THINGS I'VE DONE: I Done Stood Up

I decided, eh, might as well just post this every place possible on the internet.



Comedy done uncomfortably, at the Works in Progress Festival 2010.

Props to not-my-sister Chelsea for the fine video-work.

http://wipfestival.tumblr.com/

THE LITTLE THINGS: Gentlemen Broncos (Jared Hess, 2009)

This movie is okay. It derails into silliness and predictable jokes sometimes, but other times is infused with a brilliant, very enjoyable absurdity. It's about a kid whose sci-fi story is stolen by a well-known sci-fi novelist. Frustrating, though, is the fact the Hesses -- who with Napoleon Dynamite show they clearly understand how little others are interested in the concerns of society's rejects -- did not exploit the joke or acknowledge the reality that no one outside of a very small community would care about whether a science fiction writer has plagiarized. So much opportunity for hilarity, wasted!

Yeah, but recently in conversation I referenced this detail in the end credits, so I've decided it probably needs to exist somewhere on the interwebs:



Very reassuring, AHA.

like a webcomic, but filled with regrets

like a webcomic, but really more like procrastination

Dear Creepy Middle-to-Old-Aged Man Who Lives in the Apartment Next Door to Me,

I know the mailboxes for our complex are on the wall right outside of my window. I know this because I sometimes like to check my mail, too! Then I take it inside of my apartment and read it.

I also know that you're old, and you need your rest, and that it must be hard for you to deal with the physical pain of moving from place-to-place (goddman joints! tell me about it!). Thus, I'm sure that the lawn chair that for some reason is sitting between my front door and our mailboxes must seem pretty appealing.

But seriously, the front door to your apartment is, like, five feet away. And I didn't buy that chair or put it there, but I'm pretty sure the patch of grass it's on is technically part of my rental agreement. And I might want to go outside and do something on that patch of grass, or perhaps something inside my apartment that makes some noise, but my window's open and you're sitting right next to it sorting through your junk mail! Seriously -- five fucking feet! Please, just hobble that marathon distance for me. Then you can lie down and have a nap.


Sincerely,

Erin

like a webcomic, if webcomics were boning up on their psychoanalytic theory

So something kind of strange happened to me today.

First off, lemme just say that I am not the kind of person who gets "hit on."

I mean, I've had my creepy-old-man-gaze encounters, sure, but I'm probably the only living example proving that you can have been in a romantic relationship without having ever been lured with a pick-up. And I mean, I get it. I don't tend to generate "come over and lay on the charm" vibes. I'm off-putting. I probably scowl. The closest I've come to being hit on is when I actually had a boyfriend and he went to the bathroom during a show and some guy started talking to me. Maybe I should get a boyfriend more often and then more guys at shows will talk to me. But I digress.

I had a midterm today, so I'd rushed out of my apartment and just thrown on a comfy grandma-style Christmas sweater cos, y'know, if you've got a midterm then what the hell, and also I like this sweater (note: my friend and ex-boif gave it to me; does that mean I can't wear it anymore?). I'd put my hair into a sloppy pony-tail and it was doing that wonderful thing it does where it's incredibly messy and sticks up all around the part with these weird short little hairs that never seem to grow out. Also, I had some stress-acne that I'd only vaguely attempted to cover-up. And one of my eyes was all itchy and red. So, y'know, epitome of gorgeousness.



(Ran out of room for shoes.)

Except apparently, yes.

So I got on the bus, got off "downtown," had seven minutes until class but it only took three to walk from there, and as getting to class early would just entail talking to classmates and not studying, I decided to sit at the bus stop for a minute and finish attempting to cram into my brain Freud's theories about desire and mom boobs and et cetera.

There are these people who hang around the bus stops by the "mall" in Iowa City. They're not the homeless people who frequent the "ped mall," but they're just as scary, possibly more so cos I don't think any of them are homeless and yet they all still have the audacity to ask you for bus fare. And, I don't want to sound racist -- though as I scowl-faced type this, I should probably just accept that I am who I am -- but they're (mostly?) all black. I only mention this because I am the whitest fucking kid I know, and though I've found myself romantically drawn to my own share of brown-skinned men, the creepy-gaze demographics have indicated there's never been a case of this being reciprocal.

So I was hunched over on a bus-stop bench, rapidly scanning notes about death and sex drives, my itchy red eye twitching furiously, my anxiety levels only deepening my off-putting frown.



"Axescuse me, can I have some change for the bus?"

I barely looked up.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any money..."

