I’ve found that making up systems is pretty easy. It must be one of those human impulses, to find a sense of logic in everything. Of course none of it is true. I don’t really buy into many systems of thought used to explain human emotions. For example, maybe you’ve heard of psychological term “displacement,” which is an unconscious defense mechanism whereby the mind redirects affects from an object felt to be dangerous or unacceptable to an object felt to be safe or acceptable. So, when your Mom loses her job she comes home and beats your Dad. OK, I guess we can use a term to describe that emotional reaction- but I’m always a little wary of these things. The same goes for dream interpretation. Yes, I think dreams can tell you things, but sometimes people can be too quick to apply a simple system of logic to the infinitely more complicated processes of the psyche.

Having said that, here’s a system I’ve developed (in about 4 minutes) to describe the intricacies of love (feel free to comment on the variety of flaws and over all under-development in the comments). I’m calling it the F.A.I.L-S.A.F.E system of romantic development. Let me explain:

The system is divided into two parts. The first, F.A.I.L., outlines what I imagine to be the ideal person to start a relationship with and then explains why this person cannot exist. The second, S.A.F.E, offers a more realistic set of qualities to pursue in the opposite (or same) sex.

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You know what?

If I said that really condescendingly it would be a good insult, but if I say it with a smile it sounds like I am about to tell you something, and I am! There is one thing I like to do before I sit down to write blogs. Nope, guess again, I like to put on some groovy tunes! Well, hey, let’s get real: it’s about a week into December and from what I can remember I am getting weak in the knees with anticipation. Am I anticipating the antifreeze? No! I’m anticipating the poinsettias, mistletoe, wreaths, ivy, holly and evergreens! As I began this blog I put on one of my all time favorite Christmas songs: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”

Go ahead and press play there, it makes a good background track.

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4 Things I Want To Do By 2011

Apparently New Year’s Eve has come and gone. From all accounts I was in New Paltz for two nights celebrating, but there is absolutely no way I could confirm or deny those statements. My calendar, on the other hand, is about as reliable as any other calendar and it tells me we’re now in the year 2010, which is pretty sweet. Only a few more years till hoverboards, Mastodon is probably gearing up to write another album which will leave my brains all over Roy’s walls, and from what I can gather, we still have two whole years before the planet implodes.

So, I felt it was appropriate to wait until about a week in to make my resolutions. I decided to whittle down the thousands and thousands of character flaws and gimmicks which have been holding me back from achieving massive amounts of success, fame and fortune and focus on five key things I want to be able to accomplish by the end of this year. Let’s get started!

1. I want to be able to play the ukulele better then this kid:

I’ve been putting some serious hours in on the ole’ six string recently, but if I’m going to complete resolution 2, I need to sharpen my uke skillz. This kid has the right idea – just sittin’ around laughin’ and bustin’ out some chords and singing whatever he’s singing. If you double click and read the info, apparently he slipped a “Surfin’ USA” in there somewhere. That’s what ukulele is all about.

2. I want to record an album at least as labor intensive as The Wolf by Andrew W.K.

I was just alerted this morning that every track on Andrew W.K.’s incredibly underrated second album, The Wolf, has between 90 and 200 tracks all recorded by Andrew W.K. That is fucking impressive. Can I write the anthems of a generation as poignantly as Mr. W.K.? Probably not. But can I throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks? Definitely. Then can I take said sticky shit and overwork it like an even more obsessive Axl Rose? Absolutely.

3. I don’t want to look like this at any point in 2010:

Unless Ralph Macchio just thrashed me in a tournament, there is no reason I should be asleep at a party. Especially if I went so far out of my way to dress up and look presentable. If I were smoking bongs at Roy’s place all night, it’s one thing. But to show up to a kegger dressed to the nine’s just to fall asleep – that’s simply unjustifiable.

4. I want to somehow be able to make whoever accidentally lands on this site a) actually want to read some of the bullshit on it and b) get the jokes.

A lot of people visit the site via random Google Image searches. That rocks. The problem is that once they right click and save their image as (I know Mac users, a two buttoned mouse is so 1998, AMIRITE? Trendy douchebags.). Where was I? These parenthetical asides always knock me for a loop – maybe my fifth resolution should be to make them shorter and funnier. Oh right, no one visits the site or seems to get the jokes. Well I honestly don’t see how I can change either of those things, so let me link you to two comments from 2009 that really really missed the boat. Numer 1. Number 2.

