Underpants On The Outside

I believe it’s a common experience that when people hear themselves on an answering machine/voicemail they think, “Oh my God do I really sound like that?” Well, as I watch these videos of me at the Comic-Con, I can’t help but think, “Oh my God do I really sound like that… AND look like that???” [update: make sure you click to watch all three videos - the video that initially loads is something different.]

At first I was wondering why the camera guy kept filming me from slightly below waist level, because, as you can see, it kinda makes me look fat. (Then again, so do my eating habits.) But I also realized that shooting me from above would show off my bald spot, so it’s kinda damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I also want to take a second to add in some highlights that didn’t make the videos. In the musical intro, there’s a shot of me holding a sword, as some guy walks past and pats me on the head. First of all, I killed him in a duel minutes later; no one condescends to me. But second of all, that was a booth selling genuine samurai swords at a comic book convention. Like, real swords. With edges. This is a place where a lot of kids think they could totally be Batman, at a booth a hundred feet where they could play Quake 3 until their adrenaline is sky-high from fake killing people, and five feet from where they could play fight with light sabers. (I do this as well.) This seemed like a poor idea to me. I mean, I’m 29 and I was half-tempted to buy one and serve some justice and/or try and cut hot women’s clothes off. When I asked them what sort of measures they took to ensure people’s safety, they assured me that all of their swords were wrapped in cardboard boxes. With tape. In other words, we’re safe as long as those 18-year olds don’t have their house keys on them.

There was a booth belonging to a consumer advocacy group that defended violence in video games and other entertainment, saying it did not necessarily make kids more violent in reality. Their booth was located in direct sight of the Quake 3 trailer, directly next to the light saber seller, and right across from the guy selling swords. They didn’t feel like commenting on the irony.

Neal Adams, who appears in the intro, is a pretty famous comic book creator. I wasn’t expecting to get interviews with anybody, but in our random wanderings we started talking with his wife, who naturally controls his schedule (just as my fiancée controls mine) and told us to come back in about 45 minutes. While he was a really nice guy and talked to us for a lot longer of a time than we expected (until his wife told him to stop, naturally) the material he covered wasn’t really what Crave was looking for. But I got him to talk shit about Stan Lee*, and I can’t believe they took it out. Oh yeah – it happened.

The editors showed the really cute blonde who kept trying to get on camera. What they didn’t show was how blatantly she was hitting on me right before that. In fact, just about all of those fine fine women you see doing the promotional work (the belly dancers, the Bodog girls in vests, the two girls playing video games) were flirting with me. Needless to say, that’s never happened before, and I’m fatter and balder than ever. I wish that ten years ago someone would have told me that all I’d need to get hot women interested in me was a camera and a mic cube…Dad.

There was a booth where original transformers were on sale next to a copy of the Playboy featuring some chick from Battlestar Galactica. Someone call Disneyland and tell them they’re now the second happiest place on Earth.

I could probably go on for pages, but I’ll stop here. Needless to say, I had a blast, and I owe a gigantic thanks to the guys at Crave Online for the opportunity (you guys know where to send the check, right?)

*When I asked him what the problem was with good ol’ Stan the Man, Neal said that Stan was really bad at remembering names. When I said “talking shit”, I was using the term a bit loosely.

Okay, so I thought the footage from the Comic-Con would be up right now, but apparently the guys at Crave Online are still burning the midnight oil getting it ready. Surprise, surprise – I require a lot of editing. It sounds like it should be up tomorrow (along with another Superhero Diary!)  Unfortunately, by that time I will already be in the air.  I’m going to Mexico for the wedding of a good friend of mine, and between the sun, tequila and tacos filled with unidentifiable meats, I’m afraid I will be unable to post my incredibly hilarious Comic-Con recap until I return on Monday.  Hopefully somebody will be in a lot of suspense.

In the meantime, make sure to go to Crave sometime after Wednesday and see what they have up there, and I’ll be back soon, having been reminded of the ever-present nightmare of wedding planning.

I didn’t post last week, for which I should be flogged with something soft and not too painful. But where I’m not too reliable for regular or comedic material, I am incredibly dependable when it comes to excuses, so here goes.

