Wednesday, January 20, 2010

....for me to poop on!

Well, hey there. Sorry about yesterday. I was running all over the place getting shit, setting shit up, emailing from my phone like some sort of loudmouth dipshit at the airport/restaurant/talent show/movie theater. Oh, I seemed important yesterday, boy. Believe you me.
Wait. Believe you me? Is that a phrase? Okay, that’s not what I meant. Of course it’s a phrase. “Believe you me” they say. Like, for example, they’ll ask: ‘oh, was his dick big?” and you’ll say “Believe you me it was!” What I want to know is, who the fuck was running things when this dogshit phrase slipped through the back door and into general usage? Who was the gatekeeper that allowed this lazy piece of syntax into our lexicon?
“Believe you me” is akin to what a cave man might say in attempting to piece together the general idea of “I believe you,” it’s just fucking mongolidian in its etymology.
It’s funny, because when I see certain etymologies, for example, the story behind OK, they sound so fucking retarded that I can’t believe that I sit here on a day to day basis and let the same sort of thing transpire, and even facilitate and indulge in it myself. I know, this isn’t making sense, so let me explain.
“OK”, it’s said, comes from a dark and murky corner of the English language. No one is quite sure where it originated or why. There are competing theories and some are more popular than others. The top few, I’m told, all have their ardent supporters who, presumably, give a shit about this kind of thing, believe it or not.
Okay, anyhow, the prevailing story in how OK, or okay, came about has to do with the hip fad that caught on around the turn of the century that involved purposely misspelling words. OK, some believe, is an abbreviation for Oll Korrekt or ‘all correct’ (though why anyone would ever say ‘all correct’ in response to something is beyond me. That’s the response of a square robot, man [and I mean square like majorly unhip, not like a paralellagram]). Some dumb journalist shortened this dumb phrase in some dumb newspaper (I actually think it was the Post Dispatch, believe it or not) to OK, and there you go. Linguistic history, or linguistory, was made.
So, as I heard this dumb story for the first time (and I heard this for the first time when I was in grade school), I couldn’t help but think “how fucking retardedly lame is the fad of purposely misspelling words? I mean, that’s like “wear an onion on your belt” or ‘wear shortsleeved button ups and bike around with a big moronic hillbilly version of the bible” level, in terms of totally pussified and otherwise dorky fads. BUT, then I think about it a little more, and I realize that if I think shit’s cheesy, like a movie or a song, I usually write cheezy, even though that’s improper. I also find myself writing lite and tonite. Know what that means?
That’s rite, man. I’m purposely misspelling shit as part of a small, insidious dorky little fad that I was, more or less totally unaware of perpetuating until this whole thing about Oll Korrekt came back to me a couple of weeks ago, for some reason. Anyway. Jeez. How’s that for a lame little bit on syntax and spelling, eh? Yeah. Maybe I’m just hung up on the building blocks of education because my kid got into a new school today. That’s right, turds! He’s got a whole new crop of innocent toddlers to chew on! Look out Tyson and Miss Angela!
Okay, none of this has anything to do with what I wanted to talk about today, which is Avatar, but I think I’ll save that for another time, because I’ve got a lot to say on the subject of avatar. I saw it, in “Real D” on Monday, and well, you’ll just have to wait, but yeah. I got a lot to say.
Speaking of entertainment, how bout Jay and Conan, eh? I mean, this is, far and away, the most entertaining thing that’s ever happened to either of their sad fucking pathetic shows. Yeah, sure, sure. Conan used to be pretty okay, but he was never as great as his wildest, drunkest supporters claimed he was. The shit was always amusing, funnier than Jay and funner than Dave, sure, but that’s like saying that you’ve got the biggest dick in the second grade. No, Conan was fine, and when he had guest bits (like Rob Smigel and Triumph) his show rose above amusing mediocrity and really took off, and shit man, the most important quality in a leader is the ability to delegate, recognize potential and weakness and work selflessly towards the good of the unit, and Conan was able to do that sometimes, BUUUUUUT, nothing was ever as magnificent as this strange “Jay vs. Conan united against NBC, backed by Dave who hates them all and fuck me, what the fuck is gonna happen to Carson Daily?????” situation that’s developing here right now.
Personally, I think NBC is retarded to gag Conan, as he’s pulling down the biggest ratings of his tenure as Tonight Show host. They should, in the words of a very astute and erudite humorist of our times, embody the important qualities of leadership and work selflessly towards the good of the unit, right? Right. But of course, that would be the smart thing to do, and it would involve executives not being able to overtly tell people what they were doing, which would potentially lead to some form of fake, manufactured humiliation which is all too messy and sordid for something as important as drunk assholes in their beds laughing vaguely at some shitty halfassed comedian hosts right before they flip off the lights and whack themselves into the drunken oblivious sleep of the damned, right?
Sheesh. Sometimes I think that I need to do everything around here, which is funny, because I’m not allowed to do almost anything.
Oh yeah, we’re goin on tour in the UK in March. We can talk about the UK tomorrow when we talk about avatar. Good god. Is anything good anymore?
I see you, my brothers and sisters.

