The following is a message to the entire world from the superhero commonly known as Aquaman. It has not been edited in any way. This should be clear from all the f-bombs.
Dear Everyone–
Fuck you guys. Seriously.
My name is Aquaman. I am a superhero. I am a member of the Justice League. I am the motherfucking KING OF ATLANTIS and I deserve some fucking respect. Seriously.
Do you know how much abuse I take online? People call me the Arby’s of superheroes. The LinkedIn of meta-humans. They say if the Justice League was a rock band I would play bass.
If you’re going to make fun of me at least get some new references. Arby’s, LinkedIn, bass players–they’re easy targets. I can’t even say “J.J. Abrams” without one of you unimaginative shitheads shouting “Lens flare!” and patting yourself on the back for it. THAT’S A REFERENCE, NOT A JOKE, FUCKWADS!
What? Are you shocked I have an opinion about something nuanced like the intersection between omnipresent pop culture and quality joke construction? WELL, THERE’S A LOT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT AQUAMAN, SON.
Most importantly, I’m not lame. I’m not “the Ocean’s answer to Coldplay.” I’M AWESOME.
Let’s start with my super powers. People say I suck because I’m only valuable if something is happening in the water. THE WATER? YOU MEAN THE THING THAT IS COVERING MOST OF THE PLANET? LIKE 71% OF THE ENTIRE EARTH?
So, ignoring the fact that I’m hella strong on the land anyway, yes, I’m EXTRA STRONG when I’m in the thing that covers 71% of the planet! You got me there, braniac! And I mean braniac as an ironic term for idiot, not the super villain Braniac whose ass I could kick on land or sea or EVEN THE AIR.
Yes, I can fly. I’ve seen dumb-asses on the internet say I can only fly underwater. THAT’S CALLED SWIMMING, DIPSHIT.
I can also telepathically communicate with any living thing in the ocean. I can call up a dolphin for a ride like it was a fucking Lyft car. And it doesn’t cost me shit, because the dolphins know I respect them.
I don’t just use my powers to command the creatures of the sea. I talk and I LISTEN. Sometimes, I’m all telepathically like, “Hey, Sperm Whale, what’s it like to have the LARGEST BRAIN of any creature on the planet?” And the Sperm Whale is like, “Damn, Aquaman, thanks for taking the time TO ASK.”
I’ve also had it with people making fun of my appearance. They say wearing orange and green makes it look like a kitchen from the 1970s threw up on me. You know why I wear bright orange and green? BECAUSE THE OCEAN IS DARK, ASSHOLES. Have you been to the bottom of the ocean? No? Then stick it up your Mariana Trench, you sad fucking James Cameron wannabes!
Back in the ’90s, I also had a giant bushy beard and a hook for hand. You heard me. I was a garishly dressed man with ridiculous facial hair carrying antiquated technology for no reason. I was a hipster before they were popular!
BUT I’M NOT GOING TO MAKE FUN OF HIPSTERS. I HAVE MORE CLASS THAN THAT.
AS LONG AS I’M YELLING, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT PISSES ME OFF THE MOST?
People say I’m lame because of my ORIGIN STORY. They say it’s not ICONIC.
Batman’s parents were murdered. Superman’s parents dumped him in a rocket and shot him into space so he could be adopted by a Norman Rockwell painting. Wolverine is from Canada.
But who am I? What does the general public know about me? Who is Aquaman?
Isn’t he that USELESS TOOL from the Super Friends cartoon? I should have sent a piranha up the sewers to give those jerk-off cartoon writers a toilet surprise 30 years ago!
You want to know what my defining trait is? How about this? ANGER. That’s my character now. You know what my backstory is? I CAN BREATHE UNDERWATER AND I’M SICK OF YOUR BULLSHIT! How’s that?
Or, crazy thought here, you could actually get to know me. My real name is Arthur “Orin” Curry. I’m a half-human, half-Atlantean hybrid. I am a FOUNDING member of the Justice League. I have a fucking certificate that says so and everything. I’m crazy strong. I am a natural blonde. I do not dye. I have an Etsy account and an amazing collection of stand-up comedy albums on the original vinyl. I am an avid Wikipedia editor. My comfort foods are waffles and vodka. I’ve listened to every episode of WTF with Marc Maron. I’m really fucking good at swearing. My favorite Pixar movie is Cars. COME AT ME, HATERS.
I will take any shade you have to throw, but maybe–just maybe–it could be clever or informed for once.
Spend some time with me. Get to know me. Then hate me.
Because, I swear, if one more of you unoriginal shitbrained clichefuckers call me the Jar-Jar Binks of the Justice League, I WILL SHOW YOU A WORLD OF PAIN.
OR AT LEAST 71% OF A WORLD OF PAIN.
