Hot Fun In The Summertime

This past Christmas, my husband performed a gentile mitzvah or, as we like to say, a gentitzvah.

As a gift to my family, he transferred all of our old Super 8 home movies (which had previously been converted to VHS) to DVD. He edited the raw footage, added a music bed under each segment and even included opening and closing credits. The result is a 90-minute film which is not only laugh and tear inducing to those of us who lived the experience, but also highly watchable, if not entertaining, to strangers.

My aunt summed it up best when she said it was the best Christmas gift she had ever received.

(Finally, after 23 1/2 years, my husband might actually be accepted into our family!)

We uploaded a four minute clip called "Hot Fun In The Summertime" to You Tube. It contains footage from our 1966 visit to the Jersey Shore. Yes, that's me as a baby.

GERD Girl Guide 2

My friend's five-year-old daughter worships me. It's adorable. Eight years from now I'll be just another old fogey (or whatever word the kids will be using) who makes her roll her angst-ridden eyes but, for now, she sits on my lap, plays with my hair and, when the mood strikes, draws me an "I Love Traci" picture.

In her last masterpiece, she drew a picture of us going out for ice cream. I was impressed by the precision of her execution: my hair was the right color, my bangs were above my eyes and my boots had the right size heel.

More importantly, when it came to the ice cream itself, she made sure it was a flavor I could eat.

You see, my little friend is also obsessed with my
GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease).

After I was diagnosed in 2006, I quickly discovered that there are certain foods a person with GERD must simply avoid. They're called trigger foods and by "trigger foods" they don't mean horse meat.

The list of food I cannot eat contains all kinds of tasty goodness: Chocolate, coffee, cola or tea, alcohol, citrus juices, tomato-based foods, spicy foods, fried foods, fatty foods and mint-flavored items.

Yup, all the great stuff. I now eat cheese like my life depends on it.

My pre-school devotee likes to rattle off the list when I'm over her house for dinner. For some reason, she's particularly focused on the tomatoes. But she's also painfully aware that I can no longer consume chocolate. That's why she wanted to know what flavor of ice cream I could eat. She didn't want the fake stomach of my cartoon likeness to feel any discomfort.

GERD may be bad for the esophagus, but an oh-so-cute kindergartener who is concerned about my well-being is good for the heart.

For GERD Girl Guide 1, click here.

Newhart's Subtle Genius

Last night I watched the Bob Newhart episode of PBS's American Masters. As always, PBS managed to suck the funny right out of the subject matter at hand. If PBS doesn't interview the funniest people in the business while making them completely uninteresting, who will?

I can only hope that viewers who aren't familiar with Bob Newhart were able to look past the excruciating pace of the mini-doc and appreciate his brilliance as a comedic performer. To this day, his subtle approach has gone unmatched.

Here is a You Tube video of one of Newhart's appearances on Letterman. Bob could teach a course on Talk Show Panel 101.

Oh Holy Night

I suppose it's inappropriate on the day after Jesus' alleged birthday to confess that I am an agnostic. (Cue the scary music! Alert the Christian mafia!) But I'm not one of those Christoper Hitchens-type agnostics who are annoyed, if not downright angered by organized religion. I like to sleep in on Sundays. What other people do while I'm in a coma is, quite frankly, none of my business.

Because I don't feel white hot rage towards Christianity, I am actually able to enter a church if called upon to do so. I always find the services interesting even if they do leave me feeling indifferent. It's much the same reaction I have to a post-1990 Woody Allen movie.

Even though I was baptised in the Episcopalian church and my parents made a half-hearted attempt to send me to Sunday School as a child, I had never been to church during the Christmas holidays. Since my husband was out of town and I was looking for something to do, I decided to join a family member for Christmas Eve Mass.

My husband never would have gone with us. He was raised Catholic and he still shivers when the subject of midnight mass is mentioned. I think it's because, as an adult, he always attended while slightly inebriated. Nothing kills a beer buzz faster than a man in a white robe dangling incense in your face.

The first thing I learned on Christmas Eve is that Lutherans are a plain and straightforward group. The building itself was beautiful yet bordered on austere. If the Land's End catalog sold churches, this chapel would be on the cover.

The children's choir was singing when we arrived. The second thing I learned is that there is nothing funnier than a group of four-year-olds shouting Christmas carols. Their overly enthusiastic choreographer was almost violent in it's execution. When they rocked the baby Jesus I thought the savior was going to die from Shaken Baby Syndrome.

I tried hard not to laugh at church. I thought it would be disrespectful. But everybody was laughing. How could you not? When the tots launched into their toddler rendition of "Go Tell It On The Mountain" I thought I was going to fall off the pew. My church companion summed it up perfectly when she said, "Nothing says Christmas like a group of white kids singing Negro spirituals."

For those of you who despise religion merely because you are frustrated by evangelists who want to save your soul, keep in mind that I once had a vegetarian lecture me on the evils of meat as I was trying to consume a tasty burger. If I turned my back on every group who had annoying members I would be one lonely human. I wouldn't even be able to hang out with cats.

Overall, it was a pleasant evening. I won't be going next year but I'm glad I went this year.

