DEJENNERATE.COM BLOG

Welcome to new reader, Winston
I was informed yesterday that I have a new reader, Winston (which by the way should give you some idea of the vast readership of this blog, considering I know my new reader by name. I’m just saying this shit probably doesn’t happen at Yahoo!). Winston is one of those stand-up types who is apparently not self-absorbed enough to have a website of his own. Therefore I will just link to this picture of King Kong and this picture of a bedroom and call it a day. And that is a joke only 5 people will get. Comedy for the elite, that’s the agenda here at dejennerate.

And now we know why Monty Python’s Norwegian Parrot was killed
Cursing parrot

And for Jack the Ripper fans…
Nate told me last night that I hit an untapped market, because my review for the obscure Hammer film, Hands of the Ripper is insanely popular on Classic Horror. As in the most popular review on the site, popular. Understandably, Nate is stupefied by this, because we have crap like Psycho reviewed on the site. Therefore, it is your job to go over there and click on it to confuse him even more. I'll wait.

Also, for the first time that I’m aware of, I have 3 reviews on the top ten most popular reviews list. I’m becoming a gorehound icon before my own eyes. Or I have a particularly inept stalker.

posted by Jenn @ 12:19 PM  

No, my dear, it is not the road.
So the front of my car is rattling. It has been for sometime actually, but it only seemed to happen on one road. And since I can be delusional with the best of them when money for car repairs is involved, I convinced myself that it was not my car; it's the road. Which worked out quite well, until it started to happen on any road in which I drive slower than 80 mph. So in a "Yes, Virginia" moment, my car appears to be somewhat fucked.

Here's my issue with this. I took my car for the full 60,000 mile inspection less than a month ago. That's the inspection when they check out everything. They didn't mention anything along the lines of:

a) there's shit falling off my car
b) my car was going to break in half in the near future
c) I ran over a small gnome and his hat (and presumably, part of his cranium) is lodged in my front wheel axle

And it was making that noise then. So either they really missed something or Tony the Mechanic took whatever the hell was making the noise in Gene's car and put it in mine.

posted by Jenn @ 1:11 PM  

The Answer to my Question, at long last
As you might recall, a while ago I posed the question along the lines of "what ever happened to Paul Provenza?" as in the host of Comics Only from the early days of Comedy Central - the show that is responsible for me even considering stand-up comedy to begin with. Evidently he's doing this.....which looks hilarious.

The Aristocrats

posted by Jenn @ 4:40 PM  

A new ailment to obsess over
For whatever reason, my ankles have started to swell when wearing non-sneakery shoes. Now I already know this is not due to anything serious like my heart imploding or my kidney composing a suicide note, because I have what is called non-pitting edema. Pitting edema is when you can push on the swollen area and an impression of your finger is left, somewhat like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. And that must really fuck up people who sleep on Memory Foam mattresses, as the foam is trying to conform around you while you are conforming around the foam. I’m just saying that someone at the end of that pissing match is going to end up looking like The Thing from Fantastic Four. And as a general rule, I tend not to bet against NASA.

So pitting edema? No, don’t have that, which is good because I wouldn’t be all that keen on being mistaken for a stress ball. Oh, and it also means that my heart and kidneys and other vital organs are working properly. What I do have is non-pitting edema which is the kind of swelling you get when you get when you step in a bear trap or trip over an azalea bush. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do with this type of edema short of telling me to “keep my legs elevated above my heart,” which makes it a bit difficult for one to get around if one is not a circus contortionist or planning on locomotioning through the supermarket on a medical gurney.

And I apologize for the title of this piece
As Gene has told me on several occasions, I am not good at obsessing, because I simply don’t practice it enough. That and I have a large propensity to apathy.

posted by Jenn @ 12:17 PM  

This just in...horror is dead
Horror Movies Sinking at Summer Box Office
And my response is....good. Maybe they'll start putting some decent crap out there. Or even bury the genre completely. But I'm thinking I can't get that lucky.

