Chris Kelly

A Conversation With A Friend From High School In Which We Each Think We're Talking About A Different Horrible Part of My Life

2009-09-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

HS FRIEND: Hey Chris, long time no see. What has it been, eight years?
ME: Must be. Long time.
HS FRIEND: How are things with your family? I heard awhile ago about what you all are going through. I am so sorry.
ME: Oh it's okay. It's been pretty rough, yeah. But we're hanging in there.
HS FRIEND: Wow, so it's still a problem?
ME: Yeah. I mean, it's not going to get better. We're kind of just doing the best we can.
HS FRIEND: Oh, I thought for sure your mom would have gotten better by now.
ME: No. I mean, she's not going to. But it's okay. It is what it is.
HS FRIEND: And your dad?
ME: He's sad obviously. Really sad. We all are. My sisters, my dad, all of us.
HS FRIEND: Your sisters? I thought your sisters didn't care.
ME: Umm...what? Of course they care! Everyone's really torn up about it.
HS FRIEND: Oh, I thought they were okay with you being gay.
ME: Oh. Wait. What are we talking about?
HS FRIEND: You coming out to your family. I know your family was having a hard time about it.
ME: That was six years ago. My mom's actually totally fine with it now.
HS FRIEND: Oh, that's so great to hear! Wait. What were YOU talking about?
ME: Oh, now she has terminal cancer.
HS FRIEND: Oh. Oh my god. I'm so sorry.
ME: It's okay. This has been hilarious.

In the future, I'm only going to be writing to my new blog, which you can find here:

www.chriskelly.tumblr.com

Hello

2009-06-24T16:32:00.002-05:00

This is a blog I'm keeping about my mom. I feel weird promoting it or directing people to it, but if you want to read it, you may. It's mostly a project for me, but she is a great woman, so if people want to read it, why not?

Reasons I Love My Mother

I'm Going To Be Single For The Rest Of My Life

2009-06-11T16:13:00.004-05:00

I just cannot seem to pull it together.

For the last sixteen days, I have been filming for work almost every waking hour of the day. I have been walking around in a half-awake stupor, leaving contact lenses in overnight to save me the three minutes each morning of having to put them in, allowing me to sleep in a three precious minutes longer. On top of that, I recently moved, and I have yet to find the time or energy to take my clothes out of the large black plastic bags I shipped them in. So there my clothes sit, in six trash bags, crammed into my closet. Every morning I literally dip my hands into one of them and put on the first two things I pull out, hoping to god one is a shirt and one is a pant. One morning, the second thing I pulled out was a scarf, and I had a good five second hesitation, wondering if I could wear it as a shirt because I was too tired to dip in again for another option.

Not only that, but I have been sleeping in my clothes. Unless something literally has feces smeared down the front of it, I have been able to find a way to justify wearing it because its "not that dirty". In all fairness, I've been spending my days mostly in the dark shadows of the ONN set, surrounded by people who are equally tired and lazy about changing their clothes. It's not uncommon for me to be in a conversation with people on that set where people see who's gone the longest without showering or wondering if washing one's face practically counts as a half-shower.

Two days ago, the first thing I pulled out of one of my trash sacks was a pajama shirt. It's a V-neck I never wear out in front of people because I don't have that sort of douchey, sculpted chest that would make me want to buy and wear a V-neck. It's actually not even that deep of a V, but just the idea of wearing it makes me worry that everyone around me is thinking, "What does he think that V is doing? Is it supposed to be showing off something? Because I can't find it." But I put it on anyway, then spent the rest of the night tugging at the back of my shirt, trying to pull the V back, so it was more of a shallow V. But then the back collar of my shirt was too low and it exposed the neck zit I had/have. It was a constant struggle.

Sidenote: One time I went to get a haircut and the woman was shaving the back of my neckline, then stopped and said, "I can't quite finish. You have a zit back here I'm going to have to shave around." Really, hairstylist? You couldn't have let me just leave without that little piece of information? Am I really going to notice a small portion of my neckline being uneven? It's clear from the zit that I don't go back there much.

But anyway, the second thing I pulled out of my sack the day of the V-neck was a swimsuit. I didn't give it a second thought before putting it on. Plus, I didn't have to wear underwear!, I thought. That's how much of a mess I am. I justified it to myself by saying it was summer and I'm from California, and for all people know I easily could have just come from the pool. Within minutes of getting to rehearsal, everyone was like, "Is that a swimsuit?". I personally didn't see what the big deal was. But everyone was legitimately concerned, asking, "But what if you met someone today, someone you found attractive? And you were wearing that swimsuit?" To which I thought several things:

1. I'm not going to be meeting anyone.
2. No, really. I'm not going to be meeting anyone.
3. If I were to meet someone, I still would probably find three reasons to hate them in the five seconds it would take them to think, "No, that couldn't be a swimsu--".
4. I want to end up with someone who would be down with wearing a swimsuit as shorts when you're having a long, hard week and you don't want to put any work into looking like a person.

Then I went off on a long-winded day dream about meeting my life-long partner in this life while wearing said swimsuit. We would laugh about how off-kilter I was, about how I was just one sidestep away from having it together. He would be charmed. I would be discreetly pulling the hot mesh from off my ballsack because I forgot swimsuits have netting. And then we would kiss. And that would be that.

Then yesterday, I had to go to a concert at Radio City Music Hall, and about an hour before going, I spilled coke all down the front of my shirt. I had already been wearing it for two days, so it was on its last leg when it was doused in my drink. So I walked across the street to H&M to buy a shirt. That's how lazy I am. I would rather pay money for a new shirt than just do laundry. So I put on the shirt, and it was perhaps the first clean thing that had touched my body in weeks. I felt so good about myself. An hour later at dinner, I realized the tag was still on, hanging from my armpit. And I had just ridden the subway with a coworker for 30 minutes who HAD to have seen it, but didn't say anything.

But now the shoot is over. I'm going to do laundry tonight and take a good long shower. And a good long look at myself. That's probably the more important of the two looks.

If you see me, please give me a hug.

Moving Day

2009-06-01T13:39:00.003-05:00

The best way to describe this weekend's
moving-day experiences would be by allowing
both of yesterday's manic-depressive voices to speak:

I'm moving! I'm so excited! What a fresh start this will be. I'll gather up all my stuff - not that much really; it shouldn't take any more than four hours. Five tops.

Where the fuck did all this shit come from? Why do I own the collector's version of Apples to Apples in a giant 10lb box? Why do I still have this printer from college I never once opened because I didn't want to ever have to spend time setting up a printer? Why is there a clock with no batteries under my bed? Where did that come from? Motherfucker!

I think I'm going to paint. You know, it'll take awhile, but in the end, it will feel much more like home. I'll stay up till 4am painting, but it'll be fun. I'll put on some music, buy pizza, and just relax and paint, paint and relax.

I forgot about the motherfucking two-coats rule. And this room has a BORDER near the ceiling? Well, I have to paint that too. Goddamnit, why do I have to be so fucking meticulous? Did we just break the stove when we stood on it to paint? They really should build these to stand on! What if you were warming up a hefty stew? Then what, stove? I couldn't possible weigh more than a hearty stew!

Oh look, while we're moving all our stuff in, we get to meet all the people in the building. There's a girl who also went to UCI, a couple of seemingly attractive people, and children! What a fanciful arrangement of people. It's as if there's one of every type of people in this building. Except rich people. Look how the children play!

Get the FUCK out of my way, kids! You're really going to play on your scooters up and down the hall while I'm carrying a motherfucking mattress past? MOVE THE FUCK OVER!!!

You are pretty adorable though. Your name is Nathaniel? That's cute. What was that you asked, Nathaniel? What am I doing? You mean with all these boxes I'm bringing in?

MOVING, you DUMBFUCK KID! And I have never been more sore in my goddamn life. Look at you, all young on your scooter. Well you know what, life is hard. Pretty soon you grow up and you have to do things like move. You wouldn't love that scooter so much if you had to carry it up three flights of stairs while little kids played on other scooters at your feet!

Ooh, this giant TV my roommate inherited from a friend of his is going to be great in our living room. It's humongous and shows will really look great on it.

Oh what? It's 150lbs and not a flat screen? And it's lopsidedly-heavy? And we have to carry it up 50 stairs? No one has known pain like this before! Motherfucker! What does it look like when you burst a blood vessel in your hand! Is THIS what it looks like?

Ahhh, at least we're all finally moved in. It was a long day, but I really love this little place. Ahh.....

Oh fuck, is that a cockroach?!?

A New Onion Video I Wrote

2009-05-19T00:09:00.001-05:00

I wrote the script for this video. Hooray!

Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire

Three Reasons Why I Love My Mother

2009-05-08T12:43:00.003-05:00

1. My mom wanted to know if this was the last season of LOST a few days ago, and when I said no, she replied with 'What?! So we are STILL not going to know what's hiding out in that forest?". This woman has clearly not watched the show in years, and even when she did, she would watch it from the kitchen while she made dinner, hearing only every other line and talking over the entire episode with rhetorical questions. I watched one episode with her once and these are questions she asked (from the kitchen, unable to hear - but not see - the television):

- What? WHAT? I don't think so. What?

- Really? REALLY? I don't get it. What? Really?!

- Who's this now? What is going on? Why do people watch this show? Who is this? Is this the same guy from the other scene? Where did he get that bullet wound?

- I don't know what is going on. The plane crashed again? How many times is this plane going to crash? What? WHAT? Who, what?

2. Every time I go home to visit, we see a movie as a family. My mom thinks its fun to see a movie on Christmas Day and other holidays. She has terrible taste in movies. For awhile, she made certain SHE chose the film so that it was something everyone could see, even though my youngest sister was 16 at this point. However, for all her trying, the movies we went to always ended up being not only the most awful film currently in theatres but the most horrific. It didn't get better than when we saw Mr. Brooks (I think on Easter or something). In the first 20 minutes, a naked woman is shown fellating a man, before being shot in the back of the head by Kevin Costner, who then kills the man, and positions them in sexually grotesque positions to be found by police.

Then there was the "family movie" she chose because it had teens in it. Everything was going well until one teen lit himself on fire and we watched in real time as his face melted off his skull.

3. She is wonderful and brave and lovely.

Hangin' With Mr. Cooper

2009-03-12T12:39:00.003-05:00

My parents visited this weekend and as we walked through the Upper West Side, we passed by Richard Kind, who played Raul Reiser's friend on Mad About You. To jog your memory, this is his face.

When my dad passed by him, he was almost compelled to stop him and say how much he liked his work opposite the famed Hunt/Reiser comedy duo from 1992. He asked me if celebrities like that. Now while I'm sure Richard Kind would have been flattered to be called a "celebrity", I told my dad it was probably best to just keep walking.

Then my dad asked me if I remembered "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper". Apparently while in Santa Monica last week, my dad saw Mark Curry, who played Mr. Cooper, in a Starbucks. He was so excited, that when he saw him again in the parking lot, he drove up to him, rolled down his window, and said, "I just wanted to let you know that I loved your work on "Hangin' With Mr. Cooper". At which point, I'm assuming this guy was either assuming he was being mocked (again) or his year was completely made better by my father.

I just like the idea of my dad stopping a man who's most famous role is from a shitty TV show from 16 years ago to tell him how much he "appreciated his work". I bet Mr. Cooper went home and told his kids (that he probably has custody of every other weekend) about it!

Sweet

2009-02-12T17:22:00.004-05:00

I think this video is pretty sweet. But this kid is only like barely autistic.

Also, is it bad that I would have been more touched if he was like crazy autistic?
I was ready to cry but then I watched him talk, and I was like "Oh, that's not so bad."

Also, what the hell is wrong with this coach? If you tell an autistic kid to do something 100 times in a row, isn't that exactly what they're good at? Why did he wait so long to put this kid in?

I'm Just Like One Of Those People That Like Writes Blogs Sometimes

2009-01-26T15:15:00.002-05:00

One of my least favorite genres of people are the ones that start sentences with "I'm just like the type of person that...".

If you saw the last sketch show I was in, you saw a scene I wrote with my friend Jill about just these types of people. But I can't let it go. They are all over the place. When I was on set last week, I heard someone say, "I'm just like the type of person that like always uses their cell phone." Oh, really, idiot? Really? You're one of those crazy rare breed of people I often hear tell of that, in 2009, use their cell phones a lot? Really?

I hate when people try to co-opt some insignificant detail that all of humanity shares as some sort of special thing about themselves. Because it's never something like, "I'm just the type of person that is [something actually unique or impressive]"; it's always just some arbitrary non-thing that everyone does or is.

Here are some recent ones I've heard in my life. There's many more, but these come to mind:

"I'm just like the type of person that like NEEDS my weekends."

"I'm just like the type of person that gets like so tired after a long day."

"I'm just like the type of person that like can't always be on, you know? I just can't always be on."

"I'm just like the type of person that is like super trusting until you do something to make me not trust you."

What else? What else, people? You might as well tell me you're the type of person that needs to like inhale oxygen in order live. Or that you're the type of person that like NEEDS to consume food when you're hungry or you'll like die.

Someone once said they're the type of person that has like a really good sense of smell. Guess what? I bet they're not. I bet their sense of smell is exactly like mine: average. I bet you they just decided they were going to make that part of their personality; make it something that's "totally them", when it's nothing. It's nothing.

I'm actually not in a bad mood, despite how venemous this post was. I guess I'm just like one of those people that like sometimes are in a good mood and sometimes are not?

An Open Letter To Battlestar Galactica

2009-01-24T18:56:00.003-05:00

Dear Battlestar Galactica,

I am writing this after finishing Season 2.0 of you. I have spent the last six months hearing about how great you are, and after a miniseries and about 20 episodes, I can say this: you are decent. I think you could be great though, BSG, if you called yourself Battlestar Galactica: 5,000 Cylons, and every episode including the revelation that there's one more cylon than everyone previously thought. For example, I think every episode should be structured exactly like this:

1. Lights up on the revelation that there's actually one more
cylon in the fleet than they thought.

2. Cut to two attractive Galactica crew members
fucking somewhere on the ship.

3. Right as they finish, one of them realizes that
the other one is actually another cylon.

4. They do battle.

5. Cut to the cylon being imprisoned,
and as he/she is behind bars,
the attractive non-cylon says:
"Well, at least we know who all the cylons are now."

6. Cut to the cylon smiling knowingly, sexily.

7. End episode.

Basically, I want every episode to just involve your beautiful cast members having sex, finding out one of them is a robot, and then doing battle. Is that too much to ask, Battlestar Galactica? It's just that when some of your actors playing cylons talk about wishing they could feel love, I get a little queasy at the terrible acting and the stilted writing. And when Lee Adama starts talking I start thinking I'm watching an 8th grade play inexplicably set in space. So let's cut the nonsense and the extra dialogue, and let's just get right to the fucking, the cylon-revealing, and the battling. Okay?

Also, one last thing I don't understand, Battlestar Galactica, is why everyone on your show is so desperate to get to Earth. There are like a hundred of you floating around in space, and all of you are beautiful. Take it from me, Battlestar Galactica: I LIVE on earth and you are not missing ANYTHING. Have you SEEN the people we have down here? A lot of them look like this:

Also, Gaius Baltar is just a whiny, snively version of Desmond from "Lost".

Love, Chris

P.S. I am also going to spend the next 8 hours of my night watching you, Battlestar Galactica, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt. You know I love you, BSG.

My 10 Favorite Movies of 2008

2009-01-16T14:03:00.004-05:00

1. The Dark Knight
I love this perfect film.

2. Rachel Getting Married
I believed every moment of this movie.

3. Milk
Even though I hate gay people, Sean Penn's reaction when Prop 6 failed was pretty great. Though I could have done without him seeing the signs for that opera in the window's reflection as he died.

4. The Wrestler
This ruined me.

5. Revolutionary Road
I think a lot of people will not like this. For me, it was great writing and great actors screaming at each other for two hours. It's all I need in my movies.

6. Wall-E
My mom didn't like this movie. Nor does she like Star Wars or Happy Potter. When I asked her about Wall-E, she said "Oh, I don't like those movies about robots and wizards and beep-beep-boop-boop." Fair enough, mom. But I thought this movie was sort of magic.

7. Frost/Nixon
After The Wrestler, this was the best boxing movie I saw all year.

8. Slumdog Millionaire
I don't know if this makes me a pedophile, but the little girl in this movie is one of the most gorgeous people I have ever seen.

9. Iron Man
I guess I just like this so much because I can like relate...y'know?

10. Burn After Reading
This movie surprised me about every 10 minutes. If this slipped under your radar, like it probably did with most people, go find it.

Pull It Together, CNN

2009-01-12T10:44:00.002-05:00

A Christmas Play

2008-12-29T00:58:00.002-05:00

On Christmas night, I was given perhaps one of the greatest gifts of my lifetime.

I got to watch a fifteen year old Thai boy perform a lip-synched Christmas show in a suburban living room full of older white people, while dressed like a girl.

That was a long, confusing sentence, huh? Let me back up.

On Christmas night, my friend Eddie said that he was too tired to hang out, then called me five minutes later saying, "Just kidding, there's something you need to see. I'll be there to pick you up in ten minutes." He took me to his uncle's house, where he and his husband have been housing a foreign exchange student.

This year's student is Joe, a fifteen year old Thai boy, who considers himself a girl in a boy's body. Okay. I'm on board with that. Then Eddie tells me that Joe announced to his host-family and their entire extended family on Christmas that he would like to perform a 20-minute Christmas show for them in their living room. They obliged, and what followed was one of the most heartwarming, bizarre 20-minutes in recent memory.

So to set the stage a little more, Joe's audience was made up of about 15 people, all white, many middle-aged or older, including Eddie's 80-something grandfather. We all gathered in a tiny living room, and I had the unfortunate distinction of sitting on the floor, right in front, literally inches from the performer.

The show began with Joe, coming out in a girl wig, pink shirt, stuffed bra, and a blanket-used-as-a-skirt. He passed out programs for the evening. I saved one, and this is what it read:

Joe's Cristmas Show
Merry Cristmas

Track list (show 20 minutes):
Introduction - The Christmas Song
***Remember Our Own (Thai Dancing 4 Style)***
Encore - SURPRISE!!!!

So before I break down the show for you, section by section, let me say that the most hilarious, frightening, and insane moment of the show was the moment I realized it was all going to be lip-synching. This "20 minute play" was literally him just standing (or dancing) in front of us, while lip-synching into a stick of deoderant being used as a microphone. I was so close, I could hear the subtle sounds of his moist lips opening and closing as he lip-synched to the music. That's how bad.

Part 1: Introduction - The Christmas Song:

This part was lip-synching to Celine Dion's cover of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I shit you not. Joe sat there, dressed as a girl, and pretended to sing as if he were Celine Dion six inches in front of me. The moment it began, I thought I was going to literally shit my pants. I tried looking down to hide my laughing, but when I did, I would just see his size 10 men's feet sticking out of his blanket-dress and I would laugh even harder. I finally got my shit together and thought about how hard a life this kid will probably have, and I was grateful that he was in a home that was accepting of him. As bizarre as it was, most people were very gracious to him, so I didn't want to seem like I was mocking him. And even here, let me be clear: it was and is hilarious, but it was also still one of the most endearing things I have witnessed.

Also, sidenote, this kid's entire room here in America is covered with Celine Dion posters. I'm just saying.

Part 2: ***Remember Our Own (Thai Dancing 4 Style)***

So this part lasted ten minutes. He got up and danced to Thai music, lip-synching all the way. And boy did he dance. He danced and danced and danced. This was the part of the program where some people's fears started to subside. Some of the peripheral family members there were wondering if this would be a G-rated show, what with this 15-year old boy strapping on a bra and blanket-dress. Understandably, they were worried. But Part 2 showed that aside from the shock of him being dressed like a girl, it was a really vanilla performance. Until...

Part 3: Encore: Surprise

This encore was very much a surprise. After the traditional Thai dancing, interlude music continued playing as he rushed upstairs to change. When he came back down, he had a sheet over his head, and as he turned his back to us, all we could see was that he was wearing jeans now. That is until we saw him pull off his jeans with his feet. Then he threw off the sheet, turned around wearing just tiny shorts, and started gyrating to Britney Spears' "Circus". Yep.

He pulled a chair up onto the stage - again just inches in front of me - and stood on it. Then dropped onto it and proceeded to grind it. Then he threw one leg up into the air and stroked it seductively, before rubbing and fondling his fake breasts. He danced and lip-synched to this for the entire 4-5 minutes of the song. It was at this point that one family member, Linda, left. It was, perhaps, one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. To be sitting in this suburban living room in Sacramento on Christmas night with a bunch of older white people, as a little Thai lady-boy gyrated to Britney Spears, was more than I could have ever asked for.

I hope this kid has a good life. And I hope to one day include this in something I write. I know that I will.

Merry Christmas one and all!

An Onion Video I Wrote

2008-12-10T17:47:00.001-05:00

I wrote the idea and the script for this new Onion News Network video:

President To Face Down Monster Attack, Own Demons In Action-Packed Schedule

Celeb Sighting!

2008-12-10T11:16:00.003-05:00

I don't get star-struck really. Or at least, I tell myself and others that. But then how do I explain that today I saw the guy who makes the three cent stamps from one of my favorite movies of all time?

I walked past him on the street. Then went back to him and told him that I love his three cent stamps, that I have to use them every time they raise the postage.

He looked at me, probably stunned, then said "Hah, thanks." Then he walked away. Probably to go buy some nightcrawlers. Oh, Norm.

If you don't know what movie I'm talking about, never you mind. It's been an exciting morning!

I Am In TIME. Sort Of. Sure. Let's Say So.

2008-12-09T11:39:00.003-05:00

So my friend sent me TIME's annual collection of Top Ten Lists.

I was looking through it when I saw that one of the videos I wrote for The Onion was listed as the #7 Internet Video of the Year.

I am so, so very proud to take my place in history. Right above a 3-year-old talking about Star Wars and below a hamster on a piano.

Because, let's face it, I will never write anything as funny as that hamster on a piano video.

HOW'D HE GET ON THAT PIANO?!?

Why I Just De-Friended My Mom's Friend's Daughter, Who Is 18, On Facebook

2008-12-08T16:41:00.003-05:00

Her (public) status message:

Caitlin Michelle Young is Happy 9 Months BABBYYYY!!! te amo mucho, and you are sooo sweeetttt!!!!

His (public) comment on her status message:

When I saw you I was afraid to meet you.
When I met you I was afraid to kiss you.
When I kissed you I was afraid to love you.
Now that I love you, I am afraid to lose you.
happy 9th months baby.
i love you

10 Things I Learned In Hawaii

2008-12-01T02:23:00.002-05:00

1. I am making a mistake by not living in Hawaii.

2. Hawaii is Disneyland but without rides. By this I mean that it looks like a fake version of real things. The palm trees, though real, look like fake versions of what real palm trees look like. Same with the water. It looks like a Pixar-created representation of water. Too blue to be actual water. I guess I'm just so used to everything looking shitty, that once everything looks natural and clean and nice, the only way my mind can justify it is to think "This must be Disneyland".

3. "Mahalo" means "thank you". On the way to Hawaii, my sister incorrectly guessed that it meant "cheese". I told her the two words she would hear the most would be "aloha" and "mahalo" and so she surmised "cheese" must come in 2nd only to hello/goodbye. I'll say this about my sister: she is pretty.

