Too proud.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo orange you glad I didn't say "Buffalo?" Wait. I think I did that wrong.

- My cousin, Andrew.

My ex's boyfriend.

Part One.

One drunken night, I texted my favorite people on the planet. The text read, "You are one of my favorite people on the planet, and I love you."

Sadie was pissed.

"I meant it platonically," I clarified, and it was true...but that wasn't her problem.

"My boyfriend and I haven't said 'I love you' yet," she explained, "because we don't want to say it until we mean it," her voice hovered between shame and pride, "and it's not fair for you to say 'I love you' before my boyfriend does."

They're living together now. They still haven't said "I love you." Sadie insists that this is ideal, because they're taking it slowly.

It makes sense. Her turd of a boyfriend has commitment issues. Before getting with Sadie, he was engaged for eight years. And he's only thirteen years old.

Sadie has commitment issues, too. We were all-but-married, and then I cheated on her and moved across the country.

A problem.

Twenty-seven days into No-Shave November.

Through natural means, I have achieved something that twelve-time world heavyweight champion Hollywood Hogan could not.

That's right, brother: I've grown a blonde moustache and a dark beard.

Also, I didn't have to shrink my balls to get my arms so large.

Tonight at Thanksgiving...

...a family entered my grandparents' house, hugged everyone, and then realized they were in the wrong house.

A new word.

Squidface, n., A talented actor in an insulting role.

v., A talented actor's portrayal of an insulting role.

adj., Having the property of a squidface.

Ex., "Maggie Smith was squidfaced in Sister Act II: Back in the Habit."

The word is derived from the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, who thought Bill Nighy would evoke more pathos if he had a fucking squid on his face.



John Hurt is a commonly squidfaced actor. Consider his roles in films like...

Hellboy (a mentor who's killed before he can impart any wisdom),

V for Vendetta (a yelling face on a wall),

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (a lobotomized plot device),

and the Harry Potter series (a dude who gets a line sometimes).

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One is significant, as it squidfaces both Bill Nighy (a grumbly dude who's killed offscreen) and John Hurt (a dude who gets throttled in a flashback, and then gets one line).

Some more mass grave jokes.

Some polite places for a mass grave:

helping to complete a quorum,
raked in with the autumn leaves,
separated from the plastics and the aluminums.

Some puckish places for a mass grave:

inside a spring-loaded can of peanuts,
balanced atop a door that's been left slightly ajar for the next person who walks in,
up the rectum of a man who's expecting a gerbil.

Some upsetting places for a mass grave:

in your soup,
hogging the only restroom in a Mexican restaurant,
not at the movies (even though they said they'd meet you).

Eighteen days into No-Shave November.

God Himself keeps my moustache separate from my beard.

If ever my facial hairs should meet, it will mean the End of Days.

"Heeeere's Waldo!"

Comedy by Numbers.

I hate that I have to say this. I mean, I love being sanctimonious, but I wish the subject matter was a little less obvious.

Just because your comedy...

1. is lit like a comedy,
2. features actors who deliver your tedious script as if it was funny, and
3. alludes to pop culture where it should have jokes

...doesn't mean it's a comedy.

Your comedy is a comedy if...

1. it's funny.

Jokes are the most surefire way to be funny.

Another way to be funny is by acting silly. It's important to recognize that "acting silly" is not the same as "making a joke."

Acting silly is easier than making a joke, because acting silly...

1. takes no effort, and
2. cashes in on a cheap "You Had to Be There" laugh.

If your comedy is only funny because it features a bunch of people acting silly, it will age like ground beef.

So let's leave acting silly, and discuss jokes.

Jokes are either...

1. an exaggeration or
2. a denial

...of a true statement.

Furthermore, jokes have the same structure. The parts of a joke are...

1. a set-up,
2. an escalation, and
3. a twist.

Any of these parts may be...

1. implied or
2. repeated

...within the same joke, but they're always present.

There. Now you can write jokes.

If your comedy doesn't have jokes, it will age like an anal gerbil.

I hope you're listening, Hollywood. I care too much to watch you struggle with this any longer.

It's time to start taking comedy seriously.

The legacy of Captain EO.

Once upon a time, there was an R&B artist named Michael Jackson.

Michael was so popular that the Walt Disney Company cast him in a short film called Captain EO. They showed the film in their theme parks all around the world.

The film was incoherent and shitty, but Michael was so popular that no one seemed to care.

This was both, the poster and the screenplay.

One day, Michael bought the Elephant Man's skeleton and used it to sodomize little boys. The Walt Disney Company didn’t want this sort of stigma in their theme parks. They replaced Captain EO with another short film, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.

Honey was an improvement, because it was coherent and shitty.

Meanwhile, Michael spent a few years being a punch-line, and then he died, and then everyone pretended that they cared.

This was exactly the sort of stigma that the Walt Disney Company wanted in their theme parks. Nostalgia sells! They would restore Captain EO to their theme parks all around the world.

