Category: Funny Stuff

I know this will come as a shock– I like reading about weird people, and hearing stories about weird people.  And because I think REGULAR people are often pretty weird but are just good at hiding their crazy, whenever someone really comes to the top of my radar, I put them on a list.  Right now I’m going to share my "Weird Celebrities" list, because it finally got long enough for a blog post.

These are people who will NOT be appearing in US Weekly, in the section “Stars Are Just Like Us!” because you see, they are not like us, and by us, I mean humans.

By the way, I was going to put David Bowie on this list, but I saw him in Kate’s Paperie in New York buying some notecards, which totally un-did the whole “Ziggy Stardust” thing for me.  Ditto for Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, who we saw at the theater in New York, both wearing practical sweatshirts.

1.    Bjork.  As I said the other day, for me Bjork lives on another planet, where she makes music and maybe does some sculpture work from perishable items like pimento lunchmeat.  The fact that she’s quasi-married to Matthew Barney just compounds this, because you know they’re not at home on Wednesday nights watching Lost.  No no, they’re on a boat, in Antarctica, learning about flensing.  I’m not even kidding about the flensing, which you’ll know if you saw Matthew Barney’s exhibit at SF MOMA last year.  Yeah.  She wore a swan dress to the Academy Awards, totally without irony. 

2.    Marilyn Manson.   Ashley mentioned this one, and thanks!  Can you imagine looking over in the grocery store and seeing Marilyn Manson buying some Hamburger Helper?  His whole thing is about how he’s not like regular people, which I suppose is why his band-mate claims he used band profits to buy some Nazi paraphernalia just goes right along with this.

3.    Prince.  Too eccentric to have a normal name, a normal house, or a normal career.  He is tiny and purple, and so Prince-like, you have to go to him—he cannot bring the Prince to you.   In case you doubt the veracity of this one, check out this hilarious Smoking Gun article, in which a man from whom Prince once rented a mansion for $70,000/ month (not a typo) ended up suing the great purple one for making the place too Prince-like, including a giant purple monogrammed rug, and extra water pipes for a purple beauty salon. 

4.    Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice).  Jim Maloy says:  “The fact that Posh Spice has turned herself into a giant orange praying mantis pretty much means you won’t be seeing her at VONS.”

5.    David Byrne.  Unless you can picture someone doing laundry in an electric blue unitard, of course.   Stephan once interviewed him for a radio show he had in San Francisco, and afterwards he had to drive David Byrne to a book signing himself.  During this ride, David Byrne offered him coffee, from a thermos.

6.    Catherine Zeta- Jones.  I know, I’m still on this, but she mostly just seems like she lives on a pillow made of velvet and never goes poop.  I know she’s had kids and all, but I just can’t see her wiping noses or answering the inane questions of a three year old over and over again.

7.    Christopher Walken.  Seems like he lives in a locked trailer where all of his needs are provided for, then they let him out to “do the Walken” for 20 minutes or so at a time.  “Do not look Mr. Walken in the eye.  Put Mr. Walken back in his trailer when you are done with him.” 

8.    Beck—not only a weirdo musician who writes lyrics like “get crazy with the Cheez-Wiz,” but is also a Scientologist.  Seems like he would go to McDonald’s, but would order something really weird—“Can you put the French Fries into the McDonald-land sundae?  I wonder what that would taste like.”

9.    Karl Lagerfeld—just can’t see him buying toilet paper (unless it’s made of gold, maybe), or popping a zit.  Maybe it’s the big glasses.

10.    Tom Cruise/ Katie Holmes—It’s totally cool that my BFF Katie Holmes ran the NY Marathon and all—very humanizing for her.  But, I’m still having a hard time imagining either of them, say, using a credit card to purchase a book on Amazon.com, or calling an exterminator.  This one is a combination of being super-rich and just living on another planet, in my opinion.

