picture i took of belmont and clark

the disgusting smell of philly's best. the lure of nationwide video's basement. the transvestites and their pimps in front of dunkin donuts. the terrible terrible service at clarke's -- but i always go back. ann sather in the morning. burning my mouth with the coffee from the starbucks on the corner. the cash station across the street that beeped a crazy loud "mug me" noise when it gave back your card. cranberries and vodkas around the corner at spin. steamworks sticky cement floors next to that. kara, hillary, melika, geoffery...

"that's...what it's about."

oh lord

mama didnt sleep tonight. i have this damn speech class that's really getting my goat. i have avoided this class throughout my college career. i have a lot of trouble giving speeches, even though im fine with acting and improv and stuff.

i hate it! but i have decided to just be myself. if for example, im going to give a persuasive speech on the need for health insurance for all Americans (which i have to do)- im going to talk about how i have a bit of a medical fetish and how i wish that i had top of the line health insurance so i could have really hot doctor who would prescribe me top drawer medications and perhaps we would fall in love...

or that id have such good health insurance that i could go to a rehab center like meryl streep in postcards from the edge and id have shirley maclaine as a mother and "the guy who pumped my stomach" would ask me out on a date.

i just cant get up and list statistics and talk about things in that way that people do when they give speeches. i wish i could- i just dont know how to write or speak like that.

you cant teach an old dog new tricks. you cant get blood from a turnip. its hard for me to write without adding my personal experience (whether its entertaining or not). its columbia college for gods sake! cant i make a diorama out of a shoe box or give an interpretive dance?

i was all ready to just skip the class today. but i WOULD NOT allow that to happen. thats a slippery slope, missing classes. so i wrote a (very retarted) outline for the speech thats due next week and i got my informal discussion speech ready for today-- which consists of a coke vs. pepsi taste test- which andy said was "very 1986." exactly. that is where i am stuck.

Silly Kid Villain Mix

CLICK HERE FOR THE MIX


These are songs that I've been listening to on my iPod.
Here are my thoughts on the songs.

1. A Different Corner- Wham!
Like you're in an underwater ballet with George Michael.

2. Hell- Squirrel Nut Zippers
The theme to A & E's "Family Plots," a reality show about a family that works at the Poway Bernardo Mortuary. "D and the M and the A and the N and the T and the I-O-N."

3. I Sing the Body Electric- Eric Brockington
Classic song from "Fame" that gives me chills everytime I hear it. Never fails.

4. No One Is Alone- Bernadette Peters
"Witches can be right, giants can be good"

5. Regret- New Order
Reminds me of driving to Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind when I was a teenager.

6. Seasons of Love (From the Motion Picture RENT)- Cast Of Rent
I know this is an overheard, cheesy song from years ago thats always sung at graduations. I was never into RENT so I didn't pay to much attention. I am listening to it a lot and will be sick of it very soon.

7. Sorry- Madonna
My favorite off the new album. Story of my life -sorrysorrysorrysorry. I've heard it all before. I've heard it all before. I've heard it all before.

8. The Way We Were- Barbra Streisand
I'm just liking this song for some reason right now.

9. I Got No Love- Gloria Estefan
This song makes me happy. Sometimes you have no love for nothing.

10. Lament- Madonna & Antonio Banderas
Drama!!!

11. Facts of Life-Lazyboy
This is a great song that I accidentally found while looking for the "Facts Of Life" TV show theme song on iTunes. It's fun.

12. Who Let In The Rain- Cyndi Lauper
Who did let in the goddam rain, shit.

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jukebox hero

There was an a old woman named connie who smoked menthols and had blue hair and would give me money for the jukebox at the Moose Lodge. I must have been about seven or eight. She would help me pick out songs- not that I needed her help. I could read at that age, or at least I could read important words like Elvis Presley, and Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton. She would dance with me and hold me the way that old ladies hold little boys, with cold fingers and cheap rings. She'd tell me I was a good dancer and I would believe her.

if your not there already, please post comments at www.thejeremyshow.com

Nakatomi Plaza

I just got a DVR from comcast. I am watching and recording Die Hard. I have no idea why.

I recall that my friend Ryan had the box set of all three dvds. I cant imagine him really liking these movies. Everyone likes these movies I guess. Or maybe he was just excited by the box set.

My first box set was "Lucy's Trip to Europe"- which was three videotapes. It had all the episodes of her in Europe, obviously. I brought it to Heather's house and we watched all of them. It seemed so decadent that I had all of these I Love Lucy episodes, three videotapes of them!

Now there are "boxed sets" everywhere you look. We are all librarians of pop culture. Holding onto director's cuts and limited editions and complete series and seasons as if we will never see them again. As much as it is about wanting to see our favorite movies or television shows whenever we want to, I think its about owning a little of that fantasy world for ourselves. Like I am closer to Oprah and The Simpsons if I own the dvds.

