THE TIME COOK BUTTON ON MICROWAVES

If you can’t simply enter your desired time then hit start, your microwave is so good it sucks, end of story. Otherwise you need a degree in mechanical astrophysical bioengineering to make it work. You have to hit time cook, then enter the time, then, well, sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it makes you hit a power level. And that power level button works 4% of the time. When you finally get the power button to beep, how the hell do you then enter the time? So you hit cancel and you’re back to square one. By now your appetite is gone and all you taste is pure, rage-filled frustration. You don’t even want that quesadilla anymore. What you do want is to throw that microwave out the window, but you can’t even do that, because you snuck into a complete stranger’s house to make a righteous quesadilla and throwing out their microwave would be insanely disrespectful. And you know what else chafes my undercarriage? When people throw down an emphatic “end of story” then continue to tell their story.

 

THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR “WAKE ME UP”

“Wake Me Up” by Aloe Blacc was one of my favorite songs from last summer. Let’s end this crazy charade that it was from some Swedish meatball named Avicii. It’s got more Aloe in it than Aveeno hand cream. I recently stumbled upon the music video and, I got to tell you, that noise was dumber than Ray Rice popping by The View. 

http://youtu.be/IcrbM1l_BoI

Don’t get it scrambled, I give music videos a long leash. The weirder the better. For my money there’s nothing better than firing up a salad and getting lost in Die Antwoord’s entire collection. See I Fink U Freeky, Baby’s On Fire and Fatty Boom Boom for a nice starter course. And yes, scrambled is the new twisted.

But back to the lecture at hand. Allow me to give you a little recap of the video. It opens up on half a second of a vineyard shot, then boom, a shot of a rundown shack apparently near the vineyard. So far so good. Not usually feeling the wine vibe, but hey I’m saddled up and ready to ride. Yeehaw! In the shack we find a beautiful model - we’ll call her Logan - waking up next to her model-in-training little sister, whom we’ll call Ruby. They’re both sporting tattoos that look like the “doors open” elevator button. Not sure how that’ll come into play but color me intrigued. And they may be birthmarks, we don’t know at this point. Logan looks hellified sad, so she gets up and stares at her own beauty in the mirror for a bit. This cheers her up. More shots of the birthmark elevator tattoos.

Cut to the two as they leave the house and head down the street in head-to-toe Anthroplogie regalia. When they turn a corner Ruby looks like she’s seen a ghost. But it’s not a ghost. It’s worse. It’s ugly, poor people dressed like Mumford & Sons. The two look mortified. Granted, the dust bowlers throw around their fair share of shade, but c’mon, who needs the latest suburban mall fashions thrown in your face when you’ve spent the past eleven hours squeezing apple juice just to scrape enough pennies together to buy some oats. So, Logan and Ruby continue to get some serious what-the-fucks from Poor Ed Norton, Poor Tony Hale, Poor Viola Davis, Poor Jessica Chastain and Poor Kenny Rogers as they continue their stroll.

Finally, a young girl holding a basketful of empty dreams sees them and desperately wants to hang out. But the models ice her out like girls used to ice me out in high school. But this isn’t about me.

The sisters decide to take a load off and regroup on a fence after the harrowing experience of walking through a town filled with grubby townies. Ruby says to Logan in a super-bitchy way, “The others, they don’t like us. Why?” Logan can’t bring herself to say it, but we know her answer: “Because we’re pretty, Rubes. Because we’re pretty.” Instead, she wraps a bony arm around her little sister and holds her tight.

Cut back to the two in their stylish shack bed. Logan wakes up all sad once again. We think she’s about to take another hit of that sweet sweet mirror, but not today. In an act of astounding irresponsibility she decides to ditch her sister, hop on her Ralph Lauren saddle and blaze through the vineyard. Where’s she going? What’s she doing? Are they out of groceries? Is she going to find work? Is she going to make sure the local school system is adequate for a 9-year-old girl with model potential? Is she on her way to Stink-eye City to gun down the dust bowlers? Is she off to give Poor Kenny a good rogering? So many ways this could go.

Before we know it, she’s riding slow-mo through a river. Finally, she ends up in, you guessed it, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. The buildings make her happier than a loft full of mirrors. She ties her horse up to a phone pole and sets out through the seemingly deserted streets. But wait! She sees somebody. Holy fucklesticks, it’s another model! And she’s got the same birthmark. Could this be the mark of the beautiful? Holy Diet Coke, another model appears! And this one is a dude who makes Lenny Kravitz look like Edward James Olmos. They all hop in the back of a vintage truck and drive off. Boom, they’re out of the truck and into a line filled with more models, all with the mark of beauty. Why do they get to go to the front of the line? Because this girl is a bona fide asshole. That’s the kind of shit she does! No problem getting in because suddenly they’re jamming out at a packed show. That Swedish toolshed Aviccii is spinning mad beats on stage with his hat on backwards. Aloe Blacc is singing his nuts off and smiling from ear to ear thinking about the check he’s about to collect. Oh, and we have touchdown on the significance of the beauty mark. It's the unifying symbol for people who are really into looking cool and listening to Aviccii's progressive house-soul mashups. You see, it sort of looks like an A and a V. So that's what that is.

