DAY 359: Free associate on what’s going on in your life right now.

Well it’s the year end and that means, no NFL playoffs to look forward to. I wanna rant as my year end free association. Rant about the Cleveland Browns year.

1. Josh Cribbs - you’re like the Moe Williams of football. When you should call for a fair catch you don’t, when he shoud’nt, you do!

2. Trent Richardson - “Hey TRich, Cleveland loves ya bro,” just don’t salute anymore after you score. You’re not in the Armed Forces. Trust me, we will back you forever anyway…just thinking out loud.

3. WRs - Josh Gordon. You’re cool. Ahem. That is all.

4. LBs - everyone can go away except DJ.

5. CBs - get your shit together. Haden is legit. Anyone else you must acquit. And get rid of them.

6. Sheldon Brown - move to safety and back up Usama already. You’re too old to play corners.

7. Brandon Weeden - eh. Eh. EH. EH! GO AWAY!

8. Pat Shurmur - you’re no motivator. And you’re not smart. Please Sean Payton. PLEASE!

9. Jimmy Haslam - we like you. You spend money. You spend money, we win. We win, we happy.

10. Finally, the whole team - you’re young. We’re dealing with you, as usual. But, we happened to enjoy dealing with you a little better this year. Still sucks. But, we have…hope? (oh yeah…as usual)

DAY 345: Make up a funny Christmas list of 15 items.

Note: All this shit’s real!

1. a Hot Wheels version of the Oscar Mayer weiner mobile & whistle (for Reinhold)

2. wheat penny

3. Burger King crown

4. disposable gloves

5. Gordon Lightfoot Live DVD box set

6. 7 foot gummy snake

7. the Baby Mop

8.  Handle of G-Spirits whiskey

9. Brownie Bar Maker

10. Badass Sunglasses With Assault Rifle Temples

11. New Zealand Driving School For Dogs Membership

12. Pizza Hut cologne

13. Booze-Infused Marshmallows

14. Bacon Jello

15. Bacon Shaving Cream

Stocking Stuffer: Sriracha Lip Balm

DAY 323: Write a bit about time.

Nowadays you can use Youtube to try to get famous via a viral video. Our generation consists of people getting famous through Youtube by putting out the video they hope to go viral. But back in the day, you got famous for HAVING TO DO SOMETHING! Back in the day, people got famous through writings about their lives and accomplishments. You had to invent shit. You had to be a Tesla and create alternating current or you had to be Daniel Boone and slay a fucking bear with a knife. Nowadays, you can be a name like Paris Hilton. That’s where we’re at in society. People often criticize modern American writers, because they write about their own lives instead of fiction. Hemmingway wrote about his life, but he had done a lot. He lived a lot. The dude had been through several wars. But, sports still keeps it’s strength to prove human determination to the umpteenth. You have to have oomph to play sports. We shouldn’t have any celebrity who’s famous for doing nothing. Pisses me off.

DAY 302: Rework the lyrics to a famous song and create a parody.

I chose The Beatles’ Her Majesty, because it’s short and it’s sweet and I knew it complete.

Her Brown’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to pregame
Her Brown’s a pretty nice girl
but these new laws are making her pretty lame.

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta a migraine from watching the Browns play
Her Brown’s a pretty nice girl
But I already moved away, yeah,
I already moved away.

DAY 290: Turn your relationship into a comedy fairy tale. Start with “Once upon a time…”

Once upon a time, in a far, far land, there was a Princess. She was the most beautiful Princess in all the land. But, her beauty schedule was conflicting with her schooling, so she decided to drop a class and replace it with another. Luckily, there was a Prince in her new class and as she walked into the ferry dust lab, the Princess gazed her eyes upon this hunky Prince. The Prince had seen her around school, so he couldn’t wait to share his thoughts with her. Well one day, during class, he approached her and noticed her name was imprinted on her magical Trapper Keeper. So, embracing his inner confidence as best he could, he shouted out her name. She peered over to find him follow up the shout with a proposal. “Would you like to go drink some ales at the Notty Pine tonight?” What was this? Could it be that this handsome Prince might actually like our beautiful Princess. Sure as shit. So they went to the bar, got drunk and 11 years later…they’re still sharing those butterfly feelings each and every time they embrace. Or maybe it’s when they’re drunk. Who knows. Care. The end.

DAY 282: Rework an old bit.