Seriously.
Fuck.
Thank you for your time,
Motherfucking Aquaman, Motherfuckers.
P.S. My favorite song is “I’m on a boat.”
This comedy blog post was made possible by the kind support of all my Patreon backers. Thanks, backers!
This comedy blog post was made possible by Patreon. One of the rewards for becoming a Patreon backer is suggesting a topic for the blog. A kind patron named Jesse McClusky gave me the fun, exciting, terrifying, and funexerrifying suggestion of thinking ahead to our future. To the amazing year of 2022!
2022 is less than a decade from now as I write this in the ancient, backwards time of summer 2014, but I suspect the world will be a very different place by 2022. I believe humankind will discover the ideal number of bullet points for a listicle is exactly 25. So please enjoy these 25 predictions about our future!
Social Media
There will be many new and different social media sites and apps. You will get messages like this and they will make perfect sense to you: Hey! Your netherport just got jazzled by a froolee on TimeFukr!
Spider-Man Age
A movie detailing Spider-Man’s origin story is released every two to three months. People no longer tell one another how old they are in years. We speak about our age in relation to how many Spider-Man reboots have been released in our lifetime. In 2022, I am 87 Spider-Man Reboots Old.
Who Farted?
All personal mobile devices come pre-loaded with an app that lets you know who in your immediate vicinity has farted. Strangely, this has not stopped humans from loudly asking, “WHO FARTED?” and enjoying the thrill of shaming other humans for a normal bodily function.
Food Free
There is a new diet craze called “Food-Free.” Some people on Facebook who read some studies once finally realized that eating food was the cause of all of our health and appearance problems. It’s commonly agreed in polite society that eating is gross and weird and no one should ever do it. That said, the world is covered in “secret,” illicit food speakeasies. Common passwords include “What the fuck is wrong with us?”, “I’m dying”, and “I would kill everyone I know for a taco.”
People are still mad about Star Wars
Not a lot to explain about this one. Some things never change.
Reality Goggles
There’s a special piece of headwear that blocks out screens of any kind. All you can see is the beauty of the real world–the soaring server cathedrals, the grand canyon physical media dump, and the strips malls full of Forever 21 (still around!) and the personal fracking stations. There is a glitch where the goggles think cats only belong on the internet and shouldn’t exist in the real world so the goggles also make it impossible to see or hear actual real life cats. These goggles are only available to the very rich.
Swear words
“Comcast” is now the most offensive thing you can call another human being.
Taco Bell
Because of our new understanding of food, Taco Bell no longer sells tacos. They sell bells. Bells are a common form of communication for pundits on CNN. When a plane goes missing or something, cable stations will now air weeks of people angrily ringing bells at one another.
Time Travel
Time travel exists. You can only jump two or three seconds back into the past. Time travel is mainly used to manipulate the accuracy of the “Who Farted?” app.
Toilet Talk
Every single object you use in life will instantly send a message to all of your social media accounts updating your friends on your activities. The devices will also speak to you. Every morning, your coffeemaker will ask you want it can do for you. Every human in the world answers the same way: “Make me some coffee, for fuck’s sake!”
Phone Calls
The calling function on our mobile devices is now referred to as The Mother’s Day App.
Memes
A lot of memes are very old now. No one can remember how some of them started. For example, when you get married the photographer automatically adds a caption to the bottom of every photo of the couple that says #TrueDetectiveSeason2. No one knows why, but hey, it’s tradition. And tradition is important.
NSA buddies
The future is not a lonely place. Every living human is assigned an NSA Buddy. It’s understood that everything you ever do will be monitored, recorded, and possibly used against you by the United States of America and Time Warner Cable’s elaborate government apparatus. But voter/content consumer comfort is the USATWC’s number one concern so every day we get a call on our Mother’s Day App from our NSA Buddy to shoot the breeze. It’s kind of nice, really. My NSA buddy’s name is Sheryl and she also enjoys getting mad about Star Wars.
Earbuds
Earbud cables are the leading cause of death. Every year, two million people are caught in a cascading tangle of earbuds. It’s sort of like that old video game Katamari Damacy but with earbuds and death. The problem is particularly bad down in the subway tunnels where the trains used to run and the mutants now live.
Netflix is a dating site
Netflix’s complex algorithms determine not only what TV show we would like to watch, but who we should marry and/or have sex with. The suggestions were weird at first: I see you’re interested in straight men. Perhaps you’d also like to try married women, a Benedict Cumberbatch body pillow, or dying alone. Eventually, Netflix got pretty good at it though and now all couples are pretty happy because you’ll never end up with someone who doesn’t want to watch all of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in one sitting.
