Not Cheating

A couple years ago, a friend of mine was really bummed about breaking up with his girlfriend, so he booked a trip to visit me in LA at the same time a bunch of "the guys" were also going to be in town, so that he could distract himself and have fun. He booked the trip about six weeks in advance, I think. However, just days before he was set to leave, he and his recent ex-girlfriend reconciled and got back together (probably because she was scared of what he would do on his mini-vacation).

When he got to LA, and saw all the beautiful, albeit retarded, women that this city had to offer, he found himself feeling a bit shafted, having suffered for over a month, missing his ex, looking forward to being a free man for this trip, only to have her take him back just days before his departure.

Thusly, we invented the ridiculously titled, Travelocity Rule of Retroactivity. (Rolls off the tongue, eh?) Said rule states, if you book a trip with the guys whilst single, even if you get a girlfriend before the time of the trip, you are single for that trip. That's a rule.

Bush

Hairy pubic regions are gross. Grosser, even, than the phrase "pubic region." Trim your shit. Better yet, wax it.

D8-ing is H8-ing

So, having recently come out of a relationship, I came to a really annoying realization the other day: I have to re-enter the world of dating. Now, I know a lot of people get excited about being single and meeting new people, but I write a blog called The Curmudgeon because I fucking hate people. Even the ones I know and choose to spend time with get on my nerves, so you can imagine how I feel about new ones.

Seriously, what a fucking nightmare dating is. People are just awful. With all their issues, and insecurities, and their baggage, and their bad habits, and even their good habits, and their stupid comments about how much they like plays or art, and their having had sex with anyone else, and the shitty music they like . . . And then there are all the stupid goddamn questions you have to ask: Where are you from? Where'd you go to school? What do you do? How many siblings do you have? Oh, you have a dog? Oh, it's little, white, and fluffy, and bites, and pees on the carpet? How adorably cliche. What's it's name? God! I want to blow my brains out all over my shower tiles just thinking about it!

And those are the ones who actually make it to the dating stage! Those are the better ones! The percentage of the population that's actually physically attractive enough to be dateable is minuscule! Seinfeld put it best, so I'll let him do the talking:




I know, I know . . . when you find someone you actually like, it's not such a chore to inquire about their interests and past, because you genuinely want to know. But seriously, how often does that happen? Fuck.

8 is H8

I was strolling through West Hollywood the other day when I came across a license plate that read, "8 IS H8." Now, for those of you who don't know, West Hollywood is a supremely gay neighborhood, like Chelsea in New York City, and the 8 on the license plate was referring to Prop 8, the proposition in California that prevents homosexuals from getting married. And for those of you who are retarded, this license plate was expressing the fact that Prop 8 is hateful, hence the "H8." This made me think of two things:

1. It reminded me of how fervently I despise personalized license plates, or "vanity" plates, as they're otherwise known, and more aptly, I must say, because if you have one, you are vain and a douchebag. I mean, the lengths that these people go to to try to express something that's neither funny nor clever is mind-boggling. So many of these plates are entirely incomprehensible because so many of the letters essential to literacy are missing. You know what, if the one you wanted was already taken, move on, man. It's clearly not that original anyway.

Here are some recent winners:

"4 G-MA." I'm sure Grandma is really proud.

"SCPRNCS." It took me a minute too, but then I remembered I live in Southern California where people actually think USC is a good school. It's SC Princess. Yes. I know.

"SPRFCL." Superficial, of course, though it should stand for super-fecal, because you are a piece of shit for putting this on your car.

"BORJWAH." This one just enraged me when I saw it. I was behind this person at a light, and wanted to get out of my car, rip their plate off, and beat them in the face with it like Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz beats Nazis with a baseball bat in Inglourious Basterds. I looked up "bourgeois" just to have some fun with this, and it said, "middle-class," or "dominated by materialistic pursuits." Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Finally, I have to confess, I did see one that I actually liked one time. I remember it like it was yesterday. There I was, on one of LA's crowded freeways, when I see a license plate that's clearly personalized, but too ridiculous to figure out: "FTBKPSY." My blood immediately begins to boil as I pull up alongside this heathen to see what kind of mental midget wastes her time and money on such an indecipherable public display. And there she was, in all her glory, an obese black chick, with long acrylic nails, shiny sunglasses, happy as hell, singing her ass off. And all at once, it hit me. Her license plate stood for . . . FaT BlacK PuSsY. Amazing. And I love her for showing me that even stupid things can be done well from time to time.

