Funny Strange....

One of These Is Going to Make You Feel Better

Hey, I know Friday is your longest day in the office, and so, just for you, I have been saving these humorous clippings for your amusement.  Here you'll find a gallery of things I think are funny that have just been waiting for a post like this to bring them all together.   If at least one of these will make you laugh out loud, and then my work here is done.

# 1 Bike Injury Ad

This is an actual ad that appears in a local (probably local to Brentwood) magazine I picked up while I was waiting for my Jamba Juice to be done.  This particular magazine caters to an audience of triathletes and bicycle enthusiasts, just so you know the context.   Apparently it's not at all uncommon to be run over  while you're riding your bike, thereby ending you up twisted and gnarled in your bike, sometimes with the wheel facing the wrong direction, perhaps indicating that you barely know how to ride the bike in the first place.

This ad just begs so many questions.  For one, why does the injured party ALREADY have a bandage on her head?  Did she have a head injury before she got on the bike?  If so, I doubt she has a very good case (but maybe one of my lawyer friends would care to comment).  Was she just involved in a bicycle accident?  Did the paramedics come and bandage her head, and not extricate her from the bike?  I'm just wondering.  Maybe the lawsuit would be against them. 

# 2  A photo we like to call "Good Call, Man."

A completely unaltered photo of referees touching each others buttocks during a real NFL game, in honor of football season being underway.  Go Niners!   To get this gem of a photo, we actually had to run the Tivo back to the exact moment of mutual buttock contact, pause it, disable the flash on the camera, and take the photo a number of times until we got it just right.  Because we are that dedicated to capturing truly absurd football moments.  Please note that there is NO REASON AT ALL for these referees to be touching each other's buttocks.  I mean, it's kind of gay when football players do this after a good play or whatever, but when referees do it, it's clearly just gratuitously, "go get married in Massachusetts why don't you" GAY.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  God loves gay referees too.

# 3   

My name placard from an important U.S. Government event I attended last week in Washington D.C.  Here's why this is funny.  It's supposed to look official and like I'm someone whose name would actually appear on a printed sign before them at a U.S. Government event....and yet it has a coffee stain on the side of it, because in the 3.5 seconds between me sitting down at the table and them putting the sign in front of me, I managed to STAIN THE SIGN, and that's the way it stayed for the rest of the day.    Just so you know, this sign probably symbolizes me the best....I'm official, I'm trying to be pulled together, and somewhere, somehow, I always spill something, or trip and fall.  Maybe you have to know me for this one to be funny, but there are a few people out there nodding their heads like-- "yeah, that is so Culwell."

# 4 Bette Midler's Human Clone

OK, first of all, maybe I'm out of the loop, but I didn't even know Bette Midler HAD a child.  And then....to open up People magazine on the plane only to find that she has a daughter who is her IDENTICAL TWIN?  Shocking.  I mean, I actually can't stop looking at this picture, they're so eerily similar.  Was there absolutely no sperm involved in the creation of this entirely new person?   That is nuts!  FREAKY!

This is like that movie that Robert McKee is so obsessed with, where the guy is trying to clone himself.  What's the name of that movie?  I can't remember.  That is how much of an impression Robert McKee's three day long egofest had on me and my creative life.  Whoops, was that out loud?  Save yourself the money.  Robert McKee is bitter, and he wants you to be that way too.

# 5 This is How We Heat Pizza in My House

Believe it or not, this works really well.



Have a good weekend, and please, if you're in town, come see me at the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday.  My panel starts at 11:00, and I'll be doing a book signing after. 

Um, Excuse Me? Can I Get Some Help Here?

Someone asked me the other day-- "what's the first image you think of when you hear the words "Funny Strange?"  Because these are the kinds of things people ask me, in case you're wondering.

I don't know why, but "dogs in costume" came to mind.  I have to say, there is nothing funnier to me than one of those catalogs of dog accoutrement that occasionally show up in our mailbox.  And it's not because the dogs are so precious or that the merchandise itself is funny.

I think what really gets me is the looks on the dogs' faces, and imagining what it must have been like to try to take that picture.  Is there anything sadder than this pug's face? 

Maybe I'm really laughing at the next moment-- the one you don't see, where the dog starts frantically rubbing his head on the floor, or starts ripping the foam out of one of the toys, shaking his head wildly from side to side.  Because that is so what's happening right after they wrap these shoots.

Then there's this one, where they've clearly either drugged the dog to get him to wear this outfit, or have just PhotoShopped a photo of a black lab onto the hippie costume.

