A Quick Ode to Alcohol

Wine is bottled sunlight trapped in fruit and left until the right time to make us happy.
Drink wine to elucidate and enhance.

Beer is bottled earth, springing up in sheafs of barely, and bubbling like geothermal activity.
Drink beer quench from working the land, or if you are far from the land, to come down to it.

Liquor is bottled fire, the distillation process taking much energy and it's product burning us.
Drink liquor to burn memories, bridges, and calories. Drink liquor to ignite passions!

Just DRINK!

Failure to Democratize

I know this isn't a very popular opinion, especially in America, but I don't support democracy. I know that people around the world who have been forced to live under oppressive forms of government might pine for democracy, and that reenforces our view that it's the greatest form of government to ever ever exist,  but that isn't proof enough for me. I personally feel that a geniocratic oligarchy would be the best form of government. A geniocratic oligarchy would essentially be a government of a few specially chosen experts or geniuses.

The Simpsons did a spot-on parody of the common mis-conception that such a government would work. It would be full  of know-it-all's and comic-book guys butting heads. This is not the government I envision a government where only qualified people get to vote on issues they actually are educated on. Maybe a happy medium could be a short standardized test before choosing a candidate or position on a ballot measure.

Sometimes there are things that we vote on that we don't really know about. We just vote based on TV commercials and party lines, and I don't think that is anyway to determine public policy. For example if there ever were to be a ballot measure on educational standards, why should I, someone who knows little about education, and has yet only been subjected to some, vote on it. We should have experts, who usually disagree (but at least know WHY they disagree) vote on it.

Democracy is too easily exploited, but science (though it may be proven wrong often enough, in time) is usually pretty fair. This seems like a pretty honest way to decide things, let the experts talk it out. I know the illusion of choice and control turns a lot of people on, but I'd rather just weigh in on the things  I know.

There is one thing though, that pretty much everyone understands, and that is love. Love is a universal and everyone should be qualified to vote on it. Unfortunately, people continue to strike down gay marriage, and wrongly control other people's love. This another one of democracies failings, when we allow on whatever's popular to be right, we subject ourselves to the will of imbeciles (most people). I imagine democracy is much like having a shepherd allow the sheep to choose which direction to go to graze.

I trust that in time, even sheep would be smart enough to graze in the right pasture. I applaud Obama for coming out in support of Gay Marriage today, but I also, understand the democratic principles that kept him from doing so for this long. In a popularity contest, you can only do what's right just before it's cool. If you do it too, soon, no one will remember that you were the trend setter. You have to wait until people are on the cusp of belief. God help us if anything more important that institutionalized sodomy actually has to be decided on in this country.

Failure to Reconcile

I tagged along for a friends high school reunion a year or so ago. I was there, for the same reason I thought anyone would go to one of those social train wrecks: to try and get laid. Amazingly, many people there were married, in a serious relationship or functionally asexual. I really expected that the only reason anyone would ever go to a high school reunion was to get laid. I actually kind have always read the phrase "high school reunion" as a euphemism for trying to get laid. It's sort of like, casual encounter, bachelor party, or business lunch. 

Apparently people go to these horrid functions for reasons other than having sex with a girl who's boob you bumped with your elbow on accident in history class, and for some reason never were able to forget. Some people go to "catch-up." It seems to be that the one good thing about facebook, is that it can answer these random curious urges to find out who went to jail, or whatever. Reunions have become obsolete.

My ten year reunion is in a couple weeks. I really only have one friend who I still talk to from high school and he lives closer than the high school, and if I desperately wanted to see him, he's on TV occasionally. I'm not going. I imagine, that catching up" alternates between a pissing contest about who's house is nicer, and reminiscing about boy bands and sitcoms or whatever the fuck high school kids talk about.

Someone from my graduating class has become world famous (or at least nationally famous). I never knew him, but I've heard he's nice, and he seems nice on TV. No matter how nice he seems, I can't support him though. It's only because he's famous for becoming one of the greatest heros in professional sports, which means that even if I fucking cure cancer or wrote a canonized novel, he'd still be the famous one from our class. Asshole.

Now I only have five to ten years to reunite with that girl who's boob brushed by elbow 12 years ago, before her boobs start brushing knees. When's the next reunion? 

A superhero emerges: "The Degaffer"

I think there is a theme to my little blog. Maybe it's the theme of the month. I seem to be crazy about gaffes. I obsess over inappropriate little comments that people make. I like to make them. I like to deconstruct them. I like to follow them. Most of the time, I'm on the "gaffer's" side. I feel like most of the things that people get upset about are due to our oversensitive, wussy, PC culture.

Of course, I'm really excited for the upcoming presidential election, when it won't be hard to find gaffes to deconstruct and rewrite. They should be coming so quickly that I hardly have the time to notice them, let alone degaffe.

Today's gaffe was courtesy of the loathsome Dane Cook. A man who's dubious rise to mediocrity has since now become an embarrassment to an industry. I don't know if I can defend his gaffe, not just because I, like most fans of comedy, don't like Dane Cook, but because I found his joke in question to be absolutely humorless. I didn't even find it offensive, other than to my comedic sensibility.

Cook apparently made a joke about the Aurora massacre, and how the Batman movie was so bad that someone was probably ready to be shot rather than sit through it. I don't think this joke is offensive because it lacks empathy for the shooting victims, I think it's offensive, because it unfairly pans a movie, that seems mostly beloved.

Cook should know better than to make a joke about a movie being terrible if it has a higher rotten tomatoes ratting than all of his movie combined. A way for Cook's joke to have been better would have been for him to talk about how people would have volunteered to commit ritual suicide rather than actually finish "Good Luck Chuck."

Cook making jokes about how awful "The Dark Knight Rises" is as a movie, is sort of like Milli Vanilli critiquing the New York Philharmonic. You can't call a movie everybody likes bad, and expect them to go along with your premise, especially if you are guilty of starring in some of the worst shit to hit the screen in the last decade.

