I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news that Buckwheat had been shot. I didn’t know then how it would shape my identity, that it would affect changes in me like so many of the Baby Boomers after the Kennedy assassinations, that it would actually lead me into a different path in life. All I knew then was that the show I was watching was live from New York, and it’s was on Saturday night. And it was funny.

“Saturday Night Live” showed me the viability of sketch comedy as an art form, introduced me to new actors that quickly became favorites of mine, even pushed me into this here sketch comedy group (well, we’re more of a comedy collective now, but I bet we still have a performance or two left in us). Mind you, the show can’t take all the credit (or blame, depending on which side you’re on) for my decision to pursue sketch comedy (there’s a thing called Monty Python and a thing called Spinal Tap, but that’s for another time), but it was definitely the first to make me think how great it would be to perform for a living.

This Saturday, SNL begins its 32nd season, which makes me feel very old. Do you realize that some of the current cast members could be the children of the original cast? (Well, come to think of it, it’s probably more surprising to realize that one of the current cast members (Darrell Hammond) is in his 50s and old enough to be the father of most of his fellow cast members. That’s weird. Encouraging to the aging sketch comedians out in the world, but weird nonetheless). Unfortunately, it seems all the news I’ve heard so far about the new season has been negative. Budget cuts and departures have shrunk the cast, and most everyone I’ve talked to thinks Seth Myers as head writer and Weekend Update anchor will effectively finish the job that Charles Rocket and Anthony Michael Hall and Chris Elliott started: successfully killing “Saturday Night Live.” Boy, that’s a depressing thought. Just forget it. Forget I said anything. “SNL” will still be here, it will, it must, it has to! Now excuse me while I gently rock in a corner, murmuring to myself, “Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

Okay, I’m back.

As I was contemplating the new season, I tried to make the ultimate SNL cast, using anyone that has ever performed for the show. I was having so much fun with that idea, I thought I’d get the rest of the Van Gogh-Goghs into the act. But then I wondered, “How exciting would that really be?” We’d all pick Phil Hartman and Eddie Murphy and the big power players. There may be two or three differences, but each cast would be virtually the same. So, like every other great idea I’ve had in the past three years, I readily dismissed it in favor of working on my fantasy basketball team.

At this point, I’m diving into the NBA stats, trying to decide if Chris Paul or Gilbert Arenas would be a better point guard this year, when it dawned on me: we shouldn’t just name our favorite SNL cast, we should DRAFT our fantasy SNL cast, just like my fantasy NBA league (which I won last year… I’m not braggin’, just stating a fact).

The draft would be perfect. Sure, we’d all love to have Mike Myers, but when and over which other cast members would you pick him? Which newscaster would you want behind the desk?

I emailed the other Van Gogh-Goghs the idea, and everyone else agreed that it would be a fun challenge. Just like that, the VGG Fantasy SNL League was born.

I know you see the problem with this already. We saw it, too. How do you score this? With a fantasy basketball league, you can objectively quantify the benefits and risks of the players. If you need blocked shots, you’ll look at Andrei Kirilenko and hope last year’s shooting percentages and back injuries were a fluke. If you need rebounds, and you’re trying to choose between Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki, you can see that KG grabs more boards. It’s right there in the numbers.

But how do you quantify laughter? Comedy is subjective; you know this every time you meet a Dane Cook fan (is it just me who recalls a Dane Cook who was funny but not a tool? I miss two years of pop culture and now he’s the “coolest” thing around). Is it really possible to compare Dan Aykroyd and Adam Sandler? Gilda Radner and Will Ferrell? John Belushi and Finesse Mitchell? Okay, that last one, maybe you can.

How can we figure out who wins? Well, we can’t. But you can, and we’ll get to that in the coming days.

Before we can decide who wins, though, we have to have the casts. Each team will have six men, three women and a news anchor (more on that later), and can fill the spots with anyone who was a full cast member or featured player. Once a performer has been selected, the performer cannot be selected again. Comedy bits like Mr. Bill and Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey are not eligible to be picked.

