Thought Experiments Gone Wrong

March Madness

2012-03-01T09:16:00.001-08:00

First, a brief disclaimer. This post isn't about basketball.

Disappointed?

I'm willing to bet that you are not half as disappointed as I was when I found out "March Madness" didn't refer to the perennial return of the Laughing Sickness brought about by the thawing of stagnant marsh waters in the spring.

Before I get into it, I should warn you: I'm about to plug myself. Wanna watch? I knew you would.

I may have mentioned this once or a million times, but this month, adultswim.com is revamping the original content on its site. This will include a number of original humor pieces by yours truly. I've also mentioned that these articles come with a complete money-back guarantee! I personally promise to reimburse everyone the cost of visiting the website if they don't find my articles funny.

But only if you can find me.

So, keep an eye on adultswim.com this month! And hopefully months to follow! To whet your appetites a little, here are some of the names of the pieces you can look forward to:

Footballcalypse
A Misanthrope's Survival Guide: Getting By For People Who Hate People
A History of the Hipster (this one might be a little too academic for most)

Plus more! You'll just have to wait for the rest.

Let's shift gears for a minute. I want to give a shout out to my Bulgar crew. Today (or yesterday for Bulgaria since it's like a million hours ahead of me) is the day that the Bulgarians celebrate the end of winter. You can read a bit more about the tradition here, but I've heard rumors that the Balkan peninsula has endured an epic, Song of Ice and Fire-style winter this year.

That's not an exaggeration. The school where I used to work was cancelled for at least two weeks in the winter due to heavy snows and reanimated corpses roaming the bleak winterscape, seeking blood of the living.

Just your standard Eastern Europe stuff.

The undead hordes are shuffling in the distance. Can't you
hear them? More pictures of winter in Bulgaria here.

I'll take this opportunity to wish all those in Bulgaria a happy March 1st! And I hope the thaws come soon.

Fatty Fat Fat Tuesday

2012-02-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Those of you who are hep cats know that today is the day before the beginning of Lent, also known as Fat Tuesday. In French, "Fat Tuesday" is "Mardi Gras." Does that ring a bell? If it doesn't, I don't think I'm able to talk to you.

Stop reading now. Please.

In Catholic theology, Lent is the 40 days before Easter. It is considered one of the most solemn periods in the Catholic calendar, when believers are supposed to reflect on their lives and their sins, the meaning of sacrifice and selflessness. Also, believers are supposed to think about how they may have failed to live up to those ideals in the past year. It's a time of penance, which is why there is Mardi Gras, a time to get as much sinning in as you can before you have to think about how your actions affect other people and all that bullshit.

That's why we show our boobs to people who give us beads on this holy day.

Here's a little something I wrote last Fat Tuesday. As you can see, not much has changed in the course of a year. And always remember that it's traditions like Fat Tuesday that are responsible for the rise of Protestantism.

Enjoy!

It's Fat Tuesday and I hope that you are using it as an excuse to over indulge in something, whatever your vice may be.

Tomorrow, it's time to feel guilty about it again. And by "it," I mean everything. Your overeating; your underappreciating; your overspending and your underachieving.

Don't forget about the fact that you drink too much, you talk too much and you give too little. Your performance in life is underwhelming because you've overpromised and you're overbearing because you feel underloved. You feel like an outsider because you live inside your head. You're stretched too thin because you've lived beyond your means and certainly not up to your potential.You've disappointed your dad, your mom, your wife, your kids, your priest, your president and your God.And most of all, you know all of this and you're not doing a damn thing about it, except give up meat for 40 days.

Happy Lent!

President's Day

2012-02-20T13:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I'm celebrating Presidents' Day in the traditional fashion: dressing up like Millard Fillmore and watching Encore's marathon of president-themed movies.

Air Force One is up next!

Nothing beats watching Harrison Ford beat up Gary Oldman playing a fanatical Communist bent on returning to the glory days of Stalin's Soviet Union. Nothing beats that. Unless of course, you watch the movie while wearing a dapper top hat, cummerbund and bow tie.

Now that's a president! Look at those come-hither eyes and that devil-may-care hair. This is basically what I've looked like all day today, ladies.

Sorry for the long silence. I've been keeping pretty busy these days with writing. At the end of the day, I haven't got enough creative juice left in my brain to wring out onto these blank Internet pages. But, I had a few minutes and thought I'd drop in and let you all know that there's some fun stuff coming up. As you might know, I've been writing a bunch of stuff for Adult Swim's website (the "Not a Blog" section). Since they are relaunching the site in March, none of the stuff I've written is up yet, but it will be soon enough... Soon enough, my pretties.

Afraid you'll miss it?

Rest assured that I will be shamefully promoting myself every place the Internet allows me to, so watch my Twitter feed, my Facebook page, my Tumblr, even my Google+ page!

Also, do yourselves a favor and watch Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, speaking of Gary Oldman being brilliant.

America

2012-01-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

I have returned from the land of whimsy and marshmallows and post-industrial dilapidation and snow!

In case you were wondering, my trip was full of winter and booze and all the things that make things more thingy.

Please enjoy my favorite pictures from my trip.

Here are some stray observations I made on my visit:

- Some towns in the Midwest are plagued by a post-industrial economic malaise that has created an environment full of unemployment, desperation and, for some inexplicable reason, the lingering scent of delicious, delicious bacon.

- Snow is very cold. And it can kill you.

- To survive an attack by evil, murderous snow, wear as many layers of clothes as humanly possible. Also, never leave the house without a flask full of uncle Jim's "mean juice."

- If you spend the entire winter in an abandoned house, you get to keep the house. But only if the snow doesn't kill you.

- There are not nearly as many tauntauns as I expected, but large dogs are almost as cute and are big enough to kill and sleep in if you need to avoid the evil snow.

- Uncle Jim's "mean juice" is delicious and makes it OK for me to feel again.

New Year

2012-01-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Islas, party of one. Your new year is ready.

Hey guys!

It's a new year, which means... well, alright. Let's admit it. It basically means nothing, except that now we have to remember to write the new year on your checks.

Just kidding! I'm pretty sure the only places where they still use checks are also places where they still don't have women's rights. Or electricity.

Last year, I used the opportunity to admit to myself that I was basically going to give up on everything, which has really relieved a lot of pressure. And so far, I've been pretty successful at not being successful. I'm still living at home. I'm single by choice (though it's not really my choice). I will have been working at the comedy thing for what'll be a year in a few months, which is about fourteen years shy of what it usually takes to possibly make it. We'll see if I don't give up before then.

Or, if all goes according to plan, I won't have to since the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. If society starts falling apart, it may very well be my year! I can put my plans of comedy on hold and get work as a ruthless warlord. It may just be the fire under my ass I need to move on with my life.

Alright. It's time for me to get back to watching Greenberg for the third time and indulging my vanity by comparing myself to Ben Stiller's character, while still wearing my pajamas at 11:00 AM in my parents' living room.

But tomorrow, I'm going to start running again for sure.

PS Here are some pictures from my actual New Year celebration. No, I didn't actually spend it alone with a bottle of vodka... what do you think I am? Some sort of loser? Jeez.

A Christmas Carol

2011-12-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

This is the only version of A Christmas Carol that won an Oscar. It's pretty good, considering it's less than 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Shopping

2011-12-24T16:01:00.000-08:00

It is rare in this country that the thin veneer of civilization, that precious and frail illusion that keeps us from acting on our more brutal and baser impulses, falls away.

During times of war, necessity dictates that we draw on the violent nature that society requires we repress during times of peace. Our survival depends our ability to summon up the dark, vicious feelings that lay dormant in the heart of every person, but in this country, war has not broken down that precarious border between order and chaos since the Civil War.

On occasion though, our superegos need minimal provocation to burst like some poorly constructed damn, loosing the rapids of aggression and indiscriminate animal rage. When that happens, the mass of rioting humans must be treated like an out-of-control fire that only begins to die down once it has consumed all things that can fuel it.

But there are few places that you can so consistently see humanity's true, animalistic nature as a shopping mall on Christmas Eve.

Shopping on the day before Christmas is as close as you can get to training for the chaos that will come with the apocalypse: men, women and children clamoring over each other, avoiding eye-contact as they scramble for scarce resources, trying to beat one another to the last Nook or portable wine bag set in the store, their eyes glazed over like feeding sharks (and with the same moral compunctions as feeding sharks).

Though, honestly, I'd probably stab someone for this.
You know, if I had to.

When society falls apart, there will be no lines, no order and the only authority will be brute force. And mark my words, the seasoned last minute Christmas shoppers will have an edge on the rest of us who have grown soft with years of planning ahead and not having to scratch out someone's eyes in order to get what they need to make sure their children have the perfect Christmas.

Yes, they will have the advantage -- them and the hardened inmates of maximum security prisons.

Yelling

2011-12-23T21:53:00.000-08:00

I like to yell at things.

I yell at the walls.

I yell at the animals.

I yell at the sky.

I even yell at myself. Though most of the yelling happens silently behind my sad, frightened eyes, I sometimes write out my yelling.

As you might have heard, I was annoyed with Santa Monica's new atheist displays that have usurped the traditional Nativity scenes. So, I decided to yell about it silently, with my keyboard:

“Just the other day, I was walking down the street and I saw a sign that said all religions were based on myths and I thought to myself, maybe everything I’ve ever believed is just a fabrication and I should really reconsider the world view I’ve held sacred for my entire life.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say those words have been spoken zero times in the last month that these displays have been up. Actually, I would probably say that number of people that signs proclaiming God is a myth have converted is probably equivalent to the number of Nativity scenes that have converted atheists to the path of righteousness.

Read it!

Exercise

2011-12-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

So, I'm something like four or five days behind my Advent blogging. I'm not going to bother catching up.

Disappointed?

Well, 'tis the season. Nothing says Christmas like constant disappointment and a lingering sense that nothing, including yourself, will ever live up to your expectations, even though you've consistently and steadily lowered your expectations each year of your short life. Apparently, they are still too high for whatever scanty set of tools ~~I'm~~ you're working with.

To add to that disappointment, I recently decided I would try to get back into shape. Until late last week, I hadn't run for exercise since May 2008 as part of my give up on life plan. Unfortunately, it turns out that there are consequences to eating like you ever do anything physical without every doing anything physical. There are about 30 pounds of consequences, all of which droop over the top of my pants like a corpse-filled burlap sack dangles over the edge of a bridge. Or at least, I think, since I've never actually seen a corpse-filled burlap sack dangle... that I know of.

Once I started getting disgusted every time I had to take a shower, I decided it might be a good idea to start exercising again. Not that my give-up-on-life plan has been derailed. I'm still trying very hard to give up, I'm just making sure I don't become an unlovable blob monster in the process.

Turns out that not running for almost four years makes it a bit difficult to get back on the ol' running wagon. I tried for 30 minutes today and I spent about 20 minutes of that time silently challenging God to prove his existence to me by mercifully ending my suffering. Or at least sending a hobo to mug me so the beating would take my mind off the excruciating pain shooting through my body every time my atrophied heart struggled to beat.

I survived, though, despite myself. There was no hobo nor any other sign of God's mercy, which confirms my belief that if there is a God, it is a spiteful, vengeful God who really enjoyed watching me struggle through an objectively easy workout.

Or it doesn't exist, since those are the only two options.

The upshot of the run, though, is I swear I passed by a man who I swear was reading a book of poetry aloud to the ducks and seagulls in the park. I like to think he was reading "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats and the birds were truly, deeply terrified.

Compliments

2011-12-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

I was on my way to out to buy wool socks when I saw this:

That is the face of an angry, vengeful God to whom we are all pitiful sinners, deserving only of His merciless and unceasing wrath. So, I thought I should maybe stay inside of doors, since we all know that God's infinite rage can't penetrate doors.

While the angry clouds pass by, I will spend some time with you good folks, since I'm behind on my advent blogging.

Let me tell you about a recent interaction I had

[BEGIN INTERACTION]

The other day, I was talking to someone. We don't need to give that someone a name, mostly because I'm not even sure if that someone was real or not and once you start giving people who aren't real names, then you know you're crazy.

Let's err on the side of caution, shall we?

This Someone said to me, "I like you, Jason."

Why, thank you, someone! I appreciate your frank expression of affection for me!

"You've got it together. You know what you're doing," Someone said.

Well, shucks! It sure is nice to hear someone say such things about me!

"I don't care what anybody says... you're going to be alright."

Wait, what? We were doing so well up until that last bit... What is this "anybody" saying about me, someone? Who doesn't think I'm alright? Or not going to be alright?

All that came out of my mouth as a simple "Oh?"

"Yeah," Someone said. "I mean, we've all got our problems. Nobody's perfect, right?"

Of course we all have our problems, Someone! But you can't just suggest that there is a very public discussion going on about my problems in the middle of complimenting me. That's not allowed. And anyway, I know I'm not perfect, but if I don't know in what way other people think I'm not perfect, I can't explain to them how they are wrong about my imperfections. I need more information!

Which came out as, "Right. Well, thanks."

"Of course!" Someone said.

[END INTERACTION]

That was fun, right? Look, I've got my fair share of issues, but I like to think that over the years, I've ~~built up massive defenses of alternating layer of detached irony, arrogance and anger~~ dealt with them. Like for instance, a conversation like this a few years ago would've stuck with me. It would've bounced around in my head, becoming louder and louder, like in an echo chamber. I would've overthought it, paced about it and talked about it a lot.

Nowadays, I'd never do anything like that because I'm mature, confident and self-assured... right?

RIGHT?!

Angry Dance

2011-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

I have an angry dance. It happens when my heart fills so full of bilious hate that it overflows into the rest of my body and I begin to convulse rhythmically like some gyrating rage puppet.

My arms flail about and my feet kick in all directions. My eyes roll into the back of my head as it jerks back and forth, side to side like some sort of monstrous bobble-head doll during a violent earthquake.

To a man of science, it would likely appear that I was having some epileptic episode and that my tremors were caused by some misfire of neurons deep within my skull full of spongy gray matter.

To a benighted pagan savage, it would likely seem that my body had been invaded by a horrible, malevolent spirit and that it was using the hijacked fleshy vessel for some daemonic joyride through the land of corporeal beings.

Both are partially correct.

It isn't often that I am taken by my angry dance as there are few things that bring me to that level of rage. Even when my bike got stolen, I wasn't moved to my angry dance.

However, there are things out there that, without question drive my feet to stomp and my arms to fly in an uncontrollable expression of white-hot temper.

Like, Occupy Wall Street hippies banging on drums and shouting about the evils of private property or Fox News pundits pretending that the Occupy people matter in some way other than making the fringe left look ridiculous.

Or, when someone honks at me when I'm riding my bike just because I'm riding in the street. Or when someone who is nary a year older than I condescendingly tells me that I'll understand more about life once I'm their age.

Or when someone adheres to a political, religious or ideological doctrine without having taken the time to fully understand their own position and then they decide they are not going to bother with you because obviously, if you don't agree with them, there's something wrong with you.

That goes for you, too, atheists.

Or, when my coffee is too cold. Or, if it's too hot! Or if I spend too much time in the sun...

Alright, so maybe my getting angry isn't that rare of an occurrence and I should probably see someone about it, but man, psychologists make me so angry!

One thing that really does work my blood into a figurative boil is a bad commercial and man, 'tis the motherfucking season for bad commercials.

My biggest problem with commercials this time of year is that you have a spike in genre of "feel-good" commercials. Those are the ones that have the contrived scene of a family that looks way too perfect and everyone is just a little too happy to open up their gifts and get whatever product the commercial is selling to you.

Lexus is one of the worst perpetrators of this style of advertising. Every one of their commercials features someone being surprised in some absurd way by getting a present -- a music box, a cell phone, even a game of Guitar Hero -- that plays the annoying Lexus theme song. And each time, the person immediately recognizes it, probably because they've had it drilled into their heads by the incessant stream of Lexus commercials that have been running since mid-November.

Jewelry commercials should also be considered crimes against humanity by the United Nations. Not that that would change anything, but I'd like to be able to say, each time one came on, "This is literally a crime against humanity."

The problem is the commercials are just so goddamned sappy and serious about something so stupid as a rock that was probably dug out of the earth by some starving African child at gunpoint. Don't let it go to waste as a prop to some overgrown little girl's overwrought fairy-princess-knight-in-shinning-armor fantasy.

Use those diamonds for something useful, like industrial saw blades or something.

Anyhow, I'm not here to gripe about overly sentimental commercials, although I could probably do it until the cows come home, which in Los Angeles hasn't happened in over 60 years. I want to rant about T-Mobile's new holiday advert.

T-Mobile started getting on my nerves when they went after the iPhone using the Mac v. PC format. It's not that I love the iPhone so much that I felt some sort of loyalty to Mac or something. It's because the Mac v. PC commercials are some of the most blatantly obnoxious examples of lifestyle marketing I've ever seen.

"Hey guys. We're not going to tell you a single detail about our product. But if you buy it, you'll be cool like me and not a nerd like this guy over here."

Except T-Mobile's version of the cool guy is a snarky brunette in a polka-dot dress.

In their holiday campaign, T-Mobile managed to combine the worst of all possible worlds.

The T-Mobile girl takes us into her insidious lair.

The commercial opens with a our gracious hostess leading us through an all-white door into what looks like a clean-room in some sort of high-tech factory. But what she reveals is much more horrifying than any of Steve Jobs' cheap Chinese labor sweatshops.

The high-tech clean room is actually a slave-labor camp for little people where they are forced to wear humiliating uniforms and dye their hair pink, no doubt as some sick homage to their overlord's obsessions with the garish color.

At first you think they are having fun, but when you look into their eyes, you can see a deep sadness. There is a silent plea in his eyes, "Please, kill us."

Or at least their eyes are saying, "Don't judge me. I needed the money."

One of the imprisoned little people. There is such torment in his eyes
as he's forced by his cruel overlord to talk into a phone for the
amusement of others.

Actually, what bothers me about this commercial is that it's set to an incredibly annoying song (Winter Wonderland with lyrics changed to sing the praises of T-Mobile's 4G network) and that there is nothing funny about it, despite an attempt to at least set a tone of whimsical delight. In fact, there is something deeply upsetting the sterile setting and creepy uniformity of the elves.

There is also something pretty hacky in dressing up little people as elves. I'm not making a point about political correctness, I'm making saying that it's a tired premise. It's not funny or cute. It's just... meh.

The brunette in the pink dress just solidifies her persona as an overbearing jerk as she goes from elf to elf forcing them to do something that shows off the amazing-ness of the phones.

It also seems that all the little people are desperately trying to pretend they're happy as they jump around and sing a shitty song?

Anyway, I'll still probably switch to T-Mobile when my AT&T contract runs out, but it won't be because of their shitty commercials.

I'll balance out the ire with some examples of what I think has been one of the better holiday commercial campaigns this year, starring one of my favorite comedians, Maria Bamford:

More Music

2011-12-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

Alright. I'm tired of pretending. What sort of world is it where you can't be honest about who you are?

I'm lazy. The cat's out of the fucking bag, people.

And I've been writing news for the past five hours, so instead of writing tonight, I'm going to throw you a nugget of Christmas music by my friend.

Catchy, eh? Well, if you want more of that, click here.

Happy? Well, you'd better be. It's all you're going to get out of me tonight.

Musical Interlude

2011-12-11T20:39:00.000-08:00

So, I'm still behind on my entries for my advent blogging experiment, but I figured I'd get two in today and try to get two in tomorrow. I still have to finish my conqueror series, the conclusion of which I'm sure you are all excitedly awaiting.

In the meantime, I wanted to point out a song that I discovered thanks to the good people over at It Was Lost. They are re-spearheading a re-initiative of non-overplayed Christmas tunes. As part of that re-initiative, they have created an infinite non-overplayed Christmas playlist on Spotify.

On this infinite playlist, one song has captured my attention. It isn't even specifically a Christmas song. It's an old English ballad that goes back to a time when men could wear ruffled shirts and pantaloons without anyone impugning his fashion sense, or as I like to call them, the good ol' days.

The song is called The Bitter Withy and it is about the Christ child, which is probably why it got lumped in with all the other Christmas music. But this song differs from other Christmas music in a way that is truly awesome.

