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| Unlike most standup comics, I believe that political correctness has –on whole– done more good than bad. But, man, it has also made some conversations a lot tougher than they need to be.
This was such a conversation (from a previous job):
(Cindy, who works in HR, is talking to a bike messenger in the hallway, as I approach)
Cindy: “let’s see, he’s of average height… ah… he has glasses- they are a bit square framed… hmm- oh, he has short hair- well, I would describe it as short, but- oh, Sean! Sean, how would you describe Dwayne?”
me: “Dwayne?? He’s our only black employee.”
Cindy is aghast. The bike messenger (who is black), nods his head thankfully to me and starts walking to locate a man he can finally identify.
Cindy: “I’m not sure that was appropriate” (after the messenger leaves)
me: “Cindy, Dwayne isn’t just our only black employee. When I leave for a meeting or lunch, he’s the only American on this floor.”
(our eCommerce division was all Indian men at the time).
me: “Do you know how stupid we’d look if that messenger spent the next forty minutes examining the height of ninety men, 89 of which are Indian, only to eventually find Dwayne who –oh by the way, we didn’t mention but– is the black dude?”
(after a short, silent pause, a question hits me)
me: “how do describe me?”
Cindy: “I say you’re the one with blond hair”
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| posted in
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03/01/2010 10:18 pm
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Sorry if you were reading this website or any of my feeds and weird, random posts reached you. There was a bug in my RSS feed and a few drafts, that only contained future ideas, were published. So, no, I am not purposefully publishing insane, half-complete comedy manifestos directly to the net. Yet.
Sorry about the confusion, if it reached you. I think the problem is fixed now.
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| posted in
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03/01/2010 10:17 pm
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Ungoogleable was featured today in Gapers Block, a popular Chicago Web Magazine. The full article is here .
Also, the website now has an easier address to remember: ungoogleable.info, so, if you like the site, please link to the new address and check back often (as it continues to be updated daily).
If you have not checked it out, here’s an explanation of the site, with all the relevant links
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| posted in
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02/24/2010 08:19 pm
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Ungoogleable was launched after a great, drunk argument I had with friends on the world’s gold supply.
| BACKGROUND INFO: Most people believe that gold is rare, the same way diamonds and oil are rare- meaning that, it is scarce and therefore valuable, yet still found all over the world, and pumped out of the Earth daily. This is not, however, true. Gold is unimaginably scarce. Every day, for example, we pull-out a volume of oil that is 300 times larger than all the gold ever mined (308 mil gals of oil each day / 1 mil gals of gold, ever). National Geographic once noted that all the gold on Earth could not fill two Olympic swimming pools.
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There is no way to know (like everything at a bar) how we got started on this topic, but I made the following comment:
You know, in all those spy movies, they use a convoy of trucks to rob Fort Knox, but the truth is: you could empty it with a brief case.
“What?”
Sure. There can’t be more than a couple of bars there. It would be like stealing two very heavy VCRs.
“What are you talking about, Flannery? There are rooms, ten feet high, filled with gold at Fort Knox. It’s an entire base, of gold!”
No… there isn’t that much gold, in the world.
Hell, I could probably fit all the gold in the world, in my car.
People are now starting to become angry: “what kind of car do you drive?” / “Honda Civic”. Fury. Strangers join the argument:
- “what about gold coins? Jewelry?”
They’re diluted- not pure gold.
- “they say the jewelry is all gold, in commercials”
Impossible. Pure gold bends like warm chocolate- you wouldn’t even want it, as jewelry
| ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND INFO: Unlike most people, when I encounter resistance during an argument, I actually increase the absurdity of my point, rather than tame it, in order to find a middle ground. People are normally so perplexed by this move –like a cop who just heard a driver insist on a harsher ticket– they drop all balance (dumbfounded, in fact), and the argument is then mine to close as I wish.
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- “what about the California Gold Rush?”
I could fit all the gold found during that rush in my mouth.
No one was able to find a google query that settled the question, so the debate continued until closing time; the old fashion way: with us yelling at each other. And, say what you will about the bad facts that were probably being thrown around that night, but –by the end of the evening– every one at the bar knew each others name… and a rough idea of their thoughts on metallurgy
When I arrived home, I started this email chain (Time Stamp = 2 AM):
Thanks, to Prescott Tolk, Adam Burke, CJ Sullivan, Nick Vatterott and (my beautiful wife) Jessica for letting me reprint this exchange…
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| posted in
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02/17/2010 06:13 pm
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| – Settling a Bar Room Argument – |
| Ten Years Ago 
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Today 
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I hate Google. I consider it an arch nemesis; a kill joy. Google is the dork in the back of a class, who –just as everyone is enjoying themselves– reminds the teacher that a quiz is scheduled. Google is a teacher’s pet.