Weight Watchers Recipe Cards - Funnified
Redundant, I know. And flip through all of them using the arrow on the bottom. Yes, there are people I have to tell this crap to.

Saturday in Portland
Evidently I am not allowed to perform in Portland unless there is some Certified Weird Shit fucking up the show I’m on. Last time I was there, there was a Jehovah’s Witness convention in town. As you might imagine, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not all that fond of any form of entertainment in which porking bull riders may be mentioned (which of course is due to the fact that Jehovah does not like cattle wranglers. Something about cow-print chaps sets him off). So this Saturday? There was a massive fire a couple buildings down the street. All I know about the fire is that:

• One of the buildings was The Bar for Exclusively Pretty People as given by the sheer volume of Britney Spears/Justin Timberlakes obstructing the street corner lamenting the loss.
• The other building sold cigarettes – a revelation revealed after an unplanned five-mile trek with a comedian on a verge of a nicotine fit.
• Even though the fire was pretty much contained to these two buildings, it was required to put random fire trucks on all streets within a 10-mile radius so the only way into the comedy club was by rocket pack or a particularly flame-retardant mule.

So I ended up performing for five people (and perhaps their mules. I couldn’t tell because the lights obstructed my vision. And mules tend not to get my humor anyway.). But, eh…whatever. I got paid, I didn’t have to drive, and I got to see the Ninja Spawn dancing to 80’s crap. A lost evening? I think not.

posted by Jenn @ 12:10 PM  

One for Bill Engvell’s “Here’s your sign”

Me (at the gas station this morning): Fill it up, please.
Gas station attendant: Gas?

Evidently, the car before me ran on chick peas or something.

British replace the word “fail” in classrooms with “deferred success”
A phrase they apparently stole from one of Bush’s Iraq speeches.

If Uganda girls stay virgins, they can go to college for free.
They are supposed to prove this with a gynecological exam. I’m assuming they will be checking for the hymen, which is faulty at best. There are many, many reasons a Uganda virgin can have a popped cherry...falling on a corn stalk, donkey drag racing...hell, maybe she got hold of a Superman dildo. Shit, with Wonder Woman backing them, they’ve probably gone international by now.

And that my friends is called a “blog callback”
A bad one….but a callback nonetheless.

posted by Jenn @ 6:28 AM  

Resisting Time
As I spent my weekend reading Harry Potter and have since moved on to my other fave children's series, Artemis Fowl, I have realized that I'm falling into a time regression. Which may be another word for becoming immature. This was no more certain than yesterday when I was driving home from my script writing jam session with She Who is Possessed by a Small Ukrainian Woman and a couple friends from Buffalo called me and told me they were in town. So they came over for some drinks.

We ended up watching Follow That Bird. As in the first Sesame Street movie.

So coupled with Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and the screening of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory forthcoming, by the end of the month I should be transformed back into an embryo.

And you may be wondering what a 20-something singleton who spends her life avoiding the shriekiness and sliminess of children would be doing with a Sesame Street movie to begin with. Well, I picked it up in the hallowed 5.50 Wal-Mart DVD bin as a pure impulse purchase because it's one of the first movies I remember seeing with my little brother.

And stop with the "Awwww!" I just freaking ate here, people.

As it happens, my friends from Buffalo had similar nostalgia value with said movie, which is how a bunch of twenty-to-thirtysomethings ended up watching a Sesame Street movie on a Monday night over Reeses Pieces and chocolate martinis, which is a combination I recommend for viewing any children's programming, by the way. And I became aware prior to the gin buzz that Jim Henson was a genius (this is of note as quite frankly after a gin buzz I tend to think most people are geniuses. Not even just people, really. Animals, too. And lamp posts. Especially lamposts. After four martinis, they become downright cunning.) My point is this film, which could have been so fricking unwatchable to the adult contingent, actually holds its appeal like any of the Muppets movies. (Yes, damnit, I still watch Muppets Take Manhattan, and don't think you are any better than me for it.) It was actually fun to watch as adults and not just because Cookie Monster and his binge eating disorder glory consumed a Volkswagon Beetle. OK, so that was a HUGE reason, but my point is that I loved it when I was a kid not because I was a kid, but because it was a good movie. And the cameos by Chevy Chase, John Candy, and Sandra Bernhard were nice to see, since lately my my pop-culture boundaries are no longer limited to Honkers and imaginary transvestite elephants (please...look at those eye lashes on Snufalupagus. Holy Trannie, Batman!).

