Mr. Luippold Needs To Grow Up*

Why Ron Paul Should Be President

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:24:03 -0800

If Ron Paul wins the GOP nomination, and ultimately the presidency, he would join a select group presidents who are notable for one thing: Having a last name that is also a first name. He would join previous presidents as:

Ulysses Grant
Franklin Pierce
Chester Arthur
Benjamin Harrison
John Adams
Howard George
Don Mort
Kimberly Walter
Bobby Theodore
Timothy Benedict
Bruce Bruce
Eisenhower Tom
Jeffrey K. Jimmy
Paul Simon
“Uncle” Pat Douglas
Benedict Bernie
Gary Russell
Xiomara Matilda
Elton Van Washington
Sal Cody
Mary-Lou Betsy-Mae
Marion “Tiny” Erwin
Pete Doug
Johnny Herman
Elvis Brian
Charlie Charles
Paul Ringo
Taft

Tom Hanks didn’t have the best 2011 and it’s really...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:30:01 -0800

Tom Hanks didn’t have the best 2011 and it’s really a shame for us all.

My editor killed Princess Diana

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:46:34 -0700

Here’s a list of 9 celebrities who could/should never be roasted that I did for work.

More importantly, here’s the one that my editor Carol wouldn’t let me publish.

The joke was going to be, “I haven’t been this publicly embarrassed since Prince Harry did anything, ever. Also I am dead.”

Really didn’t expect this in the re-released Lion King.

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:15:15 -0700

Really didn’t expect this in the re-released Lion King.

TLCee-Lo.

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 09:04:19 -0700

TLCee-Lo.

Photo

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 07:49:55 -0800

Bill O'Reilly: Cultural Warrior

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:21:00 -0800

In honor of Bill O’Reilly’s announcement that he’s releasing a comic book about himself, I thought I’d share a comic about O’Reilly saving Christmas that we wrote a few years ago for the Texas Travesty, UT’s humor magazine that I wrote for and edited. Most of the credit for this goes to the amazing Chris Friend. Click on the picture below to see the full comic.

Some Of My HuffPost Features/Blogs

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:14:10 -0700

I recently moved to New York City to work for Huffington Post Comedy, and realized I should post some of the things I’ve done there for posterity before they realize I’m undeserving of working at a fancy SoHo office building and kick me out.

The craziest beliefs/traits shared by 1 in 5 Americans - This was my first assignment at HuffPost. I got lucky.
Interview with the authors of ‘Our Bodies, Our Junk’ - When I was interning at Conan, Todd Levin told me about a book he was writing with some of his friends from The Onion, The Daily Show, et al. As luck would have it, I got to do this blog post and video about the book.
Blog about The Onion, 9/11, and humor as a curative
Blog questioning how our immoral leaders sleep at night - An entry in HuffPost College’s sleep blog.
What if celebrities used their real names in their promotional material?
Same thing, except with musicians
Judah Friedlander video interview

Please Stop Assuming Every Single Thing Is Sexist

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:36:00 -0700

Hey, friends, foes, and Internet!

I’m a feminist. It doesn’t make any sense why somebody would live their life with an mindset that could even remotely be described as ‘anti-feminist.’ In fact, those people are kind of funny to me. Cultural artifacts of unqualified American masculinity that are largely based on devaluing women in subtle or not subtle ways, like James Bond, Axe body spray, or most Owen Wilson movies, are so boneheaded they verge on self-parody. To not be a feminist is probably the most retarded thing I can think of.

But something that’s bothered me lately is the idea that feminism is a sport, where feminism points are received per the number of times an argument is made that something is sexist. Coincidentally (not coincidentally), these arguments seem to pop up more often in the face of cultural crazes. And it’s certainly a virtue that a feminist perspective is brought into the national conversation (whatever that is) as often as possible. It’s best that the messages sent by our popular culture are frequently questioned, lest we regress as a culture.

But there’s a difference between having a feminist perspective on an issue and approaching everything with the goal of finding its hidden sexism. The two are confused more and more often. I don’t think anyone would knowingly fabricate accusations of sexism that they make, or be dishonest in a feminist critique. But it’s become annoyingly commonplace to dismiss a movie, a TV show, a book, a trend, etc., as being inherently, irredeemably sexist, as if such dismissal automatically gives one’s feminist identity cred.

