Very Nearly Hitting One Bird While Scaring Many Off at the Same Time

Below are some ramblings about the new screenplay* I'm writing...These ramblings should help me with the story, but also do the double duty of being a post on The Brothel.

This is what you might call, "killing two birds with one stone." However, I've thrown a lot of rocks at birds in my time, and if I've learned anything (besides what the fastest way is to make my Mom angry) is that it's freaking hard to hit a bird with a stone. To KILL TWO of them with one rock? No way.

A better catch phrase describing getting multiple things at once might be, "very nearly hitting one bird while scaring many off at the same time." In fact, I will say that from now on.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate Thanksgiving. -KV

The Romance Department
Soon to be a Script by Klaus Varley

Right now, it's just a bunch of ramblings

In fact, if you get confused, I completely understand.

Because I too, am a little confused.

Alright, let's see what we've got:


Zach's company makes cleaning products.

[Possible company names: AmmoniasRUs, Magic Clean, Godliness Inc., ScrubLess...]

But Zach is tired of making cleaning products. He wants a change.

[What is going on with Zach? Zach needs a back story.]

Possibilities for Zach's Backstory:
-Zach suffered through a recent divorce, his therapist instructs him to make changes in his life
-Zach inherited the company - his father died a few months back; he's the new CEO, wants to do new things.

Zach sets up a meeting with his board. It's secretive. They watch six employees from a hidden room, with monitors. The traits of the employees are fed to Zach from his board. One girl can't show up on time; one guy writes too many notes. They spot AL on screen. Al does the least amount of work possible. He has shortcuts for his shortcuts, and spends the rest of the day napping. "He's the one," says Zach.

Hilarity ensues.

...

I can see this exercise expanding more than anticipated, so instead of consuming the entire Brothel by this post, I will leave the rest of the story to your imagination.

In other words, hilarity ensues.

The Romance Department - Coming soon to a theater near you, if "soon" means many, many years from now.

But, you never know.

But don't hold your breath.

Or throw rocks at birds.

-KV


* Screenwriting is a requirement of living in Los Angeles.

I get older, but my asian friends stay the same age

The title of the post is not really true, but sounds funny. I really just wanted to post something light. The anti-mormon post kinda brought down the vibe of the site.

And we can't have a low vibe on thanksgiving.

That's what that Wooderson is for. Happy Thanksgiving, Dazed and Confused fans...

-TLB

Church of Moron - and other fun names for the Mormon Church

We here at The Brothel don't advocate slander, but if you're going to slander, you might as well slander a large religious-based cult that uses its money and influence to deny citizens rights.*

Right?

Relax, they can take it. The sense of humor of a Mormon is purported to be twice that of an ordinary, non-apocalypse fearing human.

So, for all you haters out there, here's a list of some not-so-nice names people are calling The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints these days. (Note: Some names we just made up, because hey, research is freakin' hard...) -KV


ALTERNATIVE NAMES FOR THE MORMON CHURCH
Compiled by The Literary Brothel

-Church of Moron

-Stupids

-Bright Eyed Jesus Freaks

-Missionaries and More

-MorMen and their Wives

-Racism Co.

-A Feast of Fools

-The Crazy Religion filled with hot girls who wait until marriage

-Homophobes R Us

-The Mormon Cult

-A Religion of People like Stephenie Meyer

-A Religion of Snowboarders

-A Religion of People like Brandon Flowers

-Candy Land (Don't ask)

-A Religion of People they make fun of on South Park

and...

MORmONS

Yeah, that's all we've got. Feel free to make up your own.

See, it's not so easy to hate.

Or is it?

You tell me, dummy.

-TLB

---

*I'm referring, of course, to Proposition 8 in California, but this is not the first time Mormons have gotten out of line. Please read Jon Krakauer's awesomely amazing Under the Banner of Heaven for all the goodies on the LDS, Brigham Young, and more!

Charles Bukowski Quote - Being Old and Writing

"I don't mean that you have to be OLD to write, but I do mean that if you are OLD and can still write and have sailed some bloody ships, you've got a little edge."

-Charles Bukowski, August 1st, 1969

Ten Life Lessons Learned from the Musical Les Miserables (Broadway Version)

Ten Life Lessons Learned from the Musical Les Miserables (Broadway Version)
Klaus Varley

10. Sitting flat on your butt doesn't buy any bread.

9. Guys named Marius are often late to important meetings and then blame their tardiness on love.

8. Obscure French student revolutions can be meaningful as long as a novel and musical are written about them.

7. Avoid anyone who proclaims they are "Master of the House."

6. If you escape from prison and want to reinvent yourself, move really far away, not just to the next town. Maybe even to another country. Somewhere where you won't be recognized. And for god sakes, don't become a prominent member of your new society. Lay low!

