Danny Gallagher http://www.dannygallagher.net The official home page of the writer, humorist and all around nice guy en-us Nucleus CMS v3.22 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.dannygallagher.net/nucleus/nucleus2.gif Danny Gallagher http://www.dannygallagher.net Danny's Back in Cracked...AGAIN! http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=256 Man, time flies when you're having fun and not getting paid fast enough for it.

Cracked has decidedly not learned their lesson and published another article written by yours truly. This time it's the "6 Old School Video Games as Violent as 'Grand Theft Auto'" featuring such classics as a game where you get your head ripped off by a man eating plant, a game where you shoot innocent people for fun and an Atari 2600 remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Give it a read here and then go shower for an hour.

LINK: http://www.cracked.com/article_16530_history-violence-6-old-school-games-as-brutal-as-gta.html]]> bsp http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=256 Tue, 5 Aug 2008 17:29:56 -0400 When the Internet Attacks: An Experience in Humility, Public Criticism and Online Losers http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=255 Last week, my first Spike article, "How to Write a Will Ferrell Movie in 8 Easy Steps," premiered to a ton of hits thanks to my close personal friend, fan and fellow TopFiver Randy Lee, which really impressed the brass and I didn't have to buy them a fruit basket or a hooker or anything.

Randy was nice enough to submit the story to Fark, a huge news and entertainment link site that will ensure your whatever on the web will attract a huge amount of traffic. You could post a picture of yourself making toast and as long as Fark picks it up, you'll be getting calls from CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and C-Span asking if you can do an interview that night because you're the "toast guy."

So the link makes it to the front page and not only brings about 15,000 hits to my story on the first day, it also brings the wrath of 100 angry talkbackers who think I'm just another road slick on the face of the Earth and should wiped clean with a damp absorbent sponge. Well, not exactly, but that's what I imagine they were thinking based on the comments they left about me. I also imagine that they were also imaging that a magical elf is somehow involved in my smiting and he's slicing me open with the mighty sword of Antioch that was pulled from a magical rock that was dropped to Earth by Dragongore, the Mighty War God of Radon.

I thought that such mean spirited comments would break what's left of my spirit and turn me into a drooling, worthless mess of depression and angst, but I actually found it quite amusing and even hilarious at times. Here are some of my favorite comments. You can read them all by going here.

vanhalenfan32 wrote...
bitterness from a "freelance" writer for Spike TV.com? NEVER.


I love how everyone who disagrees with the article or doesn't think it's funny thinks I'm bitter about the fact that Will Ferrell has a career. I think Ferrell is damn funny, even if he's done a few clunkers in his day like "Semi-Pro" and the completely unhilarious "Curious George." In fact, I detect a hint of bitterness in that poster's comments that he's bitter he's not writing for Spike.com. He's probably sitting at home thinking, "This 300 page dissertation on the David Lee Roth's biography and how it symbolizes the story of Jesus Christ would be awesome if more people could read it. Man I wish I wrote for Spike.com." I'm sure that's not true considering how he probably couldn't write more than a paragraph before his head starts hurting and his Mom calls him upstairs for supper. It would be upstairs, of course, because he's living in the basement.

impaler wrote:
You know if Ferrell asked that writer to write his next movie, the writer would have been, "oh hell yes!!! Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!"


That is so not true. My reaction would be, "Oh hell yes!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!" because my punctuation would be 10 times better. I would then proceed to lick his Nikes until they were as sparkling clean as the baby Jesus and wax his car with my first born child.

fritopendejo wrote:
Well, he's no Margaret Cho, but he does a pretty good impression of Columbo.


Now I'm a little lost on this one. Is he talking about my writing or my picture. If it's my writing then I'd like to offer him a big hearty f$&^ you. If it's my picture, then he doesn't know how cool I think that comment is. I hope this guy is as complementary when he dishes out insults in person. "Hey you! Yeah that loser who writes for Spike.com. Yeah, you've got excellent prose, a sharp wit and a keen eye for detail. I hope you burn in Hell, mother*$&er!"]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=255 Sun, 3 Aug 2008 00:37:34 -0400 People Who Don't Deserve to Exist: People Who Say "Smile" http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=254 As part of my ongoing efforts to give myself more work, stress and lack of sleep, I've come up with a new blog feature called "People Who Don't Deserve to Exist." Everyone has one or more of these people in their lives. They are the people we simply cannot stand, people who annoy us to no end, people who quite simply should not have the privilege to share this planet with us. Death is too much of a complement for these people. These slackjawed oxygen wasters should never have come to our plain of existence in the first place.

