Let’s Name a Dog Bill Young.

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Bill

Several years ago I was at a drive-in theater with a friend and his future wife playing third wheel. At one point my friend was out getting drinks or something and his then-girlfriend started choking on some gummy bears. I promptly gave her the Heimlich and the gummies shot from her mouth. She said “Holy shit, Bill! You saved my life! How can I thank you?”

I made a very eloquent speech about how firefighters and teachers are the real heroes and then told her and her now-husband that if they wanted to thank me that they just need to name their firstborn child after me.

They thought I was joking. I wasn’t. They’ve had two children since then, one girl who I’m lucky to be the godfather of and one great little boy. Neither of them are named Bill (You can totally name a girl Billie!).

It’s okay. Thinking of it, it was silly to ask that of someone but I’m worried I’ll never be able to pass my name on. I can’t have children ever since my Vas Deferens were lasered off in the Secret Alien War and I’m years away from discovering the formula for the perfect poop joke. Having something live on in my name is a chance to have a real legacy which is why when a local comedian posted on facebook that she was looking for suggestions on what to name her Dog I suggested that Bill Young would be a great name for a dog.

Other people have weighed in and it looks like Bill Young is neck-and-neck with some bullshit name like Roscoe or something but you can help!

If you are facebook friends with Kait you can leave a comment on the thread here saying that Bill Young would be a great name for a dog.

Not facebook friends with her? That’s fine! I shared the photo of the dog on my facebook page(scroll down a li’l bit until you see the pic of the puppy) and tagged her so you can comment there and she’ll see it.

Now, she never said this was a democratic process but I’m hoping that we can overwhelm her with public opinion and she’ll name her dog Bill Young.

My name will live on and finally when somebody farts in a room they can blame it on Bill Young and not be talking about me.

Surprise! Some Old Republican Said Something Awful About Rape!

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Bill

Senator Saxby Chambliss, who is arguably has the most southern sounding name in congress next to Rep. Dixiegrit Slaveseller (R- Missouri), has made headlines soing something that happens so often in congress it’s not even going to make headlines pretty soon if it keeps happening.

That’s right! An old white republican in office said something casually dismissive about rape

Weird. He’s got that look that just screams “compassion towards victims of sexual violence”

Specifically, he was at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing on the subject of the rampant unreported sexual assaults happening in the military. Among other things, he said “”The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22-23. Gee whiz — the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur.”

Anybody who thinks we don’t live in a culture that condones rape just needs to look at their elected officials stating that rape is something that “just happens” when you get enough young men together.

Here’s the crazy part. He still has his job. If I had said anything like that around coworkers when I worked in one of my many customer service jobs I’d have been fired so fast I wouldn’t even be able to stuff my pockets with post it notes and staples. My jobs had nothing to do with keeping rapes from happening or making sure rapists were caught. This guy’s on the committee investigating the rape epidemic in the military, blames it on fucking hormones and still gets to be in the Senate, much less the committee.

Seriously. Congress needs an HR department or something.

To make matters worse this isn’t even an election year so this will all probably blow over by the time GeneralLee McRapeallow is up for reelection.

I thought we were done with this after the whole Todd Akin “legitimate rape” stuff but I guess there’s always going to be old white guys in the Senate that think rape isn’t that big of a deal so I’m going to draft some legislation and try to get congress to support it and put it up to a vote. I’ve never written laws before so forgive me if it’s a bit brief.

HR Bill 800.85
sec. 1. Any member of congress that says rape is okay gets fired.
sec. 2. Seriously. Rape is horrible and bad.

Alright. Now to mail it to a bunch of congresspeople and see if I can get somebody to sponsor it or something. I don’t know how laws work.

What do we Know About the Protests in Turkey?

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Bill

Protests have erupted in Istanbul (not Constantinople) over… something.

Honestly, I know absolutely nothing about the protests in Turkey. I don’t know why it’s happening, if there’s an oppressive regime in power or even where Turkey is on a map. I heard on the radio that this could be another “Arab Spring” so it’s in the Middle East, right?

Eh… that’s kind of Middle East. It’s kind of Eastern Europe, too. Also there’s only like a mile of water separating it from Western Europe.

Well, it’s kind of in the middle of everything but I’ll call it the Middle East because they’re all probably brown and Muslim anyway.

Okay, next: Are Turkeys from Turkey? Is that why they’re called Turkeys?

SEE? I’M NOT THE FIRST TO ASK THIS.

Okay. I googled it. They’re from Mexico. Let’s move on.

