The Liam McEneaney Experience

Just wanted to take a moment to wish every single one of my reader a Happy, Healthy New Year.

Here's a quick list of resolutions:

1. Teasing is for hair, not that wild Bengal Tiger. Even if its hair is a little "nappy." Won't tease the tiger again, that's for sure.

2. Love potions aren't real. From now on, I'll stick to roofies.

3. A dog might be man's best friend, but the ASPCA says he can't be my drinking buddy. I won't stand outside in their parking lot with my shirt off at 3:30am, holding a six-pack of empty beer cans, screaming that I'll take down their faggoty dog-fucking asses.

4. I know I've been talking about a Muppet Party for a while, but '07 is gonna finally be the year.

5. Even if TV show characters seem like your friends, it's still not appropriate to crash on their couch for six weeks until you get back on your feet. I know this now, and I will internalize it.

6. I promise not to write more half-assed blog entries out of some sense of obligation to - oh screw it, who am I kidding?

* * * * *

I know it's after Christmas, but here's a couple things my friends put out that you can buy as a gift - for yourself.

I'm reading the new book Happy Cruelty Day by my friend Bob Powers, and - assuming you can read at all - you should, too. I don't know why laughing out loud on the subway immediately marks you as a crazy person, but people were giving me strange looks on the F train yesterday as I was enjoying it loudly.

To hell with 'em, this is the good stuff. And remember, if you're going to buy it, this is the first weekend of its release, so we can send it skyrocketing to the top of the NY Times bestseller list. Take that, Dan Brown!

You can even save five bucks by ordering it at Amazon.



* * * * *

Also, my friend Eddie Pepitone released his first comedy album called The Big Push. If you don't know Eddie's stuff yet, you should - he's a true cult hero to comedians everywhere, and with track titles like "Annie Popper 2 'No More Men Without Social Security Numbers'," and "Yoga Barker 'You'll See Your Third Eye'," how can you lose?

Order it at Amazon and help feed Eddie's kittens.

I was in a bar in Astoria last week, and long story short, I ended up buying a booklet from a woman who works for the DOME project, which you can read about here. They work with "at-risk" youths to help keep them out of trouble, and it sounds like a good thing even if their website does have an enthusiastic quote from Judge Judy.

Anyhooters, the booklet I bought is fantastic, it's called The Dictionary of Street Communication, and essentially it's a dictionary of the slang that the kids use on the streets. So now you know white people (time to start switching the slang up kids!).

Without further ado, here are some of my favorite entries from TDOSC, as a public service for those of you who'd like to appear "down" with the hood. (But don't use the word "down," unless you want your nickname to be "grandpa." Surprisingly, you can still use the word "hood.") I just want to stress that I am not making any of this up, and as far as I know, these are all 100% true:

apple bottom: round buttocks

ASPCA: like now, faster than ASAP

bob scroodles: sloppy fellatio

cosigning: butting in; taking someone's side when it's not necessary

CWA: Cracker With Attitude; white person with a negative attitude

fatty: large buttocks

haraca: dirty weed; bad quality marijuana

HCH: high-class ho

House In Virginia: discreet way of saying that someone is HIV-positive

icy whitesies: crisp, white Nike Air Force Ones

magic stick: penis

mom dukes: someone's mother

mono: police officer, from the Spanish word for "monkey"

onion: female's buttocks, bum

pork and beans: a police officer and his partner

tip drill: a girl who isn't considered attractive but has a good body so guys use her for sex but don't admit it in public

TNT: NYPD's Tactical Narcotics Team; on the street, the definition has signified their predictable schedule of sweeps

turkey: a girl who has had sex, not a virgin (refers to being stuffed)

wifey airs: Nike Air Force Ones, boys sizes 3.5 - 5 for girls

* * * * *

And for you fans of YouTube, here's a delightful clip from The Gong Show, the female popsicle-sucking duo "Have You Got A Nickel":

I heard a commercial on the radio, on the wireless Philco, for a new aspirin tab from Tylenol, and the whole selling point was that this aspirin is portable.

I think I speak for the English-speaking free world when I say, "Finally, portable aspirin!" I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Man, this aspirin is so good, but it's soooo heavy. I mean, I can keep one in my car in case of emergencies, but what happens if i'm going on a hike and get a headache? I can't afford the thirteen sherpas it would take to carry my pain pills."