This should give me something to write about every hour of every day.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

The Target: People Who Tell Other People to "Smile"

Known Whereabouts: working as soup kitchens as volunteers, teaching pre-k, Glee Club rehearsals even though they've been out of high school more than 10 years, Mormon churches

Known Behavior: You're walking along minding your own business and you haven't got a care in the world but you don't feel you should have to show it by stretching your mouth as far as it can go until the corners split clear across your head and turn your skull into a cranial convertible. Suddenly, one of these mutants who think they fart sunshine crosses your pain, sees your rather plain face and tells you "Hey, smile" in an annoying cheery voice that could make Katie Couric slap her.

Or maybe you are in a bad mood and just want to stew your brain in the juices of self-loathing and frustrating until the pain goes away? As you're trying to contemplate your own existence, one of these rainbow pukers happens upon you and says "Smile," making almost sound like an order of some kind because nothing chases the blues away like forcing yourself to have an emotion your body isn't in the mood to have in order to spare any happy people from the pain of having to see it.

If I'm in a bad mood or I'm pissed off or upset, then the last thing I want to do is smile. The only thing that can make an unhappy person even more unhappy is trying to look like you're not happy because it's bringing other people down. That's how wedgies were invented.

It's not even a real meaningful way of dealing with someone else's bad emotions. It's just a mask to hide how you really feel anyway. People who smile way too much make want to give them something to frown about...like a skull fracture.

Smiling is for babies, game show hosts and people who just paid for teeth whitening. If you feel like crap, look like crap. For some of you, that won't take much effort, but don't pretend to be happy when you're not. People who tell you to "Smile" when you don't feel like it have anger issues."]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=254 Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:25:33 -0400 Drunk ’Till I’m Drink: A Remembrance of a Return from Sobriety and What’s Left of It http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=253 I've been off the sauce for almost two years. I'll pause for a moment for your applause because when celebrities announce they have kicked their addictive habits, they get the same response that Lewis and Clark got when they returned from their expedition and even though I'm not one (yet), I think it's only fair that I get the same thing.

...

...

...

Thanks. So anyway, I say almost back a few weekends ago, I briefly jumped on the wagon only to get thrown off again by two guys holding me up by the back of my pants who I call my "friends." I've been hesitant to write about this for awhile because I always see these dumb news reports about job recruiters who search for webpages and blogs of applicants to see if they are social drinkers or drug addicts and I'm not one of those guys. I think it's pretty stupid to let someone bright and intelligent go because they are going through a college phase where they have to get the party out of them before they go out into the real world. That's probably why we don't have a balanced budget or a cancer cure because some guy in a $500 suit sees someone on MySpace with a bottle of Shiner in their hand and thinks, "Oh my God! He always has a bottle of beer with him where ever he goes! Abort! Abort!"

First, here's a little exposition. A long while ago, I was extremely depressed and my doctor advised me to stop drinking because alcohol is a depressant, which is weird because every time when I got drunk, I thought I was the happiest human being on the planet. Whiskey and coke helped generate beams of sunshine through my pours and emitted non-stop laughter that went on for days and set off car alarms. The world was my clown.

Eventually, I gave up hard liquor and hard drinking for good and felt a lot better about myself. Sure I still have a beer or a glass of wine every now and again, but nothing to turn me into someone who can't control simple motor skills such as speaking, tying shoelaces without getting a finger caught in them and preventing drooling.

So a few weekends ago, a friend has a little cookout at his house. Nothing major, just a few friends who are willing to eat free food and drink free beer because that's what friends are for. One of the friends who shows up is a gorgeous blond woman who seems to be unattached to any male members of the group, so naturally I want to make a move. Unfortunately, my will and confidence have the spine of a jellyfish and I decide to just be myself, which never works but allows me to retain some respect and prevents me from having another story to write about here.

