WARNING: This post may suck

The hardest part of writing a blog is coming up with topics. Once I come up with a decent topic I’m usually off to the races. Today I have no idea what to write. So I thought I would use that as an experiment. Experiment is a nice way of saying I may never do this again. But here’s the plan: I’m going to just start writing, free associating, and just keep going. It may turn out great; It may be the dog's breakfast. But I promise to post this, regardless of the results. And I promise not to go back and do several passes to clean it up. Whattcha see is whattcha get.  You of course, don’t have to stay for the whole thing. You can leave at any time. You might even be saying, “Good luck with your experiment. I’ll check back tomorrow when you’re not flying up your own ass.” That’s fair enough.  But what the hell?   I have no other topic for today so let's give it a shot. 

I sat for the first five minutes just scanning my office looking for objects that might lead to something. How long do you keep magazines? In the bathroom we keep every NEW YORKER but how many ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLYS should I clog up my bookshelf with?  I think I can lose the seventeen issues devoted to TRUE BLOOD.

By the way, they always do that feature SOUND BITES where they paste pictures of actors and give them dialogue bubbles featuring pithy lines they said in their various shows. Hey, EW – writers wrote those lines! Not the actors. That page is terribly misleading and an industry publication should know better. Ever notice the disconnect between the witty things they “say” in SOUND BITES and their acceptance speeches during award ceremonies? Gwyneth Paltrow was in SOUND BITES one time. Come on.

For reasons I can't fathom, I also get FIELD & STREAM every month.  Did one of you readers send that to me as a joke?  Or did I once try to subscribe to TEEN VOGUE and checked the wrong box?   But I am not the outdoor type.  If I ever kill someone and there's an all-points-bulletin out on me, I'll just go to an REI store.  It's the last place anyone would ever look for me.  I can hide out there for twenty years. 

I look forward to my weekly NEW YORKER arriving and the first thing I do is check to see if Paul Rudnick has a humor piece. He’s always funny. As opposed to Lena Dunham who never is. What more proof do we need that she’s the Emperor’s New Clothes than the fact that she is always naked? I then check to see if Anthony Lane did the movie review that week. I choose my favorite film critics not by whether I share their sensibilities but whether they make me laugh. Michael Bay and Oliver Stone were put on this earth for Anthony Lane to critique.

I've submitted a couple of pieces for the Shouts and Murmurs humor section and never even got a rejection letter. Lena Dunham can send in her grocery list and that they’ll print.

There’s a small movie I saw recently called FRANCES HA, written by Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig and directed by Noah Baumbach. It’s a modest little black-and-white trifle starring Gerwig as a young single woman trying to find her place in Manhattan. It’s GIRLS without the sodomy. I got bored the second half when nothing really happened, but I appreciated the dialogue and glimpse into that world. To me it felt way more realistic than GIRLS. Ironically, Adam Driver, the guy who plays Lena's sadistic (excuse me, artistic) boyfriend is also in this film. He’s nicer though, and by that I mean he doesn’t make his date crawl around on all-fours and masturbate on her. In other words, he doesn’t get to play “comedy” like he does in GIRLS (the Golden Globe winner for “Best Comedy of the Year.”).

Let’s see if it even gets nominated for Best Comedy Emmy. My guess is it won’t – funny as forced anal sex may be. There will be MODERN FAMILY, BIG BANG THEORY, LOUIE (all three very deserving), and since it’s the final year of THE OFFICE and 30 ROCK, those might get sentimental nods. But the audience is quite divided on GIRLS… and ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT for that matter. The hardcore AD fans were thrilled with the deliciously intricate new Netflix season while many others were so confused they had to be re-taught how to brush their teeth. Shows that should get nominated (and probably won't) are PARKS AND RECREATION and here’s one out of leftfield – THE MIDDLE. Watch THE MIDDLE. It’s not cool and sexy but it’s funny and is actually about something. Same show but starring Louis C.K. and it gets nominated every year. Maybe even wins.

And speaking of winning -- congratulations to my alma matter, UCLA for winning the national championship in baseball last night.  Fuck football.  

Okay, that should fill out one rambling post. I hope this experiment worked because it was kind of fun to do.   And if it didn’t, well… think of me as Wile E. Coyote stepping off the cliff and walking five or six steps in mid-air until I realize it and then…………………………….. poof.