I think maybe I attempted a smile, because my sister told me that you should smile at homeless people because it shows empathy. I assume that this also implies that they will be less likely to stab you and sell your organs to an unfortunate dog lover.

I went back to my skimming.

Lacan... no desire can be understood/fulfilled... desire always desire for another's desire; to be desired...

"I can help you with you homework."

Obstacles... can't have obstacles without desire...

I looked up again. The guy had walked a few feet away but was still standing there, staring at me in his yellow t-shirt.

I tried my hardest at curling up those mouth-edges.

"Oh, uh, ha ha, I have a midterm and I'm just studying..."

"What's yo name?"

"Uh, Erin."

(Sometimes, I'm confused as to my seeming inability to gauge when it would be advantageous to lie.)

He said his name, I was busy thinking about Deleuze and didn't commit it to memory, we shook hands.

Can't have desire without obstacles... obstacle must come before desire; don't know desire without obstacle...

"Can I see you again?"

What?

My scowl widened to a gape.

"Do you want my number, so I can see you again?"

I hurriedly shuffled together my notes, stumbled up off the bench.

"Uh... I have to..."

"That's okay, just if you want my number..."

"Uh... midterm..."

And, dazed and confused, I fast-walked the hell off to class.

I nowhere near aced my mid-term (you don't tell your class the test's gonna be multiple choice and then make it short answer, come on!), but my cursory cramming did teach me one thing: there's a guy in a yellow t-shirt by the mall in Iowa City who apparently keeps his desires in the form of grandma sweaters, acne, and scowls. Unfortunately for him, that little bundle of goodness happens to come with the obstacle of my personality.

MIDTERMS & ESSAYS

and the obligatory .gif of me getting punched in the face:

like a webcomic, if webcomics made you die a little bit inside

IT MUST HAVE HAPPENED: the Weeds writers' room, post season three

Note: this can only possibly be funny if you watch Weeds. Also, y'know: spoilerzzzz!


"Okay guys, so... last season we kind of killed off all of Nancy's competition, and then burned down Agrestic. Any ideas?"
"Well..."
"Uh..."
"Let's have Doug get his dick slammed in a drawer!"
"Yeah!"
"Yeah! ...That is funny, right?"
"Of course it is! It's his dick!"
"I dunno, guys."
"What's there not to get?"
"I just don't know how that kind of joke would slip into the cadence of the show. It's not a racist comment thinly veiled behind the fact that an ignorant character is saying it, and it's not Nancy having sex. I just can't imagine what kind of scene that would fit in."
"Well... remember in season one when Lupita makes that coffee table joke?"
"...Yeah."
"Well..."
"...Symbolism?"
"Bingo!"
"We've also definitely got to get Nancy being raped by a Mexican drug lord in there."
"Oh, for sure."
"I'm just glad that we were able to write out those black people. That dialogue was such a fucking chore. I got so tired of watching The Wire for research."
"Mexican's so much easier because we can just subtitle some Spanish shit and hope the grammatical inconsistencies come off as intentional."
"¡Sí,es muy bien!"
"The rape, though, guys? I love it, but it still seems a little bit extreme, even for the Showtime -- I mean, we're not HBO -- we love the sex, but we gotta have that consent! So let's have her get pregnant and move in with Mexy and have them suddenly 'be in love.' That ought to cover any viewer outrage."
"But we've still definitely got to have that rape."
"Oh, of course."
"And Shane should probably jerk off to naked pictures of Nancy he keeps in a..."
"...SAMMY DAVIS JR. BIOGRAPHY!"
"Yes!"
"And Silas should fuck a young mom who owns a..."
"...Yoga studio?"
"Well, they are liberal whites, but I dunno..."
"...Surf shop?"
"It is California, but..."
"Cheese store?"
"Boo-ya!"
"Perfect!"
"Mmmm, I could go for some Wensleydale right now."
"It's really not fair that Silas should be the only son having sex. I mean, what, Shane is like, twelve, thirteen by now?"
"How can we top the Chinese massage parlor handjob, though?"
"Dude, that was awesome."
"Writer high five!"
"Uh, guys, three words: gothic three-way."
"Yeah, baby!"
"We still got it!"
"Can we have someone shoot a bird somewhere?"
"Hell yes we can!"
"Good. I fucking hate birds."
"What about Dean?
"Didn't he move to Detroit or something?"
"Ah, semantics."
"Guys, guys: blackface."
"...A necessity in any comedy-drama."
"Let's also for sure throw Quinn in there somewhere."
"Who's Quinn?"
"And Celia should probably develop Downs Syndrome or a drug addiction or go to jail or get kidnapped or start selling cosmetics or something. Y'know, something for her to do since everyone hates her and it kind of makes no sense for her to be with them since they all kind of treat her like shit and she probably got some insurance money from the Agrestic fire and could have moved to Cabo or something by now."
"...Spin-off?"
"Celia? She's the dyke, right?"
"No, that's her daughter... but we could make her a dyke."
"Guys! You know what we really need?"
"What?"
"Alannis Morissette."
"Fuck yes."
"I don't know if she can play Mexican, so..."
"Bank teller?"
"High school English teacher?"
"Abortionist?"
"I can taste the Emmys!"
"We should throw Andy in there somewhere, too. For comedy or whatever."
"Let's have him get some money by fucking some lady who makes him pretend he's his dead brother and then buy a bunch of useless shit and gain a lot of weight and grow a unibomber beard."
"It's like you read my mind."
"I dunno, I love it, but the beard? Andy's no murderer."
"Oh, that's Shane, obviously."
"Obviously."
"We should have him kill some more animals first, though, so that people will remember that cougar thing we did."
"I fucking hate cougars."
"When he does kill, would he still be prosecuted, being a minor and all?"
"Shit, someone check Wikipedia."
"Well, does he commit the murder in California, or in Mexico? I feel like if it's in Mexico, we can get away with a lot more blood. Maybe some peeling off of skin. Those kinds of scenes."
"Will there have to be more speaking in Spanish? I'm really tired of using Google Translate."
"Can we get an intern to do that?"
"Fuck it, let's just move them to Seattle."

