awesometalk

From the makers of the black death it’s MURDERBOX!

Jul 1st, 2015
by John.
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Welcome to game night! Oh, I’m just so glad that all of my neighbors are here, we really should have done this sooner. So, what does everyone want to play? Apples to Apples? Cards Against Humanity if anyone’s feeling randy? Jenga? Or, I have a new game that I think everyone’s going to love, especially you Jim, you ol’ so and so. It’s called Murderbox. Oh you guys haven’t heard of it? It was so strange, I was strolling through the woods, and there, in a burned out clearing with strange ancient patterns etched into the ground, I found Murderbox stuck in the middle of a smoking, gnarled tree. It was almost as if it was calling to me. Like maybe, nothing in my life made sense before finding Murderbox. Maybe… I’m the Murderbox. Or something haha, can I get anyone else some more wine? How about you, Linda? I noticed a lot of empty bottles in your recycling, you’re basically an alcoholic, right?

So you guys, Murderbox is a lot like Candyland with a few subtle differences. The game board itself forgoes colorful gumdrop mountains and is instead some kind of hastily stitched leather. Take a look at that Bill, feels kinda like… I mean let’s just say it, it feels like human skin, doesn’t it? Kind of like your gray, nearly transparent old man flesh. There’s a Pop-o-Matic bubble in the middle of the board, it’s useless; most of the time it’s just filled with screaming insects. The goal is to move your team’s crystal pyramid pieces around the board and reach the goal without opening the Murderbox and unleashing its terrible secrets. I should mention that there have been some, how can I say this… “disappearances” that may have been associated with the game. But we should be fine, just don’t make direct eye contact or say anything disparaging about the Murderbox. And look, right there on the box it says fun for ages 1 -100, that’s a hoot.

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So let’s get started! Carol and Don, you two go first because you have the most offspring. Loud, screaming offspring. Oh look, you rolled a… some kind of pentagram… thing. Nice! Let’s consult the instructions that are inked in human blood and see what that means. OK so apparently you summoned a Lovecraftian Thousand Headed Old God, which is good Carol and Don because it means you can move three spaces, but also bad Carol and Don because it just tore the fucking moon in half. Tides are going to be pretty weird tonight, that’s for sure! How are we doing on crackers, should I get some more from the kitchen?

OK, your turn Jim and Diane. Jim, why don’t you take off your shirt and don the Shroud of Second Turns, kind of like how you mow the lawn shirtless at 6 in the morning with a t-shirt covering your very large and bald head. Very good. Now Diane, very carefully blow on the incredibly hot dice and roll a winner! Ooh very nice, you rolled a 3 of Skulls which means you get to draw a card. Let’s see… oh. Oh my. It’s the Death card. I’m afraid that means I have to open the Murderbox. Let me just check the instructions… it says, “If the Death card is drawn, the Murderbox must be opened. All players besides the host (that’s me) will be sacrificed. However, there is another way. By keeping a distance of 1,000 feet between yourself and the host (that’s me), and never guilting the host into hosting another game night, Murderbox’s blood thirst will be quenched.” So what do you think guys, should I just open the bo- or, oh ok time to go? Well thanks for coming by it was great seeing you all bye bye bye get out get OUT GET OUT.

You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

Town Council Primaries and the Wild Dog Situation

Jun 3rd, 2015
by John.
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Town council primaries were held in my town yesterday. And though the votes are being tallied as we speak, I’m just going to assume that my write-in campaign worked, and I am now one step closer to becoming a member of the town council. Hey thanks. Thank you, it’s been a long couple of days getting this whole thing set up. Let’s go over some of my campaign promises.

I promised to save the Movies Under the Stars program, and I will not break that promise. However, I should make you aware of a few changes that will make this program even more exciting and valuable to the community. First of all, attendance is now mandatory, rain or shine. Second, I’ll be picking all of the movies, and I will also be mic’d so I can share my vast knowledge of movie trivia while you watch. Think of it like director’s commentary, except I’m not the director, and if you don’t listen to me you’re thrown in jail for three years. I look forward to seeing EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU on Saturday, June 20th, where we’ll be watching Nymphomaniac volumes 1 and 2, in French, sans subtitles.

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We all know about the wild dog problem around the old abandoned lot on James Street behind the rail yard. No one knows where they came from, but there’s about a thousand of them and they’re all hungry for man flesh. I promised to deal with the situation, and the way I see it, there’s only one solution. My very good friend Boxcar Larry, a local eccentric that lives in the rail yard, has developed a way to communicate with wild dogs. Probably because ol’ Larry was bitten nearly to death, and then a rival pack of dogs nursed him back to health for about 6 months and raised him as one of their own. Who better to start a dialog with these beasts that are terrorizing our yoga classes and eating from the dumpsters behind our vegan bakeries and then throwing up into the dumpsters behind our vegan bakeries? Therefore, I hereby nominate Boxcar Larry as The Lord of Dogs, and hope that he can either forge some kind of peace treaty or round up all of the dogs and light them on fire.

