Author: Jason

I just saw someone turn left onto a one way street after sitting for at least a minute at a traffic light that had a very visible “no left turns” sign.

I slowed down, rolled down my window, pointed at the sign and said, “You can’t turn left.” But they just looked at me like I was saying, “What a nice day, right? Look at the sky.”

No one else tried to warn them.

Cars were coming and the light was green so I couldn’t sit there for this idiot. As I drove up ahead I saw them turn left. Onto what was clearly a one way street because several lanes of traffic had cars facing them.

No one tried to warn them! They all just sat there like morons.

It reminded me of this one crazy wreck I saw. I’m sitting at a light about to turn right. When the light turned green 3 cars from the oncoming traffic decided to run the light to turn left. They person next to me decided to go anyway.
They gunned it and SMASHED into the 3rd car.

To me, they both deserved tickets. One for running the red light. The other for being stupid.

Stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to do much. Our life would be easier. And Washington D.C. would be empty of all current politicians.

A lot of behavior we’ve seen from people in the public eye lately, whether it’s a celebrity like Amanda Bynes who is having a Twitter conniption fit every few days or a Strawberry Coolata fan from Florida, are always up for grabs for comics.

It’s something being talked about by everyone. It’s also fraught with joke possibilities because so much is bizarre.

But it’s not always fun and games if the person is having a mental collapse of some kind. Many people realized this back when Britney Spears had what appeared to the observer as a nervous breakdown. For one, there’s nothing funny about that. Secondly, the entertainment industry can be a pretty toxic environment which leads to situations like that. What people realized was, Britney shouldn’t be a punching bag or a target for laughs. She was going through a mental health issue, some believe, and that is no laughing matter. That’s fair.

It’s hard to say what to make of what is going on with some of the people in the news today. I think the sorority girl who threatened to @#^! punch her sorority sisters during Greek Week was fair game because she wasn’t crazy. She was just an idiot. An aggressive idiot. One I would totally fall for if I were in college with her cause I just had a tendency to like jerks when I was younger.

But what about this young woman in Florida who went on a racially charged and borderline terrorist tirade at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Florida recently all because she didn’t get a receipt. My initial reaction is, “Woah, she’s a real jerk. And that big of jerks exist, unfortunately.” If that’s the case, READY THE JOKE MACHINE!!
But then I started thinking about it. What sane person would go that nuclear over not receiving a receipt and believing they were treated in a rude manner? She invoked 9/11 in her tirade because the person “causing” her ire had brown skin. She said she’d “bomb them from Mars.” That’s when I thought, “This person just might be mentally ill.” I’m not taking down my Twitter jokes about her, because I think she’s just that big of a jerk. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she shouldn’t be made fun of because it makes light of mental health issues.

And what do we do about Amanda Bynes? We’ve all collectively agreed that something is seriously wrong with her health. Well, I say “all” but apparently Drake Bell has no idea what Amanda’s tweets say. But the rest of us see something quite troubling.
Amanda claims she’s not “crazy” a she put it in a tweet.
If she’s not unstable then she is a humongous jerk. Have you see what she says about people? Even people who were just trying to help her or people who didn’t say a one word to her can’t escape her mean-spirited rants.

So what do you do in these situations?

Make fun of Republicans? Make fun of Democrats? Make fun of Jimmy John’s for not serving hot subs. Seriously, guys, seriously?

I have no answers. I do, however, really want some Dunkin’ Donuts today. Any press is good press, I guess.

So there are terrible people in the world. And for some reason they get to do all of the talking. This is especially true every election season. Politicians say and do dumb things and they do it because they are listening to the loudest of our society.

Unfortunately, the loudest tend to be the dumbest and craziest. It’s why they’re the loudest. And out of a lack of reason and logic we’ve let them represent us. We’ve let them speak for us.

Take the recent argument in the comedy world about rape jokes. Rape jokes are tacky and hackneyed at best and at worst perpetuate the subjugation of women in our society. The very funny and smart Lindy West has been one of a few voices of reason in this debate while many more dummies have tried to shout her down. She brilliantly laid out the logical response to rape jokes in this article here.

The firestorm that came after was pretty ridiculous, especially considering how well thought out (and correct!) her argument was.

