Hi, how are you?

Are the news channels now talking about something other than the hurricane? If you experienced the hurricane, I hope you’re doing well. If you’re dealing with other issues in life, I also hope you’re doing well. If you’re dealing with issues and dealing with the hurricane, yes. Basically I hope everyone is doing well.

I have six minutes of battery left on the laptop. I got out of bed to write an e-mail to someone I think I did wrong. I don’t like feeling that I did wrong to anyone.

Anyway, with the remaining power, I thought I’d share a video from my new TV series. It’s not really a TV series. It’s only a TV series in my mind.

Three things

If you’re at all interested in matters of comedy or depression or life or human beings, this episode of this podcast is worth listening to:

http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_190_-_todd_hanson

And if you’re at all interested in poetry or rap or people who have sex with Beyonce, this clip is worth a view:

And if you’re at all interested in where I’ve been the last three months, this explains it (to a certain degree):

http://www.helpmebacon.com

Come see me and Kevin Bacon!

I’ve got this new project.  It’s about Kevin Bacon, and me, and my life.  It’s about finding the purpose of my life in 90 days.  It’s about how Kevin Bacon doesn’t relate to that at all, except that he’s a celebrity and therefore has all the answers to life’s big questions.  It’s a satire.  But it’s also my life.  So it’s serious.

That’s where I’ll mostly be until July 4th.  Come see me there!  HelpMeBacon.com

A state of the blog and its author address

You might not guess it from the looks of my neglected blog, but I have been doing some writing lately. Most of it is ending up on my flash drive instead of here.

I feel like one of the minor, enduring struggles of my life has been realizing that it’s a beautiful day outside, yet preferring to stay inside and read a book or write in my notebook while wearing pajamas and eating potato chips. Today I justified my indoor actions by telling myself it’d still be light out when I’d have to leave the apartment to go work, so I needn’t feel obligated to leave before then. I also looked at the weather report and found that tomorrow will also be warm and nice and I can take advantage of it then–unless I find myself in a similar mood. You know those moods? For me it’s like my inner world feels so interesting and stimulating that why bother interacting with someone else at the moment? Or this character in the book is in the middle of a really big ordeal, and my couch is really comfortable, why risk not finding a good reading spot in a cafe or park?

So, that’s what I found myself in this afternoon. And I worked on some of my flash drive stuff. But I think about my blog a lot. It’s not exactly like a child. It’s more like a Tamagachi pet or even a Chia pet. I know I can go a reasonable amount of time away from it and still nurse it back to health and restore its faith in me. But I also know how easy it is to leave it on a shelf for a few weeks. Maybe those are bad comparisons. I don’t think of my blog as a fad I’ll eventually grow tired of, throw in a box in the basement, then drag out for annual tag sales, only then to remember all the great times I shared with it when some bratty neighborhood kid offers me a quarter to take it home with them–never to love or care for it as I did.

Yeah. My blog is something else. It’s a tool and an outlet and a companion. And it’s me.

I didn’t mean to share any of that. I meant to share the first couple paragraphs of something I’ve been working on. So here that is. Thanks for reading this blog. Thanks for contributing to the life of my figurative Tamagachi Chia pet thing.

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Some people are able to announce, with grandiosity: I was born moments after the first man walked on the moon; Or, on the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat; In the wake of a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. They imply these events prefaced and even foreshadowed the lives they went on to lead and the kind of people they grew to be—inevitably great and impactful.

Myself, I was born shortly after my parents watched Caddyshack, including the scene in which Bill Murray’s character eats a candy bar others mistake for feces floating in a pool. I like to think that in being exposed to this film I recognized that the world could be a funny place, and that though the womb was warm and safe, I didn’t mind venturing some place new.

It’s hard to exist.

I’m struggling with existence again. As usual. It’s so lame. And it’s also the least lame thing ever.

An old friend texted me a few minutes ago saying, “I hear you’re some kind of comedian now.” And I texted back, “I’m not sure what I am. What are you these days?”

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I was riding the subway on Monday, and I was eating a turkey sandwich. The turkey sandwich part isn’t so important, except that the train was crowded and I was dropping lettuce on myself and I felt sort of bad, but not that bad because the woman sitting next to me was eating an apple.

In an attempt to avoid eye contact with any Q Train passengers who might be watching me eat, I started studying advertisements. One in particular caught my eye. For a few reasons:

1. It was for a book and I like those.

2. The concept for the book turns the author into a whore.

3. I’ve long thought about writing a book just like this. Well, sort of like this:

“Publisher’s Weekly” ascribes this book to the “stunt-blog memoir genre”. There is a gimmicky feel to this genre, but it can be done really well! I don’t care if Oprah plugged it, I really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. Shit was inspiring. I also enjoyed Danny Wallace’s book Yes Man that inspired the Jim Carrey movie I didn’t see.

