The Dopple Gang: Smart Humor By Dumb People

I'm a Recent College Graduate Who Lives in Manhattan, and This is What I Did Last Night

              Oh, we were at One Sylabble Noun, it’s this new club in the Meat Packing District. Way better than Chelsea. I fucking hate going to Rane in Chelsea. Oh my god. Seriously, so many hot chicks. New York is way better than Atlanta. I love it. It’s just like hitting me how great it is living here.

              They have these trains, which I am now completely and totally on top of memorizing. In fact, I memorize all obscure public transportation routes just to out-city snob all those bridge-and-tunnel freaks. So bourgey. Yeah like Bourgeois, dude, but you know, douchier. What tools.

             Anyway, so we went to a show last night. No, dude, musical theatre is not gay, this is New York and we do cultured things here. Hello, I was out in the meat packing district last night? At one syllable noun? Dude I threw up on Jay-Z’s shoes, that’s how fucking VIP it was. So we’re at this show. No I didn’t go with girls, I was there with Craig, dude. Anyway so we totally snuck these forties in and drank em during the show dude! So awesome! And these little kids were sitting next to us and we kept making funny faces at each other. I know, hilarious. The dad was sorta creeped out though and kept looking at us with narrowed eyes. I know, right? Bourgey. He’s probably from, you know, a suburb…or something.

           What’d you mean I’m from a suburb? Maybe back when I was bourgey and all, in college in a different city. I’ve been here for five years already. Well, that’s what it feels like. To be honest, dude, these past six months have just flown by. I’ve been so busy taking trains 1 through 4 and bragging about how I know how to get to different neighborhoods the fastest that I haven’t even had time to go bang some hipster chicks out in Brooklyn.

          Yeah, it’s full of hipsters dude. Like, way worse than Atlanta.   Atlanta  was ghettttttoooooo. Dude that’s the crazy thing! Even the minorities here are different. I met some Puerto Rican guy that actually spoke Yiddish. Even the poor are mulit-lingual! How nuts is that. Well, I mean, he didn’t really speak English. But it’s New York City man, you don’t need English when you can read a subway map!

             So many chicks last night, dude. Oh, you should come see this band I just discovered, they only play in this certain neighborhood, but they’re really good. What do you mean you’ve never been to that certain neighborhood? Oh my god, dude, it’s the new Noho. It’s like Soho merged with Washington Heights and converted to Judaism and then switched to a Catholic Central Park West and now had a sex change. Exactly, dude: tons o chicks.

          Well you’re invited. I’ve got the tickets at will call.  No my mom bought em for me. No, I’m a little tight. No I don’t have a credit card, I just have hers, dude. What’d you mean why?  I live in Manhattan. I’m a god amongst 20-something singles and I know club promoters? Of course my job covers it. Of course. But it’s an investment, and I have to get in now, dude. These networking connections will pay off in spades once I’m established. I don’t have time to save money, or rack up debt on some plastic piece of crap 2k limit credit card. You save money, suburbia. Soccer mom. Go drive across some more suspension bridges, Metro-North. Yeah, fine. I’ll just go to that show by myself. Fine! Who needs you, bourgie douche! Now do I take the six train or the five to get back home? Oh fuck it, where’s a cab? I hope they take credit cards.

By Michael J. Weingarth

How Your History TA Reads Your Papers

My Predictable Ideas About Transportation and the Ante-Bellum Economy

The South skim a bit skim a bit skim a bit skim a bit. Something about slavery, railroads, wagon trails, canals force the South into an inevitable position which I’m copying out of the text. However, I’m so wrong about these three factors being the leading causes of economic tension leading into the Civil War because I’m not a grad student yet and so I have only read two books on the subject, since I don’t know how to do research.

I get 8 hours of sleep a night, and mommy and daddy pay for my education. Wagon trails were blah blah blah, canals boring drone drone drone drone drone, but railroads were better because professor McDoesn’t-Teach said so in lecture. I don’t have the balls to disagree with him, but I’m so dumb I don’t realize that kissing his ass won’t do much for my grade since Ed the Mega-TA is holding the red pen on this one. Sometimes I spell words phonetically. I also love splitting infinitives, and improperly formatting block quotes. Racial tensions were important because I watched the Ken Burns documentary about the Civil War and have no clue what the war was actually about. Jefferson and Hamilton are names I should mention if I want a B-, so here they are: Jefferson was a dude, Hamilton a guy, strong-state, weak-state, democracy, mercantilism.

