Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Who says nuclear disasters can't be funny? My friend Godzilla begs to differ...

So I know I’ve been slacking on the blog front lately, but for once it has NOTHING to do with my obsession with people from New Jersey.

No, really! Bruce isn’t touring, Gaslight Anthem isn’t touring in this country, and Jersey Shore tragically finished its third season last week. I’m so depressed I don’t know what to do with myself. Seriously. It’s reached the wearing yoga pants and sneakers to places other than the gym level. I mean, Don't worry too much yet though; I’m still wearing makeup, but if you see me in yoga pants, sneakers and no mascara, it’s time to call the suicide hotline and get me some help...

The real answer is that I’ve been editing my next book so that you’ll have reading material this summer that, unlike this blog, I’ll actually make some money off of. Because while I appreciate my family clicking the ads on my blog, I get approximately 1/18th of a penny for every click I get. Which means that in seven months of blogging, I’ve earned ALMOST enough to buy a gallon of regular gasoline. As long as I go to the super cheap station where you have to pay cash. But it’s a start.

But I digress. That’s not what I came here to talk about (blog about?) today. I came to talk about the draft.

Kidding. Please tell me that someone other than my parents got the “Alice’s Restaurant” reference. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? (And if you didn’t get THAT one, it’s time for YOU to put on yoga pants and no mascara. Seriously. What are you doing with your life?)

In the week and a half that I’ve been ignoring my blog, a lot has happened in the world. I didn’t get the Charlie Sheen internship (which, let’s be honest, contributed to the yoga pants shame spiral. I really wanted that job. But it’s probably for the best. As I’m already COMPLETELY and utterly sick of Charlie Sheen and think he needs to go crawl back into his drug/alcohol induced crazy cave), and the situation in Libya has deteriorated to the point where my earlier blogs making gentle fun of Gaddafi are no longer funny. Which is the real reason why I personally hate Moammar Gaddafi. If you’re going to be enough of a psycho to make it NOT funny when I mock you, you also need to retire to Charlie Sheen’s crazy cave in yoga pants and no mascara.

Oh and there was that whole Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster situation.

Which, as I’ve been told repeatedly by the media, is not funny in ANY way. In fact, people have started pulling episodes of The Simpsons that deal with Homer Simpson-induced nuclear meltdowns from syndication because of the situation in Japan.

Yes. I’m serious. Episodes from 15 years ago in which Homer sets off a nuclear crisis by being a stupid, fat American are now “not funny” in light of the natural disasters that caused a nuclear crisis in Japan. Which has to be Gaddafi’s fault somehow. I don’t know how yet. But it is. No one else is evil enough to make people think classic Simpsons episodes aren’t funny. Damn you, Gaddafi!

But because of how serious everything in the news has been, the world seems to be ignoring the fact that two of the current biggest news stories aren’t really anything new. In fact, two of the biggest news stories of the moment seem to have come straight out of the movies.

I’ll give you a hint: they both involve reptiles.

For example, I hate to break it to you, but the cobra escape from the Bronx Zoo is NOT news. I saw that movie already when it was called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Worry less about finding the snake, worry MORE about finding the 11-year-old wizard who removed the glass keeping the snake contained with his mind. Seriously. The snake is gone. Get over the snake. The WIZARD WHO FREED THE SNAKE IS STILL OUT THERE. Want to get rid of Gaddafi? A simple “Avada Kedavra” curse would do it. But we muggles can’t perform those. FIND THE WIZARD.

(All the non-Harry Potter fans out there have no idea what that last paragraph was talking about. And all the obsessive Harry Potter fans out there are super pissed off at me because they’re sitting there saying, “Harry would NEVER perform the Avada Kedavra curse, even on Moammar Gaddafi,” and they’re planning to trick me with something from Fred and George Weasley’s shop that will seem like candy but will really cause horrible discomfort. Get over it guys. You’re not wizards. You never will be. And if somehow you ARE, I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me.)

The second story, I’m pretty sure that I can’t be the only one who made this connection, but considering that people are pulling Simpsons episodes, I may be the only one brave enough to talk about it.

Yes. I mean the radiation levels in the water in Japan.

Because I saw that movie too. And I know what comes next.

Need another hint? Let’s act it out. Stand up. Point at the sky. Move your mouth in silent gibberish while someone else dubs over you, “Look, it is Godzilla! We must flee!”


