Knowles This

At some point in the last few years, I thought it would be a genius idea to meet and then fall in love with a girl whose last name is Knowles. Then I'd get engaged and I'd refer to her as Fiancée Knowles.

Thank you...tip your waitresses. I know that would be an incredibly long set-up for a joke at someone else's expense, but it's part of the humor.

Alas, that dream was happily crushed when I got engaged to my actual real life girlfriend last week. Hurray! I don't talk too much about my personal life on this blog, but wanted to share my hilarious Fiancée Knowles joke. Even I was surprised at the reaction that joke got when I did it on stage a few times.

On a completely random side note - if you get a chance, check out the blog Good Eats Here for which I am a contributor. It's a group blog about restaurants, mostly in the Los Angeles area, and food in general.

The Calamari Wrestler - Review

If you could remove the thumbs of every person, it wouldn't be enough "thumbs up" for The Calamari Wrestler. Plus, nobody would have thumbs and we'd lose the ability to grip things and hit the spacebar. Okay, so Calamari Wrestler doesn't deserve quite that many, but it is entertaining even if it doesn't come fully around on the scale of "so bad it's good" movies. If I can give away most of the key plot points in my review, I will do so now:

The movie starts with Taguchi winning the championship, then immediately being challenged by a squid that just shows up in the ring - our hero, The Calamari Wrestler. The thing I love most about this is the lack of explanation. No one really questions where the squid came from, how he's able to talk or where he learned the Northen Lights Suplex. CW wins this impromptu bout but not the title, since it isn't a sanctioned match. Taguchi's girlfriend, Miyako, recognizes his wrestling moves as those of her ex-lover, Iwata. The only problem is...he died from a mystery illness a few years ago, but could he have returned in the form of a giant squid? The mystery!

Taguchi turns out be somewhat of a jerk, and Miyako pursues CW to find out if he really is Iwata. He is, and she looks past the fact that he's now a giant squid to rekindle their relationship. Come on, ladies...tell me you wouldn't get freaky with a guy who has 8 arms? CW then trains for his official match with Taguchi in a montage that owes a lot to Rocky, as does their match. The time for the big match comes and Taguchi has become...an octopus! It's your classic Octopus vs. Squid showdown - I think the pay-per-view of this is called Seafood Smackdown. CW wins the title and gets ambushed a few days later by yet another seafood creature - The Squilla Boxer! This sets up a boxer vs. wrestler showdown at the end of the movie and a bizarre plot twist I won't spoil for you.

There are some weird cuts in the movie and plot holes but if you enjoy a bad b-movie as much as I do, it's worth a look. If nothing else, there are a few lines of hilarious dialogue and seeing a huge squid shop at a farmer's market with his girlfriend is just priceless. My girl is a saint for watching this with me. :) Here's a clip of The Calamari Wrestler's surprise debut in the ring:

Tonight Will Be Awesome

I'm totally excited to get home from work today. Sitting in my mailbox (hopefully) should be The Calamari Wrestler. Thanks to Netflix, I don't have to get weird looks from some Blockbuster counter jockey for planning my Friday night around a Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter / Carnosaur 2 double feature. Thank you, Netflix, for helping to save some of my dignity.

I have a bizarre taste in movies, I'll fully admit that. I hated Superbad. I think Three Amigos is hilarious. I thought Edward Scissorhands was decent. From Dusk Till Dawn is a high mark of cinema. Don't ask me to explain any of it, though.

I have an attraction to bizarre movie premises, so when I stumbled across this on Netflix, I knew I had to watch it. You can expect a full review tomorrow, but here's the plot summary for Calamari Wrestler: "A gargantuan squid who's captured the hearts of wrestling fans everywhere by winning the championship becomes the object of a sweet young woman's affection. But when other sea creatures start gunning for his throne, he must defend his supremacy without losing his love." Pro wrestling, squids and subtitles...how can this movie be anything but awesome?

In Loving Memory

I don't know if this is a California thing, but it's the only place I've seen it. People put those tribute stickers on the back windshield of their cars, as shown in the acompanying photo. I've never quite understood them. Don't think I'm some heartless jerk - I absolutely think we should cherish those who have passed away. But doesn't Grandma deserve a better tribute than the back window of your Ford Explorer? Is the entire car dedicated to the deceased, or is it just the back window? What if someone else passes away - do they get a separate car, or can you just put a sticker on the gear shift knob? For a more fitting (and lasting) tribute, why not plant a tree that will grow for dozens of years? Can anyone explain this phenomenon?

Hand Washing

While I'm no Germ Nazi, I am slightly weirded out by cleanliness in public bathrooms. Namely at how lax men seem to be in this area. Here's a heads up to the ladies out there - I'd say 1 in 3 men does NOT wash his hands after doing their business. Trust me, I'm in there and I see it. Sometimes I want to follow them back to the table and tell the table they're sitting next to a germ factory.

There was this guy at work (now fired) who would wash his hands before using the bathroom, but not afterwards. Great that he's concerned about his own hygiene but not anyone else's.

