Ha ha ha! Comedy Eric Schneider, Comedian

Well the Super Bowl is over, the New Orleans Saints won, the devastation from Katrina can finally be put behind us, and the best part is I won’t have to hear about Fantasy Football for at least 7 months. Once again, the world seems balanced.

I didn’t get to watch the game as I was being a good little worker bee and finishing up a freelance web design project. I’m pretty excited, because it’s my very first legitimate client that’s paying me with money, not food. So, pat pat on the back for yours truly.

When I was done being a responsible grown-up, I popped over to hulu to see if there were any new shows in my queue. It was empty, but they did have all the Super Bowl ads posted. Although as a general rule I hate advertising, like many other Americans, I look forward to watching the Super Bowl ads. It’s the one time during the year where advertisers deviate a little from the norm and show off their creativity.

This year’s submissions were nothing to write home about, although I did like the Google ad and the CareerBuilder Casual Friday ad. What struck me as both strange and frustratingly annoying was the fact that the ads had ads. The page itself had the Coke logo on it, and before every other clip or so, I had to hear “The following clip is brought to you by Coca-Cola. Open happiness.”

I was planning on making this post a giant rant about advertising, but I just don’t have it in me tonight. I’m just mad because if you’re going to voluntarily subject yourself to 61 commercials, it should be without commercial interruption. Except for the commercials. You know what I mean!

By the way, part of the commercial marathon was a 13 minute short film called “Hotel Hell Vacation” with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo, resurrecting their roles as Clark and Ellen Griswold. They stay at a hotel, get a really small room, receive bad service, and then are charged lots of crazy fees when they check out. That’s about it. I’m not even sure exactly what it was supposed to be about, or if there was a sponsor somewhere in the film. All I know is it sucked huge sack.

The street I live on is commonly known for its prostitution activity. I have my own personal homeless guy security guard who sleeps near my car at night. I can’t go to the Circle K without someone begging me for money. On several occasions I’ve had to wait in my car for a drug deal to finish, and the participants to move out, before I could get get out and go to my apartment. The apartment complex itself is flanked by a used tire yard on one side and a vacant lot on the other. The area’s residents are predominantly those of a higher melanin content variety, and are described by Zillow.com as low-income and foreign-language-speaking urbanites; most with a high school education or lower.

Okay, I live in a shitty neighborhood. I get it. But does that mean all the grocery stores in the neighborhood have to be shitty too? Do the grungy, low-life inhabitants of our tiny little patch of Phoenix not deserve fresh produce, properly stocked shelves, or dry goods that have yet to expire? Must we be forced to first walk through cigarette-smoking store employees gathered out front before entering the store? Can a brother get a gallon of milk without dirty fingerprints all over the jug? And what the hell is that weird smell in Food City?

I’ve always wondered about the relationship between economic class and the quality of goods and services in their respective communities. Do you naturally get a substandard shopping experience in a low income neighborhood because the quality of the employees and managers isn’t up to par? Or do the people of a poor community just ruin everything no matter how nice you try to make it for them? Even if the latter were the case, that doesn’t explain why all the fruits and vegetables at my local Sprouts are consistently bruised, rotten, damaged, and discolored while the produce at the one in Paradise Valley looks like it could be used for print advertising. It’s seriously like night and day.

I think, at a corporate level, the stores set aside the B-grade products for the poor people. This may sound cynical, but I might go as far as to say that they transfer the “unpicked” produce nearing the end of its shelf life from the nicer stores to the crappy ones. Either way you look at it, in my mind, that’s discrimination! Why should my bell peppers be wrinkled and soft while others enjoy firm, unblemished ones? Why should my cilantro be limp and brown, while someone only 10 miles away gets to have lush green cilantro that snaps when you bend it? Why?!?! WHY?!?!?

Although in a way, it feels good to finally be part of an oppressed group, I believe this is an injustice that has gone ignored for way too long. I’m going to boycott!!! I’m going to plant my own fruits and vegetables in the vacant lot next to the homeless guy! I’m going to open my own Farmer’s Market! I’m going to use my own waste to fertilize my crops (and maybe to throw at my neighbors for disturbing me at night with their domestic violence!) And then we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we’re going to California and Texas and New York! And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we’re going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeeeeeeeeeeah!!!

Who’s with me?!?!?

It’s been a little over a week since I’ve been without my cat. I’d be lying if I said I’ve been coping well, but I imagine it’s all a part of the grieving process. I never realized how much impact my cat had on my life; not just emotionally, but physically as well.

I have to keep reminding myself that I don’t have a cat anymore because I still unconsciously move around my apartment as if there were an invisible cat weaving between my feet. When I wake up, I look to see where she’s curled up so I don’t kick her when I swing my feet out of bed. I leave the bathroom door open just a tad so she doesn’t start meowing while I’m in the shower. I open cans of beans very quietly so she can’t hear (I think it’s mean to make her think I’m opening up tuna.) Every time I open a cabinet door, I expect her to run inside. When I leave the apartment, I open the door barely wide enough for me to fit though so she doesn’t sneak out. I look expectantly for her behind the door when I come home. I make sure not to throw my jacket on the bed so she doesn’t cover it with hair. When I first sit down at my desk I lean to one side to give her room to jump up on the chair. When I go to bed, I get into my sleeping position quickly because I only have about 5 seconds before she jumps up on the bed to find her spot.

Now, those five seconds pass, and then there’s nothing. It’s an incredibly lonely feeling.

I put my Kitty to sleep today. She had a terminal kidney infection and was in a lot of pain. She spent the last half hour of her life purring in my arms.

