ModernSophist.com » The Comedies

The…what?

Thomas Wood — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 18:39:42 +0000

“The”…what? Go on. What are you?

Come on. This is killing me. What are you selling, store?

Cable Cars?

No, that would be ridiculous. Who would want a cable car? Stupid tourists, that’s who. But then, how are they going to carry it home, store? Huh? Tell me how the tourist is going to take the cable car home with them! You make no sense!

Of course, you kind of look like a diner.

But what’s a diner doing next to an acupuncturist, or in Chinatown for that matter?

Nobody likes needles, store. Don’t you know that? And, especially, nobody likes needles in or around their food.

So what are you selling, store? Because it’s not cable cars and it’s not near-needle diner food.

Is it signs? I’ll bet that’s it you mean, stupid, confusing store. You’re selling signs, aren’t you? Because, what? Irony? Is that it? You think it’s all ironic to have a fill-in-the-blank because you make signs and, like, your sign is incomplete.

Indeed, store.

Well done, store.

Fuckin’ got me there, didn’t you, store.

But I’m not buying it. Whatever it is that you’re pushing. Even this bullshit about trading in signs for cable-car converted diners. It’s a joke, store, and I’m not buying it. Not one bit.

TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE!!!

Chuck Sheen Facts

Thomas Wood — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:32:16 +0000

Chuck Sheen doesn’t binge, he destroys temptation.

In trying to move forward from the last decade to this, it seems pop culture is demanding a new living legend to idolize and uplift beyond the scope of any mere mortal. I nominate Chuck Sheen.

Chuck will proceed as only a Chuck can: He will be revered in miniature internet parables.

Gone are the days of Chuck Norris. He gained notoriety for the roundhouse kick and for always finding a way to punch a man, despite the odds. In memoriam, I offer my favorite, most profound of the infamous Chuck Norris maxims: ”When swimming, Chuck Norris doesn’t get wet: the water gets Chuck Norris.”

And now, let us herald in the newest generation of legendary one-liners. Let there be Sheen:

Chuck Sheen actually hates cocaine but is a tremendous supporter of the impoverished children of Ear Nose and Throat specialists all around the world.
Two and a Half Men was originally titled One Sheen a Pussy and Some Snot Nosed Brat.
Instead of a blood test, porn-stars have the option of getting tested for HIV by sleeping with Chuck Sheen and then watching to see if he laughs it off.
When Chuck Sheen said that the only drug he was on was pure Sheen, he meant cocaine, which was renamed Sheen back in 97′ after he bought a majority stake in the brand.
Unlike all of us, Chuck Sheen puts his pants on two legs at a time.
The square root of -1 is not imaginary to Chuck Sheen; he hangs out with that guy all the time.
Before Justin Bieber makes any changes to his hair, he must consult a magic eight-ball which is filled with the tears of Chuck Sheen.
Just before being told to “Shut Yo Mouth!” the guy who was just talking about Shaft was actually going to say, “One bad motha Chucka.”
Chuck Sheen ate his cake yesterday and yet still has it.

I would like to see about a thousand more of these #chucksheen facts.

Porn for Philanthropy

Thomas Wood — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:36:40 +0000

I have this idea that pornography should be more philanthropic. Here’s the premise: There’s a lot of us looking at a lot of pornography. We are, for whatever reasons, ignoring all issues of morality, seeking it out. Why not, then, tether that pornography with something philanthropic?

The idea came to me from some simple data. I get more hits on my site from the few posts where I have images of breasts (or even the word ‘breast’) than all the rest of my writing, combined. This suggested an interesting experiment. Why not, in addition to the semi-intelligent writing, also feature random nudie shots. Such shots could then link back to the writing. Everbody wins (everybody meaning me).

It’s not a novel idea; folks have been luring customers in with a pretty face, etc, forever, but I haven’t seen it done much on the internet.

In the broadest sense, this is a challenge: porn for philanthropy. I want to see pornhub.com, etc, feature a cause on its website. I want users to finish watching a video of MILFs doing something unspeakable with not only a sense of satisfaction but also an inspired understanding of the plight of budget cuts on our local elementary schools.

Perhaps, selfishly, I should lead the way. I should create my own ridiculous, small time porn enterprise. Any volunteers? Who wants to be the first guy or girl in Modern Sexy?

