The Liam McEneaney Experience

PERSONAL ADS FOR CELEBRITIES WHO ARE CURRENTLY FREE AND SINGLE

Hollywood Scumbag sks Same


ROBERT B.

ME: "Little Rascal" killer seeking body.
Oops, I mean - "Little Rascal" seeking killer body.

I'm a straight shooter, a real son of a gun. They say Cupid can't hit a moving target. I say, he's not trying hard enough!

YOU: No fatties, smokers, or roving grifters running lonelyhearts scam.

HOW MY FRIENDS DESCRIBE ME: "The White OJ"
HOW I DESCRIBE MYSELF: Mr. Scatterbrain! You never know what I'll leave behind at the craziest moments! Car keys, gun, you name it, I leave it behind! Oopsie doopsie!

I ENJOY: Long walks on the beach, followed by short walks behind a restaurant dumpster.

* * * * * * * * * *
Desperate Housebound sks Escape


MARTHA S.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ME: The curtains definitely match the drapes, as well as the furniture. Give me thirty minutes, and I'll show you how!

I ENJOY: Quiet evenings at home, as mandated by a federal court's plea bargain agreement.

* * * * * * * * * *

Family Man sks Kids (I promise to give them back)


MICHAEL J.

ME: Probably human, or at least humanoid.
YOU: Show wife material, willing to share children, makeup tips with me.

MY FRIENDS DESCRIBE ME AS: Sphinx-like, in that I am inscrutable, constantly asking riddles, and missing most of my nose.
I love kids - although how much is for a court of law to decide.

A quiet evening alone is sexy.
Followed by a legally-binding non-disclosure agreement is sexier.

LAST GREAT BOOK I READ: Peter Pan and the Lost Boys in The Adventure They Will Only Remember in Their Adulthoods After Years and Years of Intense Therapy

BUT FIRST, HERE'S A TRULY TASTELESS JOKE:
You know who I feel bad for? Michael Schialvo's fiancee.

Because you've got to imagine she's made her living will very, very clear.

"And if I'm in the hospital for more than three days, I want cotton sheets. Don't kill me if it turns out they only have a polyblend, I'll manage. Okay, now let me make eighteen copies of that tape and send it off to my friends and family."

Also, it's got to be hard for them if something happens like their computer freezes. Because if you're the next Mrs. Schialvo, you don't want to see him pulling the plug on anything.

Okay, I apologize.

* * * * * * *

I'd like to say before I start this entry that my dentist is a really, really good one. I say this for two reason: First, because I actually would recommend him to anyone I knew looking for a guy to work on their mouth.
And two, because there's a good chance he'll read this, and if there's one thing I've learned in this life, it's "Never make the guy with the sharp hook in your mouth angry." When I'm in the chair, I want the guy thinking as many happy, peaceful thoughts as possible. In fact, does the Dalai Lama have a degree in dentistry?

I recently went to the dentist for a couple of fillings.The good news - my teeth are now filled with rich, creamy nougat. Yum.

No, dentistry's an interesting medicine. They're the only doctors who say, "Okay, you see that part of the body that's causing you pain? I'm going to take a tiny little drill and go right up in there for an hour or so."
And then they say something totally incongruous: "Tell me if it hurts."
I'm like, "How about we save us both some time - you're drilling in my mouth, it hurts. Ouch."

So the guy's up there for about an hour. I don't want a man in my mouth that long without a wedding ring. Hello, am I right ladies?

Don't get me wrong, he gave me Novocaine. He loaded me up with so much Novocaine, I couldn't feel my childhood. You could have hit me in the face with a sledgehammer and I wouldn't have felt it. After my visit, I actually wandered the subways picking a fight: "You ugly, your momma ugly."
Usually, I only say that when I'm with someone I know who can't hurt me. Like a kindergarten class.

I guess I went too far, though - I was feeling no pain, and I - I listened to the new Lisa Marie Presley album. Sure I was numbed up, but I felt it hours later, believe me.

So I'm completely numb, and he says, "Now bite down like normal, so I can see your bite."
And I'm like, "Bite down, like 'normal'. Like, when I normally am unable to feel my own face?"

Anyway, I have to go back in a few weeks - I want to get a gold tooth with a big ol' diamond in it.

Eh, a little rambly, but I think there's three good jokes in there. This could be the kernel of a good new joke.

JOKES THAT NEVER MADE IT ON LAST WEEK'S BEST WEEK EVER

ASHTON KUTCHER

Ashton Kutcher's back and he's still the hottest actor out there. This week he's starring in "Guess Who" (a remake of the 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), he's getting attention for the new season of Punk'd, and there are rumors that he impregnated Demi Moore.

* Finally, Ashton Kutcher's getting some long-overdue recognition. He's been ignored by the media for so long. I always figured, if he just kept appearing in hit TV shows and movies and on the covers of magazines, people would sit up and pay attention.

* Demi's gone from "The Butcher's Wife" to "The Kutcher's Wife."

* Guess Who is a remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with Bernie Mac in the Spencer Tracy role and Ashton in the Sidney Poitier role:
* By starring in "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," Sidney Poitier helped break down race barriers in this country. And by starring in "Guess Who," Ashton Kutcher's going to put them back up again.

* I love that somewhere in Hollywood, there was a guy who was like "Ashton Kutcher is just like Sidney Poitier, except that he's white, and young, and doesn't do drama, and also he can't really act. But other than that, he's the next Sidney Poitier."

* Sidney Poitier was the Jackie Robinson of acting. Ashton Kutcher's more like the Jackee from 227.

* Did Ashton get Demi preggers?
* That baby'll be the first thing Demi's produced in years that I actually want to see.

* I guess we can call her "OB-GY Jane."

* Hopefully this baby will have the beauty of Demi Moore, and the brains of – well – so, what else is going on?


SONY PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
Sony is unveiling a new hand-held game system: Playstation Portable. It lets you play your interactive 3-D games, full-length movies, music videos, MP3s, and more. Fashionistas call it the next big grown-man-toy.

* This is fantastic. You know, when I'm at home in my underwear, having not taken a shower for the last two days because I need to finish Grand Theft Auto, all I can think is "Man, I have to share this beautiful experience with the rest of the world."

* If you have a device that can play 3-D games, MP3s, and movies, you probably aren't leaving the house a whole lot. In fact, you've probably been reported dead by your family.

* I havent seen the advertising for this thing yet, but their slogan should be – "PLAYSTATION PORTABLE – Who Needs A Stupid Girlfriend, Anyway?"

Who the heck is their target market anyway?
* Man, you're going to have some pasty, flabby, completely antisocial losers buying this thing. In other words, where can I get one?

* This is the device for guys who've tried to get their friends interested in their Deep Space 9 fanfiction. "The rest of the world doesn't understand me, but you do, Super Mario."

* This is a game for guys who do enjoy the challenge of defeating a robot ninja in hand-to-hand combat, but don't enjoy the challenge of moving out of their parents basement.

How long can you go without having a TV screen in front of you?
* Luckily, I've got a Gameboy Advance I can play while I'm waiting that thirty seconds for my computer to boot up.

* I need a portable DVD player to watch when I'm at the movies, just so I don't get bored.

* When I watch ER, I'm watching the EKG read-out on the computer screen just so I can watch a TV screen while I'm watching TV.

What are some events/occasions where people need to have a Playstation with them?
* At a job interview, because man, there's always some guy there asking some boring-ass questions.

* A long elevator ride. Because sometimes you want to be awkward, but you just can't fart on command.

* The State of the Union Address. "Blah blah blah." Cut to the chase, pal, I got important princesses to rescue.

* While you're flying a plane. Because Parappa the Rapper is twice as challenging when you're shit-faced drunk.

One game-fan called PSP "the sexiest device since the iPOD."
* Actually, the full quote was, "It's the sexiest device since the iPOD, but remember, I'm a gamefan, so my sexual experience is limited to staring at Lara Croft for sixteen hours and saying 'I would totally do her'."

* Come on gamefans, let's stop treating our inanimate objects like inanimate objects, okay? They have feelings, too, except for the feelings part.

* Come on now, who hasn't had a lonely night, had a couple beers, and you – you know – made sweet love to your iPod.


