Category Archives: Humor

Scott’s funny bits

Surfer Doctor: The Complete First Season

An entertaining, boozy afternoon conversation at St. Pete’s excellent new Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe turned into a couple of well-received Facebook posts, which turned into this here non-viral internet non-phenomenon. Enjoy.

S01E01: “Wave, Goodbye”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor falls in love with the patient dying of the undiagnosable disease and saves her but the near-death experience makes her want to get back with her ex-husband and so Surfer Doctor runs his fingers through his long salt-and-pepper hair and goes surfing, pensive and alone

S01E02: “Blowhole In One”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: When a hurricane cuts the power at Bayside Memorial Surfer Doctor treats the patients using techniques he learned studying shamanism deep in the Ecuadorian rain forest and just when the hospital administration is going to fire him for being a fraud Surfer Doctor saves a dolphin that a rogue wave sweeps into the emergency room by talking it back into the ocean

S01E03: “Brother, Can You Spare A Pancreas”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor flies with a dying boy to Hawaii to harvest his organs and helps the boy make peace with his impending journey from one harmonic energy state to the next but the plane crashes into the side of an active volcano so Surfer Doctor makes a boat from the fuselage and rides the lava flow to the hospital where he uses the boy’s organs to save a cancer patient’s life and teaches her the ancient Mesopotamian dance of acceptance and gratitude and also gets her to quit smoking

S01E04: “The Traveling Scalesman”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor’s estranged snake handling devout Pentecostal preacher brings his tent revival to town and Surfer Doctor’s coworkers convince Surfer Doctor to reconnect with the only person in the universe with whom he is not in perfect vibrational synchronicity so Surfer Doctor goes to see Snake Preacher but the stress of their interaction causes a rattlesnake to bite Snake Preacher and Surfer Doctor must save him by sucking out the venom and whipping up an antivenin using the poison and some indigenous subtropical plants and herbs but Snake Preacher blames the bite on Surfer Doctor’s sinful pagan ways and satanic communion with the lower beasts and leaves town angry so Surfer Doctor does some paddle board yoga at sunset and meditates on it while weaving peace flowers into his noble gray cornrows of remorse

S01E05: “The Thin Man Who Was Also Surfer Doctor”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: A group of criminals takes the free clinic hostage so they can tunnel through the basement to the sewer to rob the jewelry store down the street and Surfer Doctor tells him he’ll do the heist for them if they promise not to hurt anyone and he pulls it off but the detective recognizes Surfer Doctor’s flawless heist style from an unsolved crime from decades earlier but when he finds out Surfer Doctor used that money to build a water purification plant in Malawi he tells Surfer Doctor that he won’t bust Surfer Doctor if Surfer Doctor identifies the criminals and they become fast friends but one of the criminals shoots the detective during the arrest so Surfer Doctor adopts the detective’s rebellious teenage daughter and begins teaching her to tame her restless spirit through the power of guess what

S01E06: “Owl Be There For You”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor’s lesbian coworker asks him to pose as her boyfriend for dinner with her conservative parents and he agrees but when he arrives Surfer Doctor knows he can’t question the choices of the universe and takes her aside and talks her into coming out so she does and her father leaves the restaurant in anger and is attacked in the parking lot by a great horned owl that slices his carotid artery but Surfer Doctor saves him with a transfusion of his daughter’s blood and her sacrifice chases away the shadows of her father’s intolerance with the illumination of understanding and when he gets out of the hospital Surfer Doctor makes them all a delicious raw uni salad on the beach

S01E07: “The One That’s An Allegory About Anti-Vaxxers Being Morons”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: A father refuses to let Surfer Doctor administer a very simple and traditional life-saving treatment to his son on the grounds that their obscure religion headquartered in an old strip mall believes a cosmic octopus made of weather who lives in the clouds decides when it’s every human’s time to leave this plane so Surfer Doctor deprograms them with a guided ayahuasca trip during which the boy’s deceased mother visits to renew the father’s sense of paternal responsibility by asking if he became a spineless gullible weirdo after she died or if it was always just sort of percolating in there somewhere

