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Show 33! Welcome welcome, I’m Captain Blank, this is the Alien Night Club, it’s a pleasure, blah blah blah, okay; let’s get into it: show notes.
Got some doozies. I’ve been nearly crapping myself trying to remember all of them.
So here you go:
Cardboard boxes vs. Cocaine Bear. Way to go, Beth.
Twitter.
Ross's car.
Don't Look Up.
Deep Impact.
Does anyone else hate unloading the dishes? I do.
Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick.
That's not right, I shouldn’t say that. I learned it from Stephen King. Stephen, good sir, to your knowledge did you come up with that on your own or did you learn it from somebody and, if so, who?
Tonight's show is brought to you by Jesus H. Christ Popsicles.
Insert video of people all around the world eating a Jesus H. Christ Popsicle and saying, Jesus H. Christ.
It's funny as…heck.
Argh, I be Captain Blank, the friendly pirate. I'm friendly because I don't believe in fightin, rapin, or robbin.
Because that’s what pirates were known for. So why do we so idealize them in our entertainment?
Anyway, the point is that rapin is the physical part but what comes next is worse: robbin. You’re robbin that person of everything they thought they knew about the world and how it worked and their place in it.
Humiliating them forever. Taking away their sense of control over their own body.
Rapists should be shackled in a town square and people can come up and do whatever they want to them.
So they can see how it feels. So they can see what it’s like.
Wouldn’t be so much rapin goin on if anyone thinkin about doin rapin knew – KNEW, 100% beyond the shadow of a doubt – that if they DID it, if they ACTUALLY went through with it and raped someone, they’d be arrested, dragged – kicking and screaming, most likely – to the town square or wherever the legally designated, officially planned, funded, permitted, engineered, constructed, and open for business Rapist Torture Area was located.
It wouldn’t be much.
A big concrete area with 2 small walls that have bolts or rings or something built into them so a person can be locked up there quickly and easily. It would almost look like some sort of modern art or handball court or Parkour area or the like. But it’s spartan because A, fuck them; B, fuck them again some more; C, it needs to be cheap and easy to build so the rapin can stop as soon as possible; and D, they need to be easy to hose off or clean up after the person finally succumbs.
Succumbs makes it sound like it’s too much and is therefore wrong.
The rape victims are like, A waterproof modern art Parkour handball exhibition area? Seriously? Haven’t you assholes ever heard of a tree? Better yet, a stop sign. Chain that fuckin piece of shit to a stop sign. And everyone who drives by can throw something at em or spit on em or piss on em or smack em with a baseball bat. No headshots, though; gotta keep them alive. I will be putting their disgusting little rape stick penis in a panini maker, however. Perhaps a George Foreman Grill. After that, it’s open season.
Anyway, getting back to moving boxes and cocaine bears and frozen Jesus treats, when you guys move, do you hire people or do you do it yourself?
I’ve moved about 25 times in my life. Always did everything myself. Moved a lot of cardboard boxes. A lot of big black garbage bags full of clothes. A lot of U-haul trucks rented and driven. Don’t buy their extra supplemental insurance, by the way. At least not in California. It only protects YOUR stuff from damage. Who gives a shit about that? The truck itself is already insured as mandated by California law. If you’re at a level of income that you have stuff so nice that you’re worried about it surviving a trip in the back of a truck that you not only put your stuff into but which you yourself are also driving, then you should pop for the professionals to come and do it.
Otherwise, do it yourself.
Do you like to do it yourself…Beth?
Sometimes…. If the mood strikes.
How is the mood striking you now, Beth?
Perfect.
That scene was perfect.
And Beth directed Cocaine Bear. Elizabeth….? Liz? It’s genius. It’s perfect. And very sorry about Ray. Wish I could’ve known him. Would love to hear you share a bit of your experience with him. And to hear a bit of yours.
Cocaine Bear.
Next: Twitter.
What the fuck is going on with Twitter? I kinda want to get on there and say, Guys, what the heck is goin on?
