in your family.

For starters, you're an attention whore. B/c chances are your post will not be "-just wants to let everyone know my cousin passed away this weekend."

No, it'll be OMG, in total shock, this is horrifying. Just so you can see a long list of people who don't really care about you, leave a litany of messages like: what happened?, R U OK?, call me if you need anything, Seriously Grl, what happened?

Are you that desperate for any kind of attention that you'd seriously use the death of someone close to you as a way to get people you were friendly with in first grade but were too lazy to deny their friend requests from to ask if U R OK?

I doubt on your dad's deathbed he held your hand, tears streaming down both your cheeks and in a weak, meek voice said, "Use my passing as a way to post a cryptic, vaguely elegiac status update in order for people no one cares about to pretend to feel sympathy. That's how I want to be remembered darling, as a ploy for you to get your 15 minutes of facebook condolences."

At the very least, please wait a few days between the obituary status and the "WHAT DOUBLE DARE GAME ARE YOU" application you just installed.

Bruce Wayne Is Kind of a Dick

2009-08-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

Batman, what the hell is wrong with you?

Alfred is in his 70s and you're still making him work your fancy parties??

The guy's probably got arthritis, osteoporosis, the beginning of alzheimers, and you make him walk around serving drinks to your stuck up friends who probably later complain, "that servant DARED make eye contact with me!"

He probably just wants to relax in a comfy chair and stick his feet in a tub of warm salt water. The poor guy's probably got one of those railings to help him in and out of the shower...

... and you're too lazy to get your own breakfast in the morning??

I guess him raising you as his own son after the death of your parents couldn't erase the fact from your spoiled mind that he'll always just be "the hired help."

He should be doing infomercials for medical alert necklaces, not being at the back and call of your eccentric whim.

Hasn't he done enough?

Just let the old man spend his latter years with some dignity you shit-eating grin, rich, sadistic fucker.

Stale Tortillas

2009-07-28T14:01:00.001-07:00

Right, I get it, you're of Mexican heritage.

Sooo....what else you got?

Nothing? That's it? And how long is this special?

Gym Rats

2009-07-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

After a disastrous day at the gym, I feel it necessary to take some time and unleash some hatred on the people who make working out a fucking nightmare for me.

Dress-Clothes Guy

I'm sorry, but buy a fucking lock. I came from work too. But watching your goofy ass do lat pull downs in a button down w/ slacks and dress shoes is distracting me.

The Advice Guy

"Here let me give you a quick spot."
"No, I'm fine actua--
"No, no, no, no problem, no problem, I actually noticed you weren't extending fully on those lifts anyway."

This guy shows up out of nowhere and assumes that everyone there is looking for help from complete strangers who actually have no clue what they're talking about. In fact, chances are, this guy will usually be rail thin and in terrible shape.

Trainer Casanova

Look, I know you're hoping to get laid--that's why people become personal trainers. But I also pay to come here. So if I'm on the mats doing sit-ups, I'd appreciate it if you didn't stand practically on my fucking head and flirt with the low self-esteem blond sitting next to me.
That's my job.

This is MY Locker Room Guy

"Not only am I going to bring eighteen bags with me, blocking any way you could possibly get to your own locker, I'm also going to more or less bathe myself in the sink, getting water everywhere, maybe shave my arm hair off in front of the mirror as well, what do you think of that?"

Stick Thin w/ an Ego Guy

First off, Mark McGrath, it's great that you're working out. But this is your, what, third time ever? Why don't you hold off on the sleeveless shirts and dramatic looks you make when curling that ten pound pillow you call a weight. No one's impressed.

Workout Fashion Guy

Maybe they didn't tell you when you signed up, but simply by wasting your money on expensive, feminine-looking workout clothes, doesn't actually give you a workout. You sort of have to do that anyway. Sorry.

Singing on the Treadmill Guy

You realize you're not alone, right? And you're voice sucks? Especially while hopping up and down jogging? This isn't karaoke. If it was, I'd be drunk.

The Flip-Flops Guy

Really? What is this cause for this? Should I need to even ask why this occurs?

New Best-Friend Guy

No...No. Just...just no. I don't care that we workout at the same gym, along with the thousands of other members. I don't want to waste a half hour between sets shooting the breeze w/ you. No- don't...God, don't comment on my form either. You're quickly becoming the Advice Guy too. Just leave me alone. I didn't make eye contact with you, so don't come over here.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall Guy

Great man, you've got killer abs. I don't think they've changed in the last ten seconds though. You can stop checking yourself out in the mirror. I'm vain and I don't even stoop to that.

The Circuit Training Guy

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm still on that, still on that."
"Oh, okay, then I'll just use--"
"No, no man. On that too."
"Well--"
"On it."
"Why don't you just tell me which machines you aren't on at the moment to speed this up?"

