Year-End Wrapup

As you may have noticed the Schad crew filled out year-end wrapups which were linked to Zorn this morning. I missed the boat on that, but that doesn't mean my year is being wrapped up any less than Kate, Sandy, Justin, or Stephe's. While I might not be as verbose or pointed as Kaufman's (I mean seriously, have you read his blog the last few days, the man is out of control, content is his new crack, it's scary), I can still throw in.

Best Food Of The Year
A flat waffle cone covered in barbecue sauce, dipped in rice krispies, topped with an egg, bacon, and Horseradish sauce.


Movie of The Year
The Office Christmas Special - Does it get any better than this?

TV Show I watched of the year
Tie: My Name Is Earl, Battlestar Galactica

Album of the Year
Abacab by Genesis (just because it didn't come out this year doesn't mean it wasn't the album of the year. Kanye? Try Keep It Dark, bitch).

Asshole of the Year
Verlon Smith III

Martial Arts Move of the Year
Savate Shase Median Ba to the knees.


Video Diary of The Year
www.bluetights.net

Porn Movie of The Year
Tie: Cock Sockets and Chariots of Puss

Song Of The Year
Bring the Noize by Anthrax and Public Enemy

Bit of The Year
Justin trying to get free passes to VIP from a cab driver in Chicago
Also Steve Gluck's impersonation of an idiot interviewing George Lucas: "Of course the first movie you'd watch would be the first one, only an idiot would begin a book on the fourth chapter, sorry I interrupted, go on..."

The "Who Let Schadenfreude In?" Award for Event Hijacking
Tie: Dave Cenko's Bachelor Party and John Green's last night at Funny Ha-Ha

Sketch of The Year
"Beautiful Intrusion" Schadenreude Episode 48: Speed Dating
"Don't be alarmed...I was in the movie 'Clue'"

Character of The Year
Ted Dinnerbansky
"I recently fell off my eliptical machine onto my priceless collection of crossbows. Thank you to the EMT in the zebra-striped nuthuggers for helping me out."

The "Running on All Cylinders Award" Concept Show of the Year
Tie: Schadenfreude Radio Episodes 54 & 55 A full-on parody of Twin Peaks followed up by a show in which two people simply converse for a half hour.

Car of the Year
The New Mustang Fastback


Werner Herzog Movie of the Year
Tie: Heart of Glass (1974) - A truly haunting movie. Nothing else like it.

And Grizzly Man (2005) - Astounding.

Most Pleasant Surprise Movie Rental of The Year
Last Days by Gus Van Sant
Maybe a total of 30 shots and maybe 15 lines of dialogue. Amazing.

Superhero Movie of the Year

fuck you. Too good.

Fuckup Superhero Movie of the Year
Tie: Fantastic Four
How do you fuck that up? And then it made $300 million worldwide? You've got to be shitting me. Imagine what it would make if it weren't embarrassingly awful.
Blade 3 - How do you fuck that up? Elektra was better than you, you realize that don't you?

When's Omar Epps going to take over the lead?

Worst Movie of the Year
Reality Bites (11 years running)
How can a movie with so many people I like rub me so the wrong way?

Free Magazine of The Year
I was sent Stuff for the entire year. Thank you Stuff, you have a really great magazine and I'll miss getting it for free.

PodCast of The Year
Tie: The Ricky Gervais Show

and The Creative Screenwriting Magazine Screenwriter Interviews

Best Action Figure of the Year
Marvel Legends Captain America by Toybiz


Short Film of The Year
RoboClones - by Steve Delahoyde
www.irritablecolon.com

Celebrity Obsession of The Year
Janeane Garofalo

Janeane, I want you in me.

Comicon Purchase of the Year

Jim Kellly as Black Samaurai - $1

Best Rentals from Odd Obsession
Danger Diabolik
Bay of Blood
EVERY Lost & Found Video Night
The CHiP's Video (a two hour compliation of the last minute of every CHiP's Episode)
Mr. T's Be Somebody of Be Sombody's Fool
Rock? It's Your Decision


Throwdown of the Year
Tie:
New Buffalo, Jan. 8-15th, 2005
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Nov. 2nd, 2005

Short-Haired Chick Friday!: Year In Review

Allright Roll Call!

Blair!


Kinski!


Farrow!


Milano!


Hudson!


Cute Girl From "Lucas"!


Cutie VonPantsbig!


Beckinsale!


