Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Humor
A dose of mindless fun
From the Infinite Cat, this video, which might be subtitled, “What women really want.”
While you’re at it, check out this cat fight. (I found this at Killer’s Place.)
Okay. Back to editing.
D.
It’s a classic
I’m fixing a Chicken Kiev*, and Jake’s watching The Amanda Show on Nick. The Amanda Show is a comedy-variety show for kids featuring Amanda Bynes.
Here’s the skit. Amanda sits on a porch with her date, a geeky young boy with a pimple in the middle of his forehead. She can’t take her eyes off the pimple. Before long, she’s fantasizing that she knocks the pimple off his forehead, the pimple takes on a life of its own, and Amanda falls in love with it. Yeah, that’s right — the pimple.
I laugh. Right away, Jake wants to know why I’m laughing. (Since age 3, he’s learned that if he pesters us long enough, we’ll explain even the dirtiest jokes to him.) “It was unexpected,” I tell him.
Humor, whether it be one-liners, sight gags, or Jon Stewart’s routines for The Daily Show, has an element of the unexpected. The bigger the surprise, the bigger the laugh. I’ve been trying to teach this to Jake since toddlerhood, mostly so he wouldn’t repeat jokes over and over and OVER again, but also because it’s my parental duty to teach him how to be funny.
Anyway: Amanda falls in love with a sentient, autonomous pimple. I laugh, then I tell Jake why I’m laughing.
“Oh, they always do that,” he says. “Whenever there’s a pimple in a skit, Amanda falls in love with it. It’s a classic.”
It’s a classic?
Elmer Fudd falling in love with Bugs Bunny in What’s Opera, Doc? is a classic (the gender confusion goes back to Shakespeare, and undoubtedly farther than that). Groucho Marx’s “Go, and never darken my towels again,” is a classic. (And if you have any doubt as to my premise that surprise is the life blood of humor, check out this page of Marxisms.) Since twenty years has passed, I’ll even grant classic status to Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest for “This goes to eleven.”
But I’m sorry — Amanda Bynes falling in love with a pimple can’t be a classic.
What are your favorite classics?
D.
Very simple. Take a pounded chicken breast, the thinner the better. Place a heaping teaspoon of a butter/herb mixture at one end of the breast, roll it up jelly roll-fashion, and run it through a bowl of beaten egg white. Salt, pepper, bread crumbs, a pat of butter on top. Place several such rolls side by side in a buttered baking dish. Bake at 400 F until golden brown and bubbly.
The butter/herb mixture: chives/parsley/salt/pepper/lemon juice/butter is the old standby. You can do whatever you like. For today, I used butter, chopped green onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and chili oil.
Coming soon: high time I blogged on garlic.
SF love triangles
Smart Bitch Sarah wrote a cool post on love triangles today. I encourage you all to read about the misadventures of Aragorn/Arwen/Eowyn, Archie/Veronica/Jughead, and a bunch of others.
I can’t let a good joke drop, not when it has much more cherry mileage. Here, then, are a few additional triangles for your discussion, from a world closer to home.
Captain Kirk/Mr. Spock/Nurse Chapel
Sure, Christine digs the Vulcan cervical neck pinch, but ol’ J. Tiberius has that power thing going for him. How frustrating it must have been for Christine to watch Kirk cavort with one snatch-o’-the-week after another; I’ll bet she and Yeoman Rand used to have whopping grand bitch sessions over a couple pints of Romulan ale, ending in declarations of, “MEN! What do we need them for, anyway? Come on, Christine, it may not be a Vulcan pinch, but I have fingers, too, and I know how to use them.”
But Kirk’s cavortings were all for cover. The Federation’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy doesn’t cover Starship Captains — or first officers — openly out of the transporter. What was it Spock said to Kirk on the point of death? “You are, and always have been, my special friend.”
Deckard/Rachael/Pris (Blade Runner)
I know what you’re thinking: he’s artificially manufacturing a triangle which did not exist in the movie — for comic effect! But you’re wrong. When Deckard (Harrison Ford) meets up with Pris (Daryl Hannah), the sparks fly right from the get-go. So she beats the crap out of him. So what? Is it so wrong for a woman to be assertive? She’s a replicant. She was programmed to be assertive. Do you get it, yet? Kicking Deckard in the nads is the only way she has of showing her love.