Sebastian?
Maniscalco, you sexy sumbitch, would you mind doin the honors? Just a quick IG Live or whatever? Something on the You Tubes? Sassy, of course. But you know that.
What the hell is goin on?
Seriously, though, I am never on Twitter. But I’ve been following the drama. It’s one of the reasons I don’t use it much any more. Even though I have a pretty robust history of using Twitter. I used to absolutely love it. I met a lot of amazing people via Twitter.
And then I just kinda stopped.
It all seemed kind of… off. Somehow. I guess. Maybe.
All I know is that it stopped being fun. It definitely felt like work. And then over time the whole thing got kinda weird somehow. It definitely felt more and more political. And it began to feel like acceptance on the platform was somewhat conditional upon agreement with whatever controversy or current events were trending. And I wasn’t on Twitter to get my news. Although it became the best place to see breaking news. Pretty sure I watched all the Capitol riot and BLM and Rittenhouse stuff live on Twitter in real time as it was happening. And it was nuts.
Maybe too much.
And that has something to do with why I jumped overboard. Pulled the ejection handle and bailed out.
Did you know that the first airplanes didn’t have ejection seats? If you were in that plane and the engine caught on fire or the wing broke or someone else in an airplane used their airplane to shoot bullets into your airplane and now your airplane is going to crash and you have to undo your seatbelt and stand up and jump out of the cockpit before the plane hits the ground, what would you do?
And in the 1914 to 1918 World War One era, they didn’t give pilots parachutes.
And when pilots met in combat and one shot the other down, the one who lived flew back to base and landed and told everyone what had happened. How they had watched that poor bastard undo his seatbelt, get up and grab onto the edge of the cockpit, and then just stand there. Trying to decide whether or not they should jump. Or if they even could.
Talk about a crap decision.
To me it seems like if you stay in the plane, you die for sure. But you don’t haff to do anything. You can just sit there. Stay where you are. Close your eyes, maybe. Or keep them open and maybe look up to the sky, up to Heaven, and think about your existence and the universe and your family and the people you love. And most of all, how much you love them. And how you’re sad because you’re not going to see them again. But even more sad because you know they’re going to mourn you and will literally cry. And that even a few years from now, there will still be moments when they think of you. Maybe when they go somewhere they went with you once. Or they eat something they know you really liked, and that maybe you guys ate that food together. So they always think of you when they eat it. And it makes them sad and they very much miss you. And that makes you feel good in a weird way. Because it’s nice to be loved. But you don’t want them to be sad.
The point is if you’re standing there in the cockpit, with no parachute, do you jump out and definitely die or do you stay in your seat and delude yourself that maybe you’ll survive, or stare up at the sky and try to make peace before you go?
The larger point is I’m not sure what to do about Twitter. I think there are a lot of us who want to use it either because we used to use it or we want to now…
But we’re all kind of afraid to.
How many people do you know who bailed on Twitter? Parachute or not, they jumped.
I definitely think twice before tweeting. I’ve deleted tweets just before sending them. Things which were genuine questions or comments I thought were clever or funny or hopefully insightful or helpful in some way.
But then I think about the shitshow that could rain down on me by a bunch of people who come and attack me because I said something ignorant – unknowingly – or they misunderstood what I said. Either way, the mob is outside my house and they’re lighting the little white rags on their Molotov cocktails and I’m about to be fucked.
So when I think of that, I X out. I close it. I go back to work or back to YouTube or back to wherever. I don’t tweet.
Maybe if that changes I’ll get more active, like I used to be.
Or – a lot of you are saying – you could stop being such a candy ass and just get on and do whatever you want to do and be polite and treat it like speaking in public or like going to the mall. Mind your manners.
How about that?
If we all went back to minding our manners instead of stoning people with trillions of bits that add up to very painful metaphorical technological totally fucking imaginary rocks, maybe the world’s cat scratch fever would break and we could all just calm down.
