Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Thursday, October 16, 2008 )

Check out Stephanie this week as a guest on This Week In Media, hosted by Daisy Whitney. She’s on podcast 111.

(Originally posted Thursday, October 16, 2008 )

Live Blogging the Presidential Debate, Oct. 15

–*”Joe Six Pack” has evidently gotten a job and he is now called “Joe Plumber.” Look! McCain’s economic program is already working!

–*McCain says that the people who come to his rallies are patriotic citizens wearing veterans caps and he will not stand and let them be insulted just because they are calling for Obama’s death.

–*McCain says that people know Sarah Palin. She is a reformer. Read: They know that in her six weeks of fame she has been accused of committing criminal abuse of power in Alaska and lied repeatedly to the national news that she was cleared for it.

–*McCain: “Special. Needs. Children!”

–*McCain says that Palin’s husband is a tough guy, too. Read: He wants to secede from the United States.

–*McCain attacks Obama for his connection to a small group whom he accuses of voter fraud. Let no one be mistaken: when it comes to voter fraud, including purging eligible low-income citizens from the rolls, using dubious touch-screen voting machines or scaring people away from the polling places, Republicans are the leaders and they will not let it be suggested that someone stole the march from them or outplayed them on the voter fraud game in any way. Republicans fraud better than anybody.

–*Obama: “My so-called link to a former domestic terrorist, Bill Ayres–a current education professor who also works with Republicans–has become the centerpiece of John McCain’s campaign.”

–*McCain: “Bill Ayres is a terrorist! A terrorist!”

–*Both McCain and Obama think the United States will be off foreign oil in 10 to 20 years. Which is like saying human beings will be off their dependence on red blood cells in 10 to 20 years.

–*McCain: “You can’t really understand people from places like Iraq and Vietnam and Colombia unless you’ve been in their countries, flown over them and bombed the shit out of them.”

–*Hey, at least this debate is a debate. Palin, besides not knowing what a vice president does, what the Bush Doctrine is, or what newspapers she reads, doesn’t know what a debate is either. It means addressing questions that have been addressed to you.

–*McCain: “We need to get America to the gyms to take care of the health care crisis in this country. After all, big corporations are consolidating and pushing up health care prices, consolidation that undercuts price competition and keeps your most basic health care needs expensive. Thus, you must pay higher health care costs to burnish their stock prices and meanwhile, they get to lower their own expenses (including what is paid to your doctor). So yeah, given all this, a gym membership is what you need most.”

(Originally posted Wednesday, October 15, 2008 )

Lagging In the Polls, VP Candidate Sarah Palin Scores High Marks on Anchorage Junior Hockey League’s “Fuckability Index”

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA (API) – As the number of weeks left in the sometimes bitter 2008 U.S presidential race dwindle, a number of polls show vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her running mate John McCain lagging in the polls. However, surprising support has come from a heretofore overlooked quarter, as Palin scores consistently high marks on the Anchorage Junior Varsity Hockey League’s “Fuckability Index.”

“Point for point, Palin is the clear winner here,” said 15-year-old Sammy Moynihan, team captain and star center for the Anchorage Cusk Eels. “We matched Palin on several important issues that we believe a credible candidate must have: looks, personality, brains, breasts, bottom, legs, overall sex appeal, and personal integrity.”

He added, “In our index, of course, Barack Obama falls way down to the bottom of the list at somewhere below 260 millionth place. He doesn’t even rate as well as Becky Hutchins in my civics class. A total hatchet face.”

Moynihan’s forward right, Jerry Rayhall, concurred with his teammate’s assessment.

“Our index is a little more sophisticated than most,” Rayhall said. “A lot of guys just do the T&A check, but there are some of us who also want a girl you could talk to and fall in love with. Someone who could squeeze out a few of your puppies there, ya know?”

Rayhall has scored three goals for the year and has eight assists.

The hockey league’s fuckability index was a think-tank project incubated “sometime in the late 1980s,” says team goaltender Larry “Longshanks” Weismuller, by one of his older brothers, christened on a piece of crinkled engineers paper during a night of crazed Onanism at the Log Creek High School Cabin Retreat.

“That first index was a little rough,” says Weismuller. “The first version was pretty much what you’d expect there. Just tits and ass there.”

Over time, however, with the help of input from older brothers and uncles and fathers and friendly aging grocery store clerk Mr. Buttons, said Rayhall, the index became a highly sophisticated political index that helped ferret out many more qualities that are bound to set a female apart.

“Sarah Palin’s just blown the list wide open, there,” said Moynihan. “I mean, we never even thought to add talents like ‘sharp shooting,’ ‘moose packing’ and ‘payback.'” The latter, of course, was Palin’s “Dirty Harry type” persistence in persecuting her former brother-in-law, State Trooper Michael Wooten, whose nasty divorce from Palin’s sister provoked hostile family reaction that shook the highest levels of state government.

“Oh boy, I might have to add a notch to each category for that one. That whole Troopergate thing just made her knobs look bigger to me,” said Weismuller, adding a “1” to the breasts and thighs categories to round them out to perfect 10s for Palin.

