You Had Me At Idiot

I'm Back, Sort Of

Well, okay, yeah... So back in April of 2011 I was getting ready to move from North Carolina back to San Diego. I decided to take a few weeks off from the blog until we were moved. Okay, so... here I am again. But not really. I'm actually over here now: vandalayindustries.com. New blog, fresh start. But I'll keep this one up in case anybody wants to read any of the old posts, and because I'm too lazy to take it down. By the way, did you hear we shot bin Laden? That was weird, huh?

Funny Story About Sam Kinison's Funeral

Recently I performed in Laughlin, Nevada. It's the same city where Sam Kinison was traveling to perform back in the early 90s when he died in an accident. On my way to my gig, I drove down that same road. This got me to thinking a bit about Sam and a famous story told by another comedian (in the book I Killed: Stories of the Road from America's Top Comics), who was at his funeral. I love this story:

"Sam Kinson was a big influence on me. He was really the first comedian to achieve rock-star status. So when I got to get to know him at The Comedy Store in the early 90’s, I felt very lucky. Within a year of getting to know each other, Sam died. When Carl Labove (Sam’s best friend) called The Comedy Store,
just hours after Sam had died in the car accident, I was the guy who answered the phone. It was terrible. That week I went with my girlfriend, now my wife, Margo, to Forest Lawn in Burbank, California, for Sam’s funeral. The chapel was packed wall-to-wall with comedians and celebrities. Richard Belzer emceed the ceremony. Many of Kinson’s friends and family spoke. Pauly Shore talked
about Sam’s being like a brother to him and how Sam used to baby-sit him. When Carl Labove was asked to speak, the place went silent. We all knew Carl had been with Sam when he died. Carl spoke for a while and then began to cry, so upset he couldn’t speak. Richard Belzer finally came up to the podium to help Carl down. The whole place was a mess, everyone sobbing. Then, just as Carl was
almost back to his seat, he broke free from Richard and ran back to the microphone. He’d stopped crying, and with a big smile on his face he said, 'By the way, I’ll be at Igby’s all week! Two shows Friday, three Saturday.' It was hilarious, and a nice ending to Sam’s funeral."

My Tapeworm's Name Is Legion, For He Is Many

Today, at first I was thinking of writing about how much I really hate politics and I cannot get away from it no matter how hard I try or where I turn my head and that it doesn't matter which side you're on anyway because there's really only one political party anymore and its controlled by a bunch of fat ass morons who start every sentence with "Now I'm not racist but..." and have convinced me that well over half this country is now officially retarded, and I don't mean regular retarded, I mean really, really, really retarded, I mean Sarah Palin retarded, and I know you're going to to say, wait a minute, there's another major political party, but they don't really count because Democrats are basically pussies, they're like a little dog in your living room and all you have to do is stand over them and stare into their eyeballs for about 30 seconds and they will pee on their own feet from paralyzing fear, but I have to keep reminding myself that none of it really matters because I figure that I should be dying around the same time that the world runs out of oil and I can rest peacefully in my death slumber knowing that all of the pasty white fat ass offspring of the pasty white fat ass Republicans will suffer endlessly because there will be no more gas and they won't be able to drive to Golden Corral anymore for their hourly injection of gravy and they will curse the day their Mongoloid parents with their abnormally distended bellies somehow conceived them via asexual reproduction, even though they always taught them that Jesus would always protect Americans because he was born somewhere in the Midwest and that all of the really smart nerd kids in school who grew up to be scientists were just making up this stuff about climate change because, and I quote, "Sometimes it still gets cold," and instead we should be taking our scientific cues from some fat ass right-wing whackjob congressman who had a C- average in high school and spent his time in biology class eating his own toejam. That's what I was thinking of writing about today. But instead I decided to write about macaroni and cheese.

As most of you probably know, I now have a relatively healthy diet as a result of Executive Order 82991, which was handed down by Jodi a couple of years ago. That's why last night's events were somewhat surprising. We were having our daily husband-wife marriage enounter session. You know...

"What do want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I asked you first."

"I asked you second."

"I asked you third."

"I asked you fourth."

Finally, I just blurted it out. "Well, you know what I've been craving the last couple of days? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese."

