Speaking of Tom Sachs, he’s a multi-media kinda pop-cultural artist, as evidenced by his collection of short films.

They look to be mostly stop-motion animation pieces with funky soundtracks/voiceovers attached. Sachs collaborated with the Neistat Brothers on these, and the influence definitely shows.

My favorites from this group are: “McDonald’s Teaser”, musically accompanied by the late Wesley Willis’ “Rock and Roll McDonald’s”; and “Bitches and Money”, a 1/25th-scale tour through a ghetto, backed appropriately by NWA’s “Gangsta Gangsta”.

From one of my most fave-o-reet episodes of “The Simpsons”, I present “Skinner & the Superintendent”, or (as I prefer) “Steamed Hams”:

And for good measure, the key exchange:

Superintendent Chalmers: I thought we were having steamed clams.
Seymour Skinner: Oh, no, I said steamed hams. That’s what I call hamburgers.
Superintendent Chalmers: You call hamburgers steamed hams?
Seymour Skinner: Yes, it’s a regional dialect.
Superintendent Chalmers: Uh-huh. What region?
Seymour Skinner: Uhh… Upstate New York.
Superintendent Chalmers: Really? Well, I’m from Utica, and I’ve never heard anyone use the phrase ’steamed hams.’
Seymour Skinner: Oh, not in Utica. No, it’s an Albany expression.
Superintendent Chalmers: I see.
[Chalmers bites into a steamed ham.]
Superintendent Chalmers: You know, these hamburgers are quite similar to the ones they have at Krusty Burger.
Seymour Skinner: Oh ho ho, no. Patented Skinner burgers. Old family recipe.
Superintendent Chalmers: For steamed hams…
Seymour Skinner: Yes…
Superintendent Chalmers: Yes, and you call them steamed hams despite the fact that they are obviously grilled.

One last tidbit: Along with the obvious allusions to Pulp Fiction throughout, this episode also owes its title — “22 Short Films About Springfield” — to Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. The title and structure of which, in turn, was inspired by the 32 pieces that comprise Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

This should be interesting: I just got a guaranteed ticket to see today’s taping of “Late Show with David Letterman”, airing tonight!

How? The weirdest sequence of events: I was walking up Broadway, killing time while getting within the vicinity of a couple of afternoon appointments. At around 50th Street, it occurred to me that I was getting close to the Ed Sullivan Theater, which reminded me of my seldom-invoked intentions of attending a Letterman taping. I dismissed today’s possibility right away, simply because I didn’t think there’d be any tickets available as late as this afternoon.

Then, I walk by a girl who’s hawking “Late Show” tickets. She’s pissed because the two guys she was already talking to were “assholes”, in her words; so she turns to me. She confirms she’s with Worldwide Pants, the show’s production arm. After some preliminaries, she hands me a confirmation form letter with my name on it. According to that slip of paper (photo of which I’ll add later, after I get home — having some issues trying to email it to myself right now), I’m guaranteed a seat in chilly Ed Sullivan! (No joke, they really do tell you ahead of time to bring a sweater; I happen to be wearing a light jacket, so I’m set.)

I have to trek back down there in about half an hour to confirm, then head back there again for the 4:30-5:30 taping. They’re not kidding about this thing eating up your whole day. Fortunately, I was able to move around my meetings for this afternoon, or else I’d have to chuck this adventure. As it is, I’m currently cooling my heels in a damned *$ on 60th.

So, hopefully, I’ll finally get to see Dave live and in person, doing his thing. According to the TV schedule, guests tonight will be Ashton Kutcher, magician Mac King (because this is, after all, Magician Week on the “Late Show”), and musical legend Steve Winwood. Not the lineup I would have picked, but it’ll do.

UPDATE: Here’s the photo proof — first the confirmation letter:

And the resultant ticket:
Well worth the sacrifice of an afternoon. I won’t bother with a show recap; you can find that here. But here’s some general impressions:

- I actually didn’t find the famously deep-frozen theater to be all that cold. I wouldn’t want to sit there in just shorts and tshirt, but in a shirt and dress pants, I was fine.

- The theater stage is surprisingly compact — looks a lot bigger on TV.

- Even though everything was live and only a few yards away, I couldn’t shake how it still looked like a televised presentation — even though I was watching with my unaided eye. I guess it was the lighting doing its job, because somehow, I didn’t get the feeling that I was really there in the same room with Dave, Paul et al.

- “Johnny Twain” may be a lame filler segment. But he can belt out “Hooked On A Feeling” with muy, muy gusto! (I’m guessing that performance won’t be making the telecast.)

- Steve Winwood rocks.