4. If you spend a week sleeping on the foldout couch in the communal living room of your family's condo, you will spend 80% of your day enjoying Hawaii and 20% of your day figuring out when the hell you're supposed to masturbate.

5. When you are talking to people on the phone while walking the beach and they say "I can't hear you", and you say "Oh sorry, that must be the crashing of the waves at my feet", they won't laugh, even if it's clear you're trying to sound like a jerk on purpose. Jokes about being in Hawaii are never funny; they are grating and awful.

6. There are only two career paths I can take as far as my extended family is concerned: I can either be on Saturday Night Live one day, or I can not be. There is no in between. I tried explaining I'm more of a writer, to which one uncle said, "Y'know, we all turned on the SNL last week to see if you were on it. You weren't." That sentence, which doesn't make sense for reasons innumerable, is all that is repeated at me when I try explaining what I DO do for a living, which I still think is pretty interesting.

7. It is illegal to pet sea turtles. I learned this lesson after spending my afternoon petting sea turtles. Breaking the law has never been so fun! Except every night that I spend smoking marijuanna.

8. I am the annoying liberal asshole in my family. Which is still better than being the other 99 conservatives, but still, I did have several out-of-body experience where I found myself looking down at me and shuddering. For starters, I spent the week reading "The Audacity of Hope". I would bring it to the beach, even when I knew I wouldn't be reading it, just because I enjoyed the idea of my family casually seeing it on my towel. I would place it face down though, so it would look like I wasn't trying to show it off. Plus, that way, they had to say something casual like, "Oooh, whatcha reading?" I was very careful about getting in debates with my family; every time anyone made any sort of comment that remotely seemed political, I had to bite my tongue so as not to be that annoying Obama supporter. And a lot of those moments came up; if someone asked someone else to pass the salt, I would quickly figure out a way to bring up Obama, then immediately squash that urge.

9. Parasailing is fun. Especially if you can calculate exactly what time is on the East Coast and mentally picture all your friends either bored at work or cold on the street at that exact moment.

10. I will never be this tan again in my life, and I have to constantly fight the urge to lift up my shirt at people and say, "Look! Can you believe this!?!" It seems cocky, but it's more genuine surprise that my body was able to do this. I have to hold onto it while I can; already today I saw a little bit of peeling on my left arm, and literally whispered to myself "Oh no."

Why I Don't Play Games With My Extended Family

2008-11-30T20:11:00.001-05:00

11-year-old Cousin: Would you rather....be an Indian or a Black?
Grandpa: I'd rather be dead.

I Am Going to Hawaii...

2008-11-14T10:36:00.003-05:00

...and almost no one is supportive of this. I wouldn't be either; I would be mad at myself and think I didn't deserve it. And I don't. When I tell people that I am going to Hawaii, I see the most forced expression of joy on their faces. I know this false joy. I have experienced it many, many times in my life. Like when my friend Cody tells me that she can't hang out this weekend because she's going to Berlin. I smile, but secretly, discreetly, a giant invisible hand in my mind is reaching out and slapping her across her face.

I remember seething with jealousy a couple months ago when my sister Katie was invited to Hawaii with one of her friends on a whim. At this point, she already knew she was going before Thanksgiving with our family, but here she was getting to go TWICE. I was afraid she was turning into one of "those people". You know, those people that just always seems to be traveling. Those people that are always just casually like, "When I was in Morrocco earlier today...". Those people that travel with the same frequency and ease that I eat chips and salsa in my boxers while watching Top Design.

So I was terrified that my sister was going to turn into one of those people that just always casually falls into traveling opportunities. Luckily for me she got caught shoplifting the week before her trip and my mom wouldn't let her go. The little idiot tried stealing some sunglasses the DAY BEFORE her 18th birthday, and since she was a minor, my mom had to come and pick her up. Hilarious.

My mother was outraged, but moreover, she looked back on more than 18 years of being Katie's mother, and tried to pinpoint all the ways in which her failure as a parent had led to this moment. I tried putting it in perspective to my mother by saying "She's being a dumb kid. But isn't this also just really hilarious?" Apparently not. My mom took away my sister's Hawaii trip and forced her to volunteer at my dad's school for two weeks, cleaning dirty classrooms before the school year started. Hah.

But now she IS finally getting to go to Hawaii. Unless she steals something tomorrow. I wouldn't put it past her. I am so excited to go I can not even say. I have never been, nor have I done much traveling in the last couple of years in general; I have pretty much been working non-stop. So this will be a nice change of pace.

People have been giving me suggestions on things I should do while I'm there; something about waterfalls and hikes and stuff. To be honest, the only thing I want to do is go to one of those pools that have a bar in the middle of it, swim out to the bar, get super drunk, and then swim around drunk trying not to drown. I heard tell our resort had one of those pools, but then recently was told that our pool was under construction, meaning this whole trip could crash and burn before Day 1 is over.

I May Or May Not Be In This

2008-11-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

hi.lar.ious

2008-11-05T15:58:00.003-05:00

By now, we've all seen that CNN had people that were holograms on TV last night, right?

CNN - on the night of the most important election of our time - interviewed Jessica Yellen while she was a HOLOGRAM and then asked her the tough questions of the night, like "How did they make you a hologram?"

If someone from 1920 were transported to last night, and they saw the screen shot below, they would literally not know what the fuck was going on or recognize any of those words.

"Will.I.Am Via Hologram"

To see the full clip, in all of its ridiculous majesty, go here.

YES WE DID.

2008-11-05T12:45:00.008-05:00

Like my good friend Lee Rubenstein said, last night was our generation's moon landing.

And then some.

Last night, like everyone has already said before me, was just wonderful. Even today I can hardly get work done. All I want to do is read quotes and speeches and sound-bites about last night and cry. I want to walk down the street and smile at people and look around and think "enough of these people voted to make a black man the President of this country." I walked to work today looking around, so thankful that everything around me - the people, the buildings, the everything - was now going to be under the leadership of Barack Obama. I shit you not, even though it made no sense, I was so happy that I saw a chipmunk and thought to myself "Barack is even YOUR President, too, little chipmunk!"

(Don't look for sense in that. You won't find it.)

I bought a couple newspapers today, and there was a line to buy them. There was an older black woman in front of me buying 10 Daily News'. She turned to me and said they were for all her grandchildren, even the ones that hadn't been born yet. I smiled.

And then cried in her face.

When I started writing this entry just now I worried about sounding dramatic or cliche or trite, but that's another thing I have liked about all this - it doesn't matter, because everyone else is feeling the same way. Being in my apartment last night with 40+ friends was incredible. I will never, ever, ever forget last night. It became apparent pretty early on that he was going to win. He got Pennsylvania, no doubt in large part because of the calls I had made the day before (you're welcome America). Then he was up in Florida and up in Ohio (by a lot). We all started to do the math: all he needed was California, which was a foregone conclusion. We knew that 45 seconds later the polls would close there and they would call it for him and that would be that.

Then came the jumping.
And the hugging.
And the screaming.
It was wonderful.

When I took the train to California last December, I met a guy from Denmark, and we spent about 3 days on the train having the conversations strangers have when they know they'll never see each other again. We talked about politics and religion and America's place in the world. Back then, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Hillary would be the nominee. But we talked about the idea of a black president, and regardless of race, the need for a change - SOME change - so that America could be welcomed back into the open arms of the rest of the world.

I haven't talked to him since, but we remain Facebook friends. Today, he messaged me to say this:

"The excitement this morning in Denmark is on electric levels too.
Hope you enjoy your moment of victorious revolution."

Seeing it written like that - "your moment of victorious revolution" - made it really sink in. That's exactly what this is: a moment of American revolution. And it feels wonderful. Aside from the political and policy differences that have made themselves apparent in the last few months between Republicans and Democrats, what gave me the most heartache was the race-baiting and the fear-mongering and the lies and the banking on the fact that America was willing to vote out of fear or ignorance. To see that last night, regardless of all the seemingly insurmountable noise, Americans got out and said NO to all that, makes me so, so finally proud of this country. To see black people and white people, young people and very old people, gathered around sobbing at the sight of the first black man elected president, only decades after MLK and Selma and the Civil Right movement, is enough to make me break down and cry - probably for weeks and months to come.

And seeing Barack walk out with Michelle and his daughter last night was one of the most beautiful things to witness. So were pictures like this:

I'm really grateful I got to see this, and really grateful that people who needed to see it even more than me got to see it as well.

The great work begins.

HOLY SHIT!

2008-11-01T20:16:00.002-05:00

You guys HAVE to listen to this. Two radio DJs in Montreal got Sarah Palin on the line and pretended to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She goes along with it for SIX MINUTES.

This is the very best thing that has happened in this entire election season. What a fucking idiot.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/151958/557/831/649050

The Onion On Charlie Rose

2008-10-30T14:40:00.002-05:00

A couple people from The Onion (News Network) were on Charlie Rose Last night.
If you want to hear something that made my day - nay, week - nay, year - fast-forward to about 5:25. One of the segments that I came up with and wrote is mentioned.

I called my mom immediately. I feel like a five-year-old about this.

Is There Anything More Beautiful Than This Picture?

2008-10-27T12:29:00.006-05:00

No.

Take THIS Cindy McCain

2008-10-26T08:56:00.002-05:00

I wrote the idea for this Onion News Network video.

If nothing else is going to do it, I'm pretty sure THIS will lose the election for McCain.

Cindy McCain Claims Sheâ��s â��Just Like Any Other Female Humanâ��

Ironically enough, I think the accuasations in this video sound more realistic than the ones about Obama being a Muslim terrorist.

Is It Just Me?

2008-10-23T11:25:00.003-05:00

Whenever I see an ugly person - and I mean truly, truly ugly - I picture having intercourse with them.

I don't know why I do this, but I can't help it. If someone is morbidly obese or particularly moist looking (the worst!) my mind has to put me in a scenario where I am making tender love to them. It's kind of like when you pass a car crash, and you know you shouldn't look too hard in case you see a body, but the prospect of maybe sorta seeing part of a body is what makes you look in the first place, because you kinda sorta want to know what it would be like to have that experience even though it would be awful.

It's like that. I don't ever want to have sex with these cretins, but I know that they must have sex (or at least masturbate in the confines of their dark dens) so my mind forces me to picture it. It's awful. It's an awful impulse I can't control. This morning I walked to work and saw the most despicable woman and for 20 minutes, I kid you not, I anti-fantasized about doing her.

Also, a couple days ago, this was apparently a Google-search that led someone to my blog:

"Chris Kelly died of cancer"

I hope you enjoyed this blog, whoever you are.

9:11

2008-10-22T10:02:00.001-05:00

I feel like it's 9:11am or 9:11pm more than it is any other time of day.

Or those two minutes in the day last longer than the others. Or, inexplicably, I check my phone to see what time it is at 9:11 more than any other time of day.

I'm probably just more attuned to it because of 9/11, but I'm not kidding, I feel like I check the time every day and it's 9:11 at least once, if not twice a day. What are the odds?

Between that and living practically right next to Ground Zero, I certainly will not soon forget. Plus all the 9/11 jokes I make.

The Entry In Which I Explain How I Would Make Love To Barack Obama

2008-10-16T21:24:00.004-05:00

I am currently watching the Larry King interview with Michelle Obama and all I can do is fantasize about being in a bed with both her and Barack. This is how it would go:

I would slowly and passionately make love to Barack; it would be wonderful, stoic, steadfast. It would be the love-making that I need, that I deserve. It would be a change from love-making as usual.

It would also for some reason be raining on the bed. He would be wearing a button-up white shirt from one of the debates and he would still have his lapel mic on, whatever. Basically, I would be making love to this picture:

Then, when we were done after exactly 90 minutes, Michelle would come in and gently stroke my back as I fell asleep laying between the two of them. Michelle would be humming a comforting tune, while I nestled into the crook of Barack's arm. He would start watching the game on mute while I slept; he would want to turn the volume up to hear the game's commentary, but he would also know I really need my sleep.

There would be no pictures or mementos of the night. The next morning after breakfast we would decide that we were both busy; he with trying to win the Presidency, me with writing disgusting blogs about making love to him. So we would part. That night would exist now only in our memory.

Obama08!

Alright, Listen Up Racists

2008-10-16T20:50:00.005-05:00

I have had it with this race. I have had it that so many people are making this race about race. You may remember my blog entry from awhile back where I complained about the racist email my aunt Jami sent me. It was an email forward in which she claimed she hadnt been following the election very closely, but still felt like sending out this mass email. It was all about how Obama is black and has a father from Africa, and somewhere in the email was the direct quote "Obama spent most of his formative years working for the Civil Rights movement. Well, Mr. Obama, the Presidency isn't ABOUT Civil Rights."

....Uh, okay.

However, since she is an idiot and didn't BCC her email, I now get spam emails like the above one from every other idiot in her address book. I get emails about how great Sarah Palin is. I get emails about how the Lord walks with me always. I get emails with dancing jpegs of bananas wishing me a good day. But mostly, I get emails wondering what Obama is hiding.

So about a month ago, I sent out an email (only one) asking for people to consider donating to the Barack Obama campaign. I didn't say anything scornful about his opposition; it was a very nice, positive email, asking people to help get the word out about Obama. And kind of to spite my aunt, I sent it to everyone in her address book.

Surprisingly enough, two people from her address book contacted me and said they were so relieved that there were other people on her CC list who ALSO thought her emails were racist filth. Since then, we have become email buddies, and both of them donated $25 or more to the Obama campaign under my name.

SO. A few days ago, I get an email now from Jami's sister, Nanci. (I guess their family also hates "y"s.) This email from Nanci wasn't the first, but it was the most insidiously racist. The email's subject was along the lines of "Mr. Obama, I know you're busy but...", or some other cringe-inducingly passive aggressive, condescending drivel. In the email, she (or whoever originally wrote the email; I'm assuming it was another goddamn forward) asked for Obama's birth certificate, which insinuates she believes he's lying about being a true American. It also asks for proof of his baptism, which insinuates she doesn't believe he's a Christian, but instead, probably a Muslim.

Which, sidenote: why would it be bad if Obama was a Muslim? Muslims are great. Crazy, radical, extremist Muslims are bad. So are crazy, radical, extremist Christians. Sound familiar Jami and Nanci?

Anyway, I sent Nanci an email, which said this and only this:

Please don't send me emails like this.
They are ridiculous.

So then she responded with this email. I have copied and pasted it:

Chris,

You are too funny! Your email gave me a laugh. :~) LOL
So funny you are. :~)
It has to be a joke coming from someone who forwarded an email & wrote a long note & asked people for money ......& all from the peoples names on from on an email my sister sent out..........
a lot of people you didn't even know! Now that's a better definition of "ridiculous"!! Thanks for the laugh!

Wishing you all the best & God bless you,

Nanci

Here, in response, was my email back to her. I have copied and pasted it. But before you read this, keep in mind that my entire family is going to Hawaii in exactly one month. I will be seeing Jami (not Nanci) and I am almost positive this email exchange is going to come up. In fact, I hope it does. But only if Obama wins. If Obama wins, I'm not going to say anything, just smile and let whatever they say roll off my back, maybe only adding, "It's okay if you think what you think, Obama won. So I'm good." Anyway, here's my email back to her:

Nanci,

You might say my emails are ridiculous, but at least they aren't often tinged with subtle racism, like the one I got from Jami I responded to awhile back.

Also, two people that are on your email chain that i DID email about donating to Obama thanked me for my email and donated money to his campaign under my name. So that's good!

But you're right, I understand I shouldn't have emailed strangers on your email list. I was just doing it to make a point. And also, since you didn't BCC, I now get spam emails from all of them too.

Anyway, lets agree to disagree and not send each other political emails anymore. I will say however, that while mine have asked for people to donate to a campaign you might not agree with, some of the ones Jami and you have sent out have fueled hysteria about Obama being a terrorist or a Muslim and are really, truly ruining the political discourse in this country.

Chris

I haven't directly heard back from her since this email. I have, however, received an email about Sarah Palin and all her experience, an email against homosexuality, and an email about how God kills people like Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon at an early age because they think they are "greater than God".

I hope Obama wins so hard and so swiftily that it is like a big slap across her ignorant face.

I Wrote This!

2008-10-07T16:10:00.004-05:00

This is a new video on The Onion News Network. I wrote the idea and the script for it and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

It's also edited particularly well, by my good friend Judy Adler.

Gunman Kills 15 Potential Voters In Crucial Swing State

Also, yes, many of those "dead" people in the pictures are my sisters and friends. It's a video that the whole family can take part in!

Thank You, Manager of Soho Park

2008-10-06T15:59:00.003-05:00

Last night I left my credit card at Soho Park after having dinner there.
Today, I frantically realized it was lost, and when I figured out I left it there and went back to get it, the manager asked for ID.

I told him, "Oh, my picture is actually on my Visa card."

So he looked at it for a bit, and then said, "Oh, this isn't you."

I looked at it, and yes, it was me. It was my picture. It was a close-up picture of my face. From maybe 4 years ago. Granted, I had black hair at the time, but it was clearly my face.

I said, "Umm, yeah that's me."
To which he insisted it wasn't.
So then I said (maybe literally) this: "Listen, that is my face. I don't know what else to tell you. That face is this face. There is almost nothing else I can say except these faces are the same face. I should know, because both of them are my face!"

He paused, looked at the card again, and said, "Oh I guess it IS you. It just looked like someone else. Maybe it's just cuz he looks happier."

Yikes.

This Is The Best Thing I Have Seen In Forever

2008-09-30T15:16:00.004-05:00

From the estimable CNN:

Woman Wearing Cow Suit Charged With Disorderly Conduct

MIDDLETOWN -- A Middletown woman is accused of being disorderly in public -- while wearing a cow suit.

A police report filed about the incident said Michelle Allen allegedly chased children in her neighborhood while wearing the suit on Monday evening. Allen also urinated on a neighbor's front porch, the report said, and was warned by officers to go home and stay there.

Allen was charged with disorderly conduct after an officer found her causing traffic problems on North Verity Parkway. The officer's report stated that Allen was verbally abusive to him on the trip to jail and smelled of alcohol.

The report did not speculate as to why Allen was wearing the cow suit.

Oh man oh man oh man! Life does not get better than this. And I am not joking.

Come See My Show!

2008-09-29T11:27:00.004-05:00

My good friend Winston Noel and I have a show on Wednesday night at 7pm.
We co-wrote it and co-act in it. We also co-picked out the music for it and co-bought props for it at the last minute using our own money. We would also co-like to hear your feedback, because this is kind of like a practice show to see what's working and what's not.

So come see it! And laugh at what's funny. And desperately try to come up with vague compliments about what's not funny. I'll give you some starters:

1. "How did you memorize all those lines?"
2. "You guys really looked like you were having fun up there!"
3. "Hey real quick, where's the bathroom?"
4. "Man......shows, right?
5. "That was terrible."

So again:

Chris Kelly and Winston Noel's 7:00 Workout Spectacular!
Wednesday, October 1st @ 7pm
Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
Only $5

Three Things

2008-09-24T14:28:00.005-05:00

1. "McCain says he is suspending his campaign to focus on economy. He challenged Barack Obama to do the same. McCain also requested that Friday's debate be postponed."

What a load of manipulative, desperate bullshit. "Suspending his campaign?" More like putting it into over-drive, you asshat. Are people really supposed to believe this is him putting his campaign aside for the good of the economy? Really? It's not mostly about how something like 80% of Americans think Republicans are to blame for this crisis? Go suck a dick, McCain campaign. Or should I say, McCain's EX-campaign.

2. Gwyneth Paltrow's new website - www.goop.com - is UNREAL.
You can read a wonderful evisceration of it here: http://www.avclub.com/content/node/87150

3. I have been listening to Rihanna's "Umbrella" non-stop today. And I'm not quite sure why. I have listened to it maybe 75 times today, on loop, while working, writing, eating, walking, riding in elevators, etc. I do shit like this all the time; I find one song I like, and then I listen to it repeatedly until the song is dead to me; until I can hardly even recognize it as music. I listen to a song until it is just noise, and until I get to the point of when it comes on, I get angry.

I did that to the song "You Don't Know Me" by Regina Spektor and Ben Folds. I loooooved that song. But instead of loving it gently and patiently, I smothered it. I listened to it every waking moment of the day, memorizing the lyrics, obsessing over it. Now, I loathe it. Sometimes I still feel a lingering need to listen to it, and when I do, I hate it. But I still have to listen.

That's what I'm doing with Rihanna's "Umbrella" today. Don't ask me why. That song came out, what? Like one, two years ago? Why today? Why now? I don't know. I remember walking to work and thinking I wanted to listen to a song that matched my mood. I usually listen to music that way. If I'm in a funk or I'm excited or I'm feeling restless, I listen to a song with lyrics that most adequately matches that mood, so that I can be masochistic and self-obsessed. However, I couldn't for the life of me find a song to match my mood this morning; it was far too nuanced. So I think I was just like "Fuck it, I'll just listen to the most random song. How bout "Umbrella" by Rihanna?"

Now I can't stop. I can't. And it's awful.

Awful.

Getting in Shape

2008-09-18T23:33:00.006-05:00

I've developed what I think is a really good habit of late. And I'm proud of myself for it.

A couple of years ago, I had a gym membership and I went all the time, but then I moved and the thought of walking even a step out of my way to work out was so repulsive to me, I canceled my membership.

But now, every day on the way home from work, I really, really think about getting a gym membership. I've just learned to make it part of my daily ritual, and I don't let myself slack off or forget to do it. Every single day, whether I want to or not, I think long and hard about getting that membership.

And it's only been 2 weeks, but I already feel better!

Shot Down

2008-09-18T23:33:00.003-05:00

When I was in college, I briefly dated someone named [first name] Kelly. By briefly, I mean for four days while he was in town for work from New York, where he lived (lives?).

I dated him because he a) was attractive, b) asked, and c) was dating down and I wanted to hurry up and take advantage before he realized.

Anyway, it was a stupid dumb little nothing, but it was my first dumb little nothing.

About two years later, I lost my phone somewhere in my apartment complex. It was returned to me almost immediately by a woman who had scrolled through my address book for a last name that appeared frequently, assuming it would be a family member and they could direct her to me. Well, she saw a couple of Kellys, so she dialed [first name] Kelly. He answered apparently, and he was able to vaguely direct her to me.

So she shows up at my door while she is still on the phone with him (he must have stayed with her on the phone as she wandered through the apartment complex, lost). She greets me by saying, "I think this is your phone. I just called a number in your phone that I thought might know where you live: [first name] Kelly."

At this point, I stand, mouth agape and horrified. Then, she finishes up her conversation with [first name] and I hear this, verbatim:

"Thanks so much! I found him....Do you want to talk to him?......No? Okay. Bye."

It was a wonderfully hilarious punch in the face I still sometimes think about and laugh/cringe at. I live for that shit.

What To Do?

2008-09-17T17:04:00.004-05:00

So today I went to the bathroom at work. And I started peeing, and when I did, I had one of those obnoxious, ne'er-do-well double-streams. You know what I'm talking about. I had the perfectly reasonable, well-behaved stream and the errant, step-child stream, the one hellbent on following it's own path. The problem was that the second stream was at such an angle that there was no way for my to position my body so that both streams hit inside the bowl at the same time. It was a difficult situation, to say the least.

