Getting Angry About Things I’m Unqualified To Discuss

March 15th, 2007 | Posted in 2007 |

Like most superhero team-ups, when Peter Lynn and I get together to co-write something, it usually involves us beating up on each other for a while before channeling our powers towards the defeat of a common enemy. In this case, movie trailers. Be sure to check out our snap judgments and harsh condemnations of the world of film based only on a cursory viewing of a blurry YouTube clip in Trailer Trash: Cruel Reviews of Upcoming Movies over at Cracked.com.

Or, at least, as much as you’re able to check out before the sun sets. Frankly, it’s a touch long. We each took ten trailers to review, assuming they’d be about a paragraph in length apiece, somehow forgetting our respective longwinded prose styles. It now sits towering and blotting out the sun, an imposing War & Peace of catty film review.

If you do manage to get through it and, against all reason, decide it still wasn’t long enough, do yourself a favor and surf over to Pete’s blog link to the same article, where—Pete being Pete—he’s helpfully posted all the weaker bits I cut out of the damn article in the first place, this time as an introduction to the article proper: as the old maxim goes, put your club foot forward.

In Times Of Crisis, You Can Count On Me (To Be A Big Pussy)

March 11th, 2007 | Posted in 2007 |

I didn’t know it when I woke up Friday morning, but in less than an hour I would be tested.

Tested as a man. A real man. The kind with chest hair, muscles and an actual chin. The kind of man that women look at and think, “You better believe I’d let him drill me.” It was to be a morning where, in the space of a single split-second moment, my character would be called daringly into question. An “Oh my Christ look, a woman’s screaming from the top floor of a burning building, WHAT TO YOU DO, HOTSHOT?” moment. A “You’re walking home from a game of catch at the park when you notice a baby flying off the balcony of Eric Clapton’s house, WHAT DO YOU MOTHERFUCKING DO, SPORTS FAN?” moment. (And no, I’m not sure who specifically is yelling at you so angrily in either of these scenarios, or why they can’t get off your back and catch the damn baby themselves. Probably just some asshole.)

This was also to be a morning where, in addition to measuring my instinct for cool-headed bravery in the face of crisis, I would learn that I don’t have any. It turns out I’m sort of a huge pussy, and that if given one of the above scenarios, I’d stare blankly in confusion while women fell, burning and shrieking, from the windows of fire-engulfed condos, or look on with ineffectual concern while Eric Clapton’s baby picked up speed. Yes, surprising nobody but myself, it turns out I’m the sort of can-do hero who, when called to action, will immediately freeze like a tender-eyed fawn in terrified brain-lock. If placed in a highly metaphysical conundrum involving a collapsing bridge, a loved one hanging off of either side and the choice of saving only one, I would in all likelihood cause both to plummet, cursing me, to their deaths, having opted to “hang back a little and mull over my choices” until the time for action had long since sprinted past.

I am, it seems, incapable of reflexive bravery. This is never good news to hear. And it certainly doesn’t make the medicine go down any easier if you’re reaching this epiphany while an old man buries his face, deeply and lovingly, into your crotch. Let me explain that.
Read the rest of this entry »

“…And You Can Take That to the LAKE.”

March 6th, 2007 | Posted in Off-site Articles |

Larry Holmes’ GrillMaster XL makes its advertorial debut over at Cracked.com. With acknowledgement to JP.com forum regular Scott Feenstra for the idea, since he actually talks like this in casual conversation.

Two-Fisted Tales of Fisting

January 28th, 2007 | Posted in Original Comics |

Read the rest of this entry »

Tales Written With the Express Intent of Astonishment

January 25th, 2007 | Posted in Original Comics |

Read the rest of this entry »

Dogs Are Idiots

January 17th, 2007 | Posted in Essays |

Whenever I try to leave my apartment, my dog will dart out of the closing door with alarming, Indiana Jonesesque speed. Nine times out of ten I won’t even notice it. I’ll be out in the hallway, fumbling through my pockets in the dark for my keys. (The hallway lights have been out in our building since September—I think our super is either dead or long since escaped to Tijuana with a suitcase full of lightbulbs.) At some point I’ll remember that I keep my keys in my jacket pocket, and have in fact done so for fifteen years. (It’s early, and I’m legally retarded before noon.) I’ll finally get the door locked and turn around, where I’ll find my dog sitting in the middle of the hallway with a pleased, curious look on his face—as if saying “Man, that took you some time, huh? Can we go now?”