Why are they protesting? Well, according to CNN, this all started when Turkey’s government was going to demolish a park to make a shopping mall.

… Must be one hell of a park.

I guess the park thing must’ve been the straw that broke the camel’s back (not racist! I would totally use that term in describing something that went on in someplace else than the middle east!) and now rioters are clashing with police. Police have been accused of using excessive force when dispersing the protesters with tear gas, water cannons and magic carpets (okay that one was pretty racist).

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was democratically elected but has been accused by detractors of wildly abusing his powers and not just to demolish apparently incredibly beloved parks.

What will come of these protests? Nobody is sure and since it’s on the other side of the world I’m sure Americans will forget all about this in a few days.

Unless they’re sitting on some oil we want then we are ON THAT SHIT.

Fuck Off Friday: Know Your Meme

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Bill

I’m a man who likes a good meme.

I really shouldn’t. I’m a comedian. I spend most of my free time trying to create original stuff and put it out on stages or the internets for a few people to chuckle with and memes are the complete antithesis of originality. It’s community aggregated humor. Most people don’t even know who originally came up with almost all of the image memes on the web but people will throw some text under a picture of Fry from Futurama and all of the sudden they’ve made a joke –

Of course we all know where the Futurama memes come from. Math teachers.

Some of these reach a dizzying height of unoriginality. The “Overly Attached Girlfriend” meme is just a picture of the Overly Attached Girlfriend character with text of something she might say. So people are basically just writing jokes in the style of something a comedian already does and then puts it on a picture of them. It’s the internet equivalent of a shitty Rodney Dangerfield impersonator that I usually end up opening for in bar gigs in North Dakota –

See what I did there?

While the sheer hackiness of a lot of memes pisses me off, there are some that I do find pretty funny and –

In the future we will only communicate via image meme.

that’s why I love knowyourmeme.com. Created by the people who started the “I can haz cheezburger” site that arguably took memes out of 4chan obscurity and into the cubicles of office drones screwing off all over the world, knowyourmeme is like the wikipedia of memes. You can find out about where image memes came from (usually 4chan or reddit) and how they spread. You can find out about overly manly man, good guy greg and they even have videos on some of the more popular ones.

Ehrmagerd! Merms!

Michele Bachmann, Make my Birthday Wish Come True

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Bill

Dear Michele Bachmann:

Yesterday I heard that you wouldn’t be running for re-election in 2014. Some people are disheartened by this news. Others are not. You always have been a polarizing figure in politics and the reaction to your news yesterday just further proved that.

Now, I’m not here to gloat, make fun of you or speculate as to why you’re leaving today. I just wanted to bring up an interesting point I heard on NPR yesterday and make a suggestion.

NPR was reporting the details of your announcement and bringing in various pundits from both sides of the fence to discuss what it meant now that you’re leaving and to speculate what you’d do next. At one point it was brought up that you still have campaign funds of approximately $1.9 million. Now, legally you can’t just write a check for yourself since you’re dropping out of the race but those funds do exist and there are certain things that you can do with them. You could use them for legal defense fees in the ethics investigation currently underway, you could use them for another political campaign for yourself or perhaps to support some other republican’s campaign or you could donate it to charity.

Here’s a suggestion. Donate it all to charity.

Sure you could spend the money on lawyers or to prop up another republican campaign but think about just donating it all to charity. What better legacy could you leave? What better swan song than to take your war chest and use it to help an organization that’s out there only trying to do the most good? I’d suggest a completely apolitical organization. Something that has no left or right leanings like feed my starving children. It’s a christian organization but their only goal is to bring food to hungry kids around the world regarless of faith.

The best part of this? No liberal can give you shit for this. I certainly wouldn’t and I’ve taken jabs at you at every available opportunity in the last two years. Liberals would almost be forced to admit that it was incredibly generous of you to donate your campaign funds to charity when you could have easily used the money elsewhere.

Today’s my birthday, Congresswoman Bachmann. All I want is for you to donate your campaign funds to charity.

That and some donuts but you don’t need to help me there.

I Want to Runaway, Getaway With You

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Bill

Listen. This last weekend was pure magic. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again for so long and now that you finally showed up you didn’t disappoint. We only spent seven hours together but it was an amazing seven hours.

I know this may seem like I’m moving a little too fast and this was the first time I’ve seen you in years but I really felt a deep connection and I want to take this to the next level.

I want to go back and re-watch your first three seasons, Arrested Development.

