Last year, I was lucky enough to win Best Comedian in the Washington City Paper #BestOfDC Reader’s Poll. Some might try to pump the brakes and let expectations die down to a manageable level, but I am not among that… some. I ask you once again to feed a hungry ego and VOTE FOR JARED STERN as Best Comedian in DC. And while you’re there, VOTE FOR BETWEEN TWO STERNS as Best Local Podcast. Elections have consequences, and this one will make me happy for a fleeting moment. Won’t that be nice?
I guess I’m only allowed to win these things in years ending in 3, but I am once again, according to the readers of the Washington City Paper, the Best Comedian in DC. I’m of two minds on this. Sure, as a benign narcissist, my ego needs constant feeding, but my brand as an entertainer (and in life, if we’re being honest) is to keep audience expectations limbo champion low, which makes me seem funnier. Oh well. Thank you to everyone who voted. Come see a show and watch me try to live up to this.
Hey gang… Sorry for turning February into neglect-you-ary. I’ve been focusing my energies on gainful employment. Also, the last post about Susan Sarandon’s boobs is perhaps the most read installment of the blog to date, so I wanted to let it rack (I swear, no pun intended) up as many nose-prints on the screen as I could. Seriously, the count is up to 91, which is nothing to brag about, I know, but considering the bulk of my posts get a baker’s dozen eyeballs on it, that’s pretty significant. Even if half of the views were from Russian spam-bots, that’s still a ton. Does this mean I turn this into a fashion blog? My self-important blather doesn’t move the needle, but defending the cleavage of Hollywood royalty is just the kind of blather people seem to be clamoring for.
Before I consider a major overhaul, allow me to toot the horn on the Mild Amusement Express one more time. If you look to your immediate right, you’ll see a giant pink button (if you don’t see it, follow the link below). If you click on that button, you can then cast a vote for me, @FunnyJared, as Best Twitter Personality in the Washington City Paper’s Best of DC 2016 Reader’s Poll. I was runner-up in 2015, and I’d really like to add another winner’s widget to my wall to go along with Best Comedian from 2013. If you need some proof of my Twitteracy, here are some recent examples…
What do you think?#HillaryClinton pic.twitter.com/XahbXfJBSE— Jared Stern (@FunnyJared) February 24, 2016
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Who gets to give the dissenting eulogy? #Scalia— Jared Stern (@FunnyJared) February 13, 2016
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John Travolta is rolling over in his auditing chamber right now. #GreaseLive— Jared Stern (@FunnyJared) February 1, 2016
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.@nbcwashington correspondents now appearing live via impressionist painting. #blizzard2016 pic.twitter.com/5Gyje42OV0— Jared Stern (@FunnyJared) January 23, 2016
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Not to sound like Jeb Bush, but please vote. Polls close 3/1 at midnight, at which point I will stop bugging you about it.
Be back soon with Oscar Red Carpet coverage, I guess…
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you were able to hunker down in your fort made of bread and toilet paper and weather the Blizzard of 2016. I think it’s a little early in the year to be handing out titles like that, but it is accurate. It is, so far, the one blizzard of 2016. I’m finally dug out from the wall of crusty brown blech that my car was plowed behind. It’s a good thing too because I have places to be. I got a call out of the blue from my friends at the Arlington Drafthouse and I’ll be featuring for one of my comedy heroes this weekend, Emo Philips. His sing-songy absurdism spoke to me in the formative years of my sense of humor. His voice, harmonized with the monotone of Steven Wright, made beautiful comedy music. I’m really looking forward to sharing a stage with him. And you can experience it live and in person, simply by clicking the link on your right. Speaking of convenient link clickage, please to click on the big pink button and cast a vote for me (@FunnyJared) as DC’s Best Twitter Personality. Validate my ego’s parking.
You may think this blog is just an exercise in self-importance, and you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Good job. Here’s a cookie. However, I am not nearly as self-important as the guy I encountered yesterday, while walking down Connecticut Ave. I had my earbuds in, so I could pretend to be listening to music, while actually listening in on out-of-context snippets of the conversations of passers-by. You should try it sometime…
“I’m just not warming up to Lisa like I thought I would.”
“Have you thought of getting it lanced?”
