The Return of the King

Rob is away somewhere, doing something better with his time. Filling in is occassional fill-in and venerated mediocrity, Larry King. Take it away, Larry...

The older I get, the more I enjoy talking about the way my views on things have changed over time ... I know these rock 'n' rollers are all crazy, but that still doesn't explain why someone would keep his money in an old fruit jar. And furthermore, who would ever buy a jar of old fruit? It makes no sense ... If I were about to go to the electric chair and they asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I'd ask to eat the executioner. That way, there'd be no one to pull the switch ... ... They just don't make 'em like Nicolae Ceausescu anymore ... If God put AIDS here to kill off the homosexuals, what was he aiming to accomplish with with non-Hodgkins lymphoma? ... Call me an old softy, but it's impossible for me not to well up whenever I watch an old episode of "Barney Miller" ... Here's a great winter treat that's been in the King family for generations: hot beverages ... I'm ashamed to admit it, but until very recently I though 'clams casino' was the name of the place where clams go to gamble ... That tsunami sure was a humdinger ... Without modern medicine, I would have died sometime around 1965 ... Love him or hate him, there's simply no denying that John F. Kennedy was one of this nation's most beloved presidents ... Whatever happened to Mummenschanz? One day, folks can't get enough of 'em. The next day--nothin' ... If I could be any sort of particulate matter, I would definitely be silt ... Hey, remember Ramses III? Now that was a heckuva Pharaoh ... All right, enough of this ....

I'd Be Telling the Same Story if Kerry Had Won

I belong in a cage. Jesus. I just got back from a very pleasant drink/burger with Mark "Bunsen" "Defamer" Lisanti, with whom I've correspoded off and on the last couple years, but whom I'd never actually met. He's a nice guy, and I heartily endorse him as both a person and a blogger. Anyway, as I headed home down Vermont, I saw at the corner of 6th an old man with a sign that read "Not Eat 5 Days." I decided to pull over and give him two dollars. The folks in the car in front of me must have been equally moved, as they stopped to hand him the half-eaten remains of thier dinner, after which the old man crossed himself. While that was happeneing, I made a subconscious decision to only give him one dollar, because I am not exactly flush with the stuff these days. So, after the other car was gone, I rolled down the window and reached across and handed him the bill. "Oh!" he said (more to himself than to me) in his tired, weak, old man voice. "God is good!" He walked off and I drove off. I thought about parking and walking back and giving him the other $3 I had in my pocket, but I ended up just going home. Twenty minutes later, I still feel like a jerk, but to make myself feel better I read this 11-month-old article about Oprah's 50th birthday gala. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to cry myself to sleep.

Fuck You

I'd like to write something funny, really I would, but these obnoxious coments I've been getting are bumming me out. Don't get me wrong--I give no serious credence to these numbskulls' opinions, I'm not doubting my abilities or anything like that. But being heckled gets tedious awfully quick, and the inability to even have some sort of back-and-forth with these idiots means that there's no chance of my finding a way to make it funny. I guess, if this were something worthwhile and not just a fucking website, I'd put some effort into it, but the rewards here are too insignificant for me to be bothered with it. Really, I should be focusing my energy elsewhere, anyway. Therefore, please enjoy this Funnsylvania Classic from 2002...

November 8

Here's a bunch of actual, real-life names I wrote down one day a few years ago when I was doing data entry at, I believe, the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation in Bethesda, Maryland.

• Qing-Qing Fan
• Alestair J.V. Philp
• Helen M. Piwnica-Worms
• Beatrice Plougastel
• Dietmar G. Schmucker
• Winfred "Wink" Clingenpeel, Jr.
• Peter Cramp (ha ha ha)
• Diane Fatkin
• Mauro B. Ruffy
• John E. Rush
• Le Gay C. Sheridan
• Roberta Shew
• Jeroo D. Sinor
• Jay P. Slack
• Gaylord C. Holder (note: this guy lives in San Francisco!)
• Jonathan W. Homeister
• A.J. Hudspeth
• Johannes Huppa (huppa!)
• Perry A. Jackman
• Bessie Queen Jones
• Dreizel Kaploon
• Kaspar Locker-Switz
• Richard Cocksley
• Huda Zoghbi
• Ambrosius Van Hoof

I hope this helped.

Another Blast From Yesteryear

I'm far too busy and important to come up with something now, so please enjoy this more-or-less randomly selected gem from 2003:

January 2

All right, I've been slacking lately, I know, and the numbers bear this out (traffic is down nearly 3% in males 18-31 and nearly 10% in all persons 60 and up since third quarter 2001). Still, I have no regrets.