My wife, who watched the dog escape when I left, will now be listening from the couch with (evil, small-minded) amusement as I try to re-find my keys in the dark (front jacket pocket again), unlock and open the door, then walk back in, grumbling and calling for the dog—who knows damn well that staying in the hallway equals Walk, and so sits motionless, staring at me like I’m some idiot who likes to stand in doorways shouting “Come!” for no reason.

“He’s so smart,” my wife will say, after my faux-enthusiastic shaking of a rubber dog toy eventually convinces him to pad his furry ass back into the apartment. To my mind, given the battle of wills that’s just taken place, this of course leaves hanging in the air the implied addendum He’s so much smarter than you.

“He’s not smart,” I’ll say. “He’s fast. Cars are fast. That doesn’t mean they understand algebra.” It’s not, in other words, like the dog has calculated his escape with flowcharts for when I open the front door. He has a brain the size of an under-ripe walnut. More likely he was just thinking OH BOY DOOR WALK GO POOP WALK DOOR OH BOY, his legs moving independently of his brain the second he heard the doorknob turn.

He’s a moron, is what I’m trying to say, because all dogs are morons. Sure, my wife and I enjoy swapping stories with other dog owners about how smart and observant our pets are, but all bullshit aside, of course they aren’t. In the context of pet ownership, having a smart dog means he can sit or poop when you tell him to. When you’re gauging the intelligence of a mammal on its ability to understand that it should walk towards you when you flail your arms and make noises, I’m sorry, but that’s a low-set bar. The buck-toothed Hispanic woman from the Subway near me with the horseshoe-shaped divot in her forehead can sit and poop on command, as well as punch up to five distinct sandwich-themed buttons on a cash register, but I don’t think anyone’s making any convincing arguments that she isn’t as fuck-dumb as a pile of sticks. The difference between the buck-toothed woman and a dog is that we’re disappointed when the woman forgets to shit in the right place, but astounded beyond belief when the dog manages to remember.

Compared to other dogs, sure, our dog is pretty sharp. But whatever. Compared to humans—meaning me—my dog is, I’m sorry, an idiot. I can poop in designated areas as well as he can or better. I’m also able to perform any number of simple tasks that, frankly, soar right over his tiny bullet head—and I don’t mean reading The Iliad or programming my VCR to tape 24 or what have you. I’m talking about basic survival instincts he should possess as a mammal but doesn’t, like how you shouldn’t decide to eat something based exclusively on the criteria that it’s directly in front of you and not on fire.

The Entirety of a Dog’s Thought Process

Read the rest of this entry »

Shameless Hype #3

December 15th, 2006 | Posted in Off-site Articles |

Hot on the heels of Shameless Hype #2 is Shameless Hype #3, detailing my involvement with Cracked #3, which hits newsstands officially next week (though it looks like most of the comic book stores are already stocking it). This officially catches me up on my self-congratulatory navel-gazing until Issue #4 in two months. What will I do in the meantime? Rape things, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll knit a pair of socks.

Click below for the Issue #3 rundown. As before, if you’re not interested, no hard feelings. Actual updates on their way.
Read the rest of this entry »

Shameless Hype #2

December 15th, 2006 | Posted in Off-site Articles |

A few months back, I posted an update aptly titled “Shameless Hype“, where I walked through the first issue of Cracked Magazine explaining what I did and how it came about. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten a lot of email from people who wondered why I didn’t do the same thing for Issue #2. Honestly? I just got busy and forgot.

So here’s my behind-the-scenes, DVD special feature-style breakdown of Cracked #2. Those of you who never bought Issue #2 and couldn’t care less about what I wrote in it, please skip this entry entirely, confident in the knowledge that I won’t hold it against you.
Read the rest of this entry »

No, I’m Not Dead

December 11th, 2006 | Posted in 2006 |

I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently wondering if I’d died or was otherwise incapacitated grieviously. I suppose it’s a reasonable enough conclusion, given that I haven’t posted anything new and have barely visited my own forum in weeks and weeks and weeks. Below, then: what I’ve been doing instead of updating the website.