2. But I digress. Back to 8 IS H8. The second thing it made me realize, though I didn't want to admit that it had this impact on me because I want to discourage vanity plates, is that it reminded me of how infuriating the whole Prop 8 issue is. Eight really is hate! It's kind of crazy when you think about it. Prop 8 is a hate crime perpetrated by the government, that specifically targets and discriminates against them homosexyal types (that's not a typo; I'm just being a jackass because I feel like that's how a bigot would say it). Any other acts that discriminate against people for being members of a specific group, based on race, or sexuality, or gender, or religion, among other things, are considered hate crimes.

So why isn't Proposition 8 a hate crime? Oh, wait, because in the bible, that was written, and repeatedly revised, by man, God said being gay is bad. I forgot. My bad. God, who, if you actually read the bible, you'd know would be serving several consecutive life sentences for all of his innumerable hate crimes, said being gay is bad. It's absurd! I actually had (tried to, at least) a conversation with someone who vehemently opposed gay marriage. When I asked her why, she said, "because, well, what's next? People can marry their pets?!" And I said, "actually, that probably wouldn't bother me either, as long as they weren't sexually molesting their pets, but how about we just limit marriage to HUMAN BEINGS!" In her defense, she actually did get really quiet and said, "I hadn't thought of that."

Then again, what do I know? I'm just a Jew who's going to hell because I haven't accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. Religion wins again.

Filth

I think if I got a paper cut from a dollar bill I would probably amputate the finger that got cut...

Hot Mess

So I keep forgetting to mention that my good friend's band, Cobra Starship, just released a new album two weeks ago entitled, Hot Mess. It features the hit single, and yes, it actually is a hit!, "Good Girls Go Bad," which in turn features the vocal stylings of Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester (if you like that show and that's the sort of thing that impresses you).

You know how when you order a salad with bacon, sometimes you wish it were just the bacon? Or when you have a cupcake with really good frosting, you wish it were just the frosting? Or when you have Sour Patch Kids, you wish it were just the red ones? Well this is the bacon, the frosting, and the red Sour Patch Kid...

For your convenience, I've embedded the video for the first single. If you like it, please buy the song, or the whole album, over at iTunes:

FU, Penguin

I was at Borders tonight with my little brother because we had time to kill before watching Brad Pitt murder Nazis, and we came across a hilarious and amazing book called, FU, Penguin, by a tragically little-known Matthew Gasteier. I say tragically unknown because he cracked us up, but I don't actually know the guy. He could be a total prick. Yo, Matt! You'd better be a good guy because I'm telling people to check out your book! If you're an asshole, go fuck yourself, and I rescind my endorsement of you and your creations. Otherwise, check out his book if you get a chance: http://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Telling-Cute-Animals-Whats/dp/0345518160/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251269162&sr=8-1

Also, he has a blog (shocker): http://www.fupenguin.com/

World's Worst Lie

I was craving pancakes the other day, so I decided to head over to a local, hole-in-the-wall diner to satisfy said craving. When I opened the menu, I was not shocked to see the declaration, "World's Best Pancakes!" But then it struck me: what a load of bullshit. World's best? WORLD'S best?! Really?! I'm so sick of this phrase on menus and every other store sign. "World's best ice cream," "world's best stereo systems," "world's best cat litter." Seriously, I typed "world's best" into google, just as an experiment, and the number one item that came up was "world's best cat litter." I don't know if that illustrates my point about the abuse of superlatives or is a sad statement about the abundance of pathetic, lonely cat people. Probably both.

The point is, to claim that whatever you're selling is the world's best is just preposterous! So I'm to believe you went everywhere in the world, and found that of all the products that do the same thing as your product, your product did it best? I mean, I'm not a mathematician or anything, but chances are pretty good you're a huge liar.

I'm fine with "award-winning," but it had better be a legitimate award. I don't want to see "award-winning pecan pie" on your menu only to find out your neighbors held a pie competition in their backyard and your pecan pie came in second place . . . although at least that still wouldn't be a blatant lie . . . technically speaking.

"World's best" only sets the bar too high anyway. They should do a better job of managing expectations. Even if the pancakes were great (which they were, in this most recent case), you're probably going to be disappointed after all the "world's best" hype. There's no way they can live up to that. They're doing a disservice to themselves. The truth is, that claim is so absurd that people don't even pay attention to it anymore, and it just throws everything else your establishment advertises into question, like when Holden says he's a terrific liar at the beginning of Catcher in the Rye.

Same thing goes for "world famous." If I live up the street from your establishment, and I've never even heard about your "world famous" goulash until just now when I walked in, then it's not world famous.