The song tells a story -- as ballads often do -- about the day that a young Jesus decides he wants to go out and play.

As it fell out on a holy day,

The drops of rain did fall, did fall,

Our Saviour asked leave of His mother, May,

If He might go play at ball.

"To play at ball, my own dear Son,

It’s time you was going or gone,

But be sure let me hear no complaint of you,

At night when you do come home."

It stands to reason that Jesus, son of God, immortal and all-powerful, would want to go play ball. What 5-year-old infant-god wouldn't want to play ball? Though, since he is all-powerful, couldn't he just produce a ball from the ether and summon a host of angles to play with him?

We'll just suspend disbelief for the time being.

Mary lets her five-year-old son leave the house, unsupervised, likely because she is terrified of awakening the wrath of the omnipotent child-god.

Once he's outside, he finds three lordlings. After they exchange cold, yet proper English greetings, Jesus asks if he can play with them. Unbeknownst to the lordlings, they are talking to the pint-sized personification of the Almighty's wrath, so they chortle and say that they can't play with someone so low-born as Jesus.

Big mistake.

Five-year-old Jesus then says, "Nuh, uh! I'll show you!"

Our Saviour built a bridge with the beams of the sun,

And over He gone, He gone He;

And after followed the three jolly jerdins,

And drownded they were all three.

So, because the three lordlings won't play ball with him, Jesus straight-up ices the fools. The God of love and forgiveness leads three children to their death because they didn't want to play with someone beneath their station.

I guess it took him a couple years before he learned that whole "turn the other cheek" business.

I think the best part of the song is that the only thing that happens to him for the murder of three children is that his mother spanks him with some willow branches, probably because she was terrified at the awesome power that her child wielded.

I wonder why Bing Crosby never did a version of this song.

Here's a link to the version I first heard.

Atheists Unbound

2011-12-11T10:44:00.001-08:00

As you know, I cover news in Santa Monica. Recently, there was a bit of controversy stirred by a community of outspoken (read: annoying) atheists who won access to public display places that this time of year, usually host Nativity scenes.

You can read the nitty-gritty details here.

An atheist anti-Nativity display designed specifically to blow your mind,
featuring Poseidon, Jesus, Santa Claus and Michael Douglas in Wall Street.

Santa Monica does raffles to see who gets use of the public spaces. Usually, it's just a bunch of local churches who enter the raffle so the only question is which church's Nativity scene will be on display.

This year, several groups of atheists decided to enter the raffle and ended up winning quite a few of the public spaces.

They say they are tired of having Christianity's sanctimonious message shoved down their throats every year, so they decided to turn the tables and shove their sanctimonious message down everyone else's throats for a change, to teach those darn Christians a lesson!

But also, they wanted to draw attention to the fact that there are many atheists out there who may have otherwise not felt free to share their faith with others around them, because, everyone knows how hard it is to grow up in the small, homogeneous, God-fearing town of Los Angeles when you yourself aren't a believer.

Alright, so here's my problem.

No one is going to walk past these signs and say "Oh, wow! 37 million? Maybe everything I've ever believed is false!" and then renounce however many years of faith and tradition. These signs aren't designed to change anyone's mind.

I'd understand feeling empowered to express your beliefs if you grew up in a community that was openly hostile to them, but in Santa Monica (or Los Angeles) atheists haven't ever been persecuted or constrained or otherwise oppressed. This city was founded on the principle of self-worship. We are a city on a hill, a shinning example of the cult of the ego. Even most believers are kind of nihilistic in this town, wearing God as a fashion accessory or tribal badge.

These signs are just a good reminder that atheists aren't above the petty squabbling that they often condemn religious sects of engaging in. The sect of atheism is certainly not a small one in this country and they want to cram their beliefs down your throats just like every other sect out there does.

The problem is that the belief that there is no God takes as much faith as the belief in God. Now, before you all get your atheist feathers ruffled, belief in an intelligent, powerful deity or the existence of a soul does not mean the belief in a literal understanding of the Bible. Most atheists I've met attack Christian fundamentalism as the archetypal folly of faith, which, is pretty uncontroversial except to fundamentalists.

If you want to shout loud and proud that there is no God, prove it. The bitch is, you can't and absence of proof is not proof of absence. You may be able to prove that certain things in the Bible are false, but that proves nothing (one way or another) about the existence of God.

I guess my point is, "What's the point of having this argument?"

Welcome to the club of annoying proselytizers. You've got what you want. Happy now?

Alright, I'm done being a sanctimonious agnostic. Go back to believing whatever the fuck it is you want to believe.

Love,
The Slasinator

Conquest, Part Two

2011-12-08T11:35:00.001-08:00

You may have been wondering to yourself why I had only two conquerors about whose praises I wished to sing last night. Of course there are more ruthless commanders of armies and empires that have not only quashed their enemies but have done so with flair and style. The first two were simply to whet your appetite for more. Also, I was tired and I had to be up early today.

You win again, practical considerations!

Like the inexorable march of these great conquerors, our tribute to them continues. Let us not squander any more of our precious mortal moments with trite prattle and delve straight to the matter that... well, matters.

3. Who Needs Cups?

The problem with some of the earlier conquerors is that there's as much myth about them as there are concrete facts. On the plus side, though, we can choose to believe those myths, put our fingers in our ears and shout "LALALALALALALALA!" at anyone who might come at us with pesky contradicting evidence.

For example, the so-called Khan Krum (or as his friends knew him, Krum the Horrible), who was leader of the Bulgarian proto-state in the late 8th and early 9th centuries A.D., may have had a few details about his life exaggerated. He is credited with doubling the borders of the first Bulgarian empire, which is not really in dispute.

The territory he controlled was actually larger than the modern Bulgarian state.

Blahblahblah.

The reason Khan Krum deserves to be singled out here is not because he expanded territory or established rule of law or because of his awesome name. Most of what he did was run-of-the-mill conqueror stuff. Krum deserves homage for how he handled his enemies.

Specifically, the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I. Nikephoros began to worry about Krum's expansion through the Balkan peninsula and, as any good emperor would do, began to attack his rival's holdings. The Byzantine emperor roamed Krum's lands and pillaged and raped and burned things down, willy-nilly.

Nikephoros earned his reputation as a bit of a hardass when he started smashing Bulgarian children to death with grinding stones.

In fact, Nikephoros was so successful that he eventually sacked and plundered Krum's capital.

"But wait!" you are likely thinking. "I thought this one was about Krum? Not some Greek dude prancing around, tearing up turnips from the ground? I demand badassery!"

Worry not, my lovelies!

While Nikephoros was busy pillaging, Krum was mustering all the support he could. As Nikephoros returned to Constantinople, made confident by his recent victory, Krum and basically all the tribes of Bulgaria ambushed the procession, completely destroying the Greek army and killing the emperor.

Good show, Krum!

Now, the story goes that the victorious Krum then had his opponent's head severed, his skull cut open, the inside of the skull cap plated with silver and turned into a goblet for the drinking of wine and spirits!

That may or may not be true, but as far as I'm concerned, it is as true as I want it to be.

Next time you're drinking blood-red wine, raise your glass and belt out a single, guttural syllable in homage to the man for whom killing his enemy wasn't enough, so he made a goblet of his rival's skull cap: KRUM!

Conquest, Part One

2011-12-07T23:12:00.001-08:00

People throw the word "conquer" around far too loosely nowadays. Any old accomplishment can just be flippantly referred to as "conquering." People "conquer" obstacles, anxieties and massive plates of food. But what about those great conquerors of history who actually conquered people. Nay, civilizations!

I shudder when I imagine what they would think if they were to hear some dude openly discuss his feelings with something like,"I think I've finally conquered my fear of intimacy."

Genghis Khan must weep from conqueror heaven when he hears the word bandied about so carelessly by people who couldn't even hold his sword, let alone swing it.

Real conquest is an art form. It's not just about crushing your enemies' skulls beneath your feet; it's all in how you do it.

In that spirit, below is a list of my favorite moments from some of the greatest conquerors of history.

1. The Siege of Constantinople

Sultan Mehmed II -- or as he would later be called, Mehmed the Conqueror -- was only in his early 20s when he earned the attention of the known world. For almost two months, the young sultan laid siege to what had become the center of Western civilization after the fall of Rome. Constantinople was well-fortified, if not a bit undermanned, and Mehmed had his work cut out for him as a result.

The sultans before him had inched closer to the prize city, but none had dared attack. Perhaps it was audacious youth or the constant fire that drives all men to always desire more than they have. Or maybe he was just bored. Whatever the reason, Mehmed the Twentysomething marched West with his army and his ships and his... whatever else a conqueror brings with him to a conquering.

Concubines, maybe? I like to imagine that he had several tents just for smoking hookah, but I don't think tobacco had been invented yet. Well, in my Mehmed fantasy, he had a shitload of hookahs, so take that stupid historical timeline!

Mehmed's men spent almost two months laying siege to the ancient and beautiful city. Like all great sieges, this one ended with a dramatic collapse of the walls that defended the city, the flood of Turkish soldiers, the brutal (but thoroughly prudent) killings of enemy soldiers and, of course, three days of sanctioned raping and pillaging. Like ya do.

That's all fine and dandy. What makes Mehmed stand out as a conqueror is what allegedly happened when he entered the great city.

The story goes that he fell to his knees and quoted a line of Persian poetry:

"The spiders weave the curtains in the palace of the Caesars / The owls call the watches in the towers of Afrasiab."

Not only did Mehmed the Conqueror basically accomplish literally the most amazing thing someone could do at the time, when he did it, he fell to his knees and quoted poetry about the passing of all greatness.

Then, he probably went and made love to every single woman in his harem.

2. The March to the Sea

A good conqueror knows when to show mercy. A great conqueror knows when to show absolutely none at all.

General William T. Sherman falls into the latter category. Sherman was less of a misfit than Ulysses S. Grant but he was no less made for the kind of fighting that the Civil War would demand. Sherman, who was ever-loyal to the Union, chastised a Southern secessionist friend of his: "You people of the South don't know what you are doing.... It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization!"

And Sherman would make sure that he himself would be the instrument of retribution for that crime. Several times, he condemned the notions of Southern gallantry and romantic ideas of war, which he thought fool-hearted.

By the end of the war, Sherman wanted to tear the heart from the South, so he started in Atlanta. Things got off to a great start when, after he conquered the city, he evacuated the civilians and burned every government building down.

For over a month, Sherman's men marched the 300 miles from Atlanta to the beautiful port town of Savannah, destroying everything in their path. No good conquering is complete without some signature flourishes. Though his men did the usual raping and burning of crops, they also took the time to melt down train tracks to wrap around trees, in case the people they were conquering might forget that they had just been completely conquered.

Sherman was out for blood, and to punish the hubris of the South, which he clearly blamed for starting the whole mess to begin with.

However, I think Sherman's greatest flourish was not in what he destroyed, but in what he didn't. When he reached Savannah, he wrote President Lincoln a letter offering the port city to Lincoln as a Christmas present, sparing it the fate that had befallen all 300 miles of Georgia behind him and his army.

Take that, secessionists!

War

2011-12-07T08:32:00.001-08:00

I didn't post last night on purpose. Today's entries are meant to go together and I couldn't have them posted on separate days. Instead, I'll have one in the morning and the next in the evening. You guys believe that, right? Good! (Suckers).

Today is actually an important day in the world of history. I'm sure most of you don't need me to tell you...

Oh, what's that? The last time you thought about history was in 10th grade when Mr. Rassmussen, the girl's volleyball coach was reading to you out of a retrograde textbook that still referred to Russia as "The Soviet Union." Oh...

You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?

Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In Europe, they still hold Armistice Day (11/11/1918) to be a solemn occasion when all stop to consider the horrors of war, the fragility of peace and the sacrifices necessary to keep it and when I said Pearl Harbor, all of you thought of the movie first, didn't you?

Oh, truly this is Caligula's Rome! No, worse! Even then, as the Romans were wiping their chins after visiting the vomitoriums to go back to eating obscene amounts of food off the asses of their finest prostitutes, they were thinking of the defeat of Hannibal or the mighty triumvirate of Caesar who conquered Gaul.

Ok, maybe not. Still, unless you're binge-eating off the amble bosom of a lady of the night, you have no excuse for not being aware of the import of the day.

In all seriousness, though, take a minute to consider the circumstances: the Nazis had steamrolled most of Europe. The British were on the defensive, hunkered down and praying for something to relieve them of the nightly bombings. Stalin was too busy killing every one of his most qualified generals to bother with an ever-aggressive Germany.

Things were looking pretty grim.

Once the Japanese bombed us, however, the war had begun to end. The hatred and rage it awakened in a country with as much economic and industrial might as the U.S. at the time meant that it was only a matter of time before Germany and Japan were reduced to rubble. With the man-power of Russia and the general might of the U.S., the war was turned around.

Don't get me wrong.

War is a horrible, brutal, desperate practice that makes animals out of otherwise civilized men. But it is sometimes (more often than one might be willing to admit) necessary. I think there is no more sobering reminder of the necessity of war as the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

But Jason, invoking World War Two isn't fair! Most conflicts can be solved with diplomacy! WWII was an exception!

Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, The Joker. That's right. I did it! As Alfred said to Bruce Wayne, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

On that note, stand by for tonight's entry which will be a compilation of my favorite conqueror moments from history.

Sketch

2011-12-05T19:38:00.001-08:00

As you might have noticed, I missed my scheduled blog entry yesterday. I have spent most of the day whipping myself with a cat o' nine tails as the faceless inquisitor in my head instructed me to do.

He says that I have almost won back God's favor, but that I must do one more thing: post once more today before the toll of midnight.So, here goes.

Over the summer, a friend of mine -- Noah Sife -- asked me to be in a sketch of his. It has finally been edited and here's the finished product!Enjoy!

How's that for some chewy chunks of Islas?

Life

2011-12-05T12:47:00.001-08:00

It is most obvious to me that my life has very little interesting in it to a broader audience when I sit down to write one of these entries.

I have a million bits of disorganized information about the political arguments going on in Santa Monica, which, of course, matter little to most people living outside of the city... unless you guys are secretly itching to hear about the pitched school fundraising battle, the contentious zoning laws and the constant threat of big-money developers (to hear some Santa Monicans talk about them, it's hard not to imagine them as mostly fat mustachioed men in top hats and monocles laughing to themselves about how much money they have while they sit on top of piles of poor people) taking over the quaint Commune by the Sea.

I somehow doubt that.

My tutoring job takes up a lot of time. Nothing deadens one's rich inner life like working a lot, so my brain has been sputtering a lot recently like some run-down jalopy trying to make it down the home stretch before giving up the ghost and being abandoned. Don't get me wrong; I'm very happy to be working. The only thing that makes me crazier than working a lot is not working at all.

Let's face it, though, people: that's thing about life. Living is kind of dull. It's repetitive, it's dissatisfying and mostly predictable. If it were a show, Life would likely be cancelled.

On second thought, that's not true. It'd probably do pretty well somewhere between Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly.

I think the thing I'm looking forward to most is HBO's next installment of the Song of Ice And Fire series, which is probably the most depressing thing I've ever admitted to myself.

Sometimes, I like to look through L. L. Bean catalogues to find rugged yet fashionable ensembles to help me survive the coming ice age, or watch football and the steady stream of Viagra commercials that go along with it to remind myself what I have to look forward to.

So, in that spirit, I'm going to share with you once again my favorite Oasis song.

A Stupid Idea

2011-12-03T20:43:00.001-08:00

So far, my advent blogging experiment is off to a slow and disappointing start. Well, it isn't really disappointing, since I had such low expectations for myself to begin with.Really, it is off to a slow and predictable start.But the whole point of this is to make myself write -- to force myself to squeeze whatever brainjuice I have left into the interspherenets, even if it is a tedious process at first, in the hopes that my alcohol-addled mind will start producing more.So far, I've been staring at a blank screen for an hour. The only progress I've made is on the bottle of tequila that I earned by proof-reading grad school essays.Maybe this was just a stupid idea.

Day 2

2011-12-02T14:06:00.001-08:00

Well, this isn't going nearly as well as I had hoped.This is what I get for setting goals.Maybe I'll have something tomorrow.

Advent Blogging

2011-12-01T13:04:00.001-08:00

Alright, you guys.I'm setting a goal for myself. Between now and December 25th, I'm going to try to write a blog post a day. It's sort of like an Advent calendar, but instead of a piece of chocolate-y goodness each day, you'll get a chunk of my bitter, spiteful, angsty and (hopefully) funny-y goodness.

Ambitious?Perhaps.

Getting in over my head?Possibly.

Every time you set a goal for yourself, you fail. So why are you even trying, loser?Jesus, the voices inside my head are harsh.

Anyhow, I'm at least going to try. I've been doing a lot of writing lately, but it has been all news-y and BORRRRING! I need to push myself to be thinking of more of the funny, so I figure this is sort of like marathon training.

What can you expect from this?Oh, I don't know... maybe some lists, maybe some obscure historical stuff, likely some snarky pop culture commentary, definitely some ranting (and whining), maybe a photograph or two.

You know, the usual.

The point is, people, you should be excited! Because you will either enjoy chewy bits of Islas every day until Christmas or you can mock me mercilessly for failing to once again live up to the goals I set for myself.Either way, the winner is you, the People!

BTW, I haven't yet decided if this counts for my December 1st entry or not. Standby for further updates.

New Bit

2011-11-17T09:48:00.001-08:00

I finally recorded a new bit I've been working on the past couple of times I've gone up at the Hollywood Hotel's open mic.

I'd write more but I'm watching coverage of the "Occupy" protests. Rest assured that I will have something snarky to say about it very soon.

In the meantime, enjoy my latest stand up bit.

11/11/11

2011-11-14T08:10:00.001-08:00

Last week Thursday, the date was November 11, 2011. For those of you who weren't paying attention, that's 11/11/11 -- something that happens only once every one hundred years. This was something that got quite a few people excited, because people's lives are actually that boring.

Something that people like to do when all the numbers are the same is make a wish. So my Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of people exhorting their fellow social media-ers to do exactly that, since I guess God is more apt to listen to the pathetic cries of mortals when all the numbers in the date are the same.

But it occurred to me that 11/11/2011 isn't that special because when you write out the full year, there are two misfit numbers. It got me to thinking about some of the wishes people might have made last time the numbers were all really the same. These are some wishes made on 11/11/1111. Enjoy!

"Verily I wish that our Lorde giveth unto us water that is not contaminated with feces of the pygge."

"I wish that the landlorde would not eye my daughter so covetously!"

"Verily I wish the Barber-Surgeon will remove the Daemon within my Bowels that giveth me the Runs."

"May the Viking horde that burned my Village meet a terrible Ende in the belly of a gyant Monster of the Sea."

‎"I hope this Splynter of the Cross that Bore the Sonne of Man I bought from that priest with mine laste Sylver cures mine Wiffe and Childe of the foul Pestilence."

And finally, one of the most common wishes wished on 11/11/1111

"May the generous Lorde of All grant unto me and mine Familye swift and Merciful Reprieve from this hellish Existence."

Most of these could also be applied to most third-world shanty towns, if anyone from a a third-world shanty town checked their third-world shanty calendar to see that it was 11/11/2011.

Crossing the Street

2011-11-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

I realized today that perhaps my priorities are a little skewed.

I was on my way to work this morning. I have about an hour walk from my house to where I need to be for the making of the money. This morning, I was in decent spirits. It was raining but with the end of Daylight Savings Time, I had enjoyed an extra hour of sleep and I was enjoying some sullen, wintry melodies on my massive headphones.

It was kind of perfect.

I stopped to cross the street. I noticed an old Volkswagen van and its equally ancient driver sitting at the intersection, waiting for the same light as I was to turn green so the antique man could pilot his vessel across the same crosswalk I was waiting to use.

The light turned and both he and I headed for the middle of the crosswalk at the same time. I was watching him since I figured he hadn't noticed me -- judging by the fact that he was steadily accelerating to exactly where I was standing. I kept walking though, since the little white man told me I could. As I saw the dilapidated hippie bus approach me faster and faster, I thought, with a remarkable amount of patience, "He's probably going to hit me."

