Ah Show!

Last night I was able to breathe a sigh of relief as we made it through the first weekend of "The Greatest Stories Never Told... TOLD!" It's been a lot of work getting the thing up and running, so now that it finally is and we only have to perform it, I feel like a great burden has been lifted.

I really think we have a great show here. I haven't been this excited about a show in a good while. And our audiences really seemed to like the show, which is most important. I think they appreciated the fact that we tried to do a little something different with the sketch form. So yeah, I'm pretty proud.

So, to sum up this thinly veiled plug, come see the show. We only have two more weekends, and it's a small house, so get your tickets. The show information is in the left hand column.

SHOW OPENS TOMORROW

Greatest Stories Never Told... TOLD! Tomorrow at 4:00 PM, Gorilla Tango. More information in the left hand column. Please come and see it.



Love,



-Nat

I'd Punch A Cloverfield In The Face

Yeah, I know; I'm a good, what, three or four months behind the times? Sure, I admit that I may be largely oblivious to the major pop-cultural events of my own life. In my defense, I don't get the chance to see too many movies in the theatres, so often times I have to wait until they come out on video and I accidentally happen to be in the right place at the right time to see it.

So apparently some movie called Cloverfield came out a while back and apparently some people saw it. Instead of following the advice of critics and friends, I contented myself with questioning why someone would name a monster Cloverfield, which seems like a silly non-threatening name for a monster, and offering to punch Cloverfield in the face. Of course, it turns out that Cloverfield is not the name of the monster and yet again I am proven to be an idiot. Sigh.

At any rate, I finally got around to seeing the movie last night. It was good, my friends.

It was one of those movies where I'm sitting there watching it and am aware of the fact that I'm enjoying myself. I don't want to give too much of it away although, really, there's not too much to give away. Basically, it's a monster movie. Like, a giant monster movie in the vein of King Kong or Godzilla or Gamera, the gigantic flying turtle that featured so prominently in Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (That's right, I'm a nerd. Deal with it).

Despite the fact that I loved the Rampage video games back when I was a kid, I've never been a huge fan of the monster movie. They've always seemed a bit hokey to me, even in this age of life-like computer generated everything. There's always some convoluted sciency backstory and a moment in which the geeky scientist type explains to a military type and a hot lady exactly what's going on and how they can stop the monster using science. And the monster always dies at the end in some huge all-out battle to the death and once again humanity is saved. At least until the monster's eggs hatch and, oops, IT'S SEQUEL TIME BABY!

And sure, Cloverfield has the beautiful women and the huge battle at the end, but the one thing that Cloverfield does that makes it markedly different from my experience with monster movies is that it puts the camera right on the ground the whole time.

The frame for the movie is that the audience is watching footage recovered by the army from a digital camera found in what remains of Central Park in New York. Consequently, the entire movie is shot from the view of some guy and his friends videotaping their attempts to rescue others and escape.

This does a couple of things. First, it makes the story intensely personal. The plot is not about the monster or how to defeat the monster or what caused the monster to be, but about the people who are jst struggling to stay alive. As a result, the movie is more emotional and the stakes are bigger since you are basically running for your lives with the main characters.

The second is that you rarely ever see the entire monster until the end of the movie, and you never get a complete understanding of what's going on or why the monster is attacking New York. You know only as much as the main characters know, which is just enough information to know that somewhere there's a backstory but not enough information to piece it together. This means that the audience is constantly guessing and, as a result, engaged in the story.

And since these events are taped over a previously used tape, you get little snippets of the other tape from time to time, which offers some interesting moments of juxtaposition. I'm not completely sure what that means - it's a term I heard of in college - but it sounds like a film majory thing to say.

The drawback to this approach is that the camera work jumps around all over the place which, though it lends a realistic feel to the movie, also from what I understand caused some instances of vertigo and motion sickness for some in the theatre. The other problem is that I've never heard of a digital camera's battery life lasting for as long as the events took place. I'm lucky if my camera is alive for ten minutes at a time (though that's plenty of time to videotape myself shaving obscene words into my chest hair, but that's another post altogether).