The Degaffer could save cook. It's not too late re-invent yourself as a comedian that makes jokes about how painfully unfunny you were in the last decade. You can pretend to have been setting yourself up as a straw man to later take down. I think it would make for some pretty outrageous comedy. He could set up a projection of his old act, along side himself on stage, and just talk about what a piece of crap he was. I'd pay to see that. 

Empathy

The key to communication is empathy. I have a graduate education in communication, but I had to learn this on my own, they never bothered going over it in class. People, especially in these distracted times, stop listening if they feel they aren't on the same page. People will only listen to opposing viewpoints if their are spoken like the doubting voices in their heads.

You can say some really horrible things and get away with it as long as you phrase it and delivery it in an empathetic way. Whereas a seemingly benign comment, if said in an antagonistic way. Let's take the example of that Greek triple jumper. She got barred from competing in the olympics for tweeting "With so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitos will eat home made food." To me this is not racist, it's a bad sort of Yakov Smirinoff-ish joke. It's certainly no reason to ban someone from jumping into a pit of sand in a stadium in a country that used to trade Africans like sacks of spices. It's a sign of idiotic political correctness.

She could have made this joke, and not gotten in trouble though. All she would have had to do is add a little empathy and voila. You just start the joke the opposite way: "With the West Nile virus now in Greece, all the African's here will feel at home." Is this funnier? No, but she can make her same stupid demurely racist point, but when you empathize with the African's rather than the Mosquitos, and somehow seems less mean spirited.

Audiences/Readers are like dogs, if you talk to them in a friendly voice with affirmations rather than negativity they will respond better. It's always better to put yourself down, rather than others, especially people who are viewed as underdogs, such as immigrants. There is always a positive way to make fun of something. Sarcasm works wonders. Take that same tweet and make use of affirmative phrasing, sarcasm and subtlety. "Greece has always drawn Africans, even the West Nile mosquitos." It makes the same point and joke, but it doesn't sound quite so sinister. At least, it doesn't call African's mosquito food.

Politicians have always been masters at this sort of twisted insult rhetoric. Learning the difference in how to make a controversial joke with empathy and without is what separates good speakers/writers from great ones. I have started adding this technique to editing my comedy writing. I will sometimes go back over something and it seems sort of mean-spirited, so I think about it empathetically. If I was an oppressed African immigrant in Europe, would I find this offensive? Then I think of a way to make my rants, less offensive, without betraying my message.

With empathy, you can keep the audience, on your side, which is important seeing as how it's hard enough to write something interesting in the first place. Turning people against you with negativity and antipathy, makes it impossible. 

Failure to develop

There are many things I am completely terrible at. An important part of the process is learning, accepting and eventually, celebrating the things that you are terrible at. Some things I am actually proud that I am pretty bad at. I think if life went differently, and I was good at them, I would be happy just the same, but being bad at them just worked out.

There are some things that I am bad at, that I regret being bad at. I wish I learned more math and science in school. I wish I would have learned some foreign languages while my brain was still supple. I wish I could shoot 3-pointers or ice-skate backwards. I'd rather talk about the things I am bad at, that I am happy I am bad.

For one, I have always had horrible hand-writing. Now I don't care, because this isn't hand written. I guess I lucked out on technology. If I had to write legibly to be a writer, I suppose I would have learned, but luckily I never had to. When people have bad hand writing, they are said to write like "boys," because women typically have better hand-writing. I always thought women had better penmanship because they write slower, because they struggle, oh how they struggle to find anything interesting to say.

Recently, I've noticed that I am a terrible photographer, and how alright I am with that. Photography isn't a skill as much as it's a technology. Photographers are to the art world as rock bassists are to the music world, or chiropractors are to medicine. They barely qualify, and must secretly wish they could do something more interesting, wish they could paint, play guitar or perform surgery.

However,  rock bands require the humble duty of bass to provide the low end to the bands sound, just as we need photographers in our lives, to take record of the regrettable. I just don't feel like people who are photographers should flaunt it, they should be humble, like the bassist, and just say "I'm with the band." Let's face it, people who fancy themselves photographers are basically a cheesy Hawaiian shirt, away from being Japanesse tourists.

People who have become professional photographers are lucky they haven't yet been replaced by robots. Speaking of which, why don't people, who ask strangers to take their pictures just use self-timer. One of these days I'd like to steal a camera during this imposing request. Tourists will stop me on the street and entrust me with capturing their precious poses, before they are lost forever to the time vacuum. I never feel that inspired to do more than point, click and run away before I can be asked to do it again. 

Man Pregnancy

My whole life I was warned that my metabolism was a gift of youth and someday I would have to work to stay skinny. This year I started the final phases of my "second puberty." This one is not nearly as fun as the first. There are a few good things about "second puberty." My sex-drive has normalized to levels at which my brian functions are no longer impeded by constant adolescent horniness and

 I have shed much of my boyishness, that got me carded for PG-13 movies way into my 20's.

Most of what's going on with my body is evil though. Ten years ago I was excited for new found hair and sweat glands, but I thought it would end. Sprouts have started on my back and chest and my nose hairs need regular attention. I feel all the aches and pains my youth and I really enjoy a good sit, where I once would have happily stood. The worst part though is that I'm getting fat. I didn't think it could happen to me, I was such a gangly kid. 

I think it would be too simple to blame beer. I do drink a lot of it, much more than anyone should, but I think it has a lot more to do with the lack of exercise. I have begun casually exercising and I must say, it's a lot harder once you've put on some weight. The burn is no longer a good burn, it's a fiery pain that starts deep inside, and radiates through your fat slowly. When I do sit ups now it feels like someone wrapped a wet blanket around my waist. 

I feel a bit like a traitor to my values. I always used to mock "gym people." I thought they were vain, paranoid, a bit boring. Going to the gym seemed at best fun in a masochistic way and at worst a waste of time and money. I see people run down the street in spandex while I was eating an ice cream cone, and I always thought they were stupid, but now I realize, that they will never have to feel like there is a baby clutching their waist when they sit up, and maybe that privilege is worth their idiotic sweat obsession. 

