Ninth Best Day Of My Life

Today has been an awesome day. Maybe ninth best in my life.

I woke up and brushed off terrible nightmares involving some sort of wall-eating machine that I got stuck in and was crunching my bones. It was a bad dream. I woke up - my arms and legs had not been severed which was really something. It was a good feeling.

I had cleaned my apartment the night before, so I didn't feel nasty getting out of bed or passing through / by the kitchen.

Then I checked my email and I've been asked by Comedy Central to perform on their live show at Crash Mansion this Monday.

The sent me that image and said I could use it to promote the show. I'm doing a show for Comedy Central!

I'm so excited. With The Onion and now Comedy Central, I'm really completing a lot of goals that I've had since I was seven or eight. I've never really been into anything but video games and comedy, and working and participating in both industries has been quite pleasant.

I went to work after that and Bill Hader grabbed me. We share the same favorite author - Neil Gaiman. Anyway, Bill and Neil Gaiman are now friends and Bill had opened for him during a reading tour. And Neil sent Bill a set of signed copies of his new book and Bill gave me one. Because we talk about Gaiman a lot.

This day has fucking rocked. Tonight I'm doing a show at Sound Fix with Anthony Jeselnik, who was a comedian I liked on Premium Blend long before I did comedy. There are also a lot of other great people on it as well.

Despite all the depression, all the self-hatred, all the idiotic moves and stupidity, you get a few good shining moments when it's all worth it. Today's been one of those days.

Onion Story On Front Page Of Reddit

Just saying. That's pretty neat when that happens.

Make That Two New Onion Articles

Oh snippety snap!

I've actually got two articles in The Onion coming up (I thought one was set for later).

Here is a political one.

Here is the pop culture one.

I'm so fucking happy right now.

New Article In The Onion

Hey guys,

My newest article is in The Onion coming up this week and online right at this very fucking moment. I swore!

Here it is.

It's pretty short! I cry a lot!

Why Aren't You Playing Mega Man 9?

Mega Man 9 is out downloadable for the Wii and PlayStation 3. If you're not playing it right now, I'm assuming you're waiting for the Xbox 360 release October 1st. That's okay, too.

It's beautiful the way Monica Belluci is beautiful in that it looks old but still somehow tugs at your heartstrings and makes you not care or whatever.

There are eight robot masters. One of them is a woman this time. This is 2008, and not all Dr. Wiley's goons are going to be men anymore. The Sarah Palin of videogame villains, Splash Woman, is now a real person in a very fictional universe. Why aren't you shooting her with your Mega Buster right now?

Google Images Isn't Helping Me On The Whole "SPLASH WOMAN" Thing.

Probably because this game is so old-school, that the Mega Buster is not included in this title. Straight plasma gun, for real, for good.

This game reminds me of a time in my childhood when I pretended I was a robot and that's why I was overweight because of all the gears and whatnot in me and I had to keep eating because my body converted food into oil which powered me, a robot. This is absolutely true! Ask me! I'm telling you!

Man! Nostalgia!

The game is also very difficult. It's more difficult than Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3, but less difficult than finding the right thing to say to my friends who I've known for years. It's a good kind of difficult. Like asking out a girl who won't date you, but you learn her patterns and traps and you know when to jump over her spikes so you can get to the stage boss. I'm in love with Splash Woman.

Why aren't you playing Mega Man 9 yet? Are you tired? Then taking a nap would help or some coffee. Are you stupid? Then get yourself an education and start playing that game. Are you dead on the inside? That's how I think of myself, too, and this is the only thing keeping the embers burning.

There's a lot I don't know about the universe and a lot that scares me, but why you aren't playing Mega Man 9 yet is not one of them because it's really no big deal. But it's still a very good game and I think you should play it.

Writers Room Tomorrow

I'm kind of a cliche wrapped in an enigma folded into a metaphor, I know. And that's why I think you coming to Writers Room @ The PIT would be pretty neat of you. I mean, please? Like - what the fuck do I have to do to get the word out there? You want me to beg you? Okay. I'm on my knees, right now, typing this. Please. Please come. Oh God I can't do this forever. I'm so afraid and I'm so alone in this random, godless universe that I just need the connection of comedy for five fucking minutes. What? You can't spare five minutes? Oh Jesus Oh Lord why didn't my father teach me what baseball was so I could play catch with him!

Great Show Tomorrow!

