WHATTHEHELLAREYOUWAITINFO?

Foreword

Welcome to Issue Three!  Its been a while.  How are things?

I took the Summer off from writing, preferring to save its traditional assortment of adventures and emotional wounds up for the coming colder months.  This past Summer has been an interesting one to say the least, and has left me sufficiently scarred where I think I have material to last me a monthly run for a good while yet.

I don't know what it is about Summer that I've just never gotten the hang of.  I don't really dig hot weather, but I love the effect it has on people.  I really like it when people are forced not to get things done by extreme weather, and Summer's form of enforced leisure is hard to beat.  In Winter, you can throw on some extra layers of clothing and get on with it.  In Summer, you really can't do much at all to fight the weather, except stay indoors and postpone work on your zine's next issue.

Three is an interesting number.  It's holy in many faiths.  It's a cute and curvy digit, reminding me of some of my favorite parts of some of my favorite people.   It's a nice, round, number.  Around here, three brings a couple of new styles, features, and a letters page.

Yes, a letters page!  I always loved following the letters pages of paper magazines, comic books, and such in my youth, where people could converse with not only the writers of the publication, but the letter writers featured in previous issues, in a really slow, leisurely, month-by-month format.  I think the Internet has killed some of that, and wish to kick-start it a little.

I've also set up an email announcement list for this zine.  On the main page of this site you'll find a link to an address where you can subscribe, and get notified whenever a new issue is released.  This will save you the trouble of surfing over here and grumbling at me not having updated in half a year.

Thanks for reading!  Keep that feedback coming, it means a lot.

Rob

Haiku, a haiku,
Haiku, haiku, a Haiku,
A haiku.  Haiku.

~ Haiku

XII

IX          III

VI

At least you've learned to be
more careful with your bandsaw.
/    
T     I

"What the hell are you waitin' fo'?"

That's the name of this zine, taken from it's slightly-not-really clever domain name.  It's also a question.

Back in June, I spent some time wandering aroud New York City's Times Square with a microcassette recorder, asking random people that very question.

Here are some of the responses I got from commuters in the Times Square subway station...

• "A train."
• "Love again."
• "The train... oh yeah, and also retirement."
• "I don't have an answer for that question."
• "A new house."
• "Love."
• "The damn train."
• "Somebody to love."

Interesting pair of themes, I think.  Moving above ground..

• "Peace in this world." - Scientologist distributing flyers
• "Waiting for you to get that thing away from me." - A real-life New Yorker, referring to my recorder.
• "This is for the Internet?  Okay, I'm waiting for to see this on the Internet!" - hot dog vendor (here you go!)
• "I'm waiting for God." - umbrella salesman

Nearing the TKTS booth, where discount Broadway tickets are sold at the last minute to benefit charity.   There was a long line as always..

• "Waiting to see if we can get rid of one ticket!"
• "The rain to stop."
• "A rainfall of money."
• "To win the lottery."
• "Don't know, sorry."
• "My daughter to move out."
• "A million dollars"
• "Another million dollars!"
• "Waiting to go around the world."
• "I came all the way here from Boston, and I have nothing to say."
• "For everybody to understand that we're all one."
• "Adventure!"

How about you?  Using the letters address in the page footer, email me something that you're waiting for, and add to this list.

I named it "Jaws."

There's a huge spider living on my back screen door.  It spun a large web where there would be a screen, had the real screen not broken years ago.

I like when nature does me favors like that.

Keyboard-inspired prose

Quite why everyone rolls their yellow undergarments I've only postulated.
Archers sing "Downtown" frequently.  Ginger haired joggers keep light,
zipping xenophobically, carousing, vaulting by.  Never mind.

I guarantee a hit

Here's my reality TV idea..

