Hey Retributioners fans!  I was recently interviewed by Jacki Schklar for the online magazine, “Funny not Slutty!”

You can listen to the ten-minute interview here:

http://www.funnynotslutty.com/

Listen to me go on about my show, my marriage, and other little secrets!!!

Please feel free to join the Funny not Slutty network! The site has really grown over the last few months. This magazine features comedy for women created by female producers, writers, humorists and comedians. You don’t have to be a woman to appreciate it either…..that means you too, men!

They also have a Facebook group!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33036287200

Tell me know how you’re doing! Drop me a line!

Stephanie

--*Dog barks at cell phone

--*Cat scared by cell phone

--*Dog attacks Roomba

--*Cat versus Roomba

--*Owner chastises dog

--*Owner chastises Roomba

--*Kim Kardashian sits on dog

--*Dog scared of Kim Kardashian's ass

--*Kim Kardashian attacks Roomba

--*Owner chastises Kim Kardashian's ass

--*Dog swallows cell phone

--*Dog barks at Paris Hilton sex tape

--*Little girl chases pigeon, yells "Doggie!"

--*Kim Kardashian chases pigeon, yells "Doggie!"

--*Kitten throws up Kim Kardashian's sex tape.

--*Pam Anderson saves pregnant cat

--*Cat eats afterbirth

--*Pam Anderson saves dog

--*Dog saves Pam Anderson sex tape

--*TMZ chastises Kim Kardashian sex tape

--*TMZ chastises vomiting kitten

--*Dog bites TMZ in the crotch

--*Momma cat ambushes, attacks helpless kitten

--*Momma ambushes, attacks Kim Kardashian

--*Boyfriend ambushes, attacks Kim Kardashian's ass

--*Dog barks at vomiting kitten

--*Dog barks at girlfriend fellating boyfriend

--*Dog barks at Maroon 5

--*Maroon 5 chastises Roomba

--*Maroon 5 eats afterbirth

--*Pam Anderson fellates boyfriend while kitten vomits, dog attacks Roomba, TMZ yells "Doggie!" Kim Kardashian's ass attacks Chloe Kardashian's ass and Maroon 5 is scared of cell phone. Everybody eats afterbirth.

--*Man befriends, is eaten by, grizzly.

From Eric Rasmussen's blog:

www.myspace.com/ericandsalo

My Dream Date With Amy Winehouse

Dear Playboy Advisor:

Who doesn't love bee hived British jazz chanteuse and troubled torch singer Amy Winehouse? The woman is the Billie Holiday of our time. She's sings with a sense of timeless romanticism, of aching loss, of soul crushing despair. I love Amy because she sings music for dark nights of the soul.

And who wouldn't want to have a dark night of the soul -- out on the town, that is--with a lady of such rare refinement and grace? Oh sure, you say, Amy is married, and that dreaming of a date with her is a little far-fetched. Yet, I often like to imagine, late at night, that under different circumstances, she and I were not star-crossed lovers under the same moon, but real soul mates not yet united in space. If she were to grant me just one date, this is how I imagine it would go:

First, I would pick her up in her East London pied-a-terre in Mayfair, where her large black bodyguard would frisk me down and destroy my camera. Then he would tell me to hang back because Amy is just finishing up with some business upstairs. I've brought her a bottle of Frixinet, a Spanish wine; the bodyguard instantly takes it away from me, smashes open the bottle and pours it out, then hands me the remainder. "Amy doesn't drink," he says.

When she finally comes down she's dressed in fishnet and tulle painted black, her trademark beehive spun up vertiginously high over her head like a trailing tornado.

"Don't bo'er with me. I'm a right sket. Real mankies inside, kn'wha-a-mean?"

"No, I don't, but I love the way you say it. Heh heh."

"Who're you 'gain, luv?"

"Why, I'm your date, Ms. Winehouse. Or may I call you 'Amy?'"

"Wass that you brought?"

"Well, it was Frixinet, but your bodyguard threw it out."

"Thas Raoul. Dodgy mac. Gone stark bollocks mad, has 'ee?"

This is when Amy throws up the first time. I must tell you, Playboy Advisor, that not only am I a dreamy man with an aching sense of romanticism myself, but I am a tolerant and patient man, who understands a person's hurts and driving desires. Oh yes, Playboy Advisor, Amy hurts. That's why her emesis goes by unnoticed and unjudged by yours truly.

