Horse in a Bike Race

I know I've been away for awhile, and I don't intend to continue this trend... But while you wait, now, I give you, a horse in a bike race.

Pain in the Ass

Hello to everyone who heard me out there in radio-land today. Below is a clip from my One-Man Bowel-Odyssey Pain in the Ass. Below it is a link to the
STORE where you can order the DVD for your very own.

GET THE PAIN IN THE ASS DVD HERE!

My Best Friend

I heard this song first when I was in Thailand two summers ago. My Ex and I were staying with her family in a small house ferreted somewhere in central Bangkok. Her two step-brothers, both young, were rampant with the kind of electric kid-curiosity that people later classify as ADHD. The younger of the two was very social and athletic and the older was a heavyset intellectual with a fondness for computers and the indoors. I immediately identified with him.

Growing up I didn't have many friends (or at least I've convinced myself I didn't in an effort to now appear more accessible, but I doubt it). I vividly remember my father coming home with a Leading Edge 286 and developing a quick bond with the glowing box. I tried typing in a math equation into the DOS prompt and while I didn’t get my equation solved, I did get a response… “Command not found”… this machine had spoken to me and although it had said I was wrong, it did not judge me. I felt very judged by my piers as a kid, and this unmalicious response tweaked something deep inside of me. I felt a quick flash of camaraderie from this computer, and although it didn’t say anything I knew the computer felt it also.

The coming years would solidify how true this was. I didn’t just use my computer, I became my computer - friends came and went but the data was forever (until it crashed and it was lost and the mourning process commenced). And to this day it’s still true, albeit in it’s hyper-advanced form. I spend most of my hours when I’m home using this computer in some way and it’s impossible to think I’d spend so much time doing one thing and wouldn’t develop emotional ties to it.

So perhaps that’s why I was so mesmerized by this song that my Ex’s portly younger brother played somewhere in the middle of downtown Bangkok. It’s called “My Computer is My Best Friend”, and while I didn’t have to be extensively convinced of that on his behalf, it also hammered home how much that’s been true for me also. I have human best friends, but none who know so many of my secrets as this computer. Nothing makes me angrier, yet I rely on nothing as much. All the traits of what we humans call “friendship” shipped and packed into a shiny box. I’ll admit, it’d been a fine surrogate for the friends I’m not sure I would have had anyway, but like it or not isolation’s been a large part of my upbringing.

So maybe that’s why whenever my computer is “acting up” I feel the need to fix it, to repair it as a mother would a son’s broken leg. And when my efforts fail, and I am back on the floor, sitting long-ways on my side staring into the abyss of boards and wires not knowing how to give this fucking thing life, that song pops back into my head and begins singing itself over and over again. But this time it’s different. “My Computer is my Best Friend” doesn’t have the simple melody that my Ex’s portly younger brother played on his little piano, this time is has a haunting waft to it not unlike A Nightmare on Elm Street’s schoolyard-chant. The computer, from it’s off position, is taunting me, and I can feel it in my blood. It is in these moments that I wish I didn’t have so much invested in these machines. It is in this moment that I wish I could have caught the goddamn football and liked it, wished that I’d prefer my days be spent working among other living humans and free-time spent checking scores or hang-gliding or some shit. I envy the portability of the luddite, their ability to actually live as Buddha did, without jpgs and upgrades. It is in these moments that I am back on the streets of Thailand, unable to speak Thai as the world I’ve immersed myself in becomes as alien and untouchable as a dead socket.

And then I fix my computer, and the second it works, my pathos disappears like a screensaver. Like two lovers meeting at the doorstep after a fight, we find a common ground in its operation, this computer and I. I exhale and feel less guilty about my broken pinky finger, smashed while clumsily trying to catch a football. With my monitor aglow I am back in Shangri-la, for a little while at least, and can allow my rage to dim into a cool buzz. And each time I tell myself the same thing – that I mustn’t adhere my happiness to the data stored on my friends spinning discs. It’s unhealthy to view these ones and zeros as the physical manifestation of all my efforts as a human – they are not indestructible and thus will one day be destructed, and because of this, I must let them go.

Or just make a backup and lobotomize the fucker.

That’ll show it.

I'm Out [send]

In the future you won't have to say "I'm divorcing you because you're a laughingstock parody of of a leech" in person.

Just do it in text.

Someone's Son

I placed the remote with a very deliberate plunk and in this moment I saw my father’s hand, not mine, setting it down.

It is in these moments that I feel most like someone’s son.