But this is the kind of stuff that I'm willing to overlook for the sake of suspending disbelief. And though I didn't find it to be as terrifying as so many others did, it was still a very engaging and interesting movie with moments of humor and the occasional explosivly bloody death. If you have the chance to rent, I'd highly recommend it.

Endorsement for the Presidency

Fellow Americans,

We are in desperate political times. Brother fights brother and fellow party members rip themselves to shreds at a time when we must all come together for the common goal: the Presidency of the United States. It is at times like this where all good conscionable people, from the members of the media (that lofty and highly esteemed pillar of American Democracy) all the way down to the lowly transient hobo and blogger, must stand forth and declare their voting intentions for all the country to see.

That's why today, Clever Title is proud to announce their endorsement of Nat Topping for President in 2040.

We here at Clever Title already know what you're thinking: "Isn't this kind of a meaningless endorsement? I mean, Clever Title is Nat Topping's blog. Of course they're going to endorse him. I just wonder why they waited until April 23rd 2039 to throw their hat in the ring. Isn't that weird? And anyway, how is this supposed to make me change my mind? Isn't this kind of sad and pathetic?"

...

Well, but look, we really do think that, given the problems faced in the year 2040, he's the best candidate for the (third) most powerful job in the world.

Since announcing his candidacy in 2008, he has accumulated 31 years worth of experience in exaggerating or fabricating his achievements. He has spent 31 years learning the art of political campaigning, 31 years worth of boldfaced and unabashed lying, 31 years worth of saying one thing and doing another. In short, he has 31 years of experience where his opponents only have 30 or 29 years experience. That should count for something, right?

And what other candidate lies to you with the conviction and passion of Nat Topping? You might even think he's telling the truth some of the time, if not for that telltale laugh and cocky smirk. We really get the sense that he really honestly genuinely cares that we are properly mislead, suckered in and insulated from the truth.

You remember that time, during the Iowa debate, when he berated the opponent for that horrendous mole on his left cheek, and constantly interrupted the questions with shouts of "Good lord, it smells like ASS around here! Jesus, didn't your mother teach you to wipe?!"

You remember those campaign ads about how "Americans Deserve Better Than Someone Who Smells Like Ass?"

We're talking about a man who can restore the proper dignity and majestic poise to our country's (seventh) most important office here.

Now obviously, we're not trying to denigrate his (pedophile) colleagues against whom he is running in the primaries, nor slander the (necrophiliac) opponent from the other party. There will be time for that in later posts. Plenty of time.

Suffice it to say that, even though those 31 years worth of experience don't actually include any hands on experience in really actually running anything, we here at Clever Title are confident that Nat Topping, candidate for America, will do at least as well as the past twenty or so Presidents, if not worse!

*Blush*

Joe Janes' blog is one year old today and, to celebrate, he's plugging a bunch of other people's blogs, which include my own. This is typical of Joe in that he's spreading the love and good karma around. Because I'm an egomaniacal hack, I'm going to post what he said:

"Clever Title (Nat Topping) - Nat is one of the funniest writers out there. I admire his work and hope my writing grows up to be like his some day. His whacked imagination, turn of phrase and aspirations for presidency brighten my day."

This is funny considering that Joe is the one who writes like a grown up - funny, smart and with a soul - whereas I think that people having sex with trees is funny so I write about that. He is right in one respect, though: one day I will be President.

Seriously, though, I probably never would have started my blog if not for the fact that Joe already had a blog. I had a dislike of bloggers because I believed that blogs were a place to post really bad teen-angst poetry. Joe's blog showed me something that should have been obvious, which is that blogs are simply whatever you write in them and, in the case of Joe's blog, that turns out to be a good thing.

(Just FYI: this blogging program doesn't recognize the term "bloggers" in its spell check. Oh sweet irony!)

