A short story to archive-

A Lesson in Affectation

Our setting is somewhat cliché, two men in New York, talking across a table to each other in a coffee shop while a man outside spontaneously combusts and runs down the street screaming bloody murder.

“Did you see that man’s hat?” said one man.

“Who’s?” said the other.

“That man on fire.” said the first man.

“Oh, yes. A brown fedora with a black suit? What a fashion crime.” said the second.

As you can see, our men are useless yuppies. The first man was called Donald and the second was called Derrick. They met here in this coffee shop in New York everyday to discuss nothing of great importance.

“So Derrick, how are things going with the wife?” Donald asked, closing the lid of his iBook.

“Not so great. She says that I need to stop killing hookers or she’ll leave me.” replied Derrick.

“That must be tough on the kids.”

“It is. They love playing with those hooker corpses.”

This is a fair example of a typical day’s conversation between the two men. Were one to listen to one of their discussions they would find the faults beyond measure that attach themselves to the two men prevalent and figuratively dancing for the crowd.

“So how are you and Christine doing? Still planning on popping the question?” Derrick inquired.

“Oh, yeah, she’s great. She’s the only woman I’ve dated who listens when I ask for pancakes after sex.” Donald replied.

“From everything you’ve told me about her, she sounds like one classy lady.”

“Yeah, she put out really early.”

While one was listening to them they may find the overwhelming urge to kill take them. This must be fought. For even when dealing with the waste of space we speak of today, killing can be construed as immoral and illegal. Unfortunately.

“So how are you going to do it?” Derrick asked, sipping his overpriced, pretentious coffee.

“Do what?” Donald responded.

“Ask Christine to marry you.”

“What? I’m not going to ask her to marry me!”

“You just said you were going to pop the question, though.” Derrick said, his face contorted in confusion. This expression could also be seen when faced with simple math or using electronics.

“I wasn’t talking about asking her to marry me, I was talking about propositioning her for anal.” responded Derrick’s illustrious companion.

If you feel your blood pressure rising, it’s only natural. Great men have fallen when faced with such stupidity and one can not be expected to keep up with great men. Try to handle it a little longer so we may reach our moral.

“Ah, yes. Anal. Good luck with that. How are you going ask her?” Derrick asked, tucking his iPod further into his pocket.

“I’ve got some ideas. We’re going to a knicks game on Saturday, I may have them put it up on the scoreboard.” responded Donald, shaking his 70 dollar hair cut out of his face.

“I’m sure she’d like that. Every girl likes to see her name on the scoreboard.” Derrick said, taking off his yellow sunglasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose before replacing them.

“Oh, yeah. I was also thinking of being a little more creative, too. Her family has a farm, so I was thinking of writing it in the grass with cow manure.” said Donald while straightening the cuff of his Armani suit.

I think we can say that you’ve suffered enough. It was necessary, though for the moral which I am now able to deliver:

You will meet people like this in your life, and they will make more money then you. Prepare yourself.

Deep Thoughts

I was digging through old work and I found my old english journals we had to do when I was a freshman in college. I obviously wouldn't take them seriously and what I ended up
writing was something like Jack Handy's 'Deep Thoughts'. Here are a few of them:

What was your favorite activity as a child?
When I was a kid I liked playing with Daddy’s hacksaw. It could cut through lots of things, statues, trees, necks. One day Daddy took it away from me. I was sad. But I found it in Daddy’s room after he fell asleep. And I think it is safe to say he won’t take it back again.

Who is your favorite family member?
My favorite family member is my dog. She never bothers me about anything or tells me I have to do something her way. Whenever I ask her a question she just says “Roo?” and is on her way. She is gross and disgusting, sleeps all day and doesn’t work at all. But that is ok, that describes me too. My favorite quality about her is that she is quiet. And fluffy.

Think of the time when you were the maddest.
There was this one time when I was like 4 this doctor stuck a long pointy metal thing in my arm. It hurt like a bitch. It really pissed me off. So I punched the doctor. When he regained consciousness I hit him again. That bastard deserved it though, that’s what he gets for sticking things in my arm. Who’s laughing now, doc?

If you were a Spanish bullfighter what would your costume look like and why?
As I have thought many times, my design for a bullfighting costume would be a cape. Only a cape, nothing else. I think that being naked would give me more reason to get out of the way. It would also be more entertaining to crowd and open me up for cool nicknames like “Naked Bullfighter”, “El torero desnudo”, and “Retardo”. And my cape would be a bat cape. I would have all sorts of cool stuff pop out: grappling hook, throwing stars, candy, chain saw, ect.


