Eugene Takes a Small Child to a Bar

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 12:02 PM, December 23, 2005

Not long ago, I was at a dinner party in Borum Hill with some friends. Afterwards, we went to a bar in Park Slope. A friend of mine, we'll call him "Miles" (that's what people call him anyway), was very drunk. There were three guys outside the bar, and before we went in, Miles all of a sudden crouched down, pumped his fists in the air and went, "jerrrrks!" He was about seven feet from them.

The reason he did this was 1) he was very drunk and 2) he thought it would be funny to randomly yell "jerks." He was right. It was very funny. He's not a very threatening looking person—a sort of scrawny, red-haired 30 something hooligan (however he has a second head—a sixty year old black ex-marine—tough as nails.) We were standing far enough away from the three guys that it wasn't clearly hostile, but close enough that what Miles did seemed weird. So my friend Brian and I tried to explain to three random guys 1) that Miles was drunk 2) what he said, because they didn't clearly hear it and 3) why it was funny and not hostile.

Ultimately, the three guys were pretty confused. Brian and I explained that Miles was joking: he didn't think they were jerks, because they're nice people who he's never met, and he's drunk. Two of the guys, who seemed nice, got it, or didn't care. It's probably not the first time a drunk guy did something silly that made sense to him, but not many others. But one of the three guys wanted to get to the bottom of it—"What's the punchline?" (Apparently, he had a rudimentary knowledge of comedy structure.) And we tried to explain what we thought Miles meant. Getting a little angrier, the guy was like, "If it's a joke, what's the punchline?" (For those who don't know, the punchline is a conflict between a conventional and unconventional reality—but Mr. Angry had no interest in theory.) We kind of tried to explain it again. Then the guy gave it to us—BAM!—"Well, work on your Punchlines!" WHOA! After the smoke cleared—we all went in and began to frantically tighten all our jokes.

The funniest part was that Mr. Angry wanted to get worked up, but his friends didn't care, we didn't care, nobody else was invested. For me, one kind of punishment would be figuring out the point a drunk person was making. "A Toyota Corolla is better than Mulligatawny Soup? How? Explain yourself!" For Mr. Angry, it was sport.

If the guy had attacked Miles, or yelled, it would have sort of made sense—but to try to zing a drunk guy with a riddle seems ridiculous.

In the end, it turned out that the guy did seem like a bit of—a jerk.

In fairness to that guy, though, here is the same story from his point of view:

I was outside of a bar with two of my good friends—reminiscing about the Peace Corps—we saved a lot of babies (you're welcome Nepal.)

All of a sudden three 30 something douchebags roll up—walking, not in a car, sorry. One guy looked straight out of Wet Hot American Summer—he crouched down, waved his fist and mumbled something. I think it was "jerk." I have not devoted most of my life to public policy to be called a "jerk" at 1 AM by some Waspy jackass. The one who looked like a Jew (not a big deal) tried to pawn it off as a joke. A joke? Jokes have a structure. (Plus I just finished reading Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious—so I couldn't be fooled.)

"What's the punchline?" I asked.

These "comedians" (I don't know what they did for a living, but they looked like homeless business men) couldn't tell me. They didn't know that I knew that to make a joke you need two elements—a setup—and then—a punchline—or "punchword"—something that lets the audience know to laugh. I didn't care about this red-haired charlatan's setup—but I needed to know the punchline.

I asked again, this time, with my wit on red alert, "If it's a joke, what's the punchline?"

—Nothing. I waited a few seconds, took out my mind's gun, and fired—"Well, work on your punchlines!"

Bullseye. Now to go home and beat my wife—in Boggle (I'm very smart!)

Hi. It's me again! Eugene. I would like to say that I know that the guy who was angry really just didn't hear Miles, probably thought some guys were making fun of him, and got upset, which is very reasonable. Still, it's always funny to see how different people react to perceived aggression—and this guy happens to put on an arrogant thinking cap and get Zinging. Now, here is a video I made called Scotch and Soda in which I share drinks with a kid at a bar. The video was shot at the same bar where this happened.

Watch the video.

If You Read This, You Will Have Sex

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 5:51 PM, December 12, 2005

I understand that advertising has to make it seem like buying a product will give you two things: the product itself (it has to, legally) and all of your fantasies coming true.

That's the price we pay for finding happiness from a cereal or car. Sometimes though, ads can be so overbearingly aggressive and sexual that it's a bit much. There's a number of Budweiser ads on the subway that give the impression that hot multi-racial couples are going to put beers in each others asses. But the ad does it's job—it makes me want chill out at a bar with a Bud, partially for the taste, but mostly to send the signal that if you hang with me, I'll put a beer in your ass.

Still, the ad that I recently saw (on TV) that I really hate was for Axe body spray. (Not to be mistaken with some new copy-cat body spray where foreign exchange students sex-attack a teenager because he smells like Thunder or whatever.) In this Axe commercial, some guy sprays his arm down to his penis. Cut to—that guy on a date in a car. (Maybe at Inspiration Point?!) His date begins to kiss (or sniff?) his arm (it smells soooooo good) and then moves down towards his penis. I think the tag line is "Show them the way."

I'm not exactly sure why I hate the ad so much. Clearly, in the world of this ad, women don't know where the penis is. Which is a real problem (if you want to have a healthy relationship.) They need a guide. And a giant blinking sign is expensive (not to mention tacky.) And smell is the most powerful sense (in terms of memory.) So if you use Axe three, maybe four times, women would eventually associate the penis with the delicious, intoxicating smell of Axe body spray (creating something akin to a scent-based Pavlovian Dick Bell.)

It's possible the makers may think the ad is a parody of sexual advertising, because it's so preposterous, I don't know. I doubt it since it seems geared at 16 year olds. Either way, the whole campaign is extremely annoying. (However, though spraying Axe on your penis is a ridiculous way to seduce women, using room temperature hot fudge really does work.)

A few years ago Axe started with ads of women tearing at men in an elevator, then did ads where people have sex in various small, public spaces (airplane bathrooms, boats, lockers, etc), and now they've turned Axe into some sort of blowjob spray. They are in danger of running out of ways to say Axe = Sex.

Unless they have the BALLS to make the ultimate commercial—open on a beautiful woman in a bikini, giggling, high on cocaine; she's disoriented, but happy (she doesn't need college, she's either rich, or a disposable object—probably both!) Either way, this HOT woman is fucking the shit out of a huge can of Axe (maybe two! Go Axe! Go Axe! Yes!) Sometimes she throws up a little, keeps laughing, and fucking the can(s). Just a few feet away a guy (with his pants down) is sitting and crying. (In the background, a wolf is running away with beer.) The guy is really, really sad—no beer, no girl. Then—back to the euphoric woman/can love scene. The tag line? "This can could've been your dick."

'Doggy Style' in Canada Is 'Ranger Style'

Posted by Eugene Mirman at 2:12 PM, December 2, 2005

A friend of mine recently shot a pilot. The idea for it was that he would go to Weehawken, NJ and find a stranger to spend the day with him. He had various activities planned for himself and the stranger. One of them was to show the stranger a video where a Rabbi explained Judaism. Another was to show a video about Canada, by his friend, who was an expert on Canada. That friend was me. And I am not a Canada expert. I don't really know much about Canada. (Other than what we all know—it's north of here, people in Quebec are silly, no one can get pregnant, etc.) But I did make the video. And here it is.