Welcome Inside Dan Wilbur*

Here's a list of things I invented!

Things I invented:

Coats

Blindness

Haberdashery

Kosher food

Wu-Tang-ing a cigarillo or joint (they eventually made a hip-hop group based on my distinct smoking habits)

Self-loathing

The New York Giants

Anal (Beads, retentiveness)

The word “gradumate”  (for real: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gradumate)

You might be thinking: “Dan, there’s no way you invented all of those things.”  Trust me.  I have the capacity to do anything I set my mind to: so sayeth Ms. Purdy, my 1st grade teacher who read the entirety of James and the Giant Peach to me (NOT Mrs. Braun, my 3rd grade teacher who told me I “had a good way of ruining things for people!”  This was said after I “ruined” an incredible nature video, which we had watched three or four times that year, by claiming the narrator must have dubbed his voice in saying “roll over, boy!” after they had already filmed a shark spinning around in the water.  Basically, I was told to stop telling people the “truth” with all those crazy “words.”  That’s what stupid people enjoy: making sure people dumber than they are continue to believe in ghosts, the “magic” of video editing, and themselves.  That’s what horrible teachers are for: inspiring dumb people to continue work in academia, so they too can become bitter, mean, still-pretty-sexy-even-to-an-eight-year-old teachers who don’t even need to work since their husbands are in the Secret Service but for the sake of half-assed feminism jump into Teach for America, burn out after a year, then move to Fairview Park, Ohio where they can slowly die in a nice white neighborhood.

Good thing my parents set the record straight that very evening by saying: “She’s too stupid to be teaching.  Also she’s a bitch.”  CUT TO years later I graduate from Bard College with a degree in Classics and Creative Writing.  Who can professionally ruin things now?  That’s right!  I ruin shit for people on the regular now!  “Oh, what’s that?  You like Twilight? Yeah, well…maybe you should grow a pair and read Lolita.  Maybe Master and Margarita is a better choice if you want to read a fantasy!  What’s that?  Why would you even bring up Avatar right now?  The show is brilliant.  Everyone knows that, even college students.  If I could water-bend right now, I’d drown throw pee in your face.”)

Coincidentally, I invented audiodubs, which is how I knew what they were at age 8.

A full month of NYC!

Greetings,

After a full month of living in NYC, I can honestly say…nothing.  I have had about an hour each day to think, and that time I usually spend trying to get past the second half of Punch-Out.  The drop from college to day job has been tremendous!

In college, I was up at 6:30 AM reading Euripides so that I could go to class with some thoughts, write some plays, cook for myself in the evening, hang out for three or four hours (and by that I mean masturbate), watch netflix, eat, masturbate, then wake up in the morning and do it again!

Now I find myself at Midnight or so saying: “COME ON, DAN!  You can finish this comic book!”  To be fair, the comic was the Dark Knight Returns, but the only scholarship I’m capable of now is “Wow, parts of this book are different from the movie.”

I wish I was writing a little bit more, but I have been getting up a lot and meeting the bright faces of the NYC Comedy world.  And that is awesome.  I’ll let you know more soon!

Dan

10 Things to do in Cleveland, OH!

My friend recently toured through Cleveland, my hometown, and claimed it was the most boring place he’d ever been.  This statement was made all the more painful when I found out his day job: police brutality complaint review board of Manhattan.  Cleveland should have been paradise.  If you’re going to Cleveland, and a soul-sucking job has taken away your imagination, here are some things to do:

1.  Cleveland International Film Festival screenings at Cedar Lee:  Cleveland’s favorite pastimes: drinking beer and watching movies IN THE SAME PLACE!

2.  Skipping a trip to the Rock Hall of Fame.  The last cool thing that happened there was a Roots concert (which, though awesome, is a clear sign that rock and roll is dead).  If you’re in the fifth grade, you will think this place is cool.  It is not, but if you’re a tourist, drive by and say “Wow!  Cleveland must rock if the Hall of Fame looks like the Louvre, and people don’t throw eggs at the building for being too ‘French’ or ‘faggy.’”  Then never look at it again.