"I like boys, girls, and supporting the Boys and Girls Club of America."

"Not all Asians are great at math. Donate to the Children's Scholarship Fund."

"These two are fucked, but the budget of NPR doesn't have to be. Contact your congressman to support the funding of public broadcast."

The Alternate Dimensions of Sex.com

Thomas Wood — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 22:30:28 +0000

ICANN, the body in charge of internet domains, is going to create a whole bunch of new suffixes. So, instead of a .com or .net, you might have any number of iterations of the same name.

This may lead to some confusion:

Me: ”So I was ‘perusing’ this creepy nudie website. You’ve got to check this place out.”

You: ”Sex.com? Yeah, seen it. It’s kinda past it’s prime. I mean, there’s better.”

Me: ”No, not sex.com. It’s this crazy, new one where-”

You: ”Sex.co?”

Me: ”What? No. No, it’s this new and, frankly, kinda filthy-

You: ”Sex.me?

Me: No, not Sex…Wait, isn’t Sex.me the one from Muldova?”

You: ”Is it? I never heard that.”‘

Me: ”No matter, anyway, they have these girls, right, barely out of there teens, who-”

You: “Montenegro.”

Me: ”…”

You: ”You’re thinking of Montenegro. Sex.me, this filthy site you’re talking about, that’s from Montenegro, not Moldova. Muldova is “.md.” Where all the doctors come from.”

Me: ”…”

You: ”Yeah, that’s totally just the country code from Muldova, dude. I think sex.md is probably some Muldovan medical site or something. Maybe worth checking out though.”

Me: ”I’m not talking about Sex.me! I’m trying to tell you about these filthy…Huh, wait, where is Muldova?”

You: ”It’s next to Romania.”

Me: ”Huh, maybe we should try Sex.md. It sounds like it could be hot, right? I mean, you’d totally have to date a Muldovan girl, just from the sound of it.”

You: ”Exactly, I’m thinking full of guilt and tradition, right?”

Me: ”I don’t know, probably.”

You: ”…and the way I picture it, every muldovan girl must first learn to master the spear before she may pass the age of ascension. Which is way hot.”

Me: ”What’s with you and the age of ascension?”

You: ”I think rituals are important. Especially for a young, innocent Moldovan girl who is just learning her way in the world.”

Me: ”Jesus, you’re such a complete creep.”

You: ”Fine, fine, so tell me about this filthy website already. What was it called?”

Goat Solves AIDS

Thomas Wood — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:52:11 +0000

There aren’t enough problems in the world that can be solved by giving someone a goat.

I mean, camon’, imagine if, “hmm, better just buy a ton of goats,” was the answer to some of the more widely publisized world dilemmas.

How would goats solve these problems?

Breast Cancer? Goat will fix it. Because goats love breasts, and are terrified of tumors, which killed their cousin on a ski trip in Tahoe.
AIDS: Goats totally solve AIDS. It’s like “Yahtzee” to them. They’re bored with it and figured it out when they were, like, ten years old.
Nuclear Proliferation? Every time a nuclear bomb is made a goat somewhere sheds a single tear. All the other goats feel this tear and are outraged. Goat strikes ensue, and when goats strike, politicians listen.
World hunger? No brainer. Goats are terrific goddam farmers. They eat weeds and poop barley. Nobody doesn’t like barley.
Haiti? Under goat rule, Haiti would become like the great Atlantis of yore. In ten years time, Haitians all over the world would be gifting their benevolent presence at various conferences, gently chiding all the rest of the world to switch from petroleum based energy to puppy-farts, and from the internet to the inter-shore, where information passes like tourists on a cruise, spam is made of actual spam, and porn is served discreetly in a banana flavored cocktail.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering about how goats can actually help the world, in a charitable sense, that is, check out the video that got me to thinking about it in the first place from Heifer.org. I thought it ridiculous sounding at first – hence this post – but the idea actually seems really sound to me.

The History and Future of Friendship

Thomas Wood — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:25:25 +0000

In the beginning, nobody had more than two friends. Indeed, having even three friends was considered terribly unwise; the logic being that, though one could keep an eye on two people quite easily during a gazelle hunt, one was never too sure where the devil that third fellow had gone.

More often than not, due to these early days of chronic hunger and an unrepentant need for survival, that third fellow had actually snuck up behind you with something of a large boulder, intent on restoring the balance of friendship, as well as helping himself to your portion of the gazelle.