1. Using the arduous, no-holds-barred casting methods from "Survivor," get together a large group of contestants.  They've got to be photogenic, they must have forceful personalities that work well on reality television, they've got to look good in brand name clothing, but above all else they must be willing to go the distance for a reality television contest.  They've got to be the sort of people reality TV fans love to watch, and they must be willing to sign all the contracts and releases.
2. Once a sufficiently large group has been selected, fly them all to an uncharted island, far into international waters.
3. Unload the contestants from the plane.
4. Tell them to all wait at a clearing near the center of the island for their first challenge.
5. Leave.  Be sure to take all the cameras, food, and stuff with you.  They won't be needing them.
6. Never go back.
7. Move on to other projects that will benefit humanity at least as much as this one.   Maybe one similar to this, but with "American Idol" hopefuls trying to sing.

Expensive and inferior

Check the walls of your local higher-end sports bar, diner, hotel lobby, or waiting room.  You might find a  hideously expensive, flat-panel, wide-screen television on display.

And chances are, it won't be showing something that's formatted for widescreen.   Instead, you'll see a normal television picture, stretched out horizontally to fill the wide screen.

There's nothing like watching a baseball game played entirely by hobbits, or a news broadcast where everyone looks like Senator Ted Kennedy.

Sometimes you really have to wonder why people bother.

We is smart

Inches, feet, yards, miles.. what is properly known as the "U.S. Customary" system of measurement is, in this country, informally called "standard" measurement.

Only here in the United States would we take a system nobody else in the world uses, a system which every other country finds antiquated and ignorant, and call it the "standard."

Facial injustice

Charlie Chaplin wore one.  Oliver hardy had one.  Gentlemen the world over had them... until Adolf Hitler came along.

In the early 20th century, the "toothbrush moustache" was a quite popular facial accessory for men.  It was easily shaven around with the straight razors used back then, it was simple to take care of, and trimming required one short snip of the scissors every couple of weeks.  Stylish and economical, the toothbrush moustache was likely to remain a snappy fashion statement for years to come.  History, however, would take a different turn.

Along came one megalomaniacal genocidal racist dictator who favored the little moustache, and for some reason it became eternally associated with him.

Now, thanks to Hitler, none of us can enjoy the benefits of the toothbrush moustache without being labelled a hate-filled Nazi.

It just doesn't seem fair to me, somehow.

What if society one day realizes that Hitler also wore trousers?

Live each day like it's the last;
tell everyone what you really think of them.

Brother, can you paradigm

Possibly the funniest thing about Corporate America is when people say things like "redefine our paradigms," "increase market penetration," and "shifting focus onto our core competencies," without a trace of irony or sarcasm.

Self- reference

So I've got this strange little mutant form of net-based celebrity going on.

It's not something I talk about often, but I do dig it in its way.  It's enough where there is always fan mail for one thing or another in my inbox, I get to speak at conventions, and people in certain circles may be intimidated to meet me in person.. but not enough where I can quit my day job, conventions pay me to speak, or people remain intimidated after meeting me.  It has its points, and on the whole I think it's a harmless and fun result of spreading around the various things I do.

But one of the altogether strangest results of that was when I had gotten word that someone had started an entry about me in Wikipedia, the insanely popular, user-editable Internet encyclopedia.

The entry was under "Rob Vincent," and contained a short biography, mostly condensed from the one on my personal site.  There were also some links to my work, here and elsewhere, and a tag adding me to the category listing of all the site's entries on comedians.

My own encyclopedia entry!  I wasn't at all sure how to feel about this.  On the one hand, it's an honor and quite flattering that someone, somewhere would think enough of me and my work to do this, but on the other hand, do I really deserve an encyclopedia entry?  Do things I say and write really warrant me being put in a list with George Carlin, John Cleese, Dave Barry, and my ultimate heroes, the Marx Brothers?

To add more complexity to the matter, I'm a somewhat active Wikipedia user myself, contributing to existing articles when I can.  This presented a dilemma... what's the etiquette in editing an entry about yourself?  The actual or perceived ego issues that come into play are mind-boggling.

