a few brief notices

• I have (finally!) updated the front page of my website. New photo, new comedy clip, tour and show information that is more closely correlated with reality.
  
  
• As indicated at right, I will kick your ass.
  
  Thanks to Aeric for the new front page header photo and the one at right, thanks to John Leavitt for the comedy poster, and thanks to Ryan B. for the photos used in the poster.
  
  
• Are you in Boston? Now would be a good time to join the mailing list (tell us your city, please!)
  
  
• "Balsamic" is overrated as a flavor.

male contraceptive pill

As many of you have undoubtedly read in today's news, British scientists have developed a new male contraceptive pill.

This new pill can be taken as a one-off contraceptive a few hours before sex and would "prevent a man from being able to impregnate a woman, but within a few hours his fertility would return to normal."

According to the Daily Mail:

This would make it much more acceptable to men than other 'male pills' under development, which alter hormone levels and have to be taken over the long term.

Hmmn. Okay. You know how sometimes when you want to tell someone something uncomfortable, you kind of hide it in a bunch of other facts? "It's your birthday! I got you this DVD and we're breaking up and LOOK, A CAKE!"

However the new pill being researched by scientists at King's College London, contains chemicals that prevent ejaculation and could be in tablet-form.

Riiight ... men find altering their hormones "unacceptable" (might make you moody like a woman!), but a pill that "prevents ejaculation" is perfectly okay? What? But LOOK IT'S IN TABLET FORM!

Skanks on a Plane

Here is some voiceover work I did for The Bob & Tom Show in August. (I didn't write any of this, and the other female voices are not me -- in fact, I only first heard the not-me parts when I received a CD of the clip in the mail).


Skanks on a Plane!

a model of vacancy

This is me getting my makeup done by makeup artist Tiffany Bartok. Photo by Aeric Meredith-Goujon.

Stepford Wife or Fembot? You decide!

Britney Spears does not know the difference between "loose" and "lose"

When I was in high school, a rather pretty and popular girl put up a poster as part of her campaign for some kind of class office.

The poster featured a series of three stick figures, and was intended to read:

See Mina run.
See Mina lose.
See Mina cry.
Vote for Mina!

I don't remember if she won, but I do remember that what she actually wrote on the poster was "See Mina loose, see Mina cry."

Oh, poor Mina.

Britney Spears has made much the same mistake. Her schoolwork -- notes about Sophocles' Antigone -- is being auctioned by Christie's. Did you know Antigone wants her brother buried because she "wants him to be able to be in the heaven of ghost"? (Note that the teacher didn't correct that part).

laundry mishap in Brooklyn

The people who do my laundry returned my laundry to me with the addition of a single baby sock embroidered with "Daddy's Favorite."

Anybody wanna loan me a one-legged baby?

Anyone want to put me in touch with the confused daddy who has my "I Love Spelling" panties?

Tonight: The Finals!

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee Finals are tonight!


We're bringing spelling back.

Monday, November 27
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer (Frost/Richardson)
Williamsburg
FREE
7:30pm

Top three winners from the past season's twice-monthly bees will square off for the ultimate title. In between the rounds, short audience-participation contests (such as spelling backwards, speed-spelling, etc.) will be open to anyone. Plus, bobbyblue and Jen will perform the Williamsburg Spelling Bee theme song!

my boobs have taken on a life of their own

My graphic designer John Leavitt made this as an outro screen for some of my videos (props to Ryan B. for the original photo).

comics are not stupid, please do not send me hate mail*

A friend of mine recently argued that comic books are stupid: that no matter how intelligent the plotline laid on top of the pictures, the pictures are an inherent distraction from the text, and the text merely an attempt to compensate for the infantilism of the form.

Now, I knew this idea would really piss off a lot of people I know, so I emailed one of them, my Wonder Woman co-blogger Syd, who responded, in part:

The problem with most comics has nothing to do with how "intelligent" they are - it has to do with the fact that they can generally be categorized as action/adventure, science fiction, fantasy, and horror, which are genres that often require a certain suspension of disbelief and are pretty much looked down upon even in non-graphic form.

However, if you are willing to accept comics as they are, I know of many that are as intelligent if not moreso than almost any book-without-pictures, but you have to be aware that they can be picked apart pretty easily. Have you ever really examined any novels - their word choice, how well the plot works, how much logical sense it makes, what the overall message is, how believable the characters are, etc.? The fact is that any book can be called stupid, because very few writers are really geniuses and almost none of them take everything into account. I love Shakespeare's plays, but if you sit down and look at what the basic plots are and how the characters are developed, you might have to admit to yourself that a lot of it is pretty stupid. That's why you should probably try to avoid arguments like this.

