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Monday, May 31, 2010

Wordficiency: It's Just the Right Thing to Do


I love wordplay. More specifically, I am an admirer of the invention of new words. Shakespeare was probably the best at this. He has been credited with the creation and introduction of over 8000 words in the English language. It's likely that I don't even know that many words - neither did he it appears (hence the creation of 8000 new ones). One phenomenon of wordplay garnering some attention lately is the practice of combining two words or names to make one, dually-descriptive word. Brangelina, Beniffer and ginormous are just a few. We call this wordficiency* (word + efficiency). And it's been around for a long time. If you've ever been invited to brunch, you have reaped the rewards of this process. The rules are simple: (1) combine two words. Any more than that and you will just confuse the masses. (2) only one of the words can be in full form. For example, catastic (cat+fantastic) is funny - and a little depressing. However catfantastic is just as depressing, but also unimaginative.

That's it. Try it for yourself. But, beware. It's not as easy as you might think. Just ask linner, the embarrassed step-brother to brunch. He never could stack up. Instead, he's been relegated to sarcastic comments of hung-over college kids who have slept right past two meals. Here are a few of my submissions for your consideration...

1. Oilcean - We're closing in on two months of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So far, estimates put the amount of oil leaked at about 30 million gallons. Given the "strategies" BP has put in place to slow/stop the leak - I think at one point they actually were going to use a huge ball of slop including golf balls, rubber and eye of newt - it's time we get used to the idea of taking a dip in the Atlantic Oilcean during our summer vacation. My friend Rush Limbaugh might disagree. But, I just don't put a lot of faith in his or BP's ecological training.

2. Republicrat or Demopublican - I am tired of politicians switching parties for votes. There should be a Scarlet Letter label put on these carpetbaggers. This makes about as much sense as a man born and raised in Boston who roots for the Yankees because he looks better in pinstripes. I say we force these cowards into a new party. I haven't decided on which of these two I like so far - I'll just wait to see what the majority goes with.

3. Brinner - Just because linner never got his day in the sun, doesn't mean we give up on combining one meal name with another. The truth is that I love to eat cereal at dinner and I have nothing to call it. Some people may want to call this brupper, but that's just odd.

*Much thanks to Kamber for their assistance with this entry. I always value your inputelligence.

Monday, May 17, 2010

I Cry at Movies: A Guide to Staying "MAN"

OK. This could get ugly; but I'm prepared to show the way for all my red meat-eating brothers out there who have quietly (and secretly) brushed tears away while sitting next to their disinterested, dry-eyed female counterparts. Don't be ashamed men. You see, I've put a great deal of time and thought (and embarrassment) into the topic. I've sat as a sobbing, emotional juggernaut questioning my masculinity at every genre from Disney cartoons to low-budget sports flicks to random rom-coms staring Aaron Eckhart (and there are a lot of them). This vast amount of experience has enabled me to devise the following 3 simple rules - each one designed to keep your reputation closer to Mickey Rourke than Mickey Mouse.

1. The Bathroom is Your Ally
Did Old Yeller or Bambi's mother just die? Feel a swell of emotions coming on? Now is a good time to excuse yourself from the situation. You can always blame that ridiculously large soda or go with a small bladder defense (I'll leave it up to you to decide if a small bladder is worse or better than crying in public). One word of caution: don't use this excuse more than once for any one movie. You'll cease to be an emotional sidekick and instead be "that guy that shat himself at the movies".

2. Avoid Jennifer Aniston
There was a time when Jennifer was happily married to Brad Pitt, on the cast of Friends and did movies with Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey - light-hearted and forgettable roles. Then something changed (what could it be, I wonder). Now her movies are about as light-hearted as presidential assassinations. I recently was coerced into renting one of her latest turds, Love Happens. Hmm...love is a good thing. Sounds harmless, right? Nope. It's about a mourning widower who parlays his wife's death into a self-help book and speaking tour. Full of happy things like alcoholism and accidental death of children, this movie brought out the 15-year-old girl in me. I say, "Never again" to Miss Aniston. Although, I did like the one episode of Friends where Monica and Chandler - oh never mind.

3. Sports: Not the Solution
Think you'll be safe with a sports flick? Think again, sissy. Inspirational stories with underdog plots, sympathetic characters who remind us of us, lines designed to give you goosebumps, slow motion scenes with dramatic background music - these are just a few of the reasons to avoid movies about sports. Think I'm too sensitive? Here are a few popular sports movies you may have seen: Rudy, Field of Dreams, Rocky, The Pride of the Yankees, Miracle, The Natural, Brian's Song, Braveheart. OK, Braveheart isn't really a sports movie, but they do throw stones at one point - big stones. If you didn't cry at more than half of these, you should be employed full time as a person who fires people. This genre might seem like the safe choice on a Friday night at Blockbuster, but not only will you probably get a tear-induced snot bubble, you'll also lose your one movie choice for the month.