Intelligence Captioned
Everything that is broadcast is captioned so even the stupidest people know what’s happening when they watch old episodes of Game of Thrones with their Netflix assigned partner. It’s pretty fun to watch the CNN bell-ringers with the intelligence caption on as it just repeatedly reads, “This jack-ass is ringing a bell.”
Cat Pictures
Cat pictures MUST be posted daily on facebook whether you have a cat or not. This is not mandated by any law but by common societal agreement.
Dinosaurs
The dinosaurs came back. It’s a long story about chemical spills and a horrible accident with the development of the time travel app, but it’s cool. The dinosaurs don’t usually come into the cities because they’re afraid of the earbud traps.
The Environment
The Polar Ice Caps melted. But we stopped it. A fundraiser was staged in which everyone in America was forced to sing “Let It Go” from Frozen at the exact same time. It made the top page of UberReddit. We’re told that fixed the problem.
Equality
People are still jerks to one another, but for the most part we’re much better about treating one another with kindness and respect regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, etc. That said, we’re total assholes to one another based on dumb personal preferences recorded on social media. Over 10,000 people and their triceratops steeds lost their lives in the Soft Shell-Hard Shell Wars of 2019. It seems like no matter what, humans will find stupid ways to divide themselves. I posted that sentiment on Google Plus and 17 people +1’d it, so I know I’m not alone.
Lightsabers are real
We discovered the technology to make actual lightsabers. Fifty percent of the population immediately cut their own arms off while making YouTube videos. The technology is now banned. It was only available and legal for four hours.
The Middle Class
There is no middle class. You are on Team Poor or Team Rich and that’s it. Our economy is entirely based on a complex system of TheoryCredits administered by PayPal and Chipotle so we all just kind of keep living but we’re not sure how. There is a shit-ton of bell ringing about that on CNN.
Google Plus
Everyone still hates Google Plus, but we all have to post to it at least once a day or they’ll send a Google Drone to our house and destroy it with their patented death device–the Google Fun Times Correction Integrator.
Religion
We kind of have separation of church and state. Not as much as I would like, but it’s a step in the right direction. Politicians still invoke their religion all the time, but it’s now bleeped out. So during campaigns you’ll hear people say things like, “I was compelled by (bleep) to lower taxes!” As you can imagine, it gives us a lot to tweet about.
Fun
I think I’m starting to make it sound like the future is a bad place. Full of totalitarian social media regimes, forced interaction, horrible violence, mysterious subway mutants, and talking toilets but there are a lot of good things, too!
We still have families. We still have friends. In fact, one of the most popular social media apps is RealFriendster where you only add people you actually care about. It’s weird and beautiful.
We also still engage in a lot of great physical activities. We all learned to run when the dinosaurs came back. We all learned to be really good climbers during the sudden sinkhole craze of 2016. We have jetpacks but no one bothers to use them because of the acid cloud.
We still experience love. We still pine for the past and hope for the future. Most of us have cool cybernetic replacement limbs as a result of the lightsaber menace.
And we still spend a lot of time outside. The number one hobby in the world is Social Media War Re-enactment. A lot of us spend holidays and weekends out in the woods edutaining ourselves about the great battles of the past. Everyone argues about who gets to play Patton Oswalt. Everyone is bummed out when they have to be Ann Coulter. No one knows why we go out to the woods to do it. It seemed like a good idea to someone and the rest of us ran with it.
I’d like to say more, but I really don’t think I’m going to find a better sentence to explain the future than the sentence I just wrote above.
It seemed like a good idea to someone and the rest of us ran with it.
Thanks and enjoy the past!
If you enjoyed the post, check out my Patreon page! Thanks again to Jesse McClusky for the suggestion and thank you for reading and sharing the post!
I once again sailed on JoCoCruiseCrazy and I once again had a great time performing as well as doing other human things that I would normally do on land but instead doing them on a boat.
If, like my mother, your first reaction is “What’s a JoCo and why are people cruising on it?” here are the basics: Jonathan Coulton is a talented, kind, funny human who sings songs. For the last four years, he’s gathered other talented, kind, funny humans to sing songs and tell jokes on a cruise ship. You should go next year.
This year, the cruise was on a ship that I believe was designed by aliens. More on that later.
Here’s some cool stuff about the Jonathan Coulton part of the cruise:
The attendees call themselves Sea Monkeys. After four years, the Sea Monkeys have formed a community that exists on the sea, the land, the internet, and sometimes even the air if you go parasailing during the cruise.
For example, a nice Sea Monkey named Laura dressed her stuffed monkey up as Batman and then gave it a taco just for me. Things like this constitute fairly normal interactions on the cruise.
The Sea Monkeys are also a great audience. I had over a million metric tons of fun performing in the ship’s Goth Club in the middle of a Monday afternoon. The club had a strange, sexy Beefeater theme so this statue was my co-star.