5. When in need of drinking tunes, simply recycle melodies from your years as a revolutionary. Don't forget to change the lyrics to fit your current situation (before: revolution now: inebriation)

4. If you leave your daughter for years with shady inn-keepers, don't expect to get her back for cheap.

3. When stealing a loaf of bread, do not break a window pane. The cop can use that as an excuse to hunt you for the rest of his life.

2. "Lovely" ladies sometimes ain't so lovely.

1. When singing songs containing your prison number, always draw out the last digit (ie: two, four, six, oh, oooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeee!). It's a good way to express that you disagree with the court's decision and feel the punishment was too harsh for your crime.

-KV

Why We Have So Many Bukowski Quotes on The Brothel and What it Says About Society

Why Do We Have So Many Bukowski Quotes on The Literary Brothel?
Klaus Varley

To answer to the title question: Charles Bukowski Selected Letters sits atop my toilet, along with an old issue of Entertainment Weekly that proclaims to list of the "Top 1000 best movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books and More of the last 25 years!" So it's either post a quote from Buk or EW. Buk usually wins.

But lets talk about EW.

Top 1000? By all calculations, a hundred movies, and a hundred shows, cds and books is only four hundred. That means there are six hundred "mores." What are these "mores?" Websites, video games, Broadway shows (there were 100 Broadway shows in the last 25 years?) and...more? Needless to say, I haven't gotten all the way through the issue.

But I did get through Bukowski's Letters, Volume II. Its cover doesn't sport Harry Potter, Beyonce, Bono, and Will Smith, (where are the Broadway actors? the websites?) but it has the goods. They're inside.

The words, baby, the words.

(Speaking of words, what you don't know about the paragraph before last is that I wrote "their inside," and moved on. If we were in a typewriter age, our zine would suffer. "Look at this guy; he doesn't know "they're from their." Let's get some comics and get out of this hippie book store.")

I originally started this entry thinking I wanted to write something about Bukowski, something about how I finished the second volume and am moving on to the third, something about how there's nothing like appreciating #2 when you're reading Bukowski.

But I can't even say it. I can't even make the joke...

Or can I?

I can.

You see, when I was talking about #2, I was talking about poo.

Done. With Bukowski. For today.

The top entertainment technological advancement of the past 25 years is the DVD player? Over the Mp3? Over CD ripping technology? What a debate.

-KV

A Bukowski Quote where he Quotes Someone Else

"...but, basically, you have a right to publish anybody you want to. I think of something John Thomas told me one night, 'No matter what you do, a certain number of people are going to dislike it, others will like it, and the vast majority will not give a damn one way or the other.' Once you understand this, the snipers will not make so much difference."

-Charles Bukowski to John Martin, June 22, 1970

Top 10 Errors of (not so) Smart Type

The Top Ten Errors of Smart Type
Klaus Varley

If your cell phone is like mine, it has a text-message function pretentiously named "smart-type." Well, this so-called "smart" type has the propensity to make a number of errors. He

Below are the top 10 not-so-smart corrections of a program that often fails to live up to its name. (If it seems like I'm hard on SmartType, it's because it's not a person, and if SmartType's creator has nothing to do but Google "SmartType Criticisms," well, that creator needs to get a lied. I mean, life.)

1. good = home = gone = hood = hoof = hone = goof

This is the biggest one. "See you at good," she accidentally writes. Where the hell is Good? What time are you getting there? And who else is going? Are they bringing their hot friends? Send directions to Good!

2. lips = kiss = lisp

This one is problematic because you could potentially write "I want to kiss your lisp." Even if that is true, those with lisps prefer it to not be phrased quite like that.

3. on = no = om

Frustrating, since I write "no" far more often then "on." Example, "No, no, do not tempt a Russian Mig. Kenny Loggins sang 'Danger Zone' for a reason."

4. bad = ace = abe

Two Old Testament references ("bad," "abe") and what McCain's superiors in the Navy nicknamed him after he crashed THREE planes (and before he was a POW) "Here comes Ace McCain!" joked the Admirals. Snickers were then heard. And possibly also eaten. If Snickers - the candy bar - was invented back then. (You see, John McCain is old...)