Follow my advice and stay on the road to Mantown. But, keep in mind most of this is coming from a guy who cried during Major League II. In my defense, however, Corbin Bernsen is arguably one of the most powerful actors of our time.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Model Citizen? Part 2

Some people were born to be models. Some were born to be writers. Some were born to write about the time they discovered that they would never be a model. If you're reading this and fit into the first category...piss off. This entry is for those of us with crooked noses and lazy eyes who want to make fun of your high cheekbones and perfect abs. Pretty people: don't waste your time here. Go look at GQ's website. I think they have a feature about how Josh Duhamel's sweat can cure leprosy. Now for the rest of us...please make sure all beautiful people have left the room...are they gone...good. I hate them.

But, what I hate even more are the talent agency parasites that feed on parents (of normal looking kids) who think their child will be the next Iman because they took that "one great photo at last year's family reunion." Luckily for me, I was able to observe all of these species in their natural environment at my talent callback last week.

I was ready. Fully prepared with my hip/young-looking shirt from Target, two fancy photos (see Model Citizen Part 1) and best Derek Zoolander blue steel face. I'll also mention that I spent considerable time primping: my face was shaved, nose hairs trimmed, hair freshly cut and teeth whitened. And, yes, my ear fuzz had been perfectly plucked. All of this, even though I put my name in as a voice over performer. Still, I thought, there's always a chance that they'd see "something" and my modeling career would skyrocket. I was wrong.

One thing I can quickly identify based on my past as a sales manager is a bait and switch. I could smell it the minute I stepped foot in the talent agency. A young college student took my "head shots" and motioned me to the waiting area where I was now corralled with a group of out-of-shape and nervous 13-17 year-old's and their even more out-of shape and nervous parents. Now, I'm no Jake Gyllenhaal, but in this room I could easily have convinced anyone that I had been an underwear model on one of those huge screens in Time Square.

A sixty-something woman, clad in black suit and Joan Rivers mask made her way to the runway. (Did I mention we were in a room surrounded with mirrors and a runway in the middle of it - we were). For the next 45 minutes we were told all about her time in "the business" and how hard "the business" is if you don't have help from someone who has been in...you guessed it..."the business". She dropped big names like Cindy Crawford, Joan Crawford, Joan Collins, Phil Collins (ok, not the last one) and told us that although "not many newcomers make it," her school has a 72% success rate. Apparently her idea of "success" is measured by simply graduating from this institution of higher leeching, even though no high-profile models working today are actually graduates.

Now that we'd be sufficiently intimidated, we were given some pricing options for their school and told that unless we had a passion for modeling registering an 8, 9 or 10 (on a scale of 10) we shouldn't waste their time. At which point I gathered my water bottle and new-found humility and walked out. You see, I had already figured myself to be a 7 out of 10 on the passion scale. In the end, I guess I'd rather be a modeling school drop-out than a John Casablancas graduate taught by the Darth Vader of "the business". I can't believe I shaved my ears.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Model Citizen?

The people closest to me will know that, in addition to toiling in the blogosphere, I've been know to perform a good many impressions. My Scottish voice (Sean Connery) might be my favorite, but I have a few others I've worked on over the years. Most, I'm confident, are offensive - like the gay German or the 42-year-old Star Wars fan who lives with his mother.

I'm not sure to whom I owe this talent since neither of my parents can do an impression. My father does have one alternate voice he uses for every nationality when telling a story - it's a sort of Asian-with-a-speech-impediment hybrid. Often, when he does a vocal impression in the middle of a story, the listeners end up feeling sorry for the person he's depicting. "Oh, how sad," they think. "That poor man in the story is so brave. Can you imagine being a foreigner with a mental disability? I thought you said he was British?" Maybe I was adopted.

And so, from the Never Give up on Your Dreams department, I decided I should try to parlay this annoying party trick in to a dream career. My first step...email a talent agency. I sent one brief (and I'm sure pathetic) email to the Jon Casablancas talent agency and then instantly forgot about this goofy exercise. Two weeks later, I received a phone call from Maureen, the head agent at JC (that's how we, in the business, refer to Jon Casablancas). She convinced me that I was perfect for what they do and to meet with her two days later for a "sit down". Impressed by her rhetoric, I agreed. I would need to bring at least two photos of myself and my resume.

