On Why Recording Comedy Albums Is Important

I saw Andy Kindler tonight.

It's 11:15 tonight, on a Sunday, and I just got home from a comedy show. I saw Andy Kindler tonight. I was so psyched, and he killed it.

It was amazing, but good luck looking for a merch table afterwards. Most of the comedians who come through London, Ontario don't have them. Here's why they should:

I started listening to comedy before podcasts existed, so to me, the only comedians who existed were the ones who put out albums: Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, etc. I live in the 10th largest Canadian city. It's not a priority for visiting American comedians. It's only a priority for visiting Canadian comedians when they're part of the Yuk Yuk's regime, which is awful.

If you didn't know, Yuk Yuk's forces their comedians to sign a contract that says they can only appear at other Yuk Yuk's. It's the worst, most restrictive contract you can imagine for a Canadian comedian trying to become known, and also the only way to get on any type of a national tour for them.

Just For Laughs just finished in Toronto this week. I saw Andy Kindler tonight.

I have seen a ton of Canadian comedians and haven't been able to share their hilarity with my friends except for tiny bits they've done, unless they've made albums.

Here's the thing: It used to be that it took tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars to make an album. Comedians used to carry bulky tape recorders in their pockets to record their sets for practice. But the people--the audience--don't demand DVDs anymore. They never did. They ask for the only thing they ever wanted--jokes. A CD album is the same as seeing a comedian on DVD, as long as it's not physical comedy.

So now we're way past the age of bulky tape recorders. You could have a mic or two in the audience and another on the comedian, and do a decent recording for $50. Hell, they could do a decent recording of themselves with their phone in their pocket while on stage.

See, audiences aren't that interested in the slick, presented version of comedy. Audiences don't give a shit about how you present the comedy. They just want to see their comedy heroes make some jokes and they want to revel in those jokes. That's why comedians shouldn't worry about their "Hour Specials" or what they're wearing for their recorded specials--they should just put out some recordings. Because no matter how many cities they go to, no matter how many fans they have, there are always those of us in small towns who will only ever know them through their recorded work.

They need to record some work. Andy Kindler put out an amazing show tonight, but every year he does a "State of the Industry" talk at JFL. He didn't do any of that tonight. We were treated to vintage Kindler (which is amazing), but he checked how much time he had left no less than 3 separate times in a room full of laughs; he played it like someone just waiting to play out his time as if he was failing on stage in a room full of people who loved him.

The biggest failing of west coast comedians is that they aren't as accessible as east-coast comedians. And the biggest failing of east-coast comedians is that they haven't figured out Louis CK's recording schedule. They have audiences available to them that they can't see. They just need to put out their work.

And that's why it's important that comedians record their shows. Because there's always someone who wants to hear it.

This Fevered Ego Part 1: Politics

It's probably good to note before you read this that when I use the term "ego", I don't mean it in a negative way. I refer to our sense of self, not the over-inflation of that, though both are apt descriptions.

There are two sides to ego. Probably more than that, but I'm only going to focus on 2 right now: sometimes it helps, and sometimes it hurts.

It helps because without it, nothing would ever get done. We are the sum of the knowledge of those around us, and without ego, nothing ever gets passed around. Nothing gets taken in intellectually either, since why would we have a drive to improve ourselves if we didn't recognize that others have value? Isn't that just our egos recognizing the egos of others? We recognize both great and terrible actions in others as impressive, but they do those things for the same reason—ego.

There's a bad side, too. See, egos aren't just for other people, they're for ourselves. Here's a political example that may require you setting aside your own ego for a moment: Do you honestly think that anyone enters politics with the express interest of harming other people? Think about it. I'm not talking about when they reach the highest levels of power; they all start somewhere. Do you think anyone runs for student council thinking, "Fuck those guys!"? Are there many city council members who ran for office under the impression that it would really help them destroy their city in every way they'd ever dreamed of?

