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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
All right, folks. It’s the first of the month, and you know what that means.
No. No, it’s not when I give you your paycheck.
No, I’m not coming over to turn your damned calendar.
And no, it’s not ‘complimentary reader massage’ night, either.
Okay, so apparently, you don’t know what the first of the month means. How about I just tell you, so I don’t have to sit here all night shooting down your ridiculous ideas. Honestly, if we keep this up much longer, it won’t be the fricking first any longer. Jeez.
So, here’s what the first — and the fifteenth — of the month is all about these days: here, at ye olde blog site, you get my last contribution to the online ezine Zoiks!. You won’t find it there any more, so you can find it here — think of it as a creative and lazy ‘drivel recycling’ program.
Meanwhile, if you head your badass self on over to Zoiks! right now, you’ll find my current piece — along with a half dozen or so yuk-laden columns by other folks, too. There’s no losing in this little game, people. It’s all good.
So, hop on over to Zoiks! and check out the latest issue. And then come back and check out what you may have missed below. Or vice versa — whichever. I can’t tell you people how to run your lives.
Reality Shows We’ll (Hopefully) Never See
Ambush Boobjob:
In this exciting makeover extravaganza, we give a team of plastic surgeons a van, a bottle of ether, and one mission: endow, endow, endow! They’ll roam the city, looking for flat-chested women to ‘enhance’. Watch as the docs scope out their patients — “Look, ‘A’ cups! Grab her!” Then, they’ll pull her into the van, put her under, and kick her back to the curb with a fabulous new set of double-D’s! That’s ‘Ambush Boobjob’, where our motto is: “We make mountains out of molehills… whether you like it or not!”
Armenian Idol:
Basically like American Idol, except that the contestants sing traditional Armenian folk songs, and are judged by famous Armenian-Americans Andre Agassi, Cher, and… um, yeah. We could only find two, actually. We can always use Paula Abdul for this show, too — it’s not like she’s got anything else going on. And she’ll be as hairy as the female contestants, so they’ll be put at ease. Nice touch.
Electri-Date:
Every week, a new woman goes out on blind dates with three men. And a taser. Watch, laugh, and learn as the guys forget to bring flowers. *bzzzzttt!* Or fail to open the car door. *zzzzzzap!* Or try to ‘get French’, after he suggests they ‘go Dutch’. *ssssszzzzzzzztttttttt!!* At the end of the show, the gal picks her favorite fella, who gets to choose between a second date and a trip to the local burn ward. Fun for the whole family!
Last Comic Starving:
A ‘true’ reality show, this one follows the lives of ten standups without day jobs, as they compete for gigs, auditions… and sandwiches. Only one will be able to scrounge enough cash together to buy groceries; the rest will either take up panhandling, or give up completely and settle into soul-sucking mindless entry-level jobs. Who’ll be playing to packed houses, and who’ll end up delivering packages for a living? Tune in to find out!
My Big Fat Obnoxious Television Actress:
In this spin-off, we follow the trials, tribulations, and — most importantly — tantrums of a formerly-famous actress, as she attempts to claw her way back into the limelight. We’ll find the most belligerent, heinous, loudmouthed… oh. Wait. They already tried this one with Roseanne. Eh, I can’t top that. Never mind.
Pimp My Bride:
Still in the concept phase, this show could go one of two routes. In one scenario, we’ll allow prospective husbands to compete for glamorous upgrades for their blushing brides-to-be — facelifts, tummy tucks, nose jobs, and the like. Sort of like ‘The Swan’, for the already roped-in crowd. If we go the other way, you’ll see husbands pimp out their new wives for cash and prizes. Either way, it’ll be the most uncomfortable, gratuitously shocking show since… well, basically, since ‘The Swan’. Or that ‘NYPD Blue’ with Dennis Franz’ butt. Keep an eye out for the pilot.
Queer Eye for the Street Guy:
Just because you’re wearing rags and living in a box doesn’t mean you can’t be fabulous! Our dream team of light-loafered fashionistas take one homeless person each week, and transform their clothes, lean-tos, and shopping carts into stylish, modern wonders. Watch to see the guys work magic with burlap, turn paper bags into treasured decorations — and you won’t believe the substances that can be used as ‘product’, in a pinch. See hoboes go faboo, and get in on the ground floor of ‘urchin chic’. It’ll sweep the nation, one back alley at a time!