Again, my thoughts go more to the "behind the scenes" aspect-- imagine being the person whose JOB it is to PhotoShop a dog's head onto a hippie costume?   Someone's boss thought this was a really, really good idea.  "Johnson!  You know what would really sell the hippie costume?  A BLACK LAB!  Get right on that!"

Maybe it's because I own a dog that won't tolerate the dressing up.  He doesn't care if you want to see him dressed like a hippie or with some fetching reindeer antlers on his head.  He thinks it's demeaning, and he's going to lodge a complaint with his union if you try to put a hat on him or balance anything on his nose.    And he MOST CERTAINLY does not want you dressing him up like a rabbi.

This dog is only sitting still because he's being bribed with meaty treats.  You can practically see the crumbled up pieces of bacon reflected in his eyes.  Also, when I showed this hilarious photo to Stephan, he said "Isn't it ironic that they picked the most German dog they could find to dress up like a rabbi?"

Ugly Betty is HOT!

Note:  I don't know why, but Typepad decided to publish just a fragment of this piece on Monday, then save the whole thing for today.  So, in case you were one of the people who saw the snippet of this, so sorry!  Now you know I start working on these posts a few days before they actually go up, to provide you with the highest quality funny and strange.

I just saw this Glamour magazine when I was traveling, and I have to say, this made me laugh out loud.  If you'll enlarge the photo, you'll see that Glamour has totally Photoshopped the hell out of America Ferrera, perhaps to the point of putting her head on someone else's body, and then put a headline beside that, exclaiming "UGLY BETTY IS HOT!"

How much does ABC want you to know that America Ferrera, who plays Ugly Betty, ISN'T REALLY UGLY?  So much that they've apparently entered into some exclusive Photoshopping contract with Glamour magazine to make sure that Ferrera looks both SKINNY AND HOT when she's not actually on the set of her hit show UGLY BETTY.  Apparently it's ok for them to make a show ABOUT an ugly fat girl, but only if it's 100% clear to everyone watching that she's actually a CUTE SKINNY girl in a fat suit and fake braces.  Because-- a real ugly fat person on TV?  No no no!  That would violate some kind of international trade law.

Let us not forget, however, that this is how America Ferrera GOT this job-- remember Real Women Have Curves, which was all about how she shouldn't have to be skinny just to fit in and get people to like her?  Here's how she looked in that.

And here's how she looked at last week's Emmy awards, where, I kid you not, I saw her with my own two eyes, weighing in at about 110 pounds and standing next to her dinner, holding her Emmy.

I'm not knocking her-- she can lose weight if she wants to, I don't really care.  It's just so very Hollywood to me that they would hire a girl whose whole career up to now has been about how "she's not just some skinny white girl," then they immediately start going after her with a pair of tweezers, some diet pills and a magic PhotoShop blur tool, so that you know it's JUST A FAT SUIT-- SHE'S NOT REALLY FAT!

Hollywood Car Wash?  Anyone?  No?

She's UGLY BETTY, dude.  It's got to be ok for UGLY BETTY to not conform to this ridiculous Hollywood standard.  This is the pressure that leads people like Jamie Pressley to lose all of her baby weight six weeks after she gives birth, because she's "afraid she's going to lose her job," (ha ha, but not really). 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

Are you following this O.J. Simpson thing?  They've let him out on bail, but they've added "kidnapping with a deadly weapon" to his list of charges, and they're saying that he might have to do 35 years for this sports memorabilia robbery thing in Vegas.

The only logical conclusion to be drawn from this bizarre chain of events is that O.J. Simpson is our modern-day version of Macbeth, only without the Lady Macbeth behind him spurring him on (because, um, he killed her)>

Go with me on this-- here's a man so ambitious and talented that he crushes everything in his path.  He succeeds at a sport where the odds are so astronomical, it's not even funny.  He breaks into tv and film.  He's a world famous celebrity.  He gets to the top of his game, then kills his wife and gets away with it, thus ensuring that he has his money, his kids, and his Heisman trophy.   The Brown and Goldman families win the civil case against him, so he's found LIABLE for the murders, but ingeniously moves to Florida so the families can never collect on the $ 35 million dollar verdict.  He's 60 years old, which means all he has to do is sit back, chip golf balls until his arthritis won't allow it, sign autographs, AND KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.   It's this last part that's giving him the trouble, see?  That's what makes him like Macbeth.  He's home free, only he is clearly unable to live with the burden of his conscience.

