The
Cleveland Browns have 12 players sick
with
flu-like symptoms, putting their roster in disarray for the Packers game this weekend. It
is speculated by the media, that the Browns players are infected with swine flu, making them even
bigger underdogs against the 3-2 Packers
YES! As a Browns fan, this is the best news we have had in
years. Did you know that, in the middle ages, armies would siege castles by
catapulting people infected
with the black plague
over walls and into the opposing city? Historians consider it to be the first form
of germ warfare. Likewise, the Browns should put only infected players on the
defensive line- even throw them over the line of scrimmage, like so many
catapulted bodies, to infect Packer players inside the pocket (don’t even wait for the
whistle- just run back there and do every thing short of vomit on them).
FINALLY, Cleveland has been given some thing (a disease) that can scare the opposition.
It is to be embraced:
Jessica, my wife, comes from a fairly stable, financially successful area. I
think she is reminded (daily) about the weird, chaotic turn she took
when marrying me.
BACKGROUND INFO: I host a sports comedy show. About
three years ago, two comedians joined us on the show: Mike Burns and John Leadley (*). Mike
used the phrase, “slammable dick caves” when wondering what young men might now call
single women. “Slammable dick caves” might be the least expected combination of words
I have ever encountered and I absolutely lost it.
One thing lead to another; we were all laughing; and,
the next thing you know, I have registered ”
SlammableDickCaves.com” for Mike, on the air.
I did not realize it while registering the site, but apparently I setup SlammableDickCaves.com to auto-renew
itself every year, on my credit card.
The other day, Jessica received a curious, almost-blank letter with the rest of our mail, stating,
“IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR DOMAIN“. She opened it. Inside,
it said,
Sean Flannery- $14.00 / yr . . . SLAMMABLEDICKCAVES.COM
It then explained that her husband would continue to be the proud owner of SlammableDickCaves.com for another
calendar year.
Even the mail reminds her that her life will never be normal again.
* CORRECTIONS:
(Jessica actually did not find out about SlammableDickCaves for the first time
this week- she just received the latest bill. She found out about it for the first time,
when we arrived home from our honey moon and it was waiting for us in a pile of mail. Meaning, one of the
first letters she received about her husband is that he owns SlammableDickCaves.com … …
I registered the domain almost exactly a year before our wedding day –off pure chance– so this
stuff always arrives at the same time… …some men receive reminders, from jewelry stores, that their
anniversary is approaching. I get an email, two weeks in advance,
from SlammableDickCaves.com, saying it needs to be renewed [†])
* FEARS:
They now warn: you should never put embarrassing information on facebook or
myspace, because employers use these sites to screen job candidates. What will they say
when, in the course of their background check, they discover that I am the owner of
SlammableDickCaves.com??
* MANIFESTOS:
I do not want to live in a country where the owner of SlammableDickCaves.com can not
get a job.
* AFFANITIES:
My favorite part of the experience was: we (on the show) are such idiots, that we
–some how– were
flabbergasted that SlammableDickCaves.com was still available. We couldn’t understand
how some one else didn’t already snatch it, like it was a free parking spot in
front of The Empire State Building. “How is it still available?”, we asked, as though
it were a perfect fit for a local entrepreneur. In truth, I don’t think even a
pronographer could use SlammableDickCaves.com, it is so weird.
[†] Not that I need help remembering my anniversary… …I am also VERY
lucky to have my wife- who I love; and who reads this blog daily; and who
puts up with (and laughs about) these ridiculous business ventures, like
SlammableDickCaves.com
Thanks to every one who wished me a happy birthday yesterday- my Earth Birthday, as we called it
on the Visitors Locker Room. As some of you noticed, these birthday wishes occurred on the wrong day last year: October 10th- my Facebook birthday. You see, I specified the wrong date of birth, when creating my Facebook profile over two years ago and –until correcting the error last week– I received birthday wishes on the wrong day. As it turns out (because I am such an idiot with dates), I have MySpace and youtube birthday as well (October 12th and 9th, respectively … …in fact, I’m not even born on the right year on youtube).
