really dude?
What year is it in your wallet, sir?
Aug 30th
I was at an Applebees nite before last, and when the man sitting behind me got his check, he asked the server:
You guys take Diners Club, right?
Ummm… what? I didn’t even know those still existed. Weren’t they bought out a while back? I couldn’t even hold in the laugh. What’s that in your glass sir? I had assumed it was Coke, but now I’m guessing Tab…? If it weren’t so late and I wasn’t feeling so lazy, I’d add a few more random references I haven’t heard much about since the 80’s. But, well… I am, so feel free to imagine and insert your own (Tang, pagers, IROC-Z’s — just a few ideas to get you started on your brainstorming). And remember the rule of three — just because I’m not writing it doesn’t mean I don’t still want it to be hilarious. Don’t worry so much about this rule of three though. Because that wouldn’t make any sense in this context. Ok, too much.
G’nite.
Nighty-Night
Aug 16th
Sometimes when I don’t want to talk to people, I pretend to fall asleep. Not drift asleep gradually — I mean fall instantly asleep. It’s a *condition* I have chosen to refer to as situational narcolepsy.
I’ve never met a narcoleptic. I don’t know much anything about narcolepsy — except that Harriet Tubman suffered from it — but when I fake it, it looks a lot like this chick from Deuce Bigalow:
Most of my SN attacks happen on airplanes — when the person seated next to me has awful breath, or just awful conversation. A few months back I was sitting in between a married couple and when I realized they were together I asked them if they’d rather sit next to each other. “No,” was their response because he preferred the window and she preferred the aisle. Fine. But then they both ordered Bloody Mary’s and proceeded to talk across me to each other with their spicy ass breath, I immediately pulled down my eye mask and zonked out. It took a few minutes but they eventually respected my ’sleep’ and shut it down.
Praise 8 lb., 6 oz newborn infant Jesus.
My latest bout with SN came yesterday on a flight from Albany GA to Atlanta. I was sitting next to what seemed like a perfectly nice dude. He ordered a Diet Coke. Fantastic. But then there was this:
GUY: So do you live in Atlanta?
ME: No, I’m actually headed home to DC.
GUY: Oh, DC? Wow. I hear they have a crazy AIDS epidemic there.
ME: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
What do you say to that? I mean really? That’s the first thing that comes to your mind when the nation’s capital is mentioned? My friend Makeda said I should have faked a paper cut or a hang nail and made a big deal out of letting the flight attendant know I needed a band-aid. Hahahahaha. I wish I thought that quick! ;)
Anyway, feel free to adopt this phrase and/or disorder. And let me know how it works for you. ;)
I AM what I want to be when I grow up
Jan 6th
I met a man today who asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a comedian, and he asked, “Well, what do you want to do when you grow up?”
A bit insulted, I replied, “I’m doing it.”
“You can’t possibly be a comedian and consider yourself a grown up,” he said.
“Well, it’s how I pay my grown up mortgage…” I said. And I guess that’s all that really matters. There’s no need for me to defend what I do to this ass. There are millions of people who aren’t fortunate enough and/or legitimately can’t afford to do what they love for a living. But there are also people who just don’t have the balls to follow their dreams and instead choose to poo poo on everyone else’s.
I know lots of comedians who say they’ve known what they wanted to be since they were kids. Not me. If you’d asked me what I wanted to do with my life when I was growing up — as recently as 8 or 9 years ago even — I may have said a writer, a nurse, a teacher, a TV producer… Never in a million years could I have imagined I’d be doing this, but now that I am, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I love my job, and even during the rough periods, I feel like I made the right decision.
So BooHissHiss, Mister. You will not steal my joy.
The end.
Turn AROUND, dude!!! You’re creepin’ me out
Nov 2nd
WHO DOES THIS?
Last Thursday I was in the Charlotte airport and this guy — THIS GUY — was riding the moving sidewalks facing backwards, essentially staring me dead in my face. It was the spookiest thing ever. We got off one sidewalk and he turned forward to walk to the next one. But when he got on the next one, he turned right back around and looked at me… So I took my camera out and took a photo of him just as blatantly as he was staring at me.