Author's Note
I was going to come up with an actual ending for this, but it struck me that "Holy Trannie, Batman!" was not going to be easily topped. So, until tomorrow...

posted by Jenn @ 12:21 PM  

Weekend o’ Bed Sores
Providing you haven’t been consumed by a bacillus or had an Unforgivable Curse put on you, you are probably aware that the new Harry Potter book came out on Saturday. Since I enjoy unwarranted fanaticism as much as the next person, I went to the Borders’ Harry Potter Midnight Sale to get my book. I somewhat figured there would be a couple hundred people there, I’d be there for about an hour or so, and will be home by 1:00. That goes to show exactly what kind of blind optimist I am. In fact, I was Number 655 in line, I didn’t even get my book until 1:30, and I didn’t get out until sometime after 2:00. First of all, do you know how 800 people or so fit into Borders? Not particularly well. In fact, not at all if you take into account locomotion browsing of said people. I made the grave mistake of trying to take a shortcut to get to the mystery section and I ended up being trapped for roughly 30 minutes in the home improvements section by a wall of wizards, random children from Slytherin, and a Hagrid with a severe flatulence problem. And really, if there is anything worse then smelling half-giant farts at midnight, it’s smelling half-giant farts at midnight in such close proximity to books about repairing one’s septic tank.

So, as it is Harry Potter and I had to read it RIGHT NOW, I finished the book by sometime Saturday. Since Harry Potter was my plan for the whole weekend and the bed sores on my ass weren’t quite percolated to the extent I desired, I went to go sit on my ass some more in front of The Fantastic Four. Coincidentally, this also grew boils on my ass but for a completely different reason. It was decent…I know I left the theater fantasizing about stretchable parts of Mr. Fantastic’s body and their relationship to certain advanced Kama Sutra positions…but could they have toned down on the nauseating amount of set-up just a little bit? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, birth-of-a-baby personal hygiene films don’t emphasize “origin” like this movie did.

Not that The Fantastic Four had anything to do with afterbirth mind you. It could have, I suppose, but Susan Storm’s would have been invisible. So really, there was no point of adding that for shock value. It’s like adding a scene where Wonder Woman dusts off her Superman dildo. We all know she has one, so there’s really no need to bring it up.

On a good note, the sequel to this will probably fucking rock. And I mean The Fantastic Four, not the Superman dildo. Because how would one follow up with such an invention? A Lex Luthor Ass Hat? Blow-up Lois Lane? Kryptonite anal beads? Please, you’re fucking rubber Superman, be happy with that.

Stay tuned for tomorrow…
When I will not talking about sex toys shaped like childhood heroes.

posted by Jenn @ 12:21 PM  

You didn’t really think I was going to blog about ride-on lawnmowers and beaver roadkill today did you?
Silly, silly fools. I don’t do that kind of low-level shit around here.

That and, um, I couldn’t think of anything.

Pope disapproves of Harry Potter
Point Number 1:
Harry Potter is fiction. We all understand this. I would be willing to bet that these so-called religiously impressionable kids hold no delusions that they will enter homeroom one day to find a three-headed dog named Fluffy.

Point 2:
According to the Pope, Harry Potter “subtly seduces young readers and distorts Christianity to the soul.” This is just really fucking stupid. Harry Potter never has been anti-Christian, nor is it about religion at all. If anything, it is pro-religion as it is essentially about the “enlightened wizards” versus the “unenlightened muggles.”

