Brains Anonymous
Friday night was Big Fun Radio Funtime and I wrote a script for the show about a Zombie AA meeting. I think it turned out quite well so for today’s comedy blog, I’m presenting the slightly edited script for your amusement.
Bob: OK, we’re just about ready to start. Can everyone have a seat? Great. Thanks everyone. Before we start, I just wanted to give a big shout out to Carrie for bringing the snacks and coffee. Thanks Carrie!
Bob: OK, so, welcome to BA. I’m Bob and I’m a zombie.
Group: Hi, Bob!
Bob: It’s been three years since my last brain. A little bit of personal history – I’m a fast undead zombie. I died just a couple of days before the mysterious event that caused us to rise from our graves to terrorize the living. That means I’m still pretty fresh, as zombies go.
At first, I ate brains because all the other zombies were doing it. It just seemed like a way to fit in. But eventually, I found that I’d grown dependent on brains even though I was dead so I didn’t actually require any food to survive.
So why was I obsessed with the brains of the living? It just didn’t make sense. I finally realized that I had to stop.
Just like all of you, I’m tempted every time I see the living but I’m taking it day by day and trying to remind myself that it isn’t the brains that I love, it’s the feeling I get when I’m eating them. Thanks for listening.
Group: Thanks, Bob.
Bob: Now, does anyone have anything they would like to share this evening?
Carrie: I would!
Bob: Great, Carrie! Come on up!
Carrie: Thanks everyone. Hi, I’m Carrie and I’m a zombie.
Group: Hi, Carrie!
Carrie: It’s been about eight months since my last brain. I’m what they call a “Rage” Zombie because I became a zombie through a fast acting virus that turned me into a bloodthirsty maniac who craved nothing but brains. The first few days were a rush, I have to say. I’ve never felt so alive.
What they don’t tell you, though, is that it’s a virus and, you know, your immune system still works. So after a few days, my fever broke and I wasn’t feeling all that angry any more. There were some lingering side effects, though. I mean, I still get…..frustrated every once in a while.
Like really frustrated. Like punching the wall until all of the bones in my fingers break frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I get hungry and brains just calm me down, you know?
Greg: Braaaaaains!
Carrie: Exactly! I mean, I don’t enjoy slaughtering someone by tearing open their skull so I can devour their sweet sweet brains while they are still alive and screaming for mercy, but I love eating the brains.
Greg: Braaaaaaaaains!
Bob: Hey, can someone get Greg some coffee?
Greg: Cofffffeeeeeee!
Oscar Predictions
Today the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be handing out the Oscars to the actors, directors, producers and technicians who managed to score the most votes in a variety of categories. At home, non professionals like me will be spending most of the evening trying to figure out the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing and looking up plot synopses for the movies we haven’t heard of (which is pretty much all of them).
Who will win? I don’t really care and neither do you. So I’m not going to predict the winners of this year’s ceremony. Instead, I’m going to make some other, more daring predictions:
At least three jokes will be made about the fact Meryl Streep gets nominated all the time. At least one of those jokes will be structured as follows: “But Hollywood didn’t produce all great films this year. We all know that (some crappy film) failed to connect with audiences this year. That didn’t stop Meryl Streep from getting nominated for her performance as a crippled dog trainer with a crack cocaine addiction.”
After these jokes are made, the camera will cut to Streep laughing approvingly and clapping her hands in order to avoid every other actress in the auditorium mouthing the words “I hate her so much.”
Putting it Together – Writing All The Time
Putting it Together is my Monday “artist talking about art stuff blog”. The title comes from “Sunday in the Park with George,” the best (and possibly only) musical that is entirely dedicated to an artist talking about his art. Is that pretentious enough?
The secret to becoming better at anything, they tell you, is practice. I don’t know who “they” are but “they” have a point.
If you want to be a better writer, you need to write every day. It feels a little bit like the theory of a million monkeys at a million typewriters except you are one monkey (more like an ape) with one typewriter (laptop computer) and if you type enough, brilliance will accidentally spill all over the page.