As for the news anchors, every actor who has appeared as an anchor is eligible to be selected. Also, the news anchor part of the person is separate from the actor part. For example, if Jason picks Brad Hall as the news anchor, he cannot count in sketches unless Jason also drafts Brad Hall as an actor. If T. Mike picks Chevy Chase as an actor, he can’t use Chase as his anchor unless he also picks him as the anchor. Got it? Good.

The draft is a 10-round snake draft (the order of drafting in odd-numbered rounds is reversed in even-numbered rounds; this levels the playing field in that the one drafting at the end of the first round gets to pick first in the second… trust me, it’s the best way (if you don’t trust me, that’s fine, because T. Mike doesn’t trust me, either)), with our draft order randomly chosen. That order in the first round will be:

Galen
Charles (that’s me)
Rob
Alan
Jason
T. Mike (which is probably why he doesn’t trust me about the snake draft)

We’ll begin announcing the results of the draft next week, starting with the first two rounds on Monday. Once the casts have been selected and the requisite comments made, it’s time to settle it once and for all: who has the best SNL fantasy cast?

For those of you who thought that wearing one of those Bluetooth cellphone earpieces was only good for making you look like a self-important prick, I have some very good news: it also makes you look like Lobot!

Yes, in addition to making people think you’re a loon who’s loudly talking to himself, you can also brighten the days of your contemporaries by reminding them of one of the most fondly overlooked characters in the Star Wars mythology.

To corroborate my theory, I’m including here a picture of a guy I saw at the airport and Mr.Lobot himself. I hope this gives Bluetooth headset users some much-needed perspective:

Finally bringing American meerkat-eroticism on par with the great European teams, scientists unveiled the world’s third-most humpable meerkat at a well-attended press conference in the Sensual Biology Amphitheater at Caltech in Pasadena, CA.

Meerkats, long known in the animal kingdom for their remarkable lack of ability to exite sexual urges in humans, have recently been the subject of a great deal of gene-splicing and DNA recombination experiments directed at making the mammals more sexually interesting to humans. Up until this announcement, Scandinavian and English scientists have dominated the field, with Japanese teams making exciting breakthroughs. This is the first serious American entry into the field, which makes the incredibly strong showing all the more remarkable.

The Global Erotic Meerkat Ratings Board, the established multinational standard of determing sexy meerkat ratings, had previously listed the top three most humpable meerkats as ones produced by the Swedish National Meerkat Research Council, a privately-held British research society called MeerexUK, and the meerkat produced by Sony’s biosexuality division in Hokkaido, Japan. The newly-announced American entry has ratings that place it third, effectively knocking the Japanese entry to fourth place.

“We couldn’t be happier or more excited, both emotionally and sexually,” says Dr. Malcom Towbridge, lead scientist of the Caltech project. “Making a meerkat sexually interesting at all is a grand achievement; I mean, we’re not talking about panthers or dolphins here.”

“What’s really amazing, is just how powerful this meerkat’s eroticism is,” Towbridge continued, his pants now visibly tenting under the strain of his erection, which increased in size and urgency the more he discussed his group’s achievement. “I mean, just look at this meerkat…”

Dr.Towbridge trailed off his speech and removed the meerkat from its locked and padded crate. The meerkat, its fur worn away in several large patches on its back, shoulders, and rump, writhed and whimpered in an exhausted, but strangely alluring manner.

“The actual traits of sexual magnetism, or ‘humpability’, are really quite tricky to define,” continued Towbridge, stroking the meerkat while adjusting his pants, “It’s really got very little to do with what we conventionally consider “beauty.” This is not the same reaction we undergo when we say, look at a pretty human woman; this is something far more basic, more ingrained and sensual.”

Dr. Towbridge then paused and ran his tongue up the length of the meerkat’s spine.