So as soon as I realized this, and that I was peeing on the floor, I stopped short. Which is not easy. I figured I would cut off the flow, give my body a minute to think about what it had done, whisper internally, "Let's try this again", then restart. So I did. And TWO STREAMS again. Yikes. So now I had peed on the floor of the office bathroom twice.

This wouldn't be so bad normally. I would just finish the job, then get some toilet paper and clean it up. No harm done. However, I was not alone in the bathroom. There was someone in the stall right next to me, and when my errant stream hit the bathroom floor, it kind of hit right underneath the stall wall, and I knew this mystery guy saw because he moved his foot a little.

So now this guy in the stall next to me saw me piss on the floor. Then he heard me do the stop-short and take a moment to restart. Then he heard me try again, and subsequently, FAIL again. So basically, he watched me pee on the floor twice.

What was I to do? I have such intense bathroom anxiety. To give you some context: the idea of sitting quietly in the bathroom, and having someone hear one of my poops sink quietly into toilet water gives me chills. I would actually rather have someone hear one plunk into the water loudly and quickly then have one slowly and delicately be heard sliding into the bowl. Awful.

So needless to say, I was a fucking mess when I realized I now had a bunch of piss to clean up. But I couldn't. I couldn't bear to reach down and have him see my hand wiping up my own piss while he sat there, shitting. Would he recognize my hand? Would I hear him laugh? Or worse yet, would he make no sound at all, thereby also making the loudest sound of all: the sound of silent, sad judgment. I decided to wait him out, pretending like I was still peeing or wiping my nose or something until he left, so I could get on my hands and knees and start wiping up that filthy step-child piss stream.

But he was shitting FOREVER. And it felt silly to keep standing there. He knew I was done peeing. He knows what my peeing looks and sounds like - it looks like piss all over the floor and it sounds like a man desperately trying to control it and failing. So I had to decide: bend down and clean it while he watched glimpses of my body scrubbing up urine, and possible recognizing me...or run.

So I ran.

But...then I decided to come write the blog, and I thought it would make me look filthy if I told everyone on here I didn't clean it up; that, instead, I left it for the after-hours maid to clean. So, because I knew this story needed an ending, and because I didn't want that ending to make me look like a monster, I went into the bathroom a little bit later and I cleaned all the pee up when no one was in there.*

*That last paragraph may or may not have happened.

Donation Station!

2008-09-16T12:43:00.003-05:00

I created a Personal Fundraising Page for Barack Obama in the hopes of doing something to help his campaign.

But now, all I'm interested in is watching my number get bigger. I have managed to turn even the most selfless of acts into something about me and winning.

Winning what, you ask? Who knows? Who cares? When someone donates, I feel like I am winning something and that is all that matters.

Also, the above sentence is almost all you need to know about me as a person. Yep.

In related news, donate to the Obama campaign here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/chriskelly

Disgusting

2008-09-10T13:01:00.008-05:00

A few things about this picture:

A. Sarah Palin shouldn't be allowed to pose for a picture under a play on the word "Paleontology" if she doesn't even believe that the job exists or is neccessary. God put those bones there, so what exactly are those people studying, right Sarah?

B. I don't understand the one-two combo of a paleontology pun and Palin holding a rifle. Shouldn't it have been Palin standing with the Bible or at the very least, a ripped up picture of Darwin? Or if they were all dead-set on the gun imagery, maybe she could at least be pointing it out at the reader under the words "I thought it was a good idea to be holding a giant rifle on the cover of Newsweek and yet, you STILL might end up making me the Vice-President! KA-BOOM MUTHAFUCKAS!!!"

Also, take a look at these:

So. Fucking. Gross.
I want to go to Barnes & Noble, lay all their Newsweeks on the floor, and take a dump on them.

An Alligator Ate A Baby

2008-09-10T11:47:00.003-05:00

I read CNN every day. In fact, several times a day. I read CNN to get my news and then to mock it for work. And every day, I am consistently amazed at how awful, sensationalistic, and ridiculous that website and, in turn, that network is.

Have you all heard about that Large Hadron Collider? It's that 9 billion dollar particle accelerator that was built deep under France and Switzerland? Well, anyway, it was built to help discover the possibility of extra dimensions and something called the "God's particle" but it's detractors worry that it could create a black hole capable of swallowing the planet.

Yeah.

But here is where the wonder and majesty of CNN comes in. This wasn't the top story today. In fact, it wasn't even close. It was relegated to the side-news, where stories about rats eating babies' faces are. Or like today, where a story about a cheerleader with a pacemaker who has to unfairly cheer from the sidelines is.

I am not kidding.

Right next to the story about the cheerleader with the heart of gold (and metal) is the casual, unassuming little headline, "Big Bang Machine Switched On". The innocuous story then goes on to say things like:

"it is one of the most ambitious experiments
ever conceived in an attempt to unlock the
secrets of the universe"

and

"fears have emerged that the collider could
produce black holes that could suck up the whole Earth."

This is like reading a top story about a baby who fell in a well, and then below it, reading a story about how in a single instant, all babies everywhere just vanished into thin air.

Or maybe its kind of like people worrying about whether or not Obama's comment "putting lipstick on a pig" was about Sarah Palin when this world is a FUCKING DISASTER FROM TOP TO BOTTOM IN EVERY IMAGINEABLE WAY.

I'm tired.

I Want To Punch A Wall*

2008-09-04T15:32:00.004-05:00

This is going to be a political rant, and if you want to read a real, honest-to-God, insanely well-written one, check out my friend Lindsay's blog to the right. Otherwise, keep reading:

If you are voting for John McCain this year, you are wrong. And that is all there is to it. I have played the open-minded, willing-to-listen-to-anyone guy for far too long, but that time has passed. If you are voting for John McCain - if you are aware that a man named Barack Obama is running for President and have heard any number of his speeches, debates, or read about what he wants to do for this country - and you are still voting for John McCain, you should be punched in your stupid fucking face.

I know it's all the rage right now to vote for Obama and talk about changing the world, and I hesitated about ever writing a political rant on this blog, because they can be cliche and trite and come off sounding all dumb and whiny. But I literally am so full of vitriol for any human being who is voting Republican this year. There is no excuse.

It's like people who eat mayonnaise and like it. I recognize that they are a human being; that they are made of flesh and blood like me, but I also recogize that something indside them is broken. Some core element, some very basic aspect of their genetic code is destroyed, allowing them to like disgusting mayonnaise.

John McCain is my political mayonnaise. And not just because I find him old, globbly, and sitting in the back, way beyond his expiration date. But because I don't understand - and won't bother to understand anymore - why anyone would want to vote for him. I have bothered for too long. I am well researched and well read; I have watched all the debates and all the speeches (both Republican and Democrat) and I know what's up. I'm not just some crazy lefty who hates Republicans because of a series of regurgitated, uninformed talking points.

I am just so fucking sick of the way this country is headed. Today, I talked to my parents on the phone. And it was a good talk, a nice, family talk, and then I heard my mom say in the background, "Tell Chris I'm gonna call him tonight so we can talk about Sarah Palin." So I asked my dad, "Oh why, does she hate her too?" And my dad said, "Oh no, she LOVES Sarah Palin."

I started to cry.

I kid you not. I wept for my mother. For myself. And for this country. I love my mother. I love my mother more than anyone else in the world, so it hurt me that she has been tricked into liking this idiot because she is a woman and she is a go-getter and she is a mom and she is pro-life and has a Downs Syndrome baby. I literally heard my mom say in the background, "It just shows that a hockey mom can do anything."

MOM!!!!!!!!!!

Then I got into a 30 minute conversation with my father, whose politics I disagree with and detest more than any other person's I have ever met. He went on and on about Palin's experience after I casually mentioned that she had none. When he started defending her vast knowledge, I explained that it was hypocritical for him and all Republicans to bash Obama's experience, but then just jump on board finding ways to say Palin has more experience than any politican of all time put together.

This is getting too long. I should wrap this up. There is no way for me to adequately and intelligently make every rational argument I want to make on here right now. I JUST got off the phone with my dad and I'm so angry I could punch a wall. If Obama does not win this election, I will probably, no, certainly sob.

Also, I just want to say this: hating Sarah Palin is not sexist. Hating Sarah Palin is human. Hating Sarah Palin is correct. SAYING hating Sarah Palin is sexist is in itself sexist. Wrap your minds around that, idiots.

Oh, and also during our conversation, my dad said he doesn't think institutional racism exists. He said he belives there might be racist people here and there, but that racism in this country doesn't exist on a larger, institutional level. Then I cried again and told him I needed to hang up the phone because I was getting so angry at him that I was past the point of even bothering to listen to his point of view.

Because it was retarded.

See what he's done to me? I'm so mad, the best argument I could make was that he was sounding retarded. But at the end of the day, isn't that probably the perfect argument?

*Sarah Palin

Moving Day

2008-08-31T21:19:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I moved out of my apartment and into a new one in Manhattan's Financial District.

Woo-wee, was yesterday a hard day. But I'm only going to talk about the funny hard part.

On our way to pick up the moving truck, Kevin and I stopped at Starbucks so I could get a coffee. Moments after walking out with my drink, an angry, homeless woman walked up to me with a grumpy face, and out of nowhere, just smacked the bottom of my coffee cup up into my face. The cup hit me in the chin and then spilled all over Kevin.

Then she just walked away, all crazy and homeless. Later, I decided that she was at one point the heiress to the Starbucks fortune, but her father had instead given everything he had to his new wife's daughter. And so now she roams the streets, angrily hitting Starbucks coffees into the faces of those who support the father that wronged her so.

Either that or she was insane.

How was the rest of the day, you ask?
The emotional and physical equivalent of having coffee smacked up into my face by a homeless woman.

But I am moved! Let's see what happens now...

Where I've Been

2008-08-28T16:36:00.004-05:00

Well, this has been quite a week. Below are 10 things I have done in the last 7 days:

1. Shoveled shit out of a barn while telling a 7 year old Bengali boy that we weren't quite ready for him to lay on the mattress inside the barn quite yet.

2. Had a serious, prolonged conversation over whether or not a baby doll was covered in enough blood to truly look dead.

3. Handed a giant Rockfish to a 50 year old woman and told her to old it while saying the line "Then you shouldn't have gone to Best Buy."

4. Taught the same woman from above how to discreetly and believably spurt fake blood from her mouth while talking. I then had to ask someone the following question about her: "Do you want her to bleed from the corner of her eyes or the middle?" The answer was the middle.

5. Got so tired that I fell asleep while walking, and woke myself up by walking into a tree.

6. Dressed up like a Zombie/Obama supporter.

7. Slept maybe 3-4 hours every night.

8. Drank maybe 30 Mountain Dews. I am a monster.

9. Helped decorate an entire store with fake money.

10. Realized that in three days I will not live where I live now and that an important part of my life will be coming to an end. So it goes.

This Week I Got Caught Shoplifting and Then Got Hit By A Car

2008-08-25T08:18:00.002-05:00

On Monday, I had a sketch comedy show after work, so I brought some costumes to work with me on a hanger. Namely, a button-up shirt I had gotten from H&M. On my way to work, I decided to stop by H&M to buy another shirt for my show. I went in, looked around, and when I couldn't find anything I wanted, I left. But I got stopped by security because they thought I was stealing the shirt I had in my hand. I tried explaining that it was actually my shirt, one I had purchased over a month ago, and that I just happened to be carrying it into the store. Security Guy didn't buy this because not only was it on a hanger, but it was on an H&M hanger (they let you keep them if you ask!) and because they still sold the shirt. So it looked 100% like I was stealing it on the hanger.

I explained I would have to be an idiot to steal something by just walking out with a shirt on a hanger in the middle of the day. But I would soon learn that there were other ways to be an idiot, namely re-buying the shirt I already owned. That's right. He wouldn't let me leave with the shirt, and I really needed it for the show that night, so I reluctantly went to the counter and re-bought the shirt. I waited as I got rung up for $39.99, then walked out of the store, waited a minute or so, and walked back in to return it with a receipt. I thought this was a brilliant idea. I would return it, get my money back, and then sneakily steal it back when no one was looking.

So that's exactly what I did. I got my refund, and then pretended to look at things for about 10 minutes until my shirt was put on a shelf somewhere. When I thought it was clear, I walked up to it, took it, and ran into a back aisle to shove it into my backpack. I also took a hanger. However, Security Guard was apparently onto me (something about me stealing something, then buying it, then returning it immediately I guess set off some warning signs for him) and he walked up to me and said "What the hell do you think you are doing?" To which I provided, almost verbatim, this monologue, as onlookers and store management gathered:

"Please, please, I am not stealing. This is ridiculous. I am a good person. I am not stealing some $40 shirt from your store. I make a salary. I am doing okay. I don't need to steal. I am a good person. It's a costume for a show. At UCB. Do you know it? It's this comedy theatre, I can give you their number. I mean, I just...why would I steal this shirt? It's the middle of the day. Please, please, I swear to you I am not stealing a shirt at H&M at 9:30 in the morning on the way to work."

Somewhere around here they gave up and realized either A) I was telling the truth, or B) it was better to lose $40 for their store than have to listen to my bullshit anymore. I'd like to think it was A, but I am 150% sure it was B. And I'm okay with that.

Then I ended up not wearing that shirt in the show anyway.

Also, on Saturday, I was hit by a car. I am okay, I didn't break any bones. When I tell you the extent of it, it will sound a little serious, but it wasn't. I was crossing the street when a car who didn't stop at the stop sign hit me. I hit their front bumper and leaned into it so I wouldn't go under, then landed on their hood, and before they could brake, I rolled up onto their windshield. There was a wonderful split second where the driver and I met eyes, and though the moment was ever so brief, I remember thinking "Hi, I'm on your windshield." Then he braked and I rolled off onto the asphalt. The worst part about it was how quiet and embarrassing it was. I didn't break any bones or anything and the car wasn't speeding so I just sort of got scooped up and spit out while people watched. I got up, proved to them and myself that I guess I hadn't broken any bones, and then walked off. In retrospect, I should have gotten their information because I'm pretty sore now, but oh well. I was too embarrassed by having a decent number of people watch me fall of the hood of a car. I don't know why I was embarrassed, but I was.

I was thinking the "I got hit by a car story" was going to be funny, but reading it back, it wasn't. Oh well.

I'm moving in six days. To Manhattan. Things, they are a-changin'.

LIFE!

Two Lives

2008-08-22T16:26:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I found out that one of my sister's friends won a Gold Medal in the Olympics. Shortly after playing on a traveling, competitive soccer team with my sister for about 7 years, she was drafted to the US Women's team, and yesterday won a Gold Medal in China.

I found out this news in the afternoon, and then went back to work wrangling a 60 year old man dressed like a giant turkey for a web video.

Everyone chooses their own path in this life.

All You Need To Know About Me

2008-08-05T15:17:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I'm going to go buy some new clothes because I'm too lazy to do laundry.

This means either:

A) I'm incredibly wealthy.
B) I'm a mess.

Take a guess.

One of the Stupider Things I've Done

2008-07-30T10:29:00.002-05:00

Last night, as I was walking home, I was talking to myself, practicing out loud this sketch idea I had. It wasn't a very good premise; something along the lines of a guy and a girl on a date, and right after they kiss, the guy starts coughing. He can't stop. He just keeps coughing, but refuses to drink any water, insisting he's fine. It would escalate to really violent coughing, but he keeps reiterating how fine he is and that he's not sick, it's just something in his throat, and he's still having a really fun time on this date.

It's not a good idea.

That being said, I started improvising with myself on the way home, pretending to be the guy, coughing and refusing to drink water. I spent a good five minutes, escalating this improv until I coughed too hard and kind of felt like I had to throw up. You know when you're coughing, and then there's one monstrous cough/burp that doesn't belong and has a taste? That happened.

So I thought, "Hmm, I should probably stop this improv. "

Then I threw up in the middle of the road.

And then I got SO sick and nauseous that when I got home, I went to the bathroom and threw up again. I still actually feel kind of sick to my stomach right now.

My sketch idea beat me.

I'm a mess of a human being.

An Open Letter

2008-07-24T12:16:00.002-05:00

Dear Girl Who Is In A Bathing Suit Pretending To Be A Lifeguard For A Promotional Stunt For Shark Week Even Though It's Drizzling Out,

I totally understand. Being an actor sucks some times. I once had to do a Japanese jeans commercial where I had to strip to cut-off shorts and feed grapes to a non-English-speaking waif. Acting can be hard.

You'll get through it.

I also totally understand that the ad for the job probably looked tantalizing. You're out of work. You had the day free since you work nights at the 23rd Street Olive Garden. You saw the ad on Craig's List for "actors" to do a "fun, exciting promotional scene for 'Shark Week' live on the streets of NEW YORK CITY!". And you thought to yourself "I'm an actor, a scene is something actors do, maybe someone will see me and it will lead to something big!"

You thought all these things. Shhhhh. Yes you did.

And it's okay. Who could have know the job would end up paying maybe $50 bucks before taxes, and that the time it took to fill out the W-4 would be longer than the time it will take to spend what you made at the job. You couldn't have known that.

You also couldn't have known it would have been drizzling today. It's been so fucking hot and bright all summer, you thought you would look good in your red one-piece bathing suit, if nothing else, jumping up and down on the corner of Broadway and Spring, pretending to be a lifeguard screaming about "Shark Week". But now it's cold, and you're clearly miserable, and people passing on the sidewalk have to make the tough decision on whether or not to look you in the eye. On the one hand, making eye contact would be a polite acknowledgement of your work. On the other hand, it might, for a moment, make them see all the deep deep sadness in your eyes, causing them to go into work and write a blog about you, unable to shake the irreparable sadness you have cast upon them.

And I don't blame you for the all-to-clear hatred for your co-star. While you have been blocked to jump up and down screaming "Careful! Shark Week!", he is up on a lifeguard tower, sitting. At least he's too high for passing friends to recognize and pity. He's practically anonymous. You are the brave one though, and we kind of respect you for that. No we don't. But sure we do.

So I just wanted to write to say that I understand you, I get you, and don't worry, this will be a funny story one day, when you're famous. Or when you're working at a bank in Dallas, raising a family, and bragging falsely to neighborhood friends about the time you were an actor in New York on Broadway.

I won't tell.

Love,
Chris Kelly

Dear CNN

2008-07-22T10:37:00.003-05:00

Dear CNN,
Shut the fuck up.
Love, Chris Kelly

Adrianna

2008-07-21T23:43:00.002-05:00

When I was maybe seven or eight, I had a girlfriend named Adrianna. I completely forgot about her until recently, but now that I think of her, she was a really big part of my life for awhile.

It was at my biological father's house. I would go down to visit him every other weekend, and when he wasn't at home, Adrianna would come over from across the street and we would make out for hours. We would go to the garage, climb up on the dryer, and just kiss and grope each other sometimes all afternoon. It's bizarre to think back on. If the garage wasn't a safe place to do it, we would go into my closet, close the door, and make out there for long periods of time. Go figure.

I remember when we broke up it was heartbreaking and I can't remember why. I don't have memories of being attracted to her or loving her, just of kissing her for prolonged periods of time. But when we broke up, it was ugly. I remember her standing on her stoop screaming at me, and me standing in her yard, trying to think of a comeback. I couldn't. So instead of saying anything, I just slowly flipped her off. But I was terrified to do that because God was surely watching and I knew he would be upset with me. So it was more of a half-finger, barely erect, just enough so she got the point, but God might not notice as his omnipresent eyes passed over the street where I stood.

I was so scared that God has seen my flip this girl off, that I remember going home and crying about it.

How gay.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T14:22:00.003-05:00

I, like everyone else who saw The Dark Knight last night, went to bed with a residual Joker boner. He was that good.

I spent all of last night dreaming about The Joker. In one dream sequence, I was chasing him down with some friends. Some of you were there. At one point, he was hanging on to the back of a speeding car, and I was hanging on behind him. With one hand, I was bashing his head in over and over again because he's The Joker and his villainous anarchy must be put to and end. But with the other hand, I was just thoughtfully touching his back, his hair, his arms, thinking, "You will die soon. This is the last movie you will make and you don't even know it."

Then my Dream Me got really sad and Real Me woke up in a funk.

Another thing I thought about after seeing The Dark Knight was the little In Memoriam after the movie. Toward the beginning of the credits, it says something like "In Remembrance of Our Friends Heath Ledger and So-and-So". Apparently some crew person or something also died after the making of the film, and I couldn't help but think how shitty it must be for that guy's family. I can picture his wife and children sitting in the theatre when that In Memoriam placard came up, and hearing a bunch of douchebags saying "Who the fuck is that other guy?" (that's what people said at my theatre). I then picture his wife standing up in the middle of the theatre, screaming "He was my fucking husband! The fucking father of my children!!!!!!!", then storming out, sobbing. This thought made me sad, then laugh out loud.

I don't deserve happiness.

Go see The Dark Knight.
And Rest in Peace Heath Ledger and So-and-So.

15 Seconds

2008-07-17T21:29:00.003-05:00

This is a video I wrote a long time ago, and UCB decided to film for me. I think they did a great job with it. Thank you UCB people!

You should tell friends about this, reblog it, and pass it on to people that are also head honchos so that they can hire me for things. That's how that works, right?

The Cape

2008-07-16T18:46:00.002-05:00

One of my least favorite things about living in New York, is that "The Cape" is a place people go to a lot. And it's actually not that I hate that people go to The Cape, so much as that they talk about it so damn much; they're so proud of it, and look for any and all way to work it into conversation. It seems to me like everyone in my life has a second home on The Cape and I want to be a part of it.

I would love to go to The Cape, or at least talk about it in the way that people do when they're going to The Cape, at The Cape, or returning home from The Cape. You know how they do, with their passive aggressive ways of roping you into making it seem like you asked them something that has now forced them to talk about The Cape, even though they weren't meaning to. These are actual situations I've been in. I'm not making this up.

"Oh my god, I am exhausted. So much traffic..."
"Traffic?"
"Yeah, so much traffic coming back from The Cape."

"Oh god, I am so stressed."
"Oh, about what?"
"I gotta duck outta work early to catch the train to The Cape. I hope I make it. Ahh!"

"Oh my god, I am peeling all over. Never again!"
"Never again what?"
"Fall asleep on the beach at The Cape all afternoon. Now I'm a mess."

It is my goal in the next year to be invited to The Cape, just so that I can passive aggressively complain about it to people for weeks before and after. "Oh, I am just so full of taffy..." and things like that. Cape things. Things that sound like a complaint until you dig deeper and realize its unabashed bragging.

Now excuse me, I've gotta run. I'm super busy.
Why, you ask?
Because I'm in Sacramento.

See, it doesn't work with Sacramento.

Stir Crazy

2008-07-10T15:13:00.002-05:00

Last night I had tech rehearsal until about 2am and I spent most of the night talking to everyone in my group about how I really wanted to do something with my 2-week paid vacation that I am currently on. I can't do any extensive traveling this week because of rehearsals and a show on Monday, but I'm going to California on Tuesday for five days. Anyway, I was thinking of day trips I could take, places in the city I had never been to, but here I am, its 4pm, and I'm sitting in my boxers, drinking Mountain Dew, and watching a 3-year-old power tumbler on Ellen. (She's fantastic.)