I have a natural rebellious urge to resist criticism. When people started telling me that I was getting fat, I first ignored them, or even celebrated it. I told them I was growing into my new body type, and that I looked good a little heavier. I scoffed at suggestions that I eat healthier or drink less. I resisted invitations to exercise, out of a sort of righteousness. Then I remembered how I used to look at fat people and then put myself under that scrutiny. 

I am lucky. As a jerk who derives great pleasure out of insulting people and joking about the weaknesses of others, my weaknesses are thusly treated with scathing honesty. If I were nice, it could be years, maybe 50 lbs. of flab, before anyone mentioned my weight gain, but being a smart-ass, I was alerted to my problem almost instantly, by everyone, and with all due disrespect. 

I am also lucky to have the ability to admit when I am wrong, and try to change. So now I must change.  I am looking at the last couple years of my life, the after-math of "second puberty," as man pregnancy. Instead of having a baby at the end, I just shit twice as much now. That's just what I do now. Now I have to lose all that pregnancy weight. I've thought about getting some Jane Fonda VHS's and cutting back on eating things that come in foil bags.

 I'm not giving up beer though. That would be too far, that would be letting the nay-sayers win. Without beer, I would probably sit on the next person that called me fat. 

The Failure Years

I had a dream a about a really smooth unfiltered Italian lager being poured at a mysterious German restaurant where I dined with annoying strangers who took 20 minutes to split the bill, only when I pointed out that the total was completely wrong. Not a great dream, boring, too true to life, but the beer was good. I still remember what it tasted like in my dream, even though no such beer exists that I've had. The dream itself was pleasant, but upon waking, it seemed boring. 

My favorite dream in recent history was when I passed a sea horse through my urethra while pissing, and then rescued it from the toilet and raised it as a son. During the dream I was a little nervous and confused, but it's a dream that I think about a lot, and consider my favorite. 

I think that there are several important lessons here. Mainly, that these failure years are the dream years. Drunken hazes pass in and out of each other as if dreams. I spend my thinking time in waking dreams. The best times of the failure years are some of the least memorable when I awake into my mid-thirties. The most memorable will be those like pissing a seahorse, strange and confusing. 

Dreams come in many flavors, but never bitter. Comedy too, doesn't go down as a bitter tea. Dreams and laughs can be sweet, salty, sour even "umami," but never bitter. Even bitter comedians hide their bitterness under a (sometimes thin) sheet of silliness. If you go down the dark road of bitterness, the laughs will, come when you snap yourself out of it and say something silly, to remind everyone that you were joking. 

In dreams the bitterness only comes when we wake and realize that that world that we may of let ourselves get attached to never existed and there's no way to go back. I am now resolving to let my anger pass as if a dream. To let bitterness, be a dream once laughter wakes me from it. When I feel my blood heating, the best thing to do is latch on to lucidity and find the humor to wake me up, and all trifles will pass as dreams. 

I read an article last night that was  a great example of someone who has no clue how to write comedy, or as he called it "satire." Like most clueless wannabe satirists, he compared himself to Swift. His "modest proposal" was to stop tipping bartenders. There would have been many ways to write an article like this as satire and make it funny, but instead he came off as a whiny Brit who refuses to understand American tipping culture. In the process he managed to go semi-viral and piss off every bartender in NYC (not a group you want to piss off), which is where he lives. I wont link to the article because I don't want to open up the lid on the garbage can, but I can't wait to read a story about him getting kicked out of a bar when he's recognized.  

Failure-ade/Last Trip

Part of the reason I called this blog liver failure, is because I love to drink. I've eliminated a lot of vices from my diet. Drugs, pot, TV, soda, even cigarettes have been easy to give up, but not drinking. Drinking does one thing that nothing else I tried does for me: It makes me friendly. 

Whenever I start work, I'm a bit gruff, and I find myself easily annoyed by the small annoying things that customers do. I find myself often thinking: There isn't a single person in this bar that isn't a complete asshole. If I could flush the bar clean like a toilet, I would and start over. After a couple drinks, I find myself more easy going, less judgmental and less concerned with the stupid or rude things people do. 

If I over do it, I go the other way though. After too many drinks, I start to become pushy and overbearing, perhaps friendly to the point of becoming an asshole. Also when I go though long periods of over-drinking, my health, hygiene and productivity bottom out. It's like Failure-ade. Alcohol is known as a "social lubricant," I of it more as rage-orade. I don't mean the bro-speak rage. I mean good old fashioned anger. It helps me forget about how shitty people are. 

If you think about it, some of the most judgmental people on earth are non-drinkers. Pretty much every non-drinker is either religious or a health nut. Not two groups I usually think of as friendly and accepting, other than to perhaps try to convince you that you should be more like them. I can't help wondering if religious fanatics put down their Bibles (or Korans) and picked up a bottle, wouldn't the world be a more peaceful place?

I really consider drinking as a substitute for religion for me. It go to bars and talk philosophy with friends, or even strangers and I feel closer to humanity. The bar is my church. Someday, if I do stop drinking, god forbid, I really hope I don't become religious, that would really kill my career.

So I can't quit drinking, I just take a few measures to not over-drink and it works out. Drinking and writing don't really go well together for me, except having a cold beer in front of me makes it a lot easier for me to stay sitting at the computer for hours. After three or so though, I'm pretty brain-dead and can't work any more, so I try to drink really low alcohol beers slowly while I write so I can get the most out of my few hours. 

Performing drunk is something I still haven't come to terms with. I like to try drinking different amounts before going on. In theory drinking should help. One of my biggest problems with performing is that my utter disdain for people. I find it difficult to prance around on stage, trying to get a laugh out of people who I don't care for (which is more everybody). Drinking should loosen me up. What I often find is that drinking makes me a bit too daring, and most of my problems reaching an audience come from overstepping the bounds of good taste and saying some ugly stuff that turns people off. 

