Welcome, Foreigners!

For whatever reason, a significant chunk of this site's readership has lately come from Australia and New Zealand. At first I thought it was because of that thing I wrote about Paul Hogan and the kiwi bird, but now I'm not so sure. Whatever the case, the onus is on me to make them feel welcome, and the best way to do that, I think, is to tell my more northerly readers everything I know about those two enchanted nations. For instance, did you know...

• The only crime committed by the original inhabitants of the prison colony that came to be known as Australia (or, as the natives like to call it, "The Little Dipper") was the crime of loving too much?
• New Zealand's world reknowned butter and honey, both considered perhaps the world's finest, are made out of sheep, also considered perhaps the world's finest?
• The image on the Australian $10 bill is of Olivia Newton John wrestling a crocodile?
• Mr. Crocky, the 950 pound crocodile pictured with Olivia Newton John on the $10 bill, was mayor of Brisbane from 1988-1994?
• The city of Christchurch is neither a Christ nor a church? Nor is Charlotte Church* an actual church?
  

And that, I'm afraid, is the limit of my knowledge. Better luck next time.

* Oops. Charlotte Church is Welsh. I thought she was New Zealandish. Oh well.

This is Where I Officially Make An Ass of Myself

So... I tried to record something similar to what I did yesterday, only this time it was a piece of "Growing Pains" fan fiction I found online (where else?), but it didn't quite work. It had its moments, but mostly is was six and a half minutes of me reading something really boring. So I'm sparing you that. Anyway, it's late, and I tried to see if there was something old floating around my computer I could use to tide you over, but I couldn't find what I was looking for, and, well, let me put it this way:

Like every comedian (and, when you get down to it, that's essentially what I am), I dream of being a rock star. I've kept this more or less a secret from you jerks, for reasons I won't go into now, but all the while, I've been toiling away in my laboratory, coming up with music that would shock you with its unique mediocrity. But it wasn't until a few days ago that I came up with a tune so simplistically stupid (one that sounds like a Preston School of Industry b-side) that I simply had to do a full bore arrangement, with drums, bass, and backing vocals included. Of course, it wasn't until after I'd recorded the definitve version that I bothered to add a tedium-reducing bridge and actually write some lyrics (not that they're any more poetic than the extremely repetitive ones included in the recording). Anyway, enough dilly-dallying. Here, for the first time ever is "Throw It At The Wall" by, hmm... I should come up with a name, I guess. Maybe tomorrow.

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Huh. The mp3 doesn't seem to want to upload. I'll keep trying. Until then, enjoy a glimpse into one of my other talents: fine art.

Some Sentences I Hope to Never Write

The following are representative of the kind of things I would never want to write. I write them now only as a sort of cautionary lesson. Take heed, little ones, take heed.

1) The north forty lay fallow nigh on a year after Mummaw died; Paw had come down with what the townsfolk called, "the dry gripes," and thereafter devoted his attention only to the enduring comforts of the Good Book, and perhaps the occasional cup of hard cider when the rheumatiz got too bad.

2) " 'twere nothin' but a nor'easter," said old Pete Cudger, meaningfully, but with little animation. Lukie Ralscomb's deeply lined face showed not a whit of reaction. After a long moment, he cleared his throat softly, said, "Mayhap it were," in his stoic, noncommittal way, and returned to his whittling.

3) O! The tormenting tintinnabulation of those cursed alarum bells! Would I have no rest?!

4) Belflax X-2J-11 strode briskly through the spaceport. "The next spacebus leaves in six quarforts, and I only have nineteen zorkmids to my name. What to do, what to do?" he wondered. Down the corridor, a certain five-armed space raider from colony V-Omega wondered much the same thing.

5) Francine looked at the man sleeping beside her. Was this the man she'd met in Paris, what seemed like a thousand summers ago? Was this the man who'd sang to her, as the shadows crept along the length of the Champs Elysées? Francine, Francine, you are my dream… She decided it wasn't, and a slow, silent tear coursed its way gently down her alabaster cheek.

6) "Lawsie, I's din means nuffin ba it!" Ressie whimpered. Boss Murphy wiped a grubby paw across the back of his sunburned, bullish neck, gave Reesie a hard look, then picked up his whip. A flash in his hard, blue eyes told Reesie that somewhere deep inside, Boss Murphy was enjoying this. A lot.

7) Moira Donnelly was 7 years old when she saw her first angel. She was 41 when she saw her next, and oh so much had happened in between.

BONUS - The audio version!