Politics are more polarized now than they have been during most of my life (I'm 31, if you're curious). If you ask one side what they think of the other, they'll say they're undermining life as we know it and trying to destroy the fabric of society. They're obstructionist, partisan, and wrong. And they're right—both sides; because of ego. Because the worst thing our ego does is help us identify with a group and justify things. To ourselves. It's the basest result of tribal mentality. Justifying something to yourself is a damn dangerous thing; the scariest words I've ever heard anyone say are, "No question that I'm right". Without doubt there is no room for growth; without growth, there is no possibility of change.

Lesson 1: Justify This (or "The time I made a far-reaching comparison and was ultimately justified")

You know who never doubt themselves? Sociopaths. The rest of us all wonder, even if it's just late at night in the dark, if we're doing the right thing. That's the ego being self-aware enough to think it might be incorrect. One of the best functions of modern egos is that they allow us self-reflection and self-consciousness. Sociopaths, on the other hand, know that they're right. Hitler, Pol Pot, and Sammy Hagar all thought they were doing the right thing, despite the fact that history has shown them wrong.

Self-justification is a dangerous path because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You start by justifying something to yourself, and your ego builds you a convenient little shield to hide behind, automatically. Then someone attacks your position, and your ego retaliates by shoring up its defenses. It becomes a feedback loop: The more you're attacked, the more your ego defends itself. And one of your ego's best defenses is justification, because you're always willing to believe that you did the right thing. (That's your ego at work again, by the way.)

At first, you become surer that your position is the best one. Then you become certain that your position is the best one. Then you become certain that anyone who doesn't hold your position is incorrigibly wrong. Then you start to see them as an enemy. Just for disagreeing with you.

I haven't seen a better example of this that still relates to this post's topic (politics? I think? That was a while ago) than Rob Ford. I'm going to put this as bluntly as I possibly can, because I want to get all my biases out in a single go: I think Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, is a complete moron. He's also pretty big-C conservative, whereas I think I'm socially very liberal and a small-c fiscal conservative. (I believe absolutely that we need well-funded social programs, but I have seen so many abuses of them that I think they need to be policed WAY better and that there are some phenomenally stupid things the government funds that it shouldn't.) He is, however, a great example, so I'm going to swallow back the revulsion I feel at giving him more press, and comfort myself in the knowledge that no one ever actually reads anything I write.

So I've admitted my biases. I haven't admitted why I have them, but I will now. I think he's a blowhard—he's full of bluster but ultimately empty of content. He has a few ideas that are good-in-theory-but-poorly-thought-out, but nothing of any real substance. Also I think he's a bully. And the fact that he plays a victim at every turn is nothing short of shameful. I've been bullied before, and I have since learned how to deal with them. I'm naturally analytic—I know the "signs" of a bully (though obviously there's some leeway in everything). I recognize in him a trait I saw in every bully I've ever met though, and that's that nothing is ever his fault, and that if there's a convenient fall-guy, the blame is landing on them (and if there isn't a convenient one, one will be created). Sadly enough, there are dozens of examples of people in power playing the victim when they're in power.

This is going to seem like a stupid aside/terrible comparison, but Rob Ford is Amanda Bynes. Hear me out.

Amanda Bynes is in the news because she is losing her mind. Hack comedians keep making the joke that "no one remembers who she is". Slightly different, but let's check it out further: Amanda Bynes has struck out at all her critics by calling them ugly and saying they shouldn't be working anymore, while also claiming that she's getting a nose job and a dancing? new? show? music video? with someone? maybe Rihanna?

Rob Ford is in the news because they think he's lost his mind. Hack comedians keep making the joke that "he'd be the first fat crackhead", but hell...I'm old enough to remember Chris Farley. He didn't die from being fat, and he wasn't exactly slim when his heart exploded from it. (RIP, Chris.) And he hit out at his critics by...ignoring them. Not personally, but publically. Gimme a paragraph to explain the brilliance of that:

The best possible thing Rob Ford could have possibly done would have been to say, "The entire idea of this video existing is ridiculous, but I understand how it looks bad. I don't want to lose the faith of the people of this city though, so I peed into a cup and gave a blood sample to a 3rd-party drug testing facility. I want you all to know that while I am basically 70% gravy, I have never done crack and only smoke pot when I don't think I'll be caught."

