Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Monday, September 22, 2008 )

What’s in the stock photos that are describing your world to you today?

–*Wall Street trader puts hand against forehead.

–*A shot of the Morgan Stanley name in etched glass with the reflection of a little girl.

–*Three girls and one guy laughing in front of a college dormitory.

–*A polar bear trapped on an ice floe

–*A BlackBerry in a toilet

–*Angry Muslims with their hands raised in the air

–*Static electricity

–*A black swan

–*Nickels, dimes and quarters

–*A black woman in a pant suit

–*A white Alaskan in suspenders eating chili

–*A row of Emmys

–*Palms in a violent wind

–*A woman holding textbooks and a baby

–*Cocaine on a glass table

–*Poker chips

–*Pamela Anderson

–*A snow machine ridden by a man wearing a hat with ear flaps

–*A frog wearing a hat with ear flaps

–*Moose

–*A picture of a library and Sarah Palin

–*A rig bursting at the seams with oil

–*A man with glasses inspecting an electric car

–*A shot of the original O.J. Simpson trial

–*Yankees stadium with a waning gibbous moon at dusk in the background

–*Pamela Anderson with a waning gibbous moon at dusk in the background

–*Merrill Lynch with a waning gibbous moon at dusk in the background

–*Viagra

–*Shark meat on a glass table

–*Dollars, euros, yen and other things you soon won’t have

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(Originally posted Sunday, September 21, 2008 )

There are many ways that a writer can prune bad and overused words from his or her writing to make it punchier. Here is a list of pointers in my new section, “Beauty is Imperfection’s Writing Tips.”

1) Don’t be tempted to start a sentence with the word “there.”

Poor: “There was no one at home.”
Better: “I couldn’t find anyone in the house to shoot in the head.”

2) Go on a “which” hunt. The word “which” is often a weak pronoun.

Poor: “We went to eat at the the bistro, which had great food.”
Better: “We went to eat the pork sausages made out of dead New Jersey mafia guys at the bistro.”

3) Instead of using second person, which is weak, be more exact.

Poor: “My grandfather would always give you a nickel.”
Better: “My grandfather would always give a whore a nickel.”

4) The word “when” is usually unnecessary for past tense if people realize that the situations explained were concurrent.

Poor: “When the train skid off the rails, it killed two people.”
Better: “The train skidded off the rails and killed two people because safe working conditions in this country are a joke.”

5) The word “very” is usually unnecessary.

Poor: “The stock market faced very serious turmoil this week after the meltdown of AIG, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.”
Better: “You are all fucking fucked this week after AIG, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch got the bung starter from unregulated greaseballs.”

6) A writer should not use the word “as” so often to describe timing.

Poor: “George W. Bush was in Houston this week keeping mum as some of the largest investment banks fell apart.”
Better: “George Bush doesn’t give a shit about you.”

7) A writer can almost always avoid the word “really.”

Poor: “Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was really concerned about what would happen if AIG were allowed to fail.”
Better: “Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is nationalizing the nation’s largest insurer because everyone’s a socialist during a great depression.”

8 ) Try not to use “be” verbs as “is/am/were”

Poor: “I am feeling nervous about the stock market.”
Better: “The stock market makes me want to put a gun in my mouth.”

I was inspired to write this little post after seeing this Web site:

http://preciseedit.com/Article10OverusedWords/tabid/215/Default.aspx

As a professional copy editor, I can tell you, the tips mentioned on this site are completely useless, and these so-called weak words are the least of your problems if you want to improve your writing. I suggest you listen to these tips never.

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(Originally posted Friday, September 19, 2008 )

What are we writing on Twitter?

Joey is brushing his teeth. (posted 8 a.m.)

Millie is picking her nose (posted 8:05 a.m.)

Sera is baiting rat traps (posted 9:16 a.m.)

Jerry is having sex and Twittering about having sex (9:30 a.m.)

Michael is having sex and dumping his shares of Morgan Stanley stock (9:45 a.m.)

Hank is having sex and also engineering the bailout of a giant insurance company as part of his capacity as Secretary of the Treasury.

Stephanie is in deep check. (9:52 a.m.)

George W. is doing absolutely nothing in what has become largely a ceremonial figurehead role greeting the members of the Spice Girls in the Rose Garden and reciting Persian ghazal poetry for the president of Costa Rica. (9:53 a.m.)

Amy is having sex. (9:45:30 a.m.)

Amy has just climaxed (9:45:45 a.m.)

Amy is now eating a whole bag of Chips Ahoy! (9:46 a.m.)

Amy is suffering from post-coital depression.

