NEW SH*T and Notes on Freshman Year

As an FYI I have lots of stand-up jokes ready to go and they are not included here. I'm itching to get them out there and will soon. Here are some other jokes though:

• On a final exam for a literature class that I took the other day I had to answer a prompt that read “You're at a bar, enjoying a lovely evening when you overhear the conversation at the next table. It's four of the authors we have studied who have met for drinks. What are they saying?” First of all, if I'm having a “lovely evening,” why am I at a bar? Water slides are the lowest I'll go in terms of cultural decency. I don't even drink! Get real. Second of all, why am I eavesdropping? Unless this bar's located at the city limits of rude-town this isn't adding up to me.

• You know, I was reading on the website of ABC News that one of the worst jobs you can possibly have is oil rig worker. How do you get that job anyway? I'd like to talk to someone that's an oil rig worker, say something like “Hey, how'd you get in the business?” I wonder if the guy would say “I don't know, that's just who I am. I must've just been bit by the oil rig worker bug.”
• I wonder if people that helped make the Panama Canal were “bitten by the Panama Canal bug.”

• If someone were to put a gun to my head and say “You have to decide right now... do you want this gun to your head or not?” I would say “No.”
• I would add “Please do not do that. I really prefer the situation where there were no guns involved. It's odd you're putting so much pressure on me for a question that's that easy. You didn't even need to shout. You could've just said it plainly... ya know, you didn't have to be such a spaz about it.” So that's how that would go.

• Life with too much work in it can be be ruined just like a piece of chicken with too much teriyaki sauce.

My friend Mike and I made this one happen, a very solid joke:

• They ought to make a song like Afro Man's hit single “Because I Got High,” but about Adderall and being extremely productive instead.

Here is some filth that I wrote forever ago:

• At the risk of sounding sappy, I think life is about the little things. Like, just one of those nice little perks in my life is that I really love Listerine. I really like the classic Listerine, you know what I mean? That “cool mint,” jet blue, classic mouthwash stuff. It's timeless. It's been a very popular thing in America for decades now. I just love the way it feels, basically. I just love the way it feels in my mouth. I can't put too much of it in my mouth all at once though, because if I'm not careful with it, it can get way, way down my throat and make breathing a real chore-a-rino. No, but honestly, after a tough day of getting through dozens of chapters of textbooks it feels good. It just feels good! It's like a relief. I also just feel like I connect with Listerine when it's in my mouth. The trouble is after Listerine's in mouth Listerine wants me to meet it's parents, but I say I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. Then Listerine says “What are you, ashamed? You should be proud of our sweet, tender love! I am!” Then I say “I know, I know. I'm proud of who we are. It's just I'm not sure how much your parents like me, Listerine. Remember how last time I was over and how they pointed out the ketchup stain on my collar?” Then Listerine says “It could have been blood! They said it out of concern! Even if it was ketchup they should think that you oughta know,” and then I say “They just point out all my imperfections! And remember how they made fun of how I never got braces and my crooked teeth!” Listerine said “It was all in good fun,” but it was too busy because I was already crying going “They hate me! They really hate me!” Me and Listerine have a rocky relationship.

I don't know if this is a joke or just an odd but true thing that happened to me:

-I once got a yummy Snapple. It was a Snapple grapeade. Then I got to my favorite part where I check what the fact on my cap is. Mine was “honey bees have hair on their eyes.”

So that's that, whatever it is or however you want to classify it.

Here are not jokes, and obviously do as you please as far as reading or stopping reading is concerned.

Here are notes of the biggest things I've learned this year (my freshman year at college) on my own (which I've learned much more through than in classes) as well as in classes. It is not really a coherent piece of writing quite yet so much as it is a collection of notes of feelings I've been obsessed with recently. Also, I hope typos and grammar mistakes are minimal but no promises, bro. Some of it's a bit grim too and skippable for those that like to skip reading grim things. Either way, it's here:

-Ecologist Garrett Hardin that wrote about a problem called “The Tragedy of The Commons,” that has to do with farming but basically also has to do with humanity. First of all a lot of people think the word “tragedy,” means something that is simply not good but a “tragedy,” doesn't refer to the quality of an event at all; it just refers to an event that is bad that cannot be prevented. The Tragedy of The Commons is that the “rational herdsman,” (kind of meaning the average man) will act in an exclusively selfish way, even if it harms the earth, those around him, and thus himself later on in the long run as long as it profits him in a very quick and tangible way. However, even the most selfish herdsmen possible-- who only “intends only his own gain”-- is “led by an invisible hand to promote…the public interest.” I just find folklore sounding stuff like this (even though it's a piece of scientific writing based on scientific evidence and scientific theories) interesting. I learned this in my Science in the Modern World class.