So, to keep the karma rolling, I thought I would plug another blog: http://www.livingoprah.com/. For one full year, my friend lives as Oprah advises on her television show, website and magazine as a way of seeing if Oprah will really help her live her "best life." It's an interesting experiment. Check it out if you get the chance.

Also, one more karma plug: go see shows at the Gorilla Tango Theatre. Not just our show (The Greatest Stories Never Told... TOLD! playing Saturdays and Sundays at 4:00 starting this weekend for only $10.00) but any of the shows that they have there. A couple of the RVD guys and I saw "Everyone Kills" last Wednesday night, which is an evening of standup comics, and it was quite funny. The only problem with the show was that there weren't enough people in the audience. So get your asses out there and go see some live shows (especially if that show happens to be The Greatest Stories Never Told... TOLD! playing Saturdays and Sundays at 4:00 starting this weekend for only $10.00 at the Gorilla Tango Theatre)!

Monday Drivel

Good lord I've been busy lately. Just so everyone knows I'm still alive and surviving, here's a couple of drivelous thoughts for the weekend:

First rehearsal with props for Greatest Stories Never Told... TOLD. It went about as well as could be expected, considering the huge amount of props we had. We also got postcards for the show too, so if you see me ask for a post card. I really want people to come see this. Why, you might ask? Is it because I'm really proud of the show? Yes, but... if nobody shows up to the show we'll also have to pay the theatre for the time. So obviously, it would be ideal to sell some tickets.

Katie got back from Mexico Saturday night so, deciding to play the good boyfriend for a change, I went to pick her and her brother up at the airport. I got to hang out in the International terminal among a crowd of people waiting for their friends and loved ones to arrive.

Some people are just smelly.

I remember back in the day where you could wait at the gate. There was something nice about seeing your loved one come of the plane. When I was a little kid, that's how we greeted out dad when he came home from business trips. It beats the hell out of sitting in a herd of people waiting for whoever to come out the gigantic sterile white automatic doors leading out of the baggage area.

I'll say this much: you could definitely tell the people getting who just got back from Mexico from the people who just rode the seemingly 200-hour flight from London. The Mexico-departees were all tan and smiling. There was even one elderly lady with a sombrero perched on her head being wheeled around in a wheel chair. The London-departees came out the doors, looked out at the drizzling weather, and probably thought they had turned around and landed back where they started.

After that, we all went to see that Forgetting Sarah Marshall movie. It was funny. Not the greatest movie ever in the history of movies, and there was a disproportionately larger amount of man genitalia than I normally like in my movies, but still a good time.

Sunday morning I finally finished the tree I've been building for the show. Hopefully it hasn't fallen apart since yesterday....

Lacking Sleep

This morning, I was so tired that I actually woke up early.



The alarm goes off, so I roll over and notice on the alarm clock that the last two digits on the digital watch face read ":50." I do not bother to read the first digit - I don't know why - otherwise I would see that it reads "7:50" instead of "8:50" and I would hit snooze, roll back over and go back to sleep.

Instead I shout, "Goddamn it, I'm going to be late!" to nobody in particular as I frantically roll out of bed.

As I'm leaving my apartment building, I check my watch and notice only the minute hand, which reads ":56." I do not bother to check the hour hand, because I am convinced beyond all doubt that it is in fact an hour later than it really is.

I turn the corner onto George street, walk under the El tracks and walk down my usual route to work, noticing that I haven't noticed one familiar face yet. "That's strange,' I wonder to myself. 'Where is everyone?'

As I walk past the middle school on George, I see that there are kids still playing on the playground. 'Shouldn't those kids be indoors?' I ask myself. 'What is wrong with that school? I thought classes start at 9:00.' Which of course they do, and probably will today too. But instead of double checking my watch or, for that matter, checking the time on the school's digital message board that routinely flashes the correct time and temperature, I go along in a daze assuming that it is the world and not I that is an hour off.