Sweaty Indian Guy w/o a Towel

Perhaps the worst offender at the gym. Not to sound racist, but if you're an Indian dude, chances are you're going to sweat like a fucking hole in the Hoover Dam. You need more than two sheets of paper towels to wipe down that puddle you left on the mat where my head's about to go. Make a sacrifice to Ganesh or bring a fucking beach towel.

Pond Hopping

2009-07-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

Douchebag Intern: You know what time it is?
Me: Yeah, ten after twelve.
Douchebag Intern: Cheers, mate.

Cheers?

Mate?

Are you talking about the Love Boat/Cheers cross-over episode, or are you really using British words with your American voice?

Unless the Delorean pulled up again at 88mph, Mel Gibson single-handedly won the Revolutionary War for us over 200 years ago.

So what the fuck makes you think you can talk like you're in jolly ol' foggy London town?

As an anglophile myself, it's tempting to want to behave and act as an Englishman might (unless said Englishman is Sting...fucking daft wanker)

However, do you have any idea how ridiculous it sounds when someone with an American accent (i.e. you) uses British slang? I know you're trying to be 'hip' and 'original' as opposed to 'douchey'. Would I want a book on tape of Nicolas Cage reading a Nick Hornby book?

No, because that would sound wrong. Like some fucking trust fund intern from Encinco who tells me 'Cheers.'

Fuck you. When I give you the time, say thank you. Don't say cheers. I'm not your mate. I can't spare a quid for the tube. And I don't want to get square pissed with you at the pub, squire.

Unless you're buying.

No Handle on the Environment (...get it?)

2009-07-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

Ralphs...fuck you.

If you really wanted to embolden your "sense of responsibility in helping the environment," instead of starting by ELIMINATING THE HANDLES ON YOUR PAPER BAGS, how about just getting rid of the waste you employ -- When I say I want a fucking pound of low-sodium butterball turkey, I don't want Dumbfuck McGee to respond with "now that was half a pound bologna, right?"

Your company claims that getting rid of the Lilliputian, but totally necessary, handles attached to your paper bags will save 140,000 lbs. of paper weight each year. Oh, you mean paper weight that could then be recycled again over and over again? Is...is that what you mean, Ralphs?

Cleary, you're cheap bastards and want to save the 3cents per bag handles might cost you.

Believe it or not Ralphs, if that IS your real name, the teleportation device from The Fly has not been approved by the Federal Transportation Commission yet, and that means that with my 40 pounds of groceries, I can't magically transport myself and an unnoticed insect, instantaneously from your store to my refridgerator.

And even though it somehow seems that the majority of your customers are obese punters scootin' around in motorized wheelchairs with bins attached, I have to carry said groceries from Point A to Point B.

But walking around with fifteen stuffed plastic bags with the strength of a wet piece of toilet paper to hold all my food, instead of two fucking paper bags AVEC LES HANDLES is much easier for me. Thanks.

Fuck, I've had broken condoms that still held up better than those fucking things.

Or I could always just cradle the handleless paper bags under each arm like a god damn pair of twins. Is that what you want Ralphs? Is that really what you want??!!

Oh, and by the way...those delicious Korean Pears you charge $2 for, well I ring them up as 40cents bananas at the self-checkout.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!!

Belle Epoque

2009-07-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Oh how whimsical. What a lark, on this humid, summers afternoon, to take a stroll arm-in-arm through Westwood Village with Mr. Darby. I'll be the talk of the town with my new parasol.

Your fucking parasol??

Listen sweetheart, unless that was a Delorean run on Mr. Fusion I just stepped out of, this is still 2009. I know you have no one in your life but those Victorian romances you read alone (surprise, surprise) in bed at night of Byronic heroes and strong women, but even Jane Austen would slap you across the face if she ran into you cooling yourself down with that paperweight umbrella you're tugging around.

For starters, you see that ground you're walking on? That's called cement. Ce-Ment. Now, unlike the meadows and lilly ponds of the Monet prints you have framed so your cats have something to look at while you're at work, this wasn't a common building tool the days of yore. It reflects light back up. So all that heat and sunlight you think you're avoiding, is just being bounced back up onto you.

Secondly, you bought that in a Halloween store, didn't you? It's not even functional or authentic, is it?

Also, you're walking from your office building to the Starbucks on the corner. You're not an albino. You're clothed. I don't think skin cancer will find the time to metasticize during the five minute walk in the sun from Point A to Point B.

You're not a vampire. You're not chic. You're just another one of those people I want to push into the street against the light. Get real.

Parasol's are only acceptable in two situations. In my Mai Tai or on the shoulder of a Japanese geisha as she giggles daintily into her hand.

Tee-hee-hee-hee.

Weekend at Billie Jean's

2009-06-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

So MJ has passed on...and i know we're all choked up. Remember how great his last album was? Oh...oh you don't? How about the one before that? How about any new music or anything he's done since 1991?

