Seeing as how I have lived in the same neighborhood for nearing the start of my third year, one can forget about what might seem a touch ridiculous in other parts. Case in point: I left my apartment this evening carrying a handful of grapes — a bunch actually. This seemed perfectly normal as I wanted a snack for while I walked but then, as I sighted the man with a parrot on his shoulder around the corner, I realized that eating a bunch of grapes while you walk may, in fact, be vaguely outside the norm. Still, I would expect it lies closer to normal than having a parrot on your shoulder.
I've noted before that any sort of eating while one walks is considered rather strange behavior. Most people, it seems, sit down to eat. Me though, unless I have plans to dine with someone, I tend to feel that eating is more of an act to fill a void in energy before going to the next activity. I enjoy eating, I really do but, considering I'm often running late, if I can combine any activities, I'm doing myself a big favor.
Moving on in the extremely linear fashion that I tend to adopt in here, I want to take the time to post this video of Beth Stelling from last night's Conan O'Brien show. Beth is a person I got to know a little in my forays into comedy in Chicago and she's a real delight. Aside from actually being funny, she's also really nice and pleasant to spend time — even the limited time I've spent — with. Since I'm generally griping about nonsense on here, I want to be sure I'm balancing it with representing when good people do things well. So congrats to Beth Stelling, I'll always root more for the nice folks.
Speaking of nice folks, on the way to work this morning, a little girl in the backseat of a Volvo station wagon stared at me as I waited to cross the street so I gave her a big smile and a thumbs up. I realized this was not the most standard of responses, but it was enough for the kid. Thanks kid, for being one of those simple restorative dailies. I pulled the same on a little girl in a stroller walking home. For whatever reason, when kids smile at me, I get more excited than when adults to. I think their innocence translates to a genuine sense that I might not be an asshole. But also their innocence might make their judgment foolhardy!
Shit, other than that, I'm getting excited for the Olympics to kick off. I admit, I'd be happier if no one were on drugs, but there are so many weird chemicals in everything we eat and touch that many of us are turning out unwitting mutants...I just wish that for me it meant I was impervious to injury instead of being impervious to being impervious to injury!
Play on playas.
Showing posts with label Comedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comedy. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Mean
Mathematically speaking, it's the average. Middle-school speaking, it's just how a lot of kids act. Pop musically, it's a Taylor Swift song. And right as I was planning this, that song was being played by the company with whom our own shares an office. Now I dig that song, but that won't prevent me taking digs at it here. Away we go.
Swift is assailing a bullying type in the song, for his physical and verbal abuse. But the problem I have is that she tells him how one day she (or the song's protagonist) will be living in a big old city, and all that individual will be is mean. Living in a city that I enjoy, I still resent the notion that living in the city makes you any better. It's precisely the kind of city superiority that makes people loathe cities from time-to-tim. How exactly does living in a big old city equate to a superior stance to being mean? The protagonist can still be a bitch/asshole, but because they will be living in a big ole city it's okay? People are people. Some are great, some are shit, some are in between. Some of them live in cities, and some of them live elsewhere.
I was also thinking that this song reeks of spite. But I realize that some day has not arrived yet for the protagonist, so perhaps this song is a little ditty or extended mantra that the protagonist tells themself internally to deal with the constant bullying they receive. Plus, there is the acknowledgement of the cycle of abuse, and it closes with "why you gotta be so mean," so there's that nice return, after all the hatred aimed at the "mean" person, to an attempt to be sympathetic.
As this shows, you can [over]analyze anything you like, but here's a lengthy analysis (and not of a Taylor Swift song) that I think is worth the read. It's about the role of the political comic or perhaps a better distillation is to say what the relationship of comedy to politics is versus what it could and maybe should be.
Also, a quick open letter to my legs and feet: please resume somewhat standard operation. I mean, I just want to run like maybe forty or fifty or more miles a week, and that's pretty normal right?
When I don't run, I'm liable to be more mean (jerk), when really I want to be mean (average) for what mean means for my body (running forty-plus miles at a variety of paces).
Oh, and have a nice weekend.
Swift is assailing a bullying type in the song, for his physical and verbal abuse. But the problem I have is that she tells him how one day she (or the song's protagonist) will be living in a big old city, and all that individual will be is mean. Living in a city that I enjoy, I still resent the notion that living in the city makes you any better. It's precisely the kind of city superiority that makes people loathe cities from time-to-tim. How exactly does living in a big old city equate to a superior stance to being mean? The protagonist can still be a bitch/asshole, but because they will be living in a big ole city it's okay? People are people. Some are great, some are shit, some are in between. Some of them live in cities, and some of them live elsewhere.
I was also thinking that this song reeks of spite. But I realize that some day has not arrived yet for the protagonist, so perhaps this song is a little ditty or extended mantra that the protagonist tells themself internally to deal with the constant bullying they receive. Plus, there is the acknowledgement of the cycle of abuse, and it closes with "why you gotta be so mean," so there's that nice return, after all the hatred aimed at the "mean" person, to an attempt to be sympathetic.