Hopefully it won’t be Shakespeare, though. That’s just plagiarism.
One of the things I do every morning is try to write a joke on Twitter. I’m not concerned about favorites or retweets, although they are nice, I’m more concerned about exercising the joke writing muscle every morning. I want to stretch it out and make sure it still works. Some days that joke muscle is nice and loose. Other days it is tight and stubborn.
The trick to writing all the time is to not care if anybody is actually reading what you are writing. Because most people aren’t. Checking the number of hits on your web page or likes on Facebook won’t tell you if you wrote something worth reading. It only tells you if you wrote something people noticed or cared about.
Thundersnow
Having lived in Minnesota for almost my entire life, I’ve grown used to weather that has a singular goal.
By that I mean we are regularly subjected to weather whose only purpose is the eradication of every living thing that comes into contact with it.
The rest of the country looks at Minnesota and all they think about is the deadly cold and the gigantic piles of snow and they assume that our state must be a frozen wasteland for the entire year. Like Alaska without mountains or Sarah Palin.
Those of us who live here know the reality is far worse. The snow thaws and when it does, newcomers believe that they are safe from the deadly weather and they boldly emerge from their homes to hoard canned goods for the next three to five months.
Then the first thunderstorm hits and they realize that spring is every bit as deadly as winter. You just don’t have to shovel your walk after the storm is over. The rain that accumulates at a rate of 1 inch per hour and the hail that seems laser guided to destroy windshields is pretty bad but these storms also bring straight line winds.
People who don’t live on the great plains have heard of tornadoes and, I expect, believe they represent the worst wind can do to you. Especially if there are sharks.
Those people have never heard of straight line winds. Straight line winds are winds that originate in the Rocky Mountains and sweep across the great plains gathering momentum because there is nothing to stop them. The buffalo herds, which used to act as a wind buffer, are gone.
Michael Sam – The Gayest Football Player Ever!
You may have missed it this week but Michael Sam, a strong prospect for the NFL draft, has announced that he is gay. Much speculation surrounds how likely this announcement will be to help or hurt his prospects when teams start selecting players in April.
The question we should really be asking is this: which team is the best team for an openly gay man to join? I think we should carefully analyze the 32 teams in the National Football League to figure out the best fit for Mr. Sam.
Arizona Cardinals – Arizona is filled with Saguaro cacti. They look like giant spiky penises. It also has the Grand Canyon, which is a little like a giant vagina. Clearly the state is far too heterosexual to handle a guy like Sam.
Atlanta Falcons- If they couldn’t handle the bad publicity that came with having a quarterback who killed dogs and buried them in his yard, I don’t think they could handle the pressure cooker of having an opening gay player (which would be so much worse). The Falcons are quitters. Sam isn’t going to quit on his “decision” to be gay so he should keep looking.
Putting it Together – Doubt
Putting it Together is my Monday “artist talking about art stuff blog”. The title comes from “Sunday in the Park with George,” the best (and possibly only) musical that is entirely dedicated to an artist talking about his art. Is that pretentious enough?
As I try to make sense of how to be a creator whose job is creation, I have a lot of doubts and fears. Am I good enough? Why didn’t I start doing this ten years ago? Can I even do this? What do I do first?
The voice inside my head isn’t a pessimistic one. I prefer to think that it is a realist. The questions aren’t the problem. As long as I have some good answers.
Doubt is part of any creative process. At least I hope I’m not the only person who goes through it. I assume that most people who produce something that exists primarily to entertain other people spend at least some small amount of time wondering if what they made was good enough.
Amateur Sexting
My wife was out of town at a gaming convention last week and I was feeling a bit randy Saturday night. Having read a lot about sexting, I thought I would try it out. What follows is a transcripts of the sexts that I sent to my wife. In the interests of privacy, I feel it is best if I don’t share her responses.
10:48 PM Kids are in bed. I’m going to start sexting now. I’ve never done this before so…
10:50 PM So…what are you playing? I mean WEARING! What are you WEARING?
