SPECIALTY LIES: CIRCUS EDITION
SITUATION: One of the other clowns accuses you of stealing her rubber shoes.
STANDARD LIE: “Bubbles did it.”
DELUXE LIE: “Gross. Do you know how many germs can live in shoes? I’m a germophobe, so I know. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I would never steal your shoes. No offense.”
THE SITUATION: you’re dealing with a really annoying egg
YOU SAY: “get luteinized and slough off!”
THE SITUATION: those are some mighty big forecepts
YOU SAY: “forecepts? more like fivecepts!”
THE SITUATION: you’re 93 and you’re playing pinochle with someone who is really crappy
YOU SAY: “you play pinochole like an 81 year old… an 81 year old who’s never played pinochle”
THE SITUATION: the damn hen is taking forever
YOU SAY: “you gonna hatch those chicks or just sit on ’em all day?”
THE SITUATION: the piano player is smug and tinkly
YOU SAY: “you play piano like a tuba player”
THE SITUATION: the Queen is acting uppity again
YOU SAY: “is that your dress or did your bustle throw up?”
THE SITUATION: the Grape Nuts have betrayed you
YOU SAY: “et tu, Grape Nuts?”
THE SITUATION: you’re angry at your corn flakes
YOU SAY: “what are you, Grape Nuts?”
HOT: a thermos with soup in it
NOT: a thermos without soup in it
EXCEPTION: gazpacho
HOT: fire
NOT: penguins
In: 11:04pm
So five minutes ago: 10:59pm
I’ve decided that from now on when I do TV I’m going to post about the behind-the-scenes experience because television is magical and all sorts of important and exciting stuff happens which you may or may not be aware of and I’d like to build a bridge between you, the viewer, and me, an emissary of the enchanted land of television. Actually I don’t want to build a bridge between us, I want to be the bridge that connects you to TV. It’s a good thing that I’m not making any bridge jokes because that would be tasteless. I’m just saying more that television is an organ and you’re a pedunculated cyst and I’m the stem. That’s disgusting! Truly, I just made myself sick. For YOU.
So today I set the regular three alarms for 4:48am, 4:58am and 5:11am. Because I’m neurotic. I woke up on the intended second alarm (the first is so I can hit snooze and the last is just a safety precaution because if I were to sleep that late I’d be screwed). I got to the studio, drank a small cup of coffee and noted once again the dichotomy between makeup and hair people, who are generally exceedingly calm and soothing, and morning TV personalities, who are somewhat antic. I’m somewhere in between, but I like to make sure the first few words I speak aren’t on air because I want to eradicate any sleepy conversational clunkiness. For this reason if anyone asks me any questions before I go on air and I struggle to answer I take this as a slightly foreboding sign, especially when the questions are “hey, what’s going on” and “how are you?”
Then then hair and makeup people told me I was perfect exactly as I am and that if they were to touch me it would be gilding the lily and also unfair to everyone else so I said okay and was brought out to the set. Actually, that didn’t happen. Please read critically.
The segment went well. Michael and I wondered aloud what Yo-yo-ers should be called and then when we were talking about Home Movie Day he said that the footage we were looking at was Thomas Edison but I thought he said Thomas Jefferson which really didn’t make sense.
After the segment I drank another cup of coffee but I think the milk had turned or maybe the coffee had but anyway I quietly excused myself to throw it away in Conan’s trash can. I mean, not his personally, but the one across the hall by the entrance to his studio. I’m not sure why I did this since there were trash cans in the green room.
Then I sat around for awhile and then I changed into my walking home from TV clothes and walked home except for the part where I got lazy and took a cab.
I fear these blash-ups are hardly the level of awesomeness I’d begun to achieve when I did them more frequently on MySpace. So bear with me. I’m refinding my blash-up voice! I can’t remember the the last place I saw it. I’ll stand very still and hope it finds me. While crying and whimpering.
Jamaica
What’s with all the corn nuts?
Cabo
It’s funny, but not THAT funny
The Poconos
Lake George
Green butter
Maui
Hacky-sack
Are we there yet? Actually, we haven’t left!
Paris
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.
Aspen
You smell like a Christmas tree
The Shore
Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd again?
For those unfamiliar with “blash-up” it’s short for “blog mash-up,” a term coined by the lovely Laura Leu when I was casting about for one and a debt is owed as well to my favorite book, For the Love of Cheese from the makers of Might magazine. I don’t even love cheese! But they used to do similar types of lists. Anyway:
Salad dressing ingredients/signs the graft isn’t taking
oil
vinegar
gangrene
salt
intense itching
garlic
what’s that smell? oh, it’s your hand
mustard
pain
dill
what type of blood did you say you had?
marjoram
can you feel this?
pepper
come back in two weeks and bring the hand
Here’s Best Bets, and I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything of consequence word wise lately. Would it please you to hear about my allergies? Because I feel like someone rubbed a cat all over me today, which is not a euphemism. I have histamines in places I didn’t know were possible. Date me?