The only reason she keeps on clobbering him is that Deckard is too dense to figure things out. Remember when she jumps him and rides him piggy-back? I’ll bet you thought she wanted to break his neck between her creamy thighs. But, actually, all she wanted was for him to turn around. Stupid human.
As for Rachael: egads, how boring. I’ll bet she cries after sex. I’ll bet she cries during sex.
Luke/Han Solo/Princess Leia Organa
I know Leia and Luke are twin siblings, but anyone who has seen Joe Dirt can tell you this just heightens the sexual tension. Twincest is hot these days. So toss that objection right out the X-wing window, ‘kay?
It makes more sense to worry about the Luke/Han Solo dynamic, particularly given the fact that Chewbacca is willing to couple with anything that growls. (Wookies as a rule are orally obsessed; they don’t call him Chewie for nothing. Watch those incisors!) But let’s assume for the sake of argument that carnal hijinks aboard the Millennium Falcon were of the sort manly men get up to when there are no available vaginas. You know, the same sort of thing T. E. Lawrence got up to with those swarthy Arabian boys.
After all, we’re talking love triangles here, not circle jerks.
That said, I’d have to side with Han-Leia, just as Lucas did. In 1977, Harrison Ford was a hottie, and Leia would qualify for that adjective, too, if only she’d unleash her hair from those sadistic buns. Luke had all the sex appeal of a human Jar Jar Binks. And besides, his true attentions were elsewhere.
I can see it now, a la Joe Dirt:
“Luke, I am your father.”
“Say it again!”
“I’m your father.”
“Say it!”
“I’m your father. I’m your father.”
Oh, yeah.
D.
Lester’s Tantric Sex Guide for Teens
“Oh,” I said. “I see.”
Anyway, since my sexual history is rather more cosmopolitan than his, I happily agreed.
“. . . when MTV surveyed 14- to 25-year-olds to find out what subjects they’d like to learn about most, tantric sex topped the list.”
— From tantra.com
Teenagers often say to me, “I don’t understand Dr. Doug’s success. How is it that a 3′ 6″ hobbit like him has women vying to have his hairy hobbity babies?”
“It’s simple,” I say. “In high school, he mastered the subtle secrets of tantric sex. Women sense this about him. They know he can bring them to the cusp of sexual enlightenment and beyond.”
“But, Mr. Wormfriend. I’ve read that tantric sex requires many long hours of meditation, ritual dance, and tandem breathing exercises. How can I get my boyfriend to do any of that, when he spends less than five minutes talking to me?”
“Oh, ho, ho,” I laughed heartily. “You may not realize it, Tiffini, but you and your boyfriend are already skilled practitioners of tantra.”
“We are?” she squealed.
“Sure. Think about it. The essence of tantra is that you stimulate one another, sometimes for hours on end, without ever reaching climax. You’ve done that, haven’t you?”
“Well, necking in Otis’s Ford pick-up, but . . . ”
“See? And after a while, don’t you feel a certain tension rising up your spine towards your head?”
“No. Mostly I feel sore as hell from Otis mashing my boobs like he was juicing lemons.”
“How about Otis? Doesn’t he feel a certain tension rising –”
“Well, duh. He keeps rubbing it against my leg all night long, and then he bitches about how much he’s hurting, and how he needs relief.”
“And there you have it. Tantric enlightenment, the culmination of hours of less-than-satisfying stimulation.”
“Um . . . Mr. Wormfriend? That’s not enlightenment. Otis calls it blue balls.”
“Blue balls, stone ache — enlightenment by any other name.”
“Gee. I never really looked at it that way.” She looked thoughtful for a long moment, then sighed. “Thanks, Mr. Wormfriend. I think.”
“And remember, Tiffini. The essence of tantra is that you prolong the stimulation indefinitely. The best way to do that is to keep your clothes on. Many, many layers of clothes.”
L.W.
I am Bluestar.
Yea, though we duggest ourselves a mighty hole of debt, we compromised not for our killer range. Meet the 36″ RNB Bluestar, the primo bitchenest 36″ range on the planet. “Largest oven capacity available on a 36″ range; the most powerful burner available, 22,000 BTU; accomodates a full-size commercial 18″ x 26″ baking sheet; 24″ depth.”