Why do I hate Google so much?- well, in a way, I am a victim of habit destruction. Google has invaded bars. Now, when a man runs his mouth at a bar (as I love to do), some vanilla with an iPhone immediately disproves him: “ah, no Sean, I’ve just googled it and ‘Ben Hur’ did not cost more to film than all five space shuttles cost”.
They are bringing google into bars! We already work (as near drones) in a world of facts and forms, and dates and exact names- now they want to make bars that way. Bars –the last place where we can still have brassy, exaggerated conversations; even lie to each other– are under threat. Swagger is going the way of the dodo bird.
It was not, of course, always like this. Twenty years ago, every bar had a couple of men who were completely comfortable lying about their role in a war; drunks proposed solutions to the gas crisis based on half-memories of grade school physics; old men flat-out invented baseball stories- placing hitters inside stadiums that never existed during their career, hitting home runs that are impossible. And, best of all, disproving them was a social event.
Back then, the entire bar would join together –much like how the Amish build a house– to disprove a loud mouth. Almanacs were passed around; people introduced themselves after overhearing the argument; the bartender would even phone the library, for answers. You met people. You worked it out socially, spending the time laughing, talking. Now, some one types a dozen keys into a phone and shuts down the entire discussion, before it even started.
But, THERE IS HOPE. Just as the coyote now prospers (after changing its eating habits when its original habitat was lost), I too have adapted. I have moved beyond the world of exact dates and dollar figures, of country names and treaties, of public records and statistics, in my arguments. I have moved into the world of ungoogleable. I now combine real technologies, with unreal uses; I talk in quantities that are too big (or too small) to have been calculated; I put extinct animals into the present day, and current civilizations into the very far past. In short, I only argue –at bars– about things that can not easily be put into a a single google query.
I argue in the margins and shadows- where google can not find me. This blog chronicles that effort. One man’s journey, to argue in a world with google:
ungoogleable.info
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| posted in
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02/15/2010 05:07 pm
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112 versus 242
The first number is the number of times I have had to explain to my wife that men do not find Julianne Moore as attractive as other women find her. The second is, the number of times I’ve had the same conversation about Diane Lane.
(I think that Jessica –my wife– could hear that I lost my job, or wrecked the car, easier than the Diane Lane line; she still refuses to believe it)
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| posted in
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02/11/2010 08:01 pm
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I can’t claim to have the best celebrity doppelganger photo this week- but I may
have the most personal relationship –on all of facebook– with the word “doppelganger”.
It was part of the dumbest, least-glorifying lie I ever told:
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– 9th Grade English (summer class) —
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| Teacher: | “so it becomes kind of an exact copy… the Germans have a word for that…
‘don.. ?’ ‘dap…?’ …it starts with a ‘d’…
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| Me: | “It’s ‘doppelganger’”
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(the entire class turns around to look at me)
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None of these people know me, as I’ve skipped 3/4 of our classes. The last thing I
want to tell them is the truth –that I learned the word in a German philosophy book– because
I’m worried I’ll look uncool. Thus, I respond with this gem-
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| Me: | “I learned it in a rock AND roll song”
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Even the teacher starts laughing out loud at this. At top volume, I have just pronounced
the full “AND” in ‘rock n roll’. Even he –the teacher– has never heard that in his lifetime.
It was like a bad Disney movie, where an alien attends high school in the body of a teenager- but
all his knowledge of Earth is based off of old radio waves that just recently reached his planet.
I could have told them I read it in a German philosophy book, while wearing all black and
leaning on a walking stick- and I would have looked cooler.
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| posted in
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02/09/2010 12:58 am
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Yesterday, I had to pickup groceries and realized, for the first time in my life, I could not name a single person on a single magazine they sold:
I walked home smug. “I have finally joined the intellectual elite”, I thought. “No longer do I have the time to learn these shallow celebrity names- I, like the rest of the elite, am too busy with complex, weighty thoughts.”
Then, this morning, I woke up forty five minutes late for work and thought, “Shit, I’ll only make it, if I multi-task; I have to get ready by doing two things at once”. So, without a putting a moment’s more of thought into it, I tried to put my socks on, while taking a shower. My brain simply picked to two tasks –at random– and combined them- no additional thought. My foot –thankfully– stopped this nonsense by immediately sending a signal to my brain- a sort of, “hey man this does NOT feel right” remark, as I tried to slip on a black tube sock, in the middle of a hot shower.