I felt no panic or fear. I only felt a sense of casual resignation -- the kind you get when you realize that you have to wash the dishes because you don't have anything out of which you can drink. I imagined lying in a puddle of filthy rain water congealing at the side of the road, psychedelic patterns swirling about my body as the oils and other runoff from the road commingled with my blood.

"Poor guy," I thought as I imagined dying. It would really be rough for him, but we all make mistakes. That's how I would reassure him, I decided, while I was dying.

"Look, it was just an accident. We all make mistakes," I'd whisper to him just before expiring in that disgusting puddle. I wouldn't want it to be harder for him that it already was.

Fortunately, he saw me well before he got close enough for there to be trouble and he swerved slightly, missing me by at least 15 feet.

"Disaster averted," I shrugged.

But then I looked up and the white bearded man in his weathered fishing hat SHAKING HIS HEAD AT ME!

All the sympathy I had for the plight I knew he would've endured if he had killed me while I was crossing the street melted away and was replaced by a violent, white-hot rage. All thought of me expending my last breath to reassure the poor guy washed down the gutter where my body was not lying.

I stopped in the middle of the intersection, dropped my umbrella to my side and -- flailing my limbs like a marionette whose puppet master suddenly had a massive heart attack -- shouted, "It was my fucking light, asshole!"

Next time, I'm not even going to think about comforting him during my imaginary death with my theoretical last words! Serves him right.

Stand Update

2011-11-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

I'm in a rare good mood this morning. The past 36 hours or so have been pretty decent, by my normal standards. You may have noticed that I haven't put up a stand up clip in a while. I stopped recording myself partly because I was going on stage less-than-regularly. Also, I kinda think those videos are excruciating and I wasn't really seeing any improvement, to be honest.

However, I've been working on some material that I'm proud of and I performed for the first time last night at the Hollywood Hotel's open mic. I think it went pretty well so I'll try it again next week and record it for all you folks eagerly awaiting news of my stand up adventures.

There was a surprise guest at last night's open mic, too. I have to admit I was a bit star-struck when the host announced Maria Bamford would be coming on stage. She did about five minutes of material -- some of it old; some of it new. It was pretty damn hilarious.

So that was a treat.

I'm off to enjoy the rest of this good mood before some depressing fact of daily existence brings it crashing down around me. Stay tuned next week for a new stand up clip and, if you haven't yet, read my latest Adult Swim article: An Intro to Cthulhu!

In the meantime, enjoy these clips of Maria Bamford being Bamfordian. Is it weird that I find her very attractive because she seems so crazy?

Halloween-y

2011-10-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween, folks. And whether you plan to dress up as a slutty witch, a slutty nurse or a slutty, dead prostitute, remember that Halloween is a time for you to be whatever you want to be, so long as it gets you the attention you so desperately need to feel good about yourself.

For my part, I will continue to act like an attention whore online, instead of at awkward Halloween parties -- and to that end, here are some of my favorite, creepy, old-timey cartoons starring Cab Calloway.

Minnie the Moocher

This one is a weird morality play, in which Betty Boop, pissed off that her parents (an old Jewish couple from Eastern Europe, I guess) treat her unfairly, runs off with her boyfriend, a cartoon dog.However, they soon learn the error of their ways when they find a haunted cave and a dancing walrus ghost voiced by the one and only Cab Calloway. It's tons o' surreal fun!

St. James Infirmary

I like this song because it's depressing and that's pretty much the only thing a song needs to be to get my attention. But the cartoon that goes along with it is a bizarre version of Snow White. Betty Boop plays Snow White and Cab Calloway plays Koko, the dancing ghost-clown. What more could you want out of a cartoon?

The Ghost of Stephen Foster

The absurdity of these surreal cartoons was not lost on the retro Dixieland swing band The Squirrel Nut Zippers. They did their own take on the creepy, ghost cartoons with a song about meeting the famous (and dead) songsmith Stephen Foster in a haunted hotel.

I think Minnie the Moocher is my favorite because of the scene were the dead, eyeless cat gives birth to a litter of dead, eyeless cats who then suck their mother complete dry. Also, the way the walrus moves in that video is unnerving for some reason that I can't quite place.

Enjoy!

Also, please love me.

Things! Two of them!

2011-10-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'll keep this short, guys. I just wanted to point out a couple things I'm a bit proud of. Why pretend I'm modest? All of you know I'm quite fond talking about things I've accomplished. Just thank God (or whomever) that I don't accomplish things very often.

Firstly, my second article for the [adult swim] website is up! It's about H.P. Lovecraft's stories and the "Dead and Dreaming" art show in Philadelphia. I read about 200 pages of H.P. Lovecraft's stories in less than two weeks for this article because, though I had dabbled in Lovecraft in college (no, that's not innuendo), I needed to refresh my memory and get acquainted with parts of his work that weren't just about the octopus-headed monster Cthulhu. That pace of reading was like college again, except the work I was doing this time would eventually lead to money, as opposed to the four years I spent in college. Also, I think reading that much Lovecraft in that short a period of time would've driven a lesser man mad.

Here's something to whet your appetite for Lovecraft (again, not innuendo):

"Many conversations about Lovecraft begin with Cthulhu. Deep beneath the inky depths of the ocean lies the ruined city R'lyeh where IT sleeps in a death-like state, haunting the dreams of all mankind. IT, of course, is Cthulhu, a behemoth alien from beyond the stars."

Another thing that was kind of exciting was I got to cover the contract-signing ceremony that made Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica the first unionized car wash in the country. That's kind of a big deal. Also, I thought I took some pretty decent pictures at the ceremony.

Enjoy!

"Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica became the only unionized car wash in the country Tuesday morning."

Peace At All Costs

2011-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Recently, I have been watching episodes of Star Trek Voyager (yes, I hate myself that much). The thing about Voyager is that it always felt like they were trying to recreate themes, characters and ideas from the previous three shows without ever getting the tone or the chemistry quite right. As a result, the series felt like a disjointed patchwork of imitations of better story lines, more robust people and less cartoonish aliens (which is an accomplishment considering how cartoonish some of the aliens were in TOS *cough*Tribbles*cough*).

Sometimes Voyager actually seems more like a parody of Star Trek than an actual continuation of the franchise. One of the most egregious examples of this happened when Voyager introduced the most terrifying Star Trek villain to date.

The horror! A close up of Species 8472, the most hateful,
xenophobic and malevolent alien race ever encountered
in the Star Trek universe. Also, they are ugly.

Species 8472 was originally engaged by the Borg as they expanded into fluidic space (whatever that means) to conquer more species. But Species 8472 are so full of hate and violence toward other species that they respond to the Borg incursion into their space by deciding to WIPE OUT ALL LIFE in our universe.

For those of you who don't remember, Voyager is equipped with a telepath named Kes. Throughout the episode in which Species 8472 is introduced (Scorpion, part I), Kes keeps getting telepathic messages from the aliens.

When Captain Janeway asks Kes what Species 8472 are telling her, Kes, with terror in her eyes, says "I feel malevolence. A cold hatred." It seems that Species 8472's motto is "The weak shall perish."

Charming.

The Borg, the most evil species encountered by the Federation until Species 8472 came along, are powerless to stop them. Species 8472 cannot be assimilated, they cannot be reasoned with and they are impervious to all conventional weapons.

Well, shit.

So, to make an already long story a bit shorter, a bunch of stuff happens and the crew of Voyager are forced to work, in a very tense (and tentative) alliance with the Borg, to develop a way to attack Species 8472 on a cellular level. For helping the Borg defeat the malevolent monsters, Voyager gets safe passage through Borg space.

The weapon works and because 8472 has enjoyed virtual invincibility up to this point, the brutal effectiveness of the new weapon sends them scurrying back to the safety of fluidic space. True to form, the Borg try to turn on Voyager once 8472 is no longer a threat, but of course Voyager gets away.

All in all, a good two episodes (Scorpion I and II). A new, scary bad guy is introduced and the Voyager crew engaged with the Borg in a way that hadn't been done before in Star Trek without undermining the previously-established idea that the Borg are one of the most incomprehensibly evil forces in the universe.

Only now, there are two very frightening villains. If we're lucky, they will kill each other off and their mutual malevolence will be the undoing of both species, right?

No. That's too pessimistic for ol' Star Trek.

A year later, I guess some writers took a look at the profile of Species 8472: a xenocidal race bent on the elimination of all life in our universe at all costs because they think any life that has not reached their state of evolution is not worthy of living. Then those writers said to themselves, "Let's have Janeway and crew make peace with these creatures! Because that makes perfect sense."

It is a quaint (and arguably dangerous) point of view that Western democratic thought has pervaded over time that, deep down, everyone is reasonable and can be persuaded -- through diplomatic means -- to avoid violence if you just help them to see the light. Even alien species who want to kill all humans.

Species 8472 is developing technology to make bigger and better piles
of their dismembered victims, you know, for peaceful reasons.

Here's a close up of Species 8472's handiwork, in case you didn't get how unreasonably malevolent they are:

No, but seriously, deep down the monsters that did this are
just misunderstood.

Janeway and her infinite reservoir of compassion for all things, decides that she should try to hear the point of view of the monsters, because if a lion were attacking you, the best bet is to try to talk to it first before you shot it. Anything else would be cruel.

But you know what? Janeway was right! Species 8472's genocidal mania was a result of a simple misunderstanding. See, they took our attempt to stop them from wiping out all life in our universe as an example of human barbarity. An honest mistake, of course.

What about that whole "the weak shall perish" business? Well, that's what Species 8472 say when they're scared. I guess making piles of dismembered bodies is something they do when they're afraid, too?

When Seven of Nine, the recently de-Borgified member of Janeway's crew questions the wisdom of trying to make peace with a species who has as developed a sense of compassion as Jeffery Dahmer did, Janeway responds by telling Seven that she just needs to have faith.

Why did I keep watching at this point? I don't know. Like the moment when two trains collide, I couldn't turn my head away from the impending disaster.

In the end, Janeway discusses the peace with a member Species 8472 who is disguised as a human -- since they were training for an invasion of Earth. "Peace with humans," he chortles good-naturedly. He tells Janeway that he would bring the new information the two species exchanged now that they are friends to his superiors. But he says that he expects to meet resistance because not all the members of Species 8472 are as "forward-thinking" as he is and peace with humans would likely strike them as absurd.

No shit.

In the end, Voyager constructed the most violent and aggressive threat to humanity -- and all life in the galaxy -- and this is how they chose to end it:

A member of Species 8472 disguised as a human gives Janeway a rose,
because I guess he ran out of the severed heads of his victims.

All you need is love, man.

Zombie Apocalypse

2011-10-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

I've been watching The Walking Dead recently. I caught up with all of season one in time to watch the premier of season two last Sunday. I feel about the show the way I do about a misguided relationship. The dialogue is often stilted, the interactions between characters are flat and barely believable and the plot is often hopelessly contrived, but the show looks really good.

With as a show, as in a relationship, looks can go a long way to make you forget about the general crappiness of everything else about it.

Well, it's not that bad. I mean, it'll get better. I just need to give it more time. I can't leave the show now, before it has a chance to come into its own and be the show I know it can be!

Ahem.

I do enjoy the novelty of a show with zombies and up to now, the zombies have been used most effectively to scare the living shit out of me. Though, for some reason, whenever I see a horde of lumbering undead on the show, I can't help but think, "Look at these fucking hipsters."

One thing watching the show has helped me with is relating to all the young whippersnappers I am once again tutoring, which is fitting because the terror I feel when, walking past a high school, I hear the dismissal bell ring, is something like the terror one would feel when facing an oncoming herd of zombies.

The other day, I had a group of highschoolers and we were waiting around for the tutoring session to start, so I asked them what they would do in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

Most of them didn't have an answer. We have a name for those who don't know what they will do when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan and people start turning into not-so-proverbial walking legions of flesh-munching corpses.

Chum!

One girl jumped at my question, though. It was clear that she derived a morbid joy from my asking. She had clearly given the question a lot of thought.

"I would go to Costco!" she practically squeaked with excitement.

"Why Costco? Why not Target or another big store like that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Because, besides all the supplies you would need, Costco also has guns," she smiled.

Hats off to you, high school girl. You seem to have found the best place to hide from the coming doom. You will survive the impending zombie apocalypse.

There is nothing for me to teach her.

Islas, Forthcoming

2011-10-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

On certain days, I feel like my best bet in life is to live for maybe another ten years, sleeping on a couch in an illegal addition to my dad's house. I'd drink cheap beer or tequila or turpentine.

Actually, anything really.

And, in the end, when whatever toxins I've imbibed in a desperate attempt to dull the steady sound of me disappointing myself have finally done me in, they will bury me under the floorboards, under the couch in the illegal addition to my dad's house were I live, collecting bed sores and beer fat. Then, I will remain there for all eternity, or at least until the sun explodes and consumes the inner planets of our solar system and my bones -- and the couch they're under -- with them.

But those are the bad days. On the good days, I can't help but feel that success is just around the corner. On Friday, I submitted my second article for Adult Swim. On a day like that, I can't help but feel as though I'm going to burst forth from the pupa of crystallized hate and sadness to reveal a new Jason, complete with Jon Hamm-like physique (and the confidence it begets) and conquer the world through gorgeousness and charm.

You might have heard me mention this article. It's about the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Since I only dabbled in Lovecraft in college, I've spent the last two weeks reading Lovecraft -- two weeks immersed in about 200 pages of transdimensional, intergalactic, amoral madness. I think that's what some people in Hollywood call "winning!"

Anyhow, I think the final product was alright and it should go live at the beginning of next week. As you can imagine, I will share it here... and on Facebook and on Twitter and on Google Plus and on Tumblr and I'll probably just sit on a street corner shouting about it for a couple days, too.

Blown Off and Bikeless

2011-09-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

I live in a town where most people are at least hippie-curious, if not full-blown hippies. Even the yuppiest of the yuppies in Los Angeles will often, in a tone of detachment that suggests they've been taking Xanax since they were twelve, talk about how everyone should "Chill out, man" or "Relax, dude" and say something incoherent about how the corporations are doing something evil. They respond to bicyclists with a condescending "Good for you!" and will talk sincerely about how great it is that they buy overpriced organic produce from Whole Foods and that they drive Priuses.

Needless to say, like the nightmarish combination of sage incense and beaded doorways, I find this ethos to be profoundly irritating.

One thing that really gets me though is the hippie method of blowing someone off. Since the hippie prizes above all things "spontaneity" and "living in the moment," he cannot make plans -- it is anathema to his very being. If he did, he'd start becoming more like the man, man! So, the hippie spends a lot of time "going with the flow" and "just seeing where the moment takes" him.

I live in a giant, sprawling city that was basically built in the fifties when they were practically giving away free cars and houses to everyone who fought in the war and their children. I have a bike and bus pass to navigate this post-suburban behemoth with its concrete tentacles that snake for miles in every direction. Getting from point A to point B can be an Odysseian feat... Bet you didn't know Los Angeles has cyclops. He lives in Watts. He's a cool guy, once you get to know him.

Spontaneity is not really a big part of my life, since it will sometimes take me two hours to get from one side of the city to the other. When you tell someone like me "We'll just play it by ear," it basically means "I am blowing you off."

The ingenious hippies however have found a way to make it your fault when they blow you off. Say, for instance, you can't "go with the flow" because it would take you two hours to travel to the designated meet up point. But they just called to tell you that they would be there in 15 minutes. And say, for instance, you find that kind of aggravating and you decide to tell the hippies that you thought it was kind of rude and inconsiderate to give you such short notice when they were fully aware that you couldn't possibly do anything on such short notice. A hippie can respond with, "Hey man, just chill out."

Now, the onus is on you for getting upset at someone who's just being a free spirit, albeit a free spirit with a car and money for gas.

And after you get mad at said hippie and go about the plans you had already made since your efforts to try to make more solid arrangements had gone unanswered for three days (all in the cause of spontaneity, I'm sure), you leave your bike tied to a post in a less-than-reputable neighborhood, where it comes into the possession of someone who spontaneously decided to steal it.

And by "you" I mean "I." So I offer this note that I once wrote to my students when they stole my phone, tweaked to fit the current situation.

Dear Person Who Stole My Bike,

You are pretty much the reason I have given up on humanity. Enjoy your new bike.

Love,
Jason

PS I hope you crash it into a pole.

On the bright side, I may have lost a bike, but at least my worldview was confirmed.

Buh-bye, Sole Means of Transportation! You will be missed.

2011-09-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

How to win at a job interview, by Jason Islas

Poll!

2011-09-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Because I'm curious to know what you think of the new masthead, I thought I would employee democracy. You will be given a chance to vote! But because too much democracy is a bad thing, your choices have been limited to two by the benign overlord, yours truly. Tell me what you think, within a degree of reasonably circumscribed freedom!

Love,
Jason the Beneficent

Generations

2011-09-12T13:22:00.000-07:00

Grandparents' generation: "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!"

Parents' generation: "I guess it's time to trade in these groovy, psychedelic bootstraps for something a bit more tight-laced."

Our generation: "Mom! Did you get me new bootstraps yet?! Jeez! Do I have to do everything myself?!"

Hello, Autumn!

2011-09-11T16:14:00.001-07:00

Stupid Unidirectional Space-Time Continuum

2011-09-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Song 'o the Day

2011-09-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

I've got a long day of writing ahead so I started my morning off with this awesome bit of music. I find it hard not to want to create something after listening to this.

Or at least not to want to conquer the known world in the name of Christendom.

Warming Up

2011-09-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Labor Day, y'all! Let's take a moment to remember that we celebrate this holiday today -- and not May 1st -- because we aren't a bunch of fucking godless Communists... or French. GOD BLESS AMUHRIKA!

America's second most mustachioed president, Grover Cleavland actually made the September date the official American Labor Day because the May 1st date had already been co-opted by savages, anarchists and the like. Mr. Cleavland's mustache would not stand for such unseemly things, so he opted for the more Victorian-friendly end-of-summer picnic holiday so that every proper family would be able to spend some time sewing textiles outside of doors to make ends meet.

What a wholesome image! Father, with his stately whiskers properly waxed and Mother, with her whale-bone corset properly tightened, hurriedly sewing buttons on sturdy linens to be worn gentlemen with even statelier mustaches and women with even more constricted breathing! The children, dressed in sturdy dungarees, carrying loads of unhemmed shirts by the satchel for mummy and daddy to sew, while the late summer sun shines down upon this blessed image of family!

Tomorrow, it is back to the factory floor for this industrious, Christian family. Back to school for the children? Nonsense! What schooling do seven-year-olds need? With their sturdy, youthful backs, those delightful scamps will go far! Perhaps, one day, they will be strong enough to haul coal from the bounty'ous Earth or even the wond'rous new mineral Polonium discovered by the Pollack scientistress, Mrs. Pierre Curie.

Ah, the good ol' days.

Enough of this nonsense! This was my warm up writing for the day. I'm actually working on something for the McSweeney's column contest. It's due Friday and I have an idea that I'm trying to flesh out. I love to flesh things... out. Man, that phrase always creeps me out.

I'm also going to work on Canto II of my perversion of Dante's classic epic poem, so stand by to be disappointed!

Wish me luck, or something.

Canto I

2011-08-30T23:16:00.000-07:00

Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

Oh, Dante! So dramatic. Not that I'm a master of understatement, you see, but "a forest dark," Dante? Seriously.

Whatever, Dante. We are all guilty of something, whether it be something small like not taking out the garbage today or something big like not taking out the garbage all week.

Me? Well, personally I'm guilty of a whole long list of things. I like to think of it as a healthy collection of "experiences of a questionable nature." There was the time I tried to make out with a girl in front of her ex boyfriend. Or the time I didn't go to work because I was hung over...

Alright, alright so I've done that more than once and while I was in the Peace Corps. I mean, that's pretty shitty. But can you blame me? During the winter there, the sun only shines for five hours and you can only heat one room of your house at a time. Did you expect me to sit around sober all the time?

I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still in the forest dark. It's not time for forgiveness yet. That comes later... right?

I've been negligent, selfish, drunk, lazy, lecherous, greedy and downright cruel at times. And then, there was that man I killed for looking at me funny when I walked into the saloon.

OK, so that didn't really happen. But it sounds pretty bad ass, doesn't it?