I rewrote a scene from the Dale Archdale feature, and here’s the revised edition:

EXT. COUNTRY CLUB POOL - AFTERNOON

A sign reads “Country Club Pool - Members Only”. Dale and Rick enter the gate. An OLD WOMAN (75) is laying near the pool. Dale grabs the bucket of fish and throws it into the pool. The Old Woman gasps.

OLD WOMAN: Excuse me, sir! Excuse me!

DALE: Quiet up ya ole seahag.

The Old Woman gasps and storms out.

RICK: Dale, whatta ya doin?

DALE: Pull a line out and get at em.

Dale grabs his rod and throws a line in. He sits back, cracks a beer and throws a chew in. The fish bite.

DALE: Look at that! A bite already. Like shooting fish in a pool barrel.

MANAGER (58), wearing a blazer and khakis enters with the Old Woman.

OLD WOMAN: There he is. That’s the man.

DALE: Yeah, who the fuck else is in here.

MANAGER: The police are on their way. Stay put, please.

Rick runs out. Dale laughs.

DALE: Hey look at that old guy!

The Manager turns his head and Dale shoves him into the pool and rushes out. The Old Woman gasps.

OLD WOMAN: Oh! He’s getting away. Get him, get him.

The Manager struggles in the pool, screaming.

MANAGER: I hate fish! I hate fish! Help, help!

The Old Woman keeps screaming also.

OLD WOMAN: Get him, get him!

Dale and Rick laugh and peel off.

Above is the 1st video of our Jordan Almond Milk sketch team. The editing kinda sucks, but that’s because our buddy was trying to edit for the 1st time. But overall, it’s pretty funny.

DAY 276: Add all new bits you’ve been working on to your material list.

Done. So I am not able to get out of this blog post today too easily, I will post a story below that I drafted up back in 2007. Notice how I predicted this shit back then and knew one day she’d OD. She was a train wreck.

Brittany Murphy Loses Weight, and Respect
LOS ANGELES - The results are in. After 1 day of research at the University Hospital Center of Tirana in Tirana, Albania, scientists finally discovered that due to heavy drug abuse, Brittney Murphy’s acting talent has officially deceased.

“Although her level of the chemical Dansguteselluck (i.e., the chemical within the actor’s brain that allows for the ability to skillfully entertain) was substantially low to begin with,” said Director of Psychiatric-Mental Health Dr. Jambunathan Mangalampally at the Institute. It seems that her dosage levels of the drugs Phencyclidine, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, Desoxyn, Diacetylmorphine, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, and Cocaine Hydrochloride exceeded that of the amount limited within chosen ones’ brains. “We have also seen this with David Arquette,” explains Dr. Laloo Meenakshisundaram at the famed Cleveland Clinic Research Center. “No skills were displayed in Clueless, and yet how hard is it to play an outcast turned popular? Isn’t that how it is for an actress? Her role electrified those that are blind, deaf and from Brooklyn.

“In Just Married, it didn’t matter because the movie sucked. In the astounding Frank Miller’s Sin City, the role was salvaged by the surrounding counterparts; and we all just kinda blew it (bad acting by Murphy) off and felt we couldn’t re-shoot so we printed it knowing we were hiding a lie deep within but it did allow me to own the cheesy love scenes,” explains Marshall Mathers on the making of 8 Mile.

Her rapid weight loss a few years ago has also been attributed by the drug addiction. “I remember when she was fat,” explains her past hot counterpart Stacey Dash. “Yeah,” added Alicia Silverstone, when both were interviewed recently at a release party for the DVD “Clueless: The Whatever Edition.”

Another recent interview at the VHS release party of “Don’t Say a Word” in Toronto, Canada with former confederate, Michael Douglas showed Douglas saying, “she would come in high and she would nail the parts. I would tell her she should stop and try to do it sober. We both knew that would be impossible. You know I discovered it when I saw her blowing the key grip for some yayo.”

Recently some pictures were surfacing showing ex-supermodels Janice Dickenson and Kate Moss exiting Murphy’s apartment with a variety of men nightly, sometimes twice an hour. There are also some videos displaying the three blowing coke lines off of men’s dingies and having some African American men do the same off their titties and both sets of clam lippies.

DAY 269: Figure out what makes the articles you’ve read that you thought were funny work.

I’m not a fan of super big words. Rarely is my intelligence level high enough to focus on the humor in an article that’s written using the Thesaurus the whole time. So Dennis Miller and Kelsey Grammar is out for me. I enjoy articles that sound like it’s coming out of your mouth. I always laugh at Onion articles, because they tend to exaggerate and heighten cliches. It works and it works well. I also like articles about absurdity or mockery. In any case, writing humorous articles, I find, tends to be harder than writing a scene for me. So I stay away from writing humorous articles, because frankly, I think I suck at it. I’ll stick to sketches and scripts.