Old Fashioned Hollow

And yet I cannot look away.



I am connected to this monitor. As I lean in, wires extend to my cheeks and burrow up through my skull into my cerebellum. There, the ends of the wires split open and small pincers with soldering guns find the nearest nerve-ending and solder these wires on. The nerve-ending thinks it moves on, but it is now stationary as it’s gently pulled and swayed like a ship at port. The wires feed these nerve-endings through a tube and have a say on all their odd decisions. Sometimes I feel like this.


I sit cross-legged and watch, peacefully letting my brain intake all this horror on my huge monitor. Instead of comfort, they always bring me sadness. The world is sad, so they say. The Earth is said, I tend to think. So like a sad person, I distract myself through idle-input. Which the wires give to me so happily.



Simply being an Ice-Cream-Pail would mean it had no connection to anything larger, The Old-Fashioned-Ice-Cream-Pail, now that’s some historical eatin’. Have as much as you would’ve in olden-days. Feel free to shovel, as we’ve also included an old-fashioned ice-cream shovel. (When you need to move more ice-cream into your mouth than that new-fashioned spoon will allow, you now have a historically-minded way of doing it.) I know you don’t feel any sort of deep connection to the Earth on which you live, you haven’t been there that long, as a people, so allow yourself comfort by knowing that you can at least eat a pails-worth of ice-cream just like they used to did.

The wires are our new roots. They’re much more portable than roots.

A voice seems to whisper “Keep clutching that receipt from 7-Eleven, the one for seven seventy seven. Press it close, folded in your wallet, meditate on it’s collection of sevens for they mean something profound. They mean something about you as a person ripped free from all this watchin. Exhibit it on your wall with four nails, as if it were a butterfly you’d caught, for it is, A butterfly of chance. That luck, that coincidence, must mean something about your destiny.” it seems to whisper to me.

We used to have so much more time alone, our brains and I. Whole days would be spent listening to wind, stepping on bugs, and chatting with ourselves about the wind and the bugs in our feet. Now the only reflection we get is off our windshields. The energy of the Earth and the compulsion to love is being put on hold, for we, as a people, had call-waiting.

And so we eat and eat to fill ourselves up with a tangy sense of worth. But like the stomach, once digested, we are hollow once more. Oddly enough, our brains, with all their potential, like this stasis. In the mud, we allow the fog to roll in and whisper into our ears how good the mud is making our skin look. And the checks for 40k come in the mail for a used car that’s not even a check, and because it came to us, because it came to me, on this couch, I feel special. I feel needed.

I feel like getting another car.

So I’m sitting here, scooping from my pail, reading about all sadness in the world, which I feel all of in my heart. Or Brain. I am sitting here scooping and wondering what I could do to stop all this sadness, or at least keep it away from me, and, taking a cold-bite, I hope that my lucky receipt will keep it away and do all the work for me. If not I’ll just drive away from this monitor at lightening speed in that used-car I bought with that check they sent me. That’ll make me feel whole. Yes it will.

And this is what I will do today.

Upper Class Me

Meredith and I had arrived to the airport late and stoned and were greeted by a shaming British attendant who seemed to know about a problem with my ticket. She said the plane was full and there was nothing she could do accept bump me up to First Class, which on Virgin Atlantic translated to Upper Class, a term I far prefer.

Meredith looked pissed, but I didn’t spend much time remembering how pissed as I made my way to what I learned was a secret lounge built into JFK. Like the entrance to Hogwarts. 4-stories up I sped-ordered roughly three drinks as “Chef” cooked me a 4-star meal. The food was so good it was actually made of 4 individual stars, thin-sliced and broiled over a vinegar reduction.

I made it back to the boarding gate just in time to see Meredith looking far less Upper Class than me, and in a slightly British accent I told her about the reduction.

We didn’t chat for long though, the plane began boarding and those posh enough were requested to board first. I scuttled towards the gate, and golden ticket in hand boarded the plane as if I could have flown it. As I slip-and-slided my way directly into my seat I took a moment to appreciate the act of sitting down the minute you step on a plane. There was no journey to the grumbling rear, running a slalom through the frustrated and the poor, just a wink and a point and a large seat with the Spice Girls’ choreographer sitting next to it.

Face and I got along like old mates. I learned she was the Spice Girls’ choreographer as a sexy number in a tight red dress and Virgin Atlantic pin asked me if I’d like my massage before or after my champagne. I said that after would be fine as %90 of my available brainpower was pouring over the degree to which I’d never been asked that question before. She slunk away as Face and I, tittering, cheeresed the champagne she had just poured. With a toast I clicked stems and settled into my upper class life - If the paparazzi was present I would have looked pissed, but grateful.