A Very Philly Christmas

As a native Philadelphian, it pains me that the only Christmas tradition we're known for is throwing snowballs at Santa Clause. Or did we boo Santa and throw snowballs at the Easter Bunny? Or did we throw snowballs at Santa, boo the Easter Bunny and attempt to sexually assault Jimmy the Greek. Sadly, I think the correct answer is "All of the above."

The City of Brotherly Love, believe it or not, does have a softer side. As a child, one of my favorite things to do at this time of year was to take the train into Center City to see the four-story indoor light show at John Wanamaker's department store. My family and I would jostle for position among the throbbing horde, the adults would hold on to their wallets and we would all get neck cramps as we looked up and listened to John Facenda tell the story of The Nutcracker.

(My football fan readers might remember John Facenda as the former voice of NFL Films. Go ahead, close your eyes and imagine him saying the words, "frozen tundra.")

Now, however, Wanamaker's is Macy's and Julie Andrews is the narrator but the tradition remains basically the same.

I found some poorly shot You Tube video of the proceedings. I wish I could say it's more exciting in person but, really, it isn't.

Merry Christmas from me to you.

I Simply Remember My Favorite Things...

...and then I don't feel so bad.

This is the first time since 1984 that my husband and I won't be together for Christmas. While he's doing standup on a ship in the Caribbean, I'm in my fuzzy bunny slippers blogging in New Jersey. (He says the slippers are oddly erotic.)

Since I know he plans on spending the 25 bucks needed for 60 minutes of internet access, I decided I would post something to brighten his lonely holiday. It took me a long time to find the perfect You Tube video, but as soon as he hears an obviously zoned-out Claudine Longet sing "bwown paper packages tied up wis stwing" he'll smile if not flat out guffaw.

(Why couldn't she just sing the song in her native language? I'm sure I would sound equally ridiculous if I tried to sing "My Favorite Things" on Valium in French with a Philly accent.)



(If my husband and I ever sing together, I will make him hold a tire just like Andy Williams did in the video.)

A decade later the showgirl turned celebrity wife was found not-guilty in the shooting death of her boyfriend Spider Sabich. Ex-husband, Andy Williams paid for her defense. Apparently, one of her favorite things was her former spouse's bank account.

That Andy Williams must be quite the guy. I just love an incredibly talented singer who performs a duet with his not-so-talented wife but the trend didn't end with Andy and the Mrs. Did you see Seal and Heidi Klum on the Victoria Secret Fashion Show? It seems Heidi's secret is she sounds like a dog in heat.

And here's a second video for my beloved to enjoy. "Dominick the Donkey" is one of our favorite holiday tunes.

All Holiday Decorations 50% Off

Santa On Cross Protests Commercialism.

Just let that headline sink in for a moment.

BREMERTON, Wash. - Art Conrad has an issue with the commercialism of Christmas, and his protest has gone way beyond just shunning the malls or turning off his television. The Bremerton resident nailed Santa Claus to a 15-foot crucifix in front of his house.

"Santa has been perverted from who he started out to be," Conrad said. "Now he's the person being used by corporations to get us to buy more stuff."

A photo of the crucified Santa adorns his Christmas cards, with the message "Santa died for your MasterCard."

Art Conrad may have an "issue with the commercialism of Christmas" but I have an issue with a man who is willing to traumatize children for the sake of his own political agenda. Don't you think the wee ones might be just a tad upset after witnessing the public crucifixion of one of their beloved icons? Don't you think the parents of the wee ones might now have to use that evil Mastercard to pay for psychological counseling?

What kind of lawn display will this lunkhead put up next? A Tooth Fairy gang rape to protest the high cost of health insurance?

If nothing else, Kooky Conrad's display is boorish and rude and his ideology is old and tired.

Americans are generous people. We like to buy presents. We are not being forced to do so by big corporations, we are shopping because we have big hearts. When you search for the perfect gift, you are thinking about the person who will be on the receiving end... you consider his likes and his needs and his desires. Thinking of others is healthy and expressing our affection monetarily is not entirely bad.

I think next year a crucified Art Conrad will adorn my Christmas card with the message "Visa. It's everywhere you want to be."

There's A Reason It's Called "Just For Men"

The only thing more unappealing than boobs on a guy is a mustache on a chick. Ask any of these mustachioed mammas why the refuse to rid themselves of the Chia Pet under their schnoz and they all give the same answer, "Shaving will only make it grow back darker and thicker."

OK, but you have a mustache! Does it really matter if you have a darker and thicker mustache?! You already look like Tom Selleck in drag.

Their twisted logic is addressed in the article 7 Myths Even Doctors Believe. There it was right between "Fingernails and hair grow after death" and "Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight" the very thing I have been wanting to hear all of my adult life.

Myth: Shaved hair grows back faster, coarser and darker.

Fact: A 1928 clinical trial compared hair growth in shaved patches to growth in non-shaved patches. The hair which replaced the shaved hair was no darker or thicker, and did not grow in faster. More recent studies have confirmed that one. Here's the deal: When hair first comes in after being shaved, it grows with a blunt edge on top, Carroll and Vreeman explain. Over time, the blunt edge gets worn so it may seem thicker than it actually is. Hair that's just emerging can be darker too, because it hasn't been bleached by the sun.