I totally deserve a B-. Give me a B-. Look at my conclusion, it’s just the ideas you saw before. I sit next to the girl with the rack. I often ask questions that are redundant just to participate in class. It’s five o’ clock, so skim the rest of this paragraph so you can meet that cute Philosophy PHD student for happy hour. I did have something to say in this paper, but it’s not enough to impress anyone or seem like I give a crap, so I’m going to get a B-. Hamilton.

Originally featured on www.CollegeHumor.com

By Michael J. Weingarth

Other People's Stories From My Fiction Workshop And How I Would Make Them Into Movies

For more great humor like this, check out the Dopple Gang's writers on www.CampusWord.com, the best collegiate media site today (this article originally featured on www.CampusWord.com on 4/3/08)

1. Samurai Cowboy, by Jack Takashi, Senior Finance Major

Their Version:  Jack-san, a Japanese orphan, is found on the doorstep of a police station during a blackout.  When the lights come back on, he is awake for the first time and cries. He is taken in by a policeman, but he is eventually confronted by a hardened criminal claiming to be his brother during a summer home from college abroad.  While back home, he re-connects with his Asian roots and is forced to choose the past he wants so he can get his economics degree while still being a righteous, crime-fighting force who honors his adoptive father.

My Version:  In the days of samurai swords and revolvers that needed to be cocked, a lone Japanese samurai is sailing across the seas in search of his daughter.  On his way to San Francisco, he is pushed South into Mexico, where he must make his way through hundreds of armed banditos, who are firing pistoles and having mustachioes.  After a brutally long kung-fu sword-and-gun fight, he leaves a trail of bloody sombreros all the way to the Texas border, where Tommy Lee Jones and Clint Eastwood help him learn how to use guns. Eventually he makes his way to Tombstone, Arizona, and kills Kevin Costner.  At the end, he finds his daughter already knocked up by Clint Eastwood (betrayal and sadness!) and commits ritual suicide, dishonored and disgraced, showing how no one in America really respected the cultural heritage of Kung-fu sword-fighters until the modern era (touching and enlightening). 

2. The Fourth, By Jenna      Tierney, Junior Gender Studies Major

Their Version:  A group of girls from the same small town in Jersey are all at separate colleges. They have a reunion over the Fourth of July, only to find their one friend who didn't go to college is involved with drugs and sexual experimentation.  They soon all got involved in a world of self-delusion and self-medication, searching for enlightenment. They find each other, either as friends, lovers, or enemies.  A surrealist journey into the mind of young people during their most formative years.

My Version:  A neuro-degenerative brain disease, only transmitted by sexual contact, is sweeping across college campuses.  A group of three girls return to their hometown over the Fourth of July weekend…only to start lezzing out and getting high! They find out (gasp!) they're infected, except for their one friend who didn't go to college!  Back in their home town (which is NOT Jersey, but instead outside LA where everyone wears skirts and/or nothing), the non-college friend is totally smokin' and wicked smart.  She wears glasses.  She is reading a book when her three friends try to eat her brains because they have STZDs (Sexually Transmitted Zombie Diseases) and the smart friend has to run.  Eventually, Jeff Goldblum kills her ex-boyfriend and they have to run into the heart of the city to find a cure!  They find it, and totally bone.  Her friends zombie-lezz over the end credits.

3. Death to All Robot Grizzly Bears, by Ned Haskins, Freshman Computer Science Engineer 

Their Version:  A bunch of Robot Grizzly Bears from space invade earth.  Only Jason Statham and Clive Owen are British enough to stop them.  Will Smith gets killed in the first five minutes.  Peter O'Toole is governor of England and asks the two badasses to save the world.  They begrudgingly agree and do. At the end, Clive Owne gets back with his ex-wife (Bridget Monahan) who was captured by the bears and forced into bondage and skimpy outfits. Before the credits roll, Statham is really drunk and kicks the Bush twins out of bed, claiming it was the only time he has not enjoyed a threesome.  A giant robot grizzly George W. Bush/Cheney amalgam bursts through his wall, and Statham says, "Crikey!". Fin.

My Version:  This cannot be improved. 