Writers Room @ THE PIT (29th st btwn 7th and 6th ave)
9:30 p.m. (right before The PIT open mic)
$5


Featuring:

Jamie Kilstein (BBC, New Album)
Greg Johnson (ECNY Award Winner)
Donald Glover (30 ROCK, Derrick, etc.)
Megan Ganz (The Onion)
Me

Hosted By

Jon Clarke (McSweeney's)

Welcome Back To The Stage Of History

I rented the fighting game Soul Calibur 4 a few days ago and I've been playing it as much as I can between working.

The game is quite good but the announcer is fantastic.

I don't know if English is the announcer's third language or if the voice director demanded he annunciate every word, pause, and then continue his sentence. But he takes the epic battles on the stage of history and turns them into an embarassed seventh-grader reading poems he's ashamed of writing.

Here's the best comparison:

Boston Comedy Festival, Etc.

Hey guys. Boston Comedy Festival was really fun, and I got to perform in a Hard Rock Cafe show room with smashed guitars from what I'm sure are very, very famous bands. It was neat and I met a lot of people who were very nice. They also serve a wonderful burger there that you should try which isn't quite as expensive as you'd think.

The Comic's Comic was nice enough to give me a pleasant write-up regarding my set.

Right now I'm very tired.

What It Is I Do At SNL

Some people have asked me what I do at SNL.

Here's what I do, in example form.

Watch this video, focusing on 0:45 in when he shoots lightning bolts from his hands.



Okay. The writers wanted the lightning to look like Emperor Palpatine's lightning. So I sat with the artist and explained exactly how the lightning should branch out rather than shoot in straight bolts.

That's what I do for a living.

Boston Comedy Festival Tonight

Stay a while, and listen!

The Boston Comedy Festival (at least, my participation in such) is tonight at the Hard Rock Cafe in Boston, Massachusetts. My set is at 9:00 p.m. So not only can you see me do Army Strong, but you can also look at a guitar once used by Van Halen. Does Eddie Van Halen use guitars? Guys, I don't know a lot of things - and that's one of them.
Is Van Halen's name even Eddie? Guys, wow, I just don't know.

Anyway. Boston Comedy Festival. Tonight. Let's do this thing.

My First Paid Week at SNL Is Done

I'm done with SNL for the week. I'm still tired. In fact, I skipped last night's parties because I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday and worked pretty hard until about 11:30 when the show started. Then I was offered beer by the Weekend Update guys for all the work that went in to it. In fact, any graphic you saw in Weekend Update, I had to help coordinate and assist in photo shoots, photoshops, and redos.

I'm exhausted.

This was a pretty good week, overall.

Now I need to get a haircut and get ready to go to the Boston Comedy Festival on Monday. And then back to work on Tuesday.

There's a possibility that, over the next few weeks, I'll burn myself out and have a massive psychological breakdown. But now I have a job. And now I'll be getting cheap insurance. And now I have a giant poster of Kenan Thompson hanging over my couch.

It's from the Charles Barkley Show sketch. I can keep things like that now.

My First Week at SNL

First Joke In The Onion

Click here to read my headline.

My name's not on it.

It's the one about the McCain ad.

Okay.

"New McCain Ad Fails To Mention McCain Running For President."

There's no story attached to it.

But I sold it. I'm getting paid.

By The Onion.

I'm getting paid for comedy by The Onion.

Ultimate Victory.

My Drunken Politics Radio Episode, Now on iTunes 4 Free

Hey, folks. If you want to hear me on Jamie Kilstein and Allison Kilkenny's Drunken Politics Radio, please download the full podcast here on iTunes.

I'm about 30 minutes in, after an interview with Vice-Presidential candidate Sara(h) (Benincasa) Palin.

Good times.

First Day Of Work And Comedy Inspiration List

Today's my first day of work at SNL. I'm rather nervous.

Last night I got in a show at Beauty Bar and had a really good time, which is nice, since I hadn't been on stage doing straight stand-up for over a week. I had performed in Minnesota, sure, but that was in-character, mostly in sketches.

To be fair, however, a few of the bits - I presented a few of my old propaganda posters - I did alone and have been thinking of transferring over to old regular, vanilla Mike.

Right now I'm contemplating hitting the gym before I have to go in and I'm transferring the 10-page list of my job responsibilities to my eBook so I always have them nearby.

Which reminds me - this eBook is useful in that I can store hundreds of books and documents on a really thin tablet in my bag. So I've decided to start a Word .doc of jokes, bits, and ideas that really inspire me comedically. Everything from friends bits ("a nice cake") to non-comedy subjects which I'd like to cover ("a nice cake").

