Tag Archives: Twitter

October 10, 2013 · 6:17 pm

A Man and His Horoscope Tweets

For the past several months I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, then daily affirmations, then daily etiquette tips, then incorrect quotes, then fake TV shows, and now Horoscopes! Enjoy!

You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy October’s spooky series of Daily Horror Tweets.

Day One – You will read this tweet.

Day Two – A cat will look at you in a pompous and judging manner immediately before licking its own crotch.

Day Three – You will push on a door that is clearly marked pull.

Day Four – You are thinking about Benedict Cumberbatch right now.

Day Five – You will resent your pants.

Day Six – You will blame passing gas on a dog. Then you will realize there isn’t a dog in the room. Civilization will unravel.

Day Seven – You will be slightly amused and/or disturbed by the word “dongle.”

Day Eight – YOU WILL FEEL LIKE THIS HOROSCOPE IS YELLING AT YOU.

Day Nine – You are, were, will, and will have been annoyed with changes to your favorite social media site.

Day Ten – You might remember you have an account on Google+.

Day Eleven – You will feel validated by a horoscope. Yes, you. The one with the pretty eyes.

Day Twelve – You’ll pretend to be an action hero by microwaving a Hot Pocket and slowly walking away while it explodes behind you.

Day Thirteen – You will have an opinion about Star Wars.

Day Fourteen – You will fight in the great twitter wars of 2017. You will support the one true twitter king, Benedict Catbacon.

Day Fifteen – You will tweet about your desire to eat a burrito.

Day Sixteen – You will roll your eyes while reading a post on Facebook.

Day Seventeen – You will ask something for a friend.

Day Eighteen – You will click agree without even considering the possibility of reading iTunes terms and conditions.

Day Nineteen – You will close a door. Another door will not automatically open up unless you’re living in a wacky French farce.

Day Twenty – You will use an emoticon to express a complex human emotion and it will make you feel all :/

Day Twenty-One – You’ll will have a hard times resisting you’re urge to correct the grammaratical error in this’s tweet.

Day Twenty-Two – You may or may not be indecisive.

Day Twenty-Three – You will feel guilty if you do not call your mother. You will also feel guilty if you call your mother.

Day Twenty-Four – You will walk into a room and forget what you went into that room to do. You’ll feel extra stupid if it’s the bathroom.

Day Twenty-Five – You will both rule and drool. They are not mutually exclusive.

Day Twenty-Six – You will fail at something even though it’s not an option. Impressive! Go you!

Day Twenty-Seven – You will accidentally send an “I love you” text meant for your wife to the guy who cleans your gutters. Oh, just me.

Day Twenty-Eight – You or someone you know will be gluten-free.

Day Twenty-Nine – You will read something that is not true on the Internet.

Day Thirty – You will decide you don’t really believe in horoscopes.

Your friend in Horoscopology,

Joseph

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.

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September 3, 2013 · 3:44 pm

A Man and His Fake TV Show Tweets

For the past several months I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, then daily affirmations, then daily etiquette tips, then incorrect quotes, and now fake TV shows. Enjoy!

You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy September’s series of Daily Horoscope Tweets.

Day One – Whatever, Ghosts: Four attractive, lazy twentysomethings can see ghosts but don’t really care or do anything about it.

Day Two – Crime Sandwich: A cranky but brilliant manager of an Arby’s teams up with a hot FBI guy to solve fast food based murders.

Day Three – The Potfather: An old pot dealer tries to get out of the game, man, but people keep pulling him back in and shit.

Day Four – Daleks: In this Doctor Who spin-off, we see the Daleks on their home world, Skaro. All they do is post YouTube comments

Day Five – Let’s Make Noises About Movies: Two frustrated movie critics make exasperated noises about hot new blockbusters.

Day Six – Clown Hoarders: This is just like the show Hoarders, but all the hoarders are dressed like clowns.

Day Seven – Big Dumb Idiot Heads: A reality show in which we watch executives cancel good TV shows, then get mauled by a bear.

Day Eight – That’s So NSA: Two wacky government analysts read people’s funniest private messages with zany graphics and sound effects.

Day Nine – The Vampire Whatever: It’s a show with vampires. Maybe werewolves. A lot of sad, topless guys. Whatever. You’ll watch it.

Day Ten – Cop Doctors: A show about surgeons who operate solely on cops. Usually old ones who were about to retire.

Day Eleven – Game of Ponies: An animated show for the whole family. Full of sex, death, intrigue, ponies, and absolutely no swear words.

Day Twelve – The Void: A talk show with chatty hosts who just shut up and stare off into space for a while. Also, recipes and gossip.

Day Thirteen – Friend Makers: A reality show in which the only goal is to make friends. The spin-off show is called The Saddest Loser.

Day Fourteen – Literally Punk’d: A hidden camera show that is literally just people freaking out over the misuse of the word “literally.”

Day Fifteen – Cop & Furry: She’s a tough as nails cop. He enjoys dressing as a soft, fuzzy animal. This will only last two episodes.

Day Sixteen – The Vicar of Murder Village: A wise old vicar solves at least one murder a day in this quaint show about rural England.

Day Seventeen – America’s Top Frozen Pizza Chef: A reality show that asks the question, “Who is the best at something that takes no skill?”