Someday, when I actually take the full grown-up step and put my career above all else. I imagine I will severely limit my drinking. Who knows maybe a little success will embolden me to become that uninhibited "Arthur" drunk I've always known I could be. I hope I at least get enough work someday to spend a few weeks not drinking, because I'm too busy writing. 

I remember what helped prompt me to stop tripping. I was never good at choosing what to do when I tripped, so we usually settled for watching a movie. This last trip, we chose "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," and it seemed like a great choice. It was colorful and had great passages of absurdity. 

When we got to the "Candyman" scene, my friend started quietly sobbing. At first I didn't think much of this, because he had a head full of acid, which can trigger random spurts of sobbing or laughing fits. Then he suddenly started shouting "You stay away from those fucking kids!" I realized then, that my friend had been molested as a child, possibly by a candyman. Acid can bring those things up without warning, leaving stuck in a waking nightmare. 

If I were sober, I would have helped him work through it, and get back to focusing on those giant lollipops, but I wasn't sober. I was really high. I couldn't stop laughing at the idea of my friend being molested by a candyman. I kept asking incredibly insensitive questions like, "What did he look like?" or "Did it hurt?" 

After I started to come down. I couldn't stop thinking about how I was laughing about my friend getting molested, and how with a clear head, is was only kind of funny, and certainly not worth going on about for the whole rest of the movie, and half of "Fantasia." I knew that I couldn't risk being so cruel again, so I quit. I've probably done worse things drinking, but at least I felt some comfort knowing that I would receive punishment in the form of an awful headache in the morning.  

Failed Marketing Strategies/Segways

As a good consumer, I am very aware of my demographic and try to remain within it. I refuse to consume or absorb any product or media meant for women, children, the old or morons. As you can imagine, it's hard to go to the movies. I started this boycott out of a fear that luna bars would give me tits. Now, I can only relate to products designed for 25-30 year old straight male winos with graduate educations and bad backs.

Maybe I live in a bit of a bubble, but it seems like theres a lot of us out there, and not enough products marketed towards us. I'm planning an open letter to fortune 500 CEOs complaining about this soon.

Dear Corporate Rim Kissers,

Where is my whiskey-flavored breakfast cereal bars? What happened to screwball comedy films? Where is my voice in congress? How do I work this? Where is the express bus to work? This is not my shitty overpriced urban apartment? This is not my coked up bar-hook up throwing up in the bathroom. How did I get here? Letting the days go by. Let the sewage hold me down. Once in a lifetime. Sewage flowing underground.

Same shit as it ever was,

TH

I have had this theory for a while that there is a hyperactive 12-year-old girl living in Kansas who is the sole influence for mainstream popular culture. The way she responds to screenings and demos determines the (erect nipple) Billboard Top 40, the box office, (jizz drizzle) The New York Times best-selling books, next seasons  dresses, the new flavor of (cockslap) M&Ms and presidential approval ratings. Her name is Carley. Some people ask why I believe this, as I have no evidence that this influential 12-year old exists. I tell them I believe it because I have to believe it.

I hate advertising. I hate it so much, that I try to avoid using proper nouns in any of my writings or performances, so as not to even inadvertently endorse anything. Of course, this makes it hard to mention certain topics of conversation so if I must use proper nouns such as (monkey cum) M&Ms or The New York Times I try to include some derogatory expletives in the sentence so as not to be confused as an advocate for the topic. I used to use a stock person, place and thing for every hypothetical senario I needed to discuss. The person: Carson Daily. The place: Newark, New Jersey. The thing: Segways.

I chose these proper nouns, not entirely at random. No one could actually believe anyone would endorse these things, so they're pretty safe. So if I was telling a story I could be like I was in this town last week. And if the audience asked where I was I'd always say Newark for an easy laugh and and move right along. Usually you can do pretty well without proper nouns. And if I have to mention something, someone or some place by name to make a point, make sure to make my feelings clear. 


Segways, like Carson Daily or Newark, are an easy target. There is nothing good about them, not even with the deepest irony or most open mind can I find one positive thing about them. So if I tell a joke about a factory burning down, why not fill the building with Segways. It helps to really paint the picture. I would do some stuff of Carson Daily, but if I have a chance of any television appearances anytime in the next five years, it will probably be on his show, right before the Cialis commercials, so I better not burn that bridge. 


Since I brought them up, Segways are a great example of failure. Segways were supposed to replace the horse, but instead they replaced the pony. You see them at carnivals and at very rich people's houes,  stinking up the shed. Sometimes in cities, you see groups of tourists riding around on them. There are many funny things about these groups, but my favorite is that they all wear helmets. They are wearing helmets to protect themselves from a machine that moves at the speed and height of a tall person walking. So they are basically trying to protect themselves from cracking their skulls by walking. At least ponies kick sometimes. 

Editors Note: According to this article, it turns out that people who injure themselves by falling off Segways are more likely to go to the (nut-sucking) Emergency Room than those hit by cars as pedestrian in (shit-ass) Washington D.C, where tour groups full of idiots run rampent. I suppose it begs the question, are these little scooters dangerous, or is being dumb enough to be seen on one already up your chances of a head injury. Are these flawed statistics? In any case, I retract my previous comment about the helmets. They should keep them on, really tight.

Evolutionary Failures/Language

The ultimate form of failure is extinction, to be an evolutionary failure. Most of the funniest looking animals have died out, the ones that remain, such as the blobfish hide in the deep sea, where they can't be harpooned and lampooned. I like to go to the tree of life sometimes and gawk at the extinct creatures, all those who failed to make it in the world, and it makes me feel much better about myself and my failures.

Sometimes I try to think about my little daily struggles in evolutionary terms. If someone cuts in front of me in line they have cheated me out of some of my time on earth and therefore deserve to be weakened, so they may not impede on anyone else's time on earth. I think a broken arm would be a fair punishment. It would make it a lot harder for them to push their way to the front again for a while.

We live very far from evolutionary terms these days though. We still try to survive and procreate and all that stuff, but we sometimes let other stuff take precedence over survival, and especially procreation. The further society evolves the further we get from our evolutionary needs. Sometimes I wonder if this is a good thing.