No, me neither. But I know you're really upset. I'm sure you'll feel the same way when Billy Joel and Elton John pass away (maybe if the two of them stopped playing concerts together of music from 1978, they'd get around to doing something substanial today).

But hey, I get it, he was one of a kind and uber-talented for over two decades and did put some of the best pop music out in the world.

But the fun doesn't have to stop here. There are several ways to keep Michael moonwalking to a stage near you.

The Weekend at Bernie's method seems like a logical move. The only problem though---you need operators standing with him, or else it's just a listless corpse.

This doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

So that's why we turn to Weekend at Bernie's 2. It's like this movie was written for Michael Jackson. For those of you unfamilar with the plot, basically a fouled-up voodoo curse (they used a pigeon instead of a chicken in the seance...rookie mistake), Bernie comes back to life in order to lead them to his hidden treasure. BUT, and this is important, ONLY WHEN THERE IS MUSIC PLAYING.

It's perfect. Most performers lip synch now anyway, so just blast some Thriller over the crowd and watch the Zombie Michael Jackson break loose for you.

And since through all the settlements he's had to pay out for child molestation and to keep the guy who plays Peter Pan on main st. at Disneyland locked under a giant jar in his basement, he's broke. Really broke. So what money is his family going to get from him?

License his image to be reproduced Beartown Jamboree style in a chain of pizza/burger joints where robotic Michael Jackson can sing and dance for kids birthday parties, corporate events, bar mitzvahs, etc.

It's win/win. Michael Jackson will continue to perform as an anamatronic effigy, and future generations of Jacksons will continue to reap the financial rewards.

Come for the coffee, Stay for the porn

2009-06-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

"Let's take that corner table. Uh, Ian...why is there a Hustler here?"

Reasons to Explain Why We Found A Hustler from the 1980s at Starbucks

1. It was in fact a fake cover hiding the Gray's Sports Almanac from 2015. (Which would also explain why that ornery old man in the deloreon followed me home afterwards)

2. Part of Starbucks new $3.95 tall latte, mushroom-bacon breakfast sandwich, and jack-off deal.

3. In recession, cheaper than paying their fee for wireless internet to go to porn sites

4. Keeps the bums occupied during their baths in the bathroom sink.

5. I left it there the day before.

6. Left by some grad student doing research on his unfinished novella. "It's sort of about the futility of love, and death, and how disconnected we've all become. It's a metaphor for Iraq, you know? It's scary...What? No I don't have a publisher lined up...Do you think my ex-girlfriend will like it?"

"The Chad"

2009-06-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

As I arrived for a small birthday gathering of friends at a crowded Saturday night at South this past weekend, I was introduced to a friend of theirs, who, since I didn't plan on remembering his name anyways, I didn't, so for now I'll just call him...Chad, b/c I fucking hate guys with that name- they're always either douches or on crew (which is the same thing, more or less)

Artist's Rendering of a "Chad"

Anyway, the cool thing about this bar was that it had an annex with a small bar set up and one very cute bartender away from the barrage of 85 guys with newly pressed headshots in their trunks all claiming that Brody Jenner worked out at their equinox (that their parents pay for).

So i approach this bartender, you know, a real classy, down to earth kinda gal.

And I order a beer, try to engage in small talk with her, when "Chad" arrives for a high-five, then proceeds to introduce me to the bartender, whose name he gets wrong and tells her vehemently that, "This is Ian. make sure you fuck him up." She nodded politely, the way one does at a bum who asks for change while masturbating. It was like i was being cock-blocked by a bad SNL sketch.

This continued for awhile, Chad coming by, slapping my back, high-fiving, making ridiculous statements like, "ian's in the house!", putting his arm around girls whose boyfriends are standing nearby. You know, real Chad-type qualities.

And when I finally want to tell them that their friend is a douche, i learn, "Oh, we don't know him."

What?

Who the fuck is this guy who thinks that just b/c we're at the same bar, that somehow binds us into some close friendship. This isn't fucking 'Nam, man.

And as I saw he was hanging only exclusively with our group, it became clear that he'd come to the bar alone.

He was on a mission since he walked in to leech himself onto a group of friends like a fucking cold sore.

"Listen," I told the bartender as I then tried to order another beer after Chad arrived and put the kaibosh on the whole thing, "I do not know that guy. He is not with me. Please don't take his behavior as any sign of my own because you think I'm the kind of person who would be friends with him."

Yes, bars are social places where people can mingle and flirt, whatever. But they are not the fucking playground at school Chad, where you can try to make a new group of friends instantly.

...fucking Chad. Infuriating....

Bill and Ted Are Kind Of Dicks

2009-06-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Let’s take a gander…

Socrates: People in Athens got pissed b/c he was smarter than them and had him tried, found guilty, and forced to drink deadly poison.

That certainly looks like fun, no? Thanks guys.