They used to say, Don’t talk about money, religion, or politics.
Let’s try that for the next 25 years and see what happens.
No, dumbass, we’ll go back to the middle ages!!! someone screams.
Maybe. I hope not. Jesus.
Jesus is today’s secret word, by the way. I totally forgot to tell you guys. You know what to do when you hear the secret word, don’t you?
That’s right: Scream!
Scream real loud.
But it seems stupid to scream now. So let’s wait for the next one.
Now I have a twisted desire to deliberately avoid saying it. Just to keep you guys all waiting. And have you leave with never having gotten to scream. Racked and besieged by disappointment.
Anyway, to sum up on Twitter, I hope things work out amicably for all involved.
Next: Ross’s car.
Ross never had a car. He had the little red one but only for a short time. It was his new Marcel. It was his 2nd sofa. Pivot! We’re gonna pick it up and slide it out. Lift…and slide. Pivot! Lift…and slide.
They could’ve moved it easily, by the way, if all 6 of them had lifted the BACK of the car. The engine is in the front. The front is heavy. The back is empty. That’s where the trunk is. So it’s lighter. Franco Columbo picked up the back of a similar car and slid it out all by himself. Watch Pumping Iron if you haven’t seen it. That’s where he does it. He puts a couple of towels on his hands so they don’t get all cut up by the bumper. Which is why I wear gloves when I work out, by the way. You can lift a lot more weight and expend a lot more effort and get a MUCH better, more productive workout when you’re wearing gloves and your hands feel protected. How do you feel walking out to the mailbox in shoes versus barefoot? It’s similar to that. Try some different types of gloves. Workout gloves are okay but they always wrinkled up and eventually wore out on me. Construction or gardening gloves are good but are too bulky. I started using those cheap polyurethane gloves with gray rubbery stuff on the palms and fingers and a red or blue or green stretchy material on the back. They’re about a dollar a pair. Workout gloves are 35 to 40 bucks, usually. For decent ones.
The point is that generally, for most of the 10 years, Ross didn’t have a car. So after Ben was born, Carol and Susan had to bring Ben to Ross’s place. They had to pack up all of Ben’s stuff, pack the diaper bag, try to make sure they weren’t forgetting anything, put the stroller in the back of Carol’s SUV – a Jeep Wagoneer, I believe it was – and drive to Ross’s. Drive around looking for a place to park. Park. Unload everything. Take everything upstairs to Ross’s. Literally climbing multiple flights of stairs; no elevator. Walk down the hall to Ross’s apartment, knock on the door, and wait for him to answer. Then go inside and chit chat and see what meaningless shit he’s wrapped up in now: is he back with Rachel – again – or is he getting married – again – or divorced – again – or does he have a pet monkey – again – ?
Again, the point is, do you think Carol and Susan would get home after all of that, go upstairs, collapse on the bed with the intent of making sweet love only to find themselves both exhausted and decidedly NOT in the mood? They probably lie there staring at the ceiling. And then Carol is the one to say it because they both know what they’re both thinking and it’s better if Carol says it: I really wish Ross had a car.
And then they get up and open a bottle of wine and each pound a glass and then take a shower together and get back into sexy time mode.
So is that the reason Ross bought that little red convertible?
Which was a cool car, by the way. It’s a little old European thing. Not like a classic Mustang or something. Which would’ve been cooler. But also a lot more money. Ross did tell the gang that he needed the car in order to be a responsible parent.
So did Carol – or even Susan? – say something to him about how exhausting it was coming all the way over there and how great it would be if he had a car so he could come to their place to pick up Ben and then bring him back Sunday night?
So Ross went out and bought a car. A little red convertible. Which he didn’t look ridiculous in at all. I don’t think Jack looked like an ass in his Porsche, either. Why would he? What business is it of anyone’s? Who gives a fuck? You want people telling you what car you are allowed to drive? Fuck no. So let’s not pass judgment on someone for driving a Porsche or a little red convertible. Prince sang about a little red Corvette and everyone ate it up. Ross drives a little red convertible and we ridicule him for it?
