February 2012
16 posts
I Always Wanted To Be Wes Anderson
I’ve thought about Wes Anderson a lot lately.
I think there’s a trough, as your age becomes equidistant from Max Fischer and Steve Zissou, where it’s important that you act all better than Wes Anderson. At least, it seems to be an important rite of passage for most of my friends and contemporaries. It was probably most acute for people exactly my age (I’m twenty-seven) who were in high school...
MAGIC BAG tonight in Los Angeles...
…Eliza Skinner and myself are joined by such stellar comics as:
Rob Lathan
Gabe Liedman
Daniel St. Germain
Julia Prescott
Nathan Fielder
Aaron Hertzog
9:30 PM at the Little Modern Theater, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd, $5
Two Retail Observations
1. I saw what used to be a Baja Fresh with a sign in its window announcing that it’s becoming a Chipotle. If you want you can go ahead and make that into a metaphor for our political process. Might I suggest that the point of the ensuing metaphor be that our political process doesn’t contain nearly enough burritos.
2. The other morning the marquee of the Shakey’s Pizza on...
Curiosity And A Feline Christ
If it’s true curiosity killed the cat, then I suggest we revere that cat as a sort of Christ-figure who died so that we may experience the glory of curiosity in all its bookstore-hopscotching endless-Wikipedia-loop-inspiring glory. Thanks, cat. Because of you I can buy records by the people who influenced the people whose records I already liked, and to go back and back and back like that...
Ghoul Culture
All of us in a race to be the most callous, stacking up boulders on the road that runs right into the center of ourselves. If we can’t send out anything that might help anyone, nothing will ever come up that road and hurt us.
A voice screaming on the other side of the rock-pile:
“You will never catch me caring, much less being cared about.”
In response to this tweet by Jake Fogelnest, one of the world’s best grown-ups: We are rapidly approaching a time where the concept of having (much less minding) our own business will be entirely foreign.
Soon, none of us will have “our own business.” And no: an Etsy does not count.
A Warning
WARNING: Men Who Dress Like They Are In The Arcade Fire, With Suspenders And Olive Slacks And Powder Blue Button Down Shirts: You Look Like Giant Bearded Toddlers
Also: You Are Probably Named “Grant”
Some Word Association
“Hey, what does the word ‘impulsive’ mean to you?”
“‘Selfish and irresponsible.’”
“Okay. What about the phrase ‘I want this?’ What do you think that means?”
“Huh, I think…I think ‘I want this’ also means ‘I deserve this.’”
“Great, and who are you again?”
“Oh,...
“…situated in this apartment, in the big wide open front room with all the windows, I might generally be expected by others to become more productive, even inspired. I have no intention of becoming either inspired or productive; to the contrary I intend to sit in the dark at night in my big black leather chair staring out at the Hollywood Hills like a man gazing on an approaching...
Don’t be the kind of person who goes, “I don’t get it. Explain it to me.” Be the kind of person who goes, “I don’t get it. I shall endeavor to be the kind of person who ‘gets’ more stuff from now on.”
The fun of “getting it” is in the getting of it. Membership has its privileges.
Either way, I’m not explaining my Ben...
A Most Troublesome Dream
“Wake up! Wake up, Maker Of T-Shirts, TV Shows, Movies, Stand-Up Comedy, Or Animated Gifs! You were screaming in your sleep!”
“Oh God, Sheila, I just had the most horrible dream. I dreamt…”
“Yes?”
“It’s too horrible to even say aloud.”
“But you must! To name your fear is to claim your fear! What troubled your otherwise...
January 2012
12 posts
I Will Now Summarize The Worst Kind Of...
“I’m so smart!”
“No, I’m so smart!”
On a plane this weekend, the pilot warned us other pilots had warned him we were about to go through some pretty crazy turbulence, so he was turning on the seatbelt sign and instructing the flight attendants to sit down as well. Then everything was calm for ten minutes. Then the plane was kicked by God. People screamed, drinks escaped their plastic cups and headed for the ceiling. Then it...
My show DC PIERSON IS BAD AT GIRLS is tonight in...
and you can buy tickets here.
The bravest thing you can do to upset gender norms is watch “Paris Is Burning” on Watch Instantly on a Sunday afternoon when playoff football is on.
I’ll never make anything that’s funnier than the part of “Dare To Be Stupid” where Weird Al says “I can’t hear you!” and then “Okay, I can hear you now.”
Asleep in the same bed, the twins unwittingly kickbox.
People say “If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry” as though that shit were mutually exclusive.
Judging from his body language, I thought the businessman was showing the other businessman a smartphone, but it was actually a package of cookies.
Bookshelf.
(*mark as unread*)
December 2011
2 posts
The morning after it had been super-windy
it was still super-windy
and standing on my balcony
we saw three doves flying around.
One of them was all-white,
two of them were white with black tails.
I thought the black-tailed doves were bad omens
but when we got in my car,
“This Is How We Do It” was playing on 92.3,
followed by “I Can’t Go For That,”
Logic dictates that each one of those...
November 2011
6 posts
Some people act like they’ve only read the middle third of a book about the rebellious hard-living artist they so clearly idolize - not the ending, where they’re dead, or the beginning, where they’re talented.
It’s fun to hear rapper’s early works, to hear them spout aliases for themselves that would go on to not really catch on and end up jettisoned by the second album.
Mine would sound like this:
“WHATUP, it’s DC, AKA Mr. Sad For No Reason Sometimes, AKA The Pope Of Straight Gettin’ A Plastic Spoon Out Of A Box Of Plastic Cutlery And Usin’ It To Eat Like One Scoop...
Reading, Like, One Book: Failing To Make Uninteresting People Interesting For Over 500 Years!
The other night we sat on the couch
of the house where she’s cat-sitting
and drank wine and watched The Wire
while she mended a hole in the pocket
of some pants I got at Old Navy.
It was like a heaven where you still needed pants.
October 2011
8 posts
Immutable law of science: If you say “Not to be that guy” and proceed to be that guy, you’re still that guy.
If you are in a mob movie and someone says “Let me ask you something” to you, enjoy your last few moments with an un-punched face.
What's The Deal With AUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!
I just had the quickest most pleasant experience at the DMV.
It was like a million 1980’s stand-up comedians cried out in pain and were suddenly silenced.
Sensible Plan
I’m just gonna give this my entire life, and if it doesn’t work out by the time I’m dead, I’ll do something else.
“People don’t say each other’s first names when they’re talking to them in real life the way they do in movies, Denise!”
“This guy knows what I’m talking about,” I said, pointing to myself.
The thing about having a sense of humor is, you have to have a sense of humor about it.
September 2011
8 posts
It's Only Homework If You Read Shit Books
The goal seems to be to be seen with books, but the important relationship between a set of eyes and their subject when it comes to books is between your eyes and the page.
And I know it feels like homework to you. I’m sorry your formative experiences with the written word were ones of drudgery instead of ones of joy. I’m sorry the only messages about reading being magical you ever...
How do you let somebody in?
I wouldn’t know how to give them directions.
I’ve always been here,
I’ve never had to GET here.
Jason Anderson - “Tonight”
a summer...
“That Starbucks used to be a Chase and that Chase used to be a Starbucks!”
- Dumb shit the modern world will force me to say to my kids one day
After she snuck in and took Hipstamatic photos of herself on the MAD MEN set, at last Tumblr became a real boy and married her.