First, I’m getting married. That excuses everything, starting with the blank open-mouthed stare I wear 24-7. Nothing can make a man want to be married more than the process of planning a wedding.

Second, I spent most of last week in the throes of my most deep-seeded social anxieties. The fanTAStic people at Crave Online asked me to cover the New York Comic-Con (Comic Convention) for them, and they wanted it done… on camera. [Ed note: Despite the title of this post, the Underpants will not be on TV at all, but "Underpants on the Streaming Video" did not have the same ring to it.]

The last time I did a filmed performance, I played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (Yes, yes, I was a bottom. Have your laughs, you philistines.) And while I nailed the role – seriously; I killed – this was in sixth grade. There was a good chance I’d be a bit rusty.

My assignment was to provide coverage of any news coming out of the convention and conduct “Man-On-The-Street” interviews with the freaks and weirdos along with any creators who would talk to me for five minutes. To increase my legitimacy, my cameraman would bring a microphone with one of those cubes that identifies what station you’re from. Later I would learn these are called “mic cubes.” Go figure.

I was nervous because, modesty aside, I know I am funny from time to time, but as a writer, it doesn’t matter if it takes me a half hour to find the joke, and I have as much time as I need to edit all the instances of, “Uh, y’know… like… fuck…” that make up most of my small talk. That’s not the case if I’m on camera. Plus I’m bald and not all that good looking. Double Whammy.

But I wasn’t about to let this opportunity go by. I attempted to prepare, but the best idea for a question I had was, “How do you decide which onomatopoeia you’re going to use? Are you ever sitting around thinking, ‘Oh, this is totally time for a Kawhang!’?”  I don’t know why I was worrying with material as golden as that. [Ed note: Late into the convention, I was interviewing random fans when one of the cameramen suggested I ask "If you could be any superhero, who would you be?" First I thought he was asking me, so I said, "Easy. Batman," but when he explained it again, I realized how perfect of a question it was, and how dumb I had to be not to have thought of it.]

The day of the convention (Friday) I woke up and spent a few hours preparing my body and spirit. First, I drank a lot of caffeine so I’d be talkative. Then I took some Immodium, because caffeine gives me the runs. Then I coated my nuts with Cortaid because caffeine also makes me sweaty and I didn’t want to get chafed. I smelled like ointment and coffee, but I was heading into an environment where I figured that would be the norm.

No matter how much I may consider myself to be a comic book geek, on the relative scale of geekdom I actually think I rate pretty low. I play Magic, but only a couple times a year. I read comics, but I don’t maintain an encyclopedic knowledge of what’s going on in them. I was on my way to the convention and I realized I already had an attitude of snobbish superiority and condescension. I did not think that would work out well for me. Luckily I was listening to my Ipod; at that precise moment a Belle & Sebastian song was immediately followed by They Might Be Giants. I walked into the convention center feeling cooler than absolutely no one.

I’ll end my intro there. As of this post they haven’t put the footage up yet, but as soon as they do I’ll be back with more recap.

 Wednesday night, Wonder Woman and I went to a wine tasting hosted by her alumni society.  I was pretty excited to go, because I’ve never been to an event like that before.  I went to school with 20,000 other people; needless to say, we don’t exactly get the gang back together very often.  I didn’t even go to my high school reunion, because I didn’t know when it was happening and none of my friends thought to let me know they were going.  (They did report back, however, to let me know that – and I quote – “only Asian chicks age well.” Thanks, fellas.) 

There were probably 25 people at the wine tasting.  They all had on name tags with their names followed by the year they graduated, except for me; I just had a blank space next to my name.  I arrived before Wonder Woman, and as I was standing about, trying to assume the stance of someone who attended a small east coast liberal arts school (feet at ninety degree angle to suggest fencing training; brow furrowed to suggest contemplation, reinforced by goatee rubbing) one guy came up to me and asked me if I was still in school.  To which I replied, “Nope!  Just here for the drankin’!”  (I really suck at small talk.)

