Great Moments in Lolabrigada Inter-Group Email History, Vol. 2

In our last installment of “Great Moments in Lolabrigada Inter-Group History”, we thrilled to Tom Lorenzo’s fantastic joke ideas. Today, we look at an email, dated 5/31/05, which was sent by one of our former members at a time when we were trying to determine what to call ourselves:

“Here are some names I thought of:

Good Throw Down

Woven Vinyl

Punch in the Neck

The Bras (or Underpants)

Kick the Can

The Doors

xxxxx (name deleted)

It is hard to imagine some alternate reality where, for the last three years, we have performed together in a sketch group called “Punch in the Neck”. It is a well-documented fact that children often subconsciously adjust their personalities in order to conform to the implications of their name, and I’m sure that phenomenon would have occurred if we had chosen to call ourselves “Punch in the Neck”.   

A sketch group with a moniker like that would find itself doing scenes that were “edgy”, misanthropic, and violent. The scenes would have names like “Vomit Mother”, “Greased Death” and “Race Car Ding-a-Long”, and they’d most likely would include gratuitous profanity and copious male nudity.

Thank God that we in what is now called Lolabrigada avoided this fate. Well, except for the “copious male nudity” part.    

Karmic Comeuppance at Eckerd

Yesterday, on the way home from work, I stopped at my local Eckerd pharmacy to get some trash bags. As usual, Eckerd didn’t have the type of trash bags I was looking for. But, as usual, Eckerd did tempt me to buy something that I hadn’t intended to. In this case, it was four cans of Bush baked beans for the iminently reasonable price of $5.

So, I awkardly scooped up four cans of beans and headed for the register. But, on the way there I was sidetracked once again. This time, I perchanced to notice that bags of Andy Capp Fries were being sold for just 49 cents a bag. This excited me greatly, but this excitement turned to disappointment when I looked at their selection and only saw Cheddar Fries. I wanted Hot Fries! So, while cradling four cans of baked beans in my left arm, I started to shuffle through bags of Andy Capp fries in search of the elusive Hot. In doing so, I knocked a bag of Cheddar fries to the ground.

After a few seconds of searching through bags of Cheddar, I saw what I was looking for: Hot Fries! In my haste to grab the Hot Fries, however, I dropped a can of baked beans onto the bag of Cheddar Fries that I had knocked to the ground a few moments earlier. The can of beans not only crushed the Cheddar Fries, but split open the bag as well.

Quite simply, I had destroyed this bag of Cheddar Fries. No one else would be able to buy it, and therefore the responsibility to purchase the damaged product fell to me and me alone. But instead of doing so, I simply picked up the bag of Cheddar Fries and laid it across the bottom shelf for someone else to discover. I then walked nonchalantly to the register with four cans of beans and a bag of pristine-condition Andy Capp Hot Fries. I felt bad about my laziness and dishonesty, but apparently this guilt was preferable to taking the crushed and split open bag of Cheddar Fries to the register and explaing the situation.

 Ah, but as I soon learned, one cannot escape God. When the clerk rang up my cans of baked beans, they came up not as four for $5, but at their normal price of $1.39 per can. Therefore, my final total was 56 cents more than it should have been.

Or was it? Upon second thought, I realized that 56 cents was exactly what I owed Eckerd for my transgression regarding the crushed Cheddar Fries: 49 cents for the product itself, and 7 cents for my laziness and dishonesty. So, everything worked out fine in the end, and I left the Eckerd secure in the knowledge that the next time I dropped a can of baked beans on a bag of Cheddar Fries, I would handle the situation differently.

Today’s word is “Ew”.

“Ew”.

A word I use quite often. Possibly my favorite. It conveys the perfect feeling without saying too much.

“Ew” is for any situation that makes you so sick that real words just won’t do.

As children, we used it while discussing frogs or boogers. As adults, however, the possibilities are endless. You can use “ew” to describe anything from a feeling, to a person, to a trend.

The following is a list of 10 examples that make me, Jenn Dodd, say “ew”. Feel free to agree or disagree. After all, “ew” is a matter of taste.

1. How hipsters always look like morning breath.

2. People who “won’t leave Manhatten”.

3. People who speak with a perfectly normal american accent until they say things like croissant. (pronounced: kwa-sauh)

4. Office voices. I’ve recently had to adopt one for my new job. Where mine sounds a little like a phone sex operator, Ben’s sounds slightly guilty, and Tom sounds like a pervert. It’s hilarious. (Don’t take my word for it though 212-910-2211 x210. Ask for Tom. )

5. When I hear someone say “supposiVely” instead of supposedly.

6. Rolling Stone’s interview with Nick Lachay, in which,” his voice falters. He then puts down the wineglass and begins to weep. It is a masculine cry. Large, errant tears are brusquely wiped away.”

7. Butt holes.

8. Vegans.

9. Vegan’s butt holes.

10. That feeling you get when you’re sober.

I could go on for weeks. So, I’ll stop there. What makes you say “ew”? Lolabrigada wants to know.

Seltzer water and pretzels,

Jenn

Roe Vs. Wade 35th Anniversary Celebration

No cartoon (political or otherwise) has ever left me as perplexed as this recent effort by Scott Stantis of the Birmingham Daily News, in which a fetus decides not to attend a celebratory event s/he has been invited to. Here are just a few of the questions that have been driving me crazy all day:

– Was this developing fetus invited to the Roe vs. Wade celebration for any particular reason? Had s/he already displayed an interest in the issue of abortion rights? Or perhaps this is an event that all local fetuses have been invited to, and can be therefore dismissed as so much junk mail to the womb?