-Americans are selfish, narcissists that ultimately feel lonely while people from countries like India, China, and Mexico can go too far in the other direction and families can be too controlling. I learned this in my Border Crossings class.

-There was this guy Alvin Ailey that was an incredibly choreographer and also Spalding Gray was a brilliant monologuist. I learned this in my Renowned Arts Leaders Class.

-Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves.
Martin Luther King Jr.

I discovered this quote in my African American Literature class.

     Not the first time I blogged about Martin Luther King Jr. and you can totally find me writing about him very quickly and not necessarily in a significant way, but it's totally existent here. Some might think it's an odd thing for me of all people to be a little obsessed with him but I read in the Piri Thomas novel “Down These Mean Streets,” a quote I enjoyed that went something like “Your mad is just as good as everyone else's,” and that was a cool thing to hear because I've heard that idea spoken before (the idea that everyone's opinion matters no matter what the subject or background or time or place or circumstance a person finds themselves in) but never so pithily and perfect than from Martin Luther King Jr. and Piri Thomas.

     But I find that a lot in a lot of my heroes: the neurotic, comedic greats like Woody Allen, Marc Maron, Conan O'Brien, Pete Holmes, and Norm MacDonald (not famous for neuroticism but totally is neurotic) totally deal with issues that Martin Luther King Jr. quote and that Piri Thomas quote pithily reference that feeling, despite being different people in difference circumstances in a different time. They all-- and I feel like myself to a degree and possibly later on when decades later I'm close to as good as those guys-- have this constant audience awareness that probably isn't healthy and probably should be there but to a lesser degree. Double-consciousness, as brilliant writers like W. E. B. DuBois have pointed out, is not really a healthy thing, ultimately.

     It strikes me as odd too that a lot of brilliant writers have tried to get really into activism through their writing but ultimately by the end of their careers, basically give up on people. I want to eventually have some activist tone or have some kind of impact with writing someday so good G-d that's scary and interesting. Really, giving up on people is what Dave Chappelle did, basically. One can see it crystal clear through the article the San Francisco Bee wrote about him. Sure, the job of comedian is different from the job of writing literature but they are both jobs that when done well involve some degree of social criticism. Anyway, we should really only have one-conscious and loving ourselves should come more easily than it is currently or when DuBois was writing. And it's an interesting thing because according to Erich Fromm in his book “The Art of Loving,” (not something I studied in school, just like all this comedy stuff; I just obsess about learning about it) “aloneness and separateness is the source of all anxiety,” and a lot of people in my life kind of can't help but be a little hard on themselves and feel like they are the worst person and stuff like that, etc. etc. I've also been obsessed with the fact that 20% of the United States feels lonely according to a reliable study from the University of Chicago and other stuff and a bunch of studies like that. There are other studies too, that through overwhelming scientific evidence show that playing really violent video games makes you a less social and less optimistic person in general whether you know about it or choose to recognize it or not. It worries me to a degree (at least) because a lot of my friends do that and I still do that occasionally and it's a huge part of American pop culture in 2012 between all the Call of Duty games.

I also find these quote from Marc Maron's radio show “WTF with Marc Maron,” to apply to me and really anyone who's notably sensitive and other people in my life or others who have what I goofily call “big feelings,” or what Sarah Silverman calls “feeling deeply.” It kind of wraps up the thoughts that I've been obsessed about this year and feelings I've had and feelings I've known other people to have and also they're poignant and really funny at the same time:

Louis CK Pt. 1

23:12

Marc Maron to Louis CK:

“It represents the conflict of... it sounds to me what happened was...you've got to accept, as I do, that we are and can be extraordinarily narcissistic and we have those feelings. [All we do all day is] we create our world and we comment on our own brains. “

Louis CK Pt. 2

1:12:04

Marc Maron to Louis CK

“This is very great about the way you think because you have minor problems in your life and always... it could be like 'I really have to stop eating ice cream...” … and then you go off on like 'Because I was reading this thing about Theodore Roosevelt...' because you have this way of taking global histories of great movements as wisdom which I think goes back to this idea of where you have to parent yourself...”