As society matured, so did its friendships. With the advent of letter writing it even became possible to maintain many friendships over great distances, thereby describing and sharing all the robust titillation of civilized city life.

This too, however, had its disadvantages, as many gentleman begin to suffer from a debilitating need to constantly resupply on costly paper and ink. Fearing the loss of their fortunes, men would be forced to challenge one another in great duels which would be resolved when one man had successfully killed another or either of them agreed to move to the country, a life which boasted such a vast emptiness of inactivity as to only require a mere three correspondences a year. (Woman, it should be noted, were not allowed friendships at this time, as it seemed immoral to subject them to the inevitable shootings.)

In modern times, we invented the Friendster, which beget the Myspace, which beget the Facebook, which beget the Twitter, all of which allowed us to represent ourselves online as more than mere screen-names. Truly, now, these are the friendships God had intended for us: instantaneous, efficient, and prolific. Through the online medium, finally, one could amass a record of friends, enemies, and acquaintances not known since the days of Charlemagne. (Charlemagne had hella followers.)

But even such bliss of endless contact could leave one wanting, as people began to feel the chaffing of one-too-many-friends. And everyone wanted something, wanted to show you something. And friendship became that shitty little brother of that poor kid you know who wouldn’t leave you alone. ”Always with the goddam show and tell, this kid!” And nobody was beaten for it, and not a booger was rubbed in its face. And so on it went, friendship chiding friendship.

Still, the draw to collect followers, the need to be heard, to be validated, eventually won out over any concerns of friendship irrelevancy. Soon, “friendship” became synonymous with “followers,” and “followers” with, “customers.” Gone were the days of true interaction. Friendship was now about market efficiency, about getting the word out. What was left was a system of “friendship” more akin to a million assholes all shouting in a stadium where no particular event was scheduled than any kind of rational networking.

Eventually, friendship gave way entirely, distilled, reduced, and decomposed down to a basic cry of narcissism. In this world, #grmmr gave way to the almighty #hash. Gone are the days where a new sentence is preceded by the polite double-space. And as the notion of politeness, of social lubrication gave way, meaningful interaction begin to subside. The consistency of friendship began to gum up, to coagulate, to congeal.

Friendship, then, is now less a fluid, responsive, and evolving medium, than a sort of self-perpetuating biomass of #lookatme.

This system will find itself in rise and decline, on and on, eventually burried under the ages, where it will sit, a mass of useless, semi-productive spit-up, until it compounds and contracts, and is drilled out, perhaps many millennia in the future, and refined, and distributed, where it will then fuel the engines of future friendships.

“Stop Looking At My Tits (photos)”

Thomas Wood — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:55:08 +0000

“Um, hello, asshole, I’m up here!” That’s right, I’m more than just a great set of tits: I have thoughts and feelings and wisdom too.

Because, so far, I’m getting more attention for the one set of tit photos I happened to post than pretty much all of my other writing/content combined. And they’re crap photos. They’re not even gratuitous or dirty or nothin’.

The whole bloody point of those tits was to elaborate on the context of Bay to Breakers. They were context tits, guys.

I only agreed to post them because the director said it was important for the scene. My agent said I’d be taken seriously.

Fucking men.

I mean, it’s not that I mind you staring at my breasts. I put them out there so, yeah, I get it, you’re going to feel okay about looking. But maybe take the time to consider some of my other features?

I have a really lovely voice. Seriously. And some truly charming stories. Hell, maybe you could load up one of the longer podcasts and just sort of have it play in the background.

And, you’ll come back, right?

I mean, you wont just have at it for a few minutes and then never call back to the site again, right?

Pigs.

And so this website has come full circle. It started with a satirical piece about how boys never really mature and all we really want is to glance at a woman’s chest, and now it seems this site has become that proverbial chest.

So, fine, I submit. I shall say nothing more of interest in this post. You want it boys? Come and get it:

Stolen in good faith from Tittaycitay.com

Nerd Party

Thomas Wood — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:02:22 +0000

Whilst unwrapping a massive, new monitor for their office.

“Dude, you want to get high? Like, no, seriously, really, really high?”

“Fuck off, man! That shit is dangerous. And you start this shit up every time we buy some new hardware. I’m sick of it. When are you going to start getting serious about this startup. I mean, Jesus, Paul, we can’t be getting high every goddam time we upgrade our monitors or switch out our servers.”

