awesometalk

Some say the existence of urban legends are, in fact, an urban legend.

Another week, another special Awesome Talk final word. I tested this one out on about seven different focus groups and they all agreed: “Those sure are words.” Were they right? READ ON.

Some say the existence of urban legends are, in fact, an urban legend.

The other day, due to circumstances I’d rather not disclose, I found myself with a large collection of teeth that I needed to dispose of. A few thousand frantic public library Google searches later, with phrases such as “teeth melt” “teeth melt no evidence” “teeth melt no evidence as few steps as possible”, I came across the old urban legend that said a tooth could dissolve in a can of soda. And that’s one of those things where you think, “Huh that’s kind of interesting” or you’re like me and you think, “Huh that’s kind of interesting, but what about like, an obscene amount of teeth. Like, more than an average person should have in a foot locker.” The library was closing, and there was no time for further research. It was, as Redman once said, time 4 sumaksion.

“Good morning John!” My neighbor waved at me from the next yard over as he watered his lawn. “What’s uh… going on over there?” I think he was talking about the bottles of soda I was pouring into a kiddie pool next to a foot locker labeled DEFINITELY NOT TEETH. “Hey good morning Bill. Oh you know, house stuff.” I stared at him, dead eyed, as I poured the last bottle into the pool. “Well, I’ll uh, let you get to it then,” Bill said as he dropped his hose and slowly walked backwards into his house. I grunted in his direction and stirred my concoction with a badminton racket. Long story short, I learned that teeth do not dissolve in soda. Not even cute little baby teeth. I also learned that it’s not easy to drag a kiddie pool full of soda and teeth onto your neighbor’s lawn when it’s swarming with bees. They don’t tell you these things on Snopes. Sometimes you need to visit thisissomerealshit.com/fucking_deal_with_it.html.

This happened once probably maybe who gives a shit

This happened once probably maybe not who gives a shit shut up

Heartbroken, it was time for more urband legend research. Maybe my favorite one is that Disney World visitors are not allowed to die on the premises. Say you were having a massive heart attack after a raucous twirl on the teacups, park workers would supposedly drag you into the parking lot to die, far away from the magic and whimsy. God that’s the best. What if you were decapitated on Space Mountain?  Would they keep your head frozen in a jar like Walt Disney and throw it on a bus headed for Universal Studios? What if you saw a dude dressed up like Donald Duck and he was teaching little kids how to smoke meth and your soul died? Disney World representatives did not have answers to these questions, but I think “Sir you need to stop calling here, this is Dorney Park” is actually code for “We’re illuminati lizard men, and we can do whatever we want.”

So all I’m saying is, don’t trust the internet to debunk urban legends. You have to get out there in the field, get your hands dirty – flash your highbeams at passing cars in the night if their lights are off! I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen? How are you gonna know whether or not it’s a gang initiation thing unless you witness them pull a u-turn, run your car off the road and then stab you to death?  “I was right. I was so right,” you’ll gurgle as the newly initiated gang member is presented with his monogrammed jacket and plaque. The gang will all cheer and lift him up on their shoulders, but really, it’s you they should be celebrating. You, the stabbed to death, urban legend… what’s the opposite of debunking? Bunking, I guess. The stabbed to death, urban legend bunking hero.  Godspeed.

My Video Will (transcript)

Last night on Awesome Talk I skyped in the following bit of business, heavily inspired by my love of The Heart, She Holler. I even got dressed up, like a real song and dance man. I did not dance, but I’m told there will be a song added in post. Below, please find…

My Video Will (transcript)

Family, friends, I’d like to welcome you to my video will. If you’re watching (reading) this, I am dead. OK so for the time being ignore that part. If you’re watching (reading) this any time other than right now, I am dead, and I can only assume that I died doing what I loved – rescuing blind children from a burning orphanage. How is it possible that I’m always the first on the scene when the blind kid orphanage goes up in flames? Look, some questions are better left unanswered. Clearly you’re having a hard time dealing with my death, and you’re thinking all kinds of crazy mixed up thoughts. That’s the first stage of grieving – accusing the deceased of arson.