Well, it was a good, nine hour run, as a member of the intellectual elite. Obviously, when your best thoughts come from your foot, you are still some where in the middle of the country’s aptitude.
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| posted in
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02/02/2010 08:30 pm
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I hope every one enjoyed the holidays. I’m finally back in Chicago and should start posting regular updates to the website again. I’m also in some cool shows this week:
Tonight:
PBR Presents, “Please Enjoy Yourself”
Underground Lounge, 8 PM
Saturday:
Red Bar Comedy Club- Opening Night
Inside Ontourage Nightclub, 8 PM, $10
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| posted in
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01/11/2010 11:51 am
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I’m auditioning for “Joe Piscopo After Dark”, at TV variety show that will be shopped to
networks. The auditions are a live comedy show, open to the public and at a fun venue, The
Joynt, with Joe Piscopo. Stop by if you have no plans:
Some discounted tickets still available via my website at this URL,
http://jokesatthejoyntseanflannery.eventbrite.com/
(this Tuesday, 12/29/2009, at 9:30 PM. The Joynt is at 650 North Dearborn) |
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| posted in
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12/27/2009 03:52 pm
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“are you on twitter?”
me: “no”
“you need to be- for your career.”
That is the advice every one (audience members, industry, other comics) give
me after a show. So, I’m finally breaking down –if just to end this conversation– and
joining twitter:
http://twitter.com/sean_m_flannery
We’ll see how it goes.
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The VLR is back to it’s normal schedule (Monday and Friday, 3 PM CST) after some re-juggling by our radio station. Please tune-in today at fearlessradio.com while we recap the last two weeks of chaotic sports news.
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| posted in
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12/14/2009 11:05 am
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Here are the details on the special Lodge show I’m in tonight. It should be fun. I have
some multimedia things planned that will, hopefully, be interesting. Stop by if you’re
looking for a night out:
http://www.thelincolnlodge.com/home.html
(the short of it is: 9 PM, 4008 N Lincoln Ave, $10)
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| posted in
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12/10/2009 02:14 am
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(Yesterday, driving to get a new TV)
Jessica: ”we also need to get those child safety belts for the new TV- to secure it”
Me: ”yeah, but we have plenty of time before we need that.”
Jessica: ”what are you talking about?”
Me: ”the baby isn’t due until June 1st”
Jessica: ”Sean, we have a kid. Right now”
I totally forgot we have a one year old .
(In my defense: we were talking about the new baby for the previous fifty minutes, and it was hard to exit from that
mindset).
Jessica’s response (later that night): “I mean, come on- how can you forget some thing this
cute”:
Background Info: it looks like we are dressing our kid as a
laughably-fat karate instructor in this photo, but, in truth, it is Colin’s doing. He saw me
waking up, wearing a headband (because I have to wear a sleep apnea mask to bed…
…which is a whole different, long story). So, later that night when he was told he would have
to go to bed soon- he ran into our room and put on a headband. I suppose he thought: all men
wear headbands to bed.
I told him the truth: that only myself, Wilt Chamberlain, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and
most pirates, wear headbands to bed. The rest of people (who I may have called “frightened lemmings”), “go to
bed with no headband, Colin”.
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| posted in
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12/08/2009 12:29 am
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For those of you who don’t know (if I haven’t seen you, or you don’t listen to the radio show): Jessica is pregnant.
We will probably learn the sex of this one. We have an ultrasound scheduled, but it is too early
to determine the sex. “Unless”, as my buddy Daryl said, “he has an absolutely enormous wang”.
I would say, as a new father, that has been what surprised me most about parenting:
how worried (or proud
or fascinated) most young dads are with the size of their kid’s penis. Perhaps it’s just the meat-heads and drunks
I know, but, my buddies will update you on the size of their kid’s dick before
they tell you his hair color. Every new father toast I have seen –when given at a bar
around other men– contains some boast or joke about the baby’s penis. It is inevitable- usually
mentioned before they even share the kid’s full name.
I once called a friend –let’s call him Vince– a few minutes after his second kid was born:
Me: “How is every one doing?”
Vince: “Great- he’s got a huge dick”
Me (now laughing loudly) : “Did you ask if his nervous system works?”
Vince (sensing that I am laughing at him) : “I’m serious, dude.”
