Filed under: great finds, photography | Tags: angst, depression, dresser, hate, history, ID card, jealousy, Laguardia High School, teenager, teenagers
Apparently, one of the quirks of owning used furniture is discovering the history/stories behind it.
This morning – after adopting my dresser exactly 9 1/2 months ago – I opened my dresser drawer and noticed the sound of crinkling paper in between the frame and the drawer case. This often happens, as I find old receipts people lost, old pictures, or old movie tickets. Today, I found the story of an angst ridden teenager, secretly lashing out at a classmate.
Who is this Angelina*? Why was she hated? Was she just prettier? Was she a bitch? Did she just happen to steal a boy? Or rather, who was the bitter frenemy with the green marker, the previous owner of my dresser? Was it really that important that she had to scan someone else’s ID in, print it out, and then write on it angrily? Where is she now? Following the birthdate on the ID card, she was born in 87, and so is around 21 years old now.
Hell, are there even two people involved? Maybe this was a girl who hated herself, and felt compelled enough to rant-scribble about it.
Either way, it makes me think of things I tossed out as a kid. Does someone in the world currently own it now? Wouldn’t it be cool if we could learn the history of our belongings?
*Name has been changed to protect this person’s privacy.
Filed under: financial progress, great finds, stand-up journal | Tags: bills, challenge, clutch, hardschool, laughs, opening, punches, set
Everyone always has their eyes on the closer. In a relay. In basketball. In the courtroom.
Clutch.
However, I recently got slapped in the face with the realization that being the opener at a stand-up show is one of the most difficult challenges. I think the only slot that could possibly be worse is the check slot1.
During an opener slot, people are ordering their drinks and figuring out where to sit. They’re catching up with their friends who they haven’t seen. No one is listening. Unless you kick their asses hardschool.
Which is exactly what I didn’t do. In fact, the single big laugh I got that night was my closing statement:
“Well. I prepared a 10 minute set for you guys tonight…but I guess all I really learned is maybe I’m not that funny.”
Nice. There was a crowd of probably a good 100 people, my biggest ever. It’s a shame that it went the way it did, but better sooner than later. I suddenly felt for all the hosts I ever thought weren’t that funny. Well, a lot of them still aren’t, but at least I know it’s not as easy as a normal set. If I ever open again, I’ll know to keep my punches hard and quick to the front. And maybe even throw in a couple of roundhouse kicks. Dangerfield style.
If only I could show this picture at a stand-up performance:
—
1 The slot when the waitress comes to settle everyone’s bills.
Thanks Ashwin, Jeremy, and Yooni for coming out and sticking through one of my less glorious moments. At least the rest of the comics had swell receptions that night.
Update on financial progress:
Total support to date: 21 people
Previous dollar TOTAL: $6.95
How much I made from 5th Bringer Show: $15
Cost of DVD from 5th Bringer Show: $0
TOTAL: $8.05
Filed under: audio, great finds, recommendations | Tags: babies, Irked Minions, music, Ratatat, Rick Lucy, White Town, Your Woman
You trust me to send you the best musical discoveries.
You trust me to hold your babies.
You trust me to give you Rick Lucy – Irked Minions.
Think White Town’s Your Woman laid on a hot Ratatat track.
Filed under: great finds, video | Tags: chuck, death, PSA, sex, sex education, sexually transmitted infections, sperm, spit, swallow, woodchuck
If you swallow sperm, you will get pregnant.
If you get pregnant, you will die!
And yes, you can potentially get an STI from swallowing sperm.
(One of these things is not like the others…)
Filed under: great finds, photography | Tags: airquote, chains, Chanel, gaudy, poor, rich, subway
There are rich people.
There are poor people.
Then, there are these people:
It’s (airquote) Chanel.
Filed under: great finds, video | Tags: best man, bride, disaster, grace under pressure, groom, hit list, maid of honor, marriage, PMS, pool, priest, rings, wedding
A) Call her out on PMS.
B) Push her into the water at her wedding when you’re about to pass off the rings.
But truthfully, if that woman were amazing, she’d laugh it off and be grateful for an eventfully hilarious wedding. Grace under pressure – that’s a woman I’d marry.
Filed under: great finds, stand-up journal, video | Tags: analogies, comedy, teacher, Washington Post, writing
Great comedic writing can often come unexpectedly, like from these samples of analogies “collected by High School English teachers.” And by High School English teachers, I mean that these analogies are the winning entries in a 1999 Washington Post humor contest. The entire list of entries can be found by clicking here.
A few of my favorites:
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
I love the use of verbiage to deploy humor. And non sequiturs, which ironically are often best delivered by people who don’t do it on purpose, but just suck at life, like below.
Filed under: great finds | Tags: breeze, divorce, half, house, overreaction, saw
When you’re going to get a divorce, don’t bother going through the legal system. Get in a heated argument, saw the house in half, and you can both laugh when one of you complains about the unbearable breeze.
Filed under: great finds, video | Tags: baby, couch, fuck yo couch, parenting
I never thought “Fuck yo couch” was funny. Until I saw this. Feel free to thank me before you even watch it.
The comments make it even better.
Filed under: great finds | Tags: Gmail, war, alcohol, emails, late night, incredible spelling, Mail Goggles, drunk, facebook, plastered, bitch, message, dials, tattoo, Maine, lobsters, Google
So the last time I got drunk and plastered late night messages on my friends’ Facebook walls, this is what I wrote:
dude, janelle looks like a perverted pedophile in her new picture.
an old man who looks 12 and goes to disneyland to prey on little boys/girls.
It’s an ironic picture, because she probably didn’t mean to do that.
Ugly Betty was filming on 23/26 street tonight. I didn’t see America Ferrera though, who could have been my connection to Blake Lively…
Are you rushing people yet?
Are you drunk?
I’m not.
My bartender today was really gorgeous. I talked to her about her tattoo.
I need to find a new line for girls from Maine. I think I talk about lobsters too much, which is retarded. I mean, who the fuck cares about lobsters? Me. But no one else. And blah blah blah.
You know what’s fucked up? Sean, Ben, Max, Esmond, and Chris (pretty much all my guy friends) have girlfriends. THIS IS THE ONLY TIME THIS HAS EVER HAPPENED. I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN’T. ISN’T THAT FUCKED UP? THAT’S RIDICULOUS.
wHY ARE YOU STILL AWAKE? STOP TALKING TO ME.
Now, let us notice a few things (other than the fact that the message ironically answers the question as to why I may be single). One, I have incredible spelling even while I’m drunk. And two, this message probably would have never happened had Mail Goggles – Gmail’s new feature against intoxicated messages – existed.
Mail Goggles kicks in on weekend nights and forces you to answer a few math questions before allowing the message to be sent. Now, if only they could do this for drunk dials…
“YOOOOOOOOOO!”
“Thank you for calling You-Are-An-Idiot-For-Drunk-Dialing-Since-I-Have-Work-In-The-Morning. This message is being recorded. How may I help you? Homosayswhat!”
“What?”
Then they get sent that message at 7AM to wake their bitch asses up mid-hangover.
