You think you’d rather do without, you’ll never make it through without the truth

Remember on The Facts of Life when Tootie was president of the Jermaine Jackson Fan Club? And Mrs. Garrett told her she couldn’t go to the Jermaine Jackson concert because she had been slacking off in school and she had also made a commitment to help with Jo’s fundraiser?

Well, in case you forgot, Tootie has this like screaming babyish temper tantrum and Mrs. Garrett agrees to take her to the concert. See, she got her way even though she was acting like a narcissistic diva.

…um…hi, Bill!!

On Monday Bill Handel made the announcement that Todd Wilson was no longer with the show.

And KFI gave us the old “management decided to change Todd’s shift” excuse. I might have believed that.

Except…they also decided to punish Gary Hoffmann by moving him out of the studio he’s worked in for the past five years or whatever, and into the small news booth attached to Bill’s studio. Meaning, Bill can look over and mad dog Gary whenever he gets a little out of line. What with his witty comments and show prep and everything.

It’s been obvious for a while that Bill has given up on his show and has been phoning it in. (Sorry, Bill. Simply saying random words loudly does not equal material.) It still worked though because Gary and Todd were delivering the goods. But now? With Todd gone and Gary banished to the closet? Not so much.

For the record, I’m not buying that “shift change” nonsense.

Here’s the real scoop.

  • Todd and Gary tease Bill.
  • Todd and Gary are funnier than Bill.
  • Bill needs to be the center of attention.
  • Bill has a temper tantrum.
  • Management (Robin) sides with Bill.
  • Robin moves Todd to the Rush Limbaugh/Bill Carroll shift.
  • Robin pushes Gary into that news booth.
  • Bill now acts like a giddy bitch, having won the pissing contest.
  • The show loses whatever sense of humor it previously had.
  • Awkwardness, boringness, lameness ensue.

Enjoy your morning show, studs! Let me know if you need recommendations for something else to listen to.

P.S. Also let me know if you wanna come over and watch The Facts of Life with me! Or Brady Bunch. I’m equally fond of both series.

Everything OK*?

*AP Stylebook says to use OK, not okay or O.K. And, as you know, I strictly adhere to AP style when writing this blog. Except all the times I write LOL, SMH, YOGM, and HBD. Oh, and also all the times I use a serial comma. Cuz serial commas are the straight dope.

Ever since I was a little girl last Thursday, I’ve wanted to do the news on a nationally syndicated talk radio show an Internet radio show.

I’m super excited to tell you that TONIGHT I’ll be joining Marc Germain and Dina Losito on Talk Radio One for a little fill-in news action. I’ll be informing the audience on all kinds of important stuff. Like how Khloe Kardashian is leaving X Factor. I’ll also tell you about a man-shaped pillow sold to ladies so they don’t have to go to bed lonely. And we’ll talk about what happens when you have 140 corgis at a beach party.

Yeah, I’m totally the new Walter Cronkite.

Or, I might be this guy. You be the judge tonight at 7PM PDT on talkradioone.com.

P.S. Today I was listening to the Pretty Good Podcast and I learned this:

“When you fill in for anybody, they hate your guts.” – Randy Wang (2013)

So that’s awesome.

Henry Kissinger, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Tim Conway, Jr.

Practically everywhere I went this week people came up to me going, “Did you hear about the blue watch? Can you believe Tim Conway, Jr. stole Doug Steckler’s blue watch? Do you think Tim will buy Steckler a new blue watch? Is Tim jealous of Steckler having nice things like a blue watch?”

Yesterday I was at Target buying my nine cans of Campbell’s tomato soup with commemorative Andy Warhol-inspired labels and this older lady slides up to me and whispers, “Blue watch?” I discretely lifted my left shirt sleeve to reveal my tattoo, which is the words “Team Steckler” wrapped around my wrist where a watch would go.

We nodded to each other knowingly, exchanged Twitter names, and then went our separate ways.

But while I was finishing my Target shopping, stocking up on clearance wine, Gardetto’s pretzel mix, and Purell, I was thinking about Barack Obama.

Why was I thinking about Barack Obama? Because he was a community organizer.

And as I read in Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals, community organizers are supposed to be “an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions.”

Isn’t that exactly what Tim Conway, Jr. is doing by stealing Doug Steckler’s blue watch, a gift bestowed on him by Petros Papadakis?