This is when it really starts to resemble Shakespeare.  For you see, Simpson is crushed by the weight of his actions.  It doesn't matter what the jury says-- he knows what happened that night, and his continued and eternal silence is too high a price to pay for his life.  His subconscious mind (or his conscience, if you'd prefer) begins to creack under the pressure.  He is desperate for punishment.

First, he teams with Judith Regan to write a semi-fictional, thinly veiled confessional book called "If I Did It."  He knows he can't collect any money from the proceeds of the book because of that law which orders the proceeds go to the victims families, so why even get involved in a project like this? 

Because he needs to confess, that's why.  In one portion of an interview to promote the book, taped before the project was canceled, Regan says to Simpson, "You wrote, 'I have never seen so much blood in my life.'" Simpson responds, "I don't think any two people could be murdered without everybody being covered in blood."

I mean, JUST LOOK AT THE BOOK COVER, dude.  The "if" is so small, it's barely even there.  O.J. Simpson WANTS YOU TO KNOW THAT HE DID IT, OK?  Getting out of his forced prison of silence will finally set him free.

The book is stifled, though.  Protest groups are in an uproar, the book is pulled, Judith Regan is fired and disgraced.  Again the psychic burden shifts back to Simpson, and he finds that he cannot live with it, so he takes a GUN to LAS VEGAS, a city more saturated with video cameras and other recording devices then any other in the nation.  He commits SEVEN felonies in the span of five minutes, including ARMED KIDNAPPING.

So, this pretty much speaks for itself.  He can't live with himself, and somehow, he's going to make sure he pays for those crimes.  He knows he's guilty and he's cheated the system, and so he has, either deliberately or unconsciously, ended up exactly where he feels he deserves to be-- serving 35 years in prison. 

Also, I'm guessing that for the first time since 1995, he's getting a good night's sleep.    Crazy! 

My Dog, Myself

So, you know how they say that people’s dogs start to look just like them? If you’ve never heard this, here’s an example.

 

 

 

Baxter looks absolutely nothing like me, though we have noticed over the years that he’s extremely food-averse, and seems to have picked up some of my phobias. Although, that’s not entirely accurate. He doesn’t not eat the same stuff I won’t eat—he has his OWN list of things he doesn’t like. I’ve only owned one other dog in my life, and that dog was very old so I’m not sure she’s a good basis for comparison,  but apparently it is not normal for a dog to not want to eat everything that’s not nailed down. In fact, we have some friends who stopped by right when we were moving. Since everything in the kitchen was still in boxes, we went out to dinner, but before we left they remarked that we might want to hide a large box of food that was sitting on the floor which included (but was not limited to) girl scout cookies, pasta, a box of rice, and some chocolate-covered raisins. They were like “hey—if you leave that food out, isn’t your dog going to eat it?”, and I think we actually laughed. Because if you own a regular “I’ll eat anything” Lab or something, it might seem amazing that you could leave a whole box of food on the floor and your dog would sniff it, let out a big deep sigh, then go to his bed and take a nap. What dog leaves free food?

My dog leaves food.

Actually, it’s probably not just me and my food fears that made him this way—when we first got him, he WAS one of those dogs that would eat anything, which included disgusting things off the street corner in
New York. This indiscriminate eating lasted for about a week, then he ate something that must’ve had poison in it, because he started drooling uncontrollably and we had to take him to the dog emergency hospital, where they put him on IV antibiotics. Since then, he can only eat the “Sensitive Stomach” dog food, and he’s been very, VERY careful about what he will eat, and wouldn’t dream of eating garbage, or really, anything that he hasn’t taken over to his bed and examined thoroughly, as if he has a tiny dog microscope over there. It is endlessly entertaining to watch people in stores try to give him MilkBone dog treats, which he does not approve of. He’ll take it in his mouth (just to be polite? I don’t know), then turns right around and spits it out, as if to say “thank you, but no thanks. Don’t like it.”

Here is a list of things Baxter will not eat, in case you find this interesting at all:
 

1. Pizza crust. He would prefer it if you could just take the pepperoni slices off and give them to him one at a time.  He does not like the dough. He indicates this by taking the pizza crust into his mouth, and then whining plaintively until you take it back
       
2. Pasta. Unless that pasta has meat sauce, and then he will eat the meat sauce only, and spit out the pieces of pasta, which you will have to clean up.
    
       
3. MilkBone Dog Biscuits. See above. He prefers soft treats that smell like meat ONLY, and even then he has to take them away and vet them before they can be eaten.
      