Day Eighteen – Inside the Actor’s Dressing Room: James Lipton breaks into actors’ private spaces to ask stars about their favorite noises.

Day Nineteen – You Look Like Shit: A grim yet surreal HBO crime drama. The only dialogue said by any character is “You look like shit.”

Day Twenty – Donkey Friends: This is a remake of the hit sitcom Friends reshot entirely with donkeys as the main characters.

Day Twenty-One – Quiet Dignity: A nature show. David Attenborough narrates the sex lives of human couples who have been married a long time.

Day Twenty-Two – Man Men: A show based on a common typo for the show Mad Men. Mostly shots of dudes eating steaks while driving muscle cars.

Day Twenty-Three – Profilers: An original Netflix dramedy about a couple torn apart by signing into one another’s Netflix profiles.

Day Twenty-Four – The Bourne Diaries: Jason Bourne writes in his feelings journal, occasionally kills a guy with a handmade paper bookmark.

Day Twenty-Five – Ken Burns’ Documentary: Tender, moving photos of photos used in other documentaries. Narrators read historical narration.

Day Twenty-Six – SharkButt: An original SyFy drama about a lonely shark whose face looks like a butt. You’ll laugh until you die.

Day Twenty-Seven – Crystal High: A down on his luck meth dealer accepts a job as a high school chemistry teacher. Hilarity/violence ensues.

Day Twenty-Eight – Twerk Train: A dance show sort of like Soul Train, but not really.

Day Twenty-Nine – What’s Up, Warden? A sitcom about wacky antics at a high security federal prison. Uses a laugh track. Lots of shanking.

Day Thirty – Phone Lookers: A hip comedy about young, sexy roommates who never talk or have sex because they’re looking at their phones.

Day Thirty-One – The Ironic Hipster Comedy Hour: No one’s ever seen this. The air date’s not advertised, you just have to know when it’s on.

Your friend in Netflix watching,

Joseph

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.

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July 3, 2013 · 1:24 pm

A Man and His Etiquette Tweets

For the past several months I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, then daily affirmations, and now daily etiquette tips. If you’re wondering how to behave in polite society, this will answer most of the questions you would never bother to ask. Enjoy!

You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy July’s series of Daily Incorrect Quote Tweets.

Day One: At family dinner, NEVER stab your in-laws with the salad fork. That’s what the stabbing fork is for.

Day Two: After Memorial Day, one should ALWAYS pass the joint to the left.

Day Three: In the jazz community, a twenty minute sax solo is an acceptable form of greeting.

Day Four: Save the Date or STD cards should be sent for weddings, key parties, and pre-planned emotional breakdowns.

Day Five: If someone buys you an off-registry wedding gift, it’s customary to lace their thank you card with a deadly poison.

Day Six: Don’t stare at buttocks. Unless eyes are painted on the buttocks. Then you should make eye contact 50% of the time.

Day Seven: Never tell someone they look like Tom Cruise. Be direct and say, “You look like an ageless murder robot.”

Day Eight: It’s socially acceptable to look at a smartphone while using a public urinal, but not an iPad, you fucking savages.

Day Nine: The proper response to another person’s sneeze is: “I’m sorry about your nose explosion.”

Day Ten: A guide to Facebook invites. Yes=Maybe. Maybe=No. No=Send Me Another Invite And I’ll Murder You In Your Sleep.

Day Eleven: One out of every seven tweets should mention Benedict Cumberbatch. Any fewer is a vulgar abuse of the platform.

Day Twelve: If you pass gas in a public place, don’t be embarrassed. Take credit for your work with a simple bow or curtsy.

Day Thirteen: If you don’t have children it’s acceptable to show people pictures of your cats, plants, or XboxLive Gamerscore.

Day Fourteen: If you hear an adult say YOLO out loud without irony, it’s acceptable to immediately test that theory.

Day Fifteen: When people say something you like in real life, do not try to touch their LIKE button.

Day Sixteen: The single rudest thing you can do with a smartphone is call another human. Send a text, you savage.

Day Seventeen: You know who doesn’t take pictures of their food? ANIMALS. You should be posting at least 57 pictures per meal.

Day Eighteen: If your dining partner uses the phrase “it is what it is” it’s quite acceptable to flip the table in a monstrous rage.

Day Nineteen: Some basics: Don’t chew with your mouth open. Don’t listen with your mind closed. Don’t love with your pants on.

Day Twenty: It’s rude to break up with someone via text. A vine video is far more intimate and easy to share with friends.

Day Twenty-One: A business handshake should be so hard and firm, everyone in the room will shout, “Jesus, what’s he compensating for?”

Day Twenty-Two: The proper way to correct someone’s grammar on Twitter is posting about it on Google+ where no one will ever see it.

Day Twenty-Three: Never, ever make eye contact with anyone at a highway rest stop. Even if you’re meeting there for sex. 

Day Twenty-Four: We’re used to emoticons so at social events you should end every sentence with an abrupt, non-sequitur smile or frown.

Day Twenty-Five: Body language pro-tip: Winking is always creepy.;)

Day Twenty-Six: If you’re an asshole, it’s polite to start sentences with “I’m not an asshole, but…” so we know you’re an asshole.

Day Twenty-Seven: Don’t tell people their faults. Instead post their top 17 in a fun, snarky list on the internet. People love lists.

Day Twenty-Eight: Correcting all you’re friends grammar and punctuations are great; for people whom want to loose all they’re friend’s.