Billy the Kid: So not only was he a wanton murderer to begin with, he was also violently gunned down in New Mexico at 21.

Abe Lincoln: I mean, really? Not even like a “You probably should avoid Ford's Theater if you can”? The guy brought an end to slavery…no heads up?

Beethoven: Basically the guy shat and vomited himself to death.

But I’m glad you had a good time at the mall with him.

And by the way, what’s up with your obsession with chicks from the middle ages? You are aware that it was considered in poor spiritual taste to bath regularly back then, right? Probably major bush as well. Fucking filthy, bros.

You guys are always saying ‘Be excellent to each other.’ How about you start by being excellent to your friends? Fucking dicks…

Weighed in the Balance

2009-06-17T16:46:00.001-07:00

Ian: Two pound low sodium turkey, please.
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: That was a pound, right?
Ian: Nah, two pounds.
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: Gotcha.
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: Here you go, a pound, right?
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: ...yeah.
two minutes later
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: Anything else?
Ian: Yeah, pound of white american cheese.
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: Ok, it's at .72 lbs, little under. Is that good?
Ian: Um...would you mind adding more?
Harvard Grad Deli Guy: ...whatever, man.

Now, I have a college degree, so maybe I'm not the BEST person to be offering this kind of advice, but, is it just me, or does it make a lot more sense to put the scales they weigh the meat on, ON THE FRIGGIN'S SCALES??

I mean, why have this woman with a wart on her forearm the size of an indian head nickel waste my time walking back and forth and back and forth, testing how much meat she's cut?

Look, she's already laying it down flatly on the base of the slicer. Has science not found a way to attach the scale there?

Is this going to be like a cure for Cancer? People just toiling away for decades on an answer, never getting close.

Think about how much time you'll save. Yourselves and us. I mean, I've already got to stand around for half an hour at the selfcheckout while this idiot scans each apple individually.

You arrogant sonofabitch.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

2009-06-17T10:42:00.001-07:00

No, I'm afraid all those years of being in the chorus for the school musical won't save you this time.

To put bluntly: Taking your karaoke performance seriously WILL NOT GET YOU DISCOVERED.

I know what you imagine- somewhere, in the back of this bar at 3am, there's a talent scout, finishing his last drink, knowing that if only, only he could find that one voice he's been looking for, he'd just know he could make them a star.
But what's this? This...this sound of beauty coming from the bar stage. That voice. That look! That style!
"I'm the President of music kid and I'm gonna make you a STAR!!"

The only thing in the back of the bar sport, is the guy getting a hand job under the table by the prostitute he brought in with him.

You look more than ridiculous. Hand up high on the mic, one arm dramatically behind your back in some napoleonic stance, dressed in a tight black shirt with long leather bands from wrist to elbow. No, you will not be discovered here for your singing talent...only for your award as 2009 Scott Stapp Lookalike Winner of the Year.

"Thanks, yeah, I...I'm okay. Me? No, not professionally. Yeah, maybe I could. You know. I used to like, sing a lot in school."

Oh great, here comes the overweight sista. let me guess sweetheart? Celine Dion? Tina Turner? Let me do you a favor Aretha- Everyone else here, we just wanna get drunk and make fools of ourselves. Did you see a sign pointing "American Idol Auditions This Way --->"?

I know your friends at the salon are always telling you, "You could totally do it baby girl! You gots the talent!" But please, just...just...it ain't gonna happen. Not here.

Put down the warm gingerale you've been nursing all night (don't want to damage the pipes god forbid!) and leave the karaoke bars to us drunks at 4am. Get in line to be rejected by American Idol like all the other karaoke showoffs.

In Plain Sight

2009-06-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Fat guy with his Tshirt on in the pool....Do you work for the Defense Department, because that camouflage you’ve got on is state of the art.

Listen, you’re fat. Okay? I know it. You know it. Your negligent parents know it. That girl you have a crush on during third period that you fantasize dancing with at the 8th grade dance with this Friday…she definitely know it. (she only smiled at you that one time because she needed a better angle to copy the answers off your test, sorry)

So…what’s with the shirt? No one’s fooled, kid.

And why a white shirt? Have you considered colors that don’t become translucent when water is applied. I hear black is very slimming. Don’t you know things turn ugly when they get wet?

The whole shirt in the pool routine is passé man. You don’t become a Loony Tunes cartoon and suddenly appear thin enough to hide behind a flagpole.
How am I supposed to feel better about my own body, if I can't see the pathetic state of yours without having to use my Superman X-Ray vision to penetrate that poor rag of cotton, stretched beyond the laws of physics.

That's more like it!
You’ve seen one fat person, you’ve seen them all. But by being the guy with a shirt on in the pool, you turn yourself into a Where’s Waldo, a character everyone seeks out to mock and chide behind his back.

(douche?)

Now, there is a chance you’re also wearing that shirt to cover those silver dollar pancake nipples of yours as well (Again, do you know what happens to white shirts when wet?).