On the other hand, I totally agree with [so-and-so's] idea that the more pictures something has, the stupider it is. I was at an art gallery the other day, and there were pictures everywhere! They hardly had any words at all! I can only imagine the kind of moron who finds that entertaining. Then later I saw this movie called "Citizen Kane." If you can believe it, there were about 30 pictures every second! It was one of the stupidest things I have ever seen.

(Not to imply that my original friend couldn't develop an argumentatively sound reply on the matter, which he could; however, Syd's answer is funny, and I'm going to leave off this discussion at its point of maximal humor value, much as one slaughters livestock in the animal's infancy, before the dropoff in the ratio of grain feed converted to meat).

*Unless it were an actual hate-comic, which I would kind of relish for its novelty and the sheer effort put into its pretty little hate-production.

Molly's my crabapple

I am getting really good at appearing in other people's books! (Here and here and now here and if McSweeney's does another one of these, maybe they'll include this or, even better, one of these and this).

Here is a selection about me from Molly Crabapple's Dr. Sketchy's Official Rainy Day Colouring Book, now on pre-order:


Click to enlarge passage mentioning "fervent lesbianism"
(What Molly doesn't mention is that she was making plenty good money as a model, and she was still an undergraduate, and she's five years younger than I am. I mean, there's more she doesn't mention, but I only talk about that when plied with alcohol).

she who devours time

In Williamsburg yesterday, I saw a station wagon with a bumper sticker reading "Kali is my co-pilot." Glad to see people have a sense of humor about their purported religious beliefs.

Here's Kali, Shiva's head in hand.
Does she look like she really wants
to co-pilot a station wagon?

did you expect a sexy post?

When my credit card company sends me an email saying my credit score has changed by "+/- 20 points," but doesn't tell me the new score for security reasons, I go log in right away, like it's freakin' Christmas and I need to see if I got a Big Wheel or a lump of coal because, well, I'm concerned about my future mortgage.

I am such an adult.

morality post of the day

I really object to this:


If I Did It?

How about "If I HAD Done It"?

Verb tense, folks, verb tense!

A Brief History of Debate

I have been hired to write the Vice Magazine Guide to Debate. This is one of the deleted scenes that didn't make it in (for being "too academic").

A Brief History of Debate

Socrates vs. a Variety of Peddlers, Youth, and Servants
In the 4th Century B.C., Socrates enjoyed engaging common people in debates about morality, usually by asking his opponent to define a virtue, then questioning the opponent until he contradicted himself, thus inducing aporia, an awareness of one’s own ignorance. While Socrates was ultimately executed for other crimes, we can see how this might have been annoying.

Abraham Lincoln vs. Stephen Douglas
During the 1858 Senatorial election in Illinois. Lincoln argued against extending slavery into new territories, while Douglas believed new territories should vote on it. (Note that neither candidate actually favored freeing current slaves). High school kids across the land now compete in “Lincoln-Douglas debate,” but fortunately, no one is made to pretend to be Douglas.

William Jennings Bryan vs. A Bunch of Other Senators
In 1896, Bryan, arguing for the free coinage of silver, delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech to an adoring, cane-waving public. A lesson can be taken from this great debater’s introduction of himself as “the humblest citizen in all the land ... clad in the armor of a righteous cause.” While today we are little concerned with the coinage of silver in a 16-to-1 ratio to gold, we can learn from Bryan that effective debating is about the arguments, not about making ourselves look brilliant.

Richard Nixon vs. John F. Kennedy
In September, 1960, a sickly Richard Nixon showed up in a poorly-tailored suit, refused makeup, and debated golden boy JFK in the first-ever televised Presidential debate. Radio listeners thought Nixon won. Seventy-million television viewers thought otherwise. The television age was born. Smart but ugly people began pursuing work behind-the-scenes, and being Dick Cheney.

Kelly, Turbo, and Ozone vs. Some Other Breakdancers
In 1984’s Breakin’, the freeze, uprock, and jackhammer are introduced as nonverbal means of settling a dispute. If arguments fail, look around for a boombox.

new spelling photos (you can date all my photos by the length of my hair)

Photographer Ryan B. is back! From this Monday's spelling bee...

I look so serious! I promise there was comedy.