Day Twenty-Nine: If you run into a mansplainer, ask him to explain being a jackass.This will create an asshole paradox and destroy him.

Day Thirty: If you host a dinner party and you do not ask every single guest if they’ve seen The Wire, you are a fucking monster.

Properly,

Joseph

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.

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June 3, 2013 · 3:07 pm

A Man and His Affirmation Tweets

For the past several months I’ve been doing a series of daily tweets. First tacos, then monkeys, and now daily affirmations. If you need a little something to put it all in perspective here’s 31 cranky jokes about feel-good aphorisms!

Enjoy! You can also follow me on Twitter to enjoy June’s series of Daily Etiquette Tweets.

Day One: You are almost good enough. And that’s almost okay.

Day Two: Dance like no one is willing to watch.

Day Three: You are like a comma. People put you in weird places and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Day Four: There are no limits in life. I would elaborate but I only have 140 characters for this tweet.

Day Five: Don’t lower your goals. Raise your denial.

Day Six: We all create our own demons. Gain peace by making yours with construction paper, macaroni, and glue. No sniffing.

Day Seven: A fart is just the contented sigh of a well-fed soul.

Day Eight: Fall like no one will catch you.

Day Nine: Tweet with abandon; with love; with misused semi-colons; that will piss people; off.

Day Ten: A midday nap is a peaceful, natural way to tell the world, “I have no intention of answering your fucking emails.”

Day Eleven: Knowledge is power. Hammers are tools. Words are things. Cheetos aren’t food. Breathe. Believe. Don’t eat Cheetos.

Day Twelve: Approach life like a child. Like a screaming, exhausted monster with a partially developed brain.

Day Thirteen: Maybe don’t just stare at the abyss. Talk to it. Hug it. Rub the abyss’ feet. You get out what you put in.

Day Fourteen: ALWAYS BE DOING YOGA.

Day Fifteen: You have two middle fingers. This is nature’s way of reminding you to only be pissed off at two people at a time.

Day Sixteen: Sometimes that silver stuff lining the inside of your cloud is asbestos.

Day Seventeen: We are all winners. Except people who insist that we are all winners. They are trying too hard.

Day Eighteen: Don’t yell AT yourself, yell WITH yourself.

Day Nineteen: Your brain eats ideas. A healthy mind keeps the good parts and poops out the excess on social media.

Day Twenty: Look at the stars. Reflect on how small you are. If you already feel small, FOR FUCK’S SAKE DON’T LOOK AT THE STARS!

Day Twenty-One: Dress up like a bird. Spread your wings. Don’t jump off anything. You can’t fly and you look stupid.

Day Twenty-Two: Life is like an analogy about life. It makes sense when you are drunkenly explaining it to your friend at 2 am.

Day Twenty-Three: Give a TED talk like no one will link to it.

Day Twenty-Four: Receive your potential. Inbox your doubt. Target your now. Ride your hope. Move your donkey. I have aphasia.

Day Twenty-Five: Remember: you are not alone. There are people everywhere. They’re watching and judging. Always. 🙂

Day Twenty-Six: It’s important to nurture your inner adult. Do some laundry and stop eating cheese over the sink, for fuck’s sake.

Day Twenty-Seven: There is no one else in the world exactly like you and that’s okay. It’s great. A relief, actually.

Day Twenty-Eight: If at first you don’t succeed try, try one more time. Then just bitch about it on Facebook.

Day Twenty-Nine: Peace is a breath onto the wind of a soaring dolphin’s song of wings that blow in a waving field of bullshit.

Day Thirty: Post like no one will comment.

Day Thirty-One: Always remember: A trite saying a day will keep reality at bay.

Affirmatively,

Joseph

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.

 

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May 6, 2013 · 5:00 pm

A Man and His Monkey Tweets

As a result of a brief conversation with John Roderick on JoCoCruiseCrazy, I decided to tweet once a day about tacos for the entire month of March 2013.

To my great delight, people enjoyed the taco tweets so I decided to continue the daily tweet series.

I felt the obvious follow up to tacos was monkeys. I stand by that decision for many reasons. Like most humans, my two favorite non-swear words are monkey and pants. Monkeys are a great source of comedy. They are so very close to humans and yet so very different. I’m sure monkeys would like tacos, but they have yet to extend that love to tweeting about tacos. But one can hope.

Below is every monkey tweet from April 2013. If you enjoy, you can find me on Twitter here.

Day One: Monkeys with typewriters will eventually write Shakespeare. Monkeys with iPhones will eventually Instagram their junk.

Day Two: Idea for a movie: Rise of the Pedantic Monkeys Who Are Pissed Off Because Technically They Are Not Monkeys, They Are Apes.

Day Three: “Are you throwing poo or is poo throwing you? A TED Talk by a Monkey.” This CHANGED my life.

Day Four: Things that look better on a monkey than a human: fez, diaper, red jackets, monocle, top hat, google glasses, bling.

Day Five: One of the big differences between humans and monkeys is that monkeys don’t use the phrase “it is what it is” so often.

Day Six: From a monkey perspective, King Kong is a romantic comedy with a really bleak ending.

Day Seven: I want to believe that somewhere, right now, a monkey is narrating the actions of David Attenborough.