As this shows, you can [over]analyze anything you like, but here's a lengthy analysis (and not of a Taylor Swift song) that I think is worth the read. It's about the role of the political comic or perhaps a better distillation is to say what the relationship of comedy to politics is versus what it could and maybe should be.
Also, a quick open letter to my legs and feet: please resume somewhat standard operation. I mean, I just want to run like maybe forty or fifty or more miles a week, and that's pretty normal right?
When I don't run, I'm liable to be more mean (jerk), when really I want to be mean (average) for what mean means for my body (running forty-plus miles at a variety of paces).
Oh, and have a nice weekend.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
That Song We Would Sing in Elementary School
It appears it is a small world after all. This isn't quite a revelation to me as within this very blog I feel as if I am making note of this. I certainly bring it up in day-to-day life in conversation with other humans. But yes, there is a guy sitting in this coffee shop wearing a Svedka vodka promotional shirt for their idiotic "Party Like it's 2033" campaign, complete with weird robot lady and other tags like "bot or not." But the thing about it is I think it's my shirt. See at an open mic a little before Christmas, I was eager to unload a couple of promotional bar shirts I've acquired in the last couple of years, this among them. I have far too many shirts as it is, mostly because I never get rid of anything (case in point, the New Found Glory t-shirt I am wearing purchased the summer of 2003) and so I figured I would unload these. Most aspiring comics are flat broke as they are working some sort of rather crap job that affords them the freedom to stay out late at night pursuing comedy, to take off days when need be for the same reason, and also the misery and monotony from which a lot of comedy is borne (my own tends to more borne of oddity).
And this dude looks familiar too, meaning I have probably seen him at open mics. But I'm pretty good with faces, so everybody starts to look familiar, even people I've just seen once walking down the street. It's the idiot writer in me trying to analyze and create stories from the smallest shreds of observation. At any rate, I can't think of any jokes he has told.
There is also another guy seated even closer to me that I know for certain is a comic. We have met in passing, he probably recognizes me, but it's in that manner of running into someone you sort of knew in high school after. Neither really wants to say hello and each is kind of relieved when the other says nothing. But because we're seated we periodically have to look at each other, which is weird, especially while he sits there with his girlfriend. Furthermore, not long ago I had a recognition stand-off with this very same comic in a pharmacy chain. The individual I was with on that occasion asked why that man seemed to be staring at me/us and I explained that we recognized one another, but neither was really going to say something. It's sort of blameless and just how things like that are. So it goes.
Otherwise it's snowing. First snow of 2012! Don't you love when people point out firsts all the time and stuff? Oh come on curmudgeons we can't get mad at everything can we, but then you have to get mad at some things. Or do you? And connecting by similar distastes and dissimilar distastes is how the world works when we're not connecting on similarity of likes and dissimilarities of likes. And it is the first snow, and it was sort of glorious to run in this morning for both the crunch of planting foot on fresh, packable snow, and for the awesome little ice and snow cap that formed in my hair, complete with me running in short shorts, like a true asshole. You know what they say, life's short...and so are my shorts.
Dude just asked me to keep an eye on his computer. I am moving up in the world in trustworthy appearance, in spite of my pink, youth large t-shirt.
If you're in this cold, grab yourself some cocoa or something and warm up while you chill out.
And this dude looks familiar too, meaning I have probably seen him at open mics. But I'm pretty good with faces, so everybody starts to look familiar, even people I've just seen once walking down the street. It's the idiot writer in me trying to analyze and create stories from the smallest shreds of observation. At any rate, I can't think of any jokes he has told.
There is also another guy seated even closer to me that I know for certain is a comic. We have met in passing, he probably recognizes me, but it's in that manner of running into someone you sort of knew in high school after. Neither really wants to say hello and each is kind of relieved when the other says nothing. But because we're seated we periodically have to look at each other, which is weird, especially while he sits there with his girlfriend. Furthermore, not long ago I had a recognition stand-off with this very same comic in a pharmacy chain. The individual I was with on that occasion asked why that man seemed to be staring at me/us and I explained that we recognized one another, but neither was really going to say something. It's sort of blameless and just how things like that are. So it goes.
Otherwise it's snowing. First snow of 2012! Don't you love when people point out firsts all the time and stuff? Oh come on curmudgeons we can't get mad at everything can we, but then you have to get mad at some things. Or do you? And connecting by similar distastes and dissimilar distastes is how the world works when we're not connecting on similarity of likes and dissimilarities of likes. And it is the first snow, and it was sort of glorious to run in this morning for both the crunch of planting foot on fresh, packable snow, and for the awesome little ice and snow cap that formed in my hair, complete with me running in short shorts, like a true asshole. You know what they say, life's short...and so are my shorts.
Dude just asked me to keep an eye on his computer. I am moving up in the world in trustworthy appearance, in spite of my pink, youth large t-shirt.
If you're in this cold, grab yourself some cocoa or something and warm up while you chill out.
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