S01E08: “Pork And Beings”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: When a butcher is brought into the Bayside Memorial ER after being beaten up by a militant vegan hardcore band Surfer Doctor patches him up and brings a live pig into the butcher’s room and tells him he has to live with the pig until he’s better and the butcher begins talking to the pig and ends up apologizing to his new best friend the pig for not understanding the innate and inviolate majesty of all sentient creatures so when he’s being discharged three days later after Surfer Doctor has left early to catch the big moon tide the butcher asks the resident discharging him if he can take the pig home with him and the resident says what pig and miles away astride his board waiting for the perfect swell Surfer Doctor smiles and makes the Sumerian hand gesture of thanks to the big moon for all that is blessed and right

S01E09: “Diamond In The Rough (Day)”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor becomes the butt of jokes throughout the hospital when a co-worker reads a confirmation for the purchase of Neil Diamond tickets on Surfer Doctor’s phone and Surfer Doctor admits to a lifelong obsession with the singer-songwriter’s catalog but Surfer Doctor’s plans to see him are derailed when a patient who overhears a terminal diagnosis and mistakenly thinks it’s hers climbs out on the seventh-floor ledge so Surfer Doctor spends the evening trying to talk her down and it seems he’ll be unsuccessful when Neil Diamond himself shows up to lend a hand thanks to a fraternity connection with a proctologist and Neil Diamond and Surfer Doctor convince the patient she isn’t going to die horribly and the three of them go whale watching

S01E10: “Coal’ed Shoulder”

Tonight on Surfer Doctor: Surfer Doctor treats a man with a life-threatening condition and the man’s insurance refuses to cover the procedure so the man gives Surfer Doctor an enigmatic map that shows the location of an ancient fortune and the man’s wife teams up with Surfer Doctor to solve the riddles and they end up deep in a coal mine in darkest West Virginia and unemployed miners come out of the woodwork with pickaxes and the wife thinks it’s the end but the miners are like oh hey Surfer Doctor thanks for helping get our busted town on solar electricity but that emerald’s in a museum now so the miners do a kickstarter to pay the guy’s medical bills

S01E11: “A Man Without A Past Who Might Also Be More Than A Man Maybe We’ll See”

Tonight on the season finale of Surfer Doctor: While trying to put together a biographical slideshow to honor Surfer Doctor at an upcoming fundraiser for a local children’s charity a member of Surfer Doctor’s staff can find no evidence that the Costa Rican medical school where Surfer Doctor’s paperwork says he earned his degree ever existed and this leads to even more holes in Surfer Doctor’s history like the fact that he doesn’t have a birth certificate so a group of his biggest supporters at Bayside Memorial embarks on a journey to Central America to find out who Surfer Doctor really is as Surfer Doctor has his privileges at the hospital suspended so he leaves to help poverty-stricken kids in third world countries and also go on a global surf tour and on his way out of the building he heals a woman in the ER with a broken leg just by looking at her and conjuring the fire-spirit of the jaguar

Cross roads: An interview with comedian David Cross

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Diehard comedy fans and mainstream entertainment consumers alike have seen plenty of David Cross in recent years.

In IFC’s out-there comedy The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. Reunited with collaborators from cult-fave HBO sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David for Netflix’s spiritually kindred new W/Bob and David. In small roles in big shows like Modern FamilyLaw & Order: Criminal Intent and Community. In the Alvin & The Chipmunks movies.

And, of course, as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development.

One place we haven’t seen Cross in a while, however, is on tour, delivering the alternately absurd and cuttingly provocative stand-up that made him one of the late ’90s/early aughts alternative comedy scene’s most visible and polarizing figures. Those familiar with the more politically charged bits from timely, visceral live albums like Shut Up You Fucking Baby! and It’s Not Funnymight’ve been tempted to think there wasn’t enough wrong with Obama’s Generation of Hope to inspire the ire of a comic who once suggested George W. Bush might go down in history as America’s worst president ever. But the truth is much simpler — Cross has had his plate full handling the jobs mentioned above, and many more besides.

“I have not heard that perception, but if that is the perception that’s false,” said Cross during a phone conversation with CL. “First of all, I’m not a political comic, I never was … but I also have been doing stand-up, and plenty of it, during the Obama administration, I just haven’t gone on tour, because I’ve been busy, you know?

“I didn’t stop doing stand-up once a black Democrat got into office. That’s crazy.”

Read the rest at Creative Loafing

In which I review Joe Dante’s Burying The Ex

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Yeah, more movie reviews than average just now. I really enjoy doing them when I have the time.