”The doctor said so himself: ‘Like a Pornstar’”
At this point, I did not (yet) have a kid, but, I think, I understood enough about
doctors, to know: no doctor will tell you –ten minutes into life– that your kid is
‘hung like a pornstar’, unless you are asking him repeated and highly-specific
questions about your kid’s penis. Clearly, if the doctor did say that, it was just
to get Vince out of the room, probably after ten minutes of constant penis questions, so
they could finally begin the truly important tests, like ‘is this baby blind?’.
We continued talking for several minutes. Before leaving, I asked how his other kid was
doing: “oh, perfect- doc says he’s hung like a horse too”.
I’d like to think that my initial hunch –that Vince is just anxious about the size of
his kids’ penis and is pestering the doctor about it– is wrong. And that, instead, Vince
truly is seeing the world’s worst doctor: an absolute meat head, who only cares about the
size of penises and breasts.
I’d like to think that Vince is having his kids delivered by a dentist, from his old
fraternity A beer-drinking, John-Mayer-loving, women-hounding meat head,
with no real medical degree:
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| posted in
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12/05/2009 03:23 pm
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I upgraded the web server that runs WorldsDumbestMan.com . Please let me know if you have any problems viewing the new site. It shouldn’t look or act different (or any funnier).
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| posted in
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12/05/2009 03:19 pm
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If you’re staying in Chicago for Thanksgiving, I’m featuring at Zanies all week. Shows are,
- Tues- 8:30 PM
- Wed- 8:30 PM
- Fri- 8:30 and 10:30 PM
- Sat- 7:00, 9:00 and 11:15 PM
- Sun- 8:30 PM
1548 N Wells St
Chicago, IL 60610-1308
(312) 337-4027
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| posted in
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11/22/2009 08:32 pm
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• Bar: Max’s Place
• Random Sign It’s A Dive: they check $5 bills to see if they are counterfeit
• Time: last week
Exchange:
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A near homeless man walks into the bar with his dog |
| Stranger (also looks nearly homeless): |
“Hey, man- that’s a really cool dog… …What kind is it?” |
| Near Homeless Man: |
“It’s a canine”. He states this confidently. He clearly thinks “canine” is a
specific breed, not a general, more-scientific term for dogs. |
| Stranger: |
“Canine?…” He’s pretending that this jogs a special place in
his memory.
“Yeah… ” (now excited) “…I’ve heard of them”. |
| Near Homeless Man: |
“Yeah…” (shakes head approvingly) ”…great dogs“ |
God, I love drinking at cheap places.
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| posted in
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11/20/2009 10:05 am
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All of the blogs and audio highlights at patbrice.com are
now available.
If you did not know Pat, he was an amazing stand up; created (with CJ
Sullivan and a few others) the Visitors Locker Room; wrote for blerds.com and
was, beyond being a great friend, likely the funniest person I ever knew. He passed away
two years ago in his sleep. Today (Friday) is
his birthday.
If you have not previously seen/read/heard his material, you should check it out at
patbrice.com. It is all, beyond funny.
I always recomend starting with
“A Billion Pennies”
(MP3 link),
Pat’s story about interviewing with a stock exchange company. He was asked a surprise question
(“how many pennies would fit into this room”); panicked; and answered, “a billion”.
The Billion Project
Several months after Pat passed away, I came across a website called “The Billion Project”, which
tries to help people understand how big a BILLION is. According to this website,
America is the only country in the world that uses the term “a billion”, rather
than the phrase “one thousand million”. Consequently, we have an inferior grasp of
the size of “a billion”, because we tend to just view it as the next sequence beyond a million.
Any way, I bring it up because…
How did the website attempt to teach us –once and for all– how big a BILLION is?- By showing how much
space a billion pennies would take up:
Nine public school buses could not hold a BILLION pennies.
…When I found it, every one at work must have wondered why I was rolling on the floor,
laughing at a website designed to teach you about huge numbers…
–Additional Notes–
The Billion Project website goes on to say:
“If you were
to stack a billion pennies in a single pile, one atop the other, the stack would reach nearly one
thousand miles high. For comparison, note that the Space Shuttle typically orbits only 225 miles
above the Earth’s surface. “
… A claim that mirrors, almost exactly, Pat’s joke about magazines that
explain large numbers by just listing their distance to the moon:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=13837636
…I’m not sure he knew it, but I think –or I’m starting to think– Pat was the
best ‘large number’ comic of all time.
Reason #342, why I miss him (or, about a tennis ball worth of pennies, to put
that number a different way).
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| posted in
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11/19/2009 11:15 pm
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| posted in
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11/19/2009 11:14 pm
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