Someone breaks out a smartphone and takes a selfie of Logan and her new beauty buddies, even though they have yet to say one word to each other. Beauty doesn’t require banter. In fact, it only gets in the way. Logan is so happy, so carefree, so far away from those ugly rural buttholes!

Cut to her blazing through the vineyard on the horse that miraculously didn’t get stolen. Cut again to her slow-mo-ing it through the river in a stunning violation of editing continuity. She wakes her sister up and says something to the effect of, “Get your shit. I found a place where everybody is super hot and on ecstasy!”

But then they start walking down a highway. They don’t even take the horse! They leave the fucking horse! The horse is going to fucking starve!

And we haven’t even gotten to the worst part. The absolute worst part of the entire video is right at the end. They cut back to the sad, poor girl from earlier who just wanted some friends and to possibly get a killer makeover. But there she stands, alone on a sidewalk, staring longingly at a world she’ll never get to experience. So she turns away, resigned to a life of abject poverty and crushing loneliness. What the fuck man!

456,057,033 have seen this video so far.

NEEDING AN EXCUSE TO GO OUTSIDE

Outside is the only excuse you need to go outside. There are trees and grass and mountains and air and motherfucking lakes sometimes. There are streams and toads and breezes and ladybugs and birds. Outside is the motherfucking shit. The only reason you need to get all up in it is that it’s a day of the week. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday, go outside! January February March April you get the picture, go outside! If Mother Nature were a real lady I would make love to her ever-so-gently after waiting at least four dates, because I respect the hell out of that sweet bitch. Go outside! Golf isn’t a good excuse to go outside. Sunsets, sunrises, the moon, stars, fucking snowballs and raindrops are. Don’t even bring up acid rain you crazy nuts because that shit feels nice on my face when I look up and laugh and stomp in the puddles. Outside is so goddamned amazing it even has a magazine named after it. That’s some next level Oprah Winfrey shit, you ungrateful bastards! Go Outside! Don’t even get my shit started on flowers. Have you ever stopped to think about how goddamned motherfucking amazing flowers are? They make your heart sing like Luther Vandross at his niece’s graduation ceremony. They’re more beautiful than Angelina Jolie and that fine ass ladywoman who used to be married to Seal. Maybe she still is I don't even know. Go outside! Outside has bears and zebras and giraffes and motherfucking bunny rabbits. You don’t need an excuse, you need a door you greasy lunkheads! Or a window! I’m gonna jump out of one right now! Then I’ll be out motherfuckin side!

 

WEARING GOLF SHOES TO A PRO GOLF TOURNAMENT

Let me paint a little word picture for you. A guy wakes up on the couch still reeking from the 9 Bud Light Limes he drank the night before as his kids finished the Internet on their iPads. His wife doesn’t appreciate when he “gets that way” because he acts weird and snores in his sleep. Hence Sofa City. He’s recently taken up permanent residence in Chateau Bowwow, but he can claw his way out of that tomorrow. Today, he and a few of his old fraternity brothers scored free tickets to the Quicken Loans National PGA Golf Tournament just outside Bethesda, Maryland. 

He claims to love golf because it’s a nice excuse to be outdoors and enjoy a sport that not only relaxes and challenges him, but gives him a chance to ponder the big picture. The real reason he loves it is because he can drink all day, be away from his kids and gawk at that friendly cart girl with the epic rack. He’ll never do a deep enough emotional dive to come to grips with the fact that he actually hates the sport. He has no talent for it, so it’s slowly becoming one more thing that makes him feel small. What he really wants to do is paint landscapes, but fears the razzing he’ll get from his friends about how much a cock-gobbling homo he is. 

Apathetic is the best word to describe the way he feels about his job as an outside sales rep for a large medical equipment company. But he endures it. After all, it’s too late to change careers at this point, right? He’s recently taken out a 2^nd mortgage on his home and borrowed a sizable chunk of money from his sister, unbeknownst to his wife. Not because times are tight, but because of a few bad decisions involving penny stocks. 

