My associate Tawdry Baubles, who vented about inconsiderate neighbors by raging "There's now someone I hate even more than the moron who spills coffee on the stairs. It's the douchebag who parked a Maserati behind my car this morning so I couldn't get to work. Arrggghhhh!" Personally, I think Ms. Baubles is reacting to the situation all wrong. Imagine if the moron who spills coffee on the stairs and the douchebag who blocked her Prius with his sportscar are one-in-the-same. All she needs to do is look at her life is if it was a summer date movie in which she is played by, say, Emma Stone; a go-getting young professional woman whose bland personality is made up for by her smoking-hot appearance, making it all the more confusing that she not only doesn't have a man in her life but her only friend seems to be the quirky "unattractive" co-worker (I put "unattractive" in quotation marks because the friend is constantly making self-deprecating remarks about how plain she is despite the fact that if she took off her thick eyeglasses and ran a comb through her hair, she'd easily be able to book a photo shoot with Maxim) she is inexplicably able to have long conversations about her nonexistent love life with at all hours of the day or night even though she is supposedly consumed by her career and the only time we see her in the office is when she's bullshitting with her Plain Jane friend. Under these circumstances, the douchebag/moron who has been making her life hell would have to turn out to be her upstairs neighbor played by Channing Tatum, who she never gets a look at until she unsuccessfully tries to extract revenge by having the Plain Jane's unemployable yet comically-unthreatening brother hook up a bucket of coffee to drop on him just as he's about to get into his Maserati. When Emma (who is spying the prank from the bushes) sees that the guy isn't simply a douchebag but a douchebag who looks like Channing Tatum, she tackles him at the last minute, bumping him softly out of harm's way while the latté with extra foam cascades all over her. This humiliating set-up results in 90 minutes of hackneyed dialogue about how she doesn't need a man to get in the way of her career and angst-ridden monologues about his crappy childhood which somehow makes us believe that his appalling selfishness is actually just a cry for help and not just him being a self-centered asshole, interspersed by montages of the two of them walking through parks and having unlikely exchanges with elderly people of variant ethnic backgrounds which make them realize that they're not so very different after all. This will lead to a final scene in which she runs out of a dance contest staged at a 5-star hotel ballroom that they've inexplicably partnered in, dolled up in an evening gown you typically only see at an Academy Awards telecast, with him in a tuxedo in hot pursuit. He finally pins her against the wall of a rain-glimmering metropolitan boulevard where he finally proclaims his love to her against the skyline of Toronto posing as some American city because it's cheaper to shoot there. The camera fades out as the audience is won over by the idea that their perfect love has triumphed, overlooking the fact that they both still have the crippling emotional flaws that made their lives hell in the first place, and everybody is momentarily happy as the end credits roll.At least that's how it plays out in the movies. Regrettably for Ms. Baubles, she's already in a committed relationship and all of her neighbors look like they belong in the cast of a Fellini film, so I wouldn't be looking for any romantic fade-outs if I was her. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a douchebag is just a douchebag.
Jeebus Burbano. I was perusing the sponsored ads in the right margin of Facebook when I noticed this one which used Ms. Burbano as a spokesperson, promising that she had found 20 friends by searching her email contacts and suggesting that I might have similar results if I do the same. Since my email contacts are primarily made up of Nigerian diplomats, I decided to reach out to Ms. Burbano to see if the claims made in the ad were true. She responded that not only had she never used the service but that while she had over 800 contacts in the Facebook database, she didn't have anywhere near 20 people that she could consider "friends."It was an intriguing challenge so I sent an e-mail to my entire contact list to see who considered me their friend, and each one responded with an offer that would pay me tens of millions of dollars if only I would put up five grand in upfront processing fees. I'd say that's a pretty good deal, since the only thing anyone in Ms. Burbano's inbox had promised to do is sell her medication that will extend the size of her penis. I don't think that anyone has come through on it yet.
Winston in the five minute window that my carpet was free of dog urine My beloved pug Winston. I had despaired that the wall-to-wall carpeting at Casa de Jonny was so saturated with dog urine that it looked like a painting by Jackson Pollack, so I went to great expense and hired a company to clean it. The crew did a remarkable job and the carpets came out looking brand new, which Winston celebrated by squatting down and peeing in the middle of the living room as soon as the cleaners left. I worked for half an hour to get the stain out but Winston's work is too formidable for my poor skills and the mark of his presence remains. My hearts sinks now whenever I look at my immaculate carpet and see that one giant pee stain embedded in the middle of the living room, but I'm doing my best to stay optimistic about it. Maybe this is how Jackson Pollack got started.
Joe looking down on his young rivals Bro Joe, who continues his inevitable descent into physical decay and death by celebrating a birthday this weekend. Joe was delighted because he had faked out the Grim Reaper by shooting baskets against a 20 year-old who was three inches taller than him in a pick-up game at his local fitness center and taking the young man to school. "I blocked his shot 4 times," Joe boasted, "and my team decimated theirs. Therefore, I'm calling this the official start of my birthday weekend." That's all well and good, but Joe overlooks the fact that the only people who brag about besting a very young guy in a physical competition are very old guys. You won't find the 20 year-old who Joe trounced in basketball crowing to his buddies that he hooked up with a bunch of 7 year-olds in a tee-ball game and he handed them their asses. Yet seniors of Joe's advancing years consider it the ultimate badge of honor when they can defeat some whippersnapper in a game of shuffleboard or sumo wrestling. Still, no one gets hurt by it so I want to wish Joe a happy birthday and if he comes across a group of 7 year-olds playing tee-ball in the park this weekend, I hope that he joins in. It can only make him feel better about himself.
