Is This Anything?
Page 7
Get Candy
Your whole motivation in life when you’re a kid is GET—CANDY.
It was like a mantra running through every second of every day.
“GET CANDY, GET CANDY, GET CANDY.”
Friends, family, school.
These were just obstacles in the way of getting more candy.
You pretend you’re talking to people, doing things.
But inside your head, candy is your only real goal.
Remember how they would tell us,
“If you’re in a playground, and a stranger in a car offers you candy,
DON’T TAKE IT.”
They had to drill that into us.
Because if they didn’t, we had such candy, moron, idiot brains.
We would be like,
“This man has candy.
I’m going with him, I don’t care what happens to me.
Get candy, get candy, get candy.”
“Wait, no, don’t. They’ll kidnap you. They’ll kill you.”
“I don’t care.
He has Oh, Henry!
I have to take that chance.”
Halloween/Candy
So, the first time you even hear the word “Halloween” when you’re a kid, you’re like,
“What is this, what did you say?
What are you talking about…?
They’re giving out candy?
Who is giving out candy?
EVERYONE THAT WE KNOW IS JUST GIVING OUT CANDY??!!
When? Where? How?
Take me with you!
I’ve got to be a part of this!
What do you have to do?
(listens…)
I can wear that!
I’ll wear whatever I have to wear.
I’ll do whatever I have to do.
To get the candy from those fools who are so stupidly just giving it away.”
First couple of years, I went as a ghost, hobo, the worst.
Then finally, I was able to convince my parents to get me the Superman Halloween costume
from the store. I was certain this was going to be my greatest trick-or-treating year.
Cardboard box, cellophane top, mask included in the set.
And the wonderful innocence and stupidity of the time.
On the side of the box there was a warning that for real said:
“Do not attempt to fly.”
Really was.
Because kids were putting the costume on and going off their roofs.
I love the idea of the kid who is stupid enough to think he’s Superman, because of the ridiculous costume.
But smart enough to check the box before he jumps off a building.
“Let me just double-check here… if it says anything about me actually being Superman.
Oh hold on, hold on, wait a second… it says here…”
The rubber band on that mask was made to last about half a second.
The thinnest gray rubber in the world.
Cheap little staple they attach it with.
You go to your first house, “Trick or (snap)… It broke.”
You don’t even get to “treat.”
“Wait, I got to fix it. Wait up for me.”
Kids don’t want other kids to wait.
They want them to “wait up.”
Because when you’re little, your life is up, the future is up, everything you want is up.
“Wait up.
Hold up.
Shut up.
Mom, I’ll clean up.
Just let me stay UP.”
For parents everything is down.
“Calm down.
Slow down.
Come down here.
Sit down.
Put that down.
You are GROUNDED.”
So, I get the Superman Halloween costume.
First of all, it’s not exactly the super-fit that you have seen in movies and on television.
It’s more like Superman’s pajamas.
Everything’s all loose and flowy.
Flimsy little ribbon string in the back to hold it all together.
Plus, my mother makes me wear my winter coat over the costume anyway.
I don’t recall Superman wearing a jacket.
Not like I had.
Cheap corduroy, phony fur.
“Boy, I’m Superman but it is a little chilly out today.
I’m glad I’ve got this cheap little ten-year-old-kid’s jacket.”
So I’m going out, I’m trick-or-treating.
But the mask’s rubber band keeps breaking.
I keep re-tying it.
It keeps getting shorter.
It’s getting tighter and tighter on my face.
It starts slicing into your eyeballs.
You’re trying to breathe through that little hole.
It gets all sweaty in there.
“I can’t see, I can’t breathe, but we’ve got to keep going, we’ve got to get the candy!”
Half an hour into it, you just take that mask and just throw it…
“Aah, the hell with it!”
Bing-bong…
“Yeah, it’s me. Just give me the candy.
Yeah, yeah… I’m Superman.
Look at the red pant legs, what do you care?”
Last couple years, getting too old for it.
Just going through the motions.
You start to realize you’re putting in a lot of time.
It’s a lot of walking.
By the end of that night you’re losing patience.
You ring the doorbell,
“Come on, lady, let’s go.”
Halloween. Doorbells. Candy.
Let’s pick it up, in there…
Same questions over and over.
“And what are you supposed to be?”
“I’m supposed to be done by now, could we move it along with the Three Musketeers, please?
