More Bad News

If you've been following this blog at all, you know that my rainbow machine is on the fritz. Normally when I work, I like to be bathed in sparkling rainbows, and I spent several hundreds on a (gently used) rainbow machine a while back for that very purpose. Recently it broke, and I've been trying like the Dickens to get it fixed since. Well, Michael Showalter and I were on the road all last week, so I've been unable to do anything about the situation. Today, my first day home, I spent the entire day on the phone with various rainbow machine repairmen, all of whom told me the same thing: it's going to cost more to fix the thing than to just go out and get a new rainbow machine. Here's the problem: I don't want a new rainbow machine because the new rainbow machines all use conventional electricity to power them, whereas mine is powered by magic; it's the magical components that make it so expensive to repair, because any time you repair magic it has to be conjured. It's not like you can just order a part from a warehouse. You have to conjure the part, and there are very few qualified conjurers out there, so they can charge an arm and a leg. A lot of people wonder why they don't just conjure money, so they wouldn't have to work, but those people are idiots. Magic obviously doesn't work that way.

The other thing about the newer models is that they all have features I neither want nor need. For example, the 6000 Model has a Web browser, a camera, and a "fairy dust" function that sprinkles fairy dust all over everything at the touch of a button. Guess what? I don't want fairy dust all over everything! I just want rainbows! Some of the other models have similarly stupid features. One of the more popular ones is a combination rainbow maker/MP3 player. So stupid! So that's why I just want to get my 4000 Series fixed. If anybody knows a good conjurer or even sees a reasonably priced model on the Ebay or something, let me know. I'm really in a dither without my rainbows.

 

(Completely rainbowless.)
 

I'm Ready

Say you find yourself walking down a darkened street late at night. Say a couple of thugs emerge from the shadows wielding knives and machine guns. Are you ready? Because I am. I'm ready for anything.

Say you're flying twelve thousand feet above sea level. Now say the pilot drops dead and an engine explodes. Are you ready? I am.

A dragon sets your town on fire? I'm ready.

Somebody needs the phone number of a good florist? I am ready.

The Boy Scouts have their motto: be prepared. Being prepared might have been fine a hundred years ago, but now it's not enough. In today's world, you've got to be more than prepared. You've got to be ready. And that's what I am.

Ready to fight. Ready to love. Ready to do a tricky dental extraction under less than optimal conditions. On myself. I am ready.

But here's the thing: a lot of guys are ready. I can name three hundred guys who are ready. But are they willing? You've got to be both ready and willing. Am I ready and willing? No I am not.

Ready, yes. Willing, no.

Which is why when the shit goes down, I am going to die.

Flying is Awesome

The enclosed photograph:

is me waiting to reboard my airplane after we left the gate (half an hour late), waited on the tarmac for half an hour, and then returned to the gate because Engine 2 wasn't firing. I don't like when any of the engines don't fire, so I was happy to return to the gate so that maintenance could deal with this problem. Rather than wait for them to fix the problem, they decided to put us another airplane, which of course necessitated everybody getting off the first airplane, and then waiting to board the second airplane, which is what we're doing now. Normally, I play "Who's the Terrorist?" in this situation, but I already played it. The guy in the orange shirt won.

Not because he was suspicious, but because he was so not suspicious. Terrorists are very, very clever. I don't want to say what airline it was, but it's initials are JetBlue.

Visiting my Mom

I'm in Weston, Florida visiting my mom today. She's pretty good. We went to eat at a deli. I had the tongue. When people say, "What is tongue?" the answer is, "It's a tongue." Probably a cow's. And you eat it. You eat a cow's tongue. Now maybe that sounds disgusting to you, but if you've ever French kissed a cow, it's exactly like that, only instead of contenting yourself with simply putting your tongue in a cow's mouth and doing a little tongue dance with the animal, you just keep going, chewing on the tongue, and garnishing it with a pickle. Is it delicious? As delicious as eating a cow's tongue can be.