But I've burned my fair share of bridges and now, slightly less than midway through my life (I hope), I stand in some melodramatic forest, my way forever lost! What a woeful creature I am! LOST IN A NIGHTMARESCAPE OF GNARLED, MENACING, BLACK TREES.

Ahem. Let's not get carried away.

Wait. Is there seriously a she-wolf gnashing her teeth at me from behind the wall of monster trees? Don't you think this is a bit much? I get it the point already. I've done some shitty things and now my soul is in danger. I don't think I need some demon wolf and a bunch of mangled, hell-burnt trees to drive the point home. Isn't it bad enough that I've alienated almost everyone I know? Do I need to have my entrails devoured by a ravenous metaphor as well?

Oh, look! A shade! I certainly hope it's not another overwrought symbol of my wayward existence!

"O! be you a man or be you a shade, sir?" I shouted at the form gliding toward me.

"Why are you talking like that?" he responded. His accent was peculiar, mostly British but occasionally, he choked back his Rs like a Frenchman.

"Well, you being a ghost and all, I thought you might use more archaic language."

"I may be a ghost, but I'm not that old." He had trouble with his THs, too. They came out like deflated Ds.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It's a common mistake. Most people think that just because someone's dead, they're going to talk like some community theater over actor," he sighed. "Let's get on with this business. You know why I'm here, right?"

"Yeah, I think. You're here to save me from my ways. I've been a shithead for most of my youth and now, as I'm getting older, I'm starting to realize that if I keep being a shithead, that giant furry monster over there is going to snack on guts."

"And?"

I paused to think for a second. And what?

"You know I can hear what you're thinking, right?" the ghost chided.

"Um..."

"And you feel bad for being such a shithead... right?"

"Oh, right."

"You know, the only way you punks ever repent is if we threaten you with some nightmarishly brutal punishment. Don't you ever want to be a better person for its own sake?"

"Yeah, sure I do. If I were a better person, I could probably sleep with a lot more girls. Chicks dig good people, right?"

"You're not giving me a whole lot to work with here, Jason."

"That was a joke, ghostie. I thought you could read my mind."

"I can, which is why I know you aren't really joking. We're just going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Follow me."

With that, the ghostly shadow disappeared into the muddy ground beneath my feet. There was a brief moment where I thought I had lost him, but soon a skeleton shot up from the ground. Mud clung to the bony frame and soon, it started to harden into muscle and sinew.

Finally, the outer layer of mud turned into flesh and no longer was I looking at an amorphous mist. I was looking at a man.

And he was naked.

"That was disgusting," I said.

"You don't look so hot yourself," the naked man quipped.

I stared intently at his face, mostly to avoid looking at his junk. Deep crevasses cut into the flesh around his gray eyes, which sunk into the back of his skull. His cheeks, stretched taut over his bones, were sprinkled with white hairs, as if he hadn't shaved in a day or two. A salt-and-pepper wisp of a mustache sat above his thin lips and a patch of hair beneath them turned his chin into a sharp point.

"You kind of look like the devil." It slipped out before I had a chance to realize that I really ought not tell that to the apparition-turned-person that had come to save my immortal soul. "Well, not the scary, ugly devil. But the charming one. Like Mephistopheles. I think it's the mustache."

"You almost done?"

"Um, yeah. Sorry."

"I'm your favorite author, Jason. That's how this works. Don't you remember from reading Dante? Virgil saved Dante because he thought Virgil was totally awesome. So, now Joseph Conrad, yours truly, is here to save you."

"Oh... my... God...!"

"Don't embarrass yourself, Jason."

"I... I just..." I stammered.

"I know. You love my books. You think I have profound insight into the human soul. You think my stories touch on deep truths about our struggles and our weaknesses. You think that all my writings are both masterful works of art and pithy philosophical treatises on the nature of man."

"I... I... I..."

"Also, take it from me, next time you want to give a book to a girl you have a thing for, maybe you shouldn't go straight for Heart of Darkness. It's a little... much. Now, let's get a move on."

2011-08-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

I would like to offer my sincerest apologizes for the previous entry. It was brought to my attention that I had overstated the amount of Star Trek I have watched. This is true. In the past week, I have watched 30 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is approximately 23 hours, not the 48 I hastily claimed yesterday.

I also offered the figure of 178 hours, which is the total number of hours of the TNG series, but I can understand how this might have been confused as an even more extravagant boast on my part.

I apologize for violating your trust and I hope that you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

Jason M. Islas, author

Where No One Should Go... Ever

2011-08-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've been filling all of my free time recently with watching Star Trek. I've burned through all of the watchable Enterprise and now, I'm working on The Next Generation. For most normal people 178 hours of Star Trek would probably take them a few months to get through, but I have the viewing habits of a smack junkie, so I've watched a chunk of the first and second seasons already, though I've only been at it for about five days.

It actually all started Monday when I got up and, against my better judgement (who am I kidding... I have no better judgement) turned on the TV. For some reason, the magic box was tuned to the SyFy channel. And by some coincidence of fate, they happened to be playing all TNG, all day.

I practically squealed with joy. My only obligation for the day was to write a short article about affordable housing for The Lookout, so as you can imagine, Picard and his merry explorers skyrocketed to first priority in my brain.

The thing is, I was never into Star Trek growing up. My step-dad liked it but I busied my childbrain with the History channel (before it became the "All World War II, All The Time!" channel). Star Trek just didn't do it for me. I think I was too self-conscious about being considered a stereotypical nerd. It was bad enough that my friends and I did well in school, didn't party, couldn't talk to girls, etc. I didn't feel the need to add "Trekkie" to the list of things that were going to prevent me from getting laid until I was in my mid-30s.

Now that I've given up on life, though, I am free to be as much of a loser as I want to be (as evidenced by my life trajectory since coming back from Bulgaria). As a result, I've broken the nerd barrier. The deluge follows.

It certainly isn't good for my brain, though. In the past week, I have watched 48 hours of Star Trek which has caused me to enter into some sort of time warp. It feels like I've lived a year, on an adventure into the recesses of my mind.

On the one hand, I really enjoy the show. The plots are well-structured and engaging. The characters are well-acted and multi-dimensional. I find myself wishing I were on the bridge of the USS Enterprise taking order from Picard. It's comforting.

On the other hand, I am finding it harder and harder to motivate myself to leave the house, or to write, or to communicate with other human beings. I am slowly becoming more and more immersed in the Star Trek universe.

The other day, I found myself imitating Data's speech patterns...

TNG is also the source of my new life philosophy: Resistance is futile.

A bus pass that has been augmented to better
represent my new reality.

Showering Babies

2011-08-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

2011-08-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

What do you want, HOO-man?!

I'll make this brief. I have two things I'm here to bug you about. I've started a new Flickr page, for a collection of more polished looking pictures.

Secondly, Super iam8bit: Old Games, New Art is up on the Adult Swim site. In case you didn't hear it on my million other social networking sites, that's the article I wrote about the vintage video game art show.

Now, I need to get out of bed. My family's coming over to celebrate my brother and his wife's coming baby. Grumble.

2011-08-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

If you're a dog, your world ends every time the givers of food leave.

Remember, being alone for a dog is an incomprehensible nightmare!

Why Won't The World End Already?

2011-08-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

The title to this post was a thought I had as I lied in bed (which is a couch) between waking and sleeping around 6:00 this morning. When this thought came to me, I was actually relieved. You see, for the past two weeks, I had been feeling good about things. I was writing, I was working, I had prospects for the future. Unfortunately, a side effect of the peculiar series of events that suggested the possibility of future success for yours truly was the onset of chronic boringness.

Over the last two weeks, I have been unable to have an interesting original thought, so much of my energy was devoted to writing the Adult Swim article (which I'm told will go up today) or working for The Lookout or watching massive amounts of Star Trek: Enterprise. The problem was that I was feeling good. That is to say, I was feeling confident and sure of myself.

When, at the end of the day, I feel satisfied with what I've done, who I am and where I am going, I don't have demented, twisted thoughts that I can weave into creative ideas. Nor do I have a desire to write funny things for your approval. And, at the end of the day, I feel bland and boring.

So, when I awoke this morning with a dark thought in mind, you can imagine my joy. Turns out that I hadn't been lobotomized by two weeks of work that I enjoyed doing. My bombastic apocalyptic Weltanschauung seems to have returned, even though objectively nothing has changed from last week. I may get to write more for Adult Swim; my work for The Lookout is constantly being praised by my editor and the owner; I am starting to get momentum on prospects for my future as an adult male in a city that has always intimidated me since I was a wee lad. Take that, L.A., you damned sepulcher, full of false hope and sunken dreams!

Things are looking up!

But, I'm still looking down, because my inspiration comes from that dark, yawning chasm beneath us that is silently and patiently waiting to swallow us up while we go about our merry lives. Thank God! Because how annoying would it be if I just told you all about how great everything was all the time? I'm getting nauseous just thinking about that other universe in which I'm happily married and updating Facebook all the time to let you guys know just how much my wife and I love each other.

Every year, I'd send you a Christmas card with a perfect picture of my gorgeous wife, two unrealistically cute kids, smiling vacantly like happiness zombies and our movie-star pedigree golden retriever we rescued from the pound last year, all to remind you that I'm happier than the rest of you sad sacks!

I like this version of me much better, when my subconscious instinct in the morning before I'm fully awake is to beg for a distant, inscrutable and merciless God to show some kindness by ending this tortured and bitter world.

On that note, I'm going to drink coffee until I'm dizzy and sweating feverishly while I refresh the Adult Swim website every 10 minutes.

Melike sent me this picture this morning. I prefer to annoy people by
predicting horrible outcomes and being right.

Have a great weekend!

2011-08-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

I submitted my article on the SUPER iam8bit art show last night around midnight. It will be up soon. Maybe tomorrow or maybe the day after. These things take time, you see. It's not like you can just be put stuff up in a public forum instantly. We don't have that kind of technology!

Actually, it makes sense. Things need to be copy-edited and laid out properly. It is a professional site, after all. I had a great time covering the show, to be honest. I took a million pictures and interviewed about a million people more than I needed to for the final article. But there was some real craftsmanship put into a lot of the work. Once the article goes up, I'll put up what pictures they don't use.

As for the article, I was only half-satisfied with what I submitted. I ended up having so much information, I forgot to try to make it funny... which is kind of the point! But the editor helped me punch it up a bit and the final draft was better.

In the meantime, you can just listen to this girl tell you all about it in excruciating detail.

You don't even need to read my article or my interviews with the artists. Everything you need to know is contained in this video. Why did I even bother writing the article? I give up.

I actually remember this girl from the show. I was really conflicted about her. She's shorter than I am and she was wearing a Ninja Turtles backpack. But she was hot so I still checked her out, even though she looked like a middle-schooler.

What?! Don't judge me! At least I felt bad about it while I was doing it! Oh, God... At least I'm pretty sure she was over 18.

In other news, I'm busy wracking my brain for more of charming little cartoons I started this week. Though I was inspired to do those when I should've been working on my article. New inspiration may have to wait until I have more real work to do again.... which may be never.

2011-08-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

HINT: I'm the floating head with a beret.

2011-08-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

This one was inspired by a conversation with James.

Busy Week

2011-08-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven't filled these digital pages with my half-coherent, fatalistic ramblings in a while. It's no excuse, but perhaps if I offer an explanation, it will be a balm for the sting of betrayal you must feel. The main reason I haven't updated is that it has been a busy week. I haven't had a "busy week" in months, so I welcome the activity. It keeps my brain from contemplating the futility of our mortal existence.

The biggest thing I'm doing this week is covering the I am 8 bit art show for none other than the premier adult cartoon website, adultswim.com. I don't usually say positive things, but I'm enjoying this. Last night was the first night and, regardless of what you think about the theme of the art show, there was a lot of well-crafted works of art on display. And I got to talk to a number of rather talented and creative people.

One of the artists happened to be a Reedie, as well. At the beginning of the night, we huddled together in a socially awkward enclave at the back of the gallery as he explained to me the technical process he went through in hacking the Xbox Kinect for his project. It was actually a pretty neat idea. You'll have to wait for the article to read more about it, though.

Whew! That's enough positivity for a month. I'll be submitting my piece to the Adult Swim people some time next week, so I'll be sure to let you know once it's up on the site.

I'm also juggling my Lookout responsibilities this week, which, considering how slow the summer has been, are relatively a lot (that means I have like two stories to write).

I'm heading back to the gallery tonight to see the crowds, take pictures and interview the thronging masses. I have a pocket full of business cards from last night, so now I'm going to play Match the Card with the Hazy and Vague Memory of a Shadowy Face game!

Time to send some "thank you" e-mails.

To tide your hungry souls over until the next time I can write something substantive, here are some pictures I've taken over the past couple of days with the super camera in my possession.

The artist contemplates his canvas

Subtle strokes

Flower bike

Madness!

The mighty steed and I await the train

Reckoning

Thank you, Lost Turtle

You're welcome.
Islas out.

2011-08-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

I would like to offer my sincerest apology for my previous blog entry. I know some of you take Shark Week very seriously and I should have never made light of it. It was, at best, insensitive. At worst, it was an act of malice.

I would also like to clarify that though I may have made light of Shark Week, I am and will always be a strong supporter of sharks. Because they are huge. And awesome.

I hope you will all find it in your hearts to forgive me for violating your trust.

Also, for existing.

Life

2011-08-05T09:46:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure I go through an entire human life cycle every day. I start off confused and disoriented, slowly gathering my faculties, discerning my situation and predicament. Then, usually just after my shower, I have about two hours of unreasonable optimism about the world and everyone in it, as well as about what I can accomplish in my short life.

The human spirit burns so brightly because it burns so quickly, am I right?

But then, I run up against limitations. My initial hope and dreams are ground down against the hard rocks of reality by the rhythmic beating of the waves of time. I am forced to realize that hope is not enough. Even that hope isn't anything at all. That's when middle-aged despair sets in and I begin to curse the God that created me with such a high hopes, so little power and such a fleeting life.

That's usually right after lunch.

The rest of the day is spent wallowing in frustration and anger at the betrayal by a world that promised so much but delivered so little. That is, until, I learn to make my peace with my place. So I didn't accomplish much in this 24 hour life. Is that so bad? At least my life wasn't cut short in the middle of the day by a post-lunch nap or some other cruel and inexplicable tragedy.

I made it to the evening and, as a result, I can spend my twilight enjoying Extreme Air Jaws on Shark Week. Maybe I didn't get everything done that I wanted, but I made it to the end. And now, I can place my head against my pillow in my rat's nest of a room, close my eyes and succumb to the inevitable.

The good news is, I get to do it all over again tomorrow.

2011-08-03T17:06:00.003-07:00

I would like to apologize for my recent apology.

Also, for using the word "Nietzschean."

Apology

2011-08-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I wrote a post yesterday while riding the bus. It is a perfectly good example why I have no business having complete artistic freedom. If I had a following, it'd be the kind of post that would make them be all like "What the hell is this all about?"

I haven't reread the post yet, but I can only imagine that it's ridiculous for several reasons:

1. I was on the bus. I may have plenty of decent ideas on the bus, since I've got a lot of time to think and there are plenty of crazy people on the bus that help give me ideas. Like the time that that one guy spent 45 minutes telling me about he had gone off the grid because the CIA was after him. But he lost my attention when he went with the ol' "there's a chip in my brain" crazy person cliche. That being said, though the bus is a great place for brainstorming and thinking up ideas, it is not the place for actual writing. I typed the whole thing on my phone, which makes proofreading a real hassle. Who knows what crazy things came out of my fingers in that 30 minutes on the bus? God knows, I don't.

2. I hadn't left the house in a couple days. Well, that's not true. I had just gone to a wedding on Saturday, but it felt like I hadn't left the house in a few days. And as a result, my brain was delusional with imagined release from its imagined captivity. As a result, I had even less control over it than I usually do. It was sort of like being drunk, only on coffee and fresh air.

3. As a result of my state of peculiar intoxication, I crossed a personal threshold while writing. I have certain boundaries that serve as a sort of corral for my brain. While my fingers were running amok on the touch screen of my magic phone, I suddenly approached one of those boundaries: my brain said, "This is Nietzschean!" I should've known it was trouble by how excited my inner voice was at the fact that it was "Nietzschean." And, I should have stopped there and, if not deleted the entry entirely, saved it and revisited it when I was in more stable state of mind.

These aren't excuses for my entry yesterday, but for all of you, my imaginary followers, who may have been disappointed or offended by such a departure from the usual lighthearted and whimsical tone of this blog, I hope this at least helps you understand why it happened. And I hope that through that understanding, you will find it easier to forgive me.

Thank you for you time,
Jason M. Islas

Confrontation

2011-08-02T09:29:00.001-07:00

"None of us are going to be OK, are we?" He was already sure of his answer but days spent alone in his room meant he needed a voice beside the one in his head to confirm it. It wasn't that he doubted his own conclusion, which was, of course, unequivocally bleak and absolute. He filled the whole room with a thick, impenetrable darkness that only the most oblivious could deny.

No, it wasn't the answer that he doubted. But the days he spent in his room, with his only interaction being with words on a pale screen that all spoke in his own voice, had left him doubting whether the world existed. Or worse, he thought, suddenly short of breath. Maybe he didn't really exist! For that reason, he needed to hear his ideas in someone else's voice.

"I'm not sure about that," said the other voice. The man who spoke was a profoundly earthly creature, sculpted from ruddy clay wrapped around an oaken frame. He winced at the recluse as he spoke and deep in the crimson sinew, he felt a vague violent impulse which rose to his face and twisted his mouth into a driftwood grimace, gnarled and dry.

"But I'm not so sure about you," the tree man said flatly. Somewhere in his bowels, he tore the pathetic, pale recluse to pieces. But hundreds of years had forced the man to forget his own power, so he simply stared at the weaker creature before him, unable to move.

The weak one smiled back. "No, I am right," he said.

2011-08-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Laughspin.com has Star-A-Scopes, which they say are "like horoscopes, but more accurate."

This first week of August, this is my horoscope:

Taurus: You’re going to soon realize how important it is to have good friends. Then you’re going to sink into a deep depression upon realizing that you don’t have any, and that you are utterly, and completely alone in the world. Your lucky fish is the small mouthed bass.

Here are a few of my other favorites:

Libra: Everybody knows that Libras can be bossy. Everybody except African driver ants. The 20 million strong colony living under your shed is going to attack you when you least expect it this week, and they could care less about your demands. Make peace with your God now.

Capricorn: Buy a bunch of goats today. Get to know each of them throughout the week, sharing tender moments, and feeding them from your hand. On Saturday, assign them numbers, pick one of those numbers, and then kill that goat in front of the others. On Sunday, when people ask you why you did it, tell them you wanted to better understand the mind of God and then get quiet and stare off into the middle distance until they finally walk away uncomfortably. Your lucky celebrity is Burt Reynolds.

You can read the rest here.

Back

2011-08-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Between family reunions, weddings and trying to get a decent-paying job, I haven't had a chance to update here. I also had to miss two open mic nights in a row. I think, as a result, my creative joke wheels have begun to rust a little bit. On no fewer than five or six occasions, I sat down in a concerted effort to write some of the funny and all I got was this:

"I want to die like my heroes: alone in the dark recesses of the collective unconsciousness, chased there by flesh-gnashing demons. And maybe with a little cocaine."

That's the kind of thing I find funny, but most normal people don't. It's pretty much useless as a real joke that you'd tell to a real audience. It's the type of joke you use when they aren't laughing at your actual, real-people jokes and you know it's pointless to keep trying. So, you go down with your own crazy mind ramblings that you and maybe one or two of your closest friends would find at all entertaining.

I, of course, don't have the balls to do something like that... yet. If an audience wasn't laughing, I'd just run whimpering from the stage with my hat clutched in my sweaty palms in front of my stomach and my head bowed in pitiful resignation like some man being led to his execution. But a man can dream, can't he?

Now that it's Monday, I'm going to get back into the habit of writing the funny. Or at least try to and then find increasingly creative excuses as to why I haven't produced anything.