Hasn’t the community organized itself around the blue watch? Haven’t we seen the masses rise up against the injustice of it all? Do we not meet nightly in secret basements to talk about hope and change and the despicable lack of blue watch civil rights for all Americans, regardless of skin color, religion, or sexual orientation?

I say YES! I say WE’RE GONNA SPREAD HAPPINESS! WE’RE GONNA SPREAD FREEDOM! BLUE WATCH IS GONNA CHANGE IT! BLUE WATCH IS GONNA REARRANGE IT! BLUE WATCH IS GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD!

Customers Appreciate a Bon Viveur

Last year my New Year’s resolution was to learn how to change the frequency on my car radio from AM to FM. This year my New Year’s resolution is to drink more gin.

So even though it’s already January 10th and I haven’t consumed UH drop of gin yet, I’m excited about 2013. There are going to be gin parties and gin tasting dinners and gin movies and organic gin craft micro-distill gin bathtub gin gin-making clubs.

It’s gonna be sweet! Now all I need is a juniper tree. Shrub. Forest? I’m going with Juniper Forest because that sounds like an awesome place to go hiking. Also, it’s my new band name so don’t steal it.

(Except you can go ahead and steal it if you want because I can’t sing and I don’t play any musical instruments. Except Wii Rock Band guitar. Which, as has been pointed out to me, doesn’t count as a musical instrument. I’m not sure why.)

But when I’m not busy with my Gin Meetups group, I’ll need something else to do. So I thought – What can I do that doesn’t involve gin but does involve me not going anywhere or doing anything? And then I thought – I know! Listen to podcasts!

But then I remembered I already do that. So I thought – I know! Listen to MORE podcasts!

This is me, listening to more podcasts.

This is my iPhone, playing more podcasts.

P.S. Those are sleep headphones. They’re super cool and they make you look super hot.

Wait Wait…Don’t Yell At Me!

Hi. I suck.

I suck at blogging because I haven’t posted anything in like 187 days.

I suck at being sedated because I am MORE POWERFUL than Demerol.

I suck at planning because I bought tickets to see Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! at Nokia Live this Thursday at 8:00. And I also signed up for a contest to win seats for the Candlelight Processional at Disneyland on like every single day this month, without regard for the fact that I may have prior commitments.

As it turns out, I did win tickets for the Candlelight Processional. Guess when – this Thursday at 5:30. Soooo…I can’t go to Wait Wait.

But YOU can!!!! Tweet me, email me, gchat me, Facebook me, text me, call me if you want my tickets – free! Good seats! Contact details over there >>>.

Do it fast because I need to get these tickets to you somehow and if you live far away, I’ll have to mail them. In the mail. That’s like how they used to send texts in the old days.

Pork Chops and Applesauce

Sometimes I go to sophisticated dinner parties. You know, the kind with wine and garden-fresh heirloom tomatoes and playlists called “Jazz for the Masses” or “Dinner on the Roof” or “The Fork Goes on the Left.”

True, sometimes the wine is from the Target clearance rack and the heirloom tomatoes are like just regular tomatoes from Trader Joe’s. But that’s cool. Wine and tomatoes don’t make or break a dinner party.

Obviously, the most important thing at a party is the cake. Oh wait, I’m mean, the most important thing at a party is the conversation.

Sometimes I feel like the only interesting information I contribute to a conversation is stuff I’ve read on Twitter. And then I feel like a loser cuz people are always going, “Twitter is sooooo stupid. Who cares that Kourtney Kardashian had a Mango-a-go-go smoothie for lunch? Anyone who uses Twitter is a complete waste of human life. They should all move to Stupid Island and never speak to me again.”

And then I feel sad because I think there’s some good stuff on Twitter. Also, I don’t want to move to Stupid Island because the sunlight is too harsh for my fair skin and they don’t have 30-pin iPhone adapters there.

Speaking of islands, you know how people are constantly like, “What five books would you bring if you were stranded on a desert island?” And you’re all, “The Bible, War and Peace, Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice and Fifty Shades of Grey.”

If someone asked me that question, I’d go, “Um…books? No idea. How about, ‘What five Twitter accounts would you bring?’” And then I’d be like, “Tween Hobo, Tween Hobo, Tween Hobo, The Bloggess and Tween Hobo.”

What? I like Tween Hobo. She’s basically the best. She’s the BFF I would have had when I was 12 if I had been cool, and not a dork. I was like Tween Dance Team Dork Who Has Dumb Hair and is on the Yearbook Committee and Has a Crush on Her History Teacher. (Do you think that Twitter name is taken?)