PAT O'BRIEN

The host of the gossip shows Access Hollywood and The Insider checked into rehab Sunday for alcohol abuse, just as an embarrassing string of dirty voice-mail messages became public - if you haven't caught them on the Internet, a man (supposedly Insider host Pat O'Brien) leaves phone-sex messages for a woman. He calls six different times in one night, leaving unimaginative requests for sexual favors, which expressed a taste for hookers, cocaine and adventurous (if possibly unhygienic) sex. His reps have still, two weeks later, not denied that O'Brien made the calls.

Was that really Pat O'Brien? If not, who?
* I think it was Tom Brokaw, trying to get O'Brien off the air and reclaim his title as The Blandest Man on Television.

* The messages were all about hookers and blow. It was either Pat O'Brien or President Bush.

* No way it was Pat O'Brien. I mean, hookers, blow, anal sex? Pat O'Brien's just not that interesting.

What is your favorite moment in the messages?
* My favorite moment had to have been when he offered to lick that woman's heiny. Because you know he's good at it; his whole career is brown-nosing celebrities.

* Those messages were soooo hot. I was like, "Oh Pat. Forget The Insider, how about The Inside Me?"

Doesn't he sound so monotone on these messages?
* He sounds jaded, like sexually harassing women has become another chore. (checking watch) "SIGH! It's been seven minutes. Time to leave another message about wanting to violate her anally."

* I have to give it to Pat O'Brien, he's really slick. Most guys would give up after the second or third harassing call. But Pat knows it takes a full eighteen messages to really get a lady hot, playa!

* Man, I feel super-vanilla compared to Pat O'Brien. I usually don't bring up hookers and blow until the second or third date.

O'Brien's girlfriend, "Betsy," has an ex-husband who is in possession of a "compromising photograph" of the mustachioed broadcaster pleasuring himself.
* The only way I could ever want to see this picture any less is if it was titled "The Lords of Dogtown."

* I'm not that excited. I got mine signed by Pat O'Brien at the last Autograph Expo.

* What's really exciting is that you know he was thinking about John Tesh while he was taking it.

Did Pat give this gift as a present?
* It's not such a generous gift. That's what he gives his staff as a Christmas bonus every year.

* It's disturbing until you remember that he only does in that picture physically what he did metaphorically on Access Hollywood every night.

And also...
* It actually wouldn't be so bad if he didn't kind of look like Ned Flanders.

* Can I not have that image in my head please? Can I get a Brillo and just – ugggh. Think happy thoughts. Jordana Brewster and Sara Foster, Jordana Brewster and Sara Foster.

Witnesses say O'Brien actually licked co-host Nancy O'Dell's face at an "Access Hollywood" Christmas party. At the same event, he was seen groping reporter Shaun Robinson's behind.

Who would you rather be harassed by, O'Brien or Bill O'Reilly?
* I think Bill O'Reilly would be all confrontational – "Today we're discussing why you won't have a threeway with me and my wife. Are moral values among sluts too high?"

Come on, admit it, haven't you wanted to lick Nancy O'Dell's face or grope Shaun's behind?
* I'll admit – I know that what he did was wrong. But Nancy O'Dell? Come on, can I honestly say that if I had the opportunity and the eighteen Jack-and-Cokes, that I wouldn't do the same thing?

* It's dangerous to lick Nancy O'Dell's face like that. You could choke on the eight layers of makeup.

* It was wrong for him to grab Shaun Robinson's ass at a Christmas party, but the worst part was that that was actually her Secret Santa gift.

* It was kind of her fault for standing under the Grabasstletoe.

* It's time sycophantic celebrity reporters going to get their fair share of respect for the no work they do so almost-capably?

A gay male producer told The Daily News that O'Brien once said to him, "I have a gift for you." When asked what, O'Brien allegedly answered, "Bend over."

What do you think the gift was?
* The gift of one and a half inches.

* How else can four minutes of awkward silence turn into a lifetime of treasured memories. And for the record, ladies, four minutes is Pat O'Brien's time, not mine.

* Let's just say, Santa Claus is coming down your chimney early this year. Ten minutes early.

Isn't he just trying to reach out to the gay members of his show?
* He isn't just trying to reach out to the gay members of his staff, he's trying to reach around them, too.

* Pat O'Brien was just trying to bring some equality to the workforce. I mean, aren't women always complaining that they get treated like a piece of meat while men get treated like respected professionals? Well, Pat O'Brien was just trying to treat a guy he works with as badly as he treats the women he works with.

On another occasion, he allegedly stretched out on the producer's sofa and asked, "What would you do if I masturbated in front of you?"

What would you do?
* Hire a Santeria priest to burn the couch right after.

* What would I do? Wait and see. Oh wait, I wouldn't be able to see, because I'd have to gouge my eyes out.

* I'd probably wait thirty seconds and then post my resume to Monster.com.

Isn't he polite for asking?
* Sure, he's polite to ask, but rude to have aboslutely no intention on following through. Hey Pat, don't be a tease and not please!

* I think that's a bluff you definitely don't want to call. Know when to walk away, and know when to run.

* I hate to get all Miss Manners, but when I go visiting friends, I know the protocol – always bring a cake, always compliment your host on his décor, and always ask before you whip it out and start spanking it on someone's couch.

* It could have been worse. At least the guy has an office. Working in a cubicle? Now that's torture.

Blog entry lies directly below this blatant advert:

My friend Claudia and I are auditioning our sketch show for a run at the People Improv Theatre on Tuesday.

The show, the time, the info...

TUESDAY, MARCH 29th
THE CASTING COUCH
154 W. 29th street
(east of 7th Ave., above Subway sandwiches)
REZZIES: 212-563-7488
9:00pm - $5.00
Liam & Claudia and three other acts audition their very best materials for the PIT Theatre's artistic director. Let's just say, it's v. much a real-live You Got Served.

So here's my latest strange-but-true NYC Story:
On Thursday night, in a typical fit of urban angst

(HOW TO PREPARE AN URBAN ANGST:
Add one part loneliness and two parts feeling-that-I-may-yet-die-alone,
Mix in a bowl with as much alcohol as your liver can stand.
Let marinate in self-pity for six hours.
Once convinced that you are only single person in city full of happy couples, log onto Internet.
ENJOY!
SERVING SUGGESTION: Can serve up to three million New Yorkers),

I cruised Nerve.com to see if I would actually be interested in anyone they said would be a good match for me.

Yes, I have a profile on Nerve. No, I won't tell you what it is. Let's be honest, I have enough awkward social interactions with the folks who read my blog nd see my shows in person. You don't need to set another one up with me via the Infotainment Super Highway.

About two minutes after I logged on, I got a reply to my ad (for the two people reading this who've never tried Nerve - "Hi mom! Hi dad!" - the way it works is, whenever you log on, your personal ad is shoved to the top of the ads people see when they cruise the personals), a short note based on the fact that I had referenced having a crush on Maltese Falcon actress Mary Astor (deceased).

I checked out the lady's profile, decided I wasn't into her, and didn't respond.

Friday, around one pm, I was standing in Times Square on 42nd Street, waiting for the light to change, and I realized that I was actually standing next to this woman who had contacted me. I was cool enough not to do a double-take, but I did that "looking past her up the street while not looking at her directly yet studying her with my peripheral vision" thing we NYers have mastered, just to make doubly sure. Yup, it was her.

Then the light changed and I kept walking, because what do you say?
"Hey, you're the woman I totally ignored. I would have responded, but I didn't want to."
It's pretty rare that you get a chance to ignore someone online AND in person.

Anyway, isn't that completely weird? Someone actually replied to my personal ad!

People say I shouldn't, that I should support my local coffee shop in my neighborhood.
To which I reply, "Great. Open one in my neighborhood. Do you know how many coffee shops there were within walking distance of my house before Starbuck's opened? none.
Do you know how many Starbuck's there are now? Eighty-seven.

Anyways, I was looking at this inspirational quote they had on the cup:

"In order to secure our own children's future, we have no choice but to contribute to a common destiny for all children" – Quincy Jones, composer

But then, under that, they had written – "This is the author's opinion, and not necessarily that of Starbuck's."

Is a disclaimer even necessary? Were people responding with hate mail? "Screw the children. Make them work in a shoe factory. I eat babies, and I'm offended, Starbuck's!"

* * * *
TV'S PRETTY LOUSY

I think TV's going to just get to a point where there's a show that's just a guy sitting behind a desk, literally insulting the viewer's intelligence for half an hour:
"Hey stupid, guess you're so dumb you're gonna sit there and watch me insult you. And you're too lazy to change the channel. Hey fatass, you see this box of cookies? Huh? Do ya? Well go out and buy a box of your own. They're sponsoring this show, dummy, and you don't want it to go off the air, do ya?"