Not quite sure why a voice over professional would need head shots, I nevertheless went where any financially challenged person with a dream would go - the closest drug store. I developed two photos that didn't make me look like an ogre. The finished products were a sort of embarrassingly amateurish, black-and-white, 8 X 10 with fancy border that looked great at first sight. However, as I continued to admiringly look at them over the next few hours, I realized just how silly this would look to a tenured talent agent. How could I expect to compete against professional models with pictures of me playing basketball and posing with my son at his birthday party. As for my resume, I decided to bag that idea since the last performance I had was in playing brother number 8 or 9 in a summer production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (in 8th grade). Not exactly Sir Laurence Olivier. No ma'am, I was going in there as myself and if that wasn't good enough...they could kish my ash (Sean Connery, again).

To be continued...

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I Feel Old

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not old. In fact, I hear 30 is the new 20 - which would have been of some consolation last year when I actually was 30. But, lately I've been noticing a good many signs that our society is already beginning the process of clearing me out and making room for the next wave of ultra consumers and hipsters. Yes, the story of replacement is the only true consistency in the human saga. I've already created a miniature version of myself; and it's only a matter of time before he realizes that I am, in fact, not cool (or whatever word the kids are currently using). Just in case you are around my age and aren't sufficiently depressed by the fact that Justin Bieber was born the same year Forest Gump was released, here are a few more pick-me-ups:

1. The average age of players in the NFL, NBA and MLB is 27. It seems like only yesterday I was routing for my sports heroes. As they dunked from the freethrow line or hit the game winning home run and thought "that'll be me some day." Now, I fall asleep before halftime while Lebron James is a 3-time MVP. He's 25, by the way.

2. Dakota Fanning has been in 28 films. Wasn't she just the annoying little shit in Sweet Home Alabama? These days she's an accomplished actress who is called a genius by Myrel Streep and is currently playing the annoying teen-aged shit in one of those Twilight movies (full disclosure: I've seen them all).

3. To legally smoke in the U.S. you must have been born in or after 1996. OK. The good news here is that the majority of the 18-year olds who start smoking today will most likely die before me. The bad news is that I will need to drink a daily blended mixture of green tea extract, carrot juice, shaman hair follicles and eagle urine to outlive all of them.

I'll have better news next time, but I have the sudden urge to ingest some prunes and put on my mint-green trousers for my daily walk.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Are You Kidding Me?

HMJS Readers,

The following is an actual email that recently came across my desk. For the purposes of authenticity, I've made no changes to the grammar - I think you'll see why. I have a few thoughts after. Please enjoy. (Oh, one more thing. It's important to note the original email was in a Comic Sans font - as are most credible political manifestos. OK, now go ahead.)

Let me see if I got this right..... If you cross the North Korean border illegally you get 12 years hard labor. If you cross the Iranian border illegally you are detained indefinitely. If you cross the afghan border illegally, you get shot. If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed. If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from again. If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed. If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political prison to rot. If you cross the U.S. border illegally you get:
A job
A drivers license
Social security card
Welfare
Food stamps
Credit cards
Subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house
Free education
Free health care
A lobbyist in Washington
Billions of dollars worth of public documents printed in your language
The right to carry your country's flag while you protest that you don't get enough respect
And, in many instances, you can vote.
I just wanted to make sure i had a firm grasp on the situation!
Please...it's time to wake up Americia !!!!


Right about now, you're probably thinking what I was thinking. Where exactly is the country of "Americia" and why does this person think we need to wake them up? Must be an opium epidemic. My second response is to go immediately to Venezuela to become a spy! I've seen a bunch of James Bond movies and would love to wear a tuxedo and drive a cool Jaguar loaded with heat-seeking missiles. Lastly, as I'm between jobs currently, it looks like all I need to do for new employment in the U.S. is take a trip to Canada and back to get some offers. Not half bad, huh?

When did we stop caring about people other than those who look and speak like us? When did we stop realizing that foreigners wanting to live here is at the very least flattery to the greatness of our country and its rights? The truth is, if you lived in any of the other countries listed above and broadcasted a message criticising their government, the punishment might be much worse than just a random blogger making you infamous. Not sure what would happen to you in Americia.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Time Scare: TV Star Named as Early Suspect

New York City's Time Square was brought to a screeching halt Saturday evening (and into the early hours of Sunday morning) as a "smoking" SUV parked on West 45th Street was discovered by tshirt vendor, Lance Orton. Orton, who is more well known as the face of Zatarain's Rice Corporation, had only this to say regarding his heroic discovery,"you see something. You say something."





Quite a contrast to the comments made by 9-year-old Stevie Torson, a passer-by on vacation with his family, who said, "he who smelt it . . . dealt it."


The SUV was found to be stocked with "cheap-looking alarm clocks connected to a 16-ounce can filled with fireworks" and a rifle cabinet packed with a "fertilizer-like substance." No true suspects have been named; although based on the list of contents of the vehicle, all early signs point to television's MacGruber.