Raoul gives me a note.

"Read this if something goes wrong," he says. Then he leaves.

We drink some seltzer, but soon enough I realize it's spiked with Scotch. She spends quite a bit of time playing with her beehive and occasionally cuts little slices into her forearm with a plastic knife.

"So, Amy, what are your interests?" I ask, a little playfully pushing around my fork, trying to be coy.

"Scuba doyvin'. Smokin' crack."

"You like nature, huh? Much like your romantic forebears, Byron and Keats."

"Dose bligh'ters 're dead, ain't dey?"

"Well, I like to think their poetry made them immortal."

"Think I'm gonna frow up again."

From there we move to her limo. I have to carry her half the way there, as she fainted on the stairs. She lifts her head momentarily to utter softly in my ear, "Right, you dodgy mac, keep your blodgy fingers off my Bristols or I'll four-square you in the li'l knackers. Say, why don't you cadge me a cig and some Britneys from that bar cross the way. Be a love."

I run my hand softly over Amy's hair. She has now more than ever struck a chord of affection in my heart, a woman who is beautiful and ruined. A perfect mix of Billie Holiday, of Saraghina from Fellini's classic film "8 ½," and Mary Poppins.

I kiss her on the forehead.

"I hope you don't mind me doing that, Amy."

"Do'in wha?"

She starts shaking a little as I carry her up the stairs to a fancy bistro in London's West End. The paparazzi is there in full force, taking lots of pictures as I, swoony as can be, pull Amy up the red carpet by her belt and elbow and finally by her hair.

"Dear Amy, don't you know when you mix Doriden and Codeine, your body converts it into morphine?"

"Well I 'ope so. Das why I took 'em."

A bright white froth is coming up out of her mouth.

"Oh you sweet, beautiful child! Please wake up. I love you so much, you saucy minx, and yet I'm so afraid you're going to stop breathing."

Amy is now a right mess after taking the "doors and fours," and I'm worried that we're not going to be able to make it to the mahi-mahi. The waiters part like the Red Sea as Amy and I make for a table in the back. Amy puts on sunglasses and lights a cigarette after a few waiters and I get her behind the table. The restaurant has high ceilings, solid teak-wood tables and shoji screens, and we are able to cook our own Kobe beef on braziers sunk into the table.

"Isn't this a beautiful place," I ask Amy, but unfortunately, the grill is smoking off her false eyelashes, one of which gets cooked into the asparagus and chicken skewer. Amy is embarrassed, picks it up and sticks it back on her eye.

"Do I look a'right?" she asks.

"Amy," I say, "There is nothing that could replace the beauty of this experience. This night is what we make it, you and I, and the only limit is our imagination."

"Watch this," she says. Then she takes her cigarette and snubs it out in her palm. "You like tha t? I din't feewl nuffing."

"Amy," I titter. "You're bad."

"My dad's a mean old sod. Says I got emphysemar from smokin' cigarettes and doin' eight-balls."

"Oh, Amy, my dad's the same really. Only he said youth is wasted on the young."

"What a tosser. If I were you, I wouln' give him anymore of your royalty money."

"Exactly." Oh how cute. She thinks we all get royalty checks. My girl is so funny sometimes.

Our dinner comes late, and Amy asks me to cook the beef for her, since she's too tired to lift her arms. Easy enough to do, because taking care of Amy isn't just a simple pleasure for me, but a passion. How could a man not help the woman who sang "Back To Black" with aching lyricism; who ripped through "Love Is A Losing Game" like someone who knew the pain first hand; who sang "Wake Up Alone," as one unafraid to be an exhibitionist and show her perfect pain, because it was simply her humanity on display. "Of course I'll cook your one-minute beef strip for you, Amy."

"You know," I say later, "I think it was Kierkegaard said that faith is more important than reason. That's why I really got where you were coming from when you sang 'Rehab.' It was really about the Sisyphean experience we all share—the moral imperative to go to hell in our own way and justify our own burden."

