The Strange Story of Zachary Zipper
The Bizarre Boondoggle of Steven Snaps
The Krazy Kerfuffle of Voldemort Velcro
The Fucked Up Foofaraw of Peter Pullover
The Pear-Shaped Plight of Kevin Kiltpin
The Odd Opus of Dennis Drawstring (note: Andy “I have 700 and something Twitter followers” Levy wrote this one)
The Twisted Tale of Eric Elastic Waistband
How’s it coming with the cards, you are likely wondering? Well yesterday I tried to shuffle and it’s as if the thing on the end of my arm has been replaced with a dishrag. My shuffling fingers don’t work. I merely kind of threw the cards into my other dish towel and then looked at my useless hand-type-thing and said “ouch!”
Maybe my hand needs to juice? I don’t care if my testicles shrink.
Anyway, I haven’t yet tried today because I’m afraid but I’m sure at some point I will. Okay, I’m impatient. That point is now:
I’m sorry, did someone replace this deck of 52 cards with 85 cards? That’s not very nice. Whoever slipped a deck of Old Maid into my regular deck better fess up.
Bad news: Today is worse than yesterday.
I need some kind of magic guardian angel to appear in my living room in a poof of smoke.
Now look out, because I’m going to drop a name: Harry Blackstone, Jr. He was my dad’s best friend and my family often spent the holidays with his and he was the first person who changed my diaper I’m told. And no, he didn’t do any magic tricks with it. His daughter is the one who told me it was called The Russian Shuffle. Once he brought out a deck of cards and showed me a few things. I can’t remember what they were, but I’m pretty sure I’m doing nothing similar. What was my point? Oh yes, I knew Harry Blackstone and you didn’t. Also, my hand is useless and smells like cards.
Before PrototypeDemo abandoned my Twitter for Andy Levy’s, which still smarts, by the way, he posted a bunch of Strategy Room screen grabs to The Activity Pit. I’ve chosen a select few to comment on.
In the above photo two things are worth noting. 1) I’m a Page Six Magazine contributing editor which is different than a Page Six contributor. I tried to explain the difference on air. Once more: Page Six Magazine is a glossy weekly magazine which examines NYC lifestyle, culture and more and comes free in Sunday’s New York Post. Page Six is a daily gossip column. 2) My eyes are up here.
And then here’s where I measured the desk.
Then I adjusted my hair.
Then I was all “Oh yeah, wrestler who sells energy drinks? You wanna spar? I will cardio kickbox all over your ass! Bring it!”
And then I was like, “Whoa, whoa whoa whoa. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa wow whoa whoa.” Then I asked readers to spot the wow in the preceding string of whoas. Also: whoa is me!
Then I got drunk.
Then I saw a patch of gnomes off to the right. They were frolicking and carrying marshmallows to and fro. I wanted to join them because they looked so happy. But would I, a full size human, be accepted into their tiny world? The thoughts weighed heavy on me.
Then I got up and left.
It’s common knowledge that my humor is pretty insufferable and frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. To know that my jokes could help someone who’s in pain or in suffering, well, it makes it all worth it. But I don’t want to just stand here using my humor to put people out of their misery. I want to teach you to do the same. Crazy as it sounds, I think I can.
See, humor can be taught. Granted I was born hysterical and have always been really fucking funny, but I think I can show you a few principles that will get you well on your way to being that person who’s getting groans and eyerolls from people who’d rather be talking about something serious or meaningful. And isn’t that really what it’s all about? Pull up a whoopie cushion (always funny) and read on!
1) Timing
Timing is vital in comedy. For example, take the following ripsnorter:
What has two thumbs and loves blowjobs?
[then you point at yourself with your thumbs and say…] This guy!
note: works better if you’re a guy
Now see, that’s a funny joke, but only if you include the punchline while your audience still remembers what you’re talking about, in this case blowjobs. I know a guy, we’ll call him Guy, and he made the mistake of saving up the punchline thinking he’d get a bigger laugh if he really let the anticipation build. He waited two days and happened to yell it out at a dinner party right as the host was asking who clogged the toilet.