The evening goes along smoothly and a few beers and brisket slabs later, this woman invites the group to join her in a round of tequila, my arch-nemesis. Tequila and I were never good friends. It's a form of liquid designed to get you as drunk as you possibly can be as quickly as possible. I'm convinced it doesn't come from Mexico. It comes from the Middle East and we're all paying $4 a gallon to run our cars with it.

She hands out shot glasses to everyone and I really don't want to go down this road again because it's still littered with puke stains and piano bar ticket stubs from the last time I went down it. But she looks at me with this face that hypnotizes me into cricking my next back and slamming the hot acidic hell brew down my gullet. It's an undescribeable face. All women have it and know it and they use it. It's their dark side of the force.

Three shots later, I'm right back in Dandy Land, that place where your head feels like a bobblehead doll and every word that falls out of your jaw is pure, unadulterated comedy. Oh sure, I got a lot of laughs but not much else that night except a friend's couch to crash on, which probably has a permanent drool stain in the cushion because I didn't brush my teeth before I crashed.

I used to think that as a writer, alcohol served some important purpose like the pen and paper. It was supposed to dull your mind from the harm of the world, so when you returned to it, it would seem twice as harsh and twice as different giving you the fuel to write the way everyone expected you to. Now it just seems like an eraser.]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=253 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:27:27 -0400 Danny Becomes a Writer for Spike.com, Premieres with a Feature on "How to Write a Film For Will Ferrell" http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=252 If you're wondering why I've been wearing loads of Axe Body Spray and talking about how UFC fighter Tito Ortiz could totally kick an eagle's ass, it's because I'm all man. This was confirmed when Spike.com, the home of the Spike Network for Guys, picked me up as their newest humorous feature writer for their website

I've got a lot of interesting projects in the works that haven't come to fruition yet, but they've published my first feature this week, a handy guide called "How to Write a Will Ferrell Movie in 8 Easy Steps." It's rather a simple process. Start with Ferrell doing a lot of drinking and them have him fight an eagle by the third act. Don't forget to write in a cameo appearance for Tito Ortiz. ]]> bsp http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=252 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:40:36 -0400 Danny's Back in Cracked http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=251 After a dry spell so long that you could make a martini with, I've made my triumphant return this week to the front page of Cracked. This time I tackle the subject of childhood failure and greed for glorious cash and prizes with "The 5 Most Unfair Kids Game Shows."

Go here now and give it a big Digg as well. Help me put Fun House host J.D. Roth in his place directly to Hell.

]]> bsp http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=251 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:22:40 -0400 Love Never Grows Old: An Examination of Women, True Love and Other Things that Despise Me http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=250 So it's been almost six months since my last girlfriend broke up with me. I'm sure that's a huge revelation to some of you but I say that because when it happened, I called it a "mutual breakup." There's no such thing. The only way that happens if if two people decide to break up with each other at the exact same time in the exact same moment without the use of firearms and explosives.

It really hit me hard when she said she wanted to break up with me. It made me sick. I don't mean the emotional ties were the same as wanting to throw up. I mean it literally made me vomit, which is doubly painful considering I paid for dinner that night.

It took me a little while to get over it and admittedly, there are still some times when I find myself longing for a relationship once again. Of course, that would take too much effort, time and emotional sacrifice just to have someone to fall asleep with only to have them elbow you in the ribs every five minutes until 6 a.m. in the morning. I've got too much work to do and too many video games to finish.

The pain of that loneliness didn't really hit me until last weekend when my folks came into town and announced at a friend's party that my grandfather has a girlfriend.

Let me explain, he's 80 plus years old, can't walk, lives in an assisted care home and has a #*$&ing girlfriend. The only way it could have felt worse is if my grandfather's girlfriend turned out to be my ex-girlfriend.

I'm not mad at the guy. Hell, I'm happy for him. If I have the kind of genes that can attract babes when the only set of wheels I have to impress them with have to be operated by hand, then I've got a lot to hope for.