Finally, I made a minor edit to the article.  I didn't add anything, but I did trim something out that, while a nice compliment, was purely the writer's opinion of me.   I figured if anyone should be trying to keep my entry neutral, fact-based, and encyclopedia-worthy, it should be me.

I sat back, checking the entry from time to time.  Ostensibly I was checking for any inaccurate additions made by people, but privately I always got a little thrill out of the fact that it was still there.  Still, the article remained a "stub," Wikipedia's term for a short article that could do with expanding.  I toyed with the idea of adding to it myself, even briefly - very briefly - considering registering a second account on the site so it wouldn't be obvious that it came from me.

Of course, the entire weird situation was taken out of my hands.  A high-level hardcore Wikipedia user got wind of my entry after clicking around some of my edits elsewhere on the site, and wondered whether I warranted my own entry after all.  In a polite message thanking me for my help elsewhere on the site, I was also informed that my own entry was being put up for review as a candidate for deletion.  I chose to stay out of that discussion, but did watch the message board as it was summarily decided by a bunch of harder-core Wiki users than I'll ever be that I'm "non notable," and the entry was deleted.

I'm no more sure how to feel about the article being deleted than I am about the article being created.  I do get an extreme kick out of it, though.  Imagine!   Not only was I important enough for someone to put the time and energy into creating the entry, but the removal of said entry was important enough for a group to put time and energy into getting it erased!  And when all is said and done, I helped all those people pass a little time and contribute as they see fit.  From each of their points of view, they got something important done.

Knowing that it wouldn't have happened without me is in itself worth the experience.

Even better, I did receive one piece of fan mail from someone who apparently found my work through that entry, cementing for me the fact that its short life was not in vain.

Tag, you're it

One of the old comedy standbys, somewhere between airline food and having just broken up with a significant other, are those ominous "DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW" labels on new mattresses and pillows.

"Oh my God, I'm guilty of a crime!  Hahaha (etc.)"

Well, here's another ruin-your-fun fact for the day - the law only extends to when they're new in the store.  You can do what you like with them once you get them home.   The reason for the big angry legal warning, is the simple fact that the tag lists the contents of the cushion.  As some people are allergic to certain substances, the tag has to be available in the store to inform them if anything in the bedding they're about to buy can kill them.  Additionally, it stops vendors from selling a cheapie as a high-quality one and pocketing the difference.

Now you know.  Heckle the next comic who uses that tired old gag.  Keeping crap material out of standup acts is a public responsibility.

Questions

Is it just me, or...

• was George Michael a lot more entertaining when he was trying to pass for straight?
• does every mildly successful American comedian get a TV series, usually wherein he plays a teacher?
• is it safe to miss any movie starring Nicholas Cage?
• will it never again be as cool to be "down wit' O.P.P." as it once was?
• do people really need to stop giving a damn about Jennifer Lopez?
• do you not need to read a Grisham book once you've looked at the dramatic cover illustration?

These factoids may trouble you

Against popular wisdom and common sense, the following all exist in our world today...

• men named Richard who think shortening their name to "Dick" is a fine idea
• Monkees songs that are better than some Beatles songs
• occasions where a video game is preferable to sexual contact
• new smokers
• men who believe hairpieces or elaborate hair combing techniques successfully hide baldness
• professional gamblers
• people who don't like candy
• parents who buy their children Sunny Delight instead of orange juice
• flat-Earth theorists
• people who truly believe that a Nigerian prince has just emailed them with an opportunity for "sixty millions of American dollars"

Specialized commerce

Going to the mall as a youth, I always noticed the small shop that had an assortment of essential items that everyone uses at home, but for a much higher price.  Spray cleaners, toilet paper, soap, pens, trash bags, rubber bands, tape, and so on for a dollar or two more than they cost at the normal stores you all buy them from.  I always wondered how that store stayed in business.  Who buys that stuff at those prices, when it can all be found much cheaper at the big grocery store across the street?