Which leads me to my next point. I understand that other members of the town council may find my methods… a bit… what’s that word where something is too perfect for this world? It doesn’t matter. Let me remind everyone that I ran as an independent member of the “I Will Burn This Motherfucker to the Ground” party. That was not a figure of speech. I have a button in my office, there’s a picture of a flame on it. You don’t even need a key to operate it. It’s right next to the light switch, and it’s gigantic. If I’m having a rough day at the office, maybe I’ll accidentally bash that button over and over and burn this entire fucking town to the ground. No more adorable antique stores. No more independent coffee shops that give you that nice feeling in the pit of your stomach because you’re supporting a local business. Nothing but ash. Volvo after Volvo blanketed in burning embers. Wild dogs, under the command of a local madman, snapping and tearing flesh from bone.

So thank you for your support. When I look at our town I see a bright future full of possibilities, loving parents pushing babies on swings, and a serviceable rail system. And with your support, I’ll ensure it never becomes a smoldering hellscape. Thank you.

You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

Summer Blockbuster Jamboree ’15

May 20th, 2015
by John.
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The summer blockbuster season is upon us, and no franchise is safe. Everything must be sequelized, rebooted and thrown through the ol’ grit grinder. Now, you may find this hard to believe, but as a pasty, bearded, bespectacled fella in his 30’s, I have some things to say about the state of movies. This is the prison that I have built for myself.

Movies have to appeal to wider audiences now because they cost $700 billion to make. This character or series or toy that you still hold dear? It now has to appeal to every man, woman and child living in China if they want to make any money off of it. This is what we in the movie industry call “money making plan.” So that’s why Iron Man has to fly to Tibet and breakdance with a monk for 30 seconds, give a thumbs up to no one and then fly off to do whatever it is Iron Man usually does. Screw your continuity, pal, in this rebooted universe Peter Parker assembles iPhones and he’s never been happier. Look at him go.

Speaking of reboots, my brain processes their existence in a very specific way: First is general interest based solely on name recognition. Ah yes, Name of Movie, I remember that movie. I liked the part where it was a movie. The second stage is anger. The original Name of Movie was perfect. The special effects looked like dog shit, none of the actors remembered the other character’s names so they snapped their fingers and pointed and called everyone “um uhhh what’s their face, the guy with the amulet,” and the entire third act was considered a hate crime in 38 states but GODDAMMIT, NAME OF MOVIE WAS SO GOOD AND THIS REBOOT WILL SULLY THE GOOD NAME OF NAME OF MOVIE. The third and final stage is forgetting the reboot exists and watching it on Netflix three years later and saying eh it was ok.

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Though I’ve only seen the trailer, I’m going to assume the Poltergeist reboot is not for me. Me, the person whose favorite scene in Poltergeist is when the mother is setting up ghost traps in the kitchen, maybe a little stoned from the night before. She’s drawing circles on the floor, she’s putting chairs in the circles, chairs are flying all over the kitchen. She’s just so damn excited to have ghosts in her house before all hell breaks loose, and who could blame her? It’s a scene that breaks up the tension without grabbing your head, throwing it onto a curb and stomping a lighthearted, tender moment down your throat while screaming, “DID YOU FEEL THAT? ARE YOU FEELING THIS?” You know? Do you know what I mean?

The house lights come up. The ghost of Roger Ebert turns around and gives my blog post a middling half thumb up. “I felt like he had a point in there somewhere,” he says, ghostily, “But it seemed lost in a toilet of all-caps yelling and word vomit.” He rattles some chains and makes a candelabra float around the room before disappearing forever. Thank you, ghost of Roger Ebert, for inspiring me to reboot this series of words, maybe bring along a plucky CGI sidekick, and try again in two weeks.

You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

Attaining Spiritual Enlightenment Through Wisdom Teeth Extraction

May 6th, 2015
by John.
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The surgeon placed the needle in my arm, and in a very soothing voice said, “This is the last thing you’re going to remember.” Puzzled by this, I asked, “The needle in my arm, or the fact that you said this is the last thing I’m going to remember?” but wait, no, actually I just said “what” and then fell asleep.

When I told people that I was being put to sleep for my wisdom teeth extraction, they all had a glint of jealousy in their eyes. Sure you’re going to have teeth ripped from your skull, but the dreams, my god the dreams when you’re under! I hoped that I would dream of waking up in a quiet meadow, perhaps with a Native American shaman waiting for me, sitting Native American style on a rock. He would point off to a mountain in the distance, a perfectly timed eagle scream somehow illuminating my path towards spiritual enlightenment. For hours we would walk, stopping briefly to admire the vistas of the world that lives inside all of us. At the mountain’s summit, a black elk would whisper a passage from a forgotten tome in a language unspoken since the beginning of time, and my third eye would open. My mind would flood with the knowledge that every living being is connected to the roots of the tree that was now growing out of my back.