Note: This piece was written before the election - thus the McCain joke. How quickly jokes become anachronistic!

5. case = care = base = card = bare = bard = cape = acre

Wow, lots of danger here. Especially for Superman's texts, "Lois, did you

6. are = ape

Another dangerous association, for the wrong word here could send a very strange message, ie: "What ape we doing tonight?" If your friend answers "Koko," run.

7. in = go = im = ho = io = hm = gm

Inconvenient, since all of these words are often used in one sentence, such as "ho, im'a go to the gm in io...lol...sry, io is a mn on jptr.."

8. have = gave = hate = gate = gaud

Two dangers: You might mistakenly give bad directions using slang for a deity, "Turn left past the gaud," or errantly explain your antisemitism to your Klan friends, "I gave Jews."

9. sad = pad = rad

Difficult to convey your depression when you tell a friend, "I'm so rad."

10. see = red = ref = pee

If you accidentally tell a date "I can pee you from here," be ready to explain common errors of Smart Type. Feel free to reference this article.

-KV

Celebrities Get Off Their Asses and Help Make Real Change

Charlie sent this sometime last month before the election. Why didn't he put it up himself? Because it didn't have an ending. Still, we really meant to finish it for him before the election, but we didn't. And by "we," I mean, me, Klaus Varley. I've got my own stuff to write. Seriously. -KV


Celebrities Get Off Their Asses and Help Make Real Change
Charlie Luzon

Nov. 4th, 2008 - Los Angeles

In a never-before-seen move in the history of celebrity culture, actors, movie-makers, and just plain famous people from across the Southland showed up at voting booths, encouraging passerby's to vote.

The goal, said organizer Leonardo DiCaprio, was "to get at least one famous person at each polling place." In face, their support of suffrage was so overwhelming, that not only did every polling place in Los Angeles County have a famous person in attendance, some had two or three.

"I never thought I'd see David Hasselhoff and Michael Chabon in the same room together," said one bewildered voter, "but it was cool."

Others were not so enthusiastic about the program.

"I got up at six so I could be one of the first people to vote, not see old-ass Pamela Anderson in a bikini, using her fake breasts as a voting guide dispenser," said Melinda Doheny, a resident of Cerritos.

Her brother Jared, however, disagreed.

"It was so awesome. I wish I could vote every day."

So do we, Jared. So do we.

Actually, we don't. Once every year or two is really enough.

We have important things to do.

Like blogging?

This isn't a blogging! This is creating fake news reports!

Like The Onion?

The Onion? What's that?

Seriously.

-CL

The Top 5 Most Homophobic Counties in California

The Top Five Most Homophobic Counties in California
by Klaus Varley

Note: Homophobic percentages derived from the percentage of people in each county who voted in favor of Proposition 8. Special shout-out to the LA Times and their results by county map.

5. Madera County - 73.4% Homophobic

You might recognize this county from recent news reports: officials from Madera County discovered the bones of that missing adventurer Steve Fossett. Unreported, however, was another investigation: Officials from Madera County also looked into their own bodies and were delighted to discover "not a gay bone anywhere."

4. Kings County - 73.8% Homophobic

Kings County is not one "king's" county, but the county of "kings," plural. Turns out the kings living in Kings County are some of the most homophobic kings throughout the land. A place where on any given weekday, squire and noblemen can join together in tavern after tavern to chant the simple, yet age-old homophobic adage, "This is kings county, not queens county."

3. Modoc County - 74.3% Homophobic

Where? Oh, the north-east corner of the state. According to the Census Bureau, Modoc County has less than 10,000 people, and is 80.7% white. The sexual orientation of its citizens may reveal something about its homophobia rate, as 90% responded "heterosexual" and 10% "of course I'm heterosexual, thanks for asking in front of my family and friends."

2. Kern County - 75.3% Homophobic

The only county on the list with a major city (sorry, Madera is not a major city). Bakersfield is home to Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, which is listed as "Buck Owen's Crystal Palace" on their website, but "Buck Owens' Crystal Palace" on their sign. Bakersfield may be confused about how to punctuate their largest tourist attraction, but they are not confused about whether gay people should be allowed to marry. "Hells no. Punctuate THAT, city boy."

And the most homophobic county in California is...

1. Tulare County - 75.4% Homophobic

Tulare County is known by those of us from Central California as that long, boring-ass stretch on Highway 99 between Bakersfield and Fresno. You just go straight for what seeems like forever. A gay friend of mine once said, "you don't go straight, you go foward." But in Tulare County, even he doesn't think about going anywhere but straight...out of town. As fast as he can.