       
4. Vegetables or fruit of any kind. Out of the question. Even covered in meat.
       
      
   
5. Potatoes, mashed or otherwise. He’d like you to know just how disgusting he finds anything with potatoes, so much so that it warrants a whole new category apart from regular vegetables. Yesterday after dinner we tried to give him some mashed potatoes with pork gravy, and he SPIT THE POTATOES ONTO THE FLOOR like a histrionic woman.
   
       
6. Standard household food, like Chex Mix, dry rice, or pasta. Don’t even make him laugh. These foods he will sniff, then look up at you like “How dare you?” In case you don’t know him, that looks like this:

He also does not appreciate being dressed up.  He finds this demeaning.

Things he will eat, in case you’re still reading:

1. Tuna. In cans. In fact, he will eat any kind of fish, and will even break his “I hate rice” rule to eat whole pieces of hand-rolled sushi. Actually, maybe he’s a seal instead of a dog.

2. Cat food. Preferably wet food. Maybe he does this as a “screw you” to the cat whose food this is, because they won’t be needing this once he chases them away.
       
       
3. Short Bread Cookies. Not regular cookies from the store. Shortbread Girl Scout cookies that you have to buy from your friends’ kids. Have to be in the blue box, even though dogs are color blind.
       
       
4. Granola bars. Only oats and honey, and only if he’s in the mood. Otherwise, this gets spit out right on the floor.
       
       
5. Steak/ other forms of protein. Only if cut into cube-size pieces.
       
       
6. Pirates’ Booty. Don’t bother with regular popcorn.
       
       
7. Cool Whip.
       
       
8. White cake, with frosting.
       
       

Big News! Big News!

Exciting news!  My novel, Hollywood Car Wash has made the finals of Media Predict's "Project Publish" competition.  Here's an excerpt from this morning's press release from Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster:

TOUCHSTONE IMPRINT OF SIMON & SCHUSTER AND MEDIA PREDICT NAME FIVE FINALISTS IN PROJECT PUBLISH CONTEST 

New Method Offers Revolutionary Approach to Finding Content  

 Contestants Drawn Nationwide from User Submissions, Literary Agencies, and

Print-on-Demand Sites 

NEW YORK, September 19, 2007 – Five finalists were named today in Media Predict’s Project Publish competition, which Media Predict conducted in conjunction with Touchstone Books, an imprint of publishing company Simon & Schuster, Inc. Contestants for the contest included referrals from well-known literary agencies and best-sellers at print-on-demand sites Lulu and iUniverse. Other contestants were drawn from hundreds of proposals directly submitted via the Media Predict site.

The contest, which began May 21, asked users at Media Predict (www.mediapredict.com) to evaluate 50 book proposals via prediction markets. Similar markets have been used to forecast election results, sporting events, and motion picture box office sales with a high degree of accuracy.

Since it was launched, Project Publish has attracted international media attention including articles in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Economist, and The International Herald Tribune, and features on American Public Radio. Hundreds of references also appeared on blogs and websites.

Several Touchstone senior editors independently selected five finalists to compete for future publication with the imprint:

Mark Gompertz, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Touchstone Fireside added: “Looking through the Media Predict and Project Publish proposals was an interesting challenge. It is the ultimate pre-publication, market-based focus group. I look forward to following the market closely for the next round and using their lead to invest in the final project for publication by Touchstone.”

Media Predict markets are open and players can register and begin trading at www.mediapredict.com.


--So,  go over there and register, read the first three chapters of my book, and vote!   

Emmy Madness

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in awhile, and right after I got you to subscribe and everything!  Well, I have sort of a good reason this time-- I got totally sucked into Emmy madness.  I've been trying to come up with a post that accurately captures all the inside glitz and glamor of the Emmy Awards, and finally I've arrived at this.

The Emmys.  Were.  AWESOME!  I wasn't nominated for an Emmy and therefore didn't win one, and my seats had "obstructed view," if you catch my drift, but this did nothing to obscure the awesomeness of the Emmy ceremony.

After my last post on Thursday, I spent the whole day on Friday looking for dresses, because I had only tried on five zillion of them, which wasn't nearly enough.  Finally I found one (long and black, in case you're wondering-- I'm still waiting for my friend to send me pictures). 

Saturday I just blatantly ignored my blog because I was so darn excited about the Emmys, and also, I had to leave my house at 3:30 in the afternoon, and I had alot of things to do before then, like get ready, get a manicure, break out some old hot rollers and aerosol hairspray (because, who CARES about the environment-- it's the EMMYS).  That night I went to a pre-Emmy reception where I met some very nice (famous) people, then had a fancy dinner at AGO.  Then I went home, because Emmy day starts early, baby!  Early!

