Perry Block - Still Neurotic After All These Years: SNL

Showing posts with label SNL. Show all posts

Saturday, June 16, 2012

How Low the Mighty Pre-Tweeters have Fallen!

Lord, I'm worried about the Beaver!

These days Jerry Mathers a/k/a Beaver Cleaver, whom millions of Baby Boomers grew up with in the late 50's and early 60's, holds forth on Twitter under the Twitter handle @TheJerryMathers.

But holding forth I'm afraid is about all that he holds.

@TheJerryMathers has 2,371 followers.

It's true that the 60+ year old Jerry Mathers, with a face like a bas relief map of South America, is hardly handsome. But that same face sat at the dinner table for six full TV seasons with Ward, June, and Wally, and by extension also with me.

What would explain such an iconic figure having such a low number of followers?

Has @Eddie_NiceDressMrsCleaver found a way to siphon all the others off? Is @PerezHilton falsely tweeting that @TheJerryMathers was infected with a fatal computer virus in Vietnam? Or is it just the singular sad fate bound to befall those fallen celebrities whose salad days were back in the day when the only people who tweeted were in the fife and bugle corps?

How Low the Mighty Pre-Tweeters have Fallen!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Campaign without End

Ron, weren't you only 37 when all this began?

Doesn't it seem like the Presidential campaign has been going on forever?

We've had flavors of the month, brain farts, flip flops, vacant stares, family values, invented people, $10,000 bets, Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, Bachmann in Bachmann out; Cain in, Cain out; Cain in, out, in, out, in, out - allegedly!; and lots and lots of Jesus.

And the actual election is still almost a year away.

I know what you're thinking.

We've just got to find a way to make this process longer! Here's a few ideas:

Hopefuls Must Declare Candidacy Within Two Months After the Last Presidential Election.   Imagine the fun watching candidates scream about how lousy the last President has been when the last President hasn't even had a chance to be lousy.

Hold Primaries in Other Countries.   C'mon, Ron Paul, explain your views on foreign aid to Israel and Egypt.   Rick Santorum, you're eager to tangle with Ahmadinejad, let's see you earn his vote.

Rick Perry, let's see you campaign in Great Britain, where you're required to speak English!

You Moderate the Debate. Why should Wolf Blitzer have all the fun? Got a microphone, rec room, and ample supply of dumb ass questions?

~ "Mr. Santorum, why do you always have a facial expression makes it look like you've just inhaled next to Russell Brand?"

~ "Mr. Paul, you'd be the first President with two first names since Chester A. Arthur. How would you like to wear fake muttonchops if we could get 'em to match your fake eyebrows?"

~ "Mr. Gingrich, you've been married three times and had multiple affairs. How do you do it when guys who don't have a face like Kirstie Alley's butt can't get chicks?"

All Candidates Must Host SNL. Could the show possibly be any less funny? Is it possible for even Jon Huntsman to do a decent Jon Huntsman?   Beauty Part: Boy, would this elongate the process! There are only about three new SNL episodes a year and Alec Baldwin is contractually obligated to host all of them.

Candidate Term Papers.   Each candidate must read Middlemarch by George Eliot and write a term paper, twenty-five pages, double-spaced, with footnotes. (Note: Any candidate who properly identifies George Eliot as a woman will be immediately eliminated from the race.)

Send the Candidates into Space.

Bring the Candidates Back from Space. (Optional)

Feel free to add your own ideas to these humble few and know what? Before long we'll have Presidential campaigns running almost as long as geological periods of the Earth.

Which all goes to prove what the only conceivable thing worse than the current process for electing a President of the United States of America would be.

One additional minute of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Yes, Virginia, There is a Hubert

Various Sketches by Dr. Humber

There are all kind of conspiracy theorists nowadays, from those espousing alien visitations and the legitimacy of Bigfoot and Nessie to those asserting that Lorne Michaels keeps SNL on the air by eating the brains of NBC executives. No such theorist, however, is more strident and in-your-face than Professor Neil Humber of the University of Havertown PA.

Professor Humber, who tweets as @flophouseflip, is a brilliant socio-economist and deep thinker whose ground-breaking socio-economic models and theorems have served to prove conclusively that socio-economic models and theorems are boring. After years of intense study, Dr. Humber has come to believe that a massive fraud has been perpetrated on the people of the United States, and in fact, on the peoples of the world.