The Real M.A.S.H.:
First, it was ‘The Real Beverly Hillbillies’. Then, ‘The Real Gilligan’s Island’. Why not bring back the most popular thirty-year-old T.V. show of all? We’ve dragged ten contestants off to Korea, where they’ll spend twelve tumultuous weeks dodging bullets, sewing people back together, and competing for fabulous prizes! And we’ve even gotten Jamie Farr, the original Sergeant Klinger, to host… because really, what the hell else has he done since 1983?
The Real World: Guantanamo:
This is the true story — ‘Truu-uuuee sto-ray!’ — of seven strangers, picked to live in a tiny cell and have all records of their lives erased from all official records. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting… well, we’re not sure, frankly. The military won’t let our cameras in — but we’re working on it. Maybe in time for fall sweeps.
The Simpleton Life:
In the original, the cameras followed Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie around a farm. In the sequel, we watched Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie negotiate small-town life. Now, we watch Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie in their everyday lives, as they struggle to calculate tips, negotiate a map, and program their VCRs. Ah, who are we kidding? They’ve got people to do all of that for them. Lousy bitches.
Survivor:Brooklyn:
Forget the barren outback or a mosquito-ridden jungle. Let’s see what sort of alliances form when we drop teams of wide-eyed tourists off in the middle of the borough. Cabs only big enough for two people, subways heading every which direction, challenges involving walking down long, dary alleys — will competition reign, or will the survival instinct kick in? And if it gets boring, will we walk them over to Harlem to spice things up? There’s only one way to find out!
Temptation Island: Greenland:
Sure, it’s more interesting with the skimpy clothes and hot, sweaty nights. But if these people can create sparks through sub-zero temperatures and six layers of parkas, that’s worth watching! Will they ‘play it cool’, or risk a bout of hypothermia for a roll in the permafrost? Only time — and emergency treatments for frostbite of the extremities — will tell.
All right, people — I’m out of here. That’s all you get for now. These first-‘n’-fifteenth posts pretty much write themselves. Sweeeeet. Happy weekend, folks!
Permalink | 3 CommentsI’ve had some strange conversations with people recently.
Come to think of it, I have strange conversations with people pretty much all the time. That might lead some people to think it’s me bringing the strangeness to the table. I choose to believe that I’m perfectly normal. It’s just that strange, unbalanced people inexplicably gravitate to me. That’s my theory. Shaddup.
In any case, it’s not those kinds of ‘weird’ conversations that I’m talking about. Lately, people are randomly giving me strange advice. Or insulting me in odd, subtle ways — I’m not sure which, honestly. I’m not that bright, after all. It wouldn’t even have to be that subtle; I probably wouldn’t catch it. Anything short of a bitchslap and flipping me a big fat bird and it’s likely going to be over my head. But I digress.
Anyway, I’ll give you a couple of examples. The other day, I was having headshots made. You’ve got to send some sort of mug shot thingy to people who might want to give you standup jobs, so I made an appointment with a photographer. I went to this guy’s house, and went down in his basement, and he took pictures of me.
(No, no, folks — it wasn’t nearly as creepy as it sounds. He put on some music. We chatted. It was all very tasteful. Really.)
So. That got a little uncomfortable, eh? Maybe I am the one making all my conversations strange, after all. Dammit. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t responsible for what the photographer guy said about halfway through:
‘You know, you’ve got a great face for this. I’m not sure that’s good in other walks of life, but it’s really great for headshots.‘
So what does that mean, exactly? My face is funny? Versatile? Squishy? What?
And then — then there was the comic I was talking to before a show the other night. The week before, we’d been at another show, and grabbed dinner with some other folks afterward. So we all chatted and talked and joked — and baby, you want to talk about strange conversations… try spending an evening with three or four off-duty comics. Jesus. Have your therapist on the speed dial for that one, you know what I’m saying?
Anyway, when I saw the guy again, we traded greetings and talked for a bit. And then, just before I went onstage, he hit me with this little nugget:
‘You know the thing about you — you’re really funny in conversation.‘
Um… thanks? Or is there an unspoken ‘but on stage — not so much‘ in there? Should I have said, ‘Well, you should see me in bed — hiyoooooh!‘, just to prove him wrong? Color me nonplussed.