Day Eight: When I’m rich and crazy I will have a monkey butler. That is, a human butler whose only job is to bring me monkeys.

Day Nine: Monkeys have many euphemisms for throwing poo: flinging the waste, forgetting the past, sending the tweet, etc.

Day Ten: Here’s my suggestion for the next Bourne movie: it should be called The Bourne Monkey. That’s all I’ve got so far.

Day Eleven: This one time I did a commercial with the monkey from Friends. Seriously.

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Day Twelve: Monkey with a banjo: funny. Monkey with a ukulele: hip. Monkey with a sitar: pothead.

Day Thirteen: There should be monkey bars for adults where an actual monkey would make me a martini.

Day Fourteen: Monkey see, monkey do unless a monkey sees someone planking and then the monkey just shakes his head and sighs.

Day Fifteen: If I commanded an army of Flying Monkeys, I would mostly have them steal people’s smartphones and fav this tweet.

Day Sixteen: Today my faith in humanity was restored when I read that two of the most used passwords are “iloveyou” and “monkey.”

Day Seventeen: Things that are so easy a monkey could do them: riding a pig, visiting Ikea, outsmarting Charlton Heston, hugging.

Day Eighteen: Emo monkeys just want to sit in the trees, listen to The Cure, and dream of picking things out of Robert Smith’s hair.

Day Nineteen: A philosophical question: If monkeys had their own social media site would they post pictures of cute humans?

Day Twenty: Things that monkeys don’t have to deal with: pants, their personal brand, reading Breaking Bad spoilers, bad hair days.

Day Twenty-One: True story: Told a friend that a warehouse task was so easy a monkey could do it. He broke the machine and looked sad.

Day Twenty-Two: Right now, Andy Serkis is probably in a motion capture suit pretending to be a monkey. Possibly for a movie role.

Day Twenty-Three: Villains that would be better if they had little monkey sidekicks: Darth Vader, Dracula, Hans Gruber, tax auditors.

Day Twenty-Four: I own socks with pictures of googly eyed monkeys. The socks read “DRUNKIE MONKEY.” This isn’t a joke, it’s just true.

Day Twenty-Five: I want to see a horror film called Monkeys on a Segway.

Day Twenty-Six: One cool thing about monkeys is that they don’t eat bananas ironically. They really fucking love bananas.

Day Twenty-Seven: When a small monkey starts screaming it means they’re angry, tired, or they just read a tweet that spoiled Breaking Bad.

Day Twenty-Eight: Monkey saying: When life hands you lemons, rub them on your body, sniff them, scream, then throw them at another monkey.

Day Twenty-Nine: Of all the monkeys in the world, one of my very favorites is stoic space monkey.

photo

Day Thirty: Monkeys with typewriters will eventually type Shakespeare. Monkeys with iPhones wilt evening tip shaken pearl.

Monkeys! Thanks! In May 2013, I’ll be tweeting daily with super uplifting affirmations!

Joseph Scrimshaw
Writer/Comedian/Monkey Fan

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.

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April 1, 2013 · 11:17 pm

A Man and His Taco Tweets

Tacos are the spirit food of the internet. Particularly, Twitter. When I first joined Twitter in 2009, I would often see tweets along the lines of:

“I just ate a taco!”

And then I would wonder why I was on Twitter. I wondered why I needed to know that someone just ate a taco.

Then I realized I didn’t need to know.

I wanted to know.

I enjoy sharing the daily march through life with a strange and diverse collection of humans. It’s nice to remember we all have victories, failures, and can’t eat a taco without tweeting about it.

On Jonathan Coulton’s JoCoCruiseCrazy, Bill Corbett hosted a panel on writing that eventually ended up as an episode of the great podcast Nerdist Writer’s Panel. During the panel, John Roderick mentioned he was publishing a book of tweets. We got into a discussion about the difference between the world seeing an artist’s creation unfold via social media versus presenting a complete finished product. I asked John if he considered his book of tweets a work in progress. He said, “Well, I’m not including a bunch of taco tweets.”

I was inspired to defend the artistic virtue of taco tweets. So for the month of March 2013, I tweeted about tacos once a day. Here, in all their victories and failures, are my taco tweets. Enjoy.

Day One: Today, for lunch, I did not have a taco.

Day Two: Here’s my breakfast taco recipe: Bacon, a crumpet, and a mimosa in a champagne flute, wrapped in a soft shell. No Doritos.

Day Three: Things that are bullshit: Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t serve tacos. What bullshit.

Day Four: When a man is tired of taco tweets, he is tired of the internet.

Day Five: FREE IDEA FOR CHEAP HOTELS: Replace your paintings of ducks with paintings of tacos. Automatic increase in business.

Day Six: Revenge is a dish best served without tacos. People like tacos.

Day Seven: How does one even define a taco? The tightness of the wrapping? Is a burrito just an uptight taco?

Day Eight: Things that don’t go well with eating tacos: Parkour.

Day Nine: Cookies are great, but if Girl Scouts really wanted to make money they would sell tacos.

Day Ten: Taco Fact: In the time it takes you to read this tweet a million tacos will be consumed at #SXSW.

Day Eleven: Taco fact: No one knows how or why, but Instagram photos of tacos outnumber actual tacos by 2 to 1.

Day Twelve: You are what you eat. Most Americans are 67% taco.

