Man Argues With Goat

Anyone could watch this video and replace the goat with someone in their lives.

Have A Seat

Snow makes the buses run terribly around here. I take the 128 into New York from West New York, NJ.  It runs along Blvd East and you can see the Manhattan skyline the whole way in.  It’s like commuting through the training sequence in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.  Yesterday my wife and I were boarding when the guy getting on in front of us changed his mind upon seeing that there were no seats available.  It turns out he was being real prudent because we ended up standing for almost an hour in that hot bus; my wife nearly fainted.

Anyway, as he was getting back off the bus this lady, seated all the way up front in the first seat, wearing a lady hat and a fur coat I shit you not, said “This far along the route and he expects there to be a seat!”

Oh, ho ho ho!

It was the most arrogant thing I’ve heard in a while.  The thing you have to understand about this route is that it starts in Fairview, continues south through North Bergen, Gutterberg, West New York, and finally Weehawken on the Union City border. Look up the census figures for those areas surrounding the route and you’ll see a pattern in median income.  From north to south:

• Census tract 63 – $64,583
• Census tract 141 – $66,040
• Census tract 142 – $43,638
• Census tract 153 – $37,359
• Census tract 156 – $33,250

Again, that’s Fairview, North Bergen, Guttenberg, West New York, and Union City near Blvd East.  This uptown broad may not have realized it but her oh-so-funny observation from her nice comfy seat right up front was a comment on how class is stratified in Hudson County.  Imagine!  A pauper from West New York expecting to find an available seat on a bus that originates in Fairview!

When I moved into this place a buddy of mine, a Guttenberg cop, asked what street we were on.  67th.  He shook his head and pointed north, indicating that we should have moved in on a street with a higher number.  And of course that’s good advice.  Everyone knows that north is good in this part of Jersey.  North is money, lawns, good schools, better parks.  But it’s no good just to tell us where we’d have it better.  You might as well recommend I have a seat on a bus that’s standing room only.  If I could afford it, I’d sit every morning.

Guy Bakes So Many Pastries

Creedence.  Great choice.

Stuff like this makes me want to create something.  I’m glad I get to put on a show every week.  I’m glad I get to set my own goals at work.  I want to write a novel.  I want to record an album.  I want to write more plays, poems, jokes, sketches, films, anything I have time for.  I want to get up in the morning like the guy in this video and create something, and just be good at the act of creating it.  Pastries get eaten.  Improv gets forgotten.  It’s the act, though, that I want.  If I could bake like this guy, damn right I’d film it and share it.

You Dumb Bastard

Resolutions for 2011

Here’s my boring old list as if you care.

1. Finish reading “War and Peace.”
2. Write this novel I’ve been trying to write.
3. Finish writing, and produce, “My Daughter, My Wife” for the stage.
4. Get good enough at bass to jam with other musicians.
5. Weigh 180 pounds by June 1, and stay that way.
6. Call mom more often.
7. Self-publish a short story Harold of my own.
8. Come up with a project for the stage that showcases myself.
9. At work, have less surprises and more visibility into future efforts.
10. Start turning down projects I don’t want or need.

Don’t Nominate Me For An ECNY

People are asking me to nominate them for the ECNY Awards and, yeah, I understand wanting to be nominated for that. I just want to point this out, from the ECNY’s own FAQ:

How are nominees chosen?

Good question. From November 23 – December 17, 2010, the general public is allowed to submit anyone in any category. Hundreds of names are submitted in each and every category, so we take that list to our hand-picked Industry Committee which consists of a broad spectrum of approximately 50 comedy professionals based in New York. These people live and breathe comedy: they manage theaters, they produce shows, they work in television, they run internet sites, they blog about us and review shows. The Industry Committee votes and the top vote getters become the nominees. Our awesome web designer created a cryptic voting program; none of the producers know how each Industry Committee member voted!

The nominations aren’t votes. If you’re nominated once, you’re in! No need to run a campaign yet! Heck, you can just nominate yourself. Over and over again! It’s anonymous!

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I already voted for myself. If I do get nominated, that’s when I’ll start asking for votes. (Not that I’ll need them. I’m terrific!)

I hope no one hates me for this.

Project Management

Dumb Question About Computer Audio

Is there any software for Windows XP that’ll convert all audio output from Stereo to Mono?

I ask because every time I buy headphones one of the earbuds breaks. I don’t mind just listening to one, but songs recorded in stereo end up sounding weird.

I know RadioShack sells an adapter thing. None of the RadioShacks around here carry it. I’m looking for a download.

I tried changing my speaker in control panel to a mono laptop speaker but it didn’t work. Google has no answers.

Help?

Lewd Dorothy Parker Poems

Good news! I’ve been asked to sign on as a regular contributor over at the 2log.biz blog. I love those guys! I’ll ramble over there and I’ll continue to harass you here as irregularly as I ever have.

My first 2log entry, Lewd Dorothy Parker Poems, is sure to shoot straight up the charts.

Enjoy!

The Mediocre Dream

Sometimes I just want to crank out genre novels. I want to resist the urge to try literary fiction because, you know what? Literary fiction is tough. Those are the novels that take ten years to write. I want to throw darts at a wall full of index cards: “Dog protagonist,” “In love with a ghost,” “1990’s New Orleans,” and just pump out detective stories one every four months. Walk into a Borders and you’ll see the veneer of Hot New Fiction blanketing a continent of mysteries and romances with quirky titles. Series of books whose titles play the alphabet game, with room for Halloween editions. That’s what I want to write sometimes. The rest. The schwag. I guess in the end I don’t care about the book. I just like the writing.