"Then have it," she said.

That's when I knew she had lost her mind.

"What do you mean? We can't have that!" I said.

She replied, "Everything I've read says that if you have a craving, you should just have it and then get on with your life."

I don't know where she read that, and I actually don't care. I suspect she probably read it in Oprah's magazine. Yeah, you know, Oprah's magazine. That one magazine that's called "Oprah" and is all about Oprah and every single issue ever published has a giant picture of Oprah on the cover. But I am told this is in no way narcissistic. Doesn't matter, because now that I know about this craving rule, I'm going to start telling Jodi that I'm craving taking a bath with caramels and root beer.

So off I went into the night in search of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

I can't remember the last time I bought a box of this stuff, but I seem to remember it being sold at gas stations, between the lighter fluid and the beef jerky made from abducted children. But I went into the first gas station near my house and they didn't carry it. What kind of gas station doesn't carry Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?

So I went all the way to the white trash grocery store. They had it. Of course they had it. They had an entire aisle dedicated to it. They had all kinds of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese--big macaroni, little macaroni, macaroni shaped liked dinosaurs, macaroni shaped like baptists carrying signs saying there were no such things as dinosaurs, etc.

At first I picked up the regular box with the "original" recipe. But as I walked away I thought, "Is this going to be enough? It's been so long since I bought this, I don't remember if this is for one person or two. I better get a bigger box." So I grabbed a bigger box, paid the mutant high school preggo with the dirty face, and headed home.

When I handed the box to Jodi, she said, "What's this? This isn't the regular kind."

And it wasn't. I didn't read the box carefully enough after I grabbed it. Apparently this was the "Deluxe" version. Unlike the "Regular" version, which is 95% chemicals and 5% butter and milk, the "Deluxe" version is 100% chemicals. You just boil the macroni and then squeeze this giant orange, gooey, turd-looking thing out of a packet and into the macroni. Now I finally know what the Vietnam guys were always talking about when they mentioned Agent Orange.

How does crap like this even make it to the shelves in the first place? I'll tell you how. Because the Food and Drug Administration is run by the same people who own Golden Corral and think Jesus was born somewhere in the Midwest. I swear to God, mark my words, in 5 years these dipshits are going to make it illegal to grow actual tomatoes in non-toxic dirt, but we'll be seeing more and more boxes on grocery store shelves that are filled with urine, pubic hair, and shards of broken glass, with big purple labels that say, "NOW WITH 15% MORE MONKEY SPUNK!"

I mean we were absolutely disgusted at the sight of that giant orange turd of cheese sitting there in the macaroni. I was just vile.

But we ate it.

And as a result, I've been up all night long. I haven't been able to sleep one bit, because the tapeworms growing inside of me are now craving donuts.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of cheese, I now officially hate the Green Bay Packers and hope they all get polio.

My Shortest Blog Post Ever

Jodi has discovered a new television network called OWN, which stands for "Oprah Worship Network." My life as we know it is over.

And now here's a picture of a chicken sandwich.

 

The Mouse That Died From Yoga

So last week Jodi and I were staying for a few days with our good friends Sean and Lori. One evening, Jodi and I went up to our bedroom. I walked around to my side of the bed and saw a little brown thing racing under the bed.

"Mouse," I announced. I said it just like I was a tennis umpire calling a ball out.

"Where!?" Jodi replied.

"Under the bed. A mouse just ran under the bed."

"Really?!... Ooh! I see it!... What should we do?"

I looked at her and said, "We should close the door, move to the empty bedroom downstairs, and pretend this never happened."

"But that means we have to move all our crap. I don't wanna move all our crap."

Well, if it had been up to me, I would have moved 25 metric tons of crap all by myself just to avoid the mouse. But it wasn't up to me. And because I don't deal with wildlife personally, I had to come up with another plan.

"I'm telling Sean," I said.

So I walked downstairs.

"Hey Sean, there's a mouse in our room."

Without even the slightest trace of joy in his voice Sean said, "Shit."

The next thing I know, Sean and I are in the bedroom with the mouse. Meanwhile, Jodi has retreated to safety in the next room.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"It went under the bed... There it is!"

