Archive for the 'Comedy' Category

Tales of The Long Tail: Tom Lehrer

UPDATED: More info and links and a belated happy birthday…

In a lot of ways I’m the John Dvorak of social media. If I think a website is a bad idea, it invariably ends up being useful and/or a huge success. One case in point is YouTube. I really couldn’t see how a website devoted to short snippets of tv shows I never watched and bootleg music videos I never wanted to see in the first place was useful. Then I started randomly looking for things that interested me, Like F.M. Or like these 30-40 year old TV performances of Tom Lehrer (even then I had to trip over a link on Mark Evanier’s site to even think about looking for TL on YouTube- Thanks Mark!).

I got it from Agnes (1980, Michael Parkinson show in England-this song was an update of an old party song he did “I got it from Sally” included in the musical review TOMFOOLERY-he didn’t record it until the Rhino boxed set in 2000)

Poisoning Pidgeons in the Park.

Masochism Tango.

Pollution.

Send The Marines.

Tom Lehrer’s work was featured on the American version of That Was The Week That Was, broadcast in the mid 60’s, and which I’m still searching for clips of. Bonus Autralian interview from 2003. Yes, he’s still alive, his 80th birthday was April 9th. No, he doesn’t perform anymore. Search you tube for even more Tom Lehrer.

(In response to all the email, here’s the performance he did for Irving Kaplansky’s 80th birthday celebration 11 years ago (all math songs, what do you expect from a mathematician’s birthday). The Onion AV Club interview, the SF Weekly interview and the Paul D. Lehrman interview.)

And you can still buy Tom on Amazon…

Songs & More Songs by Tom Lehrer

That Was the Year That Was

The Remains of Tom Lehrer

FFEJWORLD: Hot and Messy?

Apparently so.

Here I am geeking away on an nerdy combo backpack organization/wishlist article, and I get a Tweet:

I just hit your blog and you are a hot mess of hilariousness (I know it’s not a real word).

Wow. I’m stunned. I quickly went and checked to see if ffej.org was rerouting to The Onion or The Realist Archive. Nope. Same poorly maintained ADD/HD effluvium as always. Pictures still crooked on the walls, cruft in the code and dust bunnies everywhere. Yet Katie Schwartz, who authored said Tweet is A Real Writer, and quite funny. Ordinarily I’d fire off one of my patented “You’re out of your fucking mind, please seek professional care immediately, but thank you” letters, but I accidentally hit send after spending 20 minutes trying to spell thank you (my Twitter client of choice is Twhirl, it’s only real failing is it doesn’t spell check-but you can change fonts and font size, use multiple accounts, search, and so much more).

I’m fairly certain the last time I was funny was sometime betwixt 91 and 93. Last time I was hot was that ear infection with 103 degree fever last winter. Messy, now messy I can understand. Messy, I can get my teeth into messy…

Go check out Katie’s blog. guaranteed hotter and funnier then this mess, and with a completely different set of modifiers then in use here.

No matter how bad a day you are having

Someone will try to screw you.

David Lynch ranting against the iPhone

Here he is railing against the iPhone. Courtesy of Hell’s Donut House (see sidebar for link, I’m too tired for linking right now).

october

If you were wondering why I was cleaning the  photos off my cellphone and on to the blog it’s because
October is  Artists month in Chicago,

So I thought I should act like one for a few hours.

Another celeb blogger, Stephen Fry

The phrase Renaissance WoMan is way over used. Every one who can play a musical instrument, walk, and chew gum, all in the same year gets labeled thusly. Which is too fucking bad, because it detracts from the true Renaissance WoMen. People who can write novels, non fiction, poetry, drama, comedy reviews and plays, who can MC game erudite shows, star in erudite game shows, direct, produce, act in movies, radio, audiobooks,TV, stage and screen, do stand up, do improve and adapt for the screen. And I’m leaving out a shit load. I’m talking about the once and future Jeeves, teh man who was born to play Wilde, the Bit with Laurie, and the foil of Blackadder: Stephen Fry. Who has a blog, in which’s most recent post he states his love of Smartphones, Macs and gives a (ffej-like) brief history of the graphic user interface and statement of the holy grail of computing, the Dynabook. Only he does it better then I ever could. Go read it, and see why competition is good.

(Thanks to the Goodrobot for the pointer)

Mail, we get mail…

First off I’d like to thank you all for your email and comments. You have now idea what it means to me, to know I’ve touched your lives to such an extent. I’m sorry I don’t have the time, patience, or skill necessary to answer all your letters. I thought I’d publicly answer a few messages,here. Hopefully the answers will benefit more then just the writers.