This range is for a real kitchen where a real man is gonna cook, not one of those poofy, “Oh, look how rich I am!” show kitchens. Hot enough to transmute base metals into gold, durable enough to survive wormhole travel; and it gives sensual massages, too.
Today we checked the status of the Money Pit and saw, in the middle of our torn-up living room floor, Our Precious, still wrapped in her factory plastic, a smug vision of culinary voluptuousness. “I am Bluestar,” she whispered. “Thirty years from now, when you’re still working nights in the ER to pay off your quintuple mortgage, you’ll come home and see me, every bit as beautiful and functional as I am today, and you’ll know it has all been worthwhile.”
“I’ve been burned before,” I said. “Say you won’t hurt me like the others.”
“You know I can’t promise you that.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even see straight.
“I’ll burn you worse than any woman has ever burned you before,” she continued. “You know I will. But I can promise you one thing: I’ll always be here for you.”
“You will?”
“You gorgeous man: as long as I have gas in my pipes, I’ll be the hottest thing you’ve ever touched. My love for you will never cool.”
And, somehow, those words made it all worthwhile.
D.
Sex Ed, self-taught
I was never what you would call slow. Dense, maybe, but not slow. I chased girls at two, stole kisses at five, and copped feels at eight. Despite my forwardness, I didn’t understand what it was all about until high school.
At three, I asked my mother where I came from. “Ask your father,” she said.
My father has never been one to lie, but he’s never been a talkative cuss, either. When I asked him, he pointed to my mother’s middle and said, “From there.”
Huh? From her belly?
Back to my early misconceptions in a moment. My Dad never sat me down for the Big Talk. Instead, when I was eight, he took me to the library and pointed me in the right direction. I checked out David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* with my father’s blessing.
The trouble with this book: it assumes its reader has a decent fund of sexual knowledge to begin with. In those days, you couldn’t find words like cunnilingus and fellatio in the dictionary (not our dictionary back home, anyway!) Masturbation sounded like a worthwhile avocation, but damned if I could figure out how I was supposed to do it. As for cunnilingus, I only knew about one hole Down There, and it baffled me why anyone would want to get his tongue anywhere near it. (In my ignorance of the vagina, I had discovered the rim job.)
Some time in junior high, I learned about vaginas. No pictures, mind you. I gleaned additional useful information from Xaviera Hollander‘s book Xaviera! (sequel to The Happy Hooker). My sexual education would have been complete if Xaviera! had had pictures.
Somewhere along the way, I acquired some very romantic notions about sex. Intercourse would have to be with a girl I loved. We would spend all night together and wake up in each other’s arms. I also vowed that I would not see my first vagina in a nudie magazine (we’re not talking bush, by the way — I’d seen that in the movies when I was five). Rather, I would see my first vagina in the, erm, flesh.
Stubborn as I was (I made good on those promises), I refused all opportunities to examine hard core smut magazines. Still, I was curious as hell. This led to some uniquely twisted dreams.
You women, you don’t know how lucky you are. You’re surrounded by phallic images. You probably learned to recognize a penis before you ever examined your own package with a mirror. I’ll bet you never had a nightmare wherein you pulled down a man’s pants and discovered . . . fill in the blank.
Among other things, I dreamed of broken lightbulbs, sliced watermelon, pigeons. A baseball. Or maybe it was a softball.
Back to three-year-old me. My Dad has just pointed to my Mom’s belly. “From there.”
“From there? From where?”
“Down there.”
“From her belly?”
“Yeah,” he said. “From her belly.”
“But there’s no hole there.”
“Sure there is.”
So I racked my teensy brains. What hole? The only hole I knew about was the belly button hole. I’d discovered it not long before, and found out I could seriously tweak my parents by coloring in my belly button hole with a ballpoint pen. My father even tried to spank me for it, and stopped because I kept laughing. He dubbed me “Iron Ass” after that.
The belly button hole? I had to protest my disbelief.
“But it’s too small!”
“It gets bigger,” he said, and left it at that.
At last, I knew where babies came from.
*But your father wouldn’t tell you.
The Curry County Fair
On my way home from the fair, I hallucinated that a tiny hologram of Yoda had appeared on my shoulder. Don’t worry — Karen was driving.
“Not-so-young hack-writer, so bitchily you should not blog,” Yoda said. “Bad for traffic it is. Rather, in light comedy your trust you should put, lest your readers full of venomous Sith decide you are.”
