The Aristocrats

I am excited to see this film. Here is the tagline from one ad: "No sex. No violence. Unspeakable obscenity." Begs the question, if it's unspeakable and it's all comedians telling their own versions of the same song, then are there props, flashcards, puppets?... anyway. I haven't seen any clips....oh, here's the website, the glossary. Hmm. Anal what? Maybe not. Then again, to hear Jerry Seinfeld tell the world's dirtiest joke would be worth the price of a movie ticket and a little nausea, all by itself.


This is more my speed.

• 
  Snappy Put Downs and Funny Insults by Joseph Rosenbloom. I got this book in elementary school. It was a very different edition and cover, though.
  
  Here are some of my personal favorites if anyone's looking for "that super squelch..that pithy putdown..that zesty zinger you heard on tv," to quote the back cover. Some of them are so old school. In my current addled, sleep deprived state, they sound like they could have been cribbed from a slow scene in "His Girl Friday" or a Tracy/Hepburn movie or a ripoff thereof. They range from inexplicable, to strangely mannered, to highlarious!
  
  You have what it takes. The only trouble is you've had it too long.
  Your mind needs changing. It's filthy.
  The last time I saw someone like you I had to pay admission. (dirty! My mind needs changing)
  You look wonderful. Who is your embalmer?
  You're a real bargain - 50% off.
  No wonder you have headaches. Your halo is on too tight.
  You're good-looking in a way. Away off!
  Have I met you somplace before? I sometimes get careless where I go.
  You're so conceited, you'd join the navy so the world could see you.
  The more I think of you, the less I think of you.
  Where have you been all my life - and when are you going back there?
  I hope you live to be as old as your jokes.
  I don't know what I'd do without you. It's fun thinking about it.
  Tell me about yourself. I like horror stories.
  You have a good voice, if you don't happen to like music.
  Dracula would turn you down. He wants plasma, not asthma. (This one always confused me.)
  Some people are hard-boiled. You're just half-baked. (ha. if only.)
  If after a reasonable time, your speech doesn't strike oil, you'd better stop boring. (I get it, it just doesn't quite work. It lacks the necessary euphony for total zingitude.)
  You were such a homely baby, your parents sent you back and kept the stork.
  Have you been to the zoo lately? I mean, as a visitor?
  
  
  Hopefully this will help you guys out if you get into the dozens with anybody anytime soon.

The Past 7 Days....

have been pretty eventful for me. Let's see, last Thursday (7/21) I went fishing with my Dad who came up from Mankato. He is a recovering Meth addict & has been doing very well. It was very hot that day, not a cloud in the sky. Me, being the smart one, applied sunscreen liberally & often. My father, on the other hand, did not. Needless to say, I'm the one that's peeling & he isn't. Stupid universe! Thursday night I got a call from my youngest sister. Mom's not happy again, wants to leave her boyfriend & wants to leech off of her again. I tell her to be strong, say no. Mom's a raging alcoholic with more DUI's than kids. So she takes my advice, good for her. Then my middle sister calls me. Mom called her & sis's boyfriend answered the phone. Mom was crying, blah, blah, blah & so he caved in. Now, how to get Mom from Menagha (near Detroit Lakes) to sis's house. Oooh! Dad is in Brainerd! We'll call him & he can go get her (BTW my parents divorced 14 yrs ago). And on the way he can tell her that she needs treatment (which everyone in our family knows) & maybe this time she'll go!! But after 15 phone calls & 7 voicemails to Dad, he's not answering his phone. So Grandpa goes to get her on Friday morning. I worked 4 hrs on Friday & went home & had a beer. Then went to a bonfire at E's house & had many pitchers of Margarita's along with more beers. Ahhh, how I love beer. Woke up Saturday not feeling the greatest, but not too shabby either. Hmmm, what next? Oh yeah, went to E's & played D&D (I know, pretty nerdy) but it was a lot of fun & oh yeah, had many more beers. Sunday, didn't do much. Went to KFC buffet (yum!) then went to Menards to buy ant killer, chlorine, algae killer, and messiah (rags in a box, those things clean everything up!) Cleaned our pond, that's about it. Monday sis is already calling me "Can you please take Mom?" & 2-3 times a day every day "It's your turn, Mom's coming to stay with you". I tell her that I've already put up with Mom's crap in the past. Plus, do you really think it's a good idea for her to stay with me when I live 3 blocks from the bar? I think not. Tuesday I found out that when Dad was in Brainerd he had no cell service, that's why we couldn't get a hold of him. However, when he found out what was going on with Mom he got so stressed out about talking to her that he broke out into hives & is now on steroids (not the performance-enhancing kind). Needless to say, he won't be talking to her about rehab. Damn. Now when I get home tonightI get to call Mom & try to put together a resume, although I have no faith that any of her past jobs would give a favorable reference. Ahhh, the joys of my life. Oh yeah, I get to worh the next 2 Saturdays too. Woo Hoo!

Tennis, no one?

Cary Tennis of Salon.com's "Since you asked" column has such a way with words.
He describes one person as

"... an exploding Pinto, an old bag of spoiled peaches. He's a frown
magnet, a disappointing afternoon. He's a bad gasket, a supermarket go-back, a
failed experiment, a wilted head of lettuce. He's yesterday's jacket and
tomorrow's bad shoes rolled into one... a divorce lawyer's meal ticket and that's
about it. ..."

