Celebrity Birthday of the Day

So my original plan was to break this thing up. After all, more happens everyday than just the birthdays of obscurely famous people. For instance, it's Canary Islands Day in, you guessed it, the Canary Islands. It's also the 155th anniversary of the Kansas/Nebraska Act, the passing of which helped usher in that most hilarious of all American chapters, the Civil War. 

But no. We won't have any of that today. And in fact, I'm even going to repeat myself a bit. Why? Because today is the birthday of another voice actor, the best and most famous of them all, the "man of a thousand voices." 

Mel Blanc. 

As a huge fan of Looney Tunes, I am, of course, a huge fan of Blanc's. Here he is on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, doing a few of his famous voices. 

It's particularly odd watching him do the goldfish, given that with those huge googly eyes and perfectly round head, he almost looks like a goldfish. Anyhow, the man did more than 400 voices in more than 5,000 cartoons. And by the looks of it, some medical student appears to have been interested enough in how he did it to peer down the man's throat with a camera. The result: 

Creepy. Anyhow, no snarky remarks. I love Mel Blanc. What a joy it must have been to have so pure and clear a purpose and life. 

My friend Eric

This is my friend Eric. 

Eric and I used to be roommates. It was a fun time. But then he came to me one day and said, "Joe, you're a great guy. Possibly the best person I've ever met. But I'm afraid I have to move out." 

"Eric, that makes me sad. Why are you leaving?" 

"Joe," he said. "It's... I want to get married." 

"But Eric, people get married in Illinois all the time." 

"No, Joe,  you don't understand. It's Steve and I. We want to get married. We've wanted to get married for a long time. I mean, God knows we've been, you know, doing it for long enough." 

"Yeah." 

"You know, in the butt," he laughed. 

"Right. Well, that's where you do it, if you're gay." 

"Right you are! And now we're... well, we're going to get hitched, goshdarnit! We're going to be together forever!"   

This is Eric and Steve together, just so you see what I mean. 

Personally, I think they're going to be a great couple. Eric, well, he's a great guy. And Steve, well... Steve makes a good bottom. I'm pretty confident they're going to be doing it, in the butt, for years and years to come. 

I wish them well. 

Celebrity Birthday of the Day

Happy Birthday, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard!

Your name is awesome, and incredibly French sounding! Also, you fought for the South! In the Civil War! Those hicks must have thought you were quite a twee little bastard. 

But don't let that get you down. You have a pretty cool mustache. And also this guy, who has a creepy and irrational love for you: 

Fun Fact: If you turned that off part-way through, I wouldn't blame you. 

Celebrity Birthday of the Day

Happy Birthday, Joe Alaskey!

Adventures in Counting

In what is surely the most depressing thing to happen to me within the last half hour -- I have spent the last half hour trying to figure out how to get a counter placed on this blog. 

Now, I know what you're thinking: nobody comes to this blog. No one. Not a soul. As such, the number zero (0) should be easy to count. 

And indeed it is, snarky person. But still, I wanted to get some idea of the depth of the zero-ness. 

And what did I find? 

Well, getting a counter on your site is harder than it looks. It turns out it's, you know, a program of some kind. Which needs to be loaded onto a server (doesn't this thing know I'm a dude sitting on his bed with a laptop?). Anyway, the only way to do it was to use a third party's program loaded onto their server, which I then link to. So reluctantly, I did it, though I'm not exactly sure why I was reluctant. Having a site link to you is just the kind of free, spontaneous advertising that really makes people! 

My favorite part of this? The notation that the counter contained advertising I am Expressly Forbidden to remove! Hahaha. 

Weren't you listening, third party counter? Nobody comes to this blog! You will not make money from me, capitalist swine! 

Ahem. 

So there it is, at the bottom of this page. I look forward to it not progressing. 

A rare serious note

Adios, Jay Bennett. 

Celebrity Birthday of the Day

Happy Birthday, Jim Mora! You are 73. That is quite old! 

Fun Fact: The Colts actually made the playoffs that year.

Okay. Not really. 

Fun Fact 2: Mora has never won a playoff game as a head coach unless the team was made of plastic and competing in his bathtub. 

Okay

So technically, I'm still in Chicago. And, well, this blog needs a lot of work, seeing as how it sucks. But I'm trying not to let that get me down. After all, a crappily formatted, totally narcissistic blog is a rite of passage in this day and age. To not have one, they say, is to be Hitler. Or if not Hitler, than someone almost as bad, like Gandhi. According to reliable sources, Jackie Onassis also didn't have a blog. Less reliable sources also claim she killed her pets. 

So at some point I suppose I'll make a more complete statement of what this blog is supposed to be about. At this point, frankly, it's an embarassing piece of shit. In fact, if you're reading this right now, go fuck yourself. 

Ahem. Sorry about that.

So, what's this bastard going to be about? 

I'm glad you asked!  

Put simply, the idea here will be to obsessively and humorously chronicle my journey to Hollywood to become the finest male stripper in all the land. 

But seriously folks. What's going on is: I'm moving there to become a screenwriter. Or, failing that, the world's most literate toilet attendant. This blog will be a record of my triumphs, failures and weird happenings. It'll be crazy, it'll be depressing. It will be hot, humid and stupid. It will be, inevitably, a Hollywood Humilation.