DAY 265: Go see a stand-up comedy show. Watch the comics and audience, and determine what jokes the audience will like.

I am going to use my experience from a Tom Papa show I once saw. I love me some Papa. He’s very funny, but I feel like he definitely used some canned material and didn’t work the audience as much as other pros. I do notice that the best comedians typically can work their bits to any audience, but that some do need to either tweak it or find a way to parlay it into the act so that the audience enjoys it. I also notice a lot of good local guys will typically bark about youthful or college related material, being that Wilmington is a young town. I find that a good way would probably be to write about all sorts of shit, then come into the performance and observe to see what you think would work that night, then deliver accordingly. I definitely need to get back into standup once I get done with my theater performances in November. I’m in 2 plays then as well as pre-production for our feature film we’re making in January, so needless to say, it’s gonna be a couple more months before I dive back in. But I enjoy standup as an outlet and way to perform in front of people. I am not trying to “break in” at that level. I don’t have the funds, nor the time to travel the country. I praise those guys that do. They bust ass.

DAY 264: Write about romantic love without mentioning sex.

I am heavily involved with this chick right now. It’s great! She feeds me and cleans and lights candles and sprays nice smells and kills bugs and hangs Halloween decor and puts DVDs into the PS3 and picks me up at bars and roots on Cleveland sports and snuggles and sprays lotion on me at the beach and does my laundry and buys me presents and rubs my back and gives me hummers. I wish my wife’s sister wouldn’t have to leave already. Oh! Wah, wah, waahhhh. Fucking hack.

DAY 259: Write about a topic from your father’s or mother’s point of view.

I’ll pick my dad’s POV, as if he would probably be if he was fired up about a shitty movie.

Hunger Games…you know the best part was? it was when Peter, the lead girl’s freakin boy toy during the Running Man fucking bit, where they’re running around trying to be little running men, freaking makes himself look like a rock with his little tongue coming out from the rock hole. I was like Christ this movie sucks. I would rather watch a movie that shows my wife recording me, recording our little Halloween village lighting up and making all the sounds. Katniss and Peter? Oooooo, Penis or Katner: the new it couple. Care. Hunger Games? More like I’m Pretty Full Games. Never Wanna Eat Again Games. Cool story bro. If Spielberg did it, he’d fuck shit up. You let the guy who directed Sea Biscuit do it? That’s the problem. Is Tobey McGuire in this movie somewhere? Maybe he’s the creator of the stupid mechanical bees…

DAY 254: Go to the library and read excerpts from humor anthologies.

I am reading a comedy writing book and a History of Comedy book. Good enough.

DAY 249: Double today’s writing session, but spend all the time working on just one bit.

Yeah, sounds like a plan. A shitty plan. Instead, I will work on my screenplay as the extra writing today. I’m behind in making my beat sheets for the Archdale feature. I will tell you this though: the Archdale feature is not going to be a Private Investigator anymore. Now, it’s dueling neighbors. It’s Great Outdoors meets One Crazy Summer meets Summer Rental meets Cheaper by the Dozen 2. Stay tuned. Le’go!

DAY 247: Write a bit about music.

Music is funny. It’s very subjective, kinda like humor. But I don’t wanna rant to much about that aspect. Today I’d rather talk about Christmas albums. I’m sick of these asshole celeb singers who love making the extra money by throwing down an Xmas album. You know that’s the only reason they do it! Half the singers aren’t even Christian! It’s like children’s books. I say stick with Mannheim Steamroller and Burl Ives. Fuk you Zooey Deschanel! Take your quirkiness and go throw yourself in the wood chipper, Fargo-style. On a side note, doesn’t “Wide Awake” by Katy Perry have the EXACT same sound as the Coldplay song, “Paradise”? The latter is pretty good though.

DAY 246: Write a bit about exotic animals.

I wanna own an exotic animal. Something crazy. Like a skunk. Then I could just have him spray my asshole neighbors or my friends who piss me off when they beat me at Madden. It’d be so funny to see him move around the apartment. I’d be like, “hey, look at how my skunk is indoors and moving around the apartment.” I guess I’d need to figure out how to not smell it, because I doubt I’d get used to it. I’ll mark it on my long term list of goals.