But it still stings because everyone in the room knows who's dating and who's married and who's not and we've all been that guy at one time or another. Say you're at a party and everyone knows you and someone mentions that your grandfather has a girlfriend. The room will stop. Everyone will look at you because they know you're the lonely guy in the group and every pathetic thought they can have about you will jump into their brain. Oh it won't leave their lips, but they will think about it because they can and they know you own a gun.

So here's to hoping we all find love someday, even if its over lukewarm tapioca and during a substandard episode of "Murder, She Wrote." ]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=250 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:26:04 -0400 It's Time for Another Edition of Stream of Consciousness Theater http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=249
So I'm forced to force my brain to either work with me or against me and if so, I won't hesitate to label my brain as a terrorist. You should see what it makes me dream about when I'm sleeping. That alone should earn it some time in a work farm.

This time, I've picked my three words from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, "Haunted," a book recommended by fellow starving writer Kel Coleman Potter because it's about a deranged rich old man who tricks a bunch of aspiring writers to a retreat where they are held against their will and forced to write until they die and are forced to write some more. It's pretty accurate about the writing life except the kidnapped people have a better place to stay than I do.

The words are "head," "comrade" and "wig." And go...

<><><><><><><><><><><>

General Kristofski woke up to the usual sound of a trumpet blaring revelry at 5 a.m., just as it did every morning for the last 30 years of his life. He shot out of bed even though his body told him it wanted to sleep a little longer and waited for the young ensign to bring him his morning cup of black, boiling hot coffee. The ensign arrived five minutes late.

"What's your name son?" the General said calmly.

"Johnson sir," the Ensign said in a tone that said he knew he was going to get chewed up as hard as a piece of week old beef jerky and spat out twice as fast.

"When you are given a duty, Johnson, you are expected to carry it out as fast and efficiently as possible," the General said. "If this were a mission to deliver explosives to a bomb team, they would be dead by now. Fortunately, my coffee is only lukewarm. Next time, you might not be so lucky. Dismissed."

Johnson saluted the General, gave a quick about face and high stepped out of the General's home before he could give him an extra second to change his mind and put him on "all tongue KP" for the weekend.

The General was feeling good about himself. He didn't mind if the Ensign was a few minutes late and even if he spilled some of the coffee on his shoes on the way over. He was about to ask the woman he loved to marry him in front of the whole school and nothing could ruin the joy he was about to experience and share with the world.

The assembly gathered in the campus square, in rows of neatly organized single file lines all perfect from every conceivable angle. The General looked over his men, stepped to the podium and tapped on the microphone a few times to make sure it was on.

"Men," he said to his men. "You know I'm not one for sentimentality, but I'd like to take this opportunity for a personal matter. You see I've been alone for awhile since I lost my dear Agnes. y God, no one deserved to die like that and no one at that Golden Corral deserved to see it either. All she wanted was an extra helping of potatoes. Anyway, the reason I've asked you here today..."

He could feel something gliding gently across his scalp as if it inched forward for a few steps. He paused for a moment, but paid no attention to it for very long. He continued.

"I've asked you here today..." he stopped again. This time he felt something attached itself to the top of his head like a small suction cup. Suddenly the feeling repeated itself until the cups covered his entire scalp. Then without warning, his wig stood up on the top of his head to reveal his tentacle legs of doom sucking away at his brain.

"As I was saying," the General said in a robotic tone, "Comrades, I implore you to join the Communist party and become a member of Amway where anyone can be a Pepper. Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?"

The crowd looked around at each but didn't move just in case this was one of the General's tests to catch his men off-guard, but this wasn't a fake heart attack or a de-pantsed chaplain.

Then he started singing, "Oh I'd like to buy the world a Coke and live in harmony. Come you freaks, you know the words. Sing! Sing! That's an order! Mildred, fetch me an Eskimo pie. I feel a draft." ]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=249 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:44:18 -0400 Too Big to Be on Base: An Excursion Into the Jungles of Early Childhood http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=248


























Little Johnny, right, fails to understand the concept of "Hide and Go Seek" by hiding behind a tree and counting to 10.