The index is mathematically very simple says Kit Vonnegut, a forward who led in team back checks last season. Each woman is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 for each category. “For instance, Sarah Marshton gets a 2 for boobs and 10 for personality. And it’s vice versa for Violet Petty. Bitch won’t even look at me in history class.”

Vonnegut has an eye patch and a possible spinal cord injury after last year’s JV championship with the Nome Sled Dogs when he was brained by a wild puck while playing the blue line.

“But oh, Sarah Palin fills up my right eye mighty nice there,” he said.

Upon hearing about the “fuckability index,” the boys’ civics teacher pointed out “It’s an important sociological imperative getting students involved in politics at an early age.”

She then sent them straight to detention and a Newsweek investigation should follow next week.

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 14, 2008 )

Although I don’t know these people and do not currently share a comedy network with them, I LOVE this Web serial. Check out the gardening show on acid: “We Grow Together.” (First recommended to us by the inimitable Daisy Whitney.)

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 14, 2008 )

Often, movie titles are changed overseas so that foreign audiences will not be confused by American idioms. (City Slickers, for example, was called Life, Love and Cows in France). What are some of your favorite movies called when they travel around the world?

–*The Funny Woman Has Defunct Ovaries, Country: Croatia. (American title: “Baby Mama”)

–*No More Babies For You, Country: China (American Title: “Knocked Up”)

–*I Have Invaded Your Wedding Balls, Country: Argentina (American title: “The Wedding Crashers”)

–*Silly Streets of Blood and Come, Country: Vietnam (American title: “Taxi Driver”)

–*The Dead Poet Laughs. What Is So Funny?, Country: Indonesia (American title: “Sylvia”)

–*Honey, Did You Do No. 2? Country: Scotland (American title: “Liar Liar”)

–*Like A Cluster of Copulating Water Moccasins, Country: Bali (American title: “Dangerous Liaisons”)

–*Don’t Touch Me, Gay Man, Country: Iran (American title: “Philadelphia”)

–*White Men Don’t Have As Big A Penis To Put Inside, Spain (American title: “White Men Can’t Jump”)

–*Sex Love Hamburgers and Feces; Germany (American title: “Fast Food Nation”)

–*What’s In Those Suspenders?!?; Egypt (American title: “The Santa Clause”)

–*Grand Grand Grand Tetons; France (American title: “Grand Canyon”)

–*Woody Allen Waka Waka Happy Fun Time, Greece (American title: “Match Point”)

(Originally posted Monday, October 13, 2008 )

When did we realize that this novel wasn’t going anywhere?

–*When we entered the mind of the family dog.

–*When God tries to fool Abraham a second time by telling him to sacrifice his other son Smitty, but this time Abraham’s not going for it.

–*When Raskalnikov is feeling too guilty from murdering his landlady to have sex with his girlfriend Sonia and Sonia is OK with that. Whatever.

–*Daisy’s water has broken while she makes her speech on the floor of the U.S. Congress (starring Julia Roberts in the movie.)

–*Christopher, having found out about his father’s affair with member of the House of Lords, makes a psychological cry for help by falling down a neoclassical staircase with astonishing frescos painted by Tiepolo to his untimely demise, leaving his unborn son an orphan.

–*Dante goes with his lover Beatrice to heaven but admits that the cosmology is ambiguous and that much of it is veiled to his eyes, which is a real cop out.

–*The author goes on 100 pages longer than he should describing the tundra.

–*The psychologist starts to identify with the face eating cannibal dentist who is a linguistics hobbyist with a sharp eye for New Century Modern.

–*The homemaker from Columbus tames the heart of the Bavarian born Secretary of State who helped craft the policy of detente with the Chinese but never really learned how to love.

–*Dobie Gillis seems doomed to fail with this love interest Sasha, the money grubbing blonde whore.

–*The communist partisans take over and a priest falls in love with a goat.

–*A bizarre performance artist who walks around in a suit of pennies walks into what is surely to be an obnoxious and pedantic Tom Robbins scenario to talk about Goddess worship.

–*After poring over 2000 pages of linguistic and comparative religions studies to prove that the cult of the Templars doesn’t exist, Umberto Eco temporarily revives them just to kill off a minor prelate.

–*An anus starts talking.

–*…in imabic pentameter.

–*Whenever somebody ends up dead in a Michael Crichton novel and a small-town doctor begins talking about organized complexity theory.

–*Kathy Acker. Page One. Looks like somebody’s going to be gang raped. Lots of French post-structuralist theory discussed.

–*Harry Potter uses his magical herbs to get the dog drunk.

(Originally posted Sunday, October 12, 2008 )

“Sarah Palin”

Sarah Palin + “abuse of power”

Sarah Palin + “brother-in-law” + “moose hunting permit”

“moose packing” + tarp + “clean meat” + “no permit”

Wooten + violated + “hunting laws”

Palin + violated + “hunting laws”

Moose + packing + carcass + hauling

“How do I haul a moose I’ve killed?”