We Bought a Dog

We recently brought home a four-month-old rat terrier named Orwell. We chose him at the pet store because, unlike the other dogs we looked at who ran all over the place in a flurry of barking and sprayed urine, he was ridiculously mellowed out. Surely this dog will be the perfect addition to our alcohol-basted, low-energy lifestyle, we thought.

We were played like chumps, of course—having settled into our home for over a month now, Orwell has abandoned his relaxed facade in a manner similar to a cackling ’30s villain removing his false moustache and hat; and has revealed himself to be a biting, sprinting, barking little poop factory. I’d had no idea, but caring for a puppy is terrifyingly similar to looking after a baby, the only differences being the amount of fur and length of prison time if, after having found a ripped-up pile of your favorite comic books scattered around the bedroom, you logically decide to drown it.

The Jay Pinkerton with time to spare in the mornings and evenings is gone, in other words, at least until the little dude grows up into a dog and learns how to entertain himself for five goddamn minutes without destroying something valuable or getting his head caught in a closet door. My free time can now be broken down into the following categories:

• Taking the puppy for walks;
• Training the puppy not to shit all over the place;
• Cleaning up vast, mountainous piles of shit when he, with willful defiance, shits all over the place anyway;
• Telling the puppy “No bites” when he bites me;
• When this fails, simply ignoring the puppy when he bites again;
• When this also fails, entertaining the idea of simply hiding the puppy in the freezer until Karla gets home;
• Idly wondering how the ungodly hell a small handful of kibble can somehow become eight pounds of wet, creamy fecal waste in less than three hours. (I suspect he must be eating shit when I’m not looking.)

Travelling

We flew up to Kingston, Ontario for Canadian Thanksgiving with my parents, then over to Indianapolis for American Thanksgiving with Karla’s mom. I’m sure there are some webmasters who can fly off for a few days without it interrupting their update schedule. I am not one of those people.

In all honesty, I can barely maintain a regular posting schedule in the absence of any interruptions. Relatively minor lifestyle adjustments like losing the can opener or setting the clocks back an hour can transform my life into a bleak, chaotic wasteland that takes weeks to crawl out of. Given that a trip to Indianapolis has the raw potential to destroy a healthy, organized mind, I didn’t honestly stand a chance.

My Day Job

Back when I wasn’t writing comedy for a living, I’d come home from work bursting with creative energy. There’s nothing quite like spending a day writing business proposals outlining the consumer benefits of value-added technologies to make you want to let your hair down and make fun of the Bible or put raunchy dialogue in Spider-Man’s mouth. Now that I’m at Cracked Magazine, though, I’m pretty much writing, editing, commissioning and designing Photoshop work for humor articles all day. When I get home from work, I don’t even want to think about jokes.

Worse, the sheer number of submissions I read every day tends to sour you a little on comedy writing. Namely, you start to read the same articles over and over and over and over again. If I see one more fucking guide about how hilarious ninjas or pirates are, I’m going to lose it and pull someone’s dick off with my bare hands. As you can probably imagine, it tends to damper one’s incentive to sit down and write something funny about, say, Michael Richards, or the latest James Bond movie, when you’ve spent the day reading 30 articles apiece about them.

JayPinkerton.com is Five Years Old

I can’t believe it either. I know some people who’ve happily crawled into their blogs like a second womb, recording every aspect of their existence for future generations to pore over (they won’t, of course, but isn’t it nice to think they would?). Personally, I’ve just gotten a bit tired of it lately. Have you ever hit that horrible, depressing point where you realize you’ve spent the majority of every day for the better part of a decade staring at a computer screen? I look back on my 20s and realize I spent every weekday in front of a computer at work; every night at the computer writing comedy; and every weekend at the computer, playing video games, surfing the internet and writing more comedy. This isn’t to say I’m becoming a Luddite; simply that I’ve learned the benefit of unplugging the computer for a bit on weekends to enjoy the finer things in life. Watching DVDs, for instance.