It's weird - when you have nothing to really do during the day, you go through the highest highs and the lowest lows. In the last week, I have felt the most creatively inspired and the most like I will never again get off my couch again. My friend Christine does this thing on her blog where she takes writing prompts, and I think I'll do that too. I don't think too many people read this here blog, but if you do, I would love a prompt, cuz why not? Anything. A random word, a story, an opinion, anything. I can't tell if this is too self-involved. Since it's on a blog, it by definition must be, but you know what I mean. I promise to write to every prompt I get...mainly because I will only get about three, to be sure.

One thing I have been thinking about lately is that I wish I was mysterious. Everyone loves a man of mystery, and that I am not. When I think of compliments I wish I could get, "mysterious" might even be up above "funny" or "talented". I find myself drawn to people that I consider genuinely mysterious, that have this sort of appeal and magnetism that you can't quite put your finger on. And it pains me that as long as I live, I will never be "mysterious". I just won't be. The fact that I have this blog is proof enough that I'm not mysterious. The fact that I almost never stop talking is another reason why I will never be mysterious. The fact that I like talking about things like my difficulty shitting in public restrooms is yet another reason. The list goes on and on. So since I can't be mysterious, please help my boredom, and give me yet another thing to talk about.

These Last 4 Days Don't Count Toward My Life

2008-06-30T00:25:00.003-05:00

So I have had 4 days off of work, Kevin is out of town at an engagement party, and I have spent a large part of the last 4 days alone, which has been awesome and also eye-opening. Awesome in that I have been lazy and talking to myself and half-naked eating chips for most of the last 100 hours, and eye-opening in that I'm not nearly as interesting as I thought I might be.

Being alone will make you learn so very many things.

It has dawned on me that if someone were a fly on my wall these last four days they might think they were watching a case study in insanity.

Highlights of my last 4 days:

-Watching two back-to-back episodes of "Denise Richards: It's Complicated" and "Living Lohan" before fully realizing what I had done. It's important to note that these episodes were watched a foot away from the screen, with me in my underwear, drinking Mountain Dew and eating Wheat Thins. My summation of both shows (in order): "No, it's not, you're just boring", and "You look like your daughter if her face was on the bottom of a shoe."

-Looking at the clock, seeing it was 4pm, and thinking that was as good a time as any to begin sleeping for 9 uninterrupted hours.

-Deciding to be super into Journey for a few hours, downloading all their music I didn't yet have, then taking a 90 minute shower while listening to their music, but mostly just "Open Arms", and singing (screaming) along to it.

-Buying a carrot cake and eating it with a fork while watching Wall-E.

-Eating pizza for, I think, every meal since Thursday. I'm a monster.

-Waking up with a sore neck that wouldn't go away, then convincing myself I had cancer and that this was the first sign, then spending a good hour or so on webMD trying to prove to myself that I was dying. I'm not. (Probably).

-Reading my favorite play (which is about 300 pages long) out loud and acting out all the parts, just because I love it so much and I had nothing to do for 6 hours and I could. This was probably my darkest of days.

-Going to a party in Chelsea with some friends and stealing things. To be fair, it wasn't my idea. One of my friends took a picture off their wall that he wanted and put it in my backpack as I was leaving, saying "I want this later". But now I have it and I like it. So I'm preemptively stealing it from him. You can't have it. And if anyone from that party finds this blog and is reading this, I'm talking about a different party. Your missing picture is just a coincidence.

Alright, this has been a pretty self-indulgent jerk-fest, right? Oh blogs. You dangerously pathetic device. Good night all. I return to the world tomorrow, ready to roll.

Ugh.

2008-06-27T12:40:00.003-05:00

Just now, in her Unity speech with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton said, "Bush and McCain are like two sides of the same coin. And together, that doesn't add up to a whole lot of change."

Now I can't say for sure, but I'd bet money that her script writer was sitting just off-screen stroking his boner.

An Open Letter To Myself at Age 11

2008-06-25T12:23:00.007-05:00

Dear 11-year-old Chris,

Don't make a thirty minute video with your cousins when you're 14, wherein you play various MadTV and SNL characters while donning a curly black wig, singing, and pretending to play the guitar. Your family will find this tape at Christmas, and you'll want to kill yourself. In fact, while we're on the subject, fight the urge to film anything from now until the age of 17. Or perhaps 24.

Pissing yourself in the outfield and being carried to your van by your dad while your grey sweats slowly turn a darker shade of grey will not be your most embarrassing moment. So don't sweat it. You'll never see those assholes again, anyway.

You will see your dad again in exactly 10 years. You will drive an hour in the rain after finding his address online, you will knock on his door, you will meet the disabled half-sister you never knew you had, then you will leave and never see him again. You will feel a little silly for enjoying how much of a scene from a movie this experience was like. To be honest, its a good 80% of the reason why you did it.

Just smoke pot in high school. Who gives a shit, really.

You will spend most of high school leaving dances early to catch the opening of Saturday Night Live. You will sit real close to the screen, and notice how one of the writers is actually named Chris Kelly. This will drive you crazy and you will think about nothing but being a comedy writer. In 13 years, you're getting pretty close. It just might happen, 11-year-old Chris. Hang in there.

When you're 22, you'll get so drunk that you fall asleep in a bathroom at a club and your friends will leave you. And you'll have to walk home 70 blocks in the snow because the subways are down and the cabbies are on strike. You will laugh about it as you throw up every other block.

Right when you move to New York, you will get robbed at gunpoint of everything you own. Two guys will come up to you demanding both your suitcases, you'll make a snarky comment about how this can't be happening, and then the gun in your side will shut you the fuck up. Two weeks later, you'll get your first writing job by writing about it.

You will spend some of the best moments of your life in the woods in Maine. Creeped out? Shhh...don't question it.

Any day now, you will cut your thumb pretty badly with a box-cutter and you'll need about 8 stitches. But just for your sake, when people ask, don't tell them you were making a fort for yourself in the garage.

Don't eat at the McDonald's in China Town on June 25th, 2008. You'll convince yourself its okay since you never eat McDonalds and you're having a random craving for it, but the woman who makes your meal will have cigarette cartons in each bra cup, and you will feel sick at least until you're done writing this blog. But probably longer.

Love,
24-year-old Chris

The Happening

2008-06-23T21:16:00.002-05:00

A homeless man just came up to me while I was writing in a park, and asked if I wanted to buy a rose. Before I could answer, he noticed an ad for "The Happening" on my web browser, and had this to say about the movie:

" I liked it. It's about nature striking back, seeking revenge against a selfish mankind. Animals come and animals go, my man, but everything else stays. Think about that."

I'm almost positive that the ramblings of this probably drunk homeless man with no teeth is a thousand times more insightful than anything actually in "The Happening."

P.S. It's the trees. The trees are killing all those people. And when they attack, you see shots of leaves rustling in the wind. I shit you not.

Songs - A Trip Down Memory Lane

2008-06-22T20:18:00.004-05:00

It's so hard for me to update this thing, because sometimes I want to treat it like my best friend, and tell it everything. But that would be a terrible idea for you and for me. But I also want to force myself to update more, so I'm just going to write about the first things that come to my mind (that I don't have to censor), and you're gonna lap it up like so much delicious milk.

For the longest time, I had the song "To Be With You" by Mr. Big stuck in my head. Do you know this song? It was stuck in my head for, I shit you not, three months. I would listen to that song and only that song on a loop on my iPod. I would press "Play" and then just loop it for hours at a time, as if it were my drug. And it was. I needed that song, I craved that song. Luckily, that time has come and gone, and now I don't ever want to listen to that song again. When I hear it, I instantly turn it.

I have so many songs that have a special meaning to me, and lots of them are very, very shitty. I tend to have more life connections to awful songs, in part because I spend so much of my life listening to them.

"Jack and Diane" reminds me of my 10th grade girlfriend, Laura. We would listen to the lyric, "Hold onto 16 as long as you can/Changes come around real soon, make us women and men" and say to each other how weird it was going to be to hear this song in 5, 10, 20 years and think, "Wow, we thought 16 was so old". And it's been 9 years, and I do think that. About a year ago, I had just been hired as a Writer and Locations Manager for The Onion. It was about 5am, and I was driving a van full of old people for a piece on Alzheimers up to a Hospital, with the Head Writer in the seat next to me. We were driving up the coast of Manhattan as the sun came up, and the song came on. It was so wonderfully bizarre to hear it in this new part of my life. Those years since 16 seemed so close and so far away. And then one of the oldies farted.

"Complicated", yes, the song by Avril Lavigne, reminds me of hot-as-fuck car rides with my dear friend Bonnie up to LA every week during the summer after freshman year of college to take classes at The Groundlings. That song would come on the radio and we would sing along to it, changing the lyrics to make fun of Avril Lavigne. We got you so good, Avril, you don't even know. That song also reminds me of having blue-balls, because the first time I ever learned what blue-balls were was on one of those trips to LA. I had the worst stomach ache, and yet I was also inexplicably drinking a Blue Slushie. Bonnie had to pull over and let me puke outside a laundromat (and once more on the side of the freeway) because I had such bad cramps. Close-but-no-cigar sexual experiences and Blue Slushies at 10 in the morning do not mix.

The song "Semi-Charmed Life" reminds me of the 4th of July in Minnesota when we were trapped on a boat in a rainstorm in the middle of Leech Lake. We passed the time lip-synching to songs, and I prided myself in knowing every lyric to this song, and still do. I remember over-enunciating my lip-synching so that my sister could clearly see that I did in fact know every syllable. I loved that night; during the storm I mostly fantasized about being stranded in the middle of the lake for days, fighting the elements, and looking death in the eye head-on. I imagined that night being one helluva story about man vs. the elements later on in my life. In reality, I don't know how the story ended. I think it just stopped raining.

The song "Kiss From a Rose" reminds me of college. In the middle of college, I randomly decided I loved that song; I'm not sure why or how. But the love became intense and all-consuming. No other song existed. Music was defined as: "Kiss From a Rose". I remember one night after a particularly great improv show, we were cleaning up and someone (probably me, pretending to "create" a spontaneous moment) played the song, and everyone - all 50 people left or so - created a huge circle and swayed and sang aloud to the entire song. It was one of those moments - and I have many - where I remember thinking, "I will remember this moment for a very long time."

The Song "Everybody Dance Now", which is probably not actually called that but should be, reminds me of my Tap 1A class. For those of you that don't know, I am a phenomenal tap dancer. And by phenomenal, I mean it's the one dance I don't look retarded doing. Tap is less flowy dance bullshit, and more about getting shit done to a very specific time-beat. I can do that. So in Tap 1A we had our final performance to the song "Everybody Dance Now". For those of you that don't know this song, you really do: it's the one Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Chevy Chase do the rain dance to in "Man of the House". You're welcome. Anyway, for our tap final, we had to dance to this song, and I took it upon myself to scream out the "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!" part just for fun. (I'm so hilarious, and yet also so relateable, right?) Anyway, for the uninitiated, Tap 1A is very rudimentary. We spent the first 3 weeks of the class just practicing putting our shoes on. And I spent the next 2 weeks practicing not tapping so hard that I unscrewed the screws on my taps, sending them flying. Anyway, our final was anything but "everybody dancing now". By the time our final came around, we had learned perhaps a few toe-steps and some other things that make you barely look like you're moving. So my friend Kerry and I always really enjoyed the super-intense intro of "Everybody Dance Now" followed by 30 people kinda barely tapping one toe.

There. I wrote something. I did it.
And this entry will be interesting to five people.*

*I'm counting myself five times.

I'm So Hot I Want To Kill Myself

2008-06-09T16:36:00.003-05:00

The air conditioner is broken at the Onion offices, and my computer says that it's 95 degrees outside. I am such a whiny little bitch when it's hot out. I'm the guy that sits there, making it clear to everyone else how hot it is by moaning or blowing out my shirt with my hands, or by saying things like "It's so hot I want to kill myself."

So, in short, I'm everything I hate in a person. The heat brings it out in me. Kevin loves the heat, he says, but he is wrong. Or an idiot. How can you like this weather? It's a million degrees and it's a WET million degrees because of the humidity. If you like this weather, we can never truly be friends; we might hang out, enjoy each other's company from time to time, maybe even share a few meaningful dinners or conversations together, but there will always be that rift between us: that rift created by the fact that you are insane.

You might be asking yourself how I can be with Kevin then. It's arduous, letmetellyou. He spends his days running or playing ping pong, as if its a normal temperature out. Sometimes, he tells me, he gets off the subway and runs home, instead of walking, just for fun. Clearly he's insane. He has many other good qualities, so I try to forgive this blatant defect in his personality, but it's hard.

Like when I'm laying in my sweat pool, which used to be my couch, and the air conditioner is on, and he asks me to turn it off because it's either too cold or costs too much. See? He is a monster.

I don't understand it. I would rather it be 5 degrees than 95 degrees, and I am right in this preference. It's not an opinion, it's a correct statement. If you prefer this weather, you are wrong. When it's this hot, I start playing a version of "Would you rather" with myself, where I think about all the things I would rather be enduring than the heat, but it's not a very fun game because I would almost do anything if it meant not being this goddamn hot.

Today I was in the elevator, and there were about 10 people in it, all sweaty and pit-stained. As some of you may know, my most recurring nightmare is dying in an elevator, either by it plummeting down 10 floors and me mistiming my jump, or by it shooting up out of the ceiling inexplicably. But today, I got a new glimpse into how I might die in an elevator. I can see it now: a hot day like today, in an elevator with 10 sweaty people when the elevator shows the very first signs of stalling, and I kill myself right then and there. It might not even be a mechanical problem that pushes me to suicide. Today, for example, some sweaty, fat delivery man got on after the elevator was already way full; he ran up, screaming "Hold it, hold it!" and some asshole did just that. I'm all for holding an elevator; ours is slow, and it's the right thing do to. But not on a hot day; it's every man for himself.

So Fatty got on the elevator and pressed the wrong floor TWICE, then finally guessed the correct floor he needed to get off on, apologizing to everyone else in the elevator with just BARELY a sorry face. No one seemed to mind, but I was raging inside. Every time the doors opened onto a floor that no one needed to get off on, I looked for things to kill him or myself with.

But instead of killing that man, right then and there, I decided to come upstairs, calmly and collectedly moan about how uncomfortable I am, and then write a blog about it.

You're welcome.

Please Buy Me This

2008-06-06T22:47:00.004-05:00

CNN.com has a new feature that allows you to purchase a t-shirt with one of their news headlines on it. So if you've ever read a quirky headline on CNN, like say "Bleeding, Greasy Man Caught In Vent", but wished you could also wear it across your chest, now you can!

If you go to CNN.com and scroll through their headlines, there is a helpful t-shirt icon next to the stories that are available to be silk-screened. I ask all of you, completely unironically, to buy me one or more of these shirts.

One recent story headline is "Boy Voted Out Of Kindergarten". Alright, CNN.

I also like:

Why is this completely uninteresting headline available for purchase on a grey, sleeveless tee?, you ask. Well, to that I say: I don't think CNN wants you asking questions.

The Onion already does this same thing with intentionally funny, made-up headlines, so why can't CNN do it with unintentionally funny, horrific, and/or boring headlines? Makes sense to me.

You can have the shirts shipped to me at:
149 Leonard St. Apt. 8
Brooklyn NY 11206

Gay Rights

2008-06-06T22:27:00.001-05:00

Today, as I was walking to lunch, a guy asked if I had a minute for gay rights.

I told him I didn't and went on my way. But I couldn't help but think that I would have stopped if he was more attractive.

I don't deserve rights.

A Video I Wrote and Edited

2008-05-25T23:21:00.004-05:00

It's an American Idol parody. And what better time to post an American Idol parody than a week after this season's finale?

We actually filmed it for a live sketch show awhile back. Anyway....if you need something to get you through the long, cold, Idol-free winter, check out this 4 minute video. And never you mind the jarring continuity problems from shot to shot!

Hooray!

Quotables

2008-05-25T20:59:00.004-05:00

My little sister graduated on Friday. Which means she is almost 18 now and that I am old. Here are some choice quotes from her principal's graduation speech:

"This year, the Drama Department did 'The Wiz'
and when I thought about writing this speech,
I couldn't help but think about how your journey
these past few years is just like Dorothy's."

"I'm sure when you were freshman,
you met a lot of scare-crows.
You looked around, and thought a lot
of your classmates were brainless.
But because of our great teaching staff,
you all found your brains."

"You have all surely come across a lot of
Wicked Witches along the way -
bad friends, hard tests - that tried to make
you veer of course...off of your Yellow Brick Roads."

"Dorothy was the hero of that story.
And looking out tonight at all of you,
I see a bunch of Dorothys!"

"And now, on this day, you are finally graduating.
You're not in Kansas anymore."

Keep in mind that my sister went to high school in California. I wanted to go up to the principal afterward and ask for permission to perform his speech verbatim as a comedy monologue.

Yesterday, my sister also had her graduation party, and about 75 friends and family were there. It was great to see everyone, and they all certainly meant well in their questioning, but these were the only things people said to me over and over again all night.

1. So you're still in the NYC?
I just couldn't do it. You are so brave.

2. So now you're writing the comedy?
Can I see it on TV? Oh.....on the internet?
Oh....okay.

3. You work at The Onion? Like the food?
I love Onions! I bet you could put that in a skit.

4. [something, anything]...you should
put that in a skit. I bet you get that a lot, huh?
People telling you to put something in a skit.
You should put THAT in a skit. (already done)

5. So when am I going to see you on Saturday Night Live?

6. Do you know those SNL people? I bet you do.
Are they nice? Oh, that short one -
Amy something - she seems like she would be so nice.
Do you know her? Oh you do, don't you?

7. My [nephew/sister/brother/son/stranger]
wants to do comedy. Maybe I should have
him/her/them call you.

8. So where do you live? In Manhattan?
....Oh, Brooklyn?....Why?

9. Now, are you IN any of the Onion videos?
Why aren't you IN any of them?

10. You are so skinny.

Fun With Racism!

2008-05-06T13:52:00.020-05:00

This is an email I recieved from my aunt this morning. She forwarded this out to her family members, my parents, myself, and some of her random friends.

Subject: Obama Dissected

LET ME SEE IF I HAVE THIS STRAIGHT:

HIS FATHER WAS A KENYAN, MOSLEM, BLACK- WE HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIS AFRICAN "FAMILY

HIS MOTHER IS A KANSAN, ATHIEST, WHITE-

WHERE ARE THE PICTURES OF HIS KANSAN, WHITE MOTHER AND HIS WHITE GRANDPARENTS WHO RAISED HIM.

HIS FATHER DESERTED HIS MOTHER AND HIM WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG AND WENT BACK TO HIS FAMILY IN KENYA

HIS MOTHER MARRIED AN INDONESIAN MOSLEM AND TOOK HIM TO JAKARTA WHERE HE WAS SCHOOLED IN A MOSLEM SCHOOL

HIS MOTHER RETURNED TO HAWAII AND HE WAS RAISED BY HIS WHITE KANSAN GRANDPARENTS

HE LATER WENT TO THE BEST HIGH DOLLAR SCHOOLS, HOW?

HE LIVES IN A $1.4 MILLION DOLLAR HOUSE THAT HE ACQUIRED THROUGH A DEAL WITH A WEALTHY FUND RAISER. HOW?

HE "WORKED" AS A CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN CHICAGO- HAS NEVER HELD A PRODUCTIVE JOB. THE PRESIDENCY IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHTS POST NOR IS IT SUBJECT TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION SET ASIDES

HE ENTERED POLITICS AT THE STATE LEVEL AND THEN THE NATIONAL LEVEL WHERE HE HAS MINIMAL EXPERIENCE

HE IS PROUD OF HIS "AFRICAN HERITAGE" BUT IT SEEMS THAT HIS ONLY AFRICAN CONNECTION WAS THAT HIS AFRICAN FATHER GOT A WHITE GIRL PREGNANT AND DESERTED HER. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT SPERM CARRIED A "CULTURAL" GENE. WHERE IS THE PRIDE IN HIS WHITE CULTURE?

HE GOES TO A "AFROCENTRIC" CHURCH THAT HATES WHITES, HATES JEWS, AND BLAMES AMERICA FOR ALL THE WORLDS PERCEIVED FAULTS

AND THEN REPEATEDLY COVERS UP FOR THE PASTOR AND THE CHURCH

HE CLAIMS THAT HE COULD NOT CONFRONT HIS PASTOR BUT HE WANTS US TO BELIEVE THAT HE CAN CONFRONT NORTH KOREA AND IRAN, RIGHT!!!

YEAH, I THINK I SEE HOW HE COULD BE A UNITER AND BRING US TOGETHER, I THINK THE HOPE IS THAT HE HOPES NO ONE WILL PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER

The email also started with the line:

I can not say that I know that any of this is true because I have admittedly
not been very vigilant in my research of the candidates.

So I decided to respond. I clicked "Reply All" and wrote:

Not only is the content of this email incredibly ridiculous,
but it's also highly racist. Don't send me these again.

But what I wish I would have said, upon thinking more about it, is this:

I hate it when people make statements that are so retarded,
that they literally defy a coherent rebuttal.
The only thing I can say to this is that I wished we lived closer,
so I could come and punch you in the face for sending this.
Love, Chris

I Wrote This Last Night

2008-04-28T10:28:00.001-05:00

I’m trapped on my fire escape.

Let me back up. As I was walking home, it dawned on me that I left my set of keys at home. Actually, it dawned on me several times earlier throughout the day, and I made mental notes to myself to get Kevin’s set from him before heading home. And even as I was making those mental notes, I kind of knew that when I did see him, I would inevitably forget, and I even pictured me getting mad to myself and everything.

So I started walking home and it dawned on me (again) that I forgot my keys and forgot to get Kevin’s keys from him, even though I had just seen him. The trains are all screwy this weekend, and it literally took me over an hour to get to my apartment, so the thought of turning back, waiting for him to get out of his movie, and then coming all the way back to the apartment made me angry.

So I thought to myself: I am better than this situation. I will right this wrong. I will get in this apartment if it kills me.

So I thought back to how we always leave our windows open. We usually have them open for when we use the oven; the minute it starts to pre-heat, the fire alarm goes off, so we have learned to just constantly have all the windows open in preparation. My windows are located in the back of my apartment building and I had no idea how to get back there.

So I started climbing fences. Fences of all kinds, really. I had no idea how wedged in my apartment building was, but it really is difficult to get to. I tried ringing doorbells to ask for permission to use peoples’ backyards to weave back to mine, but when they answered through their intercoms, I was too embarrassed and tired at the thought of explaining the situation.

So I thought it would just be easier to turn to breaking and entering.

I started at one backyard, and inevitably, within seconds, several frat guys were looking at me through their patio window screaming, “What the fuck?”

I think my first words to them were, “Please, just let this happen.” I didn’t want to explain any further. I clearly meant them no harm; I had on a backpack and a new brown Urban Outfitters blazer – I was not out to cause trouble. But instead I had to stand there and explain what I was doing and they let me on my way. So I climbed to the next backyard, and when I landed (on my knees – bleeding cut #1), a tiny black dog bolted at me and started yipping and biting at my pants leg. Then, its owner, a breast-feeding woman in a bra and leggings, came out and graciously let me build a ladder out of patio furniture to climb over her ginormous fence. It was a really tall climb, and it was humiliating knowing people were watching me struggle.