I open the doors and walk in to work. I notice that my friend and coworker Pat is not in yet, which surprises me since he's normally at work before me. My manager starts his day pretty early, and as I pass by his desk I make sure to mumble some sort of groggy apology for being a little bit late. I just barely register the confused look on his face as I reach my desk.

As I sit down at my desk, I check the digital clock on my phone. 8:03. 'Good I'm only three minutes late. That's not too late... wait, 8:03?!'

I stand back up, my mind whirling as all of these clues (like, for instance, the five or six time pieces I've walked past within the past 15 minutes) fall into place, as though I were in a thriller movie where suddenly the whole movie comes together in a moment of clarity where I realize who the killer (or in this case, the idiot) was all along.

I look over to my manager, probably with a look of wonder and confusion plastered across my face, and say, "I'm early, aren't I?"

"Yes," he says carefully, probably not sure whether or not I'm about to freak out. I let the time sink in for a moment.

"I'm really early, aren't I?"

"Weren't you trying to be early?" he asked.

"No. I thought I was late," I say, mostly to myself.

He chuckles and says, "man, sometimes you crack me up."

I Am Obsessed With Fake Trees

We have roughly a week and a half until the RVD show goes up, and I'm getting to that point in the process where I'm becomming completely obsessed with the show.

A couple of things contributing to that:

(1) I volunteered to "build set" which, for a sketch show, you would think might involve, well, absolutely nothing. But since we're trying to put more effort behind this than your average run of the mill three-week-production-time sketch show this involves building a tree. It's a tree that I designed myself, bought all the supplies for, and am constructing in my tiny studio apartment.

There is approximately enough room for me, the tree and my bed. I've had to move everything else out into the hallway and put "do not steal" signs on all of the important stuff.

(2) It dawned on me suddenly that, since I'm acting in the show, I need to actually know my lines. This is a normal prerequisite for acting in a show - every actor is supposed to know their lines - so I can't say that I'm surprised. Still doesn't change the fact that I need to sit down before tomorrow (the rehearsal where we are supposed to be off book) and make sure everything is properly crammed into my head.

(3) We as a group are trying to put together the props and everything else so that the cast has some time to actually practice with everything. We still need to get an armchair of some sort.

(4) Since the Writing Level 5 show ended, I have no other shows going on right now.

(5) Consequently, I have worked on some aspect of this show for six of the past seven days, whether it's been rehearsing, running around pricing stuff, or building.

(6) Also, my girlfriend Katie is out of the country with her family on a family vacation to Mexico. So, I don't have her to talk to about things that are not show related.

So now I'm at the point where I feel like the show is constantly in the back of my mind. It's even seeping into the blog. Look! It's seeping right now.

But the nice thing is, I was sitting around my apartment last night taping foam core to wooden dowels and stuff, and it dawned on me: I actually like this. What the hell is wrong with me that I'm sitting here, my kitchen table leaning up against the refridgerator next to a pile of discarded scrap foamcore because I needed room to build a seven foot tall fake tree, and I'm having a blast?

Now I just hope people come to see this thing.

The Next Shameless Plug

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Writing Level 5 show is over and it's time to move on to the next one. Here is the press release for my next show, as written by Chris Othic. There is a passage towards the bottom where he manages to interview himself.

Get off your asses and come see this!

Robot vs. Dinosaur Presents
The Greatest Stories Never Told . . . TOLD!

Chicago, IL (April 2008): Robot vs. Dinosaur presents the world premier of their sketch comedy show, The Greatest Stories Never Told . . . TOLD! beginning April 26 through May 11, Saturdays and Sundays at 4 pm, at Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago 60647. Tickets are $10; to purchase tickets call 773-598-4549 or visit www.gorillatango.com.
The Greatest Stories Never Told . . . TOLD! is a whimsical look at stories of adventure, tall tales and fairy tales, blended together seamlessly into a unique piece that is a hybrid of sketch comedy and storytelling.