I actually just had a quick conversation with my little brother about this, and we were saying, that somewhere in the world, they actually do have the world's best pancakes. But even then, that's subjective, obviously. So we agreed, that menus should have to say, "voted world's best," and then specify by whom, and in what year, so that they don't get complacent and decide to rest on their laurels. That's all.

Nice Honkers

I hate people who honk immediately when they come to pick someone up. How fucking rude and self-centered are these assholes? There's unwritten pick-up etiquette, that should probably be enacted into law, that clearly states (if you're not a selfish retard) that there's a whole check-down list of behaviors before resorting to honking your horn. Let me preface this by saying that between the hours of midnight and 10:00am, you are not permitted to honk your horn at all . . . whatsoever.

First, before you even get there, you text or call to alert the person mooching a ride to your imminent arrival. Then, when you get there and they're not outside waiting for you, which they never are, you text to let them know you've arrived.

Now, wait one to two minutes . . .

If they don't respond to the text, then you call. If they don't pick up the call, wait another one to two minutes . . .

If you still haven't heard from them at this juncture, you may opt to send an optional follow-up text letting the person for whom you are waiting know that he/she is being an asshole. You're being kind enough to do the driving; the least he/she can do is be punctual. How hard is that? (Answer: apparently very hard.)

Finally, at the five-minute mark, you are permitted one quick "toot" of the horn. Not even a "honk," but a "toot," if you will. This lasts a mere fraction of a fraction of (that's not a typo) a second. You cannot, under any circumstances (other than for dire, life-threatening emergencies . . . or sex), lean on your horn. It's not everyone else's fault your buddy's rubbing one out before he leaves, or your girlfriend is still flat-ironing her frizzy pube hair. Your asshole friend's douchebaggery is not everyone in the neighborhood's problem! Seriously. If you honk your horn for a sustained length of time, or multiple times, just to alert one inconsiderate prick to your presence, then you're even worse. At least your friend is only silently inconveniencing one person, whereas you are being more offensive than a dingleberry entangled in the assy taint pubes of Jared Fogle and Kirstie Alley's love child . . . if they were permitted to breed . . .

Animators Are Sexist

Has anyone noticed that all the human women in Pixar movies look the same? The men are all pretty varied, in body type, facial structure, hairstyle . . . but look at the women in these things. They all have similar haircuts, the same body, the same face.

I don't think it's conscious, but it is rather conspicuous. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the kids who were comic-book-obsessed, Dungeons-&-Dragons-playing, math nerds grew up to be adult computer nerds who aren't really all that familiar with women. So when they create all these strikingly similar female characters, they're not actually being sexist, but, in fact, just experientially deprived of sexual variety. They're just tapping into their limited experience of what they've gathered a woman should look like.

I tried to find a few stills from a couple of these movies to illustrate my point, but I couldn't find anything that great. I think these kind of give you the idea:

http://l.yimg.com/eb/ymv/us/img/flickr/56/95/003525675695.jpg

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm639473664/tt0317705

http://content8.flixster.com/question/34/25/58/3425582_std.jpg

The Ephemeral

I hate that some of the best things in life are so fleeting.

Good TV shows like Arrested Development and Dog Bites Man (a severely under appreciated work of genius) get canceled too quickly because people are morons, the honeymoon period of a relationship passes too fast because women are ungrateful, a good cookie is done before you know it, orgasms are over in just a few seconds, and vacations... Vacations! Man, it feels like you just got to wherever you were going and you already have to pack to head back to the airport to leave. It sucks.

But my guess is, that's probably what makes all those things so good, huh. Sad that people need to have things disappear to be reminded of how awesome they are.

Only Sailors Use Condoms!

Really, Science? Is this the best you can do? How badly do these things suck?! Kids aren't having unprotected sex because they're irresponsible, or lazy, or under-educated. They're having unprotected sex because condoms fucking suck, and sex feels a gazillion times better without them!

You'd think they'd be working around the clock on this problem. There can't be much money in physics or geology, but I bet if you came up with a contraceptive that actually let you feel your cock being enveloped by the soft, comforting vaginal canal, you'd be neck deep in cash. You'd be bathing in gold coins like you're in motherfucking Duck Tales!



Seriously, shouldn't there be some new, revolutionary condom on the market at least once a year? I know they release these new ones that are supposed to be thinner and feel better, but they're exactly the same. Give me a protective spray, or something. That's it! A spray-on condom! No? Can't that be done?! Please!