It’s counterproductive, and it strikes a nerve. Every time I hear somebody write off something like “The Daily Show” or “The Social Network” as ragingly misogynistic, I don’t think they realize that they are indirectly implicating me, or the millions of people who generally think progressively but don’t see what they’re seeing, in that accusation. How would these accusers feel if people they otherwise respect made no hesitation to callously tell them that the things they enjoy are racist? Or anti-Semitic?

Accusing anything or anyone of sexism is just as delicate a subject, and should be treated with much more restraint and thoughtfulness than is often displayed. Entering into an argument trying to “prove” the sexist intent of a movie or TV show’s creators is not a noble goal. Discussion, on the other hand, is constructive and important, but only with a mutual respect of both parties, and not a distrust of anyone’s intentions.

A side note on “The Social Network”: Most of the women are not depicted well, and Sorkin wasn’t particularly deft in his handling of Colbert’s question on the matter. (Also, I think we saw Stephen Colbert best Aaron Sorkin, which is kind of mind blowing for me, but that’s another blog post for inside my brain some other time.) It seems like many of the people decrying the movie as sexist only point to the fact that some women in the movie are portrayed as overtly fetishized and objectified. But if their portrayal was titillating, then Sorkin and Fincher achieved their goal.

The women at the Phoenix party doing body shots and dancing on tables, intercut with Zuckerberg coding Facemash, only serve as a counterpoint to what Mark felt like he was missing out on: a sexy, social, exclusive atmosphere. At the party, the men were smarmy yuppies and the women were sultry party girls. Nobody comes off well. It’s a college party in a movie — would it have been preferable to cut to a more realistic, but hardly cinematic or even remotely interesting, college party? The movie’s Zuckerberg lives in a world of heightened stakes and dramatic panache.

So does Eduardo, who finds himself getting what he thinks he wants: a successful company and a hot Asian girlfriend. (Anyone who thinks that CS guys preferring Asian girls is serving the filmmakers’ sexist/racist agenda has clearly never met a CS major.) And, surprise surprise, both of them quickly unravel. Sure, he could have broken up with his girlfriend because they just didn’t click, but how interesting would that have been? And it wouldn’t have punctuated his relationship with Zuckerberg at all, which is why she exists in the movie to begin with, starting when he and Mark share bathroom sex with the Asian girls, followed by the excited squeal of, “We have groupies!” Is this scene meant to debase the girls, or to reflect how Mark and Eduardo are immaturely qualifying their rise to success? They’ve already been seen in depositions and we already know their friendship has been severed, so it probably doesn’t turn out well. And whenever more “groupies” show up in the film, they’re there to underscore the deepening chasm to which Mark and Eduardo are free falling, and in a mostly realistic way. Honestly, is it that much of a stretch to think that a teenage girl wouldn’t act like a flirtly, giggly mess if Justin Timberlake offered them hits out of a giant bong?

If I’m fundamentally missing anything, I’d love to hear why you think I’m wrong. Tweet me at @rossluippold or email me at rluippold@gmail.com because this is a subject I’m genuinely interesting in discussing.

Until next time, bye, Internet!

A Go-Round Like You've Never Had

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:06:07 -0700

Here are some of my very own Duck Phillips.

I’m wasting the miracle of life.

My Things, I Sell Them To You

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 23:52:00 -0700

I’d love it if you bought one or several of my earthly belongings that I have to get rid of! (If you read this carefully, it’s the story of a girl so fed up with her boss’ piggish ways that she sold all her stuff and moved to New York.)

If interested, message me at rluippold [at] gmail dot com. I’m leaving this weekend so I’d like to get rid of all this ASAP so I’ll have money to spend on rent in a rat-hole, a literal rat-hole, in Brooklyn.

NOT PICTURED (yet): My ‘99 Toyota Camry LE. 160,000 miles. Good condition. Around $3000 is ideal.

This is a great recliner! $50!

Bookshelf! $80! (This is really a great bookshelf.)(Of course you don’t get the books on them, silly!)

Can you believe I have to sell this futon ($80)? I sure can’t!

This is my nightstand. As you can see, it’s covered in garbage. Would YOU like to be the person to save it from the grasps of my neglect for only, like, $30?

NOT PICTURED ITEMS FOR $40:

-I have three small computer desks for some reason. I’ll sell any of them for about $30 each. They’re all in good condition. I also have a small desk chair that I’ll throw in for another $15.

-A 13” rear-projection TV. Built-in DVD player. Nothing’s wrong with it. $40?