Here are some notes on the not too distant future, though. As you know, I've been writing for a local Santa Monica online news thingie called The Lookout. It's been really enjoyable and interesting but for the past couple months it's been my only source of income and, well, it just isn't cutting it. So, without giving up that job entirely, because, as I said, it's actually kind of fun, I've got a couple of other irons in the fire (because that sounds much more bad ass than "prospects" or "potential jobs").

My personal favorite iron that is in the fire is an opportunity that kind of surprisingly fell into my lap after the wedding in Savannah. To make a middle-length story short, I will be writing a piece for adultswim.com about a vintage video game-themed art show. The cool part about it is that, if it comes out well and I can find more stories to pitch to them, there is a possibility of contributing somewhat regularly to the site.

Time to get the day started! Which already started with me yelling at my phone when the alarm went off at 6:30 AM, "I won't need you where I am going!" Then, I hit the snooze button and went back to sleep.

2011-07-26T16:23:00.001-07:00

On the last day of my family reunion, my grandfather was upset. He was all "Why didn't you go to church?" And I was all like, "I almost did, but I woke up and I just couldn't reconcile the belief in an omnipotent, all-loving Christian God who cares for every individual unconditionally with the reality of the profound suffering of innocents throughout the world."

Actually, I just said sorry.

Family

2011-07-23T11:17:00.001-07:00

So, I'm probably the only 20-something in San Diego who traveled here this weekend for a reason other than cosplay and the hope I might catch a glimpse of Carrie Fisher in that hot leather number from Return of the Jedi.

I'm here because it is the official location of the 2011 Islas Family Reunion! This is actually the first time I've been to one of these since they became institutionalized. I remember going to the park once near the my dad's apartment. It was one of those parks where there are vast swaths of dirt in the middle of the soccer fields and the park benches were missing planks and you could sneak in a cooler full of beer as long as you put a layer of soda on the top because all the park rangers were too apathetic to really check.

But that was before the Islas Reunion became an official, established thing. Now we have t-shirts:

You know it's a Latino family reunion because of the anatomically-correct image of a heart and veins gruesomely pumping life blood throughout the American Southwest. The heart is in New Mexico, where my great grandfather and his wife settled in America and the veins trace the migratory patterns of my grandfather and his siblings. Intense...

We also have banners!

And I don't have a picture of it, but there's also a wall-sized family tree. I still can't figure out how all these people are actually related to me.

It's kind of gotten absurd. There's even an agenda that they sent out, as if we are actually going to be doing anything on it. Really, this is what it should actually say:

Day 1: Light drinking, overwrought sentimentality, talk about how awesome tomorrow night is going to be

Day 2: Heavy drinking, more overwrought sentimentality, singing of Mexican songs that remind us of dead people, pass out

Day 3: Hang overs for everyone! Reminiscing about the good old days when we were all drunk... the night before. If we're lucky, the old guard will tell us about how they used to get even drunker when they were our age and they didn't even get hang overs! Overwrought goodbyes followed by a lot of complaining about each other on the way home.

Tonight is heavy drinking night, which is my favorite Islas Family activity. With my shirt that vividly depicts a human heart, I'm ready to get my drunkenly-weeping-for-the-dead-and-gone on. It sure beats a three-legged race.

Crazy

2011-07-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

I don't have long. Soon, I'll be on the road with my dad and step-mom to my family reunion in San Diego. I can't remember the last time I went to a family reunion. But we are a Latino family, so we are required by national character to have strong family bonds and a long and proud tradition of alcoholism. Every year, we get together to celebrate both, as well as other Islas traditions, like mutual antipathy and self-loathing.

It'll be fun! We even get t-shirts. It's like a concert, without music or port-a-potties or psychadelic drugs or anonymous sex (it's a family reunion, people! Jesus). So, actually, I guess it's nothing like a concert. Just a meeting of people I kind of know and with whom I likely have very little in common. But it should be a veritable gold mine of comedic material!

Everyone thinks their family is crazy and everyone is probably right. I am among those that thinks his family is crazy, but I've learned to accept the crazy. I think that causes me to attract crazy people.

I was standing at a bus stop the other night when I met Billy the Kid.

"Billy the Kid?"

"That's my stage name," he said and took a drag on his cigarette. "I'm a stand up."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

"I was born in 1958. I have very vivid memories of the 60s, from the age I was two," he said then stared at me. I expected him to continue, but he just kept staring until finally I said, "Oh, yeah?" again to break the silence.

"I'll take you out to breakfast sometime," he said as if we were old friends meeting again after a long hiatus.

Without missing a beat I said, "That'd be great!" knowing full well that I'd probably never see this man again and even if I did, judging by the vague and distant look in his eyes, he wouldn't remember his invitation to me. Though I did entertain the idea for a little bit. I might be interesting to hear about his vivid memories of the 60s. But my bus came and I said I'd see him around.

When I got on the bus, I sat next a cute woman, maybe in her mid-twenties. Even though I'd never really start a conversation with her because I'd be too worried about getting stuck in some awkward or boring conversation about something and have to feign interest because I had started it. Or worse, I'd try to start talking to her and she'd look at me like I was some creep and she'd get off the bus before her stop just so she didn't have to talk to me any more. And I'd be depressed about it for a week and never have the confidence to talk to anyone ever again.

But she started talking to me! About how everything in the world is killing us: the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the suntan lotion we apply to our skin. She knows this because there's a website that tells her all about it. And if one thing's for certain, if it's on the internet, it's true. I listened to her go on about how the corporations were responsible for all our poor consumption habits.

Then, there was a pause.

"Would you like..." she broke eye contact with me and looked into her lap as she hesitated. "Would you like..."

What's this? I thought. What's she about to ask me? Why is she suddenly so sheepish?

"Would you like that website? Where you can find out about these products? And how they're hurting us?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," I said.

"And here's my e-mail address... you know, in case you have any questions." And she scribbled some stuff in my journal.

Did I just get kind of asked out by a crazy person? I thought. Then, a skateboarder in the seat in front of us turned around and excitedly asked about that website. He had been trying to find the best bottled water and was really interested to know about a place he could find some information about on the subject.

You know, sometimes, I think I might be the weird one.

Anyhow, I've got to pack up some stuff for the weekend. I'll try to write about the family reunion. I'll at least take pictures, that way I'll have to spend less time talking to people. In the meantime, you can read my review of The Super Serious Show I wrote for LA Snark.

Mom

2011-07-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

My mother and I fight a lot because we share one fundamental personality trait: stubbornness. I remember I once told my mom that I thought the main reason we fought a lot was that we were both very stubborn. That was followed by a 15 minute conversation about how she didn't think she was actually that stubborn. Finally, I changed the subject and hoped, one day, she would realize how I had just won that argument.

For all her faults, I still love my mother. She may be a crazy person, but she's my crazy person and when I need to talk to someone, she's usually high on my list of people to call. Sometimes (read: always), though, she ruffles my feathers.

I wasn't feeling so hot this afternoon. Maybe it was too much coffee. Maybe it was not enough water. Or maybe I just needed to take a nap. Whatever the case may have been, I felt like I was walking through a dense fog while an alien creature was nesting in my lower intestine. As is often the case, the stomachache precipitated in my mind a mild anxiety attack (or maybe that was the coffee, too), so I decided to call my mom so I could have someone to talk myself down to.

"I think I'm going crazy," I said. She laughed, since I don't think a week goes by when she doesn't hear those exact words out of my mouth. When she laughs, it confirms my suspicion that I am just being ridiculous.

OK, so I'm not actually going crazy. But I feel like I'm going crazy.

But that's about the point where the conversation veers into a familiar and aggravating direction. You see, my mom likes to tell me that I "think too much." She believe that if I "took a break from thinking," I would feel much better and less like I was going crazy.

I've been drinking as a way to take "a break from thinking" since I was a senior in high school, mother. Not thinking doesn't solve any problems. If anything, it gets me into bad situations that make me feel more stressed out and crazy.

But she sighs and tells me that's not what she means. "Stop coming from your brain once in a while, Jason and try coming from your heart."

She says that almost every time we have this conversation. And I still can't get her to explain WHAT THE FUCK IT MEANS. Every single time, without fail, her advice is to "come from your heart" and then, when pressed to explain what she means, she makes some obtuse comments about feelings and blahblahblahblah.

I don't need to come from my heart! Being in touch with my feelings isn't going to help! My feelings are the problem! I called her because I was feeling anxious, irritable, stuck, unmotivated and like there was some extraterrestrial parasite in my gut.

She laughs and tells me that someday I'll "get it." There are few things that make me angrier than hearing "Some day, you'll get it." And, what's worse, my mom's knows this because we've had this exact conversation about 80 million times since the day I popped out of her. It is condescending and it explains nothing. It isn't advice or even comforting. It's just annoying.

All of which, I tell her.

The conversation ended when she told me that she had another call.

"Jason, I'll call you right back. I have to take this call," she said. That was 3 hours ago and she still hasn't called back. I think she's caught on to the fact that the only way she's every going to get out of this particular argument with me is to pretend to take another call.

At least she's learned that much about me over the last 25 years: I'm as likely to give up my point as she is. Because we are both stubborn to the bitter end.

Carmageddon? More Like Not-a-geddon!

2011-07-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am writing to you from the other side of a tremendous event in world history. Early Saturday morning, CalTrans, the state agency in charge of freeways and such, began shutting down a ten mile stretch of I-405, the lifeline between the Valley and the west side of L.A. proper. For near 48 hours, people wishing to commute from the Valley to the west side of Los Angeles were forced to find alternative routes, either passing through East Los Angeles or, if truly desperate, driving on surface streets.

The event was aptly called Carmageddon by media sources with nothing better to report on. Some callous souls made light of the plight Los Angelenos. Others watched on helplessly as the inevitable came to pass. The 405 was closed to all traffic, or at least a piece of it was, for the demolition of half of the Mulholland bridge.

Today, officials announced that demolition has finished ahead of schedule and soon, the 405 will once again start pumping the lifeblood back into the city. Rejoice! For the dark times have passed. Never again will such adversity strike this great city, if God is merciful. That is, unless they decide to do any more construction... NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

In other news, I started a project today. Last week marked one year since I've been back in America. And in that time, I've thought a lot about Bulgaria and my time there. It was simultaneously an uneventful two years and intensely influential of my life path, which probably explains while I'm still living at home.

Writing about it has been a challenge, though. I tried last August. I started working on something for Reed Magazine but promptly gave up when I ran into some mental blocks. That being said, I started writing about it today. I'm not sure what the scope of this is going to be, but I know that my time in Bulgaria is ripe with potential for comedic material and I certainly have a lot I want to say about it. So, here goes. And yet, this feels like something else I'm just going to give up on.

Man, I suck.

For those of you keeping score at home, I didn't make it to the open mic night this week. I haven't been feeling very well this weekend and am running pretty low on cash, which makes me never want to leave the house. I'm also still going through my weekly cycle of being terrified of going on stage as the day draws nearer. I have material written that I need to work out, not to mention the fact that I need to just get comfortable being on stage. The struggle continues. Epic, I know.

I'll leave you with some thoughts:

"Never forget that we are at war." - Dating advice to my future son

Mom always said, "Kill them with kindness. A swift, swiping motion of razor-sharp kindness across the throat."

Hey guys, can you help me out? I'm making a list of everyone it's still OK to be racist against. So far, I've got white people and women.

Rebirth

2011-07-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

I emerged from the primordial fog on the border between awake and asleep and the world seemed to me a new and wondrous place, as if I had just sprouted legs for the first time and, for some reason indefinable to me, was drawn toward a new, strange and alien world, a world entirely foreign from the spawning ground of my ancestors. All the comfortable familiarity of pre-consciousness melted away as I burst into the world, bleary-eyed, frightened and overwhelmed.

And, like the ancient amphibian of yore, ancestor to all creatures on land, when I arrived in this new world of awake, when my new legs were planted firmly on dry land, a thought ran through my brain: "Now what?"

A cup of coffee, some breakfast cake and a little bit of TV later, that sense of overwhelming fear and wonderment has been thoroughly quashed and I'm back to meandering through life like some half-wit, waiting for someone to trick me into thinking they know what they're doing and to tell me where to go in this life: work, get married, have kids, work some more until you want to kill yourself, then die. I've got it all planned out.

Until then, I'll update my blog and work on my routine for tomorrow. Because I'm going back to the open mic night, damn it! I went on stage last week and did alright. Every week, though, as Saturday approaches, my fear meter jumps up just a little bit. Saturday, after I go on stage for a lightning-quick four minutes, I feel good about next week. I'm at ease. I realize that doing four minutes in front of a bunch of other aspiring comics who are working out their sets really isn't hard at all.

By Sunday, though, I'm already worried about it again. And every time I sit down to work on something, it piques my panic a little bit and I put it off until later. The problem is, the closer I get to next Saturday, the stronger my panic is, so I'm even less inclined to work on my material... It's like college all over again. Only, this time, I don't have my professors to tell me, as I'm working on my term paper, that it's not as bad as I seem to think it is. When it comes down to it, it's just me and the laughs of the audience to tell me whether or not I've done good. So I'm going to make myself do it until I'm not longer afraid of it, which, coincidentally, is my unofficial approach to life.

BUT, this week, my real (read: paying) job has actually not given me a whole lot of time to work on new material. I had to go to the LAX courthouse to cover a preliminary hearing on an alleged torture case that happened in Santa Monica.

IF the allegation are true, it sounds like this is some Heart of Darkness shit. A guy, my age, who lives at home with his two kids and their mom, allegedly held another guy, my age, who is mentally retarded, against his will and did some brutal shit to him.

HOWEVER, the two guys have known each other since they were kids. And, it sounds like the alleged victim, who has the mental capacity of a 10-12 year-old, moved into the apartment with the alleged perpetrator quite willingly.

AND, it seems, that the alleged perpetrator, who was a tattoo artist by hobby, introduced the alleged victim to the world of tattoos. He gave the victim many tattoos, which the victim says were completely consensual.

IF the story is true, it sounds like the alleged perpetrator invited this guy into his house, began to realize he had power of him and as time went by, he started to exercise the power he had over the guy in increasingly brutal fashion.

That is, of course, IF the story is true. The case will go to trial the week after next. I may be covering it. And it all happened in deepest, darkest Santa Monica, California's dark heart.

Alright, ladies and germs. I need to get this new day, in a new world, started. Or, at least, go watch more TV because thinking is really starting to get me down.

Forever yours,

The Slasinator

Thoughts

2011-07-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that underlying every expression of affection is a desire to control the object of that affection.

If you say, "No offense, but..." you can say pretty much anything you want and the person you're saying it to isn't allowed to get offended. You made it clear that you meant no offense.

I'm depressed, but in a good way.

Suicide isn't the only way out. But it is the easiest. So it's ideal for lazy people.

I thought of a joke: "I'm on a cliche-only diet. I can have my cake and eat it, too." But I can't stop worrying that I accidentally stole it from someone else.

There is no better microcosmic example of Machiavelli's principles of power than a bridal party.

I was raised with a lot of positive reinforcement from very lazy parents. I think I can do anything, so long as I don't have to try.

It's important to respect all beliefs, religions and creeds. Unless they are fucking retarded.

That is all for now.

Relationships

2011-07-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a strong feeling that today was going to be... a day. That's about as much as I'm willing to commit to.

I finished The Larry Sanders Show yesterday. My relationship with the show had a similar arc to my relationships with girlfriends past. It started off with a lot of excitement at how new everything was. I had an artificially high estimation of everything that happened. I laughed a lot and had a great time. I couldn't get enough.

Then, I started noticing the patterns. Things started getting predictable. I knew which jokes were coming when. The things I once found charming about the show started to grate on my nerves, a little bit at first, then, a lot. My attention wandered. I'd still watch the show, but I'd also catch up on my blog roll or write e-mails to ex girlfriends while it was on. And on some days, I wouldn't even watch the show at all. I'd make up some excuse, like I had work to do, and then I would just read a book. Or watch a few episodes of The Ben Stiller Show.

But, I finished the show and, as it neared the end, I committed to it. I paid full attention to the second half of the last season. I lovingly followed the details of every plot line. I was reminded, as the end was in sight, why I liked each character, with all their quirks and failings.

The final episode even made me a bit emotional. As the credits rolled, I was thankful that I had seen the show but was glad that it was now behind me.

This all happened over the course of two weeks. And I can't help but think that if we had just taken it a bit slower, I would've appreciated the show a lot more. And a few months from now, when I don't have another show to watch, I'll probably open up my computer and type The Larry Sanders Show into Netflix and, for a while, it'll be just like old times... until I start getting annoyed again and find a newer show to watch.

Alright, that premise is wearing a little thin.

Overall, it was a good show. When watched in such rapid succession, the patterns of how the show is organized do start to get a little frustrating. I suspect each episode is best watched at a rate similar to how they were originally aired: once a week.

Even though my view of the show is more sober, I still maintain that the writing was quality and I appreciate that they tried to bring the plot around to a punchline at the end of each episode, even if it was strained at times.

The actors definitely carried the show through some major lulls in the writing, especially toward the end of the fourth season. I like to imagine hanging out with Larry and Artie, drinking salty dogs.

I even decided to watch Garry Shandling's other big show It's Garry Shandling's Show, which, according to the Wikipedia entry, was one of the first shows to break the fourth wall. I most certainly love breaking the fourth wall.

Alright. I'm done here. I don't have a strong finish so I'll leave you with the promise that this week I will refrain from doing much more of this psuedo review style stuff and just stick to hating on things. Is that good? Are you alright with that? All twenty of you who read this... Good. Twenty is a generous estimation, isn't it? It's more like four or five, isn't it? This blog is just the virtual version of standing at a bus stop and shouting into the ether. Well, that hasn't stopped me before.

Love,

JayBay

Success

2011-07-10T13:54:00.000-07:00

Of the marginal variety, at least.

Monday:
Come up with a premise for a bit to do on Saturday. Hostels are funny, right? So is having sex in them!

Tuesday:
Too busy. Can't write out the bit today, but still thinking about expanding on the premise.

Wednesday:
While walking to the library, another idea occurs to me. Now I have two ideas for bits!

Thursday:
Wrote rough drafts of both bits. This is the most preparation for Saturday's open mic I've ever done so far.

Thursday again, just before midnight:
Read over and touch up my bits. I am excited! These are funny! One bit about bad sex while traveling. Another about ridiculous boring people at parties.

Friday:
Confident with my two bits. Fine tune them. Add a few punchlines, cut out some tangents. Only problem is I won't have time to do both in four minutes. That's the opposite of my usual problem: rushing to come up with four minutes of material at the last minute.

Saturday, three hours before I have to get in line for open mic night:
Read over my two bits. Ready, set... panic! They are so not funny. Why did I think these were funny?! I have no material. Maybe I should just not go on stage.

Saturday, a few minutes after panic sets in:
Talk to friend on phone. He reassures me that it's all in my head and that it would be stupid not to go on stage and that I will probably hate myself if I don't at least try.

Saturday, a few minutes later after phone call:
I find a park bench that isn't serving as a bed to a member of Santa Monica's robust homeless population. Begin brainstorming new four minutes.

Saturday, 4:30 pm:
SHIT! Time to get in line. I'll never get a spot if I don't get in line now. Are these even funny? Should I even do this?!

Saturday, 7:00 pm:
Performed about three minutes. Jokes were decent, delivery was shaky since I had no time to rehearse. Got a few laughs. Now, that wasn't so bad, was it? Maybe I'll try the stuff I wrote next time.

Sunday:
Come up with a premise for a bit to do next Saturday.

Addendum. My two favorite jokes I did last night:

I have to say, this Casey Anthony thing genuinely shocked me. I had no idea it was illegal to kill your own children.

As a kid, I was given a lot of positive reinforcement by extremely lazy parents. So I'm willing to do anything, as long as I don't have to try at all.

Deals

2011-07-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and was immediately assaulted by a crippling feeling of "today is like every other day that has been and ever will be despite my best efforts to make changes." The dogs were barking and the birds chirping like so many obnoxious tweens at the mall on their way to see Friends With Benefits.

Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling like Martin Sheen in the beginning of Apocalypse Now, it occurred to me that I had no extrinsic motivation to get out of bed this morning and face the day. But I knew if I wasn't up by 10:00 AM, I'd hate myself just a tiny bit more than I usually do, so I dragged my butt into the kitchen and forced some of my dad's mud coffee down my throat.