Here is my impression of an alumni society gathering: no one knows each other, so people spend a lot of time talking about buildings.  That’s kinda it.  But that’s also how I heard that Wonder Woman’s professors would regularly invite students over to their houses for dinners, which I find fascinating, because I would not have been able to recognize my professors from less than three hundred feet away.  I bet that instead of A’s and B’s Wonder Woman’s grade was equal to the number of marshmallows her professor put in her cocoa. 

While I was excited to go to my first reunion, I was just as excited, if not more so, for the wine tasting.  No, not because I like drinking (though I do…immensely…) but because I don’t know dick about wine, and I appreciate any opportunity I have to learn how to be more condescending. I have good company: from what I gathered, the entire wine industry is based on people trying to sound smarter than everybody else.

The sommelier had laid out five different wines.  The first was a “sparkling,” which is what pretentious people call champagne that wasn’t made in Champagne.  Personally, I call it “Horny Fiancee Juice.” The second was a white wine. All I know about white wines is that when my friend John Law (who introduced me to the concept of a “sparkling”) drinks them, I get to make jokes about him being gay. The third was a rose’, which make white wines look like Ray Lewis, and the last two were reds of some sort. 

I asked the sommelier what the reasoning was behind the progression.  He looked confused.  I asked him what spectrum the wines covered.  More confusion.  I asked him what we were drinking these wines with each other, and he said, “Oh, I just thought they’d go well together.”  I mean, c’mon – TRY a little.  The least he could do is give me some long-winded explanation that involved the words “dry,” “full-bodied” and “tannins.”  I mean, shit, there had to have been an “oaky nose” or “hints of raspberry” somewhere, right?

Nope.  He told me that all of that was just meaningless fluff put out by wine makers; pure marketing.  Then he asked me what I did for a living; I told him I was in marketing.  He suddenly noticed two people with empty glasses at the other end of the table. (I really, really suck at small talk.)

It reminded me of the only other wine tasting I’ve to.  I wasn’t even twenty-one at the time, and my friend Big Game James was seeing (read: occasionally hotrailing) a hostess at a restaurant.  She and one of the waitresses had been invited to a tasting held by six or seven vineyards, and they invited Big Game, who in turn invited me. Then, at the first table, the girls thought it would be funny to introduce me as the owner of their place.  Here I am, twenty years old, in sneakers, and I’ve got a bunch of people giving me wine and kissing my ass.  I played the part, too: if I liked a wine, I’d ask the proprietor how much it would cost for a dozen cases, because I thought it would go great with the new lamb dish we were rolling out. 

By the last couple of tables I was hammered.  Each vineyard brought several wines with them; I am nothing if not thorough, and over the course of the afternoon my character had…evolved a bit.  I’d started out as a young, successful businessman, but by table four I was a significantly wealthy eccentric, a member of the nouveau riche with Silicon Valley millions.  My restaurant was merely one of my many expensive hobbies, and with my wealth I no longer felt the need to be constrained by societal norms.  To be clear: I wasn’t being an obnoxious dickhead because I was drunk; I was doing it because I’m a very good actor. 

That’s when one vintner told me that I had probably noticed his wine’s “chocolate aftertaste.”  Uh oh.  I looked at him and said, “Y’know, I gotta tell ya [one of the societal constraints my character rejected was proper English] I don’t know shit about wine.  I just know what I like, and my customers seem to like it too. [I was really on a roll.] Now a bunch a’ you [I gestured grandly, probably spilling wine] have mentioned some ‘chocolate aftertaste.’ But I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.  There’s nothin’ about this wine that tastes like chocolate.” 

The winemaker replied, “Do you notice that film that you get in your mouth after you eat chocolate?” I told him I did.  I did not mention that I find it disgusting. “Well, the wine leaves a similar film.”  I pointed out that it was quite a stretch to relate the flavor of chocolate to the nasty, sticky saliva feel it leaves in your mouth.  I did this by saying, “Really?  Wow.  That’s some bullshit right there.”  Big Game and the ladies suggested it was time to leave.  Good times, good times. 

Something tells me I’m not going to be invited to many more wine tastings…

Awesome.  Now I’m just slightly below average! 