Basically what happened was Lindy (I can call her that now. I tweeted her. No big deal. She didn’t respond, but we’re tight. Tweet tight. [Update: She favorited my tweet!] #LoveAtNoSightCauseWeHaveNotMet) Lindy basically said (and I’m paraphrasing), “Rape jokes aren’t good for society. You don’t get to use my vagina as the butt of a joke that perpetuates a systematic hostile attitude towards women.” And everyone on Twitter, except me and a few others, said “You don’t get to tell me whether I get to assault you with my penis. It’s MY penis!” That’s not much of a paraphrase, sadly.

And that’s ultimately why the world is still an awful place. As far as we come in our reasoning towards life as a collective body we still have dumb, barbaric wastes-of-space who will say and do dumb things. For every time we did something good, like freed the slaves, we had some moron say, “Hey, what was the big deal with owning people, oh wait did I call them people? I meant to say what’s so wrong with owning those human-like creatures and making them work for nothing?”

We’ve always had terrible people. We just didn’t always have Twitter giving every idiot a place they can be heard.

Imagine what we would have heard if Twitter existed when Lincoln was assassinated, or the slaves were freed, or when Murder She Wrote was cancelled after poor ratings.

Undoubtedly there would have been people who would have said, “Killing a president is wrong and all, but I don’t care for coloreds.” Or when the slaves were freed someone would have said, “Not hate, just heritage…of making money by forcing others to work for me like my father before me. Seriously, guys. Life is so hard for me. #FML Please retweet.” And some brainiac would have said, “It just doesn’t make sense that Murder, She Wrote didn’t beat Friends!”

Despite how stupid these are, someone would have said them. And someone probably did despite the fact Murder, She Wrote skewed old and never had a strong 18-49 demo. I mean, seriously, CBS, that’s bush league. Friends was in it’s second season!

A big part of comedy is that there can be no sacred cows, because we need to be able to pick apart everything in order to hold it accountable. But that only works if you view comedy as an important artistic tool that helps to smooth out how we think as a society by pointing out where we have gone wrong. But if you think the purpose of comedy is simply to be funny then there are no rules and there is no point. Working under that belief, all you’re required to do is find a clever way to turn phrase.

I like comics who go for something a little deeper than just merely being funny. If all you want to be is funny, fine. Cut up with your friends and leave going on a public stage to the professionals who have something important to do. At the very least you should be doing comedy to make people escape the awful things in the world that most comics are trying to tear down. That’s fine. But if all you want are laughs that come at your behest and control, then get off of the stage.

You have to earn your time in front of people in a public forum. The dumb have been at the mic speaking for us for far too long.

I think regular, everyday, broke people should put together a telethon to raise money from celebrities.

Seriously, why are movie stars always asking us for money in commercials and telethons?  They’re the ones with all the loot. A whole lot more than we have.

Sure, they donate a lot of money, too, but think about how much money we’ve given them in the form of movie tickets over the years. And they’re gonna ask us for more money just to get to talk to them for 20 seconds?

After all the money Hollywood has bilked from us to see their movies it’s high time they repay us! Especially after that last Transformers movie.

I want to see a telethon for us. The celebrities could call in and talk to “Sarah,” one of the many volunteers of everyday folk, and just tell them about our day.

George Clooney: “Hey, how are you, Sarah? How was your day?”
Sarah: “Well, I had to wake up real early at 4am to get the kids ready for school before I went to physical therapy to learn to use my knee again after this horrible car wreck I was in about 4 months ago.”
Clooney: “Oh. Um. How many kids do you have, how old are they?”
Sarah: “Three boys! 14, 16 and 19. They’re my heart and soul.”
Clooney: “That’s sweet. Where does the oldest go to school?”
Sarah: “Oh, well we had to take my oldest, Tevin, out of school to work with my husband because my medical bills were too high to afford along with tuition. The other two work all afternoon to help pay the bills.”
Clooney: “Oh.”
Sarah: “Yeah. We don’t sleep well.”
Clooney: “Why is that?”
Sarah: “Because we all share a bed. All 5 of us. And the boys are restless after a long day of work in the factory. It’s a twin sized bed.”
Clooney: “How do 5 people share a twin sized bed?”
Sarah: “We sleep horizontally with our legs hanging off. Only our torsos are on the bed. I often times can’t get to sleep without Keith’s, that’s my youngest, I can’t get to sleep without his elbow digging into my spine. It reminds me of my car wreck.”
Clooney: “…”
Sarah: “What did you do today?”
Clooney: “I, uhh…I uhh…I rolled outta bed around 10, 10:30…11…it was 11:45 when I got up this morning.”
Sarah: “Ooohhh, that sounds nice. What kind of bed do you have?”
Clooney: “It’s one of those beds that float in the air.”
Sarah: “Floats?”
Clooney: “Yeah. You know, one of those beds astronauts made.”
Sarah: “I’ve not heard of that.”
Clooney: “Oh right, it’s not gonna be on the market for another 30 years.”
Sarah: “What size is it?”
Clooney: “Um, king. It’s a king-sized bed.”
Sarah: “Did I mention my whole family has black lung?”
Clooney: “I’m writing you a check for $100,ooo!”
Sarah: “Oh my, thank you so much!!”
Clooney: “Actually, add $10. Sorry about Batman and Robin.”