What can I say, I derive much amusement from the merest suggestion of McDonald’s-inspired mayhem. Especially when it’s mixed with a fear of clowns.

Or is it more of a fear of fast-food pimpness? I can just imagine this statued Ronald’s accompanying dialogue: “You better have my money before I bitch-slap your McNuggetty ass!”

Take Conan O’Brien’s recurring “If They Mated” skit and make it frighteningly real, and you’ve got The Human Hybrid.

“Human” is a bit of stretch, only in that it suggests an egalitarian photographic genepool. In reality, this is all about interpreting reg’lar folks’ images as a melding of two well-known celebrities. Nothing wrong with that — it works for late-night television! — but it’s something of an old-hat trick.

I assume most of the photo submissions, like the one pictured here for “Clay Cruise/Tom Aiken”, are authentic. (I love that hybridization-slash-slashing of the names, by the way.) Some of them, though, I’m just not buying.

Another example of the incestuous ideamill that makes up Hollywood:

- “The Return of Jezebel James” was a recent sitcom on FOX about a straitlaced professional woman (Parker Posey) who wants a baby, but can’t conceive on her own. So she enlists a surrogate mother (Lauren Ambrose), who happens to be a scatter-shot, roughneck polar opposite. Odd-couple wackiness ensues!

- Baby Mama is a current major motion picture release about a straitlaced professional woman (Tina Fey) who wants a baby, but can’t conceive on her own. So she enlists a surrogate mother (Amy Poehler), who happens to be a scatter-shot, roughneck polar opposite. Odd-couple wackiness ensues!

Yep, same difference. The only serious divergence I can see is that the sitcom’s characters were sisters, while the movie’s characters were brought-together strangers. Otherwise, this was cross-pollination.

The end results: “Jezebel James” was a flop, lasting only three episodes on TV, while Baby Mama debuted at No. 1 at last week’s box office (although a relatively weak one, banking only $17.4 million).

There may be something behind the principal actors’ displacement into different media: Posey and Ambrose are accomplished indie-movie stars, while Fey and Poehler are best known from “Saturday Night Live”. The SNL connection likely had a lot to do with the movie’s success, as the duo there was basically carrying over their “Weekend Update” chemistry to a big-screen milieu.

…At least, that’s how Wil Wheaton sees it as he expresses much love for everyone’s favorite microblogging platform.

I always appreciate gratuitous “Bust A Move” references, but I question the invocation of the “spam-spam-spam” skit, as that invites unfavorable connotations for any Internet-based communications/feedback system.

As for me, I wouldn’t call myself a Twitter hater, but at the same time, I don’t feel the need to jump aboard. Aside from the value of what I’d put into and get out of it, I don’t know that it’s any more innovative than any other later-stage social-networkish Web app. Besides, enough of my time is occupied with the macroblogging shown here.

Who knew that a slightly-creepy cat humor site did enough business to need an office staff? But it’s true: “I Can Has Cheezburger” is hiring, and is getting more of a challenge than anticipated in the screening process.

Apparently, looking at Lolcats all day is an appealing job. Ben Huh, founder of the site and chief executive of Seattle-based Pet Holdings Inc., has received 250 applications since the job was posted on Monday under the headline “Kittehs Want Moar Workerhumans.”

“I got a stack of resumes that I can’t even go through,” Huh said. “You know how they say, ‘Spell everything correctly because the people reading your resume will toss it out otherwise?’ Well, we can’t even do that. We won’t knock you out for spelling…. The traditional resume screening methods don’t apply here.”

The winning applicant will join three other people who moderate ICHC and a few related Pet Holdings sites (think dogs with funny captions). A big part of the job will be selecting from the 7,000 submissions the company receives every day of captioned photos, plus 2,000 uncaptioned ones.

I really hope they have some sort of sensory-overload specialist on-hand, to guard against surefire burnout. Really, how many bizarro photos can someone sift through before their mind rebels in protest?

I’ve got no plans to relocate to the Emerald City, so regrettably, I’ll have to decline this (questionable) opportunity. However, just to show I can flow with the cryptic content, I offer up my previous two posts on the LOLcat phenomenon. Specifically the post titles:

- IN UR FACE, DOMOKUN KITTEH

- ON UR DETHBED, FEELIN U DIE

Actually, in a way, this fractured diction might need more stringent editing than you’d expect. Right up my alley, skills-wise.

In the same spirit as last year’s self-plagiarism, I’m commemorating today’s Earth Day observance with a blog rerun.

