It takes a lot of balls to say that In the title, the very pursuit of
playing this game, is trivial.

From one year to the next.

And time passes.

You get older.

Dreams turn into realities, or regret.

Lighters are lost. Pencils are found. Jeans rip and fall apart. Or look awesome.

You will fight becoming your parents, and cherish that you have them to become.

You will make a lot of money once, and a little money most of the time, and all of the time you will wish you were doing better. Even when you are.

Your friends will continue to become exactly what you thought they would be when you met them, and your enemies will be just as confused as you are, but seriously, who needs enemies at this age?

You will have profound moments of connection and even more profound moments of detachment, and somewhere in between is the great truth that hopefully you're not too selfish to see, which I am still working on and am getting better at. I hope.

But more than anything, life will continue, and it doesn't really matter if you're on board or not, but it’s a lot more fun if you are. And one day you'll wake up and realize that you have a story, and a path, and this realization is part of both of those. And all of these things are as certain as the night that makes you wonder about them and the most you can hope for is a smile when you look back at the pile of it all. That and someone to smile with.

Thank you all for being on this journey with me. As I have been on yours.

How very Neverending Story.

Peace for us all at the end of this year, peace for us all in the year to come.

That and an iPhone.

-Ben

Kevin atop the World Trade Center in Home Alone 2.

Super. 90s. Moment.

I've come to a point in my adulthood where its time I go public with
my love of Coldplay. "Clocks" is a very emotional song. And I, am a
very emotional person.

YRADOUCHE

In first class they play Michael Bolton.

I know so little about sports that whenever sports are on I find
myself not watching the game but trying to remember enough facts I
that I don't sound like a complete wimp when talking to other guys
later.

And in this dream we all pulled up to the great green lawn of Harley Davidson frat with which to pledge. Walking with my small group into a small room in the front of their huge brick mansion, we all sat in a room and waited. Idle chat was made. These people did not seem like the type of people I wanted to spend four years with while attending the blurry college I might have been dreaming about.

The group argued and jockeyed and after awhile a woman entered and gave us a talking to. I did not like her I thought, and when she was done, I asked the group if anyone was considering leaving. Out of the 15, only one other raised their hand.

I, and the other, waited infront of the mansion for a ride back to the train station or parking lot or campus or wherever my mind had placed me for this dream. A man in a cooper mini pulled up and the other got in the back seat and I in the front. He whipped it left between two brick dividers and I said “Holy shit this thing corners well”. “Corners well at thirty”, he calmly said, ”body’s so light it’s easy”.

As he drove us towards the exit I looked left and on the great green lawn of the Harley Davidson frat, a massive barbecue was going on. Drinks. Food. I even saw the group of people I came in with. But I still knew I needed to leave. And when this group saw us driving past they began to bay at the ignorance of our flight. I pumped my hand as one would a trucker and did not look them in the eye.

And getting dropped off at the train station or parking lot or campus, I had a vision and the vision was this: a heavy-set girl, riding a horse, jousting with a bull. And as she rode towards it time slowed down, and as each hoof hit the ground bringing her closer to the white horns of the bull, she knew this fate was worth it. And as the horn struck her it plunged deep into her skin and snapped off creating a halo of blood on her t-shirt, which had a target silkscreened on the front. And before she fell, I saw five other horns lodged in her chest, she had done this before.

And as her blood hit the grass the image seemed to dance, to vibrate to the music my brain played behind it.

And this, I thought, was beautiful.

This is a picture of a large Jesus fish eating a much smaller Darwin
fish. Am I the only one who sees the humour in this?

Why would anyone need a "send" button on an email program? This is
the reason people hate Microsoft.

Wow I'm not, like, even a dog person, but that, is an impressive
amount of dog shit.

I think this is what I look like when I'm being pissy.

The bed I got off craigslist is seriously too small. My feet dangle
off the end and if I want to ever be completley on it I need to sleep
in the fetal position, which, coupled with my blankee PB, makes me
feel like I am five again.

Does this mean that its the holidays so I should accept differences or
that the holidays tend to be very accepting of differences so that if
you're different the end of the year is a very accepting time?

Takes as much time by hand, you should try one, the washing machines
want to be used, that way they win. Not in this house brother.

And the award for most melancholic graffitti goes to!

And I know, with a depressing certainty, that if I do not fold and put
away these clothes right now they will remain on my the floor of my
room and become part it's eco-system for an indeterminate amount of
time. .

I Still know DOS. And that makes me radical.

And I am aware that I have become one of those people who wanders los
angels in their pajamas drinking coffee out of an empty water bottle
during the day. And I am also just fine with this.

I moved the skinny dresser over behind the door today. To me thats a very big deal. I'm going to sit in the room and hang out with
the dresser. Absorb its energy.

Yeah I'll take some Effen vodka.

This is my mother showing everyone at the thanksgivng table pictures
of her colin from her colonoscopy. This is the family in which I live.

Jesus drives a harley.

Sam Marlowe knows youre looking at this.

I can never tell if they never give me enough soy sauce, or I just
have an irrational love of soy sauce.

So do I little girl, so do I...

I always wonder what cats are looking at when they stare out windows.

