At the Moment
As a writer, or as an aspiring writer, you need to develop the ability to realize absurdity in the moment.
Too frequently am I in the middle of a freak show, but blind to the fact. Too many times I’ve only realized the brilliance of a place after the fact.
“It was really weird, the other day, when that guy in the bar was staring at me. What did he mumble to himself, again?”
Too late asshole, you didn’t hold on to what was so interesting about that moment, try again later.
I’ve tried for a long time to learn that lesson: be conscious. Be present.
I have a habit to get lost in thought very easily, almost like some cheesy movie where the main character can’t stop day dreaming. Like A Christmas Story or every single episode of Doug.
There have been times where, when I’m in the car with my girlfriend, she’ll ask me a question I can’t answer:
“What’d they just say?”
Oh. She’s referring to something on the radio. Unfortunately for her or me, I was a million miles deep in my own mind, thinking about the podcast or a story.
I don’t live in the present, I perform actions in the present, thinking about their reach into the future:
How quickly can I finish my degree? Should I bring up this old story for the next Will and Bobby Know Everything? Here’s a crazy fucking idea, could it work for a comic book? I need to remember it: don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget. Keep it in
the forefront of your mind until you can park the car and take a note!
To be fair, that’s what you’re supposed to do. I took a couple of sociology classes where it was stated that the poor live in the moment while the rich think about the future.
Strangely enough, I find myself basically poor (or not. I’m surrounded by crazy gizmos and gadgets in my beautiful apartment. But I’ve always had to worry about where the money will come from next), despite all the questioning of the future I do.
In the moment, here’s this:
I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop (I’m trying to avoid saying that it’s a Starbucks) in Red Bank, staring at everybody.
A kid, maybe he just hit 19 years old, walked into the shop, and immediately tapped a severely old man on the shoulder.
15 minutes ago, that same old man helped a couple find a seat. Not that they’d asked. He basically got their attention and thrust the favor upon them. He made people move by calling to them from across the room. I suppose it was technically a nice thing to do, though it was disruptive and unexpected.
So here’s this kid getting the man’s attention, and there’s the response: a look of recognition and familiarity.
They’re friends?
Years ago, Bobby and I used to sit in a cute little coffee shop (some independant place. I think it was called Starbucks) in New Brunswick, where we’d either write or waste time. Our favorite spot was sitting at a row of seats staring out the front window.
We were fascinated by the homeless people there. One of them was maybe 50 years old and always surrounded by bags. Plastic bags tied off at the top, old dirty backpacks, anything that could hold stuff, basically. In addition, she was smuggling…something. Who’s to say, really? All I can do is tell you that she would wear the same pullover sweater inside of which hid numerous small boxes. Maybe they were even more bags. Her entire body looked like Santa’s sack. It was distracting.
She wasn’t on her own either.
Picture the crudest cartoon of a homeless man. And now I’ll read your mind like David Copperfield:
Is he an old man with a long grey beard? Does he perhaps wear those fingerless gloves? And a beanie?
That’s him! He’s in there!
There was another person though. A kid. Not homeless, I don’t think. But he was ever present. Being that we were just a few blocks away from the main campus of Rutgers, I always assumed that he was a college student, maybe just doing the same sightseeing
Bobby and I were. However, he was also a spectacle for us. I don’t really remember exactly what it was, now (because I don’t pay attention in the present [how many things have I neglected to notice in this coffee shop by going on this tangent?]), but we paid attention to him, through the glass.
One day, those little independent worlds combined though, as the young kid walked up to the bag-lady and shook her hand. Not as an introduction. As a meeting between old friends.
We couldn’t figure it out.
While it’s not like we live in some bizarre hierarchical society where people of different classes are not meant to mingle, it was nonetheless peculiar.
How did they know each other? What made them friends?
They went on to share a cigarette together as they casually chatted. Do they just know each other from Starbucks?
Seeing something similar here today has finally made me wonder: maybe these young kids volunteer somewhere? That simple possibility never came to mind, because that was never something I did. To me, volunteering is something that I’m aware is done, but
I don’t know exactly where it’s done or by who. Maybe by some sort of blonde-haired, blue-eyed boyscout?
Being selfish and lazy is not doing me any favors.
I’ll close the door on this tangent now by observing that the old man here is writing in a notebook. Occasionally he pauses to look up at the room. I wonder if we’re writing about each other at the exact same time:
“There is a fat person here, who I assume to be about 40 years old, though he’s using one of those crazy tablet computers I’ve seen young people use. Maybe he’s just a horrible looking twenty-something.”
God I hope that’s exactly what he’s writing.