There is a famous adage: “history is written by the victors”. They were talking
about armies when they said that of course, but it is still true today- except the
victors are now
google and wikipedia. Anything put on to the Internet will, if returned by google
as the first result, become a fact within two years- it doesn’t matter how error-filled it is.
How do I know this is true: because my Facebook Birthday was not corrected to
my Earth Birthday until last week, when my wife over-heard me telling some one I was
born on October 10th and responded, “no, honey- you were born on October 5th”. In
other words, the facts of your own birthday become blurred, when the Internet tells
you some thing else.
My wife, of course, says, “No, this can only happen to you- no one else is
this stupid with dates”. But I disagree. I believe, I am
actually the first modern man. The first person to so throughly outsource his memory to
computers
(the victors), that he trusts them for his own birthday above all intuition and
experience. I have put them in charge of managing my facts, and I question
nothing. In doing so, I am at least a generation ahead of my time.
(NOTE: final statement presumes I was born in 1947, which I’m not positive is true)
30 minute period in the average day of Sean Flannery:
5:30 PM, I loose my cell phone on the Clark bus (*).
Fifteen minutes later, my wife receives a call from an unfamiliar number:
“Hello, I have
your husband’s phone. My son found it on the Clark Bus.
Here’s my address- come up quick because the battery is about to die on your husband’s
phone”.
I drive up to the intersection (**).
He pulls up, blasting music. His son is in the front seat and they are both
dancing. They are having the time of their lives, throwing their arms in the
air and yelling lyrics.
“Sean??”, the dad yells. I stick out- I am the only white guy within twenty blocks.
“Yes.”
“HA!! We found you!”, he holds up my phone, brimming- “this is my son”.
His son is still dancing
and waves. “He found it!”, the dad proudly shares while handing me the phone.
I had twenty dollars on me. “Will you take some money?”, I ask.
“aaah, it’s up to you. If you want to give it, I’ll let my son take the money. But
you don’t have to.”
I then look the kid in the eyes and, as though on auto pilot, roar, “
well, you get your self some ice cream!” and gave the kid twenty bucks. The moment I said it,
I heard the words- the way you hear yourself on voicemail and thought, ‘that is the
whitest thing I have ever said’. I nearly ran away.
* I am convinced this whole experience was revenge, by
the Clark Bus, for the blog I wrote last week. I
compared the Clark Bus to the boat –in Greek mythology– that ferries you across the river Styx to Hell. I think
the Clark bus was upset by the joke and, since it is already spending its days in Hell,
appealed to an Underworld god for revenge.
Accordingly, I will be re-writing my memoirs as, “Sean Flannery: Modern Bellerophon”.
Bellerophon
(if you do not know the story) was a warrior who came to believe he was
the greatest fighter on Earth and, fittingly, felt he should live among gods.
So, he captured Pegasus and rode the horse into the sky to live in the clouds as a god.
Zeus was so offended by the hubris, he sent a fly to bite Pegasus, which caused Pegasus to
buck Bellerophon. Bellerophon fell to the ground and lived the rest of his life in exile, blinded
and crippled by the fall.
Likewise, I was feeling pretty cocky after writing that Clark Bus blog that made so
many people laugh. “Maybe I can even do this comedy thing for a living some day”, I started
to think: “maybe I am that funny”. Clearly, this appalled the gods of public transportation
who then sent some agent of fate to steal my cell phone, which, in the modern world, is
to be damned to exile- blinded and unable to reach even close friends.
But, lo- a good Samaritan comes along the road! Left for (digital) death on
the modern Road to Jericho (Clark Bus); ignored by people of my own faith (since I do not have
their numbers memorized)- a stranger rescues me.
Evolution of a Samaritan
2,000 years ago: saved you from being beaten to death, even though you worshiped a different
religion. Carried you to a hotel for help.
Modern World: the greatest, most moral person we can think of is- some one who returns your cell phone.
** If you’re wondering how this man was able to find Jessica, it’s because
she is saved in my contacts as “My Wife” (rather than just “Jessica” as most people probably would have done).
