The Boom Ends

Internet Comments Are The Only True Art We Have Left

2011-01-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Internet comment of the day! This one is taken from Wayne State's Student Newspaper Website, writ under an article entitled "WSU profs look back on past GOP administrations."

It reads thusly:

Most college professors are communists, marxist, or socalist or far left wing radicals. Almost all are anti-american, anti-conservative and anti-republican.

No one outside of acadamia really cares what any college professors thinks.

— 7:33 AM January 12, 2011, by tim

Now Tim, or "tim", probably did not go to college, but if he did, he probably felt deeply alienated and alone. Alot of people go through life this way, although they usually wake up with enough quiet dignity not to go super retardo on the internet. Not so with Tim, or "tim."

But I don't mean to have a go at Tim, (tim) because he is a true artist. Much like Picasso's Guernica or Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde, his work challenges us to think about the ugly truths in the world. Like what is literally meant by anti-American? Seriously, what does it mean? All of America?

Let's say you don't like abortions. Abortions are legal. Abortion clinics make a profit. Therefore, by being against abortions you have no respect for the laws of America, and therefore the constitution, and you also hate capitalism, where a service can be offered at a price according to supply and demand.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

In summation, internet commenters are usually dumb, dumb and paranoid. What do you think?

Dress for the job you want, not the one you have...what do fluffers wear?

2011-01-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

So today I lost my job. Well, I didn't lose my job per say but more so I didn't get the job I interviewed for on Tuesday. The job offer was for a position as a paraprofessional at an Elementary School, since when do the perform background checks before the interview? Who really cares about jobs anyways, jobs are like big red balloons that just pop once you fill them with too much air. Allow me to elaborate. Fast forward three years into the future or whenever the next leap year is because weird stuff always happens during that year...but I digress. Fast forward right? Okay, good. Got that job (Oh, this is all hypothetical because I didn't get the job remember?) and one day out of the blew I "accidentally" put "mayonnaise" on a student's "sandwich". I put sandwich in quotes because that thing looked more like Hugh Hefner's testicles. Oh, and I don't mean to promote sexism. The dad could have made it also, but let's call a spade a shovel, the mom made that piece of shit sandwich. Moving on. The school fires me for disorderly conduct and that big red balloon finally pops. Now I have to find a new job and repeat the process. So again, I ask you, who cares about jobs anyways?

Since Lists Seem To Be Popular this Week Let's Do a...

TOP 10 REASONS TO QUIT YOUR DAY JOB:

10. More time to hang out with me
9. Weekday passes to the butterfly exhibit are MUCH cheaper
8. One word and a dash and one other letter: JELLO-O
7. Egging Cop cars
6. People with jobs have a higher suicide rate
5. Showering becomes optional
4. Day-trading and gold > Job
3. Call 1(772)257-4501 for free food!
2. Barak Obammunism will hook you up!!!
1. ehh...I quit

List-Based Humor Should Be Tax Exempt, Like Every Other Religion

2011-01-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

I did some stand-up at Joey's Comedy Club in Livonia tonight, and it was great. Good comics, good crowd, excellent stage... never underestimate the value of a good stage. Like a good grapefruit, it should have some heft, a good feel to it, no brown spots, and elevate you slightly above the audience (fruit audience).

And so, on to the list-based humour.

Top 4 Things I Like in a Grapefruit

1. heft

2. feel

3. a dearth of spots

4. elevating abilities

Top Things Flashlights Are Good For in Movies

1. being frantically shaken

2. C'mon! C'mon!

3. Finally!

4. What's that? In the corner?

5. AAAAARG

The Most Unusual Fates of Sperm

1. you and every human being who ever lived

2. stocking-stuffer

3. alternative energy source (see potato clock, crystal radio, and ropy jisom toaster)

4. State's Evidence #3356-b

5. peaks at number 9 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Chart

6. frozen into shape of two penguins walking flipper-in-flipper, adorns wedding cake

7. starts Orthodox Jewish blog, won't explain what 'frummie' means

The Scant Things Not Improved By The Benny Hill Theme Song

1. man being bludgeoned to death

2. heroin addict nodding off repeatedly

3. porcupine sex (I know what you're thinking, but trust me, naw dude, dude, naw)

4. writing list-based humour

5. the suggestion that large-scale commercial urban farming initiatives in Detroit's poorest neighborhoods would be a 'plantation' system

6. oddly, the Benny Hill Show, which was originally a stark portrait of a man on the run, literally and figuratively, from binge eating, alcoholism, corrupt British police, and his womanizing habits brought on by surviving a car crash which killed his cruel and overbearing mother when he was 13 years old.