For the past hour, there’s been a man nervously staring around the shop. One moment he’s sitting by the window, then he’s sitting across the room on a windowsill. Then he’s sitting at a small table in yet another part of the room. Each movement has been quick
and silent. I’ve only ever seen him sitting still. I’ve never caught his transition from one place to another. To be fair, as I’ve mentioned, I get lost in thought easily, but as far as I can tell, this is what just happened in the span of roughly five minutes:
1.) The man was sitting at a high table to my right.
2.) I glanced down to keep up with my typing.
3.) I looked up and straight ahead, through the front window.
4.) The man was across the street, walking out of my field of vision, to the left.
5.) I looked down again at my typing, to eliminate some of the red squiggly lines.
6.) I looked up and he was sitting at a low table facing me.
I swear to god, either he’s travelling through time, or I am. Perhaps he can teleport. I half expect to look down and see that I’m sitting in his lap rather than my chair.
Maybe I’m actually living in the present too much right now. The original point of my writing is lost. Should I double back and edit down, or let this exist as not only an exploration but an example of my easily destabilized attention span?
I just looked up again and saw that the man is now across the street to the right digging through a garbage can.
And now he almost got hit by a car.
If these are the kinds of moments I’ve been missing, how should I feel? Are they the reason why I should live in the moment, or do they solidify the reason why I should let my mind wander?
I assume the answer will be obvious someday in the future.
A Quick Therapy Session
When I (Will) was about 14 or 15 years old, I started going to therapy. The general social stigma about seeing a psychologist was long gone, but I remember feeling like it was something I shouldn’t talk too much about. Strangely enough, no one in my family ever makes reference to it, to this day. Maybe it’s just never come up.
I don’t know if I was actually depressed or if I wanted to be depressed. I don’t know if I was troubled enough to see a psychologist. It was confusing and upsetting, and therefore I definitely needed to talk to someone.
I had spent the first 10 years of my life in a small town in Connecticut, where I think I was relatively popular and pretty well-adjusted. I say those things despite not really remembering much of that span of time. It feels just about right, though.
We moved to a suburb just outside of St. Louis in Missouri. I remember my sister Kristen taking it hard, which makes sense. After all, she’s three years older than me, and at 13 years old, most kids are just starting to settle into their lives and explore their personality. She had to give up on people she’d known her whole life. For me at 10, I was just young enough to be fine with meeting new people. I got lucky there.
Even still, I wasn’t thrilled to be in a new place. I remember being a little more introverted, and the way I commonly describe my years in Missouri is this: I didn’t bother making friends for about a year. I don’t know whether this is a fact or whether I created this story in my teenage-years and repeated it so many times that it became true. Either way, I remember being a little cynical. I remember being a bully. I wasn’t always mean, but I definitely wasn’t always so nice to other kids. As an adult, I’m still pretty judgmental and dismissive. Even if you think I’m funny, its hard to ignore how much I criticize others.
In Missouri, I eventually got settled. And then my sister and I walked into my parents’ bedroom and saw them looking at a map of New Jersey.
At 13 years old, we moved again. Again, I don’t remember much of it, aside from the fact that, while I was now at that difficult age, Kristen was now 16 years old and leaving her friends again, at an even more unstable time. She must have also only just started getting comfortable. Even more than that, the friends I was leaving at 13 years old were people I had known a short time. It’s not the same as her experience leaving people in Connecticut. People she’d known her whole life.
I have friends now who have known each other since kindergarten or earlier. And while I’ve now lived in New Jersey longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, I don’t really have any concrete memories of my first 4 years here. I haven’t really got anything to look back on with any sense of familiarity until senior year of high school. Thinking back on any time before that feels fuzzy. I feel like I have to cobble together blurry images and second-hand stories to know anything about what I did. It especially doesn’t help that I’m a born storyteller/bullshitter. I can’t trust any of my common stories, because I’m sure somewhere I’ve embellished something.
It’s a lot like how I didn’t know I needed glasses: For about 17 years, things would be difficult to read from far away, but I didn’t know that meant my eyes were bad. For all I knew, no one was supposed to be able to read the street sign a block away. That’s how I think of my memory. I don’t know if I’m suppressing memories, if I have a bad memory, or if I’m overly critical of myself and everyone has this sort of poor-recall.
I’ll tell you what I know for sure, though. It’s something I couldn’t embellish. When I went into therapy, I stopped because of something the therapist pointed out.
It raised questions that I think I wanted raised.
It’s difficult to not only think about your immediate problems, but to try and analyze why you have those problems. And this guy inadvertently nailed the problem. I sat in a small office with an old bearded guy for an hour a week, and after a couple months of what I thought was the same old thing, he caught my attention.
He asked me why I hadn’t said anything in three weeks.
I had started out going to therapy and talking about my problems regarding my friends, my family, and myself. I talked about moving. I acted like the brooding teen I wanted to be (which meant that I was a brooding teen, ironically), and then I settled in. I kept going to therapy, and I didn’t notice anything had changed, but somehow I had been going for weeks, pondering my problems, and leaving. I hadn’t said a word to this guy for a long time.
