What 2010 Has in Store... For YOU

Hello all. I know it’s been a while since I blogged, but I’ve spent some time using my brainwaves to activate an alien body on this mission that I don’t want to talk about.

It’s a new decade. That’s cool. I’m excited that this last decade was over, what with all the tragedy that happened, like NBC’s Coupling.

I have some predictions for you for 2010. Since I have déjà vu a lot, you can be pretty convinced that most of them will be right. I have, like, a million senses more than you, so trust me on this. Okay, buddy?!

Okay, here are some things that will happen in 2010 to you:

- You will go to the bathroom. It’s going to happen. Trust me. When you go to the bathroom, you’re going to be all like, “Oh my God. She was right.” And now when you go to the bathroom, you’re going to think of me. That’s okay. I’m used to it with me being magical and all.

- I will giggle as I type, “go to the bathroom.” When I was younger I used to think the phrase “go to the bathroom” was so funny because of “bathroom”. Since I am alone right now, I don’t feel any shame in laughing. Oh my God! I’m giggling right now. I’m letting out a good guffaw, if you will. I was right. My predictions are true. So there.

- You will do something with your body. The verb that you will do is tattooed on Lindsay Lohan’s wrist after she was in the hospital for an asthma attack.

- You are going to be impressed with my knowledge of Lindsay Lohan’s body adornment and medical history. Even if your brain is telling you I’m a loser, your heart is telling you I’m a genius.

- You will read this blog right now. It’s 2010 and you’re reading this blog so that means it will have happened so I’m totally right on my prediction of you reading this blog.

Done! That’s all my entire psychic eye is telling me right now. I’ll get back to you if I see anything else in the future. For now, Happy New Year!

The Top 1 Reason Why Your Kid Probably Isn't In A Hot Air Balloon

1. Because that's ridiculous. Now go inside, ya hippie.

3 Songs That Are Actually About Doing Taxes

Wednesday was April 15th, Tax Day. Hope I'm not the first to tell you, because if I am and you're an adult you're probably gonna go to jail. Taxes are pretty important. Without them, we wouldn't have freeways, we wouldn't have firefighters, and most importantly, we wouldn't have hope.

As long as there has been pop music, there have been artists eager to load their music with subliminal messages. Lyrics are often chock full of innuendo and hidden meaning, and for years artists have utilized clever wordplay, metaphor, and more to sneak messages about doing taxes into their songs. So much so, in fact, that I'm almost forced to agree with all those parents' groups arguing about the evils of popular music's influence on children. Here are five songs you may think are about other things, but are really about doing taxes.


Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
Body and beats, I stain my sheets, I don't even know why
My girlfriend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry.
This song's lyrics are pretty overtly about doing one's finances. The protagonist of the song, feeling the financial strain of blistering in the "sun" that is the federal government, fears his yearly dues so much that he actually wets his bed. The Violent Femmes are also one of the few bands on this list willing to acknowledge the effects of financial woes on relationships, as the protagonist's girlfriend is also affected by his having to file taxes each year. Full lyrics here.

Praying Hands - Devo
You got your left hand,
You got your right hand.
The left hand's diddling
While the right hand goes to work.
Devo was a band known for their satirical commentary and off-kilter humor, so it's no surprise that they'd turn their acerbic wit on the mundane task of filling out that 1040 form. As the right hand, the writing hand, fills out the form, the idle left hand "diddles," which can only be interpreted as the urge to get back to exciting, non-tax-related activities. Later lyrics take it a step further, as Devo tells the listener to "assume the position, go into doggie submission"-- commanding the citizen to assume their position at the desk with pen in hand, filling out the yearly form with the rote animal instinct as a dog would have. Full lyrics here.

I Touch Myself - Divinyls
I love myself I want you to love me
When I feel down I want you above me,
I search myself I want you to find me,
I forget myself I want you to remind me,
I don't want anybody else
When I think about you I touch myself.
It's pretty clear what the Divinyls are trying to say here, but I can go down the line in case it isn't clear. The first three lines speak of an individual thriving in the consumer culture, succeeding through the ideals of individualism and group responsibility in a strong capitalist economy. In the fourth line, the singer acknowledges the tendency to sometimes forget civil duties even with the desire to fulfill them. Line five admits that despite the surface faults of taxing it's the best system we've got. Last, the singer admits that whenever they think about doing taxes, they are forced to take an introspective look at themselves and explore the person they've become over the past year. It truly is a song that follows the ups and downs of doing taxes. Full lyrics here.

Those are the three most popular songs about doing taxes. For more, check out Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself," The Vapors' "Turning Japanese," and Stan Freberg's "The Masturbation Song." That's all for tax day this year, kiddos-- hope you didn't get audited! Bye!

Smiley Face With Blood on It

The second most hilarious thing to UCBComedy? Hands down, it's The Watchmen. It's the best comedy of the year. Matty and I went to see it last night and I laughed my ass off.

Jason Horton made this video if you're in a Watchmen-y mood.

Do you want to hear something crazy? Marcia Gay Harden loves UCBComedy.com! Plus, she's an Oscar winner. I really hope she watches Xtra F-Up videos as much as I do because I really believe the two of us are kindred spirits. Read it here.

I love you.

This Doesn't Really Have an Overall Theme, Per Se...

A few stores down from UCBTLA, there's a coffee shop known as the Bourgeois Pig. There's a lot of controversy over this place because around 5 pm, the slow motion shift takes place.

Needless to say, since it's East Coast weather out today, I'm freezing and went to buy myself a cup of tea. Every time you buy tea there, the barista always warns you that it's "really hot".