Well after much debate, I have decided that, ultimately, my posts are better written in regular ink. These past few months, following the advice of friends, I experimented with writing in invisible ink. The obvious benefits being, a) hey, it saves money and 2) it’s easy on the hand. The drawback: eye straining. Hold on, Charlie’s calling me…

Hey Charlie, how’s it going you douche?
Haha, yeah, I hear THAT.
No, no, I’m ME. That was just something Ricky was spouting. But, yeah, everything’s good here.
No dude, I’m actually writing a blog post right now.
Yeah, SmartassRadio.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it’s just music blogs now, but, yeah, Rihanna’s fine.
Well that’s because I stopped writing them for months. I don’t think I’ve written since September or something.
No, I just told everyone I had been using invisible ink, it’s fine.
No, it worked, they bought it.
Charlie, they bought it, OK?
Dude, I don’t know why you’re trying to argue this with me. I told everyone I had been writing with invisible ink. That explains the hiatus.
How should I know how that’s possible? It’s just some digital invisible ink.
Yes, I know there are no lemons.
Yes.
Yes.
I know.
Thank you Charlie, I understand the situation.
Listen you douche I have to go.
It’s going to be about Kanye fucking West, happy?
Kanye West. The rapper.
No, it’s not about “the Taylor Swift shit,” no one is still talking about “the Taylor Swift shit”?
No, they’re not Charlie.
Charlie, you moron, if anyone is still making jokes about Kanye West yelling at Taylor Swift they are fucking out of the loop.
What loop? You really are dumb Charlie. The metaphoric loop of high society.
Yes.
No, I speak in metaphors all the time.
I do.
Yeah, I’m a rocket science at it.
I know that was the joke.
Anyway, I have to go.
No, I can’t.
OK, you have two seconds.
That was like seven minutes Charlie, I said two seconds.
No, I understand point though. It is a sick album.
This week I’ve been listening to this new album. It’s a collaboration between The Black Keys and all these different rappers called Blakroc.
Like Mos Def, Jim Jones, RZA. Ludacris is actually on the first track.
It’s funny, but the track kind of sucks.
No, the rest of the album is really good. I liked it.
So, yeah, that. I think me and my friend Felix are actually going to review it later. So that will probably get up on the site.
Other than that? The new Animal Collective EP is really good, but I wouldn’t really review that for the site.
I don’t know, it’s just not something I would do.
I don’t know, I don’t really want to write an actual review of an album I think is great.
Well the Blakroc thing is going to be fun and funny too. I don’t usually write seriously for the site.
More like joke stuff.
Yeah, they’re like half-music, half-joke blogs usually.
I actually haven’t come up with the jokes for this Kanye shit, I will though.
No, that’s it. I’m going to write it now. Good-bye.
Bye Charlie.

Hey everyone, sorry about that. That was my friend Charlie. He just wanted to know what time I’m going to Courtney’s. Well here’s the answer: never, because Courtney has swine flu and I don’t need to deal with that shit.

Anyway, on a completely unrelated note, I know there have been some rumors about me. Particularly, a set of rumors being circulated by one Mr. Rick Pachachsky. I don’t want to give this issue anymore “air time” than it deserves, which is frankly zero, but let me just wrap up this paragraph by saying, once and for all, I am not a paid actor playing the role of “Roy.” I am just one person. There is not some “idea” of “Roy” that different actors have been playing since 2001. I am not an experimental performance piece. I am just a single individual.

On a second completely unrelated note that has been brought to my attention in a very similar way, I know there have been some rumors about me. Particularly, a set of rumors that I began circulating last Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to give this “issue” anymore air time than it “deserves,” but let me just say: Yes, Rihanna and I are doing fine.

OK, now that we have taken care of that housekeeping, so to speak, let me get down to business: As you undoubtedly glanced by from the title of this music article, I will be discussing some new leaked inside information about Kanye West’s upcoming album. This information, for a series of complicated reasons, is very exclusive and I would imagine this is the only news source that has the dubious scoop:

Kanye’s next album, “Lust,” will contain eleven new tracks and comes out December 25th.

Pretty interesting information. Personally, I’m excited to learn more about this project. Particularly, I would like to know if anyone could possibly verify those facts for me? Let me also take this time to emphasize an important, but completely unrelated point, I am not a music journalist. So, this new Kanye album is going to be awesome.

It’s my understanding that we have a lot of international readers. So for their benefit, I’ll briefly describe what we in American call an “election.” You see, once every few years, when hack comedians run out of bad jokes about our beloved president, another man challenges his throne. Then we watch “pundits” bicker about the merits of these two men on TV for about three years. When the American people decide they can’t take it anymore, the men choose other men as their partners through civil union and the pundits argue about the partners’ merits for another six months or so. Finally, if the groundhog doesn’t see its shadow, three states get to choose who our next president will be. This year, the man who won wore black face in tribute to the great minstrels of our country’s glorious past. Of course, he’s not any different than you or me or the last president, for that matter.