Vasquez!


Girl from "The Village"


Nerd Boner!


Nerd Boner: The Next Generation!


Republican!


Natalie Portman in Little Passionate Hippy Fatigues


Seberg!


TV's: That Girl!


And Natalie Portman in Little Passionate Hippy Fatigues


AND THE WINNER IS

Natalie Portman in Little Passionate Hippy Fatigues

If I'm in my flannel lazy pants and playing Madden '06 then Christmas must be over.

No work today. Sitting around playing Madden '06. Why can't Christmas Eve be all year, that was fun. Home is very warm and cozy, I suppose that's home's job. Shit I gotta get to work, Justin's coming over tonight and we're going to get "Alderman" up to speed. It's a mess with deadline-less writer neglect.

So, Christmas, What did I get?

Tony Hawk: American Wasteland - In the long list of parrallells between my sister and I, we both got TH:AW from two different Mom's and were both exactly as far as each other in the game when we talked on Christmas day. I got her MST3K: Mitchell! for Christmas as well as Army of Darkness, which she did not have.

Madden '06 - Many reading this have been obsessed with football games in the past right? Madden '95 comes to mind. My favorite part of playing football video games is how they're so hard to play at first that you really get your ass handed to you and then there's that moment where you realize you should switch it from Easy to Medium. You know what that moment is, don't you? It's when you run the ball for a touchdown off the kickoff then then get a turnover on the other teams very next play and run it in for a touchdown too.

Percolator Coffee Pot - Interested in having the best cup of coffee you've ever had? Buy a percoaltor. I don't get why these went away? Stephe Schmidt owns one and made many cups of coffee during the last writing retreat and I was hooked. A) As it makes coffee it continually drips the coffee through that grounds as opposed to just water, how great an idea is that? Where did that good idea go? B) English pour spout, how silly was it that this went away, or do you like most of the coffee running down the side of your coffee pot onto the counter. C) Reuseable metal filter - didn't it take drip coffeemakers 20 years to "come up" with this idea? I just don't get it.

Electric Blanket - so you're welcome for the current warm trend.

T-Shirt Material Bedsheets - Don't have them, run, don't walk.

Elektra - The Director's Cut: Yes, now you know how deep the rabbit hole goes for my mania over superheroes. I specifically asked for Elektra - The Director's Cut. I only asked for two things, Coffee Pot, and Elektra - The Directors cut.

Episode III - Yah-hah!

How To Make Love*/*The Bruce Campbell Way - SIGNED! - My sister, who you may remember is close personal pals with Bruce Campbell

was thoughtful enough to grab a copy of his new book for me when he blew through Dayton last summer on a publicity tour. Damn, what a great book. Imagine a version of The Kid Stays In The Picture written by a smartass B Actor, an insider tour of Hollywood with the best tourguide possible.

It was kind of a Steve Martin Christmas, but I think that's because Mom talked to my roommate about what she should get me. So I got The Man With Two Brains, L.A. Story, and Plane's Trains and Automobiles. All great movies, it's just funny that Santa's tipoff as to what to get me was an obvious Steve martin nut .

Girl: Sounds like a subdural hematoma to me.
Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: Oh, it does, does it? Well, it's not your job to diagnose.
Girl: But I thought...
Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: You thought, you thought! Just go. Three years of nursery school and you think you know it all. Well, you're still wet behind the ears. It's not a subdural hematoma. It's *epidural*. Ha.

Dolores: What are those assholes doing on the porch?
Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: Those aren't assholes. It's pronounced *azaleas*.

Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr: Ladies and gentlemen, I can envision a day when the brains of brilliant men can be kept alive in the bodies of dumb people.

Merry Christmas Eve.

Watching the Bengals Game. You know, not knowing how many points the other team has scored really takes the suspense out of the game. It's being broadcast in HIDEF but in my parents' NOTDEF it's just all blown up and shitty like a 1980's rental of Revenge of the Ninja before they knew how to pan and scan or letterbox. So the top of the screen (the amount of points Buffalo has) is not known to us. The Bengals have no points, but what does that mean? Are they tied or behind? Touchdowns and first downs are never a bad thing, so I've got the root concept of cheering down, but what I'm cheering for the Bengals to do is mystery to me. Close the gap? Pull ahead? And how much danger are they in of losing or tying? After all the quarter is cut off too. So I have no idea how much suspense to be in, do they have precious minutes to close the gap or pull ahead? And how much gap is there?