26 comments:

Sophie Nicola Evans said...

WELL excited for the London date, let's hope it'll be good/BETTER as the 10 year anniversary show in chicago i dragged my ass over seas for! ha!

Unknown said...

aaaaawwwwwww...... come on, europe and than you only make it to that fucking island? man.... how do i make it possible to get to london?

Unknown said...

"we’re goin on tour in the UK in March". More importantly - you're coming to Dublin.

Anonymous said...

I'm on team Coco. Get that dude on FOX and he'll be able to do whatever the fuck he feels like. I'm kind of intrigued, honestly.

Nick! said...

dude! UK! london! yes! as an ex-chicagoan i wholeheartedly approve.

casey said...

... and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was, that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

rjkdb8 said...
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Daina said...

This is fucking awesome.

Crooks said...

rjkdb8, well said. I completely agree - just because you get away with it doesn't make it right. Ignorance really is bliss (a version of it, anyway).

Anonymous said...

Cannot wait for the Glasgow and Leeds shows! I wish I could go to them all... :)

Robb said...

Good stuff rjk (and bk). Abuse of literally and penultimate irk me in particular. On a related note is the classic "I could care less" for "I couldn't care less". Oh, so you kind of care? That's sweet.

Jayzilla said...

"I mean, this is, far and away, the most entertaining thing that’s ever happened to either of their sad fucking pathetic shows."

im in full support this statement


www.thesockdrawer.org

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

YYEEESSS! UK Tour. Leeds. This is gonna be Felchtastic.

Also, the cockpit is a bootyful venue, hope you're playing in the tunnely room.

Ted Yang said...

I have a friend who I, at some point, decided to misspell my texts to. I guess it is dorky and definitely a waste of time to figure out, but I guess it gives me a feeling of "I'm better than texting, so I'll ironically write 'cum' and 'aks' in my text messages".

Also, what the fuck? You are from the good ol' USA. Come to the Northwest before you have your baby, not the UK. (sorry UK people, you can't get that mad at me though because he is, after all, going to the UK and not the Northwest United States)

STACEY MCCOOL said...

Sweet double parentheses.

Candice said...

andy- i love that you called him "comet" dog instead of comic dog.

AOVM said...

i hear the southampton show is gunna melt all other shows with its sickness..

JSIN said...

Conan is funny.

Ryan said...

Chicago show before UK? Please?

Word verification: Phesse. Haha say that out loud.

Mark said...

TLA should play Chicago. You never play there.

I'm with Coco.

Sanna said...

lawrence arms in uk, yeah! best news ever. i'be been waiting for this five years (saw you last in sweden then) can't believe how fast years fly by. tla & ra in uk feels like two years ago. so see you there again, gotta start saving money or something.

kylewagoner said...

haahhaha I see you.

Jeff Sorley said...

Shit, Brendan, only the UK. =(

I still stand by my word that I will set my hair on fire just like the old days if you come to Lyon.

But maybe I can swing over to the isles for one of the shows.

My word verification for today is 'cutherse'

Sue said...

haha great article... just a point - 'believe you me' was common in Irish Gaeilge, and transfered to English, then spread from there throughout the world. In Irish the grammar makes the sentance that way.

Ryan said...

If I didn't have any work I would tour the land with you. See you in Belfast and Dublin anyhoo!