Monthly Archives: November 2014

A Man and His Story Tweets

For almost two years I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, then daily affirmations, then daily etiquette tips, then incorrect quotes, then fake TV shows, horoscopeshorrorwriting tipsholiday tweetsresolution tweets, Hey Girl tweets, Urban Myth tweets, pastry tweets, boring tweets, social media tweets, incorrect facts, slogans, and Conspiracy tweets, Spooky Tweets, and now Story Tweets Enjoy!

After almost two years, I’m taking a break from the Daily Tweets, but you can still follow me on twitter for important updates on shows, what I’m eating, and what I’m eating at shows!

STORY TWEETS!

Day One – Once there was a turtle who figured out he could get Netflix inside his shell. His head was never seen again.

Day Two – One day Cheryl woke up and her life was now a video game. She never found the cheat code to get out of bed, though.

Day Three – The year is 3014. Nuclear waste is everywhere. Every November, sentient mustaches grow awkward little men for charity.

Day Four – “If you don’t vote you can’t complain,” Ted said. “Let’s make a law to change that,” said Steve. Ted sighed. Fucking Steve.

Day Five – A woman traveled in time to 2017. She watched a movie trailer. It was the whole damn movie minus the post-credits scene.

Day Six – The new version of autocorrect changes every tweet to “This is a cry for help.” Humanity finally finds peace.

Day Seven – Once I was offered to take a cheese plate home from a party. I declined. I will regret this on my death bed.

Day Eight – You think you hear a sigh. You turn around. No one is there. You just met the world’s loneliest ninja.

Day Nine – A team of infinite monkeys are given typewriters. They immediately write a version of Game of Thrones where no one dies.

Day Ten – One day Carl didn’t see any pictures of cats on facebook. The seventh sign had come.

Day Eleven – Ed thought he discovered a time travel machine. Then he realized he just had no sense of time while taking a shower.

Day Twelve – After much research, David confirmed bears don’t actually use toilet paper. Once again, David’s television had lied to him.

Day Thirteen – Larry decided to read every article on facebook about simple steps to happiness. He is still there, reading and nodding.

Day Fourteen – A fan cuts a new extended version of The Hobbit films. It literally never ends. Bilbo dicks around until the sun explodes.

Day Fifteen – Phyllis invited her friends to her ambivalence themed birthday party on facebook. They all said responded Maybe. The end?

Day Sixteen – Once there was a non-terrifying clown. He didn’t wear make-up, tell jokes, or murder. His name was Steve. He had a Prius.

Day Seventeen – Here’s my one sentence James Bond slash fic: “No one can save you, Mr. Bond. Not even Bono from the legendary rock band U2.”

Day Eighteen – “No belts! No shoes! Laptops out! Keep moving! This is an Orwellian nightmare! Help me,” cried Mr. Honest TSA Agent.

Day Nineteen – Two men argued about the BEST James Bond movie. Because they didn’t know the word subjective, they argued until they died.

Day Twenty – Ed always danced like no one was watching. But the aliens were. They were not impressed. Way to represent Earth, Ed.

Day Twenty-One – One day, Carl tried to make a complete list of everything he hated, but the first thing was lists.

Day Twenty-Two – Lloyd discovered he had the ability to talk with cats. The cats mostly just judged his wardrobe and life choices.

Day Twenty-Three – Edna was going to make and sell t-shirts that said “Let’s do the bare minimum” but tweeting the idea seemed good enough.

Day Twenty-Four – Steve kept accidentally leaving words out of tweets. The words would randomly show up in other donkey mom burrito tweets.

Day Twenty-Five – Jerry tried to sell his soul to Satan. Sadly, Satan was only interested in buying souls in Near Mint condition.

Day Twenty-Six – Tired of family debates, Chad got a tattoo on his arm of an emoticon shrugging. He flashed it constantly and died happy.

Day Twenty-Seven – Once there was a magical land called Your In-Laws’ Bathroom. Many people hid there and, lo, there was much tweeting.

Day Twenty-Eight – Ted decided to skip Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. His new seasonal greeting Let’s Just Get This Over With was a hit.

Day Twenty-Nine – Sheila developed the power to read minds. It was like twitter without a mute button. Sheila was pretty bummed.

Day Thirty – Joseph thought about how great stories often have sudden and ambiguous endings as he ate a taco and THE END.

Yours in Narrative Fun,

Joseph

If you enjoy my work, you can check out all the comedy words and things I’m making via Patreon.

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KNITTING: Obsessed Ep 65

Joseph has a special holiday chat with his wife–historic house expert, stage manager, dancer, and OBSESSIVE KNITTER Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw. Topics include but are not limited to baby sweaters, knit handcuffs, the crafting abilities of Star Wars characters, and marriage. Enjoy!

AWOOGA! Obsessed is now a part of Feral Audio! Go to Feral now to listen to this episode and subscribe for new ones!