* * * * *

I feel awkward around people with real jobs. Like jobs that involve lifting, or sweating, or waking up before noon.

We just don't have the same conversations:

"I can't believe my boss was riding my ass all day about getting these orders filled before five pm."
"I know. I sati na coffee shop for eight hours yesterday. I couldn't stop peeing. And i had to wait in line at the post office for ten minutes."

* * * * *

Am I a terrible person for finding this completely dreadful? Probably. But check out the comments section for examples of really awful human beings:

But what the hell, this is the only time I'll really bug you guys about it (today's real post is below).

Anyway, I've decided I want to try making money off of my blog, as an incentive to not get frustrated with how much time I spend on something that makes me so little money.

So if you've enjoyed this blog, and if you want to give me a buck or two, please feel free to donate through the safe and secure PayPal link below.

And if not, no worries, have a happy holiday!

'Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
Not even a mouse.

For the traps had been sprung,
Everywhere that you please,
And the springs had been loaded,
With a fragrant bleu cheese.

The peanut butter was stuffed,
With poisons for a rat.
Though it had been discovered,
By our late, lamented cat.

With Ma in her nightgown,
And I passed out near-dead,
A bottle of whiskey
Lay next to my head.

When there arose from the kitchen
Such a horrible squeaking,
I rolled out of bed,
To see what was shrieking.

There in the moonlight,
Illuminated so plain,
Stuck in the glue trap,
(She'd said would be more humane),

There it stood trembling in fury,
Like a frat boy sans keg,
A tiny little mouse,
Gnawing at its own leg -

And this is where I was asked never to volunteer reading for orphan children again. Screw you, orphans.

* * * * *

But seriously, happy holidays all. But don't just take it from me, take it from Barney, the White House Dog in what will be the longest nine-and-a-half minutes of your life.

Seriously, they should let cancer patients watch this video because they'll live forever. I call this one, "You Tax Dollars at Work":

I am getting old. I decided to finally take advantage of the free personal training session you get with my gym a couple of days ago, and my ass still hurts.

And not the good kind of "Hey, I got free drinks all night at the Manhole" hurts, either. More the "Oh God, do I have to stand up again?" hurts.

* * * * *

I can't deal with Communists. They talk about the nobility of the working class, and the beauty of the struggle.

There's no beauty in the struggle of the working class. I come from working-class Queens, and the reason I do comedy is that working hard all day sucks.

There's nothing noble about sweating your ass off in some shitty job for a boss that hates you. If there were, then beer wouldn't be such a big business.

The reason Marx and Engels write books is because it was easier than spending forty years in a factory.

Communists are just capitalists who think their workers shouldn't get paid. Look at the biggest Communist country in the world - China. They have the worst, most brutal sweatshops, where women are given mandatory abortions so they don't miss days of work.

Happy holidays!

* * * * *

In time for the holidays, A Muppet Family Christmas is on YouTube.

While not a great special (then again, what Muppet anything has been great after The Muppets Take Manhattan?), it does feature all of Jim Henson's Muppets in one place; Sesame Street, Muppet Show, and Doc & Sprocket from Fraggle Rock.

Here's the scene where the Sesame Street Muppets and the Muppet Show Muppets meet:

I was at an office Christmas party a couple years ago, talking to my boss and her husband, and my boss was holding her baby.

In the middle of the conversation - and there's no delicate way to say this - I farted.

And she looked at the baby, and said, "Did you just make a stinky?"
And her husband said, "What? He just made a stinky 20 minutes ago."
And she said to her husband, "Could you go and change his stinky?"
And he said, "But i just changed the last stinky."
And she said, "But I'm at my office Christmas party."

And so he went off to change the stinky, and everything was groovy because I thought I could slip out of the conversation and sneak out of there before I was caught and I was a smooth criminal like Michael Jackson.

Except I couldn't get out of the conversation, my boss just kept talking to me and talking to me, until her husband came back five minutes later and, looking at me, said, "He didn't make a stinky."

And she said, "But then who - ?" And she looked at me.

And then I shot myself in the head. In my mind. Because that was the only thing I could think to say or do.