Finally, there’s the little snippet of conversation I had with the guy at the convenience store near my office. He and I have chatted before… sort of. See, he’s a genuinely nice guy, as far as I can tell, but English is decidedly not his first language, and he has a fairly strong accent. So we have a lot of half-banter — either he doesn’t understand me, or I don’t quite hear him… we’re all about ‘uh… sure‘, and ‘oh, um… you, too‘ and ‘about six inches — why the hell would you ask that?‘ Sort of a communication gap, if you catch my drift.
But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a language issue that made the conversation I had with him the other day so perplexing:
Me: Hey, how you doing? Just the soda today, please.
Him: Hi, there — will do. Say… you don’t have kids, do you?
Me: Um… no. No, I don’t.
Him: Oh. So you’re not married, right?
Me: Well… actually, I am. For several years.
Him: Ah! But no kids?
Me: Er, no. Not so much.
Him: Oh. So you’re trying, right?
Me: Wuh… that’s not really… I mean, well — no. No, we’re not.
Him: Ah, you’re busy. Concentrating on work for now. Very good!
Me: Oooo-kay…
Him: You’ll be ready for babies soon, I’m sure!
Me: Riiiiiiight. Okay, then. I’ll just be leaving now. With my soda. And no kids. See you tomorrow, then. Bye bye, now.
Who knows — maybe I look like I need a kid, or something. Lord knows I’m not responsible enough as it is, but does it really show that badly? Or is the guy just randomly — and creepily — propogating the age-old notion of ‘marriage, then kids, then… what? Death?’ I’m not sure it has to go in that order — and I really didn’t expect it to come up in my friendly local convenience store. It’s not like I was walking out of there with a bottle of Spanish fly and a tote bag full of condoms. I just wanted a fricking soda, like I do almost every day in that place — how did I manage to push his buttons with that?
Yeah, I’ve decided — it’s all the people I know who are weird. I say some silly shit, but I would never start conversations like any of those. What the hell is going on around here, anyway?
Permalink | 5 CommentsMy wife and I play an interesting little cat-and-mouse game.
It’s not ‘Who’s going to fill the ice trays?’, nor is it ‘Who gets to be on top this time?’ Although we play those games, too.
(And, just for the record:
The person who takes the last ice cube fills the tray; and
We decide who’s on top by… heeeey, wait a minute. You think I’m stupid over here? I’m not discussing this kind of personal crap on the website. That’s how you get into damned trouble, people — no, thanks. I start dishing with the bedroom talk, and there’ll be no ‘top’ to begin with. Forget it.
Besides, it’s really complicated how we decide, anyway. I can’t go into details, but it usually involves a voodoo shaman, a Magic 8-Ball, and a twelve-sided die. Or pinky-toe wrestling. Preferably in a kiddie pool filled with marshmallow Peeps.
That’s right, folks — presumably-naked, Peep-pooled pinky-toe wrestling. Picture that in your head, if you dare. That’s the kind of stunning mental image we provide here at Where the Hell Was I?, every day of the weird-assed week. Is it any wonder we’ve had one hundred thousand visitors? The drivel speaks for itself.)
All right. Just what the hell was I talking about? I have no idea where that came from, people — pay no attention to the man behind the parentheses.
Ah, right — our little game. Of course.
So, circling slowly back to the point, the wife and I have this game that we play. I call it: ‘Are you keeping secrets, or am I a fricking moron?‘
It’s a very simple game, really — here’s how it’s played:
My wife decides on a topic. It can be anything, really — an appointment I should make, details about weekend plans, important account passwords that I’m supposed to remember… anything.
Then, she has a choice: she can either tell me about the thing far in advance, so I have time to prepare, and plan, and generally wrap my feeble, spongy mind around the idea.
(Or, in some cases, so I have time to get riptastically hammered for the occasion, the better to suffer through it. But we haven’t had one of those in a while, now.)
Or, she can choose not to mention the thing to me, because she’s forgotten to tell me, or has made a conscious decision that it’s better to leave me in the dark. Usually because I’ll bitch and grouse and moan for weeks in advance, if it’s something unpleasant, or is going to preempt something I’d rather be doing. I usually think I’d like to know about these things beforehand, as painful as it may be for everyone involved — but whether she tells me is totally her call. At this point in the game, I don’t even know that there is a thing, so I have no say in the matter.