“How do I haul a moose I’ve killed in Wasilla, Alaska?”

packing + carcass + heavy + fines + disgusting

“How is it possible to haul a moose I’ve killed?”

“Why would anyone kill a moose?”

“moose hunting” + “gun nuts” + “.44 magnum” + “close range” + psychos

“How do I get my ex-brother-in-law fired?”

“How do I get my ex-brother-in-law fired in Wasilla, Alaska?”

Palin + “public safety commissioner” + “repeated phone calls” + “harassing visits” + discoverable + actionable + “law suits”

“Barack Obama” + “William Ayres” + “best buddies” + “same room” + “same panel” + “dismantle United States” + “Cambodian re-education camps”

Obama + Ayres + “Weather Underground” + “drank from same Dixie Cup”

Why is John McCain linking Barack Obama to William Ayres?

“Dow Jones” + plunged + 1500 points + “worst week ever” + depression + “market collapse” + “mass suicide”

“How do I find a job?”

“How do I find a job in Wasilla, Alaska?”

“Wasilla” + “crystal meth” + “Sarah Palin” + pentecostals + “speaking in tongues” + “witch doctors” + psycho

Wasilla + “bus station”

(Originally posted Friday, October 10, 2008 )

Stephanie and I have just pushed out episode 9 of “The Retributioners.” This one is entitled “Revenge of the JAPs,” and in it Stephanie confronts a group of girls from her high school who wouldn’t let her be part of their clique.

Whatever happened to Jewish American Princesses who were Jewish?

Featuring guest stars Samia Akudo, Jessica Arinella and Marni Penning.

This one’s got some strong language and themes, so be careful watching it at work.

Remember, you can watch all of our videos at Axis of Comedy.tv.

(Originally posted Thursday, October 09, 2008 )

As I get older, I stop feeling very enthusiastic about milestones. But having said that, I find myself feeling very chuffed that my film “S&M Queen For A Day” recently reached 100,000 views on YouTube.

Maybe it’s just because the letters “S” and “M” are in the title that it’s so popular. Maybe it’s that I’ve found myself the inadvertent darling of some BDSM/fetish communities. But I don’t care. After two years, I’m still very proud of this little existential short piece–which is not merely a film about bondage but about people coming to grips with their identity when they don’t know who they really are. This short launched my foray into a new medium. Two years on, I still think I did good. I hope you agree.

(Originally posted Wednesday, October 08, 2008 )

A live blog from tonight’s presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee.

–*McCain immediately comes out and starts scribbling something on a note pad. A camera close-up reveals what it says: “You are running for president, John, and this guy is your opponent. You cannot trust him.” Just like the guy with short-term memory loss in Memento.

–*McCain chides Obama for admitting out loud that he would make cross-border incursions into Pakistan. “I promise to do everything Obama is doing, but I wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell you,” McCain says.

–*McCain starts an anecdote about an old veteran he was talking to, but trails off and starts talking about something he was putting together with a glue gun.

–*McCain puts a hip spin on one of his patronizing “My friends…” intros with a new one: “Wassup my homies and beaaatches…”

–*When it comes to the almost impossible situation in Pakistan, where crazed fundamentalist Muslim terrorists have more power than ever and are regrouping in the safe bosom of an unstable nuclear power, both candidates promise to hide from you the horrible horrible truth about how it is now practically impossible to get Osama Bin Laden. Better to lie and tell you how hard they are going to try to get Osama Bin Laden.

–*The Obama Doctrine is laid out: It is a critique of the Bush Doctrine and pretty much nothing else. But it’s still better than the McCain Doctrine which is a full-throated approval of pre-emptive American ultraviolence.

–*McCain gives a shout-out to Israel by promising no new Holocaust. His brave stand against long-dead Adolf Hitler is a slam dunk with shitheads.

–*Tom Brokaw asks a zen koan: Who are you and how do you know for sure that’s who you are? It’s an impossible question to answer, but McCain tries: “The surge is working.”

–*McCain introduces a new puppet character: “John McPlatitude.”

–*McCain says that when we drill for oil offshore in the United States, the knowledge of greater supply will make the prices go down. Given that world oil supply is what affects world oil prices everywhere and that there still isn’t enough we could drill here that would dramatically change the world balance, it’s probably better to instead fall back on an earlier quote from the straight-talking McCain: “The issue of economics is something that I’ve really never understood as well as I should.”

–*The two candidates stood in front of Tom Brokaw’s teleprompter, blocking it for a moment and rendering him wordless. Then they accidentally kicked out the wire that plugs Tom Brokaw into the wall and makes him function.

–*Both candidates try to break the debate rules, including a prohibition of meaningless and disingenuous subterfuge like “America only fights for good.”

–*McCain says there are some things health insurance shouldn’t pay for. Like taking care of sick people.

–*McCain says the way to help regular people during the financial crisis is to stop the spending spree in Washington and buy up all the bad mortgages. Which is like saying “Let’s save all the polar bears and let’s kill all the polar bears.”

–*Still, McCain was sounding pretty socialist with that mortgage idea there. Raise taxes on the rich to Reagan-era levels and you might actually have something.