This is the first time, saving people into my phone with descriptions (as I always do) has
reduced confusion in my life. Normally, I am making three to five miscalls for
every conversation I want to have since I can never remember, at the moment of the call, if
“Rob Roy” is my buddy who likes to fake sword fight when drunk or my old room mate
from Scotland. So, the process has drawbacks, but, the upside is: a stranger can
navigate my contact list (“My Wife”, “My Apartment”, etc). Of course, the stranger will
also think I am literally insane when they see my contact list and might hesitate to call a
person who –based on his contact list– thinks he can talk to
every one from historical figures (“Rob Roy” / “Neil Armstrong”), to inanimate objects (“Twelve Egg Omelet”) and even major cities (“Memphis”).
People always ask me, as a man (I suppose) who’s always calculating things in his head: what is the greatest song of all time?
“Easy”, I always respond, “Otis Redding: You Left the Water Running. Easy”.
(should you be unfamiliar with it, the song is here)
Why am I randomly bringing-up the greatest song of all time in a comedy blog? Because it
proves one my favorite theories:
how grating black music becomes when performed by white people, versus how awesome it is when the Japanese do it.
white people performing “You Left the Water Running”:
–versus–
The Japenese:
NOTE: you are not expected to listen to the full clip of white people performing “You Left the Water Running”
(though it is fine if you do). Also, that clip of the Japanese guys, The Fave Raves, is from 2007, even though it looks like honky tonk footage from the 60s. They are my new favorite band. And, yes, you heard correctly: that white lady started her version with, “shake it out”.
You always hear the phrase, “there is a special place in Hell” for criminals who harm children.
It’s stated, for example, about five times an episode in “Law and Order, SVU”.
I ride the CTA everyday –which is Hell– and I have found its “special place”: The #22 Clark Bus.
If the Chicago Transit Authority had to take over Hell (which would be a minimal change in service),
I have no doubt that the serial killers would be sent to ride the #22, where one waits all day
for a bus that never shows, refusing –the whole time– to enter passing cabs
(or to even start walking) because you mistakenly think you see the lights of the next bus just
over the horizon.
The Clark Bus is so unreliable, the CTA could not add it to their
bus tracking website for several years because it crashed “the prediction algorithm” (link). I have
seen it disappear for periods over an hour and then, just when you are about to reach
your destination after walking, nine Clark Buses will zoom by in a loud, useless row.
It is
now (finally) on Bus Tracker and, every time I check it, I see the following:
* screen shot from last week, in rush hour (Clark Bus is supposed to arrive every
3-5 minutes, not once every 65 minutes)
The ancients believed, when you died, your soul was rowed to the after life in a small boat,
across the river Styx. If
God is severe and unforgiving (as they feared in the Middle Ages) then I am probably going to Hell-
and I know the Clark Bus is what will carry me, not a boat.
FUTURE WISH: some day, I hope to hack the CTA’s website. I will make only one, minor change: every time
you check the status of the #22 Clark Bus, rather than display the GPS coordinates of the bus, it will
display this image-
People will applaud it as the most accurate website in the world. The first website to
actually reply with an image of what you are thinking and experiencing, rather than just a time or intersection.
Last night, I met buddies at a bar and got way too excited when the bartender carded me (“Oh, thank you! Thank you- I’m flattered!”). There was a new guy, Gary, who refused to believe I host a sports show, after making that entrance.
The hardest I ever laughed was when a priest used the phrase “spilling your own seed”,
instead of “masturbation”. He was preparing my fifth grade class for our first confession
of the year by suggesting sins we may need to confess to. I started laughing like a
Warner Brothers cartoon, falling out of my desk and howling as my hands slapped my sides.
The priest –still before the entire class, infuriated– banned me from ever working a funeral
again (I was an altar boy). “We can not have people who laugh at any
random thing in front of grieving families!”.
Dan “Danny” Stapleton was a young investment banker in the Regan boom years of the 1980s. He was a highly motivated member of the bond sales division, working a minimum of 70 hours each week. He died, at 27, choking on a Dragon roll at one the Village’s first sushi restaurants, in 1986.