Also questioning one’s religion is a NORMAL part of adolescent development. Teenagers question everything they are taught – spirituality included. This should be encouraged as this is how they learn what their beliefs and values are. We should encourage them to be open to new beliefs. Which is why people withholding Harry Potter and other books from their children because it may contradict their teachings is so wrong. Most people think of brainwashing as the constant pummeling of a tunnel-vision viewpoint until one conforms to said belief. But withholding new ideas so that the only viewpoint one can see is yours? That’s brainwashing too.

Finally, how many times is The Popester going to use the “the young are too dumb to know the difference” argument? You’d think he’d put that card to the bottom of the pile after the whole Nazi thing.

posted by Jenn @ 12:31 AM  

Le Bowl au Scorpions
So I was at The Comedy Studio last night. I did almost all brand-spanking new stuff, and I had enough of a response to know that most of it had good potential. And I’m very happy about this because this new stuff moved beyond my standard potpourri of “stuff to insert in thy ass.” Not that “stuff to insert in thy ass” is bad per se…in fact, it may even be desirable...but one can not build an act solely on colon clutter.

But, hey, I did talk about a cock that had a halo. So it wasn’t a total loss.

That’s all you got?
Shooting blanks today, most likely due to the scorpion bowl consumption that ensued yesterday. And it won’t be any better tomorrow as I’m repeating this activity tonight with Zolton. So expect a To Do List, obscure movie review, or an opus reflecting the relationship of ride-on lawnmowers to beaver roadkill tomorrow.

Ride-on lawnmowers to beaver roadkill?
Fuck. This means I HAVE to do this tomorrow, doesn’t it? And you’ll probably expect it to incorporate a To Do List and a movie review too, huh? Greedy bastards.

posted by Jenn @ 12:00 AM  

Euphoria, Thy Name is Ice Cream Truck
Backside Tavern One Year Anniversary Comedy Show. 21 comics, no host. Everyone got five minutes, and if they went over Chrissy would shoot them with a Nerf-esque dildo Rocket. Already, this is quite the eclectic recipe.

Honestly? This was one of the best shows I did this year. It was an amazing combination of talent, the house was packed, and….most importantly….I kicked ass. One of my best sets in the last couple months. And all because of a joke involving an ice cream truck…..a joke I’ve been sitting on for SIX MONTHS because I didn’t think it was funny enough. Proof that I tend to be overly pessimistic about such things, it ended up being the high point of a great set.

And of course, I didn’t tape the show. Apparently I only tape sets that involve crickets chirping or airborne cocktail weenies.

Discovery of the Day
Much like a clown fish to a sea anemone, I have recently discovered that I have developed a symbiotic relationship with another life form. Unbeknownst to me, my bra has become the new home for a species of raisin. This began from my personal fondness for the chewy sweetness and high fiber quality of raisins, qualities that have been responsible for sustaining my own life partially thus far. Though I thought this was sort of a one-way street. Until today. Because today is the day I discovered that raisins find something equally attractive about me -- namely my (admittedly, well-endowed) cleavage. Perhaps they are attracted to the temperature in the Mounds of Mammary Valley (raisins would not be raisins without warmth, after all). Or maybe there is something about being nestled in a Lane Bryant sports bra that makes their little wrinkled existences seem worthwhile. Or perhaps I have skirted the real issue and my breasts are merely a portal to the grape world -- a portal old grapes pass through to jump into the proverbial Cleavage of Youth and after sufficient percolation get reborn as raisins. If this holds true my boobs may just be God to the Raisins. As you can imagine, this discovery is a little overwhelming.

Or I can just be a sloppy eater, which is why I have found raisins in my bra everyday this week. That works too.

posted by Jenn @ 12:41 PM  

Did NOT back into a bear ass
So I made it back from my brother's house. I had fun, but oh my dear God...he lives in the epitome of the word "boonies." I have never seen so many barn silos in 40 minutes of driving in my entire damn life. It looked like God left out his dildo collection again. Downtown had a total of four buildings, two of them serviced lawn plows. And upon inquiring, I learned that there is nothing by the way of cop cars in said town, however they do have police helicopters to give somewhat of a Big Brother approach to the rampant pot growing society.