-A toaster oven. I actually am in love with this toaster oven. It’s yours for $40.

Dinner Party One-Liners Guaranteed To Get Agreeable Reactions Despite Making No Sense

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:29:32 -0700

“I heard MIA’s new album, and all I can say is, pass the truffles!”

“So Bristol Palin got engaged? I bet she’ll ‘see Alaska from her house’ tonight!”

“Did you hear Mel Gibson’s latest tape? What’s next, Obama appointing him Secretary of the Box Office?”

“Meg Whitman is behind in the polls. Meg’s got less going for her than Steve Jobs at a Glee convention!”

“There’s still oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico! Quick, someone call Michael Lohan’s publicist!”

“These Wall Street bankers are getting away with more robbery than all of Angelina Jolie’s kids combined!”

“So Edward Norton isn’t going to be in The Avengers movie. What’s next, teaching at Glenn Beck University?”

“Can you believe LeBron James? Move over, Paul the Octopus, unless you can score some three-pointers!”

“Did you see The Hills finale last night? I didn’t because I was too busy overdosing on sleeping pills.”

The Passion of Stan Eastley

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:46:06 -0700

Stan Eastley is a movie critic I made up who has spent twenty years describing every single movie he sees as “a rootin’ tootin’ good time” in hopes of getting quoted on a movie poster. He finally did, and then died.

Oh, no: Woody Allen's Annual New Trailer Disappointment

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:32:00 -0700

It’s that time of year again: The new Woody Allen movie trailer comes out and it looks like any number of interchangeable “indie comedies” that (almost aggressively) lets you know that its script, detailing a madcap love maze between upper-middle class urbanites undergoing various identity crises, is front and center. And then the title that teases “Directed By Woody Allen” flashes (in this case, en espanol, as this is the leaked Spanish trailer), and the old familiar feelings of “maybe this will be a return to form!” kick in. And then a few months later, the reviews come out, and it’s not a return to form, and we weep for what could’ve been.

There was a time when I would have said that Woody Allen was my favorite filmmaker. The go-to Woody Allen texture, displayed most prominently by, I guess, Annie Hall and Manhattan (not to mention my favorite, Crimes & Misdemeanors), reflects my perspective of reality closer than any other director’s standard aesthetic. Allen has strayed away from this with other styles throughout his career: the heavily Fellini-inspired Stardust Memories (which, to me, draws just as much on Charlie Chaplin as it does 8½), the Bergman-y I nteriors, and the …something-that-isn’t-Hollywoodness of Husbands & Wives, but they’re all film experiments through the basic lens of Woody Allen—even in his more straight-forward comedies, he addresses the same themes of isolation, societal suffocation, and man’s absurdity that he explores in his non-funny movies. Then, around 1997, he stopped doing that and exclusively stuck to safe, simple comedies of error and brooding murder dramas that lack the wit of his earlier work. (These films are exclusively released at Blockbuster, if that tells you anything.) Which brings us to this movie, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.

I certainly hope it’s good, but it sure looks like another trailer that’ll play at a Landmark Theater after a Stella Artois ad that will make me want to blow my brains out. (The movies for which they elect to show trailers at Landmark are just so, so awful. Most of the trailers seem like parodies of foreign/independent films that show why Republicans stay away from foreign/independent films. Between these trailers and the well-intended-but-condescending-and-misguided Jezebel/Daily Show thing from last week, dammit if I haven’t felt like a regular Sharron Angle lately.)

Dexys Midnight Runners: Where Are They Now?

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:48:00 -0700

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dexys Midnight Runners were on top of the world. The Bohemian-inspired British pop group, featuring an eclectic mix of pop, rock, folk, and soul, rocketed to superstardom on both sides of the Atlantic with the inescapable 1982 hit “Come On Eileen.”

In a year when Michael Jackson’s Thriller was the best-selling album in the world, radio listeners found “Come On Eileen” to be a welcome alternative to the synth-heavy pop records dominating the charts. While Duran Duran and Eurythmics were pumping out multi-tracked, electronic singles, Dexys Midnight Runners offered jangly banjos, harmonic accordions, and even a full strings section. The group’s distinctive look, with a wardrobe that looked somewhere between Opie Taylor and Crocodile Dundee, made them a welcome and memorable part of music history.

So what happened to Dexys Midnight Runners? “Come On Eileen” remains a radio staple some thirty years later. How did Dexys Midnight Runners go from the top of the charts to complete obscurity?