Cut to me, two seconds later, knocking the lid off of the cup and scalding hot water splattering over my innocent baby hands. This is the worst burn I ever felt. And I got a second degree burn from an Easy Bake Oven before. (That was the day I learned that Easy Bake Ovens aren't kilns and year-old rubber cement isn't clay.)

That's not what I was going to write about today. Yesterday was my birthday and I'm still a little drunk and I've been having weird thoughts all morning. As I was walking to work, I saw the fattest pigeons huddling outside a grocery store. There's an epidemic of obese pigeons and that makes me sad.

You know what else makes me sad? Kids on drugs. I loved every moment of Cannibal Holocaust except for the part when that guy blows cocaine into that boy's nose. That's wrong. I also am not a fan of David After the Dentist. That kid is freaking out. Put the camera down and give him a hug. I think anyone who has ever had a bad high before knows what it's like to freak out and the last thing you need is for your own parent to tape you. Instead, they should pour peanut M&M's into a bag of Sun Chips and feed it to you in the form of two M&M's to every Sun Chip.

However, UCB's own Chris Kula uploaded this video to UCBComedy and suddenly I've found myself being very forgiving of most cases of child abuse.

Watch it. Or I'll pour scalding hot water on you really slowly.

World Awareness, 2/10/09

We Americans are often accused of a total lack of ignorance when it comes to what's going on in the rest of the world. Fear not, because I'm gonna prove that notion wrong through an intelligent and informed discussion of one of the day's world events. I'm also going to assume that you're American (or Canadian at the very least), because I'm pretty sure they don't have internet in the rest of the world.

Looking at the aptly titled "/world" section of CNN.com, it seems that the most significant story concerns a group of Amazon Indians who ate a farmer in Brazil. We all know the long story of the Kulina tribe, and as Americans we all have a strong grasp on the socio-political climate of rural Brazil, so I'm not going into that. And it goes without saying that we all feel the villagers have a right to be disappointed in the lack of response from FUNAI. Also, every American knows that there are "460,000 Indians in Brazil and 1,300 indian languages. There are 55 groups considered to live in isolation." So I see no reason for CNN.com to have felt the need to conclude their article with that.

The more pressing concern is that of the eight people named specifically in the article, five are cannibals. From this, it's pretty safe to conclude that 5 out of 8 non-Americans are cannibals. There's a man-eat-man outbreak of zombapocalyptic proportions out there, and we're doing very little to prepare for that day when some bird with a strain of the zombie virus in its blood makes its way to south Florida and bites a retiree, thereby setting off a wave of destruction, living dead, and mall inhabitance all across the continental United States. The United States needs to strengthen its immigration policies, now, especially when it concerns zombism. I'm not here to offer a solution-- there are smarter men than I for that. I just think that maybe we do need to be a little more aware of what's going on in the world around us. Because what's going on in the world around us, is zombies.

One Great Sketch for Monday

So, I asked a friend what to write about today, and she took the cliched route and said I should write about how I hate being a waitress. Sorta difficult for me, because I'm not a waitress, but I think I can do it. How do I hate being a waitress? With every bone in my body. By storing a rage deep down my skin that's ready to just burst at any moment. I keep it to myself, as I walk down the aisle with my feminine gait, nodding politely every time some trucker slaps my behind or says "hey foxy mama, you need a foxy papa tonight?" Then I go home, draw a face with the words "foxy papa" on a piece of paper, staple it to my 260 lb. punching bag, and go to town. I eventually tire and collapse right there on the floor, a sweaty mass of blood, hatred, eggs and toast. That's how I hate being a waitress. Also, I'm a dude, so the female modifier's something of a tease. But WHY do I hate being a waitress? That's not the question. That's a story for another day...

Speaking of Italians, here's a great video written by Ryan Perez!

The Olive Garden


Huggles,
Matty

Obama Watch: Day One

Obama's been president for several hours now. Let's see how he's doing.

Okay, so I still don't have a job. Mr. Everything's slacking off a bit there. Price of gas? Same price as yesterday, when we were mired deep in the tyrannical Bush regime. Strike two, 'Bama Slamma. And as I walk out on the street, I see... nope, the sidewalks aren't made of gold. Just regular ol' concrete. Come on, Barack of Gibraltar. What the heck are you doing with your time?

So far, I give Obama's presidency a score of one "bark!" out of five. Let's hope he improves over the coming days.

One Great Sketch for Monday

For those of you who don't follow sports, know that pigs were spotted in the skies above Kansas yesterday while Satan sat and licked an ice cream cone. What that vivid imagery refers to is the Arizona Cardinals, who for the first time ever are going to the Super Bowl. It's also the first time ever the Arizona Cardinals will be respected by anybody, and the fourth time ever I won't be ashamed to tell somebody, "Yes, I'm from Arizona." Haha, I kid. I love movie theaters, golf courses, and old people.

From what I hear, football is beloved around the world. Brits love football, the Irish love football, and the Spanish love "futbol" (imagine an accent over the "o")*. I can only assume that they're all referring to the same thing. Otherwise, why would they call it that? Anyhoo, in honor of what the Europeans occasionally like to refer to as "American soccer," here's a great sketch written by Tim Saccardo:

Dumping Gatorade on Coach



*I only realized after typing this that I used the US and three western European countries to represent "the world." What can I say? I'm a Western Hemisphere sort of guy, and I don't like to throw my throwing stones too far from the front porch, if you get what I mean.