“But Yoda,” said I. “That was the crappiest county fair I have ever been too, bar none.”
“The positive accentuate,” insisted Yoda. “The negative eliminate. With Mr. In-Between, mess not.”
“Oh, all right. It’s a good thing I only had sixty dollars with me, since Jake would have blown through six hundred dollars in just as short a time.
“And it’s great no one has figured out to build a beach boardwalk here on some of the most beautiful coastline in the world. Because, you know, the wind would just blow sand into our Napalm Nachos.
“I’m so happy we’ve picked up more unwanted stuffed animals and cheaply framed photographs of tigers, because, after all, winning prizes is great for the boy’s self-image.
“And, best of all, I’m tickled-to-pissing-my-pants that this was such a small fair that Jake has decided he has to go to the Del Norte County Fair next weekend. More quality time for me and the boy.”
Then, on my other shoulder, Evil Yoda appeared.
“Whining weenie you are,” said Evil Yoda. “If father you did not want to be, pecker in pants you should have kept.”
(Ever notice how lines like that are only funny in Yoda-speak?)
“Wait,” I said. “If you’re Evil Yoda, you should be telling me to speak whatever bile is on my mind.”
“Hell, no. Here for the crack whores at DeLancey’s* I am.”
He darted out the window before I could recommend a good dermatologist.
D.
*Not the bar’s actual name. And not that I would know such a thing, except by reputation.
Only thin white women have orgasms. News at 11.
I was leafing through the July ’05 issue of Wired when I found Annalee Newitz’s story about female orgasms, “The Coming Boom”. The subtitle says it all: “Big Pharma has made billions pumping up the male population. Now neuroscientists are reverse engineering the female orgasm.”
You can read the story online here. The article itself didn’t capture my interest, though. I’d recently seen something that covered the same ground on one of the health & science networks. No, what caught my eye was the very eye-catching photo-mosaic of twenty-four women caught in the throes of orgasm. If you follow the above link and click on the photo in the left margin, you’ll see what I mean.
I really don’t consider myself a member of the Political Correctness Police, but what’s going on with the racial mix in this photo? I count three Asians, one Hispanic, and twenty-one white women. I see one, maybe two women who look overweight. Oh, and nearly all of them are attractive. They must be beautiful women, because they’re making that face (I’m having a twelve pound baby, and he’s coming out sideways!) and they’re still cute.
If you follow that photo link, you’ll find a second link at the bottom for Beautiful Agony, a website that sells mpeg videos of men and women experiencing la petite mort.
Wherein I get a marriage proposal
“Dr. Hoffman, I’ll bet you’re married.”
“Well, yes –”
“I knew it. All the good ones are married.”
Imagine my thoughts as I looked at my patient . . .
Me: Damn! I must still have it: that hint of danger, that raw sexuality sizzling beneath the surface —
Mysterious Woman: “Dr. Hoffman, are you listening to me?”
So I blink, and see . . .
Me: Damn! Not bad, Hoffman. After all, you’ve been a very naughty boy. Nothing like Xena to kick your ass down to Trinidad and back, then kiss the bruises —
Mysterious Woman: “Dr. Hoffman! You’re not paying attention to me. I said –”
I shake my head. My cheeks make those comical floppy noises you hear in cartoons. I ball up my fists, rub my eyes, and see . . .
Me: Damn! Okay, so maybe I’m not that crazy about blondes; but if a blonde has to have a jones for me, it might as well be Gabrielle! Sure, I’d rather have Xena kickin’ my ass, but Gaby had a vicious streak, too. And, hey, as long as I’m pulling blondes from Xena Warrior Princess, I wonder what Hudson Leick is up to —
Mysterious Woman: “I don’t know what’s got into you.” (Knocking on my forehead.) “Hellooo. ANYONE HOME?”
One last blink. Oh, baby, we’re almost home . . .
Me: Damn!
D.
Note to my Bare Rump readers: sorry for recycling a sight gag, but this seemed like a natural.
By the way: that’s Jacqueline Kim in the first photo — another Xena alumnus.
The horehound! The horehound!
From Likely Stories, enter the dark world of CHOCOLYPSE NOW.
Have I ranted here about autistic fiction? That’s when your story means the world to you and nothing to anyone else. Phrased differently, you have an audience of 1.
I’ve written the stuff. Be honest — so have you.
D.