4. The Quest for Firewater, by Georgianna Huntsman, Senior Linguistics Major

Their Version:  A touching tragic-comic tale about the first Indians to attempt fermentation, this story chronicles Winged Hawk as he tries to develop an understanding of chemistry as well as addiction in a culture that views most science as superstition. 

My Version:  Indians, using magic Indian stealth powers, steal all the booze from Spanish conquistadors.  The Spaniards, angry and hungover with nothing to take the edge off, projectile vomit all over the natives' land so nothing can grow (FAMINE!).  Then they charge on their armored horses with gun powder and slaughter the drunk Indians.  Only one survives- the nameless badass who grows up to invent moonshine that is four times as potent as normal moonshine.  He sells it to the Spaniards, who drink too much and get sick and then he single-handedly scalps every last one.  Using the gold on their ships, he buys back Manhattan Island and finds the last of the Mohicans.  He outlaws booze and barter, and Indians prosper, living in peace with the land, using all parts of the still-non-extinct buffalo. Mother Environment blesses them all with the gift of reincarnation and all the Indians come back as Kimono Dragons.  Al Gore never makes An Inconvenient Truth.

By Michael J. Weingarth

How You Might've Avoided Pushing the Big Red Button

1. Not turned “abandoned” missile-silo into roller-rink nightclub
2. Stopped pretending it was opposite day
3. Grooved a little less recklessly when your “Max Booty Groove!” playlist came on  your iPod
4. Found the Big Red Orange Button, which looks the same because it’s in the sun and a little faded
5. Hoped the Russians love their children, too.
6. Seen a counselor after you dressed up as Mad Max for seven Halloween’s running
7. Pushed the big red futon against the wall, like your boss asked.
8. Junked overstock of paintball guns and paintballs immediately, instead of storing in supply closet
9. Stopped filming “War Games” spoof for youtube after Johnson flubbed his lines
10. Not told everyone how they would never find it, even if they wanted to.
    
    By Michael J. Weingarth

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By Michael J. Weingarth

Michael J. Weingarth’s New Book: How To Tell a Joke

Telling a joke is as easy as meeting your soul-mate: everything has to go right, the timing has to be perfect, and you can’t be nervous and sweaty, like you always are before first-dates. But still, even with these obstacles, you can now tell a joke with flawless execution thanks to my new simple formula, spread lovingly over 457 pages (with illustrations by Johnny McNulty). That’s right folks, you can learn how to tell a joke just like the kings of hilarity here at the Dopple Gang for only $9.95, plus shipping.

Preview some excerpts and see for yourself!

From Chapter 3: The Delivery

People love to say that a joke is about how you tell it, the timing, the “delivery”. In reality, what makes up a joke is some assumption that you set up during “the set-up”- I know that sounds complex, the set-up happening during the set-up, but stay with me, folks- and then a manipulation of that assumption in the delivery- by contradicting, expanding, or negating it.  That, and not getting stabbed by your arch-nemesis.  In a way, it’s a fake-out.  You go one way, the joke goes another, and in that confusion lies the humor. So how do you delver a joke well?  Timing, as they say.  Good timing is really an art form, and it's extremely important to master if you want to be funny.   And that mastery of timing comes from not getting stabbed by your arch-nemesis in the middle of your punchline. Pacing is also important. If you tell a joke too slowly, people will lose interest. If you tell it too fast, people will not enjoy it as much. A good joke is like a Nickelback song- it’s longer than it needs to be. 

From Chapter 12: The Details

 Details can make or break a great joke. Is that lonely soldier in Berlin tired from a march, or from a march carrying a super heavy bazooka? Saying a word like bazooka adds another element of silliness into an otherwise serious story, and it creates a vivid mental image. In this regard, jokes need to set a place and time as much as any written story, and in order to do this well, you absolutely cannot get stabbed by your arch-nemesis. Some of the best jokes I’ve ever joke have had tons of funny details- a guy gets so mad he digs the hem-lines out of his coat-sleeves, or the farmer lits up a pipe and takes puff at every break point in your set-up- which leads me into the next section: repetition will keep your audience laughing and your arch-nemesis safely tucked away, waiting for another moment to strike.