Day Thirteen: Taco fact: There is an actual taco bell. It rang only once in 1547 to declare an armistice in the war of hard versus soft.

Day Fourteen: No one has endorsed me on LinkedIn for tweeting about tacos.

Day Fifteen: Friday is casual taco day. If you work an office job you can eat tacos like you would at home: pantsless and crying.

Day Sixteen: Are there green tacos today? Don’t eat green tacos. It’s an insult to tacos, the color green, Ireland, and eating.

Day Seventeen: Old Irish Proverb: “Give me a taco, I’m Irish.”

Day Eighteen: Tacos are like metaphors. People put a bunch of weird stuff in them that doesn’t make sense to other people.

Day Nineteen: Taco Tip: No matter how much you love tacos, do not name your taco. If you eat a taco you’ve named Steve, you’re a monster.

Day Twenty: How would Batman eat a taco? SUDDENLY FROM OUT OF THE SHADOWS.

Day Twenty One: New idea for a charity event: Tacos Across America. A chain of people holding hands while other people feed them tacos.

Day Twenty Two: H.P. Lovecraft describes a taco: A hideous shelled monstrosity oozing with meat and the festering death of hunger itself.

Day Twenty Three: How to make a good action movie trailer: The hero calmly walks away from a giant explosion WHILE EATING A TACO.

Day Twenty Three BONUS TACO TWEET: Also, I’m 100% aware that I just wrote a tweet with the words “taco” and “explosion” without making a fart joke. I stand by this decision.

Day Twenty Four: Here is my recipe for a hangover taco: Meat, cheese, aspirin, lettuce, electrolytes, guilt, salsa.

Day Twenty Five: If someone is depressed a nice, reassuring, not too gross thing to say is “There’s a taco at the end of the tunnel.”

Day Twenty Six: A wise, old proverb: A prison made of tacos is not a prison at all.

Day Twenty Seven: In space, no one can hear you eat a taco.

Day Twenty Eight: In Mary Shelley’s original book, Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t say “FIRE BAD!” He says “FIRE BAD! TACOS GOOD!”

Day Twenty Nine: A confession: Sometimes I describe hard shell tacos as Daniel Craig’s abs tacos. It’s a pretty disturbing thing to do.

Day Thirty: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a taco.

Day Thirty One, The End: A 21st century philosophical question: If someone eats a taco, but doesn’t tweet about it, did they even eat a taco?

Thank you for reading about my adventures in taco tweets. I sincerely hope you’re eating a taco as you read this. For the month of April, I’ll be tweeting about monkeys once a day. Join me.

Yours in tacos,
Joseph
Comedian/Writer/Taco Eater

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.

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December 28, 2012 · 3:41 pm

What did you do, Joseph, what did you do?

I suspect I am not alone in feeling as though I am never really getting enough done. While I try not to procrastinate too much, I do make jokes about procrastinating a lot. When I realize I’m procrastinating, I have a lot of little motivational phrases I say out loud to myself. One of them is this:

“Get back to work, you idiot.”

And if I don’t get back to work, I sometimes follow up with:

“You are a bad and stupid person.”

Then I feel guilty that I’m being so mean to myself and I try to make it up to me by allowing myself to make a joke on Twitter about procrastinating. And the cycle continues.

This year, I decided to actually review my calendar and make a list of (almost) everything I did. Please enjoy procrastinating from your work to read about mine!

January

I worked with John Kovalic on some spec scripts and started writing daily tweets for @DrBlinkShrink.

I did two shows at The San Francisco SketchFest. CineMadness with Bill Corbett and a short version of my geek stand-up/storytelling show, Comedy of Doom.

I performed the role of “Balthazar, D & D Champion” in promotional videos for a company called Awesome Dice.

I co-wrote an internal awards show for General Mills.

I made jokes on Twitter about procrastinating.

February

I launched the Obsessed podcast as both a live show in Minneapolis and released the first episode online. There have been 10 live shows that have generated 16 podcast episodes.

I wrote a sketch for a magician.

I wrote and performed (with Shanan Custer) a commentary about smartphones for Minnesota Public Radio.

I did a story with the spoken word collective The Rockstar Storytellers.

I was one of the entertainers on JoCoCruiseCrazy II. I performed a full length version of Comedy of Doom. I was thrilled to get a surprise volunteer named Wil Wheaton for my Star Trek bit. I also played the role of “Ed McMahon” on Paul & Storm’s podcast with Paul F. Tompkins.

I gave a talk in a bar about zombies and Minnesota geek culture for the Minnesota Historical Society.

I made jokes on Facebook about procrastinating.

March

I performed at the Twin Cities convention Mars Con.

I started working as an occasional writer and performer on Wits. Since March, I’ve written for and/or performed with Tim Meadows, Rhett Miller, Andy Richter, Reggie Watts, Fred Willard, Paul F. Tompkins, Wyatt Cenac, Bobcat Goldthwait, Amy Sedaris, Dave Foley, Mike Doughty, Maria Bamford, and Brandi Carlile. And of course host John Moe, John Munson and The Witnesses, and other frequent Wits performers Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, and Neil Gaiman.

I went out to eat with my wife on her birthday. She mentioned maybe I should write a book.

I made jokes on Google+ about procrastinating.

April

I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.

I wrote and did eight performances of a one person stand-up show about vampires, stand-up, and vampires doing stand-up called The Sad Vampire Comedy Hour.