Well, that'd be the second-best thing. The best would be to test negative for pot too, but this is Canada, and we don't give a shit if our politicians relax, we just care if they're stoned while voting. See the difference? Relax all you want. But when it comes time to do your job, bring your A-game.

Rob Ford decided on a different tactic though. He said he'd never smoked crack and that he wasn't addicted to crack. That's, at the very least, linguistically suspicious. If you've never smoked crack, OBVIOUSLY you're not addicted to crack. I've never done heroin. I don't feel the need to also explicitly state that I'm not addicted to it. I do nicotine. I'm very addicted to it. But I know a lot of ex-smokers who would say that they don't do nicotine, but they're addicted to it. Alcoholics in AA still acknowledge that they're addicted to alcohol, regardless of when their last drink was. Again, he just volunteered this. He didn't imply it, he outright said it. And the one thing he could have done to totally annihilate this controversy—a simple blood/urine test—never even crossed his mind.

Let me connect it to my American readers: I am clearly lying, I don't have any American readers. That being said, think of how stupid the whole "birther" thing is/was. Barack Obama was told he wasn't a naturalized US citizen (ignoring that that would have been the BEST argument for his GOP opponents in every debate ever). Seriously, people campaigned on the "fact" that he wasn't eligible to be President. Like they believed that a major political party would submit a candidate who was ineligible so that they could...what? Throw an election? Make a point? Anyway, BHO ignored it because it was stupid. But when it comes to Rob Ford, he ignored his charges because it was politically convenient. His family was already linked to the drug trade. And they have been for years.

That was kind of a cliffhanger, right? I'm sorry—I hate cliffhangers. Bet this means I'll be writing a part 2 pretty soon.

Comment away!

Borrowing Is Stealing.

You ever wonder why I feel shitty when an avi or pic is stolen on Twitter? It's because I heard the age-old adage that "you can't copyright a joke".

Well yes you can. You can't copyright a subject--anyone can joke about a subject. You can't copyright a gag--if someone makes a similar joke to you, and it's funnier, they win. But you can copyright a gig. You can record a series of jokes. That's a real thing that can be copyrighted and exists.

I saw Lisa Lampanelli last weekend. She *has* to be above-board, because she's famous. But the idiot opening for her blatantly ripped off a Larry the Cable Guy joke. Of ALL the people to rip off, he chose a famous hack. Not even a good one.

He also wore a hat for 1 joke. Which means he wore a hat for 1 joke--he wore a hat for a whole set for 1 sad, hacky joke. He also based 80% of the rest of his act on Woody Allen's old comedy. He was neither new or better, just repetitious.

I am a comedy fan. I love new comedy. Hacks piss me off because they're useless. They're desperate for attention, but provide nothing. It you're a hack, you're not interesting.

You Can Go Back

When's the last time you saw your soul
When't the last time you played your role
When's the last time you felt the way
You were really meant to?

I wrote that. Sorry. I wrote it about 14 years ago, when I was 17. See, I was in a band. I play guitar, but I'm not very good. I never have been. I have a facility for languages, but though I've tried to learn how to read music around 5 times in my life, I can't do it. I'm not bad at playing by ear though, which is what gave me the idea for this post.

I started out on piano when I was around 12. I was determined to get a drum set, but my parents used the 3 genius arguments of "No," "Fuck no," and "You can't play drums on your own, you'd be better with something you can do melody with." So for my 13th birthday, I got a guitar. I still have it. It's my sweet baby, and she sings the blues or whatever hackneyed phrase people are using to describe their love for their instruments these days. I do love that damn thing. It's a little beat up, but that's given it character and a sweeter sound over the years, like me. I don't mean that. I sound like crap recently because I haven't played in months, except for filling in on bass for a cover band last weekend.