Three story lines are interwoven through the show as well as an eclectic mix of comic scenes that combined make for a multi-layered, engaging and fun theatrical experience. Audiences won’t have time to blink as stories and scenes move from one fantastic world to the next, giving this show a more unified feel than a typical sketch comedy revue.

“We’re trying to create a new kind of show here,” says director Chris Othic, a five-year veteran of the Chicago comedy scene. “We tried to focus on story telling as a medium for our comedy writing. It’s still sketch comedy, but we’ve written some fairly complex, narrative scenes and focused on the staging so that it feels a little more like a play. It’s an interesting mix and I think audiences will love it.”

“A large chunk of our material was performed in the 2007 Chicago Sketchfest, and we got a lot of positive feed back afterward,” Othic said. “We’ve expanded on that material and we’re really looking forward to bringing something new to the sketch comedy scene.”

Lasers From Heaven

Quick friendly reminder: tomorrow night is your last chance to check out "Lasers From Heaven," my Writing Level 5 showcase. See the events heading in the left-hand column for details.

What's Your Perversion?

Yesterday's article on Nazi death-camp themed sex orgies really got me thinking (you're surprised, I know): how do these rich old perverted white men even have the time to come up with these creepy scenarios, given that they are often captains of industry, celebrities and racing magnates? These are busy people, after all. How do they manage to run their busy lives and yet still devote the necessary time and energy to dreaming up their deviant bacchanalians? Wouldn't it be much easier to just pay millions of dollars for someone, some sick bastard, to sit around all day and dream up utterly disgusting yet deliciously arousing creep-fests?

Enter Nat Topping with the answer, baby.

I'd like to offer my creative services to those of you rich fuckers looking to grab five or more hookers for some demeaning good times. I will dream up a disgusting orgy tailor made to fit your particular fetishes.

Here are a couple of examples, just off the top of my head. See if any of these interest you, you sick fuck:


The Mongol Horne

You are dressed up as a medieval Russian peasant circa 1235 AD. You are stranded in a field and forced to do hard labor (really HARD) when suddenly, on the horizon, you see ten horsemen approaching. As they get closer, though, you see that they aren't horsemen at all, but ten classy prostitutes wearing long Fu Manchu-style moustaches. They circle around you, hurling big pink dildos at you until they finally run out of pink dildos. Then, they dismount and start to savagely beat you as you cry out for more, but in Russian. They then make you drink horse-milk straight from the horses' teats as they continue to savagely beat you, grope themselves and perform various sex acts on the horses. From there, the passion overtakes you as videographers capture every sweaty, stinky moment.


The Monkey Cage

You are dressed in a large monkey costume, trapped in a cage with fifteen classy prostitutes who are also dressed in large *sexy* monkey costumes. You have been eating nothing but bananas for the past three hours and you and the prostitutes have been crapping up a storm. The cage is starting to feel cramped and pretty soon you accidentally infringe on one of the prostitute monkeys' territory. Well, that just does it. The proverbial powder keg explodes, and suddenly fifteen monkey hookers attack. They scratch at you as they force to you scream "I'm sorry" in monkey-speak over and over again. Pretty soon, they are throwing their own poo and stripping, performing various sex acts on each other. From there, the passion overtakes you as you begin to engage in bestial monkey sex. Videographers are on hand to capture every furry, poo-filled moment.


The Nine Circles of Sexy Hell

This one is still in R&D, so I'm still working on the specifics, but here's what I have so far: you are Dante on a quest for heavenly pleasures. But in order to get there, you must pass through the Sexy Inferno, which is nine levels of sexual torture. Basically, it's going to be a giant pit with nine levels down to the bottom, and on each level will be some horrendously grotesque yet sickly erotic task: being whipped with horse testicles or being forced to swallow and pass a chain of pleasure beads, etc. I'll have to come up with a couple more. In the last task, though, you end up at the bottom of the pit where thirty-seven classy prostitutes are dressed up as different Popes from throughout history. They are wading in a gigantic pool of rancid human feces, in the middle of which is buried a golden key that unlocks the door to the way out. However, in order to get the key, you must have sex with all thirty-seven Popestitutes until they either drown in the lake of rancid human feces or pass out from exhaustion. Obviously, at this point the passion overwhelms you as you fight your way out of hell with nothing but your own pecker to save you. Videographers will be in waders waiting to capture each and every horrifying moment of disgusting pleasure.