 

From Chapter 13: Repetition Will Keep Your Audience Laughing And Your Arch-Nemesis Safely Tucked Away, Waiting For Another Moment To Strike

 Get it? Repetition? See I just told you I was going to repeat something, and then I did! Oh man, high five to me! Anyway, repetition is the easiest way to improve your humor portfolio.  Simply revisit what you’ve already said to someone, and by the fourth or fifth time, it’ll be hilarious. Revisiting a simple spoof, like a non sequitur, will add another dimension to laughter, and it also adds in an element of familiarity, so no one feels lost or like the set-up has been a waste of their time. For those of you who don’t know, a non-sequitur is something that has nothing to do with what you just said (non-sequitur is from the latin "stabbed in the neck by your arch-nemesis"). 

From Chapter 21: The Anti-Gross Out

In many ways, the gross-out has become a common theme in humor. Famous scenes from recent movies have characters trumping each other’s insults with bigger, grosser, more loquacious insults and using vocabulary not seen since the first world-war. It’s cheap, easy, and you have to know a lot of ten-dollar words to do it well. Me, I’m lazy, and I know about five ten-dollar words and I’ve used them all already (loquacious being one). So I go the opposite direction and kill them with kindness, or a large blunt object, depending on whether I’m telling the joke to friends or my arch-nemesis. For instance, I love the phrase, “Unicorns farting rainbow sprinkles”, because people are so used to obscene imagery following any bodily function. Additionally, unicorns are very majestic and kinda, well, gay, so it should follow that they also shit glitter. Using words like glitter, sparkles, shiny, fluffy, or other such estrogen heavy bastions of the Hallmark card will allow you to deftly maneuver around the actual grossness of toilet humor and replace it instead of with a fabulous pile of juxtaposition, inciting your audience to laugh and recoil in fear, pointing behind you and screaming “He’s got a knife!”

See? You’re already on your way to becoming the funniest guy in the room! So don’t hesitate, and donate $9.95 to the Dopple Gang now to receive your free copy* (after shipping, and the initial down payment of $9.95) of Michael J. Weingarth’s How to Tell a Joke! It’ll make you five times as funny- I GUARANTEE IT! Or my arch-nemesis will finally succeed! That’s not part of the guarantee, just kind of a general statement about my future well-being. 

*Note: Book is not actually a “book” in the traditional** sense of the word, and Michael J. Weingarth is in no way personal responsible for the creation, shipping, packaging, or distribution of said book, which is now out of print due to publication costs rising from nothing to more than nothing.

**Note: Traditional meaning literal.   

By Michael J. Weingarth

OnStar Has Detected That You’re Acting Like a Pussy

A car in a parking lot. A young man in a sport coat and shirt, no tie, sits behind the wheel. An attractive female in a black dress sits next to him. 

Scott: Oh man, that band was great, wasn’t it?

Kat: Yeah, it was really cool. I’ve never heard like, trip-hop mixed with all that Latin stuff before. Thanks so much for taking me. 

Scott: Oh, no problem. I’ve seen them live like, three or four times, it’s a great band.

Kat: Yeah, totally. (Kat crosses her legs and leans over towards Scott) 

Scott: I can totally burn you some of their CDs…if you want.

Kat: Oh, really? That’d be awesome. Hey, put on some music.  

Scott: Oh? Yeah, yeah, sure. Something different than was just on. Don’t want to overdose, hah. (Nervously laughs, Kat also laughs and plays with her hair) So it’s only like, 11:30. There’s a pretty good bar down on 12^th, if you wanna go.

Kat: Um, sure. Yeah, we could do that. (leans over a little more) This is a really nice car. I have a big thing…you know…for cars. 

Scott: Really? I mean, it’s a Civic.

Kat: Oh.

Scott: And it’s kind of old. I mean, jeez. Anyway, let’s go to that bar, yeah? (goes to start car, engine won’t start). What the hell? 

Voice: Hello, OnStar has detected that you’re acting like a pussy. We’ve flooded your engine so you’ll have to make awkward conversation until you make out with the hot chick next to you.

Scott: What? I wasn’t being a pussy. 

OnStar: Since we’ve detected no wingman in sight, we’ve taken measures to ensure your night ends well. We’ll be in touch.

Scott: Oh. Well thanks, I guess. 

OnStar: Why are you still talking to me?

Scott: Right. (Makes out with Kat). 

Later, on the highway

Scott: I fucking hate this highway. Everyone’s always cutting me off. 