One of the fundamental tenets of comedy is an overdeveloped concern with the opinions of others.
Being liked.
It gives people power over you. You give away your power. Jack gave his away. He gave the key to Monica. Ross gave his away when he got rid of his car. He tried to sell it to Joey. And even Joey didn’t want it.
We do know that Ross drove the Porsche on occasion because we saw his beehive for ourselves. Imagine how much fun they must’ve had, him and the hair and makeup people, making his hair look like that. And probably the other friends and various production people probably stopped in to say good morning and check out the crazy hairdo. And then when he walked on set for the first time and everyone saw him, including the audience, they must’ve laughed for 5 minutes straight.
Point being that if you’re a co-parent and you’re driving your little one or ones over to your ex’s and it’s a hassle and what’s worse is that they seldom reciprocate, can you relate to Carol and Susan’s dilemma and irritation over their son’s father’s carlessness?
If Ben grew up and happened to be gay, think of all the people you know who would go, See!?! I told you!
That’s a rule, by the way, for anyone who is unaware: You’re never supposed to say I told you so to someone. It’s shitty. It makes them like you less. I think we’ve talked about this.
Next, if Don’t Look Up actually happened, would everyone work together to keep the geopolitical industrial production and shipping and delivery and electricity and free flowing clean water apparatus going? So we all still have food and electricity and whatnot?
If no one believed it, everything would continue as it did in the movie.
If, however, everyone did believe it, things would mostly grind to a halt. By the time the comet hit, we’d all be farmers in The Purge. It’d be hell on Earth and anyone still alive would welcome the comet.
But if it were real and you had 3 months until it hit the Earth – or whatever planet you’re on – what would you do for that period of time?
What would you do when it hit?
I think I’d get crazy high, enjoy a glass of wine, and take a few sleeping pills. So there is less than zero chance of me waking up during the earthquake. The shockwave. That would hit you going six hundred miles per hour, killing you instantly. Humans can’t perceive something like that. Something which happens that fast.
By the way, have you seen Less Than Zero yet?
Have you seen Deep Impact? Is that the chicken or the egg?
Next: Fluorescent lights. They’re great during the day, horrible at night.
If you have a lot of crazy bright fluorescents all over your place and you love the abundance of bright white light, implement a nighttime lighting scheme. And use it for a few months. Then try the fluorescents again. I think you’ll find you no longer like them so much. That they’re too bright.
If, for example, you wake up in the middle of the night, do you turn on the lights?
I don’t.
I know where the toilet is. And there’s enough ambient light for me to pee, wash my hands, and come back to bed without turning on the lights.
If you get up to pee in the middle of the night and you turn on that crazy bright bathroom light, why do you do that to yourself? Why do you wake yourself up like that? No wonder you can’t go back to sleep and always feel like shit. You’re probably drinking too much water all throughout the day because you’ve been programmed to do so just like I have and now you get up to pee at least once pretty much every night.
By the way, we totally lost the friendly pirate. He jumped out of the plane a long time ago and I didn’t even notice. How much of a dick am I?
Point being that I used to pound water. 2 to 3 gallons every day. Confirmed. Easy. For sure. Almost a gallon during my workout alone. Because I for some reason train hard and fast and I therefore sweat my ass off. So I haff to drink a lot. And then I drink a lot during the day. Not just the water in my coffee – which doesn’t count, by the way, because it’s offset by the diuretic action of the caffeine – and not just the water in my protein shakes. Which is substantial because I usually drink several shakes a day. And all day I am drinking out of a big tumbler with a straw. Putting something in my mouth and sucking on it until I feel liquid splash into my mouth so I can delightedly swallow it is somewhat of a habit of mine.
At least it used to be.
I used to pee 2 times a night every night.
Until I got up here.