Sean thought for a moment, then went to a walk-in closet and pulled out an empty white three-ring binder, his weapon of choice. Then he walked back over to where I was standing and said, "Okay, scare it out to the other side toward me."

Instinctively I stomped my feet and made loud tard sounds while waving my arms in the air. I don't know why I did that. I guess I thought that's the kind of thing that would really scare a mouse.

And apparently it did. Because within moments it came scurriying out past Sean.

"There it is!" I shouted.

"Where?!"

"Over there! In the corner!"

Sean turned, spotted the mouse, and quickly brought the fat edge of the binder down, trapping the mouse.

"Okay! Go get a book out of the closet!"

So I ran into the closet and saw a bunch of books on a shelf. I scanned the titles, trying to pick just the right book for whatever Sean had in mind next, whatever that might be.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" he shouted. I think the urgency in his voice was due to the fact that the binder was the only thing holding this mouse by its tail, and this particular mouse had to weigh—oh I don't know—two, maybe two and a half, ounces.

I grabbed the first book and hurried back out to him.

"What is it?" he asked.

I looked at the cover. "Yoga Anatomy," I said.

"Okay good," he said. "Fuck yoga. Bring it here."

I handed him the book, which he then used to squish the mouse's brains in.

"Ah man, there's blood everywhere," he said. "Get some toilet paper."

So I ran into the bathroom and returned with some toilet paper.

A few moments later, Sean's wife Lori walked into the room. "Did you get it?"

"Yeah, we got it. We killed it with a book."

"Oh good," she said.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. The great tragic episode was over. We could all finally go to bed.

Then Lori looked at us and said, "What book?"

Goodbye Lucy

The thing about human beings is that they often make you feel worse than you already do. On the other hand, dogs usually make you feel much better. And the better the dog, the better you feel. Let's just say that Lucy was a very good dog.

The cutest puppy I ever saw.

 

The absolute cutest.

Monte didn't know what to think of her at first, but I couldn't keep my hands off her.

That one marble in her head made it really hard to pottie train her. But did I mention how cute she was?

One day she grew these things called legs.

Monte started to come around.

And soon she began to follow the ways of the Dark Lord.

Loved the sun.

Loved her brother.

Loved her naps.

Sweetest dog you would ever meet.

The sweetest.

When we lost Monte, I held him in my arms and whispered in his ear the only words that came into my mind... "You're a good boy. You're a good boy. You're a good boy."

When it was Lucy's turn, I held her in my arms and whispered in her ear... "You're a good girl. You're a good girl. You're a good girl."

And she always made me feel better, right up until they day she left.

Goodbye good girl.

The Secret to Installing Storm Windows

As most of you know, I'm really quite talented and handy around the house. Hence, the extension cord dangling from the ceiling of our garage and my preference for whacking nails with the blunt end of an orange electric screwdriver.

So naturally putting up four new storm windows was no big deal for me. 

First, before you order the storm windows, you gotta make sure you measure the window frame correctly. Then, after you receive the storm windows and discover that you didn't measure the frames correctly, you gotta trim the edges of the storm windows and force them into place. I like to use old crusty pliers to trim the edges of the metal storm windows. This way, you end up with storm windows that look like they have decorative jagged teeth. And of course the best way to force the storm window into place is with the blunt end of an orange electric screwdriver.

Next, use the other end of the orange electric screwdriver to screw in most of the screws that came with the windows. If only half of them make it into the wood, that's okay, the windows can handle it. That's why they're called storm windows.

Now comes the tricky part. The glass on the top part will want to keep slamming down to the bottom due to gravity. So you gotta squeeze those Alcatraz things in with your fingers and try to raise it back up to the top. But you have to be really careful when you get it to the top. If you make any sudden or wrong movements, the glass will fall quickly back to the bottom of the frame. But if you try again and again and again over a period of, say, 5 hours, eventually it'll stay in place. Then, you gotta hope and pray that nothing catastrophic touches the storm window, like rain drops. If that happens, the glass at the top will come falling back down.

Also, if you want to adjust the glass in the bottom half so that you can let fresh air come through the screen, don't even think about trying it. There's no way to do it. Believe me I've tried. Even if you wedge the orange electric screwdriver under the glass at the bottom and then climb on top of the stepladder to pull the bottom glass up to the top, it won't work. Because as soon as you breathe or make any kind of vibration, the glass at the top will come back down again.