I mean, this is how Godzilla was born. Radiation in the coastal waters of Japan. And I think people need to be prepared for the fact that a giant, martial-arts practicing, building-stepping-on lizard could be about to emerge and begin stomping on what’s left of Japan.

But, as usual, I have a plan. Lure Godzilla off with a blonde, King Kong-style, and deliver him to Libya. Because Gaddafi is JUST crazy enough to think he could beat Godzilla. And it might be a close fight. But my money is on the giant radioactive lizard. A young Gaddafi might have been able to give Godzilla a run for his money. Crazy old man Gadaffi? You’ve got this Godzilla.  This is your moment.  Shine on you crazy lizard, you.

It really is a win-win situation. Plus, unlike when the US gets involved in a situation like this (cough Iraq cough), when the problem is over, Godzilla doesn’t need a real exit strategy. He can just retire into the Mediterranean, or, if he wants to keep fighting, can go back to Japan and battle Mothra and whatever other giant mutants emerge from Japan’s radioactive waters.

And now I’m going to go donate some money to the Japanese relief efforts because I’m probably going to hell for mocking them in their time of need. And if you laughed at any part of this blog, you're probably going to be there with me. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when Godzilla gets here. Because he’s coming. And we should flee.

Friday, March 18, 2011

I'm good at lots of things--as long as none of them involve car trouble. Or whistling.

As far as chicks go, I’m pretty tech savvy. I can do the updates on my computer, program my DVR remotely from my phone (when my FiOS is working… sigh…), hook up my own stereo equipment (usually), and when my Apple TV stopped syncing with my computer, I reset my router and restored all of the settings to my wireless network all on my own.

Which is why I feel like a moron when I run into situations that a monkey can handle but I can’t.

Like when anything goes wrong with my car. Seriously, I’m pretty sure Rosie could be trained to jumpstart a car easier than I could. (Although I mastered that not pooping on the rug thing WAY easier than she did, so I can still feel superior about that).


And unfortunately, Wednesday night was one of those nights when my car needed a jumpstart.

Which meant that it was time to call my dad.

Yes.

At my age.

I called my dad to come jumpstart my car.

Never mind what age that is, just trust me that I’m at an age that makes that pathetic.

Luckily, my father loves me, because instead of telling me to call AAA (in which case I would still be waiting because I have no idea why I pay for a service that takes longer than the FiOS repair people to come help me), or reminding me that I have a set of jumper cables that he put in my trunk and that he’s taught me how to use them on each of the prior 72,896 occasions that I’ve accidentally left a light on in my car, he came over to help with his set of extra-long jumper cables and a car battery charger.

And he didn’t even mock me when it took a few minutes to remember where the hood release thingy was. Or when I opened the trunk, the gas tank, and all of the windows in my attempt to find the hood release.

Then he patiently explained (for the 72,897th time) how to hook up jumper cables. Not wanting to be embarrassed the next time this happened, I paid close attention.

Then promptly forgot everything he had just said. Is it red-to-red? Or red-to-black? And which car do you hook up first? And do you want the working car running while you hook up the cables?

Okay, I’m PRETTY sure it’s red-to-red and black-to-black, like when you're plugging in stereo cables. But the rest is a mystery to me.

However, I don’t think it has anything to do with me being a girl or me being an idiot (because I’m not. Really. I promise. Despite how much Jersey Shore I watch). I think the that reason my brain is completely incapable of retaining information about jumpstarting my car is because my dad scared the hell out of me about it when I was learning to drive.

How could he scare me about jumpstarting a car? Easy. He pointed out that if you don’t do it in the right order and ground one of the cables first, you can get electrocuted.

And knowing my luck, if ANYONE was going to get electrocuted that way, it would be me. Therefore I avoid anything to do with jumper cables. I don’t even like accidentally touching the set in my trunk when I’m unloading groceries because in my mind, those wires are the inevitable purveyors of my eventual death.

Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I’m probably not that likely to DIE from jumpstarting a car. But I really don’t want to wind up with Bride of Frankenstein hair considering how much it costs to maintain the keratin straightening that tames my Jew-fro.

So I stood at a safe distance of about 50 feet away just in case while my dad jumpstarted my car. And when it was once again capable of starting without his car wired to it, my dad decided it was probably a good idea to check on the other two things that I am completely and utterly unexplainably incapable of fixing on my own: my tires and my printer.

In theory, I know how to check my tire pressure. Just like how in theory, I know where my spare tire is, how to use a jack, and the value of pi to the 29th digit. In theory.