For some reason, I am drinking a lot less water. And I am sleeping through the night for the first time in years. Maybe a decade. That’s how long it’s been. I just figured something was wrong with my prostate and I’m just getting old, like it or not. But now I think it’s just that I was drinking too much friggin water.
Peeing 2 to 3 times a night is like waking up to feed a newborn. Kind of. That is more important and more involved. You don’t get up for 3 or 4 minutes and go back to sleep. You wake up, get the formula, and probably take the kid out of the bedroom and go sit someplace to feed the little squirt.
Did the term Little squirt originate from the notion of ejaculation? Because we all started out as a little squirt?
And whatever you do, don’t get really high and start pondering all the sperm that went down a shower drain. Or down a throat. Or up a butt. Or into a condom. Or anywhere other than into a vagina.
Is that some sort of moral affront? Perhaps to God or to the Universe itself? If we are here to create, to be the vessels for divine creation, for the ideas of God to be made manifest in physical reality because we are how God experiences him her itself, and creating more human beings is our ultimate mandate – to reproduce – and we’re all running around spunking into white cotton tube socks or into glory holes because we not only do not want to reproduce but we are in fact horrified by the notion of bringing a person into such a fucked-up world only to be raised – quote unquote raised – by a person as fucked up as ourself, only to then grow up and realize as we did that the world is or at least can be extremely fucked up, then no it’s not a moral affront at all. It’s the only rational response.
You can make yourself crazy fretting over stuff like that.
Point being, don’t turn on the fluorescent lights when you get up in the middle of the night. Have a nightlight or two. Position them in key areas so that once your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can see perfectly fine. And immerse yourself in a similar lighting environment for the few hours before you go to bed. It’ll help prepare your body to sleep.
If you’re a person who is an insomniac because every time you get into bed, turn off the light, and put your head on your pillow you’re wide awake with your eyes literally open and your mind going a zillion miles an hour and you are sitting in a brightly lit room staring at a glaringly bright screen before you get into bed, you’re not an insomniac, you’re just doing it wrong.
Stop doing that. Turn off the bright lights. Turn down the brightness on your TV, computer, or phone. It’s common sense but these days it’s referred to as sleep hygiene.
By the way, speaking of daily water consumption and calorie consumption, if perchance the holidays are upon you and or you’re knowingly or even unknowingly in a caloric surplus, lift weights or engage in some sort of resistance training 3, 4, 5, 6, maybe even 7 days a week. Take advantage of all that food, those extra calories, and use them to build tissue so you stay strong.
Oh, I just remembered another nugget. This one’s heavy. No pun intended.
If obesity were alcoholism, could you imagine what America would be like? The world?
Overcoming it would be the single national conversation. Like covid or 9/11 or Pearl Harbor.
By the way, I love that part about 2 minutes into the Little Red Corvette video when Prince dances away from the mic and does that cool dance. And when he sings, he does that thing with his lips, almost a grimace, as though he’s a tad overwhelmed or almost even disgusted by how hot she is in her little red Corvette.
But yeah, if you snapped your fingers and all of a sudden obesity was alcoholism, the main focus would be on fixing it. For real. Meaning that if every person who is currently right now technically obese was a falling-down, incapacitated drunk, an habitual drunkard, something would be done. Although a lot of people would still be apathetic dicks who don’t care about anyone else. Drunk apathetic dicks, most likely.
Some people drink to medicate. Others eat. If you’re an eater and it’s the only thing you have found that calms you down when you’re upset or stressed out, I feel for you. Try eating 5 Doritos, washing them down with a protein shake, and then go for a long walk or a jog or, even better, go lift weights.
Create a new habit.
Go ahead and give yourself food. So you’re satisfied to some degree. You have nourishment and you’ve scratched that itch. But don’t sit on the sofa or at your desk and eat the entire bag of Doritos. That’s a day’s worth of calories. Just do the math. If you need 1500 to survive and you eat breakfast, lunch, a snack, dinner, and now you’re eating an entire bag of Doritos, a Family Size bag, do the math. You’re probably at 5000 calories for the day. Maybe even 7000. Of course you’re gaining weight.