Yippy-kiyay Mother Fucker!

you take the good you take the bad

just watched it on demand. blair is running against another girl, cynthia, for student council president. cynthia wins. blair is depressed. cynthia commits suicide because her parents are getting a divorce. the girls set up a suicide hotline in her honor.

"if you feel like you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on."
mrs. garrett

i love this show.

how can you expect to be taken seriously?

i forgot to tell you about my days in the community theater scene. just bit parts here and there. hanging out with closeted lesbian stage managers, smoking cloves. spending friday nights making mix tapes with one too many bernadette peters song on them. hooking up with sixty year old men in parked cars behind grocery stores. going home with another stain on the pet shop boys tshirt i found at the thrift store. some things haven't changed. but some things have.

you know about craig. he was the skinny straight boy who needed the sensitivity of a skinny gay boy, which he got whenever he wanted. the years have passed and we are no longer skinny. i try to reproduce our relationship any chance i get. but you know all about that. you know about how i like boys who are unavailable. that's very common though. yeah, yeah.

i remember talking to becky on the phone a long time ago. she said that she couldn't get her apartment clean enough. she felt like she cleaned and cleaned with bleach and toxic chemicals that gave her a headache and it just wasn't clean enough. she said the only thing left to do, the only thing that could make it clean enough was to just burn it. take a fucking flamethrower to it. change the fucking molecular structure of the shit. that's how i feel now. i just want to torch out my life. i'm not talking arson. i just want it to be clean, you know? i'm not mad at you i'm mad at the dirt- right?

god, i have so much to tell you. let's just get into bed for a week and watch movies and order in food and have sex until we're sick of each other. sounds like a plan to me.

remember when we went to great america and it rained all day? we took ephedrine and we both felt like we were going to have heart attacks so we didn't go on any rides, we just drank cokes and chain smoked. that's how i feel right now. god i miss you.

quick review

sarah silverman- "jesus is magic"

saw it with kara. went to get popcorn and 2 cokes before the show started. the lady asked if i wanted to get a larger popcorn and just one big coke, and then we could get free refills.

i didnt give a shit about free refills but i just wanted to shut her up so i said yes. then i realized that we were going to get just one big coke. not that i have a problem sharing a coke with kara. but what if i was getting sick or have herpes or something? maybe kara didnt want to share a gigantic coke with me. so i asked if i could have another cup, so i could split the coke. well, i knew that would be a problem before i said it. she handed me a dixie cup. i didn't feel like creating a scene so i just bought another fucking coke.

the movie was dumb. i think sarah silverman is hilarious normally. but an hour and a half of supposedly shockingly genius racist jokes got old real quick. i like the poster and the title though.

confessions on my christmas tree.

i put up my christmas tree. i know its early. but i thought, better early than never.

went with a gold and red theme. its overloaded with ornaments and it looks really great. but now im creeped out that its up. want time to speed up so i dont feel weird about it. "hi, my name is crazy, do you wanna dye easter eggs with me in november?" i listened to the carpenters christmas album while i did it. ah, karen. i think i shall listen to her as i fall asleep tonight.

anyway, it reminded me of my two and half years working at an artificial christmas tree company. whenever i say that i worked at an artificial christmas tree company people don't hear correctly and think that i worked at a christmas tree lot. they think that i was the creepy guy in the little trailer with the space heater.

no, i was the creepy guy in an office selling christmas trees through the internet. i sat all day at a desk answering hundreds of questions on the telephone and via email like:

(honest to god, these people weren't kidding)
"do you have half trees?"
"do you have pencil (thin) trees?"
"do you have black christmas trees?"
"do you have have upside down christmas trees?"
"do you have the trees that shoot fake snow from the top?"
"do you have the charlie brown christmas tree?"
"can the trees be used year round as actual pine trees in my front yard?"

the job was VERY INTENSE. people are VERY SERIOUS about christmas trees.
most people are. a lot of people turn up there noses at artificial trees. some people don't like the cutting down of real trees, etc, etc. everyone has the way they do it or the way their family has always done it and its very very sacred to us. and when it gets closer to christmas, of course, we all lose are minds.

i just wanted some time alone with my tree. before i worry about giving and receiving gifts and money and arguments and blah blah blah.

it's weird i feel like it's alive. like it's another person or spirit in the room. like i cant walk around naked or anything in front of it. i can't invite a mysterious stranger over to have a late night romantic liason -- the christmas tree is watching me. my christmas tree is my new roommate. silent, beautiful but somehow judgmental.

i wish you a merry christmas/holiday season before the shit gets crazy.

unwritten autobiography jacket notes

This is the book you'll need after you take a spoonful of LSD in your parent's kitchen and black out and forget your name. With this unconventional guidebook to your new self, you'll use my memories and fantasies, delusions of grandeur and depressive snags to map your new world.