Paul F. Tompkins kindly performed the controversial piece Cats Versus Dinosaurs with me and Molly Lewis was my co-host for my nerd-friendly sport Competitive Hugging. The Sea Monkey volunteers came, they saw, they hugged the shit out of each other.
I also played a role in the boat edition of Thrilling Adventure Hour. Peter Sagal and I portrayed angry people from the Midwest. It was easy to get into character.
And I served as communications officer for “Drunk Celebrity Artemis” in which Grant Imahara flew our spaceship backwards through asteroids. This was not an actual command given by our Captain, Angela Webber of The Doubleclicks, but it was very entertaining.
All that said, the actual cruise part of the cruise seemed even stranger to me than normal.
Cruises are meant to evoke elegance and luxury, but with the glut of cruise problems in the last year there’s also the mental image of being lost at sea, defecating in a bag, while rats infested with the norovirus stare at you in judgment until you wash up on the island from Lord of the Flies.
Perhaps because of these thoughts I was more aware of the cruise ship as a floating contradiction. I spent a few extra minutes on my balcony staring at the endless sea and the vast sky–realties of the physical world that remind you of your tiny insignificant nature and the absurdity of our civilization. All of that just a few feet away from an angry lady from Iowa screaming BINGO and spilling a little bit of her strawberry-mocha margarita out of the commemorative plastic cup that is ringed with chunks of salt and small edible conflict diamonds.
Adding to the contradiction pile, our ship was called the Independence of the Seas and I for one felt INCREDIBLY INDEPENDENT as other humans cleaned my room and made me martinis.
There were many things about the Independence of the Seas that were almost right, but not really, leading me to the inevitable conclusion that this particular cruise ship was designed by aliens with only a loose grasp of human culture.
Each level of the elegant three story main dining room was named after a Shakespeare play. In particular, a Shakespearean tragedy. This led to a delightful moment of hearing a man with a heavy southern drawl loudly and repeatedly asking a steward, “Where is Macbeth? Where’s Macbeth? I can’t find Macbeth!”
Dining rooms named after Shakespearean tragedies is the set-up to a choose-your-own-punchline-adventure joke. Turn to page 57 for “at least they didn’t choose The Tempest.” Turn to page 163 for “I hope the dining room isn’t named after Titus Andronicus.” Turn to page 269 for “WHY DON’T THEY JUST CALL THE SHIP THE TITANIC?”
The ship was also lousy with challenging art. I don’t mean challenging as in thought provoking, I mean most of the artwork was so aggressively weird I felt like it was actually challenging me to a fistfight.
There was the picture of a deer looking at its own mounted head.
There was an elegant print you could buy of a famous human named Jack Nicholson farting.
There was a photograph that I believe was called “Buff-Man in the Shadows” or “Child of Light with Huge Pecs” or “Terrifying Live-Action Family Circus.”
There was an illustration of spaceships from Star Wars sinking naval ships.
Here you can truly see the aliens trying. They know a lot of humans like Star Wars so, hey, why not some pictures from Star Wars? How about some ships? How about two of the most obscure ships only seen in Return of the Jedi? Yes, that sounds good. We’ll have a picture of TIE-interceptors and A-Wings. What should they be doing? How about destroying something? Sounds good, but let’s make it relatable. What if they were sinking other ships?
YES! The spaceships should be sinking naval ships–VERY MUCH LIKE THE ONE THE HUMANS ARE FLOATING ON RIGHT NOW! I think the humans would enjoy that! Alien high-five! Or high-seven depending on their anatomy!
The ship also had a promenade or mall in the center as if commerce itself could keep us afloat. One of the storefronts was a pizza place called Sorrento’s which I choose to believe is Italian for “Sorry, humans.”
Many of us went there to get late night pizza. The pizza was available all day, but this pizza is like a great jazz club, a vampire, or texting your ex. It belongs to the night.
The pizza is not good. It’s also not bad. It’s almost pizza but not quite. It’s like eating the Uncanny Valley.
I could go on and on about the strange cruise.
I could tell you the aliens also chose a ridiculous name for our toilet paper.
Heavenly Choice. So much wrong packed into just two words. The act is almost as completely opposite of heavenly as you can get and, hopefully, there’s not a lot of choice involved. It’s not shopping for a new car, it’s basic cleanliness. Come on, aliens.
I could also tell you how the aliens took a part of Haiti and renamed it Labadee and then used it to exactly recreate an island from the Nintendo Gamecube era video game Super Mario Sunshine.
Seriously, try saying LABADEE in Mario’s voice and it all comes together.
The point is my whole time on the ship I was overwhelmed by this idea, this sensation of aliens struggling to make sense of normal human culture.
