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Camping, as a 30 year old man, with buddies
Frank: “watch out, there’s some poison ivy back there”
Me: “I’m immune to it, it doesn’t matter.”
Frank: “Really?”
Me: “Yeah, I found out after I was the only person in my boyscout troop to not catch it after a hike. I can touch it as much as I want and not get a rash.”
John: “You know, you can lose the immunity.”
Me: “What?”
John: “Yeah, I heard it comes and goes at random times. You may not be immune anymore”
Me: “Only one way to find out.”
I disrobe to only my underwear and roll around in the patch of poison ivy I roll for minutes- to the distant eye, it looks like I was training everyone on what to do if they catch fire.
I stop rolling and stand up.
John: “You know- you could have just touched it, with your pinky.”
That never occurred to me.
▢▢
I once helped a friend move into his first house. We entered it, carrying his couch, reasoning that we should start immediately on the hardest task. It became stuck half way up the staircase. It took hours to unwedge it. We sawed inches off its legs. At one point we seriously considered lighting it on fire, to weaken it enough to break it and at least free the staircase. It was evening when we finally pushed it to the second floor and into his living room.
Upon entering the living room, we realized: the house was built on a hill- the second floor opened straight into the backyard and, had we simply walked around the house, we could have entered through the sliding door, carrying the couch like it was nothing more than a tray of summer tea.
We saw the huge, easy-to-access door together. It was like seeing the Grand Canyon, or a great work of art- we were both silent –almost dumbstruck– and yet we knew exactly what the other person was thinking; the exact words that were going through his mind: “Jesus, this is why other people plan shit”.
▢▢
I felt that same sensation –the same experience of everyone reading your thoughts; of everyone realizing, immediately, there was a much easier way to do some thing– when I emerged from the poison ivy and heard, “you could have just touched it”.
Fuck. It hit me: “maybe I don’t have this immunity anymore”… and, rather than learn this lesson like a normal person (in a small, controlled fashion), I just guaranteed myself two weeks of unimaginable pain.
▢▢
I am still immune. Not a single dot –not a single scratch– developed on my body. My friends and I then drank like I beat a cancer sentence, on that camping trip. It was an uproarious good time… Come to think of it- Tom and I finished a bottle of whiskey, after that move, and ended-up at a hilarious Caribbean themed bar in the middle of Ohio. We drank like we defeated that couch, rather than just moved it. It was great time.
Had we just gone around back (with the couch), we probably would have finished six hours earlier; shaken hands and called it a day. It would have been like any other afternoon.
Which is why –to this day– I proudly, never think. The stories are better. “Life is too short to think“, that’s what I tell people my motto is. It usually ends job interviews, at once, but for most things you want to get done on a weekend- it makes for a good time.
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| posted in
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04/27/2010 08:47 am
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I’ve always felt that Mob documentaries are the funniest shows on TV, mostly from the (hilarious) ‘code’ they speak in, when talking over phones that might be bugged. I suppose it’s a bit like ‘hit signs’ in baseball, where the goal is to muddle your message, but –at the same time– it’s not like you have high level cryptographers working for you, so it can only be so complicated, given the abilities of your employees.
Today’s Sun Times has a great example of these hilarious, easy-to-crack codes, in an update on the Frank Calabrese, Family Secrets Mob trial.
According to FBI wire taps, Calabrese hid so many real estate assists in his mother’s name that she (his mom) started to become annoyed at all the paperwork. In a secretly recorded call, Calabrese’s wife then warns him, in code, that his mother is refusing to sign anything until she gets copies of the documents:
His wife tells Calabrese that “she gave some ‘cookies’ for her mother to sample and she wants a copy of all the ingredients before she samples.”
(the entire article is pretty funny…. …Frank Calabrese’s attorney, for example, is Joseph “The Shark” Lopez- that detail alone –having a defense attorney who goes by Joey “The Shark”– makes it worth the read)
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| posted in
Blog
04/07/2010 12:24 pm
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| All new episodes of the Visitors Locker Room, my sports comedy podcast with CJ Sullivan, can
now be downloaded (for free) via iTunes:
in short –for regular listeners (who always complain about this)– the iTunes feed is finaly working
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| posted in
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04/04/2010 05:37 pm
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I was recently interviewed by Timeout Chicago for an article on the
Just for Laughs comedy festival:
“Die Meisterzingers: The city’s
comics gather for a high-stakes audition” (by Jason A. Heideman).
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| posted in
Blog
04/04/2010 03:02 pm
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| I’m excited to announce that the first comedy album by The Visitors Locker Room has been released. “Sports Combat Comedy” is now
available for purchase on both iTunes and Amazon .
If you are a fan of the show, please consider purchasing the album (or a track or two), as it helps us immensely in terms of traffic. More importantly- please submit a review of the album and share the link / album with friends.
And, don’t let the title scare you away if you’re not a fan of sports: as with everything my friends and I discuss, it continually bleeds into drinking stories.
We hope you enjoy the it.
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Full Links (for sharing):
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| posted in
Blog
03/25/2010 10:14 pm
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I’m auditioning for the TBS Just for Laughs comedy festival this upcoming Monday. I’m also hosting the show. It’s free and has many good comics. Stop by, if you are out:
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Chicago Just For Laughs Auditions
Lakeshore Theater, 03/22- 7:30 PM
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| posted in
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03/19/2010 07:09 pm
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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
Blog
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.
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| 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
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| 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
Blog
02/17/2010 06:13 pm
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| – Settling a Bar Room Argument – |
| Ten Years Ago
src="http://www.worldsdumbestman.com/wp/wp-content/bits/blog/ungoogleable/menLaughing2.jpg" alt="">
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Today
src="http://www.worldsdumbestman.com/wp/wp-content/bits/blog/ungoogleable/lapTopParty2.jpg" alt="" width="350">
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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
face="times new roman" style="font-size: 11pt;">(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
Blog
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
Blog
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
Blog
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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