Your Fucking Head Split

I know some of the no one who reads this blog will disagree with me, but: I don't dream. Pretty much don't dream. I dreamed a lot as a child, but I haven't had a memorable dream outside of fever-caused ones since I was 17 or so.

Old Stuff: More Goofy Religion Full of Failing

[Originally posted on February 19, 2009]


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29259293/?gt1=43001

No offense to any of my Indian/Pakistani friends, but when people debate why the US has only bombed brown or very-swarthy people in recently memory, I hope beliefs like this are why. And that bombs only hit idiots like this. I know they didn't, but I'm trying to express my wish that they did. (Please note that I'm apparently apologizing for decisions that not only weren't my own, but that were undertaken by a country I am not a citizen of.) Marrying a dog. To ward off tiger attacks. Fucking stupidity.

Old Stuff: Drunken Missive #2: Explaining Calgary

[Originally posted on July 18, 2008]


So...there are bars everywhere here... (See? I can too carry a story when I'm drunk!)

Let's blame it on Ralph.

That sounds like a goofy thing to say, but in this case, it's true.

See a long time ago, there was a political reporter who liked to sit in the St. Louis Hotel's bar and listen to the politicians who came there to drink after a long day at city hall, which is right across the road.

Eventually, this political reporter decided that he had heard enough drunken tales. And he had also picked up an impressive drinking habit from his time at the St. Louis, as most people who go there do.

So he decided to run for public office. And eventually, Ralph Klein became the mayor of Calgary. And his decree to all the little boys and girls of Calgary was that "thou shalt never be further than walking distance from either a bar or a liquor store!"

And thus it was so. And then there was light. Or at least, drunkeness.

And this was a long time ago, when Calgary was smaller, so as the city grew, thus did The Ralph's rules grow into law throughout the new land. And so became the city of Calgary today: with bars and liquor stores fucking everywhere.

But The Ralph did not stop there. Because in the holy decade of the late-70's to the early-80's, when AC/DC were kings and Led Zeppelin did rule the land and Aerosmith were probably good for an honourable mention or something, King Ralph heard the word of the Lord and decided that municipal politics were no longer for him.

So he ran for premier of the province.

And thus did the age of the King begin. When he was drunk at a homeless shelter and argued with the residents, the people of Alberta did rejoice. For he was one of them. (Seriously, drinking and driving here is less like a felony and more like a competitive sport.) As The Guardian, the great UK paper put it, the man arguing wasn't "just another drunken rightwing jerk [...] Actually, it was Ralph Klein, the premier of the Alberta, dropping by for an unofficial visit on his way home from a party." Oh, and by "arguing with", I mean he yelled at a bunch of homeless people to "just get a job!"

"King Ralph", as he became known, "actually ran his mayoral campaign from the St Louis hotel bar, and the bar's owners had mugs made up with is picture on it that were known as Klein Steins. After he won, he continued to keep 'office hours' at the tavern."

And thus did Alberta become known as the province of the drinker. The buffoon. The giggler. It's frickin' hilarious here. See, the province itself is fairly right-wing, but if you're in the big cities (Edmonton or Calgary), you'd never know it. See I don't see the province as right-wing, per se, just libertarian. They don't want government interference in their lives, and Conservatives tend to offer the least interference. (Not provide, but offer.)

And so on lives the legacy of King Ralph, the first village idiot who was elected leader. See whatever my next post is for the continuation...because it's only gotten worse since then...

Enjoy!
-Dan

Scapegoats

[Originally written May 23, 2007]

You might want to read this before reading this note. Disclaimer: It's a pretty gross story:
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/05/20/baby.in.microwave.ap/index.html

Ah, scapegoats. Fall guys. Where would our society be without them? Here's what I think their greatest contribution is: They allow people to continue doing business with those they know are corrupt/assholes/guilty, while not openly doing business with the bastards in question. It allows someone who regularly has to do some type of business with a horrible-but-necessary person to continue that business.