Now that I’m dead, you’re probably wondering what you should do with my corpse. It’s very simple: I am to be cremated, and my ashes are to be placed inside the salt and pepper shakers of a dining car headed towards St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, the snow globe capital of the world. Once they arrive, my ashes are to be placed inside three snow globes. One depicting my ash’s train ride to St. Croix Falls, one depicting my loved ones placing my ashes into three separate snow globes, and one wildcard. The wildcard can be any snowglobe of your choosing, as long as it has some kind of sentimental attachment to me. Maybe depicting that scene in Scream where Rose McGowan is killed by a garage door. Although there wasn’t any snow in that scene… ok scratch that. The wildcard snow globe now has to depict the Battle of Hoth. Also, this probably goes without saying, but never shake the snowglobes.

awesometalksuitNow for the earthly possessions segment of my video will. I was a man of simple tastes. I loved nothing more than spending time with my family and friends, having a few drinks and heh heh, having a few laughs. That being said – All of my hard drives are to be destroyed. Drill a thousand holes into them, take them to a firing range and blast them to bits, then submerge the bits in some kind of super acid. As for my online presence, my password for every account is the same, and it is tattooed underneath my left eyelid. Granted, you’re going to have to get a little Aeon Flux on my face to retrieve my master password, but that’s what I would have wanted.

To my wife, I leave my collection of plaid shirts. Remember how we always talked about lining the walls of the house in plaid? How a dead man’s shirts would really spruce up the rumpus room? Well now you can do that honey. I love you so much.

To my friends in Awesome Talk, I leave you all of my unfinished special final words. There’s some real gems in there, like I have this one sentence about a Terminator going to a job fair and scanning the room for complimentary pens. It’s really great, and now it’s yours.

To everyone else in my life, I dunno, baseball cards or something, who cares. So, summing up: I am dead, 3 separate snowglobes, master password under my eyelid. Thank you.

A Farewell to Dave Brockie

I had a different Final Word written for AwesomeTalk season 2, episode 7 (well, halfway written… like half a page… like three sentences), but then this happened. I woke up around 4 in the morning on Monday, looked at my phone to see what time it was, and saw rumors circulating all over my social media. I spent the next two hours constantly refreshing, hoping that it wasn’t true. Sadly, it was.

A Farewell to Dave Brockie

In eighth grade homeroom, a kid named Alex handed me a tape. On the back, crudely written in pencil, were a list of songs titles: Penis I See, Have You Seen Me?, The Salaminizer, and Saddam A-Go-Go to name a few. This was a GWAR mixtape, and with it came the following verbal instructions – stop listening to your pussy grunge bullshit and listen to GWAR.

I took half of his advice. And like most things you discover at an age when time and boredom are endless, I became a scholar of everything GWAR. The characters, the mythology, the direct-to-video movies that were at once the cheapest looking and also the most original things I had ever seen. I learned that if you inject crack into a dinosaur egg, the hatchling will grow to the size of a skyscraper, and you’re going to need gigantic swords and warhammers to stop it from destroying the world that YOU were sent to destroy.

dave-brockie-oderus-birthday-cakeAs an adult I look back at what drew me to GWAR besides the gore and the metal and the endless decapitations. They were underdogs. They were art school dropouts that created a world in which their characters, as godlike and powerful as they were, were always foiled by their own shortcomings. They dressed as barbarians from another planet, and no matter how hard they tried to escape it, they found themselves endlessly stuck on Earth.

Now I don’t want to be all, “OH GOD GWAR CHANGED MY LIFE” but in a sense they did. Kind of like how people love super heroes because they’re outsiders dealing with a world that doesn’t understand them, that was GWAR for me. On the surface, they were carting a bunch of foam rubber celebrities and politicians on stage and hacking them to bits, but if you dig a little deeper, there was an honest-to-god sense of right and wrong. It also helped that they had lyrics like “If you’re really lucky I’ll vomit on thee, shit in your stump and then bathe you in pee.”

Unfortunately, I’m referring to GWAR in the past tense. Their lead singer and lifelong member Dave Brockie was found dead on Sunday afternoon at the age of 50. Old members have come and gone, and since they all wear costumes they’d either slip a new person in or create a new character. But Dave’s armored, fish-phalluced killing machine Oderus Urungus will be impossible to replace. You could tell from his appearances both in and out of the costume that GWAR was his disgusting, boil-covered, puking baby.