All my graphic designer friends do something similar for visual ideas, so I figure a document of great jokes, subjects, the like should be good at firing the old noggin.

Probably should have done this a long time ago.

No Partisan Rancor

How I Spent My Minnesota State Fair Vacation

Oh, boy! During the Republican National Convention, I also went to the Minnesota State Fair! You should of been there, because then we could have made out behind the booth selling Jacuzzis. I would've started gentle and then ramped up into full-faced smooches, boy, I would.

My favorite part of the Minnesota State Fair was the butter sculpture competition. You see, every year, Minnesota awards a woman with the world's most backhanded title: "Butter Queen." This lady, often at the peak of her depression, gets her picture taken and butter sculptors interpret her face in creamy, rich butter.

Many of the sculptures this year were fantastic!

Wow!

Gosh!

They were all very good. But one stood out amongst the many! One Butter Sculpture was so good, it needed to be capitalized. And that was the sculpture from Wadena County!

Yes! Yes! Yes! USA! USA! USA! They stapled her headshot to a block of butter. BAM! That's American ingenuity! Woo! We win! Ignore the static and the noise, boys!

Of course, a trip to a state fair wouldn't be complete without some merchandise. And I think I found just the perfect gift for any lady at work:

"Coming Soon Have Patience God's Not Finished With Me Yet."

It's just the perfect shirt. Not creepy or weird. If I got it, I'd wear it today. And that's good because I'm naked!

How I Spent My Republican National Convention Protest

We're back (A Dinosaur's Story) from Minnesota and at home in our respective apartments in the pit of sin and damnation known as Nuu Yawk Citee. We had a pretty good time there, and I thought I'd share some photos with you from my trip.

First of all, we went to some pretty anarchic protests! Oh, boy! Nobody respected authority! You couldn't walk three feet without running into somebody who disregarded the rules. You also couldn't walk three feet in the other direction without being assaulted by a heavily-armed police officer. What a choice! What a town!

My personal favorite part of the protest were the cops I liked to dub, The Infinite Mailmen Of The Apocalypse:

So named because they looked like mailmen during the apocalypse and there were a lot. Infinite may be an exaggeration.

During our protesting, we also ran across the most curious of vehicles:

Which, really? Really Republicans? Can't we throw a dash of blue paint on it and make it seem like a reg'lar, old truck? You got to rub it in our faces? Sheesh! Look at these guys! Oh, brother

Things To Do Before I Get Back In New York

John Knefel and I are heading out of Minnesota today, so I'll likely be out of contact for a little while.

However, I didn't want to leave you without anything to do, so here are some things that have been keeping me amazed over the past few days:

Nikola Tesla almost made the world of tomorrow a long time ago.

The perfect photo to describe Sarah Palin's speech.

I try to get environmentalists to support my ebook purchase.

iTunes 8 Could Be The Greatest Invention Ever; Fuck Sliced Bread


I bought this card game because it's everything I stand for.

That's it. See you folks back in New York City, where big expensive people think they know a thing or two about the common folks, but they don't.

Live Blogging The Speeches

LiveBlogging Huckabee's Speech

8:30 – Huckabee's more charismatic than Voldemort.

8:35 – John McCain was in a war, apparently. He sacrificed the use of his upper-arm movement and that makes him a good president. Barack Obama? His arms go anywhere, all the way to Islamic fundamentalism.

8:42 – Huckabee's now talking about something like a teacher or someone he knew.

8:45 – Man, he's so comforting. I wish he wasn't a psychotic creationist and could read books on tape.

LiveBlogging Giuliani

Fuck you, Rudy Giuliani. The terrorists won because you helped found a sense of American self-satisfaction and infallibility which forced us into shitty, arrogant strategies with no actual planning.

Also, you're not Jay Leno. Stop playing the fucking audience like you've got an O.J. Simpson joke up your sleeve. How many times have you voted present or voted at all on the national level? None, you douche.

And, for the record, John McCain has missed a shit load more votes than Obama.

Wait... is Rudy starting his own USA chant?

Fuck you you fucking asshole. You were a mayor of New York. You mayored the flashiest fucking city in America, you smug asshole.

One final point: no one's done that. No one's asking if she has enough time to spend with her kids. You made that up you backwards sexist assclown.

Rudy's pro-segregation! Woo! Let Republicans choose where their kids go. Woo! God Bless America!