I was up Thursday night late wrapping gifts that I was supposed to have mailed probably a day or two before that. I go home to my Mom & Fred in Kentucky to spend Christmas proper and mail the rest. I wait to the last minute every year, but this year waiting to the last minute was fun. John Hill drove into Chicago to drive my roommate Steve Gluck back to Cincinnati, a place he refuses to move from because he likes delivering pizzas. He says it has his negatives but his increased lexicon of bad Cincinnati neighborhoods and crisis management skill while being robbed has weighed out the bad side. John also drinks Jack Daniels with Chocolate Milk, a drink we call The John Hill (who was Tom Collins anyway?).

A) please try a John Hill, seriously, it is actually a good drink, I am not joking at all, it works in the same way that the sweetness of Coke works with Whiskey. I hate whiskey, but I can definitely enjoy a John Hill. B) Spread the word until it becomes popular so John can be remembered for something, he deserves it. Ask for a John Hill a yuppie bars until you meet someone who knows someone at Maxim. C) Get it in Maxim.

That was quite a tangent.

So John and Steve sat in my office and rapped while I wrapped, by my office I mean the dining room.

I had intended to leave the day before, at 5am. I am obsessed with getting out before 5 am because I like to drive a couple hours before the sun comes up. I am now old enough to understand the allure of this previously frustrating Dad exercise. Now if I can just become obessed with how campfires are made, how bullshit is packed into a car, or how to make "good time" while driving I can officially be an old fart.

I was finished and ready to go at 5am Friday morning. Despite having not slept there was no way I was waiting until post-morning rush to leave. So I left. Bad choice. I was fifteen minutes in when I realized "fuck, I'm tired." Tired, yes, but making good time.

Because I had not mailed my Dad or Aunt's Christmas gifts I decided to do something I had never done before, make a surprise visit the day before Christmas Eve to play Santa. I made a detour to Dayton, which added three hours to my journey. Fuck.

God the Bengals defense sucks shit today.

Okay, HERE'S WHERE THE STORY GETS INTERESTING

What do your friends and family do when you can't account for their actions? If you're talking to them on the phone or in person you can account for their actions, every other moment is theory. Your assumption of what they do is a judgement upon their character. Right now. I can't see him, but I'll bet my Dad's watching tv, I bet my sister is in her room playing X-Men, I bet my cousin, Joe, is playing Grand Theft Auto, I bet Steve Gluck is talking to his dad, I bet Justin is telling a story, I bet Kate is listening to someone. Right Now I bet Mark Hanner is listening to "Right Now" by Van Halen.

Sometimes my judgement of their lives unseen is not as generous. My Aunt I always picture staring at a wall. I just...don't know what she does. I know she doesn't parachute. Pretty sure she isn't changing the oil on her car. She's fifty-something, unmarried, in no relationship, and has no discernible social circle or passion for much at all. I love her, but I just...don't know what she does besides enjoy that I call.

Surprise visits are a little nerve racking. You're putting them on the spot as to whether they like you or not for that first 2 seconds. That first two seconds is where the truth lies. The last person I thought would not want to see me would be my Aunt. She lives for me to call or visit, she's got no life but to stare out the window hoping I'll show up, right? At least that's what I picture because I'm a flawed man.

WELL GUESS WHO TOTALLY DID NOT APPRECIATE MY SURPRISE VISIT?!!?!?!?!

I would never in a billion years imagine that a surprise visit to my Aunt would be unwelcome I would never in a Trillion years imagine that she would rush me out because she was "doing something." She doesn't do anything. And I would never in a Do-deca-octillion to the twentieth power years imagine that the reason my visit would be unwelcome would be because she was SCREWING! My jaw still hurts from dropping when she came to the door disheveled adjusting her completely unsexy spinster floor-length House Coat imagining some mustached Ohioan I'll never meet losing his boner while hiding behind a shelf of Precious Moments.

Crazy.

My visit to Dad & Vicki's was much more welcome, after all they're married, so they were not having sex.

Fucking Begals!!! First turnover of the game is with 36 seconds left for a Buffalo touchdown! You dickheads! Well at least the big boys are going to let you play in their playoffs for one game.

We now flipped changed the channel to watch the remainder of the Tampa Bay game. They have 24 points. I have no idea what that means.

Pontiac's THUNDER VIBE!!!!!!!!