Kat: I thought you said it was on 12^th?

Scott: Yeah but it’s quicker just to cut across town like this. 

OnStar: OnStar has detected you’ve got no sense of direction. We’re immediately clogging the right and middle lanes so you have to get off at the next exit.

Scott: What? Why? It only takes like three minutes this way? 

OnStar: You’ve taken seven already, and you’ll get there right as it gets crowded, and she’ll go home with someone who runs a hedge fund or something.

Scott: That’s not true. 

Kat: It’s kinda true. I mean, about the crowded thing.  I hate feeling too crowded.

Scott: That is weak. Fine, I’ll just get off here. Jesus, I’m never gonna be able to cut over, look at those assholes. 

OnStar: OnStar has detected you;'re driving like a little girl. Accelerating to unnecessarily high velocities so you look like you actually have a pair.

Scott: (thrown back against seat by velocity, speaking through gritted teeth) Damn you OnStar! 

Later, after last call, the parking lot of a nightclub.

Scott: Hah, well, what a night. (opens car door) 

Kat: Yeah, seriously, I had such a blast.

Drunk Guy: (angry and drunk, to Scott) Hey faggot, you getting laid tonight? 

Scott: Fuck you, buddy.

Drunk Guy: You sayin’ something? 

Scott: (to Kat) Let’s just go.

OnStar: OnStar has detected a sudden bitch-out. We’re immediately shouting obscenities back at the drunk guy until you learn to either keep your mouth shut or win a fight. 

Scott: I’m tearing this thing out.

OnStar: (loudly) Hey shithead, you wanna fight or just talk to me all night? 

Scott: Crap. (Drunk guy leaps and tackles Scott)

Back in car, after fight 

Scott: Am I bleeding a lot?

Kat: Not too bad. Let’s get you home and I’ll patch you up. You look kind of hot, all the battle scars,
haha.

Scott: It hurts a lot. 

Kat: Really? Doesn’t look that bad.

Scott: It hurts.  

OnStar: OnStar has detected you are in need of emergency services, since you can’t close with a drunk hot chick. Immediately calling the Wah-mbulance, crybaby.

Scott: I hate this thing (rips out OnStar console, tosses it out window). 

Kat:  Let’s go to my place, it’s really close. (leans over)

Scott: Sure. (she reaches over and puts her hand on his thigh, he smiles) Aren’t you worried I might get distracted?

Kat: Not enough to stop. (she starts kissing his neck) 

OnStar: (from side of road, sniffling) I’m just so damn proud. Contacting all your bros to spread bragging rights, immediately. OnStar signing off.

 

By Michael J. Weingarth

Mike Weingarth’s “Yes We Can’t” Speech Delivered at the Dopple Gang Primaries

Over three weeks ago, we saw the people of Iowa proclaim that our time for change, and possibly dinner, has come. But there were those who doubted this country's desire for something new, like maybe that Chinese place that just opened down the street, who said Iowa, and possibly dinner, was a fluke, not to be repeated again. And yet here we are again, drunk and hungry, on a Tuesday, IMing chicks from my high school who I think still live nearby.

We’ve got people from every walk of life here at the Dopple Gang. We’ve got a libertarian improv-actor who just moved to NYC and will totally write in something unexpected on the ballots. And then there’s Chris, who still thinks the elections are as fake as the moon-landings. But there is a whole nation of young people who have never had a reason to participate until now, and they are hungry for change. And then there’s us three, hungry for pizza. Or booze. Probably both. I’m totally ordering one right now, I don’t care if either of you say you aren’t hungry.

It’s thirty bucks, dudes. Just letting you know. Also, I should let you know that it is more than a change of the party in the White House that this country needs. It’s a change of the status quo. The Dopple Gang needs to get off it’s behind and start implementing some changes, and disrupt that status quo, which is basically  forcing us to sit around all day, screwing around on the internet. It's a status quo that extends beyond any particular party and right now that status quo is fighting back with everything it's got (read: porn), with the same old tactics that divide and distract us (read: porn) from solving the problems people face (read: too much porn), whether those problems are health care that folks can't afford or a mortgage they cannot pay, or other things that none of us care about, because we’re twenty-somethings with supportive parents. In short, I need to get off the internet and stop looking at those kind of sites. But seriously, it’s time for a change. And that time is now.