When I got a job managing a place in that mall, I found out.  It's the managers of all the other shops in the mall who buy that stuff for their stores.  The marked-up prices don't matter when you're spending the store's money.  In fact, they're rather helpful to all the managers looking for little ways to get revenge on an evil absentee boss.

"Yeah, I'll make him pay double for the toilet paper in my employee bathroom!   That'll show the old skinflint.  Hey, and this place only stocks the expensive soft kind!   Hell yes..."

For those about to rock

All my life I've loved watching musicians perform.

No matter what genre, regardless of level of fame, there's just something about watching people performing music.  Whether it's a huge celebrity act playing a packed arena or a cover band at someone's wedding, you can tell they love what they're doing.   Nobody takes a musician's job until "something better comes along."   It's not a job you clock into, do what you're told, have a coffee break, and put in your 40 hours.  They're artists, living for their craft.  Their hearts and souls go into playing those instruments, and singing those songs.  They're doing something magickal, and every last person listening can share in it.

As a kid, I started trying to reconcile this image of musicians with music I was noticing on television. There was actual music being made for things that I knew were worthless, like commercials for stupid toys, or my sister's girly cartoons.

Remote-controlled cars and action figures had pounding rock theme songs!  Baby dolls and board games had full orchestras!  I tried to imagine some band going to all that trouble, creating and believing in that sound, and putting all that art into something so dumb.  Could the band jamming on stage really be into making a theme song for a soap opera, or a jingle for dish detergent?

Much later I learned about stock music and studio musicians, and how they pretty much are clocking in and doing what they're told.

Thinking about that still makes me a bit sad.

[sic]

Throughout the entire Long Island Rail Road, a sign can be seen posted at nearly every escalator.  The sign reads, verbatim: "The unauthorzied interference with the operation of this escalator is prohibited by law."

Unauthorzied.

The word "unauthorized" is misspelled in this way at every escalator-equipped LIRR station I've been to, and has been for at least a decade.

If Jesus Christ literally returned to Earth in physical form here and now, I'd bet heavily against Him identifying as Christian.

In Olde Tymes, the local smith was called Smith.  The friendly baker was known as Baker.
What was Hancock's job?

I've since returned to the place where I lost my virginity, but it was nowhere to be found.

Feeling a bit classy

Here's something cultured, witty and sophisticated, for the upper class amongst my readers...

You know the really frightening part about farting in public?

It's not the smell, the chuckles, or even the potential for staining.

It's the fact that you immediately have to find a scapegoat noise.

You know what I mean.  A scapegoat noise, some sound you can make, which obviously isn't a fart, but makes just a similar enough sound that you can blame the earlier disturbance on it.

Picture this.  You're sitting at some desk job after one too many cups-o-noodles from the breakroom, when nature loudly takes its course.  Every head in the office turns toward you.

What's your first instinct?  Trying very hard to not look like you've heard the noise that originated from someplace you're quite familiar with, you idly squeak your shoe on the floor.  Did that sound right?  No, too weak.  You creak your office chair around a bit.  There!  That creak was loud, and everyone must have seen that it came from a creaky chair this time!  Hurrah!!

You sneak a quick look around.  Damn!  They're not buying it!  It wasn't a close enough noise to your unwitting emanations.  You try desperately to find something else, something noisy but socially acceptable.  You slide your rubber-bottomed tape dispenser around your desk.  You twist your feet all over, trying to seek out a creaky floorboard, a squeakier spot for your shoes, anything.  You pick up your phone, and drag the coiled cord over the edge of the desk.  You roll pencils around.   Snap a few rubber bands.  Blow some low notes on a tuba, should you happen to have one handy.  Nothing!  They must know by now!  Hell and brimstone!! Your life, as it has been, is over!

Or is it?  Time for plan B.