Of course, they knew that this was a sensitive matter. They were exploiting the death of a human being, after all.

That's why they waited a whole nine months to do it.

While that's a long time for morality, it's nothing to the Walt Disney Company. They usually wait years before updating an attractiong...but not with Captain EO. They capitalized on Michael Jackson's death before a single maggot could say, "I can't eat this. Whatever it is, it's definitely not flesh."

Indeed, the punctuality was remarkable. Many subjects have inspired attractions, like fantasy, oceanography, futurism...even Californian history, if you'll believe it! But the restoration of Captain EO was the first attraction inspired by a recent tragedy.

What a juicy subject! Imagine the new attractions that could spawn from recent tragedies! Plus, we live in an awful universe, so recent tragedies are a renewable resource!

But they did have to be recent tragedies. No one would care if they installed an animatronic John Wilkes Booth into Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, because Lincoln was assassinated in, like, the Cretaceous period.

So the Walt Disney Company had their best Imagineers design attractions based on recent tragedies. Here are their top contenders.

A recent fetish.

I fantasize about my usual cadre of women...

...only I fantasize about them in their pajamas.

They're not wearing babydolls or chemises or even nightgowns. Just traditional two-piece pajamas.

Usually the top has a notch collar, and the pants have a tie waist (kept untied). Flannel tends to compliment femininity without upstaging it. I'm permissive about designs, but definitely prefer pastel colors.

I'd have to be fucking desperate to fantasize about women in bold colored pajamas.

George Lucas has never seen the Empire Strikes Back, Part Two.

The Empire Strikes Back is the most important sequel since the New Testament. Everyone thinks it's the best Star Wars film. Everyone, that is, except George Lucas, who dismisses it as "the worst one."

This is because he's never seen it.

He didn't write it. He didn't direct it. He's never seen it.

Looking back, it makes sense. There are parts of Return of the Jedi and the prequel trilogy that ignore, parody, and even contradict the events in Empire. Some of them are so egregious, you start to wonder if you know the film better than the film-maker.

Well, if you've seen the Empire Strikes Back once, congratulations: you know the film better than the film-maker.

Here are the first two pieces of evidence in my ongoing research:

1. The protagonist's character arc is resolved off-screen.

2. George Lucas thinks Yoda speaks like a Yoda impersonator.

We must raze Tomorrowland before God does.

This is the menu of the Lunching Pad, a restaurant in the Magic Kingdom.



That's right.

They squirt sandwich goop on a hot dog.

Here are the findings of my scrupulous research and analysis:

The Reuben's corned beef is only allowed to touch the bread through a hole in the frank.

The most appetizing hot dog in Tomorrowland is the one that Stitch eats and then breathes on you in Stitch's Great Escape.

In the future, sandwiches will be served open-faced, with an intervening wiener! And that's not all! Hot dogs will be inexorable! They'll replace butter crocks! Magicians will pull endless strings of sausages from audience members' ears! Men will use casing instead of condoms!

Nine days into No-Shave November.

I shaped my beard into a beard shape to make it look like a beard!

Sure, it actually looks like 'beard-ish patches of sour cream and onion seasoning,' but the month is early!

We celebrated my grandpa's birthday.

His birthdays have been way less fun since he got Alzheimer's and moved into a house full of people who are too old to heckle Muppets.

But I vowed to improve things this year. If anyone deserves a fun birthday, it's (what's left of) my grandpa! I mean, I (used to) love the guy!

So, yes, I put trick candles on his birthday cake. And yes, he spent an hour blowing them out. And yes, he only quit because he cracked a rib and blacked out.

In my defense, his condition has stabilized. And at fifty blows per minute, he made three thousand wishes...or more likely, 'one wish, three thousand times.'

"One wish, three thousand times!" The only way it won't come true is if he wished for his quality of life to improve!

Don't you worry about him. There's no way he's prescient enough to wish that--especially now that he's got a tube through his wishing muscles.

My doctor refused to see me.

A nurse dourly explained that my doctor was a pediatrician, and pediatricians only see children, and I am twenty-five years old, and twenty-five-year-olds are rarely children, because when a twenty-five-year-old tries to play a children's game like kickball, their feet get tangled in their ivy-like curtain of pubic hair.

"That's profiling!" I said, crossing my legs.

The nurse didn't care. She said that my doctor only sees patients who are younger than twenty-one, and I'm twenty-five, which is four years older than twenty-one, and--

"I mean, yes, I'm twenty-five," I conceded, "but I've been told that I can pass for a 'haggard twenty-three!'" I raised an eyebrow and smoldered at her.

The nurse didn't care. "Pediatricians specialize in pediatrics, which is a branch of medicine dedicated to young human beings, which is--"

"I get it!" I stomped my feet. "I know the derivation of 'pediatrics!' I have a Master's degree!"

"Exactly," she said, and left me at the counter; alone, flustered, and closer to death than almost everyone in the waiting room.

Mom consoled me with a juice box.