In return for your millions of dollars, I will not only dream up these sexy nightmares for you but, with expense money, coordinate the construction of facilities, hiring of "talent" and production of each and every deviant sex orgy. I will even be sure to release a copy of the sex tape to a media group of your choice free of charge.

Any takers?

The Autobahn To Hell

I love the British press; even when writing sordid and creepy tabloid garbage they're still such accomplished writers. Here is an example of an article about Max Mosley, a Formula 1 Racing Kingpin, and his love of Nazi-themed sex orgies.

I knew absolutely nothing about Max Mosley or racing prior to reading this, but you really don't have to in order to appreciate the article. It's long but beautifully written and worth the read. It's like you're actually watching the video! Go on. I'll still be here when you get back.

While this is the kind of funny where I really don't have to say anything afterwords, I'll add one little observation before I go:

I've often wondered why people would bother to videotape their creepy sex fetishes. It seems like inevitably the tape is going to get leaked somehow, so why would you keep video evidence of your creepy perviness laying around, particularly if you are a public figure of some sort? Is it a cry for help? Are they hoping to get caught?

But, after reading the intricacies of this particular pervy outing and all of the production aspects involved in pulling off an authentic Nazi death camp orgy, I think I understand now. After all of that work to get the proper costuming, to teach five prostitutes German accents, to find an acceptable dungeon-like facility, wouldn't you want record of that? I mean, pulling that off is a true accomplishment of poor taste.

So thank you, Max Mosely. Your dedication to offensive Nazi-period perversion has made my day. You silly little sick fucker.

The Cost of Saffron

I will confess something to you right now; I am not a big Whole Foods fan. I understand the appeal and everything, don't get me wrong, but I only go there if I need something I absolutely can't get at a normal grocery store.

Every once in a while, I get tired of eating boxed foods or carryout meals and decide that I'm going to actually get off my ass and cook something. I then run over to my cook books, which collect dust on the shelf underneath my microwave, flip through the different recipes and pick something that (A) has an appetizing looking picture and (B) looks reasonably easy to make. I will then normally get distracted by something and end up ordering a delicious deep dish pizza.

Two nights ago I was bitten with this bug to actually cook real food myself. I ran over to my cook books, I picked out something with an appetizing picture that looked easy to make, I jotted down the ingredients and, resisting the urge to give up and order a delicious deep dish pizza. I headed off towards my local Jewel (one of the big chain grocery stores in Chicago).

I should have known while looking over the ingredients that this would require a trip to the Whole Foods store. I should have known Jewel wouldn't cut it because the recipe called from a spice other than dried parsley. I needed saffron.

Saffron, for those of you who don't know, is probably the most expensive food known to man. This is because saffron is the dried stigmas of the saffron flower. There are only three per flower, which makes it a pain in the ass to harvest. This information appears in the cookbook. I was fully aware of the rarity of the ingredient before I decided to cook this particular dish. I don't know why I thought I could find it at Jewel, but I tried anyway. No such luck. Every time I asked an employee, they thought I was looking for Spanish rice.

So, I bought everything else for the meal at reasonable human prices from the Jewel, dropped everything off at home, and then headed off on my pilgrimage to Foodie Mecca.

A couple of things I don't like about my local Whole Foods grocery store:

(1) It's expensive, presumably under the guise of being higher quality food than you can get elsewhere. I'm not completely convinced that this perceived higher value isn't just a function of different packaging than other grocery stores but I'll give them this much; they carry saffron.

(2) They are a claustrophobic's nightmare, at least any one that I've been to in the city. The aisles are tiny, packed with groceries and crowded with foodies and hippies. I have no problem with tight spaces, but even I start to feel like the aisles are closing in on me.