Bright and early on Sunday morning we went to Frederic Fekkai, because we didn't want Heidi Klum looking better than us. 

I don't know if you know this, but the Emmys start right at 5:00, which means you have to get picked up at 2:00 in the afternoon and wait in a limo line behind the people from the Daily Show for about an hour, looking at the window at picketers with signs that say "Death to Television Fornicators," who are clearly people who just couldn't get Emmy tickets. Because why would they say these things about television if they could be inside, observing the sheer awesomeness?

Our seats were on the first floor, sort of on the back by the door, so we could see everyone who was going in or out.  And, in case you were watching, we were on the side of the Shrine Auditorium that most of the show was directed toward, since the disastrous "theater in the round" concept was implemented and the casts of "Ugly Betty" and "Boston Legal" had to see most of the presenters' backs.

Here are some other highlights:

*** I'm sure you figured this out, but Sally Field said "If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn't be any God Damn War," and they bleeped her. 

*** Yes, Heidi Klum really is that good looking in person.

*** James Spader's joke about "stealing money from the mafia" was due to the fact that when the presenter said "James," we all thought she meant Gandolfini, and the whole Sopranos cast stood up to applaud.  When she said "Spader" again, there were at least thirty seconds of stunned silence.  That is why James Gandolfini's face looked weird when they zoomed in on him.

*** Hugh Laurie is taller than you would think. 

*** Is there any doubt left as to whether Christina Aguilera is pregnant?  Because if there is, let me add my opinion to the consensus.  She totally looked like it from where I was sitting, and her voice is AMAZING in person.

** The dinner at the Governor's Ball was filet mignon and mone barrow flan.  Yes, I said bone marrow flan.  I actually took a small bite of it before I realized it was made of marrow, and it tasted like regular flan.  Also, regarding the dessert, it was chocolate mousse, and I think I was the only woman there who actually ate their dessert.  At least, this is what I surmised when we were walking around after dinner, and every table I saw had every dessert untouched.  Because if you want to be that skinny, there is no way you are eating chocolate mousse.  And, as a skinny person, allow me to just say HOOOOO -WEEEEE some of those girls are skinny.  Like, they haven't eaten chocolate mousse in fifteen years skinny.

Continuing in the theme of Hollywood Awesomeness, Today I had a meeting with a person on the PARAMOUNT LOT about HOLLYWOOD CAR WASH, and then I ran back home to write it all down and report it.   Tomorrow I'm going to Washington DC, and I'm sure I'll have some more amusing things I remember about the Emmys that I remember by the time I surface again on Friday. 

If you have individual questions about the Emmy Awards, which were awesome, send an email or post them in the comments and I will be happy to answer if I have anything good to tell.  I also have another big Hollywood Car Wash-related announcement coming up in the next couple of days, so stay tuned!!

Costumes: The Perfect Gift for Children

I got a new camera as an anniversary present, and you know what that means--- even more photo funny!  I carry it everywhere with me now, which I'm sure does wonders for my ability to live in the moment and enjoy life.  Actually, I have to say that searching for the funny for this blog DOES make life alot more entertaining.

First stop:  freaky costume store.  There is this weird store by where we used to live in Santa Monica....they sell costumes, which is all fine and dandy, but I'm not sure this is an industry that warrants a year-long storefront which continually has this sign in the window:

Every time I walk by there, I go "Hmmm....really?  What children are they talking about?"  Are these children from Olde Tymes, when it was just good fun to put on the outfit of your favorite rapscallion and run around the yard? Because I have to say, I know some kids, and none of them are wearing costumes on a regular basis.  One year, we got our friend's son a fireman outfit, and I think he's worn it twice (if I'm not mistaken, once was on HALLOWEEN).

They also have this tiny mannequin in the window, which makes me wonder-- who dresses their kid up like Vampire Kelly Osborne, Halloween or not?  I thought little girls dressed up like fairy princesses for Halloween, right?

Continuing on the theme of "weird costumes," this next photo comes to you from the BABY STORE next door to the costume place, where Stephan looked into the window and screamed at this display. 

I'm not sure what they were going for with this-- are they trying to get you to dress your kids up like Hannibal Lecter?  Maybe to put them in a straight-jacket to feed them?  I'm not saying I disagree with this concept-- I'm just surprised that they've gone so far as to actually implement this  in the window of a baby store.  Also, what's with the little wig?   Did they mean for the baby mannequin to look like Shirley Maclaine after a bad trip to the other side?  Why give a mannequin baby a bad combover?  Help a mannequin baby out! 


