Kevin Marshall's America
You wish I had something interesting, funny, or provocative to say right now. Or, at the very least, you wish I had something funny or fascinating to show you. Even if it was someone else’s image or video or song or views or observations.
But I don’t. Sorry about that.
I’ve been fairly dull lately. Days have bled together. I wouldn’t say the days have been dull, though, because I’ve spent time with interesting people and tried to with others. I’m in one of those places, though, where I feel like nothing I do is good or even satisfactory. Where I walk around convinced that I’m a fraud at all endeavors, particularly comedy. I think about my sets, and my jokes, and wonder why these strangers show up and pretend to find them funny. I think of specific jokes and there’s nothing there, as if I feel like I’ve been dressing up a hobo in a tuxedo and told people he was the Prince of Spain. And so I feel like a conman, a fraud, who doesn’t deserve to take a stage let alone achieve the things I want to achieve with stand-up.
I’ve also been eating terrible things and hating myself for it and not working out enough, largely owing to my health of late and general drowsiness.
Also, the backspace button on my keyboard keeps sticking and it’s driving me up a fucking wall. My solution is to not make as many mistakes as I normally do typing, which for someone who is as hard on himself as I am, is both a sensible and daunting pursuit. What can I say? I’m my own worst enemy, perhaps because that way nobody else can be.
Oh, and I saw “The Campaign” tonight with roommate Steve and buddy Ethan. I liked it enough, but could tell that the best/funniest aspects were improvised. It was too broad and too light for a satire of American politics; unspecific in its dismissiveness and not cynical or biting enough to matter. But I dropped eleven dollars and Ferrell and Galifianakis (godfuckingdamn it, Zach, you made me use that sticky backspace button again) made me laugh. So did Dylan McDermott, who is criminally underused (he plays a fantastic sociopath).
Going to bed. Tomorrow I’m getting up in the morning to eat awful food with interesting people, then try to sweat out that meal, then shower and take a trip to Fonda, NY to tell jokes to people that I think shouldn’t care but might anyway, hopefully, if I can dress that hobo right.
I went to the doctor yesterday for my semi-annual physical. While I was there I mentioned that I’ve been feeling incredibly tired lately. Much of this is due to my perpetually erratic sleeping schedule, but I’m also finding myself crashing on the weekends, for example this past Sunday I basically stayed in bed and slept on and off for the entire day. The doctor chalked a lot of it up to my lifestyle: working a full-time job while also doing stand-up comedy and such. Yet I haven’t exactly been overwhelmed by bookings lately.
So I had some blood and urine work done and we’ll see what’s up. There are few things in this world I find stranger than urinating into a cup. I think the worst part is that they don’t make the plastic thick enough, so you can actually feel the warmth in it. I sort of stared at it for a moment and had something resembling a post-modern reflection. Then I immediately tried to turn it into a bit with a setup along the lines of “something came out of me, I held it, and it was warm…this is what having a son must feel like, except I don’t get to just shove it into a shelf and walk away.” I decided against it, because pee is just gross.
Drowsily pissing into a cup could basically sum up my mood of late.
Hopefully I just need to start getting more sleep. If the blood and urine tests do come up with something, I’ll likely turn to selling drugs a la “Breaking Bad.”
Speaking of which, my latest article for All Access Weekly on Spike is up: Facebook Apps & Games for Some of Your Favorite Shows.
Hope you’re following on Tumblr. Actually, scratch that, I actually know that you aren’t. What the fuck, guys?
Big news: in addition to my weekly contributions for MMA Uncensored Live, I’m now writing and Tumbling for All Access Weekly, Spike’s five minute showcase of movies, comics, gaming, and all sorts of geekery.
There’s already quite a bit of content up on the Tumblr and my first article has been posted, which casts the “Alf” feature length film being developed by Sony (for real, that’s actually happening).
- All Access Weekly on Spike – http://www.spike.com/shows/all-access-weekly
- Follow on Tumblr – http://allaccessonspike.tumblr.com/
- Articles – http://www.spike.com/shows/all-access-weekly/articles
JOIN US
One of the ongoing conversations I keep having with people I know concerns their assertions that society as a whole is being “dumbed down” and that children these days are more spoiled than they’ve ever been.
The “dumbing down” assertion is perhaps the more foolish of the two, not just because people historically have not had much access to education, but the fact that even statistics over the last several decades don’t bear that out. Moreso, though, because it’s a theory propounded by idiots themselves. “Look how dumb everyone else is getting,” a guy will say on Facebook, as he follows it up with some monumentally ignorant observation about politics or culture.
But the thing with kids is perhaps worse because of the sheer meanness of it all. Telling an entire generation of young people that they have personal failings that will prevent them from being successful betrays the uncertainty and anxiety of an older generation that is realizing, consciously or not, that their position in society isn’t permanent and their control over the course of human events is slowly eroding as it has with each previous generation.
Oh, and by the way, it’s not a new observation.
We’re clearly having another of those moments — and they do recur, across the generations — when parents worry that they’re not doing their job and that the next generation is consequently in grave danger. In cultural convulsions about how spoiled the children are, disapproving adults look back fondly on the rigors of their own childhoods. But many of the same parents (and grandparents) who are now worrying were members of the generation that Vice President Spiro T. Agnew accused Dr. Benjamin Spock of having spoiled.