Though he was not what you would call, “a good man”, in the traditional sense, Danny was allowed into Heaven simply because he was too busy on Earth –with work– to commit any real sins.
He writes a correspondence to WorldsDumbestMan.com once a month.
The first thing you need to know about Heaven is, if some thing breaks here, it stays broke. This place is island mentality, times a thousand. You ever tried to get your TV repaired in Jamaica? Well, imagine if Jamaica also had flying horses and famous religious figures walking around. No one wants to work. My door buzzer has been broke for months.
Buzzers, in fact, sum up this whole place perfectly. There’s no reason I should need a door buzzer in Heaven. There ought to be some thing that just lets me know once a friend shows up at the door, but we have some damn rule where Heaven can’t get a new technology until the inventor dies and reaches Heaven. Why did I have to wait 20 years for an iPod in Heaven? They had to know it was going to be invented, even back then. They could have just given it to me and said, ‘hey, it’s Heaven- anything is possible’. It would have blown my fucking mind, in 1986.
Technology –in general– makes this place unlivable. People forget: the human race was fucking stupid up until about the last 100 years or so. And every dead, non-ass hole in history up here.
BILLIONS of morons are walking around Heaven. Billions. And yet, the geniuses that run this place still give each one of them a cell phone, like a guy from the Bronze Age can figure this out:
“Hey friend! I have you on voice mail!”
“No, you idiot- you have him on speaker phone! Not voice mail. We can hear every thing he’s saying!”
The worst part is: no one else gets angry. Food never arrives on time; buses stop randomly;
messages don’t get delivered; appointments are made for two hour windows, rather than exact times- this
place is a Banana Republic.
The other day, I ordered a wrap for a quick lunch and waited on the sidewalk for
forty minutes without hearing anything. I then find out, they shut the whole kitchen down after my order
because some one heard Bach was eating next door. As always, it just turns out to be some hack from
The Kingdom of Sardinia, or some other place you’ve never heard of, rather than Bach- but try getting them to re-open the
kitchen after that diversion:
“What’s your worry, man? The weather is perfect.”
What’s my worry?? How about: you put your name on the sign outside that restaurant, but don’t seem to
care if the food ever gets served? How about: no one in this whole God damn, Golden City ever cares about
loosing a customer? How about: I’m tired of having my time treated like it means nothing, just because we’re
up here for fucking eternity!
The low hanging, massive jumbo tron at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium was hit by a punt last night. Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher (who’s punter hit the jumbo tron) said the giant video screen could be a problem on punts.
Dallas owner Jerry Jones was hilariously dismissive of the problem (from the AP report):
“If your desire is to punt the ball straight up and hard, I can do that,” Jones said, according to the Dallas Morning News. “The height that we’ve got it wouldn’t [affect] normal kicks unless somebody just wanted to hit it.”
By rule in football, the play is ruled dead if a punt hits some thing above the field of play. The down is then re-played, meaning, Jones is not being far sighted if he does not see a possible problem.
Here is my list of inventive ways to use this new jumbo tron to your team’s advantage:
• Tired defense? Has your defense been on the field the whole game and now, after another three-and-out series by the offense, you’re worried about their stamina? Well, give them a rest by having your punter hit the scoreboard 20 times in a row.
• Screwed by a NFL ruling? Has the NFL recently ruled against your franchise in, say, a salary cap dispute? Then there’s no better way to get back at them than turning a prime time game against American’s team into a seven hour marathon where networks will have no chances to run commercials. Tell your punter to hit the scoreboard, on purpose, for two straight hours.
• Worried a fake punt won’t catch the defense by surprise? It will if you hit the jumbo tron for 17 straight attempts and then, out of no where, just have the long snapper run it up the middle on attempt 18.
• About to be sacked? Have your quarterback throw it straight up at the jumbo tron. They can’t call “intentional grounding”, if you’ve thrown it straight up, right?