Amy is watching E! True Hollywood Story, the official show for post-coital depression.

Martha is having sex with Doogie (posted 10:22 a.m.)

Doogie is having sex with Martha’s twin sister Debbie but Martha doesn’t know. (posted 10:22 a.m.)

Debbie is having an iced latte at Starbucks and was supposed to have an assignation with her twin sister Martha’s boyfriend Doogie, but she doesn’t know where he is. (10:22 a.m.)

Doogie is apologizing to Martha for having sex with somebody he only thought looked like Martha but turned out to actually be Martha. (10:23 a.m.)

Dwayne is opening up the guts of a moose and sliding his brother Dack’s body inside to stave off frostbite (11:00 a.m.)

Dack is covered in blood, guts, heart, spleen, shit and viscera (11:02 a.m.)

Todd is taking care of his children Track, Piper, Willow, Trig, Bristol, Jug, Spike, Spackle, Marmaduke, Spindle, Spud and Black Top

Rue is writing a tweet for Darla (11:30 a.m.)

Darla says she is sick of reading Rue’s twitters, yet is still reading them anyway (11:31 a.m.)

Sam is eating Pop-Tarts, finishing a 1,000 page apocalyptic novel and committing suicide. (11:31:50 a.m.)

Rex is walking up to Daryl (11:32 a.m.)

Rex is pulling out a baseball bat (11:33 a.m.)

Rex is accosting Daryl with baseball bat (11:33.30 a.m.)

Rex is bashing in Daryl’s soft tender brains with a baseball bat (11:33:45 a.m.)

Daryl is dead. (11:34:46 a.m.)

Sarah Palin is asking what’s the difference between J. Edgar Hoover and a pit bull is. It’s lipstick!

Sarah Palin is asking what’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull. Lipstick! Get it? The pit bull wears lipstick.

John McCain is asking what’s the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom? The pit bull has more foreign policy experience.

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(Originally posted Thursday, September 18, 2008 )

John McCain Gives Voters Regular Updates on the Current Financial Crisis on Sept. 17, 2008

9:30 a.m. “Ladies and gentleman, I just want to let you know that as of this morning, I still believe the economy is fundamentally sound.”

10:30 a.m. “There is a great fear among the American people about the state of the markets, but the economy is redoubtable and will surely make a comeback, I believe.”

11:30 a.m. “The U.S. has been buffeted this week by severe shocks to the financial system, which is now crippled in its ability to execute trades and get deals done, but corporate earnings are still resilient. At least that’s what my advisers tell me. I’m not that good with the economy, as I’ve said before.”

12:30 p.m. “The U.S. economy is strong even though it has been harmed by the perception of the American people of poor corporate governance, rampant greed, the overheating of markets amid a torrid pace of deregulation, collateral meltdown and the inflated bidding of credit risk. But at the end of the day, that’s just a lot of big words.”

1:30 p.m. “The American economy is starting to smell like bad milk on a hot day, but Americans are a strong people and they will drink it. They will drink that sour milk. It will go down their awaiting gullets like manna from heaven and it will land in their stomachs and they will take it like men and Alaskan women.”

2:00 p.m. “I think we need a panel.”

2:30 p.m. “If you didn’t at least sometimes share with all your countrymen a bit of false confidence in the value of worthless paper, this whole capitalism thing wouldn’t work very well, would it? I ask you that!”

3:30 p.m. “We must stay on message: Republicans believe in free markets, laissez faire economic policy and tax cuts that pay for themselves. We know that when you look in our eyes, you can believe that, even though, OK, we cheated a little today and nationalized the 18th largest company in the world, which is the kind of move you’d probably expect from Daniel Ortega, Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro. We hope you, the taxpayer, enjoy the brand new insurance company you own–AIG–and we’ll be asking you to submit ideas for a new logo.”

4:30 p.m. “We are in an age of greed. It is rampant greed and corruption that has caused this mess–the unfettered ambition of people who are leveraged through their eyeballs and don’t know how to make one dollar unless they are borrowing fifty. And who gives them this money? Investment banks. Only now there are no more investment banks to lend anybody anything. So the system has fixed itself. Everything is working according to plan. Ahahahahahah!”

4:35 p.m. “My friends, what has happened is that scads of wealthy investors–the center of the American economy–have been betting for the last four years that you wouldn’t be able to pay for your new house, and for that they got paid 12 cents of every dollar of your mortgage. But then you really did it: You actually failed to pay for your new home. You weren’t really supposed to do that. We just wanted the 12 cents.”

5:00 p.m. “The Dow Jones index is down 450 points. It’s the god damn hedge funds who did this. They’re the scum of the Earth. Get them!”

