It’s super annoying when parents and other old people mistake our hair styles for “just rolling out of bed.” Yeah, it looks this rad by just sleeping on it…NOT! Try several cans of Mega Hold Hair Spray! Not to mention a regular trip to the drug store for some green dye. Or whatever color is currently the most shocking. On any given day we have nearly a dozen products in our hair and we’re tired of the old fart generation refusing to get it.

We don’t want them to accept us. Just don’t confuse our intentionally messy hair for not having combed it at all. It’s NOT BEDHEAD! Although we use that too. The art of getting you hair to look like you didn’t even touch it is getting tougher all the time. The slighted misplaced cowlick can blow the entire statement. Retro can mistaken for Lazy if you’re not careful. Celebrities often get it all wrong.

Because we are in a band we know that image is everything. We don’t just play songs, we scream them. We haven’t ever played our guitars. We WAIL THEM!!! If we had some $9.99 Super Craftmaster Plus cuts we would confuse our audience. Our messages would be lost. Although we don’t have any written lyrics our statement is always clear. “We are rebelling!” At least two weekends a month. None of us have cars so we need to bum rides to gigs or borrow Larry’s step-dads van. He is super paranoid that we will get eyeliner on his seats so sometimes we don’t even bother asking him and just take the bus. Just because our parents live in one of the richest areas in town doesn’t mean we don’t roll public transit. It’s one of the only places where we feel truly at home. You’ll find our gum on most of the back seats. it’s a point of pride.

The important thing is that when we show up at a show ready to thrash, our hair looks like we’re headliners. It’s so perfectly manicured that you would assume we’re either homeless or supernatural. Or somewhere in between. The crowd notices the effort and they respect it. They bob their head to our distorted tunes while our elders shake their head in disappointment. Our parents and other lame old people think we are leaving the house “looking like wrecks.” Yeah, a twisted wreck of GothRock, Rad Hair and and Rebellion! The good news is that Summer is winding down and the windy Fall weather is really great for inspiring new in your face hair trends.

We’ll try to write again soon but we’re all leaving on a family trip to Orlando. We’ve agreed to go to Disney world but I guarantee we’ll get kicked off the Tea Cups.

Posted By:

Goth For Gigs

(If you are interested in booking us, go to H-E double hockey sticks! We don’t deal with fascist capitalists!)

Comic Wonder, together with McVay Media and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), is searching for the funniest personality on the planet. If you’re trying to get noticed in the radio industry this contest is for you!

The process is easy - if you’re a radio personality and you think you’re funny - simply visit www.radioscomicwonder.com before August 31, 2008 and tell your best joke. Visitors to the site vote on who they deem radio’s funniest.

“The best radio shows are the ones that make people laugh,” notes Daniel Anstandig, President of McVay New Media. “Finding and identifying top radio talent continues to be a top priority. We believe that this contest can help some great talent get the attention they deserve.”

Comic Wonder will announce the winner at the NAB Radio Show in Austin, Texas on September 18th where a spotlight video of the winner’s radio background and comedic talent will be featured to a room of radio executives and fellow radio personalities. Beyond recognition, Radio’s Comic Wonder will walk away with:

• A giant, mantle worthy trophy
• $1,000 cold, hard cash
• Airfare and accomodations to the NAB Radio Show

Visit www.radioscomicwonder.com to begin!

I’m taking a break from working out to award “benroach90” as the Comic Wonder of the Week. His joke “MD Penis Theft” was a hit at the gym where I work out. 7 days a week.

In addition to the cash prize and fame that comes with being this week’s winner, Benro (I don’t have time to write out his full name - although I realize that typing out this disclaimer probably took up more time) is also in the running to become Comic Wonder of the Year! Think of the fame that comes with a title like that!

It’s like when I won the Southern Regional Intermediate Peck Deck Power lifting title at Shrugfest 97′. I couldn’t walk into a supplement store without some tight shirted employee falling all over themselves to get my technique tips. I haven’t paid for my stretch mark body butter ever since. Just helping you to understand what winning the Comic Wonder title could be like.