In reality, when there’s a problem with anything related to my car, my IQ seems to drop to the level of a starfish, which, contrary to what SpongeBob SquarePants would have you believe, is actually slightly smarter than a sponge (despite the lack of a brain in either organism) because a starfish can regenerate its own limbs. See? When it’s not car-related, I DO know things.

The problem is that the same day that my dad scarred me for life about the potential of electrocuting myself with jumper cables, he tried to teach me how to change a tire. But he probably would have had more luck teaching me to whistle (which I can’t do) or teaching my mom how to parallel park (sorry mom, but it’s true… at least you can whistle!)

(And on a side note, I called my mom to ask if I could put it out there that she can’t parallel park and she said okay, then laughed hysterically at my inability to whistle and asked what was wrong with me. Thanks mom. Really. Thanks. At least I can wink. And snap my fingers. Can you do that mom? No? NOW who belongs on the short bus, huh?)

(Just kidding, mommy, please don’t hurt me. I’m sure there are lots of people who can’t wink or snap their fingers or parallel park.)

Back to the tire story. Halfway through teaching me how to change it, my dad stopped and looked at me. “You’re never going to do this, are you?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“What are you going to do if you get a flat?”

“Call you.”

He sighed, put the tire iron and jack away, and signed me up for AAA. Which was very sweet of him. Of course, I’ve never used AAA. Because their response time just isn’t as good as my dad’s.

Except he left yesterday for a business trip to New Mexico. So if I’m supposed to show up somewhere and don’t, you can safely assume that it was car trouble and that you’ll see me once my dad is back in town.

Or that my mom kidnapped me and locked me in her nightmare of a closet for making fun of her lack of snapping, winking, and parallel parking skills.

I’d whistle for help. But… well… yeah…

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

I've found my dream job: Charlie Sheen's intern. If I get it, I'll DEFINITELY be #WINNING

I recently applied for the best summer job in the world. Well, okay, I guess the SECOND best summer job in the world, because the position of Bruce Springsteen's wife is filled. So I had to settle for applying to be Charlie Sheen’s Social Media Intern.

What does that mean?

Well… um… it means… hmm… I have no idea. But I know it’d be awesome. Because as I understand it, I’d basically be getting paid to talk about how great Charlie Sheen is these days. And I’m doing that for free now, and they say the BEST careers are when you can get paid for doing what you love.

And Charlie, I do love you. Way more than is probably normal or healthy. I mean, it’s been a couple of weeks since #winning and #tigerblood entered our vocabulary (and yes, the hash tag is necessary. Without it, you’re not using officially licensed Charlie Sheen language. And who wants a knockoff Charlie Sheen? No one, that’s who. I mean, in theory, John Stamos COULD play the part on Two and a Half Men. But he’s Uncle Jesse. Not Charlie Sheen. It’s not like when they replaced Darren on Bewitched and no one really noticed. People will notice with Charlie gone), and not only do I not know how we would live without these terms, I’m not even a little sick of Charlie Sheen. Which is how I know it’s love.

Of course, he’s actually a far more prolific actor than most people give him credit for. Did you know that he’s starred in some of the greatest movies of all time without even taking credit for his parts? It’s true. Because that’s just the kind of guy Charlie Sheen is. I mean, YOU thought he was just a crazy, drugged-out, prostitute-loving alcoholic. Which just shows how ignorant you truly are.

Luckily, I’m here to enlighten you.

For example, did you know that Charlie starred in three of the four Indiana Jones movies? No, he didn’t transform into Harrison Ford or anything like that. But without Charlie Sheen’s role in the movies, Indiana Jones could never have succeeded.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the proof. Watch this scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.


Did you spot Charlie?

That’s right, HE is what is actually contained inside the Ark of the Covenant! Think about it—what melts faces? Only one thing I can think of, and that’s Charlie Sheen.

And in fact, George Lucas loved Charlie’s work so much that he hired him again for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In this scene, Indiana jones drinks water and is fine. The bad guy, however, drinks from a cup that was secretly coated with—yes, you guessed it! Charlie Sheen. Therefore, his face melts.


He chose poorly?  Understatement of the year, dude.  If the Indiana Jones movies have taught us nothing else, it's that Nazis are NOT prepared to handle Charlie Sheen.

