I Like to Reply to Every Email I Receive With “What?”

Dicking around on the World Wide Web...

Nowhere is instant communication more appreciated than in the sprawling, traffic clogged layout of Los Angeles. The Internet provides those normally confined to cars and desks an efficient fantasy world of prompt exchanges and speedy developments. But I think people get too cocky with this sort of jet-setting, go-getter attitude made possible by the World Wide Web. Which is why every now and again I like to screw around with folks to remind them of the human at the other end of the network.

For instance, I’ve started replying to all emails I get with an immediate message that just says “What?” Like two seconds after I receive the email. “Can you repeat that?” You’d be surprised how a simple, one word questioning of an entire message can really get someone’s gonads. If you’re lucky, they’ll be a smartass right back, and just forward a copy to you of their original message. In this situation, flip the script (java script that is) by doing the exact opposite, and keep up the josh-offs by being hyper-responsive.

People are always thanking each other for the swiftness of their replies, so why not take that timeliness one step further, and provide email senders with a sentence-by-sentence update, informing them of your progress throughout the email. “Just made it through the first sentence. Interesting stuff so far, I’m going to keep reading.” “Wow, bitchin’ vocab…” “That word looks weird spelled out,” and “Hmm, I don’t really agree with you here, but I respect your opinion.” Here and there I’d type, “huh?” and then a few seconds later, “oh…I see.” I also like to express disappointment with the length of their email by writing, “Here comes the last sentence…that’s it?”

The information super highway has bestowed upon man many gifts, from the power to catalog an endless league of pornography, to cleverly deceiving people through the art of rickrolling. Surging along with torrents of infinite data is the ability to dick around in ways our ancestors never imagined. From time to time it’s our duty to do so, to remind everyone of that ghost in the machine.

Yea Though I Walk Through the Valley of Porn

The San Fernando Valley is the porn capital of the world. So, why doesn't it act like it?

When I moved to the LA area, I settled in the San Fernando Valley not because of the moderate housing prices, the manageable traffic or the lighter crime statistics. No, I did it for the porn.

Chatsworth. Sherman Oaks. Van Nuys. These were the magical places I'd seen listed in the credits of every American porn movie of the past 20 years. I envisioned an American Amsterdam, with cock-shaped mail boxes on every corner and schools named after adult film legends (John Holmes Elementary & Day Care Center).

Imagine my surprise, then, when I strutted through the streets of Chatsworth in my ass-less chaps and found business names like Public Storage, Jiffy Lube and Quality Inn & Suites, when porn-themed names like Pubic Storage, Jiffy Boob and Quality Inn & Out & Inn & Out are so obvious, they practically write themselves. Even Box City was frustratingly pun-free -- not to mention downright rude when I inquired about the Minge of the Day.

The Valley has to get over this self-loathing. How's anyone supposed to know they're standing in the Mecca of porn when everything is so flaccid? They're acting like it's the capital of meth labs or To Catch a Predator arrests when in reality it should be the biggest, ballsiest red-light district in the world. All that's needed is a little pride and some well-placed exhibitionism.

...And a theme park. Disneyland is too far away to drive from the Valley anyway, so why not build another one up north? PornoDisney: with rides dedicated to sexual positions ("You must be this tall to ride The Piledriver.") and free AIDS tests for all. At least that would explain why all the mascots are bottomless.

My First Day in LA

But you gave it to me…so how could I steal it?

How comfortable would you be putting all your worldly possessions into a stolen vehicle and driving across the desert? I can tell you that I for one felt pretty good about it after I considered just how many morons I’ve rented from over the years. I planned the most crucial part of my move through U-Haul.com so that I could lay the groundwork anonymously.

A U-Haul agent called me to let me know my truck was waiting at this sketchy garage/gas station in a bad part of town. In fact, the staff at said shithole seemed stunned when I told them I was there to get a truck, even though there were five of them in the parking lot. The greasiest of them all told me over and over that he, “didn’t know how to do them U-Hauls.” I eased his fears by telling him that I took care of everything online “n’shit” and just needed to pick up the key. So he and I just repeated our lines, in my case, lies over and over. Finally our highly flammable attendant said, as if he were guessing, “so you paid online and you just need the key?” As I nodded my head yes, I didn’t think it could be so easy. He turned and handed me the key and I got the hell out of there before some one smart showed up.