Simple: They smelled awful. Putrid. Rank. Completely unfit to be around other human beings with functioning odor-receptor glands. Have you seen these guys? Does it really surprise anyone that a bunch of barefoot, overall-clad hippies singing nonsensical gibberish about “too-loo-rye-aye” in a jug band on a street corner would have the same attitudes towards showering as someone with staying power such as, say, a Sting or even a Greg Kihn?

They were never nominated for any Grammys because Grammys are generally awarded to people whose bathing habits do not resemble those of Victorian England. Dexys Midnight Runners never even recorded another album simply because no producer was willing to work with a band that considered personal hygiene to be as much of an ’80s trend as androgyny. True story: the only reason they used all these novelty instruments was because they were banned from all guitar shops in England after a few unpleasant incidents where every guitar upwind of the band warped within seconds. A couple roadies even tried to work “soap” into their rider in hopes that they’d get the hint, but to no avail. And you know you have a problem when British roadies are trying to get you to take a bath.

They were the inspiration for the song “That Smell” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by The Police, and the entire album Stankonia by OutKast. (The legends of their aroma spread across time, genre, and race.) Some say Kurt Cobain’s original arrangement of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” included banjo picking and manic fiddling as a direct reference to Dexys Midnight Runners, but backed off as he felt it was “harsh” enough. The 1990 Clean Air Act was a result of 17 years of bickering of how to address this problem, as they needed nearly two decades for technology to adequately contain their foul B.O.

Still, though, “Come On Eileen” is a pretty cool song.

Interview: Jimmy Pardo

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:11:00 -0700

Here’s an interview I did for the Texas Travesty last summer with one of my favorite comedians, Jimmy Pardo. I had the pleasure of working in the same place as Jimmy when I interned at Conan’s Tonight Show, where Jimmy was the opening act. He was also a highlight of the recent TBS special, the awkwardly-titled but incredibly hilarious “Team Coco Presents: The Conan Writers Live.”

The full interview is after the jump.

(photo courtesy the great Heather Curiel)

Texas Travesty: Since not many comics stop by UT, you have more exposure on campus than almost any other comic in the world. So congratulations.

Jimmy Pardo: Thank you? Is that a question?

TT: That’s a congratulations.

JP: Oh! Thank you! I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ll take it as a win.

TT: You lived in Chicago for a long time.

JP: I grew up there.

TT: Was it a tough decision to leave your hometown?

JP: No. Not at all. I did a showcase for CBS Television, and a talent scout saw me who then went into management, and said, “I will manage you if you move out to L.A.” And six months later, after I had a horrible breakup with a girl, I moved out to L.A. And then that guy had a nervous breakdown a month after I moved there. So then it was a hard time to move there. But you gotta move. So, no, it was not a hard decision.

TT: You pretty much have to move out to L.A.

JP: If you want to be in show business, you do. I don’t want to take anything away from comics who work the road exclusively, because these are hard-working guys, and very talented as well, but if your aspiration is to be on television, then you gotta move there, or New York.

TT: Speaking of being on the road, your normal gig is the warm-up comedian on The Tonight Show. This is the first club that you’ve done since you started that.

JP: It is. First club on the road since I’ve started on Conan.

TT: Do you miss the road?

JP: Nope. Not at all. But it’s going to make me appreciate it more. The stress is gone. Not that I had it at all in the last ten years, but there used to be the stress of the club liking you and wanting you back. “Oh, I hope I got along with everybody and I hope they want me!” The road comics, that’s how they live their lives: they hope the club likes them, and they get rebooked the next year. But now I don’t have that. They can say, “You suck, we’re never having you back.” “Okay, see ya later!”

TT: “Gonna go hang out with Conan!”

JP: I’ve always been very free and loose onstage, but this even frees it up even more.

TT: Your act is a throwback to the nightclub comedians of the ‘60s. How did that come about? How did you develop that style?