The night flew on as Face and I chatted about all sorts of things. Becks. The Girls. The new album. I suggested a sking trip to Luzerne.

A couple off hours in I peeked my head behind the double-mirror to see if Meredith had managed to make a crude shelter in the scorched deserts of coach. She looked uncomfortable, so pacified, I played Face in a game of Uno.

After a couple more rounds I grew weary from work and a steward came over and asked if I’d like to turn down. At that point I didn’t feel like turning anything down but then realized it meant go to sleep, and yawning, said yes. She disappeared behind the sauna and brought me back a small bag with these pajamas in them. I slipped them on in the grand bathroom and felt a deep sense of place. They were the most comfortable things I had ever worn. In these pajamas I was king of the plane, and Face was my queen.

We landed and Face and I traded mobile numbers, promising to keep in touch and stay mates. I texted a couple of times, but she never got back to me, which is fine because she must have been too busy with the Girls. I was sure she would soon.

As the years have passed since that Thanksgiving in London, I have worn those jammies into an abused submission, hoping to reclaim what once was. The cruel reality of my lack of a castle would come crashing in as my humble roots began to strangle the tree. I can only imagine the deep shame of those Jammies when landing in New York they were brought to farthest Brooklyn and not the Central Park East of their destiny. My abuse was palpable, my intent malicious. There’s no way those Jammies could know what I was feeling.

Five years later the patina of their once elegant existence is but a sad shadow of their workaday life. The bottom of the legs look like zombie pants, and the pull-string is pulled off - requiring this hobo belt I hijacked from a pair of cargo-shorts with no button. I cannot bring myself to throw them these jammies out, and I don’t think I will anytime anyway. They remind me too much of a time when so much worked, and so little mattered - a time when champagne was endless, and sleeping on a plane was possible.

A time when I was Upper Class.

And so, I sleep in these jammies, and dream, of tomorrow.

I’ll wear them until they whither and rot off of me.

Just like the Spice Girls did.

Number One Ben Morrison

I hit search this morning and my slouch un-slouched… I ‘d finally became the number one ranked Ben Morrison on Google. Putting aside the obvious question of “Why were you sitting around Googling yourself?, I can finally say that no other Ben Morrison is more findable than I.

Now that I’m king of the Ben Morrison hill I’ll describe the virtual Fallujah It’s been getting here. We Ben Morrisons are a cunning group, and I’ve battled, and still battle, with a motley bunch of digital Ben Morrisons. They are as diverse as they are deceptive, among them a 16-year-old violin prodigy, the Ben Morrison Rhododendron, and long-time foe Reading based web designer and developer, Ben Morrison, to name a few.

Although I am impressed it made it up there in the first place, the Rhododendron was the first to go. “How,” you ask, “Can a Rhododendron be so popular?” “Well,” I answer, “For a little while there, the Ben Morrison Rhododendron was funnier than the Ben Morrison Comedian.” My life was a mess back then, and I vividly remember Googling myself and feeling trapped beneath the Rhododendron of my name. But, life grows the willing, and as dark gave to light, I grew taller in the rankings and saw how beautiful its petals actually were. I walked on peacefully, crushing nothing but it’s score.

A much greater adversary, 16-year-old violin prodigy Ben Morrison waits in the wings. Two years ago he released a self-titled CD entitled Debut (two tracks of which were recorded with the Royal Scots Dragooon Guards), and I’ve been doing battle with his vicious bow ever since. He’s a quiet and cunning foe, icy eyes issue a direct challenge to any who would share his name, and now that I have overtaken it, I must be doubly cautious. I will not let him out of my periphery, as he sits from behind his horse-hair lash, growing older and more talented by the minute. I have fought his CD for two years now, and we shall not forget our lessons when he releases his second. He also “Won the 2002 Chamber Music School Music Contest and has performed at many concerts". Watch him play.

And now we come to the Kingfish, Joker to my Batman, Reading-based Web-Designer Ben Morrison. A self-described "Motivated hard-worker with a logical and innovative work approach", we can see from Ben Morrison’s recently Flash-enabled website that his new approach to work probably includes crushing me. He has many charts, charts that spell one thing, trouble. While I found his old site cluttered, his new site, complete with “digital silhouette” worries me straight. It’s an impressive portfolio of work including The Parachute Club and Attitude, to name a few. Reading on I discovered that in addition to being a talented designer he's unfortunetly a good human working regularly with “recovering alcoholics in the UK and AIDS orphans in the South Africa”. I’ve never even seen an AIDS orphan. Ben Morrison, you’re good.