I mean, the dudes who made Extenze are raking it in, and that's probably just a goddamn sugar pill! Shouldn't the money be incentive enough? C'mon, Science. Get your shit together.

I almost feel like there's some right-wing, Evangelical Christian conspiracy limiting government funding for condom research because Jesus wants us to have even more retarded babies who flagrantly sap Earth's limited resources. So once again, this all brings us back to the evils of religion. If there were a God, we wouldn't need condoms. Case closed.

Additional Wasted Talent

Two important names I left off my Wasted Talent post: Chris Farley and Mike Tyson. They were awesome but could've been even awesome-er. Sad . . .

Wasted Talent

I hate wasted talent, yet find it completely fascinating. Darryl Strawberry and Kurt Cobain are two of the most tragic yet enthralling figures of my lifetime. Neither lived up to his immense potential, but I never tired of watching either one of them.

187

I was talking to a friend today, and she commented that there's someone in her life who she would gleefully murder if she were guaranteed not to get caught. She said she'd gut him like a fish and then bathe in his blood-soaked entrails. Okay, she didn't say that last part, but that's not really the point. The point is, it made me re-ponder a question that I probably ponder way more often than is healthy: do I think I could commit a homicide and not get caught?

Yes. That's the short answer. Let me clarify that I'm referring to premeditated murder, of course. If you do it in the heat of passion, you're gonna fuck up and make a mistake. Anyway, I think I've watched enough episodes of First 48 (AMAZING show, by the way. Watch it!) to know that these degenerate criminals get caught because they're stupid . . . usually. Sometimes there's some really awesome detective work. A lot of the time, in fact. But even with great detective work, so many of these cases hinge entirely upon either an anonymous tip or a confession.

What I've been able to gauge thus far is, if you know the person you murder, it's probably going to be pretty tough to get away with. But if you can stick to murdering a complete stranger . . . you're golden. Only problem is, you probably really only want to kill jackasses you know. If there's a car involved, definitely burn it. The detectives are always pissed when the car is burned. Actually, I think I'm going to stop telling people how to murder someone and get away with it. As much as I hate people and think there are a lot of humans the world would be a better place without, it's probably the real assholes who would actually follow through with the murders, which would make this post completely counterproductive. . . . Okay, just one more thing, though: I'd probably feed the remains to a dog, or something. I've always felt like that would be an excellent way to dispose of a body. Just don't feed it to your dog, moron.

Bottom line, at the end of the day, it's probably not worth the risk of getting caught or the lifetime of showers that just never leave you feeling clean. If you hate someone enough to murder them, you would never want to risk having them or their loved ones know that you suffered as a result of them. It would really negate the whole point of slaughtering them in the first place, as amazing as that would feel. Just fantasize about it like a normal person and leave it at that. Still, though, I'm just sayin' . . . if it came down to it, I think I could get away with murder.

(Special thanks to Adriana for having violent tendencies...)

Piss Off!

I hate urinals. Public restroom in general, I guess, but urinals are a particularly vile feature. Yeah, in theory they're really convenient, but they disgust me. Everything about them. The gross smell of the urinal cake mixed with the unflushed urine. The splash-back that ricochets off the porcelain when you pee in them. The whole uncomfortably social nature of them. They're so close together, and often there's no divider, and there's usually a puddle of piss at the base of them, and people hock loogies into them while pissing, and then it's eerily silent so the guy next to you tries to make awkward chit-chat.

One of the funnier/grosser aspects is when a guy sidles up right next to you and just shamelessly tears ass. I mean, I know it's a bathroom, but can't you step more than six inches away from me for a second? Imagine how that guy would react if you stood right next to him while waiting to cross the street and just blasted him. Probably not well.

And don't even get me started on the trough. When the trough is in play, people actually think it's okay to squeeze in next to you. It is wholly unacceptable to be handling your dick while in contact with another, strange man. Unless you're gay or in a porno . . . or both. If you need to physically touch another human being in order to take a piss, then you're not being patient enough. If you've ever tried to pee at a trough at a bar, while sober, surrounded by drunk guys . . . then you know it's not possible. It can't be done.

Which brings me to my next point: the best way for me to gauge my level of intoxication is by my willingness to use a urinal. My blood alcohol content is directly proportional to my yen for a urinal. That is, the more booze I consume, the more likely I am to use the urinal. At four drinks, I might give it a shot, although if the guy next to me starts talking, I'll head for the stall. At eight drinks, I'll be the guy talking to you at the urinal, and maybe even patting you on the back as I head for the sink. Because even if I'm hammered, I wash my fucking hands, you savages!