Do you ever find yourself wishing you were a little kid again? I'm sure some kids don't appreciate how lucky they are that they aren't aging, at the moment. There's a load of crap going on in a childhood that could make a grown man weak at the knees: school, peer pressure, playground bullies, mean teachers, being accepted without sacrificing your individuality and (gulp) cafeteria lunches. Grade school meatloaf is the grade school equivalent of waterboarding with gravy.

There's nothing that can reverse the ravages of time. It's inevitable. You're a kid for what seems like five minutes, you grow up and then you die. It's the circle of life, and there's only so much time for freeze tag. But I passed up an opportunity of lifetime to reverse the flow of time and become a little kid again and I've been kicking myself ever since.

I had a chance to relive my kid years even if parts of me have gotten much bigger and I turned it down without even taking a minute to realize what it was I was turning away. There's a country and western song in that last sentiment somewhere.

I was walking to my car in my apartment building and I strolled past a group of five kids arguing about how they would play a game of "Hide and Go Seek." It's always been my favorite childhood game because nothing so simple on this Earth can have so many ridiculous rules. There's not just the number you can count to, but the way you have to count before you start. Then you have to establish if a successful tag is with one hands or two. There's the "Ollie Ollie Ox and Free" rule, which states that you have to officially find the person before you can tag them and within that one rule, there are about 30 variations you have to establish before you can even start counting. The NFL isn't this convoluted with their rule book, although they are pretty close.

As I walked down the stairs, I can hear them bickering about not having enough people to play. You need at least six people for a good game of "Hide and Go Seek." Anything below that is a waste of time because you're chances of finding someone are minimal and eventually everyone gets bored and goes home or they never get found and an Amber alert has to be issued, which turns a simple fun summer game into a drain on the state's emergency prepardeness budget.

Desperate for a sixth, he spots me trugging down the stairs and blurts out, "Hey Mister! Wanna play 'Hide and Go Seek?'" Without giving the moment a less than a second thought, I decline and walk off to my grown up car to drive to my grown up bar and have a grown up drinks where grown up women wouldn't even offer to play "Hide and Get Lost" with me.

I'm sure if I had said yes that someone would become suspicious since a grown man playing "Hide and Go Seek" with a bunch of third graders is a moment that's followed by Chris Hansen popping out of an alley and uttering, "Maybe you'd like to tag me." The thought of spending five minutes having mindless, energetic outdoor fun never popped into my brain once until just now.

So lesson learned, you're never too old to be a kid.]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=248 Sun, 6 Jul 2008 18:25:23 -0400 Venting on Venting: An Exploration of Frustration, Anger and My Emotional Well Being http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=247 Ever have one of those days? You know the type of day I'm talking about. If you don't, then you're not human and we'll hunt you down like the dog you are and "take care" of you.

I won't bore you with the events of said day because they're all the same. The people suck. The day was longer than a pogo race through Death Valley. The minutes turned into hours. The hours turned into days. And by the time I got home, I was eligible to receive social security.

What matters is how one gets through said days and for me, that's an expression of raw seething anger. It's not directed towards another person, mind you, because that's not fair to them and only turns their day into one of those days and no one needs a day like that. Not unless they caused said day and if that's the case, then they better start shining their pogo stick.

I don't believe in suppressing your emotions in order to placate other people's feelings. It's not healthy and I don't have very good health insurance. People who get mad about other people getting mad have anger issues. They are jealous that they don't have the will power to say what they really mean or express how they really feel, which is kind of a conundrum when they get mad at you for getting mad in the first place. Did they just break their own rule?

I also don't appreciate people who tell people who are mad to calm down. We're already made that we don't get to express ourselves and now you're giving us an order to not express ourselves. That just makes us madder. Don't you see how this circle perpetuates itself? It just keeps getting larger and larger and bigger and nuttier until finally, you find yourself running through the streets in tattered ripped clothes and you're even more frantic than before because you accidentally threw your car into a tree.

Anger should never be directed at a person or made to make someone else feel bad, but it should never be corked like a champagne that's been left in a paint shaker. That's the kind of day I had.]]> danny's daily blahhhhg http://www.dannygallagher.netindex.php?itemid=247 Tue, 1 Jul 2008 03:31:58 -0400