But as far as stunt-blog memoirs go, this has gotta be one of the most stunt-bloggy of them all. Maybe I’m just upset I didn’t think of doing it myself. I mean, how can you really go wrong when the backbone of your stunt-blog memoir has these kinds of stats:

IF OPRAH WERE… A NATION her 51.4 million weekly viewers and magazine readers would equal more than the population of Canada (33 million), Spain (40.3 million) or Argentina (39.9 million).

IF OPRAH WERE… A PILE OF GOLD she’d be equal to 24,000 14-karat gold bars.

cnnmoney.com reported in January that Oprah ranked second only to Google as the biggest brand newsmaker of 2006. Behind Ms. Winfrey were Amazon, eBay and iPod.

IF OPRAH WERE… A NATIONAL ECONOMY what she’d pump into the U.S. economy would be slightly more than the GDP of the Bahamas. See more here.

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The only thing left to do now, now that I’ve accepted I’ll probably never figure out the big existential questions, is figure out what to spend 365 days of my life doing that I can convince a publishing house will make a memoir and make them money.

Actually, my old friend texted back to tell me what she is these days, and it sounds like the perfect title for a stunt-blog memoir: Nomadic Barista.

Taylor Swift on SNL!!!!!!

There’s something about SNL promos that are completely awkward.  I spent some time watching a bunch of them on hulu not long ago, and most of them are painful to watch.  Self-promotion is hard to pull off well.  Most of the hosts crash and burn with the format:

1. Host says that he/she is hosting, and also mentions the musical guest.
2. Cast member does/says something that warrants a reaction from the host.
3. Host reacts.

That third part is the clincher.  If the host doesn’t react in a genuine and funny way, the whole thing kind of fails.  The viewer can tell when the host just feels awkward about the whole thing.  They look awkward, the viewer feels awkward.  It’s hard all around.  Because I’m rooting for them.  Hosting SNL is a big deal.  You’ve made some kind of name for yourself if you’re invited.  But there is that very real danger of being god awful.  And the promo is often an indication of how the show will go.

That said, Taylor Swift is hosting this week, AND she’s the musical guest.  And I predict, based on the fact that she’s awesome, that she’ll do a good job.  And by good job, I mean as good of a job as is possible.  I hope.

I think Taylor Swift’s reactions in her promos are really impressive.  Before you watch hers, though, watch the promo with Peyton Manning and Carrie Underwood.  Peyton does well, but Carrie…  Kind of painful.  Compare and contrast.

What’s Wrong With Me (Thumbs Up Edition)

The silliest thing happened earlier today.  I found myself in Manhattan (SoHo to be exact), and all out of sorts.  I was tired.  I was sweaty.  I had just spent nearly two hours in a waiting room only to be told I needed to reschedule the appointment.  I also sort of suspected my pink eye was coming back.  These factors paired with the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing with life–I began to cry on the sidewalk.  Or, maybe more like bawl.

I stood against a building, out of the way of pedestrians.  I watched the traffic pass on Bleecker Street.  I wiped tears off of my cheeks and wondered if anyone would stop and inquire.  For a few moments no one did.  I wasn’t all that surprised.  I don’t think I would’ve stopped and asked me what my deal was.  We’re a solitary, earbud wearing bunch these days.  But then, someone did stop: A middle-aged Asian woman who didn’t speak English.  She got really close to my red, swollen face and said the same word over and over again.  Turned out she wasn’t concerned about me at all.  She was just trying to get directions to the M22 bus.  Which is one of the few New York buses that I have had the chance to ride.  But even so, I couldn’t help her, so she walked off.

After that encounter I really lost it.  I was still crying, only now I was laughing, too.  Basically–I was hysterical.  But I was also pretty close to pulling myself together and carrying on with my day.  Before I had really finished that task, though, another person took the time to acknowledge me.  This time the person spoke English.  He pushed a stroller, wore a hat, and asked, “Are you okay?”  He didn’t slow, but at the same time, he seemed sincere.  And also, he seemed to be Jim Gaffigan. 

I’m fairly certain it was him.  It’s really too fitting for it not to have been.  He is, after all, the stand-up comedian behind the album “King Baby”.  So that’s cool.  Except I totally blew it.  How can a crying, defeated woman possibly make things more embarrassing for herself?  By telling Jim Gaffigan, “I’m good,” and emphasizing that by giving him…a thumbs up. 

Yeah.  As soon as my thumb did it I was like, really?  Why did you just do that?  Thumbs up are awkward even when you don’t have snot running down your face.  It’s a terrible, outdated gesture that no one should make.  If I’d made it to the middle-aged Asian woman it would have (maybe) been acceptable.  But not to Jim Gaffigan.  I swear: he wasn’t embarrassed by my crying–it was the thumbs up that convinced him I was a lost cause.