Do you hear that ladies? You are out of reasons not to kill the beast above your lip. It's time to shave, wax or pluck... use an eletric knife or fire up the sander if necessary. Just please lose the 'stache. Your men will thank you. The stranger sitting next to you on the plane will thank you. I will thank you.

And would it kill you to wear a little lipstick?

Money Can't Buy Classiness

Those Spears girls sure are a fertile bunch. I suppose it helps to have more eggs than brain cells. How else do you explain two rich girls having multiple unplanned pregnancies. I always say, if you can afford an SUV then you can afford an IUD. (Actually, I've never said that before, but I'll say it from now on.) Heck, with that kind of cash you can hire and assistant to sprinkle birth control pills in your Ovaltine... oh, and you know they both drink Ovaltine.

Last February, my husband and I wrote and open letter to Britney Spears.

Dear Britney:

So sorry to hear that you're in rehab. (Actually, we're not surprised... but we're still somewhat sorry.)

Since we know you're an avid reader of SHECKYmagazine.com, we figured this would be the best way to contact you.

We have an offer: We'd be happy to take your children and look after them.

Before you say no, consider this: The Female Half of the Staff bears a striking resemblance to you (or, at least she did... 20 years ago... And, the more you let yourself go, the more the two of you resemble each other yet again), so, when the tots look up, they'll see a face that is startlingly similar to their momma's. Also consider that, since we're in the business of show, we regularly work in a lot of locations where you have a home/residence-- remember when we narrowly missed bumping into you on the beach in Destin a coupla years back?-- (so, you'll be able to visit the little ones... or at least spy on us from afar). And, we're married-- and we intend to stay married-- so the kids will have a two-parent home. And we both wear underwear when in public! And both the Female and Male Halves can say "Hi, y'all!" while affecting a convincing southern Louisiana twang, so the Spears-lets will be comforted by the sound of their ancestral home.

All we require is $20,000 per month ($10,000 per young'un/month... a bargain!), to be re-negotiated when they reach school age. (It's private schools or nothing for these two... we insist!)

You can contact us through the mag.

Thanks, and we hope to hear from you!

I would now like to make the same offer to Jamie Lynn Spears.

According to the folks at MyHeritage.com I actually look more like Jamie Lynn Spears than I do Britney. To be honest, Jamie Lynn looks more like my late mother than she does me. So, this works out perfectly.

The child will have a mom who looks like their aunt. They will have pictures of their grandmother who looks like their biological mother. They will have a set of middle-aged caretakers rather than a teenage mom and a dad who is serving jail time on statutory rape charges.

If it's a girl, we'll even name her Zoe 101. That's right, her middle name will be 101.

And on her 14th birthday, we'll have her tubes tied.

Size Does Matter

Family-size bottles of shampoo are only good if you plan on wearing steel-toed boots into the shower. Yesterday, I dropped a 22.5 fl. oz. bottle (or 665 ml. for our Canadian friends) of Suave Naturals Tropical Coconut Shampoo (infused with coconut extract and vitamin E) and almost broke my foot.

Do you know how embarrassing it would be to fracture your tootsies with Suave? If you're going to be injured by shampoo, it should be with Paul Mitchell or Pantene or some other pricey product that begins with a "P". Not Suave! That would be like choking to death at Denny's.

In other health and beauty news, I walked past an endcap of deodorant at my local drug store and just above the display was a sign that read, "Makes A Perfect Stocking Stuffer." No, deodorant does not make a perfect stocking stuffer. Deodorant might just be the worst possible Christmas gift you could give. "Merry Christmas, Grandma! You smell like a goat."

White Christmas

Jews write the best Christmas songs. Irving Berlin started the trend by composing "White Christmas", Johhny Marks gave us "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and we have Mel Torme to thank for the very popular, but not very subtly titled, "The Christmas Song"-- which gentiles everywhere merely call "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire" anyway.

Torme's "The Christmas Song" may top the fan favorite chart, but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Berlin's "White Christmas." Whenever I hear the tune, I just imagine GI's during World War 2 gathered around a radio, smoking cigarettes and wiping away tears as they look at pictures of their loved ones back home.

The movie "White Christmas" was made a full decade after the record "White Christmas" became popular. Most people don't realize that the song first appeared in the 1942 film "Holiday Inn" starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and Majorie Reynolds. It's one of my favorites if for no other reason then you get to watch Fred Astaire's character dance drunk. The dancing is far better than what the majority of men would do sober.

Here is a clip of Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynold's singing the holiday classic.



Now here's Bing singing the song again but this time with Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen. My favorite part is when they make out behind the tree during a performance. As a professional entertainer, I would never do such a thing. I would make out in front of the tree where the entire audience could see me. After all, these folks paid good money for those tickets. Let them see a show!

It's amazing how much Danny Kaye looks like Seinfeld's Michael Richards. Perhaps Richards should star in a remake of "White Christmas"? After the "N" word incident, it would give the title a whole new meaning.