LiveBlogging Palin:

Levi looks so terrified. Sorry, buddy. That's what happens when your babymamma's mamma is pro-life, pro-abstinence.

She's accepted the nomination! OMFG! LOL! She's going to set so many fashions!

“The next order of business, Main St. needs a new traffic light.”

When John McCain said this thing I just made up, the media knew there was a time for politics, a time for fun, a time to kill.

With a son in the military, I want a leader like John McCain who was captured. I want my son to follow in his example and also get tortured.

I'm sorry, I got lost in her eyes for a minute.

She was in the PTA, and the mayor... and gee, now she's here. Gosh, I mean!

Daughter licked hand and petted the baby with down syndrome.

Claws are out now. She's done more than Obama.

I don't know what gay people think in San Francisco, but I know that John McCain won't stand for tolerance.

I'm not going to Washington to please the people! I'm going to Washington to do what I think people need. Like not being gay! Or getting an abortion! Or art projects! Or evolution!

I'm for whatever you guys want, really. Really. Would you guys please tell me what you want?

Let's drill for paradigm independence competition monopoly buster. Are those words good? Oh, good. I just learned them.

Does she know you can't produce oil? Like, make more oil? Like, it comes from the ground and isn't remakable with more drilling.

Government is too big. We need to shrink it. Except the military. Ooooo boy, Track needs someone to fight, so we need to keep that big.

Barack Obama wants to raise taxes for the top 3%. How's that going to help the hardworking white people send their kids to Yale?

McCain's not looking for a fight. I mean, one's going on and he's going to keep it going because he already found it. And it's there.

Obama not liking McCain makes him the man for the job! Obama also dislikes Hitler, Stalin, and Andy Dick! All three are wonderful candidates for president!

Cindy McCain just gave the best PTA speech of her life.

Upcoming Sarah Palin Scandals - 23/6

Uh-oh! Sarah Palin has a few more scandals up the sleeve of her shirt which she's wearing!

Lovely Morning And Show's Done

It's a brisk Minnesota morning. Quite a lovely one, at that. Because I'm from Florida, lower '70s and upper '60s remind me of Christmastime and vacation. So to wake up to this type of weather in September is nice, to say the least.

We finished our run of "Our 44th White Dude" last night. While the show wasn't as highly attended as we might of liked, we felt that it really killed. Which is great since we wrote and produced the majority of the show while we were driving up here. Still, both the live sketches and the videos did great, as did my presentation of my FISA and Conception posters.

It was a really good time and the Bryant Lake Bowl is a fun venue. You can watch a great comedy show, then go bowling.

I'll be driving back either later tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Then I've got to start working.

Saturday Night Live

I'm now employed by Saturday Night Live. I start work Monday.

Someone Told The St. Paul Police Department There Was A Zombie Outbreak

Oh, man. The St. Paul Police Department's face must be red after they confused RNC protesters with a ravenous zombie hoard to be taken down at any cost.

Why else would they be wearing gas masks and more body armor than the dude from Halo? As I marched with other protesters and I saw officers on balconies and vans pointing automatic weapons at us, I realized there had been a really big mix-up.

It's easy to understand: A large group of people moving at a slow pace repeating phrases they couldn't understand. Clearly zombies.

Viewing the apocalypse in progress, the police officers decided to valiantly protect their caches of guns, booze, and women by attacking the hungry lost souls. We tried to tell them that we were peacefully marching and not the undead.

But they couldn't hear us over the sound of how ready they were to kick our asses.

With every girl pepper-sprayed, they could rest a little easier knowing there was one less zombie to bite their white children, sleeping soundly in their American-made beds with Captain America sheets tucked in by women who knew a thing or two about meatloaf.

With every Amy Goodman arrested (there was only one), they felt one step closer to bringing mankind back to the top of the food chain. No bastards are going to make a meal out of me! Because a man eating a man sounds way too gay to be comfortable.

And with every bamboo rod to the head, the officers knew they had saved America's heartland from the scary people who looked different.

Oh, but the irony of what they were doing! Had they known we were only people, they would have taken off their helmets and removed their body armor and politely asked us to not interrupt traffic – and we would have had a protest which emphasized bringing people together more than property damage and arrest statistics.

We can only hope things are better tomorrow. Although Cold Snap is telling me the officers were told that all of Tuesday's protesters are the Mummy and can only be killed with fire.

Update:

Here's the difference.

Protesters:



Zombies: