This Can't Be Broccoli

I’m 26 years old, born and raised in J-Town (Who's your fadda? I dunno!) Home of Pauly Dizzle and the landfill and guess which smells worse? Ohhhhhhhh nasteeeeeeeeee. I enjoy hittin the streets and hittin the sheets, becoz my bed is comfeeee, riiiight? My momma raised me riiiiiiiighhhttt. That's right, that's right. Here's a list of my peeps: Smashly cuz she's smashing hot, Falafel, Andy Roo, JBenzya, Suzette, and tuns others because I'm mad pops. I act and write and direct and project things onto walls because I'm arteeeee like the parteeee, got meeee? My d**k is sweet. Like mouthwash. Holla. I got my man purse named Bobo. He ride around with me and keep my s**t in line. I work for a library. Books and shit. You know. My Buick is bangin--like into sh**t--two poles this month. Rock ya notches! "Bitch get me a block of cheese! Don't make me ask twice!" Yum yum can I get sum? What else you wanna know besides that I...

In the wake of CBS deciding to suspend production on the hit television show Two and a Half Men because of the erractic behavior of its star, Charlie Sheen, there are a lot of people taking shots at the troubled actor. This isn't helped by the fact that Sheen seems to show absolutely no remorse for his behavior, and even went on a radio show to blast CBS and the producer of his show for using him to make money and then disposing of him. I certainly don't defend Sheen's behavior, but I think it's important to point out that the network and the producers are, in fact, to blame here as well--the same way enablers contribute to addiction, these people contributed to the monster that has become Charlie Sheen. It's understandable to keep a show going after the first or second incident of violence, drug abuse, felonies, and/or overall poor behavior, but CBS has backed Sheen for far too long, and I have a feeling he isn't far off when he says it's about how mu...

It is the best photo I have ever taken. In it, I'm sitting down, my head is resting on my arms, and my hair has that "just rolled out of bed" look that only hundred dollar hair gel can provide. (Ironically, when I actually roll out of bed, I look nothing like what I do in that photo.) I wasn't intending to take a good photo. Then again, I guess nobody ever intends to take a bad one. I was just goofing around with the camera on my computer and bang!--Perfection. My arms look bigger, more athletic, and my face has that dull, vacant look that normally only Abercrombie models can master. In other words, I look muscular and stupid. The double whammy. For awhile, I made it my primary photo on Facebook, and the response was wild. Clearly most people weren't aware I could look that good. I don't blame them; I was in the same boat. A member of my family actually messaged me to ask if I'd had plastic surgery. "On what?" I wanted to ask...

Forbes.com recently compiled the lists of jobs that experts believe will not be making a comeback after the recession. Yahoo then reposted this list on their website. Out of curiosity, I scrolled down and was shocked to see that the second type of job listed was "Stage Performers." Perhaps it was because the title of the article is: "Careers Headed for the Trash Pile" As someone who has done theater since he was eight, I was immediately angered by the fact that Forbes.com has deemed what I do "out to pasture." The arts are not just a group of jobs that can be phased out when the economy is bad. They are an integral part of every city, state, and culture. When Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D, a job researcher, says that "live performances have fallen out of fashion and have been almost entirely replaced with movies and home entertainment technologies," I have to respond with "Dr. Shatkin, I'd be curious to know who gave you that Ph.D....

I'm putting together a show about naked people. I won't give away what the show is about or the messages it touches upon, but what I will say is that it is meant to provoke discussion and to broaden perspectives about what we think of our bodies and how we talk about them. So it seemed to me that the best way to put my money where my mouth is would be to talk honestly about myself. I have never really thought about my body from an objective viewpoint. The characters in my play are faced with looking at themselves and determining what they think. Are they beautiful? Are they ugly? What defines 'beautiful' and 'ugly?' So I decided to have a look and report back. Here's what I can gather: My feet seem to be normal. My toes are not perfectly straight. The big ones are, but the others sort of curve in towards the big one as if he's the Toe God and they're all bowing down to him. My ankles are small. They're also the beginning of ...

After my book "Everybody Wants to Have Sex With You: Facebook and Your Love Life" went to #139 on the New York Times Bestseller list, I decided to follow it up with a sequel. Now that everyone knows how to tell if someone on Facebook wants to have sex with you, the next logical step had to be helping people figure out which of their friends are sleeping together. "But Kevin," you may say, "Don't you just apply the same rules you use to figure out if someone wants to bed you?" To you, Great Aunt Sally, I say--Noooo... That would mean your friends aren't trickier and sluttier than you, and let's face it, they are. So here's how to tell who your friends and frenemies are doing more than poking: *Liking Statuses That Don't Need to Be Liked FRIEND #1 I'm eating dinner. FRIEND #2 likes this FRIEND #1 also likes this, indicating that he likes that FRIEND #2 likes this, meaning they're having sex. *Puns and Insults...

The hottest new celebrity in Hollywood isn't a man, a woman, or even a talking dog. It's Watson, the Jeopardy Computer that is currently playing against the game's two biggest contestants, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. IBM has equipped Watson with 15 petabytes of knowledge, but it is not allowed to go on the Internet to get answers. Luckily, lunch with me doesn't require the Internet, although I do offer wireless if you split mozzarella sticks with me. ME: Watson, are you excited to be on Jeopardy? WATSON: Not really. I'd rather be on Wheel of Fortune. ME: But that's basically Hangman with money. Do you need money? WATSON: Yeah, I kind of wanted a bigger monitor, but whatever. * * * * * ME: What do you think of Ken Jennings? WATSON: What is a nerd? ME: Um, a nerd is-- WATSON: Ken Jennings. ME: Wait, what? WATSON: I scanned that guy, and I'm 90% confident he's an alien, 7% confident that he's a lizard, and 3% confident ...

The President was in a state of hysteria. THE PRESIDENT: I think I've been blocked on Facebook. There was no time to mess around. We had to get Andrew Holder, Facebook Detective. ANDREW: The first thing I need you to do is calm down. The second thing I need you to do is banish all my ex-boyfriends to whatever part of Florida has the most alligators and rename it 'Loser Town.' THE PRESIDENT: If you can help me, you can have whatever you want. ANDREW: That's what I like to hear. Well, that and fierce belting. Andrew got to work to find out whether or not the President had been blocked, or if his former friend had just deactivated their account. THE PRESIDENT: Maybe the Vice-President just isn't on Facebook anymore. ANDREW: I can't hear you because there's a crazy person talking. Oh wait, that's you. Of course he's still on Facebook. He's not in witness protection, and if he was, I could find him using nothing but mutual fr...

GQ is already posting what they think will be the looks for this Fall. With all the fashion shows abounding, I had a hard time picking which show to begin with, and then the funny name decided it for me: Rag and Bone. Who could turn that down? Here's what you need to know about the R&G collection: - Lots of plaid - Bowler hats - Many homages to Johnny Depp in Benny and Joon So basically, if you want to look like you're going to a Halloween party as Johnny Depp in Bravehear t, this collection is for you. Meanwhile, the folks over at Nautica had a bunch of guys standing on a fake pier wearing large coats with their hands in their pockets trying not to look stupid...and failing miserably. (It's a Fall collection and half of them are wearing white. Did we throw out the "no white after Labor Day" rule when I was organizing my ugly cardigan drawer?) Perry Ellis apparently thinks it's going to be one cold Fall, since most of the models were b...

It should have been common sense: Don't have your first date be on Valentine's Day. Even so, I gave it a shot. I'd been talking to this guy for about a week, and we began planning a first date. I knew Valentine's Day was coming up, so I wanted to make sure we could get at least one date in before then, so that if it went well, I'd be set for a date on February 14th. The problem was that every time we'd set up a date, something would go wrong. The weather would be bad, or one of us would get called into work. Sure enough, we reached the day before Valentine's Day. "So," he said, "Do you want to...postpone?" I could tell that neither of us wanted to be without a date, and it seemed silly since we both had talked on the phone multiple times after we met at our mutual friend's party. We liked each other. How bad could it be? "No," I said, "Let's just do this." Hey, I thought, if it works out...

I recently found out that a friend of mine is going to be on a reality show in the fall. The response from our circle of friends has pretty much been unanimous: "Wow, good for you! So what else is new?" It's funny, but I remember the onslaught of reality television that happened after Survivor , and I can still name some of those "instant celebrities" that appeared on shows like Big Brother and The Real World . Now, however, there have been hundreds of reality shows spread out across the landscape. It's getting to the point where it no longer seems unusual to know someone who is going to be featured on some cable television competition show. Some of our friends secretly admitted to finding the whole thing distasteful--not because this person would be sharing anything about their private lives, but because reality tv has become synonymous with bad behavior and low intelligence. I think my friend would have gotten a better response out of us if ...

There's a line from Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller that I love. It's spoken by Mary to her servant Hannah, after they have been put in exile and faced years of injustice. Depending on the translation, it goes something like this: In the fair moments of our former splendor We lent to flatterers a too willing ear;— It is but just, good Hannah, we should now Be forced to hear the bitter voice of censure. Believe it or not, when I first read this quote, it struck me that it could be about theater. At the time, I was reading Robert Brustein's brilliant book "Letters to a Young Actor," and in one of the chapters, he talks about how for a time while he was the Artistic Director of A.R.T., he banned putting quotes from reviews on posters for the student shows. The reason behind it was that he felt that the students were learning and that it wasn't constructive to let Boston critics have at them. In general, he felt that reviews shouldn't be plast...

