Monday, January 1st: The Jenisfamous Solo Show

December 31, 2006

This Monday, January 1st
Pete’s Monday Evening Stand-Up
consists almost entirely of Jen-on-Jen action.

The Jenisfamous Solo Show.
Free candy. No cover. White girl rapping.

Opening Act: the hilarious Adira Amram (and her keyboard)


Monday, January 1st, 7:30pm. Free.
At Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St (L train to Lorimer)
Map to Pete’s

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"True gentleman," ex-President James Brown, dies at 93

December 31, 2006

The news of the last week has been preoccupied by the deaths of three men, men who changed the world for better, and for worse. Join me now for a brief retrospective.

RANCHO MIRAGE, California — Former President James Brown, who sought to heal the nation after the tumultuous years of the Watergate scandal, died Tuesday at age 93.

James Brown was the unlikeliest of presidents, a man brought to power byunprecedented circumstances without seeking the office, at a time when Americans — reeling from the Watergate scandal — were disillusioned and weary.

After leaving the White House, Brown kept a generally low profile, limiting his appearances largely to golf tournaments.

And halfway across the world, in…

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gerald Ford struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners before dawn Saturday. But as his final moments approached and masked executioners slipped noose around his neck, he grew calm. In a final moment of defiance, he refused a hood to cover his eyes.

Ford, hanged for the deaths of 148 Shiites in 1982, insisted he was Iraq’s savior, not its tyrant and scourge.

Ford said “we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians.”

And finally…

New York, NY - Saddam Hussein’s music career will come full circle when his body is brought to rest on the stage of the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, where he made his explosive debut, and the world changed to his beat.

Hussein, known as the Godfather of Soul, won Grammys in 1965 for “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (best R&B recording) and for “Living in America” in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.)

He had a brief but memorable role as a manic preacher in the 1980 movie “The Blues Brothers.”

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DNA quandary

December 31, 2006

If a woman had sex with two identical twins and became pregnant, would a paternity test be able to determine which was the father?

Seriously, this is a real question. I want to know. For the record, I am not currently experiencing this problem, nor am I in any danger of experiencing it. I just thirst for knowledge, okay?

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Announcement: Seeking Bar Owners/Bookers

December 31, 2006

I am looking for a venue in Manhattan for my newest comedy-with-substance show, Jennifer Dziura Will Debate You On Any Topic.

I am also looking for a venue in Manhattan that serves brunch and which is seeking funny, brunch-appropriate entertainment.

Bar owners/bookers, please email me at jen-at-jenisfamous.com

Thank you!

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look, if everyone responsible for the deaths of 148 Shiites in 1982 were hanged, who among us would remain? really.

December 30, 2006

Saddam has just been hanged. MSNBC reports that the complete execution is unlikely to be aired on US television.

The sound you now hear is the sound of a thousand garage bands quickly changing the names of their new videos to “Saddam’s Execution” and uploading them to YouTube.

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snarky PR assistance

December 29, 2006

The lovely Molly is being interviewed by Channel 11 morning news about her book. I gave her the following advice about sounding smart on TV:

Every time you were going to say “um,” pause instead! It makes you sound smarter, and as though you are a woman who chooses words carefully.

If that’s too hard, wear glasses!

This makes me want to start a snarky PR firm. One from which I issue press releases apologizing for Lindsay Lohan’s spelling.

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lady looks like a dude (and give her a fucking break about it)

December 27, 2006

I was very interested last week in the story of Santhi Soundarajan, the Indian runner whose silver medal in the Asian Games has been stripped due to her failing a gender test. Here’s the basic <a HREF=”http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/6283512?FSO1&ATT=HCP&GT1=8901
“>story:

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - An Indian runner who won a silver medal in the women’s 800 meters in the Asian Games this month has failed a gender test….

The test reports sent to the Indian Olympic Association on Sunday said Soudarajan “does not possess the sexual characteristics of a woman,” The Times of India reported…. The medical evaluation panel usually includes a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist, and an internal medicine specialist.

Sports officials in the athlete’s home state of Tamil Nadu said that they have no information on her whereabouts.

I was waiting for an update on this story — commenters seemed to think she was some kind of lying cross-dresser, whereas instead it seemed fairly likely that she was an intersexed person who, growing up in rural poverty, lacked medical care or knowledge of such conditions. (When your family’s on the verge of starvation, you probably don’t waste a lot of effort getting your daughter’s three-inch clitoris looked at).