So I stopped going.
After he pointed out my silence, I didn’t need him.
I have honestly never considered going back to a therapist, which isn’t to say it wouldn’t be helpful. I think I’ve mellowed out over time, and, now that I think about it, I wasn’t writing back then. I think that helps.
Even still, sometimes it just hits me. Allie and I might wake up early on a beautiful Sunday. I might start the day feeling energetic and positive. Sometimes I suddenly slow down and get quiet. It comes from seemingly no where.
I’m writing this right now because tonight I’m feeling depressed, and I’ve known for years now that I’m not powerless against that feeling. I don’t like succumbing to it, no one does, and I think I’ve found my method of dealing with it:
I embrace it.
You can’t hide from the feeling, and you can’t post-pone it. That just makes it worse. You have to let it out in some way, whether that’s talking about it or writing about it, or drawing/reading/crying/thinking/whatever.
I don’t care what you do, as long as you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself). Some people just have anger and sadness. It’s not something that suddenly hits them or something that goes away. It’s a part of them. Allow it to come to you and understand that it has to run it’s course. You’ll be better in the long run.
I’ve been angrier and sadder than anyone knows, regardless of how I seem in public, and regardless of how great I know my life is. My depression is a part of me, and I know that it doesn’t always take control, but I know now that when it does, I can let it take it’s time. I’ll feel better later.
And I’ll tell you something else: I’m far more judgmental of anyone who says they don’t get depressed sometimes.
So allow me to have this post analyzing my history of depression. I hope someone is able to relate. I remember feeling scared and confused.
You’ll be alright if you allow yourself to be.
Creative People
There’s something wrong with creative people.
I’m sitting in my office right now, ostensibly because I planned to write tonight. Every day for the past 25 years (exaggeration), I’ve had a million ideas bouncing around my skull. Now I can’t seem to think of a single one.
On any other night I’d be in bed, trying to sleep. And failing.
I hate going to sleep. I always feel like there’s something better I could be doing.
And so usually I try to invent a story. It’s easy. One minute I’ll be telling myself a story about anything (You get to heaven and it’s filled with Nazis, what happens?), and then the next minute I’m waking up in the morning. It’s simple.
Over time I take these stupid, simple, one-sentence stories and try to expand them into a full narrative (I know what happens with the Nazis in heaven, by the way). It happens over the course of my day or week. I tell myself I need to remember to write it down. I never do. And so, invariably, I find myself planning a night of writing, only to sit in front of two monitors, a keyboard, an iPad, a notebook, and a pen, having no use for any of them.
There’s so much I want to do.
I want to do everything.
I want to write a TV show, I want to make a movie, I want to write a novel, I want to stage a play, a one man show, I want to make comic books, record a radio play, have a podcast, a book of short stories. I’m full of content, don’t you see? It’s bursting out of me!
So where the fuck is it now?
Why am I sitting here writing about how I have nothing to write about?
There’s something wrong with creative people. I see it all the time.
People with mindless grins on their faces tell me about how they want me to write a movie with them. They come to me a week later with an idea for a series of videos. We should write sketches together. Today I’m writing scripts for a TV show I came up with!
Make up your fucking mind!
If your aspiration is to do everything, then great! You still need to start with a singular goal, though. I constantly see people with a bucket of aspiration, but no drop of sweat. It’s irritating.
What are you working on?
What are you making? Why are you talking about 5 million random projects when I’ve never seen evidence of anything created?
It’s a pain in the ass. I do the same thing. I tell myself I don’t.
It’s a lot of fun to create an idea, but not fun to slog through the work the idea requires.
I want to write a TV show. That’s what I want to do. Why do I have to write a million bullshit letters and send them out to agents?
I don’t want to write letters, I want to write a TV show! Someone give me a TV show!
My laser is too broad right now, I need to narrow it down.
I’m annoyed. Maybe it’s a writer’s block night. Maybe that’s it.
Maybe I’m just lazy.
For the past few weeks I’ve been in a creative hot-spot. I’ve performed stand-up comedy on Wednesdays, recorded the podcast on Thursdays, edited the show on the weekends, and I even got a little job in a murder mystery theater playing a character from 80’s and 90’s sitcoms (I don’t want to talk about it). I’ve been off that schedule for ONE WEEK and I feel lost. I want to talk! I want to generate content! I want to make something or do something! I want to do it so much that it makes me so frustrated that all I can do is sit in a chair and think about how much I want to do all of it!
Why isn’t anyone breaking down my door begging to hear my thoughts on something? I’m furious at you.
I want you focused on me right now. I’ll perform. And the minute I start performing, I’ll be uncomfortable with the attention.
There’s something wrong with me.