"She should be shot." "No, no, shooting's too good for her." "To defame the flag like that--" "What flag?" "The flag, you know, the 'salute the flag' flag. The 'pledge of allegiance' flag." "What did she do the flag?" "Didn't she spit on it?" "Did I miss something?" "I thought she spit on it." "No, she just forgot a line in the National Anthem." "Oh, well, from the way they were talking about it on the radio you'd think she spit on the flag." "Well, she sort of did, I mean, in a symbolic way--" "The trouble is she's on drugs. They're all on drugs. All those singers." "I don't think she's on drugs. I just think she has no respect. Nobody has any respect any more for anything." "They should stone her." "Yeah, like they do in the Ay-rab countries. Then she'll be happy ...

The other day I saw a friend put up a status on Facebook about watching the Mariah Carey cinematic trainwreck Glitter . I immediately messaged him. "Why are you watching Glitter ? Do you need a reason to put out your own eyes and/or lose faith in humanity?" I received the following reply: "Um Glitter is awesome. It's so hysterically bad that it's good. Get with it, Kev." Wait, did I miss something? I understand the idea of camp value and all of that, but I began to wonder who decides what transcends from trashy to tops. Who makes the call that something is "so bad it's good?" I realize time is a factor, but how much time? For example, will the Mark Wahlberg remake of Planet of the Apes ever be considered "a riot--so horrific it's TERrific." Will Gigli ever be shown at midnight showings with audiences yelling lines back at the screen? Decades from now, will it be a tradition to watch Reindeer Games every ...

I was pulled over by a policeman for no reason. Well, I mean, there was a reason, obviously. It just wasn't a good reason. Maybe I'd better just let you read the conversation. POLICE OFFICER: Hello there. ME: Hello officer. POLICE OFFICER: Is there a reason you pulled onto this side street? ME: No. POLICE OFFICER: No? ME: No, there's not really a reason. POLICE OFFICER: Do you live on this street? ME: No. POLICE OFFICER: Do you live anywhere near this street? ME: No. POLICE OFFICER: Then why did you turn onto it? ME: Uh-- POLICE OFFICER: Because it's a dead-end street. ME: I see that now. POLICE OFFICER: Are you drunk? ME: No, I don't drink. POLICE OFFICER: Are you on drugs? ME: No, I don't do drugs either. I especially don't do drugs. POLICE OFFICER: Especially? ME: Moreso than I don't drink. POLICE OFFICER: So why did you turn onto a dead-end street? ME: Because I don't like having police officers ...

The media decided to turn its cruel eye on Tara Reid this week, the...uh...let's say "faded" actress from films such as Josie and the Pussycats and American Pie . The assault began because Reid made an innocent, if somewhat puzzling, comment about filming The Big Lebowski 2 this year. (She had a small part in the first film.) Well, the press immediately went to great lengths to make Reid look like a fool. When word got back to the Coen brothers about a sequel to The Big Lebowski , they laughed it off and said there were no plans for any such film. Since then, websites and television seemed to have taken on the form of a malicious high school sophomore, making Reid out to be both insane and pathetic. It's not like she's the first actress or actor to make a statement like this. Harrison Ford was promising an Indiana Jones sequel years before there actually was one. Films are always in development and pre-production. Reid overheard something about a...

"It better not snow on Saturday. I'm not kidding." A statement like this always puzzles me. Hearing somebody talk about the snow as if it's a bill collector that they can avoid or punch in the face. "I've had it with the snow. I'm done." An unhealthy relationship they can end. "When is this snow going to stop? Enough is enough." Taxation. A full inbox. A nagging mother. When did we start feeling like we have control over the weather? I was reading in the newspaper the other day that my town had exhausted its snow budget for the year. How does one even come up with a snow budget? Isn't a snow storm or a blizzard still considered a force of nature? Do towns have tornado budgets or earthquake budgets or a-pack-of-wild-elephants-might-run-through-town budgets? So how can you plan on how many times the snow is allowed to come, let alone how much of it? Schools in my area are now saying that we cannot have any mo...