The Feast Of The Seven Nitrates

I have to go to food shopping today so we have something to feed our guests when they visit on Friday night. Usually, we have a few friends and family over on the night before Christmas Eve-- which we call Christmas Adam-- but my husband will be working on a cruise during Christmas week so the festivities are a little earlier than in years past.

Not only has Christmas Adam become a tradition in our house, but we also tend to serve the same food year after year... meatball sandwiches, potato salad, deviled eggs and such. All good, but always the same.

This year we briefly considered borrowing from the Italian tradition and hosting our own Feast of the Seven Fishes, but after listing four fishes on our shopping list we just simply ran out of fishes... shrimp cocktail, crab cakes, smoked salmon, canned tuna and then we blanked. When somebody brought up smelts, we quickly abandoned the idea altogether.

So, instead, we're having the Feast of the Seven Nitrates. After all, who doesn't love a good meat log during the holidays and no that's not a euphemism.

Sausage, pepperoni, lebanon bologna, chorizo, kielbasa, some meaty thing covered in pepper that I saw at Trader Joe's and a bowl of nitroglycerin for any guest who falls over from a heart attack.

Where's the Spam, you ask? Spam is the smelts of the smoked meat world. People either love it or hate it. We'll avoid Spam.

What is a nitrate, you ask? I went to the University of Minnesota website to find out. If anybody knows about meat logs, it's the folks in the heartland.

Nitrite in meat greatly delays development of botulinal toxin (botulism), develops cured meat flavor and color, retards development of rancidity and off-odors and off-flavors during storage, inhibits development of warmed-over flavor, and preserves flavors of spices, smoke, etc.

In other words, nitrates are the best tasting carcinogen out there.

Will you be killing your guests, you ask? Not according to my friends in the 32nd state.

The following information on nitrite toxicity is from "GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) Food Ingredients: Nitrates and Nitrites (Including Nitrosamines)," 1972. This report was prepared for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by Battele-Columbus Laboratories and Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA 22151.

According to this source, the fatal dose of potassium nitrate for adult humans is in the range of 30 to 35 grams consumed as a single dose; the fatal dose of sodium nitrite is in the range of 22 to 23 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Lower doses of sodium or potassium nitrate or sodium nitrite have caused acute methemoglobinemia (when hemoglobin loses its ability to carry oxygen), particularly in infants, resulting from conversion of nitrate to nitrite after consumption. There is no confirmable evidence in the literature on the carcinogenicity (cancer-causing capacity) of nitrate as such.

It has been reported that people normally consume more nitrates from their vegetable intake than from the cured meat products they eat. Spinach, beets, radishes, celery, and cabbages are among the vegetables that generally contain very high concentrations of nitrates (J. Food Sci., 52:1632). The nitrate content of vegetables is affected by maturity, soil conditions, fertilizer, variety, etc. It has been estimated that 10 percent of the human exposure to nitrite in the digestive tract comes from cured meats and 90 percent comes from vegetables and other sources. Nitrates can be reduced to nitrites by certain microorganisms present in foods and in the gastrointestinal tract. This has resulted in nitrite toxicity in infants fed vegetables with a high nitrate level. No evidence currently exists implicating nitrite itself as a carcinogen.

So, as long as I don't serve celery everybody's safe?! I feel so much better.

(My apologies to the nitrates for calling them carinogens. This is how ugly rumors get started.)

Next year, I'll be selling "The Feast of the Seven Nitrates" T-shirts on my website. They'll only come in X-Large because, after all that high-caloried meat, it'll be the only size that fits.



Feast away at humor-blogs.com.

Rejected Us Weekly Fashion Police Jokes 3

I have been a Top Cop for Us Weekly's Fashion Police since 2001. (Why do men always call it "U.S." Weekly even when they see it spelled with a big "U" and a small "s"?)

Some weeks many of my jokes are published while other weeks I have to settle for just one or two. Below is a partial list of comments that never made it to the newsstand.

(My comment for Ashley Tisdale did make it in this week. "Is Ashley auditioning for a role in Ho School Musical?")



Demi Moore

Never let Demi fill the condiment bottles.

"I'll be back to finish the trim tomorrow."

Perez Hilton

The Easter Bunny has really let himself go.

Meet the newest Doodlebot.

A "Speedo bump" on Fashion Road.

Ashley Tisdale

What an exotic dancer wears to the library.

Rihanna

Somebody's been shopping at Cindy Lauper's yard sale.

The World Ballet Wrestling Federation.

Beyonce

"Take me to your leader."

Who are wearing? "Klaatu barada nikto!"



Take me to humor-blogs.com.

Kids Say The Dumbdest Things

Last night, my friend's four-year-old innocently said she was going to go see the "Buttcracker." I had no idea plumbers could dance. I sure hope she doesn't sit in the front row. The Sugerbum Fairies should only be seen from a distance.

GERD Girl Guide

In October of 2006, I was finally diagnosed with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) after a nearly three decade battle with my midsection. At that moment, my life changed.

For years, various doctors had me convinced me that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. For years, I thought it was all in my head. Then on one bright shiny day, I realized that it was all in my esophagus which, the last time I checked, is just under my head.

From time to time, I will be writing about my daily experiences with the GERD Monster. I will do this because I am convinced that a large part of our population unknowingly has GERD.