5:30 p.m. “We must find the executives who did this and go to their houses with pitchforks and frog march them outside and make them walk naked down the street, throwing pieces of worthless triple-A rated bond paper at them dipped in kerosene and set aflame.”

5:35: p.m. “Panic! Panic!”

5:38 p.m. “Oh my God, I just drank somebody’s blood. What have I become?”

6:30 p.m. “Kill you rat men. Kill!”

7:00 p.m. “I paid for this message.”

7:30 p.m. “Look, my friends. Let’s just be honest: Republicans aren’t much for doing anything about the economy other than letting the fires run wild and burn your house down. You ought to know where my party stands on these issues by now and know that there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’d rather just shut my mouth and hint that you vote against me. Geddit?

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(Originally posted Wednesday, September 17, 2008 )

Stephanie and I are very thrilled to announce that our Web show “The Retributioners” has joined the newly launched Axis of Comedy Network, sponsored by For Your Imagination, Inc (FYI). You’ll now be able to watch our show here, along with some of the funniest web content currently out there.

We are so proud and honored to be joining these very popular shows:

The Burg
Abigail’s Teen Diary
Break a Leg
Goodie Bag
Goodnight Burbank
Kyle Piccolo – Comic Shop Therapist
The Patrice Oneal Show

This is a MAJOR step for us. For Your Imagination will be promoting all of the shows on the network! Expect lots of interviews, possible merchandising, and tons of new content!

Please bookmark the site and spread the word. The site officially launched today, and the big announcement about its launch was made tonight (Tuesday) during the New York Television Festival! Steph and I participated in the festival and even had a red carpet picture taken with Tom Stephens, from Episode 1!

Here’s a story about the new network on Tubefilter.

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(Originally posted Tuesday, September 16, 2008 )

Just a couple of quick announcements for our friends. The first is that evidently my wife has created some MySpace RSS feed that alerts her whenever my blogs are posted. So I want you all to imagine Stephanie’s BlackBerry vibrating on her person right now, even as we speak.

Next, Steph and I would like to invite our New York friends to come out and see us, your fave Retributioners, live and in person tonight (Tuesday Sept. 16) at the New York Television Festival, where we will be seen along with the world premiere screening of “Axis of Comedy,” an online comedy network featuring the funniest new Web series. The screening and panel will take place at 340 W. 50th Street at the New World Stages here in New York at 8:15.

Third, Steph and I are almost finished with Episode 8 of “The Retributioners,” whose release we are holding for a few days as we wait for an important announcement (either during or shortly after the festival).

If you’re dying for new content right now, though, I again invite you to watch my friend Sabina’s entry for the Mad Men video contest. She made the finals! And she asks that you please vote for her again if you like this brief, funny clip.

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(Originally posted Tuesday, September 16, 2008 )

“Lehman Brothers”

“Lehman Brothers” + bailout

“Lehman Brothers” + bailout + “U.S. Treasury Secretary” + “over my dead body”

“Merrill Lynch” + “fire sale” + “Bank of America” + “Half its recent share price”

“Dow Jones” + plunged + “500 points” + market + crash

“Lehman Brothers” + “credit default swaps” + “billions in write-downs”

“Lehman Brothers” + “completely overvalued” + books + derviatives + assets + worthless

“What are credit default swaps?

“Where can I get credit default swaps?

Where can I get credit default swaps in Hannibal, Missouri?

Where can I find a hooker in downtown Manhattan?

“Lehman Brothers” + “bad mortgage credit derivatives” + “subprime mortgages” + toxic

“Jenny McCarthy” + “Playmate of the Year”

“Sarah Palin” + MILF + “I can see Russia from here”

“subprime mortgages” + “10% down” + deadbeats + “home equity loans” + “plasma TVs”

What is a mortgage derivative?

How can I sell my friend Larry’s chance of defaulting on his mortgage to my friend Steve for 0.3% over Larry’s mortgage face value?

“Lehman Brothers” + “risk buyer” + “bad mortgages” + “owes billions of dollars in credit defaults to risk sellers” + “subprime mortgages”

“subprime mortgages” + toxic + botulism + Polonium 210 + cancer + evil

“Barack Obama” + “will raise taxes”

“John McCain” + “will raise taxes”

“Marie Osmond” + “will raise taxes”

“Jenny McCarthy” + ubiquitous + autism + “Larry King” + “every month”

Vietnamese + “massage parlour” + “full release” + “stock broker” + “clinically depressed”

“David Foster Wallace” + suicide

“David Foster Wallace” + “highly erudite” + “Infinite Jest” + “book most people haven’t finished”

Russia + “South Ossetia” + Georgia + “Condoleezza Rice” + “fuck you”

Where is South Ossetia?