Several hours and hundreds of miles later I made it to the land of crushed hopes and validated fears thinking “What the fuck am I gonna do with this quasi-stolen truck?” While I was tempted to just torch it or start my new career in the moving business with it, I drove it to a check cashing place/U-Haul renter and said “There’s your truck. See ya later.” The guy there asked to see the contract. Well versed in being evasive, I just said, “it must be around here somewhere” and did nothing to produce it. Fearing that he was calculating some amount to charge me I pulled some stuff out of my pockets a looked at it in a pensive way and walked out the door.

Walking home in my new neighborhood, I noticed a rather determined and well worn woman walk a few feet in front of me from this strip mall. As she turned the corner walking briskly I heard a crusty old man on a Rascal scooter yell, “Jackie, you ripped me off, you bitch!” As the man gave chase in his battery powered revenge cart, it appeared that Jackie probably was in the hand job industry. I scolded myself for being so cynical to think the man was yelling about his ejaculation being denied. But then I thought “Didn’t I just steal a U-haul? What am I thinking?” As it turns out, Jackie lives in the building right next door.

Oprah's Big Shove

The only thing Oprah loves more than giving is Oprah.

Aspiring elitists have a new, invaluable resource for mastering the art of selfish giving: Oprah's Big Give. It teaches us to develop our inner Hilton by doling out charity that's more about making ourselves look good than it is about the receiver's needs. Consider this Oprah 101.

Rule #1: Everything is a competition.

If you want to be a top-notch selfish giver, realize that there are other people out there striving to be even more selfish. On Oprah's Big Give, contestants run around trying to help as many people as possible ("Sorry, no time for CPR, but here's a hundred dollar bill.") in as "creative" a manner as possible ("Did I say a hundred dollar bill? Make it a dinner for your widow at the restaurant where you proposed."). Take a cue from Oprah: mere charity isn't enough; it's got to be charity with flair.

Rule #2: Force help on those who don't want it.

Most people don't realize they need or even want help. It's your job to shove it up their collective ass. If you pass someone on the street who looks poorer than you, toss them a shiny nickel. It'll make you feel better about yourself. If you notice someone with unkempt hair or bad acne, suggest they clean themselves up so they don't sicken others with their appearance. It's a 10-second extreme makeover! (Make sure there's a camera around to document the tears.)

Rule #3: Ignore reason.

Forcing help is one thing, but completely disregarding all reason in your charitable efforts is the pièce de résistance of selfish giving. You say you're having trouble making your mortgage payments because you adopted 12 children? Well, here's a thousand-dollar party to occupy the kids while you figure out what to do.

Rule #4: The rich get richer.

Ultimately, the winning contestant on Oprah's Big Give gets more money than any of the deserving people they helped along the way -- which is really the point of giving, isn't it?

Gettin’ High with Kitty

In which I smoke out the poster pet of the Internet.

It’s kind of a stoner rite of passage to feed a pet some form of narcotics. I find that my cat’s instinctual curiosity and literal inability to “just say no” makes him a prime candidate for chasing the green dragon. Plus I’d hate to be one of those losers who smokes pot alone. That’s why when I get high with my cat I plan activities that the two of us can find equally engaging. Like watching movies where people turn into cats, so we both get freaked out. If I’m sitting there baked out of my potato, considering the implications of turning into a cat (increased stealth, cuter agility), I like to think that ol’ furball can also wig off imagining how it’d be to morph into a human (i.e. no having to bury own shit, non-weird prick, can open a savings account…etc.)

The films Cat People and Sleepwalker pretty much make up the “werecat” genre of cinema, the former of which IMDB describes as an “erotic remake,” which is the best kind of remake. While I zoned out imagining an erotic remake of Downfall, my cat remained transfixed on a scene where some guy gets his arm ripped off. I didn’t want him to get any bright ideas, so it was on to the next film.

Sleepwalkers details that tired old yarn about a shape-shifting mother-son duo that feed on the souls of virgins. For reasons pot-related, I don’t really remember this film. Though I do know it feature my favorite kind of stabbing. You guessed it, corn-stabbing:

As my cat’s interests shifted towards urgently mewling at a shadow, it became clear he didn’t give two buried shits about these movies. My attention eventually wandered as well, and I later found myself on the Internet Googling pictures of Jocelyn Wildenstein, the infamous “real” cat woman of plastic surgery.