By the last day I realized I was enjoying the cruise even more because of that. Normal human culture is weird. Normal human culture on a cruise ship is weirder STILL.
But everything makes more sense when you’re inside it.
It’s only when you pull back and look at it from a distance that you can see the absurdity and often the joy of how not normal what you’re doing is.
On the last day of the cruise, I thought I was in a room with a bunch of awesome people listening to my friend Molly Lewis sing some songs.
Then I let myself drift back and see it from the outside. I was standing in a fake goth club on a cruise ship listening to Molly sing a song about a detachable, flying vagina with a man dressed as Super Mario.
And it was great.
So thanks to Jonathan, the Sea Monkeys, the skies, the seas, the aliens, the night pizza, and all the weirdness in our vast universe for another fun week on a boat.
After many years of calling Minneapolis home, my wonderful wife Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw and I are moving to Los Angeles. Los Angeles, California. I don’t know if there is a Los Angeles in Ohio or Cambodia or any other place, but we’re not moving there, we’re moving to Los Angeles, California.
Below is an FAQ. These are questions I’ve frequently been asking myself about the move. If you think you might enjoy reading my (frankly pretty informative) inner dialogue, then please continue reading!
Q: WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
A: There are many reasons. When Sara and I first got married we agreed we wanted to try living different places. We did a pretty good job of that by living in TWO DIFFERENT PLACES in South Minneapolis, but it’s time for a real change.
Sara is interested in exploring new job opportunities.
After a lot of visits and investigation, I’m convinced Los Angeles, California is the best place to pursue the kind of comedy performance and comedy writing that makes me happy.
A: Yes, yes, it is. Saint Paul is not bad, either. When I was a little kid my parents had a pack of playing cards with a picture of the IDS, the big blue skyscraper in the middle of Downtown Minneapolis. At the time we lived in Brainerd–also known as “The Paris of Northern Minnesota.”
I was fascinated by that big blue, sci-fi looking building. I wanted to go to the big city and be a part of things. Years later, I worked in the IDS building at Kinko’s. I’ve done a show on the 50th floor. I’ve been on dates, laughed with friends, had a homeless guy say he would like to shoot me but couldn’t afford a gun–all in that building.
When I see the IDS all of this flashes through my mind. To me, it’s Minneapolis. It’s been a part of me since my earliest memories and it always will be.
But it’s time to check out some other skyscrapers.
Q: THAT’S ALL NICE AND ROMANTIC–WAY TO USE YOUR LIBERAL ARTS DEGREE–BUT WHEN ARE YOU ACTUALLY MOVING?
A: We’ll be making the transition–going back and forth a little bit–over the next several weeks with the goal to be all settled in Los Angeles, California by the end of March.
Q: WILL YOU EVER BE BACK IN MINNEAPOLIS?
A: Yes, thanks for that nice segue. I’ll be back in July to perform at CONvergence. Check the LIVE SHOWS section of this very website for details on this and other shows across the country.
Q: DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LOS ANGELES?
A: Yes. I’ve been there several times and I’m lucky enough to know a lot of cool people. I look forward to hanging out and doing fun weird creative things with friends, fellow performers, writers, and all of their small, adorable dogs. Plus, I’ve watched every season of 24 so I know it only takes 5 to 15 minutes to drive anywhere in the metro area.
Q: WILL YOU BECOME A TOTALLY PRO-WEST COAST GUY OR WILL YOU BE ONE OF THOSE GUYS WHO LIVES IN LOS ANGELES BUT CONSTANTLY TALKS ABOUT HOW GREAT THE MIDWEST IS?
A: All I can say for sure is that I will make fun of both places equally.
Q: WHEN WILL YOU DO YOUR FIRST JUICE CLEANSE?
A: When it snows in Los Angeles.
I think that’s it! Thanks for reading and thanks for your support during this weird transitional time.
Sincerely,
Joseph “I’m really done with snow” Scrimshaw
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Like many people this year, I ate, I drank, I slept, I worked a lot, I beat myself up about not working hard enough, and then beat myself up about beating myself up about not working hard enough. At some point, I just accepted part of my brain is a pushy jerk and I deal with it by writing mean blog posts about my jerk-brain. Posts like this one!
This year, I find myself with too many year-end deadlines to do that, so here are a few triumphs and failures that I’m proud, ashamed, and proudshamed to share! Enjoy!
Obsessed
My podcast Obsessed drove obsessively forward with a bunch of live shows in Minneapolis, at conventions, in living rooms, and more.
This episode was recorded on my birthday and my wonderful wife and producing partner, Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw, made her first appearance on the podcast playing an Angry Wizard Kangaroo. Like you do in Roleplaying Games.
I also got a few nice comments from frequent listeners that the podcast helped them through some hard times. To me, this is the highest goal of comedy and I should just stop writing about anything else that happened this year. Thanks to those listeners who reached out!