Oh, and also at this point, the frat guys were peeking their heads over their fence to watch me squirm. It was fun for the whole neighborhood.

So then I finally got to my backyard area, and I could see that my window was indeed open. But first I had to climb the fire escape and I am incredibly afraid of heights. We live on the fourth floor and our fire escape is really rickety. And also, for those of you that don’t know, fire escapes don’t normally reach the ground; you have to kind of run and jump at them and pull yourself up like you’re doing a pull-up.

It probably goes without saying that I didn’t have the upper body strength to pull myself up, so I spent about ten minutes gathering stones, twigs, and broken fence posts and building them into a heap so that I could climb atop it and use it to boost me up to the fire escape. It worked, but it the process, I cut up my leg (bleeding cut #2) and knocked over the mound. So I had no way of getting back down without jumping down almost an entire story, something that is just not an option.

So after climbing a rickety ladder three stories, I made it to my window, opened it, and then remembered the locking gate that we also have on our window. I could have sworn it was possible to open from the outside, the remembered how stupid that is since clearly the reason that locking gate is there is because it can’t be opened from the outside. I looked through my backpack, trying to make contraptions to open the gate’s lock out of firewire cables, pens, and Netflix return envelopes, but to no avail.

Like I said, Kevin was in a movie, and still is. I called him and he was none to pleased with me. He agreed to come and let me in – but it would be about two hours. So I decided to call Ms. Cantos, my landlady who speaks broken English. I explained the situation to her, and was hoping she was maybe in the neighborhood. She’s usually close by, obsessively cleaning the sidewalk or reminding tenants that they’re recycling incorrectly. But she said she was 45 minutes away with her family. I told her not to worry about it.

Then she asked why I didn’t just have Kevin let me in, and I don’t know why, but I just lied. I said he was in Colorado for the weekend and locked the door behind him when he left. I think I lied because I felt bad for even calling her if Kevin could have just left his movie to let me in. And I lied because I didn’t want her to know that I had climbed the fire escape and was now too scared to climb back down and go get the key from him. So I made up some dumbass story about him being in Colorado.

So THEN, she offered to leave her family on a Sunday night and let me in herself – something I never thought or expected her to do. I in know way wanted that to happen, so I just told her I would call a locksmith and figure it out myself. Then I hung up. I figured I would just call Kevin back and make him still come let me in, and I would just wait up here for 2 hours. But then she called back and said that a locksmith on a Sunday night would be hundreds of dollars, and since Kevin was in Colorado, there was literally no other option. Since I couldn’t tell her I had lied, I had to admit this was true.

So now I’m sitting here on my fire escape waiting for my poor old landlady to come let me in. It’s almost 8:15, it’s pretty dark, and I think it’s starting to sprinkle. I hope not.

This is ridiculous. I don’t know how I get into these sort of situations. Oh no wait. I do. It's because I’m bullheaded and impatient.

I’ve been up here for almost an hour and a half, and every 15 minutes or so, one of those fucking frat guys peeks his head outside to look up and see if I’m still there. Then they just laugh, ignore me, and go back inside.

My name is Chris Kelly and this is the life I lead.

Hill-Rod

2008-04-22T09:31:00.002-05:00

I am really enjoying this election season.
That being said, Hillary Clinton clearly wants me to hate it. And her.

Below is a pre-taped speech she gave at the Monday Night Raw WWE Event. Verbatim.

"Hi, I’m Hillary Clinton.
But tonight, in honor of the WWE, you can call me Hill-Rod.

This election is starting to feel a lot like “King of the Ring.”
The only difference? The last man standing may just be a woman.

The truth is, this election is so important.
The next president will face a stack full of difficult challenges
right from the opening bell… to fix the economy,
bring our troops home from Iraq, and make college more affordable.

You need a president who will go to the mat for you.
And that’s exactly what I’ll do.

I’ve been knocked down, but I’ve always gotten back up.
And I know how to take a hit for the American people.
And if things get a little tough, I may even have to deliver the “people’s elbow.”

Because this country is worth fighting for.

Now, I promise to stick to the political arena.
So don't worry Randy Orton you're safe… for now.

When it comes to standing up for the American people though, I am ready to rumble."

Really Hillary?

Though to be fair, even though Obama's speech was a lot less nauseating, he did end by saying "Do you smell what Barack is cooking?"

For shame, you two, for shame.

An Open Letter To The IRS

2008-04-21T13:29:00.003-05:00

Dear Kind Sir or Madam at the Internal Revenue Service,

Crazy story guys.

So you know how I did my taxes way back in February and got a refund of like $800? Well, apparently my work made a mistake, and didn’t give us our complete tax information, meaning I had to go back and file an addendum to my taxes. So here’s the crazy part guys: now I owe you $1500.

That’s right. Fifteen. Hundred. Dollars.

In money.

So pals, this is where I thought maybe you could all totally do me a fave and let me not pay that. I just wrote out my check today and mailed it in, just so my payment wouldn’t be any later than it already is. But if you could totally not cash it and send it back, that would be so awesome. Mainly because as I was filling out the check, and writing the words “fifteen hundred dollars” on it in pen, I started not being able to breathe. It felt like I was lighting money on fire.

Think of all the things I could do with that money. I could buy five round-trip plane tickets to California to visit my family. I could buy 300 Frappaccinos. Or I could simply keep it in my bank account and use it for anything other than paying the mother fucking government.

Also, I’m not gonna get into it, Internal Revenue Service, because I know you’re busy ruining lives, but this has already been a really shitty four months. So if you could just pity me and send me back my money, I would totally remember this forever. Like, FOREVER ever.

Thanks so much!
Chris Kelly

Horsies!

2008-04-19T18:46:00.004-05:00

I am sitting in a Starbucks, procrastinating.

I need to be writing either one of three sketches for my UCB Sketch Team or one of two segments for The Onion. But I am doing neither. Instead, I am writing in my blog. This seems like the stupidest, most ironic form of procrastination possible. I am not ignorant of this.

Yesterday for work, I got to go check out several horse stables. It was a beautiful day out, and I spent it out in the country, taking pictures of horsies. They had names like Peanut and Demi and they were so pretty and I considered quitting everything and moving to a horse farm and just...being. Y'know?

One of the stables I went to was attached to an old-timey mansion that hadn't been redecorated since 1836, and I got to tour it, and then sit on the second story balcony that overlooked a pasture full of horsies, and beyond that, the Staten Island coast. Who knew there was a 27-acre horse stable/mansion on the coast of Staten Island? Not me.

I also got to eat in a real live Staten Island Diner (for free - thank you Onion!). It was exactly what I would have pictured a Staten Island Diner to look like before entering it. It made me want to quit my job and buy a shitty car and drive around the country interviewing people in small diners across America. Just ask them about their jobs and their families and their dreams and their rapes as a child. It made me want to connect with people, to explore the lives of others, to see this great land from end to end.

Instead, I went home and watched a little bit of "Chimp Eden" in my boxers with Kevin and ate cookies. Have you guys seen the show "Chimp Eden"? So this guy is basically rescuing chimps from the Sudan, and bringing them to this beautiful Eden-like reserve in American, so they can thrive and be healthy little chimps. But for some reason, he can only bring 5 of 7 chimps that he has found in the Sudan back to this Chimp Eden. It's like some awful reality show, where the less loved Chimps have to stay in the Sudan and die. I think that's mean. Watching the show made me want to go to the Sudan and save chimps until the day I die.

But instead I went into my room and looked back at old pictures of myself to then put on Facebook.

This is what my life is every single day: getting a taste of something awesome, deciding I'm going to dedicate my life to it, then just being lazy, taking a shit, and going back about my usual routine. Sigh.

It's SO NICE OUT TODAY! I love New York in the Spring! Where are you losers reading this from?

Terror In The Air

2008-04-09T16:52:00.003-05:00

In the past four months, I have flown on an airplane 15 times.

During one of my last excursions on JetBlue from New York to Sacramento, I experienced turbulence unlike any I have ever encountered before. And I have flown a lot.

A LOT.

When I was young, my sister and I had to go visit my biological dad every other weekend by flying from Sacramento to Ontario on Southwest Airlines. We flew so much that we started working as flight attendants, passing out peanuts and drinks to passengers. I’m not kidding. We would usually land with about 10 bucks in tips each. I give you this back-story to let you know that I am no aviation pussy. I get it: sometimes there is turbulence.

But this fateful night, there was so much turbulence - -

HOW MUCH TURBULENCE WAS THERE?!?

Well, I'll tell you: there was so much turbulence that the pilot had to come on the loudspeaker to let us know “this is not normal”. Thanks, pilot. Also, at one point, the plane bobbed and weaved so much that people’s drinks (including my own!) slid around and spilled everywhere. It was madcap. There were numerous, repeated gasps, screams, and audible prolonged crying. I’m not making this up. People were terrified.

I was watching one of the Democratic debates when the turbulence started, and immediately turned off the JetBlue screen. You know, the one that comes with 44 complimentary channels? The one on the seat back way in front of you, providing you with the most legroom in coach? I found myself getting so mad watching the debate. They kept talking about Health Care and Immigration; there wasn’t a single question asked about the ever-growing issue of Turbulence. Bullshit.

Also, I turned off the debate because I didn’t want the last thing I saw on this earth to be Hillary Clinton’s smug face.

Oh, Hill, I kid. You know I love you.

I honestly, for about 35 minutes or so, thought it was a legitimate possibility that I could die. When turbulence hits, we all think, “Could this be it? What if this little bit of turbulence turns into something that eventually leads to this plane crashing down and killing me or stranding me on a desert island fully of sexy singles?” I get it – we ALL think that.

But this turbulence was no joke. And this retelling of it is no wild exaggeration. I thought I could die that night. So I started weighing the things in favor of me dying and the things about the situation that seemed to point to me making it out alive. I usually do this in situations of this sort. This is what I came up with:

Why I Thought I Would Die:

1. The plane was not even half-full. Surely if the Lord Almighty was going to down a plane, he would at least have the mercy to do it on a light load, right? Plus, I always hear about planes that crashed and then they say, “there were 40 people on board” and I think “Oh, that’s not so bad.” So it would serve me right to now be one of those 40.

2. There were mostly businessmen on board – definitely the least sympathetic people that could die by crashing facedown in a field.

3. There was an annoying, yippy dog that wouldn’t stop barking, even before the turbulence. So I thought maybe God would sacrifice my life in order to also rid the world of even one rat mongrel. And I would have understood.

4. I had my personal computer on me, otherwise known as my “Porn Computer”. I usually fly with my work computer, but this time brought my own. I figured if God were going to kill me, he would at least do me a favor and let me die with the little porn I have so it’s not later picked through by family members going through my things.

5. Earlier that night, when I said goodbye to someone before leaving for the airport, they jokingly said “goodbye…forever!”. In my moment of near-death, I realized how that is the perfect anecdote to haunt someone for the rest of their life. I could instantly picture that person recounting that awful story after my death, and it seemed too perfect and tragic a situation to not have come true. It’s like when characters in movies say, “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Why I Thought I Actually Might Live:

1. There was a baby on board, right behind me. God, in all his wonder and mercy, surely wouldn’t strike down a baby, right? Even if there were 20 businessmen, I think the 1 baby trumps them all. I always look for babies when I board planes, that way I can accurately gauge whether or not I’m on a plane that fate would care about losing or not. If I see a baby, I usually feel invincible.

2. Because I have seen my death in my dreams many, many times. And my death does not happen in a plane. It happens in an elevator, as it either plummets to the ground floor or inexplicably shoots upward out the roof.

In case you’re wondering, I did not die that near fateful night. I lived. So that I could blog.

New Video

2008-04-08T16:04:00.001-05:00

I wrote the idea for this new segment as well. Hooray!

Breaking News: Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie

Good News?

2008-04-02T08:27:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, CNN ran a headline piece on its website about a heroic mother who gave birth to an autistic son. This is, almost verbatim (though I'm too lazy to look back for the article) what the opening paragraph said:

"When [so-and-so] gave birth to an autistic son,
she thought about poisoning her baby and then killing herself.
But instead, this heroic woman opened the first ever Center for Autism in China."

Isn't there something terribly wrong with this opening paragraph?

It's basically saying, "This woman almost fed poison to her newborn baby, thereby murdering him, before shooting herself to death in the face. But not so quick, haters! Instead, she opened up a school to help her son. Hooray!!!"

My first thought was, "Holy shit! Regardless of how much good she does, there is clearly this monster lurking inside of her just below the surface." And my second thought was, "How is this kid going to feel when he reads or hears about this when he's older?" And then my third thought was, "No wait, he's autistic. Nevermind."

Things I Just Did On My Friday Night In New York City

2008-03-28T21:25:00.002-05:00

1. Sat alone in my apartment with the lights off wearing nothing but boxers.
2. Ate two slices of carrot cake with my hands.
3. Watched two episodes of Oprah Winfrey's "The Big Give".
4. Cried.
5. Posted this blog.

Good night!

My New Onion Video

2008-03-26T17:35:00.001-05:00

I wrote the idea for this new Onion News Network video. Check it out!

Today Now! Host Tracy Gill Recommends New Tracy Gill Biography

Movie Quotes Game

2008-03-11T18:11:00.004-05:00

This is not what this blog is for.
This blog is for constant, unadulterated comedic genius.
But I shall take a break from that for just a moment because I was "tagged" and have to.

Below are quotes from 15 of my favorite movies. Try and guess which movies they are from!

1. "Too early in the summer to be sick of beans."

2. "This is it. It's going to be gone soon." "What do we do?" "Enjoy it."

3. "I'll tell you everything, and you tell me everything, and maybe we can get through all the piss and shit and lies that kill other people."

4. "Tough little muscle. Never bleeds."

5. "If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something."

6. "I don't love you anymore. Goodbye."

7. "Prowler needs a jump."

8. "Dear Josh, we came by to fuck you, but you were not home. Therefore... you are gay. Signed Tiffany, and Amber."

9. "What is that?" "It's what I have to work with."

10. "Let's never come here again because it will never be as much fun."

11. "I am an old woman, named after my mother. My old man is another child that's grown old."

12. "It's just like pictures in a book, Danny. It isn't real."

13. "You know, I've always liked that word 'gargantuan', I so rarely have the opportunity to use it in a sentence."

14. "I'm leaving." "Okay. Wear a raincoat."

15. "You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes."

Guess, guess, guess!

27 Kidneys

2008-03-06T11:46:00.004-05:00

Hey friends,

I am an actor and a writer on a mainstage sketch team at the Upright Citizens Brigade called:

We have our very first show on Monday, March 10th at 9:30pm.
If you live in New York, you should definitely come and see it because I think it will be great!
Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door or on the UCB website (the link is to the left).

Below is one of our poster designs. I think it's great - he has waaaay too many kidneys. Crazy!

I Can See My Ballsack

2008-02-29T11:36:00.003-05:00

I was at work just now, with my hands in my lap, and something felt warm against one of my fingers. I wondered what it was, looked down, and saw that one of my balls was hanging out of a hole in my pants. The one day I don't wear underwear I learn my favorite pair of jeans has a crotch-hole. Fantastic!

I actually learned of this hole days ago, but thought, "Oh well, it's small, and I always wear underwear, I'll deal." Then this morning, I realized I needed badly to do laundry and had to go without underwear, but thought, "Oh well, it doesn't matter, because I'm wearing jeans, it's not like anyone will know." It's really too bad that those two thoughts never had a chance to meet each other until my ball was popping out of my jeans just now at work.

What else, blog? What else?

Oh! Here's something you shouldn't do around me. If you are sitting in the same room as me or online or something, don't just randomly out of nowhere say kind of under your breath (as if you're really just trying to say it to yourself), "That sucks" or "Oh, good for me." and then just sit there waiting for me to take your bait and ask you why. I hate that kind of vague exclamation that is meant solely for the purpose of reeling people in and making it look like they are taking an interest in you, rather than what it really is: you desperately trying to get people to pay attention to you. I don't have the time.

Ouch, that last paragraph was really mean. But you know what people? I got a lot on my plate, too. I would venture to say, I even have more than you. So stop it. If you're sad or happy about something, say, "Hey guess what? [What happened] happened!" Thank you for your time.

Now onto something less full of vitriol.
You like that word? Yeah you do.

Has anyone seen the show "Make me a Supermodel". I have, I am embarrassed, and here are my 4 favorite moments of what I have seen of it:

1. The photo shoot where they had to ride down a sled in the snow, drink champagne from glasses while riding down the sled in the snow, and then wear fancy clothes and look snobby while drinking champagne while riding down a sled in the snow.

2. The runway walk where they had to wear giant headdresses and then pull goats, birds, and pigs on leashes. I was so happy watching it that I thought someone was giving me a present for something I did.

3. The photo shoot where they had to pair up and simulate sex with each other and the two guys were paired together and they whipped each other and licked each other's foreheads and everyone was like "now that's modeling".

4. The time when that one girl model was feeling tired so she went to the doctor's and then still managed to come back in time for the runway walk, which consisted of walking across the room in a skirt in a straight line, and which then made one of the judges tell her, "I have never seen such bravery in my life."

And that's it. Oh, and it's Leap Year Day everyone; my dad's good friend from college turns 11 today. Happy Birthday Dad's Friend From College!

CNN.com Is Awful

2008-02-28T16:05:00.006-05:00

The other day, CNN ran a story about Starbucks closing nationally for 3 hours in the early evening for an employee training/appreciation meeting. From 5:30-8:30pm, it was reported, all Starbucks branches would be closing, and customers would have to go elsewhere to get their coffee fix for those 180 minutes. Fair enough. I was surprised this was news, but I thought, “Alright, CNN, I’ll give this one to you.” After all, how many alligators can rip off a baby’s face on a Tuesday afternoon? They’ve gotta report on other things to fill up the page. I get it, CNN, I get it.

What I don’t get is the poll on your front page with the question “What will you do from 5:30-8:30pm while Starbucks is closed?” You provided these three possible answers.

A. Find a different coffee shop.
B. Hide under a desk.
C. I don’t go to Starbucks.

Granted, about 82% of people responded with C, the most sane answer of the three. Though, to be fair, there should have been a D. And it should have been either “You’re kidding me, right? This is your national survey?” or “I’m going to fill out surveys about drinking coffee because it’s the next best thing to drinking it. Yum!”

CNN, fucking pull yourself together. You are a nationally respected news organization. There is an election going on. I’m pretty sure a white girl was kidnapped today. Perhaps Clinton did something bitchy or Obama’s eyes caught the light in just the right way that makes us all get boners. So why are you posting this ridiculous poll?

And then I looked and saw that over 110,000 people responded to it. 110,000 people from all over the world felt the need to anonymously chime in about this. Jesus Christ, people. Granted, 82% of you said you didn’t go to Starbucks, which I initially thought was at least more respectful than admitting you would be hiding under your desk at the prospect at not having mediocre coffee for the length of one Lord of the Rings movie. But then I thought about it, and realized that the 90,200 of you that don’t drink Starbucks but still read the story on Starbucks closing and then responded to a survey about it are the craziest losers I have encountered in recent memory. Really people, really? All 90,200 of you better have fucking voted in the ELECTION.

I miss the old CNN. The CNN that used to tell me about the largest rat caught on camera, the same one that died inside an old lady’s mouth while she was asleep. Or about how 4 anonymous children were hacked up by their father and thrown off a bridge; a story that has absolutely nothing to do with me, yet gives me that morning jolt of horror. I mean, come ON people, who needs coffee to jolt you back to alertness when you’ve got CNN’s constant headlines like today’s, “Snake Eats Dog Alive as Kids Watch.”

God bless America.

A Daily Conundrum

2008-02-13T11:27:00.006-05:00

Almost every single day, I see a baby and/or homeless person and begin to think maybe I should drop everything and become a dad and/or homeless-person-helper. I begin to question whether I am in the right field - should I be wasting my life doing comedy and making fun of people and things when there are lives to be nurtured and/or picked up off the streets and fed?

This morning, I went into a Starbucks to get a coffee. I have recently given up soda, deciding it is far too unhealthy, and have instead replaced it with a daily Grande Java Chip Frappachino. And without fail, every time I drink it, I feel great for a few minutes, then have to shit. I'm getting sidetracked.

In this Starbucks was a father, about 30, sitting at a table, feeding his perhaps 9-month-old son, who was sitting in his stroller. The baby was talking up a storm, and father and son were laughing and bonding in a way that made me think: Should I become a father? Now? I want children, don't I? But when would that happen? Every night, I come home from work and comedy shows, make myself some 7-minute pasta, write comedy in my boxers and watch election coverage. I would clearly need to make some changes first.

So I was staring at this father and son, thinking about how sweet they looked. The baby was in high spirits, laughing and chewing his food and giggling in just the right way as if to make me want to buy him. He was great - he was the perfect glistening child floor model. Then I started thinking about how amazing babies are - how that tiny little brain of his must be working overtime to take in all the stimulus around him; how babies instinctively know how to feed themselves right out of the womb. They know that food goes in their mouths, etc.

So then I started thinking maybe I should go back to school and study babies. I've always loved watching those documentaries on TV where they show how babies look inside the womb at various points in the gestation period. So then I thought maybe I should go back to school and study some more things like that, right? I wold probably really like that, I thought to myself, as I waited for my shit-inducing Java Chip Frappaccino.

But I don't really like science, I soon realized, so maybe instead I could take my love of children and fatherhood, and just make like a really cool movie about it. You know, some really poignant drama about their relationship. I started picking out actors in my mind for this movie I had decided that I would now make. But the only problem is that I hate movies like that - about fathers and sons and learning and love. They're usually so trite and filled with music that swells at specific moments to indicate to us that this is when we should be feeling something. And who wants to make something like that? I certainly don't want to just be another flash-in-the-pan movie maker who made one shitty movie about the power of family. Bah.

Aren't those types of movies ridiculous?, I thought to myself. Then I began to think about all the things that make those movies so ridiculously awful, and I started making fun of them in my mind. It was at that point that I realized I was glad I'm not a father. I'm glad I'm a comedy writer.

This thought process - in its entirety - happens to me every single day.

This is a baby wearing a beret.

You're welcome.

An Onion Segment I Wrote!

2008-02-11T22:38:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. As some of you may know, I have been a Contributing Writer for The Onion News Network for awhile now. And a couple of months ago, I also started writing scripts. Below is the first segment that I wrote the idea AND script for. Hooray!

Online Dating Helping Pathetic Women Get Their Hopes Crushed More Efficiently

A Question

2008-02-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

"Fool's Gold".
Or...

Gold Fools?

Snap!
I am the first person to make this joke.

Looks at these fucking idiots. Why do their bodies look like they are on fire?

Another Blog Already, You Ask? Yes, I Answer.

2008-02-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

Whenever I send an email with an attachment in it, I have a brief moment of intense fear, worrying that I instead accidentally attached porn. Which doesn’t make sense, because it’s not like I have porn just floating around willy-nilly in my documents folder. But still. Without fail, every time I send a spreadsheet or script or anything, I have a moment where I begin sweating and think to myself, “Oh no, did I just send hard-core porn?” I usually go back and check every attachment I send. Like now, I just sent something to someone at work and then panicked that I had accidentally sent porn, which makes no sense. I am no great collector of downloaded porn, yet the fear is always there, lingering, for no logical reason.