Me and My Murderer
Hey guys, for background reading, I decided to post a story I’ve previously written, because this week’s episode of Will and Bobby Know Everything (on iTunes) is all about this event. This story happened back in February (2012), and it’s fucking insane. So read this story and then consider this week’s podcast the audiobook version. With bonus info. Holy shit. Here we go:
I’m a bully.
At least, I was.
I might still be, but that’s not the point.
I’m not going to justify myself, or make it seem like my bullying ways were legitimate or fair, or excusable, but I’ll tell you right up front that I didn’t intend to be a bully. I meant to be the funny guy.
It’s a popular myth that bullies are afraid of the people they attack, but I think that’s actually an accidental result of the mocking rather than the immediate cause.
Bullies attack people that are just different, it’s that basic.
It’s where racism comes from.This post isn’t expressly about me, but I’ll tell you a quick story about myself:When I was 17, I was sitting in stand-still traffic, in the right most lane. I was listening to music and hanging out, when I saw a big muscular black guy walking up the side of the road. Before I knew what happened, I instinctively locked the doors of the car.
My heart sank…
What did I just do!? Did I assume this guy was going to try to steal my car and sit in the traffic?? Was I a racist? What the fuck??
I was seriously worried that I had just revealed myself to be a bigot. I thought about it a lot.
A few months later, I found myself sitting in more traffic. In the right most lane again. Listening to music. This time I looked up and saw a little old white lady walking up the side of the road. Before I knew what happened, my hand reached out and locked the doors again.
HOORAY!
I’M NOT RACIST, I’M JUST AFRAID OF EVERYTHING!
Especially little quiet people who wear bow-ties. Which brings me to my story:
There’s a guy that I used to be friends with on Facebook, who, for the sake of this story, I’ll refer to as “Elmer.”
Elmer is a fucking asshole.
On Facebook, Elmer is constantly posting statuses, usually around three times a day, which are typically centered around how abortion should be made illegal, and how any non-Christian is a fool. He posts about how “boughetto” (a crude word which is a combination of “bourgeoisie” and “ghetto”) people are loud and stupid and annoying. He frequently deals in stereotypes about black people. On Martin Luther King day, he posted something fucking crazy about having the day off and whether or not it’s deserved, and how MLK Jr. himself would say “ni**er please” in regards to…something…
Elmer has blocked me on facebook, so I can’t easily quote the post, but if I can find a way to quote the “ni**er please” post in the future, I’ll add it in. If you’re friends with this prick and you can find it, send me a screen cap at WillAndBobby@gmail.com!
Anyway, I find him infuriating. He’s a bully. And so I fucking bully him.
Most of the time I just post asinine shit.
For example:
Last week he posted something about how he couldn’t wait to go home and have his “supper.”
I thought it was absurd that he called dinner “supper,” so at first I was going to post, “You call it ‘supper’?”
But it didn’t seem funny enough.
So then I was about to write, “Oh boy, I love ‘supper…’”
But then it wasn’t weird enough (that’s important to me), so I finally posted, “Oh no, my supper is cold 
“
Perfect!
It’s fucking stupid and irrelevant and not worth getting angry at, while still being weird and funny. And he mostly used to let me get away with just posting weird shit on his page, which was part of the fun.
Not all my posts have been benign though. I’ve called him out about threatening people.
A year ago, he wrote about how he never forgets the people who wronged him, and how one day they’ll pay for it.
It set me off. And I wrote something along the lines of, “So you’re threatening people now? I guess someday we’ll see your face in the papers.”
He went OFF! He freaked out and wrote a long post about how I had compared him to Jared Lee Loughner (a comparison which I didn’t intend, but nonetheless find accurate).
I was mostly worried that I might lose the place where I posted absurd bullshit. And this guy is an accidental comedic genius.
That seems like a good enough background to explain what happened a couple of days ago.
Elmer posted this:
FYL: I’m Shockingly Annoyed
I commonly talk about how I hate everything, but I’m happy to report that I don’t think that’s true. I hate a lot of stuff, sure, but definitely not everything. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, I look around and have to acknowledge that most people are more respectful and intelligent than I would expect. And like every other moment in my life when I feel at peace, something fucking moronic pops up that reminds me that people appear respectful and intelligent because they aren’t saying exactly what they want to say, or doing exactly what they want to do.
If you’re at the grocery store, or you’re at work, the people you see tend to keep to themselves, for the most part. Most people don’t walk up to you and say something crazy. And that’s because they’re all just waiting to get home and go online before they say exactly what they’re thinking or what they’ve been up to.
There’s a website called F My Life, which basically everyone is aware of, but if you aren’t, all you need to know is that it’s where people go to post something that happened to them that sucked. It always ends with “FML,” for “fuck my life.” Here’s a good example of a normal one:
Today, I offered my phone number to the guy I’ve been flirting back and forth with all week. He said no. FML
I agree, your life sucks (2076) – you deserved it (282)
There’s a common format: “I did something expecting certain result. The result I got was surprising and shitty. FML”
People then vote as to whether or not you deserve those results. It’s a simple system.