Next year, Obsessed will be moving to a new format (like this intimate episode with my pal, Josh A. Cagan and some ambient squirrels) that will allow us to put out a new episode every week, so brace your ears.
Verbing The Noun
In 2012, I recorded this stand up comedy show containing terrible dating advice for brainy types. We released it as a comedy album in February of 2013 and now it’s available eight ga-zillion places online including the very awesome site Bandcamp.
In prep for releasing Verbing The Noun, we also got this merch page set up on the site so you can digitally window shop my book Comedy of Doom, my plays, and my comedy albums.
And speaking of comedy albums…
FLAW FEST
It’s an ALL CAPS because this is the big project that was with me all year long.
Flaw Fest is a stand-up comedy show full of fun humor jokes about all of my horrible flaws as a human being.
A lot of the musicians on the cruise said nice things about the show so I thought it would be cool if I could convince a bunch of them to write songs inspired by the comedy album so I launched a Kickstarter project to do that.
That worked so then we had to make the album. We recorded it live at The Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis this September. The live show featured an awesome opening performance by the amazingly talented and kind Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. The musicians all delivered amazing songs.
On November 5th, we released FLAW FEST into the world.
In November and December, I made a bunch of little comedy videos as backer rewards from the Kickstarter campaign including this super-ironic one about Kickstarter Addiction.
I’m super proud of the album and constantly amazed that this weird idea worked and we (all the people who worked on the album, all the backers) caused all these awesome songs to come into the world. For example, Molly Lewis just posted this video for her song about James Bond karate chopping people in the ass:
How To Swear Like a Minnesotan
I wrote and performed a stand-up comedy show about my strange, awesome, and often mysterious home state of Minnesota.
We had an entirely sold out run at Bryant Lake Bowl in March, an entirely sold out run at the Minnesota Fringe Festival–a great performance art festival that has meant a lot to me over the years–then two well-received remounts in August and September.
The show featured some swearing and some advocating that perhaps Minnesotans could learn to express themselves more directly and vociferously. This led to one of my favorite moments of the year. After one of the Fringe shows, a little old lady came up to me and said, “This is very hard for me to do, but I’m going to try to say it. I enjoyed your fucking show.”
One of my favorite parts of the show is my attempt to break-up with snow.
Other Minnesota Performances
I also did a bunch of one-off gigs in Minnesota with great organizations and pals including The Rockstar Storytellers, the local branch of The Moth, Mary Mack, a video project with Trace Beaulieu, and I once again co-wrote and helped produce the big theater awards show The Iveys.
CONvergence
I’ve been performing at CONvergence sci-fi/fantasy convention for years and 2013 was the best yet. I did a bunch of ridiculous fun comedy panels such as Drinking With Geeks (it is exactly what the title implies), I recorded another favorite episode of Obsessed all about Doctor Who, and I wrote and performed a stand-up comedy show all about superheroes called SUPER ISSUES. We recorded the show and will hopefully be putting it out as a comedy album in 2014.
Here’s an excerpt in which I have strong feelings about Batman and yoga.
Other Conventions
I was a guest at some other awesome conventions as well including Core Con in May, ConnectiCon in July, and Dragon Con in August/September. I did a bunch of panels, shows, Obsessed recordings, and took pictures of things like this happening:
Comedy of Doom
We released an audiobook version of my geek memoir Comedy of Doom read by me, Bill Corbett, and Shanan Custer.
Showers
I took a lot of showers this year. This is one of my failures. I know it’s not a failure to take a shower. It’s the fact that I’m a grown man and I still think showers are secretly little time machines. Like time doesn’t exist once you step inside a shower. Basically, if I ever take a break from posting on twitter, it’s because I’m in the shower. If I could tweet from the shower and have a separate faucet that delivered craft beer, I would never leave the shower. I deeply apologize if you’re picturing this. Stop it, for your sake.
Writing
Besides all of my own shows, I continued to write the Dr. Blink twitter feed, did some for-hire sketch and script writing, as well as slowly pushing forward on a few cool writing projects that aren’t far enough along for bloggery yet.
Touring
I use the word touring loosely, but I had a ton of fun performing around the country this year. I did multiple shows in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Madison, and even St. Paul. Which is technically right next to Minneapolis but it still feels exotic. I did a lot of these shows with my good pals, The Doubleclicks, which brings me to…
Nothing To Prove video
I had almost nothing to do with this, but it was still a highlight of my year. I have a tiny cameo in this video of The Doubleclick’s song Nothing To Prove. It’s a great song, a great video, and a great message. I’m thrilled that it went so super viral.
