December 19th, 2009

Some Excerpts from My Recent (Strangely Unsuccessful) Stand-Up-Comedy Set

“How many times has this happened to you?: My wife and I went on a car-trip up to see her family. We take a “new route” of my choosing — you know how us men like to do! I’ll admit, I promptly miss an exit and get us horribly lost! My wife is all ‘You should pull in to a gas station and ask for directions.’ Before I could give that notion another thought, our talking GPS announced a route that put us back on the right track. It all worked out fine. We rode for the remainder of the trip in complacent silence…. [Response-seeking pause]”

“…and then once we got there I had to deal with my mother-in-law. She has never been anything but kind to me and I enjoy her company immensely. Who’s with me…?”

“A few weeks later, my wife drags me to this big-budget Hollywood tear-jerker. I swear, this thing was so cliche. I had already seen the story, like, 100 times before! Let me tell you…over the centuries, humankind has parsed the basic plotlines it will tolerate as entertainment down to no more than five. Therefore, once you’ve seen a handful of movies, every narrative you encounter thereafter should seem vaguely familiar to you. And any production that receives the backing necessary to make it to the big screen, involves one or two decent actors, and has passable set design and editing…well, it automatically deserves some amount of respect, doesn’t it?”

“So, by the end of this movie, my wife was crying yet I was unaffected. Her reaction, which was like that of many females in the theater, made perfect sense to me. You see, there are evolutionary factors at work that make her more emotionally-responsive and therefore more suited to be the main nurturing-figure in a family unit. Thus I respected her reaction and did my best to comfort her. You know what I’m-talkin’-about!”

“Have you ever noticed how cars work really well most of the time? And how making minor repairs to one is not that difficult?”

“So how many people of people of African-American descent do I have here tonight? Man, I bet your life is all like: go to work, do a job, earn an income, go home, possibly interact with friends or family, then engage in some sort of personal recreation. What I am trying to say is: deep down, I feel we are all quite similar, as people. Amiright…?”

“And what’s the deal with this airline food? The airlines have established a way of efficiently providing 500 people with hot meals that they would otherwise miss, were the plane they were riding through the stratosphere at 550 mph not populated with flight attendants and a kitchenette. That is pretty amazing if you ask me.”

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July 1st, 2008

I Think It’s Safe to Consider 2009’s Oscar for Best Picture “Off the Market”

Steph, Kevin, Kate (who was home from London for a few weeks), and I went to see the new Pixar movie Wall-e this past Saturday. It was clever, funny, well-made, etc., etc.

I honestly had trouble paying attention because, before the feature, they showed a trailer for what was clearly a motion picture of a higher-caliber. I am speaking, of course, of a little upcoming sliver of cinematic gold called Beverly Hills Chihuahua. How could they expect us to sit through some flawlessy-animated, heartfelt story after they show us a concept as brilliant as funny-looking dogs dressed up in silly outfits, dancing and singing like people?!?

I’ve got a really good feeling about this one, guys.

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March 26th, 2008

The New Sharks

Okay….

• Ray jumps, kills boater off Florida Keys
• ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin killed by stingray
• Sting Ray Seriously Injures Florida Man

I’d been on earth 26 years without hearing of a single instance of ray-related mayhem, then, in the last year-and-a-half, there are three. What is going on?

Steph and I were discussing the situation a few days ago and, at almost the same time, we name-dropped a little piece of juvenile literature known as The Black Pearl. Perhaps you remember it? We both had to read it for middle school English. In one of those tender moments that only brings a couple closer, we confessed to each other that we both had a gut-wrenching fear of manta rays, and that it was all because of this book.

Neither of us could even recall anything about the novel’s (human) characters or plot. All we had was that the cover looked like this:

Sorry, this is such a low-quality image, but it’s the only reproduction I could find. Evidently they’ve changed the “standard” cover to this:

I doubt if any of today’s adolescents are going to remember this super-lame image 16 years laters. Of course, I could see how — ya know, theoretically — the old cover might have caused a certain cross-section of the 11-year-old population with very active imaginations to wake up screaming at 4 am every night. The publisher probably gave in to pressure from frustrated parents, who were tired of repeating to their worried children that “giant rays are not out there attacking people who dare to enter the water.”

And not a moment too soon, ’cause what in the world would they tell them now?

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