Like all simple systems, however, people have found a way to fuck it up and annoy me.
Look at this one I just saw:
Today, I found myself humming a Skrillex ditty all day. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve had some sort of stroke.FML
I agree, your life sucks (1478) – you deserved it (690)
This is so stupid and weird. It’s this guys’ own fault that he’s humming a Skrillex song. Regardless of his overall opinion of Skrillex, he must like that song! And everyone agreed that he has a right to complain?! Bullshit! This guy is a moron.
Every once in a while, I come across a stupid person’s FML and I “star” it on Google Reader. So I thought maybe I’d share a few of the FML’s posted by people who have no one to blame but themselves, either because they did something stupid, or because they are just dumb.
Today, I had my first chorus concert. We got a bigger applause when we left the stage than when we sang. FML
I agree, your life sucks (5238) – you deserved it (1622)
Bigger applause at the end of a concert means you did a good job, idiot. No one is allowed to complain about this.
Today, I got myself an organ donor card, just to feel wanted. FML
I agree, your life sucks (13118) – you deserved it (3091)
You can’t complain about something you consciously decided to do. More than that, I’m betting you didn’t get the card to feel wanted, you got the card, you were feeling moody, and then you posted about it online all blown out of proportion to get people to pay attention to you. It worked, which is unbelievable. Congratulations.
This next one was actually deleted from the website, but I still have it saved. You’re going to have to trust me here, this is real, I swear:
Today, I realized exactly how lonely I was when I typed “I love you” into Google Translate, just so I could click the listen button and hear someone actually say it to me. FML
I have no way of knowing whether or not people agreed with this guy that his life sucks or not, but if I had to guess, everyone sided with him, because everyone is stupid. And this is stupid. And I’m annoyed further.
Today, I went to Hooters for lunch. My food was brought to me by a man. FML
I agree, your life sucks (17262) – you deserved it (9522)
You actually decided to go to a Hooters, and worse than that, you went expressly because you wanted to be served by ladies with big boobs. When that didn’t work out, you were disappointed enough to write about it online? And everyone agrees that your life sucks because of that? Maybe it’s good that you have such low standards.
Today, I realized that the “holla” tattoo I stupidly got on my lower lip five years ago isn’t fading as I expected it to, and will probably contribute to my unemployment for years to come. FML
I agree, your life sucks (1324) – you deserved it (16535)
Wait, you got the outside of your lower lip tattooed? Why were you under the impression that tattoos fade? The reason we have Temporary Tattoos and call them temporary is because the alternative is a permanent tattoo. You deserve this, dummy. Thankfully people were able to see that as well.
Here’s the last one, and it’s a fucking doozy. It’s incredible in how many layers of stupidity go into this:
Today, I went to McDonalds and ordered a happy meal with a girl’s toy. The high school girls behind the counter said I was too old to be served one, and I had to go home and explain to my sick daughter why she didn’t get her toy. FML
I agree, your life sucks (10685) – you deserved it (1278)
There is absolutely no way that McDonald’s told you what not to order.
There is no way that some cashier put their hands on their hips and stared you down because they, for some reason, thought you wanted the girl’s toy for yourself.
However, let’s assume that’s exactly that happened: You didn’t explain to them that it was for your daughter? And then when you went home you explained to your kid that both McDonald’s is shockingly rigid about who they give toys to and that you’re a strangely cowardly person?
I’m not buying for one minute that this would be your kid’s ONLY toy by the way. It’s not like her happiness was truly dependent upon getting a My Little Pony.
Again, let’s assume that’s exactly the situation: Why didn’t you go to another store and get a shitty little toy and pass it off? This whole thing just screams, “I forgot to ask for a toy, and when asked by my wife why I didn’t have it, I blurted out a stupid excuse which, once said out loud, I have to stick to.”
And wait a minute, did they give you everything in the kids meal except for the toy? Your story has fallen apart sir, and I think you posted this online to somehow legitimize your story to your wife, “Honey, if I was lying, would I have put it online??”
Why are people siding with this fuck up? Almost eleven THOUSAND people feel bad for this guy that supposedly some bored 17-year-old McDonald’s cashier put their foot down that they DO NOT GIVE TOYS TO ADULTS!?
How is that possible??
I’m actually annoyed now, so I’m going to stop posting these.
I know it’s unreasonable to be so grumpy over this bullshit, but I find it unbelievable, and no matter what, I’m definitely right about how stupid these are, right?
Because I’m Fat
Walking into a grocery store, I look like I’ve totally given up.
My hair is fucked up and disheveled, I’m wearing sweat pants and a stretched out t-shirt with what might be a million stains. Maybe mustard stains.
