The Science of Comedy…

So the other day I’m in the shower, cleaning my nether regions, and doing some work in my  head on my next play script.  That’s correct…most playwrights do their writing in the shower while soaping up their genitals.  Little known fact.  Some food for thought the next time you’re in a theater, contemplating the genius of Hamlet or Death of A Salesman.

Anyway.

I’m thinking of a particular funny line…what exactly the line is isn’t important…but it involves a shape.  The shape needs to be somewhat obscure, but not so obscure that people won’t know what it is.  And my mind keeps bouncing back and forth between “trapezoid” and “rhombus.”  Trapezoid is a funny sounding word, but rhombus, being an even more obscure shape, might be funnier.  Except I’m worried that at least a decent percentage of your average audience won’t know what a rhombus is, and a very small percentage might not even realize that a rhombus is a shape.  Disaster!

So I keep going back a forth: trapezoid, rhombus.  Rhombus, trapezoid.  Which is funnier?  Trapezoid?  Rhombus?  Or am I so completely blinded by the trapezoid/rhombus debate, that I am overlooking pentagons?  And then, all of the sudden, I realize that I’ve been standing in the shower, naked, balls in my hand, going back and forth thinking about trapezoids and rhombuses (rhombi?) for seventeen minutes.  And it was then I realized: I need a new hobby.

*****

Today as I was driving around doing some errands, I was pulling up to an intersection to get onto Highway 10, and I saw an old man in one of those little personal scooter chair things.  You know the ones that don’t even have handlebars or a front section or anything.  Basically just glorified electronic wheelchair.  Nothing that exciting, except here’s the weird part: He was driving in the middle of the road, stopped with the rest of the cars, waiting to get onto Highway 10.  And all I could think was: God damn, that little scooter must be tricked out.

I also, during this same drive, had the displeasure of encountering a crazy motorcyclist.  You know the ones.  They swerve in and out of tight spaces and basically act like that, because they are on a motorcycle, the normal rules of the road don’t apply to them.

Dear motorcyclists: This is part of the reason we have trouble "seeing" you.

So this crazy biker dude on a big old Harley swerves, and I do mean swerves, to squeeze in between me and a red van that was one lane to the right of me and only slightly ahead.  Then, unsurprisingly, the van, which had no chance of ever being able to see or know that this motorcycle was suddenly to it’s left, no matter how diligently they checked their rear view mirrors and blind spots, tries to get into my lane, almost hitting the motorcyclist.  So what does this crazy asshole do?  He gets pissed at the van, starts flipping them off, and then crazily pulls up to their right, and proceeds to start yelling at them through their window.  It was at this moment that I experienced the closest thing I have ever had to Road Rage.  This prick drives like a douche, and gets mad when someone almost hits him.  I would have yelled at him out my window, but he was too far ahead of me.  However, as he made a right turn off the road, I made sure to flip him off long and hard.  Hopefully he looked in one of his rear view mirrors and saw me.  Dick.

*****

Finally, I’d like to quickly report on Hollywood’s ongoing crusade to take fond memories of my childhood, and then squat down and take a big ole’ shit on them.  Following the insult to life that is Michael Bay’s Transformers movie, I now have to be confronted with G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, opening this summer.  I’m not going to taint the precious virginity of my blog site with a clip from this smut, but if you really need to see for yourself, you can look here.

(Mind you, I am in no way encouraging you to watch this clip, but just in case you don’t believe me on how bad it is, there’s your chance.)

This movie looks so bad that I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that it is, retroactively, destroying my childhood.  It’s like Stephen Sommers actually got into a time machine, traveled back to 1985, walked into my darkened bedroom, and fondled my genitals*.  I mean, why are they wearing space suits?  Why is everything in slow motion?  Why is this happening!?!?

*(I realize that this blog is sort of heavy on references to my genitals.  I apologize.)

Anyway, I’m still holding strong for a “Charles in Charge” movie.  Scott Baio’s due a comeback.