I told you it was tricky. And that's why you need to know the secret to installing storm windows.

Wanna know what it is?

Here you go.

Make sure you don't put them in upside down.

Thought you'd like to know that, just in case you make a big mistake and buy storm windows some day.

And now something that has nothing to do with storm windows. Here's a new video of my performance on a TV show called "Who's Laughing Now?" Actually it's a 4-minute interview followed by a 6-minute performance.

 

Our Long National Nightmare Has Ended!

Yes indeed, our long national nightmare has ended!

I just received confirmation that our house is now officially sold! Escrow or escargo or whatever it's called is finished! The house is no longer ours! We're done! D-O-N-E! DONE!!! PRAISE GOD! PRAISE BUDDHA! PRAISE MOHAMMED! PRAISE DAVID KORESH! PRAISE ELRON HUBBARD! PRAISE LYNYRD SKYNRD! DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!! YES!!! DOWN GOES FRAZIER! DOWN GOES FRAZIER! HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL! GLENN BECK IS A RETARD! GLENN BECK IS A RETARD! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! 

I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS, I'M GONNA KEEP USING ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS DAY FINALLY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M GONNA GO BUY SOME SKITTLES AND DR. PEPPER IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW ALL WE NEED TO DO IS SELL OUR OTHER HOUSE!.................................

SHIT!

If Charles Manson Was On Facebook

I bet if Twitter and Facebook had been around 40 or 45 years ago, Charles Manson would have been all over it. He just seems like the kind of guy who would always be on there, don't ya think? I think he'd be like Chad Ochocinco...

"Charles Manson is now friends with Sharon Tate and 8 other people."

"Just smeared peanut butter on my body and killed a guy with an iPod. LOL."

"Charles Manson was tagged in an album -- High School Memories"

"Just watched The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Boy did that suck ass."

"Anybody know of a good tattoo artist? I got an idea."

"Charles Manson likes Clay Aiken and Glenn Beck's Tardapalooza."

"Charles Manson just planted onions and needs a shovel to bury a body in Farmville."

"Charles Manson is single."

"Nuts! It's only Monday! I need it to be the weekend now!!! Who wants to go hot tubbin'?"

"Charles Manson just wrote some jibberish on the wall using pig blood in Mafia Wars."

"Busy day ahead! Gotta brainwash two loads, then go to two meetings, then lunch, then church, then a human sacrifice, then I gotta drive everyone to soccer practice! I need some ME time!! Calgon take me away!"

I'm just sayin'...

Random Stupid Thoughts

I would be willing to bet just about anything that Tyler Perry always listened to his mom and put his name on his underwear. 'Cause he puts his name on every damn thing else... Tyler Perry's House of Payne, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Midnight Mass, Tyler Perry's Terms of Endearment, Tyler Perry's Chair, Tyler Perry's Table, Tyler Perry's Carpet, Tyler Perry's Salt and Pepper Shakers, Tyler Perry's Beverage With Extra Ice... I'm just sayin'.

Ever since our dog Lucy started to get really old and slow, and began to display an eating disorder, we've been cooking for her every meal. And I mean every single meal. I can't tell you the number of times that Jodi and I have been making salads for ourselves and I'd get jealous of my anorexic dog because she was standing next to me eating pork chops.

I'd rather be deaf than blind. But I'd rather be clairvoyant than deaf. I'm thinking paralyzed would be pretty far down on the list.

Brett Favre... Sorry, just trying to adhere to federal regulations stipulating that his name should be mentioned to the public every few seconds.

So some dudes from a record label in LA saw me perform last month at a show and I ended up signing an album distribution deal with them. I guess that means I'll have a CD out sometime at the end of this year or early next year. I'm not sure yet if this is a big deal or not. And I haven't settled on a name for the album yet, but I'm thinking of calling it "Tyler Perry's CD."

Had my plumbing all replaced last month. Getting my roof replaced this week. Then it'll be the kitchen floor. After that, maybe my hip. And then I'm thinking of finishing off the year by getting gold teeth.

August is, and always has been, the turd month of all of the months. Who's with me on that?