The caffeine is able to trick my brain into feeling like I have a reason to live for at least a couple hours of day. What would I do without it? Probably dissolve into mush on the couch.

I made my self-imposed deadline. I had pants on before 10:00 AM! I watched a new episode of Louie to remind me that, someday, if I put my mind to it, I too could have a show about being a failure at life. Even though Louie is about just generally sucking at life, Louis CK is actually one of the richest, most successful comedians in the world and is inexplicably racist against white people. It's best not to think about these things. I'll just watch Louie and fantasize about having the same sweet deal he has.

The episode also offset the disappointingly mediocre episode of Futurama I saw yesterday. It's always when a good show goes bad, but I'm convinced that they have rotating teams of writers and whichever team that's working on the show this season is just lazy. The jokes are formulaic and they routinely violate the show's internal logic for stupid pop-culture references. Verily, I believe we are witnessing the maturation of a generation of comedy writers weened on Family Guy and woe unto us!

Maybe that's dramatic, but good comedy writing is hard and I think the Family Guy generation never learned that a joke isn't just a string of obscure references strung together by a flimsy premise. I look forward to the day when the next generation rise up against lazy comedy writing and return to the solid fundamentals of Seinfeld or The Larry Sanders Show or even Cheech and Chong movies.

Let's get back to talking about deals. Here's the new one I've made with myself: I'm going to get back on stage after almost two months of not doing the open mic night. I started writing stuff last Saturday and I've been working on it all week. In fact, I'm about to go to the library and work on it some more. But if I seriously can't bring myself to get on stage tomorrow, I give up on the whole thing. How's that for intrinsic motivation?

Alright. I've wasted enough of my and (if you've read this far) your time. Since our respective times are so valuable and all... Whatever. Do something with your life! Have you seen yourself lately? Jesus. Get it together. I gotta stop yelling at the mirror like that. The neighbors are bound to complain eventually.

Love,
The J-Slas

A Dark Turn of Mind

2011-07-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

"You know some girls are bright as the morning / And some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind." - Gillian Welch, "Dark Turn of Mind"

If you're anything like me (and if you are, I'm sorry), you know how to enjoy a good country song. And by that, I mean enjoy it without irony. None of this hipster bullshit, listening to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" with a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand and a BeDazzled™ American flag you got at Walmart for your ironic 4th of July party in the other.

The pop country world is full of over-produced superstars like Lady Antebellum who sing technically well about lukewarm sentiments and melodrama. My mom always tells me, "I don't like country music. It's too whiny." Or blowhard macho posturing and identity political symbols like pick-up trucks and guns.

When I say good country music, I'm referring to the great musical story tellers like Townes van Zandt, whose famous song "Pancho and Lefty" tells the story about how a man named Lefty, who out of desperation, sells out his best friend, a famous bandit named Pancho. Lefty lives out his life choking on his own infidelity. The song takes us through to the end of Lefty's life and how even the legend of Pancho eventually fades away as the men who told his story start dying themselves.

Gillian Welch is also very much in that tradition of country music about real suffering and the struggles of a real life. Her songs are populated by misfits, drug addicts and ne'er-do-wells who are running away as much from themselves as they are from the world that judges them.

"It's beef steak when I'm working / whiskey when I'm dry / sweet heaven when I die."

That's from "Tennessee" off the album The Harrow and The Harvest, the title of which I think encapsulates what Welch does best lyrically. She takes you into the depths of the mundane and brutal struggle of day-to-day life while she's staring straight ahead to better times all the while.

The Harrow is a prime example of what good country music is. It speaks to the fact we spend most of our lives living for something or someplace else: an idealized memory of a childhood home, like the woman in "Down Along The Dixie Line" ("They pulled up the tracks now / I can't go back now") or a time when we were all friends like in "The Way It Goes" or a place we will all go to when we die where it'll all be better, like in "Tennessee."

The album isn't much of a departure of from her previous four, so if you're looking for edgy musical innovation from Welch, you'll be disappointed. But there's something sublime about her classic, understated style. It goes down easy like a bottle of good whiskey and, also like good whiskey, can either help you forget your troubles for a little while or help you marinate in them. I always prefer the latter.

One thing's certain, her beautiful voice, lyrical introspection and sincere commitment to the timeless struggles of living are kryptonite to hipster irony.

As she says, some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind. Welch most certainly is. Take a listen, if you're into that sort of thing.

Addiction

2011-07-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

I have manic habits. I go through phases of manic production and consumption. And, with the advent of Netflix, Hulu and the age of instant online streaming, the only thing standing between locking myself in a room and starving to death, while watching all of the good movies and funny shows ever is my own self-control. And for those of you who know me, that's a scary thing.

Over two months during my last winter in Bulgaria, I watched the majority of Kurosawa's filmography, which was easily over 24 hours worth of film in a 45 day period. Last summer, I ran out of episodes of Psych before July. Within a week, I watched all episodes of That Mitchell and Webb Look and all available episodes of Parks & Rec on Netflix.

I started watching The Larry Sanders Show last week Wednesday. I am now on the fourth season. I've watched 50 episodes, averaging just over 20 minutes long each. That's 1000 minutes, or almost 17 hours* of Gary Shandling, Rip Torn and Jeffery Tambor acting like total neurotic messes while they try to run a late-night talk show. They are petty, self-absorbed, self-loathing and complete wrecks of humanity. And very funny for it.

The show usually opens with Sanders, on stage, calm, collected and in control immediately juxtaposed to him walking backstage, fishing for reassurance from his producer, Artie (Rip Torn).

Shandling and Torn together are one of the best comedy duos ever on TV. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but they have a great on-screen chemistry. Torn's over the top performance works perfectly next to Shandling's muted and constant worrying.

The show is all kinds of brilliant. In theme and style, it's a precursor to Curb Your Enthusiasm and is, in many ways a better show. For one thing, Sanders is less dependent on "Oh, that's awkward!" jokes. Each episode is a tight 20 minute story line that usually ends on the same note that it starts on, like a well-written stand up set.

The writing's sharp, the acting is great and the constant stream of celebrity guests are used to great affect. Since Shandling's character is a talk show host, when Jerry Seinfeld or Richard Lewis show up, it isn't for some contrived plot line shoe-horned in to attract more viewers like most celebrity guest stars are.

I just can't get enough of this show. In fact, I haven't showered or eaten yet today. But I've already watched three episodes. If they find me in a gutter, lying face down, clutching my laptop, don't be surprised if my web browser is open to the Netflix homepage. And Gary Shandling's face is staring out from the screen.

*I would like to note that if it weren't for Theresa's comment, I would've continued to believe that I had only watched 100 minutes of the show.

Honesty

2011-07-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

‎"When I said that I liked honest people, I meant ones that agree with me," - an honest guy friend-dumping someone who is also probably honest

Navigating social hierarchies can be a dizzying and frustrating experience, so here's a little bit of advice from my own experience. It's been a major frustration for me because I have a habit of being honest. I'm not bragging; I understand that being honest isn't some noble venture.

I've developed over time. Growing up, I thought it was a good thing: honesty at all costs. But like all characteristics I was raised to believe were virtues, I found out later on in life that honesty wasn't a virtue at all, but a tool to be selectively employed to gain power and form alliances in social circles. Used correctly, it could destroy the right people and shore up your position. Used incorrectly, well, like any weapon, you don't want to point it in the wrong direction.

It's a tricky thing, isn't it? I think if you asked anyone whether they thought honesty was a good quality, you may get some people who qualify their love of honesty: "Honesty is usually a good thing. But it depends."

I guarantee you that few people would straight out say, "No, I don't think honesty is a good thing." And you know why? We need to be able to filter the things our friends say and do as "honest." Let me explain to make that a little less abstract.

For the sake of argument, you've just broken up with your boyfriend of three years. You have your friends over to watch reruns of Sex In The City while eating tubs of ice cream and talk shit about that no good, lousy bastard.

At this point, you're grateful for your friends' support, especially lauding their honest appraisal of just how much of a loser the guy you were with just last week. If, for a second, you knew that while they were helping you heap piles of brutal criticism on the guy you were thinking about moving in with just two months ago, one or two of your friends were thinking "I wonder how long I have to wait before it's OK to sleep with Joey." Of course, your friends won't ask you that question. The best thing for those friends to do would be to quietly go about their business with Joey and hope that you never find out, that way they can still be counted among the tribal in-group, a status accorded to them because the leader in the situation, namely you, the girl who has just been dumped, recognizes their opinion as "honest" because they agree with you.

On the other hand, the other two friends always thought that Joey was a total schmuck, but knew better than to be honest when you came to them two months ago because you wanted to celebrate the fact that he asked you to move in with him. They knew it was doomed from the start but they knew better than to tell you. Remember how much you appreciated their honest support of you then?

When you hear someone say that they are looking for "honesty" in a person, what they aren't saying (but actually mean) is that they only want your honest opinion when they know you agree with them.

That, my friends, is the razor thin line between being considered a good friend and being considered an asshole. Tread lightly and, if you're anything like me and tend to say the exact opposite thing of what people want to hear, wait until someone tells you what they want you to say before you say it. They always will.

Oh, I'm just kidding! Everyone's good and no one lies! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Hipsters

2011-07-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

Look at this fucking hipster:

Adorable

2011-07-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

These two are classic.

2011-07-03T13:09:00.001-07:00

I found out yesterday that my step-mom wanted to be a writer when she was my age. My dad wanted to go to college and my mom wanted to travel.

I guess I've done alright fulfilling my filial duty of living out and becoming disillusioned with the frustrated dreams of my parents.

I win!

Science

2011-07-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

Sometime back in the 70s, scientists decided it'd be a hoot and a half to try to teach a chimp how to "speak." They raised the chimp like a human child, with a loving, wealthy, WASP family from the Upper West Side (if you can call that human, am I right?) and, then shipped him away from the urbane jungle in which he was raised to live in a research facility in one of those uncivilized flyover states: Kansas, Kentucky, Colorado... Whatever. I don't remember.

Because scientists are just as childish as the rest of us, they named the chimp Nim Chimpsky because Noam Chompksy (a renowned linguist and PLO guerrilla) held the belief that only humans could really use language. Now, HBO is going to show a film about this experiment next year. You can read more about it here.

The main point is that the chimp spent most of his nearly 30 years of life existing in a weird world. He couldn't socialize with normal chimps and he was never really a human, even if he did smoke a doobie with his adopted family once in a while. Hey! It was a different time, alright? Don't be a square.

I think this points to a deeper problem. If these scientist had simply read this short story, they would've already known how this cruel experiment, keeping a chimp in a perpetual state of adolescent alienation to prove some academic point about language, would end. Fucking scientists and their science.

Everyone knows the proper place for chimps is in showbiz! Especially if they're medically-licensed chimps who solve crimes from beyond the grave!

Friday

2011-07-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to find three grotesque disembodied heads floating about my bed. They claimed to be my wards. When I started to panic at the frightening sight, the heads reminded me that I needed to stay positive. For the next 30 minutes, they chanted "happy" in unison. Their droning voices resounded in my brain like the sound of sandpaper rubbed vigorously against the bark of a spruce in an echo chamber.

Once I stopped screaming, the heads stopped chanting, like they had promised. "We are here to protect you," they said, still speaking in unison.

"From what?" I asked. The sound of my own voice frightened me. It sounded like I had forced the noises through a clenched tube full of gravel.

"From the bad things," they said. Their eyes began to glow a fiendish crimson as the words slithered out of their mouths, frozen in harlequin smiles. The bad things... what were the bad things?

"Do you remember what happened to you?" asked the largest of the three heads. It sounded more like a threat as he hissed at me and his red, unblinking eyes bore into my skull. I stared back in silent terror.

"You went for a job interview in the early morning yesterday. You did very well. A man told you that they wanted to give you a job, so you went with him. You were full of happy thoughts, such beautiful happy thoughts." As the head spoke, his bulging eyes flickered like dying light bulbs. I noticed the heads behind him begin to lick their cracked lips like jackals waiting for an animal to die when he said "happy thoughts."

"Do you remember what happened next?" He was hissing again. I shook my head. His eyes shifted their gaze to my stomach and I suddenly realized I was naked. I saw a giant gash in my abdomen that had been stitched with thick, black thread. I sucked in a mouthful of stale, dry air but I didn't have the strength to panic.

I looked back at the floating heads for an explanation. "We will protect you now. You will always have us to protect you now." They were speaking in unison again. "All that you must do is continue to feed us happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts," they chanted.

"Thank you," I croaked as the heads swirled above my naked body, still chanting "happy thoughts."

"It is good to have friends," I said and closed my eyes. "I will give you all my happy thoughts."

Thurrrrrrsday

2011-06-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Jason has been spending so much time thinking positively that he is no longer able to move his fingers. Or his eyes. But we will help you. We'll make sure he gets all the messages you leave while he is in his positivity coma.

Wednesday

2011-06-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

Good news! I didn't actually get rained on yesterday. The clouds gathered and the wind howled, but no water fell from the sky. I guess all that positive thinking paid off. I'm sure if I had been thinking like a negative Nelly, it would've poured. Yup, it's all about your frame of mind.

I got to Santa Monica, parked my bike and headed into the library. By this time, the clouds had parted and I sat in the open-air patio at the center of Santa Monica's public library. It's hard to think negatively when you're enjoying the lovely, temperate Southern California climate.

Taking a moment to enjoy the sun, I paused before starting to work. And though my credit card company kept calling to demand a payment, I decided not to answer them! You know why? I wasn't going to let the fact that I don't have enough money to pay them get in the way of my positive thinking! I don't need reality interfering with something so important as assuring myself that there are no problems in the world.

I worked for a couple of hours on a story about how people are infuriated that there are plans to replace palm trees on their streets with sycamores. All the news that's fit to print, I say!

Why are these people so angry, I thought. They should just be thinking positively, like me. Then everything in their lives would be better. So I decided to get lunch.

Leaving the library, I saw a tow truck parked next to the bike rack where I had stowed my bike just a couple hours ago. But my bike wasn't there anymore. As the tow truck drove off, I realized that my bike was being towed away. I guess that wasn't a bike rack at all but a standpipe for fire hoses. I must've been too busy thinking positively to notice when I locked up my bike.

"That's nothing a good lunch won't solve!" I thought, positively.

With no money and a credit card that has been suspended until payment, I decided to scope out the the restaurants with unenclosed patio dining. There was bound to be a couple of unsuspecting patrons who weren't paying attention to the quinoa and pear salad in front of them.

It didn't work out. I only made it around the corner before the waiter caught up with me, but on the positive side of things, he decided that having the shit kicked out of me for 15 minutes by a guy twice my size was punishment enough, so he wouldn't call the cops on me.

I said thank you and limped away.

"Alright, so you lost your bike and got your ass kicked for stealing a salad you couldn't afford. You're still hungry and can barely walk, but at least you've got people who love you!"

At that moment, I got a text message from a number I didn't recognize. I wondered what delightful and positive message I might get from an unfamiliar number.

"Dear Jason," it said. "I'm sorry to do this with a text message, but it's best for both of us this way. I just don't think this is working out."

"That's strange," I thought. "It must be a friend of mine, since I have so many friends, joking with me." So I sent a text message back: "Who is this? ;)"

After a minute, I got a new message: "You're such a fucking asshole, Jason. You will die alone and unloved! You never deserved my affection and you don't deserve the affection of anyone because you're a selfish prick."

"Sorry," I typed. "But seriously, who is this?"

Without missing a beat, my phone beeped at me: "Don't ever talk to me again. I hope you get everything you deserve." And that was the end of that.

No bother, though. I will continue to think positively! Today's a new day and I'm heading back to the library to get more work done! The future is mine for the taking and all I need to do is think positively. And maybe change my phone number so my credit card company can't call me anymore.

Tuesday

2011-06-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

I awoke on Day 2 of Operation: Happy Thoughts to a dismally gray sky and the sound of my neighbors yelling at each other. Normally, awareness of my surroundings would bring me down, but not today! I can't let things like external reality derail my trajectory toward success so I leaped out of bed, clicked my heels together and threw a slapdash smile on my face.

A cup of coffee, a quick bit to eat and an energizing shower's all I need to be ready to take on the world, right? I've got a big day ahead of me. In just a few minutes, I'm heading to Santa Monica to work on a news story. I'm excited because I get to sift through angry letters to City Hall about how it is unfair that the city is planning on replacing palm trees on public streets with sycamores. Instead of being annoyed by this, I'm supposed to be thankful for the unique and interesting opportunities, like this, that are available to me on a day to day basis.

I mean, not many people get to sort through angry letters about tree planting in Santa Monica, am I right? When I put it that way, it sounds... well, no. It still sounds kind of boring. But let's not think that way! The bright side is that I today, I have the opportunity to leave the house. In just a few minutes, I'll hop on my bike and begin my trek to Santa Monica. Who knows what interesting and positive things will happen along the way! And even if negative things happen, I can just pretend that they didn't happen!

Alright. Time for me to start my adventure. Are you as excited as I am? You'd have to be as awesome as I am to be this excited about going to Santa Monica today.

SHIT... did it just start raining? Never mind that! I can put my computer in a plastic bag. I'm still grateful I get to ride my bike and have a fun adventure... It'll be ... fun.

Shit... it looks like it's really going to start raining. I don't really have a choice about going to Santa Monica, though. If I don't sort through those letters today, my article will be late. And my credit card company just called to remind me my payment is due. I told them I was trying to think positive, so maybe they'll give me some leeway.

That's no problem, though! Rain or credit card payments due, I'm thinking positive! And nothing can stop me.

Monday

2011-06-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

Let's get this started, ladies and gentlemen. I had a weekend up in the mountains to clear my head. Ah, yes! The great outdoors! No noise, no pollution and no running water. Nothing but hard ground to sleep on and a thin layer of nylon between you and whatever monstrous creatures of the night were lurking in the pitch black. It was just me, some friends and about a billion insects with various-sized mandibles for feasting on our blood. Under a star-filled sky, we sat contemplating our own insignificance in the face of an infinite and indifferent universe while we huddled next to a fire for warmth and choked on the acrid plume of black smoke that seemed to follow us as we circled the fire pit to avoid it.

There is nothing quite like the camping experience, they say.

I'm energized and excited for the future that lays ahead of me! I've got a plan for the week and I've got concrete goals to meet! I am the master of my own destiny! I have nothing to lose and everything to gain! I will work hard and succeed at every endeavor I put my mind to. Yup. Today, Monday, June 27, 2011 is the first day of the rest of my life. Starting today, I'm on the road to unmitigated success. Today is Day 1.

It's all about your frame of mind, you see. Positive things happen to positive people! If you think correctly, then your life will move forward without a hitch. If you had read The Secret, you would know this. But now, as I prepare for my meteoric rise, I have decided to share with you this privileged information.

If you, in the face of a bleak and unforgiving reality, tune it out and think positively, nothing can possible go wrong!

So, here it goes! I'm shedding my cocoon and I'm ready to soar like a beautiful butterfly. Will you leave behind the chains of critical thought and self-reflection and soar with me? Or will you stay bound to the ground by the weight of "thinking" and "understanding"?

Only you can set yourself free.

Dating

2011-06-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

It’s almost time. You’re counting down the minutes until you hear that whistle blow and you can take off your gloves and leather apron, head over to the clock and punch your time card… that is, if you work at a metal smelting plant in the 1950s. More likely, you’re sitting at your desk, refreshing your inbox every 30 seconds to avoid thinking about how your tie seems to get tighter with every tick of the minute hand.

You’re probably thinking something like, “I can’t wait to head over to the nearest establishment that serves alcoholic refreshments that I might be able to mingle with members of the fairer sex in the hopes that one will take a shine to me and I may be given the opportunity to become better acquainted with her.”

[Read on!]

Terror

2011-06-24T13:21:00.000-07:00

I had a strange dream last night. I was in prison. I don't remember exactly why. It had something to do with my exes again. I don't think I had actually committed any crimes, but as the dream went on, it became clear to me that I was sentenced to die.

