February 2008
12 posts
Cellphone physical comedy
While reading a book, watching TV, or otherwise distracted, a woman puts her cellphone near her mouth without thinking about it. Just as she rests the phone on her teeth, she gets a call; the phone is set to vibrate, and so it jangles her teeth. “Ahhhhh!” she says as she drops the phone. She jumps to the floor, hitting her face on the coffee table. She picks up the call, from...
The President's Economist
Joe Weisenthal made an off-hand comment about how frustrating it must be to be the economic adviser to the president or a presidential candidate. These poor souls must go to great pains explaining the benefits of free market principles like free trade as the candidates/president listen and nod, only to see their lesson totally discarded as their pupil turns around and demonizes an opponent for...
Theory of The Audience Is Only a Bunch of...
I don’t care if it’s a million people, a billion people, or 100 trillion, I never get nervous performing. And it’s not because I imagine people in their underwear, though I do that too. It’s because I subscribe to The Theory of The Audience Is Only A Bunch of Individuals, And Thus It’s No Different To Perform For Millions As It Is To Perform For One.
The theory is...
An intricate, impossible method to cause a car...
A good way to cause a car wreck would be to replace someone’s rear view and side view mirrors with video monitors that show the same route being traveled, except on another, less traffic-ridden day. The driver would check all the “mirrors,” think it was clear to switch lanes, and then would collide into another car.
However, this would only work with a driver who has the exact...
The Obsolete Doomsayer
Story about a schizophrenic doomsayer in the late 90s and early 2000s who tells everyone he sees that Muslims are going to knock down the World Trade Center by “attacking from the air.” He has no reason to know this, except that he’s a nutcase.
Early in 2001, he confronts a businessman with his theory, and the businessman is strangely shaken by this baseless prediction. But the...
Weight and Switch
Someone who wants to leave her boyfriend but feels bad about breaking his heart gains a lot of weight to trick him into leaving her. But it backfires when he turns out to be a closeted “chubby chaser.” Not only does he stay with her, he loves her even more, and keeps feeding her to keep her weight up. Eventually she’s so overweight, she can never break up with him, because...
Chancey's Choice
A few years ago, I considered writing a script about a high school kid in Springdale, Arkansas who resents being white, middle class and straight, and chooses to be gay in order to have a more interesting identity and something to fight for.
He goes through a conversion process where learns to be attracted to men. It doesn’t actually work, but he deludes himself into thinking it did.
...
A One-Day National Primary
On his blog The Stalwart, Joseph Weisenthal proposes a one-day national primary:
…as everyone knows, one of the big problems with politics is the tendency to address localized problems at the expense of large, diffuse populations. This is the primaries in a nutshell. You start off in Iowa promising corn subsidies, even though they’re not a good deal for everyone else. Then you go to...
I May Be Slow, But I'm Fasting
Here are a bunch of bumper sticker ideas that Joseph Weisenthal and I brainstormed a while back. Some of them could work as T-shirts as well:
I May Be Slow, But I’m Fasting
Life is But a Dream? Allow Me To Wake You!
Smash the State! Support Bush’s Tax Cut
My Daughter is a Bitch Diva Goddess at McCallum High School
My Boss is a Jewish-Vegan Carpenter
Capitalists Do It With...
"Why Can't I Go to School?"
A children’s book for home-schooled students called “Why Can’t I Go To School?” It’s written from the perspective of a mother explaining to her home school kid why he’s lucky to be free of school.
But the subtle subtext in the book is that this fictional mother had a horrible time growing up in public school, being bullied and getting bad grades and having lots...
The Generation Gap Turns Eerie
A father’s kids beg him to watch their favorite TV show with them. He reluctantly agrees, expecting it to be about an annoying creature playing games and teaching the alphabet, but is disturbed to find his kids watching seemingly meaningless shapes and colors morphing on a TV screen.
He stares at them - alienated and in utter disbelief - as they laugh and enjoy and point out their favorite...
The art of yelling out of a car
Two men ride in a car. The guy in the passenger seat rolls down his window and shouts “AAAAHHHHH!” at a conservative-looking family as they pass them. The family looks surprised, but unimpressed.
The driver gets annoyed. “‘Aaaahhh?’” he asks. “I hate it when people do that to me. It just makes you look stupid. You should think about what you yell out of a car window....