Listen, rate, review, and subscribe to OBSESSED on iTunes.

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The Crumbsucker Curse

TheCrumbsuckerCurse

I love swearing.

When I was in 2nd grade, I attended a small Catholic school. Some kids had been swearing at one another on the playground. In response, the nuns came into our classroom and asked us to list all the words we shouldn’t say.

Again, for clarity, when I was in 2nd grade at a catholic school NUNS ASKED ME TO RAISE MY HAND AND SHOUT FILTHY CURSE WORDS AT THEM.

I raised my hand and tried out every combination my little brain could think of. I even tried out a few fun conjugations. I bleep. She bleeps. They bleeped. They have bleeped. They will have bleeped. They will have been bleeping.

Except I didn’t say “bleep” and thus a great fucking love affair with swearing was born.

Not only do I love swearing, I truly think it’s vital to the human civilization. The delicate balance of society depends on our ability to break the rules every once in a while. Some days, the only thing standing between order and chaos is a good “shithead.”

But even though I’m a fan of the f-bomb and all of our linguistic artillery, I’m troubled by more swear words than I used to be. Many of the classics are fundamentally rooted in sexism, phobia, and general assholery.

I have no intention of giving up swearing. But I want to strive to swear BETTER.

I find myself going to asshole a lot. It’s gender neutral. We all have butts. Asshole is the Batman of swear words. Brutal, efficient, and loved by all.

But sometimes even insults with ass don’t work. If I ever did a TED Talk, it would be called “Kiss My Ass and Other Problematic Insults.”

When you say “kiss my ass,” you’re basically saying, “I don’t like you. I find you untrustworthy. Therefore, I want to expose the most vulnerable, sensitive parts of my body and put them close to your teeth. That will show you.

I also have concerns about douchebag.

Because a lot of the douchebags who say douchebag don’t know what a douchebag is. They’re basically yelling, “You know what you are? I think you’re some kind of hygiene device with water and a hose thing and–I’m going to look you up on Wikipedia!”

I really did look up douchebags on Wikipedia and it was a fascinating read. As always happens when you look at Wikipedia when you should be doing something else, I clicked through to related articles.

I spent some quality time with the long article about bidets.

Let me tell you: Bidets are an overlooked fount of swear word potential.

Wikipedia told me “bidet” is a French word that originally meant “pony.”

My mind filled with the possibilities. I pictured myself back in 2nd grade, on the playground, dodging kickballs and screaming at other kids, “You’re a bidet, Chad! You’re a french toilet pony!”

“Son of a bidet” is also a pretty satisfying thing to shout at say, your iPhone, when it autocorrects “sweat pants” to “swear pants.” (I like the idea of special, magic pants you need to put on before you can swear, but that seems like a lot of fucking work.)

But even with bidet, we can get rid of the gender bias of “Son of.”

We can call people a daughter of a bidet, cousin of a toilet, or, my personal favorite, a child of a butt.

It’s ridiculous, but strangely cathartic. If you can, turn to someone near you and call them a child of a butt. It will improve your mood in no time AND you might make a new friend!

Along the fun lines of child of a butt, I think we can be far more creative and abstract in our cursing.

In 7th grade, I kept having a war of four letter words with one particular kid. One day, I strapped on my swear pants and called him something colorful yet stupid like a “big shit-tool.”

And he responded with this sentence:

“Oh yeah? Well, your mom lives in a Doritos bag.”

To this day, I have no idea what that means, but I still remember it.

“Your mom lives in a Doritos bag.”

It’s sad, absurd, and whimsical all at the same time. It’s like being insulted by a Wes Anderson film.

The Doritos bag memory has encouraged me to be more creative in my cursing.

Swear words should be easy to come by. They don’t need to be based on gender, sexuality, or horrible stereotypes to be potent.

You only need two things for a good expletive:

One: It needs to feel visceral coming out of your mouth. Curse words need a good damn mouthfeel.

Two: It needs to feel a little verboten. It needs to feel like something you maybe shouldn’t yell at a nun in 2nd grade.

I don’t have any nuns in my life right now, but I wanted to test out some words with an authority figure who would give me an honest response. So I made a list of visceral yet meaningless words. I called my mother and said them to her.

I worked my way down the list until one of them finally made her go, “Oh, geez.”

And I knew that was one.

The made-up word that made my kind, intelligent, Anderson-Cooper-loving mother go “Oh, geez!” was this:

CRUMBSUCKER.

One who sucks crumbs? Maybe? I have no idea what it means, but it sounds nasty as shit.

If the person you called a child of a butt is still talking to you, try calling them a CRUMBSUCKER right now.

The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, let that crumbsucker know how you feel about it.

When your phone changes “carpe diem” to “carpet denim” seize the moment with a big bellowing crumbsucker.