If this is the case then you already know what to do- grab some syrup, half a stick of butter and chow down Porky, it’s snack time. You know you want to take a bite…just…just one little bite won’t hurt. No one will ever know…

deeeelicious...

I Lost A Bet With My Agent

2009-06-12T10:17:00.001-07:00

Part of the whole deal of celebrity culture, is you basically get a free pass to screw around with other hot, successful people.

So then what's going on here with these Hollywood couples?

Toby, it's clear that you're AC/DC and prefer hot dogs to clam chowder, but this is the best thing you can do for a beard? She looks like the girl who used to sit alone at Hebrew school and pull her hair out in clumps.

You're Spiderman. Even Kirsten Dunst is laughing at you.

Pierce Brosnan and Keeley Shaye Smith.

Just because you're not James Bond anymore, doesn't mean you have to give up on life, not care if your wife lets herself go, stay in on sundays in sweats, wiping the potato chip grease off on your shirt.

Christ, the sight of her almost makes me prefer this Bond pairing.

...almost.

Here's Chris Noth with the tranny he got over the internet from Manilla

Hugh Jackman. Why is no one putting effort into finding a decent beard these days?

Not only is she old enough to be your mom, the two of you look like you've both just bumped into each other at a GLAAD convention.

But tell her I loved her in Nip/Tuck this past season.

James McAvoy. Older women aren't the answer. Neither is finding the most british looking cigarette butt lying in the gutter.

Freshen your drink. guv'nr?

Lastly, poor Sarah Paulson.

She thought she was a lesbian, until Cherry Jones disrobed and she discovered it had all been a horrendous Jame Gumb ruse.

...I'd fuck me.

The Lone Wolf Powersquats Alone

2009-06-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Only dude in an aerobics class filled with women...I salute your perseverance, but nothing else.

A weaker man would have seen that he was carrying the only set of balls not made to do sit-ups on in the class and walked out.

But not you.

Because you're desperate. and pathetic.

What did you think to gain from such a daunting move? Improving the odds by being surrounded by women on all sides doesn't change the fact that your in a woman's aerobics class, taught by a woman.

You've become...that guy. And that's a terrible guy to be.

And did you really think that red tank-top and tight black shorts with heavy white sneakers was a good choice? I mean you're surrounded by mirrors in there- take a look. You belong on the front of an AIDS awareness poster from 1993.

Did you think these women would be gossiping about that eerie scrawny guy in the back of the room? "He's so courageous to show up here. Excuse me ladies, I'm going to ask him out for a drink."

It's because you throw off the shackles of society's conventions. "So long gender roles!" you shout into the gathering storm. "I can be a man AND be that one guy in a woman's aerobics class."

No, Sir. No I'm afraid not.

Will You Be My Valentine?

2009-06-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Really, Match.com? This is what you call "advertising?"

I understand that you may be going for a more realistic approach to the type of woman one might find on your website. Sure, no one really believed that hot and exotic 20 year old girls in tanktop and panties hang out in front of webcams making googily faces b/c they can't catch a date. (did you know they really are just looking for a shy, smart, Star Wars fanatic who lives in his mom's basement, to take care of them?)

But this. I mean...what? If i clicked 'incontinence' on my homepage as a personal interest, is this who would pop up? This chick is taking a dump in front of her god damn webcam.

Plus the guitar? Not only is she tough to look at, but she's going to be one of those 'singer/songwriter' types who wants me to come to her open mic at the Coffee Co. sunday mornings at 9:30 when i'm hungover as shit.

"Hi everybody. I like to call this 'Time of our Lives.' "Weeelllll-- Oh, this is out of tune, one sec...."

Is this an ad for match.com, or clever marketing on behalf of Jdate?

Yes, I've Read Oscar Wilde

2009-06-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

Remember when Danny Glover said, “I’m getting too old for this shit!” and planned to retire from the force?

Well that was in 1987?

But then remember 10 years later? When Danny Glover said, “I’m getting too old for this shit!” and planned to retire from the force?

Yeah, so do I?

Danny Glover is one of the guys who not only cannot catch a cab in New York, but also reaches a certain age, and then stays that way for the rest of his career.

There’s a lot of people like that in showbiz. People coming out of the womb at 55 and staying that way until the franchise has floundered.

Peter O’Toole learned the hard way that drinking a straight diet of rye whiskey and semen will make you skip over birthdays 34 through 56.

Bea Arthur. Why did any woman over the age of 40 in the 1970s automatically look 65.

Jesus. I’ve seen prettier pieces of meat hanging on hooks in windows in Chinatown.

How about your old pal Robert Loggia. Was he ever not 62 years old? It helps that he sounds like he’s been smoking three packs a day since the Lindy Hop was the big thing for the kids to do.