10:53 PM I don’t have any long underwear on right now!
….I left it in the bag with the kids’ wet swim suits.
10:55 PM This is getting so hot, I’m not wearing any shoes!
10:56 PM I’m wearing slippers. Still…HOT, right?
10:58 PM I’m taking off my socks verrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwly
10:59 PM Holy shit it is cold here! I’m putting my socks back on. We can do this in sock feet, right?
11:00 PM I’m getting a blanket verrrrry slowwwwwwly.
11:02 PM I’m letting ice drip all over you right now. Isn’t it sexy baby?
11:08 PM Sorry for the delay. Had to dry off the phone.
11:09 PM I’m a little worried about when we get to the sex part…one of my hands is going to be busy…
11:10 PM Can we pretend that I got your bra unhooked in one try? It’s supposed to be a fantasy, right?
11:12 PM Well why don’t you sit out the next hand? This should only take a couple more minutes.
11:14 PM Yeah baby. Just like that. I’m getting close!
11:14 PM Ohms god yeah barge I’m comment!
11:14 PM Was it good for you?
Shit That Pissed Me Off – 2/7
Coke Super Bowl Ad Creates Unsurprising Freak Out
The ad was supposed to be patriotic. It started with “America the Beautiful” in English and then transitioned to the song being sung in other languages.
Now the concept (I think) was to show how people from other countries immigrate (legally) to America to pursue a dream of freedom and blah blah blah America is awesome. Fortunately, the internet is filled with people who wanted to prove to Coke that America is not, in fact awesome.
They objected to the whole idea that an American song could be sung in any language other than American! How dare Coke suggest such a thing?
Is the word “Coke” even English?
They also freaked out about the fact that the commercial featured an openly gay couple prominently displayed in a song written by a lesbian.
The saddest commentary to me is the fact that when we watched the commercial at our Super Bowl party, we predicted the response. And no, that doesn’t make us psychic. Predicting stupidity requires no special skills.
Putting it Together – The Tedious Art of Self Promotion
Putting it Together is my Monday “artist talking about art stuff blog”. The title comes from “Sunday in the Park with George,” the best (and possibly only) musical that is entirely dedicated to an artist talking about his art. Is that pretentious enough?
As an independent producer, I understand that I’m not going to succeed unless I convince other people what I’m doing has some merit. This means I have to engage in the process of self promotion.
Watch my stuff!
Read my stuff!
Listen to my stuff!
STUFF STUFF STUFF STUFF!!!!
I’m not very good at self promotion.
Everyone needs to have a Schedule
As part of a renewed focus on writing stuff, I’m creating a blog schedule for myself. If you follow this blog, here’s what you can hope to find. If you don’t follow my blog, I imagine you aren’t reading this.
Monday: This will be all about the projects I’m working on, my creative process and my artistic journey. I’m calling it “Putting it Together” because it sounds very self important.
Tuesday: Dregs blogging! I’ll be posting on The Dregs website about our latest projects, music, gigs and more. I’ll also have a post on this blog about the latest episode of Geeks Without God, which goes live every Tuesday.
Wednesday: Movie blogging. I’ve been writing my Alphabetical movie blog on and off for a while and I really enjoy the exercise of trying to write about the mental journey I take as a result of watching the film rather than the film itself. I’m going to “force” myself to post about a movie every week. If I’m feeling super productive, I might even write two entries on the same day!
Thursday: Open. What am I, a machine? I might write about something. I might not. Give me some space!
Friday: Shit that Pissed me off. My attempt to find humor in the news events that have struck a nerve. Kind of a rage blog.
Saturday: NO BLOG FOR YOU!
Sunday: Comedy blogging. In other words, I shall attempt to write something funny. On purpose.
If all goes well, I hope to begin this on Monday, February 3rd. My first installment of “Putting it Together” will, somewhat ironically, be about how I suck at self promotion.
Grail Diary 