I'm Moving the Blog

I now have my own website! www.especiallyheinous.com For the 7 or 8 of you who have read my sporadic blogging over the last year, thank you so much, and I hope you'll continue to read my rants over at especiallyheinous.com!

I Don't Have Blindside Money

Was it just me, or did Jane Fonda have a few nip slips at the Golden Globes Sunday night? I'm not saying it was a full-on Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, but I'm pretty sure Jane's right nipple kept peaking out over the top of her dress. I guess it was excited to see the Glee kids. I don't mind it, but if I had had to bet on one of the "Nine to Five" ladies exposing her breasts, my money would've been on Dolly. Of course, with all that cosmetic surgery, the only way to see Dolly's nipples these days would be if she wore a backless dress.

Speaking of the Golden Globes, I'm not a fan of British comedians, but Ricky Gervais was pretty impressive as the host this year. I love how every time he came onstage, he had a different drink. There wasn't even a hint of discretion because he kept getting different glasses. Like once he came out with a wine glass, and then he came out with a high-ball, and it was something different every time. I kept expecting him to walk out from behind the curtain with a fishbowl margarita with a tiny umbrella in it. But I think if the Globes wanted a celebrity-basher, call the master: Kathy Griffin. As an homage to all the assholes who got up in arms in 2003 because the Dixie Chicks "spoke ill of our President on foreign soil," I say if we're going to have a celebrity roastmaster at the Globes, let's keep it local. Call Griffin. She's never turned down a job.

And before I move on, I just have to say to all of the professional comedians who made fun of the wonderful Temple Grandin who was at the Golden Globes: you're all horrible, horrible people, and if I end up in hell, I will blame your making me laugh at all your horrible jokes for my being there. (Alex Baze tweeted "Claire Danes sexually assaulted by rodeo clown. Details at 11." Nothing funnier than that has been said in 2011.)

I have a friend who's doing some kind of New Year's detox, which I'd LOVE to do, but I'm very put off by detoxing and cleansing and here's why: several months ago, in an out-of-character and ill-conceived maneuver, I purchased a bottle of the 14-Day Acai Berry Cleanse pills. Now, Publix also had another bottle of pills that was also a 14-day cleanse, and that one was even endorsed by that handsome fellow from The Biggest Loser: Jillian Michaels. However, Mr. Michaels' pills cost twice that of the Acai Berry Cleanse, and since Oprah likes acai berries, needless to say, the decision made itself. Well, as it turns out the Acai Berry Cleanse pills function basically as an herbal laxative, so by the second day, I got tired of playing Beat the Clock while sprinting to the restroom and I was like "I'm out!" So now whenever I hear the words "cleanse" or "detox," I have a Palov's dogs response and shit myself on the spot.

I need to expand my social life. After work Friday, I decided I wanted a drink, so being far too anti-social to go to a bar or even a restaurant, I went by the liquor store to get my drink of choice: Grey Goose. However, the store was out of the pint-size bottles of Grey Goose. They did have larger bottles, but who am I? Sandra Bullock? I don't have Blindside money! So, instead, I opted to buy something called Gentleman Jack, which I have since learned is slightly fancier Jack Daniels. Apparently, Jack Daniels is blue jeans, and Gentleman Jack is khaki pants. So, long story longer, I ended up drinking a pint of Gentleman Jack over the course of three nights--alone--over the weekend. Add to that, if I ever pass by a channel showing an Ashley Judd movie, the next 2 hours of my life are committed unless I'm on my way to a wedding or a funeral, and if it's Double Jeopardy, it had better be the wedding or funeral of a dear, dear friend, or I'm not moving. So, anyways, I stumbled across The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And there I was. Saturday night. Sitting in my bed. Sipping Gentleman Jack and Mountain Dew. Watching The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood for the, I don't know, sixth, time. Alone. And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you know you've hit rock bottom. Except it wasn't, because a few days later, I tracked down an email address for the guy who has the Twitter username I want and then I proceeded to email him--a brilliant Navy engineer--to beg him to give up the username so I can have it.