Tara was very, very excited to spell her word correctly.

them other boys don't know how to act

I just conducted an interview for a Japanese company about "avant-nerdism." (Looks like they read Time Out).

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee Finals are November 27th.


We're bringing spelling back.

self-fulfilling prophesy

I have a modeling how-to article (written over a year ago, when I still made some portion of my income from modeling) in the current issue of Supermodels Unlimited magazine. Here is the photo they ran:


That's nice, right? Look at the caption:


Jenisfamous! Say it enough and it becomes true! Iraq had something to do with 9/11! Somebody once had his kidneys stolen and woke up in a bucket of ice! Jenisfamous!

uberdaterape

This comic, published in my alma mater's campus newspaper, has caused a feminist-type stir.


This may come as a shock, but the man whose philosophy was used to justify Naziism and genocide wasn't really all that big on the rights of the weaker/shifty/uterine-ruled/irrational cow-sex:

And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty -- woman requires . . . a religion of the weak which glorifies weakness, love and modesty as divine: or better still, she makes the strong weak - she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with decadent types - the priests, for instance - against the "mighty," against the "strong," against men.

And here, too, is a favorite:

Are you a slave? If so, you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? If so, you cannot have friends. In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed. For that reason, woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love. In a woman's love is injustice and blindness towards all that she does not love. And in the enlightened love of a woman, too, there is still the unexpected attack and lightning and night, along with the light. Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or, at best, cows.

(Thanks to Feministing for the heads-up).

a wee bit o' comedy video

I'm in the Chicks & Giggles reel.

You need Flash 8 for this motherfucker. I totally downloaded that shit and now I feel like the fucking Flash-bomb, even though it was free and took like three minutes.

p.s. - I have been a professional math tutor, on the side, for years, and I just used direct proportions to solve a real-life problem, which I would totally tell you about if you were my student. The original version of this video was too big for my blog. The HTML said it was 448 by 365, so I set up a proportion of 448/365 = 350/x and then reset the size to 350/285, because I wasn't sure whether if I just set one aspect, the other would set itself proportionally, as happens with images in HTML in moden browsers, but didn't happen when I started designing websites in 1997. Anyway, that was totally easy math, but I have to admit that, while I can do many clever math problems involving, say, squares inscribed in circles and vice versa, this situation has never arisen in real life.

p.p.s. - I just realized I wrote "professional math tutor." As though there are amateurs or hobbyists in the field.

p.p.p.s. - Make sure you click on "play" and not the ad for the Spiderman trailer, or you'll be perplexed.

Sony is emotionally abusing you

I really don't think it's necessary to talk about women's bodies in this way to sell Walkmans:


This isn't even using loaded language about fat people in general -- this is clearly about women. Can you really imagine the reverse?

"Beer belly, man boobs, and an extra chin to shave?"
Men, it seems, don't tend to purchase products in response to verbal abuse. (I recommend not purchasing a Walkman in response to this garbage. Do Walkmans even exist anymore?)

the gift that keeps on giving (no, not syphilis)

For his birthday, I sent my brother some burgers from Omaha Steaks. At the checkout, Omaha Steaks successfully upsold me on some fancy dog treats. My brother's puppy's name is Guinness (he's "pint-sized"). I received this in reply:

Sibling,

Thank you for the gift of meat. They look like they will be delicious. And Guinness seems to really enjoy his super-fancy treats. If he had the mental capacity to understand from where the treats came and how they came to be his, he would be very appreciative. Until that day comes, he's just plain happy.

A super-fun treat was also packaged with the gift. Since the burgers needed to stay cold, they logically packaged them up in a big styrofoam cooler with a big bag of dry ice. And as we all learned in 8th grade science class, dry ice is freakin awesome. As soon as I encountered the bag of dry ice, I immediately grabbed a small marble cutting board and froze all my spare change because it makes that high pitched sound when you press a quarter on a piece of dry ice. Then I made fog. I made lots and lots of glorious fog.

It was quite fun as is evidenced in the attatched picture.

I will most likely grill those bad boys this weekend and get to have just as much fun all over again, just with meat instead of fog. 

Thanks,
Brian

I'm not even exactly certian of what's happening in this picture. Is this the change before it's been frozen? Or after? Change makes noise when frozen? Suzanne Vega said "blood makes noise," but I don't think she was using dry ice. Someone send her some Omaha Steaks.

the next two Mondays, you are mine

Monday...