Jesse Merlin after tranforming into a werewolf: his Hagar slacks remain immaculate Jesse Merlin, who announced that he will be playing a principal role in a musical titled The Werewolves of Hollywood Boulevard at the Orgasmico Theatre Company. Mr. Merlin made his feature film debut in an independent comedy called FDR: American Badass! in which he played a lycanthropic version of Adolph Hitler and here he is playing another werewolf. I wasn't sure how he became the first actor since Lon Chaney, Jr. to be typecast in this fashion until I realized that I've never seen him during a full moon. What's more, my first encounter with Mr. Merlin was when he played a Starfleet captain in my masterpiece U.S.S. Pinafore and he insisted on form-fitting trousers for his costume. At the time, I thought he was just proud of his manly silhouette but now I realize (as does anyone who has seen the Universal Studios horror classic The Wolf Man) that when a human transforms into a werewolf, all of his clothing is ripped asunder except for his trousers, which remain in mysteriously pristine condition while his shirt, shoes, and any other garment he might be wearing is torn to shreds. With my brilliant mind, it's easy for me to piece together the clues and deduct that Mr. Merlin is a werewolf in real life, and he wears such tight trousers to ensure that they stay put when he transforms into a crazed, hirsute predator and don't snag on one of the rootless cemetery trees he momentarily hides behind before savagely attacking his victims, thus sparing any faint-hearted women or children who might be passing by a shocking glimpse of his wolf penis. It's a costuming strategy that has served Mr. Merlin well in his acting career; not only when he plays a werewolf but for other parts that he aspires to as well. I hear that he's on the short list to play the new Incredible Hulk.
My associate Tawdry Baubles, who vented about inconsiderate neighbors by raging "There's now someone I hate even more than the moron who spills coffee on the stairs. It's the douchebag who parked a Maserati behind my car this morning so I couldn't get to work. Arrggghhhh!" Personally, I think Ms. Baubles is reacting to the situation all wrong. Imagine if the moron who spills coffee on the stairs and the douchebag who blocked her Prius with his sportscar are one-in-the-same. All she needs to do is look at her life is if it was a summer date movie in which she is played by, say, Emma Stone; a go-getting young professional woman whose bland personality is made up for by her smoking-hot appearance, making it all the more confusing that she not only doesn't have a man in her life but her only friend seems to be the quirky "unattractive" co-worker (I put "unattractive" in quotation marks because the friend is constantly making self-deprecating remarks about how plain she is despite the fact that if she took off her thick eyeglasses and ran a comb through her hair, she'd easily be able to book a photo shoot with Maxim) she is inexplicably able to have long conversations about her nonexistent love life with at all hours of the day or night even though she is supposedly consumed by her career and the only time we see her in the office is when she's bullshitting with her Plain Jane friend. Under these circumstances, the douchebag/moron who has been making her life hell would have to turn out to be her upstairs neighbor played by Channing Tatum, who she never gets a look at until she unsuccessfully tries to extract revenge by having the Plain Jane's unemployable yet comically-unthreatening brother hook up a bucket of coffee to drop on him just as he's about to get into his Maserati. When Emma (who is spying the prank from the bushes) sees that the guy isn't simply a douchebag but a douchebag who looks like Channing Tatum, she tackles him at the last minute, bumping him softly out of harm's way while the latté with extra foam cascades all over her. This humiliating set-up results in 90 minutes of hackneyed dialogue about how she doesn't need a man to get in the way of her career and angst-ridden monologues about his crappy childhood which somehow makes us believe that his appalling selfishness is actually just a cry for help and not just him being a self-centered asshole, interspersed by montages of the two of them walking through parks and having unlikely exchanges with elderly people of variant ethnic backgrounds which make them realize that they're not so very different after all. This will lead to a final scene in which she runs out of a dance contest staged at a 5-star hotel ballroom that they've inexplicably partnered in, dolled up in an evening gown you typically only see at an Academy Awards telecast, with him in a tuxedo in hot pursuit. He finally pins her against the wall of a rain-glimmering metropolitan boulevard where he finally proclaims his love to her against the skyline of Toronto posing as some American city because it's cheaper to shoot there. The camera fades out as the audience is won over by the idea that their perfect love has triumphed, overlooking the fact that they both still have the crippling emotional flaws that made their lives hell in the first place, and everybody is momentarily happy as the end credits roll.At least that's how it plays out in the movies. Regrettably for Ms. Baubles, she's already in a committed relationship and all of her neighbors look like they belong in the cast of a Fellini film, so I wouldn't be looking for any romantic fade-outs if I was her. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a douchebag is just a douchebag.
Jeebus Burbano. I was perusing the sponsored ads in the right margin of Facebook when I noticed this one which used Ms. Burbano as a spokesperson, promising that she had found 20 friends by searching her email contacts and suggesting that I might have similar results if I do the same. Since my email contacts are primarily made up of Nigerian diplomats, I decided to reach out to Ms. Burbano to see if the claims made in the ad were true. She responded that not only had she never used the service but that while she had over 800 contacts in the Facebook database, she didn't have anywhere near 20 people that she could consider "friends."It was an intriguing challenge so I sent an e-mail to my entire contact list to see who considered me their friend, and each one responded with an offer that would pay me tens of millions of dollars if only I would put up five grand in upfront processing fees. I'd say that's a pretty good deal, since the only thing anyone in Ms. Burbano's inbox had promised to do is sell her medication that will extend the size of her penis. I don't think that anyone has come through on it yet. 