In Sum: Timing is important. Don’t admit to clogging a toilet at a party when you’re trying to profess your love of blowjobs.
2) Funny Voices
The voice is a magical thing. You can use it to sing, to hum, to yell for help, to snitch on a friend and to be funny. The best way to do this with your voice is to make your voice itself sound funny. Can you talk in a really high pitched voice? Can you make your voice all low and grumbly? Can you make each word go up like this? Can? You? Make? Each? Word? Go? Up? Like? This?
Stop! I give! I’m crying uncle! You’re too funny!
In Sum: funny voices = funny
3) “oh, this old…”
I’ve personally gotten a lot of mileage by greeting each compliment I receive with “oh, this old [insert thing that was complimented]. I just found it [insert place you’d find it].” For example:
guy: wow, you have very straight teeth
me: oh, these old things? I just found them in my mouth.
The result? I had three offers for dates, won a government grant, a burrito and a trip to the Caribbean and no one didn’t have sex with me that night.
In Sum: It’s good to be the kind of person who receives compliments.
Congratulations! By now you should be well on your way to the kind of yucks you’d only dreamed about before, and this is just the beginning. In the coming weeks I’ll post more tips and before long you’ll be so funny people will be sure you experienced some kind of trauma as a young child.
Greetings my little corn muffins (Ted, that was for you). Question: do I need to change the color of my hyperlink text or are you able to see it? On my computer it looks kind of dim but maybe that’s just me? Are you usually aware where the links are? Speak now or deal with purple hyperlink text.
Also wanted to give a shoutout to all the regular readers of the blog. I love you guys! And to all the new readers? After a brief probationary period I will probably love you too.
How do I feel about the fact that I papercut the hell out of the web between my thumb and forefinger? Well, maybe not the web part or whatever it’s really called. More like the edge of the palm of my hand. In a word? Good. In two words? Not good.
Thank God it’s not my shuffling hand is all I can say.
A video/vlog more obnoxious and self-indulgent than the previous two and which might give you whiplash and where I look pretty awful and sound even worse? If you insist! And by the way, I used a special filter which makes my nose look roughly 15 times its actual size.
But who is this Dustin character? That would be Dustin Goot. He pops up in my blog periodically. We used to work at Time Out New York together and before that I wrote for him at Sync magazine (fun fact: Bill Schulz also wrote for Sync.) Anyway, I shot this with my phone, which is sort of unbelievable, in that the quality is so poor you’ll probably think I shot it with my shoe.
I didn’t though, because I don’t have a media card in my shoe.
I have a foot in my shoe however. That’s just me; always putting my foot in my shoe!
You know how some people just have that certain quality where they could do anything on camera and you’d watch them? Well this video does nothing to suggest I may be one of them, but fuck it, I will shuffle in bad lighting for six minutes because who’s to stop me? The shuffle police? The bad lighting gestapo? The card guard? The bulb force? You know?
Also, at the beginning I rambled in a not very articulate way about today’s Strategy Room appearance.
So anyway, again, this is for those who are requesting vlogs. Should your Alison needs not include vlogs I suggest you visit my youtube page.
And should this be your first visit to my blog first of all, I’m sorry. Second of all, there’s a history with the card thing, but I’m too lazy to recap right now. Awesome!
I’m in the very last minute. The seventh minute. And it’s the “tiny Alison” thing which you’ve likely already seen since I have it on this page. So I guess I’m talking you out of watching this. But then that’s me: mixed messages.
And thanks to Markca who posted this on the Pit, where I “borrowed” it. I swear I’ll give it back!
If I were super ambitious I would slap together this footage with the footage last night when Greg asked me to wave behind Andy again and thus, it was recreated. But I’m not that ambitious. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly driven, but I’m not going to just step over people or forget where I come from. When I get home it’s still “hey Alison, take out the trash” and “hey Alison, can you recommend an ointment?” It’s weird too, because I live alone.