So I rented the Thunder Vibe, nice little vehicle, I like small futuristic cars, makes me think I'm driving through the Hammond, Indiana OF THE FUTURE!!!



But I have not left yet. Too much to do. I love the Christmas season, but I love being non-stressed more. My plans of the Family Christmas video have fallen through again, It took days to enter the hours of footage from last year and have yet to even get any new footage from this year into the harddrive, much less edit that damn thing. The crazy thing is how history repeated itself, we were very dissatisfied and fighting in the office this time last year too. Charley got fired and rehired last year too. Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over hopeing to get a new result. I'm not sure if that phrase is talking about my company or me working for them.

So I need to run grab a few more stocking stuffers. I need to wrap my gifts. I need to pack the ones to ship. I need to pay my bills. I need to clean my apartment, and THEN I may leave. I'm thinking of leaving at like 3am, I've tried before and failed, but I think I can pull it off tonight. Drive for a two or three hours before everyone else wakes, taking the highways and byways of this nation while playing Jerry Reed at top volume in the THUNDER VIBE!

See you on the road. Hey, maybe I'll stop at a Starbucks and pay the money to road blog. Might be worth it. Or you may not care. But how much blogging is really done for the readers? Oh sure Justins, but me, not so much. I should rename my Blog "Look at me, aren't I great, no I don't think she's a lesbian."

Tommy!

Fresh on leave from his 13 week stint in basic training, Army Specialist Tommy Pritchard visited the Schadenfreude office last night providing us a nice distraction from being distracted. It was nice to see him, he looks good and was full of basic training stories. We filled him with so many pedestrian questions such as what firing an M16 is like and what it's like to throw a grenade (to which he commented "It's hard to believe that much explosive force can come out of something so small in your hand.")

For any of you who have been to a Schadenfreude show particularly in the Heartland run, you may have notcied a very distinctive laugh in the crowd. Sometimes it was that only laugh. That's Tommy. You may have also seen the video "Ed Bus Goes To The Fireside Bowl" and seen the guy in the alley who beats up our friend Pointdexter. That's Tommy. You may have also see the short film "Biegfried & Broy" and saw Dave Cenko's lovely wife Adele get robbed by a man who steals a bike to get away only to be twarted by the crime-fighting prowess of Illusionists Biegfried & Broy. That's Tommy.

You may have also eaten at the Underground on the Columbia Campus and met the manager of the kitchen there. Tommy.

Get to know your Tommy, he may soon be defending your freedom overseas. Yeah, I know, but when it comes to Tommy I don't share my opinions of what we're doing over there.

Bloggidy Blah blah

So being thirty-three is no different than thirty-two except I now do nothing but watch the Weather Channel. I thought that was a slow change throughout life, but it turns out an obsession with the weather begins at thirty-three.

It's videogame playing season. I have been obsessively wasting my life by playing Grand Theft Auto. Videogame season begins in December and ends around March, when I'm bored with my christmas games and say to myself "what the fuck am i doing?" and throw everything in my closet. It happened early last year, around March I won Goldeneye, and I was so depressed. I had won a game which means I spent enough time to win the game, which means I didn't do anything meaningful for that entire time. So depressed. Didn't play again until last week.

I keep hearing Dick Cheney says that since there's been no attacks since 9-11 OBVIOUSLY what they're doing is working? Do they forgt that there were no attack since the 1993 WTC attack until 2001? What did Clinton do? That obviously worked too and I don't remember the whole world hating us.

I think the administration may be in a little bit of trouble. 18,000 illegal wiretaps. You know someone's going to ask who was tapped and you know it ain't gonna look good when they reveal who it was. Of course they will fight revealing who they tapped because the terrorists would win and we'd all be less safe and we would embolden our enemies if it were ever revealed that they wiretapped Patrick Fitzgerald. If Nixon got impeached because they were spying on their political opponents, what would happen if one, just ONE of the 18,000 wiretapped was political (and you just know that they all are).

Oh if only they'd ever earned the benefit of the doubt.

If the 18,000 are all Al-Quaeda, then why would the FISA court not let you wiretap them? Why be so sneaky if you are so obviously in the right? Because, obviously THEY'RE NOT!

And if the 18,000 are all Al-Quaeda, how lazy are they? Its been five years guys. We've been total shits an martialed the world to your cause in hating us? What's with the couch potato mentality towards taking down our way of life? And after how long of no new attacks and no new arrests of credible terrorists (has there been one yet? under all this Stalinist population persecution for the common good?) do we finally get the picture that there is no vast network.