* * * * *

One of the all-time great awful moments in rock history, from the documentary Don't Look Back. It starts with Donovan singing some awful, earnest Donovan song to Dylan in his hotel room, as Dylan gets more and more clearly uncomfortable and Dylan's buddies smirk:



Then, Dylan takes the guitar for a blisteringly pointed version of:



Not seen: The very end, when everyone is ignoring Donovan, and he says, "I once knew a girl named Baby Blue." And they cut away.

I was on the crosstown bus one fine day, and if you take the bus in this town, it's because you either have a lot of time to kill or you have a medical condition that makes it impossible for you to walk that six blocks in under forty-five minutes.

So I was on the crosstown bus, and I was reading the newspaper, and the bus was a bit crowded, and there was a gentleman in his forties, black, balding, standing over me in a dress shirt tucked into some black slacks, smelling faintly of a manly cologne.

As we approached Lexington Avenue, he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Can I borrow your paper?"

I inhaled slowly, paused for a beat, just long enough that I clearly was annoyed and did not want to say yes, and said, "Sure."

He then took the paper, folded it up and stuck it under his arm. The bus stopped and he walked off. Now, he did this with a deliberate slowness, to the point that I didn't stop him, thinking, "Wait is he...? No, he's not going to - oh my God, he is. That guy just walked off with my paper!" And left me there to half-laugh, half-stew at what had just happened.

Three days later, I'm at a random bar with some random friends, and i hear a familiar voice. I look over at the bar, and sitting there with some buddies - a black guy, balding, dress shirt tucked into black slacks.

I walked over, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Hey, can i have my paper back?"

He looked at me and, as I looked into his face, I realized it was the wrong guy.

I guarantee that to this day, those guys are still making fun of me.

* * * * *

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH!
The story those Commies don't want you to hear, about hwo they're promoting drug traffic in this country! Kids, when you buy drugs you're supporting terr- I mean, Communism!

So for the next month or so, I'm going to cut my blog posts down to three a week - Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I've got a writing project that needs to be finished, and so I've got to spend a little more time writing that and a little less time writing this.

I'm kind of friends with an athlete. Not the world's greatest, or most famous athlete. He's a household name - in Schomberg, Illinois, which only has one household.

Every once in a blue moon, he'll call me to hang out at a club with his athlete friends:

"Hey man, I'm on the VIP list for this club."
"I don't like clubs.
"Come on, we'll talk to girls."
"No, I'll talk to girls - while they're waiting in line to make out with you."
It's true, I feel like a receptionist at a doctor's office, making chit-chat with the ladies while they wait for their appointment:
"So - how long have you had that sore? Three months? No, he'll be with you in a few minutes. He has to treat a case of twins first."

Because when you hang out with professional athletes, you learn very quickly where you stand on the "going to get laid" chain.

And it's one thing to learn that, yes, women will go after a big muscle guy who makes millions before an out-of-shape comedian.

It's another to find out that out-of-shape comedian is also lower than, say, a 60 year-old retired athlete who can barely walk. Or an out-of-shape assistant coach. Or the annoying guy in the entourage who no one can figure out how he knows everybody.

* * * * *

I think the reason athletes enjoy hanging out with me is because I'm not at all into sports, it reminds them of hanging out with their 10 year-old younger sister.

"Hey Liam, let's play catch."
"No, I'd rather not."
"Come on, I promised these guys I'd show them how you throw a ball. It's hilarious."

Now, the trick is, when you say something out loud like, "Actually, I throw like a girl," make sure that the bar where you're drinking isn't also hosting the Women's All-Star World Championship Softball Team.

I learned you'd better be able to back up those words. Because if you can't throw like a girl, they can hit like a girl. And drink like a fish.

Now, I have a really good sense of humour about my unathleticism - for about ten seconds. Then I get upset, and they start busting my balls worse:
"Hey Liam, don't throw a tantrum."
"Yeah, it'll only get ten feet. Ha ha ha."

But here's how you get back at a pro athlete:
"Oh yeah? Well, I'm calling the papers and telling them you're gay."
"No man, you can't do that. My moms reads that shit. She cuts out the articles and puts them in a scrapbook, man."
"Hmm, no girlfriend, loves his mom, into scrapbooking. Spells G-A-Y to me."