Watching your new season on Netflix these last couple days was so good. It brought back memories of our past together while opening up promises for a movie in the future. You were just as hilarious and witty as I remember you but now that your whole season was released at once I have to wait until a movie is released and the thought of so much time without you again is too much to bear.

Frankly, I’m not sure why I haven’t rewatched your first three seasons to begin with. Maybe it was because I didn’t want to get my hopes up when I heard rumors of more episodes being made. Maybe it was the fact that I tried to get Jena into you but she just didn’t see the appeal. Whatever the reason, I haven’t seen you in a long, long time and that needs to change.

Granted, between work, stand up comedy and making a Fringe Festival show I’m not going to have a lot of free time but I don’t need to watch you all in a week. IMDB has no release date for your movie so we can take this nice and slow.

I’m so glad you’re back.

Pope Francis Says Atheists OK… What?

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Bill

Pope Francis isn’t your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather’s pope. He’s a big advocate for the poor, which must be hard for him now that his house is an entire city made of nothing but gold, priceless artwork and priceless artwork made out of gold –

not pictured: a shit ton more gold

He’s also a big fan of interfaith dialogue. Just yesterday he said that all who do good are redeemed, not just Catholics. Even atheists are cool in his book! Check out this chunk of a huffpo article I copy-pasted!

““They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation.” Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”.. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

This has seriously got atheists confused. just one glance at reddit’s r/atheism feed and you feel like a bomb went off. Everybody’s just dazed

stolen from reddit. Wait. Can you steal a meme?

While some people are applauding the Pope for his progressive-by-Catholic-standards stance, I’m a little wary that this could just be some sinister plot from the Pope to wipe out all the atheists.

…Hear me out.

Atheists have to disagree with religion, that’s how atheism works but what if religion said atheists were good people? Atheists think that atheists are good people but they can’t agree with religion, right? The computer processors that they have where their souls should be can’t handle the logical paradox and before you know it –

The secularist threat has been eliminated! Praise Jesus!

If this isn’t just some clever atheist genocide plot, I say good for Pope Francis for trying to steer the Catholic Church in the right direction. I mean, it’d be even better if he could get priests to stop molesting children and spending millions upon millions of dollars to lobby the persecution of homosexuals but this atheism thing is a good start.

Michele Bachmann: Teflon Bitch

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Bill

I’m not obsessed with Michele Bachmann.

Seriously. I know I’ve written about her at least a dozen times here but it’s not my fault. She’s just such a magnet for attention.

Even now, when she should be at her quietest. This woman should really shy away from the spotlight right now but she’s putting out campaign ads. Election’s in 2014 but she’s putting campaign ads on youtube.

I can’t find the one I originally saw which was just a video of her bragging about how she voted to repeal Obamacare but here’s one on the Team Bachmann channel shit talking Jim Graves –

Waitaminute. Didn’t Bachmann nearly go bankrupt from her failed presidential bid? Isn’t this bitch currently under an ethics investigation? Should she really be bragging about voting to repeal Obamacare? The House has drafted a bill to repeal Obamacare 37 times, knowing it would never make it through the Senate. Sounds incredibly fucking unproductive to me.

Pundits are saying that the early running of these ads shows that she’s scared of losing to Graves. She barely won the last election and the ethics investigation isn’t doing her any favors but I think it’s something different completely.

She’s bragging.

Bachmann knows that she’s got her district on lockdown and these ads are just to let us know that she ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. Her husband could be caught Larry Craiging it up in an airport bathroom but she’d probably just make him pray the gay away and win just like she always does.

Ugh. I think I’m gonna volunteer for the Graves campaign or something.

Scared of Cops

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Bill

I am a law abiding citizen. I don’t steal, murder, rape, racketeer, swindle, assault, harass, drive drunk or even over the speed limit for that matter. I did spend a night in jail once but that was only because I forgot about a $75 moving violation. My bail was set at $50 and it was refunded to me at court and my ticket fee was waived for “time served” (5 hours).

I’d like to say that I try to follow all the laws of the land because I’m a good citizen and am doing my part to help society run as smoothly as possible. Really, I’m just scared of cops.

I’ve written before about my irrational fear of uniformed police. I immediately start tensing up whenever a uniformed cop is around even though I’m not doing anything arrest-worthy (looking up police brutality videos on youtube probably doesn’t help alleviate my fear). I’ve always wondered where this fear has originated from and yesterday I think I may have come across a reason.

I was at my mom’s yesterday for a belated mother’s day get-together with my sister and she mentioned in conversation how she’s pathologically scared of police. I never knew we shared this and asked her about it. She explained that it’s been with her ever since she was a kid and probably started with the incident at the construction site.