Me-ow:

Captain Cunt

My mother the superhero.

I’m not sure how motherhood is handled in most places in the United States or even the world, but I like to think that I am an expert on it in Los Angeles. Not that I’m a mother, but I have one and I grew up in Hollywood, so I guess that qualifies me just as much as the next idiot. It became clear to us as children that my father married her because she was very beautiful and very willing to have sex. Los Angeles is about being beautiful or talented and if you cannot have both you better exploit one of them.

Her looks helped her almost always get her way. In the rare occasion that her good looks were not doing the trick she would go batshit insane. These tantrums and outbursts lead to her nickname, Captain Cunt, and when she’d slip into that mental phone booth and shed common decency, it was time to take cover.

Once, I watched her hold the door to the cleaners shut on a woman that dicked her out of a parking spot. Later when the women confronted my mother about her behavior my mom looked at her, spit in her face and said, “Talk to me after you’ve had a face lift.” This is token Angeleno behavior; you do not take shit from anyone uglier than you.

My mother adhered to this unspoken code of ethics, crusading against the unfortunate looking whenever they crossed her path, which was often. Like any worthy superhero, she refused to acknowledge her good deeds.

From time-to-time, I like to bring up these random acts of insanity, but she insists that I am making all of it up. I know the truth, and plan to carry the torch. At any rate, I’ve still got my mother, and she’s not slowing down anytime soon. Seriously, last week she called a condescending sales person a dickhead and swore her revenge on the store. I can’t wait.

Oh Shit, Art!

An everyman’s guide to getting your rocks off in the art scene. Because beauty is as beauty does.

At its worst, an art show can devolve into unreasonably reverent attendants milling about drunk off free booze, stuffed up on cheese cubes, using their interpretation of the artwork to flaunt a sense of taste like its another fashionable commodity. Who can blame them? Art has no practical value, so in order for it to survive, people need to continually find new ways to agree upon creative worth. It’s kind of like the land of Fantasia from The Neverending Story: if people stop believing, it dies.

Say it. Say I believe in fairies.

Unfortunately the fluid standards employed to judge good and bad art sometimes blur into nonexistence, and you get some Cal Arts professor declaring a dump some girl took in the corner “brilliant.” Until you develop a refined sense of what floats your cultural boat, just enjoy yourself. Here are some tips to get you started:

-Post up in front of the piece you find most confusing, be it the watercolor of an eyeball peeping from a pig’s anus, or the one with the 9-11 charged message about chauvinistic jingoism titled “Fall Phalluses.” Spend the entire evening in the same spot, silently weeping to yourself like you “get it” the most. People will either think you are crazy or “deep,” which in both cases will go a long way in the creative community.

-Bring premade title cards to turn regular stuff into art. Next to the light switch, fasten a card that reads "Light Switch, Sculpture 2008"; in the bathroom, turn on the faucet and place a card reading "Running Water, Kinetic Sculpture 2008". Make random people into art too by slapping a card on their back that reads "Butthole at Art Show, 2008".

-For your pièce de résistance, discover the address of the show and have a bunch of pizzas delivered there. When the pizzas arrive much to the puzzlement of the crowd, be the first to step forward, clapping slowly, (tear up if possible) and declare the entire happening a “masterpiece!”

Of course, the best way to get your art on is to just like what you like and hope it doesn’t suck, because that means you suck. Ready, Set, Art!

Tattoo Fortune Telling

That Tasmanian Devil on your bicep is like a mirror into your soul...

In this tatted-up age, you don't have to be psychic to tell all you need to know about someone without even meeting them. They wear their issues on their sleeves...and on their backs and on their shoulders and...

Tribal band around the bicep
You enjoy keg stands and frosting your tips. You shout funny sayings like, "Is there a vet in the house, because these pythons are sick!" as you flex. You might be Nick Lachey.

Anything on the lower back
Having developed a taste for roofies, you often wake up to find multiple orifices filled by guys with tribal bands around their biceps.

Butterfly on the ankle
You are afraid of commitment, and when you do commit, you are frequently gay.