“Of course, achieving this incredible goal makes me appreciate the work of my collegues. The British meerkat, especially. I was permitted to examine it in detail at the Global Conference (of Meerkat Sensuality) in Oslo last year. The animal possesses an incredibly sensuality of form, a remarkable, humid sexuality in its slim, silken body, permeating it’s every musky…musky, damp…”

Dr. Towbridge at this point suddenly broke off speaking and began to violently dry-hump the award-winning meerkat, vigorously thrusting onto it as he held it against the podium at the amphitheater. Dr.Towbridge could not be roused for comment after this action, and the exhausted meerkat was injected with Gatorade and returned to its crate by two female lab assistants.

“We have nothing but respect for the American achievement, but, to be quite frank, they still have a long way to go before they get a meerkat as humpable as ours,” says Dr.Als Jaringe, Lead Scientist of the Swedish team.

“I mean, look at this. Sweet lord, this meerkat is hot,” Jaringe continued, stripping down to his underwear and pinning their world-beating meerkat under his body on a mat placed on the floor of his office, as his buttocks began to clench and unclench rhythmycally. “I mean, fuck.”

Hello I’m Charon. You might know me as Pluto’s “moon.” I’ve remained silent in the planet/not-a-planet controversy regarding Pluto, but I can remain silent no longer. The International Astronomical Union has decided to demote my life partner Pluto and take away his status as a planet. This blatant, divisive, and cruel discrimination can not stand.

Pluto and I are no strangers to controversy. Our very discovery was controversial. Percival Lowell’s outer-solar system witch hunt first outed us in 1930 due to the public’s panic about a supposed gravitational “influence” over Neptune. Well, now the truth is out there- our supposed “influence” on Neptune is minimal, people: minimal. Neptune is his own planet, and he lives his own life. As for us, we could live with the strange looks and being snubbed by space probes. But this time the astronomy establishment has crafted an arbitrary definition of “planet” simply to exclude Pluto. This is discrimination at its worst.

Am I not a planet? Do I not orbit the Sun? Am I not rounded by the gravity of my own mass? What more could you want? Yes, our orbit has been described as “eccentric”– but I’m here to tell you that this is an astronomy codeword for “inferior.” You can dress it up in all the euphemisms you want, astronomy, but it is still the language of hate. It’s time we stood up and proudly proclaimed that our orbit isn’t eccentric- it’s QUEER!

Obviously, panicked, conservative astronomers no longer want Pluto and I in the list of planets where children would have to be taught about us and our lifestyle. By demoting us, they think they can sweep us under the rug, out of sight, and pretend that moons orbiting planets and planets orbiting suns in neat little ellipses in the same plane is the somehow the “natural” order of things, despite the reality of the universe.

What they find even worse is that I don’t orbit Pluto. And Pluto doesn’t orbit me. We orbit EACH OTHER. We are not a planet and moon, but a double planet! Our relationship is an EQUAL partnership, and it is this fact that so frightens the establishment. Our existence challenges the so-called “traditional values” of the planet-moon relationship where the moon is always in the inferior position, and “knows their place.”

It’s sad that the astronomy establishment sees our equality as a threat that must be suppressed. A threat so great they feel they must revoke our status as planet. The IAU will no longer legally recognize our partnership, and will deny such recognition to all future double planets, or even, “God forbid” triple planets. But we’re here, we’re queer, we’re Kuiper! And we’re not going anywhere- in fact, our numbers are growing. Sedna, Quaoar, Varuna, – sure our names may not be from classic Roman mythology, we may not have the topography and atmospheres the “establishment” says is proper, but we all orbit the same sun as you.

The IAU has chosen to discriminate against Pluto by assigning it a status separate from the “classical” planets, and calling it something other than “planet.” Separate is not equal. Especially when the separate status thrust upon us is “dwarf.” Dwarf? We’re not dwarfs- YOU, you the astronomers, are the dwarfs- dwarfed in spirit, dwarfed in mind, dwarfed in imagination. Your hide-bound, outdated, antiquated prejudices have left you unable to see that all planetary bodies are created equal. Your plutophobia sickens and disgusts me.