The year is 1990, the place is a dorm lounge in my alma mater, and the source material is an old TV with over-the-air reception only (pre-cable). Throw in my general 18-year-old boredom, and you get this improbable save-the-planet vignette:

My favorite Earth Day memory is a prank I played 13 16 17 18 years ago. I was sitting in my dorm lounge with a dormmate. We were flipping through the channels (no cable TV in the dorms back then–the dark ages!!), and catching a couple of news reports telling us it was Earth Day. Then we land on Home Shopping Network, just as they start rolling out their fur collection for display and sale.

It hit me: Furs? They’re hawking freakin’ furs on Earth Day? Come on!

Now, I wasn’t then, nor am I now, a hard-core environmentalist or animal-rights advocate. I’m sympathetic with those philosophies, to a point, but I eat meat, wear leather, etc. Nevertheless, some part of my sensibilities was offended by seeing such a bizarre juxtaposition. I think I was offended by the stupidity, or more likely ignorance, on display by HSN.

So, I decided to do something. I got my phone, dialed up the HSN order line, and as soon as the customer service drone answered, I yelled, “EARTH DAY! FUR IS MURDER! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT!!”. I did it a couple more times after that. Then I got my dormmate to call too, on his phone; he did a very low-key version of same spiel (sans yelling–that was my schtick).

We had our fun, and decided to keep watching the channel to see if our childish actions had any on-air effect. Lo and behold, about 10 minutes after the last of our calls, the show host mentioned, “By the way, folks, today is Earth Day”, and then abruptly switched from the fur display to something else. We laughed our asses off! It looked like we had stuck it to the man!

Normally I’d let this recollection stand as is. But doing so seems to confuse some people. Therefore, I feel compelled to include something in the way of context and clarification. (I doubt the offended Home Shopping drones will even read this far down, but at least I’ve got it down for the record, and won’t have to bother with further response.)

It seems to be eluding some that the episode above happened in 1990. When I was 18 years old, btw — so the “childish” insult doesn’t faze me, as I practically was still a child at that point. Also, whatever call-center procedures that are in place now most likely weren’t in effect back then. So don’t bother citing current SOP because it probably doesn’t apply.

Secondly, I never state that the operators somehow relayed those crank calls to the broadcast booth. However, you can bet those calls were being monitored from a higher source, and from there filtered to what was going on on-screen.

Lastly: Whether or not my imagined cause-and-effect really happened, the sequence is where the humor is. It still makes for a funny story, which is why I look forward to recycling it yet again next year.

Like everyone else, I had always thought that Jack Handey — of “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey” fame — was nothing more than another “Saturday Night Live” character. Moreover, I’m not sure I ever distinguished between Phil Hartman’s opening intro and the following voiceover, so I guess I assumed that the whole skit was a Hartman comedy piece.

Turns out that he’s all too real, despite himself:

Handey, 59, lives in Santa Fe, N.M., with his wife, Marta, who is also his editor. But that is a much too specific existence for many to accept. For years, some fans assumed he was only a character, a disembodied voice that soothingly read “Deep Thoughts” in the guise of the implausibly named “Jack Handey.”

Handey, though, hasn’t exactly discouraged this perception. In one of his “Martians” pieces — “How I Want to Be Remembered” — he eulogizes himself: “Jack was an expert in so many fields, it’s hard to say what he was best at: the arts, the sciences, or the businesses.”

“SNL” is generally reluctant to use a writer’s name, preferring to keep the focus on the performers. Handey, though, eventually won the honor, thanks to the strength of his work on penning such sketches as “Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer.”

“The irony is that people think Jack Handey is a made-up name,” says Handey. “You can’t win is the lesson.”

I think all of comedy teaches you that lesson, actually.

Casual gaming does, indeed, come more casually than what’s found in online gamelet “You Have To Burn The Rope”.

But most such time-wasters probably don’t reward you with such a cool down-tempo song of gratitude for beating the game (nor reward you so quickly, assuming your brain doesn’t short out). “What will you do with the rest of your day” — isn’t that the ultimate question?

Keep your ultra-complex MMOGs. My affection for oldschool videogames draws me to YHTBTR like, well, a rope to a flame. And if I ever get confused, I can always refer to the manual.

What can be gained from reading Mary Roach’s “Bonk: The Curious Couple of Science and Sex”, an irreverent look at the study of sexuality?

If nothing else, you’ll learn that Egyptian lab rats clothed in polyester pants have sex less often than those wearing cotton or wool slacks.

I have a feeling that, for untold thousands of readers, that single fact is the deciding factor for whether or not to pick up this book.