JP: I guess probably just growing up in a house where my parents watched a lot of Johnny Carson and Saturday Night Live. That’s not the ‘60s, certainly, but watching comedy as a kid, and idolizing Johnny Carson when I was nine… When the other kids were idolizing baseball players, I wanted to put on a suit and talk. I would imagine that’s where it’s from. I like that whole era to begin with. I think my natural cadence sounds that way, so maybe I adapted around the cadence, I don’t really know. Other comics think out their character onstage, and I never really thought out anything. It all came naturally. So I can’t really pinpoint. As far as this persona that I’m doing, it just happened. Some guys say, “I’m gonna get a buzz cut and be the Army guy!” or, “I’m gonna wear leather and be the tough comedian, or the biker comic”—guys are always looking for a hook. I wasn’t smart enough to do that. I just kept doing what I was doing and it eventually turned into this retro, throwback guy. Which not everybody gets. Other people think, “Oh, look at the square in the suit.”

TT: Since most of your act is crowd work, do you do anything to stay fresh?

JP: Well, that is staying fresh. Every show is different, and obviously some of the stuff is done every night, but I try to find fun stuff every night, like [in tonight’s show], the guy with the bicycle, and the gay couple, and finding the humor in [them]. Not just making fun of people: if you’re watching my show, it’s a fine line of what I do. Some would go, “Oh, he just insults people, he just makes fun of them.” But not really. If you wait one second longer, you realize that nobody’s getting hurt, it’s all in fun. And it’s just silliness. It’s just comedy.

TT: In the rare event where you have to do a full set with no crowd work, how do you decide what jokes to use?

JP: That wouldn’t happen.

TT: If you’re going on a TV show, or…

JP: You know, my TV appearances have been few and far between for that reason. You go on a [Craig] Ferguson, or a Conan, or whatever, and they won’t let you do what I do necessarily, so I have to really find the four-and-a-half or five minutes of new—speaking of fresh, I have to look for the new, fresh stuff to do a new set on TV. And it is a little tougher for me, and if I wrote more, I could be on TV every four months. But I’m dumb. And I’ve chosen to be this guy. That is the one thing I’ve decided, to be the guy who works the crowd and flies by the seat of his pants, whether it’s out of talent, or necessity, or lack of joke writing ability.

TT: Then let’s talk about the medium that fits your talent, your podcast Never Not Funny. You riff on everyday minutiae in a very casual tone. Do you have any ground rules? Or is it just an extension of your act?

JP: It’s just an extension. I grew up idolizing these guys in Chicago named Steve Dahl and Garry Meier. They were Howard Stern before Howard Stern was Howard Stern. They were groundbreaking in radio, and I loved it. I always thought if I had the opportunity to do something like that, I would emulate them. Because they just talked. [Bartender nearby shakes a cocktail.] Looks like someone is ready to do some spray painting. So… there are no real ground rules. We joke a lot that we don’t like to talk about politics, because we do get a lot of listeners upset when we talk politics.

TT: Seems bizarre.

JP: Especially the way I talk about it. What do I talk about? I talk about what he’s wearing. I don’t even talk about his policies. They say, “You guys are just a bunch of Obama lovers.” Well, yes, but so what? We’re not talking about his policies. So there are no real ground rules. I just want it to be fun. And light. And entertaining.

TT: How do you feel about being on the forefront of a medium that didn’t even exist five years ago? How do you feel about being the “cool kid” who gets to set the rules for this new thing?

JP: Well, I’ve been passed up by Adam Carolla, and everyone’s giving him credit for having started podcasting. But Adam is a terrific broadcaster and a very funny guy. And if it brings more attention to podcasting, great. If more people listen to him and get turned onto podcasting, then they might click on my thing and listen to mine. [Pauses.] But I don’t know the answer to that. It’s a great question, and if I was an adult, I could answer it. I think… Anything I say is going to sound either cocky or childish, so I don’t really know how to answer it. It’s neat? It’s really… I like it.

TT: It’s a fun position to be in.

JP: It’s a fun position, but I get a little… Because I am one of the first to have done it, and we do this particular format, everybody feels the need to come up to me and say, “I’m going to start my own podcast! And it’s gonna be me and my two buddies talking!” And that’s not just what this is. So in that regard, it’s weird to be first, because then everybody wants to do what you’re doing, when in reality, all I’m doing is morning radio without commercials and a bell.

TT: You already answered this a little, but how is hosting a podcast different than doing stand-up or hosting a game show?

