Nurse reveals the top five regrets people make on their deathbed
June 2011
May 2011
“I ask for ur forgiveness and another chance (Think Bella forgiving Jacob). I will accept any penalty; hard labor, probation, a time out…. Do werewolves kill humans just like vampires?”
—Bronx Deputy Chief Michael Gabriel, in text messages to Detective Dawn DelValle-Sanchez that have now lead to a sexual-harassment lawsuit by DelValle-Sanchez against the NYPD.
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Back to the Answer Stack
iggnoremee asked: what was ur favorite brand of cigarette?
This question makes me simultaneously sad and glad. It’s as if you just said, “Remember in your youth, swinging on the swing set and listening to a Walkman with ‘No Rain’ by Blind Melon on it? Remember how you’d finished your homework and had a nice square dinner and a big bowl of ice cream for dessert? Remember a golden retriever puppy successfully catching a bothersome housefly in its cute, flappy little mouth? Remember the time you went to Vegas and performed with the Pussycat Dolls and they were like, “join our band!” and you were like, “no girls, my flight leaves in an hour”? Remember cheeseburger after cheeseburger, each better than the next, on and on for hours, never feeling full, never feeling regret? Remember doing pure MDMA in the Seychelles and then staying up all night in an air-conditioned luxury suite shopping online for everything with a credit card given to you by a wealthy, now-deceased benefactor ? Remember the hot air balloon ride over the final scene of Super Mario Brothers with the animated sparklies seen from high above, the castle, the neon green shades of patchwork lawns of a world fabricated just for your amusement and fulfillment, and remember when the hot air balloon began its descent and docked at the balloon station and you had to debark the balloon and endure a 2-hour car ride back to humanity in the way back seat of a station wagon listening to conservative talk radio?”
My real favorites were the original Camel Lights, before they changed the blend. After that, I smoked Parliaments because I didn’t care anymore. Now I just smoke my dreams. And pot.
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“In workshop at Ohio State Erin McGraw sometimes said, ‘the good is the enemy of the great.’ I think of that often. My mentor Christopher Coake has this from Roger Ebert on the wall above his desk: ‘The muse comes during composition, not before.’ I like this because I don’t know a writer who doesn’t struggle to get to the keyboard every day and maybe the best advice helps us get there. Myself, I require a great deal of ego fluffing. To that end I have this above my desk: ‘I sold kilos of coke, so I’m guessing I can sell CDs.’ That’s Jay Z.”
—Claire Vaye Watkins
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“Not only that, but I’m one of those guys that reaped the benefits of being there in the thick of it when “Writer-Driven” comics were what was pushing the rock up the mountain — I’m talking roughly ‘97-‘04 — and now we’re fully into the “Editor-Driven” era of mainstream comics so the opportunity to do a book like this at the big Franchise Publishers is becoming more and more rare.”
—Joe Casey. In this quote, Casey’s promoting a series called VENGEANCE. Comics called VENGEANCE are becoming far too rare, guys…! As just an outside observer (uhhh except for that one time), I think the thing that keeps fascinating me about comics is how everyone thinks they’re the Victim of Comics. I’m not really aware of another entertainment industry where every single participant involved, from audience member on up, seems to view themselves as the terminus of a Human Centipede. No one sees themselves as in any way culpable; everyone is the hero of their own Greek tragedy; Oedipus Dork.
Garry Shandling on the Marc Maron Podcast →
wtfpod.com
One of my all time favorite comedy guys on my favorite comedy podcast. I”ve been hoping this would happen for a long time— Shandling’s been EVERYWHERE in comedy. He wrote for Sanford & Son and Welcome Back Kotter. He performed at the Comedy Store during the heyday (and maybe controversially so, what with the protests). He was a guest host for Johnny Carson— other guest hosts include Woody Allen, Bob Newhart, and David Letterman. The Garry Shandling Show deconstructed sitcoms better than anyone ever will probably. And then, for me, he invented HBO. The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire— all of that came after Larry Sanders had built HBO a reputation. Before Larry Sanders, HBO was Dream On and First & Ten. And then, the people who went through Sanders— Judd Apatow, Jon Stewart, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Janeane Garofolo, 30 Rock’s John Riggi, The Simpsons’ Jon Vitti, just this who’s who. Really excited to listen to this…
Scientists Analyze OK-CUPID Data; Conclude that Men Like Tits. →
dailymail.co.uk
According to OkCupid, an 18-year-old woman with a cleavage shot in her profile gets 24 per cent more contacts per month on average than more demure 18-year-olds.