Final thought: I love, love, love Sofia Vergara. Super sexy. Incredibly funny. But...how is it that her conversational English in interviews is worse than her intentionally bad English on Modern Family?

Shame On You!

I'm not one of these music snobs. You know the type: their favorite bands are groups you've never heard of, they hate anyone who's mainstream, and they're always way too passionate when they talk about music. However, with only a passing interest, I can't help but to notice that almost everything on the radio is either a cover of a song that has already been a hit once, or at a minimum, the new song samples a piece of an old hit. We all came to love "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" after watching Dirty Dancing. Patrick Swayze was spinning Jennifer Grey around like a ceiling fan, and all was right with the world. Well, now The Black Eyed Peas have sampled the chorus in their song "The Time (Dirty Bit)." Between that ridiculousness and the Glee kids' cover of the original, Swayze is rolling over in his grave. And so is Jennifer Grey's old nose.

Nothing is new or original now. Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" was originally sung by Loretta Lynn in 1994, for Christ's sake! Google it, if you don't believe me! The last truly original song that I heard was "The Bed Intruder Song." Catchy, entertaining, instructive. It's a cautionary tale. A story of bravery, courage, and taking a stand against both violence and proper grammar. But what do I know? I don't like gospel music.

While visiting my grandmother over Thanksgiving, she shamed me, not once, but twice because I'm a, well let's say, "passive" Christian. The first conversation went like this:

Granny: "You don't like gospel music, do you?"
Me: "Not really."
Granny: "Shame on you!"

The second conversation was similar:

Granny: "Do you read your Bible?"
Me: "No ma'am."
Granny: "Shame on you!"

So between Granny's issues with my lack of Christian devotion, and my parents being appalled that I support gay marriage and gay adoption, I'm pretty much the liberal heathen devil-child of my entire family. My parents think my brother is a selfish asshole, but if I continue to discuss politics and religion with them, he'll be promoted to the position of "the good son" in no time.

To an extent, I can't blame them for their small-minded beliefs. Most of the local pastors fill their heads with visions of sugarplums--no, wait, that's Santa Claus. The local pastors fill their heads with darker ideas: like the idea that all homosexuals are pedophiles who, when they aren't molesting the children of the community, are recruiting them to become the next generation of gays and lesbians. Biblical quotes from the Book of Leviticus and the mantra "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" zoom around homophobic arguments like flies over horseshit. I don't know which disappoints me more: that my own mother quoted that phrase, or that she actually misquoted it and said "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam." I hate to break it to Mom, but if she is taking up the cross against having sex with yourself, she's going to have even less supporters than the anti-gay protesters. It'll be her and that nutbag Christine O'Donnell--who's not a witch, by the way, because she only dabbled in witchcraft and that was years ago.

Not all churches are bad. I found one in Tuscaloosa when I lived there that seemed to get it. And there's at least one in Savannah that definitely gets it. But there are a lot of churches, and worse, a lot of Christians that keep spewing this hateful anti-gay rhetoric that is causing verbal bullying and physical violence and is leading the charge in creating the environment that has 14 year-old gay KIDS committing suicide left and right. And I don't know if their taking a stand against cause-and-effect like they are against evolution--and often against logic--or if they just don't care if all the gay KIDS keep killing themselves, but maybe my grandmother needs to be directing her advice of listening to more gospel music to the community in addition to me. As I recall the song goes, "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so." It doesn't have the caveat of "unless I'm gay, then the Bible tells me I'm gonna burn in hell, but not before I suffer a lifetime of anguish by hateful people who hide behind His name." Quite frankly, that doesn't rhyme, and the melody for such a long line would be terrible.