Let’s start off with all the people who’ve written in to tell me I’m pre approved for a loan, or that they’re ready to loan me money, they’ve considered my small business debt request, or that the funds are ready for pick up. Thank you all very much, but I’m not looking for money. In fact I have no money, no small business and no desire for either. I, like billions of people world wide at the bottom of the social and financial pyramid, or completely cut off from said same pyramid want one thing and one thing only. Something you can’t give us, I’m afraid. Power. Real Power, the power of life and death, the power to destroy, the power to create, the power to grind our enemies beneath our heels and the power to bring forth life itself. i’m sorry, but nothing else will do. But thank you anyway for your many and various offers.

To all those people who email me about how they’ve just started to have sex, well, i’m sorry, I just delete your letters. I haven’t started to have sex yet, and I want it to be a complete surprise, I want to approach sex with out any preconceptions, uncolored by your tales, and to be completely devoid of the typical western attitudes toward sex. Sorry, but it’s just the way it is.

I’m getting a lot of email about various people’s partners appendages popping out of various orifices. Despite still not having sex yet, I am an expert in the area of Midnight Engineering and can help. For temporary fitting of the appendage to the orifice use duct tape. For a more permeant fitting use super glue. Fo all those people complaining about these various and sundry appendages being too big for the many assembled orifices i recommend leaches. Apply them liberally. Conservative application of leeches almost always necessitates constant rotation of leeches and then a surge of leeches, but that’s another story for another day.

For all those letter writers complaining about their various partners various appendages being small, tiny, or lost in the last housecleaning, I’m sorry. You can either get magnifying glasses or dump your partner. They’ll thank you for it later, when they realize how much they’ve improved the gene pool by not swimming in it and foisting off another generation of small appendages on humanity. I must admit this is one of the many reasons I haven’t started having sex yet. Despite my tremendous girth I have quite small appendages, and barely a 25 inch inseam (which causes my 30 inch long penis to drag on the ground and get all scabby).

Which reminds me, please don’t send me all that information on breast and penis enhancement pill/plans/products/investment plans. I’m sorry, but when you have a 53D bosom, a 56 inch waist and a 30 inch long 13 inch in diameter penis you have enough of a problem finding clothes that fit. If any of me got any bigger I’d need a trailer to carry myself around.

I’m quite surprised at all the letters I get about OEM software, legal software sales, MS Office and Adobe Photoshop. I really have no idea what any of this is for. I just use my computer to surf the web and write my blog, so all I need is my web browser. But I’ve forwarded your letters to the Software Business Association, a trade group of like minded business people. Perhaps you can help each other out.

For all my well wishers who want me to imagine I’m healthy, well, I do. It doesn’t seem to help, but I’ve always imagined I’m healthy.

Many, many, many people seem to think I need drugs, And have sent me letters about the pharmacy america trusts, online drugs and all the usual drugs. Your parents drugs, the drugs of the running dog lackeys of the bourgeois establishment. The Man’s Drugs, the drugs of decadence, evil substances divorced from mother nature or her children. So for all of you write in, well, I’m sorry but I don’t do any drug that isn’t a natural product, or available locally, preferably in the convenience of my local alley. And furthermore, I believe that taking drugs to put back what the lord has removed from your head or body is a sin, for which the manufacturers and distributors will rot in hell forever. The Lord removed my hair and sex drive for a reason, and you Rogaine and Ciallis peddlers are going to suffer eternal tomrnet and have various invasive procedures performed upon your various orifices by many and varied flaming, freezing, and rusty objects wielding by demonic members of the ethnic minority you hold in the least esteem. Or if your really unlucky your countries will be wracked by civil war, famine, a failure of the local cash crop, foreign troops out to free you from a desperate tyrant or soccer hooligans. I meanwhile will be gloating in heaven for having resisted your evil products and learned to deal with not having started to having sex yet and a bald spot the size of Rhode Island.

And that’s as good a place as any to end this episode of the FFEJWORLD mailbag.

If only this would fix my laptop

The new and cool Macbreak Tech podcast recommends a new keyboard and mouse to make your computer feel faster and brand new. This movie shows you how to clean your keyboard in the dishwasher to get that good as new feeling again. Notice the innovative and well thought out in washer lighting and camera rig. If only my former students had done this before they put our super 8 cameras in the washing machine

Interview with Masahiro Sugano and Jennifer Shin

Second Moon, the film from Masahiro Sugano got two more screenings at the Gene Siskel Film Center while I was out for the count with the infection. This interview from Chicago Tonight happened between the second and third screenings and features Masahiro and Jennifer Shin, the female lead. It includes a few snippets including Gus shooting the impotency dart (the sling isn’t a prop–you try being a one armed sniper!). More on the movie here.

(Thanks to Gustavo Donoso for the pointer.)

The Godfather of Nerdcore

Is Tom Lehrer. And Weird Al Yankovic is his prophet. All say Amen.




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