More poking around turned up an <a HREF=”http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=2701018
“>ESPN story that reports Soundarajan as having “more Y chromosomes than allowed,” and this article from Mumbai’s <a HREF=”http://www.cybernoon.com/DisplayArticle.asp?section=fromthepress&subsection=inbombay&xfile=December2006_inbombay_standard11692
“>Afternoon newspaper, which asserts that she has “ambiguous genitalia.”

Yahoo! Answers should get spanked for designating “I think he is just trying to win” as the “Best Answer.” This blogger does a far better job, noting “It’s not like there is an intersex competition or a genderqueer competition. It’s not like Soundarajan necessarily even knew she was chromosomally intersex. This disqualification is ridiculous, and yet more evidence that the gender binary doesn’t work.”

The strangest thing I turned up was, first, Soundarajan’s coach asserting that Soundarajan’s “upbringing in impoverished rural India, where she reportedly only started eating proper meals in 2004, may be a reason behind the test result.” What?

Sounds bizarre, but the <a HREF=”http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2006/12/of_gender_identity_running.html
“>Washington Post agrees that poor nutrition can alter a gender test (at least assuming the WashPo fact-checks its blog just as it does its print content).

Who knew? Malnutrition can butch you up.


(and the blazer ain’t helping, darlin’)

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what are blogs for if not too-much-information?

December 26, 2006

As a Christmas gift to myself, I had an Eastern European woman named Marina zap my socially unacceptable body hair with lasers.

(Er, my “alleged” socially unacceptable body hair. Not that a lady would ever admit to ever having had any in the first place).

Seriously, laser hair removal is kind of awesome. After an Eastern European woman* extirpates your socially unacceptable body hair, you just do nothing for a few weeks until it grows back and falls out on its own. (And then you go in and repeat the process all over again until you are as certifiably smooth as the plastic Barbie you always desired to be).

I had my first appointment a few weeks ago, and now it’s like my underarms have cancer. Or, more specifically, chemotherapy.

*Who’s doing all of New York’s job-based racial profiling? Why do Asian women do all the pedicures and Eastern European women do all the waxing and lasering? Why do only black male teenagers sell candy on the subway, and middle-aged Asian and Hispanic women sell batteries? Why? Who decides?

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An Open Letter to New York Giants Wide Receiver Plaxico Burress

December 24, 2006


Dear Plaxico Burress,

You almost certainly don’t remember me, but I was the girl who sat in front of you in the third grade at Alanton Elementary School in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

I can’t say we were friends. Maybe it was the way you poked me in the back all the time. Granted, this was more annoying than assaultive, as you had not yet attained your current Brobdingnagian size, which the internet tells me is six-foot-five and 232 pounds.

Back in Mrs. Everhart’s class, I think you were probably about five-foot-four and a hundred-something pounds of guy-who-repeatedly-stole-my-pencil.

Twenty years later on the subway, I was reading the newspaper over someone’s shoulder when he turned to the sports section and I saw your name: Plaxico. “How many Plaxicos can there be?” I wondered. At home, I googled you: the internet says that you were born August 12, 1977 in Norfolk, Virginia, which makes you, indeed, the gangly third-grader who poked me in the back, sometimes with pencils, and sometimes with my own pencil, which you had stolen from me.

The internet also says that you went to Michigan State, that your name is pronounced PLEX-ico (oh, well why not just go with the traditional spelling, then?), and that your “percent owned” is 100%, which is both mysterious and creepy to me.

I also read on the internet that you have a predilection for “talking smack” about other teams. I find this assertion credible, given my knowledge of your verbal propensities during the 1985-1986 school year. You recently said there was no way the Eagles were going to stop the Giants in an NFC East game at Giants Stadium, which seemed mere braggadocio considering that your team’s receiving corps was operating at sub-optimal strength in the absence of “No. 2 wideout” Mr. Amani Toomer, whose ACL surgery and subsequent sabbatical from game play boded ill for the veracity of your predictions. Then I read on the internet that the Giants won the game 30-24 on the basis of your 31-yard touchdown catch. I do not know what any of this means, but you are making it difficult to gloat at you.

Plaxico Burress, why are you richer and more famous than I am? Is there no justice? Do we live in a state of nature in which life is, as Hobbes posited, “nasty, brutish, and short”? Does might make right?

Sincerely,
Jennifer Dziura

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not such a great deal, Amazon

December 22, 2006


500 magazines at $20 per annual subscription is $10,000.

Oh, wait — it’s OVER 500 magazines. So, $10,020 (for 501).

It’ll sure be great to get 501 magazines for $10,015 instead! Thanks for the bargain!

(Maybe if I buy 500 BMWs, I could get a free keychain!)

Previous entries regarding poor use of English:

another reason to hate Mel Gibson
If I Did It
HELP WANTED PIZZAMAN

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