Here's an example: imagine a politician from a state where oil transport/drilling is a major industry taking millions of dollars in contributions from the oil industry. Now imagine that there's a major oil spill. From the point of view of someone who has to get re-elected, he has to speak out against it. From the point of view of someone who needs those millions, he has to make the issue about something else. So what would you do in this case? If I were a conservative, I'd find the smallest infraction by whatever government regulation group was supposed to be overseeing the safety at that site and rail against them. I'd talk repeatedly about the failure of expensive government oversight groups (forgetting that I was a part of that government) when compared to deregulated private safety corporations. From a liberal viewpoint, I might blame a low-level individual at the drilling company. Either way, you get your contribution and the conditions for the spill are still allowed to exist. Did I forget to mention that it might be expensive for your buddies in the oil industries to make their sites safer and more environmentally sound? So the scapegoat is government or some low-level worker no one will miss. When it should have been your site for fucking up in the first place.

I've just re-read that paragraph, and two things strike me about it: I have really got to start working on my examples, and that it's kind of politically cynical, in that the problem isn't fixed by either approach but the final one, which is blogistically boring.

Here's a quick "cynicism test": When you read the paragraph above, did you think I was abstracting from a true political story, or making one up?

I made it up. But if you believed it could be true, that tells you a lot about how you view politics. By the way, I apologize for the poorly-thought-out example, but the cynical part comes from years of observing the outcomes of political "events".

I am a relative newcomer to working in an office, but I've noticed that office politics come in to play a lot. I'm lucky to have friends who don't play inter-personal "political" games, or at least I'm insensitive enough to be able to tell them to rise above the shit caused by unnecessary and useless drama. This has led me to this belief: everything, if you try hard enough, can be politicized.
Take marriage, for example. It's a fairly common thing, it happens to many people throughout the course of their lives. You'd think that it wouldn't be easy to politicize the love between two people. Isn't it a personal thing? Until politicians started railing against gay marriage. Suddenly tons of voters, rather than ignoring the morons who were trying to convince them that this was important, actually thought it was important. Let me spell out the stupidity of this to you:

if...other...people...get...married...it...doesn't...affect...your...marriage. At all. Not even a little. Unless, in some weird way, two guys loving each other makes you love your significant other less. In which case you don't deserve her, let her find someone who's more stable.

But in a lot of cases, it worked. Gays and lesbians became the distracting concept in a debate that should have been about the candidates and the issues. Scapegoats.

That's not even the largest scapegoat concept. I'd say that the largest scapegoat in world history is religion. Bear with me now...

The Crusades: thousands (millions?) of people killed, religion blamed.

The Inquisition: millions killed, cultures destroyed, countless priceless historical artifacts and sites destroyed and lost forever, religion blamed.

Israel/The Middle East: I'll write about theologically-based states later. Needless to say, they've proven themselves to not work very well no matter where they are in the world, or what religion they're based on. Suffice to say, religion blamed.

Those are the big, historical ones. What about the little ones? The Jonestown Massacre. The Waco thing. The unending and unfortunate progression of Christian-vs.-Freemason thriller books.

The article I recommended at the beginning of this post is about a quote from a woman who says, basically, that her husband was forced by Satan to put their daughter into a microwave because he [Satan] was scared of the idea of her husband becoming a minister.

In other words, her husband was an abusive, homicidal lunatic who injured their daughter in a disgusting and horrifying way. And she's scapegoating religion, saying that it's not his fault.

It is his fault. If we take the Christian religion as a truth for the sake of argument, there are several logical problems (yes, in addition to that). One is that the whole basis of creation is that God gave man free will and the ability to exercise it. That's why so many stories have been written, in the Bible and outside it, about the Devil tempting people and them ultimately resisting it. Because we are able to. Because we CAN.