Finally, Batman and Robin can do some good. And all for charity!

I think that most tweets show that the majority of the world is pretty stupid.

It’s sad, the misspelled words and poor grammar. There are worse tweets, though.

Like the tweets that sound suicidal but aren’t meant to be. You’ve seen em, “This is the worst day ever. It’s over for me now.”
What the writer means is, “This was a tough day at work, but at least I’m at the end of it.” But because it was sent at 6pm people thought you were offing yourself.

Or take the time I tweeted something that I meant to be a compliment to Yvette Nicole Brown of “Community.” To save characters I tried to be brief, but due to lack of clarity I accidentally insulted her. She interpreted as an insult and very politely responded and stood up for herself. The tweet was easy to misunderstand and when I realized that I cleared things up. She said she wasn’t upset, but I can’t help but think Pierce is loosely based on me. I think I’m just paranoid.

Brevity is not your friend. Too few words, like “i’m dead…,” for instance, can alarm people. The writer probably meant dead tired, but someone could read that and think you were sending your last goodbye. You were laying somewhere weak and dying so you couldn’t even capitalize the “i.” The ellipses makes it seem like it’s a death breath. That last rattle of life. Context matters, kids.

I bring this up to say, “Be careful how you tweet.” Not only is that less that 140 characters, it’s also sound advice. Now that’s brevity, baby!

People always want to ask, “If you had a super power, what would it be and why?”  I always say, “The power to get you to ask better questions on a first date.”

Of course I never say that.  I never have first dates.  I like to start around date 10.

It does seem like a popular answer to that question is the ability to fly.  That is the worst answer possible.  Flight is useless without being paired with other super powers.

Think about it.

What good is flight if you don’t have super strength?  You know you want to fly so after your dinner date you can show off like Superman flying Lois Lane around.  But you can’t hold someone in your arms very long.  You aren’t strong enough.  You will drop her…from several hundred feet up in the sky!
The date will be going so well…until you kill her.  The only thing separating you and serial killers is strength.  Things are great until you kill people.

What good will flight do you if you don’t have super speed?  If you are super fast you can help fight crime and even terrorism.  The only way you can save everyone and yourself is if you fly a bomb out of a crowded building really fast.  You throw it into the sky and fly away super fast.  Everyone’s saved.  Yay!
Without super speed…everyone dies.  And you didn’t even take them out to dinner first.  Now you’re not even a charming serial killer.

Flight is also pointless if you aren’t invincible.  Do you know the flight patterns of planes?  I didn’t think so.  So when you go flying up in the air you’ll probably hit a plane.
You’ll be caught up in the scenery, the wind will be in your hair and WHAMO!  You hit a plane!  Without invincibility you’ll die from the impact or the fall you’ll suffer after being knocked unconscious.  Even if you see the plane at the last second you can’t fly fast enough to dodge it, you didn’t want super speed, just flight. And if you were invincible you’d be able to take the blow to the head, but you didn’t ask for that either.
And that plane might go down too if you hit it.  Now you’ve got a plane full of people you’re killing…unless you’ve got super speed, super strength and invincibility.  Then you can dive, catch it, lay it down safely.  But nope, you’ve killed even more people, you murderer!
Again people die on an empty stomach thanks to you because they’re not serving peanuts on flights these days.  Times are tough.  Everyone is scrimping…even your imagination because the only super power you want is flight.  You are the worst serial killer ever.

It’s a lame answer.  I have a better answer.  The super power I’d like to have is the ability to talk to insects so I can tell them to get out of my face and away from my food when I’m in the park on a date.  I don’t need them spreading West Nile to me or my date.  We’re trying to have a nice time and enjoy some chicken salad on a croissant with various fruits and sliced cheeses on weight-bearing crackers.

Nobody dies, everyone gets fed.