I look like every stupid cliché of a fat, single, loser who has completely given up on life.
But guess what, morons, I just came from the gym!
Booya!
Kaboom!
I own you!
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been one of those creepy dudes you try not to make eye contact with at the gym! I go to the gym!
For years I’ve been an on-again, off-again sort of health guy. You definitely wouldn’t know it to look at me (I’m big) but of you look at random pictures of me taken in the past 5 years, there’s a lot of slimming down and blowing up going on. Hell, at one point I was technically just chubby!
For the past year I’ve been full-blown fat, though, and like every other time when I’ve noticed the weight, I’m making an effort to get healthy.
It’s amazing, I really do find that whenever I finally discover that I’m fat as hell, it’s like flipping a switch: I pay attention to the food I’m eating, I work out. Inevitably that method of operation falls by the wayside again, but by the time that happens, hopefully I’ve lost just enough weight to allow another year of eating too much pizza.
Bobby, on the other hand, is the kind of person who can eat whatever he wants, and stay thin. Worse than that, for the past few months, he’s actively been trying to gain weight. Asshole.
We usually grab something to eat before we record the show, and for a couple of weeks, when he’d come to town, he’d get two sandwiches.
Two foot-long sandwiches.
He had Eyebrows Lady make him two entire sandwiches! (Side note: this also means he ate double the amount of stuff Eyebrows Lady touched)
Did you know that, as an adult, there’s really nobody to tell you not to eat a huge bag of potato chips? Did you know that, at any time really, you can just go to a store and buy all the candy bars? There’s nothing stopping you! You don’t get in trouble for deciding you want to eat a pint of Americone Dream (Stephen Colbert’s Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) or get a couple cheese quesadillas from Taco Bell. Although I heard you can be arrested…cardiacally!!! (that joke works, and I’m a fucking genius)
I’ll tell you a true story about my experience with Taco Bell. Maybe 6 or 7 years ago, I used to eat a nearly inhuman amount of fast-food. Seriously, it was like the movie Super Size Me was playing on a loop, except it’s a special edit where the guy never decides to quit and he doesn’t have a mustache (yet). I used to go to Taco Bell and get a steak quesadilla and a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. In case you aren’t aware, those things are fucking amazing. I usually would park in the lot, in a space farthest from where there could possibly be foot traffic, and eat like a shameful pig.
One day, while on my way to a party, I stopped at Taco Bell to get my bag of shit to eat, and parked in an out-of-the-way spot, as usual. Halfway through the quesadilla, a car pulled up and parked in the spot right next to me. I immediately put the food down on the passenger seat for fear of being seen doing what a lot of fat people do. I figured I’d just wait for the person next to me to get out of their car and go inside, and then I’d resume my cheese-feast.
Except they didn’t leave.
I looked over and saw a pretty girl getting into a burrito costume! (Obviously that’s not what happened, but I had written “pretty girl getting into a burrito” and couldn’t help myself from writing “costume”).
So there we were, two similarly gross people, going nuts on fake mexican food, both alone. I did what came natural:
I got uncomfortable, thought to myself “fucking freak,” and pulled out of the parking lot, finishing my food on the way to the party.
I’m telling you this story for a reason, I am a fucking freak and I really really need to get my shit in order. I’m feeling pretty good otherwise. I feel creative again for the first time in a long time, I’m being respectful to the people in my life (I think), and aside from some light mental illness, I’m a happy guy! If I can just get my priorities straight in terms of the food I eat, I’ll feel even more entitled to be an asshole on the podcast. I can’t wait!
Ricky Gervais has a stand up bit from a few years ago, while he was still overweight, in which he talks about how evidently only 2% of the population can claim they’re overweight because of a glandular problem. The rest just eat too much. He broke it down into the basic math of it: you ingest more calories than you burn off. I don’t know what backlash he may have received from that bit, but as a fat guy, I personally saw it as a really empowering simplification of what I do. It’s not an insurmountable problem you can’t get over, it’s a math equation. He may have been saying that fat people shouldn’t complain about being fat, but what he meant (I think) was “stop making excuses.” A few years later, he put his money where his mouth was and got in shape, himself.
You know how sometimes you’ll go out to dinner with your friends, and a fat friend will just order a salad, and not finish it? It’s because they’re pretty sure you’re paying attention to what they’re eating (I have done this). I don’t know whether or not that’s true, but I do know that this means your friend is really insecure. I personally don’t give a fuck about how big anyone else is, as long as they don’t live their life afraid and ashamed of it, but for me, personally, I’m pretty sick of being concerned with how I appear to other people, so I really think it’s time to try not to just lose enough weight to justify eventually eating again, it’s time to just live a little different. I’ve had 25 years of reckless fatness. That’s a pretty long time to do whatever you want. And it’s a cliché (for a reason), but food isn’t love (except evidently it is: Huggable Vending Machine).