Then, many years later, when they decided to make Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they realized that they HAD to hire Charlie Sheen again. Because the only movie that they didn’t put Charlie in, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, kinda sucked compared to the others. I mean, it was okay. But it didn’t have Charlie Sheen. Meaning that it was automatically NOT #winning. So at the end of the fourth movie, when the aliens give all of the knowledge to Cate Blanchett, what they’re REALLY giving her is Charlie Sheen. Which results in—say it with me now—face melting!

(I wanted to put the clip here.  But embedding is disabled.  Damn you, George Lucas!  You ruin everything!  But click here to see Cate Blanchett's face melt on YouTube.)

But that’s only a small percentage of Charlie Sheen’s uncredited appearances in movies. Remember the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? It had that gold glow, but we never saw what was in it.

The reason? Because it was Charlie Sheen! And if we saw what was in it—pure, unfiltered, genuine Charlie Sheen—our faces would melt and our children would weep over our exploded bodies. And while Quentin Tarantino likes to shock people, if he caused his entire audience to melt/explode, who would see his other movies? Well played, Mr. Tarantino. Well played.

Of course, not everything Charlie has done in Hollywood has been as beneficial as his performance in these films. I’m pretty sure that it was exposure to Charlie that caused Robert Redford to look like his face has started melting.

Why him, Charlie? He looked so good when he was young!

Why did you have to melt HIS face? I mean, I guess it’s not YOUR fault, it’s Robert Redford’s, for not being able to resist the awesomeness that is Charlie Sheen. I get it. He’s not the first one to suffer from loving you too much. And I doubt he’ll be the last.

So with that all said, why should you hire me to be your Social Media Intern for the summer?

Well aside from my belief that you deserve recognition for all of the work you’ve done in the film industry, I have lots of great ideas about how we can keep you on top so that you can continue to wave machetes on top of buildings and drink your tiger blood.

For example, we need to make an energy drink called #TigerBlood. Hash tag and all. But here’s the brilliant part: the universe has thrown a unique opportunity our way in the last few months. Four Lokos is no longer being made, leaving a hole in the energy-drink/alcohol market and YOU, Charlie Sheen, are just the man to fill it. I mean, we probably couldn’t put REAL tiger blood in the drink (the animal rights people would be all over us… damn treehuggers), but as long as it has the hash tag, everyone will know that you have approved it, and it will fly off the shelves.

I’ve got other ideas too, but I’m hesitant to post them here because I don’t want people stealing them and marketing their own non-hash-tagged version of a Tiger Blood energy drink.

So Charlie, pick me. I’ll do a great job and help you keep #winning.

Not that you need help when you have #AdonisDNA and #tigerblood. But I still want the job.

#TeamSheen all the way baby!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Charlie Sheen: a highly addictive drug that melts faces. It's called winning.

I have a secret obsession that, due to circumstances this week, I can no longer hide from the general public.

And it’s all Charlie Sheen’s fault.

Wait. That sounded REALLY wrong in light of his history with alcohol and women. I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve never met Charlie Sheen.

But I love him.

This may strike you as odd, because prior to this week, I had no strong feelings about Charlie Sheen at all. He was decent in Major League, and I loved his minor part in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But other than that? I always thought he was mediocre at best.

I also should admit that I’ve never seen an episode of Two and a Half Men. I’ve heard good things about it. But never got around to watching it.

So how did I fall in love with Charlie Sheen?

Easy. I absolutely love it when celebrities go crazy. Like it’s up there for me with Springsteen shows and shoes. And when it happens, I turn into a TMZ junkie, treating Harvey Levin as my personal lord and savior and deliverer of all truly hilarious crazy celebrity information.

And this week, Charlie was the star of the crazy show.

And once I knew that Charlie Sheen was, in fact, a highly addictive drug that would melt my face off, I was addicted.  To winning.  And tiger blood.  Just like Charlie.

When ordinary people go crazy, it's kind of sad.  But when celebrities go nuts, it’s usually for their career because of the whole any publicity is good publicity axiom. But there’s a fine line between entertaining crazy and Mel Gibson crazy. You don’t want your celebrities to be too scary. Like I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if Mel Gibson went on a killing spree. And not in the good, only killing bad guys kind of way.

Charlie Sheen, however, is the good kind of crazy. He’s probably not going to go on a murderous rampage. A misogynistic bender? Sure. A rant about the most random stuff on the planet? Absolutely. Jack Nicholson/Britney Spears-style desecration of his enemy’s car with a golf club/umbrella/baseball bat/dead raccoon, etc? That goes without saying. Randomly joining a cult and worshipping aliens? That’s next week. Killing spree? Nah. Not Charlie. That’s just not his style.