Neck tat
You rush into action before realizing the long-term consequences. Because of your stubborn insistence on inking your neck, you are restricted to blue-collar -- or turtleneck -- professions. Your guidance counselor was right after all.

A cross
You consider yourself Christian by default, but really you just think that crosses look cool. You'd go to church more often if they'd let you go in shirtless to show off your sweet back tat. It's just as well, because the chicks there don't really put out.

Your own name
You are in middle school and spend most of your study hall huffing rubber cement. That's when you decided on a D.I.Y. tat with a needle swiped from Home Ec class, which, because you used a mirror, ended up backwards.

Writing across the stomach
Tupac is your god. You refuse to call rap lyrics anything but "poetry." At least one of the words on your gut is misspelled, but because you insisted on such ornate, gothic lettering, you can't tell. Also, you're functionally illiterate.

A picture of your child
Your judgment is suspect if you think that creepy, dead-eyed line drawing of your kid even remotely resembles the little bastard.

Chinese lettering
You are easily duped. You are currently on your sixth religion in the past four years and take your theological cues from Madonna. You think your tattoo says, "Wisdom comes from experience," but it really says "There's a party in my anus, and everyone's coming."

An anchor on your chest
You are 80 years old and got your tat during World War II. You now realize how heinous a mistake tattoos are as your withered nipples sag below your belt buckle.

Chasing the Porn Dragon

When we were young, it began to happen. Pictures of naked women. For free. Right there on a magical box in your own house.

Sure, back then we only had dial-up modems and we were using CompuServe and Prodigy, but at the time it was glorious. Afterschool, before the parents came home, we would gather at my house. The first kid on the block with Internet access made me more popular than you would think.

Each picture would load agonizingly slowly, filling in pixel by pixel. We would cover the monitor with our little hands so no one got a sneak peak before the whole thing was on screen.

And it was awesome. We knew how to fully delete all traces of our online adventures so the adults wouldn’t find out. Clear history. Empty trash.

But times changed. We got older, the Internet got faster. And the porn monster grew bigger and bigger.

Now there’s such a mind blowing amount of new porn videos posted online it’s almost intimidating. And it’s changing the way we masturbate.

You no longer have those couple of pictures and video clips saved in that secret folder (discreetly labeled “stuff”) that you go back to over and over, almost monogamously. It’s not enough anymore. The porn industry has once again leaped to the forefront of technology. They have high quality streams and practical rating systems that have beautiful chicks swallowing swollen pricks right in front of your eyes before you’re even done typing pornorama.com.

But you can’t just jerk off to one clip anymore. There’s so much more to look at. How can I skeet to Alison sucking Tom when there’s a link to Brad fucking Jenny one click away?

People used to fantasize about their high school sweetheart when they were man handling themselves. Now you can find your high school sweetheart getting pounded by Peter North, and it’s still not good enough.

And if I have to simultaneously watch 3 gangbangs on my dual monitors to get off, how will my future wife ever please me?

Erection Correction

How my dog's penis ruined an Irish holiday...

I live in Los Angeles. I run. I watch my health. Sometimes I give up meat for weeks at a time, not only because it is fashionable, but because I care about animals. I even have my own, an English bulldog named Mugzy. I’m sure you’d think he was adorable. I did because he costs more than most people’s rent. Expensive things are more important than love or common decency. I love Mugzy and he’s a great status symbol, but what do you do when that symbol gets a hard-on that seems to have lasted all goddamn day? First, I looked online. Then I called my dad and proceeded to get dressed to go out and get wasted because it was St. Patrick’s Day.

My dad is a noble and wonderful man. He was also willing to put on a rubber glove and attempt to use KY Jelly to ease my dog’s dick back into it’s sheath because the internet told us to. Too bad nothing in my entire life has been more hilarious than watching my dad give my dog a handjob. After a good 5 minutes of doing this my father exclaimed that my mother was way better at it and that I needed to take Mugzy to the vet, pronto. What’s a girl with a social agenda to do?

Apparently the answer is go to the emergency vet because otherwise the dog’s dick will rot off. So there I am, dressed like a whore with a dog that’s got a throbbing red rocket. Nothing screams LOOK AT ME like a slut and a boner. Especially when the people staring at you have animals with noble problems like eating an entire bottle of aspirin or getting hit by a stupid car. Still, the tragedy here isn’t that I looked like a slam pig, or that my father got to jack off my dog. No, it’s far worse. It’s the fact that I spent my St. Patrick’s Day watching a crazy Asian vet jerk my dog into submission totally sober while my friends got arrested or worse laid, without me.