Morgan Freeman. He doesn’t care if he’s busting heads as Joe Clark

...or finding hope within the walls of Shawshank ten years later, just so long as he can get those AARP discounts at the movie theater off set, that’ll be fine with him, yessir’, that’ll be jussst fine.

Of course the archetype for all of this is Sean Connery. He turned 60 at the age of 45 and then stayed that way for 25 years.

Though I believe he kept his good looks throughout old age following a Daniel Webster-style deal he made with Satan following the release of Zardoz.

Fuck! I kind of wanna see that now.

What ARE YOU??!!

2009-06-05T09:17:00.001-07:00

Um...How do you get work in this town?

What charm did you use to escape from the artwork those gypsies used to imprison your evil, rat-like witchcraft?

People need to realize that it's not 'hip' to cast you in major roles where you're an actual love interest for these guys...

I sat through those awful scenes in Benjamin Button and Burn After Reading. Are Clooney and Pitt that bored from banging 18year old models and angelina that they wanted to try slummin it with that mythological fish creature? If i hold your head up to the Kraken, will it turn to stone?

It must be a Carrie situation. Pitt and Clooney are laughing behind your back, hoisting a bucket of goat's blood up over the set, ready to drop it the minute your confidence blooms.

I mean...it must be? Right? I...I don't know what other explanation there is for Goethe's Elfking to continuously be getting high-profile roles. And I don't care if you're a good actress. This is too much. Talent be damned...

And speaking of damnation...

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU??

Cynthia, cynthia, what are you doing? You're actually rather attractive when you're all made up.

Did you lose a game of Chess with Death? Is this your punishment? How did you two even meet? It wouldn't let you cross the bridge without answering three riddles or something?

Why bother saying your a lesbian when you're fucking Gingerballs Rumplestiltsken the Pied Piper of Hamlin?

Will Be A Douche For Food

2009-06-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

In the dark days of an economic recession, many people will go to extreme lengths to support their failing businesses.

Now, I don’t take ‘fantastic’ care of my car. Probably because I’m lazy. But yeah, I don’t wash it on the regular and there are a few nicks and bruises in its side.

So I’m at the light on la cienega and santa monica when from two lanes over i hear...

“Hey! HEY!!”

Already I smell a forthcoming L.A. Entrepeneur of the Year Award Winner in the air.

I finally realize the subtle and courteous shouts across traffic are directed at me.

I turn and two or three lanes over is this white escalade with two 20-something year old Persian guys. One of them is halfway out the window shouting at me. (I know they’re Persian b/c they look wealthy and the guy acts like a real tool).

“Yeah?” I say.

He takes off his giant 'rockstar' sunglasses, revealing another tinted pair beneath. “We own a body shop. Take your car in, I can fix all that up.”

Now first I’m confused b/c the good side of my car is in their POV. The side that has very little damage whatsoever, so what do they plan on fixing?

How are they so astute to gather that my car is the automobile version of Mel Gibson in The Man Without A Face. From the right angles…that’s a pretty handsome guy there. But once you get to know you realize…wow, that guy’s got no face (and possibly is molesting children).

So it’s probable, to racially profile, that they see a car without spinning rims, blue lights under the carriage and a license plate cover that resembles junkyard chains, and feel like ‘something ain’t right, bro.’

So I reply courteously, “Oh, I’m good, thank you.”

And Xerxes response, in a mocking, 3rd grade tone, “Ohhh, I’m good, thanks.”

…what? So somebody politely refuses your business offer and you resort to derision at a stoplight?

Maybe I turned you down because the whole ‘desperately shouting out your car window across three lanes of traffic for business’ didn’t quite instill the necessary confidence I need in order to let you work on my car.

But the comments didn’t stop there.

“Whatever, Superman.”

What? Yes, I have black-rimmed glasses and when my hair is longer it resembles his. Firstly, thank you. It’s tough to be offended when someone calls you that. Superheroes in general are not great fodder for making fun of someone with. Unless of course someone calls you Douchebagman (introduced in Action Comics #113 Dec. ’63). Then you’ve got reasons to air a grievance.

So I did what every man whose honor in impugned would do, I ignored their continued stares and taunts until the light turned green, then yelled at them to go fuck themselves and slammed on the gas like the Flash, praying to the Almighty that I’d make it to Sunset before the light changed.

The Threadsecutioner (n) -- A cybernetic lifeform sent from the future to kill your facebook thread

2009-06-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

You know who they are.

That ‘acquaintance’ whose friend request you let sit in your inbox for several days, quietly asking around to your real friends, “who’s going to be the first to accept their request?...Can we just ignore it?...I only spoke to her b/c I felt bad once.”

Out of guilt, you finally accept it. And it’s the greatest day of their life.

…but it’s the worst of yours.

You’ve got a really funny thread building up on facebook. It started off as an in-joke between a few of you. Now it’s blossomed to this hilarious battle of quotes. Everyone’s having a lark.