I have the skillset to guide you (at least halfway, depending on my unbalanced moods) back into something that resembles reality. You wanted those pretty colors and tingles down your spine. You wanted to find cosmic significance in crappy music. Someone or something tricked you into opening these boxes and, together, we'll try and get a lid on them.

You might still be hearing other voices, but it's time to focus in on mine. I have eleven years of solid experience trying to navigate the world in a post-hallucinogenic haze. Your psychiatrist doesn't have the time or the communication skills, I do.

I'm not going to spoon feed it to you. You're going to have to work for it. Like an old voodoo woman, I'll try to confuse you and waste your time, I might even try to get in your pants- but you'll be better off for it.

I'll dig it all out for you. You're gay, you had an AIDS scare, you'll check into a mental hospital at the drop of a hat, you're addicted to porn, you were obsessed with Dolly Parton as a child (and feel this is so interesting it should be listed on your resume), you have toenail fungus and you're unemployed. We'll get to all that and more.

I understand the position you're in. You didn't go to McLean hospital. You aren't John Nash, Patty Duke or even Margot Kidder. You're not a girl interrupted. You're a gay Midwestern manchild who got all hopped up on goofballs when you were nineteen and you're trying to keep it together as you enter your thirties.

We can do this.


Offers from publishing companies may be sent directly to jeremy@thejeremyshow.com. Book advances will be accepted in the form of cash, check, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diner's Club and McDonald's Gift Certificates.

commerative speech

Welcome to the grand opening of Cherchez La Femme Women's Bookstore and Coffee Shop. I was honored when Connie, the manager asked me to speak today. Unfortunately, Connie can't be here today because she is having ingrown toenail surgery. She sends her love and get wait to get back to work.

These Women.

Alanis Morisette
Barb
Barbara Mandrell
Bette Davis
Bette Midler
Britney Spears
Cher
Dawn
Dolly Parton


Ellen Degeneres
Eva Peron
Gilda Radner
Gloria Estefan
Heather
Hillary

Janet Jackson
Jennifer Saunders
Joan Crawford
Joan Rivers
Joanna Lumley

Kara
Kylie Minogue
Lisa Kudrow
Lucille Ball
Madonna
Margaret Cho

Martha Stewart
Melika
Molly Shannon

My female teachers
My Grandmothers
My Mother
My sister
Nicole

Olivia Newton-John
Oprah
Pat
Renee
Roseanne
Rosie
Sandra Bernhard
Tammy Faye

Terri Gross
Tina Turner and
Whitney Houston



These women. These women live in my life. These women live in my apartment. These women live on my dusty shelves.

In my book collection, in my cd and dvd collections. These women live on my television.

These women live in my Ipod. These women live in my computer. These women live in my classrooms.

For a guy. For a guy that doesn't like himself sometimes. For a guy that goes from self induced crisis to self induced crisis. For a guy that smokes too much and sleeps too much and feels too much, too often like he is a smudge on a window. These women, these women tell him, he's ok. Even when he's not.

When I am poisoned, each woman is an antidote. When I am filled with viruses and my internal hard drive fails to work, these women perform a system restore. When the drugs fail to work, the prozac, the caffeine, the nicotine, the xanax --- these women perform some sort of miracle and get me out of bed, maybe even into the shower, maybe even to school or work.

They paint a picture of this guy. They paint a picture of this guy without even knowing it. They paint a picture of this guy creating. They paint a picture of this guy being semi responsible. They paint a picture of this guy using all of his retarted masculine pain and pathos and anger to do something other than sleeping.

No man can do this. No man has the magic, or the glitter, or the potion that can make this happen. The penis is amusing, but it does not have magical powers. and I have tested this.

It is only the women. Women are born in the sea and they walk up from the ocean floor through the waves and on to the shore. Women keep the Sears Tower up. Women send the space shuttle into orbit.

Do you get it? I'm not sure I do. All I know is that women have immense power.

Each woman I see everyday on the bus. The bus driver with crazy long fingernails, the nanny taking care of children, the Lincoln park trixie reading whatever the number one bestseller is, the woman talking to herself, the girl with blue hair on her way to an art school. They are the deitys. They are goddesses.

Perhaps it is because they give life. They nurture, they tend to the global garden. I do not know the reason. I do not know the reason but I am aware of their power. Somewhere along the line I became aware of their power. And it is their power that keeps me going. Some may worship in the church of Bjork. Some may pray to the Golden Girls. I attend services at the Holy Church of Bette Midler and Madonna.

I hope this hasn't come to you too fast, but I don't think it's too late to remember and celebrate the power of women in your lives.