*I know this was probably my least funny post, and I'm sorry you suffered through it. I started off with the intention of writing about my grandmother telling me "Shame on you!" twice while I was home, but then, as usually happens when I get to talking politics, I got angry and the post took a more serious tone than I intended. But when 14 year-old kids are killing themselves in droves over something so easily fixable, that's an appropriate time to get serious. www.thetrevorproject.org

Bob Vila in My Pants & Cock Wine

My balls participated in No-Shave November. I was so ready for December 1st. The last two weeks of November felt like I had Bob Vila in my boxerbriefs. I think my balls might have been renovating a house. They were installing hardwood floors in a turn-of-the-century brownstone. They were gueststarring on Home Improvement. I know that show hasn't been on the air in 10 years, but you get the idea.

I went home for Thanksgiving and arrived at my parents' house to find the place empty, so I decided to buy a bottle of wine to pass the time. I went to Piggly Wiggly in search of pinot grigio. The Pig's wine aisle leaves a lot to be desired. Actually, it's not even an aisle; it's two shelves tucked away in the corner of the store, like a child who's being punished. My decision as to what brand to choose was a quick one, as they only had one brand of pinot grigio: something called HRM Rex Goliath, which costs $6 and features a giant rooster on the label--the name and the label design, I have since learned, is a tribute to the legend of a 47-lb. rooster featured in the Texas circus-circuit over 100 years ago. Nothing screams "klassy" like a cheap bottle of wine that pays homage to a giant cock. Actually, purchasing and drinking said bottle screams "klassy" just as loud.

And so it came to pass. I took my wine home, and of course my non-drinking parents failed me yet again by not having a corkscrew. I texted my brother to see if he still had the generic Swiss Army knives we were given as children, to which he responded, "It's in my hiking backpack and covered in tuna." Fortunately, when I pinned him down on the specifics, it turned out that only the can opener tool on the knife had gotten tuna juice on it when he opened a can on his last camping trip. After washing the knife, I spent fifteen minutes using the poorly made corkscrew to get the even-more-poorly made cork out of the bottle.

By the time my family started arriving, I was down to the last glass in the bottle. If I had eaten lunch, I probably would been unaffected, but since I hadn't eaten in nine hours, I was tipsy. My parents arrived, and so did my brother and his quasi-girlfriend--a lovely girl, but a cross-clutching Christian who had been home-schooled and who I imagine has lived a sheltered life.

After introductions, the girl sat on my parents' couch as Mom made smalltalk with her. Mom asked "So what do you think of Hayden's beard? He's doing that No-Shave November."

"So am I," I said with a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary grin across my clean-shaven face. I had already told Mom the joke about my balls, as I enjoy horrifying her as much as possible without getting taken off my parents' payroll. Immediately, she whipped her head around: "Jeffrey! That's enough out of you!" The girl sat confused as I laughed and Mom struggled to quickly change the subject.

I knew better than to say anything more, but in my heart, that's who I am: an inappropriate person who enjoys pushing the boundaries. Case in point: my friend texted me a few weeks ago while waiting on her friend to get an early-morning abortion. We made some fun jokes: "And I thought Folgers was the best part of waking up." "It's like having a parasite removed." "Too bad it's not like tick that you can get rid of by burning it with an extinguished match and pulling it off with tweezers." God knows, I have a high tolerance for the dark and dirty, but even I had a twinge of sadness. I love abortion jokes in the abstract--they're my favorite kind after handjob jokes--but picturing my friend sitting in a waiting room thumbing through a faded issue of Time magazine while her slutty, irresponsible friend's fetus was scraped and sucked like an oyster was a little too real for me. The discussion left me very disenchanted with the whole subject. It was as if she had aborted Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

But I digress. My drunken night wasn't the only story to come out of my Thanksgiving trip home for Thanksgiving. As we all know by now, my mother is insane. If I ever say anything about being old or single, she immediately rushes in with, "You're only 24! That's not old!" But unprovoked, she loves to initiate conversations about my romantic life--or lack thereof. While decorating for Christmas the night before I returned to Savannah, she said, "We could hang another stocking if you found someone to date before Christmas." I guess that was supposed to be some incentive for me; maybe Mom thought I'd be excited about the possibility of this girl sharing all the candy that would be in stocking with me. "Mom, even I could find someone to date SOON, I couldn't do it before Christmas; that's less than a month away." "So? I got your father in less than a month." "Yes, Mom, but unlike you, I can't fake a pregnancy scare." Boom! Shutdown!