Where can I find a full release massage in South Ossetia?

South Ossetia + “bus schedule”

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(Originally posted Sunday, September 14, 2008 )

For those of you (like me) who are fans of big long difficult works of metafiction, you will be sad to learn that David Foster Wallace has passed on, apparently from a suicide. As a person who, like Wallace, is also an out-of-control Thomas Pynchon fan, I’m sad to say that the collective consciousness of human minds, our great noosphere, is greatly diminished this evening, lighter and emptier.

So it goes.

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(Originally posted Saturday, September 13, 2008 )

An article by Eric Rasmussen (as of right now, rejected by Forbes, Fortune and People magazines)

Why are your food prices so high?

This is a very tricky topic that will no doubt leave you confounded, but we here at “Beauty is Imperfection” would like to set a few things straight about the dire state of our food prices. It’s true, world demand, including that from the huge populations in China and India, increased consumption of meat (which raises the prices of feedstocks), the weak dollar, the huge demand for ethanol (made from corn) and the always uncertain weather are wreaking havoc on commodity food prices and they may likely remain at nosebleed levels for some time. What can you and your family do?

1) Don’t eat for a few months. While this might seem like a drastic measure, after a few months, it would lead to millions of tons of surplus that will inevitably drive down prices and put affordable food back on your family’s table.

2) Grow your own food on the side of the road. This is known in peasant and sharecropper economies as “usufruct.” It is a splendid way to show the world and speculators that you are self-sufficent and don’t believe in phantom concepts such as “the U.S. dollar.” When you tell them this, make sure to make those air quotes around “dollar” to show them how you are above their despicable currency.

3) Become a Central American drug lord. The best way to keep food on your table is to have a small army of peasants working for you as well as an armed caudillo of armed “recompas” to swipe land and make fluctuating commodity prices work in your favor and kill your enemies. Who knows, you might even fall in love with a beautiful peasant girl from the pueblo and make her your mistress.

4) Sniff glue. This is another fancy trick known well on the streets of many Central American cities such as Managua, Tegucigalpa and Panama City. As every 12-year-old street scamp orphaned by civil war knows, glue, especially that used in boot soles, is a totally awesome appetite suppressant.

5) Create a black market tent city operating in your fine American cities like Tulsa, Memphis, Houston or (best of all) New Orleans. This is your way of saying, fuck money, I use the barter system. In the magical world of black markets (why haven’t they come up with this at Disney World yet?) all sorts of food can be bought for just pennies on the dollar. This is because you have, in essence, created your own spot market right here on the streets of Topeka and you no longer need be part of the American “economy.” Again, use air quotes when you say “I am John Q. Public and I am no longer at the mercy of those money lending thieves in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo.”

6) Move to a wealthier economy, like the one in Dubai, and send your family the money you make there back to the United States in the form of their dirham currency.

7) Blame Bill Clinton. He got a blow job in office and lied about it.

8 ) Blame George Bush. He invaded Iraq.

9) Blame tax and spend liberals. They have nothing to do with world commodity pricing, but at least blaming them makes you feel like you’re somehow knowledgeable and not just sitting there with your thumb up your ass.

10) Rally Congress to impose a consumption tax. If you haven’t abused poor people enough already, then this might finally be the thing that kills them.

11) Spend more time accruing wealth. You can do this by violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

12) Stop consuming more than you produce … because if if China and India consumed per capita as much as we did, it would take two and a half planets …. hey! Why are you throwing food at me?

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(Originally posted Friday, September 12, 2008 )

The city of Miami, where Stephanie and recently visited, was recently found by Travel + Leisure magazine to have the most beautiful people. Charleston, S.C., was voted to have the friendliest.

What are some other cities distinguished by?

–*Langston, Utah is the town that’s proudest about having no public transportation.

–*Myers, Texas has the least visible panty lines.

–*Dickerson, N.J. is the “mookiest.”

–*Watertown, Idaho has the driest water cooler conversation in all America.

–*Pittstown, Oklahoma is known as having the gunkiest oven hoods in the United States.

–*Manchester, Neb. is the town with the most attractive lipstick Lesbians.

–*Danke, Wyoming is the town with most thumbs per capita of any other U.S. city.

–*Moosehead, Alaska is the “porniest.”

–* 9/11, South Dakota is the town most noted for having more Sept. 11 commemorative material and memorials than any other.

–*Ghost Town, Arizona is the town where the most people don’t live.

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