It’s been a very bat-centric year for me. Many kind people also indulged me in my hunt for a good picture of Batman Eating a Taco. Mission accomplished:
I wrote a blog post imagining Batman’s reaction to “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.” The blog post was kindly re-shared on the social medias by geek luminaries and pals Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman, Bonnie Burton, and John Scalzi. Thanks to the signal boost, it’s the most read thing I’ve ever posted on the site.
Star Wars bloopers
Some rare bloopers from the making of Star Wars were released in 2013. There’s a shot of a stormtrooper struggling through a door then his belt falls off for no reason. I really relate to that Stormtrooper. This isn’t a success or a failure, I just felt like sharing that.
At Dragon Con, I told a story about violence and nuns for the awesome podcast, Five Truths and a Lie.
Another huge highlight of my year is working with James Urbaniak on his podcast Getting On with James Urbaniak. The podcast is a truly amazing mix of comedy, pathos, and general human absurdity.
I wrote the episode “The Smart Thing” and got to co-star in the episode.
Making sex noises into an incredibly expensive microphone on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the San Fernando Valley was not something I had on my bucket list, but now it’s crossed off.
Taco Doughnut
I was asked to contribute to a geek cookbook called All The Nomz. Sara helped me concoct the culinary horror called The Taco Doughnut.
Social Media
Finally, I spent A LOT OF TIME on social media.
I set up a Fan List where I enjoy answering real and absurd questions.
In March, I started doing a series of daily tweets on different themes each month.
I spend time on Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, but I spend, uh, even more time on Twitter.
I’m not going to call it a failure, but I’m getting close to the point where I’m going to accidentally try to touch someone’s FAV button because I liked what they said in real life.
In the constant battle to get AS MUCH DONE AS POSSIBLE, social media can be a dangerous time suck, but I do value it incredibly.
Some days, it’s just a vehicle for butt jokes. But to misquote Shakespeare, “A Butt Joke by any other name would smell as sweet.” Just the other day, I spent a pleasant morning exchanging butt jokes with good friends who are scattered across the country. I honestly felt connected to far away friends.
For all the jokes and criticisms of social media, I value all these connections to friends, family, fans, strangers and the exposure to new and different ideas, experiences, and butt jokes.
As I posted on Thanksgiving on Twitter:
“Because of twitter I know what’s going on in your hearts, your brains, your bowels, your barrooms, Mars, and more. Sincere thanks, weirdos.”
My new comedy and music album FLAW FEST is available for pre-order now on Bandcamp and will “drop” or “fall down” or “scrape its knee” on Tuesday, November 5th!
“I am glad that Joseph Scrimshaw has the power of thought and audible speech, or else this very funny album would not exist.”
–John Hodgman
ALBUM RELEASES TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5th ON: Bandcamp
Amazon
iTunes
CD Baby
(physical and digital)
and streaming on
Spotify
FLAW FEST is a live comedy album full of fun comedy jokes about horrible human flaws PLUS a bonus album of awesome songs inspired by the comedy show.
The comedy album details my horrible flaws: a sloth driven obsession to play bad James Bond video games, a stubborn need to fight with large animals, the idiocy to drink something called a Watermelon Shooter, the hubris to write a rock n’ roll song about a helium balloon, and much more. Plus a cameo by Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy of RiffTrax!
I first did the show in February of 2013 on Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy.
The show went well so I decided to use Kickstarter to raise funds to record the show for a comedy album. The show deals with themes of music and I have a lot of amazing musician friends. So I asked a bunch of them to write an album of songs inspired by the show. So basically, it will be a comedy album with its own soundtrack. To my knowledge, no one has ever done that before.
Squirrels and streetcars! Two obsessions that go great together in this podcast! Recorded live at the sci-fi/fantasy convention CoreCon, Joseph drew two random guests and got a married couple! Therapist Sherry Merriam is obsessed, like Joseph, with squirrels and author Michael Merriam is obsessed with streetcars. Topics include squirrel underwear, Hitler’s listening skills, sex on Tuesday at 8:45, and the similarities between public transportation and the Fellowship of the Ring. There’s some fuzz on the mics from a fast set-up at a con. Such is the challenge of live podcasting! Enjoy!
Recently, I did a show with my friends and uber-talented musicians The Doubleclicks. We were looking for ways to collaborate. I love writing genre parody pieces for pals to perform such as this one with Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. I asked the ladies if they had any ideas. Angela said she had always wanted to play Hermione Granger of Harry Potter fame. I had always wanted to hear Hermione use more offensive swear words. I realized that Hermione had it in her to be as righteously pissed off as the Angry Sorority Girl. Enjoy the text and a link to Angela’s performance below, you stupid ass-sorting hats.
If you just opened this like I told you to, sit down in a chair and cast Petrificus Totalus on yourself, because this howler is going to be a rough fucking ride.