We have toilets that automatically flush, as well as soap and paper towels that dispense with the wave of a hand. So when do we get the Target-style doors that automatically open upon approach to combat the 1/3 dirty men out there?

Dear Marvel - Don't Mess This Up

As most of you know, I'm a comic book dork and therefore, a comic book movie dork. Marvel Studios has been a roll lately with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk. They're producing their own movies which means they can cross their characters over on screen. I almost wet myself when they announced Iron Man II and Thor coming out in 2010, followed by Captain America and then Avengers in 2011. For those unfamiliar, the Avengers are a team of superheroes with Iron Man, Thor and Captain America being the Big Three of the group, so they're building to this.

As if I need another reason to love her, my girlfriend and I have been debating over who would be the perfect Captain America. Since I'm a huge fan of him, I'm hoping their casting is perfect. Cap was part of the program in World War II to create super soldiers, then gets frozen in the Arctic and wakes up in the modern day. The character is a strong leader, a military man and a serious badass. So, I present to you my Top 3 Choices to Play Captain America:

1 - Bruce Willis. Sure, he's 53 years old and bald but is there a more badass action hero than Bruce Willis? No, and I will debate anyone on this. Just look at any Die Hard movie or Tears of the Sun, and you know he's got the skills to pull it off.

2 - Kiefer Sutherland. He's a badass on 24 every week, and he's kind of got the look of Steve Rogers anyway. He's 41 years old which may be a bit old - I think Cap is like mid-30s in the comics.

3 - George Clooney. Batman 4 wasn't his fault, so get over it. He was a badass in From Dusk Till Dawn and played military pretty well in Three Kings. Again, at age 47, he's probably too old but I think he could do it.

I just hope to God they don't go with some unknown actor, or some pansy like Leonardo DiCaprio or Matt Damon.

Steve

I'm not really friends with any of my neighbors at my apartment building, although most of them are nice. The weekend I moved in, I met the guy that lives next to me. He's middle-aged, Middle Eastern...and he thinks my name is Steve. I must have met him as I was moving boxes or lifting a couch, and he heard Steve. It's been 3 years and I haven't had the heart to correct him, mostly because I don't have a single clue what his name is. I couldn't understand him because of his accent and I have a terrible memory, so it's not like I would remember.

It makes me cringe a little because this guy could not be any nicer. Every time I see him, he gives me a boisterous "Good morning, Steve! How are you?" *sigh*

I may have come up with a solution on how to bring it up. This is how I imagine the conversation going:

Guy: Hello Steve, how are you?
Me: I'm good, Bob. How are you?
Guy: My name's not Bob.
Me: Well, my name's not Steve.

Steve and Bob then share a laugh, and find out each other's real names.

Cut. End scene.

Sketch

Last night, I met up with a few comedians / writers to work on a sketch show. It felt really good to sit with other creative and funny people. I've never written with a partner, aside from running a joke idea by my girlfriend or my Dad. I'm kind of late coming into this sketch show, and my role is limited at this point, but it still felt good. Inspiring, perhaps. It may be time to dust off my own sketch ideas and start scribbling it out. Details will be posted once a theater date is booked, probably in the fall.

Rapeseed

I frequently have to browse stock photo websites for my job. I was alarmed when I came across a photo, and therefore, a plant known as rapeseed. Holy smack! Could have they picked a worse name for this plant? Elderly abuse field was taken? Kitten death wasn't a scientific enough name? It looks like a lovely plant from every stock photo I've seen but seriously. Seriously.

Elephino

After recently reading about an animal known as the wholphin (offspring of a dolphin and false killer whale), I was curious about other animal hybrids. Mother Nature is indeed a maaaaaad scientist! There's a cama (camel and llama), a slew of panthera hybrids (including ligers, tiguars and leopons - oh my!) and my personal favorite, the zonkey (zebra and donkey)!!!

Anyway, it got me thinking about what animal hybrids I would create, if given an enormous zoo and gene-splicing know-how. Even though it's the punchline of a children's joke, I would love to see an elephino. I already adore elephants and honestly, the only thing that would make them cooler is more pointy things. Throw a horn on and there we go. If I could make a marketing campaign for the elephino, its tagline would be: Three Prongs of Justice. I know animals aren't usually marketed and how much justice it would serve is debatable, but someone call up Dr. Mindbender and tell him I just struck gold.

What animal hybrids would you like to see?

The Art of Excess

I browsed around a store called The Art of Shaving this past weekend. America may have reached a new level of excess with what their website calls a "revolution in men's grooming." If you're unfamiliar, The Art of Shaving is a champion of men's skin care where they offer a $1,000 shaving razor. This razor doesn't talk to you and isn't diamond encrusted - although some models feature a light...for shaving in caves, apparently. All it does is hold your $6 pack of replacement blades. Seriously, America?

Maybe I should retire and set up a badger farm if a $1,200 badger brush is the future of men's grooming. I got a free sample kit of lotion, shaving cream and aftershave while I was there and honestly didn't feel much, if any, difference. Granted, my trusty $4 Rite Aid razor and lack of badgers may have prevented my experience of The Perfect Shave, but I'm going to go ahead and label this store as pretentious.