My frend just said that this sign was sad. But I think she was really
talking about this photoblog.

SOD

Either sleeping, or dead.

Aaaaand we're back.

Were still on the ground and the baby directly in front of me is
crying. Awesome.

Kind of a simple theory, but ill go with it.

I have found the single outlet hidden behind a seat at the Burbank
airport, and I'm not telling you where.

Burbank is LAX's far more petite and far less sluty younger sister.

Its very pretty here sometimes.

I wrote some really good jokes about the writers strike... but I'm not
allowed to tell them.

I feel bloated.

Nice days just make you feel nice.

17 ounce Red Bull. Its... Its all over.

Sometimes it looks like the Lorax here.

Excuse me sir, sweatshirt parking is across the street..

There are just certain moments that make you love being a comedian.

Haloweening.

I thought of this somewhere in the vicinity of toweling off my crotch after a shower an hour or so ago. I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, and have never liked the pressure to spend money dressing up only to be disappointed by yet another shitty Halloween party where I find I'm the lower income harry potter among the four others.

So, as I wiped the moisture from my undercarriage, bitching to myself about how uncomfortable I'd wind up being in anything I threw together within a couple quick minutes, it hit me. PJs. Fucking PJs. What could be better? Its about as low rent as they come, would cost me nothing, and at the end of the night, all I'd had to to do would be lay down and drift into a soft soothing sleep, leaving Halloween and my participation in it, behind.

But overkill is a theme with me, and the notion of just coming in my pajamas soon wasn't enough. I needed something more, something to push this little idea over the edge. In a couple inspiration filled swipes of my towel I'd gone from not giving a shit about wearing anything to keeping up with the Halloween Jonses, and before I could rule anything smarter out I soon found myself in the makeup aisle in Walgreens looking for anything to spice up my little ensemble.

This bulky green tube quickly caught my eye. "Walgreens Brand Mint Julep Facial Mask", which , I ridiculed in my head before seeing that it was only three bucks, and for that price, would put most any southern jubilee on my mug. Giving myself a kick in the reasoning part of my ass, this certainly seemed green enough to get a laugh with my bathrobe, and buying this three dollar tube would put my total Halloween budget somewhere around, three dollars, so making what should have been my inaugural foray into women's cosmetics, I bought it.

Patting myself on the back of my brain, I sat in my car seconds later smearing this thick green creme on my face. It was very tingly on my skin and while making me slightly uncomfortable, I had no trouble spotting the mint part. I checked myself in the mirror, laughing to myself about what a good idea this was. People would think this was so funny, I thought, itching my cheek. I'd inspire thousands of others to the type of greatness I was concocting with a simple drying of my balls. While I didn't quite know what "I was", that didn't really matter as long as I was being my usual hilarious self, which obviously, I was.

But I soon found my ambitions had outstripped the workability of my plan. Walking up to the comedy club I was about to perform at I was greeted by smiles that didn't last long enough to convince me that there wasn't confusion just behind them. "Haha!" they'd say, "...what are you?" "Well I'm ah, me." "You wear a green facial mask?" "No, I'm wearing my pajamas." "Then why are you wearing, wait, I get it, you're a girl!".

This was quickly getting away from me.

Sal, the clubs DJ walked out and said hello to me. He was also wearing a bathrobe and slippers and looked eminently more comfortable than I, "Whassup man, nice costume man, lemme guess, you're a girl." This, coming from someone dressed almost exactly the same as I sans three dollar mint julep facial mask hurt a little bit, but I shrugged it off telling myself that they just didn't get the layers upon layers I was bringing with this getup.

But perhaps I had overdone the layers - the mask was cracking and brittle - I had applied three or four times the recommended amount of mint julep facial mask in an attempt to really hit the joke home, and it was quickly becoming apparent that the only real joke here was me. My skin looked like the surface of Mars, except green. Pieces were crumbling off like the deterioration of the dying emperor in the beginning of "The Dark Crystal" and given that no one was getting the joke I wasn't quite delivering I went into the bathroom of the comedy club and scrubbed the crust off my face.

But my skin did look wonderful.

Walking around later that evening amidst the clowns and emperors of Halloween night a I stopped in front of a car of drunken Latinos. Looking at my bathrobe and slippers one of them hanging out the window said "Hey bro, what're you supposed to be?"

I paused, considered my answer, and said "comfortable".

"Ahahah, he said, cool."

Which is the way it should have been from the get go.

Yes now even you can own a pet kid!

What the fuck is a new age beverage? And what the fuck does it have to
do with the soft drinks and chips? Sometimes I really don't get this
city...

Every perfect Sunday should have a trance party.

There is always a new look for you, at the Salon of Beauty.

Yep. California was on fire alright.

Really looks like the little guy is in pain.

It was at this moment I feared Trump's ego had gotten so large even he could not control it.

I don't care what this does, or who its for, nothing should be called
butt paste. Nothing.

No seriously. No one can tell at all which product you're ripping off.
At all.

How the hell does the thrifty ice cream shop in Rite Aid get a B? Did
someone die in the sherbet? There's not really a very long list of
things that could go wrong here...