And you will sit there and watch it:
"Hey dum-dum. You suck."
"Why are you watching this show? It's horrible."
"I don't know. It's my favorite show. At least it isn't Joey."

Sorry, busy today.
A lot of guys I know say they want to hook up with a MILF.

I'm still trying to hook up with an ILF.

* * * * * *

Women think men are threatened by them.
But that's only because men are threatened by them.

Men constantly live in fear that women will discover how powerful they really are. Women get men to do a ton of shit without even trying. Like, last week I spent five hours cleaning between the tiles in my bathroom. Do you think I wanted to do that? Do you think I wake up in a cold sweat nights, thinking "Oh no, is my grout clean?"

No, I do it in the hopes that one day a woman will come over to my apartment, and when she does, she'll be tricked into thinking a human being lives there.

Does any man reading this post really enjoy wearing pants?
Have you ever woken up and said, "Man, these boxers are real comfortable. But you know what would be more comfortable? Duct taping my lower torso."

All I'm saying is, if there wasn't sex, I could devote a lot more time to worrying about death.

Okay, so maybe I was sober tonight. But I did see the elephants on parade.

See, it's an annual tradition in New York City when the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus (typing that out, it seems like the world's wackiest, craaziest lawfirm. "Your honor, we at the prestigious firm of Ringling, Ringling, Barnum and Bailey would like to to remind you of an important precedent - 1957's Koko vs. A Large Bag of Peanuts, wherein - UH OH, HERE COMES THE ALL-CLOWN FIRE BRIGADE!!!! OH NO, MR. SQUISH JUST UPENDED THAT BARREL OF WATER INTO HIS OWN PANTS!!!!") -

Okay, that parenthetical aside was way too long. I'm going to start that sentence over:

See, it's an annual tradition in New York City when the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to town, they bring the elephants from Queens, through the Midtown Tunnel, along 34th Street to Madison Square Garden, where presumably they'll catch a Knicks game. Actually, the way the Knicks are going this year, an elephant may be playing for the Knicks.

Any old how, after totally rockin' a show at a bar a quarter full of lesbians, I ran into some friends at a bar who said they were going to check out the elephants. So I went along.

I have to say that the hour-long wait for the elephants (they kept their public waiting in the cold night for an hour. Those elephants are total divas) was actually worth it. First of all, it's almost transgressive to see elephants emerging from the Midtown Tunnel at 12:30 am. You don't see large animals just walking the streets of New York. I take that back, I did see Henry Rollins in the West Village once, but other than that, it's completely out of place.

Small trucks, yes. Motorcycles, guys wandering between cars selling roses, bottles of water, or the Daily News depending on the time of day/year, yes, these are thigns you expect to see emerging from your average New York City tunnel. But not a large jungle animal creature.

Also, I enjoy watching the elephants. They, alone of all the circus animals, seem to be in on the joke. With their half-sleepy lope, their conspiratorially-lidded eyes, they always seem to understand just a little bit more about the world around them than they let on. Elephants seem to be philisophical creatures, taking the day as it's thrown at them.

My only disappointment is that they were smaller than I was expecting. Of course, what I was expecting doesn't really exist in nature - huge animals, shaking the ground with each gargantuan step taken on feet of granite; bigger than a truck, bigger than a house even, surveying the world of soft fleshy creatures thirty feet below with the disregard of the flyswatter for the dust-mite.

In other words, I was expecting a dinosaur.

And so the elephants came and in a minute were gone, gone to West 34th street, followed by a line of horses and two street-sweepers, two street sweepers in search of the most elusive and highly-prized animal - Time-and-a-Half.

The nice thing aboutl living in New York City
is that you get to overhear so many delightful conversations.

I was walking past a guy talking to his friend, and he said, "Of course, I'm sexual dynamite."

And I had to think, you know what - I'm not "sexual dynamite."

If anything, I'm more of a sexual atomic bomb -
The absolute, positively last-ditch only-if-all-else-fails resort.

And I don't explode, so much as implode upon contact, laying waste to all around me, destroying the land and poisoning the waters so none may grow, and ensuring that any future generations wander this desolate hellscape, mutated and grotesque, fighting each other for every scrap of food, and searching for the precious precious gasoline.

Well, it isn't that bad, actually. But I'd be a real douchebag if I described myself as "sexual dynamite."

* * * * *

Real estate in Manhattan is so bad
that people are buying apartments.
"Man, it's always been my dream to own just a little piece...of someone else's property."

I'm not talking about penthouse suites overlooking Central Park.
I'm talking about three room apartments overlooking the Chinese restaurant across the street.

The dream used to be to save up enough money to move away from those kinds of places.
And you know that it's only a matter of time until - "Yeah, I have a reserved seat on the 8:17am F train. It cost me eighty thousand dollars, but it was totally worth it."

Buying an apartment in Manhattan is a lot like dating in Manhattan.
You want something kind of permanent to call your own, but you don't really want to have to move a whole lot of stuff in.
I mean, yeah, you want a place to call your own. But you want the flexibility to leave if a better offer comes along.

THE BASEBALL WORLD IS IN AN UPROAR
because former great Jose Canseco wrote a book in which he talks about the rampant use of steroids in the major leagues.

Which is an incredibly shocking revelation, if you happened to have lost your senses of sight and hearing right before you decided to live in a cave for the last ten years.
The only way Canseco's book could be less surprising is if he also says that the Earth is round, the sun is bright, and that Scott Peterson is probably guilty.

The only real surprise in Canseco's book was all the times he injected players in the ass in the clubhouse's bathroom stalls.
Usually, assplay in a bathroom stall is something you associate with a sport like competitive ice-skating.

Please note - no one in baseball is really upset about the use of steroids. They're just angry with Canseco for actually bringing it up and naming names.

Normally I'd applaud Canseco for being a whistleblower, risking his reputation and friendships in the interest of cleaning up a sport. But the problem is that he's not interested in cleaning up baseball. The guy's such a dick that, even though he's technically doing the right thing, you can't give him any kind of credit for it.

His whole deal is that he thinks that steroid use is actually great. He's really proud of it. He wants to see everyone in baseball using steroids. That's like if DC Mayor Marion Barry, when he got arrested smoking crack with a crack whore, had had the balls to say "Yeah, I smoked crack. In fact, it really cleared my head and helped me make important decisions. If the President didn't already smoke three rocks a day, I would recommend he do so."

* * * * * * *

STEROID TO HEAVEN
Jason Giambi says that this year he's "focusing 100% on the game."

Which leads to an interesting question - "When you're getting paid about $20 million a year to do a job, what did you think you should be focusing on?"

Hell, if I got paid $20 million a year to do - anything - I might find a moment or two to concentrate. In fact, I'd be more focused than Christian Huygens' telescope.

Which leads to the second question - what the hell was Giambi giving 100% of his attention to before?
Trying to remember the lyrics to The Fresh Prince's Parents Just Don't Understand?
My Super Sweet 16?
Shiny objects?

Is that why he was doing steroids? He forgot that he wasn't supposed to?
"Dang, not taking steroids slipped my mind. See, I knew I had to go to the store to get some eggs and milk, and I guess I just forgot to not inject anabolic steroids into my own ass. Oopsie!"

* * * * * * *

MARIS-TIME LAW
Now people are saying that, due to all these new steroids-in-baseball revelations, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire should be stripped of their home run titles, and Roger Maris should be reinstituted as the Home Run Leader of All Time.

However, here are some records Bonds and McGwire will be allowed to keep:
* Most Babies Eaten in a Single Season: Barry Bonds (14)

* Most Phone Books Ripped in Half in a Single Chemically-Induced Rage: Mark McGwire (27)

* Angriest Answer Given at a Press Conference When Asked About Steroids: Barry Bonds ("Me am already answer question! Me am no use steroid. Steroid am bad! You am bad! HULK ANGRY!!!! ARRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!")

* Weakest Excuse for Using Steroids Given to a Grand Jury: Barry Bonds ("My trainer told me it was Magic Baby Oil that would make my skin soft. Also, I didn't mean to use it, I was holding the bottle for a friend and it slipped and got all over me by mistake. I tried to rub it off, but that just made it soak in. Also, I thought it was patchouli oil. I wanted to meet some hippie chicks.")