I thought of a funny story the other day and was going to blog about it, but then I remembered I have told two versions of the story to different people at different times. One was the truth, and one was slightly changed to make it more interesting at the end. And now I can’t post about it because it will expose my lie to the people I lied to about the story. I do this a lot actually, where I slightly embellish a story one way for instant comedic value, and then later when I go to write about it honestly, can’t. In fact, sometimes, I can’t even remember what version is the lie and what isn’t. So there, you don’t get the story.

And now, because this is my blog and I feel like doing so, I am going to list my favorite movies of the year. They coincide a lot with the big awards, but that doesn’t mean that I am a mindless follower, it means the Academy is.

My Top Twelve of 2007

Into The Wild

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

Juno

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Gone Baby Gone

Atonement

Knocked Up

Lars and the Real Girl

The Savages

Once

Rescue Dawn

Six Moves I Didn’t Like
(And You Can’t Change My Mind So Don’t Bother)

Margot at the Wedding
I love movies like this (where unlikeable people go about their
tiny lives for two hours and you just watch) and am a huge fan
of The Squid and the Whale, but this is one of the most miserable
experiences I have had at the movies in a long time.

Superbad
It's definitely a little extreme to put this on the list, but I just
wasn't digging it the way these young kids today were.
After 20 minutes, I was like, "Alright, I get it."

Across the Universe
This was what the entire movie was:
Character One: "Blah blah blah."
Character Two: "That may be true, but in the end, all you need is love."
Characters 1 and 2: [singing “All You Need Is Love”].
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me, movie.

Charlie Wilson’s War
BORING! And Julia Roberts' entire performance was aimed at the
person in the back row of a 900,000 row theatre.

American Gangster
I didn’t see this one. But I have decided not to like it.
Plus, I have seen several movies Denzel Washington has been in,
so I think I’m set.

Napoleon Dynamite
This one is from a few years ago, but my seething hatred for it burned
brightly throughout all of 2007.

I Voted and So Should You!

2008-02-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

I voted, though there is no tangible proof for people on the street to look at. This is my first time voting in New York City, and let me tell you, it was one disappointing ride. First off, there is no "I Voted" sticker after voting. In California, everyone receives a wonderful little sticker to wear with pride, to brag to others that you got your registration shit in in time, and to shame others who didn't bother. I was so excited today - not to pick a leader that will change the course of events in this world - but because I could then wear a sticker proving I did so. I imagined strolling down the sidewalks, smiling at fellow be-stickered friends and looking down my nose at the lazy idiots with nothing on their jackets.

But nothing. Nothing. How am I supposed to know who to judge now? How am I supposed to know who to respect? This is infuriating. Get it together, New York.

<----------

Is this really too much to ask for?

Also, I'm a bit skeptical that my vote even registered. Have you seen the machines that New Yorkers use to vote? They look like what people in the 1920's must have thought robots in the 1980's would look like. They are giant machines, taller than a human, and older than most humans. On the bottom they have a giant red lever that you have to push to the right before and after voting for the candidate you want. I have absolutely no confidence that my vote for ****** ***** counted. I blame the Republicans.

Also, is it weird that I'm unreasonably excited about going home tonight and watching coverage of the primaries? Because I am. I am going to order food and sit at home in the dark and become slowly depressed as the candidate I voted for just barely loses to the other candidate. Just like every election - it's an American tradition!

What else is new? Enough of this voting nonsesne.

Oh! Want to know something cute about my mother? Sure you do! I was home this weekend visiting her, and she went on and on about how technologically savvy she has been getting. I set up a Gmail account for her that she uses daily, and we have even been Video Chatting it up frequently. So this weekend, she mentioned how I would be proud of her because she has been doing most of her shopping online as well, and she's very proud she has been able to figure that out. But upon using her computer, you will see two things. First, you will see about 14,000 bookmarked pages. This is because my mother bookmarks literally every page she visits. Literally every single one. Scrolling down the bookmarks tab would take upwards of 15 minutes. Second, if my mother is looking up information on a movie, perhaps "Juno", she doesn't Google the word "Juno". This is what she types (verbatim) into the Google Search bar:

"I'm thinking of taking my kids to see Juno tomorrow. What is it about? Is it supposed to be good? And where is it playing?"

She asks Google questions, as if it's a dear friend. We joke with her that she may as well start all her search queries with "Dear Google," and end them with "Love, Joanne".

It's just about the most adorable thing. Looking through her Google search history is just fantastic, because you just see these incredibly long-winded, detailed questions. She always wonders why her search turns up so few results, and why it takes her so long to find any given webpage. Which is I guess why once she does, she bookmarks it immediately because she has no conceivable way of ever getting back to it, unless she were type into the Google search bar:

"Dear Google, Remember that page I was on the other day? The one with information on that thing I want to buy? What page was that? Thanks for your help, Google! Love, Joanne."

I love my mother.

My Great Train Adventure, Day 4

2007-12-22T00:39:00.000-05:00

Day 4 – Thursday, 20 December 2007

9:38 AM – I am disgusting. I am filthy. I can smell myself. Today is my last day on the train, and…that seems about right. I really have loved this, but it’s time to wash myself. I try to fake my body out by occasionally splashing water on it or putting deodorant on, but my body is no fool. It still knows that it’s supposed to reek. And reek it does.

9:42 AM – Pink Haired Attitude didn’t sleep in her normal chair behind me last night. She slept with the new love of her train ride, in his seat. Now they are awake, and she’s taking his dictation. Really. She’s interviewing him about his name and age into a voice recorder, and then after the interview, she said into the recorder “He was the one with the beautiful smile.” and then ended the dictation. Hah. I want her to take mine! I wonder who I would be. "The one with nut rot."

11:10 AM – We’re pulling into Reno, Nevada right now and I just met this couple that are musicians in a 60’s British Invasion Cover Band called The Strolling Stones. Yep. When I say I met them, I mean that they talked at me about their band for a good 30 minutes. And anyone else that would happen to pause or look briefly in their direction was also brought in to listen to their speech.

11:18 AM – Hah. The musicians are now sitting in their seats about 10 rows in front of me playing some instruments they brought with them and singing. They are playing Christmas songs, and I can’t tell if that is charming or annoying to the people forced to sit right next to them. My guess is the first 5 minutes are probably really enchanting.

12:30 PM – Because of bad weather ahead, we had to wait in Reno for 45 minutes, so that guy I mentioned before, Thomas, and I went into Harrah’s and gambled a couple of dollars. I made a million dollars today, and then promptly bet it all and rejoined the train the same as I left it. Reno is gross. Las Vegas already exists, so it just makes Reno even sadder. But I’m pretty sure I saw the exact blackjack table my good friend Lindsay Katai was conceived on, so Reno wasn’t a total loss.

1:12 PM – I finally shat. Hooray!

3:55 PM – We just went through the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, by far the most beautiful part of the trip. At Reno, some guy from the Sacramento Railway Museum started giving Railway Trivia over the intercom. While the views were gorgeous (views of Donner Lake hundreds of feet below thousands of evergreens covered in new snow) most of his Fun Trivia Facts were basically just who died right by where we were passing. If we made a turn, he would say “this was the deadly turn from 1908, where thousands plummeted to their death as a train car derailed”. If we traveled through a tunnel, he would let us know that “making this tunnel was so arduous that oftentimes people would get so weak they would fall back and tumble down into a ravine, dying.” He also pointed out a famous point on the track where a train was robbed for $40,000, but he added that the criminals were caught and “invited to a necktie party.” Fun!

5:25 PM – This is where my journey should be ending, but we’re about an hour late. Nevertheless, this is my last entry. This was a good decision! I am ready to get off the train and clean my ballsack, but this was wonderful. Everyone should do it at least once. And feel free to invite me because I would gladly do it again! I haven't even left the train yet, and already I'm melancholy about getting off. What a weird little trip this was - I felt like I disappeared for four days and time had stopped around me. All in all, I think the biggest lesson I learned is that if you say you’re going to live blog a 30-day train ride and you occasionally forget to do so, when you go back and write, make sure you don’t put even numbered times like 3:00pm or 4:30pm all the time or people will become suspicious. Sometimes you gotta write 1:12pm.

The End.

My Great Train Adventure, Day 3

2007-12-22T00:20:00.000-05:00

Day 3 – Wednesday, 19 December 2007

9:01 AM – Last night I got almost no sleep. I tried sleeping in the Observer car rather than sleeping upright in a chair next to a stranger. It wasn’t very successful. I woke up a few hours later with a sore neck, but a whole lot of memories of being awake.

10:04 AM – We’re passing through the Rockies right now. They’re pretty spectacular and I’m very thankful for the giant snowstorm that swept the Midwest before my trip, so that everything would look like a postcard. I’ve been really good about taking tons of pictures that will mean nothing to me or anyone else a mere days after this train ride.

11:49 AM – We’re traveling now along the Colorado River for the next 289 miles! How majestic! And speaking of, I haven’t shit since I got on a train 2 days ago.

1:19 PM – Each train car is beginning to have it’s own smell. The car I’m in has a lot of old folk, and they are over-compensating for their lack of showering frequently by just dousing themselves in whatever perfume they can find. When you walk into my car, it’s like you’re getting punched in the face by plastic and roses. The train in front of mine is full of young parents with young children, and that train smells exactly how it should. I’ve noticed other people holding their breath before opening that car door. The only respite from smell is in the Observer Car and the Dining Car. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

2:23 PM – There’s an old guy who keeps asking people where they’re from, and if/when they say “Iowa” he asks, “You owe me what?” and then laughs until he coughs so hard you think he’s going to die. I’m convinced when he does die, it will be after making that joke. Today alone, I have heard him make this joke about five or six times. The best was when someone said they were from Chicago, and he said, “Oh, I was gonna say, ‘If you had said ‘Iowa’’, I was gonna say ‘You owe me what?’” Wonderful.

2:24 PM – I’m positive I didn’t get the quotations right on the above sentence. Don’t you fucking correct me.

2:45 PM – I haven’t changed clothes or showered since Monday morning. I have a beard down to my chest, and my hair is now long enough to put in a ponytail. I only hope my family can recognize me when I arrive.

3:11 PM – Some idiot didn’t get off at the last stop, Glenwood Springs, CO. We pulled up there, they announced it a million times, the signs outside said “Glenwood Springs, CO”, and yet some woman still came up to the conductor 10 minutes after we left the stop and complained that no one told her it was her stop. So we had to back up and re-drop her off. What a jackass. I’m glad she’s off the train; we don’t need people like her bringing this train down.

The town of Glenwood Springs, CO, clearly labeled:

3:14 PM – You guys, it is so gorgeous outside. There’s a huge snowstorm and snow is just rushing by over the Colorado River, and everyone inside is just sitting quietly, drinking their coffee or wine, and watching it. Wonderful.

5:00 PM – There’s a woman on this train who enjoys the train ride from smoke stop to smoke stop. There are towns we stop in where we are allowed to get off, stretch our legs, and/or smoke, and stops where we are not. Well, Pink Haired Attitude Woman in the seat behind me was apparently told a certain stop in Colorado was a smoke stop, and it wasn’t. Apparently, as she told the conductor, she has been lied to the entire trip by another conductor. She never seems to get a straight answer on which stop is and is not a smoke stop. She jut started violently crying. This Train has a way of breaking people. Some people are just not cut out for Train.

7:45 PM – I have dinner reservations for 8:00pm. I’m excited to see who I get sat next to tonight. Oh! Remember Pink Haired Attitude? Well, she’s been on the train with me since New York, and last night these two Mexican guys got on the train in the middle of the night, somewhere in Nebraska. She has already apparently fallen in love with one of them. I saw them introduce themselves earlier this afternoon, and now they’re downstairs in the snack car, and she’s laying in his lap, while he strokes her hair. I went down there to use the bathroom and they were there alone, and she said, “Hey, come sit down! Join us!” I can’t decide if I should take her up on the offer or not.

7:46 PM – I did it. I fucked the both of them.

2:10 AM – We passed through the Pacific Time zone right now, otherwise it would be three o’clock in the morning. Tonight was just great. I had dinner with Thomas again, the Danish guy I sit next to, and another young couple who are grad students at Boston University. In two years, as part of their Masters program, they are going to Tanzania. The four of us had dinner for two hours, talking in literally every genre of conversation a group of people can talk. When we finished there, we moved to the Observation Car, and we were the only four in there. It was pitch black outside, as we passed through western Utah and all of the Nevada desert. The couple, whose names I forget – damnit! – went to bed at about 11pm. He was originally from Italy, and had an accent. She looked like Kevin’s sister, Julie. So let’s say their names were Alfredo and Julie. You know, as I type this, I think his name may actually have been Alfredo. Hmm. After they went to bed, the Danish guy and I talked for another three hours. It’s been surprisingly easy to talk to complete strangers about movies or religion or politics or anything really. It’s been the best part of the trip. You should be crying now as you read this, filled with happiness at the tiny, lovely little moments I have been experiencing. You’re crying, right?

2:12 PM – I’m now pretty sure the Italian guy’s name wasn’t Alfredo. That was just an awful, ignorant impulse filling in where my memory failed me. It must have been Luigi.

To Be Continued...

My Great Train Adventure, Day 2

2007-12-21T23:57:00.002-05:00

Note: As this trip carried on, my blogging tended to be less and less humorous. So, either, "You're welcome" or "I'm sorry".

Day 2 – Tuesday, 18 December 2007

9:12 AM – I went to sleep without blogging anymore last night. Oooh boy, was trying to sleep last night a doozy! Until this morning, it had been dark for almost the entire trip, so I have had no idea where I am. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I guess there was a really bad snowstorm, because the train was really struggling to ride over all that snow and ice – it was so incredibly bumpy. Plus, there’s a really, really fat guy (not the same one I described before) splayed out on the seats in front of me, like he’s a dead body. But the way we all know he’s not dead is by how insufferably loud he’s snoring. It’s like a loud, guttural moan, and it happened non-stop all night. It is the loudest snoring I have ever heard. Not to mention it got so cold in the train car last night, I had to sleep with my coat on. But I suffer on, I suffer on…

10:50 AM – Okay, NOW I think maybe we have passed through a time zone line. I really have no idea. It is beautiful out; really, really beautiful. We stopped briefly at some tiny Amtrak stations in Ohio, and then just now in Waterloo, Indiana. That little town was so pretty – all white, covered in newly fallen snow. The whole town looked asleep, and I imagined living there and being happy for the rest of my life. Now I think we’re somewhere just out of South Bend and it’s still all white. Everything we’re traveling past is beautiful. It’s a shame the days are so short, because I could just look out of these train windows for days. And I kind of will be.

11:05 AM – I just took a walk through all of the cars of the train. I like to do that. There’s a whole family of Amish people. Or at least, I think that’s what they’re dressed like. Their car smells awful. Those two statements may or may not have anything to do with each other. I just found out from the conductor that since we are so late getting to Chicago, I’m not going to have any time in that city. I’m literally just going to have to get right on my next train to Sacramento. Boo.

12:08 PM – Our train just broke down. Apparently, there’s some sort of doohickey attached to the front of the train that pushes snow and ice out of the way, so the engine doesn’t roll over it. But it broke off, and if we were to keep going, the conductor said we could derail. So we are now stopped at the station in Elkhart, Indiana. I got off the train and walked around, took some pictures of this anonymous town all covered in snow. It’s really quiet and peaceful. There’s a strong likelihood I’ll miss my connecting train to Sacramento, but the conductor said if that happens, they would put me up in a hotel room for the night, and I would take the next train out tomorrow. I can’t say I would be too upset if that happened – a free night in Chicago!

2:44 PM – Okay, so I just switched trains in Chicago. As my luck would have it, my first train was so late getting into Chicago that I had no time to look around the city, but not late enough that I got to miss my connecting train and stay in a hotel for a night. Oh well. Now I’m in a double-decker train on the top level, looking out past a snow-covered Chicago. I heard this train goes through the Rockies; that should be nice.

2:47 PM – The conductor saw my ticket that said New York on it. He looked like a jolly old fellow, and asked me how NYC was. When I said it was fantastic, he said “Too dangerous for me. That city gonna done blow up any second. Them Al Qaedas done tryin' to blow it to kingdom come. New York and London…no thank you. Don’t know how you can live in a place than just done gonna get blowed up.” Needless to say, that conversation took an unexpected turn. Ah middle America!

3:36 PM – Now this is the (train) life! This train is huge and there is a lounge car (which I am in right now) that has floor to ceiling windows and looking out right now, I can see nothing but snow to the horizon. Absolutely beautiful! In other news, there was a woman on the last train who carried a duster with her inexplicably, and now she’s here on this train dusting everything. She’s just a crazy person walking around mumbling and dusting. Ahh trains!

3:49 PM – I really wish I had a map with me. We are now passing through a small town called Mendota, and I don’t know where it is. It’s funny looking out at all the people going about their lives, getting in and out of their cars, hurrying into drug stores that face the train tracks, and I have never even heard of the place where they live. Makes me feel so tiny, and them as well. That in the whole of my life I have never been to or heard of a place where these people have maybe spent all of theirs. Illinois? I don’t know. Maybe we are farther west than Illinois now. There’s no telling. I really should have brought a map.

5:55 PM – We are now crossing the Mississippi near the town of Burlington, some small river town. From here I can almost see the Coat Factory!

7:27 PM – We just stopped so everyone could have a smoke break somewhere in Iowa. A man told me the name of the town, and I pretended to understand what he’s saying. This is wonderful; so relaxing. The train is huge and it’s not too crowded. It seems like a lot of people are riding the train because they are scared to fly, and those that aren’t, just do it because they like all of the people they meet traveling this way. I’m going to make a point to meet and talk to more people. DVDs and books I’ll have after this ride.

9:20 PM – I just met people! I made 7:30pm reservations to have a formal dinner in the dining car, and when you do that, you get paired up with other people. My dinner dates were a retired couple named Don and Diane, and a Danish student studying abroad at Cornell who was taking the Holidays to travel even farther west. When I told Don I did some writing for The Onion, and kind of told him what it was, he told me that I should write about slime mold and sand worms, which are indigenous to an island in the South Pacific. He thought those would make hilarious stories. Okay. Don is a retired computer teacher, and his wife Diane used to be a high school librarian. She didn’t speak much, mostly just smiled on as her husband told wandering stories about Berlin before the fall of the Wall and how his daughter that lives in Phoenix studies the brain at a place he thinks might be called the Mind Institute. In their spare-time, they build homes for Habitat for Humanity, and they talked a great deal about all of their travels abroad. They were lovely and took my email address and said they would email me. I hope that they do.

12:01 AM – I’m the only person in the Observer Car, the one almost completely covered in windows. It’s a really wonderful sensation, sitting in this completely silent enclosure, with just the occasional lights of small Nebraska towns rushing by. Soon, we should be stopping briefly in Lincoln to let off my new, good friends Don and Diane. They have a daughter and son-in-law (he’s Japanese and wrote his thesis on Kierkegaard!) and will be spending Christmas with them. I will never see Don and Diane again.

To Be Continued...

My Great Train Adventure, Day 1

2007-12-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

For those of you that don’t know, I have decided to embark on a Great Train Adventure, instead of flying to California for the Holidays.

So here I am, at the beginning of my train ride across this great land called America, ready to learn, to grow, and to connect with this entire country. All in the span of four days. For you see, I wanted to stop in cities along the way, sampling their cuisine and meeting the indigenous people, learning about numerous small towns and taking pictures of gorgeous vistas.

But that was too expensive.

Instead, I am traveling straight across the heartland, stopping only once in Chicago. But what a stop it will be. I am going to be live-blogging this trek across America, telling of all I am learning along the way. I’m sure you will read tales of bravery, of fatigue, of wisdom. Some parts of my trip will be heroic, some will be humbling. But I know that when I depart from this train on Thursday, December 20th at approximately 5:25pm, I will be a new man. An enlightened man. A man that has seen much, learned more, and taught most.

And also, you will most definitely be reading this all after the trip, as my “live-blogging” is actually more like “live-typing it into Microsoft word and then uploading it to my blog when I get to Sacramento because I don’t have internet access on the train”.

Train 1 Route

<-------------------------------------------------

Train 2 Route

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Day 1 – Monday, 17 December 2007

4:20 PM – I just arrived on the train, and after being warned that the outlets are few and far between in the coach section of the train, I found a seat with an outlet. Huzzah! This could literally have ruined my trip. Challenge #1: Conquered.

4:22 PM – As I sit in my seat, watching others take theirs, I worry that someone will sit next to me. I want to be by myself, for this is a journey no one can take with me. I have to do this alone. So far, so good. There’s a fat man in the aisle in front of me to my left, and this is a time I certainly envy the fat. No one is going to want to sit next to him; he doesn’t have to do a damn thing, and he’s guaranteed to sit alone the whole ride. I have to strategically place my bags on the seat next to me and then pretend to be asleep in order to make sure no one tries to sit next to me. But all he has to do is sit there and display his girth. Lucky, fat asshole.

4:23 PM – I think it’s pretty clear I have already gained a lot of wisdom on this journey west. I am just now seeing first light as we emerge from underground. I can see Penn Station. It looks so majestic from this vantage point. Envy me so.

4:24 PM – The fat man just tried talking to an Asian guy in Spanish. Looks like we all have a lot to learn on this journey. I look forward to seeing who all of us become.

4:26 PM – The hunger has set in. I’m starting to feel fatigued. I think I shall need to break into my French Onion Sun Chips. I only have a set amount of food for this whole journey, so I need to ration it. I don’t want to spend a million dollars at the dining cart.

4:28 PM – I just realized I forgot to bring a pillow, and I don’t have a sleeping cart like I had thought about. It didn’t work out and they were oversold. I just texted Kevin that I had left my pillow behind and I was thinking of aborting this whole journey, when a kind, elderly man with an Amtrak hat came around giving out pillows. I think someone up above is watching over me on this quest. Challenge #2: Conquered!

4:40 PM - Maybe I should be blogging with some fake times because it's beginning to look like I'm doing all of my blogging in just the first 20 minutes of this ride. No. NO. I shant lie. This shall be a true accounting of my trip, of interest to probably not even myself a few weeks after I finally get to posting this. I can totally picture this live-blogging thing petering out by 8:15.

4:50 PM – Another train came up beside us, going in the same direction, and at one point, we were going the same speed. People from both trains seemed to be looking into their neighbor train, and for a brief moment, I looked at this woman in her 30s, wondering where she was coming from. In that quick moment, I had already imagined a whole life for her, where she was heading, what her dreams and ambitions were. Moments later, her train stopped at Riverdale. So, she was just going to somewhere else in New York state. Loser.