This one should really be a candidate for Oddee's "Misplaced Signs" category.  Simply outstanding. See.... you didn't even know Barry Manlilow had gone into a new genre, did you?

Hey, Happy September 11th!

Since I was in the actual city when the s*@t went down, I’m still sort of thinking of September 11 in my mind as “The day I went off to work on the bus, and then stuff starting blowing up” day. I will say, though, that several awesome things happened in and around the time of 9/11, once we came out from under the bed and stopped screaming at the top of our lungs. Actually, one of the things I remember the most vividly is that I was running across town to try to get away from the downtown area and get home, and for some reason I stopped to buy and eat a donut. I guess I figured that if the whole city was going to blow up and we were all going to die in the riot that follows, um, I wanted a donut. So I got one. I just think it’s funny that this is what I remember. I also remember a lot of great camaraderie among New Yorkers, and how everybody was essentially helping each other cope, and we were all talking about the same thing for days and days after, like one big “Naked Lunch” moment. Oh, and FEMA bought us all air filters and vacuums, and everybody seemed a little nicer and more fragile, and less people honked their horns. So, in a way, it was an interesting thing to experience first hand, and it changed your perspective forever, I guess.

Which leads me to my next topic: our darling dog Max Baxter, who we got right after 9/11. This dog is actually a good reminder of 9/11, because as it turned out, that event was the reason we were like “who CARES if our building doesn’t allow dogs? Downtown is on FIRE, life is too short, we’ve always wanted a dog, and now we’re getting one.”

So, really, 9/11 is the reason our dog is alive right now. Because right after that, we went to the pound and rescued him and he’s been a great addition to our lives ever since. I wonder where he came to live with us, but then I don’t, really—because I can’t imagine our lives without him.

So, happy 9/11, or as we like to call it, happy “screw it….we’re getting a dog” day. Here are some more pictures of Baxter to cheer you up in case you're in a 9/11 funk.

Finally, a very happy birthday to Gibson Frazier.

"Are You Going to Write About This On Your Blog?"

Lately, I'm getting this question more and more-- someone will tell me something totally bizarre or random, then cover their mouth and furtively glance around and say "Are you going to write about this on your blog?"

Well, let me just clear this up for you.  OF COURSE I'm going to write about it on my blog.  I consider it my purpose in life to make your dinner party, or your workday, or your next conversation more entertaining, so I think it's my MISSION to write about stuff that I find funny and weird, like a pimp on a bus, or a person named Groovy Nipples Schwartzman.  OF COURSE I'm not going to use real names of people who tell me these things, because then no one would ever tell me anything ever again, right?  And I want to keep writing this blog forever, or at least until I win the lottery or get a million dollar book contract.  And even then, Andy Dick washing his food with vodka is still probably just going to be too good not to share.

Also, in response to my fear of mold, my friend K. sent me this horrifying anecdote, which you know is only going to fuel the fire of crazy:

True story here:   

A gal I know was cleaning her brother's room ( he is a drummer in a band I used to work with)..she opened an old McDonalds bag that had the moldy remnants of a Big Mac and the mold spores hit her in the eye.  She flushed the eye and after a few hours and much pain ended up in hospital with a corneal infection....Massive antibiotics and two days in the hospital , she was back on her feet,  but this easily could have caused cornea damage if left untreated.

She now will not eat at McDonalds,  and for damn sure will never clean her lazy drummer brother's
room , ever again.

Do You Know About This Site?

Because if you don't, you should.  It's provided me with many a mid-day, mid-writing laugh.  It's Oddee, and I don't know how they do it, but the people who run this site never fail to keep me entertained with their amusing lists, which have in the past included "20 Ugliest Celebrities," "7 Wonders of Ultramodern Dubai," and "10 Most Bizarre People on Earth."

My all-time favorite post, though, is "15 Hilarious Graffitis," which is where this photo came from.

Go there now and spend some time.  Think of me while you're laughing your face off.

Just to Clarify

Apropos of nothing, from last week's "Eight Random Facts" post, there seems to have been some question as to whether or not I actually like cats, just because I'm allergic to them.  Let me set the record straight here:  personally, I love cats.   Every time I see a cat, I want to scoop it up and plop it in my lap.  Sometimes I actually wish I could have a cat instead of a dog, because a cat would be so much easier on my schedule and would require much less time spent in dog parks that REEK of hot urine, and also less time in the actual action of bending down and picking up poop, then carrying it to a trashcan.