So if this guy is going to be as incredible a preacher as she claims he will be, you'd think that denying the Devil would be fairly easy, yeah? It's got to be easy to have faith if you want to lead people willing to follow a fairy tale. She thought this guy would be so good that the Devil was scared of him. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Devil supposed to be some sort of ultimate badass? This guy must have been really good. So either: (a) this guy wasn't so good, and so the Devil wasn't scared of him, or (2) she's a fucking lunatic, too.

See there's this thing that's puzzled philosophers for years called The Problem of Evil. It basically states that God can either be omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), or omni-benevolent (all-good), but not all three. If he's all-knowing, he is aware that evil is in the world. If he's aware of it and doesn't do anything about it, he's not all-good. If he's aware of it and can't do anything about it, he's not all-powerful. One of the three has to be wrong. I'm not sure (and I'm hoping someone will correct me on this), but I think this is where Nietzsche came up with the idea that God is dead.

George Bush led Congress to believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and scapegoated "bad intelligence" when they found out he was full of shit. They were able to keep working with him rather than rising up and slaying him. Eva Mauldin scapegoated (if such a word exists) religion when her husband did something terrible, and can therefore convince herself that he's still a good man.
There's enough blame already; whatever happened to responsibility?

North American Hegemony

I'm not going to be ranting about politics in this post. I feel it's important to say that at the outset, as I tend to forget it halfway through what I'm writing. This post is not about politics; it's about ideology. Specifically cultural ideology. In that case, Canada is very similar to the United States.

We obviously differ in many ways: Canada is more accepting of social programs, less accepting of guns, less violent overall if news stories are to be believed, and we have a more difficult time defining ourselves. One important facet where we tend to agree however, is in our media. We like the same shows. Whether it's the glut of objectively horrible reality shows or the few-and-far-between intelligent shows that are created south of the border, we both seem to like them. For many of those cheaply-produced ones (again, reality TV shows), we have our own Canadian versions, though the US ones are just as watched as our more local ones.

News-Based Rage Expulsion #1

So I made the mistake of reading a newspaper tonight. Not even the whole thing, just the front section. The important stuff. And now that I'm pissed off, I figured I'd write about a few of the things I read in order to calm down some, or at least order it in my head in some way so I don't have a stroke or something. These are all from today's (September 27, 2012) Globe & Mail (one of Canada's national newspapers).

Post-Ironic Consortium

I Worry Because I Worry I Have No Sense of Irony

I have no real capacity for irony anymore. I've tried to have one, but I figure because I'm 30 I can't be bothered to pretend to like things I don't actually like any more. Now, when I like things, I actually like them. When I dislike things, it's usually because I dislike them. Right off the bat I'm going to say that I'm not in favour of Justin Bieber. I was worried for a fraction of a second that I mixed up the E and the I in his name, but then I realized I don't care at all. See? It's amazing! So freeing. Let's see what else I can do with a dose of non-irony:

Crime Sucks Monkeynuts

Canada has some weird laws. A shopkeeper can refuse to sell you any item over 50 cents if you are only willing to pay in pennies. In many places, it is illegal to water your lawn while it's raining. In Calgary, it's illegal to sell non-prescription contact lenses at costume shops. There's one law in particular that bugs me, but it comes from a good place.

Funny? (Starbucks)

[Originally posted on January 28, 2008]


So...does anyone like Starbucks? Personally, I think it's a bunch of shit. Terrible overcooked crap that costs way too much for a sub-par taste experience.


Here's the first problem: it's over-roasted. Sure, that gives Starbucks coffee its nasty, bitter taste, but it also has another more insidious effect...that's right: dark-roasting coffee lowers its caffeine content. Now that's all well and good for the crappa-rappa-frappa-alpaccino-swilling dilettantes who view coffee as a type of recreational activity instead of how I view it which is comparable to, say, heroin. I feel that if someone in front of me in line hasn't figured out what they want in the half-hour it took for them to get to the register, I should, legally, be allowed to kill them.