Keep the jokes coming and remember to stay hydrated. I don’t want any of you cramping up during a punch line.

Hughe Mongis
Comic Wonder Fitness Consultant & author of “The spiritual guide to effective bar bouncing.”

This week’s The New Yorker magazine cover depicting Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, has caused quite the stir. Regardless of your stance on the satirical cartoon, the question has been raised…are there any good jokes out there about Barack Obama that we can all deem funny?

Today’s New York Times article by Bill Carter posed reasons why we’re not making fun of the Democratic presidential nominee, “The reason cited by most of those involved in the shows [late night talk shows] is that a fundamental factor is so far missing in Mr. Obama: There is no comedic “take” on him, nothing easy to turn to for an easy laugh, like allegations of Bill Clinton’s womanizing, or President Bush’s goofy bumbling or Al Gore’s robotic persona.”

And, of course, there are jokes about John McCain, which are about as old as his age.

So, we know why. The question remains what are we going to do about this lack of Obama humor?

Comic Wonder would like to challenge you to perform your best Obama joke on our site. It is the perfect forum to try out your Obama jokes and see how they land. If our audience doesn’t like them - they will tell you!

Who knows, perhaps Obama will jump online and tell a joke about himself - thus, not only proving his sense of humor, but beating all the timid comedians to the punch.

I have a confession.  I read articles just for the comments. I wasn’t always this superficial, but alas this is the person I have become.

My mind boggles at the simple fact that millions of us find time each day to comment on some poor person’s post. Although the vast majority of comments fall into the simple”like it or lump it” variety, an occasional comment demonstrates the mark of inspired genius.  I live for that moment of discovery.  And evidently, I’m not alone.

For those of us addicted to funny comments, we spend countless hours on YouTube reading and commenting on the comments without ever watching the video.  When we find that brilliant comment, we celebrate the victory by quickly forwarding it to all our friends.

In that spirit, I must share. The following funny comment was posted on Craigslist last year.  The post was in response to a young woman’s (25) blatant attempt to find her sugar daddy. The fact that someone took the time to pen such a perfect e-epistle gives me hope for humanity.

So, without any further ado, here is: “What am I doing wrong?”

With all that is weighing on the mind of the average American — from the war to an unstable economy, few could argue that what we need is a good laugh. Unfortunately, the one day each year dedicated to humor — April Fools’ Day — has become such a theatrical production that most ignore it altogether. Thankfully, Comic Wonder offers just what we need to get back to what April Fools is really about.

Instead of figuring out how to reassemble a car inside your boss’ office or mock-up divorce papers in Photoshop, Comic Wonder is delivering all that is needed to get people laughing this April Fools’ Day and it doesn’t require elaborate schemes or plots. Comic Wonder suggests we get back to the roots of April Fools’ Day and simply tell a good joke.

“The magic behind good humor, whether a complicated prank or just a good joke, is the element of surprise,” said Mark Metcalf, Head of Humor for Comic Wonder. “When it comes to joke telling, there’s an art to ensuring you hook your audience enough to surprise them at the end.” Metcalf is best known for his roles as Neidermeyer in Animal House and as “The Maestro” on Seinfeld.

Chris “Captainhilariousness” Cashman, agrees that one of the most important elements of good joke telling is the art of “fooling” people. “The best way to catch someone off guard is to turn a joke into a believable story,” said Cashman, a Seattle native who was voted the 2007 Comic Wonder of the Year. “I often take a joke I’ve read or heard and turn it into a personal anecdote. That way when you get to the punch line, it hits them right between the eyes. That’s the surprise I’m looking for. It’s more effective than a tired whoopee cushion or the painful ‘A guy walks into a bar’ routine.”

Cashman suggests inserting yourself, a friend, or relative into the narrative, as he did with his award-winning joke titled “Puzzled Sister.” The personalized story recounts one fateful evening when Cashman’s ditzy sister suggested an alternative activity — assembling a puzzle — to replace their weekly movie night.

To help those desperately seeking funny and surprising jokes, Cashman offers five tips to make this April Fools’ Day a success.