* Weakest Answer Given to a Congressional Committee: Mark McGwire ("I'm trying to be positive here. There's a lot of negativity in this room - a lot of bad vibes. Maybe we could all just take a deep, cleansing breath and - oh, you wanted me to answer a question? Well, that's about the past. I'm not concerned about the past. I'm concerned about the future. Specifically my future as a Hall of Famer and a paid spokesman for different products.")

No, not really. Just wanted to post something. The last couple of days have been kind of busy, and today I went in for my first appointment with a dentist since my old dentist retired. Fifteen years ago.

Ouch.

Actually, he checkup itself wasn't so bad, considering how long I've been away, my teeth are in great shape. But the cleaning. Yikes. I swear, at one point, the lady had to get out a sandblaster and a package of dynamite.

But now, ladies, look out!

The only sad news - my dentist refused to file all my teeth into little points, like vampire fangs.
SIDEWAYS FROWNY FACE!!!!

Alcoholism is a horrible, debilitating disease that affects millions of people and ruins lives by the hundreds of thousands.

Except for March 17th, when it's a source of cultural pride!

Last night, this guy was complaining about having to eat corned beef and cabbage. And All I could think was, "Corned beef and cabbage? That would be fantastic!"

Anyway. Here's a few jokes:

WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS??!!!
I find that my needs change on a day-to-day basis.
For instance; some days I find I need companionship, love, stability in my life.

Other days, I swear, all I need is five minutes with a flamethrower.
That would so much more satisfying.


POSITIVE NEWS!
Yesterday I went in for my HIV test.

I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of horror movies, but there's no twenty minutes in, say, Nightmare on Elm Street, as nerve-wracking as the twenty minutes I spent waiting for the results of my test.

In fact, I'm going to write a scary horror screenplay and call it "False Positive."


NOBODY LIKES A TATTLETALE
But what if the tale is Indiana Jones and the ah, fuckit, even I don't believe in this joke.

Here are some of the jokes that didn't make the cut for last week's episode of Best Week Ever. Some of them were cut for time, some of them cut because they just weren't funny. As a fun game, see if you can tell which is which!

GOOD REASONS TO SEE VIN DIESEL'S NEW MOVIE THE PACIFIER:
* Because I hit my head and only watch shiny things! My new nurse says I'm not allowed to have money any more.
* Because if you get high enough, it's like you're watching a comedy, man.
* "The Pacifier"? Vin Diesel can suck it! Ha ha ha! Get it?
* I belong to this religious sect, and every time I have an impure thought I have to punish myself really harshly.
* I'm writing an article for the New York Times called "Ways to Waste $10.00."
* I want to see Vin Diesel get outacted by an SUV.
* Lincoln Center was out of tickets for Swan Lake and – oh, who am I kidding? I like fart jokes.

* * *

FARE THEE WELL, DAN RATHER
"Dan Rather gave his final broadcast last Wednesday, after 24 years of anchoring the CBS nightly news. The 73-year old has become a controversial figure after reporting a discredited story that questioned President Bush's military service record."

How does Dan Rather's retirement make you feel?
* t makes me feel like we've come to the end of an era in broadcasting, called "The Era No-One Really Seemed to Care About."
* It's kind of sad, because whenever I watched reruns of The Simpsons instead of the evening news, Dan Rather's the one I most enjoyed not watching.

In terms of pop culture, what would you compare Dan Rather's retirement to?
This is like "The Day the Music Died," only instead of "Music" it's "Dan Rather" and instead of "Died," it's more like "Got Caught Airing Faked Memos."
Actually, this is nothing like "The Day The Music Died." I JUST LIKE TO HEAR MYSELF TALK! Meow! Meow!

Will there ever be another Dan Rather?
Dan Rather isn't going anywhere. Listen, wherever a guy is getting hit by a cop on-camera, Dan Rather will be there. Wherever a cranky 60 year-old is reading from a teleprompter, Dan Rather will be there, too. He's in the winds of a Hurricane whipping past the face of a guy chained to a telephone pole, and in the glazed look of boredom on an 8 year-old child's face as he waits for the news to be over so he can watch The Muppets. There will always be a piece of Dan Rather . . . in all of us.

Why is Walter Cronkite so vocal about hating Dan Rather?
Dan Rather isn't just leaving CBS News - he's leaving Walter Cronkite for a much younger newscaster.

* * *

BONO HAD THE BEST WEEK EVER
And who could disagree? He was nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, along with such unknowns as the Pope. He' was rumoured to be in the running for Presidency of the World Bank.
He's been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with such heavy hitters as Percy Sledge and Buddy Guy. And OH MY GOD, HE HAS A NEW VIDEO OUT!!!!!


About the World Bank nomination...

How would Bono's bank be better than other banks?
* Bono's bank wouldn't be that much better than other banks, but it would act like it was for so long that eventually it would get more props than it deserves, and get inducted into the Banking Hall of Fame.
* Open a business checking account, get a free calculator – and a lecture on global corporate responsibility.
* All monthly checking statements will be issued on a cassingle.

What will happen to the economy if Bono gets the job?
* America will go from the "Gold Standard" to the "Gold, followed by Platinum, followed by apathy for the next few albums, followed by Gold again Standard."
* An Irish guy running the economy? "Great, he lost the country's treasury at the track again. Looks like it's back to work in China's shoe factory!"
* If Bush appointed a rock star to head the World Bank, it still wouldn't be the worst financial decision he's made. In fact, it wouldn't even crack the Top 100.

About this Nobel Peace Prize business . . .

Why does Bono deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize over the rest of those a-holes on the list?
* He's done a lot to promote the spread of wrap-around shades throughout the world.
* I just hope that all this Nobel Prize business doesn't go to Bono's head. I'd hate to see it ruin his incredible humility.

Why won't he win it?
* The Nobel Prize Committee's afraid that if Bono wins, the Pope's gonna roll up to the lobby of the awards ceremony with his posse and just open fire.
* He probably won't win it because - um, because he's fucking Bono? Why is Bono being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize again?
* I think the Nobel Prize Committee woke up that day after announcing the nominations and were like, "How much did we drink last night? Wait a second – did we really nominate - Bono? I thought that was a joke!"

What other things has Bono been nominated for this week?
* He's also been nominated for Playmate of the Month.
* This week, he was also Caller 97 – which means he's going to see Interpol!
* Actually, Bono's been nominated for President of the Bono Fan Club, because he loves Bono that much.

About U2's new video...

Have you ever seen a truck get that much attention on the streets of New York?
* Usually when a truck gets that much attention on the streets of New York, there's a guy selling weed out of the back.
* Sure the truck was getting a lot of attention, but that's because you can't see the banner on the back that reads, "FREE ICE CREAM!"

On Saturday, I went to a party in an apartment on 42nd St. and 5th Avenue, across from the NY Public Library.

It wasn't anything fancy, the apartment, a sixth floor walk-up. It's one of those doorways you walk by every day without even thinking about it, shyly tucked away within several splashy storefronts. It's inhabited by artists, with a large central communal living area dominated at one end by a stage with a baby grand piano. Behind the stage, a small closet-converted-into a bedroom.

It was a party/performance, and my friend Brer Brian - a subway/street/church musician, a former member of the Guardian Angels vigilante group, was performing. He lives for free in Far Rockaway, and has dated the same woman for a decade now, something that freaked me out when I heard it. The same way I quiely freak out whenever I find out that someone my age is a a millionaire.

He's a nice man, slightly sandy hair, ruffled, glasses, a perpetual downward tilt to his head and half-embarrassed smile; a quiet, sleepy drunk who makes it easy to forget that he's been trained to kick your ass with the ease of a ninja cutting bread.

One of the roommates had what was quite possibly the worst bedroom situation I'd seen yet in a city with living situations that sometimes resemble the comfort of a refugee camp - there's a crawlspace in a low-hanging ceiling above the hallway that leads into the apartment. It had been hollowed out and turned into a bunk, with a stairway leading up into it. I believe it was big enough for someone shorter than me to sit up in.

You know what it reminded me of are those hotels in Tokyo for businessmen that are just stacks and stacks of bed in shelves, to be pulled out like corpses stacked, frozen, in a morgue.

It's a horrible way to live, but a fantastic way to used-to-have lived. Like, I wish that I could say, "Man, you should have seen where I used to live - a bunk in the ceiling of an apartment on 42nd and 5th. I mean, the location was fantastic, but man am I glad I found this spacious janitor's closet out in Red Hook. This this is luxury compared to what I'm used to."