Didn't Prescott Bush finance the Nazi's?

Oh, and I think I got fired today.

Belushi, Christ, Me...

Well it's my 33rd birthday and I think the chances of me getting crucified or dying of doing an entire eightball are slight.

Thank you to the many of you who have emailed or called or introduced me to Yacht Rock or MADE CUPCAKES FOR ME LAST NIGHT!, you are very sweet it's good to be loved, and Julie, cupcakes or no cupcakes I've always had much love for you, I just give you a lot of shit. Also thank you to Justin for the very flattering post on his blog.



You're right, I do look like Carson Palmer!

What to do...what to do... I usually spend my birthday shopping and shipping Christmas presents which is the worst. I try to get it done earlier every year...this was not one such year. I should probably write, I should always probably write. One of my Christmas gifts for my family this year is a video I meant to got them last year. Last year I videotaped a week in my life and was going to make a documentary about it. But so much happened that I had no time. So I'm sending them "Christmas Video 2004: The One Year Anniversary Special Edition!" So I'm editing last years video and doing commentary on what's happened since then. If you ever want a very surreal experience, videotape your life for a week and then look at it a year later. Jesus. 2004, good year, wouldn't want to live it again. My shitty roommate, the grind of the radio show, the projects I thought were so important that went nowhere, busy work, the dregs of the movie I was selling, the downward spiral of the company I was working for, all while preparing to go to Japan (which I couldn't afford but needed to get away!).

And this year. Much less going on. Probably purposefully. The fact is, doing work to fool yourself into thinking you're making progress is not making progress.

I should rent some movies at Odd Obsession. Or watch a bunch of Superhero movies. Probably the Superhero movies. Maybe Superhero movies at Odd Obsession. Like Danger Diabolik, ever seen it? It kicks ass, and it's available at the double-O.

A Love Letter To Howard Stern

Jackie Martling was on Howard for the first time in five years this morning. That was great. Lots of great old stories about Jackie and Jackie was as brutal as ever to Garry. Tomorrow is the last free Stern ever. Wow. I've had a long relationship with Howard, but only five or so years of hearing him on the radio. Before there were VCR's my parents used to tell me what happened on Letterman the previous night, and back then '85, '86 Letterman was a truly great, groundbreaking show, and had a tendency for chaos, this meant having a weird selection of guests who would do god knows what; amongst them were an unknown Pee-Wee Herman, Harvey Pekar (who's life would later become American Splendor), Brother Theodore (the main weird guy next door in The Burbs), Crispin Glover, Andy Kaufman and Howard Stern. No other show would dare have any of those people on in the Carson days. Letterman's show was crazy, and everything he started is now the standard. We didn't get the Howad's radio show in outer Dayton (what's sadder than being Dayton? Not being good enough to be Dayton.), but we finally got cable in '89 and at that time WOR out of New York was on basic cable the way WGN was. This was when Howard had his famous channel 9 show, my mom taped every episode. It's not as good the summaries of the shows are Howard's books. And then i forgot about Howard for seven years.



And then I moved to one of his markets, ah the benefits of moving to a commerce hub. Boy was it a great to day to finally hear a whole show. I was so surprised that it wasn't what I always heard it was (and for those of you who don't listen, it isn't what you've always heard it was). What a great show with great cameraderie. The show has such a tight-knit family with their own reference level, it took a while before I started getting some of the references to Ralph, Dominic, Steve Grillo (remember him?) not to mention Jackie and what was a Baba-Booey? I didn't yet belong to this group, so I listened and listened and listened. The show becomes so rewarding as you commit to listening, you become a part of this family and get interested in the ongoing drama and hilarity of Garry's wife, Jackie's houses & career, Howard's therapy (and divorce for those of us who went through it with Howard), Fred's grappling with life, Stuttering John's family, betrayals, controversies, petty fights, and relentless breaking of balls. I was a apart of it for four hours a day with them for a good five years.

When i was temping I would wake up at 6am and start recording Stern, by the time I had to leave for work I'd have a tape to listen to during the commercial breaks while listening to the show live on the way to work. Wall to Wall Stern. I dreaded my job and hated my life, but I laughed a lot in between dealing with things. Somehow I was able to find temp job after temp job that would allow me to wear my walkman. And ultimately found a third shift job allowing me to listen to all four hours of Stern unscrutinized for three years. Jackie left, John left, Howard got a divorce, Fred had a kid, KC replaced Grillo, and we welcomed Artie Lange.