And what’s first? We’ve gotta get this country out of debt, so you can pay the thirty bucks for this pizza, because you still owe me thirty from last week. And I can totally fix this economy, and you’ll never believe how, because you’re too jaded, cynical, and hungry to ever have thought of it before, worn down by years of the same-old jargon and Ramen. I’m going to magically fix this debt bubble (with fucking MAGIC dude, you won’t believe how easy this is)…by delivering a really inspiring speech about how people have believed in change before making it happen. And then I’m going to say, “Look, in all this time in history, didn’t it make sense that the will for change was there before the change occurred?” And you’ll get all fired up, thinking you now understand how to fix the country. And then I’m going to get drunk and laugh about how poor people are so totally boned for the next five years with this economy, because I’m 23 and have a good job, and you don’t. Well, at least you, Johnny. Chris is gonna be paying off loans for forever, so he’s already Chapter Elevensies. My point is: don’t buy a fucking house when you’re poor, Johnny. You haven’t? Well, I give good advice, don’t I? Vote for me.

I mean, there’s a lot to be depressed about, but we shouldn’t lose hope. When I first came to the Dopple Gang, I saw crumbling mills and shuttered schools and people who can’t afford another four years without health care, because I can see part of a depressed neighborhood from the balcony of my luxury apartment.  And I saw a nation of drunk, hungry kids who didn’t order pizza even after I asked them to, so I called it in myself, and that’s the power of hope- the power to change- the power to seek truth and justice and one half bacon and peppers and the other half pepperoni.  And we’ll make mistakes- there will be false starts, and there will be…well, mistakes. Like…a lot. Some of that pizza might not completely make it into our mouths- maybe it will jab the side of our face and leave a greasy spot which we will then wipe the with the patriotic sleeve of hopefulness and leave a stain of change(which looks a lot like grease). But we need those mistakes, so we can get what everyone needs: Jobs. Everyone needs a job. Jobby Job Job-Job. Anyway, we need to do really obvious things, like tax companies for out-sourcing jobs, so that third-world countries stay poor and under-developed and are used as breeding grounds for rebel armies, drug-runners, and smuggling, instead of tech support and low-wage manual labor, farming things like bananas, and fruit, and rum-cakes, and other island treats. I’m so hungry.

And we need those low-paying jobs to stay in the U.S, so that our poor, jobless, and uneducated masses have enough money to become slightly-less-poor, employed and uneducated masses and clean my office because us young kids like to make a mess when we’re stressed and have to stay past six. We need to make college affordable, so we can have more useless degrees floating around from seventh-tier institutions, so that I can get a much better job with my Ivy-League degree and buy up all the land that’s now so devalued and use it as the basis for my kid’s trust fund. Like I said, it’s all about hope, people. Hope for a better tomorrow for my kids. I mean our kids. Wait, no I don’t.

We’re gonna totally get rid of lobbyists, too, who push for an entire pizza covered in mushrooms and racism. Seriously, who eats mushrooms? The smear campaign of mushroom jingoists must stop- the righteous zealotry of deliciousness must not reply, either. We have to learn to stop dividing ourselves as a nation, and start dividing our pizzas. I don’t see one half of what Johnny wants, and one half of what Chris wants- I see a pizza, able to be split into proportions based on how much you paid me for it, you misers. And we can do this. We can get rid of those lobbyists just by closing our eyes and pretending we matter. See how easy that was? If the people wish hard enough, and really get involved, and send me money, and write to their congressman, and get their story on the 11 o’clock news (conveniently run by the same corporation who pays the lobbyists), then absolutely nothing will happen. But we mustn’t lose hope, because we’ll make mistakes. Wishing things to happen takes, like, at least four years. So you’ll have to elect me twice. Oh my god-starving. When is that pizza getting here? Status-quo, jobs.

And what’s left? I know this is going to sound silly, but it’s a four letter word. It’s hope. Hope on a rope. We need to hang onto our hope, even when its slippery in the cynical shower-stall of doubt, and make sure we don’t drop it, so that the jaded, bitter convicted felon of political bipartisan-ness slips something up our hope-hole. But that’s not going to do it alone. First I’ve got to tell you that this is not false hope, because I actually can restore confidence to this nation and it’s economy simply by telling poor people that life will get better. And I’ve never heard anyone do that before and fail. Ever. But we’ll make mistakes. And we’ll probably make more.