"They don't want you to know!" Dr. Humber exclaimed, his fist pounding upon the table, when we met last week. "They continue to propagate the ages-old myth that parents provide toys and gifts to children at Christmas time! As if all parents from Baltimore to Botswana could make an objective, unbiased determination as to which of their children are naughty or nice and then implement annual Yuletide gift-giving accordingly and do it all in one night!"

"Only one highly competent and dedicated entrepreneur could successfully accomplish this task," asserts Dr. Humber, "obviously working with a crack team of professionals he has himself vetted, assembled, and trained to perfection."

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Mr. Hubert "Santa" Claus!

Professor Humber posits the existence of a rotund, jolly, and white-bearded gentleman who every year on Christmas Eve delivers toys to good little boys and girls, rides in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, and is originally from New Jersey. The author of 17 books on the subject, including His Name is Hubert! and Your Parents are Fucking Liars, Professor Humber is the leading proponent of the so-called Single Gifter Theory.

I asked Professor Humber how he came to believe so fervently in the existence of a Mr. Hubert Claus and the plot to cover him up.

"In conjunction with parental malaise and incompetence, modern methods of manufacture and distribution are simply nowhere near effective enough for the Parental Multi-Gifter Model to be feasible," he told me. "Hell, you can't even get anybody to come to the phone at a Toys R US any more!"

Parents foster the duplicity, Professor Humber contends, in order to have something guilt-invoking to hold over their children. "Clean your room, Jimmy," "do your homework, Sarah," "don't run off and marry that uber-tatooed grifter, Sylvester," go down a lot better with "don't forget, I'm the one who gave you the 12-speed bicycle at Christmas!" than "if you want some marbles, write to Hubert!"

As proof that the U.S. government is complicit in the cover-up, Professor Humber points to the alleged downing in 1947 of a "red-nosed reindeer" at Roswell New Mexico and the mysterious appearance in a Cherry Hill NJ shopping mall in 2006 of a cheerful and avuncular fat guy asking children what they wanted for Christmas who was swiftly escorted away by government agents.

"What do you envision this Mr. Claus to look like?" I asked Professor Humber.

"His eyes sort of twinkle," he answered thoughtfully. "Not only that, his dimples are merry, his cheeks are like roses, and his nose like a cherry. He's sort of like an older Zach Galifianakis, but less stoned-out."

But then why doesn't Mr. Claus simply come forward and take credit for his prodigious efforts?

"I believe that he is a humble man," replied Dr. Humber, "who wishes only to speak not a word, go straight to his work, fill everyone's stockings, and then turn with a jerk. I'm not exactly sure who that jerk is, but I'm thinking Mr. Claus may sometimes hang out with former Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards or Charlie Sheen."

Professor Humber will be speaking tonight at the Unitarian Church in Center City Philadelphia, and a small but enthusiastic crowd is expected to attend. Most other people will claim to be busily Christmas shopping, but Dr. Humber says that the majority of them will be out drinking with co-workers, engaging in sexual encounters with random strangers, or watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on television.

So what do you think about the existence or non-existence of the elusive Mr. Claus?

Oh, and if you're reading this, Brandon, clean up your goddamn room!
Remember who got you that X-Box last Christmas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday, December 9, 2011

Oh, the Lame Places You'll Go!

Oh, the Lame Places

Congratulations!

Today is your day.
You're off to Lame Places!
You're off and away!

You have feet in your head.
You have brains in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
but any direction, you lose!

You're on you own. And you know what you know.
And it isn't that much, YOU'RE an ignorant shmoe!

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with ennui.
About some you will say, "too much effort, not me!"
With your shoes full of brains and your head full of feet,
you'll stumble and bumble down just about any old street.

And you probably won't find any
you've the gonads to tred.
In that case, of course,
you'll head straight back to bed!

It's much safer, you'll swear
"On my Beauty Rest so fair!"

Out there,

Shit Can Happen!

it's invariably true
to people as incompetent
and inept as you!

And when shit starts to happen,
You'll worry. You'll stew.
With perfectly good reason
Because UP you will SCREW!

OH! THE LAME PLACES YOU'LL GO!

Are you on your way up?
Are you seeing great sights?

Nah, you're watching the tube,
It's Kardashian Nights.