Anyway, with 2007 rolling around, I’m at a point where I’d like to try something a little more ambitious. I’d like to produce a comic book, or try writing an actual novel. Of course I’ll continue to update the site, if only to keep enough of you around long enough to try out something a bit longer. Truth be told, I really just need to kick my ass to get back in the writing groove.

So that’s the deal, folks. Sorry I haven’t posted in so long, and thanks for checking in occasionally to see if there’s anything new. Hopefully I’ll be back with regular updates soon enough, and by this time next year, I’ll maybe even have tried out something a bit more ambitious for you to look at. (It’d be nice to turn Back of the Bible into a full-length book, for instance.)

Oh, I’ve been getting a lot of email about posting another one of those “What I Did In the Latest Issue of Cracked,” like I did for Issue #1. So I’ll post that tomorrow.

Jay

Why I Am Not Allowed To Shop By Myself

October 29th, 2006 | Posted in 2006, Essays |

The wife and I got paid recently, and—since the Los Angeles government has yet to incarcerate me for tax fraud—we spent the weekend stocking the larder. I admit it: I’m a commerce whore and love spending money. Whenever I have a legitimate excuse to go out and burn through some cash, it is, I assure you, like Christmas morning in my pants. I don’t necessarily care what it is I’m buying—ten pounds of couch wax, flammable candlesticks, a karaoke deep fryer, I honestly don’t give a damn. What’s important is that I have bought something. I have placed money on a table and, as a result, now hold in my hands a big, beautiful, expensive-looking thing (preferably covered in buttons, fully collapsible and featuring a digital display of some kind). It is shiny and glorious, and I don’t honestly care what it does, if it even does anything, because the lights dim when I plug it in. It is mine, and you are never allowed to use it. Keeping that in mind, I hope you can imagine my unbridled, pigtailed-girl-skipping glee when we headed over to our local Costco yesterday. In a momentary flirtation with insanity, Karla let me load up a shopping cart (until it made a satisfying SKREEE noise) with as much barely useful shit that would reasonably fit into our apartment. Christmas morning, I’m telling you. Christmas morning in my pants. Having lugged all this crap home, we’ve since discovered that we might have miscalculated the available storage space in our small New York apartment. Finding room for eight drums of black olives, for instance, has meant having to completely re-organize the kitchen shelves. (We now have room for a plate and two cups.) A tankard of shampoo the size and weight of a guitar case now stands upright in the bathtub. I don’t mind sharing the real estate but live in perpetual fear of it collapsing on me while I’m showering, pinning me naked under its weight while I’m pelted with hot water, my only option being to shampoo my hair until the fire department arrives. Because I usually order cheesesticks when we’re out at the local pub, we’re now the proud owners of two mammoth boxes full of the damn things. They take up fully half of the available space in our freezer, and will likely mean having to incorporate cheesesticks into every meal I’ll cook this month in an effort to free up room. The next time you’re in New York, drop by for some double-decker cheesestick sandwiches with a side of cheesestick-stuffed cheesesticks, as well as a drink I’ve invented called Puréed Brownish-Orange Surprise. (The secret ingredient dies with me.) In short, as inexpensive as Costco is, it deals out harsh and brutal lessons in owning too much of a good thing. There are some items that you simply can’t justify purchasing in bulk, regardless of the savings. It is a lesson Karla’s managed to learn with disarming speed, but for some reason continues to elude my grasp. For this reason, I usually keep my credit cards in a sealed envelope nailed to the kitchen wall, and am not under any circumstances allowed to go shopping by myself. If this seems a bit harsh, keep in mind that a few months ago I left the apartment to do a little preliminary research on buying us a puppy, and came back hours later with a used Xbox and a stack of video games, one of which was a puppy-owning simulator. I’d felt at the time to have intelligently weighed the issue at hand and come up with the most obvious solution (no early morning walks or barking; getting to pretend I’m Batman in no less than two different games). I would later have it explained to me that I had direly miscalculated, and as a result would get to pretend I’m a version of Batman who fights crime while not getting to have any sex. Read the rest of this entry »