And there’s three words that will echo across this great nation, from coast to coast-well more like five. Can we have some pizza? Yes, I will say. Yes, you can’t.  You will call me a dick, the cry of a nation in need of moral sustenance and finding only your own lack of foresight and pizza to blame  And I will laugh, heartily, with a mouth full of fresh mozzarella, sauce, hope, and oven-baked dough, Chris and Johnny, because you owe me thirty bucks from last week. We want change, you will say, if you hand me a fifty.  Can you give us change?   Yes, the pizza-delivery guy and I will say.  And i will repeat those same words, or similar words that are maybe not that precise phrase but still words none the less:  Yes we can, but you owe me 30, so you're still ten short- why did you buy a house on 22k a year?  Oh, you're not being driven into bankruptcy by an adjustable rate mortgage?  WELL THEN GIVE ME MY TEN BUCKS, DUDES.  God.  Fine, then i'm eating the whole pizza.  Fine, you can have two slices if you vote for me. 

By Michael J. Weingarth

 

The Lesser Gatsby, Vol 1. Summer in Late January, Why Can’t I Burn These iTunes Songs to an MP3 CD?

The sun had long ceased to cordially hang in the sky and rejuvenate our weary spirits when the last of us left the office for the day.
            “Won’t you join us for a round, Richard?” John had asked. I politely declined and used my habitual excuse-that I was to have dinner with a fine young lady, but I was beginning to suspect that my lies to my friends were as obvious as the ones I told myself.
            I started my automobile and returned to my apartment, saying hello to the doorman, a polite older Spaniard with a flair for mustaches, and checked the mail. Sure enough, she had written, but it had been too long and the past was already stuffed and on display in my living room, something to contemplate before a gin and tonic, or to show friends and laugh about. I threw the letter in the pile with the others, and sat down at my desk to read something old. For seclusion, there’s nothing quite like antiquity to make you feel alone. But it was not enough-the telephone rang and eventually it occurred to that I had to answer.
            “Hello, Richard,” a female voice said. It was a pleasant voice, warm, something scratchy and it reminded of the vinyl records I used to play against my father’s will, who insisted on maintaining a perfect collection of untouched collectibles.
             “Hello, Hallie,” I responded. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your calling?”
             “My father has just canceled for dinner, and I thought you should invite me out.” I thought I could hear her smiling, but you could never tell, and I often never cared to find out. But it was a Tuesday. And I couldn’t burn an MP3 CD of the latest Panic! At the Disco release-there wasn’t much of a point to anything,anymore.
            “As fate has it, Hallie, I have no plans this evening. How does the Club sound?”
            “Dreadful but whatever you like, Richard. You know how I hate planning.”
            “Well, somewhere else then. I’ll pick you up at 8. Or whenever you feel like, since you seem to so object to punctuality.” I started to hang up, and she said delightful in a half-excited voice that leaned towards sarcasm and then lost its balance and tumbled, syllable after syllable into a pit of cynicism that only an unmarried 28 year old could inhabit.

 

We drove to the club in relative silence, the occasional Dadaist revival shouted at random from the passenger seat. I pulled up and tipped the valet five bucks to stop starring at my girl. He didn’t speak English, but nodded anyway. We walked in. Sure enough, Scott was there, and invited us to sit down.
            “I do love to see Scott here,” she said.
            “I’d rather not dawdle. There’s not much to say.” I looked around the room. I knew she would be here, on a Wednesday. After all, that’s why I came to the Club.
             “Oh don’t be such a haberdasher, Richard. Scott’s absolutely delightful!” She walked up to him and they had a large hello that begged for as much attention as possible in polite society.
             “Hello Scott.” We shook hands.
             “Glad to see you out, Richard. How long have you and Ms. Nottingshire been seeing each other?” He grinned and reddened- he was drunk and probably already embarrassed at it. But in case he wasn’t, I prayed my fly wasn’t open.
             “Not long,” I replied.
             “Not long enough, he means. He thinks I’m a dreadful bore.” She put her arm around me.
             “She used the word delightful twice already.” I laughed, and we all did. It was a strange thing to laugh about. But you laugh at strange things when you can’t burn the latest Panic! At the Disco release onto an MP3 CD with 47 other great songs that would totally run together and make your morning drive fun and your evening drive relaxing.
             We ordered dinner and ate, repartee soaring over the heads of the surrounding tables and shooting past the wine glasses as they rose and fell, constellations of social grace and inebriation, things that make me gassy.