The Entry with No Name

First of all, I hope you people are still enjoying the story of my trip to Philadelphia, because it's not going away anytime soon. Not until it is finished. After that, I think I may begin another long-form thing. Based on the lack of response regarding my previous (and current) such writings, I fear this is not a popular format. Still, it keeps me from having to come up with new ideas every day, and that, I think, is most important. I'm not sure what the next one will be, but I have some ideas. There is a short story about time travel (of sorts) I've been thinking about, as well as something that I think you folks would probably enjoy more, a filthy pirate story called, "Escape from Buggerers' Island." But tonight you get nothing, because tonight I have nothing to give.

I do have something to ask, however. I've been thinking about putting together a new site, independent of this one and far more professional, a humor site centered around the internet's number one commodity: porn. The problem is, beyond the site's mascot (an adorable kitten with an enormous, human penis photoshopped onto it) and a potential name or two (the ones I like at the moment are "Modern Pornography" and "Cunt Farm"), I lack ideas. Therefore, I'm asking you now for any input you are able to offer. Because, despite the vagueness of it, I know in my heart (and also my brain) that a site like that is just what the world craves. I know it's what I crave, and what am I, if not everyman?

The Philadelphia Story (pt. 6 - Nobody Does It Like Sarah Lee--depending on what you mean by 'it')

Before we get going, here is a plea: if any of you know anyone in the greater Los Angeles basin region who might have any information or might know anyone who knows of any information pertaining to employment opportunities for someone with a shamefully weak resume (accents implied) but loads of both heart and gumption, please let me know immediately, or suffer the consequences. Thank you. Now, back to our story...
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After lunch, we went back to the hotel. Andy and his family went up to the ballroom for the rehearsal, and I hung out in the lounge, catching up with the recently arrived Evan and listening to him explain why New York is better than LA, even though he's been to LA once. That time he was out here, he complained about people not honking. "In New York," he said, "everybody would be honking." I suggested he come up with a related slogan to submit to the Chamber of Commerce.

It's a weird thing, the way everyone hates LA. All fucking weekend, people who'd never even been here told me how horrible LA is, how phony the people are. Which, quite frankly, is true; LA is horrible, the people are phony. But guess what? The same goes for pretty much every person in every spot on the globe. You don't think people in Calcutta don't do certain things to fit in? Yes, LA is ridiculous, and yes, people from LA think that people from the West Coast are better than people from the East Coast, and what the hell, I'll even give you that New York is better than LA, but if I have to choose between a shabby city blessed with 350 days of sunshine a year, or an amazing, vital one packed tight with fucking New Yorkers, nine times out of ten I'm gonna opt for the sunshine. Just personal preference. Anyway, there are plenty of good pizza places out here, and I've never known what differentiates a great bagel from a so-so one (for the record, the last time I bought bagels, they were made by Sarah Lee, and had a shelf-life of six thousand years).

All that aside, it was nice catching up with Evan. At least, until some acquaintance of his who lives in Philly dropped by, and they spent the next several hundred hours discussing econometrics theories, or something along those lines. All I know is, it involved economics, and was unremittingly boring. I excused myself, went upstairs to change, and when I came back down again...

As I write this, I'm watching Shrek on NBC, in part to see what all the fuss is all about, in part because I guess I'm just a big kid at heart, or an idiot at least. I don't like the film's message of acceptance for fat people, and I'm not exactly irritating my neighbors with gales of raucous laughter, but it's good enough, enough to make me put my writing on hold until the commercial breaks, the last one of which I watched long enough to see a commercial for baby.com. I'm not sure what baby.com is (although the prominent Johnson & Johnson logo on the screen at the end might have been a clue), but I do know that the commercial's tagline was "A baby changes everything." Well, shortly after I came back downstairs after changing, my friend Erik, his wife Noriko, their not-quite-two-year-old daughter, and their two-month-old son arrived. And I can tell you that having babies has not changed Erik even slightly; he was always a pussy.

Ha ha, but of course I'm nearly kidding. I chatted with Erik and Noriko for a while and tried unsuccessfully to engage baby Hannah (a picture of whom, joyfully eating watermelon and crawling around her father's neck, can be found somewhere in the depths of the photo gallery). The infant Max was hidden within some sort of Scandinavian papoose (the brand name, I believe, is Baby Bjorn, which I find unpleasant), and thus unavailable for conversation. After what seemed like a fairly long time, we were packed into a van and drove off into the miserable rain, destination: Chinatown.

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(Coming soon - Jellyfish and Ladyboys.)