11.    Liza Minelli.  I once saw her in a Starbucks in New York while she was supposedly filming that documentary with her then-husband David Gest (who probably also belongs on this list).  No, she was not ordering coffee or reading a book.

Bonus:  Ex-Weirdos

Even death cannot erase their weirdness.

1.    Klaus Kinski.  Just….my God.  Did you see Fitzcarraldo?  He wasn’t even acting.  Werner Hertzog has some great stories about his multiple nervous breakdowns on set, and how Kinski used to carry around guns all the time.  In case you don’t know, this is Nastassja Kinski’s father, who was a famous actor and died of a heart attack at age 65, because his body could just not take the “explosive temperament.”  Go out and rent “My Best Fiend” if you’re curious.

2.    Marlon Brando—Couldn’t fathom real life so much, he moved to Polynesia to eat fruit in a muumuu.  Remember when he won Best Supporting Actor and sent a Native American woman to NOT accept the award for him?  Yeah, that was before his son killed his daughter’s girlfriend, and then he tried to help cover it up.  Not to take away from his incredible talent, though.  Wow.

3.    Ingmar Bergman made films about playing chess with death.  Nuff said.

4.    Andy Warhol—never did anything normal.  He and his brother had two toy ducks called “The Gomez Brothers,” dude.

5.    Charles Mingus once fired a shotgun through the ceiling of his loft while people were filming a documentary about him.  So very many steps between you and me, and having a loaded shotgun in your loft to even be able to make that scenario happen.

6.    Alfred Jarry (a playwright) was a midget who was always drunk on wood grain alcohol.   Not to be confused with Toulouse Lautrec, who was also apparently a drunk on wood grain alcohol midget.

7.    Edith Piaf, another midget (she was 4’8”, in case you’re keeping track) was raised by prostitutes and had, during her lifetime, malnutrition, alcoholism, morphine addiction, ulcers, tuberculosis, pancreatitis, hepatitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and, ultimately, cancer.  She survived two near-fatal car accidents, married a man 20 years her junior, and was alleged to have been blind from ages three to seven.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

So, I was in Sacramento for a business trip at the beginning of the week– not that they don’t have the internet in Sacramento, but I was very, very busy driving there and being extremely hot doing work-related things at the capitol, so I didn’t write anything.  On the bright side, you’ll notice that the California budget passed while I was there, so my trip had SOME positive impact.

Just kidding.  It was hot, but I had a great time.  I also got to have dinner with Stephan’s aunt and uncle and his grandma, who in case you don’t know, is 99 years old and AWESOME.  She uses the internet.  She drinks wine.  She makes jokes.  It’s her 100th birthday in October, and she has TOO MANY FRIENDS FOR ONE LOCATION, so she’s having two parties.  Just in case you were wondering what life can be like when you’re 100.

I’ve included this saucy fisherman’s photo because I find it so amusing that this restaurant felt the need to trademark the "Captain Smiley" brand, and because, if you look really close, you can make out the fact that Captain Smiley (TM) is giving a thumbs up sign through his fisherman’s gloves.  Ahoy!  Come and eat some fish tacos, matey!  Fish tacos are A-OK!

Now that he doesn’t have a yard to run around in anymore since we moved, I’ve been taking the dog to Barrington Dog Park in the afternoons… I haven’t seen Dustin Hoffman or anyone good like that, but you know as soon as I do, I’ll run home and post something about it.  For now, I have an amusing anecdote that is marginally related to Flava Flav.

It turns out while my dog park in New York was filled with actor-types (like Jason Lewis, who played Smith on Sex and the City, and who, yes, IS that good looking in person, and Michael Musto, the newspaper columnist), the Barrington park is filled with TV-writer types, all of whom seem to be pitching each other their ideas, or talking about how their ideas are in various states of production.  Last week, one guy with a really barky collie dog kept saying "Be quiet, Molly– we’re talking about the WORST BUSINESS IN THE WORLD," to which I wanted to go "Dude– get over yourself.  Go lay some drywall if you think your job sucks so much."  Because you know, I really have no sympathy for people who are in decent situations, but slag them off and disparage them like ingrates.  Really, there are worse things to be than a screenwriter who’s at the dog park in the middle of the day.