The Williamsburg Spelling Bee
Monday, November 13th
Sign up at 7, compete at 7:30
Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. in Williamsburg

Free and open to all. We've got 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee tickets to give away ($200 value). Last chance to qualify for the Nov. 27 finals, and last chance to compete in 2006! (After Nov. 27, we start up with a new season in January).


Next Monday...


Monday Evening Stand-Up at Pete's
Monday, November 20th
Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St. in Williamsburg
7:30pm -- Comedy show hosted by Jenisfamous, and featuring free candy. This time, starring musical comedienne Adira Amram (hot!)

Click for a star-spangled posterior reason to attend

Rumsfeld Ryan on the outs

All day yesterday on the street and on the subway, I kept spotting the same tabloid cover. I'm not sure if it was the Post or the Daily News, or if the two ran covers so similar it was both, but the cover read:

BRITNEY DIVORCES!
Dems win house.
I'd like to get a job writing these things. I might suggest:

REESE MAKES RYAN "RESIGN"
Bush and Rumsfeld, too

---

In a relatedly hilarious exercise of utterly failing to match a pronoun in number with its antecedent, psychologist Cooper Lawrence (cited in the Daily News as "author of Been There, Done That, Kept the Jewelry") says:

"Britney is back playing to her strengths -- and they're being a pop star."

---

Bitch has an Oscar. I fucked shit up.


Me too. If only Bush hadn't checked
my Sidekick while I was in the john.

---

Addendum to this post -- The American Public Responds:

"What do you mean Dems win house? I thought
Britney's pre-nup was solid!"

Contain Yourself

I love the Container Store, but they are constantly stretching and challenging the very notion of what is a "container."

Backpacks, hampers, salt and pepper shakers. Baskets and boxes, certainly. Custom closet organizers.

But hangers? Dry-erase boards?

Is there a killjoy in merchandising who says things like:

"Why yes, I think people would like to buy a nice clothes-steamer. But can you PUT THINGS IN IT? I think not. Maybe they should buy that at the GARMENT-FLATTENING STORE. But that's not where you work, missy. Where are we? Where are we? Yes, the CONTAINER store. A container, by definition, contains EMPTY SPACE. Is your head a container? Now get back to work."

Doesn't this make you want to slap someone?

December 6th approaches

On my last birthday, I held a star-studded Jenisfamous Vaudeville Birthday Spectacular at CBGB's, which no longer exists, but which I made sure to throw up in like a rock star first.


This was me at my party, after being shimmied at
by burlesque girls and downing fifteen free drinks.


This was Molly Crabapple's burlesque act, which
I watched from stageside. Photos by Semyon.

Now, another year has passed, and I'm not sure what I'll be doing for my birthday. Despite previously-published tour schedules, I will not, in fact, be appearing in Dubuque, Iowa on that day.

Perhaps I will finally get myself that pony.

thin people have more freedom

Britney is splitting from K-Fed now that she's hot again.


Clearly, the key to keeping your spouse is keeping him or her fat.

Get cooking! Pour some heavy cream into those scrambled eggs! Put sugar in his or her toothpaste. Make love in a bed of pecan pie.

Tonight's Show at Pete's

November 6, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer (Frost/Richardson)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
FREE

Hosted by comedian and blogger Jennifer Dziura, this bi-weekly stand-up event features hot young comedians and an old pro or two. This week's headliner is Bruce Cherry.


Bruce Cherry is a stand-up comedian who works as a staff writer for Air America radio and contributes to Jest Magazine. Prior gigs include writing for Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and Snap Judgment on Court TV.

Also featuring: Lucas Held, Mike Bower, and Becky Yamamoto!

especiales diarios

The takeout menu for the place I order food from says:

THE MEATS AND SEAFOOD ARE SERVED WITH RICE & BEANS OR FRIED GREEN OR YELLOW PLANTAINS OR FRENCH FRIES OR SALAD OR VEGETABLES OR SALAD.

I sort of feel like the double-listing of salad implies that there should have been an "and" in a place that got an "or." But I truly have no idea how many things you would receive with your meats and seafood.

Uchi eats it raw

An avid reader sent me this video, entitled "Uchi eating sushi," in which a guy eats sashimi ... from a fish that is still alive, and watching him eat.


Note the comments on the video, which go something like this:

The japs are so sick

god dam japs

barbarian japs

FUCKIN JAPS

That's the same reason why the Japs did experiments on Chinese during WWII - They are sick mentally!

oh yeah and Chinese pple are perfect.

i rike flied lice

me luv u long time!