I'm sure there's a tremendous trade-off, though, in that he probably pays a mere $1150 a month in rent. (That's a hilarious joke, if you know Manhattan real estate.)

Then I took a walk through Times Square, something you didn't used to do at 1:30 am.

* * * * * *
I'VE WORKED IN THE TIMES SQUARE AREA SEVERAL TIMES OVER THE YEARS
The first time was when I worked for The Humor Network in 2000 (was that five years ago? Holy crap! The time literally slips out the door while you're not looking). My first time in the "new" Times Square was the same experience as if I'd fallen asleep in 1987 and woke up in 2609, with buildings reaching high into the heavens, jet-packs and flying cars whizzing overhead.

I remember my big, brave excursions into Times Square when I was younger, in the late 80s, early '90s, when things were still pretty wild, and then coming back to Times Square and seeing it in 2000 - suddenly, there were men in suits everywhere. Used to be, the only people you'd see weaing suits in Times Square were either pimps or crazy street preachers.

It was crazy. To see the streets thronged with tourists, where they were not afraid of being mugged, stabbed, or randomly blown for twenty bucks. Where there used to be signs advertising " LIVE GIRLS!" now advertising the NASDAQ and MTV (same pimps, different whores).

Where you used to get promised "LIVE VIRGINS!" now you have the VIRGIN MEGASTORE. I'm not sure why they felt the need to advertise "LIVE GIRLS!" If you wanted "DEAD GIRLS" you could go to the back alley of many of the area's fine hotels or strip clubs or peep shows.

I'm not one of those people who sit here and complain about how commercial Times Square has gotten. I don't miss the "gritty realness" of whores, junkies, pickpockets, or roving street gangs. If you want that shit, you know where to go in New York City - about three blocks west, where the cops have swept it all under the carpet of the West Side. Otherwise, rent Taxi Driver and ask yourself this; "Do I really want to hang out with Travis Bickle?"

In fact, the only thing that's missing from the New Times Square are the old movie theatres. Not the ones showing porn necessarily, but the ones that showed old "grindhouse" classics, like The Mack, Superfly TNT, and a million other B-grade movies not generally recognized by anyone other than fans of the genre. And kung-fu double bills, where you could sit in a dark theatre for hours watching badly-dubbed actors duke it out, hoping that the psycho guy a few seats away from you remembered that he was not a character in one of these movies.

But such things have gone the way of porn - available more safely on VHS or DVD, to be enjoyed in the privacy of your own home. And the public spaces are made safer and safer for the young, and the bland, and the fearful, all of whom over the past decade and a half have elected to call New York City home.

Come to think of it, I don't think too many lifelong New Yorkers truly resent the "Disneyfication" of Times Square for making streets safer. I think they resent it more because there was a time when New Yorkers had a truly pioneer spirit. You came from New York and you were proud because being a New Yorker meant being a survivor. Like saying, "Ueah, you know that post-Apocalyptic wasteland? I have an apartment there."

And it wasn't just Times Square, it was the West Village, and Harlem, and Brooklyn, and a general creeping of the Midwest, like kudzu, making its way through the city. And now prices are so high that you can't afford to live here, are so high that you take a cubby hole in the ceiling because it's the best you can do.

I went to a party over the summer, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, thrown by these rich guys whose parents paid for them to share a huge apartment there. There was a big stage in the middle of a vast communal living area, with an expensive sound system. It was a true waste - a horribly uninspired "indy rock" band that owuldn't make the cut at a Kenny's Castaways "bring your own crowd" night, creating soft waves of indifference throughou the room. It was like what would happen if TGIFriday's decided to throw a "cutting edge" art party.

At one point, I was next to use the bathroom and a kid jumped the line. When I pointed out what a shitty thing to do that was, he got really in my face and told me that he lived there, paid rent on this place (I refrained, being a guest in his house, from asking exactly who paid the rent), and he got so in my face I was afraid he was going to try to fight me. I'm not a fighter under the best of circumstances, and I think I could classify desperately having to pee as "not the best of circumstances.". I left around the time that a guest had a bottle broken over his head.

These are the guys New York is now safe enough for.

TOMORROW: Jokes. I promise.

The Tower of London
The reason they call it the "Tower" of London is that it's a squat, sprawling castle, whose tallest buildings stand two stories high. Once you understand this, you understand much about London.


(From http://www.exoduscoach.com)

I'd saved the Tower of London for towards the end of my trip. Everyone I'd talked to had assured me that it would be a highlight, and it gave me something to look forward to.

Actually, I'd kind of dismissed the Tower as typical tourist stuff. Now, as a native New Yorker, I was a tourist in London, but as a native New Yorker I have a certain pride in never being a tourist in the greatest city on Earth. When stuck on Lexington Ave. behind a cluster of tourists craning their necks at the Empire State Building, I curse them under my breath, and consider telling them that they'd get a much better view of it on 8th Ave. And then I don't.

If there's an Apocalypse, you'll know the Native New Yorker; he'll be the one telling you that if you wanted to see some real rivers of flaming blood, you should have seen the A train in the '80s.


Your average New Yorker says, "Eh. I seen bigger pigeons."
(From www.momentin.com)

So I'd decided that I wasn't going to be a sheep, craning his neck at every sight that the guidebooks tells you is "great." I'd already mentally dismissed the Tower as a waste of ten pounds, just as I'd dismissed lining up to tour Buckingham Palace, or poking through Churchill's War Bunker (admission FREE to the unemployed. I imagined the British version of the old $3.00 theatre on 8th Avenue, which during the day was a resting place for the homeless), or seeing Andrew Lloyd Weber's Lady in White Probably Sucks (I ended up seeing a terrible musical anyway, but that's a whole other story).

It took a religious experience to change my mind. Or more specifically, a post-religious experience.


Southwark Cathedral at night
(From www.southwark.anglican.org)

On the Sunday befor I toured the Tower - Halloween to be specific - I'd taken in an Evensong service at Southwark Cathedral. Which doesn't sound too exciting, until you remember that I was raised a Buddhist. I'd never in my life sat through a sermon in any kind of church, sang hymns, anything. To me, it was as exotic as if I'd watched man-eating cannibals sacrifice a goat to Chlockto, the seven-headed god of eternal darkness.

The cathedral was surpriisingly small - long and thin and not as large and grand as I'd hoped (like St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue. When you're inside St. Pat's, the architect has done everything in his power to communicate one message - "This is God's house. Marvel at His works. Mind you wipe your shows and don't say anything to piss him off, 'less you really like locusts - a lot").


Inside Southwark Cathedral
(From www.brittannia.com)

Although, to be fair, it was as gaudy as I could've hoped - all kinds of brass and gold-plated decorations, crosses, religious figures forever engraved in stone and metal, stained glass windows, and - this was key - there was a large pipe organ on which the organist played some Gothic religious tunes. Because I was raised at the end of the 20th-century, it all sounded like horror film music. I was half-expecting the priest to emerge in a hockey mask, carrying a large butcher knife.

There were rows and rows of pews in the front, in which sat people in their Sunday Finest; suits, nicely dressed. These were clearly the Regulars, the ones who paid their yearly dues or whatever you pay a church to be allowed to sit in the good seats and get the best view of eternal damnation.
Then there was a motley assortment of pews and folding chairs in the back. This was the peanut gallery. Behind me, stretching her legs along three chairs, was a very large black - and as it turned out, French - woman, who could not have been any less into the Evensong if the priest had been holding a Powerpoint presentation on changes in Auto Insurance rates.

She loudly rustled the programme. She whispered to her kids. She fiddled with her watch, making "beep beep" sounds. She moved around on her chairs, causing creaking and scraping sounds.

Every so often, her husband, a small man in a cheap brown suit, would come over from the spot across the church where he was standing, and quietly yell at her almost, but not quite, under his breath. Towards the end of the service, she started playing a video game on her watch. Every second, "beep beep." It doesn't matter if it's a movie, or a theatre, or a concert, or a church service, I can't help but sit in front of the biggest, noisiest, asshole in the place. (I once almost got into a fistfight at a bluegrass concert because the guy behind me wouldn't stop singing along to every tune. I hate that. Grrr.)

I'd noticed that everyone around me had a programme, which gave all the lyrics to the hymns we were singing, and an outline of what speeches the priest guy was going to make ,the prayers, etc. I thought it might be neat to keep score along with the game, as it were, so I decided to ask the older lady who was attending to peanut gallery for one.