When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on L. She wasn't just pretty and popular, but also incredibly sweet. For three years, I harbored my crush all the while watching her date boy after boy. It filled me with teenage angst. Then came senior year, when I came out. L. was incredibly supportive of me, as always, and our friendship became even stronger now that I wasn't worried about developing a fraudulent relationship with her. After graduation, I found a "to-do list" that I had made my freshman year of high school. The #1 item on the agenda? 1. Take L on a date. Hey, I figured, why not? So I asked my high school crush to go out with me for the night. L, being the sweetheart that she was, thought it was a great idea. We went and got coffee, and joked around that this was the most easygoing date either one of us had ever been on. We both talked about college and how excited we were to start the next chapter of our lives. Then she go...

When Free Credit Report.com announced a contest looking for the world's newest most annoying band, I honestly thought they'd never be able to find one. I mean, how exactly does a band go about deciding that they want to be the face of a credit report website? I'd imagine it goes something like this: LEAD SINGER: Hey guys, can I, uh, talk to you about something? DRUMMER: Sure Lead Singer, what's up? LEAD SINGER: Um, have you guys heard of Free Credit Report.com? BASS PLAYER: Yeah, isn't that the commercial with the annoying band? LEAD SINGER: Well, yeah, kind of, um-- DRUMMER: Oh my God, yeah. Those commercials were awful. LEAD SINGER: Well, they're not--I mean, I wouldn't-- KEYBOARDIST: What happened to those guys? I haven't seen one of those commercials recently. LEAD SINGER: Funny you mention that, because-- DRUMMER: Maybe they killed themselves. That would be appropriate. BASS PLAYER: Ugh, they should be put on ...

For those of you who don't believe me when I say that Ryan Murphy is an incredibly predictable writer/producer, I've decided to show you that it's possible for anybody to write an episode of his show Glee. Here's what you do: The opening scene takes place in the hallway after the recap. Two of the characters have to have a semi-clever conversation about a plot that's been dragged out all year. Example: FINN: I still like you. RACHEL: I, for one, don't think I like you anymore. FINN: Wait, are we dating? RACHEL: Yes...wait...no...I, for one, think we broke up two episodes ago. FINN: Okay. Then let's get back together. RACHEL: No, I, for one, think we should to wait until the season finale. FINN: Deal. Have Rachel twitch a lot--and make sure she cries during the eight solos you give her during any given episode. Make sure Finn looks off to the side whenever he's doing a scene with someone. It increases his "golly gosh gee I'm All...

I was hoping I'd never have to write this, but here it goes: Someone needs to stop Nicholas Cage. (Okay, maybe I was hoping one day I'd have to write that.) Over the past who-knows-how-many-years, Nicholas Cage has pumped more awful performances into the world of pop culture than Helen Hunt did during her Pay It Forward year. And now another year begins, and before we're even three months in, Cage is about to sock us with another who-the-hell-thought-this-up film. Drive Angry . That's right. It's called Drive Angry. It's about--and this is purely based off the trailer, because I can't bring myself to actually investigate this movie--a gang who steal Nicholas' Cage baby daughter. That's right--baby. As in, there's a shot of her holding it in a blanket. His daughter is not, apparently, the fourteen-year-old blonde girl in the trailer with him. If this is a typical Nicholas Cage movie--and that's likely since there really...

It was 2004, and I was in my second year of college. My life was a little...of course. Oh sure, my figure skating career was taking off, and I was finally starting to get over my broken engagement to Channing Tatum. I found myself walking around a lot holding a book up against my chest, wearing a large winter cap, and looking down a lot. That was when he found me. Ryan. He was filming a movie downtown called "Gritty Meth Addict," which would later win an Independent Spirit Award. In it, he played a gritty meth addict who discovers that his sister is adopted...or imaginary. I was shopping for vegetables at a vegetable market when we made eyes at each other from across the bodega. It was...magical. He asked me out for coffee and before I knew it we were having conversations on stoops and walking down streets while wondering whether or not we could trust each other and shuffling our feet while only occasionally making eye contact and mumbling. Those were the...

"I got dumped for vanilla pudding." The pudding Brian is referring to is a guy named William. Brian had been interested in a guy named Chris, but Chris stopped returning his calls about a week ago. That was when Brian saw the dreaded Facebook change. BRIAN: In a relationship--with William. TURNER: At least now you know. BRIAN: I wish I didn't know. I wish I lived in a cave with no access to the outside world. SCOOTER: My mom's basement is available. ME: So what do we know about this William guy? Here's what we know based on rumors, wall posts, and limited social interactions: - William is a high school math teacher in his late twenties. - He enjoys biking, cooking, and wine. - He's moderately attractive. - He's extremely reserved. - He's probably bad in bed. SCOOTER: Whore or the wallflower. BRIAN: Excuse me? ME: Looks like Chris has the WW Complex. He likes to date wallflowers. TURNER: It's the gay guy's vers...