But not good enough.

And so my shaky grasp of the top continues. Like a king suspicious of his court, I wake every day preparing to be usurped. Especially if that fucker releases his second album. But until then, tell your friends, www.benmorrison.org... www.benmorison.org... www.benmorrison.ooooorrrrggg....

Impossible is Nothing

Conceived as a flashy addendum to his Ivy league resume, my man Alexy has made this video to put him over the edge in interviews with financial firms. Motivationally titled "impossible is Nothing", among other thigns we see Alexy bench press a comical amount of weight, serve a 140 MPH tennis volley, and ballroom dance with a smokin' Asian chick as examples of how much more successful he is than the average Billionaire. Alexy proves everyone wrong, assuming everyone though he was a jackass, which they might after watching this. Either way, I have a certain amount of respect for our foreign friend that he had the balls and ignorance to ever think this was a good idea. Glastnos!

I came out of this a more inspired and humble person. I beg you watch the whole thing. It's worth it for the brick breaking, and yes, I said brick breaking. But Ben, brick breaking is impossible! But reader, Impossible is Nothing.

Why he don't RESPEC ME?!!

If you ever thought you'd see something funnier than Aaron Carter giving a beat-down to his younger brother, and crying at the end (much like he did when he got Punk'd), then abandon that thing because it has just been owned. This man is a little bitch. And what's funnier is that his little bitch brother, while normally being the littlest bitch in the spot, is actually out bitched by his larger bitch brother. This is a family of Bitches, much like the family of Assholes from Spaceballs. But at least the Assholes could sing.

This will make you smile, because you have balls. Even if you are female, your balls will be larger then the atoms on display here. Hit play and find out why I am right. And I am.

Laughing with Jesus.

This is, the single, weirdest thing, I have ever seen. Jesus, what's your take?

PITA Time.

PAIN IN THE ASS - Live in Los Angeles

The funniest one-man show about severve intestinal disease, ever.

Proudly presented as part of the Crohn's and Me Tour. It'll be an evening of learning, laughing, some more learning, and then handshakes and possibly high-fives. The show is awesome, and has lots of photos. And you'll be smarter after. And it's free, whch will make you even happier cause you're also smarter with as much money as you had going into it.

6:30PM - 9:00 PM
Hyatt Regency Century Plaza
2025 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067

(310) 228-1234
(310) 277-2000

Tickets are FREE

CLICK HERE TO GET SOME FREE TIX

Ahhh see you there.

Am I?

And I wonder why my friends sometimes describe me as a prick.

Names have been changed.

Tim79 (7:26:08 PM): you should start watching The Wire

BennyJammin2K (7:26:12 PM): I have

BennyJammin2K (7:26:15 PM): season 1 all of it

Tim79 (7:26:21 PM): I identify very strongly with McNulty

Tim79 (7:26:43 PM): I definitely get his sort of manic depression

Tim79 (7:26:47 PM): and his egomania

Tim79 (7:27:02 PM): and the whole Rhonda thing

Tim79 (7:27:12 PM): treating her like shit, etc.

Tim79 (7:27:26 PM): and chasing the political consultant even though she sucks

BennyJammin2K (7:27:32 PM): you're mcnulty eh?

Tim79 (7:27:39 PM): well not in every way

BennyJammin2K (7:27:42 PM): oh totally

Tim79 (7:27:43 PM): but that’s fiction for you

Tim79 (7:27:48 PM): dude don’t be a prick

Tim79 (7:28:09 PM): there’s a lot there to identify with, its a very rich character

BennyJammin2K (7:28:19 PM): no seriously, you're a screw-the-system loner in a sea of dishonesty

Tim79 (7:28:34 PM): if you’re serious, then kind of, yeah

BennyJammin2K (7:28:45 PM): and if I'm not?