Things That Read Better As List-Based Humor

1. The Bible (Ten Commandments: 1. Thou shalt not impugn list-based humor, except in commission of more list-based humor)

2. Recipes for gazpacho (2 tomatoes!LOL)

I really need to go to bed. G'nite.

Live-Blogging My Meaningless March Towards The Grave

2011-01-16T18:33:00.000-08:00

Why am I so dark these days? Life is good. I get to drink hard cider while a fire in a fireplace roars near by. I am watching the Golden Globes. To be perfectly honest, I cannot reconcile the feeling that mass entertainment has squandered almost all of humanity's potential with the fact that I enjoy watching movie stars hang out, while Ricky Gervais does stunningly, blisteringly harsh amazing jokes at their expense, and then they get some awards. It's this sort of thing, I guess, watching Gervais, it makes being a funny person, being expected to be funny, being a comedian in any sense, seem like the greatest thing in the world; it's where you get to be trivial and trifling and fucking dangerous all at the same time.

Back to mass entertainment, it's one of those things that I feel strong ambiguous feelings about, despite the fact that I may be wrong. Is it possible that there is an objective wrongness to the fact that people get to live, and live well, and retire to couches while well-paid story-tellers and modern jesters beam escapist fables to millions? Is it just my early 20's cynicism drenched in some kind of confused elitism, garnished with embarrassment for liking the most broad of entertainments?

I think so, and I hope that as I struggle to become a comic, these feelings will subside.

I just really would have liked to see how people spent their time a thousand years ago. Oh yea, they were either farming, burying their children, or counting their gold dubloons.

The fact that we don't really need to survive anymore means our entertainments can evolve into something slicker and more universal.

I'll end this weird, self-indulgent post (A self-indulgent blog post...whaaaaaaaa?) with this idea, notion, suggestion, etc. The oral tradition is still alive and well. Just ask my ex-wife!!!LOL

No, don't. That was stupid. When drinking with friends, there is nothing better than a guy or girl who can tell a good fucking story. Something with a beginning, middle, and end. Something unexpected, something relatable, caustic rejoinders, and a satisfying conclusion that doesn't end with a fart noise unless said fart noise is supposed to represent an animalistic orgasm.

All of life's stories have two good endings, orgasm and death.

AND THEN I FIND 20 DOLLARS.

Stoners Impersonating Stoners Impersonating Alcoholics

2011-01-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

Uhhh... I need a drink?

I find that the more nervous I am before I do five minutes of jokes somewhere, wherever I happen to be, I do better. I think feeling like it ain't no thang, brother-cousin, doesn't let me commit to the material. It's a learning curve.

So I've bombed it Mt. Clemens, in Fraser, in Rochester. It's charming. It really is. There's a bit of silliness in the inherent dramatics behind being funny on purpose to an audience, rapt or otherwise. And then failing at that. Stand-up comedy, I'm finding, is such a fakery of real human communication. Live music, an equally showy endeavor, is an exception to this, because people don't communicate mundane frustrations or abstract silliness (the majority of comedy material) by sounding off like a fucking oboe or a guitar solo. It's just not done. It's frowned upon. Unwritten rule and so on and so forth.

Ugh, what a bunch of amateur hour filler that was. Why are you still reading?

The point is, good comedy presupposes a dialogue between you and the audience, that allows you to talk about ridiculous things conversationally. Also jokes about pig dicks snorting cocaine helps.

I've been listening to a lot of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, it's the most beautiful music I've heard in a long time, it's also a concept album about Anne Frank, so...

I've been having a hard time to find anything funny lately.

So listen to this shit.

It's so hot you could blah blah blah, time to drink more and then listen to sad music until I choke up, and then ponder girls I had a crush on in Middle School.