(3) Some of the workers kind of get on my nerves.

After wading through a sea of people buying exotic lentils and checking the freshness of vegetables I have never heard of before, I finally managed to find the saffron (it's like $8 for two teaspoons... remind me to order a pizza next time). I then fought my way past the cheeses, crawled through the prepared food section (underneath the salad bar, which is the only reasonable way to get through there during the post-work crowds) and finally battled my way to the checkout. I thought wistfully of the self-checkout lanes at Jewel, and of the impending feeling of relief once I finally make it home.

And I might have made it home sooner had the bag guy just let me go my merry way. Instead, he wanted to talk to me about my food purchase.

"Did you know that saffron is quite possibly the most expensive food in the known world?" he asked.

I was thrown off for a moment because I'm just not used to a bag guy saying anything more than hello and goodbye. They're normally not a very talkative bunch. Aparently, Whole Foods bag guys are not in the norm.

"Yes," I said, hoping that this would suffice. At that point, I was focused on paying and getting out.

"Do you know why, though?" he asked, obviously hell bent on striking up a friendly rapport with his customer.

"Because it says so on the packaging," I said.

"No," he said, almost hurt that I could make such a flippant remark about his beloved saffron. "It's because they're the little things from the middle of flowers - what do you call them - and there's only two or three for each flower so it's really hard harvesting them and that's why it's so expensive."

"Yes," I said, then turned to the cashier, "How much do I owe...."

"You know what else is an expensive food?"

"What's that?" asked the cashier.

"Truffles. You know where truffles come from?"

At that moment, I had a revelation. Some people apparently must like to talk about their food choices. Maybe they're at home and they're thinking, "God, I really want to talk Danish cheeses with someone," so they hop in their car and run to the nearest Whole Foods to debate the individual merits of different brands of Havarti. However, I am not that person. I am the person who was literally just a speed-dial away from a delicious deep dish pizza. In fact, I probably have absolutely no business even buying saffron. At that moment in time, all I wanted was to take my saffron and go home.

So I handed the cashier some money in the hopes that she would just cash me out and watched in horror as she, clutching the bills in hand, turned to the bag boy and started talking truffles.

Et Tu, Billy?

Hello my precious lovelies,

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything yet this week. Two reasons for that: first, I'm a lazy asshole. Second; I'm a lazy asshole.

Joe Janes already beat me to this today on his blog, but I wanted to share with you anyway. This is show and tell gone horribly horribly wrong. Apparently, a gang of miscreant third graders in Georgia were plotting to assassinate their teacher.

Kids just do the darnedest things, don't they?

Of course, the initial impulse is to bemoan the state of America's youth. "What's wrong with society that nine little kids think it's okay to attack their teacher? I mean, what kind of world do we live in? I'll tell you right now, it's that damned television box-machine or vidiot games that're turning their little brains to mush. Oh God, where were the parents?!"

I prefer to think of it differently.

I mean, imagine the amount of energy and effort it takes to coordinate something like that. They had to figure out what kind of weapons and restraining devices (toy handcuffs) they had at their disposals, find a method of acquiring them without tipping off their parents, work the logistics of pooling their resources and then coordinating the strike. These are third graders we're talking about. From Georgia no less. Georgia!

They're not little criminals in the making. That's selling short the youth of America. These are little evil geniuses, each one probably destined to grow up and become Bond villains, arch-nemeses to superheros or lawyers.

Or maybe they're just advanced readers. Maybe they've read Lord of the Flies or Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and decided that, in order to truly wrap their little third grade minds around the books, they needed to act them out. Maybe we're looking at nine little kids with an intense, if somewhat psychotic, interest in learning.

Either way, I say it's a sign of burgeoning ingenuity and creativity (albeit evil ingenuity and evil creativity) in our youth. Hurrah for you, society.

That being said, we should probably start arming teachers.