1. Choose Your Material Carefully

There are plenty of text jokes waiting to be brought to life by a joke-teller. Visit your inbox, Google or check out Comic Wonder’s “Joke Limbo” area to find material to work with. If you really want to fool someone, create a story that they can start to believe. If you don’t have a boat, don’t start with “I was hanging out on my yacht with the Pope … ” as this will immediately tip off the victim. And, finally, does the material have a good opportunity for a great surprise twist at the end?

2. Personalize/Localize

Instead of the obvious, “A guy walks into a bar … ” customize it to, “Last weekend, my buddies and I stopped by Chasers for a drink after the game … ” If the joke is about the debacle or debauchery of one of our fine elected public servants, localize it by using the name of a well-known local politician.

3. Transform the “Joke” into a Believable Story

Details can transform a funny “joke” into a memorable story. Use situations and details that people know. Get them nodding their head in agreement while the story unfolds. Elaborate. Instead of, “I was in an accident recently.” Try, “You’re not going to believe this. I had a car accident the other day — on the corner of Fifth St. and Main — you know that really busy intersection ….”

4. Develop Characters

Elevate your joke-telling performance by becoming the characters. Avoid the “he said, she said, and they replied” type dialogue. That won’t cut it. Develop a character voice that fits each person in the story. Now you’re acting out the dialogue instead of reading it like a newspaper story. Instead of saying “my wife was really angry with me,” act out exactly how angry your wife was using a caricature of her voice. (You may not want to use this method if you are telling the joke to your wife.)

5. Learn from Listening

Build your joke-telling skills by listening to good joke performances. This allows you to fine-tune the performance and the material. Comic Wonder has tons of categorized audio joke performances to learn from and laugh at. You don’t have to copy someone else’s style, but you can learn from, improve it and build your own joke-telling repertoire.

Professional athletes are, by virtue of their trade, good at sports. Most of them can rightfully be called “super-humans” in terms of raw physical ability; they can run faster, jump higher, and hit harder than most of us could ever imagine. If you’re an armchair quarterback and often find yourself thinking “I could do that if I really wanted to” as you watch the professionals play football on Sundays, you need only reference SpikeTV’s “Pros vs. Joes” (current season’s episodes air at 11pm Eastern Time), in which amateur athletes are matched up against the likes of Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Bo Jackson in various competitions that simulate pro football. It’s kind of like American Gladiators, if you stripped AG of its professional wrestling theatrics (goofy nicknames, even goofier outfits) and replaced the gladiators with real athletes and not just muscle-bound steroid freaks. On the whole, the “Challengers” on American Gladiators—the amateurs, that is—tend to fare much better than the “Joes” on “Pros vs. Joes.” That is to say: the Joes usually get the shit kicked out of them.

As it turns out, most of us regular Joes—no matter how dutifully we work out—can’t hang with the Pros for more than a step or two, if that.

Unfortunately, a professional athlete’s ability often bears no correlation to his mental ability. Many pro athletes are as dumb as they are good—or even dumber if you’ve followed the headlines in the past year. There are various schools of thought when it comes to this—too much money, too much attention—but to me, it all comes down to this: one’s ability to avoid would-be tacklers while running with an oval-shaped sphere invariably says nothing of one’s ability to avoid drunkenly speeding in a Ferrari or slapping hookers. Granted, being smarter can make you a better football player, but being a better football player cannot make you smarter.

I can live with that. Pro athletes didn’t sign-up to be role-models or NASA engineers; they just signed-up to play and make millions of dollars (and slap hookers, depending on who you ask). But what I can’t stand is when professional athletes lose all sense of perspective, when forget that they’re “playing a child’s game for a king’s ransom” in the words of former NFL star WarrenSapp, and start acting like whiny turds. Which brings me to the following clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc11PUnFgkQ.