C'mon, don't lag behind, if you must take some speed,
and some downers and cocaine and hashish and weed.

Wherever you fly, you'll think life's a big bash,
But wherever you go ... BOOOM!!! my friend, you will crash!

Except from now on you don't.
Eight trips to Rehab say you won't.

Still I'm confident to say so
and, verily, it's true
that Car Bang-ups

and Phone Hang-ups

will happen always to you!

Life will have you all strung up
It can sting like a birch.
And the gang will fly on
You're less popular than Lurch!

That's the Addams Family's Lurch,
You dumb ignorant chump!
And the chances are finally
You've caught on you're a Shlump!

And when you're a Shlump
you're not in for much fun.
Un-shlumping yourself
by a Shlump's never been done!

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Told you not to use Mapquest! You're surrounded, it's dark!
Six fullbacks are pummeling your head, face, and chin!

And there's nary a cop out. When you need 'em, they're in.
How much can you lose? All you got, Gunga Din!

Now, if you go in, should you turn left or right ...
or right-and-three-quarters?

At SEX, you're a fright!

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Your date will cry "Foul!" and no doubt you will find,
She will mind-maker-upper to dump your behind!

You can get so confused
you go out and buy Mace,
and spray it on peaceful protesters right in the face!

And the world will brand you a disgusting disgrace!
Better hurry right back to your favorite place ...

THE WHINING PLACE ...

...for people just whining.

Whining like a pain, you know
annoying all so they wish you'd go,
whining about all that rain, all that snow,
or why you didn't ding-a-ling Marilyn Monroe,

or about what you'd do if your Big Chance would show,
or why your scant hairs just won't grow.

Everyone - mostly you - is just whining.

Whining that the fish don't bite,
or whining that your date's a repulsive sight,
or whining why your house is such urban blight,
or whining why you don't have Body by Jake,

or some pot to smoke, or a theatrical leg to break,
or teeth like pearls or expensive implants,
or a string of girls with your great big shvantz.

Everyone - mostly you - is just whining.

SHUT THE HELL UP!

KNOW!

That's so you!

The only way you'll escape
all that wailing and braying
is if I drag you out somewhere,
anywhere, long as ABBA's not playing!

With your fly flip-flapping,
once more you'll squeak by,
messing up everything under the sky.
Stepping in elephant poop cause you're a poop-steppin' guy!

Oh, the Lame Places you'll go! There's seeds unsown to bemoan!
There are points you won't score. There are games to be blown.
And the marginal things you can do with that ball

will make you the losing-est loser of all.
Lame! You'll be a lame-ass as lame-ass can be,
with the whole wide world watching you scratch your nuts on TV.

Except sometimes you won't
Because make the team, mostly you don't!

And, yes, there'll be times
you'll play lonely games too,
like solitaire on the PC
and the loser'll always be you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
When those sexual urges hit
you'll be alone quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll need websites and videos to get off neath your pants!
Hot babes? Yeah, right, loser, go you hither and yon,
you'll be lucky to nail a female Elton John!

But on you will go.
"Nah, the weather's too foul."
On you will go.
"Nah, can't miss A Night with Simon Cowell."

On you will go.
"Nah, our neighbors, the Hakken-Kraks, might howl."
Onward up many channels,
you lame TV freak,
though your arms may get sore
from clicking something even dumber to seek!

On and on you will hike.
... from your TV not far.
and succumb to your problems
however lame-o they are!

You're get mixed up, of course,
you'll be readily whacked.
You'll get mixed up
with strange turds like the GOP Presidential pack.

So be sure when you step.
Step with care, watch for shit,
and remember that Life's
one Piece of Crap SNL Bit!

And never forget though you're sad and bereft,
That everyone's nuts on the far right and far left!

And will you succeed?
Are you kidding, dickweed?
You'll wind up in the toilet,

On you Life will have peed!

So ...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

AHHH ... I'm just having some fun in my typical way!

Yes, you're off to Great Places!

Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting

so ....

Good Luck and Oy Vay!

the end
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pages

Saturday, June 16, 2012

How Low the Mighty Pre-Tweeters have Fallen!

Chevy Chase

@Chevy _ Once Chased

Ms. Pac Man

@BiteMeChick

Dennis Miller

@SelfIndulgentAsshole