Yes, I am trying to be funny.
Louis C.K. has his fingers in a lot of pies these days. The great auteur figure of 21st-century comedy maintains, in addition to a robust touring schedule as a stand-up comedian, a production company that shepherds his own television projects. These include straight-up documentaries, stand-up specials by himself and some …
Friends, colleagues, comrades: I have a confession. I like Chapo Trap House. Yes, that’s right: I am a big fan of one of the most popular podcasts in existence. I listen to it regularly; I talk about it with some of my friends; and I look forward to each new episode. …
Let us say, just for the sake of argumentation, that you find yourself on the editorial staff of a large national men’s fashion or entertainment magazine. This is nothing to be ashamed of; certainly, it is humiliating and embarrassing, but we all must make a living. Should you wake up …
It has come to my attention, after a careful review of American commerce and culture, that what this country truly needs right now is another overpriced sandwich shop. Please give me ten million dollars in venture capital to make this dream a reality. All profits from Piercenham’s Sandwich Shop, after …
Okay, thanks, Kerry — that’ll wrap up the checkins from the Calligraphy for Stalinists working group. Good job, everybody, and we’re all really looking forward to the “Merry Christmas from the Gulag” cards this year. Now, if there’s no other new business…yeah, Carl? Well, that’s really old business, Carl, and …
In these exciting times when the only thing Americans love more than billion-dollar superhero movie franchises is petty intra-party political sniping, I thought it might be time to return to a favorite obsession of mind: the ideological leanings of various comic book characters. This has been explored in-universe a bit …
Ladies and gentlemen, my constituents, citizens of my lovely home town of Fleenerville, voters, and Platinum V.I.P. Brunch Club Super-Tee level donors; my beloved wife Plovis, and my two wonderful sons Coho and Spelt, who flew in to support me tonight right after their Offal Studies final at Klumner State …
Showtime’s new dramedy series, I’m Dying Up Here, is definitely a product of its time. The question is, what time is that? Is it the early 1970s, when the series is set? Is it the mid-1980s, when any schmuck with a colorful shirt and a rap about bad drivers could get …
I’ve always been a little distrustful of the critical language of rejection when it comes to our current wave of ‘difficult men’. Sure, there’s no doubt that the last thing in the world we need is another story about misbehaving white males; it’s not like there’s a dearth of them. …
The podcast has risen from its humble beginnings, with primitive homo sapiens attempting to form a crude internet out of twigs and fire, to a dynamic multi-thousand-dollar business, with literally dozens of bored commuters tuning in on a daily basis to hear fascinating stories told in poor-quality audio in between ads …
See, here’s the thing: the Spider-Man cartoon theme was, well, amazing. No sane person could argue against that. But the Captain America and Hulk cartoon themes were dumb as shit. And have they gotten any less shit-dumb in the last 40 years? No, they have not. All that has happened …
Earlier this week, we discussed how nostalgia for the superhero comics of ’60s and ’70s, on the basis that the Big Two were creating more original characters and taking more risks, is misguided not because it’s false on its face, but because the original characters being created were fucking ridiculous. …
Many years ago, when ‘blogs’ were a thing, I wrote a series called the Geek Index, in which I examined the DC Who’s Who and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series in order to illustrate that comic books were written for mental defectives. It did not require close examination. Nowadays, geeks …
In professional foot-ball’s “Super Bowl”, the New England Patriots, owned by a man who vocally supports a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure, defeated the Atlanta Falcons, vocally supported by an owner who is a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure. This brings to a close America’s most recent sporting season; until such …
I don’t really care for outdoor music festivals. For one thing, I am a hundred and seventeen years old, and it is something that young people do, like smart drugs, the Banana Sprite Challenge, and being a well-dressed neo-Nazi. It also robs being outdoors of its major appeal (peace and tranquility), …