Let us hope no myopic Japanese commenters decide to judge our entire culture by, say, 2001's Freddy Got Fingered.*

*From Wikipedia: In one memorable scene, Gord (Tom Green) sets up an elaborate pulley system with sausages on the end of the pulley and plays the piano while singing, in an attempt to combine his favorite activities, eating and music. When his father enters and asks what he is doing Gord bangs randomly on the piano and sings: - - :Daddy would you like some sausage? - :Daddy would you like some sausages? - - This scene is one of the more quoted scenes in the film, and was even remixed with the Super Mario Brothers 3 underwater theme.

"compliment" of the day

Comic MCC emailed me that "there is a Living Dead Doll who looks exactly like you":


Thanks, MCC!

I totally have that widow's peak. I'm going to have to start penciling a squiggle into my eyebrows.

what's going on with me

What's been happening in Jenland? Is it a damp tidepool of weltshmertz, stymying the blog in its fatalism, or a maelstrom of productivity, thus crowding out blogging duties in its sheer gale-force of volition?

• I debated a nuclear physicist for Vice Magazine, the first in a series of debates sponsored by Dewars (yes, I've been drinking a lot of free scotch). According to the audience vote, I prevailed in my position that we do not, in fact, have a rational reason to believe that "intellligently controlled spacecraft are visiting the Earth."
  
  
• Prior to the debate, the Vice staff took me out on a Brooklyn city street at night to shoot a pre-interview. They brought reference photos of Ice-T, and a big hooded sweatshirt. They shot probably twenty minutes of my punching at the camera (I used to box at Dartmouth) and talking trash, by which I mean "declaring my intention to point out logical fallacies wherever they exist."
  
  
• I've been hired to write the sixteen-page Dewar's Guide to Debating. I here must give thanks to my high school debate coach Larry Eakin, for molding me into the ferocious paladin of linear thinking I imagine myself to be in my most idealized self-imaging.
  
  
• This guy has agreed to live in captivity on the internet for six months. I -- or rather, my alter-ego, Jenisfamous-Wonder-Woman -- will be going on a web-televised (fake!) date with him.
  
  
• The very prolific Rachel Kramer Bussel has informed me that the collection Sex and Candy: Sugar Erotica will be coming out in early 2007. My story in the book should exceed the word count of my contribution to The Idiot's Guide to Jokes by a factor of about 20.
  
  
• The Writers Working show was fantastic; I read my story "A Good Prosthesis" to a group of people with excellent attention spans who even wrote up comments. David and Jen are consummate professionals.
  
  
• Still writing a book. Still divorcing. Still running the funny and the spelling at Pete's Candy Store.
  
  
• I am, for now, in Brooklyn. There has been no net decrease whatsoever in plantain-based cuisine.

Thanks for reading my blog. And remember: this offer still stands!

It's my McSweeney's Day (part II)

I have a list on McSweeney's today!

It's much shorter than my last McSweeney's submission.

props to comedy (but never prop comedy)

A brilliant post from Abbi Crutchfeld about Angelina ("dry heave!") Jolie's playing Marianne Pearl.

Abbi, incidentally, co-hosts Living Room Comedy in Park Slope, where I'll be performing at 8pm on November 10th.

pre-order Molly Crabapple's book, if you know what's good for you

Molly Crabapple* has given birth to a book!

And she has done so in less time -- from signing the contract to its actual release date -- than it takes to make an actual baby. The book is is "one part DIY handbook, one part activity book on acid, and one part history of the Sketch Revolution."


Pre-order the Dr. Sketchy's Official
Rainy Day Colouring Book here!

This Book Contains: 208 Pages. 11 Paper Dolls. 9 Colouring Book Pages.
6 Interviews. 1 Maze. 3 Word Puzzles. 1 Board Game. 7 Good Ideas.
4 Bad Ideas. 2 ways to make Invisible Ink. 9 drink recipies. 1 Evil Curse.
2 cut-out pasties. 68 new Molly Crabapple Illustrations. 17 John Leavitt
Cartoons. 1 Fred Harper cartoon. 4 playlists. 1 false history. 2 accurate
histories. 1 way to rule the world.
* Crabapples are actually being sold in chichi food stores this time of year, and every time I see them, I think both of Molly, and of the fact that weedlike lawn-droppings are being sold to upper-crusty New Yorkers as a delicacy.