What is your most embarrassing moment?
One time in high school, there was this girl, Mandy, who had this thing for me. She would follow me around and do my bidding, but I wasn’t interested. A few weeks before prom she finally got up the courage to ask me out. Oh, how I laughed. I laughed and laughed until she cried. Then I laughed some more. I’m pretty sure that was her most embarrassing moment.





There is a sort of primitive, unrefined comedy in them... though a total lack of grammar.

Joke Machine

I'd say on average I make about 30 jokes a day and at least 10 of them are funny enough for me to want to retell. This varies greatly, considering I can hit a hot streak and make a joke a minute for about an hour(usually these are funny, too, or I'd just stop talking) and some days I'll just be in a shitty mood or the only person I talk to is Pepper (who, by the way, thinks I'm hilarious). But regardless, I estimate it evens out to about 30 a day, and 1/3rd are real zingers.


So for about the last year I've sort-of been putting together a stand up act. I say sort-of because there are no places around here for me to try an open mic or anything, so there is no real point to me actively putting together an act. I also say sort-of because I don't like force comedy. It has to come to me on it's own. Once I get a good premise I can expand without a problem, but if I just try to write shit without waiting for inspiration what I get is decidedly mediocre. So rather then just sit my computer and wait to think of something funny, I created a file on my desktop and add to it whenever I remember one of those 10 jokes a day I'd like to retell.

So it turns out that a significant part of comedy is memory.

Short Day Today

So I'll post a review and be on my way to the long weekend. Also, I finished the movie last night. Like, it's done. I also met with the web designer who is going to be making the site for it and he told me all the cool things we're going to do with it and his outrageous fee for designing it.

Anyway, Borat.


The movie Borat is a beacon to the already disintegrating standard of comedy. Not only because the movie isn't funny, but because audiences thought it was. The comedy is fueled primarily by Jew jokes and male nudity. It's a prime example of comedians' inaccurate belief that offensiveness is directly linked to comedy. Offensiveness can be very funny, but it has to be used correctly, and it certainly isn't in Borat.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5

We really should have made Cool Runnings

The feature is almost done. I know I've said that before but this time I could really just say the feature is done. Because it is. I'm editing the Curiosity Entertainment animation now, and I have to change the credits again, but that's about it. The actual film is done with a few level complications on one scene, which I am prepared to take care of tonight.

So tomorrow the film that I've been working on for 3+ years will be done. I can't express how awesome that is. I was so close last night (I couldn't do the animation because I only have after effects at work, and the same with the credits and illustrator) and I was so jacked that I couldn't go to sleep so I ended up playing video games and watching old movies. I got maybe an hour of sleep.

There still is stuff to do, though. The commentary for one thing, but it's all recorded so I should be able to knock that out in an afternoon. The gag reels are going to take longer, though- I have to sift back through 17 hours of footage. Then I have to edit it. I'm afraid that if I add any more media to this project that Final Cut will shut and just refuse to open. Anyway when those are done I still have to animate the menu, probably the hardest part since I suck at animation and this is really tough stuff. I'll see if I can't get David to help me but it's still gunna be no walk in the park. Not to mention the cover art. Thankfully I've already designed it, but I have to touch it up and write a summary for the back.

And of course as I was typing this I forgot what I was doing and finished the animation. So one thing down. 8 to go.

...Janitor

I rescued a bunch of old movies from my house this weekend and watched a few. I took a look at Rookie of the Year (which oddly enough Neil Flynn was in). While I was squinting at the screen and saying "Janitor" in a menacing way, I realized something. A lot of these old kid's movies have something really to them.

I catch parts of kids shows and movies from time to time and I always think how very bad they are. I assumed at least part of it was because I was not a kid and that if I went and watched the movies from my childhood now I would be just as underwhelmed, nostalgia notwithstanding.

But that isn't true. I caught some Disney channel while I was home as well and they were playing some old stuff from when I was about in middle school. I watch it for a few minutes and it had some real comic value to it. So did the movies I watched. Rookie of the Year even had some real filmmaking technique to it.

So apparently movies and TV really are getting worse as filmmakers concentrate less on story and talent and more on Digital 3d or whatever the special effect gimmick is this year.