9:25 PM – I wasn’t so lucky in Albany. New people came on the train, and no matter how hard I fake slept, I now have someone sitting next to me. For all I know, he is reading this right now. I have to tread carefully. Maybe we’ll strike up a conversation in the middle of the night and learn that although we come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, we’re not so different after all. I also just had dinner: a microwaved mini-pizza for $3.50. When in Rome…

10:38 PM – I can’t believe it’s only 10:38pm. I’m thinking maybe we changed time zones, and we are now an hour earlier than normal. Otherwise, I really can’t believe it’s only been a little over an hour since that pizza. I have watched two episodes of “The Wire”, three episodes of “Arrested Development” and have read a little of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” since boarding the train. Behind me are two NYC-based guys talking about how much they hate LA. One guy said, “There are two different types of people: those that hate LA and those that love LA. And the only good kind of people are those that hate LA.” Now, I do not like LA. I really don’t, and I hope I don’t ever have to live there. But for some reason, hearing someone else talk so poorly of it, I wanted to turn around and say, “I have friends that live there!” I’ll save that for 2AM.

11:12 PM – The guy behind be who hates LA just noticed I was watching something (“Arrested Development”) with Michael Cera in it and asked me what it was. He said, “That’s the guy who did “Superbad”. I didn’t know he was in something else.” I have so very much to teach this train.

12:07 AM - I wonder if I have ever talked to a murderer before. Y’know? Like if at some point in my life I have been in the same room with or made small talk or anything with someone who had either killed someone or would later kill someone in their life. Makes you wonder. I think if I haven’t before, being on this train, I probably have now.

To Be Continued…

Horror

2007-11-17T23:47:00.000-05:00

If you read my blog, you know that I have an intense, long-burning hatred of both rats and mice, because they are filthy monsters. Well, folks, we have mice in our apartment. I saw two tiny mice about a week ago when I was sitting on the floor watching TV, and I saw two of them run out of a tiny hole behind our water heater and scurry their way into the kitchen. I can not remember a time when I have been more frightened and disgusted. Which is embarrassing, I know. But for those of you that know me, you know that I am a man among men; you know that few things scare me because it is I who am to be feared, with my over-flowing masculinity and unabated levels of testosterone. So let me have this one fear: tiny little mice.

So that night, we plugged up the hole the best we could by taking a washcloth and wedging it into the hole with a steak knife. And we left the steak knife in the hole, as I hoped the mice would come barreling through the tunnel and impale themselves on the knife. I took a perverse glee in the thought that that would happen, although realistically, that would have not been so good. But instead, I just had to sit in the living room all night listening to the little monsters scratch away at the washcloth, trying to get in. We could see the knife jiggling and the washcloth moving with each desperate swipe of their vermin paws. It was so disgusting. I wanted to go toward the hole and stick the knife in harder to make sure they wouldn’t loosen it enough and come running out. But I was afraid that as soon as I leaned over to readjust the washcloth, they would push through at that moment, and a whole stream of them would attack my body like the tiny dinosaurs in The Lost World. So instead, I just became a prisoner on my couch, and sat half watching TV, half watching the hole for frightening developments.

The next day, we called the landlady and told her we had mice, and she said she would come over as soon as she could and take care of it. Her definition of taking care of it involved leaving some poison food for the mice, laying down a sticky glue trap, and then leaving us a note and a voice mail scolding us for leaving trash “all over the place”. “That’s why the mice are coming, because of all the trash you guys have everywhere”, is what she said. For the record, our place is annoyingly immaculate. There isn’t a thing out of place anywhere, and any trash she was referring to, was in a trash can. She made it seem like we slept in beds made of used bean cans and covered up with leftover wrappers for blankets. And what she also did, to demonstrate how much trash we have everywhere, is take trash out of our trash can and scatter it along the kitchen floor, as if to say, “This! This is the trash I’m talking about.” So when we got home, we had to throw it all away, in the trash can, where it does and has belonged. What an idiot she is. Anyway, she also gummed up the hole that the mice had been coming out of – it was this dark green substance that blocked off the whole completely. This should have made me content, except that there was ANOTHER hole directly below that one that they were now coming out of.

Yesterday, I was getting ready for work at about 4:30 in the morning (we had a really early filming call) and it was still dark out. I went into the bathroom and put in my contacts that I hadn’t bothered to wear for days. And as soon as I got them in, I decided to take a look at the now gummed-up hole and see how big the other one below it was. Right as I got close to look at it, I saw a larger mouse poke its head out of the hole and look at me. Then, it scurried behind the bookshelf, running AROUND the glue trap that we had set out for it – IT WAS LEARNING! I jumped up onto the couch and started whimpering. I felt beat, like there was nothing I could do. If these mice knew what a glue trap looked like and knew to run around them, then I was fucked. And I certainly didn’t want them eating the poison food, slowly getting sick, and then dying somewhere in our house like under our bed or something. The last thing I need is to find a dead, rotting mouse in a month because of the stench of its rotting flesh. Oh god, the thought of that makes me wonder why there isn’t some governmental program in place to kill all of them right now.

So after it ran behind the bookshelf, it cut across the middle of the room to get to the kitchen, keeping out of the way of the glue traps. Well, our bathroom is right next to our kitchen, and because the mouse was in that area, I decided I could not go back into the bathroom and brush my teeth or hair, or put deodorant on. I would rather stink all day than risk having a tiny mouse touch any part of my body. So instead, I stood on the couch whimpering until Kevin woke up. I told him he needed to move the trap to the path of the bookshelf, because they wouldn’t expect it there. He did so, begrudgingly, went back to bed, and then I left for the day in a panic without cleaning any part of myself.

Ten minutes later, I was in a cab on the way to work, and Kevin called me to say that we had caught a mouse on the trap. How did he know this, when he was asleep in the other room?, I thought. Because he could hear it crying and shaking the trap back and forth on the ground – it was so loud it woke him up! Then, THEN, he went out to check on it, and the mouse was on it, trying to bite through its legs so that it could escape. There was blood all over the place as it ate away at its awful little body!

I told you – they’re FUCKING MONSTERS!!!

When he first told me that we had caught one, I felt bad, knowing that we were actually responsible for killing a living thing. I felt especially bad that it was to be a slow death, as the trap just held it in place to die of eventual starvation. But when I heard it was tearing off its limbs with its teeth in order to escape, I was so repulsed, I was glad it was dying.

If I had been the one home when that happened – if Kevin had been gone one night and I had to sit on the couch and watch the rat eat away at its own body, with blood splattering everywhere, I would have…

I don’t know.

I don’t know what I would have done. I thought about making some joke or saying something like “I would have just died”, but the truth of it is that I probably would have just started shaking uncontrollably as I watched in horror as the mouse ate itself in front of me.

So when I got home last night, the second hole had been closed up, and Kevin had dutifully cleaned up the trap with the bloody mouse carcass on it. The apartment looks clean and mouse-free, yet I can’t help but think about the horrors that happened in my home. It doesn’t feel like the same place anymore. It feels like a crime scene, and although our place is always clean and neat, I can’t help but feel disgusting wherever I got in our apartment.

I guess it could be worse. One of my coworkers told me that she had a friend who was going to the bathroom in her apartment when she felt something poke at her butt and when she got up to see what it was, there was a RAT in her toilet. CAN YOU IMAGINE? Is there anything worse than that in this whole world? No, no there is not. Thought sitting on the toilet might be the best way for me to encounter a rat, actually, because I would already have my pants down and be sitting on the pot when I inadvertently just started shitting everywhere.

*** I thought about putting up a picture of a mouse, because I usually pick some picture to accompany my entries. So I Googled variations on "mouse" or "disgusting mice" but I just couldn't bring myself to put their ugly little mug on my page. So no picture! Take that, mice!

Things I Highly Reccommend You See

2007-11-15T14:43:00.000-05:00

1. Into The Wild
2. No Country For Old Men
3. Lars and the Real Girl
4. The Sopranos
5. Gone Baby Gone
6. Our Town, as performed by The Students at Bryant High School in Astoria, Queens.

(please click on picture to see a larger version of its majesty)

I have not personally had the pleasure of seeing this show, but I did find this poster for it in the Time Square Subway stop. And let me tell you, if I wasn't already working this weekend, I would have a hard time passing up this obvious gem of a theatrical experience. It's shows like this that make people insist on spelling theatre with an re.

Why was this play being advertised in Time Square, and in a subway stop? Or, more importantly, Who cares? I fully agree with whoever posted this sign that as many people should know about this play as possible. And guess what, folks? There is still time to see this show! It plays tomorrow and Saturday and is only $6.00! Now, you might be interested in buying advanced tickets so that you can secure a prime seat and not have to wait in the sure-to-be long line, but unfortunately, as it says on the poster, tickets are only available at the door.

I think what makes this show look so appealing to me is the casting. I have seen several staged versions of Thorton Wilder's "Great American Classic", but none with such spot-on casting. I can only assume that the snarky, know-it-all 13 year old featured on the poster is portraying the role of the Stage Manager, which has been performed in past productions by Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman. This production's actor has a button-up shirt and thrift store blazer on that give off the air of authority that the role of the Stage Manager demands. Just looking into his pre-pubescent eyes, you know this kid has got stories to tell - stories about generations and generations of middle-class life in America in the early 20th century.

Moving to the lower right corner of the poster, we clearly see George Gibbs and Emily Webb, the two main sweethearts of Grover's Corners. They are both looking fondly in the same direction - I'm assuming at the 0 people they beat out to play these roles. The adorable and heartbreaking story of George and Emily is right at the heart of Our Town, and pulls at the audience's heart-strings because Emily is so willing and able to look past George Gibbs' cockiness (and rampant acne - zoom in on the picture!) to end up dedicating her entire life to him. Looking at the poster at those two lovebirds together, you really begin to believe in love yourself.

So please, take some time out of your weekend to go to the Ethel Merman Theatre at Bryant High School in Astoria, Queens to see Thorton Wilder's epic masterpiece, "Our Town".

* * * * *

In other news, I wrote part of this segment:

Messages From Our Troops To The Families They Can Barely Remember

And this is our new morning show, Today Now!. It is my favorite thing we have done so far:

Medical Miracle: Man Lives Thanks To Heart Stolen From Dead Man

Welcome Back, Me!

2007-10-19T15:17:00.000-05:00

Oooooh boy! I have been gone for a long time and there is much to tell.

1. I recently celebrated my 4th anniversary which means that I am more successful than most of you in attaining and keeping a relationship. This 4 year mark really cements myself as a leader in love. We thought of registering at Linens N' Things to see who would buy us things for our Anniversary as if we were getting married, but then realized people would probably see right through the fact that we would be claiming to do so comically. And to answer your question about when we will start making babies, I answer, "Any day now!"

2. I recently threw Kevin a surprise birthday party thing. The party itself wasn't a surprise, but I secretly flew out one of his best friends from Colorado. He never gets to see her, and it took everything I had to not tell him ahead of time that she was coming. As the day of her arrival approached, I was constantly afraid I had just accidentally told him she was coming. He would ask me something like "Do you wanna watch Heroes?" And I would respond with something like "No, I'm sick of that show." and then instantly freeze up and think, "Holy shit! Did I just accidentally say "Kristina is coming to surprise you tomorrow!"? Sometimes I would get super ballsy and bring her up on purpose, hoping he would say something like "Man, I miss Kristina. If only I could visit her soon!" just to validate my gift as awesome, but then I would have to rein myself in before accidentally getting carried away and giving away the surprise.

3. I am currently engaged in an abusive relationship with my new contact lenses. What a pain in the ass seeing well is! I had a trial pair of contact lenses two years ago, but after laboriously trying to shove them in my eye for 30 minutes each morning for a week, I decided that having the ability to see things was just not worth the effort. But I haven given it another try, after being informed that I would not be able to pass my eye test to renew my driver's license. Ouch. Contact lenses suck! Sure, it takes time to get used to them, yeah yeah, blah blah. But I just don't have time in my life each morning to scoop a lens off my cheek after it falls out of my eye, or sit in the bathroom and cry after I accidentally put it in backwards. Moreover, I specifically can't imagine dealing with this for the rest of my life. It's like being told you have cancer. Sure, I might not die of my contacts, but I am sure as hell going to have to live with them until I die of something else. Right guys?

However, I will say that when I am wearing them, I feel like the Bionic Man. During the day, I feel like I can see for miles! Each tree is no longer just a big green tree, it's a series of smaller, distinct shapes called leaves! In fact, with these contacts, I oftentimes trick myself into thinking I can see anything. I will sometimes try to read a sign at the end of a long subway car, and when I can't, I think, "But I have my contacts in! I'm a machine! I should be able to read anything!" Kevin has to remind me that I now just have good vision, not infra-red and night-vision goggle vision. Though I should for the money I'm spending.

4. Which reminds me, I have health insurance now. Which is really useless since I'm too afraid to go to the doctors and find out that I'm dying of something rare. So really, I pay $150 a month to just know that I could find out that I were dying if I wanted to, and that it would be a whole lot cheaper than before I had health insurance. Even using my Insurance to go get an Eye Exam was emotional; I thought for sure the physician was going to discover some rare disease that was not only going going to eventually render me blind, but dead as well. In fact, the week before my appointment, I saw a rerun of America's Next Top Model (which I may or may not watch a lot of) and there was a model who had some eye disease that was going to cause her to be blind by the age of 30. I didn't even know this disease existed! So...GREAT: another ailment for me to convince myself I have but also scare me from ever having someone check me for!

5. One of my favorite things of late is hearing white people whisper the word "black" when talking about black people in a completely non-racist sentence. It happens all the time. People assume that just by saying someone is black, they are racist, so they whisper the word as if to say, "I know what I'm saying could sound racist". But the irony is that it wouldn't have had they not whispered the word. I love it! For example, I have heard the word "black" be whispered in a sentence more or less like this one:

(while looking at a cast picture on a wall)

"Oh, I know that guy. He's a really good actor."
"Which one? The really tall guy?"
"No, the one in the back...the uh....the *black* guy. He's really talented."

Why the whisper? How is it innappropriate to point out the guy's race to get me to know which person she was talking about? I mean, if I was in a photo of all black guys, and someone was trying to point me out, I would expect to be referred to as the white guy. It's a lot quicker than saying like "Oh, Chris is the tall one....with the brown hair....and the piercing blue eyes that could wake the dead." Just say I'm white!

I think that is all for now. I will leave you now with one of my favorite Onion News Network videos of late. This was a really fun one to shoot. Enjoy!

Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

Think About This

2007-09-07T16:34:00.000-05:00

Three days ago, I got in a car accident while scouting locations for work in New Jersey. It didn’t really phase me all that much – I wasn’t hurt, the damage was minimal, and our work insurance will cover the costs. But what made the experience so memorable was the horse’s ass driving the car I hit.

Now I say “I hit” very non-committally. We were in almost stopped traffic, and we brushed sides. To be honest, I think we were both to blame, but since I didn’t see it happen and he jumped out of his car screaming, I assumed it was my fault, and was fine with it.

He was enraged. He flipped his shit. He stormed out of his car and literally just screamed at me. He was a gigantic asshole; he was one of those overly macho, hairy, gay guys that are into leather. I hate him. And to prove how much he was over-reacting, here is a picture of the damage to his SUV:

Can you see it? You might need to download it, enlarge it, and zoom in a few times. Granted, this will still cost money; but clearly, my insurance would be paying for it. His over-reaction was insane. He was a dick. So therefore, I shall speak ill of him in ways that I would not normally do to someone. Like for example, instead of just complaining that he was talking on his blue-tooth phone headset when he got out of his car to yell at me, I will also point out the fact that he only had one hand as well.

But of course I couldn’t say that to the police officer in my police report. One-Hand gave his statement, and then when it was time to give mine, I asserted that he was on his blue-tooth phone device, so maybe he was also to blame, but I couldn’t say “Oh, and oh by the way, he has a tiny, freakish little ball at the end of his arm where one of his hands should be. Maybe that played a role in the collision.”

Because maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. I really don’t know. I think it would be silly for me to assert that all people with tiny balls of flesh in place of a proper human-being hand are reckless drivers, but at the same time, I can’t throw out perfectly good admissible evidence. I mean, if I had a doughy flesh lump with five, smaller fleshy circles for fingers at the end of one arm, I would probably not be the best driver, either. Certainly, after years and years, I would get used to it. But that doesn’t rule out that maybe he was distracted when he hit me because he was looking down at it and sobbing, or closing his eyes and envisioning a world where he wasn’t a monster.

I just don’t know. I’m not him. I have two hands. I can’t make these assumptions. All I’m saying is that the cop had the right to know all the details, and I’m not sure if he noticed One-Hand’s namesake deformity.

I wonder if during sex, someone has every licked or sucked on one of his tiny, little flesh-ball fingers.

These are the things I think about. I guess his partner would have to do that, right? Otherwise it would be brought up. I’m sure his partner, during sex one night, had to mentally psych himself up and think “its just skin like all other skin. Just because it looks different, doesn’t mean it is any different. I should just kiss it. Or lick it. To prove to him that I don’t care.”

But then wouldn’t One-Hand notice and think he was doing that only to try and prove he was okay with the freak hand when he probably wasn’t? Or maybe, conversely, his partner shied away from ever touching that “hand” intimately during sex, and one night, One-Hand made him lick it or suck it to prove his love.

Gross.

I am all for dating the disabled, the deformed, and the monsters you often see roaming the streets. They’re people too, with hopes, feelings, and probably really over-developed senses of humor that have been built up from years as an outcast. All I’m saying is that there would definitely be that bridge to cross.

If your partner gets crazy burned all over part of his or her body, you just learn to love it, right? I’m sure awesome, perfect people out there think they wouldn’t notice or care. But you kinda would – as least at first. That first night, you would have to think to yourself “Okay, it’s time. I’m just gonna lick that third-degree burn scar” or “Okay, I’m gonna kiss one of those leg stumps to show him/her all of their body is still sexy!”. It’s what people do when they love each other. If my partner got disfigured, we would definitely stay together and I would get used to it.

But let’s not all sit on high horses here and pretend like that first night wouldn’t present a conundrum for the ages. “Do I ignore it so they don’t think I’m forcing it? Do I specifically favor that now disfigured part of the body to prove I’m down with it even if I’m not quite yet?”

So many questions.
So few answers.
Such disgusting deformities.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And in other news, this is my favorite segment we have done at The Onion News Network.

Missing Girl Probably Raped

Adventures in Not Modeling!

2007-08-23T13:11:00.000-05:00

When I first moved to Manhattan, I took a job as an intern at a men’s magazine. It focused mostly on fashion and travel and whatnot, and my job consisted mostly of transcribing interviews with Parker Posey and occasionally writing short book reviews that actually got published. So through that job, as you can probably infer, I practically became famous.

Luckily, that internship also led to a very humiliating experience that I can now relate to you via this blog entry. I was asked to help out on one of their high-fashion photo shoots at an abandoned nightclub/warehouse in Brooklyn. I don’t remember what the theme of it was, but I think it was something like “Almost Naked in Winter” or “A Scrap of Clothing to Best Accentuate Your Pectorals”. Either way, it was December in Brooklyn, and when we weren’t taking pictures inside the building, the models were practically naked, taking pictures leaning up against chain link fences and such that are extremely cold to the touch in the dead of winter.

And as we all know, models are not to be cold or told what the word "cold" means. It would confuse them and ruin their pictures. They are far too precious of gems to have to experience the elements. So my job, which had previously been to get all the models vegan food all day (they were all vegan – FUCK THEM!), now turned into Model Warmer. My job was to stand next to the model during the entire shoot and then hand them a warm blanket in between takes so that they could warm up.

Maybe some people are reading this, jealous. “Chris got to stand next to naked models all day? Awesome!”

Not awesome.

There was not one moment of attraction. It was hard to see how beautiful they were through all the loathing. Two of them were eighteen. And I probably wouldn’t have minded if I had just stopped acting all petty but I couldn’t stop thinking “I’m older than you! And here I am, waiting on you and keeping your beautiful body warm!” I kept wanting to speak up and assert that I had hopes and dreams, relaying to them my thought that I would probably end up being more successful than them in the long run. But that day I was just the older, less attractive guy who was asked to keep his clothes on and feed and warm the attractive people.

Now up to this point, nothing is really humiliating. I didn’t so much feel complete and utter embarrassment, I just spent most of they day contemplating my choices in life that brought me to this point. I then moved on to mentally asserting that I would leave this shoot and exceed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

This is when the models noticed that their legs were getting all ashy in the cold. So someone handed me a bottle of lotion and asked that I keep their legs moisturized. I thought, “Alright”, and when the first model complained, I squirted a dollop of moisturizer into his confused hand. It was then that it was explained to me that a model shant have to rub lotion on his own quivering legs. That was MY job.

I didn’t even have time to think “Ooooooh! Sexy!” It was far too humiliating. I had to get down on my hands and knees, a grown man (kind of), and rub lotion on this 18 year old chump's freezing cold legs while he just stood there in his underwear and everyone watched in silence, waiting for me to finish so they could start taking pictures of him. And this happened over and over again for the rest of the day. Once I looked up while I was doing it and I saw him just staring down at me watching me rub the lotion into his skin. All the way up to his underwear. It wasn’t exhilarating, perverts. I wanted to KILL these models. What must he have been thinking staring down at my watery eyes and shivering body? Was it pity? Sadness? Triumph? I know what I was thinking:

How dare you let me rub lotion on your legs? You can’t sully your perfect hands with moisturizer? Give me a fucking break! Pooooor ba-by! Do you know what an asshole I feel like on my knees rubbing your legs until they’re smooth and creamy enough for your liking? I went to college! I got good SAT scores! You might still be in high school and yet you are beating me at life right now!

But yet I didn’t say any of this. Not a word. My only consolation was seeing the pictures back in the office the next week, looking at those creamy, smooth, warm-looking legs, and thinking proudly, "I'm $30,000 in debt from college, I live in an apartment where the toilet is in a utility shed outside, but damn if I don't know to make a model's legs look GOOD!"

But, and here's the final kicker: they never published the pictures. Never. They didn't think it had a good enough editorial theme, and therefore reshot the whole thing. Ba-da-bum!

* * * * *

And finally, on a separate note, my friend Corey Johnson has sent me my latest Facebook gift. As some of you may know from my previous posts, I think the jpeg gifts people can buy each other on Facebook are a joke, and I am encouraging people to send me gifts via regular mail (which is cheaper!) instead. Below is Corey’s gift to me, which had the following note attached:

“This is the most valuable of Facebook gifts, for it is my FACE!! Enjoy! ☺”

Luckily, the picture came to me as you see it below, with a tiny little piece torn off under the nose. So now it looks like he has a booger! Tee hee! Joke's on you, buddy! Thanks for the picture of the Horse’s Ass! And everyone else, feel free to send YOUR Facebook gifts to me at:

Chris “I Don’t Need No Facebook Jpeg” Kelly
149 Leonard St. Apt. 8
Brooklyn, NY 11206

* * * * *

And finally, here are our two most recent segments from The Onion News Network. I really like both of them.

Live From Congress: The Skull Fucking Bill Of 2007

World's Oldest Neurosurgeon Turns 100

Take Me Out of This Ballgame

2007-08-14T13:10:00.000-05:00

When I was about ten years old, my father and his friend, who was going to be coaching the team, coerced me to play Little League baseball. Everyone seemed to think it would be “good for me”, as adults always feel about things their kids adamantly don’t want to do. I remember even then, thinking to myself, "Man, when I get older, I'm really going to have to talk to him about how even in retrospect, I wish he hadn't pushed me into so many sports teams."