I watched the Cubs / Dodgers game on Fox today. As though watching a game called by Joe Buck isn’t annoying enough, now the commercials are as equally insufferable because every company re-writes their ads to match Buck’s whimsical, ‘every good moment with dad was over baseball’ attitude.
My recap of every ad on Fox today, during the game:
(Jessica and I, as we walk the aisles of a Crate and Barrel, registering for wedding gifts)
Jessica: “come on, I feel like I’m registering for all this stuff by myself. You haven’t picked anything out yet. Don’t you see some thing that you like?”
me: “I guess this mug is kind of nice. I could use it for beers.”
random Crate and Barrel employee: “sir, that’s a vase.”
Sports blogs are all decrying the peephole video of popular ESPN side line reporter Erin Andrews that has surfaced over the weekend
(report). They are
reminding every one that it is a sick crime- even refusing to link to it, as that would only add publicity (even though they have never refused to link
to unsuspecting photos of Erin Andrews before).
Our previous coverage, they say, of Erin Andrews is both light-hearted and mostly related to sports. It does not follow that we would endorse
stalking, or this sickening level of objectification.
Of course. Where would some one get the idea you endorse this kind of behavior?
Results from a quick search of “Erin Andrews” at Sports Illustrated’s ‘Hot Clicks’ (their main daily blog by Jimmy Traina)
Tells readers he can start to breath normally again, after learning that a ring Erin Andrews wore last night is NOT an engagement ring:
Question: Fox News versus sports blogs- who is doing a better job of back-tracking, after a crazy viewer finally took their lazy, embellished reporting seriously?
note to readers: The VLR, unlike most sports blogs, is not above posting this video. We are simply not savvy enough to find it.
If you have it- forward it to us. We will add some sort of
“Visitors Locker Room” waterstamp to it and post it on our site.
…Please include instructions on how to waterstamp a video too.
We are finally in the process of uploading all of our old highlights from The Visitors Locker Room (we moved servers earlier this year, and lost them).
The clips are funny, if you have not heard them before.
Facebook must have repeated (when I chose “worldsdumbestman” as my URL) that I can NOT change it and that it would be permanent five or six times- like a parent talking to a kid who wants to buy yellow shoes.
Years ago, when I chose WorldsDumbestMan.com as my website, I thought it was a great idea. SeanFlannery.com was not available and WorldsDumbestMan.com, I thought, was a funny alternative that is both easy to remember and easy to spell.
It has, in truth, been a disaster:
• Re-enactment of Every Conversation I’ve had about My Website •
comedy fan: “Hey man, I keep checking-out your website but it never works?”
You would be amazed at the number of incorrect combinations people have created, trying to remember my website:
“GalaxysBiggestIdiot.com”
“DumbestManInSpace.com”
and (my favorite): “HistorysFirstMoron.com”
Occasionally, I think people are not even trying to remember the website and, instead, are just sharing their negative image of me. Why else would I hear, “WorldsBiggestDrunk.com” or “WorldsMostUnreliableEmployee.com”?
– II –
No matter how many times a comedy fan forgets me because of my website, its address will still be worth it from an incident that happened nearly ten years
ago. At the time, I was not even in standup and was, instead, just using WorldsDumbestMan.com to post letters to friends (you can still read a few of them here). Each letter was a raucous story about drinking, being thrown out of classes, fired
from jobs- all the stuff you do in your early 20s (or at least I did). At the same time,
there was a different Sean Flannery who wrote highly technical spy novels. In fact, they were
beyond technical from what I have heard- for people that find Tom Clancy too approachable.
One week –just after I graduated from college– he (the other Sean Flannery) was on Oprah and about a dozen or so of his
fans found my website and read my letters, thinking I was one of the world’s leading experts on
military threats. The front page of my website –at the time– had a letter where I talk
about getting drunk on beer foam at a party because the keg’s tap was broke (I was the only
person drinking, yet I kept yelling “house beer”). At the end of the letter, I mention, passingly,
that I was being audited by the IRS because I forgot that a seventh employer had fired me that
year and, due to the oversight, failed to file a W2 for that six hour shift.
The emails from his fans were HILARIOUS and, to this day, make every
mistake about the website worth it.