Still, he’s obsessed with having the latest and greatest golf equipment. He loves the look of pure covetous jealousy when he whips out his surrogate wang on that first tee box. He always pushes to hit from the blacks, but is secretly bummed when his friends acquiesce. After he throws on his pleated shorts, striped polo, ankle socks and a visor, it feels downright criminal to wear normal running shoes. It’s like he’s offending the great and powerful golf gods. Plus, he’s wants to get close to his favorite player, a 22-year-old Aussie who’s as sharp on Twitter as his is around the greens. There will be grassy knolls and uneven terrain for him to contend with all day long. He’d hate to miss out on seeing his hero. Or worse, spilling any of that sweet sweet hair of the dog.   

SOMALIS

Listen, just because you're a wine expert it doesn't mean you're better than everybody else, with those shawl collars, perfectly coiffed hair and brass monocles that probably don’t even have a prescription. Whoopty friggen doo, you know the difference between an Einzellage and a Grosslage. Let’s all just stop what we’re doing and bow down to the Kings of Swankytown. Just because you know which represents a higher level of quality between the Vin de Table and Vid de Pays doesn’t mean your shit don’t stink, Smug Flutie. Why don’t I show you my shock face as you tell me that a “Smaragd” is a specialty wine from the lower Wauchau region of Austria made from only the ripest grapes. Holy Mother Mabel, what a genius! How about I just get on my knees and kiss your white-gloved hand so I can tell all my friends what it’s like to taste greatness? Oh, you don’t want me to? Well I guess I’m just a big skin-sack of pond scum trying to pass myself off as a human being then. Excuse me for living, Mr. Don’t-Look-At-Me-While-You’re-Ghetto-Stomping-Your-Way-To-Coach. Let me know how handy all those fruity tannins and lingering finishes are when you need to change a flat tire on your Range Rover, Mr. Snooty McFucklesticks!

SMARTPHONE EMAIL SIGNATURES THAT APOLOGIZE FOR TYPOS

Mobile 3.0 technology interfaces are an inescapable reality in today's QWERTY-driven environment. Even though I have no idea what I just said, the fact remains that you should be able to type proficiently on your phone. If you need to put your chubby little digits through a little hand P-90X, get it done. Here are a few suggestions for better, more impactful signatures: 

Sent from your closet

Sent from my mobile porn unit

Sent from your mom’s boudoir

Sent from my vibrator

Sent from the middle stall

Sent from a coffin

Sent from an intensive care unit

Sent from my underpants 

THE NEW YORKER CAPTION CONTEST

Over the past few years, I have submitted no fewer than fifty captions guaranteed to make even the coldest stone cry tears of thought-provoking laughter.

And what have I gotten in return? Crickets. Meadows and meadows of spiteful crickets.

I don’t know where they’re getting these so-called judges, but I can venture one guess: Moron School.

I’d be at my wit’s end if it weren’t boundless. But let’s let the evidence speak for itself, shall we?

My first submission was for a picture of a lawn mower with a pelican on it.

My caption: Perfect for cutting the grass and the cheese.

Solid gold, right? Because lawnmowers wouldn’t actually...Wait, I don’t need to explain it to you. You plus me equals same page. Unlike those New Yorker nincompoops, you understand that the pelican is a poor man’s flamingo and therefore irrelevant to the comedy at hand. You get me. I just wish those hifalutin hackjobs over at The New Yorker did.

My next submission was for an illustration of a dead guy lying inside a glass atrium. My caption: Welcome to the bonerdome.

Sorry you just spit coffee all over your mactop. How could that possibly not win? Dead guys are stiffs, stiffs are boners, atriums are domes. Perhaps it was a bit too layered for the Buffoon Brigade. It’s called nuance guys. Maybe you should go to the detective store and get a clue. See? I can’t turn this off.

The next one was a picture of a doctor looking at a patient with a knife sticking out of his back. My award-winning submission that was never to be: Let me guess, marital flatulation?

I even kept it cerebral by using the grad-school word for fart. Someone call the cops, because I just got tazed!

Finally, the coup de foie gras. The cartoon was a picture of two cowboys out on the range hugging as a cactus looked on. Warning, what you’re about to read may bust your gut:

Just a couple of completely heterosexual guys engaged in a bro-hug. This ain’t San Francisco.

Topical? Check. Edgy? Check. Hilarious? Checkmate.

The winner of that submission was some blueblood bastard named Preston from Cambridge, Massachusetts. You know who else is from Cambridge? Probably every judge on The New Yorker panel. Wreaks of blatant familial nepotism.

I can just picture them sitting in their Manhattan office, surrounded by rich mahogany as they play backgammon and pass the Grey Poupon to each other. That’s the room where groundbreaking comedy goes to die. I feel like Lenny Bruce and Gallagher and Joan Rivers all wrapped into one. Misunderstood and muzzled. But my motivation will not be mollified!

So, go on you big city snoots. Keep reading your Fox and Hound magazines and sipping your fancy Chardonnays. Keep burying your heads in the sands of mediocrity.

Because I won't change for you. But, eventually, you will change for me.