Anyway, I hated – HATED – being on that baseball team. Loathed it. Every single second of it. We were called “The Astros” and we had dumb little hats with the Astros shooting star emblem on them. Our coach thought a good way to motivate us would be to give us little sew-on white star decals to add to our hat each time we had a really good game or hit a home run or something like that. At the end of each game, he would gather us around and tell us what was great about the game while singling out specific players to give stars to.

I think we all know where this is going.

After many other teammates’ hats were literally covered in stars so you could practically not even see the hat beneath, Coach wised up and realized he needed to broaden his definition of "star-worthy actions". So halfway through the season, he awarded me my first star for “Constantly Being Ready”. I played left field, and for most of the game I can guarantee you I wasn’t ready. But that was what my first star was for; my second was for “enthusiasm” and my third was for “always being the first one to practice and showing how much I cared”. I was always early because my dad would insist we get to the field first to throw the ball around before everyone else got there and because he thought it made a good impression. In actuality, it made a sad, pitiable impression. But let’s not split hairs.

One day, while I was “playing left field” during a scrimmage game, I really had to go to the bathroom. I remember it being painful; I had to go before I went out on the field, and I spent the remainder of my time out there concentrating as hard as I could on not urinating all over myself in front of my teammates. But luckily for my now 23-year-old comedy-loving self, this was the longest inning in the history of baseball because the opposing team was amazing and we were terrible. I was in the outfield for upwards of 30 minutes, dancing and squatting and twisting around, doing anything I could to prevent from exploding. After five minutes of pinching off my penis between my legs like a kinked hose, I couldn't hold out any longer, and I pissed all over myself. The light gray sweatpants that I wore became a much darker shade of gray in large trickles all down my legs.

The rest of the story a bit hazy, except I remember at one point my dad carrying me to the car in my piss-soaked sweatpants. But rather than take me home, he pulled me into the van, took off his sweatpants and gave them to me so I could run back out there and finish the game. He drove home pants-free, all so that I could finish the game.

Now I know he had his head in the right place during this decision; perhaps he was trying to help me out, allow me to show my teammates that I wasn’t going to let some silly little urine get in the way of my left fielding, but I tell you this: should I have a child that plays baseball, and this ever happens to him, I will not carry his urine soaked body past his teammates, disappear into a van for a bit, then allow him to reappear in baggy man-sweats to finish out the game as if nothing had happened. Because something did happen out there in the field that day. Something awful and private and sad and quiet and wet. And it happened all down my leg and into my cleats.

What my dad SHOULD have done is drive all the way home without looking back, allow me to legally change my name, and then deny that I ever played on a baseball team called the Astros.

And you know what? That wouldn’t have been a lie. Because I never really did play on a team called the Astros. But apparently, I was “constantly ready” to.

A List For Your Reading Pleasure

2007-08-08T13:29:00.000-05:00

1. The Onion just got a little bit sexier. Take a look at that handsome devil atop the float in the paper’s front-page story today – I’m next to him, crying. Proud? Also, while I’m doing a little bit of plugging: The Onion's Myspace Video Page launched today; you should befriend us and read our Reporter Blogs, because I write some of them. Or at least one of them so far; but I don’t know when mine goes up. Either way, read away!

<----------- For the larger version, click the picture! Or if you're a supportive non-asshole, click the link above and check out the actual Onion page! Thanks!

2. Today I ran into Elijah Wood at the Starbucks by my work. Literally ran into him. It’s been rumored apparently for a long time, but let me just add my two irrelevant cents to this equally irrelevant topic: He could not have looked gayer had he had a dick in his mouth.

3. There was a giant storm last night that apparently dropped three inches of rain on the city and caused a tree or two to fall over, before forcing several subway trains to stop running because of minor flooding. I personally was ignorant of all of this; I woke up, got to work just fine, and was then bombarded by at least half a dozen text messages and phone calls calling to make sure “I was okay”. My friend Erin said she heard there was a tornado in Brooklyn, and another text from someone said “I heard what's happening. It’s all over the news. Are you alright?”. I finally know what it must have been like to be here on 9/11.

4. I would like to let everyone know that I don’t want to hear about any dream you have ever had. Ever. I don’t care if you turned into a monster or had this trippy dream where you were yourself but also not yourself at the same time. I don’t even care if it involves me in some kooky scenario. Dreams are boring. They aren’t real, they didn’t happen, and I have things I have to get back to doing. Thank you for your time. Now please continue to read this blog full of things that have nothing to do with you. ☺

5. There are people outside of our offices most days campaigning for Gay Rights, and I feel like such a hypocrite and an asshole for just walking past them each day, unwilling to “donate a minute of my time”. But I have a sneaking suspicion I would be able to find a minute or two if the people campaigning were a bit more attractive. I probably don’t deserve rights.

6. If I was a superhero, I think I would choose invisibility as my power. But I would also not be able to use the word “hero” in my title because I would spend all of my time watching attractive people having sex. I know this makes me sound creepy, but it was something I decided on back when I was a teenager. I wouldn’t want to fly, I wouldn’t want to regenerate or heal myself. When I was 14, I decided the only thing I would want to be able to do is just go invisible and watch people do it. And I would like to say that after a decade, my superhero interests have shifted, changed, or matured, but they haven’t.

7. There is a commercial on television right now, and I forget what it is advertising, but when I find out and/or remember, I will never buy their product. Even if they’re advertising eternal youth or Mountain Dew*. This commercial, for most of it’s length, features the sound of an alarm going off. I find this to be the most awful sound in existence. And I don’t mean a music alarm or one of those alarms with beeps and jingles; I mean the classic, buzzing alert honk. It’s awful, and the use of it even in a joking manner, is unacceptable to me. I don’t understand people that choose to wake up to that sound. You are monsters.

This was a pretty shitty update.

* Okay, maybe Mountain Dew.

Shavaugn Lewis, Are You Out There?

2007-07-31T22:56:00.001-05:00

When I was in the 4th grade, I was slapped in the face by a girl during recess, and it made me run crying to my mom. Who was my teacher.

Let me back up a bit.

There was a girl, nay, a monster, in my 4th grade class named Shavaugn Lewis. We were not friends; in fact, we were nine year old nemeses. I loathed her, and she me. One day, when we were out at recess playing WallBall (if you don't know the game, I couldn't begin to explain the subtle nuances of its rules and techniques in one silly blog entry) when we got into a bit of a skirmish. I'm pretty sure she said something mean to me, and I passive-aggressively found a way to make it look like I got pushed into her so that I could shove her. At this point, she looked me square in the eyes and slapped me across the face.

It was a mighty slap, a slap that screamed out "I am Shavaugn's hand and I will be listened to!" And I listened, loud and clear. That is, for the two seconds before the sound of my own crying drowned it out. And I don't mean that I held back tears or that my eyes watered from the shock. I mean to say I stood there, and retaliated by crying at her. Hard and long sobbing. Typing this, my stomach turns. Why were you such a loser, Nine-Year-Old-Chris? Why? Couldn't you have laughed it off? Couldn't you have thought of a witty retort even though it really would take a few more years of awful social encounters like this to help you build up your sense of humor in the first place? What the fuck was wrong with me? I think in that moment, I was so moded, so out-and-out put in my place, that there was nothing I could really do. I think it would have been less embarrassing had I just shit my pants.

<-------------
This is the face that she slapped.
You kind of can't blame her, right?

At this point, one of the Yard-Duties (aka: bored and newly-divorced moms who volunteered at the school to prove a point that they were still useful and happy) came over to Shavaugn and I and issued us a White Card, which was some sort of punishment that all students kind of new was bullshit but didn't want to hurt the administration's feelings by calling them out on it. In the end, nothing came of any of this; my mom was my teacher that year, so she naturally took my side (even though MAYBE I provoked it) and Shavaugn's White Card never got her expelled or ruined her chances at success and future happiness.

We spent the remainder of elementary school hating each other. And it wasn't a passive "Oh I dislike this person" sort of thing. It was a rage that festered inside of me for three more years. Now don't get me wrong; it was a mutual loathing. Our class, whether directly or indirectly, was split into two camps for the remainder of our elementary years. On the one side, you had the Shavaugn Lewis Camp (made up mostly of ne'er-do-wells), and on the other side, you had the Truth and Justice Camp (made up of me and the Jehovah's Witness, Bethany).

To this day, I don't know where Shavaugn is. I hope she is doing well. I hope she is a successful neurosurgeon perhaps living in New York City, and we can one day meet up for dinner and laugh about our past, and then she would say "Oh, dinner's on me!" and I would say "Oh, Shavaugn, you don't have to do that!", while knowing full well I was going to let her pay. And then we would part ways, sigh about our ridiculous childhood feud, hug amicably and then as we turned to head off into the night, I would say, "Oh, and Shavaugn...?", and then sock her in the face.

I kid. That wouldn't happen. Probably because she's dead or near death. Since that slap, her life has probably been a series or equally aggressive decisions. Sure, it made her successful in the short term, but then her tendency, nay, NEED to lash out finally caught up with her. She probably got into a fight with a panhandler, and has spent the last ten years trying to recover while making ends meet and paying for her children's preschool (of which she most likely has 13 by 14 different fathers.) That's what happens when you slap a kid at nine years old. It just is.

Oh, I kid again. I really have absolutely no ill-will against this girl...who is now a woman. Weird. I still picture her being nine years old, even though we went to middle school and high school together. I never really saw her much later in our schooling, though, so that slap is still etched in my mind, and I have really enjoyed cultivating this faux-hatred for her. My absolute dream would be either that she find this blog randomly and becomes outraged and leaves an awful, nasty comment OR that she finds it and has a good laugh and realizes that this is all in jest, and then we fall in love and make children together. I would be perfectly happy with either outcome.

Or thirdly, she could somehow find out where I live (oh shit, my address is in a previous blog post!), knock on my door, and when I open it, just slap me across the face, tell me to have a nice life, and disappear forever.

If she did that, although I would not want to be slapped, I would be forced to applaud her all the way until she was out of earshot. And then blog about it.

Things About Me That May Prove to Not Be Enough To Warrant An Entire Blog Post

2007-07-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

1. I think I have a really boring notion of romane. Perhaps it's because I have been in a relationship for almost four years, or perhaps because simple, non-romantic things seem the most romantic to me. For example, I was defecating several weeks ago, and I was in it for the long haul, so my mind began to wander, and without trying to, I started daydreaming about this as a legitimate romantic scenario, and not in a I-was-trying-to-be-funny way, either:

INT. Bathroom Stall

I am sitting in one stall, when an unidentified person comes in and sits down in the stall next to me. We sit in silence, me holding in my business, trying to wait for this new person to leave so that I may finish in peace. I am nervous and uncomfortable, afraid to proceed because of instense worry that my body will betray me with some horrific sound. At that moment, I hear an unpleasant, embarrassing sound from the next stall. Then silence for a bit, until:

Unidentified Person In The Next Stall: (laughing) Well, that's awkward. Because I know you heard that.

Me: (also laughing at this person being so upfront about the situation) Oh, don't worry about it. I was sitting here mortified that I would make some awful noise myself. I'm just glad you did it first.

UPITNS: OK good. I hate going to the bathroom when someone else is in here! I was going wait it out until you left.

Me: (really beginning to warm to this stranger) I was going to do the same thing!

UPITNS: God, bathrooms can be so uncomfortable!

Me: I know! Sometimes I try to time my flush so that it masks other less pleasant sounds.

UPITNS: I do the same thing! I hate how silent bathrooms are. I feel like people can hear every wipe, everything!

Me: God, I feel the same way.

At this point, we both finish our bidness. We step out of the stalls. We see each other for the first time. We have both been through so much and survived a long, intimate, private (albeit disgusting) moment with just a stall wall betwixt us. We appreciate each other's honesty, neurosis, and hatred of public bathrooms all without saying anything; our eyes say it all. We kiss passionately and spend the rest of our lives together.

Blackout.

No joke. This was literally my daydream and is indicative of my idea of romance. More than walks along the beach or romantic gift surprises, that scenario did it for me. My hatred for public restrooms, my shame and embarrassment every time I have to experience using the toilet alongside another man, is so strong and so palpable, that the idea of another person openly expressing his loathing for it as well and putting me at ease in that nightmare was enough for me to get swept up in a nuanced daydream where the two of us run off and build a life together.

2. I think the Birthday Song is the most miserable song in the world. We have had to sing it several times at work, and recently have just completely done away with it, because it's so uncomfortable. Every single time. And it doesn't have to be! It could be a breezy, uplifting tune of celebration, but everyone always inevitably starts the song at such a slow tempo, that after one line, everyone is always thinking "Oh, shit! Why did we start this song so slow? There's no turning back now, we're in this till the end!" And no one knows how to organically speed it up without disrupting everyone else that is also singing. It's just a recipe for disaster, and no one likes being sung at while they just stand there smiling, with a look of faux-gratitude on their face.

The only thing worse than being sung to by friends and family, is being sung to by waiters at a restaurant. They don't want to sing to you; they have their own shit to do. When I was a server at Ruby's (a 50's themed) Diner, we had to sing our own 50's version of the song when it was people's birthdays. It was so time-consuming and elaborate; we had to stop what we were doing, make this large ice cream sundae with everything on it, and then round up all the other servers to get them to sing with you. It was miserable. No ones wanted to help out because they've got their own shit to take care of, so the song inevitably just ends up being you and three irritated other push-overs begrudgingly singing some shitty take on the real Birthday Song while handing the birthday boy or girl a half-ass sundae you whipped together in five seconds so you could get back to your real work. When someone would tell me it was their birthday, I wouldn't even be happy for them, I would just think "You asshole."

The absolute worst was when it was a 20-something guy's birthday. If I had to sing our little Ruby's birthday ditty to an attractive, 24 year old guy, it would be exponentially worse. I would be standing there in my 50's attire (including a little white paper hat) singing this song I didn't even know the words to (the middle part of the song just sounds like a series of clicks and whistles, so that's usually what I did). It was PAINFUL to look a peer in the eye and sing to him while dressed like a fool. Whenever that happened, I always had to suppress the urge to run after him when he left and tell him that I was a college graduate, that I had a good group of friends, that I more than understood how stupid I looked, and that I had a lot of really high yet attainable hopes and dreams for myself.

3. My good friend and Champion Of Justice, Michael Dang, just sent me my newest Facebook gift. For those of you that don't know, I have a small beef with Facebook and the stupid picture gifts people can send each other (after paying a dollar for them). So I have been collecting actual gift pictures from people that are much more personal and only cost the price of a stamp to send them. So here is the latest in my collection, which joins Lindsay Katai's Disco Ball:

Thank you Michael. "Chris:2, Facebook: 0" indeed. Please feel free to send any pictures to:

Chris "I Don't Need No Facebook Jpeg" Kelly
149 Leonard St. Apt. 8
Brooklyn, NY 11206

After looking on the Facebook website, I'm really now looking to collect the pony, the pacifier, the bra and panties set, or the picture of the dog pulling down a man's swim suit. You decide!

Love, Chris

I'm Resisting The Urge To To Format This Title Like a Harry Potter Book

2007-07-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

So I have been bullied into reading the Harry Potter series at long last. Bullied by society, bullied by friends over the course of several years, and bullied by the overwhelming urge to just have read them and be done with it already.

I began reading Book 1 (or, as us true Harry Potter fans might say, “Year 1”) at camp a couple of weeks ago, because there were a lot of long lazy days, and I thought reading a book would be a fun way to while the time. So I began my Harry Potter adventure as most 8-year-old children do, by reading it lying on my stomach in the grass and under the covers with a flashlight at night. No joke. I finished the first book in two days; not because it was captivating from beginning to end or the most earth-shattering pieces of literature I have ever read – it wasn’t – but because the book had about eleven words per page and the predictably easy sentence structure was never more complicated to read through than this:

Harry said, “We should _________.”

Then Hermione said, “We can't do ________ because we have to study for the _______."

Then Ron said, "Hermione - - "

But before Ron could finish, a magical _______ came and ________.

Harry and his friends gasped. They had never seen a ______ come and do ______ before.

Ron said, "What is that?"

Then Hermione said, "Wait a second. I read about this in the library. That's a _______!"

Now, I don’t mean to rag on the books – I think it’s common knowledge they’re at a middle school reading level, and I know they get more complex and adult as the series goes on - I’m just saying they were the perfect mindless candy to read during the lazy days of summer at camp. And yes, I am still enjoying them enough to continue with the rest of the series.

I am currently in the middle of the third book; for all you ignorant losers out there, it’s called The Prisoner of Azkaban and if you don’t know what Azkaban is, I can’t even begin to help you out. I mean, let’s get with it, okay? But because I am only on Book/Year 3, I face quite the dilemma, as the final book comes out in three days, and I am bound to hear the ending at some point. It will probably be kind of like “The Sopranos” ending – if you didn’t watch it the minute it was first on, the end was ruined for you by some douche.

When I first started reading Harry Potter at camp, I was super embarrassed – and still am – about the whole ordeal. I went around asking if any of the children had the first book, and when they would ask me if it was for myself to read, I scoffed at the idea and mentioned it was research for some jokes I was going to write on it for work. I would tell this to 9-year-old girls. I was embarrassed to let a nine year old girl know that I was reading Harry Potter, as if she would think, “Well, it’s perfectly normal for me to read these books - I'm nine years old and a girl - but this 23 year old guy wants to read it? Boy, he’s really gonna die alone.”

I face similar predicaments when I am on the subway or in public in general. If I am on the subway, I cover the book or make sure that I am standing so no one can easily see that I am reading Harry Potter. This is all very ridiculous, I know, since a large part of the adult population reads the series, but still, I don’t want to be one of those adults. I firmly contest that while I am one of those adults that reads them, I am really not. On the other hand, I also get self-conscious being seen reading a lower Harry Potter book by a true fan; I know they’re looking at me thinking, “Hah! Book 7 is almost out and this douche is still reading the second one?!?! Pa ha ha!”

The very fact that I worry about this sort of ridicule gives you the exact right insight into who I am as a person – namely, a mess. I can’t win with these goddamn books. I’m embarrassed to be seen reading them by non-fans, and embarrassed to be reading them so late by super fans. This would be the place where I could make a joke about wishing I had an Invisibility Cloak to put over me while I read the books in public, but then I would be one of those people. One of those people that works Harry Potter jokes into regular, daily conversations. And also, the joke wouldn’t be very hip, since the Invisibility Cloak is introduced all the way back in Year 1. Laaaaame!

Anyway, below are seven things I have learned so far while reading/watching the first several Harry Potter books and movies.

1.
You cannot skim Harry Potter, because if you do, you will
miss the paragraph where Harry rides a giant spider and
then falls through a hidden trap door and then pulls a bejeweled
sword out of a magical hat and then kills a man that lives inside
a diary. J.K. does not waste words – she gets shit done in her books.

2.
If you are confused by a plot point or thinking to yourself,
“Hmm, how could this make sense? I think I smell an inaccuracy”,
just remind yourself that it’s not a mistake, it can all be explained
by magic. Of course.

3.
The books are more fun if you read it aloud in a British accent.

4.
If you don’t want major plot points to be spoiled for you, don’t
watch "Star Wars". Or any other mythology-based film.

5.
It’s no less discreet to read the hardback version of the books –
you think people won’t notice it because its just a plain blue book
with no HP paraphernalia on it…until a fanatic from 20 meters
away shouts, “Hey, is that Chamber of Secrets?”

6.
Teachers at Hogwarts teach one class only and then spend the
rest of the year catching students in hallways when they
shouldn’t be there. And also, they are apparently the best and
strongest witches and wizards in the land, but at this point,
that’s just mostly hearsay.

7.
I have a feeling that the actor playing Draco Malfoy masturbates
while watching himself in the Harry Potter movies.

THE END.

*Oh, and I’m pretty sure Ron will die in the final book. Just my two (not completely informed) cents. You’re welcome.

My Current Opinions on Having Children

2007-07-16T17:01:00.000-05:00

Do I want kids?

The answer is “yes”, “no”, and “for several hours a week, give or take”.

There are days when I want children. These days are few and far between, yet magical and inspiring. They are usually days when I see no children, so I am free to imagine how docile and submissive they would act and how malleable their minds would be as I morphed them into the exact person I would want them to become.

The days I don’t want kids are most days that I see them. Especially days spent at amusement parks or in long lines with them or behind them on a bus or plane. I was at camp for two weeks recently, working and visiting old friends, when we went on a trip day to a place called FunTown. It’s supposedly ranked #10 in the World by some Amusement Park guide, and I don’t know how this could be. Their largest roller coaster looks like it was built with some left over 2x4s from someone’s shed.

Anyway, my point is that everyone at this park looked miserable. Every father was fat, beaten down, and pushing a stroller full of shit – stuffed bears, candy, video cameras, etc. The moms were no better; permed hair matted to their sweaty foreheads, mom jeans up to just below their breasts, and multi-colored fanny packs covering their lower stomach/upper vagina pooches. If having a family turns you into what I almost always see at amusement parks, then no thank you. If and when I have children, I do not want to take them to amusement parks; in fact, there are so many things I did as a child, that looking back on, I cannot imagine having to suffer through as a parent. For example, weekend-long soccer tournaments, parent-teacher conferences, and long car rides.

Another thing I would be tempted to do is treat all of my children like science experiments. I like the idea of letting one watch TV and eat junk food at their own discretion (more or less) and then restricting the other one from TV and forcing veganism on them, and see what happens. Would the latter resent me till they day he/she died? Would they turn into one of those douchey people who are constantly reminding everyone that they’re a vegan? Or would they be that smart, irreverent-without-trying-to-be kid who doesn’t conform and is envied by all? I think I would like to have a hand in creating a kid who is interesting and thoughtful and smart and does something in this world.

But what if I have a loser? I mean, let’s face it – parenting has a lot to do with how a kid turns out, but sometimes, kids are just losers. If my kid had instinctually terrible taste in books and movies despite my best efforts, I think I would have a really hard time. What if my child grew up to be super conservative or unattractive? I don’t need to suffer through the forced niceties of friends as they look at pictures of my hideous future son or daughter; I’ll know what they’re thinking, because it’s the same thing I’ll be thinking when I’m looking at their ugly kids. Because, let's set aside manners and just face it; for every kid that looks like this:

There is also one that comes out looking like this:

And let's not forget babies that look JUST LIKE CHRIS FARLEY!

I think what it comes down to is that one day I might – MIGHT – have children. And when that day comes, I will bask in the warm glow of fatherhood, drying my eyes as I hold my newborn child in my arms, thinking “This, THIS is what love is.” But for now, I am far too selfish. If I am behind a woman pushing a stroller on the sidewalk, I don’t think “Oh, cute baby!”, I think “It’s slow moving baby-owners like you who are ruining this world. Why can’t you move faster?!?”

So I guess what I’m saying is: I want my close friends and relatives to have children so that I can be there during the wonderful, awe-inspiring, life-affirming moments, and miles away, sleeping and/or eating during every other moment of that child’s life. So get a move on, friends!

And in the meantime, look again at Baby Chris Farley. Ain't that some crazy shit? Do you think the mom knows?

*** Also, check it out: I wrote the "Still Ahead" at the very end of this Onion News Network segment. You have to watch all through the ad at the end.

Study: Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful To Monkeys

And, just because it's one of my favorite pieces we have put on our site recently, here is one more:

Live From Congress: Rep. Ingersoll's Murder of a Hobo