Maybe it’s the changing of seasons. It’s getting warmer, the earth is a little greener (literally), shit’s blooming, and when that happens, a lot of people inevitably start making decisions about getting healthy. Maybe that’s exactly why I’m talking about this and feeling the way I am, but even if that’s the case, I’ll take advantage of that feeling for as long as possible. Otherwise it’d be like walking past a dollar bill on the ground. Sure, it might have poop on it, but a dollar is a dollar. I’m pretty sure that’s a poor metaphor, but you know what I mean.
So in that grocery store, with me looking like total shit, and looking like I’ve come straight from playing video games in my parents’ basement (note: I actually might have), I’m going to start taking solace in the knowledge that I look the way I do not because I’ve given up, but because I’m starting to try.
Full Disclosure: The actual reason I was at that grocery store was because my girlfriend and I left the gym early to get dinner.
Progress, booya.
If you have no idea who the fuck Eyebrows Lady, get to know her: WBKE – Episode 6: Crazy People Part 1
And here’s that Ricky Gervais bit: Ricky Gervais on Fat People
Here’s a SECOND Ricky Gervais bit I JUST found in which he basically says everything I just said (except he said it first as a huge celebrity). It’s him talking about his previous bit, from the perspective of a thin man. Pretty cool (viewer discretion advised): Ricky Gervais – Fat People
Feel free to comment with fat jokes!
Technology
Our week on the topic of technology is just about over, but I’m still fascinated by one of the things we discussed:
On the show we talked about the idea of having a chip in your head that lets a movie play out right in front of your eyes, because the movie is being beamed straight into your coconut. Yeah, it’s years out, many years out, but while I’m intrigued by the notion of expanding our abilities via the internet (which would be part of our consciousness), you have to wonder about practicality.
I get in trouble with my girlfriend now for constantly checking my e-mail, the show’s stats, etc. on my iPhone. What the hell is going to happen when I can constantly, without her knowing, be playing Mario Kart in my mind?
More than that, what’s to stop me from just sitting in a corner watching 30 Rock and googling funny pictures of dogs? What will keep me tethered to reality?
Yes, human interaction, I know. But don’t forget about the huge role social media plays in our lives now.
Remember when there was that earthquake in Virginia back in August, 2011? The tremors from that quake could be felt along the entire east coast! The moment I felt it, I checked every news outlet I could, but they didn’t have any information. Then I went on Twitter and immediately found out what happened. A buddy of mine in DC explained that he felt it too, and he had heard it was an earthquake.
Every news outlet was working to write up a story explaining why we all felt the quake. They needed to have the origin point, the magnitude, and the scope. They were busy getting the facts before they could report, while people on Facebook and Twitter were quickly talking to each other and reasoning out/passing along what information they could. It was damn near instant that I learned what had happened.
When we all have computer chips in our brain, will this be the closest thing our species will come to having a shared consciousness? Communication will literally be instantaneous. It’s amazing and terrifying.
Remember the Matrix? No, forget that, remember Wall-E!?
Wall-E takes place in a future where humans have left planet Earth because the atmosphere is overpolluted, so now all the surviving people live on a big space ship filled with shops. We all just sit in floating recliners that come complete with cupholders and a personal TV right in front of your face. If Bobby and I lived in the future that Wall-E depicts, and we’re sitting side by side, instead of turning to him to speak, I just video-call him. Is that the future? We’re all plugged in? And fat as shit by the way, with decreased bone dencity and cute little robots falling in love all around us?
Doesn’t sound half bad, honestly, aside from the smaller bones and the robots, I’m basically there already. But won’t we still require data plans? Is there a possibility that Bobby and I will be halfway through watching the new Die Hard (or playing the new Mortal Kombat) but then the signal will cut out because I didn’t pay the bill?
What would you do in that case? If you were disconnected from what has become the cyber world and now you not only can’t google “Bears waving like people” but you also can’t communicate with anybody?
Shit’s bleak.
I say fuck that. Keep your chips out of my brain!
Instead, I think that we should morph the human body to become more versatile. Think Inspector Gadget.
What’s that? It’s raining? No problem, a robot arm wearing a nice white glove will pop out my head, holding an umbrella!
You want to go skating, you say? Sounds good to me, MY FEET ARE SKATES!
Maybe I’m being an old man again. Maybe I just have a limited scope of what can be accomplished by merging the human consciousness with the internet. Maybe I honestly won’t live to see the day that this becomes a reality, but nevertheless I do think this is what we’re all heading toward and expecting. And as dumb as it is, I much prefer my Inspector Gadget idea.
It’s more useful to me to be put in my place using my iPhone too much than to get away with staring at the internet because all the function is taking place in my mind. I want to not only have access to the advanced technology, but I want to be chastised for doing it too much. So give me a finger that can become a cork-screw and I’ll keep my phone in my pocket.