Also, I didn’t post these earlier to avoid innundating you all with my geekiness, but there are two new Superhero Diaries up, here and here.  If I may follow Wednesday’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels quote with one of my favorite John Candy lines, I’m rolling like a hunchback doing somersaults!

[Update: Over the weekend, Cracked also published this article of mine about sexy robots.  Enjoy!]

This weekend, Wonder Woman and I went to Crate and Barrel to register for gifts for our wedding. [Editor's note: it occurs to me that mentioning our wedding registry may seem tacky: a blatant ploy to extort presents. Clearly, that's not true - if I was trying to get presents I'd point out that my birthday is Saturday. The long gaps between my posts aren't because I don't WANT to post; I just never know what to post about. In that way my virtual Underpants mimics my actual underpants - a lot of desire is in there, but it has nowhere to go. I digress, but my point is that sooner or later I just have to write about whatever's going on with me. And there's not a lot going on with me, so... registering is what I'm posting about.] I’m going to try and sum up the experience as succinctly as possible:

• Step 1 – Wonder Woman informs me that we need a new [fill in the blank]
• Step 2 – I point out that either:
  • 2a: nothing is wrong with our current [fill in the blank]
  • 2b: I don’t know what a [fill in the blank] is, then I come up with a sexually explicit use for it. For instance, Crate and Barrel offers a terrific line of butt plugs that, in a pinch, can be used to keep your wine from spoiling.
• Step 3 – I suggest that we ask our friends to buy us a Wii.
• Step 4 – I whine that I’m bored.
• Step 5 – Wonder Woman decides which [fill in the blank] we’ll be registering for.
• Step 6 – I inform her that her choice was the wrong one.

Rinse and repeat for several hours until someone needs a snack.

Yeah – we disagreed on a lot of things. And as I have for the past six months, during each disagreement I imagined myself ten years down the road, pointing out to my divorce lawyer that I should have seen this coming the moment she didn’t see how it would be totally awesome if we got the electric mixer in purple. So I can admit that I probably made things into much bigger deals than they needed to be. But I know I’m right about the forks.

I know she’s going to be my wife and I should try and find a nicer way of putting this but I just can’t – Wonder Woman picked the stupidest set of silverware in the joint. (There were actually two stupider sets, but one was gold and the other was black. Of the silver silverware, Wonder Woman’s was the silliest.)

First of all, the pieces are all very long. Like the length of my forearm. Conversely, Wonder Woman and I are both very short. From the look of the spoons, a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios will now require a coxswain behind me yelling “Bite! Bite! Bite!” I’m especially looking forward to the day when I stab myself in the face because I’m not used to long distance feeding. I should practice by eating off of pool cues. ["Why is there a cork on his fork?"..."So he doesn't hurt himself." Thank you, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.]

The utensils are also very narrow. The dinner fork looks like a chopstick with a bad case of split ends; any meal involving scooping will be served with a piping hot plate of futility at no extra charge. I’m going to feed Wonder Woman rice and peas until she stabs me in the leg.

Let me stop myself for a moment. It tends to be funnier when I talk about the mishaps, so I want to take a second to acknowledge that planning a wedding is pretty fun, in ways I never would have thought of. Take gift registering: one of the items we registered for is a dish rack. Normally not a big deal, right? But I’d have a hard time describing how excited I am for the new dish rack. I’m actually looking forward to doing dishes.

Or maybe what I’m really looking forward to is starting a family with a wonderful woman (get it? Wonder Woman?) and the dish rack serves as a symbol of that union – something that will belong to both of us equally.* It sure is a lot nicer to think of the dish rack in that way, since the alternative is seeing it as an indication of just how old and lame I am, and that even though I’m only going to be twenty-nine I’ve somehow come to a point in life where I can actually get a semi thinking of a brand new dish rack. Because if that were the case, I’d have to cry. A lot.

So here’s to our dish rack of unity!

*Yeah, right! Last time I checked, I have the penis. That shit is MINE. [Ed note: When I first wrote this, I meant it in the chauvenistic, "I own everything" sort of way; it's the type of humor that I enjoy so much and makes my mother sad. Then I read it again and realized I'm making a claim on a dish rack. Move over, Archie Bunker. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go get quarters so I can do the laundry all night.]