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter, too. You know, if you want to. But don’t feel like you have to. And please know that last week I tweeted about Pippi Longstocking and it didn’t go over well. Apparently, it’s difficult to pull off a Pippi Longstocking reference in 2012.

P.P.S. If you’d like to learn more about Tween Hobo, check out this episode of the Rushfield Babylon podcast.

Your hands on my cheeks, your shoulder in my mouth

So yesterday in The Atlantic on Twitter, there was this important piece a tweet about nerdy chicks being hotter than naked chicks. Okay that’s not exactly what it said. It was more like:

“@EchoPalimpsest: The woman reading @neilhimself on the train is 100x sexier than all the chicks posting naked pics of themselves”

Now that I know this I feel cheated. Because it took me MONTHS to finish American Gods (I’m dumb) and not ONE guy tried to pick me up while I was reading it.

Actually, the only time someone hit on me while I was reading, I was reading on my Kindle and, when asked what I was reading, I replied (honestly), “Twilight.” He walked away after that. In retrospect, I totally should have lied. But whatever.

Then there’s all this buzz about Mohawk NASA guy. Apparently everyone is in love with him. I was busy catching up on Breaking Bad when Curiosity landed, so I didn’t actually see him, but a quick Google image search…yeah, he’s pretty cute.

Oh, speaking of Curiosity…did you know he’s tweeting? He’s very charming. Look, I’m not saying I’m into rover-love or anything. Just that if I were into rovers, I think maybe Curiosity would be like the George Clooney of rovers and that I might keep a picture of Curiosity under my pillow. That’s normal, yes?

So what’s the deal? Are nerdy people hotter than like…hot people now?

P.S. Here is a picture of me reading. Try not to get too turned on.

P.P.S. I don’t own any Neil Gaiman books, so I’m reading a Mindy Kaling book instead. That’s pretty much the same, right?

The Piano Has Been Drinking

Saturday nights can go one of two ways for me.

It’s either Date Night, wherein I wear a new dress, drink wine, and see a play like this. Or maybe things don’t go exactly as planned and we end up having a completely charming date at an Ethiopian restaurant in Culver City at 10:30, eating rice and beans and collard greens and listening to a jazz band featuring a Tom Waits lookalike. Plus a new dress and wine (of course).

Or…

I’m at home wearing yoga pants and a tank top from Target, doing amazing things like washing dishes or working. Invariably, out of habit and without forethought, I’ll reach over to the radio and turn on KFI. I’ll hear the voice of Mo’Kelly or Bryan Suits. I’ll go, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and then I’ll turn off the radio as quickly as possible, chastising myself for being so stupid to have forgotten that Saturday nights are a dead zone at KFI.

Then after my heart rate returns to normal, I’ll find an episode of Too Beautiful to Live or Judge John Hodgman to listen to, and I’ll get back to my boring busy busy night. I would like to listen to KFI on Saturday nights; I just can’t.

So I have an idea.

This week Gina Grad and Randy Wang have been filling in for Tim Conway, Jr. It’s their first time hosting a broadcast radio show, and they’ve really just done a great job. It’s been light, fun, something new, and totally enjoyable.

I don’t know about you, but by the time Saturday night comes around, I’m all stocked up on Obamacare, Syria, Afghanistan, and NATO. It’s depressing enough when you’re spending your Saturday night hand-washing all 97 parts to your juicer. You don’t need your entertainment to be depressing as well.

So, c’mon KFI. How ’bout throwing that Gina and Randy show on Saturdays? It’ll be good for our collective mental health.

Hey Robz

Yo, girl. What’s up? How’s your summer going? I’m pretty good. Just working in my garden and going to yoga. Oh, and Mint.com thinks I have been spending a little too much money at coffee shops. Pfft…whatever. Has Mint.com even tried a Mocha Coconut Frappuccino?!

So anyway, just checking in. Hope you’re doing well and keeping cool. Don’t wanna see you end up at one of those LA Cooling Centers! Haha.

Hey, thanks for letting Gina and Randy fill in for Tim Conway, Jr. last night (and tonight). Loved it. :)

xoxo
Jen

P.S. Here’s a list of all the people at KFI that Gina and Randy are better than.

Bill Carroll
Morris O’Kelly
Bryan Suits
Ric Edelman (aka Rice Stelman)
David Cruz

P.P.S. What am I doing? You already know this – you’re the best!