I will call myself GERD Girl because this is the closest I will ever come to being a superhero. I may even make myself a cape. As far as my super powers are concerned, well, I suppose I can regurgitate slightly at will and I can sleep on a slanted bed.

A few years ago, I wrote about my stomach troubles on SHECKYmagazine.com. Does this sound like you?

I think I'm the only person in the world who can get an upset stomach just by reading the back of a Milk of Magnesia bottle. "Directions for Use," it says on the 12-ounce plastic container, "As a laxative: Adults and children over 12, 2-4 teaspoons. As an antacid: Adults and children over 12, 1-3 teaspoons." It's the overlapping dosage number, you see, that causes me concern. I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I took the recommended 3 teaspoonsfull? How would my body decide which way to react? And why is it a laxative and an antacid? In my mind, a laxative and an antacid are diametrically opposed and don't belong in the same product. It's like having a bed that's also a catapult.

The reason I am intimately familiar with Milk of Magnesia... and Tums... and Mylanta-- both generic and name-brand... and baking soda... and Alka Seltzer... and club soda with bitters... and recently with this awful antacid gum that I found on a bargain table at my local Rite Aid... is because I have had a 26-year battle with what the professional medicine men like to call a nervous stomach.

I first started taking prescription stomach medication when I was 11 years old. It was 1976, the year America's sweetheart, Dorothy Hamill, won her Olympic figure skating Gold Medal. It was also the same year I watched The Mike Douglas Show religiously and, on one of her many MDS appearances, Ms. Hamill confessed to Mr. Douglas that she had undergone treatment for a bleeding stomach ulcer. Instantly, she became my childhood hero. How could I not worship a fellow female with a cute haircut, winning smile and self-inflicted, screwed up intestines? When I saw Dorothy Hamill it was like I was looking in a mirror... in a bathroom mirror, of course.

A fellow comic, who was suffering from the mother of all intestinal problems, Crohn's disease (or regional ileitis for all my Latin friends) once told me that many standup comics suffer from anxious innards. Since we all, no doubt, knew about our tense tummy tendencies long before ever doing our first open-mike, I had to wonder why we chose to pursue a career in an occupation that ranks right up there in stress level with executioner, crocodile hunter and Vatican lawyer. If we all knew early on that this would be a lifelong problem, as I believe we all did, then why didn't we become yogis or gardeners or Maytag repairmen? What is it about our basic personality type that makes us seek out stress even when stress turns our midsections into living lava lamps?

Back when I still had health insurance (Ah, the eighties! While most comics were snorting cocaine and marrying comedy club waitresses, I was seeking out low co-payment medical care!) I tried desperately to get my stomach problems under control. My bi-coastal life style allowed me to visit doctors on both sides of the country and after several humiliating, low co-payment, invasive procedures, each doctor gave me the same annoying advice, "You have got to relax." Unfortunately, the men in white coats didn't realize that the one guaranteed way to make me tense up further is to tell me to relax. Just ask my husband. Blue Cross and Blue Shield wound up paying lots of green money for me to find out what I had already known. As I left each office, my stomach sounded like the mating call of the wildebeest.

One particulary evil doctor decided that I needed to have a lower GI, which, by the way, has nothing to do with having sex with a very small military man. The lower GI, and it's sister test the upper GI-- which also has nothing to do with sex and a slightly taller man in the armed forces-- are two of the most unpleasant and embarrassing examinations a human can undergo. The worst of the two, the lower GI, consists of several steps: first you empty out your system (let's just leave that to the imagination) then you endure a barium enema and finally you allow a man who's never taken you out to dinner and who, most likely, just lost the coin toss, to insert a camera into a place where no camera should ever go and have a look around. My only comfort was that he didn't request a wide-angle lens... or wallet-sized copies. To add insult to what had to be injuries, the doctor wrote on my chart, "The patient took to the procedure very well." And he expected me to relax?

Not having health insurance, or enough money for twice-yearly trips to Hawaii, has forced me to deal with my gastrointestinal problems in more inexpensive ways. Diet, blah, blah, blah, exercise, blah, blah, blah, meditation, blah, blah, blah and over-the-counter chalky white substances all seem to help. But a month's work of relaxation can all be wiped out with one sports bar hell gig. So, I have to ask myself, punk, can my stomach survive 18 more years in standup comedy? Especially if at the end of those 18 years I still have dust blowing through my bank account?

But perhaps money-- or lack thereof-- has nothing to do with the pressure I feel. Let's face it, standup comedy and stress are the peanut butter and jelly of show business. Sure you can have one without the other but it just wouldn't be the same. As comics, we thrive on the challenge. We like living on the edge, even if that occasionally means falling over the edge. Stress and anxiety keeps us sharp. So, maybe those of us who experience heightened stress in our daily lives became standup comics because we finally found a positive way to channel our anxiety? All these years, our critics have said that we're maladjusted. But maybe we adjusted just fine, thank you very much. After all, who's crazier? The stressed out comic? Or the stressed out toll taker?

(Comics should end stress in third world countries by releasing an album called Rolaid. Sorry, I was channeling the '80s again.)