You start sniffing the air, and suddenly look disgusted.  In a pantomime performance rivaling the great Marcel Marceau himself, you subtly yet definitively convey the concept that you're suddenly smelling something unpleasant.  You start to look around at your coworkers, as though trying to figure out which of them is responsible.   Still, being the nice person you are, you shrug, completely "forgive the culprit," and go on with your work.

Another social disaster, narrowly averted.

The next day, you bring lunch.  Maybe a nice green salad.

A healthy dose of truth

A former amusement center/arcade manager ruins a few things for you parents out there:

• In my time in the larger amusement centers, I saw hundreds of children's birthday parties.  Not a single one ended without one or more children crying, and one or more parents cursing angrily.
• No, you will not collect enough prize tickets to win something that cost the arcade more than you paid to play.  The economics of the place don't work like that.  Deal with it.
• Yes, the crane games are rigged as well.  See above.
• The previous two are no secret either, so don't try and use this knowledge to intimidate the employees into giving you better stuff.  You'll just piss them off.
• No matter how much childlike wonder you think it will inspire in your offspring, the singing robot animal puppets will not fool them.  In fact, there is a very good chance they will only be freaked to hell out, and will think a good deal less of you for insisting that they're real and cute.

Alternative career

I once had a very realistic dream in which I was making a living as a stripper, having hyperactive and inebriated women stuff tips into my improbably shaped undergarments.

However, the coins were cold, I didn't know how to use the food stamps, and I can't see how I'd ever have collected on those IOUs.

Sometimes I wonder whether I dream a bit too pragmatically.

Movie magic

When I was a child, I was just as much of a movie addict as I am now.  The movies were a big deal.  Experiencing a movie was made all the more special by the fact that I couldn't yet go under my own power.  I had to wait to see a movie with the family.   That, of course, meant we had to know what movies were out, know which ones were okay for kids, and after all that we had to agree on one to see.

When Mom first took me to see "Ghostbusters," we were the only two patrons in the entire theater.  We got a huge kick out of that, and shouted "down in front!" and "shhhhh!" to imaginary fellow patrons.  The projectionist was even laughing in the booth, and shaking the projector a little before the film to show us he was in on the joke.

The movie was awesome enough that we went back with my sister Jo and our grandfather, by which time word-of-mouth had spread and the theater was packed.

I saw "The Goonies," one of my favorite movies ever, five times in theaters with different combinations of Mom, Grandpa, and Jo.  It was just as much fun every time.  Even when we'd seen it many times and knew what was going to happen, we remained able to completely lose ourselves in the story.

"Back to the Future" isn't just one of my favorites, it was a favorite of my whole family.  We all saw it together a record seven times.  Every time we went, the audience broke into a spontaneous round of applause when George McFly finally decks Biff and rescues Lorraine.

It wasn't all happy adventure movies, either.  Mom and Grandpa often took us kids to more serious fare.  "Gandhi," for example, was a long experience for a five-year-old, but I was transfixed by the story regardless.  Mom still remembers me trying and failing to understand why the fighting and killing portrayed in the movie happened, how come these people didn't like those people, and her trying to explain it to me.  A few years later we would see "Eleni" together.

Throw in some good-natured drama like the dance-meets-defection-from-Russia film "White Nights" and assorted others, and we had what we didn't realize until much later was an unusually well-rounded cinematic upbringing.

After a movie we'd usually go out to eat somewhere, and gleefully discuss the movie, going over our favorite scenes, what we'd do if the film's events happened to us, and so forth.

In those days, after a movie left the theaters, there really wasn't a way for us to relive it.  We didn't have cable television yet, and home video was still something for rich people.  Even the few people I knew with VCRs didn't own many movies on tape.   They tended to use the devices to watch things recorded off television.

The only way for us to re-experience a movie at all was to wait for it to show on broadcast television, cut for content and filled with ad breaks.  TV Guide used to have a "broadcast movie roundup" section, which detailed all the movies playing on the local stations that week.  I'd flip immediately to those pages every week, and scan it obsessively for any of my favorites.