On Comedy - Surprise! (Post 3/3)

[Originally posted on June 28, 2011]

If you're looking for note 1, it's here (On Comedy - Upset (Post 1/3)). It's on Upset. If you're looking for note 2, it's here (On Comedy - Reversal (Post 2/3)) It's on Reversal. If you're looking for the note on Surprise, you have either come to the right place or completely failed. But then, you always knew it would come to this.

On Comedy - Reversal (Post 2/3)

[Originally posted on June 28, 2011]

This is part of an ongoing series of notes on Comedy, which since the last one was posted about 10 months ago, should be finished some time in 2015. I'm going to try to step up how often I post, but to be honest I don't actually think anyone reads these things, so whatever. The first one, On Comedy - Upset (Post 1/3) can be found here: http://saidinjest.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-comedy-upset-post-13.html)

On Comedy - Upset (Post 1/3)

[Originally posted on August 11, 2010]

With this Thursday's Open Mic Night at Yuk Yuk's rapidly approaching, I've been thinking more and more about what makes something funny. What I've noticed with a lot of the comedians who've been featured there is that they're getting better and better at recognizing when a joke is falling flat and they should move on. You see it with professional comics all the time: Mitch Hedburg said, "You're going to love that joke later, because I'm going to take all those words out and put in new ones." He got that it was falling flat and took a funny way out. Brian Posehn makes references to his own nerdiness, covering awkwardness with more awkwardness, in a self-referential pile of awkward that seems to make him even more endearing to audiences. Dylan Moran seems to have hundreds of amazing throwaway lines ready, so he can cut to them when he needs to. Those are all decent ways of handling every comic's worst nightmare: a dead joke.

Absolutely Ridiculous

I've been thinking a lot recently about absolutes. "I'm done with this." "I love this." "You're intolerable." "I want to put my penis in this." ...basically any phrase that includes some sort of sweeping generalization as it relates to me.

What brought this up is that I was thinking about New Year's resolutions. They are, as a whole, utterly insane and stupid. Yes, I know that that's one of those "absolute" statements. But the numbers back me up on this. See, around 92% of people's New Year's resolutions fail (80% in the first 20 days of the year), though it's not through lack of trying. No one set out to lose weight, or quit smoking, or stop beating their children, with the thought, "it's okay if I fail, because I'm still okay." When they start out on their goals, it's with the best of intentions. They will work out for a while. They will not smoke for a while. They will stop being such a bottom-feeding, mouth-breathing cunt of a human being. For a while.

Customer Service Hell

Aeroplan Hell

For those of you who don't know, I'm in Calgary right now. I was originally going to be in Edmonton this weekend, but through a combination of stupidity and bad luck, I ended up in Calgary. I'm fine with it—I get to meet up with some old friends and I've had a great time so far.

Get Offa My Lawn!!

[Originally posted on July 31, 2009.]


Just saw something hilarious at my local pub.

There was a band there--no one else knew their name, so I didn't bother learning it--who decided their influences were Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sublime. They were playing some of the worst summer-rock, wannabe music I've ever heard. Here's how the conversation went in front of the pub on their break:


"So, you guys do like, dub-rock?"
"Dub? Uh...no. Not sure what that is, bro!"
"Your bedazzled dogtags are around backwards."
"Whoa, thanks!"

Too Much

[Originally posted on January 22, 2009]


So there was a Big Bang. Then time happened. Now, inevitably, here we are.

There was this guy, let's call him "Ogg", who figured out that you didn't have to wait for a lightning storm before you could have fire. He figured out how to get it whenever he wanted. I'm saying it's a dude because typically women like to keep their eyebrows intact and wouldn't be willing to play with a stick for hours on end.

Then there was another person, we'll call him/her "Ugg", and they thought that round things were pretty super. If you dropped them at the top of a hill, you got to play whatever the human version of "fetch" is. We'll shove our heads even further up our own asses and call it "the search for enlightenment". It seemed (to Ugg) that round things might have other applications. So we have the wheel.