Indeed, the overprivileged and overindulged child was a stock character in 19th-century novels: As veteran governesses who presumably knew the territory, the Brontë sisters wrote powerful portraits of spoiled older children. The culture changes, but many of the battlegrounds remain the same.
Yep.
So, you know, just because teenagers have iPhones doesn’t mean they’re screwed. The kids are all right. What you do at the voting booth matters a lot more than what twelve-year-olds do on Twitter.
I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I’ve been mentioning the landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars ever since it went down. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, fuck, I even logged into my Xanga for the first time in six years and posted about it on there.
I think it’s awesome.
I know that this seems strange because I don’t have a background in science, nor have I ever in your experience with me even expressed an interest in science. But trust me, this is something I’ve been following for a long damn time and am very excited about, and that makes me better than most people.
When it happened, one of the first images I saw was footage of NASA Mission Control celebrating the landing, and went “whoa, there’s a guy there with a mohawk!” I immediately found someone tweeting a picture of him and RT’ed it and was like “check out the guy with the mohawk!”
I imagine that he sits around with stuffy, dorky older guys wearing a leather jacket and his arms crossed, slouching slightly because he’s the punk rock cool kid scientist. In the planning stages, when they were designing Curiosity or whatever, they were like “we have to do it this way!” but then he was like “let’s try this” and they were all “you’re a maverick, Mohawk Kid, and you’re gonna get us all killed” but then he proved his new, young, and hipper way to have Curiosity land on Mars was the right one.
I’m kind of like that Mohawk NASA scientist, because I care so much more about Curiosity than you because I like science which makes me smart and better than you.
Man. I can’t wait to see what happens with this mission. Whatever it is.
Earlier today I posted this satirical take on the moral quandary some have expressed over whether or not it’s right to knowingly support a business that not only openly opposes something you believe in, but actually works to abolish something you claim to be a fundamental right.
It was all of five minutes before I started receiving texts, emails, and a reply to the post that pointed out that someone has actually offered a solution to this offensively absurd “problem.”
What harm can this do? Well, it certainly brings to mind the sale of indulgences, but it’s not quite that cruel. Instead, it promises to offset your purchase of Chik-Fil-A by noting that your equitable donation to the marriage equality movement will outweigh the contribution you make to hate groups vis a vis your purchase.
Except it’d be better to only make the donation towards marriage equality than to do both. By perpetuating the success of Chik-Fil-A and ensuring their profit margin isn’t harmed, you are contributing to the very thing you claim to despise.
I want to believe that stuff like “Chicken Offsets” is a good thing in that it solicits donations that otherwise might not come in. However, I can’t help but think this comes at a price and continues the inane dialogue over whether or not one can afford to support marriage equality and put your money where your mouth is. Especially considering that all it requires you to do is not bring it to a place that prides itself in having so much animosity towards you and hate towards those you claim to support.
In short: is just not eating that shit really that hard?
The last few weeks, the Twittersphere and Google Circles and Foursquares and Facebook Triangles have been abuzz with controversy over the stance of Chik-Fil-A’s turbo-Christian CEO, Dan Cathy, who told a Baptist magazine that the company was against same-sex marriage and that people were arrogant for telling God that same-sex marriage is okay. After all, only Dan Cathy and a portion of people that identify as Christian are able to tell their God that may or may not exist what it says and thinks about gay marriage.
I’m not here, though, to stoke the flames of religiosity and get people worked up with my views on Atheism and lack of patience with those whose faith lies in a literal belief in any and all text written at a time when people shat into holes in the ground and watched or participated in executions for entertainment.
No, I’m not going to do that, because I need their help to address a very serious moral quandary.
I must begin by stating this unequivocally: I believe gays should have the right to marry. Actually, it’s a bit stronger than that. I think to not allow them the same rights and privileges is a violation of their civil rights. I find quoting the Bible for legal precedence to be antithetical to the legal and intellectual well-being of our nation. You’ll find many that will play softball with the opposition and claim to respect a faith-based opinion on gay marriage. I’m guilty of that myself. Like the President, though, my stance on this issue has evolved. Unlike the President, I will go so far as to say if you believe gays shouldn’t marry and would work to prevent legislation from allowing that to happen, you don’t have an opinion. You have a prejudice. I think there’s a very real difference and with time, thought, and research, I believe it even more strongly.
On the other hand, Chik-Fil-A is a fast food restaurant that makes fried food that I can eat.
Clearly you see and can probably feel the depth of the dilemma that lay before me.
Firstly, THIS WEDNESDAY!
You demanded it for so long and it’s finally happened! A new, earlier start time! This and every month here on out, we’re kicking off at 8pm. Also, come check out the new look & menu at Elda’s! 2 for 1 drink specials immediately following the funny. $5, 21+
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And here’s a sneak peek at a writing project I’m working on:
Rutherford B. Hayes vs. ALAC (Artistic License Amphibian Creature)
by Kathleen Jordan (Jordan-Artery.com)
A longform short story/novella I’m starting work on. I think the picture tells most of this story, and it’s fantastic, and I thank Kathleen Jordan for doing it. And now that I’ve posted about it, I’m now accountable, which means I have to finish it! Because otherwise I’ll have failed forever at life.
A week late, but hey, whatever.
STALK ME