Tim79 (7:28:49 PM): you wouldn't have to look very hard to find appropriate examples

Tim79 (7:28:59 PM): if you’re not then you’re just being a sarcastic dick for no good reason

BennyJammin2K (7:29:08 PM): no I'm totally serious

Tim79 (7:29:14 PM): i don’t know about the sea of dishonesty part

BennyJammin2K (7:29:27 PM): SEA of dishonesty

Tim79 (7:29:29 PM): but yeah i get burned a lot by assuming that people are more honest than they really are

BennyJammin2K (7:29:35 PM): aWASH with it

Tim79 (7:29:39 PM): fuck off

BennyJammin2K (7:29:51 PM): you're too sensitive

Tim79 (7:29:52 PM): i don’t know why you’re being a prick

Tim79 (7:30:06 PM): because i was trying to have a real conversation

Tim79 (7:30:14 PM): there are some themes in mcnulty that really resonated with me

BennyJammin2K (7:30:26 PM): like deeze nuts?

In My Mind.

I tend to always be worrying about something in the back of my brain. I can't help it, it's in my wiring. Growing up I got sick a lot, and I think I just got used to something always coming along to ruin my good time. I don't get as sick now as I did then, I don't think, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that I've caused myself to become infected with something, and although I've seen no immediate signs of anything, it's coming and each day It's not here is luck. This is the kind of ramble that goes through my head when it decides it needs to, and I have been ineffective at finding a solution.

I can't quite seem to find the battery behind thoughts like this so as to rip it out. Some part of me thought I would leave this habit in New York, but the brain made the journey with the thoughts stowaway in the back. I'm not surprised that it's happening in Los Angeles, I understand that it's part of my process and I'm getting used to the waves it causes. I think as I get older these waves will morph into more adult versions of themselves, and in a more adult manner, I will continue to try and body-surf them. Ironically the prospect of living with these for the rest of my life doesn't worry me, it's losing my equilibrium when I've learned to ride them that scares me the most.

It can be very frustrating at times because I think I think things are great and for some goddamn reason my super imaginative brain begins clapping and before I know it my good time has changed it's mind and is hard at work mulling over every possible scenario of my mystery condition. And once that switch has been flipped every breath and twitch my body breathes and twitches is a part of my new condition.

I'm being dramatic of course, I am able to speak aloud and operate a car and order Thai food like any other person, it's just then when I must, I do this with Edgar Allen Poe dictating in the back-left corner of my head. Sometimes, when I'm not ready to surf a wave, it hits me off guard and I am sucked into living it's predictions - at these times my frustration with this proclivity is greatest.

I'm not insane, I'm pretty sure, I said to myself. Frankly I'm fascinated by my instinct to grimly narrate my own future, and to date, it hasn't left me pacing around my apartment taking naps between interrogating myself for more than a couple of days on end. But cummon man, I haven't exactly had the most normal of lives, I should feel lucky that this is about as bad as it gets.

Well, not as bad as this new thing I have... That things like real bad.

This Took Time.

I think I’ve procrastinated in every possible way. I’ve worked out, showered, made a smoothie, gone to the bank, opened up a folder on my desktop, took my meds, paced around the deck, paced around the living room, drank more of the smoothie, watched A History of Violence, did some laundry, checked my email over and over even the junk mail, made some calls, received some calls, talked to the Fam, talked to more of the Fam, checked my ongoing downloads, talked about this thing on Wednesday, ate some veggie chips, ate some snap pea crisps, finished the smoothie and rinsed the blender but didn’t finish cleaning it, looked at the tattoo, wondered what I forgot at Vons , checked my myspace, put a check in the mail or rather prepared a check to be mailed but never actually mailed it, picked up wrinkled laundry late, put on my glasses, took off my glasses, put on my glasses, listened to what I think are crickets, rallied myself for all the things I’m going to do tomorrow, twirled my hair, took off my glasses, tried to shit and couldn’t, considered making another smoothie but discouraged upon seeing Google News, read almost all of Google News, felt personally bad about Beirut until I closed the window, Reclined, Rolled back, UnReclined, made plans in my head, feat my stomach cautiously, decided it’s nothing, ate more snap pea crisps almost finishing them but stopping just short, watched the first 25 minutes of a pirated copy of Syriana only to call friend and ask if it was proper for it to not have subtitles, listened to friend layout an admirable game plan for his new woman, watched internet porn in blasé manner, thought about a woman, smiled a little, decided that tomorrows just going to have to be a get work done day, reminded myself to call other woman but didn’t, sat motionless at my desk letting my eyes blur facing the lower right corner, was conscious of blinking just for an instant, shifted some cards about my desk, wondered if I’m going deaf by listening to the sounds of my room real hard, swallowed and decided it was just the weed, adjusted the speed of my window fan and then for no reason walked into the kitchen leaning into the fridge as if I was buying a train ticket, applied lip balm, remembered that folder on my desktop and began project anew but was sidetracked again by writing this.