Look, here's the deal: in my family--especially my extended family--you're either a dumbass or a smartass. Everyone plays the hand they're dealt, and fortunately, I was dealt a Royal Flush when it came to being a smartass. What's worse, is that in addition to having a smartmouth, I'm actually well-read and aware of current events, which just makes me all the more obnoxious. Comments like calling my No-Shave Novembering brother "Hayden bin Laden" and responding to my mother's claims that he runs a lot with "From who? The Department of Homeland Security?" roll off my tongue. I have low self-esteem. I don't like not being the funniest person in the room, and fortunately, it's rare that I'm not. Also fortunate is that my brother is a hilarious smartass like me, but not quite as funny as me; he has morals and standards and considers some things "off-limits" and "sacred"--conditions that affect me less often than I get the flu. So when he immediately came back from my first "Hayden bin Laden" comment by calling me "Drew Carey"--because of my new Buddy Holly-style glasses--my heart swelled with pride. Maybe I never taught him about how to talk to girls, and maybe I never showed him how to tie a tie, but, damn it, he learned how to make someone feel worthless with a backhanded compliment delivered in a sarcastic tone at the feet of the master. I'm, of course, referring to our mother, but I like to think he learned a little from me too. :)

Tanning Bed Sex

My brother and I couldn't be more different if we tried. Specific to this story, I'm very emotional and he's a cold, unfeeling robot. I cry every time I watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. My feelings get hurt very easily, and I get angry at the drop of a hat. My brother, on the other hand, lacks emotion so much so that it approaches the border of sociopathy. That's why when he dates a girl, my parents and I can never get any kind of read as whether or not he is actually interested in her or if she's just a hobby to pass the time.

So, these days, he's sort of dating this girl in Tuscaloosa. She came to visit him and stayed at our house a few weeks ago for 2 days. Mom made my brother sleep on the couch so the girl could have his bed, which I find to be hilarious, because he's 19, and if he wants to bang her, he's going to bang her, and the separate sleeping arrangements is just preventing cuddling, not banging, and if he's like most guys, this is a win-win situation for him. But I digress. This weekend, he went to Tuscaloosa to stay with her, and Mom was quick to point out that the girl and her roommates have a guestroom that my brother will be staying in, as if I'm one of Mom's fellow churchgoers who would be horrified and get the vapors over it or something.

Anyways, before he left, Mom told me that she told my brother that she didn't want him having sex right now--to which I had to ask "'right now' as opposed to when?" And she said when he gets married, which gave me a good laugh and reminded me that the reason I talk to her on a daily basis is because I get good material like that. So, she jokingly says "But maybe you should talk to him too." And I blew it off with my usual, "No, I'm good." But 2 minutes after I hung up the phone with him, genius struck!

I texted my brother: "Mom says you're going to Tuscaloosa for the weekend. Don't have sex with anyone who's pro-life." I was so proud of that joke! My favorite jokes of mine are the ones that make ME laugh! Anyways, needless to say, I had to bust Mom's balls, so I call her like an hour later and I say, "Well, no need to thank me, but I had the sex talk with Hayden." "NO YOU DIDN'T!?" "Yep." "Please tell me you're joking!" "Nope." "What did you say?!" And I told her, and she was horrified, which was icing on the cake of my great joke.

Now, obviously the joke was that my brother shouldn't have sex with anyone who's pro-life because if she were to get pregnant, she'd be opposed to going to see "the dentist." But more importantly, you don't want to sleep with anyone who's pro-life, because, quite frankly, they're probably really bad in bed. They probably look like someone who eats fried chicken straight out of the KFC bucket while they watch The O'Reilly Factor, and people like that are not sexy. These are the people who call-in to Nancy Grace, and worse still, watch Nancy Grace. Their idea of lingerie is granny panties and the Old Navy 4th of July t-shirt from 2003. There's no spice, no kink--no feathers or leather, except for the animals on their farm. Most pro-lifers have what I call "tanning bed sex." That's where you lie on your back, motionless for 12 minutes, feeling warm, and afterwards you're covered in sweat and you smell funny.