READ THIS: David Boring (Daniel Clowes, 2000)

The above frame, one of my favorite from Daniel Clowes' David Boring, sums up very nicely the tone of the piece. The eponymous David Boring is very much alone in this life, as he deals with sexual frustration and the end of the world, and seeks both his father and the perfect girl.

With David Boring, Daniel Clowes utilizes the graphic novel at its best: not as a novel illustrated with pictures, or as pictures captioned with words, but a story told both in writing and drawing, the narrative not complete if either element were missing. It's also quite good -- touching, funny, at times even suspenseful -- and you should probably get on reading it right now.

THAT'S WHAT HE SAID: Jonathan Ames, as interviewed by The A.V. Club

AVC: Why do you think so many people have become obsessed with vampires lately?

JA: I don’t know. There must be some witty one-line answer. I guess immortality is always appealing. They’re usually very good-looking and given all sorts of powers, and they’re sexy. I don’t know. It’s a combination of being immortal and sexy. I’d like to be immortal and sexy, so I’m into vampires. In True Blood, I also like the characters that turn into dogs. I would like to turn into a dog.




So would I, Jonathan Ames, so would I. Read the rest of the interview here and watch Bored to Death when the second season premieres on September 26th. Yee-haw!

like a webcomic, but with less of the comic part

So the other day I went to the grocery store.

Not speaking to (and thus having to avoid all eye-contact with) the checker is somehow actually more painful than engaging in small talk, so I usually try to disperse a little of the uncomfortableness by going ahead and asking them how their day has been going. This checker answered like they usually do:

"Oh, good. What about you?"
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"Yeah, fine."

BEEP BEEP, she scanned some shit. Things were going pretty good, the conversation dragging along at a fairly normal pace. It was hardly even awkward. Then she scanned my cabbage.

"Cabbage?"

And I, having been vaguely daydreaming about this checker-customer relationship blossoming into a beautiful little friendship, replete with Secret Santa gift exchanges and trips to the waterpark, misinterpreted the degree of playfulness in our conversation.

"Yeah, I like cabbage, okay," I replied, my tone appending such angst-ridden, semi-sarcastic annotations as: you gotta problem with that? and it's not a crime, man.

The checker just stared.


"Oh... no, I just can't tell the difference between cabbage and lettuce. I wasn't making fun of your cabbage."
"Oh, uh..."
"It's hard to tell."
"Oh, uh, yeah. If you eat a lot of cabbage you start to be able to tell. Cabbage and lettuce are actually really not that similar looking."

BEEP.

"I mean they are, but... cabbage is, uh, green."

BEEP.

"And, uh, less lettuce-y."

BEEP. BEEP.

"It's pretty great, cabbage. Cabbage is kind of awesome. It's one of my favorite foods. You should really eat it more often. I heard it's on sale or something."
"That'll be $21.52, Ma'am."

like a webcomic, but colored with crayons

like a webcomic, but one panel long and very big on text

I don't know how to draw legs.

(You can see the original here, ideal for those who love trying to decipher delightfully illegible chirography.)