So I’ll  miss going to GWAR shows. I’ll miss the blood and spew covered selfies that I’d take when I got home, from a time before selfies were a thing. I’ll miss buying a physical GWAR CD only for the lyric sheet, and trying to decipher what a “suck a dick a lick a log” really meant. And I’ll miss Dave. I never met the guy, but we were all lucky enough to see the world through the eyes of his one-of-a-kind, demented, and hilarious creation, and that’s what I’ll miss more than anything.

Could I BE Creating Midseason Replacements… Any… Better?

I read this little number on AwesomeTalk last night. It was a real doozy. A doozy number. You can relive my experience by reading it aloud yourself. Try it!

Could I BE Creating Midseason Replacements… Any… Better?

Midseason TV replacements are a great way to wipe the slate clean. Sure, we all thought a new sitcom starring Matthew Perry as a hot air balloon repairman was going to be a huge hit, but audiences just weren’t ready for Could I BE Repairing Any More Hot Air Balloons? Not to worry, NBC can just quietly cancel it and puke up some other bullshit to take its place – cheaper, less risky midseason replacements. Something quick and easy like, oh I don’t know, how about…

Mouse House, Mondays at 9pm on NBC – Two recently widowed gentlemen are forced to share an apartment, and their lives are turned upside down by a family of animated mice that live in the walls. An unstable, stuttering neighbor that never wears shoes adds to the hilarity. Their landlord, also animated, constantly insinuates that the neighbors are gay, and also helps the gang solve mysteries. Oh right, I forgot to mention – the mice and the two guys, and the shoeless, stuttering neighbor solve mysteries for some reason. And also breakdance.

No good? OK, how about –

Don’t Stand There!, Wednesdays at 10 pm on A&E –  We’re done with Hoarders. But we still need a way to exploit the mentally ill for our amusement. Don’t Stand There! is a new game show from the people that brought you Hoarders, and the rules are simple – spend 5 hours inside a house filled with garbage, and find a place to stand. A certifiable crazy person will let you know whether it’s safe for you to stand there or not. Whoops, looks like you’re standing on the hoarder’s duffle bag full of USB cables, that’s a no-no zone! You just lost 100 points and now a confused, stammering maniac is reading you the riot act. “DON’T YOU STAND THERE, YA HEAR ME? THIS MY HOUSE. THIS MY HOUSE AND YOU DON’T GET TO STAND THERE.” Much like the Game of Thrones, when you play Don’t Stand There! you either win or you suffocate to death under a pile of garbage.

Don't stand there. Or there. That's my favorite pile of cat turds you're standing on.

Don’t stand there. Or there. That’s my favorite pile of cat turds you’re standing on.

Looking for a healthy dose of reality? Bravo’s got you covered –

American Muscle Jerks, Monday through Friday, 24 hours a day, only on Bravo – If you’re like me, you want to watch the day-to-day shenanigans of old tyme throwback soda jerks, serving up vanilla cokes and smiles. Also, you want the soda jerks to be steroid-abusing, testosterone-dripping muscle-bound freaks. Follow Anthony, Trab, Flint, Bonesaw, Lil’ Pounder and the rest of the gang as they run New Jersey’s hottest sodee fountain slash gymnasium. Every episode will feature at least 20 references to “jerking it,” guaranteed. What else will happen? Who gives a shit, just look at these adonnesis! Put some creatine in your milkshake and stop hastlin’ me ya fuckin’ pipsqueeks! And if you like the American Muscle Jerks, you’re going to love The Real Housewives of the American Muscle Jerks. 9 women, all named Brandee, all selling their own brand of flavored water, all constantly pummeling each other.

I’m ready to write, produce, direct, and star in every one of these masterpieces, so please call your local cable providers and DEMAND that these shows get made.

AWESOMETALK – Get to Know Me and Season 2: Episode 4

OK, so two things. First, you should get to know me.

Second, here is episode 4 of the second season of AwesomeTalk, featuring an interview with Naomi Grossman, who you may know as “Pepper” from American Horror Story AND Dan Ridenour of the band Chemtrail is drinking at the bar with us. And you can hear my latest final word. All of this and much much much much more.