While you're at home, consider that if your ancestors hadn't been out hunting, trapping, killing, etc., you wouldn't be here. Literally. (Seriously, someone explain the rationale of "vegetarianism" to me. Seriously. Because I'm thinking of switching to it not out of a love for animals, but for a hatred of plants.)

Ben Franklin (1706-1790) laid the basis for electrical study by supposedly attaching a key to a kite line. And made bifocals. And an odometer for carriages. And a glass-based musical instrument similar to a harmonica.

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was a theologian, physicist, mathematician, and philosopher. Granted, you don't really need special training to be a philosopher, since you just have to think about stuff. Or a theologian, since you just have to think about a certain class of stuff. But he also was the first to postulate that gravity was the attraction between bodies as they vary by mass.

Henry Ford's (1863-1947) great invention wasn't the car. That had been around for a while when he came around. Ford's great innovation was the assembly line. Before that, cars were hand-made, with specialized artisans moving from car to car to do their work. The assembly line brought the cars to the workers, who performed simple tasks which, as they compounded, replicated the tasks of the artisans. He also paid his workers $5 a day, which was a lot at the time, and was one of the first instances where a factory owner paid his workers enough to buy what they were producing.

What about "Agg"? They're the large-browed ancestor of yours who figured out that you don't need fulgurites (lightning + sand = natural glass) to make glass. Just think! Without lightning, they created things like urns, windows, screens, glasses, spectacles, and laid the basis for light bulbs. Speaking of which...

Thomas Edison (1847-1931), also known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park" or "the only socially beneficial person to ever come out of New Jersey", had a famous quote: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles." There's also a quote that's usually attributed to him that I didn't care enough about to find the reference: "I haven't failed [a number] of times to create the light bulb. I have found [a number] of ways that do not work." Smart guy, smart way of looking at it. It's true to this day in IT: If you can't succeed at something, claim that you just need more time to complete the project. But in addition to light bulbs, he also made some of the first recordable media, the telegraph, the electrical grid, radiography (despite extreme fear of X-rays due to previous experiments' results), TV, and DC power.

How about "Igg"? They were the first to smack a prey's ribs with a bone and create percussion. Good thing they noticed that the smaller the rib or the larger the chamber it's played in, the more differentiated the note. Especially since without reverberation chambers we wouldn't have pianos, guitars, violins, basses, drums, saxophones, or pretty much any other non-electric instrument. And thank you to the sadist who discovered "catgut", insect-part treatments for wood instruments, and horse-hair bows. Otherwise we'd still be catching up.

Have you seen that great ad for the Discovery Channel with the "Boom-dee-yada" chorus? Heard the computerized voice in it? That's Stephen Hawking (1942-present), and he's one of the most influential physicists of modern times. He created the theory that black holes transmit (however garbled) information on all the matter they consume, as well as the idea that theoretical physics should be accessible to the masses, AND that black holes radiate a type of energy so un-thought-of before that it's called "Hawking radiation".

Alexander Graham Bell made the telephone, influenced hydrofoils and aeronautics, the metal detector, and helped create the National Geographic Society. Einstein gave us the theory of relativity and helped create the most efficient form of energy we've created yet: nuclear energy. Marie Curie figured out that Radium shouldn't be played with without the proper equipment. Oppenheimer helped with nuclear bombs and re-popularized the phrase from the Indian Rig Veda "I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds". Freud told us that we're all just masturbating monkeys, throwing poop; Jung taught us that we all have a dark side. Charles Babbage started the first computer.

So getting back to the point of this article: What have you done lately? Has there been a recent moment where you've felt you've built upon the backs of giants? It all started with a big bang.

(And my apologies to all of womankind. I'm not anti-woman at all, but haven't heard of any famous female inventors before except for Medea, who invented infanticide. Blame the education system in this country. Yeah that was a challenge. TELL ME ABOUT FEMALE INVENTORS/INNOVATORS!)