The New York Times recently sent me a cease and desist letter for a parody that I made of their wedding videos. The Times Company was afraid that their viewers would mistake our sketch for a real video… apparently, they don’t think much of their viewers… here’s the edited version:
Here are a few sketches that I recently wrote:
The first is a parody on the Yaz commercials… originally titled “Yaz for Slackers.” I thought it could be misconstrued as anti-feminist or possibly pro-anti-choice, but I ran the clip by my feminist-Marxist college professor and she gave it a thumbs up (she would have given it two thumbs up but debilitating carpal tunnel prevented her from doing so):
Below is my tribute to every Italian man I met this past summer while acting on the set of American Florence in Florence, Italy:
The last and only other time I was in Scotland was to visit my ex-insignificant other who was working at a crusty youth hostel in Edinburgh. I backpacked around a bit, stopped by Lock Ness and Stirling (where I saw the Brave Heart statue modeled after my sixth favorite* anti-semite Mel Gibson) but never quite made it to Glasgow…
Until now.
Through divine intervention, I landed a spot in the 2010 Glasgow International Comedy Festival and arrived in the city just a few days ago to wow these old-timey lads with my comedy vomit. So far it’s been awesome.
One of my favorite things in life (aside from avocados, Netflix and Quest Diagnostics) is getting the opportunity to travel for work (and by work, I mean comedy… so not work). The Glaswegians have really taken to my humor. For starters, I’ve never heard an audience laugh at an AIDS joke before I even got the punch line. Secondly, they’re often so drunk that they laugh even if I mess up (I accidentally repeated a tag to a joke onstage -first time ever- because it was my 3rd show of the night and I too was slightly tipsy and the audience was so supportive, they laughed even louder when they heard it the second time… and they weren’t even being ironic).
Which brings me to my next point, if alcohol consumption were a sport, Glaswegians would win the World Cup- hands down. Example: the other night I was at a comedy club when a girl in the audience fell off her chair, took two glasses down with her and landed on her face. The only other American in the room and I were shocked (thinking she may have had a stroke or possibly a seizure…I’m kind of a walking WebMD), while the rowdy audience cheered on before anyone could even measure her pulse. Turns out the girl was just really drunk and apparently Glaswegians are that accustomed to public displays of inebriation to think anything else of it.
Glasgow also has a pretty cool alt scene. Yesterday evening I ate dinner alone (a common practice for comedians even when we’re not on tour) at The 13th Note, an indie music venue that doubles as a restaurant and triples as the best vegetarian haggis joint in the city. I’ve never been the AA junkie to nurse an O’Douls at a keg party but after chowing down the faux version of Scotland’s national meat in a room full of carnivores, I now know what it feels like to be the odd ball out, gastronomically speaking.
* My top 5 favorite anti-semites, in no particular order, are Roald Dahl, Immanuel Kant, Edgar Degas, T.S Eliot and Hilda Rochna (my rock sculpture teacher in Chile who gifted me the only slab of marble in her studio because I had tendonitis in my wrists and she had bad Jew-dar)
well, unintentionally.
Trapped in an Econolodge in Manchester, New Hampshire this past holiday weekend (I was entertaining a bunch of Jews my parents age in the basement of a Chinese restaurant), I tuned in to the FOX & Friends Christmas Eve Special, where I witnessed the most effective visual contraceptive I have ever seen:
I sat through the whole FOX Christmas Special, partly because the DNA library on my sheets made it difficult to sleep but also because I found it truly fascinating… if I had known that FOX’s “Friends” consisted of gay dads (Steve Doocy) and children of the corn (all of the FOX reporters’ kids look like they were bred in Lebensborn), I would have tuned in years ago.
*for some reason the photo of Gretchen Carlson, with her kids Kaia (named after an American Girl Doll) and Christian (named after Osama Bin Laden), is not uploading… or maybe it has uploaded and we just can’t see it because, collectively, they have no soul.
is not just the name of an improv group… it’s what happens when young parents watch FOX News, drink Natural Ice and try to fry a turkey at the same time.
In response, FOX has created this informative video to avoid yet another lawsuit:
FOX suggests that people frying turkeys for the holidays should READ THE INSTRUCTIONS beforehand so as not to burn surrounding babies. That’s silly, if they could actually read they wouldn’t be watching FOX News in the first place.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The pharmaceutical behemoth Bayer is under fire for safety concerns over its top selling drugs, Yaz and Yasmin.
You may have seen the commercials: a less weathered version of Sex and the City enjoying a night on the town thanks to a mood-altering figure-enhancing wonder drug that not only protects against the p word (pregnancy), but also combats premenstrual depression, acne, weight gain and the fear of dying alone.