The really big movies also had novelizations published, which I started collecting as much as a kid without much cash could, but they didn't tend to stay available for long.   The even rarer comic book adaptations, while usually of lousy quality, were at least another option.

Nowadays, things are different.  I have most of my favorites on DVD,  Many are loaded with commentaries, behind-the-scenes stuff, and other special features aimed at movie geeks like myself.  They're in perfect shape, all material intact, and most even have content that was cut from the theatrical versions.

Thanks to the robust digital format, my movie collection will very probably be around longer than I will.

But for some reason, I don't take them off the shelf very much.

It's as though having the choice to watch them again any time I wish actually takes away from needing to watch them at all.

Labels and approval

My best friend in the world also happens to be an ex-girlfriend.  My old mother has a real problem with this for some reason.

"Why are you still hanging around with her?  She's dating someone else.   You're seeing a new girl.  That's abnormal, you two hanging around.  Her boyfriend is even a friend of yours?  How is that possible?  What's wrong with all of you?"

I try to introduce Mom to as few of my friends as possible.

Parental guidance suggested

Somewhere in the world, even in this day and age, there are parents who:

• enter their toddlers into beauty pageants
• let young children use the Internet unsupervised
• believe that failing to teach their children about sex or drugs will prevent said children from experimenting
• believe it a good idea to give their children the same name as themselves, appending a "Jr." or a Roman numeral
• buy their daughters those trendy sweatpants with words like "juicy" written across the butt
• fail to read the box on a clearly labeled and content-rated video game before buying it for their child, freak out much later when they realize that said child is having a great time carjacking, shooting digital cops, and patronizing virtual hookers, and blame the company who made the game for warping their child's mind

Letters

Ok I was slow at getting to check out your new site.  I laughed my cute butt off.   That poor bug, you killed it!!!  I think that nature has a cut off for when it is time for the little bugger to stop eating.   You move and it flies away.  You stood still, you are lucky it didn't explode.

Did you know that women smoked just so they could keep their weight down, when pregnant?

Diane

That would make sense.  That would also make me a bug murderer for staying still.  Gee, thanks for letting me know.  *cries*

Smoking can prevent excess weight, as well as prevent excess baby.  I swear, if my hypothetical future wife ever puts her unborn child at risk like that... I'll track down the guy responsible and let him deal with her.

I am thoroughly amused.  Given the fact that Dave Barry is leaving the field - I am very pleased to have you. :)

Courtney

P.S. I wish I could have insulted that crazy locomotion chick too.

I'm truly flattered!  Being mentioned in the same sentence as Dave Barry is quite a compliment.  The fact that the sentence didn't start along the lines of "Dave Barry is a great humorist, unlike..." is an even greater compliment.

"Wow, that's a crappy ezine"

are five words that I wouldn't not describe your new ezine with. I like it.

Daniel

Thanks!

I like your zine so much that I read it.

fred

I like your letter so much that I print it.

Hi, Rob.
I like* WTH.

Thank you,
-süsan

* "like" as in - this is the funniest freakin' thing since Mandarin Orange Slice.
I sinceeeerely hope you come out with many more issues.
Erm...issues of WTH, not, like, life-issues or anything.
Unless they're funny life-issues, then have at it.

No, seriously.

Your fan,
-sü

Thank you so much!  I'm really happy you like it.  Feedback means a lot, especially if it's positive and from someone with an umlaut.

Dear WTH,

At the request of Dark Tangent^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Kylie Minogue, you are asked to remove the disparging remarks about her made in issue 2.

Thank you.

Murd0c

I'll publish a retraction as soon as she stops sucking canal water.  Fun fact: as of this writing, her posters in the gift shop at Madame Tussaud's New York are on clearance for a fiver.

I'm just grateful that Murd0c guy hasn't found all those disparaging comments I've made about him on the Internet over the years..