I wrote and performed a short story as part of a Minnesota Public Radio showcase led by Kevin Kling.

I did three performances and presentations about using comedy to discuss history for the American Alliance of Museums convention.

I did not get around to making any jokes on social media about procrastinating.

May

I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book version of Comedy of Doom.

I wrote a lot of new material for the book. I edited the material from the stage version. I took photos for the cover and organized all the illustrations for the book. I hit refresh on the Kickstarter page roughly 700 times a day.

My odd little rock band called Math Emergency (composed of a math professor, a public radio producer, a public radio host, and me) played a gig. I played the drums and made jokes into a microphone.

I appeared on the AON podcast.

I made jokes on Twitter about spending too much time on Twitter.

June

I went on my friends’ annual bar crawl. I only note this because, while fun, going to 13 bars in 12 hours does feel a bit like work.

I appeared on the Vilification Tennis podcast where I cemented my reputation as an Axl Rose apologist.

I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.

I did multiple rounds of proofing and editing on the book and we sent it off to be printed. Comedy of Doom was officially published on June 20, 2012.

I wrote the pilot for an animated series version of the web comic Least I Could Do.

I made mean jokes about Google+ on Twitter.

July

We sent out all the copies of Comedy of Doom to the kind Kickstarter backers.

I attended the big Twin Cities convention CONvergence. I wrote and performed a one person storytelling and stand-up show about romantic advice for geeks called Verbing The Noun. We’ll be releasing a CD and digital download of the show in time for Valentine’s Day 2013. I did a live Obsessed show with Paul Cornell and Bonnie Burton. I did 10 other comedy panels and a signing for Comedy of Doom.

I went to San Diego Comic-Con. I performed at w00tstock. I had fun meetings, fancy parties, and saw a lot of men dressed as Jedi having a hard time at urinals.

I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.

I co-wrote and performed a comedy show called Comedy: The Show with Four Humors Theater on the Centennial Showboat in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I made a quick trip to Los Angeles for a friend’s birthday party. I even wrote something for that.

I made mean jokes about Google+ on Facebook.

August

I wrote, produced, and performed in an hour long one act play called Nightmare Without Pants for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Here is a three minute live video preview of the show, in which I perform an accidental magic trick with a pair of rip-away pants.

Due to the stubborn forward movement of time I became a year older on August 17th.

I performed and did some comedy panels at Dragon*Con in Atlanta.

I made jokes about Google+ on Google+.

September

I was still at Dragon*Con. For one panel, I was challenged to sing “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” I attempted to do it in the style of Nine Inch Nails. It’s a better song that way.

I did a performance at Space Camp with Marian Call, Molly Lewis, Ken Plume, Phil Plait, and more.

Obsessed was featured on iTunes as “New & Noteworthy” and a “Staff Favorite.”

I co-wrote, helped to organize, and performed in a large awards show for the Minnesota theater community called The Iveys.

I did a podcast with the awesome Len Peralta and became a trading card for his Geek-A-Week series.

I hosted and performed at a viewing of the Doctor Who episode “The Angels Take Manhattan” at The Parkway Theater.

I tried to treat Google+ with a little more respect.

October

I co-produced, directed, and wrote a piece for a theater event called Thirst. It’s a series of short one-act plays performed in a bar. The show had three performances and it was a benefit to fight for Marriage Equality in Minnesota. Here’s the monologue I wrote about Harry Potter and kindness.

I joined The Ladies of Ragnarok (Molly Lewis, The Doubleclicks, and tour manager Dammit Liz) for a leg of their tour. I performed in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison. The Ladies also appeared on Obsessed.

I recorded the audiobook version of Comedy of Doom. We’re still working on editing and mastering the hours of audio.

I did another show with the Rockstar Storytellers.

I wrote and performed a ghost story for Torch Theater in Minneapolis.

I played another gig with Math Emergency.

I started a Tumblr account and wrote a thing about Halloween.

November

I used National Novel Writing Month as a motivation to work on some screenplays. I finished plotting and scripting the first drafts of two feature length films. Now working on second drafts.

My wife and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is iron. The contemporary gift is candy. We gave one another Iron Man Pez dispensers.

I tried to make fun of Google+ on Tumblr, but I felt like I was kicking a puppy.

December

I wrote and performed the short story Adult Santa for The New Standards holiday show at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I did another story with the Rockstar Storytellers.

We (and by “we” I really mean my wife Sara and my graphic designer, Matthew Foster) made Comedy of Doom available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, and many stores in the Twin Cities.

I wrote a story about the grim superhero The Leaping Lord for Paul Cornell’s 12 Blogs of Christmas.

I started writing a new stand-up/storytelling show that I’ll be performing on JoCoCruiseCrazy III.

I started writing another stand-up/storytelling show that I’ll be performing at the Bryant-Lake Bowl in Minneapolis in March of 2013.

I booked guests for Obsessed through March of 2013.

I wrote some stuff that I’ll perform for my annual New Year’s Eve show at the Bryant Lake Bowl.

I made fun of LinkedIn on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr.

I debated whether or not I should write this. I stared off into space and screwed around on social media. I beat myself up about procrastinating. I forced myself to write this. I read it. I thought about all the amazing creative people I got to meet and work with this year. I ran the post by my wife and business partner without whom none of the above would be remotely possible.