I wasn't sure what it was called, so I asked her if I could have a hymn book. Her face lit up:
LADY: You're staying for Evening Service?
ME: Uh, yeah, sure.

So she rushed over to a shelf with a row of identical books in hardcover, and gave me one. A Southwark Cathedral hymnbook. I realized that I had inadvertantly agreed to stay in church for hours and hours, on into the night. But thew woman had been so happy, I suddenly felt incredibly guilty for having no intention whatsoever of staying a second past Evensong ended.

Once the thrill of experiencing a religious service for the first time wore off, I found it was a lot like being in a board meeting, where one speaker just drones on and on and you can't fall asleep no matter how much you'd like. Except, if board meetings stopped every ten minutes for a sing-along.

Apparently, I'd gone on a good night; they' were having the Archbishop of Suffolk installed. He'd done a lot in the effort to build bridges in the interfaith community, so at the end of the ceremony, all kinds of religious leaders paraded down the aisle - Jews in their full yarmulkes and scraves, muslims in their full headgear and African gentlemen in daishikis.

I had to wait until the kindly older lady was distracted with a Distinguished Visitor, and I fled into the night. It crossed my mind to take the hymn book as a souvenir. But I figured, on the off-chance that the Church of England is 100% right about the nature of God, I don't want his one impression of me to have me ripping off stuff from his house.

* * * * * * * *

Southwark Cathedral is south of the river Thames, and I decided to make for the nearest bridge so that I could get back into Central London, as I'd had plans for the evening - feeling incredibly lonely and getting shit-faced drunk at a pub. I lead a full life.

Now, I'd left the hostel that day and forgotten my street map of London, and decided not to go back for it, because - and this was a dumbass assumption that got me lost almost every time I made it - I'm from the greatest city on Earth, and if I can find my way around there, I can find my way around any damn town in the world.

So I was lost in Southwark for about half an hour. At first I got really uptight, because it wasn't a tourist area, it was a residential area with actual homeless beggars and familys taking their groceries home, and everything. After about five minutes, it dawned on me why I felt so comfortable walking around; Southwark actually reminded me a lot of Queens. After that, I was able to relax a bit and enjoy seeing a bit of London that few tourists bother to look at.

Ten minutes later, I realized that the reason that few tourists bother to look at it is that it's actually quite dull. So I asked a parking lot attendant how to get to the nearest bridge to what i thought of as "The Mainland." Turned out that I was about three blocks south of the London Bridge. Boy, did his manner and tone make me feel incredibly smart.
So I walk over to the London Bridge.

I walked north along a dark and deserted street, and was rewarded with a string of lights streched out along the water, with the lights of the city behind them, across the water. It reminded me of this Kurt Vonnegut novel, Breakfast of Champions, where a character named Wayne Hoober, a young man just released from a correctional facility, sees an airport runway light up. For years and years, he'd imagined that there was a better world, where people weren't caged like animals; he could see its name in bright lights whenever he wanted to, by closing his eyes.
And Vonnegut drew an illustration of that name, a simple felt-tip drawing of shining lights that read: "FAIRY LAND."

By this time it was night, and I approached London Bridge, a busy hub with a train station, and buses, and people walking, and waiting in line to get into the London Dungeon (no idea), that it made me feel stressed out, and I decided to walk a little further along the watefront. As I did, I approached the Tower Bridge, and it impressed the Hell out of me.


(From http://www.artsci.wustl.edu)

It was large, and grand, and had turrets. Turrets! I'm from America; we don't have turrets anywhere except as an architectural statement on the houses of the nouveau riche: "I have too much money! Please won't some kind architect come and take it from me, before i use it to hurt myself!"
And seeing this large stone bridge from directly below, lit up with huge floodlights, in the gentle dark of London evening, it was like I'd stepped, briefly, into a whole other world.

I walked across the Tower Bridge, walked around the Tower. I'd always read about the infamous Tower of London, with its prisoners who entered through the infamous Traitors' Gate never to be seen alive, and its history of bloodshed, and I'd always imagined a tall, gilt-edged tower, dozens of stories high, black with gilt edgings, and a spiral staircase running up the side, and little arrow slits, and all the rest of it.

But it was a castle. I'd never been inside a castle before. And as I circled the sprawling castle grounds, I knew I had to get in there.

* * * * * *

(From http://www.nvva.nl/renekrul/catalogs)

A few days later, I'm walking to the Tower, in a weird mood, but a good mood. I was tired. Very tired. Exhausted. It was my tenth day living in a youth hostel (more on that next week, as well), and, as faithful readers may remember, sleeping - excuse me, allow me to correct myself - inhabiting a 14-bed room directly under the bar. It was fantastic, especially if you aren't a fan of being well-rested mornings.

I would call my mood that day "punchy." It was a bad karma day. It was later that day that a guy picked a fight with in the street, and a gang of three drunken Australians tried to beat up one of my roommates.

So I'm walking up to the Tower, and in the square that Fringes the East side of the Tower, there was a building with a large black iron ball and hook. Standing in front of which was a street preacher, preaching Eternal Damnation and Salvation. There was a small audience, when I stepped up. After a minute, I decided to ask him a few questions:

PREACHER: And Jesus is returning, to judge the souls of the living and the dead.

ME: Is that going to be soon?

PREACHER (ignoring me): And when he comes, you'd better have your soul ready.

ME: I'm wondering, because I want to go to see the Tower of London -

PREACHER (still ignoring me): And I want you to ask yourself this -

ME: This sounds like something I shouldn't miss.

PREACHER (ignoring me): "Is my soul clean? Have I asked the Lord for forgiveness."

ME: I'm going to check out the Tower -

PREACHER: Some may mock the word of the Lord...

ME: If Jesus comes, tell Him I'll be back.

PREACHER: But to them I say -

ME: Don't let him start without me.

Tower of London Story - To Be Continued...

Here's some jokes that did not get on last week's Best Week Ever:

Martha Stewart
Last week, Martha Stewart was judged as having "the best week ever." There were several reasons; she'd just been let out of jail, where she'd lost 20 pounds and looked hot! While she was in jail, she was nominated for three Daytime Emmys, and her company's stock price was higher than it had been in years, making her a wealthy lady. Also, she'd been on the cover of Newsweek, which had photoshopped her head on a model's body. As you can imagine, I came up with some jokes about it:

And what did Martha learn in jail?
* "A little lavender, a little lace, turns any tunnel into a true escape - from the everyday."
* "A couple of smiley faces, draw some flowers, and you can wear a belly shirt to really show off your homemade Aryan Nation tattoo."
* She probably helped with the other inmates' escapes by carving a gun out of a delightful little lavender-scented seashell-shaped guast soap. (Try to say that all the way through. I couldn't. It was embarassing.)

What will she do once she's released?
* She'll be marketing a new line of flaming toilet paper cozies.
* I think she's going to spend a lot of time avoiding all the friends she made while behind bars.

What will Martha miss now that she's out of the hoosegow?
* Coordinating an outfit was so easy. Bright orange jumpsuit, or bright orange jumpsuit?
* Sure, red wine goes with fish and white wine with chicken, but jailhouse hooch made out of toilet water fucks you up most any night.

Martha Stewart lost 20 pounds in jail. Is she hot or what?
* She is sooo sexy. Man, do I envy her old broom handle.
* She lost 20 pounds? That's what happens when the only thing you have to eat is your roommate.
* I believe she lost twenty pounds. I heard she spent thirty days in the hole. But enough about her love life behind bars.
* She's so pretty, she's like something out of a Hollywood movie. Specifically "Wicked Wanda, SS Warden of Cell Block 9."
* Uh-oh – there's a full scale riot – IN MY PANTS!

While Martha Stewart was in jail, her show was nominated for three Daytime Emmys.
* In related news, Michael Jackson just sent Grammy voters footage of him molesting a young boy.
* Martha Stewart is the Erika Kane of home care television – she's the villain you love to root for.
* I heard she got a nomination for her incredible acting for all those news conferences where she insisted she wasn't guilty.

Donald Trump was (supposed to have been) in the car that picked her up from jail.
* Hasn't this woman been punished enough?
* I hear that for a serious felony, you have to get a ride with the contestants from the Apprentice.
* They were going to have a friend pick her up, but then they realized she doesn't really have any.