That Stupid Cell Phone Law

If you think that driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous, you should see all the crazy shit that I do!

A law is about to take effect in California that will ban talking on your cell phone without a headset.

You might be asking, why? Some asshole did a study and found that talking on your cell phone is as dangerous as driving drunk. I have no problem believing this. I've driven drunk over a thousand times. Not once did I get into an accident. Number of accidents I've gotten into sober? 7.

The problem isn't talking on your phone- that's only as dangerous as having a one armed man driving and talking to a passenger. If the average American can follow the plot of Lost, I’m pretty sure he/she can handle this level of multi-tasking. It’s driving while dialing that’s the issue.

I should know. In the last week alone, I have done the following while driving: made phone calls, sent text messages, read e-mails, responded to e-mails, edited a friend’s contact info, performed numerous searches on google maps, looked up movie times, checked my facebook page to see if this girl had responded to my last message (she hadn’t, of course, because if she had I’d have gotten an e-mail), and checked the Drudge Report for late-breaking news.

This, by the way, all performed with an iPhone, which means that typing requires me to look at the phone at all times.

The other day, I was driving to a bar, and for some reason I was craving an Arnold Palmer, but I forgot what it was called, and I was embarrassed to ask, so I googled "lemonade iced tea" while driving down the 134. This only minutes after I had changed my shirt while driving. The trick is to hold the steering wheel with your knees and hope a car doesn’t cut you off. It helps to have long legs and a belief in a kind and loving God.

In fact, talking on my phone without a headset is the safest thing you can do while driving. It’s the only time where it's impossible to look at the phone.

Trailer Trash: Chapter 27

In which Jared Leto looks like a fat ass, Lindsay Lohan still looks hot, and hopes for a Beatles reunion crash like a Ringo drum fill.

I wonder if fat people are pissed off at this movie. There are plenty of fat actors that are talented but out of work. And yet Hollywood is always casting skinny actors to play fat people. It's unfair, like when when they cast Koreans to play Chinamen, or when white actors put on black face.

Of course, Jared Leto did gain 67 pounds for the role of Mark David Chapman, making him, technically, a fatty too. That shitty Emo band that Leto is in must have been pissed off. Who ever heard of an emo band with a fat lead singer? Did he still wear tight shirts?

We got here your standard based-on-a-true-story-of-a-crazy-person film, meant as Oscar bait for Leto and comeback fodder for Lindsay Lohan. Neither of which will work, because the movie is gonna be total shit. The problem with the movie told from the point of view of the crazy person, is that not only is the crazy person completely unreliable, he’s also fucking annoying. That’s probably what made him so crazy in the first place, the fact that no one could stand to be around him.

So if Lohan really does sleep with Fat-Leto, as the trailer seems to suggest, it’ll completely blow the film’s credibility. You may as well have Paul McCartney take the bullet for John and sing the first verse of Blackbird as he slowly bleeds to death.

And how come the only way to show that a person is crazy is to show flash frames of random shit? Aren't there some crazy people that are just mellow? I bet some lunatic’s point of view is more like a Jim Jarmusch film, all long static shots, with John Lurie mumbling at the edge of the frame.

A White Collar Mask

Striving to fit in applies to every social scene, including the work place. This was particularly hard for me when I got my first job after college at a medical supply company in Rancho Cucamonga.

For the first time in my life, I am being forced to socially interact with old people (Yuck, I know). It doesn't help that I’m the only person under 30 in my whole company. And it became even more difficult when I started trying to balance my vanilla, white-collar life during the day and my aspirations of being a coked-up Hollywood writer at night.

Subjects I talk about to fit in:

Mondays = Bad, Fridays = Good – There is no easier way to bond with your co-workers than to rely on the fact that everyone hates their job. If anything goes wrong in the office, immediately reference the day. “Mondays…am I right?” or “Hey, at least it’s Friday!” are adequate phrases that will be repeated uncountable times throughout your career, yet will somehow never get old.

The Shared Refrigerator – Someone is always stealing a co-workers food or spilling some wretched leftovers in the shared fridge. So don’t be a stranger to complaining about your Lunchables being stolen at every lunch break. Consequently, I’m usually the one stealing said food because I’m too cheap to go out and too lazy to make my own meals.

The Lamest Possible Movie in Theaters – And you always wondered who actually paid to see movies like Fred Claus or anything with Hugh Grant in it. Well now you know: people without souls.

Subjects that will Alienate You:

Music – These people think bands like Foreigner and The Eagles are Avant-garde so making references to Vampire Weekend will only result in severe bewilderment. At best you’ll receive a line like “Oh, I’ve heard of them before. I grounded my daughter last week for listening to that jive, colored music.”

Sexuality – Don’t even reference anything even remotely phallic shaped or you will get fired for sexual harassment. So as far as you are concerned there is no such thing as Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, space shuttles, and definitely not rock-hard, blood-engorged, visibly throbbing penises.

Politics – Since everyone is old, out of touch, and grossly misinformed by the mainstream media, they’ll all be voting for Hillary. If you see your boss sporting McCain paraphernalia, start planning for a near-future promotion because your boss may die from being so old and out of touch.

Pitching Woo

Puttin' the moves on a lady, Hollywood-style.

Look, neither of us has much time, so let me cut to the chase. With your help, I think I can get in your pants. I'm closing this deal tonight, because let's face it, you're not getting any younger. Here's how I see it playing out...

It's Passion of the Christ meets Rashomon: a lot of flogging and yelling for God, with conflicting reports of what happened afterward.

Initially, you'd be hesitant because you've been hurt before, plus I have that whole elbow fetish thing, which is a tough sell. You'd be emotionally closed off, but spiritually "excited" due to recurring sexual fantasies about a three-way with Buddha and Jesus Christ. Your strict Catholic upbringing would generate an internal conflict that can only be resolved by dressing like a nun and flogging me with rosary beads.

During the second act, we'd throw in some hip-hop dancing -- that's really dope right now -- and maybe some kung-fu wire work if this ceiling can support a harness. By the time we reach the climax, the journey will have taught you a new appreciation for life and the sanctity of "love" plugs. At its heart, it's a human drama wrapped in an erotic thriller with some sci-fi elements and a twist ending (I'm a hermaphrodite).

The running time would be about 90, 95 seconds. Any longer, and we'd lose the audience. Although I'd like a theatrical release, it's more likely to go straight to video.

As you know, though, this is a star-driven industry, so we'd have to get a big name involved. With our budget in the low six figures -- including the decimal point -- I've been able to reach final talks with the entire cast of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, who will apparently work for just penicillin shots.

Ang Lee will direct.

A New Breakthrough in Vagina Surgery

Normally, vaginas are used for sexual intercourse, birthing children, and on the internet, holding the occasional ringing cell phone or Heineken bottle. That just wasn't good enough for some people.

Recently, doctors in Spain removed a woman's kidney through her vagina. This sounds like the mad scientist version of that game your uncle would play where he "found" the quarter in your ear.

The technique is called “Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopy Surgery”, since “Vag Kidney Snatch” doesn’t sound scientific enough. Using this technique, they make a small incision inside the vaginal canal, and perhaps a few other small incisions in what doctors call the “tummy” area. Then they stick in some instruments, make a few cuts, and bam! There’s a cancerous kidney popping out your baby cave.

They claim there’s much less scaring, less pain, and patients get to go home sooner. The only downside is that women have to live in a world where doctors can reach into vaginas and pull out their organs.

I haven’t seen any, but I've heard that there are vaginae here in Los Angeles (Editor's note: Spare me your sob stories). How will “Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopy Surgery” effect our Vaginos Angelenos?

Like all advances in surgery, medicine, or Photoshop, I predict this technique will be used to give women fake titties. If it works for ripping things out, why not use it to shove things in? There are lots of women in this town that will jump at the chance to get some boob enhancement with no side effects besides increased buoyancy and a scar inside their love canal.

And lets face it, a lot of the girls getting these implants already have some wear and tear down there.

I foresee a future where women get their stem-cell grown breasts implanted through their vagina in the morning, take their flying rocket sled to Dippin Dots for lunch, then have a sensible dinner. A sensible dinner of robot.

Welcome to the future. We’re shoving it up your vagina.