JP: Well, [the format is more] free. You talk about whatever you want. I’ve learned a little bit, and maybe I need to learn a little bit more, of watching what I say when it comes to fellow performers who may listen to it and I don’t know that. I’m just trying to be funny, but if I put down another comedian, it comes off really petty. And that’s the one thing I need to watch. That’s one way it’s different than stand-up. It’s not just going out to the atmosphere. If I was to crap on someone tonight, who heard it? Sixty people and it’s over. But if I do it on a podcast, it’s there. “Hey, I heard you badmouthed me!” “No I didn’t! Click.” “Yes you did! I can play it!” That’s the one thing I have to learn as far as that goes. And maybe not being honest and open is a good call. Wow. Long answer. Windbag. I’m a long-winded windbag.

TT: On the podcast you talk about being a big fan of live music. Are there any Austin bands that you’re a fan of?

JP: Give me an Austin band.

TT: Spoon.

JP: Love ‘em.

TT: Stevie Ray Vaughan.

JP: You know, I’m a guy who hated Stevie Ray Vaughan until maybe about five years ago, and now I kinda enjoy him. Who else? The Fabulous Thunderbirds!

TT: Janis Joplin? We don’t know, we’re dorks. Spoon is kinda the main…

JP: I don’t even know who Spoon is. What about Charlie Sexton? Isn’t Charlie Sexton from here? I liked him. I love the live music… oh, Flickerstick is from here, aren’t they? Is Flickerstick from here? [Flickerstick is from Ft. Worth. –ed.]

TT: We’re just going to print “I love live music.”

JP: “Pardo talks of his love of live Austin music.”

TT: You’ve done a lot of sitcom pilots…

JP: Yes, sir. Well, I’ve done some sitcom pilots. I’ve done mostly game show pilots.

TT: Are you worried they would get picked up and you wouldn’t have the full control you have when you do stand-up?

JP: I’ll take the $75,000 an episode, and I’ll be more than happy to show up and read my six lines, and leave. You can have all the creative control you want.

TT: Would you miss stand-up? Going on stage and doing whatever you want every week?

JP: No, because what would happen is [that] when you’re on a sitcom, then you’re able to move up to theaters. And then you’re showing up and selling out a minimum 500-seat theater. So you get that out of your system, but people are coming to see you. It would actually be a plus.

TT: This interview’s gone a lot faster than I thought it would. I’m on my last question.

JP: That’s it? That seems quick!

TT: Benson’s interview, I had 2 pages, and it went on for half an hour.

JP: Because he’s high!

TT: If you could change one thing about the comedy business now that was in place when you first started, what would it be?

JP: No women. [Interviewer laughs.] I would get rid of the Internet.

TT: What is it about the Internet?

JP: I think that comics—and many people disagree with me—I think that young comics do themselves a disservice by putting their sets on the Internet too early. It goes back to the thing where it’s always out there. Like I talked about earlier, if a young comic is so excited to say, “Go to my Facebook page! Go to my MySpace page! Go to YouTube and look at my stand-up!” you’re not ready to be seen by people. You’re supposed to be learning and failing. And learning in a vacuum. They keep putting these sets up there, and in their mind, they don’t think they suck. And I didn’t either. I thought I was great too. And when you look back at tapes, it’s like, oh sweet Jesus, I can’t believe people laughed and paid money to see that. God bless my girlfriends at the time and my parents for sitting through it and lying and telling me I was good. But these people are putting it on the Internet for the world to see! So I would do away with that.

TT: Do you think it stunts new performers from becoming better? Or do you think it ruins the experience of going to a comedy club?

JP: I think it ruins the experience of going to a comedy club. I also think… well, those are two different questions. What would you get rid of, I would get rid of [the Internet] so they can learn in a vacuum and be listening to themselves and watching themselves privately. And again, other people disagree with me.

TT: But you would change that.

JP: If Jimmy Pardo could change it, I would get rid of the ability to put up stand-up comedy clips until you’ve been doing it at least five years. In fairness, I was on Caroline’s Comedy Hour after doing comedy three years, so maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Let’s keep that in mind. I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Fright

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:01:54 -0700

It occurred to me that my tumblr page could be my ultimate undoing. Twitter’s limitation of 140 characters is a blessing: Often I want to tell the WHOLE INTERNET why someone/something annoys me, but I realize that the depth of my annoyance can’t be contained in Twitter’s character limit. So, if I post something on here that seems directed at you, I promise it isn’t to be taken personally.

Needless to say, self-control is simply not an option.

MISSION STATEMENT

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:09:00 -0700

I really just want to figure out how Tumblr works so I don’t have to experiment on The Scalawag, a comedy blog I’m working on with my friends that I’d actually like to make work. I really just want to make it work, y’all.