 

            “I do wish you’d stop being so morose, Richard,” she said, unraveling whatever was left of her clothing.
            “Well, I wish you’d stop getting drunk at the club and taking your clothes off in front of Scott, god damnit.” I accelerated, taking corners are mildly unsafe speeds. Sometimes, adrenaline is the only sedative you have, and it doesn’t take a lot to work after four gin and tonics at the Club with Hallie Nottingshire and Scott Haddalastname.
            “It was only a dance. Besides, you were so enthralled with Kitty Lindh I should suspect it didn’t bother you at all.” She tossed off the last two words with a drunken concoction of accents, confusing England and 1940’s Hollywood.
          “You sound like a high-school actress, now cease your prattling. I don’t have any music to drown the sound of you out, and you sound like a sea lioness trying to play the trumpet with its vaginal lips.” The comment hung in the air, a brilliant image that only the vividest of painters could capture, and sure as it was said, Dali’s estranged heirs would one day paint it. In the present, however, it seemed to suffice as a mood-killer, and Hallie was quiet for a good thirty seconds.
            “You don't have any music, Richard? I should like to hear some.” Her voice had changed, the gravity of the situation had sucked it in and now she was also upset, if only to have some company by way of mood.

            “No. And I’d rather not talk about music.”
            “She wrote to you again. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I turned to look at her for a half second, and smiled.
            “I can’t…” I started. I turned back to the wheel and accelerated more.
            “Can’t what, Richard? It’s alright, dear, I won’t ask about her again.”
            “No, I’m afraid it’s not about that at all,” I said.
            “Well, just be careful, you may lose me. And then all you’ll have is your music.”
            “Very well,” I choked out, and tried to hold back whatever it was I felt-rage, anger, a desperate need to flip though all 47 tracks of an MP3 CD to hear how amazingly even the first five seconds of each track transitioned into one another and to ride the peaks and troughs of divinity as the rush from the sonic momentum built and dissipated, leaving only joy and passive enlightenment.  “Very well.”
             We ariived at her apartment.
             “Would you like to come up? I’d like you to come up, Richard.”
             “No, I’m afraid I shouldn’t, Hallie. But thank you for a lovely evening. I expect I should call on you sometime this week.” We were soul-crushing in our formalities, implicit in the coldness of our hospitality, estranged in the insistence of friendship, engendered in the estrangement of our genders.
              “Well, I should like that very much. Goodnight, Dick.”
              “Goodnight.”
              I drove home, said a quiet goodnight to the doorman, and prepared myself for another week’s worth of reading, solitude, and company, the three things that competed for the attention of my social hours. I checked the mail, and tomorrow's letter hadn’t come. I suddenly realized I was looking forward to it, if only to have some constancy of annoyance. And so I went to my room, endlessly borne back into the past through the roads weaved by a month’s worth opened letters, and had the drunk munchies. While the soundtrack of an entire bag's worth of Doritos Cool Ranch is no Panic! album, the familiarity of it was a haven for my conscious mind, and I escaped into sleep, feeling kind of like a fatty for eating the whole bag.

 

By Michael J. Weingarth

Patriotic Songs Re-Worked For the Modern Age

The Yankee Doodle Boy

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
But I also retain my cultural heritage from my parents' nation of choice,
Because that's our right as Americans, even though they may not be current citizens.

You're a Grand Old Flag

You're a grand old flag,
You're a high-flying flag,
And forever in peace may you wave.
You're the emblem of
The land I love,
So fuck Puerto Rico. Fifty stars is a nice round number,
and it's hard enough to memorize all the capitals as it is.

God Bless America

God bless America.
We basically just kick ass.

America the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.
I probably won't vote when I'm finally 18.
My older brother is a gay libertarian
From sea to shining sea.

The Star-Spangled Banner

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team.
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the home of the brave!

Yankee Doodle

Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony.
Mommy is at work tonight, so I made instant macaroni
For dinner. Why don't they come to my baseball games anymore?
My therapist tells me it's not my fault.

Originally featured on www.McSweeneys.net, because they sometimes think we're funny

By Michael J. Weingarth