Signing off,
America's Next Top Non-Stop Joke Machine

No One in Mt. Clemens Likes Me or My Idea of Humor

2011-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Mt. Clemens, did some jokes. I really liked The Engine House, and if they are gracious enough to host an open-mic, I will be back. Maybe with some backbone and some better material. Also! Must learn the train schedule! The bar is close to the tracks, and a train's passing bleat totally overwhelmed one of my punchlines.

Anyways, I feel like people who like comedy should also like Coneys. If I am here to do anything, it is to teach. These guys are the Coney Crew. Enjoy, and salivate.

Drunken Fistfights in Royal Oak Portend Shaky 2011

2011-01-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

The fourth day of the new year, perhaps the laziest day of my life. Drifting in and out of sleep while The Office (British, of course. I'm not into that Tea Party/Birther shit) plays in the background. What has happened to me? Is this real life?

I've been doing a lot of internet browsing. Does anyone ever worry that hitting 'refresh' one more time might cause one to dissolve into nothing? It's almost happened a couple times.

On New Year's Eve I went to Royal Oak with some friends. Pure misery. Not my friends or my overall experience, both were great. The weather, the lines, the fistfights outside Woody's, however, snuffed all the excitement and supernatural wonder out of the completely arbitrary designations in our Gregorian calendar. Next year you'll find me in Detroit, where I've never actually seen a fistfight in a bar. Saw one in well-heeled Birmingham, saw a couple in Royal Oak, but never in the supposedly rough-and-tumble Detroit. Granted I mostly go to University Bars, all within a pleasant radii of Wayne State.

Cocaine in bathrooms, sure. Man in a dinosaur costume, of course. Woman with a bra made of Smarties, most definitely. (Ok, not in a bar, but outside of a liquor store which is across the street from a bar, fucking sue me.)

But never a fistfight.

Going to Mt. Clemens tonight to do stand-up. I've been informed that I will get one free drink and free pizza. So it will be a lot like my senior prom, because in five years I will use it as a reference in a blog post.

I was told there'd be Gifs

2010-12-29T22:51:00.000-08:00

My name is Matt Gulley, and I am 23 years old. I am currently wearing a denim shirt that I like more than my car. These are all important details.

People will look back at this first blog post as a watershed moment in culture, in that they will not really be sure what 'watershed' refers to, but because lots of people use it and they have seen it in print before, they will be fairly certain that it makes sense in whatever context they choose to use it. Between you and I, it will be the day the internet got a lot funnier.

I am an amateur comedian. I want to be a professional comedian. This blog will work as a complementary outlet to my stand-up and everything I think is funny.

Mark Twain recently had his autobiography published, as it was his wish that it only be made public 100 years after his death. That takes balls. Big, 19th century, steam-powered balls. (It's a steampunk thing, you wouldn't get it) Did he think people would still care? Did he forsee the BLOG? (Belated Levity On Gerrymandering)

Mark Twain was the pre-eminent American humorist, and a bit of a hero of mine. Like my hero, I think the greatest form of humor is the jokey-list format. (See Twain's hilariously classic 1909 essay "Top Ten Ruminations Concerning Bird-Brained Congressmen and the Curse of Outliving My Daughters")

With that in mind, I'd like to present my top ten wishes for the new year.

What I'd Like to See in 2011.
1. A couple of Neo-Nazi skinheads totally bummed out after getting shitfaced the night before on Manischewitz wine.
2. That Mayan calendar thing to happen a year early.
3. Louis CK host Saturday Night Live. Seriously.
4. A new Disney Prince with a neckbeard and a taste for cheap whiskey, so that when I'm 35, young women will find me attractive.
5. A black presidential candidate. With talons.
6. An ethnic comedian do an impression of his or her mother with a less pronounced accent than they have.
7. An anti-perspirant that's strong enough for a man, but made for someone who's lying on their grad school application.
8. A Wikileaks, but for, like, practical stuff, like when to get an oil change or do your taxes.
9. Jewbacca
10. A trap door for everyone who tells me I should sprinkle sugar on my grapefruit halves. Fucking Madness!