That's just one example of a certain sumpin'; it's keen observation, wit, sense, sure he's piling on the descriptions, but never a word astray. Let's see if I can find another example. Ooh, here's one:

"Here are some things about other people that I think you should
know: People sometimes do things for no reason except they just want to... For
instance, a person will want an ice-cream cone, and next thing you know he's
walking down the street toward the place where they have the big cardboard
barrels of many different flavors and the people behind the counter in aprons.
If you ask him if he believes in ice cream, he might claim to have no particular
passion or belief in ice cream itself. Nonetheless, he wants an ice-cream cone
and so off he goes, jingling the change in his pocket. One day in the future,
when sufficient computing power exists, we may be able to say with some
certainty why a particular person arose from a desk at a particular time of day
to go get ice cream. But until then, we just say, "Oh, Hank? He went to get an
ice-cream cone." "

This isn't really the best stuff, just gleaned over 15 minutes or so. And so ends the first of a very irregular feature on Writers I Like.

Sororalness is powerful!

previously it was the weekend and now it is monday! I was going to slap on a value judgement, but nah, here's my summary instead. After the good news at work, on to the bar(s). Then the forty on the curb, brief chat with Jerry. Then refreshingly deathlike sleep, followed by greazy breakfast, complete with view of awesome storm outside.

On to party prep w/Ms. C. Nasty. Hey? When a little girl tells you the balloons smell like her dad's work, and her sister chimes in "Daddy works with roadkill!", believe the little girls. Don't test the balloons out for yourself. Just give up on the balloons and go with crepe paper. Nah, the balloons were fun, and my face went numb (and hands too, from tying the effers) after like, half an hour, so it didn't even matter.

That party was sooper fun. The members of E's fam that I met are fun. (I'm exagerating about the balloons for what I now realize is very minor comic effect.) Then I went to a bachelorette party for R., a friend from high school. We hit a few Mini Apple hot spots (pretentious bar name-drop alert): Newsroom, Lonetree, Spin, Drink, Barfly, the cough syrup aisle at the 24 hour Walgreens in Brooklyn Heights.

ha! kidding! We didn't make it to Drink. I mean the proper noun of course, not the verb, sillies.

Pics to come if I can get permission. Maybe I'll blur out the faces of the ones where people have underwear on their heads or are making time with statues of newsies (neither, unfortunately, are me, as I was the photog, or paparazza if one prefers).

R. is a sweet girl, none better; and her "Hey Lady" friends are so cool. What a bunch of classy dames. Words fail. But "brev. = s. wit," as the saying sort of goes. And I'm getting a little teary eyed again, believe it?

To briefly sum up Sunday, left R.'s and saw "War of the Worlds" in Elk River w/Ang & Cin. I need to not see that type of disaster movie in the theater anymore. I always leave feeling sort of beat up, whySpielbergwhy? Thank jeebus for the cheap corny happy ending!

Downside: not having broke my fast earlier, I ate movie theater popcorn. Felt a little dirty, because it's apparantly the worst thing for the human body on the planet. Other than being immolated by aliens, I mean.

no one ever posts nothing

wtf

Review of Harry Potter 6. Kind of.

For lack of anything better to do, I went and got the new Harry Potter at Barnes and Noble Friday night/Saturday morning. I left at about 1 a.m. and the lot was pretty empty when I got there. Actually I was the last person in the store other than the employees, clamoring for their own books. "There's one more! Hey, wait, one more!" They were still faux-cheerful, but less than thrilled to see me. It was a perfect plan, really. I felt a little less pathetic than if I had been standing in line for two hours or something. And I did get a little rubber bracelet and poster along with my Moste Precious Treasure.

Crapnasty and I went to the gym after work, then we ran into each other at the grocery story. She remonstrated against my ideas of drinking alone. I smirked. She bought camping food. I bought mixers.

So far we have a review of my pathetic weekend.

I got home from the bookstore at 1:30, read til 6 a.m. Woke up at noon, finished the book by 2:30 with a couple of quick breaks. It was bright and sunny out, but hot as hell, so I really didn't miss much in my nifty cocoon of air conditioning and solitude.

The book was pretty good. How's that for incisive commentary? Take that, real reviewers! Ha! At the same time, it consisted mostly of flashbacks and rehashings of old plot. Somebody else died. They were sad about the last person who died. The writing wasn't as good, I swear it wasn't, and I was truly surprised. Ol' Harold Bloom, how I hate you. You've ruined me for life. Parts read like crappy fan fic. It seemed like Rowling put some bits in just to contradict fan rumors (Lupin has a girlfriend!?)

If you're overloaded on Pottermania, at least we don't live in media-saturated NYC.
http://www.gawker.com/news/media/books/index.php#harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-soho-112794 Favorite line? "Do keep an eye out for us; we’ll be there this afternoon, doing a reading of Harry Potter and the Clusterfucking Topiary Vomitorium."

In other news "muttsy chops" is new cutest phrase ever.

Inaugural Post

photo © Scott Roberts for openphoto.net CC:Attribution

Jerry is a nice baby turtle. This is pretty close to what he sort of looks like.