20 Random Words (Obvious Filler)

Nothing riveting this week. I found an exercise in a comedy writing book aptly titled "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Comedy Writing" by James Mendrinos. Find 20 nouns in a magazine and write something funny about each. I started this a while ago and keep changing them. It ain't Letterman's Top 10, but there are twice as many and it's certainly fun to do. Hope you like 'em!

• membership - cliques you pay to join
• jeep - most reliable vehicle made by the government made unreliable by Chrysler. Four wheels, steel cage, rough ride, canvas doors and plastic windows - hasn't changed in 50 years. How do you f' that up?
• brakes - something we use to let other drivers know we don't like being tailgated - genius strategy, eh?
• drafting - something we do to let other drivers know they're not moving fast enough - come on!
• cell phone - I'm still amazed that's what we (Americans) call mobile phones - we didn't call the old one a trans-Atlantic-twisted-copper-wire-cable phone
• beaches - (1) what I call my posse of women; (2) favorite movie I watch with the girls
• dolphin - wish I could breathe through the top of my head; then it would be functional not to have hair there instead of just dead sexy
• holiday - another reason to bitch, binge, gorge, wallow in singlehood and make fun of those who do celebrate (especially those in festive attire)
• season - I love the change of seasons - that's what people who still have to suffer through winter say
• flurry - looks like the real stuff but doesn't stick to the roads, yet still causes the same panic
• stress - (1) a condition caused by work, family, friends, money or whenever your daughter says "Daddy, I need tell you something..."; (2) a condition experienced by the seams of anything worn by William Shatner
• commute - fancy word for schlep
• consumer - fancy word for glutton
• market - fancy word for bidness
• continental breakfast - really fancy term for free stale bagels and coffee that's turned to molasses by the time you get your lazy ass out of bed
• HBO - high-brow soft porn (they call them documentaries)
• Cinemax - low-brow soft porn (no pretending in the genre or titles, just in the actual sexual contact); the correct answer on the SATs would be: National Geographic is to Playboy as HBO is to Cinemax
• wrangler - one step up in jeans from dungarees (AKA my old Sears toughskins)
• SUV - vehicle for soccer moms who are too cool for minivans - here's a little secret: it's still a minivan and you're still not cool, just more dangerous with that weapon of mass demolition you're driving while popping your own meth cocktail to keep up with the Joneses
• fuel economy - when I was a kid, cars got 12 miles to the gallon. When gasoline finally broke $1 per gallon (during the first gas crisis), the country went to Hell. We swore never again! Today gas is over $3 per gallon and SUVs get…never mind

Death To Air Quotes

“Air Quotation Marks”

I don’t know who started them, but they won’t go away. Overuse of air quotes is rampant. If they were used when actually quoting someone, it wouldn’t be so bad. But normally they’re used for emphasis. He really [air quotes here] “pissed” me off. What the hell are you quoting pissed for? It’s not a quotation. It certainly isn’t original. It’s not a buzz word or catch phrase. You’re attempting to emphasize a word with sign language. And you’re using the wrong punctuation. It should be italics, or bolding or underlining. Maybe even an ellipsis. But it’s not quotes. So how can you perform proper punctuation visually? Well, you could slant your body to the side every time you speak a word with emphasis for italics. For bolding, puff your cheeks like a blowfish. For underlining, you could drop flat on the ground for titles of books or movies. If that's too physical, carry a stick and place it under your chin every time you underline.

And here’s the anal side of me. If you are going to quote, it’s one quotation mark before the word or phrase (curving counter-clockwise) and another (curving clockwise) at the end. It isn’t a quote during the word, hit upon each syllable. If you’re going to attempt punctuation while speaking, I’d recommend Victor Borge’s phonetic punctuation method, made famous on Sesame Street ® - http://www.kor.dk/borge/.