If you don’t know who Joe Dante is, he’s a director who cut his teeth working for cult-iconic ’50s & ’60s B-movie director and producer Roger Corman before becoming a horror hero himself by making flicks like Piranha and The Howling. Dante went on to do great, successful Big Hollywood flicks (Gremlins, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and many more). Now he’s returned to his roots with a cheaper horror-comedy that retains his penchant for fun and cute romance amid the chaos. It’s definitely a better-than-average flick, especially if you’re a horror-flick omnivore who likes Return of the Living Dead as much as you like old Hammer films and Shaun of the Dead.

The review is here.

From the Secret Santa Files: Milkshake Instructions

This was part of the Secret Santa gift I gave one of my co-workers, David. David has a problem with milkshakes.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR HANDLING YOUR MILKSHAKE

(Drive-Thru Specific)

 

1   When you receive your milkshake through the drive-thru window, do not immediately crush the cup in your overwhelming excitement. Show a little restraint, for Christ’s sake. It’s not the Holy Grail freshly topped off with water from the Fountain of Youth. It’s a fucking milkshake.

2   Resist the urge to chew through the lid of your milkshake. People can see you. Place your milkshake in your vehicle’s cup holder or, if your vehicle lacks an appropriate cup holder, between your legs, tightly against your crotch. Tighter. Yes, that’s right.

3   Retrieve your straw from your bag of food or, if you only ordered a milkshake, from the hand the drive-thru guy has been holding out through the window for 30 seconds while you were fantasizing about pouring your milkshake all over your face, possibly in slow motion while Van Halen plays.

4   Remove the paper covering from your straw. (Derf.)

5   Gently press the straw down on the designated area of your milkshake’s lid until the straw passes through the lid. Do not attempt to stab the lid of your milkshake. The lid of your milkshake is not a symbol of every mistake you’ve ever made, it’s just the lid of your milkshake. Be gentle. Save that shit for the firing range.

6   If you must drink some of your milkshake before you reach your destination, remember to keep your eyes on the road, and to be gentle. Think of yourself as a 14-year-old, and of your milkshake as a young (but appropriately aged) girl’s breast–you’re trying to achieve your goal without looking directly at it or, God forbid, squeezing too hard.

7   When you reach your destination, do not immediately snatch your milkshake from its position. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Dude, remember, it’s a milkshake. I know you’re excited, but A MILKSHAKE IS HEAVIER THAN, LIKE, A SODA. Overcompensating for mass is the Number One cause of you smashing your cup and spilling milkshake all over your car and shit. DON’T DO THAT, BRO. Be stronger than your desires. Lift your milkshake from its resting place in a gentle lifting motion, and go on about your leaving-the-car routine–it’s cool, everybody has one.

8   ENJOY!

 

 

This is a Public Apology to Seth MacFarlane

Hey, Seth MacFarlane.

Listen, I’ll get right to it:

I have said some really, really, REALLY derogatory stuff about Family Guy over the years.

Like, really derogatory. Foul, even. So foul that my wife, who thinks Family Guy is about as funny as screening Schindler’s List against the side of a burning pediatrics ward full of abandoned AIDS babies, has given me shit about talking so much shit about a show that seems to play in our house almost constantly.

(I have tried to explain to her that I need a familiar “sonic blanket” of bland white noise to envelop me while I work, and that having Family Guy on is like having the worst, most predictable moments from every sitcom I watched as a kid during the ’80s playing at once, but maybe I’m telling it wrong.)

I am not sorry for saying such terrible things about Family Guy, and so I will not apologize for that. I do want to apologize, though, for the possibility that someone might have heard me talking shit about Family Guy, and inferred that you, Seth MacFarlane, the individual, are not funny by association.

Because I just got around to seeing the season premiere of SNL and you–Seth MacFarlane, a guy directly responsible for an awful show so infrequently funny, its rare laugh-inspiring moments are unworthy of the pain that went into their production, like blood diamonds of comedy–FREAKING KILLED IT. Like, Justin Timberlake killed it. Like, Family Guy-offsetting killed it.

So, yeah, if my incessant, almost pathological tirades against Family Guy‘s existence might have given even a single person the idea that you, yourself, Seth MacFarlane, are not funny, I apologize.

I just wanted to tell you that.

Also, American Dad is awesome.