There’s much anxiety being generated over the finer points of New York’s plan to charge car drivers a traffic-reducing fee to drive into Manhattan during the daytime. Now that it looks like even the bridges and tunnels will be subject to some toll amount, this comment from a Daily News reader seems even funnier than face value:

Be careful! The terrorists have plenty of money, and soon may be the only ones rich enough to enter N.Y. city.

Time for Homeland Security to check on whether or not al Qaeda is setting up an E-ZPass slush fund.

Domestic animal issue: Is calling a female cat a “bitch” an even graver insult than usual for that slur-word?

Y’know, because of the whole dogs versus cats thing? Which I learned about via old Tom & Jerry cartoons? I’d think it would accentuate the formal definition of a female dog, and therefore amount to interspecies fightin’ words.

Assuming a cat would even care…

With Google’s new Gmail Custom Time feature, you’ll never again lose out in a first-through-the-inbox race for giveaways:

“I just got two tickets to Radiohead by being the ‘first’ to respond to a co-worker’s ‘first-come, first-serve’ email. Someone else had already won them, but I told everyone to check their inboxes again. Everyone sort of knows I used Custom Time on this one, but I’m denying it.”

- Robby S., Paralegal

Just be sure to read the fine print before backdating your e-missives, on this fine April day.

Dane Cook likes to call it a relationshit. (That must be why he’s so “edgy”.)

Me, I think a better description of a relationship gone sour is… a relationshipwreck.

True, it takes the effort of mouthing an extra syllable, but I think it’s worth it to get the point across.

Apologies to all my Canadian friends as I roll the “Back in Old Canada” song/skit from “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ episode experiment “The Final Sacrifice”:

Tom Servo’s tearful “pardonne-moi” refrains at the very end never fail to elicit a chuckle from me.

In loving memory of that Canadian non par excellence, Zap Rowsdower.

Perhaps as a nod to its allure among the greasier segments of American male society, Vegas.com is running a “Welcome, Douchebags!!” travel promotion, complete with $25 discount when entering code DOUCHEBAG at checkout. And for extra good measure, they’ve staked out MySpace territory for this campaign.

Want to take advantage of those savings for your next stint in Sin City, but unsure as to whether or not you properly qualify? No sweat — just take the provided Vegas Douchebag Quiz:

- Do you know where to get the best spray-on tan?
- Do you like to show off your nipple ring in public?
- Do you know the difference between beer and malt liquor?
- Do you wear your chain inside or outside your shirt?
- Do you own more than 5 different trucker hats?

Thankfully, I’m not even close to a “fo sho” on any of those questions. Never hurts to do a personal inventory, though.

Even more than the unconventional approach, I’m surprised that Vegas.com didn’t engage Hot Chicks with Douchebags — which is of course the douchebaggiest blog on the Internet — as a partner in this marketing effort. Missed opportunity all around.

In the wake of a fresh round of high-profile literary memoir forgeries, in the form of Margaret Seltzer and Misha Defonseca, there comes an earth-shattering revelation out of the world of fiction: Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, that classical metaphorical study on modern alienation, has been scandalously discovered to be a true story.

“I’ve been teaching ‘The Metamorphosis’ for years, said a professor of literature at Princeton, who insisted that he be identified as P. “I’ve called it one of the most sublime pieces of literature ever written. Elias Canetti called it ‘one of the few great and perfect poetic works written during this century.’ To find out that it’s actually true is devastating.”

The actual condition of Kafka’s neighbor, a Prague salesman who didn’t return our calls or e-mail messages requesting comment, is known as entomological dysplasia, and is somewhat rare. It results in the development over time of a hard carapace, a segmented body and antennas.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Kafka was contrite and tearful. “I know what I did was wrong,” he said. “I’m very alienated from myself, but that’s no excuse to lie. I took someone’s life and selfishly turned it into an enigmatic literary parable.”

There’s nothing left to believe in. Das Nichts.

What would Garfield be like if that fat orange cat were expunged from the record?

It’d go something like this:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

If anything, this highlights the out-of-context dark comedy that the set-up guy lives in. Without the conventional punchlines, you’re just a guy without a cat.

Police dogs in Germany will soon be stylin’ some serious footwear. Duesseldorf is outfitting its canine crime-fighters with blue plastic-fiber shoes for protection:

“All 20 of our police dogs — German and Belgian shepherds — are currently being trained to walk in these shoes,” Andre Hartwich said. “I’m not sure they like it, but they’ll have to get used to it.”

The unusual footwear is not a fashion statement, Hartwich said, but rather a necessity due to the high rate of paw injuries on duty. Especially in the city’s historical old town — famous for both its pubs and drunken revelers — the dogs often step into broken beer bottles.

Hmm. Wasn’t Hitler a dog lover? Just sayin’.