Unfortunately, my immune system does not share my love of cats, and so, ten minutes after one so much as brushes against me, I get a twinge inside my nose, which then makes me rub my eyes, which makes my eyes start to water, which makes me rub them more, which then very effectively spreads the cat dander up into my mucous membrane, which then makes me start to wheeze.  The sum total of this is always my poor husband having to drive me to the store to get some Claritin, which of course I don't have with me, and my face being swollen up like a potato for the 48 hours it takes for all the fluid to drain out so that I don't look like I was involved in some sort of accident or heavyweight championship fight.  Sometimes, I rub my eyes hard enough to give myself a black eye, and that's fun too, because people tend to REALLY believe that you have a black eye because you're so allergic to cats that you tried to rub your face off.

This is ironically coupled with the fact that cats LOVE me, as if they can smell the fact that their hair, or dander, or whatever it is that gets up into my nose, just kills me.   Because you know the minute you're not supposed to touch a cat, THAT's when the cat is all over you.  Cats who are totally anti-social are all over me, jumping on me, rehabilitating their surly personalities to crawl into my lap.   And once they're there, I can't just ignore them, and that's when the terrible cycle of itching, sneezing, and me clawing at my own eyes begins.  Believe me, if there was a way to own a cat and to not have this happen, I'd be all over it.  I tried the allergy shots, and they barely made a dent in this problem.  I practically have to carry the Epi-Pen in case I encounter a cat.

So now, every time Stephan sees this, he then goes "yeah-- do you have Claritin?  Remember last time?  Go wash your hands." 

Special thanks to Rachel for the photo of her lovely cat Mags. 

Moldy Mold Mold.

So, I'm sure you remember how I'm afraid of food, since that's the thing that people find absolutely HILARIOUS about me, as if they have no fears or compulsions of their own that they're hiding, like they LOVE clowns, and can easily get into a packed elevator and not want to scream.  Listen, I'm not Monk-- I mean, I can kill a spider with my bare hands, then take the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and look over, but if I find spoiled leftovers in the fridge, I'm screaming and crying like a little girl, ok?  Because I could have eaten that, and that would be....just unthinkable.  I'm just saying, everyone has their thing, and rotten food is mine.  It just grosses me out, and I own that.

Anyway, I was cleaning out the refrigerator last week (a task which I usually don't do, because I will throw out absolutely EVERYTHING), and came across the bane of my very existence-- a Tupperware container full of some grapes that had started to mold. 

I will say that this time I managed to actually open up the Tupperware and throw the moldy grapes out into the trashcan, which I thought was a big step for me, because before I would have just thrown away the whole container, even if the moldy grapes were contained in a piece of expensive, one-of-a-kind heirloom china.   In my mind, once something's had mold in it, no matter how hot the water is when you wash it, the mold is still there.   I think Stephan might have gotten tired of us never having anything to put leftovers in, though, because I started noticing them all rinsed out in the dishwasher before I could make the argument about how rotten food is virulent and will kill you. 

This time, I actually went so far as to fill up the container with hot water and soap, though I could not bring myself to wash it out with a sponge because that would have been a little too close to me touching the mold.  Also, while touching the moldy Tupperware, I will admit that I was holding my breath the whole time lest I accidentally inhale some of the spores, which would assuredly have given me tuberculosis.   I did start to freak a little bit when a drop of water from INSIDE the moldy Tupperware got on my foot.  Because you know why?  I don't like it when mold touches me, or when condensation that was once touching mold touches me.  I must have screamed a little louder than I meant to, though, because Stephan came into the kitchen and said calmly: "You know, I hate to tell you this, but lots of things are MADE out of mold.  You could even EAT mold, and you'd be fine.  Penicillin is made from mold.  BLUE CHEESE is mold.  In fact, CHEESE is essentially mold.  Things you like have mold in them!"

I think he was trying to be comforting, but the horrified look on my face may have let him know that this pep talk backfired, and that this had just made the crazy worse.   I also wonder if he noticed that I never let out the breath I was holding until AFTER I backed out of the kitchen very slowly.

Mold can kill you, you know.  Not many people know that.

Happy Anniversaraaayyyy....From Us To You

Today is Stephan and I's NINE YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.  Dude!  Nine years seems so long to me-- if our relationship were a child, that child would be able to do things like answer the phone and take a message, attend the fourth grade (or whatever grade nine year olds are in-- remember, we don't have kids), and maybe be decent at an instrument and know what they wanted to be when they grew up.   If our relationship were a bottle of wine, that wine might actually be aged to perfection by now.  And if we were a Hollywood couple, we'd receive some sort of meritorious service award.