She retched in her purse. Quickly, I grabbed her hair and held it back. It was awesome, Playboy Advisor. Soon, when we were in a moment of soft touch, there was a moment of understanding that only fingers can know, when only a sigh can say its name. I was struck, as I was cleaning the yellow sick off her face, how much love one can feel in the deepest depths of emotional drama. I do not think I could love any other way but dramatically, Playboy Advisor. And in fact, I do not think I could love this way ever again, since the first knowing of it is what so greatly heightens its …

I have to stop, because Amy has gone into seizure. I'm not sure if it's the alcohol, the crack or the bodily converted stomach morphine. Or maybe she's epileptic, I'm not sure. I reach around for the note from Raoul. It says don't let her touch the sake. She is wiggling with her eyes back of her head and the first appearance of cyanosis is making her glow in the dark a little bit.

"Hey!" I scream. "Can somebody help me! It's Grammy winner Amy Winehouse! And she's in trouble!"

No one is around who can help, and thankfully I have prepared for my date with some rudimentary CPR training, which was only pragmatic, I must say. The beautiful sigh of her voice that mere minutes ago bespoke pained bluesy passion has momentarily stopped, most likely because of a respiratory system shut down due to a mix of heroin, alcohol and benzodiazepines. I listen close to see if she is breathing at least 12 breaths a minute, and put a spoon up to her mouth, hoping for a bit of that same tormented air from those pipes that so beautifully rendered "You Know I'm No Good" into one of the most heartbreaking acts of contrition ever to cut vinyl. I'm thinking of this as I rub hard on her breast bone and upper lip. And finally, I do what I must, Playboy Advisor, I bring my lips down hard on hers and wish to God that the blush of blood on her lips could be the nectar that breathes life back into this phoenix before she leaves us too soon.

I again look at Raoul's note, which has a picture of Amy in the recovery position on her stomach, head turned to side with airways unblocked so that she can get plenty of oxygen. I give her a few more "rescue breaths" and then turn her over, but that's when Raoul arrives, knocking me out of the way, and giving Amy a blast up the nose with a special spray that blocks brain receptors for heroin. Amy wakes up and asks if she ate all the beef or if there was any left.

Later, as we're walking home, Raoul's giant hand placed firmly on her shoulder, I ask Amy if she had a good time, and if she thinks I might be boyfriend material. She comes closer to me.

"Are you my 'usband? I'd say anythin' right now t'ya dearie. I don't even know where I am."

With that she turns and goes up the stairs into her apartment. And I, Playboy Advisor, am not bitter at all. Amy lives in a world we don't understand. And for me to share it with her for even two hours makes me feel an excitement ... makes me feel it will be hard to reach such great heights of drama and passion again. I've been told that such profound heartbreak is only the province of the silly young. But I ask you to remember when you were young and had a heart.

To hold Amy Winehouse, but not to have her, that is the greatest ache and the greatest love of all. And I sing to myself, "He can only hold her. He can only hold her …"

Oh my God, she puked in my jeans pocket. How does somebody do that?

From Eric Rasmussen's blog:

www.myspace.com/ericandsalo

Patented Two-Minute Film School
 
Want to write a screenplay? All you've got to know is the structure.

Remember, movies are just a formula, and if you were to cut away the dialogue from "Wayne's World," "Citizen Kane," and "Star Wars," they would all look alike.

We here at the Parson's Institute of Design have learned all the tricks. Get ready to quit your job, because after you read this, you're going to be in Hollywood very soon, snorting coke off Maggie Trudeau's breasts. Even if you're a girl. All you need is these simple ingredients:

subject: the protagonist (an anti-hero lead character played by Jack Nicholson / a virginal saint played by Emily Watson / an angel played by Bruno Ganz)

action: goes through a profound life change by (quitting his or her job as a cattle husband / burying his dead foster parents / taking in an alien creature / getting a job as a taxi driver)    

reason: because s/he's got a guilty conscience about (his wife's death / his dying father / his pregnant girlfriend / her daughter's sexual precocity / his wounds from the Vietnam War / not cooking the best meal she, Babette, could for the mayor)

object: and s/he desperately wants (sex with Cybill Shepherd / his or her own little coffee shop / a decent public school system / money to drive to Canada / a reunion with her husband, an oil driller named Sven.)