But a drop of blood has been spilt into the facebook ocean…
The scent’s been picked up…
Theme music spelling doom picks up…

EILEEN BECKER: LMAO! I don’t know that show, but I always watched Small Wonder but haha, LMAO.

…what?? What does that have to do with anything we were all talking about? I…I don’t get it.

You bitch.

You’ve just killed our thread. You sunk my fucking battleship.

How can anyone follow that?

Have you noticed that in the last year there has not been ONE FUCKING POST after yours?

It’s like the one racist uncle who shouts out a great ‘slant-eyed joke’ as you’re sitting at Thanksgiving next to your Japanese girlfriend. Everyone notices, but no one can say a word.

Jesus. You’re like one of those people who doesn’t know they have HIV and keeps fucking someone without protection.

You’re a hazard to your own health and everyone’s thread around you.

Blame It On the Bellboy

2009-06-05T09:12:00.000-07:00

I was recently the victim in a crime of ego here in Los Angeles. Though snobby rich kids prefer to call it schmuck-couture.

I was in one of those fancy, shmancy new office buildings on sunset, riding the tediously slow elevator up to the 12th floor.

When on steps this “hip” fourteen year old (you know he’s hip because he’s got longer hair and slim fit jeans with converse…I was floored by his originality- i smell a future trendsetter). He’s got this look on his face like ‘fuck you, I go to private high school.’

Also with him is his sunglasses-indoors wearing Mother. She looks like something that belongs hanging up in the back of a vintage clothing store in West Hollywood. You know- something that, sure, looked good in 1983, but 25 years later hangs in the ass and no amount of ironing is getting rid of those creases.

And she’s got this folder and binder under her arm as she struts in. I get it immediately—child actor on the way to an audition with mom.

There’s nothing worse than a parent who doesn’t recognize mediocrity in their offspring. And it’s odd, because the parent is usually worthless too. So what did they expect?

Now I’m standing off to the side. And this little fucker, this brat, who looks like he’s got about as much talent as the victim in a snuff film walks straight past the elevator buttons and to me goes, “Can you hit 11?”

Can I fucking hit 11?

I look to mom, waiting for her to scold her loser son for being so rude, and then for being such a fucking stereotype and cliché. …But nothing.

So I hit 11.

We ride up in silence as my blood boils and I have to dig my fingernails into the palm of my hand to keep from asking the mother to cover up her stretch marks next time.

We stop at 10.

“Um…,” she says. “We wanted 11.”

You wanted 11? Sorry boss lady. I mus'm made a mistake, ahum.

“I guess someone called for the elevator on ten. I hit 11 for you." I reassured her.

She checks the buttons to see if I’m lying. And then rolls her eyes, stepping off a floor later on 11.

Maybe no one told you Billy Pilgrim, but when you stepped through the elevator doors earlier, you weren't magically whooshed away back in time to 1960. I'm not an elevator operator. I think we've progressed beyond the need for that.

Now take your sunglasses off and button up. This is a fancy office building for Christ’s sake- can’t you tell by the televisions playing Cartoon Network in the elevator? (…yeah, what?)

2009-06-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

Fear of small genitalia is a phobia that grips most young, white males at least at some point in their life. It generally occurs around the onset of puberty and gradually through their early sexual history…and then continues till death.

We like to measure our growth over time (my mom still thinks the ruler was next to the toilet because I was thinking of putting in a baday). Pride comes as we inch forward along those hash marks. Sometimes we cheat, pulling forward, digging the end of the ruler painfully into our groins, anything to squeeze out an extra centimeter.

But for some unlucky millions, no amount of tugging, prodding, cheating, twisting, or blowing will get that caterpillar to move. These are the cursed souls.

These are the men, with tiny penises.

Though the female orgasm is a peak these pint-sized Edmund Hillary’s need not bother ascending, they do still serve a purpose.

There is a strange phenomenon at gym locker rooms – Guys with small dicks are always hanging out freestyle without any towel on!! En masse. For extended periods of time. Their sense of confidence and showmanship and freedom is unparalleled.

While everyone else shows a sense of propriety and biblical shame,, small dicked middle-aged guys come crawling out of the shower with out any cover. They’re everywhere you look.

It’s like taking a tour of a tootsie roll factory.

“No need to dry off,” they say. Chin held up high, they walk, they sashay, they shave and brush, bend, stretch, all the while swinging a whistle-sized pecker between their legs.

They do all this…for us. It is here we can go to feel better about our own average sized penises. Revel in their miniscule fallics! That’s what they’re there for. Soak them in. Feel pride in your own. These men are here for you. Never again will you think “another half-inch or so and I could be happy.”

It is here that we, the ‘average’ sized cocksmen, here we can come to feel better about ourselves.

These lost souls, cursed to wander the seas of sexual gratification on some sort of baby-dicked Flying Dutchman, they have the power to inspire confidence in all of us.

