Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Rotten things to do to Post-Its

  • Stick Post-It to felt. Remove Post-It. Attempt to stick Post-It to anything else. Mock Post-It’s inability to perform.
  • Affix the adhesive strip of one Post-It to the adhesive strip of another Post-It, forming a long rectangle. Call the sum a piece of paper.
  • Find old school Post-It pad that is stacked accordion-style (as opposed to the currently popular pad-stacking-style). Find calm cat. Attach first Post-It on pad to cat’s collar. Find laser pointer. Release cat, taunting with laser pointer dot as you do so. Please note: small dogs can be substituted for calm cats; pad-stacked-style Post-Its cannot be substituted for accordion-style Post-Its.
  • Write something really important on a Post-It. Start to frame Post-It. Stop suddenly and yell, “Oh my God! What am I doing?! This is important! I can’t use a Post-It!” Sneer. Cast Post-It aside.
  • Tell Post-Its you’re switching to miniature legal pads. Do so on a Post-It.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

R.I.P. Elizabeth Varner's Youth

January 20th, 1986 - May 15th, 2008

She was young. She was hip. She was so beautiful.



In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Elizabeth Varner's 401K.

Friday, March 14, 2008

'Ello, Govna

Lieutenant Gov. David Paterson is set to become the Governor of New York State Monday following the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Paterson will make history as the state's first African American governor. But, perhaps even more significantly, Paterson will also be the first legally blind governor in U.S. history.

Finally, this neglected segment of society will be represented in the highest office of the State, giving a voice to those without vision.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Dr. E. Varnberg's "A Brief History of Time"

  • Sun.
  • Sand.
  • Gears.
  • Electrical power supplies.
  • Ralph Nader attempting to destroy all things good because he should be allowed to.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a rat's antebellum

I went to an international school. Subsequently, me and US History, not the best of amigos. Usually this only gets me into serious trouble when I laugh at what is recognizably an American historical reference, albeit one with which I am unfamiliar, at a comedy show or on TV, and the person next to me asks me to explain the joke. Unable to admit that I had only pretended to understand the quip, I begin the futile endeavor of trying to explain why the reference was hysterical in only the vaguest of terms. It's kind of like watching presidential hopefuls campaign in sparsely populated grocery stores.

This lack of a practical working knowledge of US History brings me to my most recent scholarly embarrassment… my lack of recognition of the term “antebellum.” Now, let’s not exaggerate my stupidity here (despite the inherent entertainment value this would bring to the blog). I knew we were talking about something that happened after the American Revolution and before the "war of northern aggression". – I would like to take this moment to celebrate the fact that in some of Atlanta’s more elite private schools it was not unusual for 16-year-old boys to begin a night of heavy drinking with a toast “fucking Sherman”. – In any event, it was time to start some serious soul-searching in order to determine what “antebellum” really meant.

“Ante” – from Latin, meaning “before.” Cool.

“Bellum” – from the French “belle”, meaning “hot people.”

Therefore: “Antebellum” – adj. Before people were hot.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

New recurring dream!

If half of it happened twice, it must mean something / two halves make a whole lot of crazy!

So start by placing yourself in a state of bliss. You're swimming in crystal blue water. The sun beats down, the sea catching its glow from every angle and illuminating itself entirely. As you swim along, you daintily disturb the sea's surface, sending infinite ripples out into the universe and playful droplets dancing through the air, the sun's rays exploding each one with a rainbow of color as it falls back into the abyss of its own existence. The water is cool and calm, gently lifting you to its surface as you swim along as though on a cloud.

Cut to: one big fucking tidal wave.

Suddenly you realize that you're not actually cushioned in perfection's bosom; nay, you are in fact swimming in the Hudson, where all good things in Nature go to die. But that's not important right now. What is important is that big fucking tidal wave.

You start free-styling towards the shore, cursing your decision to quit your community pool's swim team when you were ten because you were a friggin' individual and couldn't stand the sound, sight or smell of stay-at-home moms and their brood of upper-middle-class, entitled-to-it-all (including but not limited to cutting ahead in line for the ice cream truck, thereby obtaining all of the chocolate fudge pops before some of us politer kids were able to get one) "children."

You feel the water swell up beneath you, and as the currents complicate themselves and start to pull you under, you wonder exactly how so much water can exist in this one spot of space/time while in Atlanta, a metropolis of 4+ million, people are worried about having enough drinking water. You then start to reflect on how life is pretty unfair. Then you remember that you've been sucked beneath the angry waters and will probably die, so you feel less bad about stupid Southerners not coming up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the growing population and the environmental pressures this growth will inevitably cause.

So now you're underwater, right? You get pulled and tugged, nearly split apart it feels, and try to curl yourself into a ball with every fiber of your strength. You then brace for some unknown yet inevitable impact that will in all likelihood kill you, but if not will hurt a whole whole lot.

Then, an eery calm. Absolute, deafening silence. 'Isn't absolutism crazy scary?' you ask yourself. Then you realized you just survived a tidal wave. So you start swimming towards shore. After what seems like decades (you're 22 now, you're allowed to say you know what 'decades' feels like), you finally reach land.

Cut to: you have learned in a literally unbelievable amount of time (dreams last like 3 whole minutes in life-time!) that this tidal wave has resulted from a scientist definitively proving global warming exists. You understand that there is a disconnect in logic here... I mean, global warming wouldn't suddenly and dramatically manifest itself just because empirical proof was finally presented substantiating its existence, right? Right?! But you're dreaming, so it's ok if your mind takes a few leaps you wouldn't otherwise condone. The tidal wave has caused the water around New York to rise 45 degrees. You, again, understand that this isn't how water level is measured or how an increase in water level would be expressed. You are OK with this. You are not bothered by what this might imply about your essential understanding of mathematical and physical phenomena.

You have also learned that the world population in its entirety has been reduced by a significant amount, and those remaining are now being controlled by a coalition of men wearing camouflage combat gear and bright red berets, carrying around ping-pong paddles covered with the same bright red fabric. That's right; it's a regime of vaguely French troops à-la-1998-Godzilla-blockbuster (starring Matthew Broderick of The Lion King and The Producers and other Broadway musicals fame). It is the new French Terror, and the neo-Jacobins dominate the masses by inducing an unconscionable fear of the paddle. What used to be part of a generally light-hearted pastime (although occasionally becoming an epic battle of wills) has been turned into a tool of destruction and violence to enslave the people and suppress their spirit. And only you - swimming back to shore while this new government took shape and thereby avoiding indoctrination - have the power to fight the politics of paddle-fear.

What will you do? How will you survive, thrive and save the world from an abundance of fraternité and paddlephobia? Tune in sometime in the distant future when you've worked through your shit and the dream comes to an exciting conclusion.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Announcing...

Chowdah Sketch Comedy and Sweeps!

Columbia's sketch and improv troupes (dare I say, troops?) team up to fight the good fight in a war against soul-quashing finals, papers and holiday cheer.

Tonight (12/07/07)
9p.m.
Furnald Lounge (115th and Broadway)
Suggested donation/unanticipated offering: $2

So come join us as we celebrate Comica (and see the premiere of my sketch "Bad News Bears").

S'gonna be killah.