* * * * *

They say that history is written by the winners.
On the other hand, sports history is written by sports reporters, about the furthest thing you can get from a group of winners.

* * * * *

Sometimes Daddy drinks. And when Bob Dylan drinks and then performs in concert, like he did in 1991 in Stuttgart, Germany, the results are truly fantastic.

You have to sit through a couple of minutes of blank/shaky picture as the taper sets up his illegal camera, but trust me, it's totally worth it.



And here's a horrendous Lay, Lady Lay, from the same show:

And he said, "Man you Jews run everything!"

My mom hates the above joke.

* * * * *

I'm a pacifist, and all this war makes me so mad I could kill someone.

Violence never solved anything. Except the overpopulation problem. Way to go on that one, violence.

* * * * *

People are always surprised that I don't watch TV, but really, there's only two good shows on and neither of them wants to hire me. So fuck 'em.

* * * * *

If I ever became a DJ, I'll need a cool DJ name. Here are the two I came up with:

* DJ Morning Radio

* DJ Jazzy Scooter

* * * * *

I was hanging out with some friends, and one asked me, "If you were on a desert island and could only bring one book, what would it be?"

I answered, "How To Escape From A Desert Island," by A Guy Who Escaped From A Desert Island.

My friends hate me.

* * * * *

TWO THINGS I LEARNED NEVER TO SAY ON LINE FOR A BATHROOM:
To the guy in line in front of you: "Man, this better be worth it."

Then, to the guy in line behind you: "If I'm not out in fifteen minutes get out of here. Save yourself!"

* * * * *

There's two movie scenes guaranteed to make me tear up. The last fifteen minutes of It's A Wonderful Life, and this:

For more info on why, check out my interview with The Apiary.

* * * * *

Here's a pretty amazing video of an open mic'er somewhere in America doing his thing. You will be particularly rewarded if you watch the whole thing:

MONDAY DECEMBER 4th
at the Lolita Bar
266 Broome St. @ Allen St.
FREE * 8:00pm

WITH:
* Rob Paravonian (touring headliner who has appeared on Comedy Central's Premium Blend twice as many times as anyone else!)
* Tom McCaffrey (from Premium Blend and Shorties Watchin' Shorties)
* The O'Debra Twins (from the cult hit film "Dead Toddler Sluts on the Move")
* Liam McEneaney (Premium Blend, your dreams)
* Esther Ku (has auditioned for the Aspen Comedy Festival)

And our house band, A Brief View of the Hudson!

We legalize marijuana, and then we add a 75% tax on nachos.

Sure, the potheads will be angry - but then they'll smoke some weed and forget about it.

* * * * *

The problem with the pro-legalization movement is that it's being spearheaded by potheads. Not exactly the most focused people on Earth.

I've hung out at the Million Mairjuana March in NYC's Washington Square Park, or as I like to call it, "The March of Dimebags."

And it's hard to get a rallying cry:

"What do we want?"
"... nachos?"
"Oh yeah!" Let's get nachos!"

* * * * *

Why is it that when women wear low-riding jeans, it's all sexy.

But when I wear low-riding jeans, it's time to lose weight?

* * * * *

My road test is tomorrow, and I'm already having panic dream about it.

* * * * *

Sometimes I worry that my standup isn't wieghty enough.

Here, Bob Dylan performs with Joan Baez at the Washington Mall during the 1963 March on Washington:



And back at the Washington Mall almost thirty years later for the Clinton inauguration:

and no matter how old and mature we get, we still have the same arguments.

When we were kids, the argument was, "I'm mom's favorite!'

Now that we're older, the argument is, "It's your turn to be mom's favorite! I already spent an hour talking about how she expects grandkids!"

* * * * *

When my father was my age, he had already had two kids.

Me, I'm currently in the middle of slowly killing a mint plant.

Check it: Mint plants are weeds Weeds are plants that gardeners spend hours killing off, because they will grow literally anywhere and take over a garden. Weeds grow in sidewalks.

Yes, I am less nurturing than concrete. My apartment is the deathliest place on Earth.

* * * * *

Since it's officially the holiday shopping season, here's two songs from Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas:

Here's "Hole in the Washtub":


And here's "Riverbottom Nightmare Band":