Later tonight, I’ll watch some TV, drink a martini, and think about ways to get even more done in 2013.

I’m going to start by coming up with some new motivational phrases.

I think I’ll try:

“Come on, you idiot, get stuff done so you have something to blog about next year.”

and

“Stop calling yourself an idiot, you jackass.”

And then I’ll hug myself and move on.

Happy New Year’s,

Joseph

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December 25, 2012 · 12:05 pm

The Imaginary Advent Calendar 2012

Last year on Twitter, I joked about wanting an advent calendar that had little bottles of whiskey inside the door instead of chocolate. This year, I discovered the joke was a reality.

I was too late to order my whiskey calendar, so each day I tweeted the gifts found in my Imaginary Advent Calendar. Here are all my gifts in one place. Enjoy!

Day One: A mimosa and guilt.
Day Two: A sweater vest and some opium.
Day Three: Fine lace doilies and desperate longing.
Day Four: $67 in cash and a gun. Uh-oh.
Day Five: A smaller Advent Calendar and the horn sound effect from Inception.
Day Six: A small effigy of me and a warning to stop my investigation.
Day Seven: Holiday pants.
Day Eight: A tiny voice whispering a prophecy about The Boy Who Lived.
Day Nine: A tiny snow shovel and a large bottle of pain meds.
Day Ten: Fake passports, a candy cane sharpened to a deadly point, a list of targets. Who am I?
Day Eleven: An episode of Friends on VHS and a loud modem sound.
Day Twelve: Some Doritos and a dime bag of Myrrh.
Day Thirteen: A snarky AV Club article sort of complimenting but also mocking Advent Calendars.
Day Fourteen: A hugging robot. A robot designed only to hug people.
Day Fifteen: A huge pile of unused Oxford Commas. They just want to help us understand one another.
Day Sixteen: Two live squirrels and an empty bottle of Ritalin. Jesus.
Day Seventeen: Mistletoe and a mirror. Creepy.
Day Eighteen: A fruitcake and a big pile of existential dread.
Day Nineteen: The nativity scene recreated with Ikea furniture. Have to assemble it myself. 🙁
Day Twenty: A large chocolate bunny. Holidays are confusing.
Day Twenty-One: A 404 error message. Oh my.
Day Twenty-Two: A small note that read, “Our bad. Math is hard. LOL. Happy Holidays, the Maya.”
Day Twenty-Three: A Nutcracker doll that came to life, did the Gangnam Style dance, then became a doll again.
Day Twenty-Four: A stress ball, magic refilling box of wine, ham, an ox, a lamb, a jazz snare drum.
And finally…
Day Twenty-Five: A flock of doves, a mimosa, and a Kickstarter campaign for next year’s Advent Calendar.

Happy Holidays!

If you enjoy this story, there are many others like it in my book Comedy of Doom. Thanks for reading.

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December 6, 2012 · 9:00 am

A CROCKPOT OF FEELINGS: Obsessed Ep 15

Comedian Mike Fotis is a man of many obsessions including productivity, crockpot cooking, bat fear, and football yelling. This episode also features particularly loud noises from the bowling alley located next to the theater. Enjoy!

AWOOGA! Obsessed is now a part of Feral Audio! Go to Feral now to listen to this episode and subscribe for new ones!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Listen, rate, review, and subscribe to OBSESSED on iTunes.

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October 30, 2012 · 10:06 am

The itPhone

I’m a big fan of old horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. I also spend a hideous amount of time playing with my smartphone. This led me to think about what kind of story these masters of macabre suspense might write if they were alive today. Enjoy.

I would like to tell you a story about a terrifying, soul-sucking, life destroying thing that happened to a friend of mine.

He got a new smartphone.

My friend—whose name was Jonathon—was a huge fan of Apple. He once sent me an article saying experts predicted that the next iPhone after the iPhone 4 would be the iPhone 5. To which I responded, “Which experts are saying this? Counting experts?”

But the next phone was, strangely, the iPhone 4S and Jonathon dutifully lined up in the middle of the night to buy one. But while he was waiting, a small wizened old man with a crooked smile and bulbous eyes emerged from the shadows of a nearby alley. The old man wanted to sell Jonathon a knock-off iPhone called an itPhone.

Jonathon laughed and said no, but the more he played with the itPhone, the more amazing it seemed. So fast, so responsive, so intuitive as though the phone knew what Jonathon wanted even before he did. On an impulse, he bought the phone.

At first, he was thrilled. Jonathon’s phone was always the fastest. He was that annoying guy at the bar who could look up character actors’ names on his phone faster than his friends could remember them with their slow human brains.

But after a few months, Jonathon started having problems with the phone. One day, he called me and I was terrified. Because who the hell uses their phone to actually call people these days?

Also, my ringtone is the Wilhelm Scream. For anyone who is not familiar with the Wilhelm Scream, it’s a famous audio clip used in many films when minor characters die or fall from high places. It sounds something like, “oooWAAUHHHooohhh!”

Anyway, Jonathon was in panic about his phone.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“It’s…it’s haunted,” Jonathon said.

I asked for some examples of what this haunted phone was doing.

Jonathon quickly rattled off a list. “It keeps giving me the wrong directions! And it autocorrects all of my texts! And without asking me it keeps poking all my Facebook friends!”