You may be wondering what he did next… Well I’ll tell you what he DIDN’T do — and that was turn around. Weirdest sh!t ever. I hated this guy. And so I wanted to share him with y’all. ;)
The worst date I never went on
Oct 30th
Ok, so I know you regular readers are way familiar with my blogs about my Worst Date Ever. Ever (read pts. I and II). Well today, I come to tell you about the worst date I never went on. I’ve never written about something like this so soon after it happened — I usually wait for the heat to die down ;) But I couldn’t hold this one in… My hope is that if the other party in this situation comes across this, he’ll be too embarrassed to make a big deal about it…
Exhale.
Here’s the basic back story: About 2 months ago I was encouraged by a close friend to join an internet dating site. Admittedly disillusioned with dating in general and extremely wary of online dating specifically, I had some reservations. But in the end, I figured what could it hurt? I have a closet full of dresses and nowhere to wear them. Maybe it was time to meet some new folks… I was pretty passive about it — instead of checking out the matches I was sent, I just waited to see if anyone would contact me…
A few weeks ago, got a communication from a perfectly decent-seeming person. We exchanged e-mails thru the site for a while and then eventually thru Facebook. Seemed to be an intelligent guy with a good job, he was very handsome… Yesterday he sent me a message on Facebook asking if I’d like to meet. So I suggested that we meet for coffee or drinks somewhere… and here is the response I got:
WTF? Was this dude serious? He doesn’t have that kinda time? Are you dying of a fatal disease? More >
For real, dude?
Oct 11th
So you’re seriously gonna just lie there and act like you didn’t hear me when I asked to sit down?
May the person seated next to you on the plane have violent nausea. And swine flu. And B.O.
The end.
No, I spilled your soda a.k.a. Rich people can kick rocks
Mar 23rd
Yeah, you bet u o me...
Someone please explain this to me…
I’m watching the news right now and there’s a story about JP Morgan Chase spending $138 million to buy two new corporate jets and a luxury airport hangar, after they asked for and received $25 billion in TARP bailout money. And their argument is that “no TARP money was used to fund the purchases.”
Are they serious?
Anyone who has ever had to borrow money from someone else knows that’s an UNACCEPTABLE argument. In fact I’ve learned (the hard way) that when you owe people money, they don’t want to hear about anything interesting you’ve done in your life until after you pay them back. The “It’s not your money” excuse never works.
Hypothetically speaking, it’s kinda like when you’re at a football game at FedEx Field and your homeboy gives you money to buy each of you a soda at the snack bar, and you spill one of them as you trip up the steps to the 400 section on the way back to your seat — cause you had to brace your fall, right – and you tell him that the soda that you wasted was his.
No for real it was, Steve. I said as soon as I bought it, “This soda on the right is mine. And Steve’s is the one on the left. Yeah I know you paid for it, but look… I skwaped my hand.” But he’s not trying to hear you.
Hypothetically.
I don’t understand rich people and this whole something-for-nothing mentality where they ask for help but think they should be able to operate business as usual and not have to sacrifice anything. That is not how life works. At least not for the rest of us. I’m sure what comes next is faux outrage over the expenditures and no actual accountability. Pardon me if I change the channel, ’cause I’ve seen this episode already. All the news does is make me angry. I need to think of something less depressing — like my love life.
Oh wait…
Sigh.
The Irish American Fraud and how I lost faith in the TV news media
Mar 18th
I was watching the “Today” Show yesterday and Meredith Vieira was broadcasting live from Ireland. And she began her piece by saying that “some 35 million Americans claim Irish heritage, and that is very impressive, given the fact that here in Ireland there are only 4 million people.”
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
And I dunno, maybe I’m just overanalyzing, as I tend to do — but it sounded so conspiratorial?… “35 million Americans claim Irish heritage” … I swear at the end of the sentence I halfway expected her to be raising one of her eyebrows and giving one of those “we’ll see about that” nods to the camera.