complication: but the powers that be (Cybill's boyfriend / a scheming mayor / an unregenerate id on two legs named Dolph / two security guards / mad cow disease / the hero's own social ineptness)

vehicle: keeps the hero from getting (the money for a shop / entry into Cybill's room / a boat out to the oil derrick / a decent hamburger).

the plan: so the protagonist employs the help of (a gimp named Ratso / a nail file / all his friends in the Rat Pack / Peggy's Lee's dress and a wig / his own social charm / the liquid heating ointment that his or her mother uses for her legs / an arsenal of weapons, including a .44, which could destroy a woman's face)

transference: but, meanwhile, the hero is sublimating those feelings of guilt by (consorting with a teenage hooker / contriving an ill-advised face-off with Darth Vader / having sex with his mother / resisting Babette's attempts to cook a grand feast / hurting the feelings of his new lover, Susan Anspach / sleeping with everybody in town)

catastrophe: and the character's lack of self-knowledge drives him or her to the brink of ruin when (s/he contracts Herpes Simplex 10 / his or her close friend dies of a heroin overdose / The Gods begin to destroy Thebes / Lady Macbeth commits suicide / the hero knocks his television over and breaks it while watching "American Bandstand" / he gets sent away to a French boys' home / Ophelia loses her mind / Darth Vader cuts off his or her hand.)

redemption: But then, the hero sees the light when (he decides to go on the methadone program / he decides to go back and finish his lessons with Yoda / he lets two guys who raped a nun go free because he is no better / she realizes that she could have gone back to Kansas all along / he decides to kill the president / she realizes that Babette's cooking is pretty good / he jumps off a cliff after having sex with his mother, but doesn't die / he throws a fight with a biker / he realizes that he's made his pet elephant cry / he gouges out his eyes with needles.)

empowerment: After achieving self-awareness, the hero is finally able to (play the piano again / destroy the Death Star / get a job as a lathe operator / avoid having sex with his mother in the future / catch the real thief / make love to his girlfriend, the gun moll named Bonnie Parker / kill the heads of the Five Families / turn down Cybill Shepherd's advances, since she was no good for him in the first place / believe in God and kill the vampires / avoid indictment for murdering a screenwriter).

the irony of bitter existence: But in the end, fate has its way, and we are all diminished, because it's quite obvious that the hero is going to (abandon his pregnant girlfriend by the side of the road / get shot by accident in a scuffle with a low-level mob functionary / die in a car wreck in Czechoslovakia / continue producing Hollywood crap / become a prophet even though nobody will listen to him or her / always continue to think about having sex with his mother / never call his new French lover again.)

There you go. The mythic structure. All events taken from real movies. OK, mostly. Just mix and match these, and you can probably be finished with your script within an hour. And then it's time to move to go West, young man!

From Eric Rasmussen's blog:

www.myspace.com/ericandsalo

From: Steve Jeffords
To: Jonah Aranoff
Re: Your Bar Mitzvah

Dear Jonah,

My wife is your distant cousin Sally Hollo, and we recently were in attendance at your bar mitzvah at the Long Beach Long Island Yacht Club, and I just wanted to say mazel tov. You are a man now, and it was very inspiring to see you receive the Torah scroll, passed from so many parents, grandparents and step grandparents and whatnot and I was impressed to see how well you read from it and how you came up with the creative bar mitzvah theme, "The History of Asian Cinema." I'm writing, however, because, you probably don't know who I am. That would be understandable, since my wife and I, after driving two hours across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, did not even get to meet you on your special day because you were very very very very busy. Now, I do not want to take away from the pride of your special day, or impugn your good character, but let me get straight to the point: I wrote a check to you for $100 that you have deposited, and you would probably realize, as any reasonable boy now turned into a man would, that this was an exorbitant amount to pay for a person I did not even make eye contact with. Oh yes, I got to watch you dancing with your grandparents and all your young friends and giving your mom and step moms kisses and extolling the bushido code of the samurai. But let me tell you what I was doing at your bar mitzvah. I spent it chatting to a 90-year-old woman who had to ask me my name three times and claimed to have slept with Montgomery Clift. Since you're a man now, Jonah, I think I can be presumptuous enough to tell you that Montgomery Clift was a homosexual, and if there's one thing I hate more than boasting, it's stupid boasting. If that were not enough, I also spent your bar mitzvah getting to know a man who wanted to sell me a variable annuity. Do you know what that is, Jonah? It's like taking all that bar mitzvah money and bashing it to pieces with your samurai sword, that's what it is.