3.  Order Dominoes through TIVO.  Own a Snuggie?  Too stoned to play Wii Tennis?  Order a pizza without moving or dialing a phone!  If you’re watching Law and Order for 4-16 hours a day, this will give you a few seconds of fresh air when the pizza is delivered.  Unless there’s an air pollution warning that day.  Then just use your dumbwaiter.  Yes, we all have dumbwaiters.  Thank you, Thomas Jefferson.

4.  Nick’s Cafe.  Best Coffee on the planet, filled with paintings of Batman, who you’ll briefly think you could emulate given enough money for gadgets until realizing that you’ve just eaten your weight in eggs and corn beef.  The best diner since “The Big Egg” which closed down 10 years ago for health code violations that took them 10 years to fix.  YES!

5.  Drive to Cincinnati.  It’s like Cleveland, but there’s money and a Starbucks.

6.  Science Center.  Not just for three year olds anymore!  I made sand move through a tube using sound, I saw dead bodies doing yoga, and I saw a movie about volcanoes on IMAX!  I guess Bobby Jindal missed it.

7.  Big Fun: vintage toy store.  Whoopie cushions, Atari games, and Bill and Ted collectible cards (bubble gum included).

8.  Staying up to watch Norton’s Furniture commercials (possible murderer)…

9.  Common Grounds Coffee.  A 24 hour coffee shop that only houses super-nerds and  people who work at the coffee shop who are not on shift.  If you go on a really hopping night, you can witness a Magic tournament or watch a guy make chainmail for his next LARP battle.

10.  Large sign with Lebron James posing as Jesus Christ.  “We are all witnesses…to the double homicide that happened on this block!”

Hate finds a way!

Now that I have some perspective on the event, I’d like to share my experience of Inauguration-town.  I don’t know if you know this, but Washington DC already IS THE FUTURE.  The trains look like something out of Tron, people smile and make eye-contact with each other, and crack/murder is legal. 

I had a great time at the Inauguration, though it was the most bi-polar mass of people I’d ever been a part of: huge black dudes (in trees) wearing big coats and bawling while the new president walked down the Capitol steps, people of all races screaming with joy as he spoke, then an immediate New Yorker-type switch to “Now let’s get the fuck outta here!”  The robo-poet (another sign of the future) starts her stilted mechanical “pick the cotton and lettuce” speech, and the whole party turns into a shitty rave (sans ecstasy).  I touched at least a thousand people, all trying to shift away from a line of porta potties, and toward people selling buttons for $12.  I just kept my train ticket with Barack’s face on it (thanks, Tron trains!). 

At the back of the crowd, near the Washington Monument where I stood, a man held a sign that said this:

But the sign absolutely failed.  Only a few people stopped to talk to these idiots, and my guess is that they were a group of “HOMOS” that wished not to be associated with “MORMONS.”  Barack 1. Jesus 0 (since the Inauguration, that is.  if you count the last 2,000 years, the score’s a little tipped, BUT GIVE THE MAN AT LEAST 100 DAYS!).  I saw Rick Warren the next day on the street, and he hugged a gay man in front of some cameras, and claimed “we’re gonna have a dialogue soon!”  A gay man next to me said: “Now let me wash my face before anyone kisses it again!”  Hope, Change, Prop. 8!  If anyone wants to start the rumor that Warren made that shitty sign, I will not argue. 

All said and done, I stood out in the cold until I couldn’t feel my toes, only to find out later that we’d taken a tip from the Chinese Olympics (or Ashlee Simpson, depending on whether you think the glass is half-empty or half-full), and recorded Yo-Yo Ma’s performance ahead of time.  THEN, just in case some “lawyers” started any debates, they had Obama take the oath again!  So really, 1.8 million people gathered to freeze their asses off, and listen to recorded music. 