– Regardless of the nature of the invite, how was it delivered to the fetus? One presumes that the mother must have played a key role in this process, I suppose by either swallowing it whole or inserting it into her vagina. Does she screen the mail of her unborn child, or simply deliver it indiscriminately and let the fetus sort it out?

– It’s probably a good thing that the fetus does not wish to RSVP, because how would that be done exactly? Has an elaborate morse code-like system of timed kicks been developed between mother and child, so that the latter may convey his or her intentions from the womb? Such a system implies an extraordinary capacity to educate on the mother’s part, unless this is an inherent, instinctual knowledge on the part of the fetus, gained through the collective experience of mail-recieving fetii throughout the last several millenia.

– Even if the fetus is literate, it boggles the mind that s/he could read the invitation, due to the fact that s/he has not yet developed the ability to open his or her eyes! And even assuming the prodigal and exceedingly unlikely acquisition of in-the-womb literary skills (again, barring some sort of instinctual knowledge), it is still a stretch to think that the fetus knows the definition of RSVP. That particular abbreviation is from the French language (“respondes s’il-vous-plait”), and one would assume that if this fetus understands its meaning then s/he has at least a vague awareness of a communication system that exists beyond his or her proverbial “mother tongue”.

– Okay, fine. Let’s give the fetus the benefit of the doubt, and accept that fact that s/he often recieves orally and/or vaginally-inserted invitations to events that exist in a world that is quite literally outside the realm of his or her comprehension. Isn’t this the equivalent of a fully-birthed human recieving a summons to a soiree that is outside the dimensions of space and time? A get-together that requires one to relieve himself of the burdens of the body and travel unshackled to a boundary-less place which cannot be fully grasped by the human mind? That sounds terrifying.

If that is the case, I really think that the invitation would be a source of deep anxiety and unease to all but the most spiritually-grounded fetus. Yet, this little guy/gal looks like s/he’s got the situation under control, idly taking all this in while sucking on a thumb that seems capable of delivering endless hits of some sort of amniotic opiate. Womb weed, if you will.

More power to you, little one. You are an inspiration to all living creatures, born and otherwise.

I look at myself in the mirror because I’m my type…

Lolabrigada cycles through role models like cyclists cycle through bicycles. Here’s our latest hero:

Thanks to Bri from Party Central USA for informing us of the existence of Mr. Sebastian Horsley, whose book “Dandy in the Underworld” will be released on March 11.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Lolabrigada over and out.

Ben’s Book Club, Vol. 2: White Fang

In the first installment of Ben’s Book Club, I discussed Jack London’s “Sea Wolf”. That book was awesome (for the most part), and left me wanting to read more books by Mr. London. So, being an insatiable bibliophile, that’s just what I did.

My next Jack London selection was the classic “White Fang”, which, unlike “Sea Wolf”, was about wolves.

I knew I was going to like “White Fang” as soon as I saw the table of contents. The book’s 192 pages were divided into 25 chapters, each bearing a more ominous and heavy title than the last. These chapter names were so laden with violence and dread that they may as well have been thrash-metal song titles. In fact, I defy you, the reader, to be able to tell the difference. Below are two lists. One contains five “White Fang” chapter names. The other includes fives songs written by the legendary Brazilian metal group Sepultura.

List A: The Curse, The Abyss, The Hunt, The Ways of Faith, The Rift

List B: The Clinging Death, The Mad God, The Bondage, The Wall of the World, The Famine.

Give up? The answer awaits after the so-called “jump”…

A Pluperfect Sketch Indeed

Ladies and gentleman –

We in Lolabrigada are pleased to present to you the following video. It is one of our favorite groups, Barrett and Goldman, performing one of their very best sketches. Enjoy…

A Cautionary Tale From the Lolabrigada Archives…

Tom is on vacation this week. Therefore, it stands to reason that I, Ben, should be on vacation too. Therefore, instead of writing new content, I present the following true-life tale from the Lolabrigada MySpace archives. This hilarious tale was submitted to us by a “friend” who shall go unnamed for the sake of his dignity:

While looking at my bank statement this month, I noticed that a mysterious entity named ‘paycom.net’ charged me $26.91. Not knowing who paycom.net was, I called the number listed on the bank statement.

A customer service representative quickly answered, and informed me that the $26.91 charge was for my monthly membership on the esteemed porn site milfhunter.com.

What She Say?!?!

On a lazy winter’s night of recent vintage, Ben and Tom learned that females (and, specifically, Jenn) occasionally must engage in decidedly un-ladylike bodily functions. This video is rising fast on the YouTube hot charts, and it has already been viewed more times than viral classics such as  ”Lazy Guido”, “Baby Swallows Tongue (Not his Own!!!)”, and “Ron Paul Straightens His Tie”.  

This all seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hardcore Hacking. Ouch!

So, as you may, or may not, have noticed.

Lolabrigada’s MySpace account was hacked this week.

It’s a very violating feeling, being hacked. We felt ashamed, guilty, and embarassed. We know it was nothing that was our fault. It’s not like we asked for it to happen to us, you know?

But, speaking about it, even when it embarrassed us, also slowly freed us from the shame we felt.

If you’ve been hacked, Lolabrigada wants you to know that you’re not alone.

Thankyou to all of our friends out there who stood by us during this difficult time, and supported us after the hacking.

Love,
Jenny Brigada

Coffee drinker extraordinaire