“We need to motivate the team. Go buy chocolate.”
It’s just a wonderful tableau of the extra ordinary (note the space). So, I’m getting some juicy non-sequiturs, when suddenly, I hear a piano playing behind me. It was on a street corner, so it could’ve been an enterprising busker. I turned to see a guy, maybe in his twenties, with a JBL speaker around his neck, pumping out the stirring classical jams. It wasn’t music that anyone could rightly complain about but it was loud enough to cause people to take notice. He figured a charge of disturbing the peace wouldn’t stick because the disturbance was so darn peaceful. It was simultaneously inspirational and obnoxious, motivational and rude, tasteful tastelessness. This guy was forcefully providing the soundtrack to my stroll. Listen, buddy, I’ve got the chorus of voices in my head for that sort of thing. Take your joyous jangle elsewhere.
And if I am self-important, at least I’m not self-proclaimed. I was talking to a buddy of mine who deals with booking guests on a radio show. He was telling me that one upcoming guest was billed as a “self-proclaimed sexpert”. He said, “She gives blowjob classes.” To which I replied, “Is there a recital?”
Think of the power of self-proclamation, though. Just because she says she is, she’s now a sexpert, whatever that is. She was probably sexhausted of sexplaining herself without sexaggerating, so she made a sexecutive decision to sexceed everyone’s sexpectations. Steve Miller says that some people call him a space cowboy and no one really believes him, but if he was a Self-Proclaimed Space Cowboy, then get this guy some spurs and a space helmet. On my taxes I’m going to list myself as a self-proclaimed religious institution. Let me make one thing clear. Any claims made about me should be made by someone else on an amateur level.
Hunker down, people. Brace yourselves. Batten down the hatches. Gird your loins. Katy, bar the door. May the bread, milk, and toilet paper be with you, because a storm is coming. Not just any storm, mind you. A historic storm. That’s right, it’s going to be histormic (I’ll let myself out). Death awaits ye, one tiny flake at a time. The truly historic storm will be the massive flood of crappy “Winter is Coming” and photoshopped AT-ATs on the highway memes that will sock in social media. Personally, I think all of this hysteria was cooked up by the Sliced Bread Lobby. Best thing, my ass.
The official name for this two day swath of doom dandruff is Winter Storm Jonas, which would be a great name for an albino pro wrestler. The agreed upon hip name for it is Snowzilla. That’s the best the hive mind could come up with? Here are some alternatives:
Eddie Blizzard
White Privilege
Snowlestra
Ice-IS
Cold Slither
Before I go any further, I’d like to call your attention to the giant pink button on your right. You’re going to want to click on that button and cast a vote for me (@FunnyJared) as Best Twitter Personality in the Washington City Paper’s Best of DC 2016 Reader’s Poll. I don’t care if you don’t read it. I don’t care if you live in DC. I want to make Twitter great again. So please to vote for me and validate my narcissism. I came in second last year and I’d like to claw my way to the summit of the mountain of your support. You are the wind beneath my wings.
Also, I wanted to give a shout out to my buddy Chris White over at the DC Improv. He’s a giant history nerd and he’s embarking on an ambitious project to find the funniest POTUS ever, called Headliner of State. I’m the silky voiced announcer for this project, so please listen as we begin our search. New episode every Monday.
Speaking of… speaking, I recently got hired to be a part of another cool project that you can consume. I’m going to voice an audiobook, a suspense thriller called “The Watershed”. I’ve finished recording the first chapter and I’m very excited to read out loud to you. If I can get paid for reading out loud, maybe I can get some cash for chewing with my mouth open. This is a big step for me, not only because it’s professional voice work, but I normally fall asleep when I read. Thank goodness I’m standing up in the recording studio. The big challenge is trying to affect a woman’s voice without sounding like a Monty Python sketch.
See you after the world ends.
Hey gang… Again, I’ve neglected you. Just when I thought I was in a good bloggy rhythm, I went on vacation, got distracted, then just plain got lazy. Before you know it, I’m a week away from going 0 for April. So, in the hopes of getting back on track, here I am for your mild amusement. A quick update before I get started.
Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the Washington City Paper Best of DC 2014 Reader’s Poll. If you look to your right, you’ll see the fancy new widget declaring my runner-uppery. I’m winded from running up. My nipples are chafed. It was a long race. So, the pressure is off this year, since I’m only “one of” the best comedians in DC for 2014. Congrats to my buddy, Jimmy Meritt for taking the top spot. Next year will be the tie breaker.
Onward to my pithy musings…
I saw on Good Morning America that people are getting plastic surgery so they can look better in selfies. These people apparently have low selfie-esteem. Plastic surgery isn’t going to fix the problem because they’re flawed on a deeper level. Since they’ll be under anesthetic already, why not take a melon baller to the part of their brain that gives a goddamn about selfies? I don’t understand the obsession with selfies, probably because I’m old. Maybe they think because artists paint self-portraits that their duck-faced vanity is a form of expression. I think these people would be much happier with themselves if they had friends to take pictures of them.
Another thing I saw on GMA was a segment with chef Emeril Lagasse. They had viewers tweet him the leftovers in their fridge so he could find creative ways to “kick it up a notch”. The stuff people were sending in didn’t take a master chef to figure out what to whip up. The one I saw was basically, “Brace yourself Emeril. I’ve got eggs, bell peppers, mushrooms, swiss cheese, and flour tortillas. I can’t wait to see what you do with that! I’m uncreative and I’m starving.” I want to see what he does with the contents of the average American refrigerator, “I’ve got day old bologna, half a tuna fish sandwich, a six pack of Miller Lite, a box of baking soda, and I heard a voice say ‘Zuul’.” If he can come up with something besides the number for Poison Control, then color me impressed.
For the love of all things holy, please peel the stickers off of your baseball caps. I don’t care what race you are, you look like a moron. You might as well leave the price tags on your clothes and make a boutonniere out of the receipt. Congratulations on your purchasing power.
As I was washing my hands (I know, “Stop bragging.”), I noticed that the soft soap had directions on the back of the bottle. They read, “Use to wash hands as you would use any liquid hand soap”. Listen, if you’re going to assume that someone is dumb enough to need directions to use your soap, then don’t assume they’ve used any other soap. Your apparent target audience is a feral wolf-boy who has only recently entered civilized society. You can’t use the word you’re trying to define in the definition. It’s lazy and if it was genuinely meant to instruct someone to use soap, then give them a three step method or something. Shampoo does “Wash, Rinse, Repeat”. Don’t you guys have the same writers?
Thanks for indulging me. To be continued…
Hey there, ‘Redheads… Spring is here. I know this because I saw one of the first signs of Spring…bird crap on my car. I’m glad you stopped by. The weather has been pretty great lately, so I realize you’ve been spending less time cooped up indoors in front of the warm glow of your computer screen. But none of us can ignore the digital siren song of distraction for long, calling to us with witty status updates, links to shiny videos, or the gently whispered promise of fleeting friendship. We all crave pupil dilation and rapid eye movement and the sun can only provide so much. You’ve seen one beautiful Spring day, you’ve pretty much seen ’em all, but how often do you see crap like this…?
Speaking of celebrity death…ok, if I was typing this in 1988 it would be speaking of celebrity death, but the world is less one Corey today as Corey Haim was found dead of an apparent drug overdose. He’s best remembered for being in Lucas and The Lost Boys, and for being mistaken for Sean Astin in The Goonies. Like most faded child stars from the 80’s, he recently tried to milk the Tiger Beat teat one last time in a reality show called The Two Coreys with the slightly less emotionally scarred Corey Feldman. Now he has to wait a whole year to get on that Oscar segment, but I suppose he’s got nothing but time now. Corey, we hardly knew ye…
One last thing before I sign off. I want to harness the power of my tens of readers out there to VOTE FOR ME FOR BEST BLOG IN THE CITY PAPER’S BEST OF DC 2010. If I’m going to lose another arbitrary popularity contest, I’m going to go down swinging. Sure, it’s an honor just to be nominated, but I nominated myself, so I’d rather get my name in the paper. So, if you enjoy the blog even slightly, click the link and love me a little. Voting ends on March 15th, so get clickin’…
To be continued…
JARED STERN'S ONLINE COMEDY CUBICLE 