Original: Start doing qi gong Revised: Not become an alcoholic Original: Make a crossword puzzle and get it in into the NY Times Revised: Have fewer than 15 people I need to apologize to at the end of this Original: Brush up on my French Revised: Better make that fewer than *20* people Original: Clock […]

You do not talk about Fight Club YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB. If someone says stop, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over. Only 2 guys to a fight. One fight at a time. No shirt, no shoes. Fights will go on as long as they have to. If this is […]

Dear Valued Mortgage Holder: We are very pleased to inform you that we are currently in the process of merging with another bank. This will offer many exciting, new possibilities for the future. First off, thanks for saying I’m valued. I don’t want to make this weird, but I’ve been feeling pretty unappreciated lately, and […]

“Get to a dark place as quickly as possible and try to lure the bee out of your ear with a single source of light like a flashlight… Never try to pull it out with your fingers.” – From “Tormented By A Bee In Your Ear,” Dangerous Situations, And How To Escape in One Piece, […]

According to lore, Ernest Hemingway re-wrote the final sentence of his classic novel A Farewell To Arms 25 times.  After Frederic’s struggles to survive the war, and to be with his beloved Catherine, she dies suddenly.  And in typical Hemingway terseness, Frederic finally leaves her body at the hospital and Hemingway concludes: “After a while I […]

Times It Is Acceptable to Say, “That’s So Gay”: You’re trying to tell someone “That’s okay” and you have a pretty bad cold. Someone has just done a spot-on impression of actress Marcia Gay Harden, from Miller’s Crossing. You’re at a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit. You’re trying to be supportive of a friend who’s recently embraced […]

When I was in college I spent a couple terms in Nottingham, England.  Toward the end of Fall term I decided to go to Amsterdam – by that point, though, almost all the Exchange students had already gone, so it was down to the scraps: Two guys from Maine, a southern belle, some random guy […]

A while back I wrote about one of the first paid stand-up comedy gigs I ever had, in the lovely Winnemucca, Nevada.  (Here, if you want a little context for today’s story)  At the end of it, I mentioned a guy from the casino taking us out to show us Winnemucca’s “nightlife.”  I said it […]