“Yeah,” I said supportively, “That’s what phones do.”

“You don’t understand,” Jonathon shouted, “It took a picture of my junk while I was sleeping and sent it to my co-workers!”

“Well,” I said, “Was it a good picture? Tasteful lighting? Did it use an Instagram filter?”

“This isn’t funny!” Jonathon whisper-yelled. “It downloaded an app and I can’t delete it.”

“What does the app do?”

“It makes it so the phone screams if I stop touching it.”

I laughed and the line went dead. I almost called back but I really, really hate talking on the phone. It just seems so much easier to send a text, you know?

Anyway, I didn’t hear from Jonathon for a little while. But I assumed he was alright, because he was always online. He was very active on Facebook. And Twitter. And Google+. And Pinterest. And Reddit. And Tumblr. And Etsy. And Regretsy. Even LinkedIn. I admit, that gave me some pause.

Eventually, he stopped responding to tweets and texts, so I decided to make a personal sacrifice, stop everything I was doing, and call him on the phone like a savage.

The phone rang and rang and finally Jonathon picked up and said in a raspy voice, “Hello?”

“Jonathon. It’s me. I decided to call you. On the phone. Because I figured what the hell is a phone for after all?”

There was a pause. And then Jonathon cackled like a maniac for a solid minute. He followed the laugh by quietly saying, “LOL.”

That seemed redundant to me. Then he said something even more bizarre. He said, “No, seriously. Actual LOL.”

That just pissed me off.

I mean, LOL stands for laughing out loud. When you add the “actual” you’re just admitting that the majority of times you say LOL you’re lying.

But I digress.

Jonathon hung up and didn’t answer my calls after that. He started changing all of his profile photos. Strange, artsy shots of the corner of his jaw or just his eyebrow. Thankfully, never his junk. At least I don’t think so.

I emailed his co-workers and discovered he had stopped showing up to work weeks ago.

I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. I decided to physically get in my car, drive through actual traffic to his home, and speak with him face to face. I even parallel parked. It was horrible.

When I arrived at his house, the door was ajar. I gently pushed it open and it screeched ominously. The house was a mess. Clothes, food, bottles, and papers everywhere. It looked like the home of the least organized serial killer in the world. I heard the soft mewling of a cat.

As far as I could remember Jonathon didn’t own any cats.

I followed the noise to the bedroom. There was a dim glow coming from inside the room. I steeled my nerves, peeked inside, and saw him.

Saw it.

Illuminated by the glow of the phone, it was clear that Jonathon had changed. He was shriveled and hunched. His tiny arms could barely support the weight of his hands. His thumbs were enormous and his fingers had developed into fine points. His hair had fallen out and his head had contorted to make more room for his eyes….his giant bulging eyes. His whole body was bent and angled as if it were being pulled into the phone.

His huge, bloodshot eyes seemed to strain out of the sockets as they stared at the phone.

Stared at cat videos on the internet.

I stood there, arms grasping the door frame to hold myself steady. “Hang in there,” I thought, “Hang in there like the cat on the motivational poster.”

Almost against my will, I heard myself saying, “Jonathon?”

Suddenly, his huge bulbous subterranean eyes locked on mine.

“You,” he croaked, “I know you from the Facebooks.” Then he reached out one of his tiny, pointed fingers and growled violently, “POKE!”

I ran out of the house, screaming and thinking to myself, “THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS IN PERSON!”

By the time I had run halfway down the block to my car, I began to doubt if I had even seen it. There was a phrase nagging at me, some traditional wisdom, handed down through the generations. Then I remembered.

The phrase was this: “Pics or it didn’t happen.”

I made my way back to the house. My trembling hands pushed open the door. It screeched again. This time there was no cat sound. I trudged through the debris to the bedroom door and looked inside. Jonathan was gone.

I began to explore the house, my heart lurching into my throat every time I opened a closet door or pulled aside a shower curtain. But Jonathon was nowhere to be found.

Then I heard something, very faint yet very close. Was it a cat? No, it was a scream. A repeated, muffled scream.

And I realized the phone call was coming from inside my pants.

Idiot.

I pulled out my phone, cursing my choice of the stupid Wilhelm Scream for a ringtone. I touched the answer button and held the phone to my head.

“Are you looking for me, Facebook friend?” Jonathon rasped.

“Yes, Jonathon, yes I am.”

“I’m in the bedroom.”

“No, you’re not, Jonathon. I’m standing in your bedroom right now.”

“I’m right where you left me. On the bed.”

I turned and looked at the bed. I gathered my courage, terrified that I knew what I was about to see, and I pulled the covers away.

Sure enough, there was Jonathon, his horrible face writhing with laughter.

Writhing inside his phone.

His pointed little fingers scratching the glass surface from the inside. He stared into my eyes and said, “END CALL.”

The line went dead and Jonathon’s phone went black. I left the phone there, raced to my car, and drove straight home.

Well, not quite straight home, I got lost and had to do a google map search, but the point is I never saw Jonathon again.

No one did. At least, not in real life. He’s plenty active online though. He always says YES to my Facebook invites, but he never shows up. So in many ways, he’s living a very normal life.

I’ve tried to tell mutual friends what happened. But they never believe.

After all, there are no pics. So maybe it really never happened.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my writing, check out other stories like this in my book Comedy of Doom or support me on Patreon. Thanks!

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