If she does it at age 32, that jumps to 79 per cent more than her buttoned up peers.
‘Women’s mate value declines with age,’ Dr Kanazawa agreed. ‘But they can compensate for their decline in mate value by showing their cleavage.’
‘It’s bait,’ Dr Peter Jonason of the University of South Alabama said.
Molly Lambert: Dorothy Dix's Dictates For A Happy Life →
mollylambert.tumblr.com
First. Make up your mind to be happy. Happiness is largely a matter of self-hypnotism. You can think yourself happy or you can think yourself miserable. It is up to you. Learn to find pleasure in simple things. If you can’t go to the opera, you can turn on the radio. Nail on your face the…
“A spasmodically violent, creatively cast and off-center fast-cars-and-crime drama, Drive belongs to a rarified genre subset of stripped down, semi-arty and quasi-existentialist action films that includes Point Blank, Bullitt and The Driver”
—From the Hollywood Reporter’s review of Nicolas Refn’s Drive. There is basically nothing about that sentence I don’t like. “Spasmodically violent” is my favorite part, though. I wish that were the name of my Talking Heads tribute band.
Interview with 30 Rock Show-runner Robert Carlock Turns Into Referendum on Brunch →
nymag.com
What is your best show pitch that didn’t make it onto the air?
For 30 Rock? The great thing about the show is that the stuff that I believe in and advocate for I usually get to do because Tina is hilarious and for some reason trusts me and sometimes gets really, really tired and I can just do things that she wasn’t aware were sometimes going to be on TV. “That’s still in?” is something I hear on occasion. This is just a small thing, but I hate brunch. I don’t believe that brunch is a thing that anyone actually enjoys on any level. I don’t think the food is food that people like. I don’t think that people want to see people socially on Sunday morning or afternoon. I don’t think any of it is worth waiting in line for. I’m on an anti-brunch campaign because I think it’s a form of mass hysteria that people want to go to brunch and think that it’s a good thing. And I was constantly trying to get anti-brunch jokes into the show, and no one cared, no one shared my point of view. And I’d get them into table reads, and there would be no laugh because everyone likes brunch because we’re being fed soma by the government, there’s this Brave New World madness. But I did manage, in the guise of Abby Grossman, the hipster comic [on “TGS Hates Women”], one of her clips, if you noticed, was her saying, “Has anyone ever had a good time at brunch?” That’s as close as I’ve gotten to fulfilling my anti-brunch jeremiad. But someday there will be a whole story about brunch and eventually America will wake up.And plus, it just leaves you in a food coma all day.
Yeah. Go to church, people! I live on the Upper West Side and I see people standing out in the cold, waiting for food you can cook yourself. Listen to me, I’m still talking about brunch! This is hilarious. Of the few things I can cook, I can cook all of those things just as well as I’m going to get them after waiting for an hour. Why leave the house? Do the Sunday crossword puzzle.You can’t hear anyone you’re talking to anyway, and the coffee usually sucks. The coffee at your house is better.
[Laughs.] The coffee at my house … I don’t even drink coffee, believe it or not. The tea is better. My children aren’t annoying anyone; I’m not hating someone else’s children. Stay in for brunch, New York! The thing is, Tina has one of the best antennae — they’re excellent. If there’s a good idea in there, she can see a diamond in a pile of crap, and she can also see something that seems crazy and she can get the sense of it and the good of it, so when I go to pitch something to Tina, it’s pretty rare that there’s something where I’m like, Oh, that’s great, that shouldn’t have been thrown out. But please help me get the word out about brunch. They’re feeding us food that’s been lying around for days.
Mr. Mike writes a letter to the L.A. Herald-Examiner →
dennisperrin.blogspot.com
“I write this only as a Zen exercise”
“THE ASSEMBLY OF AN IMPROVISED GUN CAN LEAD TO SERIOUS TROUBLE IN TWO WAYS: (1) The gun can anger a totalitarian regime in which you live, causing the regime to imprison or kill you; and (2) If you even make the smallest mistake during your assembly, the laws of physics may maim or kill you. Firearms and guns ended the dark ages and brought us into an age of civil equality: furthering life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Be very careful that you do not lose those privileges by careless handling your improvised gun.”