Heartburn, gut rumblings and acid reflux will probably be with me for the rest of my life. They've been with me since puberty, so I can't think of a good reason why they would one day pack up and leave. But I can't even imagine how much worse they would be if I didn't love what I do. And if acceptance is the first sign of recovery then maybe there's hope for my stomach in the future.

I only wish I had discovered all of this before subjecting myself to those awful tests. At least now I have beautiful 8x10 glossy's of my intestinal tract. I sign each one, "Hope to see you soon!" I guess I should get new ones made. It's embarrassing to look at them... my colon looks so 1986.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Ah, nothing says Merry Christmas quite like sexual harrassment.

Since the song "Baby It's Cold Outside" debuted in the 1949 film "Neptune's Daughter" it has, inexplicably become a holiday classic. Even Will Farrell's man/child character sang the duet with Zoey Deschanel in the children's Christmas movie "Elf." But, if you listen to the lyrics, you have to wonder why this tune is so linked with snowmen, candy canes and reindeer.

He wants her to say. She wants to go. He invades her personal space. She tries to escape. He persists. She says no, but really means maybe. It's as if Pepe LePew has found himself a more willing participant. If performed properly, you should be able to cut the sexual tension with a fruitcake knife. If performed poorly, you spend more time thinking about the horrendous driving conditions that will await our damsel if she ever does escape.

Most of the time, "Baby It's Cold Outside" is performed poorly.

In fact, that's the other great mystery of this song. Why does it attract such strange pairings? Over the years, it has been recorded by such odd couples as Alan Cumming and Liza Minnelli, Ann Margaret and Brian Setzer and, my personal bad-favorite, Bette Midler and James Caan.

One of the worst versions has to be by Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart. They should have just released a tape of an emphysema patient trying to seduce a sheep. Another incarnation that will send me fleeing from a retail establishment when it blares over the soundsystem, is Ray Charles and Betty Carter. I don't care if Ms. Carter is a jazz legend, on this song she sounds like Gingy, the talking gingergbread man from "Shrek."

Give me Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme! Give me Bing Crosby and Doris Day! Please, no more duets with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson or, even worse, Bo Bice and Joan Osbourne!

Even the legends can come off as talentless hacks if they team up with the wrong person. In this variation, Welsh crooner Tom Jones pairs up with Welsh warbler Cerys Matthews. The whole thing is kind of creepy. Close your eyes and you'll imagine an aging pedophile trying to hit on a semi-retarded girl.



Here's the original with Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams. Neither one of them are known for their pipes, but at least it doesn't look like something you'd see on To Catch A Predator.



I think Dean Martin had the right idea when he recorded this song as a solo.


It' nice and warm over at humor-blogs.com.

A Christmas Miracle

Last August, I had a "left breast ductoscopy with major ductal excision" otherwise known as hooter surgery. At the time, my surgeon assured me that my boob-- which I began affectionately referring to as Frankentit-- would eventually bounce back into shape. After several months of little or no bouncing, I was beginning to lose faith. Yesterday, however, I noticed during my shower that the little bugger is back to her old self. It is, indeed, a Christmas miracle.

Of course, my remaining areola scar makes me look like I've been in a lesbian bar fight, but I'm hoping that will be gone in a few months. An Easter miracle, perhaps?

Rock 'N' Roll Over 'N' Play Dead

Inducting Madonna into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is like giving the James Beard Foundation Award for Culinary Excellence to Ronald McDonald.

To quote Pat Cooper, "It's over!"

Santa, No Means No.

What was Santa doing with my hand?!



Poor man. I shouldn't accuse him of such lechery. But, if he had been a child predator, I bet he would have used this as his Christmas card.

Baby Geniuses

Babies love me. Babies have loved me since the day I stopped being a baby myself. The only group of people who love me more than babies, are folks with Down Syndrome. To babies and the mentally disabled, I'm Elvis Presley.

My husband theorizes that they are attracted to my large, round, cartoon-character type eyes. He reached this conclusion after we accidentally found ourselves in the middle of an ANIME convention. That was the day I realized that the only people who love me more than babies and the mentally disabled are Japanese animation freaks.

Perhaps there is another reason why strange babies reach out to me in discount department stores.

Six- and 10-month-old babies are much more capable judges of character than previously thought. Not only can infants pick out a good Samaritan, they tend to identify with them, according to a Yale University study published in the journal Nature.

So, it seems babies aren't hitting on me because they think I'm cute, babies are hitting on me because they think I'm nice.

The study released last month presented babies with a diorama-like display of an anthropomorphic circle struggling to make it up a hill. Just when it appeared that all hope was lost, a heroic triangle appeared, and pushed the circle to the top. The round climber bounces, clearly elated to have reached the summit. The same scenario is played out again, only this time a square appears at the top of the hill and pushes the circle to the bottom.

The babies were then asked to pick a toy-- the helper or the hinderer, as scientists called them. One hundred percent of 6-month-olds and 87.5 percent of 10-month-olds chose the helper. The results were consistent even when the triangle and the square swapped places as good guy and bad guy. In several other iterations of the experiment, the helper, regardless of shape or color, won out.

Aha! Babies understand that I am a helper in a world of hinderers.