• Re-enactment of Every
Email I’ve received from • fans of Espionage Novelist Sean Flannery
“WOW. You are a lot different than I imagined. I never pictured a former cryptographer having
this much fun! I can’t believe you stole your
car out of an impound lot. Did your friend realize that he’s helping one of the world’s leading
writers on tribal warfare steal his car back?
I always assumed that military experts are straight laced. Yet here
you are, a philosophy major (which I didn’t know) who was thrown out of art school!
Now,
are you worried about the government reading these stories? Don’t they still pay you
for consulting? I know, for example, I have a nephew who makes maps for the Air Force and,
because he sees where classified bases are, he’s not allowed to get black-out drunk,
where he forgets what he did the night before (like you do, in some of these stories). I’d
watch what you put up here.
Thanks for writing so many interesting books. I love spy novels and your’s are, by far,
the best! It was nice to see you on Oprah and I can’t wait for the next book.
Oh, and
good luck with the IRS audit!”
– Endnotes –
The real Sean Flannery (to spy fans… …and a man who does NOT look
like he drinks beer foam out of a broken, thirty dollar keg):
Every morning, I read a report of all the comments my website blocked because it considered the message spam and, every morning, I laugh loud enough to turn heads. Each message is a blatant product pitch, poorly disguised as real feedback on the site. Today, I think I received my favorite one yet:
great article, but there is so much more to know about toilet bowl cleaners
(blog that I wrote for bleacher report, a sports website)
As a sports writer, I am required to write about a baseball memory with my father this week.
But, before the panic of reading more baseball nostalgia sends you clicking away, please
know that I am from Cleveland. Thus I do not have the same boring wistfulness of, say, a
Dodgers fan who got to see a stately victory in perfect weather with his dad.
Instead, I would just like to share the two quotes I remember most vividly from old Cleveland Municipal
Stadium. Both were stated, well, yelled, in near terror, during the second game of a
back-to-back double header against The Detroit Tigers. The Indians were destroyed in both
games (*) and, by the middle of the second game,
the fans were hammered with nothing to watch.
Two or three fans already ran on to the field during the first game and, when it happened again
during a pitching change in the second game, an angry, impromptu announcement blared through the
stadium. In that same hostile tone they narrate drug commercials with (“does being high look
cool now?”), the PA announcer shouted:
“$200 and a night in jail- doesn’t
sound like a good time, does it fans?”
With that, about two dozen fans –from ten different parts of the stadium– ran on
to the field. Fans were being lowered down to the field by friends; running with banners;
climbing back up walls; dodging police officers- it was like a border had collapsed. I was never more proud to be from Cleveland. “Actually”, our city answered,
“that sounds like a pretty great time.”
II
The next inning, a woman started stripping on top of the bleachers, using the stadium’s play clock to
balance herself. Security guards immediately ran towards her, but they
were quickly blocked by half the men in my section. The guards realized they would
never power their way through this crowd and, half-defeated, I heard one of
them yell,
“Fellas- I want to see this as bad as you, but there’s a 200 foot drop off on the
other side of that clock!”
The crowd then let him pass. He reached the women, helped her down, and then
lead her to be arrested while wearing his yellow security jacket. The
crowd applauded both of them like they just saw Bob Hope introduce Marylin Monroe. My
dad and I looked at each other. We both knew that we had just witnessed
some thing important: the most chivalrous moment in Cleveland history.
It has since been called, “The Fairy Tale of Lake Erie”.
(*) This was back when the Tigers had Fielder, Fryman, Tettleton and every one
in their prime; and The Tribe had people like Stan Jefferson starting so it was never even
close between the teams
I saw a poster of “The Proposal” at a bus stop today and assumed it was a spy thriller.
The Proposal
–versus–
A View To A Kill
Which movie is more likely to have a scene with a helicopter landing on a wedding?
PS, in my mind, I have combined the plots of two, above movies and created the greatest
summer blockbuster of all time (tenative title: “A View To A Dress”… I have also
written the tagline: “the groom is getting cold feet- load the ammo”).