Oh, and the best one, at one point I had to stop my automobile for a COW. A DAMN COW. As in those black and white things that are habitually kept in pens. It was strolling across the road at a pace that required my one-ton-of-speeding-steel to STOP, which is an event that doesn't happen EVER in, say, non-third world countries. Which is fine as this part of New York is a third world country as indicated by the sign I passed that said, "Welcome to the Town of Bethlehem."


Dispatches from Jenn's Netflix Queue
Saw - Apparently it is time for one of Jenn's Wildly Unpopular Reviews as this was one of those movies I was told that "I have to see." First off, to give credit where it's due, this was a unique spin on the typical serial killer story. And for the typical mainstream moviegoer....yes, this may be a riveting tale. But you know what? It wasn't that unique because other films have done it better (Seven and Memento leap immediately to mind) and it was lacking so much in character development that the end was wildly anticlimactic. The character traits that were revealed were only done to move the story, so we don't REALLY know how the characters were feeling. And when one is chained to a radiator, this is somewhat of a detriment. I didn't feel for a single character in this story and I certainly should have given the plot.

Oh and the ending? Yeah, saw that coming after the first half hour, which was only confirmed the more I got into the story. Rule number one of screenplay writing....every character introduced into a movie by any means has to have a reason.

posted by Jenn @ 12:33 PM  

Evidently I AM scheduled to be devoured by a large, furry mammal
So I'm seeing my brother this weekend. And he lives out on a nature preserve in a home not all that unlike Swiss Family Robinson and only several degrees off from your average forest-dwelling socially-retarded hermit. One of those homes that have a street address that includes "between the vagina rock formation and the moss patch that's shaped like Bosnia." So knowing this crap ahead of time, I've resolved myself to the fact that at least once while pulling my car out of his driveway, I'm going to smack into a large bear ass. It may be a black bear, might be a grizzly bear, shit, it may be a polar bear on summer vacation. How the hell do I know? Mapquest doesn't yet provide you with the Bear Enormous Ass Report (B.E.A.R.), people.

But with that type of location, how can you NOT end up with your hood stuck in a bear poop shoot? Shit, when you have toucans flying through your wine cellar as part of their winter migration, bear asses are probably considered directional landmarks. That way, people heading to your house can make a left by the giant bear ass instead of accidentally taking a right and ending up parking their SUV on a patch of erect water lilies, or a non-erect alligator, or maybe a skinny-dipping Yeti whose erectness is undetermined as no one has ever seen Yeti fuckage.

So when you see me Monday, I'll be the same ol Jenn, but with my car stuck up a bear's ass. And that will certainly beg more questions than any lameass crap you people will do this weekend.

posted by Jenn @ 12:04 PM  

Declaring War on Hollywood

I kept my grumbling down to a minimum when they remade Psycho.

I turned the other cheek at the excruciating remakes of the classic horror films I hold near and dear to my dark, scabied heart.

And I've stayed relatively closed-lipped on War of the Worlds and The Manchurian Candidate.

But now they're fucking with the Prince of Puke. And that is the straw that broke this camel's back (though, to be fair, this camel happens to be obese which offers enough strain on her back, so perhaps said back would not have broken so prematurely if said camel would actually get herself out of Dunkin Donuts and into a spinning class every now and then).

For reasons I can not even fathom, they are remaking John Waters' Hairspray. This is supposed to be a version that is based on the ridiculously popular Broadway show and they are pegging it as a brand new movie. Apparently, they have seem to forgotten that the stage play is a highly watered-down version of the original movie. Waters was not even involved in the production other than a screenplay writing credit. So this is essentially a copy of a copy of something that does not need to be remade to begin with.