But according to recent reports, the Yaz franchise, like a lame boyfriend, makes promises it can’t keep. A whole slew of non-Bayer affiliated research is coming out, claiming that Yaz and Yasmin are in fact NOT the new black; rather, these drugs are believed to increase women’s risk for blood clots, strokes and other cardiovascular health problems.
Furthermore, the company has already been hit with 74 lawsuits, brought on by crazy, irrational, PMS-y women charging that they developed health problems after taking Yaz or Yasmin.
While Bayer plans to stand behind the safety of its sister drugs in court, industry analysts say that the crimson wave of criticism could soil the company’s image like a pair of peri-pubescent panties.
Man, if we can’t trust pharmaceutical companies, who can we trust?
Today I was invited to be a guest on the Rachel Ray Show. I was pretty excited to score my first legitimate TV credit (unless The Other Winfrey Show, on suburban Chicago public access TV, counts) when I realized what the segment was about: REAL girls (not comedians) discussing how they lost their virginity.
Finally! All this time I’ve been saving MY virginity for the day I’d get to appear on The Rachel Ray Show. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!?!? Up until this point, I’ve been living a lie telling people that I lost my virginity in a coffin on a late October night, to a washed up actor while on the run from a sexy vampiress with a gap between her teeth.
Happy Halloween guys.
American Girl has managed to shock and awe the blogosphere yet again with an adorable new addition to the company’s collection. Meet Gwen Thompson, the homeless friendccessory to Chrissa, AG’s doll of 2009:
That’s just her head, but you get the point.
For $95, you can purchase Gwen along with her book which you’ll probably have to read to her (because she’s illiterate) and her lone accessory, a $7 toy hairbrush and the only thing the kids in the shelter didn’t steal. While many of you may deem Hobo Gwen “offensive” and “exploitative,” mostly because none of the Mattel’s profits will actually go to homeless relief efforts, I think she’s pretty edgy. I mean, a white blonde homeless doll in 2009?! That’s quite progressive, even for Mattel. Now, if only American Girl’s Doll Hospital accepted the uninsured.
Which reminds me, here’s to the NEW REFUGEE GIRL DOLL OF 2009!!!
Drum roll please…
Her name is la Gloria Portadora and she’s a resistant little firecracker from Mexico. Gloria, along with her piglet, Estornudo, flew to America in the Spring of 2009 after a deadly epidemic swept through their native region of Veracruz.
In American, she lives with her cousin, Carlos, an adjunct faculty member at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Gloria’s hobbies include riding public transportation, laughing, coughing, not covering her mouth when she coughs, licking door knobs and guitar hero.
As far as accessories, La Gloria comes with a $5 toy brush (cheaper than Hobo Gwen’s because it was made in Mexico), a stockpile of Tamiflu that you can actually eat (they’re sugar pills, but don’t underestimate the placebo effect) and a corresponding book set (en Ingles y Español).
In her first book, ¡Que Puta la Escuela!, Gloria is sent home from school for being a bio-health hazard. In ¡Oh díos mio!, we learn that sometimes, when you think you’re in heaven, you might just be in a coma. And in La Gloria Dice NO a Las Drogas, we discover that certain drugs lose their efficacy when taken recreationally. Oh, and unlike the Gwen doll, a portion of La Gloria’s proceeds totally go towards helping the homeless (me!).
This past summer I had the privilege to open for Jessica Delfino at the Soho Theater in London. It was my first time performing stand-up comedy outside of the country (ok, fine, I did a few shows in Toronto a while back but no one could even hear me through my SARS mask) and overall the experience went well. Anthropologically speaking, I did take note of a few cultural differences:
For one, the Brits seem to enjoy a darker, drier brand of comedy… which I’d imagine pairs well with the ghosts of limeys past trapped in the London Underground.
Also, the Brits place more economic value on comedy than we do in the states, as evidenced by the hefty pay checks comedians get for performing. For instance, Jess and I were invited to play a private “ladies only” event where we were payed £130 just to do a few minutes of comedy, which would be comparable to $190… if it wasn’t in the form of a sex toy. That’s right, we were paid in vibrators:
We unassuming Americans were roped into performing live comedy at a British product launch of a new sex toy, called the SaSi. Sadly, our time onstage was cut short once the rosé was passed out. Apparently, drunk British women are not our target demographic…
But back to the sex toy, the reason this product is so expensive is because it’s equipped with “a fancy system of programmable stimulation settings so that it learns what you like.” Which, in a round about way, brings me to the point of this blog: sex with robots.
Robophilia, Technosexuality, J-Date… whatever you want to call it, this inorganic fetish is sweeping the nation. And it makes sense, with the ubiquity of STDs, serial murder, and flaky peeps who wait three days to text you back, I can see why a lot of men and women are reverting to synthetic materials for sexual gratification.
And while sex with a robot might not be my cup of tea*, a few more years of being single in New York and I may change my tune.
*my cup of tea is definitely English Breakfast, I love it… so robust and earthy.