Blogmo

Have you ever felt this way?

What you have always wanted, but never knew it. Enjoy.

I think the rat is my sister.

An avalanche of fan mail continues to pour into the Land of Bickmo Leftslice. What shall I do with it all? Post it on my blog? Sounds good.

A wonderful, sweet, perceptive, nice girl named Haley sent me this wonderful, sweet, perceptive, nice email the other day. The content is edited, in part for readability and space considerations, but mostly to highlight the flattering bits. They might be in bold print. She writes:

“Cory,

[My friend] whipped up your website on his computer and showed me…your columns, which amuse me greatly but more importantly validate my reality. Since then I’ve perused through some of the other features of your site and have been pleased to find that you too are a fan of Homestar, engrish.com, and despair.com…

[Translation: I complete her because I am the funniest guy on Earth. I had her at "hello".]

So I guess the purpose of this email is to tell you that I think you’re a very talented writer (my personal favorite being the minute-by-minute detailing of a typical Sunday block [read the article here.]) and that you’re coping with singledom very gracefully….I think there are a lot worse things [than being unmarried] in this world, even in this LDS world we lovingly call “Utah”.

[Did you catch her "you're a very talented writer" compliment? Just making sure.]

I guess that’s all. Oh, I did want to apologize on behalf of female kind for the ridiculous things we do sometimes. However, as I tell many of my guy friends when they complain about girls: if you want a mature relationship, date a mature person.

[That takes me out of the running. Who needs mature women anyway? Oh yeah. I do.]

Happy trails,

Haley”

I sent Haley a wonderful, sweet, perceptive, nice reply to her email, but I forgot to save it for you all. Sadly, it is gone forever. Wipe those tears, silly. They won’t bring it back, now will it?

The 1st annual visit by Bickmo to the 7th Annual Gangrene Comedy Short Film Festival was full of surprises, the chief surprise being what a pain in the patootie this festival was to find. My buddies and I cruised around the darkened serpentine streets of Layton, Utah until we were quite late for the showing. I punched Ben. After driving the wrong way towards the armed U.S. Air Force base gate, a trip to the Maverick service station for directions, and haggling over ticket prices at the door, we finally sat ourselves down for some FUNNY MOVIES.

Except most were not all that funny. The school film spoof “Weird Ribs Are Swell” made for some nice chuckles, but it was soon over. We watched a cartoonish man guiding a team of elf hunters (you read that correctly) in the woeful “Great White Hunter”. An unfortunate blight entitled “The Comedian Next Door” wins the not-so-coveted Bickmo “Geh” Award. The titular character — I forget his name — is an aspiring stand-up comedian desperate for an audience, cracking awful jokes rapidfire to the neighbors and a skeleton sitting at the kitchen table. His unfunniness was the point, of course, but unfunniness needs to be, well, funny to work, and his was not. (The guy reeled off the occassional good one-liner, though, especially one about the Karen Carpenter diet.) The film could have benefitted from one more rewrite. Now, I realize we missed nearly an hour’s worth of entries, so our sampling was limited. With a fifteen minute time limit imposed on each entry, at least four films were shown before we arrived. Maybe some were funnier. I hope so.

Happily, the second session made the night worth our effort. The well done, though over-long, mockumentary “Blood-o-ween” had me busting a gut, with it’s lampooning of a group embroiled in the creative process, plus its dead-on (ha!) parody of the minor conflicts documentaries play up to create compelling storylines. The Neill character stole the show with his understated antagonism and disturbing mustache. The night’s honors, however, go to the wickedly funny “Devon’s Journal”, a disturbing and dark look into the macabre mind of a murderous little boy. The kid was like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, except this Calvin plays “operation” on the neighbor’s chihuahua with a butcher knife. Whoa.

So overall, I rate the evening a success, pulled from the fire by two horror comedies. Go figure. Thanks to M for the invitation — keep on dancing, Miss Puffy Vest!

**Line of the Night**

Cowboy Professor: Any questions?
Cowboy Student: Is it okay to sleep with two girls at once if they’re both Biology majors?

My first ever angry letter! Oh, how I have repeatedly envisioned this moment, daily rubbing my writers hands together in anticipation. To my lasting horror, this lovely reader was not galled by anything she read in “Let’s Set a Date”. She was not even unamused (I know–not a real word. Shrug.). This fine woman went so far as to enjoy the column (as do all who peruse my textual wares), but disagreed with my assertion females often attempt to nail down a budding relationship. Here’s a portion of her email:

“cory–I just read your let’s make a date lds style article, [Read the two versions here and here.] and while I did enjoy it, I have to refute one little comment…in my personal experience, it is more often than not the BOY who brings up the whole dtr conversation–seriously. I’m not even lying. [Good! I like truth tellers.] and I’m not talking about months into the so-called relationship–it’s more like, a couple weeks. if that. no joke. which leads me to wonder if it’s just guys in general or if it’s just the guys I happen to attract. but who even knows, really? it really doesn’t even matter too much, I just felt like sharing my opinion with you….have a lovely night…! –sarahd d”

I soothed her ire thusly:

“Sarah,Glad you enjoyed the article. I wrote it just for you, despite not knowing you at the time of composition. Yes, I am that amazing.I truly appreciate your feedback, because I love it when my readers are wrong. Dead wrong. So so so wrong it makes my teeth hurt to think how wrong they are. Wrong enough to make the planet spin backwards. Guys NEVER bring up the DTR. They NEVER fall prey to insecurity. Um, wait. Yes they do. Good point. But I’m still not going to change the article. Keep on reading, oh loyal reader.

Cheers,

Cory

Calming my fan base: the price of fame.