And if someone could come up with a way for my ass to turn into a chair, that’d be great too.
What do you think? Am I going to far?
Ouija Board: The Movie (Based on Ouija Board: The Thing)
Last year, it was announced that there was going to be an OFFICIAL Ouija Board movie, directed by McG (who directed Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle, remember how much everybody loved that?). The budget was announced as being $100 million.
NOTE: This project seriously existed.
Fortunately, it was cancelled, because, well, that was a stupid fucking idea.
Unfortunately, Ouija wouldn’t stay dead (!!!) and now it’s back with a $5 million budget, and now the joke around the internet is that the movie must suck to have such a huge budget cut. Meanwhile, I’m left wondering why they’re even spending twenty bucks.
SPEND AS LITTLE MONEY AS POSSIBLE ON THIS PIECE OF SHIT AND PEOPLE WILL SEE IT.
How fucking stupid are we getting as consumers? The bar is set so goddamn low now. All that’s required in a blockbuster movie is the bare minimum amount of plot elements possible to make it recognizable as a genre of some sort.
Exciting action movies just need to have things moving around while you hear explosions and shit. Have you ever seen a Transformers movie? I have no idea what happens in them. The point of the movie is literally “Look at that car, now it’s shaped like a robot and it’s HITTING ANOTHER ROBOT!”
They made a movie out of the game Battleship. It’s about alien submarines that jam our radar so we have to blindly shoot torpedoes at them…I actually think that’s kind of clever…Dammit…
So now Ouija Board: The Movie is back on track to dazzle audiences by having the same plot as almost every ghost movie ever, except they can use an OFFICIAL BOARD! Hooray!
Now I’ll be able to buy the “The official board featured in Ouija Board: The Movie” or maybe tell people that I was into Ouija boards before they got popular.
Fuck this movie (NOTE: I might see this movie)
Based on the Ouija movie, here are some great movies I just came up with ON MY OWN:
Where’s Waldo: Detective Waldo Johnson is an FBI agent gone rogue. He’s going to tell the media all of his Chief’s secrets unless they can find him NOW! Match the tone of the “Bourne” movies and we’ll all be rich!
Hungry Hungry Hippos: A mad scientist creates a super soldier serum, but accidentally lightly drizzles it on his pet hippo (I’m getting sick of writing this, so whatever) and it get’s big and mad…then it eats shit… I’m a millionaire!
Mr. Potato Head: A man has a horrible disease that causes his body to fall apart. There is no cure, and he doesn’t want to upset his family, so he tries to hide his illness. When his head falls off his body, he does his best to look normal by resting it on a pair of shoes and tapes little plastic action figure arms to his cheeks. He lives in a horrible world of pain, crying out in anguish and despair for the majority of the movie, while his psychotic children gleefully place different types of glasses on his face. He begs for them to kill him, but they don’t want to end the fun. Eventually the police show up to investigate the man’s disappearance because his boss at the Potato Factory (lazy) has reported him missing.
The police walk in to find the mans body discarded and rotting on the floor, and are delighted to see how much fun the kids are having. They join in, contributing a police hat for the man to wear. Eventually they realize that other people should be able to have the same fun as them, so they create a doll of a disembodied head that you can dress up in all kinds of silly clothes. The disembodied head is decided to be bizarre and inappropriate, so they change it to a potato once they remember that the guy worked at a “Potato Factory” (I MADE THIS RELEVANT).
Boom, I’m either rich or in a mental institution.
NOTE: THIS MOVIE WOULD MAKE ME RICH.
NOTE: I’M PRETTY SURE THIS IS ACTUALLY WHERE MR. POTATO HEAD CAME FROM.
NOTE: I’M SICK OF WRITING THIS AND INSTEAD OF A PROPER ENDING I’M JUST GOING TO STOP.
One last thing: They should call the Ouija Board movie “Ouija Movie” to mirror “Ouija Board.”
“Honey, which Ouija thing did we want? Was it the board or the movie?”
A Few Updates
Hey guys, I just made a couple of additions to the website.
Up at the top of the page, next to the “About us” link, you’ll see two new sections, “Episode List” and “How to Listen.”
When you click on “Episode List” you’ll get exactly what you might assume, a list of every episode we’ve done so far. More than that, though, if you click on any episode name, you’ll be able to instantly start listening to that episode right from your browser!
When you click on “How to Listen” you’ll get pretty detailed instructions for how to listen to Will and Bobby Know Everything. I have instructions for:
- Your computer
- Your iPhone/iPod/iPad
- Your Android phone/tablet
- Your Blackberry
I can’t think of anything I left out, but that might just be because I’m not very smart, so if I dropped the ball, throw me an email at WillAndBobby@gmail.com so I can make any additions I have to.
Alright, that’s that, but I think those are pretty damn good additions.
WillRogers2000 