I kid the pro-lifers...with love. Most of my friend are pro-life, and they're mostly nice people. Of course, I'm pro-choice, and I'm always recruiting: if you have your baby, he could grow up to be a vulgar, foulmouthed, inappropriate asshole just like me :)

My "Breaking Hymens, Breaking Hearts" Tour

My mother is a loose-cannon; I think that's been made clear. She's so tightly wound in her conservative Republican, evangelical Christian ways that my liberal, bleeding heart skips a beat whenever I can shock and appall her. And today was no exception.

The past few days have been amazing for me creatively. I've come up with some great jokes and gotten pretty good feedback via texts and Facebook comments...at least from my target audience. On Saturday, I came up with a joke about how I want Alabama meteorologist James Spann to co-host a talkshow with a Hispanic, and the show has to be called "Spick and Spann." Severely racist, I know, but nothing is sacred, so I texted it to a few people--mostly my liberals who would think it was funny because of the pun and the outrageousness of it, and not because they enjoy racist jokes. I got a good response and came out with a less regional version in case my Facebook friends weren't familiar with James Spann and I posted it: "I think the phrase 'spick and span' is very racist considering the large number of Hispanics in the janitorial industry."

I also came up with "The child who has been screaming in this restaurant throughout my entire lunch reinforces my pro-choice stance," which was even more well-received, probably because we've all had meals ruined by ill-mannered parents who bring their undisciplined kids to restaurant and let them run a muck like they're at Chuck E. Cheese.

Capitalizing on the baby-killing success of my abortion joke, I followed it up with "I'm going to be terribly upset if they kill the baby in Paranormal Activity 2...unless it cries a lot, and then all bets are off."

Then, I've been talking to this really aloof girl lately and can't get a read on whether or not she's interested, so I got to thinking: is she being aloof because she's playing "the game"? Is she debating if she's interested? Is she hatching a plan to abduct me and sell me to a Russian businessman in the international sex trade, because (and then I was inspired by Jackie Kashian) I know people look at me and think "Wow! I bet he's a tiger in bed!" and I hate to ruin the fantasy, but no, I'm not. Do you want to know what I'm like in bed? I'm a lot like I am in everyday life: socially awkward and kind of lethargic. And then a shortened version of that thought process became my next Facebook status, and again, I was praised for my comedic genius.

So today marked Day 4 of my creative streak, and still thinking about the aloof girl and regretting having told her that I'm a Taylor Swift fan, I began to analyze why anyone--other than Kanye--would hate Taylor. Slowly, I began to accept that some on her songs are a bit whiny and melodramatic--particularly that song "Fifteen" about her friend who loses her virginity to a guy who turns out to be an asshole. And then LIGHTBULB! "That song could be called 'Broken Hymen, Broken Heart'." I was so proud of myself! I added afterwards that that is also the title of my Lifetime movie. I posted it on Facebook, tweeted it to a few close friends, and I was so excited, I even had to tell my mother.

Needless to say, she said that the joke was terrible and I was terrible and she doesn't know where I get my dark, liberal, vulgar sense of humor and she just prays that one day as I get older, I'll outgrow it--as if it's a bad habit like picking my nose or leaving dirty laundry on my bedroom floor. So, as fun as horrifying Mom with the joke was, my real joy came about an hour later as I was driving and thought to myself: "I should add some CDs to my Christmas list. Would anything be better than Mom asking the clerk at Wal-Mart 'Do you have the new Shakira album "Dirty Sanchez"? No? Well, what about Buddy Holly's "Cleveland Steamer"? No, you don't have that one either, eh? Well, the only other one on the list is Kenny Chesney's "Tossed Salad." Do you have that one?'" I literally laughed off and on every time I thought about it for half an hour. Even now, six hours later, I've got a huge grin on my face just picturing her naively saying crass sexual slang to some 17 year boy who's shitting himself laughing and waiting for his shift to be over so he can call everyone he knows to recount the story of the middle-aged women who wanted a Lady Gaga CD called "Blumpkin."