Still, an exciting moment in Black History, in America’s History.  Which is good news for Charles Barkley who recently told a police officer he’d have the cop’s name tattooed to his ass if he could get out of his DUI.  (STILL A ROLE MODEL, Charles!)  Seriously, when would that cop ever use that information?  He’s going to be sitting on the couch with his friends:

Man, that Charles Barkley sure is funny!
Yeah…You know…I met him once.

Cut to an hour later:

NO, it’s not a “gay” thing!

I followed suit, and tattooed Barack’s name to the top of my penis, which prompted him to step out of the “BEAST” on his way to the White House just to get a glimpse.  Except, it was freezing, so the name looked more like a barcode on the top of a fun-sized Payday.

Small penis: $0
Freezing that penis off to see the first African-American President take the White House: Priceless.

Some Awesome SHOWS!

COME SEE ME AT ANY AND ALL OF THESE!

The Basement: Thursday, Jan. 15th @ THE BASEMENT (Kingston, NY)

Come see me do a full half hour at a crazy/beautiful bar!

Gutbucket: Friday, Jan. 16th. Midnight @ UCB.

w/ Pete Holmes.

DERRICK “This is New York: SAT., Jan 17th @ 8:00 PM

@ The Creek and The Cave.  W/ DERRICK COMEDY!

Lil’ Seany Boy Show: SAT., Feb 7th @ 7:00 PM.  Ochi’s Lounge (Comix)

w/ Sean Donnelly

NCCAF: THURS., Feb 12th @ 9:00 PM.  DSI Theater in Chapel Hill, NC.

The North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival 2009 w/ tons of great comics and ME!

A self-interview about the last few days...

- Hey Dan.

- Great to be here, Dan.

- Is it?

- No.

- OK.

- YEAH.

- mmhhhmmm.  How have you been doing the last few weeks?

- Great: this past week I brought Kumail Nanjiani and Pete Holmes up to Bard for a show that lots of people came to, I did Gutbucket at UCB on Friday, I finished my first real screenplay on Saturday, and spent today’s Russian Lit class comparing Modernist techniques found in Olesha’s Envy to those found in Sologub’s The Petty Demon.

- What if the nedotykomka is real, Dan?

- What if, Dan…what if?

- That sounds like a busy weekend.

- It was indeed, Dan.

- It doesn’t leave a lot of room for a love-life, does it?

- I should say not!

- HAHAHAHA!

- HAHAHAHAahahhahahah!

- HAHA!  AAAGGGGHHHH!!

- I masturbate quite a bit.

- I know.

- You were there.  HAHAHA!

- Hahaha!…(kill me)…

- I did get comfortable with a lady last night…

- UH-OH!  Spill it!

- Well, we were in bed, and I was gently massaging her thigh, when suddenly she opened up her eyes and asked: “What was that Super Nintendo game with the spaceship on a track, and it was really brightly colored, and if you hit the edges you blew up, and if you ran over this bright part of the track you recharged your shield?”

- And what did you say?

- F-Zero!

- Naturally.

- But it wasn’t F-Zero.  It was a different game that looked nearly the same called HyperZone.

- I’ll be damned!

- Yes.  It took her about an hour to find that, so we were both very tired and decided to go to sleep instead of repeatedly having sexual intercourse.

- You made the right choice.

- Agreed.

- Agreed.

- Anything else to discuss toay?

- Do you know what the shortened word for “Post-Modernism” is?

- I’ll ask the questions around here!

- HAHAHAH!

- HAHAHAHAHA!

- AAAAGGHHH!  AGGGGHHHHH!

- AAAAGGHHH!  Are you crying?

- Go ahead, I just poured some tabsco sauce in there to end the drudgery, but I want to hear the…you know…whatever you’re setting up…

- Well, the shortened version of “Post-Modernism” is “POMO.”  So, when I think I’ve said something too intellectual, I’ll follow it up by saying: “No POMO!” so other people don’t think I’m a dick.  Like: “I don’t think a novel neceassarily needs a protaganist to maintain a cohesive narrative structure…No POMO!”

- All the kids are doing it, aren’t they, Dan?

- Don’t patronize me, Dan…