One one hand, not worrying much about survival enables us to do some really neat stuff with all the free time we have that used to be reserved from running away from large things with claws. We have time to create, and to build, and to explore the wonders of the world. On the other hand, we often forget about evolution all together and spend all this neat free time that we've created for ourselves destroying the planet, other lifeforms and ourselves.

In the spot-on satire "Idiocracy," a future is imagined where the stupidest people end up out breeding the fittest, which in time creates a world full of idiots. The easiest way to bear witness to this sort of "devolution," is in language. Language was once very important because it was the pinnacle of evolution. Language is what separates us from the lower animals. Language is what allows us to share ideas and find new ways to help each other in this battle for survival. While, more polyglots are born every generation, the sophistication of language, and the ways that it is used are in recession. People speak more simply to be understood, and thus we limit the sophistication of concepts that we can share with people.

I don't think that the recession of language's importance in society will necessarily lead us to an "idiocracy" but I wonder if something more effective may be replacing language as the most important evolutionary trait? The image? Will we communicate in photos and gestures to circumvent the vagaries and deceptiveness of language. Will we develop a sophisticated language based on abbreviating words, removing syllables (def) and turning small sentences into acronyms (lol), so that we can communicate much faster. Maybe communication itself will be replaced with an understanding and an empathy so rich that we already know what people want before they even have a chance for it.

I've been working on that lately. I'll just walk up to someone and hand them a piece of tape or a pen. It will come in handy later.

Near-Failure/Teachers

Some of the only people who are publicly recorded as failures are presidents. It's the lowest notch on the presidential ranking scale. The next notch up is below-average, which really sounds like a big step up. These men are branded by historians as Failures, even though they were obviously successful enough to become president, some twice. You can either be Great, Near-Great, Average, Below Average or Failure. I really think they should introduce a Near-Failure category to balance it out.

I feel like Near-Failure is a good place to live, artistically speaking. Struggling, but not quite drowning: on the ropes, still breathing, hanging on for dear life. They say you learn a lot from failure, but I think you learn more from Near-Failure. You can look back and think about all the bad choices you made, but then there was that one good one you made somewhere along the way that kept you from making something that was total shit, and you think, "how do I do that again?"

There are two types of heroes: the blessed and the cursed. Most heroes in stories are gifted, they have strengths and virtues that they exploit through hard work. They have an easy time being Near-Great, but have some struggle finding true greatness. They overcome their obstacles and achieve it in the end. 

The cursed hero is weak and untalented. He has to fight against his natural laziness for the motivation to even try, and will lose most of his battles, due to his lack of strength. The cursed hero doesn't give up though. He keeps fighting, not out of virtue, but out of shamelessness. The cursed hero knows that if he tries enough different ways towards his goal, the odds will eventually allow him to win and he can eschew totally failure, and reach the rank of Near-Failure, one he once thought out of reach.

I don't know if the cursed hero actually exists in fact or fiction, other than in my own dreams where I someday get a bit part on a sitcom. A lot of people will realize Near-Failure status as early eliminations on reality TV shows. Others will find Near-Failure in teaching, having failed at what they really want to do, they will find the smallest possible success in teaching. 

I know it's not really popular to say this, but fuck teachers. I don't mean this in an adolescent way or in some anti-educational way. I  just think most people who teach are assholes. You would think that it would be a job for intellectuals or the intelligentsia, maybe even that working in education would make you smarter. It doesn't work though. Teachers are their subjects second-string. They are life's B-team. 

What makes them dumber too, is that they have to hang out with kids all the time. You don't get smarter by reading thirty different 15-year-old perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. You'd learn more by reading an article in the New Yorker while taking a long shit everyday. The people I know who became teachers, get influenced by kid's crappy opinions and start familiarizing themselves with their brain-dead pop culture. You'll hear teachers say that, "they like to think that their kids teach them." That's not a good thing, because what their probably learning are all the words to the newest flavor of the month pop song or catch phrases from Glee. That's not going to build brain cells. 

People always defend teachers, saying that their job isn't easy and that they make such a huge sacrifice. You know what's not easy? Working. I mean actually working, that's a hard life. Teachers spend all day sitting down in sterile rooms and get sweet pensions. It's certainly safe, and to me it's the easy way out. Also, what kind of person feels good about passing judgement on a bunch of kid's intellects, to make themselves feel smart. I'd feel smart too, if I was comparing literary notes to kids someone who still reads the comic page. 


Although, like the garbage man or the hospice worker, I do have to admire and thank them for doing a messy job that I wouldn't touch with a 10 ft. hickory stick. Reliving high school every work day for the rest of your life. I'd rather be a janitor. Janitors were always much nicer, and they get to listen to grown up talk. 

Sataristas!

I am reading a great book of comedian interviews called "Sataristas!" Although it is a collection of interviews and there is no explicit thesis, I keep thinking the book begs the quesiton: Should comedy be just funny or should it express a viewpoint or be used as an agent of social change. The question is not a simple one and there are more than two answers.

Jay Leno represents one extreme. He views his craft as a responsibility to generate the most laughs from the most people. He appeals to a broad audience of broad skulled people. His jokes are simple, safe and are delivered with an intent to distract and never offend. Jay is pretty dull, but he's probably not even the most egregious example of this school of thought. The comedians who do business events or family cruise ships are probably better examples of people who try to say as little as possible. The whole office joke crowd. The folks who send chain email jokes.

Bill Maher, or maybe even more so Janeane Garofalo, represent the other extreme. Comedians like this work from a very specific viewpoint and craft their jokes to make arguments for their viewpoint. Their work is often meant more to urge and inform than to draw care-free laughs. They generally only appeal to people who already agree with them, and who don't have much of a sense of humor. The political cartoon crowd. Has anyone ever actually laughed at a political cartoon? To proud to laugh, they believe a joke should be appreciated by saying "good point." Some people accuse George Carlin of doing this sort of thing later in his career, but I disagree: at the end of a long rant there was always a big payoff.

Stephen Colbert is a pure satirist and gets a lot of praise by other comedians in "Satarista!" for his provocative character study of a ego-centric right-wing talk show host. His strategy offers a way to talk about serious issues, without being serious. A spoonful of sugar for the Leno crowd, and a bit of mockery to disarm the politicos.

Comedians don't change people's minds. I don't think anyone watches a comic and changes the way they vote or decides that rape is an acceptable first date. I aslo think that comedians have a duty (if they want to be funny to people with triple-digit IQs)  to talk about things that are controversial. They shouldn't do it to change mind or to try to incite people, they should do it because those are the things that excite people. Jay Leno said in "Sataristas!" that he tried to be funny for the working man who comes home turns on the TV and tries to forget about life, whereas if you have money you can afford to sit around being introspective and thinking about greater things all day. I don't think that makes a lick of sense, and what he means it as a way to explain his dumb humor. I work hard all day, but that doesn't mean I want to go home and watch cartoons. I find that fucking insulting. It's as insulting to blue collar workers as the honkey-ass comedy tour that stole the blue collar name.

It seems like there is always a Comedic controversy of the day, and today's is Daniel Tosh and his "rapist wit." I always side with the comedian. There have been some arguments put forth suggesting that Tosh's material would have been less controversial if it were approached from a more humorous point of view (rather than saying it would be funny if a girl in the audience got raped). People are now discussing whether or not rape jokes are appropriate. I say bullshit. Any joke is appropriate: period. If it turns your audience against you, that should be your consequence. I don't think Daniel Tosh is a great comic, but he's young and if his career is derailed by some stupid whiny feminists and their dumb ass blog, it would be a real shame.

Haven't you ever wished that someone who was bothering you just dropped dead? Maybe you didn't really wish it but you just thought it for a second. Would we be discussing this if Tosh told that woman that he thought it would be funny if five guys came in and killed her? Is rape worse than murder? That is actually a question worth discussing. Anyway, like all comedian controversies that start with a bad joke, they reveal not a problem with the comedian, but with ourselves as a society. 


George Carlin has a great routine on rape. I think there are many funny perspectives on rape, and regardless as to wether Tosh's was one. I think that should be the end of the discussion.


I think the challenge for a comedian is to challenge people without trying to change them, cause you wont and when people feel like their being manipulated they tend to shut down their laugh holes. When you talk about rape you are talking about the ultimate form of manipulation, and laugh holes close pretty quick. So it's best to do as Carlin did, and instantly switch gears to looney tunes. 

Generational Failure

20 years ago George Carlin noticed that people were getting wimpier. Today I would say that wimpiness has reached epidemic levels. Nerds are cool. Dressing like Mr. Rodgers is fashionable. Heros in movies have become wimpy underdogs, rather than smooth talking leading men. People can't drink worth a shit. 

I don't understand people who order water at bars unless they're the DD, and in that case you shouldn't be drinking. For some reason people I see out drinking feel the need to chase their light beer with a glass of water. Beer is almost entirely made of water, and drinking both at the same time is redundant. 

The curent culture of cool is what people call "hipster." I'm not saying it's cool. I'm just saying it beats out Yuppie, or anyone is hanging out to old fashion (hippies, punks, grungers... it's over). I hate the term hipster, and use it only for the original hipsters, the beats, who were actually very hip and probably the pinnacle of American counterculture. What people call "hipsters," I call what they actually are, wimps. 

They are too wimpy to learn how to use gears on a bicycle. Their music is whiney. The fashion is based on straight men looking gay and straight women looking like cartoon characters. They don't do any job that requires manual labor; have you ever seen a "hipster" fireman? They aren't exactly known as being straight shooters. The rhetoric of the day has become one full of sarcasm and passive criticism. The idea, of being too cool to stoop to certain levels. I've never bought that line about "stooping too low." I'll stoop to any level and fight any battle that I feel passionate about. I may be many, things, but I'm no wimp. 

I think a combination of failed parenting strategies (affirmation, sparing of the rod etc...) and the abundance of technology have led to an unprecedented ease of life for my generation. Having such an easy time has led to a great generation of wussies. Now I'm not saying that absolutely everyone is a wuss. What I am saying is that wussiness is cool and is the main point of view from which contemporary arts and culture are seen and created.

I don't suspect that the next generation will be much better, as they are already more used to touching screens than themselves, but I hold out hope for the next generation after them. Being raised by wimps should inspire future generations to rebel and show some backbone. Maybe we'll actually see a movement for social change that doesn't revolve around emulating transients. 

Just to clarify, I don't hate wimps. I don't wish to pick on them. I do feel that they have a place in society and as a socialist, I'd be happy to help wimps who needed help. I just don't think we should idolize or emulate them. We're given balls at birth. It's our job to make the most of them, not tuck them between our legs and watch reality TV competitions to satisfy our darwinian instincts. 

Failure Flakes

About a year ago I decided once and for all, to stop smoking pot. This ended a decade long love affair with the silly sacred herb, that once was my medicine. There are a lot of things about pot that I like and miss sometimes, and for these reasons I do still advocate its use for most people.

I used to start everyday with a bowl of failure flakes. It would give me the smile I needed to brave a day full of sitting in classes I didn't want to be taking, and jobs I didn't want to be doing. It helped me make friends, and forget about my enemies. Sometimes I think that without pot I couldn't have finished school, other times I think without it, maybe I would have gotten a lot more writing done while I was still studying, and maybe today I'd be years ahead of where I am now.

Pot makes you nicer, sometimes it can make you less thoughtful and courteous, perhaps less well-mannered and polite, but it definitely makes you more caring and forgiving, and less hostile. Without it I find myself prone to occasional fits of rage and long gripping sessions. Pot also helped me drink less, and helped me feel sympathy for others. I think some people should smoke, depending on what they are doing with their lives.

The problems I had with smoking pot, were mostly professional, I find myself feeling too blissful, to write. Writing, for me, is mostly motivated by a dissatisfaction with life. I write because I hope to transcend the realities of my unsavory place in the universe. So my two options  for an escape are to drugs or writing, and they don't go well together. I tried for the first time in a while, yesterday, to write while stoned, and I pretty much wasted the ink. I couldn't really understand why I even thought some of the stuff I came up with was worth writing down. Worst of all, I don't have dreams when I smoke. For some reason, maybe because I sleep too well, I lose my dreams. I have always found my dreams more inspiring than any drug. 

Laborers should smoke because pot helps sore muscles and promotes good sleep. Rescue workers probably shouldn't smoke, because it makes you lazy and paranoid. People who work with children or the elderly should definitely smoke, but if you work in an office you should probably lay off. In restaurants, it's good for back of the house, bad for the front.

I think weed is a great medicine for anyone who is anxious, aggressive, prone to nightmares or insomnia, or who has serious alcoholism (as opposed to the comical form I indulge in). I do, however, think that weed has probably kept some of my friends on the couch for a few too many years after college. Sometimes I wonder what they would do if they stopped smoking,

If you ask most creatives, they will say it's part of their diet, and some may even say they use it  for inspiration. For me, it's limiting. Besides, stealing my dreams, pot makes me a bad critic because it makes me accepting. One of the most important parts of being a writer is being able to self-criticize because every word is basically a choice, and in a story, you make thousands of choices. If you can't tell yourself that you made a bad choice, your work will suffer. You will re-read it when you are straight and be horrified that you ever thought that was acceptable. Writing is, unfortunately much more like a job than I ever wanted to admit to myself. It requires a sense of duty and a clear head.

I still allow myself to get high, but only when I know I'm not going to want to write, which is, happily, a rare mood. I will say that I miss it in steam rooms and at the movies, and on road trips, but pot will always be there, but my critical young mind will degenerate with every wasted year. Everyone in a while, it's nice to have a little reminder of why I stopped though, and a reminder of why I loved it so much for so long. I just keep reminding myself, that it will be there, whenever I need it. It gives me something to look forward to when I retire.

Failed States

I decided today that the best places on earth are those that are civilized without being commercialized. At least, the places that are most civilized and least commercialized, as these days everywhere is getting less civilized and more commercialized.

Pretty much the whole of the U.S. is entirely commercialized so I've just chosen to stay where it's most civil, by which I mean anywhere with decent public transit, late night Thai food and at least one open mic every night. America is a failed state for my criteria though, there is no place safe from silly commercialism and the great evils of our time: cars, guns, television and smart phones.  There are, however, places in the world that are civilized without having totally swallowed capitalisms giant, herpetic cock.

Thailand, is one, just to speak of it makes me hungry. Thailand might be the perfect example, it's cleaner than many parts of the U.S, dirt cheap and yet the best food is made by real people on the streets, and US chains are still mostly found in expat neighborhoods in Bangkok. Thailand is the greatest example of this because it easily passes my test for places that are civilized and not over-commercialized. If you talk to a sheltered honkey about Thailand, it will sound really strange and probably freak them out, yet if you talk to a hardcore adventure traveler about it, they will dismiss it as too discovered and point out the abundance of 7-11's. That makes it the perfect medium.

Where some find 7-11's troublesome for an "authentic" experience, I simply appreciate any country where I can get a cold beer every couple of blocks. Besides that I definitely appreciate a country with no Malaria black spots, which is more than you can say for some of Thailand's more "authentic" neighbors.

I guess that's the goal to find places where you can still barter for a cold beer, which is perhaps non-existant today, but at least it's nice to live somewhere that you feel as thought you could almost barter for a cold beer.

Some places that shine on the civ/merch quotient are bound within otherwise merched countries. For example,  I went to Naples last year and was impressed by how you could get wine poured from barrels at corner shops for about 2 euros a liter. They would fill up your empty soda bottle. You would drink it on the street as you dodged mopeds and pickpockets on ancient cobblestone streets, yet you were still in the Eurozone. The wine was pretty good too, the kind you pay 15 dollars a glass for in American restaurants.

I worry that places like Naples and Thailand are disappearing and one day the 7-11's will outweigh the charm of street food. The next great destinations will either be places like Laos or Myanmar, that are a little to uncivilized for me now, but will strengthen their infrastructure without sacrificing all of it's cultural uniqueness; or the next great destinations will be once over commercialized places that become failed states and reinvent themselves in a post-commercial economy. Right now, I've got my eyes on Detroit...

Daily Failures

I've always dreamed of waking up every morning and spending the first hour in bed drinking tea (or coffee if I fall of the wagon) plotting what to do with my next 15 hours. Living the day like an improvisation, doing whatever I felt like, giving myself an hour to caffeinate and decide how much time to dedicate to writing and how much needs to be dedicated to general maintenance and using the overflow (most usually 14 1/2 hours), to do whatever I feel like.  

I think that's why I love traveling so much. Other than on the days where you catch a train or plane onto the next adventure, you are free to do whatever you want in a strange land. However, I do think I could have just as much fun wherever I live if I had so much free-time and I wouldn't have to occupy myself with finding the next nights accommodation.

I steadfastly resist all activities that require regular meetings, as they would get in the way of my dream. I eschew classes, groups and Sunday brunch dates, all in hopes of realizing my dream. There is only one unshakable obligation that stands as a roadblock after spending my post-collegiate years whittling down all my unessential tasks. That one nagging demand is, of course work. 

My job is pretty good, I make decent money, like my co-workers and get to drink as much beer as I can handle, but it's still a job. Showing up anywhere regularly is prison as far as I'm concerned. Worse yet, my job is in the "service industry," which means I have to actually work for a living, instead of shit around on the internet like office geeks. Worse yet, I have to help people figure out how to order off of a menu. I know it sounds easy, but most of the time it's like trying to explain sex to a six-year-old. 

I have accepted the fact that I will, likely have to work for much of the rest of my life, so I have given up on my dream for now. I also concede that when left to my own devices, my days are usually failures. I usually end up listening to the same music, and eating at neighborhood joints when I'm not pushed off into exotic streets by daily chores. I usually don't do much that can be considered good for myself either. I imagine if I did realize my dream and could spend every day however I liked, I would probably, put off my writing projects far too long, grow to weigh over 300 lbs, burst a blood vessel in my dick from too much masturbation, and eventually, yes, my liver would fail. 

Accepting that my dream is impossible and probably would lead to self-destruction if realized, I have decided for the first time in many years to resolve to daily rituals. I still might let myself slide on showering or teeth brushing on a few days, but damnit I'm going to post on this blog everyday until I think of a better idea for a daily writing project. 

Also, I have started doing daily exercises for  the first time since I played high school sports, because I'm getting fucking fat.  I suspect that maintaing that daily obligation will prove to be a lot more difficult than writing everyday. That is probably because I can drink, listen to music and lounge (my three favorites) while writing this blog, whereas my exercises require me to get on my filthy carpet, groan in  pain and reflect on the private embarrassment of ten years of sloth. 

I feel like these small daily chores were well chosen because they don't really impede much on my 15 hours. They take about 10-20 minutes, they can be done almost anywhere, and at any time of day and best of all, I can always do a really shitty job and won't have anyone to answer to. All daily tasks should fit these criteria. 

The term: FAIL!

Failure has become en vogue these days. But people don't call it failure. They call it FAIL! and like most things on the geek-run internet it usually envolves cats or inside jokes about video games.  There is a popular network of blogs headlined by failblog. I don't like this blog for two reasons. One, they post "internet memes," and two they are misinforming the public on what failure is.

Internet memes are somewhere between knock-knock jokes and saying "that's what she said" on the grand humor scale, several notches below puns or greeting cards labeled "humorous." Internet memes take the same picture and phrase and keep repeating it ad nauseum. Usually the joke is that the picture takes the phrase out of context or vise-versa. Cue the laugh track. To me, internet memes are the comedic equivalent of looking at your aunt's vacation photos,  except then it's the same photo over and over and over. Internet meme's took Dawkin's brilliant concept of viral ideas and turned them into the herpes virus, embarrassing and irritating. I would say that memes were only for tweens if I didn't see so many recirculated on facebook by adults.

FAIL! has now entered the lexicon. It is something people say when they mean to say: Damnit! Like "ironically" and "literally," fail is almost always used improperly. Take this example: "I tried to go to KFC but their (sic) closed FAIL!"This is not a failure, but an inconvenience. The only failure in this is the poor choice of restaurants, grammar and improper us of fail. When most people actually mean to indicate failure they say something much more dramatic like FML, which stands for "fuck my life." This is the true feeling one gets when they encounter failure, that whole wasted life feeling. That feeling you should be getting while viewing internet memes. 

Initial Failures/Heckler

I've tried to make a blog that people wanted to read many times. I think I've started and abandoned something like fifteen blogging projects. So I've given up on that, I'm settling for the single requirement for qualified authorship: writing about something you know. I choose failure.It's not just that I fail at a lot of things, but that I take pleasure in the failures of others. I believe the German's call it schadenfailure. 


Some of my movies are those that are almost universally unappealing. Those that earn less than 5% on the "tomatometer." I like Razzie winners more than Oscar winners sometimes. But a movie can only be so bad. The director will watch it hundreds of times and try to improve upon it's impossible crapiness until it's slightly contained and like a well sealed bag of garbage, only starts to really stink when you pick at it. Really, the ultimate forum for scaring failure is stand-up comedy.


I used to do a lot of open-mics, but I failed to keep up on that. The thing I missed most was watching someone who really sucked. Not just someone who wasn't funny or who had stage fright, not someone who only had their friends laughing at their jokes, but someone who set up their own camera on a tripod as if they'd done this hundreds of times. I like watching someone who is confident well-rehearsed and painfully unfunny. I liked watching their assurance shaken with every silent reaction to a punch-line. They would spiral down to desperation with every failed joke. Finally, in one last hope for some small validation they would pull out their best joke, the one they were sure wouldn't fail, their "ace in the hole," the one they tell jack-offs at parties who hear they do stand-up and ask to hear a joke. That final attempt would elicit one small chuckle, mostly out of pity. Some of these video's make it onto youtube. They are my favorite things to watch on youtube other than old grey whistle test videos and David Mitchell's "Soapbox".


 One of the best things I've heard recently was a quote from Patton Oswalt. It was from a terrible movie about failure, that I enjoyed called "Heckler." Patton said something about Comedy being like porn, how it's almost entirely subjective and someones enjoyment of it is proof of it's worth even if most everyone else hates it. Basically, if someone laughs at a joke or is aroused by an image no one can tell them they're wrong. Their laughs or sticky underwear are evidence that it is working. Comedy and porn are perfect artforms because failures are immediately obvious. A soft dick or a bored audience is 


 When people watch a work of drama, I think they often like it because they know they're supposed to. Their friends tell them that it was good. Sometimes they say stuff like, "I liked it, but I don't know if I'd watch it again." But if they watch a comedy or a porn one of two things will happen. They will not laugh or get aroused and consider it a waste of time or they will get the desired response and love it. They will watch it again when they want the same physical response, and therefore the work becomes deeply personal in the way it's enjoyed. 


The only advantage that comedy has over porn is that you can share it with your friends. I never find myself demanding that people who've never seen Raging Bull watch it with me immediately. It's a great movie, but I feel that it's much more urgent that they watch Spinal Tap. When we share a funny movie with each other we find excuses to reference it in our daily lives. We feed off each others enthusiasm for it as our laughter encourages each other. 


 Some people will tell you they enjoyed a comedy that they didn't laugh, but that's only because many so-called comedies today aren't meant to be funny. They are "dramadies," but they aren't funny movies. They are about story. Movies about story, are difficult to qualify as failures, because they touch different things in people. Comedies are either funny or not, and an unfunny comedy is the best kind of failure. 


If you read any autobiography, you will encounter failure, but no where is it as blatent, tragic and frequent as in the life of a comedian, god bless um.