Apparently they’re holding erections in Iran now- Did I jus- HAHAHAHAHAHA. OHHHHH WHEW! Wow… that was crazy. Iran is holding elections over there now. As with any election, this one has had its fair share of problems. Held on Friday(?), the elections were really important, I guess. According to some reliable sources, Iran has been fucking around with nuclear weapons, or something. Unlike in the good old US of A, the Iranians couldn’t choke down the cold hard facts. Instead of realizing that they are a silly display not unlike the WWE, Iranians expected the words “change” and “hope” to actually mean something. It’s like they believe every movie they see over there. In their defense, there are only three movies available in Iran and they’re all documentaries.

You really want the Iranian Steven Spielberg running your country? Didn’t you see the last Indiana Jones?

So, in an unprecedented display of machismo and huge fucking nuts (being the opposite of giant, crying, pussy), Presidential Candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi claimed the elections were rigged in favor of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. To be honest, I don’t see it. I mean President Ahmadinejad did get 62% of the vote (a total of 13 voters made up mostly of his own staff) versus 33% for Moussavi and the obligatory 5% of crazies split between Ron Paul and Ralph Nader.  Mr. Moussavi, you should be ashamed of yourself. Seriously, your country is suffering from riots, its citizens are having their rights taken away and war with a super power is imminent and all you can think about is how you didn’t win an election? What are you going to tell me next, that this Pall Mall 100 isn’t going to soothe my sore throat? Puh-lease!

You see, here in America, we accept the harsh truth that a puppet government forces us to – we have no control over what happens ever. So what? You want to be burdened with making decisions which might affect someone other than yourself? Say Moussavi got elected and turned out to be a total nutjob and didn’t wear pants to work every day. You want to be responsible for that? Didn’t think so. A wise ex-English teacher once taught me a valuable lesson: the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. Which generally holds true, unless that devil has demonstrated his inability to lead or string together coherent thoughts time and time again, James.

This guy gets shit done.

The point is this – it doesn’t matter and it never will. In fact, I’m fairly certain that every event I just mentioned was entirely fabricated by the media for their own amusement. No shit. For instance, I caught Anderson Cooper saying the following at dinner the other night:

We make everything up. There are more factual events taking place on Spike’s Deadliest Warrior.

I may or may not have actually heard that at dinner the other night. Come to think of it, I’ve never even met Anderson Cooper, but I did once hear his voice set to ominous music in a documentary on Google Video, so he might as well have been sitting in my living room revealing all his dirty, silver haired secrets, of which I’m sure there are many. According to some of his peers, that old queen hides a secret about as well as an elephant hides its trunk.

In the end, what will probably happen is the American people will once again be forced to watch the same view of the Missile Command championships in night-vision on CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS (yeah, assholes, you got listed after Fox), and a plethora of other shit-stain networks as our country bombs the fuck out of Iran for one reason or another. After two weeks of that, it’ll probably be football season and, frankly, most of us can’t be bothered – with the way the league is shaping up this year (what drama!), who could even blame us? Football rules and Iran drools.

I understand some of the people who visit this site don’t necessarily listen to  the live show, download the podcast, follow us on twitter or know us personally. So, I’m taking the time to get those people caught up on my latest antagonist act. While using stumbleupon the other day, I came across this obnoxious piece of P.O.O.P – People Offended by Offensive People. Naturally, I tweated to my many many followers. Someone happened across said tweat and we were off to the races:

Here’s a clip from the most recent show (4/16/09) explaining my problems with Toronto, issuing some serious threats, making some observations about the city and  telling jokes specific only to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club being fed to me by Uncle Pete.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There has been some recent chatter about the website garfieldminusgarfield.net. The premise of the site is genius: take old garfield cartoons and remove garfield, most of the dialogue, odie, and all the junk food- leaving behind a lonesome and desperate Jon Arbuckle. The site has sparked discussion everywhere from The New York Times Magazine to the Ron and Fez show. The best part is after removing all the “jokes” the comics actually become funny, “revealing the existential angst” of Jon. Take a look:

Hilarity at it's Garfield-less best

I thought I would try the same technique on my favorite strip, Cavin and Hobbes. I found that by removing things I didn’t get an “existential angst”, but more of a Paranoid Schizophrenia. Take a look:

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