While other research has shown that babies make assessments about people based on their physical appearance-- they gravitate toward attractive people-- these new findings show more complex levels of judgment.

OK, so they think I'm nice and cute. Gosh, babies are so much smarter than I thought. Maybe I should stop saying such bad things about them behind their little backs.

But, I don't understand, if we're such good judges of character when we're babies, what happens to that ability when we grow up? If we lived in a society of only 10-month-olds, we wouldn't need Dr. Phil.

Gift Buying Guide For Men

As I was walking through the men's section at Marshall's the other day, I realized that woman aren't as good at buying presents for guys as we think. The majority of items on display were pretty insulting. When it comes to gift-giving for our significant others, we seem to be obsessed with tools and shavers. It's as if each Christmas, we say to our men, "Fix this, then go fix yourself."

Much to their credit, men, as a rule, don't seem to care. Give them an ugly tie or a nose hair trimmer or a beer cozy featuring their favorite NFL Team and they will, at least, pretend to be enthusiastic.

Women, on the other hand, rarely can fake such glee.

That's why I always feel bad for men this time of year. Shopping for your wife, fiance or girlfriend is often a lose-lose situation. Just imagine what a man goes through when he has a wife, fiance and girlfriend? The Mormons must give out a lot of gift cards.

The jewelry commercials make it look easy. Don't believe everything you see on television. If my husband put a diamond necklace on my chest while I was sleeping, I would probably think it was a bug, scream and hurl the jewels across the room.

This year, as my gift to you, I have decided to help a brother out. Shopping for a woman is actually pretty easy. We really only want two things: To know that you've been paying attention and to be able to tell the other women in our lives that we have a man who pays attention. Here are some things you should consider before pulling out the plastic.

1. Size Does Matter.

Nothing will get you an icy stare or pouting lip faster than buying the wrong size clothes. Too big and she thinks you think she's fat. Too small and suddenly she thinks she's fat. Either way, it makes for a chilly holiday. Rooting through her closet to find out her size won't help either. Women have fat clothes and skinny clothes: Big shirts for when our boobs are swollen, small shirts for when we're feeling slutty. Only we know the system. Don't even try to figure it out.

2. Bringing Sexy Back

Lingerie may seem like a good idea but that's because you think like a man. A cynical woman may think, "Oh great, a gift for him." An insecure woman might think, "Apparently, he hates what I usually wear to bed." Solution? Buy a sexy nightgown and a flannel robe. One says you think she's hot and the other says you still think she's hot even when she looks like a slob. As a bonus, most nighttime attire comes in small, medium and large so it's not as easy to screw up the sizing.

3. Gifts For Mother

Do not, under any circumstances, buy your mother and your lover the same gift! Especially if it comes from Victoria's Secret. That's just sick.

4. Diamonds Are Forever

When you buy a woman a diamond, you are really buying it for the other women in her life. That's why it's dangerous to buy the pendants or earrings advertised on TV. If you know the diamond heart-shaped necklace costs 99 bucks then so does she...and so do her friends and relatives. Buy something unique and if you're not sure of her taste, keep it simple...and keep the receipt.

5. Appliances R Us

Don't buy her a vacuum cleaner unless she has spent all year saying, "I really want a new vacuum cleaner." An electric knife might make her life easier but it won't get you laid on Christmas Eve. If she needs a new ironing board, wrap it up and say it's from the kids.

6. Are You Listening

Try your hardest to pick up on one thing that your lady has been saying over and over again and buy the corresponding gift. "I need new sunglasses." "Did you hear Coldplay has a new CD." "I love cashmere." If she says just once, "How did you know?" you can relax until next year.

7. Buy It All

Your best bet is just to buy a little of everything. Screwing up on three out of six gifts will be much easier than screwing up on one out of one. Buy a sweater and gloves and earrings and a blender and a hot little red negligee.

Then buy your mother a scented candle and a gift certificate to the Olive Garden.

Why would you do all of this for the woman in your life? Because she's the woman in your life!

Now, start shopping. And smile when she gives you the lower lumbar support pillow on Christmas morning. If you're lucky, you'll get your real present later on. That's something you won't want to re-gift.

Tip From Traci

Olive oil cooking spray easily removes tree sap from one's hands. I'm not sure if it works on other body parts but, hey, what you do with your Christmas tree is none of my business.

Dissed By Dagwood

No life? Too much time on our hands? Hey, old cartoon man, you're as square as my computer screen. Do you know what really is a waste of time? Reading the not-so-funny pages.

Jury Duty

My poor husband has jury duty today. He's not happy. It's the one time in his life where being a middle-aged white guy is a huge disadvantage. Plus, he wears glasses which makes him look smart. He's not smart, but he looks smart. Middle-aged white guys who wear glasses always get picked to serve on a jury. He doesn't stand a chance.

I feel his pain. In order to cheer him up, I decided to go all June Cleaver on his ass and make him a tasty chicken salad sandwich for lunch. He still looked miserable. "Honey," I said, "you're making the Beaver sad." Apparently, he wasn't in the mood for double entendres.

In honor of his service, I have decided to post a column I wrote for SHECKYmagazine.com a few years back when I was called for jury duty. Perhaps some of my luck will rub off on him.