There’s no need for it to be like this. Dark matter is 90% of the universe; regular matter, the type of matter that makes up planetary stalwarts like Jupiter, Earth, and Mars–is the very same stuff that makes up Pluto, myself, and a whole host of bodies you’ve probably never even taken the time to be aware of. We’re all part of the same, precious 10%. And it’s high time we all saw that.

We all orbit one, solitary star. Let’s try to remember that.

When you think you know the answer, post a comment!

What kind of monster would put these onesies on their baby? How much would a monster like that be willing to pay for something like this? What if we included free shipping?

I don’t know who’s responsible, but I want to give everyone out there doing the Lord’s work of vandalizing billboards and other advertisements a little reminder. There is a right way and a wrong way to do your job. Let’s be a little more careful out there. Focus!

So last week, we got this email:

From: “Tracy Geller”
Date: July 26, 2006 3:28:55 PM PDT
To: Subject: I want to sell your comedy cds through our stores

I’ve spent a lot of time at your Van Gogh Goghs website and I think your comedy cds are perfect for our stores. I especially like your cd “Keepin’ It Real”. We work hand in hand with the largest stores in the country, plus thousands of small to medium sized specialty businesses stretched across the U.S.. If you want the opportunity to sell your products through major retailers like Target, Barnes & Noble, Virgin Records, Borders, QVC, HSN, etc … plus the other 16826 bookstores, 51005 gift stores, 10337 music stores, and over 24000 mail-order catalogs … check us out at http://www.VendorPro.com

Sincerely,
Tracy Geller
VendorPro.com

Okay. Seems like a usual mass-mailing kind of thing, but what seems odd about this one is that they referenced (and misspelled) a fake comedy album we had buried on the site, called “Keepin’ it Reel.” So you know what this album is that this company is eager to distribute, here’s the description:

Keepin’ It Reel

Label: No Cows Records
Catalog No. TMC-001
Produced by Jeremy Rankin
Recorded: Christmas 1993

T. Michael Childs had one great idea: a Christmas comedy album. This is that album. He also had three terrible ideas. First, the title, Keepin’ It Reel, did not convey the Christmas theme properly. Second, the album was released on Christmas Day, a day when no one wants to buy Christmas albums. Three, the material on the album deals neither with Christmas nor comedy, but rather is a psychotic rant about pancake batter. The only thing even remotely close to Christmas comedy is the track “Christmas Slug Bathhouses.” This track starts with Childs screaming, “Christmas slug bathhouses!”, then continued with his pancake batter diatribe. Sadly, T. Mike failed to keep it reel, or real. This album is no longer in print.

Sounds great to me! I think we’re going to do it! We can make the actual album in about two hours, and from there on, it’s pure profit.

Thanks, Tracy! Great A & R work! This one’s gonna be big!

More fake albums you may want to distribute can be found here.

So by now all of America and her collective cat have probably had a chuckle at Mel Gibson’s booze-fueled tirade about us Jews, and how we love warmongering and whatnot– and now he’s sobered up, and, like all drunks, is feeling a mite fragile. And he wants our help.

Granted, he seemed to be asking this of Jewish leaders, but in a crazy religion like ours without a clear hirearchy (we ain’t got no pope) I figure we all need to pitch in.

So, get ready to work some double shifts, Jews! I’ll be pointjew for the west coast; any volunteers for the east?

Grab your handpuppets, snacks, and massage rollers! We’ve got a job to do!

The ancient art of fecomancy can help you determine your personality type and how to live your life. Your fate is not ruled by the stars! The stars above are too far away and dim to exert any influence on you; common sense tells us that. No, your fate is ruled by something much closer, maybe even in your colon right now!

Use this handy chart to determine YOUR fecotype now! (click to download a nice, printable PDF)