Martha will be on house arrest for the next 5 months.
* Do you know how nice her house is? That isn't a punishment. If you want to punish Martha Stewart, make her live five months in my apartment. She'll be begging to go back to prison.
* She hired a private chef from Le Cirque to cook for her during her house arrest. However, to make it more like prison, he's going to spit in her food and call her a honky motherfucker.
* Martha's allowed to leave her house for 48 hours a week for work. As her employees, her lawyers tried to get her 8 hours a week, but the judge wouldn't budge.
* Even though Martha's at home, she has to adhere to a strict prison schedule –
- 10am – Sex in the shower.
- Noon – Sex in the laundry room
- 3pm – Sex in the weight room.
- 9pm - Lights out, sex in her cell.

Martha was on the cover of Newsweek, but her face had been photoshopped onto the body of a younger model!
* Man, next thing you know you're going to tell me her Playboy spread was airbrushed.
* Now I gotta un-masturbate to it.
* Are you telling me she wasn't really in their swimsuit issue too?

CHARLIE SHEEN

Charlie Sheen's six months pregnant wife, Denise Richards, files for divorce, citing "irreconcilible differences."
* Charlie Sheen said he wanted the freedom to concentrate on his non-career.
* Apparently, he saw all the free publicity Scott Petersen got for leaving his pregnant fiancee.
* Sheen was afraid that marriage and fatherhood was ruining his image as a self-centered asshole.

* Charlie Sheen already got an awkward phone call from John Cryer – "You know, if you just want to talk or whatever, I'm still single – I mean, available."
* Now he's going to start drunk-dialing his ex-girlfriends at 3am – hope he can afford the $1.99 a minute.

No class!
It's snowing like crazy outside, and so I thought I'd take a break from my traditional snow-day activity (compulsively overeating) to give a last-ditch plug for my show tonight.

Because . . . it's a completely different show than I was planning to do! Because I'm crazy like that! Specifically, I was rehearsing my new one-man show, and realized that it was about as dull as a guy whining about his life for a half-hour can be.

So tonight I'm going to do a special Snow Day one-man show, wherein:
* I will teach you how to write a traditional Irish folk song!
* I will read a special love poem!
* I will tell a story about appearing in a sketch on Late Night with Conan O'Brien!
* I will do the karate joke! With some brand-new jokes attached!
* I will do an impression of Harry Belafonte's back-up band!

TONIGHT! Tuesday, March 8th
How to Write an Irish Folk Song
At the PIT Theatre
154 W. 29th St. (at 7th Ave.)
8:00pm - $5.00

I had a call from the student loan people last night. I don't know why I bother talking to them; I should just do what my friend Karen does and pretend I don't speak English.

Anyway, the student loan representative threatened to garnish 25% of my wages for this show I'm doing at the PIT tonight. Now, I realize that the threat of legal action isn't necessarily funny per se, but the idea that I'm even going to see any money from this show is. I mean, if they tried to take 25% of what I'm making in comedy, they'd end up owing me money.

What I want to know is how they found out I was doing this show tonight. The only thing I can think is that they've started Googling me. Which means, great, now the student loan people are reading my blog.

If they are, I've got a very special message for them: Go fuck yourself.
Just kidding! LOL SIDEWAYS SMILEY FACE!!!!

I would like to see them send a repo man around to take back everythig I learned:
"Excuse me, Mr. McEneaney, we're going to need you to tilt your head to one side. We're going to have to extract all your Medievel Philosophy. We'll have to start with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and - hey, what the...?"
"Oh yeah, I threw that out a while ago. It was taking up all this room that I was using to figure out where all the cheap falafel joints are..."

* * * * * *

I also got an e-mail through classmates.com (I signed up about six years ago, before realizing that anyone on classmates.com was someone I probably never liked in High School), telling me that there's a high school reunion for my senior year - or rather, what should have been my senir year, had I stooped to studying in class.

Anyhow, I was half-tempted to go. I thought it would be funny if I grew a big moustache and just told everyone that I worked in porn now, just handed out all these filthy DVDs and claimed to be in them.

Then I took a look at the price - $81.25. Eighty-one dollars . . . and twenty-five cents! Heh?
That's $81.25 to eat rubbery chicken with people I didn't like in high school.
That's like ten dollars for every minute I'll spend at the reunion before bailing for something better to do.

I'm workshopping a new one-man show Tuesday. If you could make it, I'd appreciate it. The info is below the post.

Speaking of today's post; if you're a semi-regular reader, you'll recognize one or two of the jokes here. I've been trying to rework this joke - this will only be interesting if you want to know about my creative process, and I'm not 100% sure why you would be; if you're not, feel free to skip ahead to the joke - so that i can have a nice organic lead-in to my karate joke, which I think works but begins a little too abruptly, and is too much of a shift in mood. There, I just bored myself to death. Suffice to say, I feel like I'm on the right track now, and the following bit is about 75% there:

I got into a fight the other day, and I - well, I'm a lover, not a fighter. Which made the high school wrestling team awkward, as you can imagine.
I mean, I never wrestled. I was into thumb-wrestling as a kid - until I discovered it was fake!

I'm not a guy you want having your back in a fight. I see a bruised pear in the supermarket, and I'm nauseous for weeks after.
My idea of getting tough is saying, "Hey buddy, don't make me come over there and get my ass kicked. Because I will bleed all over you, and let me tell you, my blood is very hard to get out of a leather jacket."

Anyway, the other night this guy started picking a fight with me. He started going on and on about how the Irish are so short-tempered, and I started getting angry because it's completely untrue.
Well, after about thirty or forty seconds of this, I had had all I was going to take. So I asked him to step outside.

As we were getting ready to fight I realized that about 95% of my fighting experience had been purely hypothetical. I had gotten into a lot of "If that guy had" fights. As in, "If that guy had said one more thing, I would have kicked his ass." Or, "If that guy had been six inches shorter and not just gotten out of prison, he would have been dead."

So he starts hitting me, and I realize that i'm going to lose, and it's going to hurt. And I realized I only had one choice -
I made out with him.

And he got all freaked out - "Hey man - what the - ? What - I'm going to kick your ass."
And I said, "But you're already kicking my ass. Are you going to stop kicking my ass and start kicking my ass in a different way?"
And he said, "Hey - weren't you on my high school wrestling team?"

ONE MAN SHOW

TUESDAY, MARCH 8th
Po' Boy - A Brand New One-Man Show
at the PIT Theatre
154 W. 29th St. (at 7th Ave.)
8:00pm - $5.00

Find out how I Was A Teenage Celebrity Stalker! Learn the sordid story behind my shirtless scene on national network television (that one's for the ladies - YOU'RE WELCOME, LADIES)! And you can learn all about my disasterous experience shaving in the NY Public Library Men's Room that ended with my bleeding all over everything - and I still got the job I was applying for!

(it'll be back-to-back with a one-woman show starring Anne Altman)

Well, if it isn't a game, why do they keep giving me points on my license?
I am the high-scorer of New Jersey. I win.

When you have a bad driving record, it's very expensive to rent a car,
I went to Hertz Rent-A-Car, and they told me it would cost me a hundred and fifty dollars a day to rent a car.

Then I was talking to a cab-driver, and he told me he has to pay his supervisor a hundred dollars a day to drive a shift.

Hmmm.
So the good news is, I'm driving again.
The bad news is, every time I stop, some guy jumps in the back of my car and starts shouting orders.
The good news is, I made $130.
The bad news is, I tried this joke in front of an audience tonight, and it didn't go so good.

* * * * * *

THIS IS A PREMISE I THOUGHT OF WALKING HOME FROM THE SUBWAY. IT'S A KERNEL OF AN IDEA:
So this Born-Again Christian was telling me that when you're Born Again, you get to erase all of your sins that you committed and the slate is wiped clean and no more sins on your record.

This sounds a lot like filing for bankruptcy.

It's not fair. You can't do that.
It's like if you stole five hundred dollars from someone, and the next time you saw them:

"Hey, where's my five hundred?"
"Sorry, I don't owe you five hundred dollars. That was the old me. I decided it was wrong, so I've wiped the slate clean."

I think there should be something like Born-Again Catholicism, where no matter what sins you've committed, you're born again as someone who will never ever forgive yourself.
Or something like that. There's a germ of an idea there. But I need to go to bed.

A lot of people don't know this, but I am a big-game hunter.
A few weeks ago, I tracked down and killed the last Blue African Rhino in existance.