No. That's not true; I do have one regret...

Burma, 1892. A friend of Uncle Montlebury's had given me a job as a clerk in his Rangoon office. I was never sure exactly what purpose the business served, but I know I spent a lot of time stamping things, and that my lunch breaks seldom lasted fewer than two hours. The job did not pay well, but a young bachelor can do quite well for himself in Rangoon without a fortune. Besides, I come from a rather wealthy family, just a half-step away from being nobility, and they provided for me well enough; I lived in a simple, little house, but the drapes were made of ermine.

The best thing about Rangoon was the night—the moon would glow bright against the dow-dow trees, the air would be fragrant with the subtle aroma of djiki-fardouf, the children would play noisily in the streets with their pahgi-gundas and their djarnibidis, the tiht flowed freely (and powerfully) in the Imperial Club, and if a chap had enough tiht in him and enough klakis in his wallet, it was just a quick rickshaw ride down to Madame Pagashashasha's. At Madame Pagashashasha's, what here would buy a cold pork pie, there would buy a fellow so much pussy, even Gilbert and Sullivan would be jealous.

Anyway, it follows that I became such a fellow, adrift in a sea of homemade plum-whisky, crab meat, and hired poon, and the news of this soon got back to my uncle. He immediately sent for me, and I've been back ever since, pretty much doing nothing. You know, going to my club, going to parties, playing half-witted practical jokes, that sort of thing. It's all right, really, but I still wish I could've fucked at least one more Burmese hooker. Oh well.

By the way...

I still need a job. I've applied to a few, but they're all shit, and there's definitely no guarantee I'll be hired for any of them. So, I'd still appreciate any leads anyone can give me. I'd also appreciate any money donated to my PayPal account (rob-at-funnsylvania.com, with @ instead of -at-), seeing as I'm approximately $500 shy on the rent, which is due on Friday. Sorry to get all beggy on you, but that's just how it is.

Well, Excuuuuuse Me for Not Pleasing All of the People All of the Time

There was a time, not so very long ago, when I used to put myself into stupid situations so that I'd have funny stories to tell my friends. It's the reason I lived in Port au Prince for seven years. It's the reason I owned a Pontiac Fiero. It's the reason I made a point of infuriating every gypsy who crossed my path. Unfortunately, I eventually realized that not every exploding automobile engine or Romany curse carries with it an amusing anecdote, and that there is simply nothing funny about Haiti (though, for the record, my Toussaint L'Ouverture impression is always good for a few laughs). So I stopped doing things that I knew were stupid, and instead only do stupid things by accident nowadays. Gosh, I'm awfully sorry if this does not meet the approval of a handful of anonymous internet assholes, but we each only get a single crack at this crazy thing we like to call human existence, and I'm one fella who'd rather spend his time coming up with silly lists than gumming up my life with unnecessary complications just so I can make a couple strangers happy by writing about it on my shockingly unpopular website.

I really don't mind the insults, though, in all candor, I don't enjoy them, especially when there's a layer of bitterness behind them, and most especially when they're the first thing I see when I check my email in the morning. I think I might even enjoy the insults if they were from people who'd just stumbled upon my site and thought I suck, but when they come from people who basically tell me that I'm not as funny as I used to be, it stings a little. Very little, really, since I think I've been coming up with some good stuff lately, but again, it's not the best thing with which to start one's day. What pisses me off most of all is that the people who leave insulting comments--which I've never once thought to delete--never, ever respond to my rebuttals, which is chickenshit behavior, like calling a DJ, telling him he sucks, then hanging up before he can say anything. I am not afraid of confrontation, but goddamn it, if you have a point to make, be civil about it, and be prepared to follow up. And, I know it's the way of the goddman internet and everything, but if you're gonna be a tough guy, quit hiding behind nicknames and fake email addresses and so forth. And if, for some horrible reason, you desperately need to act like a dickhead, go somewhere else, okay? The internet's chock full of places where you can go to pick lame, anonymous, verbal fights with people you'll never meet.

One more thing: the yule-tide complaints I received (really, there were only, like, two of them), were about how I should only write about one particular sort of thing. Well, if you ask me (and you should; I'm an especially valuable resource on these matters), what makes this site great(ish) is my ability to change shit up. There are a lot of funny people in the world, but I got range, dollface. I'm a versatile perfromer, an octuple threat, and you should get on your sorry knees every day and thank God for putting you on this earth around the same time He put me here. Some folks just don't appreciate how good they got it.