I didn't really have tongue. People do eat tongue, but I am not one of those people. I had turkey pastrami, which is exactly like regular pastrami, only without all the deliciousness. While we were in the restaurant, a guy asked me if I was on "Mad TV." I am often asked if I am "Mad TV." I have never been on "Mad TV," or "Kids in the Hall," or "Saturday Night Live," or "Best Week Ever," or any of the shows I am often mistaken for being on, but rather than say, "No," which would have been the most accurate and truthful statement, I said "Yes," because I figured that would be the quickest way of ending the conversation we were about to have. He shook my hand, and told me he enjoyed my work, which is either complimentary towards me or "Mad TV." Not sure which. Maybe both. That's what I call "win-win."

Being at my level of fame is not very fun because people often recognize me, but don't know why they recognize me, and then they make a big show of telling me they know me, but do not know who I am. It's kind of a contradictory statement: "I know you but I have no idea who you are." With Matt Damon, for example, I feel like people pretty much know who he is all the time. People aren't going up to Matt Damon and going, "Tell me what you've been in." That's not fun. Am I the only person who thinks Hillary Swank looks like Matt Damon in drag?

Last night we did a show in West Palm Beach, Florida, which was kind of a weird night. The Theater, called "The Theatre," (yes, with the British spelling) is a converted church. Big ceilings which take the laughter up into the rafters, where it dies. Not good for a comedy show. The crowd was very nice and welcoming, but very small. Maybe a hundred and fifty people, and I don't know, something about being in an old church made it kind of uncomfortable for me when I started saying, "Fuck you, Jesus" during my act. Also, I find that anything about elephants raping rhinos doesn't seem to play that well in the House of God, either. This is why Jesus and comedy just don't mix. I mean, Jesus undoubtedly had a good sense of humor since he was good at everything, but the Bible definitely doesn't make a big deal about how hilarious he was.

Tonight I fly home (JetBlue = "My Life on the D List"), and tomorrow night my wife and I are having our belated anniversary dinner at our favorite restaurant (Hooters). Should be fun.

Heavy in the Streets Interview

This is an interview I did with Heavy in the Streets, which is just some guy. He wanted to interview every member of The State, and I think he's almost there. The only one I think he's missed so far is Marcus; wait - who the hell is Marcus?

Here it is, lovers.

I hope you enjoy.

Bore-Lando, Florida

I know that topic heading is provocative. Is Orlando really that boring? No, not at all. Which is why I should never have used the term "Bore-Lando." That's wrong, and if any Floridians are reading this post, I apologize. It should really be called "Snorlando," because it's such a fucking snore.

Again, that was wrong of me to say, and again, I apologize. I saw a cheap joke there and I decided to go ahead and make it; I'm sorry. Orlando is a great town, although being in Florida obviously reminds me of the 2000 Presidential election, which was lost by Al Gorlando. Perhaps if he had won, we wouldn't currently be engaged with Iraq in a Warlando.

One nice thing about Florida, though, is getting a tan at the seashorlando.

So yeah, it's great to be here. At the moment it's about half an hour before showtime. I'm not going to make any more Orlando rhymes, and I'm sorry if I offended any Floridians, because it really is a wonderful city, filled with so many cheap women that they really should call it Whorlando.

That was uncalled for.

Atlanta, You Sweet Bitch

Well, Atlanta, you didn't let me down. You were one sweet bitch. Last night we played at The Roxy, which is a fantastic theater down here. Half an hour before showtime there were, no joke, probably fifteen in the audience. Needless to say, we were not happy. The theater holds about a thousand, so that's 1.5% capacity. Not an auspicious way to start the evening. Slowly but surely people trickled in, and by the time show started, I would say we had about three hundred people there. By no means impressive, but at least enough so that you couldn't necessarily hear individuals in the audience muttering, "This guy sucks." They had to shout to do that.

The show itself was really fun. I guess it's true what they say about Southerners and their hospitable ways. Only a couple yelled random shit at the stage, and I only had to call two people "fucking retards," which is good for me. Normally, the first twenty or twenty five minutes of the show is me screaming obscenities at the audience. Last night, probably only the first twelve minutes, so that was a considerable improvement.

