Brian Chirls

We All Have Stories…

I can’t even tell you how many times this sorta thing has happened to me. This lovely little news item is worth the read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/nyregion/31POTT.html

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Pocket Zeitgeist

A list of words recognized and not recognized by “T9™” text input on my mobile phone:

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A Few Gems

It’s been a busy few days, here at blog.chirls.com. I’m gonna have to give my personal assistant, Missy, a break pretty soon to give her fingers a chance to stop bleeding. But for now, we’re just too durn fulla ass-whoopin’ content to stop. So here are a few noteworthy goodies that popped up today.

Mark had a couple of major bylines over at the New York Times this week, in Education and Circuits. Between that and the narrow win the Marlins managed to fart out, maybe we’ll get a smile and a round of Jameson out of that ornery bastard. Thanks, pal. Where we would be without you to let us in on what’s happening on the web?

A nice little quote in Tony Lane’s review of “Sylvia” in the New Yorker (or is it the New Yorker?):
“the whole point of student jazz, then as now, is that it should sound like two cats beating up a goose.”
What a kickass magazine. The whole Making Movies issue (3/20/2003) was brilliant. I’m still not going to see “Sylvia.”

A package came from Amazon.com today:
- Directing Actors by Judith Weston. Something I could use a little help with.
- The Underpants, a play by Carl Sternheim, adaptation by Steve Martin. I saw this one a year or two ago. Brilliant.
- Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. Smartest and funniest man on TV right now. Let’s see if he can write too. I already read about a third of the way through this one while I was dozing through tonight’s long and boring Yankee [sic] game. So far, mostly hilarious.
- The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. The big man’s new novel. Haven’t heard much about it. But Shopgirl was great (let’s hope they don’t screw up the movie), and Steve-o can do no wrong. (If he doesn’t already hate me - I’m pretty sure he does - he will if he ever finds out I called him Steve-o.)

I just finished Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Effin’ great. Ditto for Straight Man. I’m quite the reader these days. I rule.

Okay, it’s 3am, and I have to be up for work soon. The things I do to entertain you freakin’ people.

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Dream Job

Here’s one more from the same guy.

I’ll tell you a secret, man. Before I started this job, i had a dream that i got this job! Not this job, specifically, but I dreamed that I worked with architects. Ok, there are no architects in this office. But it’s like that.

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The Truth. The Real, Serious Truth

The following is an excerpt of a conversation I had with…err…the conversation someone in the office had with…himself. This is all true. This transcript is almost verbatim, but not perfect, as I can only type so fast. It picks up in the middle, and the gentleman went on quite a bit longer, but this is what I managed to record. He didn’t seem to notice that I was typing the whole time he was talking, and he doesn’t seem to know how to use the Internet. So I don’t expect him to find this.

Did you know that the Pentagon (and they ADMITTED this!) gets a lot of ideas for the wars and stuff that they do from the movies in Hollywood? And it goes the other way too. So stuff in movies is all true. That’s how you know that people really do hear voices in their heads all the time, and that’s what causes them to commit crimes. ‘Cause it’s in the movies.

Don’t you hear voices? I hear voices. Not like human voices, but you know that someone or some thing is there telling you stuff. Like, when you sleep. What was that movie with Tom Cruise? That famous movie; I always see the commercial. It was like a big dream, but it seemed so realistic. The one with Larry Fishburn. The Matrix!!! That’s the one. When I saw that, I didn’t know what was real and what was unreal. That part blew my head off! But I didn’t see part two.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Lost in Translation

I have nothing to say about this.
http://www.japander.com/japander/schwarz.htm

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Thoughts on Acting Like a Man

Nothing yet. I’m having my people look into it.

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On Rosh Hashanah It is Written…

Book of Life, Volume 5,763
Entry #4,043,867,511: Chirls

Though 5763 has, in some ways, been a year of improvement for Mr. Chirls, he is still considered a “heavy hitter” among sinners. He has shown a significant decrease in gambling, larceny and violent crime. However, he still commits a broad range of sins against both Man and God, and his accounting practices can be described as “dodgy” at best.

The following is a list of the most frequent and/or offensive sins committed by Mr. Chirls in the year 5763:

Sins Against Man
- Bearing false witness
- Malicious gossip
- Making fun of A.B. for being so little
- Not liking One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Spreading the Sobig virus
- Chewing with mouth open
- Drunken singing
- File-sharing
- Insider trading
- Price-fixing
- General misogynistic behavior
- Excessive use of “finger quotes”
- Allowing major Colombian drug operation to run out of his living room
- Coveting neighbor’s wife, maidservant, ox and ass
- Failing to see friends’ plays in Fringe Festival
- Seeing The Lion King on Broadway (see also “Sins Against God”)
- Not scrubbing hard enough when cleaning the tub
- Treason

Sins Against God
- Original Sin
- Blasphemy
- Idolatry (possession of graven images with intent to sell)
- Sloth
- Gluttony
- Double Parking
- Neither observing the Sabbath, nor keeping it holy
- Seeing The Lion King on Broadway
- Singing “Hakuna Matata” on the way home from seeing The Lion King on Broadway
- Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain
- Onanism

Sins Committed by Chirls in 5763, Compared with U.S.A. National Average

Outlook for 5764
In light of the above sins and Mr. Chirls’s utter lack of atonement, the new year will include the following:
- A new, discourteous roommate who speaks poor English
- Chronic athlete’s foot
- Low quality mobile phone service
- No more good thai restaurants in the neighborhood that will deliver
- IRS Audit
- A little jail time
- Lactose intolerance
- an extended “dry spell”

Because of a rare act of kindness in which Mr. Chirls selflessly bought a round of drinks for a bachelorette party of women he did not at all find attractive, he will receive one perfect extra-lean pastrami sandwich in the year 5764.

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Heroes

I ran into Steve Martin in a book store today. He didn’t remember my name, but I could tell he recognized me. He said he hasn’t gotten around to reading my screenplay yet. I think I’ll send him another copy in case he lost it or something.

What a nice guy.

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