Which brings me to my list of the top ten crazy celebrities of all time. It’s a somewhat arbitrary scale, as I define “best” as being the sum total of times that the celebrity in question has been arrested plus the number of tabloid covers, multiplied by the number of divorces, multiplied to the power of the number of hookers who have come forward to talk about the celebrity, then divided by the number of stints in rehab. Then add 20 crazy points for every time the celebrity has been declared legally dead, then survived. Of course, there are other factors as well. Anti-Semitic rants add crazy points, but take away popularity points on the crazy scale. So Michael Richards, for example, doesn’t make the list, because he’s just a racist. Mel Gibson is crazy AND a racist. See the difference?

And without further ado, the list.

10—Lindsay Lohan. I almost feel bad putting her on this list. Which is why she’s ranked number ten. It’s kind of sad. She actually needs help. But she’s such a trainwreck that you can’t look away.

9—Winona Ryder. Really Winona? Did you REALLY need to shoplift? I mean, okay, you haven’t had any decent movies in awhile, but come on. If Johnny Depp had to get a tattoo of your name covered up, you don’t need to shoplift. But I was all in favor of keeping her out of jail. Because if she’s in jail, she can’t entertain me with crazy antics. Free Winona!

8—Tom Cruise. Okay, admittedly, his particular brand of crazy is getting old. But he put a face on the insanity of Scientology, and for that, he belongs on this list for forever and ever. I never want to see another movie he’s in, but I have to admit, I like seeing what bizarre stuff he’s up to. And because he’s hobbit-sized, he has the highest crazy-to-height ratio of anyone on this list. Not the highest crazy-to-weight ratio because Lindsay Lohan is frighteningly anorexic, but still. Fly your crazy flag as high as you can, Tom. Which in your case is about Snooki height.


7—Angelina Jolie. This may seem like an odd choice because Angelina isn’t trainwreck crazy. She doesn’t get arrested or show up ridiculously high in public. But she’s certifiable. When she married Billy Bob Thornton they wore vials of each other’s blood around their necks. Then there was the making out with her brother at the award show thing.

And the adopting 90 million kids. But she’s proof that being crazy doesn’t mean you can’t get someone as hot as Brad Pitt. She’s an inspiration to aspiring crazy people everywhere.

6—Christian Bale. Okay, I know American Psycho was just a movie. And I know that in theory he was just acting in it. And maybe he’s a fantastic actor. But the dude scares me. Seriously. If I saw him walking down the street one day, I think I’d run.

And did you see him in The Fighter? I mean, I didn’t see the movie but from the previews, he looked like Skeletor.

But he makes the list because his rant when he went nuts on a movie set was hilarious. I just hope I never meet him.

5—Kanye. I was with you when you said George W. Bush hates black people. And I agree that I’d pick Beyonce over Taylor Swift. But you’re insane. Literally. You don’t even have the alcoholic/Scientologist/super hot excuse. You’re just nuts. Which is okay, because it’s fun to hate you. Mostly because you get upset about it.

4—Robert Downey Jr. He’s actually probably the highest functioning crazy person on this list. I love his movies and he owns up to his craziness. He doesn’t deny the drugs, the booze, the rehab, or anything else. But he makes great movies and deserves to be as crazy as he wants in peace because he’s not hurting anyone. And as long as you keep being crazy in an awesome way, I will keep seeing your movies to support your addictions/insanity.

3—Britney Spears. Do I need to explain? Didn’t think so.

2—Marlon Brando. How does he rank so high? Easy. He wasn’t acting in Apocalypse Now. They hired Marlon Brando expecting Stanley Kowalski to show up on the set.

And instead, Marlon showed up in the jungle bald, fat, and completely insane. What’s not to love?

1—Mel Gibson. Okay, okay, I shouldn’t be amused by Mel Gibson’s insanity. I am, after all, Jewish, and he’s made it pretty clear that he hates my people. But that’s why I like him. Because he’s SO insane that his hatred of Jews actually makes us look better. So on behalf of my people, thank you Mel Gibson. Keep up the good work.

So Charlie, I’ve appreciated the amusement you’ve provided in the last couple of weeks, and you’re doing a great job. But you’re not quite in the top ten yet. Don’t worry though. Making it onto my craziest celebrities list is just like getting to Carnegie Hall. You need to practice, practice, practice.

We’re all rooting for you Charlie. We know you can do it. It’s how you got over a million Twitter followers in like a day. It’s called winning.