That same day, I was just about to leave when this OTHER guy came up, and started to pitch the bitter TV guy on a show that he was shopping.  I didn’t stay for the whole thing, but just the first part of his elevator pitch was so amusing, I thought I’d share it. 

"You take twelve homeless guys…."

This is when my brain shut down and I stopped listening, because really, how can it get any better?  Reality tv has really run the whole gamut in the past seven or so years, and now we’re officially scraping the bottom of the barrel.  I won’t say what the whole concept was in case the guy actually sells it, but he did mention that he’d pitched it to one of the guys who made "Flavor of Love," and that he’d passed on it because (and this is a direct quote) "Homeless people scare me."  Bear in mind, Flavor of Love is the show where a woman POOPED on herself last season.   Also, Flava Flav might be the closest thing to a homeless guy in the history of television, so if anyone was going to take the show, it would be these guys. 

The other thing I find hilarious about this is the whole concept of using homeless people as test subjects in some competition show, as if to ignore the very fact that they’re homeless, and how they might have gotten that way in the first place, like giving them a haircut and a crisp $100 bill is going to solve the underlying drug addiction or mental illness or general habit of making terrible decisions that got them there.  This just seems like a recipe for disaster, and for that reason, I almost wish they’d make it.

I walked by this car today, started laughing, and had to stop to take a photo.  Because not only is the trunk bungee-corded shut from being in more than one accident, but this guy is parked in TWO handicapped spots without a handicapped placard.

You know this guy is like "Man….why does this kind of thing always happen to me?  I TRY to make the right decision, and somehow I always end up parked in two handicapped spots with my trunk bungee-corded shut.  DAMMIT!"

I’m actually glad you can’t make out the license plate, because knowing L.A., this is probably the car of someone famous, like Tom Sizemore or something.  I just picked Tom Sizemore because he seems like the kind of guy who makes alot of questionable decisions, and whose trunk is probably bungee-corded shut.

And with that, I am going to Carmel for the weekend to rest from the move and to celebrate Steph’s birthday.  If you miss me, though, you can always buy my book.  That should keep you occupied for the weekend, at least.

P.S. I finally found a copy of The Bourne Identity in a discount bin at Target, and  I am going to begrudgingly admit that I actually liked it.  I can totally see what all the hype is about, and now I’m curious about the next two. 

This is a funny email I got….feel free to copy and forward.  Some of these made me laugh out loud, not least of which because I wrote a book about websites, and seriously, one of the main things I pointed out in one of the chapters was the importance of picking a good url.   I once did a website for a client who INSISTED that she wanted a url that had the words "ScoutSex" in it.  And you know that can’t be good.

These
are not made up:

 

1. Who
Represents is where you can find the name of the agent that

represents any celebrity. 
Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com

2.
Experts Exchange is a knowledge base where programmers can
exchange

advice and views at
www.expertsexchange.com

3.
Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at

www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try
Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com

5. There’s the Italian Power
Generator company, www.powergenitalia.com

6. And don’t forget the Mole
Station Native Nursery in New South Wales , www.molestationnursery.com

7. If
you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always

www.ipanywhere.com

8. And
the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web

site, www.speedofart.com

My friend Michelle sent me this over the weekend.  I love this sign, and I double love the fact that I am the first person she thought of when she saw it. 

Along this same topic, my friend Lisa (with whom I attended a Tears for Fears concert last Sunday– more about that later), sent me this series of hilarious wedding postings.  Like her, I wonder who actually took the time to pull these out of their respective papers and send them around, but who cares?  Now they are here to entertain you.  Here’s a whole gallery.