That show seriously got me through some tough times. I really do owe some of my sanity to my radio family. They were always there to make me laugh and have as many problems as I had. And that's what's really great about Howard and his crew. They're just people. Mancow is not just people. Bubba The Love Sponge is not just people and will never go on the air and talk about how much of a failure he feels like because he couldn't keep his family together, or how much he feels he let his daughters down, or how lucky he feels.

Good stuff. Can't wait to hear the next iteration.

That Miami Vice site's annoying

Could you have more Flash on your site?

But how cool is it that anyone watching that trailer in the theatre would never guess the movie's going to be called "Miami Vice?" It just looks like the most recent kickass Jamie Foxx/Colin Farrell movie from the director of Collateral.

Goddamn Collateral's a good movie isn't it? I could seriously watch that every day for a year. Breaking my Fletch record.

Last Week For Trustfunnin' 2!

If anybody's looking for a buddy to go see TRUST FUNNIN' 2: You Gotta Be Kidding this weekend, I will be there. If you were looking for a reason to go see this show besides the lithe comic stylings of Steve Scholz, then let it be known that I shot and edited one of the videos in the show, from a very funny script by Steve. That bodes well for an evening of entertainment. Come on out, I hear the theatre is heated! and not just with HOT comedy!

This Saturday, Dec. 17 is the last performance of TRUST FUNNIN' 2: You Gotta Be Kidding. No shows left after this one. Call 773-539-7838 for reservations.

The Chicago Reader calls it "an accurate measure of our culture's shortcomings."

The Chicago Sun-Times says: "Anyone can ho, ho, ho. It takes someone like Steve Scholz to ha, ha, ha."

And one unsolicited audience member who saw the show called it "f***ing awesome!"

See if you agree....

WHAT: "TRUST FUNNIN' 2: You Gotta Be Kidding"
WHO: Directed by Jim Zulevic, Written and Performed by Steve Scholz
WHEN: Saturdays at 10:30 p.m. through December 17, 2005
WHERE: Prop Theater, 3502-4 N. Elston Avenue in Chicago. (Just a few blocks from the Kennedy at the Belmont/Addison exits) Call 773-539-7838 for reservations.
COST: $10.00

MIAMI FRIGGIN VICE!!!!

Did I say I was excited about Superman in '06? You know what comes riiiiiiight behind that? MIAMI FRIGGIN' VICE!!!!

First of all the trailer is up. It's pretty good. But I know the movie will be spectacular.

Second of all, this may be a duh to many reading, but I've already had to counter this argument. This is not being made because "Dukes of Hazzard" and every other tv show is being made into a movie right now. It does not mock it's concept, because Miami Vice is not simply that reference that Adam Sandler made in The Wedding Singer. Miami Vice, while being more 80's than anything from 80 to 89 could ever hope to be was an exceptional, deep, and mature show. In 1984 Michael Mann, writer-director of Thief and many hard-hitting tv movies like Band of The Hand and L.A. Takedown (which would be remade as "Heat" in 1995) got the nod to produce another hard-hitting crime drama tv show. It would become a cultural phenomenon that would put The Matrix to shame.



This is like Michael Mann remaking L.A. Takedown. He made Heat. He now remakes Miami Vice, he will again make Heat. And that's a good thing.

Also The Mission Impossible III trailer is up , it's no Vice, but it'll play.

The War on Christmas!

This is a pretty minor thing, created and stoked by by Fox News. The eternal victims, Christians (didn't that used to be a liberal thing? Poor us? Poor blacks, poor jews, poor working class? When did that switch?), have HAD IT UP TO HERE with your persecution, because, evidently, Christmas has been virtually banned from the United States because Target is saying Happy Holidays instead of Christ Be With You. This, of course, if because they're smart business people. Hard business and hard religion don't mix, which is why the Republican structure, while great at starting fights, great at creating enemies, great at campaigning, will never really last, it's an uneasy bedfellow.

Once again whether it's prayer in school, Christian song in school, Intelligent Creationism in school my argument can not be beat:

Don't they teach that in church?