If you earn 7 grand a month – 2 grand more than the grill on Jake’s dad’s Rolls – and your overhead is $1500 a month, you have 5500 bucks to put in the bank. And those 5500 bucks are fat cells. It’s like if you put that money in a safe. Eventually you’re gonna need a bigger safe, right? Just like eventually you need to go buy bigger pants or a bigger belt or a bigger bra. Your stuff didn’t shrink in the washer. It may have but mostly it’s just that your physical dimensions have increased and are greater than they were the day you bought the clothes you wear every day.
So you gotta cut back on that 5500 excess and you gotta get moving to build muscle and do cardio to help burn fat for energy – they say walking is the best: LISS: Low Intensity Steady State – as opposed to HISS which is High Intensity Steady State – – and most most most importantly, DO NOT eat your exercise calories. It’s so easy to do. I’ll bust my ass training in the morning – sometimes fasted, depending on what I’m doing and its intensity and duration – and then will eat to my schedule and in prescribed, controlled amounts, obeying the rule of portion control – break it at your peril – and will have a perfect day. And then I’ll go crazy after dinner and eat 10 dark chocolate hazelnut biscotti cookies dipped in my mug of hot tea and I’ll consume 900 calories in 4 minutes, thereby canceling the entire day’s effort. And then in the morning, the scale is up. And I have the gall to be pissed.
How stupid can you get?
If you’re me, pretty stupid.
So try not to do that.
If you do, don’t panic. Just realize that it happens sometimes. To all of us. For me it seems to be usually on a Thursday or Friday night when I’m somewhat exhausted after 4 or 5 straight days of training hard every day and sticking to my diet every day. And mentally I cave. I’m too tired to cope with some stupid, meaningless stress I’ve told myself is far worse than it actually is – making mountains out of molehills; don’t do that – and so I medicate with buttloads of dessert.
Try gum.
Wherever you eat dinner, keep a pack of gum there. On the table. On your coffee table. On the desk. On the nightstand.
As soon as you finish dinner and you get that reptilian urge to go make love to that pint of Rum Raisin with your mouth hole, put a piece of gum in your mouth. Get that sweetness into your system immediately. With a little piece of gum, sugar free or otherwise, it doesn’t really matter. I chew sugarless because I don’t like the way sugar puts plaque on my teeth and makes them feel rough.
But just getting that sweet tooth satisfied while you do the dishes and clean up the kitchen can make all the difference between bursting out of your chrysalis as an undeniably sexy specimen…and staying in your current state. The one that makes you miserable because what you see in the mirror doesn’t match what you’ve always wanted yourself to be.
And remember: Do it for you. To be closer to your Higher Self. To shed your old form. To become the beautiful butterfly everyone loves and respects, rather than staying the little caterpillar a lot of people disdain and disregard and maybe even step on.
Don’t do it for your ego: To make others like you.
And because you’re fixated on and obsessed with all the motherfuckers you have to prove wrong.
I know that one well.
And it is most alluring.
It’s like the evil emperor in Star Wars.
Tempting perhaps but clearly a bad way to go. Just like when Guru Sahj put the salve on Ross’s kundiss.
Did Ross walk to Sahj’s clinic?
Imagine if Ross had kept his little red convertible and Monica had the Porsche. They could’ve raced. Monica would’ve won but who cares. Racing is still fun. She would, of course, love winning because she was obsessed with winning and with being the best. And Ross wouldn’t like losing but ultimately he would enjoy seeing his baby sister happy.
Because that’s just the kind of good guy Ross is. Like Richard. Which is why they got along so well, particularly during the late night bathrobe bathroom dash. As opposed to Joey and Chandler who made him feel like a dad, dad, daddio.
That’s our show!
Thank you for coming!
You were delightful!
Goodnight!
Remember to tip your waitress!
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