Monday, December 15, 2008

A culture divide

"In Arab culture, throwing shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult."

Thanks CNN. It is a good thing you specified that you were referring to Arab culture, because no one in any other culture would consider having a shoe thrown at them an insult. Here, it is a gift, as in "please, take my shoe and no, you don't need to come over, I will throw it to you". Arab culture is so different than ours... can we ever understand each other?

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Quick Hits II

I was at Barnes and Noble looking through the CDs and came across the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar, the original London cast version of the 40 varieties available. It is a very expensive soundtrack even when compared to the other versions but I wanted to get it for a while so I took it up to the cashier. As she rang it up, she looked at the price and asked, "Damn! Does Jesus come with this?"



Later while back at my apartment, I attempted to open that same CD. It was sealed as if a relic was inside it and I released a stream of profanities, curses, and, most emphatically, 2nd-commandment-breakers. Then when trying to separate the CD from the case a second round of the same. I was wondered how many people used 2/3 of the title of the CD as exclamation while trying to enjoy the music. Sacrilicious.



On a recent episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen broke out his sweetness (that is, his gun). It looked suspiciously familiar to me. I had written a sketch that involved a gun and in order to create the prop I bought a cheap plastic gun from a costume store. This being NYC, they aren't allowed to sell realistic looking guns, so, while the shape looks like an actual gun, the color is in headache-inducing neon pink and green. I applied black spray paint liberally to cover the garish original color and I had a passable gun... and a doppelganger to Stephen's sweetness (you can even see the plastic bit covering the muzzle). Where is the truthiness Stephen, where?

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Jazzy, baby

And for the talent portion, here is Sarah Palin singing jazz...




I got quite a laugh out of this one.