The construction site incident! How could I forget?

When I was a kid there was a big open field and large woods right to the south of my house. When I was 11 they took the open field and some of the woods and built a bunch of four bedroom split level houses that all looked completely identical and named the neighborhood after the trees that used to stand there. While it sucked that they were getting rid of my giant open playground there were plenty of construction sites to play on while the houses were being built.

The best sites were the ones where the foundations were laid but nothing else had been built. Big cement foundations, holes and dirt piles to climb around on. My friends and I knew we weren’t supposed to be playing around there but figured as long as we weren’t breaking or stealing anything we wouldn’t get into too much trouble. We based this assumption on no information or experience.

One day my sister, a couple of friends and I were climbing around a cement block foundation and a cop car drives up to the cul-de-sac, flashes his lights and blares his siren. His siren. I thought that was something they only busted out for high speed chases and bank robberies. I can’t remember if somebody yelled “run!” or if we just ran but everybody but my friend Jake ran into the woods.

It was the perfect plan! We grew up playing in these woods. We knew every trail, fallen tree and small creek there was in there. We knew the woods like the back of our hands. These were our woods. We’d just get off the path, move in a serpentine pattern to lose the cop, pop out on the other side on Greystone Ave. and calmly walk home like nothing happened. He probably didn’t know the woods ended on Greystone Ave. Hell, he’d probably get lost in the woods because he didn’t know them like we did and would have to call for backup to get out of the woodsy labyrinth that only us clever kids knew how to navigate.

What actually happened is that we ran around the acre and a half of woods like idiots for ten minutes and emerged onto Greystone where a very irritated cop was waiting for us.

Our approximate path into the long arm of the law.

We got into the cop car and he drove us back home where he very sternly lectured us from running from the police and trying to give them fake names (my sister tried using an alias) and our dad grounded us for a very long time. It was scary as hell and I think it might have been the start of my fear of police.

Now that I know where it’s stemmed from the healing can begin. Hopefully, one day, I can commit a bunch of crimes without any irrational fear the police are going to get me.

Fitching the Homeless.

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Bill

Everybody loves a good villain. Somebody that everybody can agree is a huge jackass. This week’s jackass is Michael Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch.

Jeffries is the current target of the internet’s collective hate due to an old interview that recently resurfaced where he said some pretty fucked up things about who is and isn’t supposed to wear A&F clothes –

[W]e hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.
In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

The whole “attractive, good looking people” remarks were instantly recognized as meme-able since Jeffries looks like he’s had… a few plastic surgeries. Like, so many plastic surgeries that he’s probably had to fly to Mexico for the last couple of facelifts because American doctors won’t touch him anymore. totallylookslike.com has made more than a few comparisons of him to some famous people –

Okay, Rocky Dennis and Sloth are a bit of a stretch but the Face of Boe comparison is actually pretty spot on.

In addition to that, there’s a strict “no fat chicks” policy at A&F so they don’t make XL women’s sizes and one manager said that they don’t want to see poor people wearing their clothes. This prompted somebody to start a new campaign to “rebrand” A&F”.

Pretty clever, right? Some homeless people get new clothes and A&F gets a hearty “Fuck you!” Everybody wins, right?

Wrong! Apparently there’s now online backlash against the backlash against Abercrombie! Backlashception!

There’s a lot of blogs pointing out that while Mike Jeffries is a total douche, the “Fitch the Homeless” video is using homeless people as props and exploiting them to prove a point. Even a lot of comments on the video point out that a much more effective protest would just be a simple boycott but I’m not so sure.

I understand why people would think that the homeless people are being exploited. One could easily think that the Fitch the Homeless campaign is trying to make A&F look bad by putting it’s clothes on the ugly, dirty, gross, sub-human homeless but is that really what’s going on? By giving A&F clothes to homeless people is the Fitch the Homeless campaign trying to make the company look bad or are they saying “Abercrombie doesn’t think you’re good enough for these clothes. We disagree.”

Whether it’s righteous or not, the Fitch the Homeless campaign has got the attention of Abercrombie enough to have them issue a bullshit non-apology on their facebook –

The only way those quotes could’ve been taken out of context is if they were an answer to the question “What is something horrible you would never say?”

Ultimately, this will all probably blow over and Abercrombie will survive because most people willing to pay $40 for a pink t shirt that looks like it’s been through the wash 100 times just to look cool isn’t really that interested in social justice.

To be fair like .05% of the profit goes to the sweatshop that made the shirt.

YoungNotions

Author Archives: Bill