If you follow me on twitter, feel free to send me a tweet right now calling me a #crumbsucker. I will feel loved and the rest of twitter will be frightened and confused.

Go forth and crumbsuck!

And if in your travels, someone tries to make fun of you for shifting the swearing paradigm, for putting some thought into what you want future generations to shout at nuns in 2nd grade, then just zip up your swear pants and tell that child of a butt:

“Hey, you French toilet pony, your Dad lives in Wes Anderson’s crumbsucking Dorito’s bag!”

And once again, order will be preserved amidst the fucking chaos of being humans.

Thanks, crumbsuckers.

If you enjoy my work, you can check out all the comedy words and things I’m making via Patreon.

P.S. Here’s a video of the stand-up version of this blog post. Multiple platform synergy, crumbsuckers!

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TENACIOUS D: Obsessed Ep 64

Comedy mastermind, Matt Belknap, producer of Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo and A Special Thing records, shares how his obsession with the comedy rock band Tenacious D led to his career in comedy. A fascinating tale of fandom, the early days of the internet, comedy in Los Angeles, online mini-golf, moms on message boards, and scat transcriptions!

AWOOGA! Obsessed is now a part of Feral Audio! Go to Feral now to listen to this episode and subscribe for new ones!

Listen, rate, review, and subscribe to OBSESSED on iTunes.

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A Man and His Spooky Tweets

For almost two years I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, then daily affirmations, then daily etiquette tips, then incorrect quotes, then fake TV shows, horoscopeshorrorwriting tipsholiday tweetsresolution tweets, Hey Girl tweets, Urban Myth tweets, pastry tweets, boring tweets, social media tweets, incorrect facts, slogans, and Conspiracy tweets, and now Spooky Tweets! Enjoy!

You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy November’s series!

Day One – You get a phone call. It’s coming from someone who could have sent a text or email.

Day Two – Once, as an adult, I shopped at Hot Topic.

Day Three – Sometimes three white guys get together in a basement and don’t record a podcast.

Day Four – If you watch an episode of Doctor Who and don’t have a strong opinion about it, you will die in 7 days.

Day Five – The term “mouthfeel” exists and is in common usage.

Day Six – It’s possible that my home is haunted and I don’t know because the ghost is just a lazy ass.

Day Seven – If you look in the mirror and say your own name three times, you’ll realize you’re a fucking narcissist.

Day Eight – Today is the twenty year anniversary of twenty years ago. Soon we will all die.

Day Nine – Satan is only interested in purchasing your soul if it’s part of a GroupOn deal.

Day Ten – A remake of The Tell Tale Heart but the beating heart sounds like the car alarm on a Prius.

Day Eleven – Don’t be afraid: Zombies are more tired of us than we are of them.

Day Twelve – Ghosts are just dead people who can’t stop buffering.

Day Thirteen – The noise is coming from inside the building. The man has an acoustic guitar and is learning to play The Eagles’ songbook.

Day Fourteen – All Blockbuster Videos are now haunted by restless spirits that can never pay the late fee on their VHS copies of Titanic.

Day Fifteen – If you look at WebMD, you’ll think you’re going to die in seven days.

Day Sixteen – Once, I went 24 hours without seeing a picture of a cat on the internet.

Day Seventeen – In the future, people will fight to get little blue verified check marks on their tombstones.

Day Eighteen – Once, I left ear buds in my head for seven hours before I noticed I wasn’t listening to anything.

Day Nineteen – The bolts in Frankenstein’s monster’s neck can only be tightened with a little wrench from Ikea.

Day Twenty – Theirs a ghost in your house and it wants to correct you’re grammar.

Day Twenty-One – Once I went three days without asking anyone if they’d seen The Wire.

Day Twenty-Two – I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, vampires, spiders, burritos, discounts. We never stop screaming.

Day Twenty-Three – Before you die your life flashes before your eyes but it’s not in the correct aspect ratio.

Day Twenty-Four – Dance like no one is watching except a sad ghost named Toby.

Day Twenty-Five – Some of the things smartphones have replaced: watches, alarm clocks, mp3 players, books, family, friends, hope.

Day Twenty-Six – The mad scientist’s name is Frankenstein, the monster’s name is actually Chad Lonelypants.

Day Twenty-Seven – If you eat enough candy corn, your colon will turn into a mummy.

Day Twenty-Eight – We will never know which long dead British guy we’ve never heard of was the real Jack the Ripper.

Day Twenty-Nine – The most terrifying Halloween costume is emotional nudity.

Day Thirty – If you make a funny face, your face will stay that way. If you make two funny faces, you will become an animated gif.

Day Thirty-One – Things vampires can turn into: bats, wolves, mist, Diet Pepsi, a turducken, YouTube comments, ebola reporting, money. #DailySpookyTweet

Yours in Spooky Town,

Joseph

If you enjoy my work, you can check out all the comedy words and things I’m making via Patreon.

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