Music Festivals

Is it just me, or are these things severely overrated? I mean, they're usually in the summer, or somewhere hot enough for an outdoor music festival, so if you're on the East Coast, you're dying in the humidity, and if you're on the West Coast, it's all dry and you're caked in desert dirt. (Yes, I know I'm ignoring the entire middle of the country. Who cares? The answer: no one. They don't count anyway.) Then there's the lines, and the crowds, and the excessively drunk people who inevitably vomit anywhere they please, or the really high people who are nauseatingly happy. There are the self-righteous speeches given by the musicians that mercilessly cut into their already-laughably-short set time , because these festivals are always for something, I think. Right? Don't they all have causes? I don't know. Then there are the porta-potties. Everything about those is horrible. The endless line, the nostril-hair-singeing stench, the lack of sinks for hand washing. Ugh. Let's also not forget the astronomically, egregiously high food and beverage prices. Good luck getting a funnel cake and a water for less than 10 bucks. And how about those wonderful occasions when it rains at these things, too? What a treat that is, the muddy mayhem that ensues...

There are so many of these things now, too: Bonnaroo, Warped Tour, Lollapalooza, All Points West, Coachella, and many more. People say, it's a great opportunity to see all the bands you love in one place. I say, it's a terrible experience in which you're exposed to the elements while listening to a lot of bands you don't like just to hear the two bands you actually do like play 20-minute sets that include only one or two of the songs you actually wanted to hear them play. Just go see those bands' shows separately and avoid the debacle that is the music festival.

Oh, and good luck getting out of the fucking parking lot.

Bitches Ain't Shit - An Appendix

Due to some comments regarding my women-aren't-funny post, I will restate: if being funny didn't facilitate men getting women, then men wouldn't be funny . . . and women would still not be funny, also.

There is, however, an argument to be made, that Jews would still be funny. Perhaps their sense of humor as a people has helped them cope with millennia of intermittent but pervasive persecution. Whatever the reason, think about the disproportionate amount of Jewish comics, both male and female.

Weed Ware

I hate people who wear things with marijuana leaves on them. I saw a guy in his 30's wearing a hat with the big green leaf on it today and he looked ridiculous. Seriously? Grow the fuck up. It's not remotely cool. Maybe it was cool in high school, for some people, but c'mon. I mean, it's fine if you enjoy smoking, but that doesn't mean you have to be a jackass. In fact, I think weed should be legalized but wearing clothing with a marijuana leaf on it should be an arrestable offense.

Bitches Ain't Shit (in the Humor Department)

Sorry. I know the title is a little harsh, but the point is, women aren't funny. Yeah, I said it. Think about it. What women come to mind when you think of comedy? Margaret Cho, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres? Those are some of the few female comedic icons. What do they all have in common? Lesbians. There are certainly great exceptions, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Parker Posey (who, if you ask me, do have some pretty masculine tendencies, but are all still relatively attractive and funny and straight . . . as far as I know), but it seems to me that you usually need some high testosterone levels to be a funny woman (Roseanne Barr and Lisa Lampanelli are straight, too, but fat and manly).

I know this sounds sexist, and I guess it is, but think about your funniest friends, too. They're probably male. Probably. But I'm not just going to make such a radical statement without providing you with what I think is a logical explanation for this: Evolution. As is often the case, this magical Evolution, that a pretty significant portion of the population somehow dismisses in favor of Creationism (oh, Jesus . . . pun intended), does a pretty damn good job of explaining why guys would be funny while girls would not be.

According to Evolution, women don't need to be funny. It's as simple as that. Men do. Men don't care if women are funny, but women certainly care if men are funny. Women didn't and don't need to make us laugh, because we already wanted/want them. And this has been true for a long time. The ability to make a woman laugh has been very important for men . . . I'd say, for as long as we've existed. Women need to have a sense of humor, because they have to get the jokes that the men deliver, but this shouldn't be confused with actually being funny. How else do you explain Jewy schlubs like Woody Allen, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, and David Schwimmer being able to attract women? I guess their money helps, too, huh. But my guess is they still did alright for themselves even before they were loaded because they're funny, and women need to be amused in order to be attracted to men.

I'm open to counter arguments, but I don't want to hear, "you're wrong because my friend, Lindsey, is hysterical. Whenever we go out drinking, she says . . ." There are exceptions. I said that. Though your friend Lindsey probably isn't funny to any members of the male gender. And she's probably fat.