Now, here comes the fun part. No matter what her choice up front, the game really begins just before whatever thing-or-other is scheduled to occur. That’s when she’ll say something like:
‘Honey, don’t forget that thing we’re doing tomorrow night.‘
To which, I volley back:
‘Thing? Tomorrow? Wha?‘
And the game is on. Now it’s up to me to remember whether she ever told me about such a ‘thing’, or if she’s just bluffing with her ‘reminder’. Meanwhile, she does her best to convince me that I knew about this thing all along, and that she told me about it so long ago, now she can’t even remember exactly when it was. And we go round and round, until… well, until I give up, and concede that she may have told me, at some point when I wasn’t paying attention, and that it’s probably my fault for being unprepared. Or surprised. Or not hammered.
So, really, I guess it’s not much of a ‘game’ at all. A proper game would have a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’, and occasionally, we’d trade off and each get to feel the thrill of victory tingle through our hearty cockles. And I know — I know, dammit — that sometimes she waits until the last minute to inform me of some heinous responsibility or social obligation. Sure, it’s because she knows that we’re both better off that way, and that I’d just make us miserable for weeks leading up to it, and that she’s quite possibly teetering the scales back, away from both my own insanity and possible divorce proceedings.
But damn, is it confusing when I can’t remember something — and then can’t even remember whether I forgot about it, or I’m simply a pawn in this little game-that’s-not-really-a-game. I’ve got to start taking notes, or taping all of our conversations, or maybe hire a stenographer, so I can determine once and for all whether she’s holding back information or I’m really a sieve-brained shitball.
Or… or, I guess I could just start paying attention.
Haaaaaah. What kind of silly game would that be? Pfffffttt.
Permalink | 5 Comments…well, I’m not sure what you guys deserve, really. But based on some of the one-liners you’ve volinteered in response to my last post, I’d say a few of you deserve to have your mouths washed out with soap. For shame. hilarious, of course, but for shame. Welcome to my pervy little world.
Sadly, for what I need, an existing joke just won’t cut the mustard. Thanks for the old chestnuts — and for a couple that I hadn’t heard before; did you come up with those on the spot? — but if I’m to call myself a comedian some day, I’ll have to concoct my own ‘go-to’ joke. I’ll let you know if it ever happens.
Meanwhile, though, your wave of generosity — hey, shut up; three people can be a ‘wave’, dammit — has reminded me that it’s almost time for another ‘Weblog Milestone Sweepstakes’.
Never heard of it? That’s because I just made up the name. But we’ve been playing this game for some time. And here’s the deal:
When the old attendance meter for this humble little endeavor of mine rolls over to some new ‘satisfyingly round but fairly meaningless in the grand scheme of things’ number, I like to show my appreciation to the ‘lucky customer’ who’s put us over the top.
First, it was Sabrina at 10,000 visitors.
Then, it was… well, it was Sabrina again, actually, at 20,000 visitors.
(And how she managed that, I’ll never know. Also — I’m not sure she’s been back since. There’s only so much of this nonsense one person can stand.
Though she did start her very own weblog, LoserGenius Just Can’t Win, in the interim somewhere. I like to think I may have inspired her to write, if only in a ‘Pfffft, I can do better than that‘ kind of way. Sadly, her site seems to be in hibernation; Sabrina, you still out there?)
And then, it was Riri of Riri’s Brain Dump, coming in smack on the nose of 50,000 visitors.
And now — now, folks, it’s your turn. Well, one of your turns, anyway. Because some time today — or tomorrow at the latest — somebody’s gonna tick the old counter over to 100,000 visitors on the site.
(Yeah, never mind that 50,000 visitors came looking for pr0n. Or that another 49,900 came via BlogExplosion, BlogCrowd, or BlogClicker, and never stayed long enough to read the fricking title, much less any content. One hundred large is one hundred large, and somebody’s getting a damned reward for it — don’t argue with me.)
So, here’s the way it goes — if you’re reading this today (or any day, if you want to be nice), leave me a comment on this post. That way, I can match your IP address up to the IP address I see in the site logs, and figure out who gets the Grand Poobah Milestone Swag. Yeah, I just made that name up, too. I’ll stop now, I promise.