I’ve got 12 houses to hit on this block, sweetheart.
I’m tired.
I got eggs, water balloons to throw.
I’m trying to get off my feet by 11.
Can we pick up the pace?
You hit the bag.
We hit the road.
That’s how it works.”
Sometimes you get those little white paper bags twisted on top.
No official Halloween markings on it?
You know that’s going to be some crap candy.
“What is this, the orange marshmallow shaped like a big peanut?
Do me a favor, you keep that one.
(Throws it back)
We’ve got all the doorstops we need already.
We’re going for name candy only this year.”
Braces Glasses
I had glasses at 10, braces at 12.
When you’re thinking about talking to a girl for the very first time in your life,
you want as much corrective apparatus on your head as you can possibly get.
I said to my parents,
“Let’s not stop now, how about a hearing aid, orthopedic shoes?
I want to look like a human science project.
Sparks flying out from behind my head.
This is my image.
Let’s go with it.”
Bugs Going?
I have always wondered,
where are bugs going?
Every bug you see is on his way somewhere else.
Bugs never seem to stop and go,
“Well, here I am.”
And if you put your hand down in front of him, no problem.
They pick a completely different destination.
But I guess if you were walking along,
and someone dropped a 200-foot wall in front of you,
you’d go,
“I think I’ll go elsewhere.
There’s walls falling out of the sky around here.
I don’t need that.”
Sometimes I would flick a bug like, 20 feet.
&nb
sp; Which is the farthest from home he’s ever been.
He has to hitchhike to get back.
He’s holding a little sign,
“20 feet.”
Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?
Magazines are another medium I love.
Because like TV, 95% of it is simply based on,
“How the hell are we going to fill all this blank space?”
The cover of Time magazine this week was,
“Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?”
Really?
Here’s a hot topic—who’s got time for this?
“Hey, what happened to the dinosaurs? Weren’t they just here?”
Maybe comets did kill the dinosaurs.
Maybe they tripped and fell.
What’s the difference?
We’ll never know.
We couldn’t solve the Kennedy assassination and we had film on that.
Good luck with the stegosaurus.
“Round up all these reptiles for questioning, Bill.
I want to talk with that little salamander over there.
I think he knows something.
Don’t stick your tongue out at me, young man.
I’ll nail your slimy little butt to the wall.”
Fun for the Whole Family
At the post office they have posters,
“Collect stamps, it’s fun.”
Really?
At what point in stamp collecting do you feel the fun is really kicking in?
You get the stamp.
Bring it home.
Put it in a drawer.
Come back a year later,
“Hey… still got it.
That stamp is COLLECTED.”
I guess if you ever get bored of the stamps,
you can turn them over, you’ve got a glue collection.
They always say,
“Fun for the Whole Family.”
Nothing is fun for the whole family.
There’s no massage parlors with ice cream and free jewelry.
No racetrack sells fur coats and Silly Putty.
Ancient Cultures
I like documentaries.
But not every ancient culture is fascinating.
I think in some cases, extinction may have been their luckiest break.
Like when they tell you about some ancient people
that lived right on the rim of an active volcano.
How much can we learn from people that stood around during an eruption going,
“Boy, it is hot today.
Did the weatherman say ‘lava’?
I heard ‘chance of molten’ by the weekend.”
Air Inside Outside
To me, the whole city of Los Angeles is a mall.
It’s temperature controlled, plenty of parking.
You don’t really like it but you can get whatever you need while you’re there.
The thing about LA that kind of threw me was the smog alerts.
They will sometimes actually recommend that people stay indoors during the smog alert.
Wouldn’t you assume that the air in the house pretty much comes from the air in the city where the house is?
Do they think we live in a jar with a couple of holes punched in the top?
Do parents in LA say to their children,
“All right, kids! I want all of you in the house to get some fresh air!
Come on, it’s summer vacation.
Indoors!”
New Mexico
To me, the ballsiest name for a state would have to be New Mexico.
I mean, you’re right next to Mexico.
“Well, we’re going to be New Mexico.”
What if your name is Bob Johnson, somebody moves next door, rings your bell and says,
“Hi. I’ve decided I’m going to be New Bob Johnson.”
What’s Mexico supposed to say?
“Well then, we’ll be Mexico Classic.”
Magician
I don’t think anything competes with a magic act for humiliating entertainment.
What is the point of the magician?
He comes on.
He fools you.