As I become the next Chelsea Handler, with book deals, my own TV shows (Chelsea's getting another one called "After Lately" that will be like Curb Your Enthusiasm set in her office), and have a mattress stuffed with $100 bills, I will call my stand up tour "The 'Breaking Hymens, Breaking Hearts' Tour" and I'll comp your ticket because we're old friends.

My Giant Armenian Ass

Remember college? Did you squeeze every minute of fun out of it? Keg parties, BJs at the frat house, watching Brittany do the Walk of Shame from your place back to sorority row, sleeping late, skipping class, no responsibilities. That certainly wasn't my experience, but it's still how I'd like to remember my college days. Actually, that's not true; all my nostalgia revolves around the hope. Back in college, the world was my oyster, ready to be cracked open. But two years later, reality has set in and I'm now the cynical poster boy for giving up on lost dreams and the hope that the future is bright and shiny.

My alarm goes off every morning and each time as I hit "snooze" I utter a profanity, each one more vulgar and heartfelt than the one before: BEEEEEP BEEEEEP "Damn it!"...BEEEEEP BEEEEEP "Son of a bitch!"....BEEEEP BEEEEEP "Motherfucker!" until finally I've slept so late that I know I'm going to be really late to work, but yet I have to get up now because if I'm any later than what I'm already going to be at this point, I'm going to get chewed out when I get there, and, hey, that's no way to start a Monday.

So I shower and do a half-ass job of shaving. I grab a pair of clean boxerbriefs from the pile of laundry that I got out of the dryer and threw on the chair in my room. Wrinkled clothes, dirty glasses...most days I look like a hungover Drew Carey, even though I didn't have anything to drink the night before. I get to work and look at the clock every 10 minutes until 5:30 and ask myself 100 times: "You couldn't have figured out that you wanted to be a comedy writer 7 years ago? No clue at all, huh? A scholarship to NYU or UCLA wasn't worth giving your career aspirations a little more thought? No? Ok, well go back to filing now. Better hurry because your bosses' lunches aren't going to pick themselves up, are they?"

Then I'm exhausted, though I can never be sure if it's because of working hard or the fact that my spirit is gone, so I try not to focus on it and just pick up a burrito for dinner and go home to lie in bed and watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Maybe if Kris Jenner had been my mother, I'd be more successful now. Sure, I'd be pushing 30 and still dressing and acting like 13 year-old, but I'd have money and fame--the only things that really matter. Of course, I'd vomit every week when the credits ran and I remembered that I was on a show that was a Ryan Seacrest Production, but that would keep me skinny, except for my giant Armenian ass.

And then I start thinking that maybe I should just adopt a kid. I can't afford it now, but maybe if I cut out the Starbucks for two or three years. But then I think how I'd be a terrible father. If I adopted boy, I'd be completely screwed. I hate the outdoors. I know nothing about sports, video games,...what else do boys like?

And if I adopted a girl, I'd be fine until she got her first period; then I'd be useless. "Here are some tampons. Don't go swimming; you'll attract sharks. And don't go camping; you'll attract bears...and wolves. Congratulations, sweetie! Today, you're a woman!"

But I do think I'd be good when it came to talking to my daughter about boys. "Don't be a whore or no one will ever marry you." Sound advice. Concise. To the point.

And after all that, I fight the necessity for me to go on anti-depressants because I'm worried it might interfere with my "creativity" and prevent me from writing the world's next great dick-joke. Because I know in my heart that that's how I'll become famous: tweeting some joke about how my crotch is clean-shaven and ready for basic training or a court appearance. HBO will order a 13-episode season, and I'll be on my way to becoming the straight Michael Patrick King.