That’s what I hoped would happen. I would have settled for Adam Sandler in brown face, playing a character named something spiritual like Farts on Dick, reviewing dialogue from his new racist hit movie The Ridiculous Six with me. Steve Buscemi is wearing a bear costume for some reason, Rob Schneider has a feather behind his ear and he’s huffing paint out of a brown paper bag, screaming about the dangers of vaccinating my children. Actual Native Americans are storming out of my spirit journey, uncomfortable with this bastardization of Apache culture and blaming me for concocting this nightmare.

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None of that happened. Instead I had a vague sense that a man was breaking my goddamn face in half with a series of sharp metal instruments. That, my friends, is the difference between nitrous oxide and anesthesia.

My wife drove me home, filled my head with percocet and fired up HBO Go. My eyes (sadly not my third eye) focused on one movie and one movie only – Devil’s Advocate. And though I saw about a third of the movie as I drifted in and out of consciousness, I managed to see my favorite part of Devil’s Advocate, maybe my favorite part of any movie. Charlize Theron is torn. On one hand she wants to have a baby with her very consistently southern accented husband Kevin, played by Keanu Reeves, but she’s having satanic nightmares of babies ripping out her baby making parts. Anyway, long story short, before he carts her off to a psychiatric hospital she screams, “They took mah ovaries Kayvin” which is right up there with “You talkin’ to me” and “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass” in terms of perfect cinematic dialogue.

What was this about again? Right. Wisdom teeth. Some say that you lose your wisdom when you have those little fuckers removed, but that’s only if you don’t have them on your person at all times. And honestly, what kind of amateur do you take me for?

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You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

The Coachella-ution will be televised oh actually it was already televi

Apr 22nd, 2015
by John.
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As I get older and grayer and more handsome, my desire to get off the couch and experience live events firsthand is fading. But last weekend, I went to Coachella. And I gotta say – wait do I get to say I went to Coachella if I watched it on TV? Because if so, I totally went to Coachella last weekend you guys, and it. Was. Nuts. Everyone was there. At least I think they were, I fast forwarded through about 80% of the 21 hours of footage that played on AXS TV, the poorly spelled cable station that I’m pretty sure exists only to show Coachella every year. But they provided the perfect festival experience for people like me, the old man that does not wish to be jostled.

Here are some things you miss by not attending gigantic festivals like this live and in person:

  1. People still in their 20’s that aren’t beaten down by life yet, and clearly I don’t want to spend my time surrounded by people like that.
  2. Locally sourced designer tacos served from a truck that runs on vegenaise.
  3. Mile-long beer lines, flanked by endless DJ sets and slurring pixie women, smashing face first into the ground from a mixture of molly and the hot desert sun

So I’m thankful that AXS TV exists, even though some may say watching a festival on TV is like when you were a little kid and you’d beg your parents to take you to the 4th of July fireworks and your dad was like, “Just watch it on TV, it’s the same thing.” Your mom plays along, throws a shitty blanket on the living room floor, hands you a box of Teddy Grahams, and you ooh and ahh at the same box that Alf usually comes out of. “See, son? You have the best seat in the house!” says Pops as he flicks the lights on and off to enhance the experience, when in reality he just didn’t want to find parking or be seen in public with you, all covered in cotton candy and star spangled face paint.

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Maybe dad was right. Maybe just watching someone else enjoy an experience is enough. For example, I sit around and watch other people play videogames. Like reading Playboy for the articles, I’m watching this guy play Donkey Kong Country for the story. I can devote just enough attention, and if anyone asks, “Hey have you played Donkey Kong Country lately?” I can say yes, but then turn around, whisper “sort of” and wink at no one. This was my Coachella experience, most of it whizzing by at 16x, done in like 2 hours. My god it was so magical and I can sort of say I went and now I’m watching House.

Forget just festivals, I want more experiences like this, enjoyed the American way, drunk and at home with premium snacks. If cable TV wants to keep me glued to the couch and sort of watching it, there’s only one solution: TELEVISE ALL LIVE EVENTS. From concerts to Shakespeare in the park to Home Depot parking lot surveillance cameras. Who wouldn’t tune in to the Fucked Up Idiots in the Emergency Room channel? Holy shit did you see FUIITER last night? Some guy was having stomach pains because he ATE A FENCE. Then another guy came in right after that because he ate A BIGGER FENCE. I felt like I was there in the ER with them from the comfort of my own home! This is television. This is life. I am sort of watching forever.

You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

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