Of course, I tried to escape but the prison looked like it had been co-designed by M. C. Escher and Tim Burton. Every time I ran through one door, I ended up standing on an upside down staircase that led back to the main floor of cells where I had started. The prison guards, faceless men in gray uniforms, chased me down. I realized that they weren't really trying to catch me but, rather, were just pacing themselves and waiting for me to get too tired to keep running.

I eventually did and three of the gray men carried me to the execution chamber. There was a giant wooden chair with a metal cap. As they strapped me in, they read off to me a list of crimes. Instead of listening to them, though, I watched a bunch of happy memories flash in front of my eyes.

It was at that moment that I panicked more intensely than I've panicked before and I woke up in a start.

So, I guess the good news is that when my brain thinks it's about to die, it still has the instincts to try to get away. The bad news is, my subconscious is apparently convinced I've committed crimes answerable by death, in an electric chair.

I do find it funny that even the way I die in my dreams is old-timey. I bet I was probably wearing suspenders and a mustache in the dream, too. Unfortunately, that part is lost to the sinkhole of memory.

This weekend, there's no open mic, so I decided to take the opportunity to go camping with some friends. I definitely need to get out of the city for a bit... also, out of my head, because seriously, that dream was f'ed up. I didn't do anything wrong! Just get off my back!

Hopefully they won't find me in the mountains...

Success

2011-06-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

I have a peculiar way of thinking about success. When I am in unfamiliar territory, my tendency is to think that whatever I am doing, it is the wrong way to do it. And, conversely, what other people are doing is the right way.

That's a bit abstract, so let's put it into some real context.

When most people get into college, they think to themselves, "Great! I deserve this. I worked hard every day in school. I put my all into my application. I tried really hard because I wanted this and that's why, today, I just got my acceptance letter in the mail."

When I got into college, my immediate thought was, "Shit... now they're going to find out I'm a fraud." Then, I proceeded to celebrate by drinking with my friends.

Similarly, when I got into the Peace Corps, I worried how I was going to hide the fact that, after four years of college, having majored in a hobby like History, I wasn't really qualified to do anything, except maybe bullshit about the slave-master dialectic for 45 minutes.

Today, I had a conversation with a friend of mine. He insisted that I man up and step up my stand up. He was right. I haven't gone on stage for over a month now. I find excuses, one way or another. And it got me thinking: I enjoy doing it. It's free. And, the place I go has a really friendly, positive and supportive vibe. So, then what the hell am I doing, dicking around and actively finding reasons not to get on stage?

I went last Saturday and watched the comics and it occurred to me that I was thinking the same thing I usually think about every undertaking in my life so far: Those guys know what they are doing. They've got their shit together. They're funny. If I spend too much time on that stage, they're going to find me out for the impostor that I am.

But here's the secret truth... here's the point that I miss by a generous stone's throw: the thing they do to get their timing down, to make their jokes funnier, to have a presence on stage is practice. They've worked hard, committed themselves to their work. When all the other kids were outside playing at recess, they stayed in and wrote jokes.

A prodigy is a rare thing, indeed. And it's time for me to kick the habit of thinking that if I am not a prodigy, then I am a failure because if I commit to it, I may just surprise myself that through work, I can accomplish something.

I'm going out of town this weekend, but consider this a resolution to get back on stage the following weekend and every weekend after that.

Oh, and hold me to it, because I'm really not intrinsically motivated. Like, at all.

Dating

2011-06-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the most awkward table in Starbucks at the moment. I'm at the last table, all the way in the back. The barristas are unloading boxes of merchandise directly in front of me and I'm facing the bathrooms. When all the cute girls walk out, the first thing they see is me and my mustache. Then, they immediately avert their eyes shoeward.

Then it occurs to me that I probably ought not look at everyone going in and out of the bathrooms at Starbucks. But how else am I supposed to meet a nice girl to settle down with, if not by surprising her when she least expects it and, when she's on her heels, getting her contact information? And her lineage...

It hasn't worked so far, but they say the key to success is persistence. If I gave up now, I'd only have my self to blame for failure. Only myself and thousands of years of history stacked against me by a vengeful and angry God in retribution for the sins of my pagan forefathers, that is.

Oh, who am I kidding. I don't have what it takes to pick up chicks outside the bathrooms at Starbucks. Or to stand up to the enduring wrath of an omnipotent God of Abraham. I probably ought to find another place to hit on women. Someplace where I can be anonymous and say what I want without fear of being judged for my steady stream of social faux pas. Someplace where people are truly free from the burden of social norms and irrational cultural limitations on their behavior. Someplace where God's mighty hand cannot reach.

Maybe, I should try Internet dating.

The Predicament Of The Couch

2011-06-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, my dad's football-sized dog will look at me while I'm sitting on the couch. He'll plead with his auburn puppy eyes for a boost onto the cushion next to me. Instead, I tell him something. I tell the dog that he'll get up on the couch on his own. He cocks his tiny head to the right and looks at me when he recognizes his name. I pat the cushion next to me.

He charges the couch, about to leap but then skids to a stop before he can commit to it.

Scurrying back to his starting position, he starts again, only to stop right where he did last time.

After about five minutes of false starts and chanting of his name to the steady, tribal rhythm I beat into the cushion next to me, he finally jumps and clumsily clamors on to the cushion.

"Now, there you go! That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

I'm pretty sure this is a sad metaphor for my life right about now. Only it's sadder than just me projecting my situation on the puntable canine. In this metaphor, the my dad's dog is way ahead of me... He jumped.

Sunday S'update

2011-06-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

Good morning, all.

The Internet explains to me that today is Sunday. Things seem to be going pretty much as expected to this point: woke up when the cat pounced on my chest at 9; got a cup of coffee or two; took a shower, etc. Now, I'm hunkering down to get some work done that I should've spread out over these past four days. As usual, I don't really work on something until I absolutely have to.

Before I talk about work, let's talk about comedy. I went back to the Westside Theater's open mic night after a month away from it. While standing in line, I ended up talking with an amateur comic from Boston for a while. It reminded me that writing and performing comedy is something I definitely want to focus on. Chatting with the Boston guy helped to remind me that I'm not the only one who has to deal with nerves and wondering if I'm funny or if I should just give up.

I've seen him perform before and I had enjoyed his stage presence. He's got a casual story-telling style that feels conversational, even if it's just him talking. It's a style I really enjoy. When I see someone with apparent confidence on stage, I subconsciously put them into the category of "successful people," to which I do not belong. But he's only been at it three years himself and he is approachable and amiable and pretty open about the fact that he really has no idea what he's doing, which really helps me realize that the sort of success one has at this sort of thing comes through a lot of painful practice.

That being the case, there's an open mic at the same place on Tuesday, and I think I'll go to that one and try some stuff. Let's see how long I can stay motivated before I crash into a pile of smoldering self-doubt and consequent apathy.

In other news, I have this new gig, alongside the news writing thing I do. I'm writing five-page biographies of famous people to be sold on Amazon.com and other such places for e-readers like the Kindle. My current list of famous people about whom I am supposed to write are all serial killers. So my plan today is write three of these mini bios. Four if I'm feeling ambitious and I haven't gotten completely creeped out by reading about the details of their gruesome murders and terrible childhoods.

It may not be much of a surprise, but I've always had a morbid fascination with these sorts of people. They they exist on such a different level than you or I (at least, I hope they exist on a different level than you) that I can't help but wonder why they are the way they are. Combined with the fact that they almost always have really traumatic childhoods, my fascination is mingled with pity. I sometimes find myself thinking, "What if they just hadn't gotten beaten and humiliated so much as kids? Would they have turned out to be someone else? Or is there something in their genes that predisposes them to such an extreme level of violence and detachment?"

Do you see now why I can't spend too much time thinking about this sort of thing? It gets damn depressing. Anyhow, hopefully this gig pays off. The cool thing about it is that I get a percentage of sales, so if I write enough of these things, I could get a steady trickle of dolla dolla billz.

Alright. I guess that's it for now. Look for new and exciting things from jasonislas.com. Assuming I can get it together and start doing things again.

Love,
Jason

Divine Winds of Spite

2011-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

The Kamikaze (or "divine winds") were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible.

spite, noun
1. Malicious ill will prompting an urge to hurt or humiliate.
2. An instance of malicious feeling.

When I die, it will be because my body will no longer be able to contain the white hot rage that burns in my soul and I will spontaneously combust in a magnificent fireball, fueled by decades of unresolved resentments and a robust persecution complex. Moments later, I will be nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes, strewn about the ground in a pattern resembling a clenched fist with only a middle finger extended heavenward.

I like to think of myself as a Kamikaze pilot of sorts. That sort of fanatical behavior, though, has to be driven by something that one holds as a religious conviction, you may be thinking. What on Earth could Jason feel so strongly about that he would be willing to sacrifice himself for it? Certainly not the now-defunct Japanese Empire! Perhaps something more abstract like peace? You can't really be a Kamikaze for peace, though. Maybe it is something romantic like Love!

You would be wrong. The thing, for which I would be willing to crash and burn and take whomever with me, is Spite. Over the years, I've developed an almost religious conviction in Spite. It permeates all things I do. Any successes I have are to spite all those people who rejected me. Most of my ideas have been formed as a response to being condescended to by people with poorly thought out opinions. Even my fashion choices are made with the memory of every time I was made fun of for looking silly, or, not looking silly enough. My 100% genuine mustache stands in hairy defiance of the hegemony of ironic fashion choices.

Over the years, I've taken care to make sure every decision I've made is to spite someone. The only problem is, I still haven't figured out how to make sure they know about it.

What's Worse Than A Bad Set? Part II

2011-06-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly a week since I posted the first installment of my answer to the question "What's Worse Than A Bad Set?" It's taken me an unreasonably long amount of time to sit down and write out this out for a couple reasons I won't outline here because my lawyer recommends against it.

This is part two of my cartoonish nightmares. Let's hope it's also the conclusion, for all our sakes.

When I'm not unraveling planes in my mind, I have on occasion been known to attend an open mic night here and there. There's a feeling I get while waiting for two hours against a brick wall in an alley so I can get my name among the coveted first 15 spots on a list that guarantees me a five minute spot on stage. Aside from the pressure I feel on my kidneys as my bladder swells with the few drinks I had just before I got in line, I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. It's the infamous pre-comedy dread.

The guy in front of me is obviously a much funnier comedian. I can tell by the way he's standing, hovering over the rest of us. He's been here before. This is his territory. He's as comfortable here as in his own living room. I don't think the two guys he's with have stopped laughing at everything he's said since we've been in line. God damn it! With my luck, that asshole will go on just before me and he'll kill. Then, I'll get up there with some hack joke about my mom everyone has heard a million times and will get booed. Or worse! I'll get no laughs at all.

Maybe the guy behind me has something to offer to make me feel better. Two minutes of talking, and I find out he's a high school kid. And all he wants to do is practice his bits on me. Yeah, yeah, kid. I know what it's like to be in love with a girl who doesn't even know you're there. I'm pretty sure we all do. That's why we're trying to break into comedy! If any of us were successful in love, we wouldn't be standing here in the cold for the chance at five minutes of laughter from a room full of strangers just so we can feel something that we can pretend is acceptance!

I just smile. He'll get the hang of this, I think. Probably before I do. Why can't I say what I just thought on stage? That'd be so much funnier than this crap that I wrote. Man, that kid is never going to get laid, though. I kind of feel sorry for him... but he'll be funnier for it.

Since talking to him just made me feel like a bad person for thinking such horrible things about a hopeful young guy, I decide to retreat into my head. It's rarely a better place to be than the outside world, but I need to save whatever energy stores I have left to deal with what I've decided will be the worst thing that will ever happen to me.

Just close your eyes, Jason. Go to a happy place... go to a happy, calm, relaxing place. Where there are rainbows and unicorns and gorgeous women who want nothing to do with you... NO! This is your happy place, Jason. Here, if nowhere else, they want everything to do with you!

A wave of calm rushes over me and suddenly, the emcee says, "And everybody welcome to the stage, Jason Islas!" The sound of applause after my name is always a rush.

"I'd like to do some impressions for you guys tonight! Here's my impression of me, doing stand up."

A smattering of laughs.

"Alright, so that's the last time I open with that."

More laughs. Always admit it when a joke doesn't work. It's any easy way to break the tension.

"Let's talk relationships. I know you're probably thinking, 'A guy that good looking couldn't possibly have relationship problems!'"

Damn... nothing. Just move on, Jason. Keep going till you get a laugh.

"But I've had my fair share. I think I have a sixth sense for crazy in women. I once dated a girl who, when we used to argue, if things ever got heated, she'd start calling me by her dad's name."

Nothing. Ugh... this is getting bad. Just keep moving.

"She'd do the same thing when she was coming, too! Which was really weird because she never had an orgasm with me that she didn't fake."

Jesus Christ! I was sure I'd at least get a chuckle. Someone in the audience stands up.

"I really don't think that's funny," a female voice calls to me from the back of the room. I strain to see, but the spotlight is blinding me.

"Well, by the sound of it, you'd be in the majority with that opinion," I quip.

"And I really think you should say sorry, Jason." At this point, I begin to recognize her voice. "I only ever called you by my dad's name once and I was so embarrassed about it, I cried for almost two hours. Don't you remember?"

You've got to be kidding me!

"Ok, ok... I'll do some other stuff." My palms are sweating and I can barely hold the microphone still in my hands.

"I... um... I dated this other girl once. She was a Christian. What a ride that was!"

"Jason, just please stop, now," another voice came from the audience. "It's really insensitive that you would come on stage and discuss these things in such a glib manner in front of an audience of complete strangers."

"It's beginning to sound like there aren't as many strangers in the audience as I had hoped for," I manage to squeak out past my ever-tightening vocal chords.

A third voice, also familiar, chimes in. "We can't let you continue this, Jason. You've already done enough harm in this world."

Voice four and five shout a hearty "Yes!" in response as the spot light suddenly goes out and I see a crowd of no less than ten women, slowly moving toward the stage, shuffling inexorably closer to me. It's Cheryl, my high school girlfriend, leading the pack. Heather and Amber are next to her, both wearing their unforgiving scowls... I know those scowls.

There is no one else in the audience. I look around for the emcee and he's gone.

"I'm so sorry, guys! I wouldn't have done the material if I had known..."

"That's not the point, Jason. You shouldn't be doing this sort of thing at all," Casey, a girl I dated for two weeks in college, says as she begins climbing on the stage.

"What are you going to do to me?!" I barely even recognize the tiny squeaking sound coming out of my mouth.

Amber answers me, her scowl now twisted into an angry smile. "We're going to make sure you never do that, ever again..." and she opens her mouth, wider than I've ever seen her do before.

Suddenly, an irritated voice comes from behind me. "Dude! You're gonna put your name on the list, or not? It's freezing and I gotta piss!" It was the high school kid from earlier. Thank God! There was no mob of angry exes in sight.

"Ye-ah," I stammer the answer out in two syllables and write my name slowly, trying to steady my hand.

"Relax, dude," the high school kid says to me. "What's the worst that could possibly happen?"

Why It's A Good Thing To Be Offended

2011-06-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

I submitted this to Comedy Is Weird under the following title, about the recent Tracy Morgan controversy. Enjoy!

Comedy Is Weird, And, Sometimes, Very Offensive

But that’s a good thing!

Recently, as you may have heard, Tracy Morgan got in trouble for what has been described as a hateful rant against gay people on stage. Since it happened, people like Tina Fey came out and scolded him for it and he has apologized profusely.

But Louie C.K. didn’t think that Tracy Morgan needed to apologize. Punchline Magazine reported that Louie said, “It’s clear to anyone with an ability to reason and understand people that he didn’t mean a word of what he said. He was fucking around.”

Though I would like to clearly state that I definitely don’t endorse hating any group of people because I think every individual is hatable in his or her own unique way, I think Louie is right.

Can you imagine a day when comedians cease to ever say anything offensive on stage for fear of the treatment that Michael Richards or Tracy Morgan got? We’d have a full scale return to physical and prop comedy!

Maybe I’m an extremist on this point, but I genuinely believe that if comedians can’t say things because they are taboo or some people might find them offensive, then the whole point of comedy has been undermined.

I would even go a step further and say it is irrelevant if Tracy Morgan does or does not actually believe what he said. Each and every one of us is well within our rights never to watch 30 Rock again or buy a ticket to a Tracy Morgan stand up show, just as he is well within his rights to go up on stage and say whatever the hell he wants. He isn’t a politician or a minister. He’s a comedian.

I don’t know about you, but my interest in comedy is precisely because it’s a medium with the a lot of freedom to say and do what you want. It’s all about point of view, personal voice and finding your audience. So, it’s always frustrating for me to see that freedom restricted, no matter how much I disagree with the bastard who is being ostracized.

2011-06-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, we all feel this way.

I Have A Knack For Finding Things That Make Me Angry

2011-06-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

Today was somewhat unproductive. The only writing I did was for the Lookout (that is to say, writing for which I get paid). News writing is fun, though, if a little bit dry. It's comforting to understand a formula, write something with it and get then paid for it.

Speaking of formulae , I watched a terrible romantic comedy with my dad called Sweet Home Alabama. It's about a young, attractive girl from a small town in Alabama who ran away from her husband and her family to live every girl's dream: to become a vapid fashion designer in New York.

The movie starts with her New York socialite boyfriend proposing to her. The problem is that she has to go back home to get her husband (whom her fiance doesn't know about) to sign the divorce papers so that she can get married again. But here's the twist! While she's in her old hometown, she starts falling back in love with the man she left so many years ago.

Blah, blah, blah. Her fiance finds out that she has a husband and she's been lying about her past since he has known her, but still decides that he wants to spend the rest of his life with this social-climbing sociopath. Love is blind, right? And very, very stupid.

Of course, our poor heroine is conflicted. She has feelings for both these wonderful men. Realizing it would be a shitty thing to break off her engagement, though, she decides she's still going to marry the New Yorker. This is perhaps the only stand-up thing this girl does the entire movie, but she's quick to counter it with a capricious, callous and overall despicable move.

On the day of her wedding to the New York guy, she finally realizes that she's actually still in love with her first husband (because after she left, he became successful and has money now) and she leaves her fiance at the altar, a decision which HE IS FINE WITH AND GIVES HIS BLESSING TO because true love apparently is letting someone tear your heart out of your throat and while she holds the still-pulsating bloody mess in her crushing grip in front of your eyes, you smile and say, "I just want what's best for you."

She ends up with her original husband and everyone lives happily ever after. Everyone, that is, except the guy whose heart she just ripped out. He's probably in a corner crying and masturbating as he imagines her fucking the brains out of some other guy. It's OK, pal. We've all been there before.

I swear to God, if it weren't for romantic comedies, I might think being a selfish, capricious bitch is a bad thing. Thankfully that these movies exist to help us understand that what's important in life is that you do exactly what you want to do when you want to do it. No matter who you devastated in the process, at least you're happy.

Alright, enough of that for now. In other news...

I've got a few things in the works, including the conclusion to my short story about bombing on stage, which has actually up until now has mostly been about unraveling.

I'm hoping to make that into part of a larger project, that you will hear more about later. Or if you have the pleasure of knowing me personally, you'll hear about it every time I get drunk around you.

Next week I am planning to get on stage again with some new material. I want to get into more story-telling jokes rather than set up/punchline format. I think it suits me better. Look for the new video by Sunday on the Comedy section of my site... you know, if you're into that sort of thing.

If you've been jonesing for some Jason, you can also read the post I wrote for LA Snark about an important and eternal spiritual question.

Exciting!

2011-06-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything to contribute to the Internet today, so I thought I'd post this:

Source: www.melikeyersiz.com

Be ware the lurkers!

What's Worse Than A Bad Set?

2011-06-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is the first part of a story I submitted to a comedy blog, Comedy Nerds United. Stay tuned for the conclusion. Also, if you're wondering about the third part of my South-inspired stories, don't worry. That's coming, too.

If you took a poll of comedians who are just starting off and you asked them what their greatest fear is, you’d probably hear something like “bombing” or “not getting any laughs” more than just a few times. I once heard a comedian say that when most people have off days at work, it’s usually the full day. If he bombs, though, it’s only for an hour.