You feel stupid.
Show’s over.
You never know what actually happened.
It’s never explained.
And that’s kind of the attitude the magician seems to have as he’s performing.
He’s like,
“Here’s a quarter.
Now, it’s gone.
You’re a jerk.”
Sometimes they ask you to blow on it to make you feel even more pathetic.
I also love that condescending little pretend look of surprise they do when the trick works.
Like,
“Oh. I didn’t know that was going to happen myself.
I am also quite entertained by my own wizardry.”
Bullet Catch
You know there is an actual guy that can catch a bullet between his teeth?
There is.
I saw him on That’s Incredible!
And it was.
I remember seeing it and then actually saying, “That’s incredible.”
Although I can’t remember his name.
Which is terrible.
Because if he knew that I had seen him do that and then couldn’t remember his name,
wouldn’t he feel like,
“What the hell do I have to do to really impress people?
Catch a cannonball in the eye?”
I’d like to know what he was doing before he got into catching bullets.
I mean, how bad could a job be?
“You know, to tell you the truth, I’d rather catch bullets in my teeth than do this.”
How do you even know that you would be good at this?
Do they throw it at you a few times first? Really hard.
Put it in the gun and go,
“Okay, Bill… this one’s going to be coming a little bit faster now.
We’re going to pick up the pace quite a bit…”
If you’re a burglar, this is definitely a house you don’t want to break into.
Surprise him in the bedroom,
(spits it out)
“I think you got the wrong house, pal.
What is that, a .22?
I hate those.”
McDonald’s Sign
So, what’s the McDonald’s sign up to now, 89 billion?
89 billion hamburgers.
It’s such an outrageous number.
“89 billion? Wow. Okay. I’ll have one.”
I really want to someday meet the CEO of McDonald’s. Just so I can say to him,
“Look, we all GET IT, okay?
You’ve sold A LOT of hamburgers.
A hundred million, zillion, cotillion, whatever the hell it is…”
Just put up a sign,
“McDonald’s—we’re doing very well.”
We don’t need to hear about every god damn one of them.
* * *
What is their ultimate goal?
To have cows just surrendering voluntarily?
Coming up to their door and going,
“We give up.
We’d like to turn ourselves in.
We see the sign.
We realize we have very little chance out there…
… I’d like to be a Happy Meal if that’s at all possible…”
My Doctor Recommendation
People love to recommend their doctor to you.
I don’t know what they get out of it,
but they really push them on you.
“Is he good?”
“Oh my god, he’s the best. The absolute best.”
There can’t be this many “bests.”
Someone’s graduating at the bottom of these classes.
Where are these doctors?
Is someone, somewhere, saying to their friend,
“You should see my doctor, he’s the worst.
Wha
tever you’ve got, it’ll be worse after you see him.
The man’s an absolute butcher.”
And whenever a friend refers a doctor they say,
“Make sure you tell him that you know me.”
Why? What’s the difference?
He’s a doctor.
“Oh, you know Bob?
Ohh, okay… I’ll make sure you get the real medicine.
Everybody else I’m giving Tic Tacs.”
Pharmacist Two Feet Up
And why does the pharmacist always have to be
two and a half feet higher than everybody else?
Brain surgeons.
Airline pilots.
We’re all on the same floor level.
But not this guy.
Why?
“Spread out, everybody.
Give me some room.
I’m working with pills up here.
I’m taking them from this big bottle.
And I’m going to put them in a little bottle.
Then I’ve got to type some words on a really tiny piece of paper.
That’s my whole job.
Pills and tiny typing.
So, that’s why I can’t be down on the floor with you people.
You have no idea what it’s like.
Four… five… six… hold it.
Dammit—
I think I lost count.
… you see?
It’s hard.
That’s why I have to be two and a half feet up!”
“Yes, I’d like to get this prescription filled, please.”
“All right.
But you wait down there.
No one comes up here but me.”
Supermarket Impulse Buy
When I was a kid I hated the supermarket.
You’re with your mom.
Anything you want you have to beg for it like a trained poodle.
“Mom, please, these are different.
They have the chocolate on the inside.”
So degrading.
Now, I get whatever I want in the supermarket.
The whole cart is filled with things that I want.
And if I decide I don’t want something,
I put it back wherever I am in the supermarket.
There’s no rules in the supermarket.
It’s us against them.
They invented impulse buying.
We invented impulse NOT buying.