My cat was my best friend. I love her and I will miss her.

This week’s video features a very energetic Asian man dancing. The original title of this video, as it is posted on YouTube, is “Sexy Fail – Fat Dancing Guy: WARNING: Very Disturbing”. But I don’t like that title. I’m pretty sure he’s not trying to be sexy, so FAIL on the usage of “fail”.

The other thing that bothers me is the perception that this guy is fat. He clearly doesn’t have 8% body fat, but he’s far from being blubber. In fact, he looks pretty solid and healthy to me. The kind of guy I’d like to rub sesame oil all over and… oh.. nevermind.

The point is, here’s a guy who is enjoying himself and  just being silly and for some reason he gets undeservedly branded as fat and unattractive. Mr. Dancing Asian Man, I support you, and I appreciate you for who you are.

So without further ado, I give you Happy Dancing Energetic Asian Man:

If you can’t get enough of Rachael Ray’s goofy faces, pointless anecdotes, and irritating olive oil abbreviations, then you’re gonna love this special condensed episode of 30 Minute Meals. “Rachael” shows you how to put a unique spin on a tasty classic to make a savory snack that’s sure to be a hit with the kids!

Enjoy!

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Prisenwhat?

I’m sure I’m a few years late to the party, but I just stumbled upon this video of Italian entertainer, Adriano Celetano performing a song called “Prisencolinensinainciusol”. The words are complete gibberish and mean nothing, but are meant to sound like what English sounds like to non-English speakers.

The song itself is quite the head bopper and toe tapper. The beat, the rap-like styled verses, and the dance routines offer no clue that the two video recordings that were combined to make this video were made in the early 70’s; long before Kanye West.

Enjoy!

Sorry I missed a week posting the “Video of the Week,” but since no one really reads my blog, I’m not too broken up about it. This week I’m showcasing the late, great George Carlin in one of his best comedy performances of all time, “Jammin’ in New York.”

This HBO special aired in 1992, the year I graduated from High School, and believe me when I say, my freshman year of college, I watched this nearly 100 times. George knocks it out of the park with classic routines about the War in the Gulf, Universal Similarities, The Airlines, and The Environment. Enjoy!

Tonight, at sundown, is the official start of the Hanukkah Season. Please join Hanukcat (pictured to the right) as we light the menorah, and take a look back at the origins of this very special time of year.

Hanukkah is an 8 day Jewish holiday celebrating the exorbitant amount of wealth Jewish people make off of the Christian shopping frenzy known as Christmas.

Jews created Christmas nearly 2000 years ago to commemorate the execution of Jesus Christ for impersonating the Messiah. The holiday was originally called “Christ-miss” because it was customary for Jews to sarcastically declare how much they were “really going to miss him.”

To retaliate against the Jews, Christ’s followers claimed that the Jews never actually killed Jesus, and that Jesus got the last laugh by secretly resurrecting himself. In an additional display of blatant defiance, Christians created two holidays: Easter to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, and Christmas to celebrate his birth. They even kept the holiday’s name, but replaced “miss” with the Caribbean word for carnival, “mas”; or literally “Carnival for Christ”.

Stealing the Jewish holiday and converting it into two Christian holidays angered the Jews to no end, so the Jewish Holiday Commission voted unanimously to create a new holiday to compete with the growing Christian influence. They called this holiday, Hanukkah. Directly translated, Hanukkah means “Better than the Christians”. Hanukkah is 8 days long because 8 is more than 1, and it is a constant reminder that one Jewish holiday is better than two Christian holidays. Note: Although pro-christian scholars argue that there are actually 12 days of Christmas (making it, in fact, better than Hanukkah,) it is still officially recognized by the World Holiday Alliance as a one-day holiday.

It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that Jewish people stumbled upon the idea to commercialize Christmas for financial gain. At that time, Christmas was synonymous with selflessness, piety, and charity, however, Jews collectively rejected the notion of one day of good will to balance out 364 days of intolerance, violence, and incessant recruiting.

One Jewish shop owner, who was decidedly agitated by the Christians’ “holier than thou” attitude, convinced a man to sell his gold pocket watch in order to buy his wife a cheap hair brush. Not only did the shop owner turn around and resell the gold watch for 5 times more than he paid for it, later that day, he tricked the same man’s wife into cutting and selling her hair in order to buy a gold chain for her husband’s estranged watch.

Word of the Shopkeeper’s scheme spread throughout the Jewish community, and soon other business owners began to follow suit. Small firms called advertising agencies were established in order to promote consumption, excess, and the importance of buying expensive gifts in order to demonstrate and quantify how much one truly loved another. Thus was born, what we know today as, “the true meaning of Christmas”.

Today, Jewish people around the world still celebrate Hanukkah by hoarding the billions of dollars shoveled into their bank accounts each holiday season by willing, yet unknowing, Christians. Economists believe that by the year 2012 over 95% of the world’s assets will be controlled by Jewish interests as a direct result of superfluous Christmas spending.

During the Hanukkah festivities, Jewish adults give children gifts of chocolates which are fashioned to look like gold coins, as it is difficult for Jews to part with real money. Children use the chocolate coins as currency to play a traditional Jewish game in which players spin a four-sided wooden top called a dreidel. On each side of the dreidel are Hebrew symbols representing the current money lending rates based on the borrowers race or religion. Players take turns lending and collecting chocolate money at the designated rates until one player ends up with all the chocolate.

So ends the story of Hanukkah. I hope it was inspirational as well as informative and uplifting. I wish you all a happy and a healthy.

L’chaim!