If they don't, they should teach that and sing that and do that in church. It's a great country that way, you can do that in any church you choose. The government choosing it for you is a little thing the Pilgrims were pissed about. Founding fathers too. So much so that the God referenced in the Magna Carta and Declaration of Independence is deliberately left out of The Constitution. Then again what did Thomas Paine know that Dick Cheney doesn't?

Okay, preaching to the choir here. So my point is I've been listening to a ton of Air America radio ever since I discovered the glorious world of podcasting. I am a talk radio fan from way back before the "LIBERALS HATE IT!" marketing began a good thirteen years (boy it has been a long assault on the hearts & minds of this country hasn't it? how many times do I have to tell you I don't want to drink the fucking Kool-Aid, it looks funky and everyone around me is dying), and then I stopped listening except for Howard Stern, who is drop dead brilliant. But thanks to podcasting there are now billions of talk shows on topics so minute as Final Cut Pro fixes, inside Hollywood info, a husband and wife just chatting about the random shit of the day, Exceptional interviews with working screenwriters, and two minnesota restauranteurs who decided to move to L.A. to become screenwriters (my favorite). But my most listened to program is Majority Report with Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo, partially because Sam Seder is funny and partially because I want to fuck Janeane Garofalo. When I discovered Air America and all their programs, it was a relief to not only hear non-Republican propaganda and lack of caution in perhaps saying that perhaps The Repblicans may have perhaps overstated their case for Iraq and perhaps they knew other wise and perhaps somebody died. The sky, of course, is perhaps blue...if you're a mainstream journalist.

So...uh...back to the point, Sam Seder, the lovely Janeane's co-host had a very funny segment on CNN mocking the Republicans who started this War On Christmas and gets some real good jabs in.

Like 25 Pegaditas For Chokolate

I keep seeing this ad on the sides of buses. I'm fascinated with Hispanic versions of shock jocks, because the shock jock formula as practiced by Howard Stern ripoffs is pretty easily pegged. The matrix of crafting a shock jock show doesn't take too much time in the jump program - so to speak. So when I see these ad's I can *guess* what the joke is, not because I speak Spanish but because I speak bad-comedy, but I don't REALLY get it because it's an in-joke within the program. So when I see one of these ads there's this pull between emotions that makes me feel like that parent that doesn't understand your lingo but knows whatever it is is dirty.

I don't know what you kids are talking about but stop it.



Just because I don't understand that doesn't mean I don't know that it's dirty, so you just stop right now.

Incidentally, have you been to the Chokolate page on their website, just listen to sound on that page, it may be the funniest two minutes of your week.

Anus.

Anus.

Ted Knight Has A Posse

I sentenced kids younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. Felt I OWED it to them.

Are you my pal?

Google update

I am currently using 161 MB (6%) of your 2673 MB

Just so you know.

Wanna know a WHOLE LOT about Judd Apatow?

Of course you do.

In particular I like his theory of the "Vomit Pass"

"I read a book by Ann Lamott called “Bird by Bird,” and in the book she talks about the “Down-Up Theory” — “Get it down, then fix it up” — and how you shouldn’t judge yourself when you’re writing your first draft. That should be a moment for pure creativity, and being too hard on yourself prevents you from finishing.

So I’ve taken that advice. I call it a “vomit draft,” which means I try to write a first draft really fast and not judge myself — and then I look at it and see what the hell happened, then deal with it in a more critical way.

Other people I worked with when I was a show-runner on TV shows could literally sit in a room and obsess for hours and hours over whether or not to put a comma somewhere. And you could see how much pain they were in as they were writing, because they were judging the work as they were writing it — and that’s impossible. I guess it’s possible — some people do it — but those are the people that take a long time to write, or suffer through it."

Short-Haired Chick Friday!: SOME GIRL!

This week's short-haired chick was submitted by Julie Coe of The West Loop. Since I don't watch tv I miss out on a lot of short-haired chicks, but Julie thought I would look like a buffoon to not feature this one.



It's that one lesbian from that one show! And boy is she cute. And boy is her hair short.



And boy is that...is that a boy?



Nope. Definitely not. That's all woman, so all woman the she only likes women.

Damn. That is one pretty face, and those eyes. Yeesh.

Good call Julie. Did you know Julie was once a short-haired chick?

Who The Fuck Is Mitch Rouse?

Check it out, Mitch Rouse has directed a movie!



What? You don't know who Mitch Rouse is? Well first, you probably do, but not as well as me, so let me explain.

When I was a kid I never wanted to be a fireman, I wanted to be Chevy Chase, and Harrison Ford if there was time. Like many kids I stayed up late and watched Saturday Night Live, unlike many kids I was encouraged by my parents to stay up and watch it, and unlike many more kids I was also encouraged by my parents to stay up LATER to watch SCTV which aired after SNL throughout the eighties. I was being groomed for comedy. I asked my Mom how you become a comedian and she told me that all those people came from a place called Second City, which made me think that Eddie Murphy went there.

Hey, that would be a funny bit, call up Second City and ask them if Eddie Murphy will be in tonights show, and when they say no, say that you heard that he went there, and then get deliberately confused about John Belushi and Tina Fey coming from Second City. I don't have their number, but I bet you could find it. If you tried really hard.

When I was thirteen my Mom gave me a book on The Second City but I had lost interest in comedy I didn't think about it until I saw an ad for The Tower Players improv group at Miami Of Ohio. To call the decision to attend the first meeting life-changing would be like calling something large small. I got back into comedy pretty hardcore and six months later the group made a trip to The Second City; which I had kind of forgotten about.

Mitch Rouse, yeah, I know, getting to it.

So the thing was, this place had been built up to me over the years, for years I had heard that this was THE place, and yet, I'd never seen Sketch Comedy in a theatre, what was it going to be like? 13 years later Second City holds no secrets for me, but back then, boy, I was a six-month old young-comedian with a huge boner for comedy sitting and waiting for a show at THE Second City to begin while surrounded by twenty comedy peers all with huge comedy boners too.

Who was going to be the Belushi of 1992? The Bill Murray? Mike Meyers was just getting famous, Chris Farley was too, but who would we see? And would they be the next big thing like the people who had come out of here before them?



Steve Carrell, Dave Razowsky, Amy Sidaris, Paul Dinello, and Mitch Rouse. The latter three + Stephen Colbert (who would be on stage the following year) formed the comedy shows Exit-57 and Strangers WIth Candy.



They were all very very nice and encouraging to a 19 year old frothing comedy nerd who'd just seen the best fucking show in the entire fucking history of the entire fucking world. 13 years later now having known numerous mainstage and ETC actors I have to imagine that to these demigods that Saturday night felt like...a Saturday night, but to us it was that greatest night of our lives. So young, so eager.

The show was funny in a way we'd never heard or felt before. The people onstage were funnier than anything we'd ever seen before, and the improv which we'd thought we'd mastered bore no resemblance to the smooth masterpieces that were woven in front of us. The show was so good that we actually got really depressed because it turned out we sucked, we hadn't known that. I thought Mitch Rouse was the funniest man on Earth and defininitely going to be the next big thing, so after the show I zeroed in on him with laserlike precision and talked shop, and he was very nice to me.

Later that night we passed The Last Act Bar and in the front window was Mitch, Paul, and Amy. They turned, saw us, and waved, except Mitch who jumped up in a mock "Let's Go Bitch" fighting pose to me. I mock charged the window and Matt Larsen mock held me back so that Mitch and I would not mock fight.

Now, it's one thing to go to The Second City, it's another to see the show, and yet another to converse with the cast after the show. But doing a BIT with a cast member. Instantly the best night ever.

So I usually look Mitch up every once in a while to see what he's up to and saw that he wrote and directed this movie called Employee of The Month with Matt Dillon and Steve Zahn, a movie with a very enjoyable first hour. I definitely recommend the first hour. I guess the point of this wasn't that the film was great, it was more that no matter how obscure the Mitch Rouse project I always check it out, and yet, who the fuck is Mitch Rouse?



One last thing. This country contains no Mitch Rouse academians and 99.99% of the people renting one of the 30 copies at Blockbuster will enjoy it or not as much as they do or don't any movie they've never heard of before, and will never notice what I noticed. The name of the bank Matt Dillon works at is The North & Wells, the person in the painting of the president of the bank is Del Close and the names of several people in several comas at the hospital are "D. Close", "M. Nichols", "E. May", and E. Troobnick").

He's also the Bee Swatting guy in "The Truth About Cats & Dogs."

day dragging...must...find...reason...to...live...

Oh cool, Superheroes!









Anyone watch the trailer a billion times like I have? Anyone catch the fastball special? It's right after that cable from the Golden Gate falls into the camera, we see Wolverine flying through the air and if you look close you can see he was thrown. heh heh heh, life is good my friends.