Anyway, if I can put two and two together — always a challenge for me — and determine who the winner is, then I’ll be happy to send you a little token of appreciation. A trinket from your wish list, perhaps, or a donation to your favorite charity. I’ll pay for your next lap dance, if there’s some way we can work out the details. Something like that.
(And no, before you ask, I won’t actually perform your next lap dance. Nobody wants to see that — and I hung up my pasties a long time ago. Besides, I’m not sure you’d have a lap large neough to accomodate me — this rumpshaker would need a little more breathing room than in days past. Yeeks.)
So, if all this sounds like a shameless plug for comments, well… it probably is, just a little. Still, that’s how it’s gonna be — and I’m not doing this again until I have a quarter of a million hits, so humor me just this once, all right? That day may never come. I should live so long, people. Happy Monday out there — and good luck!
***UPDATE***: Folks, we have a winner!
Thanks to everyone who’s commented — no, really, keep those coming, if only for the ego stroke — but the big number has come and gone, and we’re on the way to the next 100,000 probably porn-seeking surfers.
I’ll have more info — so you’ll know who to be jealous of — just as soon as the winner lets me know what it is that she wants. Yep, that’s right: ‘she‘. Why is it that women only seem to win this little game, anyway? If I weren’t running the damned contest myself, I’d say it was fixed. Humph.
Permalink | 14 CommentsWell, that was disappointing.
Those washer ‘n’ dryer bastards came on Friday — on time, no less — and did nothing worth writing about. They came, dropped off the goods, took the old shit away, and left. No funny talk, they didn’t drop anything on their feet, and nobody dropped their pants the whole time — even me. I knew I should’ve tried that, just to get the hilarity rolling. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Anyway, on the bright side, all the laundry is done now. Not folded or anything like that — we’ve got piles of clothes all over the damned house. They’re stacked on hte couches, stuffed into baskets, and strewn on the beds. I’m pretty sure I spent last night spooning a large beach towel. Rather, um, enthusiastically, as it turns out. We might have to wash that one again.
But enough about the laundry, and my nighttime abuse thereof. Let’s talk about a more pressing matter: I need a ‘go-to joke’.
Now, I’m not talking about killer onstage material, or writing a joke here that’ll make people upsnort their coffee onto their monitors. In a good way, of course. Those things would be nice, but it’s not all that likely. Besides, all my standup and blog stuff is loooooong. I don’t have ‘jokes’, per se; I tell silly stories, and hope that somewhere in the wave of drivel, there’s a drop or two of ‘entertaining’. And I’m cool with that.
But here’s the thing — when people find out I do comedy, or that I’m trying to get into humor writing, they always say the same thing:
‘Well… say something funny. Give me your best joke.‘
Now, never mind that it’s wholly inappropriate to put someone on the spot like that, just because of their professional aspirations. I mean, you don’t hear people asking med students for their ‘best incision’, or bugging people in law school to ‘do something slimy’. It’s not fair, really.
But it’s also not going away. And I can’t very well respond with one of my regular long bits — besides the time issue, it’s probably not considered ‘polite’ to throw six minutes of dick jokes at someone who’s just pretending to be interested. I’m not sure whether Miss Manners has ever addressed that situation specifically, but I have a pretty good idea what she’d say. She’s kind of a stuck-up bitch, when you get right down to it.
So what I need is a quick, short joke — just one good one-liner — to get these people off my damned back. And I’ve found that I’m a horrible one-liner writer. Maybe I need the context of a story to think of punchlines. Or maybe I’ve got whatever the opposite of ADD is — I don’t know. All I know is that when I try to write one liners, I end up with scary crap like:
‘You know, it’s true what they say — there’s nothing funny about anal bleeding… once it happens to you.‘
Nice. Like that’s something I can whip out when grandma asks what kind of comedy I do onstage. She’d drop a load in her Depends, for crissakes. That’s not going to help anyone.
So, I’m still working on it — the perfect answer for that ‘yeah, well prove you’re funny‘ bullshit. And preferably, one that doesn’t involve bleeding from any orifices whatsoever. Or penis size, or hairy asses, or the word ‘bumblefuckery’, just in case grandma decides to take an interest. This isn’t gonna be easy, people.
Permalink | 9 Comments
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