“Whatever, Patrick. All I’m saying is, there aren’t a lot of opportunities like this, you know? It’s not like this product is getting passed around in some alley in the Tenderloin.”

“Alright, yeah, fine, it’s not like we’ve got a webinar later or anything. Okay, pass me the plastic wrap. You want firstsies this time or you want to hold the bag over me?”

“You go, buddy. It was your idea to include the baby last time and that was pretty super sweet. An original move like that deserves the first taste.”

“Thanks, yeah, I thought that baby might do the trick. Poor little bastard. You ever seen a baby so high; I mean in all you life?”

“Ready?”

“Yeah…”

“I love you, Patrick.”

Diagnosis “Featuring Snoop Dogg”

Thomas Wood — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:21:59 +0000

In the future, the phrase, “featuring Snoop Dogg,” will be a common amendment to any medical condition with symptoms of heavy chills.

“It appears you may be suffering from Whooping Cough featuring Snoop Dogg,” your doctor will inform you.

It will take years for such a diagnosis to be refined. At first, doctors will be perplexed by by how subtle the onset of the chills is.

“Have you experienced any poppin, stoppin, or hoppin like a rabbit?” your physician will inquire.

Patients will claim feelings of being brain boggled as they slowly start to wobble.

The diagnosis will further be confused by public misconceptions garnered by the sick lyrics of his final number-one single, “Ahh Choo, Niggaz.” This track will feature The Gza, which will eventually be a euphemism for Gonorrhea.

SF Sketchfest: The Cost of Comedy

Thomas Wood — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:00:06 +0000

It turns out that cheap jokes aren’t cheap (pardon while I gag on my powers of wit with that one-liner). And as much as I’m looking forward to the upcoming SF Sketchfest in January, I’m a cheap bastard, and I’ve got to start looking at the costs.

I added it up. More or less (“I was told there would be no math.”), the sum for the entire SF Sketchfest comes to $2225. That’s for just me, every show, excluding my expected bar tab (also $2225). Now, I know one isn’t expected to see every last show, every last comic. But what’s the point of a festival if you aren’t seeing a shit load?

Festivals are about getting too much. It’s about paying once so that you can gorge yourself on whatever the theme is (music, comics, renaissance, whatever your poison is).

Even seeing a buddy of mine, who will no doubt give some of his better friends his free passes, will cost me $15. Fifteen bucks is nothing, but by the time his group does their night I’ll already be in the hole $455.

It seems like they’re selling me jokes at retail with prices like these, but I’m going to the SF Sketchfest for bulk prices. Like so many crates of Top Ramen from Costco, I want to be able to count on a substantially lower per-unit cost and inevitable hypertension from the sodium intake.

Or maybe I really am supposed to just pick a few of my favorites. Fine. Limit me. See if I give a shit. See if any of your up-and-coming, young comics get any kind of exposure by giving me the $20-for-some-guy-you’ve-never-heard-of-special.

Meanwhile, here’s who I am planning to see so far:

Cory Loykasek (of FunnyParty) – Jan 27th

Matt Braunger

Chris Hardwick

John DiMaggio

Tig Has Friends

ModernSophist.com » The Comedies

The…what?

Chuck Sheen Facts

Chuck Sheen actually hates cocaine but is a tremendous supporter of the impoverished children of Ear Nose and Throat specialists all around the world.

Two and a Half Men was originally titled One Sheen a Pussy and Some Snot Nosed Brat.

Instead of a blood test, porn-stars have the option of getting tested for HIV by sleeping with Chuck Sheen and then watching to see if he laughs it off.

When Chuck Sheen said that the only drug he was on was pure Sheen, he meant cocaine, which was renamed Sheen back in 97′ after he bought a majority stake in the brand.

Unlike all of us, Chuck Sheen puts his pants on two legs at a time.

The square root of -1 is not imaginary to Chuck Sheen; he hangs out with that guy all the time.

Before Justin Bieber makes any changes to his hair, he must consult a magic eight-ball which is filled with the tears of Chuck Sheen.

Just before being told to “Shut Yo Mouth!” the guy who was just talking about Shaft was actually going to say, “One bad motha Chucka.”

Chuck Sheen ate his cake yesterday and yet still has it.