Sometimes there is a giant cock among them, and your sudden sense of self-worth wanes.

DON’T LET IT.

There are plenty of tiny dicks to go around.

Time Enough at Last

2009-06-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

I just never got it. And I know I’m not alone.

So, yeah, the nukes went off and everything was destroyed.

But you were locked in a bank vault reading, b/c that’s…that’s the only place people can I read. Sure...I'll take a bit from that apple, but you're pushing it.

So you’re okay, but the world is a wasteland.

Except for books...Books were resilient to the harm and devastation of a mass nuclear attack.

If only I’d known books would survive the nuclear holocaust. I should be in my backyard building a bomb shelter out of books, with roaches and twinkies for bricks and mortar right now.

And re you seriously telling me there are absolutely NO GLASSES left in the entire world?

Pick up a piece of your lens and look through it to the nearest Lens Crafters. I’m sure you’ll manage to find something close to your prescription.

Maybe you’ll get lucky and the local mall has an eyeglass store right next to the Brentanno’s. Then you’ll know that a few pairs of Oliver People’s survived the apocalypse.

I mean, do you take us for saps?

I know this is one of the most famous and respected episodes of science-fiction out there, but get off our ass Burgess and go find yourself a fucking pair of spectacles.

And you know, it's clear those aren’t bifocals you had either. So either you’re nearsighted and you can still read, or your farsighted and you can manage to wander through the post-apocalyptic landscape in search of an optometrist. So you’re just being lazy.

You’re kind of an asshole too. Sure, you’re wife’s a bitch, but she just had her body eviscerated by the force of 20 megaton warhead. So, sorry if I’m not as stoked as you that at least now you can finally finish Finnegan’s Wake? Show at least the least bit of remorse before digging through your pocket for that Barnes and Noble rewards card you never thought would pay for itself.

What are you reading anyway? That shit better be the complete works of Shakespeare. It would seem like a waste if everyone else on the planet had to die just so you could read twiddle away your days reading homoerotic Star Trek fan fiction. (yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's how he got the nickname Bones? Didn't see that coming. I'm gonna go read Tek Wars now, thanks).

Burge, listen man, strap on some Road Warrior leather, give Kevin Costner a call and get some lasex done to those peepers of yours.

You're the last man left alive on the planet. Quit screwin' around.

Weinin'

F&@kers, I'm back!

The Big Picture Show

I Say, I Say, I DO Declare!

The Thin Caffeinated Line

A Confederacy of Twits

Keep on Rockin'

Hands of Fate

Think Before You Speak

Weinin' in the Rain

Pushin' My Buttons

No Business Like Shoe Business

This Blog Was Inspired By True Events

The Eyes Have It!

Twister Sister

Rip Van Weinreich

To Natalie, With Love

Give Us, Us Free!!

Has Anyone Ever Told You That You Look Like....

Peep Show

All Together Now

Yes, please...

Wouldn't you, or Couldn't you?

Well, here's a new way to waste time...

So here's the problem...

Book 'em Dano

Sign Language

F%CKERS, I'M BACK

This Song Makes Me Want to Ralph

Blinded by the Puppy Love

The Fine Art of Nonversation

You Shall Not Pass!!!

Harvey Two-Facebook

The Planeteers Are Kind of Dicks

Keys to the Kingdom

Potent Quotables for 800, please.

La Perfumerie

Bill and Ted Are Kind of Dicks

The Lost Art of Stalking

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, I've decided to repost one or two of my own personal favorites from the past six months in an effort to both make up for my lack of new entries this past month...And to also remind myself how clever I am.

Little Drummer Boy

Shirt Off Your Back

All Dogs Go To Hill Valley

Bag It & Tag it

Spare Some Change For an Old Altar Boy, Fad'r

Food for Thought

Straight to the Dome

Fly the Friendly w/ Benefits Skies

Trailer Trash

Bonfire of The Vanity...Plate

The Great Glass Elevator

Fried Chicken Little

The Public Option

Bruce Wayne Is Kind of a Dick

Stale Tortillas

Gym Rats

Pond Hopping

No Handle on the Environment (...get it?)

Belle Epoque

Weekend at Billie Jean's

Come for the coffee, Stay for the porn

"The Chad"

Bill and Ted Are Kind Of Dicks

Weighed in the Balance

Don't Quit Your Day Job

In Plain Sight

I Lost A Bet With My Agent

The Lone Wolf Powersquats Alone

Will You Be My Valentine?

Yes, I've Read Oscar Wilde

What ARE YOU??!!

Will Be A Douche For Food

The Threadsecutioner (n) -- A cybernetic lifeform sent from the future to kill your facebook thread

Blame It On the Bellboy

Time Enough at Last

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, I've decided to repost one or two of my own personal favorites from the past six months in an effort to both make up for my lack of new entries this past month...

And to also remind myself how clever I am.