I won't even ask "What the hell is Hollywood thinking?" because that seems to be the "Who Shot J.R.?" question of this year. But again...like the Neuter Version of A Dirty Shame I bitched about yesterday...who the hell is going to see this? John Waters is not even involved with it. And the play is not like, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera which has a cult following devoted specifically to it but not to other versions of the Phantom. And surely Hollywood can't be that deluded to really think Waters fans would be looking forward to this? Because most of us don't even care for the stage version. I mean, Hairspray without an American Bandstand race riot and signs that say "Applause" and "No Grinding!"...who the hell needs that?

And for all you confused readers
Just going by the laws of probability, eventually I'll stop bitching about movies and talk about real crap. So just stay tuned. And how about joining Netflix and get yourself up to speed with the rest of us? Pop-cultural stupidity is SOOOO not attractive in someone your age.

posted by Jenn @ 7:15 AM  

Stupid DVD Release Sighting of the Week
So I decided that I needed to buy John Waters' A Dirty Shame RIGHT NOW, because it was just about the most hilarious thing I've seen in a damn long time. Or that's what tell myself. In reality, I would have bought it anyway because it was made by John Waters and therefore I must own it regardless of the quality. I own Mondo Trasho. Obviously, there is no limit to how low I will go. But hey, I had to learn about shrimping somehow, right?

I'll pause while you look up "shrimping" on Google.

So, I was in Target with Mom this weekend and I saw it there, which struck me as a damn odd place for anything made by John Waters to be. And I was intending to buy it until I saw the subheading:

A Dirty Shame: The Neuter Version
Rated R

Just to remind you, the film released in theaters was NC-17 (and rightfully so, might I add). That means someone actually decided to release the theatrical version on DVD along with a version that was cut after the movie had a theatrical run. Has that ever happened before? And what is the point? There are no mainstream Waters fans. 90% of the people who buy his DVDs have been along for his whole perverted ride. And we have seen a person really fucking a chicken and a drag queen really eating dog shit so, thanks for the concern, but we can handle naked dicks. Which begs the question, who the hell is buying it? If you liked it enough to want it, why would you choose the censored version? Did they make it just so Target can sell it? And did Target think it was somehow going to be the DVD purchase of the summer? Because that miscalculation would be hysterical given the movie is essentially a 90-minute orgasm.

Either way I bet Waters is a bit pissed about it. He was never one for censorship.

posted by Jenn @ 12:07 PM  

Right Brain 0, Left Brain 1
So I have decided to attempt the fantasy novel I blogged about on Thursday and put King Arthur novel on hold despite any attempt by my right brain telling me, "but, but....I like King Arthur better!" Not that this was an amicable agreement..more like the left brain committed a coupe d'etat over my right brain and froze any and all thought processes related to King Arthur, magic swords, and circular tables. So now I have writers' block on that piece anyway. So until the Right Brain rises again, Left Brain has ordered production to begin on Fantasy Novel That Just May End Up Being a Shitstorm.

The problem....and this is not helping out my right brain reattach any of its dismembered limbs, by the way....said novel doesn't appear to be a shitstorm as of yet. In fact, it seems remarkably cohesive despite its complexities and I actually know where the hell it's going, something I still don't know in King Arthur. (I was planning on a surprise ending for that tale. Evidently, it is still a surprise to my muse). As you might imagine, it's much easier to write something when you know what's coming next, instead of thinking, "oh God, I'm going to smack right into that brick wall, aren't I?" The former is a little better at keeping the old, however blind, optimism up.

And I'm trying a new technique in novel writing. My basic plan is to get down what I consider to be the James Patterson Version of the tale first....all action, minimal character development. This is done purely because I'm actually excited by the actual story and certain components of the characters and to waste time on character development in this stage would make me lose interest. So then I'm stuck with a novel plaguing me I have no interest in writing. Also, the almost entirely plot-driven first draft will help me to spot any plot holes early in the game. Then, as I'm keeping in mind how I want the characters to develop and writing the plot to reflect this, I'll go back later and add depth to it. This may not work as it's essentially like making a book out of a movie script, but until reality hits this process is deluding me into believing it will work. Or my left brain has completely gone haywire from a long weekend of coup activities. Either one.

posted by Jenn @ 1:27 PM