As you know from school, the age of 13 is when you learn to start observing the commandments. I'm pretty sure there's one in there about not accepting a really big present from a total stranger.  If not, then maybe you ought to consider it just common politeness.

Simply put, I'm asking you, man to man, for my $100 back. I know this might seem a bit extreme, but I figured now that you've ripened to an age of manhood, this much would make some sense to you. As your rabbi said at your bar mitzvah, after today you will always be learning how to become a better man and a better Jew. Whoever this better man and better Jew might be, I believe both of them might throw an old soldier a sop and give him the money back that maybe he could spend on his own children, or at least on somebody he shook hands with, or at least to a homeless person who asked for it. I was invited to your celebration third-hand by people who I now believe made a mistake in the invitations, now that I think about it. You should not take this personally or let it detract from the blessings of your glorious day. But becoming a man doesn't mean just reading the haftarah, Jonah. It means using your fucking brain and seeing when somebody has made a grievous mistake in giving you a hundred fucking dollars that you will likely spend on a Nintendo Wii or some other frivolous item.

If you feel confused, I understand. But I also understand that you are a boy of good character, and while the world of adults may sometimes seem strange and bewildering to you, here's a good adult lesson that will teach you all about being a better man and a better Jew: Don't fuck people over, Jonah. Especially don't rip off a guy who was trying to do you a good turn, who was hoping to extend the bonds of family and who instead showed up feeling less popular than your first stepmother and a little more popular than the drunk taxi driver who crashed the party.

I can tell you're a smart boy ... I mean, smart young man ... and by that I mean you know how to write a check and you know how to spell "one hundred" in square cursive. If you don't have an account on your own, then certainly you can find the checkbook of your parents and write out a draft made to my name for redress of my bar mitzvah money. If you like, because it was a special day for you, you can keep $5 or so. Take it as a token of my warm feelings as someone who, though not acquainted with you, has married somewhere into the vicinity of your gene pool, and feel free to spend it on something more commensurate with my actual feelings: a Frosty at Wendy's or a bottle of motor oil. And then you can consider the rest accounted for by the $95 in gas money I spent driving on I-95 and the Long Island Expressway. (I don't think I have to remind you how many people die on that expressway each year. Usually it's because a tie rod flies through the windshield, and if you're lucky, gives you a quick, painless trans-orbital brain puncture. That's if you're lucky. Luck is something you're going to be much more appreciative of in your journey into this horrible thing called manhood.)

I've been doing a little reading, Jonah, about something called Pirkei Avot, which is the ethical maxims of the Mishnaic rabbis. It says that when you're 13 it's the right time to fulfill the commandments of the Torah, 18 is the proper time for marriage and 20 is the right time to earn a living. But I've got a maxim of my own: the time to do the right thing is now, Jonah. Please remit the $100 in question to me at the enclosed address.

And once again, Mazel Tov,
Steven Jeffords, esq.

from Eric Rasmussen's blog:

www.myspace.com/ericandsalo

Sexual Theme Park

Last year, a "sexual theme park" opened in London's Piccadilly Circus, which its sponsors hope will dispel notions of sexuality as somehow dirty or unhealthy.

Here are a list of rides currently operating at the park:

"The Matterhorny"

"The Panty Raids of the Caribbean"

"Water Sports Arena"

"Face Mountain"

 "The Wild D-Cup Ride."

"Sexual Boundaries Frontierland"

"Gash Mountain"

"Finding Cha-Cha Submarine Ride"

"The House of Shoe Mirrors"

"The Flying Coochie Ride"

"The Rockin' Tug"

"The Zero G-String Ride"

The "Everybody's Family" Treehouse

"The Magical Carousel of Polyamory"

"Will You Love Me Tomorrowland"

"Glass Bottom Boat"

"The Enchanted Peter"

"The Great 90 Degree Muff Dive"

And the multicultural excursion, "A Thai Hooker Gave Me A 'Round-the-World' After All."

From Eric Rasmussen's blog:

www.myspace.com/ericandsalo