Help My Improv, Please!

I know we spoke recently about how Atlas is currently homeless and that you’d be willing to help if the opportunity came up. Well, low and behold, that opportunity cometh! We set up a “Kickstarter” page, which is a fundraising website that allows artistic projects to seek aid from the kind, anonymous souls of the internet in exchange for some rewards. For instance, for a pledge of $50, we’ll give you your own improvised monologue. And so on. What’s nice about this is that if we don’t reach our goal ($12,000) by the intended deadline (August 15) no money exchanges hands, so it’s an all or nothing sort of thing and no on gets–for lack of a thesaurus–screwed. And it’s secure. Amazon runs the payment plan, and Amazon is, like, the king of taking money from folks online.

So that’s the long of it.

The short of it? I love you very much and I’m asking you for money to support my improv troupe. Here’s that website.

Thanks!

Let Me Tell You About A Human I Know

Last week I found out via Facebook that one of my oldest and closest friends had died. Then last night I found out (again, via Facebook) that Osama bin Laden had been killed. So there go all my friends on Facebook.

Ha.

Here is the thing that it is important about my friend who passed away (not Osama bin Laden). He was my introduction to porn. Every single type of porn. Magazine porn. Video porn. Internet porn. Imaginary porn. Dirty joke porn. Every single type of porn. Now, I realize that this may seem like a disgusting and awful way to remember someone, as the gilded Urshanabi, ferryman to the lusty heavens, but for a confused adolescent with fire in his groin, there was no better person to know. He had a 20-year-old step-brother who shared everything, a secret compartment in his closet, and a giving heart of gold, and he shared with me the most bizarre, unimaginable, and gorgeous images of coitus humanity has ever imagined , and for this my ten-year-old self thanks him. And so do I.

Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes by Colin Stetson

In Other News

My kind of town, Los Angeles is.

Everything-Works-Out-In-The-Endsturbation

That library is this library, third paragraph down. Five years later it is finally revealed: I am King Midas, and all that I pee on, gold.

In England They Call It Wanking

That is why I am going to England.

Double Goddamnit

Praise be to he, the longest living member of the Four Hills Country Club. May he rest in peace.

Goddamnit.

I feel like T-rex. Only sadder.

Marchsturbation Comes Again!

A Very-Second-Annual Merry Marchsturbation, Everyone!

Ah yes, Marchsturbation, the month-long celebration of genital manipulation. In honor of this joyous occasion, the majority of March will be dedicated to art, anecdotes, current events, premises, and poems all focused on and centered around everyone’s favorite pastime.

And I do mean everyone. As in, for the entirety of Marchsturbation, A Million Inches Delicious is officially open forum. That’s right. I want your masturbation jokes, memories, and meditations. Remember the first time you masturbated? Put it on the blog. Ever been caught masturbating? Put it on the blog. Hate the very idea of masturbation and find the existence of Marchsturbation sickening and abhorrent? Put it on the blog. Then go fuck yourself. I want this month’s AMID to be a throbbing communal conversation about the most literal and beautiful expressions of self-love. For what better way to make a proclamation of adoration for self-stimulation than with a good old fashioned scripted circle jerk?

Here’s what to do:

1. Go to wordpress.com
2. Username: amillioninches
3. Password: masturbate
4. Click on “New Post” on that gray bar at the top
5. Title your masturbatory post
6. Write your masturbatory post
7. Save your masturbatory draft
8. Under “Status” (upper right corner) select “Pending Review” and click “OK”
9. Click “Save as Pending”
10. Give me a minute to read and enjoy it
11. Hurray! You’re a published* contributor to A Million Inches Delicious!

And the best part? Each published piece is automatically masked with the “by KDaya” byline, so all contributions are entirely anonymous. Not even I will know who you are. So get out there and get Marchsturbating, Marchsturbators!

*Publishing relies on two things: One, that you are not a jerk. This means that you’re not messing with anyone else’s posts and that you’re not deliberately hurting anyone else’s feelings in your piece. Two, that your post is honest. And that’s it. If you satisfy both requirements, I’ll slap your work up like you wouldn’t believe. Welcome back, and Merry Marchsturbating!

Goddamnit

First my last grandmother dies, and now Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is finished?

Goddamnit.

On a cozier note, my Papa and I have been talking about his old meat packing business back in the glory days of Jews, meat, and Pittsburgh. My Papa is a temper in New Balance shoes, a pale castle of a man with gravel in his blood and lightly salted with racism. The son of a Russian immigrant, he and his cousin put together a lucrative business powered only by personal connections, good product, and know-how. He is my one-man example of the Greatest Generation, and in this way he is everyone’s Papa. By the early 70s, my Papa stood at the helm of the meat industry—slaughtering, boning, packing, and shipping pigs, lamb, and cattle to nearly anyone with a tooth and a fork—and one day some gentlemen representing an African-American organization in the area came into his office to inquire about how many Black people he had working in the factory. “I told them, ‘Gee, I wish someone would come around asking how I was doing every once in a while, but I guess as a Caucasian I don’t count.’ Anyway, I already had about 10 Chicanos working on the floor, and besides that at that time there was only one good Black boner in the whole city of Pittsburgh.” They say every time an elderly racist man says ‘good black boner’ an angel gets her wings. So congrats, Nana. I hope they fit.

P.S. Jews, Meat, and Pittsburgh is the name of the book I’m writing about my Papa. Now, I know what you’re thinking and yes: It will be a pop-up book.

P.P.S. I would call it a “Papa-p Book” because I am clever.

The Treatment: Slightly-Less-Than-Amateur Hour

COMEDIAN: So I used to live with this black guy, right?

(pause, wherein AUDIENCE is silent)

COMEDIAN: Well, his parents came into town for his graduation, and I brought out this tray of fruit to the living room to eat while we got to know each other. So we’re sitting around the coffee table when I notice some blackberries on the tray, and I get this crazy intense urge to offer my roommate’s parents some “you-berries.”

(pause, wherein AUDIENCE chuckles slightly)

COMEDIAN (gaining speed): Now I’m smiling stupidly to myself, and I start feeling bad. But not because I’m uncomfortable for being racist. It’s because I’m uncomfortable for being a child.

(pause, wherein AUDIENCE slips into loose guffaws and light laughter)

COMEDIAN: But that’s when they started talking on their those-people-berry phones, and from there everything just went to shit.

AUDIENCE (in unison): Ha! Racism!

COMEDIAN (victorious): Thanks very much. My name’s Ben Taylor, you’ve been a lovely audience, have a wonderful rest of the night!

(There is a blast of confetti, an eruption of cardinals, and COMEDIAN is gone. A solitary banner hangs in his absence, reading only: “THIS WAS A TRUE STORY.”)

FIN

Something You Should Be Aware Of

This.


Also, a conversation I’ve been having a lot lately:

“Hey, why do you never write anything on your blog anymore?”

“That is a great question. The reasons are numerous and trite, and so I will not even bother you with them now. Instead, I will start writing again. What do you like better—puns or failed sexual exploits?”

“Oooh, that is a tough call. Personally, I like both. In moderation, of course.”

“Yes, I hear that citizen! Okay then. Back to work it is. May I recommend that you revisit this site again, say around Thursday?”

“I’m free on Thursday.”

“Super.”

“My name is Avon Barksdale.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Avon. My name’s Ben Taylor. Listen, I live only a few blocks from here. Would you like to come to my place for a whiskey and cream soda?”

“That sounds really good. Let me just grab my mittens and I’ll be right behind you.”

“Neat.”