Really, it seems like only yesterday we just met, and then we were getting married, and at the same time, it seems like we've been on this one great big adventure for a long time.   In fact, Stephan and I have been together for so long, I almost don't remember what life was like without him, nor would I ever want to.  Maybe I've blocked out the "non-Stephan" years.

In honor of this auspicious event, I dug up this positively ancient photo from a trip we took to Spain in 1999 or 2000, which just proves that we were mere babies when we got married, and what made us think that we knew so much about life?

I guess we just knew, like you know with a good melon.  And so here we are, ten years after we first met (on the MUNI train in San Francisco), and nine years after we said our "I-Dos" on a pier in Sausalito, then had a big crazy open mic and a buffet to celebrate.   

And now, in honor of our anniversary, I give you:

EIGHT RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MY HUSBAND

1.  He has uniquely colored eyes (see photo).
2.  Some say he has psychic chef abilities.
3.  He does a killer Spongebob Squarepants impression.
4.  He is a descendant of the people who brought you "Scrubby & Lloyd's" in San Luis Obispo.
5.  Prilosec makes him sneeze.
6.  His favorite Muppet was Ernie.
7.  Horseradish and all products containing horseradish piss him off. 
8.  He thinks Cy Twombly is an overrated hack.

Hey, did you have a good holiday weekend?

Because my dog did.  Yes, it was darn hot, but our new place has air conditioning, for which I have never been so grateful in my life.  Deeaaammnnnn it's hot!  Like, "Al Gore Was Right" hot.  New York in the summertime hot.  Swamp hot.  Africa in the Serengeti hot.  OK, now I've gone overboard with the heat adjectives, but you get the point.  So hot, we barely left the house all weekend, except to go to a barbeque to eat some brisket. 

Actually, I have to admit, the dog looks like this all the time.   I think it's because when you're in the death-row pound, and then some nice people who have always wanted a dog come to get you, and give you not one but TWO beds, and feed you cookies all the time and tell you how handsome you are, this is how you end up looking, because you SCORED and you know it.  So, to him, every weekend is a holiday weekend, and every day is a holiday. 

Go ahead, use it as your screen saver.  I did.   Also, in case you're still upset about it still being so hot even though summer is over, and you have to be back at work, I've gathered together some similar photos in a happy dog gallery, just to cheer you up.  Perhaps you can use it as some natural Prozac to get you through the day. 

My Oh MySpace

I'm sure you noticed (or maybe you didn't-- who do I think I am?) that my Myspace profile mysteriously disappeared in the middle of last week.   Gah!  When I was visiting Stephan's aunt and uncle the day before it disappeared, his aunt did mention that she'd looked at it recently, and that there seemed to be some obscene things posted in there, so my guess is that I got hacked, then MySpace deleted my account to stop the insanity.  Fair, I guess, to the people on the receiving end of the hackage, but totally sucky for me because I had over 12,000 friends over there, and that was the primary way some of them kept up with my work. 

Ah well, I put a new one together, so now I'm in the process of adding people back.  If that's your preferred form of Culwell consumption, then by all means, MySpace away!  And, if you happened to receive a random MySpace message from me last week, offering you discount Viagra or TOTALLY NUDE GIRLS, um, that wasn't me, and rest assured, the problem has been rectified.

Onward and upward.....

Free Novels! Tell a Friend!

How much do I want you to become one of my regular readers, thereby fulfilling my "build my fan base one person at a time" strategy?

So much so that, starting next month, I'm giving away a free, autographed copy of my novel, Hollywood Car Wash, on the first of every month.  It's the novel that the Washington Post called the "It Book," and the New York Daily News dubbed a "Sizzling Summer Read."  Even guys like it, which you know is saying something, because as you can see, it's pink.

So-- be sure to sign up using that "subscribe" box, or send me an email if you subscribed using the live bookmark.  Because I have to know where to find you in order to send you your free book.  And if you're now like "hey, man-- I don't want to subscribe because of Big Brother, and I don't know how to work live bookmarks, but I still want to be eligible," then fine-- send me a regular email at offers@hollywoodcarwash.com and you can enter that way.  Of course, OF COURSE you don't have to do anything to win, and the offer is open to everyone.  I'm just trying to bring my variety of funny to all corners of the Earth.

This gives you a way better chance of getting a free copy than, say, if you sat next to me in Government Class in high school but haven't talked to me since then, and only just now got in touch with me to ask if you could have one, if you know what I mean.

What do you have to lose?  This blog is darn funny (if I do say so myself), and if you don't like the novel, you can always unsubscribe and sell it on eBay.