As you just saw, this clip shows Milwaukee Bucks center Andrew Bogut high-fiving himself after making a free throw. “Is this simply an act of lunacy?” you ask. “Is this just more evidence to support the hypothesis that being born in war-torn Croatia and raised in whacky Australia will inevitably lead to an irreconcilable inner battle of Nature vs. Nurture?” No. It’s just that usually when a Bucks player makes a free throw, all of his surrounding teammates high-five him. It’s customary. But in this case, Mr. Bogut has to perform an act of congratulatory masturbation because the rest of his teammates are too busy wallowing in the depths of a another miserable loss in a long, miserable season.

This clip is funny, but it is NOT laughable. Bogut’s teammates should be ashamed of themselves. It’s okay to lose; in fact, 50% of all pro athletes are losers after any given match. But it’s not okay to lose like a Soviet athlete that must return to his Communist country bound for a life of hardship and disgrace, when in reality you’ll be returning to your Mercedes Benz coupe that has tires worth more than most of us regular Joes make in several months.

I think those turd-like Bucks players should be featured on a new show on Spike TV (that I just came up with): “From Pros to Joes.” Yeah! Try blogging for a comedy Website for a living, Mr. NBA All-Star. We’ll see how much you appreciate your little game then!

The Beijing 2008 Olympic ceremony preparation kicked off today with the torch being lit in Olympia, Greece.  Coming in August all of the summer competitions will begin.  Being that I haven’t played in a sport since last summer’s bean bag competition (unless you count darts at the bar a sport), I sit at a computer all day, and basically get tired when I speed walk - then run two minutes - then walk again, I really have no excuse for making fun of Olympic blunders of the past, so I won’t.  But - what I CAN do is make fun of idiots that do stupid stunts and then put them up on the internet, or, athletic bloopers in general.  Sometimes you have to laugh at the stupidity or unluckiness and other times, it is down right painful to watch.  Some of these people had to have lost their ability to reproduce (which may be debatable whether that’s a bad thing). 

• The 8 Biggest Idiots of the World - It’s all worth it for #5 and #8
• Funny Bloopers - not all Olympic sports - but pretty funny stuff (check out the soccer dive!)
• Funny Sport Bloopers - by the clothing these look like oldies, but goodies
• Why I didn’t make the Olympics - I promise, you will cringe through the entire video
• Running’s Greatest Bloopers - the Running Times true stories of running woes

God bless StumbleUpon!  I was feeling really crappy tonight as I’m on day 6 of the SXSW plague.  In the seemingly hopeless pursuit of making myself feel better, I decided to do some StumbleUpon channel surfing.  Four or five sites into it, the babies (both) started crying. Turns out they and Jeff (husband/co-conspirator) are now coming down with the plague. In short, I was not in any mood to laugh.

And then I found *drum roll please*

“41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiment.”

I haven’t laughed this hard since listening to the various imitations of Sarah Lacy at SXSW. OMG. My favorite rendition was given by a dude with dreadlocks sitting behind me in the Mark Cuban/Michael Eisner presentation. Sadly, I missed the original due to my poor sense of direction. (In the spirit of fairness, here’s Sarah’s take on her interview.)

As for the Science experiments, here’s a quick snippet of my personal favorites:

Crystal Meth: Friend or Foe
Wasted
This Project Stinks
Garlic: The Silent Killer (Complete with Blue Ribbon!)
Nail that Wood
That Will Leave A Stain

and last but certainly not least…

Juicy Beans

Okay, I am crying now.  This is one of those laughing fits that physically hurts.  Maybe it’s the flu. But thanks to this site, who cares?!

While many college students are currently in the throws of March Madness (click here to see a funny video of two guys filling out their brackets for this year) and are joined together screaming at the TV, other times they actually are hard at work studying and *occasionally* taking a break and going online. Things have definitely changed since I started college eleven years ago, I don’t remember any sites like this, which - is probably a good thing. Actually - I didn’t even have a computer, so there you go.

Here are the major sites I found that college kids are active on - all have jokes, videos, pictures and a lot of college followers.  After reading the comments and videos - let’s hope some of these kids never want to become president!

• College Humor
• College Clown
• College Slackers
• Points in Case

If you’re in college and not active on these you better get going, it seems to be the thing to do.  Oh…to be in college again and get to lay around your dorm room, mess around online, drink cheap beer and eat crappy food. What a life!