They got really mad at me at the zoo.
But I figure what the hell, if they're not going to put up "NO HUNTING" signs, people are going to bring their guns.


NO-LYMPICS
This whole "Bring the Olympics to NYC in 2012" business is so out of hand, I'm actually rooting for Cablevision.

(For those of you who don't live in NYC, to whom the above sentence makes no sense, I truly apologize. I literally don't have the patience to go through the whole backstory on this blog. Suffice it to say, the Mayor and his brilliant advisors, most notably Mr. Dan Doctoroff, have decided that all of New York is dying to host the Olympics, and that furthermore, the only way to really have the Olympics in NYC is to build a stadium for the NY Jets at the same time. They picked the absolute worst location and - anyway, I don't want to get into this. The point is, the location would be a few blocks away from Madison Square Garden, which is owned by Cablevision. Two huge sports arenas in a ten block radius = bad blood. Much as I hate Cablevision - ah, screw it. Trust me, there are no good guys in this dispute.)

Anyway, I see that now subway cars all have stickers that say "BRING THE OLYMPICS TO NYC 2012." I guess to get the subway riders all excited about the Olympics.

There's only one slight hitch with that plan: People who ride the subways hate the idea of the Olympics coming to New York. You know why? Because they have to live here.
It's the people who never ride the subway who are behind this; city officials, rich folks who stand to make big money off of the Olympics. People whose families can afford to be anywhere other than the five boroughs in the summer of 2012.

In fact, here's a quick scan of your average subway rider's top million concerns, and we'll see where "Hosting the Summer Olympics" stands:

12 The rise of gangs like the Crips and Bloods in New York.
68 That guy masturbating across from me.
177 Okay, who's that smell coming from now?
427 Those breakdancing teens better not demand money from me.
10,874 That legless guy with the scar on his face might actually be a veteran. I should give him a buck. Uh, next time.
287,984 Maybe we won't have another fare hike for a few more years. Hopefully, I'll have gotten a raise by then.
887,992 Okay, how do I pick up that discarded NY Post without anyone else in the care noticing that I'm picking up - dammit, that guy got it first! Dammit, dammit, dammit!
1,000,000 That smoke is from construction, right?

And then, if you scan a little further down the list:

1,287,098 Man, we really need to bring curling into this city. Uh, not that I'll be able to afford tickets to go, even if I ever followed that sport. Still, it would be good for the city to know that we hosted the world's top curling champions.

Then again, I'm a crank who thinks we should be worrying about our schools, or our basic MTA infrastructure, or say, the fact that this city already has a huge international bullseye on its back, and yet gets so little of the federal Homeland Security funding.

That's right, you can't censor my art, Corporate America! These are the jokes that didn't make it on last week's Best Week Ever. There's a lot of them today, but fuck it, you're bored at work anyway, right?

CONSTANTINE
THE PREMISE: In the new movie "Constantine," Keanu Reeves is trying to save the world from demons. It seems that in his movies, Keanu Reeves is always saving something:
* In "Bill & Ted," he saves the future of heavy metal – which is why it's so popular now – in the future.
* In "Speed," he saves a busfull of people from Dennis Hopper's wild overacting.
* In "The Matrix," he saves his career from "Johnny Mnemonic."
* In "Dracula," he saves mankind from the one monster that sucks more than the movie.
* In "The Devil's Advocate," he saves Al Pacino from being the worst actor in an Al Pacino movie.
* In "Much Ado About Nothing," he saved me ten bucks by being in the movie, so I knew not to go see it.

Wait, so why does the world still need saving?
Hey, you can't outwit evil if you can't outact Amanda Peet.

So, has Keanu refused a role because it didn't involve saving something?
* Keanu turned down the lead in Catwoman - nothing could save that movie.
* He turned down the lead in a movie I wrote called "Keanu Reeves just kind of sits around and doesn't save anything."
* That guy won't even turn his clock forward this Spring, because he only cares about saving time.
* Keanu turned down a K-Mart commercial, because Wal-Mart had more everyday savings.

How can you tell Keanu is the true Savious?
* If you play a DOGSTAR album backwards, then you're the first person to ever play a DOGSTAR album.
* After that "Cowgirls Get the Blues" movie, his career miraculously rose from the dead.

What else would I like to see Keanu save?
His chest. Oh wait, did you say "save" or "shave?" Because – no, there's nothing I'd like to see him save.

DANICA McKELLAR (Winne Cooper, from The Wonder Years)
Although she's probably best-remembered for her star turn in Aaron "Son of Chuck" Norris' hit movie Sidekicks, which went straight to video ten years ago., and which I own a copy of (jealous, America?).

Actually, if you check out her website, she's real smart, too. She apparently took time off from acting to go to college, and coauthored a mathematical proof. Now she's popping up all over the TV, guest-starring on West Wing, Jack and Bobby, Navy NCIS and also on a show people do watch – NYPD Blue.

Why is women with a big brain so sexy?
* I need a woman who's sexy enough that she can be a good trophy to show off to my friends, but also smart enough that she can hold down a good job and support me.
* I mean, come on – if Fred Savage could get her, I could get her.
* I like Big Brains and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny. When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist and solves Fermat's Last Theorem, You get sprung.
* As my Nerve.com profile says:
- A woman who's smart is sexy.
- A woman who's smart, but not smart enough to know she can do better than me is sexier.

May favorite Winnie Cooper moment:
When she'd spent the whole summer chasing Fred Savage, and he turned her down because she had glasses and braces, and then the first day of school she shows up smoking hot and won't give him the time of day, that was like "Yeah! This one's for all my dorky homies. Throw your three-sided die in the air and say 'What what!'"
My least-favorite Winnie moment:
The restraining order. Ahh woman, ficklety is thy name!

She answers math problems her fans send to her website. What kind of problems would I have her solve?
* I need seven numbers, can I have yours?
* Me + you = hot steamy lovin'?

SOME BACHELORETTE SPECIAL
Where all the losers sat around and bitched at each other.
A guy who is known as "The Virgin" started bitching at a French guy who it turned out was gay, and whose name sounds like "Fabreeze." He said something to the effect that "You're glass house is cracking around you, and you'd better be careful which stone you choose to throw" and on and on until he'd tortured the cliche like his name was Albert Gonzalez.

Another notable quotable:
"You think that you have this purebred horse, and you lead it to a pond, and you think you can make him drink the water. But then you drove the Chevy to the levy and the levy was dry. Sure, your boys might be good and old, but they're still drinking whiskey and rye. Which means today is a good day to die, my friend. Remember when I said I kill you last? I lied."

* It's hard to believe this guy's still a virgin. Come on, ladies, he was on a game show to get laid. He's practically dripping with desperation.
* As Confucius would say, "What an unbelievable douche."

Josh The Virgin said he loved his fiancee. Then he admitted that he isn't actually engaged. Is his imaginary fiancee creepy or what?
* He probably got her with his imaginary sex appeal and nonexistant personality.
*Hey, I know how he feels. According to the NY State Supreme Court, I'm not even engaged to Anna Kournikova!

How do you know if you're REALLY in love with the spouse you haven't met yet?
* Ask yourself this: How's the sex?
* As long as she drowns out the other voice that tells you to start killing people, she's cool.
* If your friend has a make-believe fiancée, the gift registry's real easy to shop from – tin-foil helmet, shirt made of string, a bucket of Thorazine.

And that's it, really.

I've been sick recently, and I made the same mistake everyone makes when they have an illness and an Internet connection.

So here's some advice:
When you're sick, never Google your symptoms to try to figure out what you have.

Because no matter how mundane your symptoms, Google will find a horrible sickness that they match:

"stuffy head, hacking cough, runny nose" - YouClearlyHaveEARCANCER.com
Ear cancer?

"acne, irritable, slight headache" - STOMACH WORMS THAT CRAWL UP YOUR SPINE AND EAT YOUR BRAIN.org
But my lease says "No Pets!"

"tipsy when I drink alcohol, thirsty during the summer, tired and unable to see at night" - SO YOU'RE A WEREWOLF.tv
But my lease says "No Pets!"

The only good thing about misdiagnosing yourself via Google is that if you don't like the disease you get, you can just add some more symptoms until you get something you like:

"Let's see, 'stuffy head, fever, scratchy throat' - AIDS? No no no, let me add, 'arm aches, some coughing' - ahhh Lou Gehrig's Disease; the horrible fatal illness of champions!"