Showalter was very funny - most of his act was devoted to talking about the Gnarls Barkley song "Crazy," and what a "fresh sound" those guys have. After the thirtieth of fortieth time he said it, it got very funny. Afterwards, I caught up with an old high school friend named Donna, who I haven't seen since we graduated high school. I won't say when that was, but suffice to say, it was 1988. Donna looked great and was unabashedly hitting on Showalter the entire time we were out. The fact that she had her three month old daughter strapped to her in a Baby Bjorn made the experience a little uncomfortable. She didn't have a three month old. In fact, she doesn't have any babies, which lead me to conclude she has a barren womb.

Also joining us out was my friend Valentina, who I met a while ago in Athens GA. She's a student at the University of Georgia, and apparently she is NOT from Argentina, and in fact seemed angry that I thought she was from Argentina. Apparently, Valentina hates Argentinians, to which I say, "Welcome to the club."

All in all, it was a pleasant evening, which I capped off by going to my hotel room and reading Tom Clancy for two hours before bed. Yes, I read Tom Clancy. Not only that, I read it off a pdf file. Does that make me lame, or does its very lameness make me, in fact, incredibly cool? I think we all know the answer to that. Anyway, here's what I look like at the Hyatt in Atlanta:

Horrible Review of "Run, Fat Boy, Run"

Although it doesn't specify me by name, here is a horrible review of the upcoming film I wrote, "Run, Fat Boy, Run."

This Just In

Here's an interview I did with a guy for some paper, in which he gets the name of my book wrong. For the record, it's going to be called "Michael Ian Black is a Celebrity (Very Famous)," and I expect it to be out summer '08, assuming I actually write it. The photo of me drinking the girly drink is likely to be the author's photo on the back.

You can read the interview <a href="http://www.collegenews.com/feature.php?newsid=2237">here.</a>

 

Some Bad News

I don't know what happened, but my rainbow machine is on the fritz. Just my luck, right? Yesterday it was working fine (see previous photo of myself with rainbows), and now today - nothing. I looked at the instruction manual under "troubleshooting." Annoyingly, the first suggestion is: "Make sure rainbow machine is plugged in." Really? You mean it doesn't run on magical rainbow power? (I mean, it does, but you need electricity to make the magical rainbow power work.) So yes, the rainbow machine is plugged in. Here is suggestion number 2: "Lightly jiggle the rainbow machine." Are they fucking kidding me? I paid eight hundred dollars for a machine to make rainbows and they want me to jiggle the machine? Okay, so I do that. Nothing. A slight rattling noise, which may or may not be the sound of leprechauns. I don't know All I know is that my eight hundred rainbow machine is not kicking out rainbows the way it did yesterday, and I'm pissed. So I get the company on the phone. I wait over an hour before an actual human being gets on the phone. This is what he says: "Did you jiggle the rainbow machine?"

"Yes," I tell him.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"The manual SAID to do that!" I say.

"The manual is wrong."

How can the manual be wrong? Manuals are never wrong. Manuals are manuals because they are right. Nothing is more right than a manual. I explain this to him. He listens, then says, "Yeah, I know. The manual's wrong." Then he goes, "Do you hear a rattling noise?"

"Yes," I say. "I thought it was leprechauns."

"Most people do," he says. "It's not. We haven't used leprechauns in years. It's your rainbow capacitor."

"My rainbow capacitor?" I ask. "Is that like the flux capacitor from 'Back to the Future?'"

"That movie was bullshit," he says, and I agree with him. That movie was bullshit.

"What can I do? Can I fix it?"

He asks me what model I have. I tell him. It's the Magical Rainbow Maker 4209. He says they don't make the 4209 anymore, and all the capacitors for the 5000 series are too small for my machine, which of course is no longer under warranty. How am I supposed to write if I am not bathed in glittering rainbows? He doesn't have an answer for me, and asks if there's anything else he can do. Yeah, I tell him, "You can go fuck yourself."

Here is what I look like, sans rainbows.