For those of you that have your heads stuck up your robes, which apparently is the majority of Gryffindor, we have been FUCKING UP in terms of nighttime events and general social interactions with Hufflepuff.
If you’re reading this right now and saying to yourself “But oh em gee Hermione, I’ve been having so much fun with Neville Longbottom this week!” then hex yourself in the face right now so that I don’t have to fucking find you in the common room and do it myself.
I do not give a flying fuck, and Hufflepuff does not give a flying fuck, about how much you fucking love to talk to Neville.
Flying Fuck, by the way, is a really fun spell that I invented.
Anyway, you have 361 days out of the fucking year to talk to Neville Longbottom, and this week is NOT, I fucking repeat NOT ONE OF THEM.
Yes, I know I said 361 days out of the year. I know that a week is seven days long. I know the math doesn’t work out. I have a time turner, bitches!
This week is about fostering relationships with those boring losers from Hufflepuff, and that’s not fucking possible if you’re going to stand around and talk to Neville about gillyweed.
Newsflash you stupid cocks: HUFFLEPUFFS DON’T LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE IS MORE BORING THAN THEM. HUFFLEPUFF IS NOT GOING TO WANT TO HANG OUT WITH US IF WE FUCKING SUCK.
This also applies to you little shits that have talked openly about Quidditch being boring. Are you people brain dead like Neville’s parents after they were tortured with the Cruciatus Curse by Bellatrix Lestrange?
Of FUCKING course, Quidditch is boring. We get all dressed up and go out to the stands and then some FUCKING CHOSEN ONE PRAT catches the golden snitch in the first thirty seconds and it’s all FUCKING over!
But Hermione, you say in a whiny little bitch voice, “I’ve been cheering on Gryffindor, doesn’t that count for something?”
NO YOU STUPID FUCKING ASS SORTING HATS, IT FUCKING DOESN’T.
I’ve not only gotten messages about people being fucking WEIRD at Quidditch (for example, being stupid shits and saying stuff like “durr what’s the TRI-WIZARD TOURNAMENT?” is not fucking funny), but I’ve gotten messages about people actually cheering for the opposing team.
The opposing. Fucking. Team.
I don’t give a SHIT about sportsmanship, YOU CHEER FOR GRYFFINDOR NO MATTER WHAT STUPID SHIT HAPPENS TO HARRY POTTER!
AND YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT INTERVENE!
NOT EVEN TEACHERS INTERVENE WHEN CLEARLY DANGEROUS SHIT IS HAPPENING, YOU STUPID FUCKING FUCKS!
I swear I will fucking cast cuntius puntius on the next person I hear about doing something like that.
“Ohhh, I’m now crying because your howler has made me oh so so sad! I’m pulling my tears out and putting them in a pensieve so I never fucking forget. “
Well, good.
If this howler applies to you in any way, meaning if you are a Longbottom loving little asswipe that stands in the corners at night looking at Filch’s fucking cat or if you’re a weird shit that does weird shit during the day, this following message is for you: APPARATE YOUR ASS AWAY FROM TONIGHT’S EVENT.
I’m not fucking kidding. Seriously, if you have done ANYTHING I’ve mentioned in this email and you’re suffering from some rare curse like Smartus Oppositus where you’re unable to NOT do these things, then you are HORRIBLE, I repeat, HORRIBLE FOR GRYFFINDOR!
YOU’RE LOSING US LIKE FIFTY FUCKING POINTS A DAY. AND WE WILL NOT WIN THE HOUSE CUP THAT WAY, YOU MAGICALLY STUPID FUCKS.
I would rather have six or seven Gryffindors who are actually relevant to the fucking NARRATIVE, than a bunch of lame Dean Thomases and Seamus Finnegans being awkward.
Seriously. I swear to fucking Godric Gryffindor if I see anyone being a goddamn boner at tonight’s event, I will cast a spell that turns you into an actual walking talking boner. I’m not even kidding. Try me.
And for those of you who are offended at this howler, I understand. Now that I’m getting to the end, I see I’m really just projecting my own feelings on to you. I’m upset with Ron Weasley. And I’m taking it out on you. It’s very hard being the most intelligent person in the room. All the time. I always know the right answer and most of you are really dumb.
Like really fucking dumb.
Like every year, there’s a big mystery going on at the school. Like with monsters and evil wizards and shit and you don’t even FUCKING notice. Wake up, SHEEPLE!
In conclusion, I apologize and take back the majority of what I said.
And if you don’t like that you can go fuck yourself.
*letter explodes*
Angela’s enchanting performance at Nerd Night Out in Portland, Oregon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_mpj1Ct22g
If you enjoy my work, you can sign up for my fan list here and make more comedy possible by buying a book, a comedy album, or a script here.