—Quote from an internet article entitled “How to Make a Gun with Common Materials For Self Defense.” Guns brought us into an age of civil equality. Truly, the h-bomb brought us into an age of widespread blowjobs-on-demand. Also: the laws of physics may maim or kill you— sure, sure, I remember one time I was just standing on a street corner, minding my own business, when Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal shot me in the brains with a zip gun. That really smarted. This is all courtesy the rather thoroughly detailed wikipedia page on improvised firearms.
Triple Bill by Woody Allen, Elaine May, Ethan Coen Heading to Broadway →
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Directed by John Turturro… How fun does that sound? I have Elaine May’s “Adult Entertainment” sitting by my bed. (Though the one-act plays I’ve read by Ethan Coen are a little underwhelming by comparison to his short stories; I prefer the Gates of Eden material to his Almost an Evening material). That sounds like a night at the theatre, to me, though…
“She has described herself in high school as “the book nerd”. She began stripping at the age of eighteen at Rick’s Showgirls in Rancho Cordova, California, to earn extra money to purchase a pony that was going to be slaughtered.”
—Wikipedia entry for Kayden Kross.
“I was impressed with a presentation of roasted marrow bones spiked with snails, a layering of mucusoid textures whose virtuosity could only be applauded, as well as pickled pig’s tongue with mustard; hand-slivered beef tartare; and a bowl of herbed tripe tossed with long-cooked broccoli and smoked herring. New York Times critic Sam Sifton liked M Wells so much that he refused to leave one evening when it seemed as if the restaurant might have been on fire, and after visiting, I can see Sifton’s logic — he could have missed out on the banana cream pie.”
—Jonathan Gold. “A layering of mucosoid textures whose virtuosity could only be applauded” … FUCK! Oh, to be able to write about pleasure so convincingly… See also, that same article for “jiggling-fresh ravioli stuffed with smoked ricotta, and [..] a dish of dressed crab served with a Bloody Mary–influenced tomato gelée that was one of the best crab salads I’ve ever tasted.“ JIGGLING-FRESH!!!
Project Diary 5/15/11
Trying to keep “project diaries” on Issue Four, help keep myself moving forward. Progress so far: 20 pages of “pose” pages “penciled” digitally i.e. the 3-4 main characters in different poses which I’ll recycle over-and-over as clip art— not sure if that’s going to be enough, but fingers crossed. One “character” needs tip-to-toe drawing— character’s a dog, though, and, yeah, I don’t really know how to draw those in general, let alone in the same “style” as the human characters…? That 20’ll still need to be supplemented with splashes, establishing shots, action shots, etc. The hope is for the finished comic to be mostly super-cheap looking, but with non-super-cheap acting as a sort of punctuation— like Evangelion, if no one who made Evangelion could draw good. No backgrounds drawn yet, but three of them “planned” out in Google Sketchup…
On the writing end, hovering around 38 pages, 99% of which are unformatted dialogue. Still don’t have a great first chapter; still need to write one bit, which I’ve been avoiding, and at least two scenes in desperate, desperate need of a rewrite. I’ve probably gone to the “dirty joke” well one too many times— need a better variety of gags. Accidentally looked at the old Dracula comic a couple weeks back— new thing is significantly less funny, fewer jokes. Which is inherent to the project—trying to do something with characters and a story— but it’s made it feel joke-poor to me. Plus: maybe not right for the internet. For the internet, doing anything but “short & viral” feels like a mistake, but not in the mood.
Split between wanting to do another all-joke thing next time (if I get to have a next time), and doing something that’s not trying to be funny at all. The one thing I feel good about is talking heads— don’t have the time, energy or resources to do anything besides talking heads, but… the talking head thing really suits me, especially if the grid skeleton and punctuation ideas on this one works out. ”Two people in a room talking” is all playwrights have to work with, and doesn’t stop them from being interesting… I may be horribly, horribly wrong, though.
On the technical end, going to have to re-build from scratch again— I’ve used imageshack religiously in the past but technical changes in imageshack have made it unusable. Starting to wreck the comics that are up— the Dracula one is going to be unreadable in a year or two, at the current rate. Need to shift to something else, probably dedicated hosting.
Looking forward to color. No question, the best part. Not looking forward to lettering. No question, the worst part. Other things I want to try to write, but don’t have the right ideas yet for any of them. Not enough hours in the day.
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