-KV

5 Reasons McCain Lost

Five Reasons John McCain Lost the 2008 Presidential Race
by Klaus Varley


5. YouTube

Most people fail to realize that this is the first Presidential election in the time of YouTube. Not significant? Before YouTube, you could say things like "don't vote for McCain, he jokes about bombing Iran," and it has some affect. But when you can say, "hey, look at this clip of the 72 year-old candidate caught singing "Bomb bomb Iran," and afterwards watch the 47 year-old candidate give a phenomenal speech, well, YouDo the math.

4. The Financial Crisis

One candidate seemed to at least have some understanding of economics, and that candidate was not John McCain. Didn't help that McCain admitted his lack of knowledge on the subject at least three times, and pledged to defer to his Vice President. It also didn't help that he has at least seven houses. As Chris Rock said, "I'm voting for the guy with one house. John McCain can lose half his houses and still sleep comfortably."

3. He was on the Republican Ticket

With the economy kaput and a never ending war under their belt, Republicans are on the outs. Anyone running with an (R) next to their name was going to have an uphill battle. And when McCain flip-flopped on most of the issues that made him stand out from the party, he went from "Maverick" to "mave(R)ick."

2. Katie Couric

Lobbing questions at Sarah Palin that any third-grader could answer (such as "Which publications do you get your news from?") somehow became a clear-cut argument for why Palin was unqualified to become Vice President. You have to wonder if Couric had harder questions written...("If she can't name one freakin' newspaper or magazine, it looks like I won't need to go into what she thinks of Frank Rich's column excoriating Alaskan politics..")

...and the number one reason McCain lost the 2008 Presidential Election?

1. He got less votes

Some jokes never get old.

Or do they?

-KV

Obama Wins Obama Wins Obama Wins

As if you didn't know....

THE BROTHEL IS VOTING TODAY - AND SO ARE YOU - NO EXCUSES

IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON NOVEMBER 4TH, 2008 AND HAVE YET TO VOTE, STOP READING AND GO VOTE

NOW

GO

HEY, YOU'RE STILL READING

OKAY, WELL...

THIS IS THE PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SINCE 1932

IF YOU DON'T VOTE
SARAH PALIN COULD END UP AS PRESIDENT

IF YOU DON'T VOTE
WE COULD GO TO WAR WITH IRAN

DON'T KNOW WHERE TO GO?

CLICK HERE

YOU ARE A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE

TAKE YOUR COUNTRY BACK

AND VOTE

FOR BARACK OBAMA

PREFERABLY

AND "NO" ON PROPOSITIONS 4 & 8

IF YOU LIVE IN CALIFORNIA

DO IT

NOW

PLEASE

GO

THE INTERNET WILL STILL BE HERE
WHEN YOU GET BACK

I PROMISE

...

YOU'RE STILL HERE!

FINE, HERE'S A POST SCRIPT

PS.

REMEMBER

MCCAIN HATES THE INTERNET

AND BY "HATES" I MEAN

"HAS NEVER USED"

SERIOUSLY

HE IS OLD

AND OUT OF TOUCH

VOTE OBAMA

...

THIS IS REALLY THE END

ESPECIALLY IF YOU VOTE FOR MCCAIN

-TLB

The World Runs on Peer Pressure: Harass Your Friends Who Are Thinking About Not Voting

If you have any friends or loved ones who are even THINKING about not voting in Tuesday's election, or are giving you some lame excuse as to why they are not voting, here's a list of things you might want to say to them.

-Really? The most important election in our lifetime so far and you're not going to vote? Really? (Be sure to say "really" as condescending as possible)

-If you don't vote, I'm not talking to you for a long time.

-If you don't vote, I'm not sleeping with you for a long time.

-Imagine if McCain wins and then dies and Sarah Palin becomes President - not president of the school board, President of the United States.

-Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. (See Clay Davis of The Wire for proper pronunciation)

-All the cool kids are doing it.

-We might still be friends if you don't vote, but there will always be this tension between us. Sure, I may forgive you, but I will never forget.

-You're fucking retarded.

-TLB

David Sedaris on Undecided Voters and Sorta Comparing John McCain to a Platter of Shit

"Being undecided at this point is like being offered the choice between a platter of chicken and a platter of shit with glass in it and then asking how the chicken is cooked."

-David Sedaris, October 2008