Exhale… Maybe it’s because I grew up as a mini news junkie who had complete faith in the integrity of the news media, but as an adult saw firsthand how badly the news can be manipulated and how non-news is touted as the real thing that I’m completely cynical and suspicious of everything. Honestly, the Meredith Vieira thing was literally something that made me chuckle — the idea of people ‘passing for Irish.’ ;) Hahaha! As a comic I read a lot into things that aren’t there looking for the funny, but something about it jogged a whole bunch of memories I haven’t thought about in years like:
I was still working at CNN Washington during the 2000 election season. And in addition to awaiting Supreme Court decisions, covering the daily protests and camping out in the freezing cold to get a glimpse of the Cuban grandmas and find out whether Elian was gonna have to go back home, it was CNN’s 20th anniversary. And each bureau was commissioned to do a retrospective of the biggest news stories their organization covered over the years. I was on the research team so I spent my days pulling tape of all kinds of stuff — Bernie Shaw in Iraq, the Clinton scandal(s), etc. And I remember one day in the editing booth the producer refused to use some tape I pulled on the Million Man March because he was Jewish and was offended by Farrakhan’s anti-semetic views. There was some back and forth between the folks in the room about how despite his political views the March was a huge story, but the producer wouldn’t budge. And I remember thinking, “Really? What does and doesn’t make it onto the air can be decided by one spoiled producer who wants to huff and puff because Louis Farrakhan hurt his feelings?” And this is supposed to be NEWS?!?
In the end, the Million Man March did make the piece but without a single image of Louis Farrakhan, which if you were just watching it might not have stood out to you. But knowing the background, that has always stayed with me. I respect CNN as a pioneer in the cable news field. But ever since I left there, I’ve had a sour taste in my mouth. I’m still a news hound but I view it in a completely different light. I don’t watch CNN at all. I watch MSNBC almost exclusively, which at first may seem completely contradictory to everything I’ve just complained about. But the way I see it, if all news is corrupt and biased then why not just choose the network with the personalities I enjoy the most. I watch Joe Scarborough and Mika every morning. And as a comic (and huge sports fan) how can I not choose Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Rachel Maddow over whoever-the-hell-else is on the other networks? ;)
And don’t even get me started on newspapers…
Exhale… Please pardon my early morning rant.
My first gold tooth a.k.a. I hate my dentist
Mar 2nd
So it’s taken a while — partly because I’m broke and partly because I have a very popular dentist — but I recently finished getting a crown on a molar I broke last year while eating a piece of popcorn. You may or may not remember this poignant haiku…
It ended up costing way more than $600. And the first temporary fell out twice — once while I was out to lunch with friends. But that was nowhere near the most embarrassing part of this process. No… that precious moment came when my dentist was fitting me for the permanent crown and he brought out a mirror and an array of  porcelain samples varying in color from pretty damn white to what I can only describe as Mountain Dew. He then proceeded to hold what I thought was a relatively yellow tooth up to my tooth in the mirror and said, “What do you think about this one? I think this is about right.”
Dude, are you serious?
That tooth looks like it’s been out drinking cigarettes and smoking coffee all its life. My teeth are not that color. I told him to go up a couple shades lighter. But he picked the tooth right next to the coffee/cig tooth and said, “Nah, I think this one is way too white.”
“Way too white?” No really, am I being punked?
Because I feel like I should have the option to have a snow white tooth in my mouth if that’s what I want. If I want the whitest tooth on that color palette, I should be able to get it as long as my check clears… Maybe my whole plan was to start with a new white tooth and Crest White Strip it up until they all match… Or maybe I wanted my new crown to inspire my other teeth to be better on some Obama “Yes We Can” ish. But I shouldn’t have been forced to take the tooth Dr. Davis thinks I should have.
Now, I know I’m prone to exaggeration, but I literally (figuratively) feel like I have a gold tooth in my mouth. Seriously… I open my mouth wide enough and I feel compelled to quote Kool G. Rap lyrics and sing Mary J. Blige hooks. Do you understand?
Exhale.
My boy said it’s not that bad, but for the sake of the funny, let’s just say it is ;)
Talk later,
-E
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