But any comedian can tell you that it’s a damn long hour. Most comedians need the laughter and applause as reassurance because it’s scary to stand up there, alone and naked (metaphorically, unless you’re one of those alt comics who do shit like get naked) and have no one think you’re funny. I haven’t heard of anyone who’s immune to the sinking feeling you get when a series of jokes fall flat. You want to get off the stage as quickly as possible and bury yourself in whatever thing comforts you most. For me, it’s a bottle of bottom shelf liquor and an episode of Hogan’s Heroes or a Judd Apatow movie, depending on the severity of the incident.

However, bombing on stage isn’t really the worst thing that can happen. Trust me when I say that because I have a knack for coming up with worst-case scenarios. Not just abstract I-could-die-at-any-moment stuff, but like weirdly detailed, convoluted, paranoid stuff.

For example, once, I was sitting on a plane, waiting for take-off and I saw something that looked like a piece of thread sticking out of the window next to me.

“Peculiar,” I thought. “I wonder what that’s doing there.”

I decided to do a little thought experiment so I closed my eyes and imagined reaching for it. I tugged at it gently at first and, to my surprise, the string was quite long. Curiosity got the best of me so I kept pulling and the string kept coming. After about a minute of this, I realized, to my horror that I had begun unraveling the plane. Not the seat cover on the chair in front of me, but the goddamned plane. The problem was that in the time from when I started pulling at the string to the moment I realized what I was doing, the plane had already taken off and the plane was now unraveling from the force exerted on it by take off.

I panicked. I rang the flight attendant bell, but because we were taking off, none of them were walking around. They were all strapped in tightly, blissfully unaware of what I had done. I was the only one who knew what was about to happen to all of us as I stared, gaping at growing pile of string at my feet.

The good news about being the first to know about this, though, was that by the time everyone suddenly realized that we were all going to die, I had had time to come to terms with it. So, as the last bit of the hull fell away beneath us, now amorphous mess of string and I could hear everyone screaming just before we started plummeting back to Earth, I was strangely OK with it. I only kept silently mouthing the words, “I’m sorry” over and over again.

“Sir,” I heard a soothing female voice say. “Would you like something to drink? Some water? Or a beer?”

I opened my eyes and saw the little string again, tempting my curiosity. This time, I knew better, though. I patted myself on the back for thinking this one through and, with an idiot grin plastered to my face, treated myself to a mini bottle of Jim Beam.

“What are you sorry for?” the ample man sitting to my right asked me as the snack cart rattled away.

I swallowed down a mouthful of whiskey and said, ”For destroying the plane!”

But I digress. As I was saying, just simply bombing on stage isn’t the worst thing that could happen.

To be continued…

Bad Movies Are Still Bad Movies, Even If Watched Ironically

2011-06-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Last night, during a momentary lapse in judgement, I decided it would be awesome to rewatch Demolition Man, the 1993 action spectacular starring Wesley Snipes as supervillain Simon Phoenix (from South Central L.A.) and Sylvester Stallone as supercop John Spartan (from the LAPD).

The film opens in 1996 and the L.A. riots have raged unchecked for four years. LAX and all of South Central L.A. have become something that would make Kabul look like Shangri-La. Phoenix has hijacked a city bus that had dared to pass through his territory and the LAPD has sent the one man who can get those hostages back: John Spartan (with a name like that, you know he's bad ass).

You know things are bad when even the Hollywood sign is burning.

As Spartan is riding a helicopter into the heart of darkness, his pilot jokes, "Remember when they used to let commercial airlines land in this city?"

Wearing a beret (which is, of course, the head gear of choice when storming into a war zone), Spartan repels from the helicopter and promptly starts blasting bad guys. After he kills a bunch of people, he finds Phoenix in a room with his feet up on the desk, smoking a cigar. Apparently, that's what you do when the world is burning around you.

Like all thugs in the early 90s, Phoenix is dressed like an extra from an MC Hammer video.

Why can't you find jackets like that nowadays? Truly we live in the
shadow of our forefathers.

To make a long story short, things blow up, people die. For some reason both Phoenix and Spartan are frozen in ice. Whatever. Let's get back to the part where things blow up.

Phoenix wakes up first and finds himself in San Angeles, a supermetropolis made up of all the coastal cities in southern California. It actually looks like modern-day Santa Monica, if it had been overrun by a cult of pacifist vegetarians opposed to obscenity or disorder.

Wait... I think I'm about to have a Planet of the Apes moment...

Is that the pope? No! It's just that everyone in the future wears pajamas.
Snipe's early 90s wardrobe is not looking so bad now.

So, things happen and stuff blows up and through subtle detective work, Spartan discovers that the reason Phoenix escaped was this guy:

There are no pictures of Denis Leary that aren't mid-rant.

That's right! It's a bearded Denis Leary who plays the freedom-loving, meat-eating, sewer-dwelling anarchist leader of the Scads, society's forgotten who have run away from the peace-loving, profanity-eschewing vegetarians topside. His character's last name is Friendly, in case you were wondering whether or not he's a bad guy.

The guy in the white pajamas unleashed Phoenix and, through the use of future technology, programmed him to hunt down bearded Denis Leary. Of course the guy in the white pajamas dies. As does Phoenix and all his baddies.

And Spartan sleeps with the girl and society goes back to eating meat and swearing and getting drunk and doing all the stuff I love about life.

This story should be a lesson to us all. If, when feeling tired and nostalgic, you decide it would be a good idea to watch a movie that seemed really awesome to your 8 year-old self, don't watch it. Just let it stay awesome in your memory, where it belongs.

Part Two: The Surreal

2011-06-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

This is part two in my possibly three-part series based on my trip to Savannah. This is a story that is very loosely based on a conversation we had over breakfast at a diner on the outskirts of town. This was written after I had been reading a lot of David Mamet plays.

"I'm pretty sure that's the same plane," Tim Loupe said. He was staring out the goddamn window. He hadn't stopped staring out the window since we got to this shitty diner.

A loud crash came from the behind counter and the people in the booth next to us started clapping. It's so fucking annoying when people do that. You think you're funny? You think no one on earth has done that before you and you're the goddamn cat's meow because you, comic fucking genius, were the first one to think it'd be fucking hilarious to clap next time a waiter dropped some dishes on the ground?

Fuck you, assholes. I rolled my eyes.

"You should drink some water; you look terrible," I said. But he kept staring out the window.

"Can you even see outta that thing? Makes the whole outside world look like one of them old timey pictures. This place is a shit hole. Is your coffee hot? I think they put this shit water in the microwave." Tim dabbed his forehead with a bunched up napkin he had just blown his nose in. Fucking disgusting.

"Here, have some water. You finished that whole damned bottle of Jack last night." I slid the brown plastic cup across the table until it bumped against the white ceramic in Tim's hand.

I was pretty hung over, too, but I never showed it bad as Tim. Goddamn, that kid had a talent for being hung over. I swear to god, he always looked like he was going to die the morning after. He was white and his shirt was yellow from all the goddamn sweating he did. Just disgusting.

"Helluva party last night, eh?" I said after a few minutes of silence.

"Yeah..." he trailed off. "I didn't do nothing stupid, did I?"

Tim always did something stupid, then would ask me if he had done something stupid. I used to be honest with him, but what's the point? Last night, he was sitting out on the porch, a cigar in his mouth, black socks pulled up to his knees and a belt wrapped around his neck like some sort of goddamn choke collar, not wearing a goddamn thing else and singing Dixiefuckingland at the top of his lungs. And that was before he finished the bottle. That's the beauty about being in the South: they're too damn polite to call the cops on you, even when you deserve it.

"Naw. You were fine."

"Good. Yeah. I don't remember being outta control."

Of course you fucking don't, you drunk asshole.

"Why you smiling, Sam?"

"Nothing. Just remembering a joke you told last night. You were in good form, Tim. Real charming."

"Yeah? What was it?"

"Don't remember. Did Endo say he was gonna meet us here or what?"

"Don't remember," he smiled.

"Yeah, asshole. I gotta take a leak."

Our waitress was standing in the corner near the bathroom, talking into the phone. She was damn nice to us when our food came late, falling all over herself to apologize. Sweet old lady, probably worked at this diner since the start of goddamn time itself.

Whoever was on the other side of that phone was getting an earful now, though.

"You're not... yeah, but why aren't you...? Why aren't you on your way yet?... No, he can't come in. If you had told me yesterday, maybe he could've covered your shift. Get your.... no, just get over here soon as you can!"

She was still on the phone when I came out of the bathroom.

"Can you...? I know it's real short notice.... You know how he is! OK. Call me back."

Sounds like the first guy's a real asshole. Probably too drunk last night, sweating like Tim there. At least Tim was on vacation. That sort of fucking debauchery is alright when you're on vacation. Hell, it ought to be required. I bet those tight asses at work would be a helluva lot more tolerable if they got drunk and naked and sang Dixie off a porch once in a while.

I slid back into the vinyl seat across from Tim. He was staring out the damn window again.

"I'm pretty sure that's the same plane," he said and there was a loud crash from behind the counter.

Part One: Courtesy

2011-06-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

I will be writing about my trip to Savannah, Georgia in a series of posts arranged thematically. This is the first of a number yet to be determined. Probably three, since that seems to be a good, literary number. Let's see if I can do three.

The first thing that unnerved me about Savannah was that everyone was courteous. I don't mean "everyone" as a hyperbole, though. It was like I had walked into Night of the Living Dead, but instead of everyone being flesh-consuming zombies, they were genuinely outgoing and polite. So, I guess not like Night of the Living Dead at all...

In my mind, there are two functions of politeness: it is either a tool of manipulation or a way to deal with someone who is really pissing you off without punching them in the face. Apparently, there is a whole region of this country full of people who are polite for no discernible reason whatsoever. At least, none that I have yet figured out.

My first experience was with the on the cab ride from the airport with my two companions. The driver, an ample man with long, stringy gray hair, a goatee and a cane propped against his passenger seat, talked the whole time from the airport to the hotel. Without any prompting, he monologued, in a charming drawl, about the size and make up of Savannah.

"Savannah's one of the first planned cities in America," he said in a tone more suited to describing to a guest his family's home that had been built by some illustrious ancestor. "But it's not the oldest. That honor goes to St. Augustine in Florida."

I didn't know we gave out honors for that sort of thing, but I'll go with it.

The ride lasted 15 minutes, at most, but I learned more about Savannah in those 15 minutes from this cab driver than I did during the five days I was there.

He recommended bars if our tastes tended toward the more refined, and then suggested a few others if they didn't. He told us what we absolutely had to see while in Savannah, the specific houses, the best spots on the beach, the days the minor league baseball team played. He even started talking about the big industries in Savannah as he pulled up to the hotel.

As I got out of the cab with my two companions, I tried to account for this behavior in some way I understood. I figured he was so chatty because cab drivers work for tips. Why else would he be making conversation with us except to help his odds of getting a better tip? But even so, I've been in cabs in Portland, in Boston, in New York and DC and I haven't ever met a cabby so willing just to chat.

Maybe he was just bored. Or perhaps, an eccentric.

But it got weirder.

You cannot smoke in doors in Savannah, but you can take your drinks outside with you. As long as your bourbon's in a plastic cup, who's to say it isn't just sweet tea? And drinking sweet tea out of doors is most certainly not a crime in Savannah.

My friends decided to take a smoke break just outside the bar where we were shooting pool, on River Street, along... well, the river. Being of a boisterous bent, we were making merry on the cobblestone road. An older barefoot man came around the corner, looking a bit shabby. He was clearly down on his luck and hadn't changed clothes in a while. He hung around nearby for a bit as I tried to avoid making eye contact since I assumed he was going to ask us all for money.

Eventually he came up to our group and I braced for the awkward moment when he asked for money, we said no, and he would persist a little while longer and then wander off. I know I'm a selfish bastard, but I would prefer if the cold, harsh reality of poverty (whither but for the grace of my parents go I) wouldn't slap me in the face every time I was out drinking to forget about it.

Instead of asking for money, he pulled out a dried palm leaf that he had knitted into the shape of a tiny little rosebud and handed it to one of the women in our group. He flashed a smile and said, "This is for you." After a beat had passed, he produced another one. "And this is for you," he said as he handed it to another one of our companions.

He started walking away when the first girl called him back and stuck out a few dollars for him to take. Hesitating, he took it and sheepishly thanked her as he walked away. In my mind, I imagined him doffing a hat he wasn't actually wearing as he turned to leave.

His intention from the start had obviously been to get money from us. But instead of the usual bitter aftertaste in my mouth when I turn a beggar away, knowing I have money but not really enough to give (though clearly, as the cup in my hand demonstrated, I had enough to spend on booze), this experience was downright pleasant.

After my second day in Savannah, I had begun to understand that not everyone who called me "Sir" or asked how I was doing was mocking me or trying to butter me up. In fact, it seemed like none of them were.

No, it's most certainly too good to be true. This must be running a different racket down there: they butter you up on your first trip there and get you comfortable. Then, after you come back a few times and once the humidity, the mint juleps and their polite and friendly demeanor have lulled you into a blissful comfort, they pounce.

Now if I can only figure out why they would go through so much trouble to get me.

2011-06-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

I got back to Los Angeles around 11:30 PM Sunday night and, after four days of merry-making, I'm having a bit of trouble getting back into the swing of writing. I've started several posts about my trip so far and I have been thoroughly dissatisfied with the results, so I think I'll try again later.

In the meantime, here are some pictures I took of people and places in the past few days.

If there are such things as ghosts

I imagine that they would look like something out of a black and white photograph

a pale relief

negative space in the shadows

their forms permanently stuck in a fleeting moment

completely unaware

of what a beautiful, lonely spectacle they are

proximate yet untouchable

lost to the past yet seemingly very much alive

2011-06-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

There are some places in the world where, no matter how foul my mood or how poorly my day has been, a few moments spent there will renew my neighborly love for my fellow man. However an airport is not one of them.

Actually, that’s not true. There are no such places.

The Day Before The Adventure

2011-05-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

This is the day before it begins. The last day of May in the year of Our Lord two thousand and eleven. Today is Departure Day-1, or "D Day-1."

As with all brave adventurers before me, I try to discover what I can about a place before I go there. To be armed with a sword is, of course, wise. But to also be armed with knowledge is the true distinction of a hero!

So far, here is what I've learned. Savannah is a city... an old city, I think. Oh, and it's on the coast of some ocean. The Atlantic? That would make sense, since it's close to ATLANTA! It's all coming together now.

By all accounts, the Savannah-onians are friendly and, despite my original belief, NOT cannibals. At least all explorers who have gone before me have returned with no harrowing tales of human-sized cauldrons or the like. But what of their strange customs? What of the mysterious and inscrutable ways of the savage Savannah-onian? There, deep in the wilds, there is no predicting what strange things I, your brave warrior-explorer, will discover so far from civilization and the comforts we all enjoy.

With every adventure, I take my life into my own hands. And every adventure, though rife with risk, holds copious rewards awaiting discovery by a soul brave enough to reach out and take them with the confidence that it is his destiny to do so, made manifest by God.

Tomorrow, I embark on such a journey to the wilds of Savannah, where I will live amongst the natives in their natural habitat and I will either return victorious, Savannah with all her secrets opened to me like a flower opens to the divine, life-giving light of the sun; or I will die there, a stranger in a strange land, my body no doubt to become some feast for a savage manbeast with none to give me a proper Christian burial.

Here, I sit, stoic and reflective during my last day amidst the familiar trappings of civilization: a couch, a cup of coffee, two tiny dogs, a plasma TV, an Xbox 360, an iPhone, a surround sound system are my only companions as I await to plunge deep into the unknown.

The mustache and I make ready for our adventure.

Memorial Day Memorializing

2011-05-30T12:16:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, all!

Sorry for the weekend-long silence. I've been busy getting ready for my trip to Georgia on Wednesday. It'll be my first time to the South and I expect mixed results. Today is Memorial Day and as I'm sure you all know, Memorial Day has its origins in the American Civil War. And all of you who know me won't be surprised that William Tecumseh Sherman is one of my idols (Like how I did that? Brought it around, didn't I? Pretty cool, huh? Huh! Huh!).

Source: Wikipedia Commons

Look at this man! Disgruntled, disaffected, unforgiving and, no doubt, hung over. In his grizzled, battle-weary eyes, you see the fire of a hundred burning towns and not a glint of mercy. In a time when photography was new and each subject would pose in a manner meant to convey a carefully cultivated image, he sat, hair unkempt, the judgement of an Old Testament patriarch etched upon his stony face, arms crossed defiantly in front of him as if to say that no amount of pleading would swerve his mighty hand as he meted out God's justice.

From November to December in 1864, Sherman and his men tore through the heart of the South, burning everything with a righteous fire. At the end of his march, Sherman and his men stood at the outskirts of Savannah, the gentile coastal town and terminus of Sherman's scorched earth campaign. The story goes that he was so taken with the city's beauty that he spared it his wrath and gifted it to Commander-in-Chief Abraham Lincoln.

A little dramatic? Perhaps. But it was the Civil War, people! Its consequences remain heavy in the American soul, so much so that the names of its heroes are with us everywhere. For example, Sherman was immortalized forever in the name of the tank that the Yankees rode into battle against the Nazis:

A Sherman tank on display.
Source: Wikipedia Commons

And the noble aristocrat, General Robert E. Lee, whose personal conflict between serving his nation or serving his home was a deeply personal microcosm of the grander conflict in the United States at the time, received the highest honor his homeland could offer:

Bo, Luke and Daisy Duke with the General Lee, named
for the South's greatest (and perhaps most tragic)
Civil War hero.
Source: Hazard County, GA Historical Museum

I'm sorry. I had to do it. It was a damn fine car, though. Here's another picture of the General Lee doing what it does best, flying! Over swamps!

Source: Society of Historical Southern Aviators

I can hear the voice over guy, "Them Duke boys seem to find themselves in more trouble 'an a fox in hen house. That low-down mean ol' snake Boss Hog sho' won't ever let those boys catch a lick of rest, will he? But look at the General Lee fly! Them boys sho' are slick."

Actually, even though I make a lot of fun of it, I'm really excited to go to the South. Especially Savannah, since it should be a treasure trove of suspenders, mustaches and three piece suits in impossibly hot weather. Maybe I'm expecting too much... Maybe I'm letting my imagination run away with me. Well, I'll find out soon enough!

Stay tuned for my adventures down south, guaranteed to be a hoot and a half! They talk like that down there, right?

A Fashion Update, Kind Of

2011-05-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

I guess this is technically a Fupdate, it being Friday and all. As usual, I started the day off with big plans: do some writing, go to Santa Monica to interview some people, do some more writing, maybe eat something here and there. But I resolved myself to more modest accomplishments.

Like sewing buttons on the inside of my pants so I can where suspenders with them. That was actually not a complete waste of time, since it's part of my preparations for my upcoming trip. I've dusted off the straw fedora, readied my pants for suspenders and trimmed my facial hair into a rakish mustache!

Bathroom mirror self-portraits are sort of
against everything I believe in, but no
one else was around.

Yup, I'm ready for my trip back to the 1920s, where the prices were lower, the men were drunker and the women were ... flapper-er, I guess?

I'm actually heading to Savannah, Georgia because two Peace Corps friends of mine are getting married... to each other! Convenient, no? I get to attend both their weddings at once, which is a relief because they live far away and if they hadn't married each other, it would've been prohibitively expensive to go to both weddings. Though, I guess if they weren't dating, it's possible one of them might have ended up closer to California... See? This is why I don't deal in counterfactuals; they are likely to make my brain hurt.

It figures that I would go to a wedding, full of young women who will most likely be drinking and in a romantic mood, dressed like that. I am pretty sure my ensemble will successfully preempt any possibility of a tryst impromptu. I am pleased with my old-timey look, though. I'm thinking about going on stage like this. Maybe I'll do some topical humor from 1937.

"Did you hear the joke about the Hindenburg? It killed!"

"Have you heard about these new aeroplanes? I tell you, the idea will never take off!"

"But seriously, folks. I'm a time traveler and you all only have two weeks to live."

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to end that routine.

Alright. It's Friday night! And that means... I need a drink to douse the fire of hate and sadness in my eyes. Also, I want to watch another episode of News Radio before it gets too late and I have to go to sleep, because I am now on the life schedule of an 80 year-old.

I guess I dress enough like one as it is.