There's a reason they call it "jury duty." They call it jury duty because it is indeed a duty and duty of course implies that it's something you must do and not something you want to do. The reason no one wants to be called for jury duty, obviously, is because jury duty is not fun. If it was fun they would call it Jury Camp or Jury Jamboree or, at the very least, Howdy Duty.

The courts are well aware that the majority of Americans would rather have root canal surgery during an IRS audit than serve in a box with eleven of their fellow angry citizens. That's why they use vaguely threatening language in the jury notices. "You must report," "Subject to fine," "Use of cattle prods" or some such nonsense. If folks really wanted to appear they would simply say "Congratulations, you are the lucky winner of a seat on a jury!" and the envelope would have on it a picture of a smiling and bloated Ed McMahon. Apparently, intimidation is the only way to get people to show up against their will. Have you ever seen the movie Twelve Angry Men? The men were only angry because they were all too stupid to get out of jury duty. That bit about injustice was all just filler.

California is a great place to be an entertainer who needs to get out of jury duty. The showbiz friendly state would only require that I fill out a card explaining that "financial hardship would result" and within days a lovely "Get Out Of Jury Duty Free Card" would appear in my mailbox. California not only understands the realities of the self-employed but they also realize the danger of having entertainers seated in the jury box. Instead of listening to the testimony the jurors would be thinking, "Hey, isn't juror number two the guy in the Fruit of the Loom commercial? He looks thinner when he's not wearing that apple suit."

New Jersey-- bitter that it's not New York-- wasn't so understanding. My current home state just sent me a card with the word "Tough" written in large red letters. So, off to jury duty I went. And I wasn't too happy to go.

I was to appear on a Tuesday and on the Monday before I spent 13 hours in a car driving home from Atlanta. I was tired. I was cranky. I was ready to sentence someone to death. Even if it was just a civil case.

At precisely 8:30 AM I was one of 100 jurors to be selected to drown in the first jury pool of the day. Imagine my delight when I learned that the trial would be the death penalty sentencing phase for an already convicted murderer. You mean, I may actually be able to sentence someone to death after all?! To quote Stimpy--or is it Ren?--"Joy!"

I liked the judge. He was Dick Cheney-esque. He explained in dad-like tones the facts of the case and the difference between aggravating and mitigating circumstances. If memory serves me--and it rarely does--"he killed a woman with a knife" is an aggravating circumstance, while "you shouldn't put him to death because he's close to his mother" is a mitigating factor. (Yes, that was floated as a real-live mitigating factor. I think I may have actually laughed out loud on that one.)

The judged then introduced us to various people in the court. It was a bit like being at a rock concert. "And now I'd like you to meet the band. On drums, the prosecutor...on bass, the defense attorney." But, wow, oh, wow, I did not expect him to introduce the actual murderer guy himself. There he was, sitting at the table, wearing a suit that his lawyers no doubt bought for him, looking more like a Mitsubishi salesman than a cold-blooded killer. He turned to us and calmly said, "Good morning." I half expected him to make a toast. He was sitting three feet from me-- tops. I mean, as a comic, I've killed before, but I've never, you know, killed before. It was weird.

We were then informed that the trial would last approximately three weeks, beginning at the end of June. Since I am scheduled to be in Arizona during that time, I knew that I would have to talk to the judge and asked to be excused. Eighty or so of the jurors were taken to another room to fill out questionnaires and be interviewed by the attorneys. I stayed behind with the rest of the quivering masses awaiting our time with the judge.

One by one we were called to the bench. We had the hot babe prosecutor on one side and the two defense attorneys on the other. We were to give our name and badge number and then tell the judge why we wouldn't be able to serve.

"Well, your honor," I said somewhat tentatively,"I'm a standup comic,"

All four of them started laughing.

I turned to the prosecutor and said, "It's worse than telling people you're an attorney."

More laughter.

The judge said, "Miss Skene, we could use a little levity in this court. Is there any chance we could make you a better offer?"

I explained my situation, he acknowledged possible financial hardship and then we just chatted a bit. I can't remember the exact order of the conversation but I did learn that the prosecutor used to be an actress, I told them that being in court is far more intimidating than being on stage, someone suggested that I could get material out of the situation and then I was asked if I would be appearing locally in the near future. It was all very pleasant.

Then I remembered that the murderer was sitting only a few feet behind me. What must he have been thinking? This was the beginning of his death penalty sentencing phase and we're in the front of the court making jokes. It certainly was surreal for me, I can only imagine how surreal it must have been for him. I mean, as a comic, I've died before, but I've never, you know, died before.

Later that day, I was thrown into another jury pool but wasn't picked for that one either. I drank diet peach Snapple, read The Nanny Diaries (which I found depressing) talked to some very nice strangers and was out of there by 2:30. Except for the talking to the strangers part, I probably would have just done the same things at home. In other words, it could have been worse.

It'll be three years until the state of New Jersey can forcibly park my over-sized butt into another jury room. Hopefully, by then, I will still be a standup comic, which will ensure that I will never be picked to serve as a juror. There's not a court in the land who wants a comic in the juror's box. Sometimes being misunderstood is a good thing.

Judge for yourself at humor-blogs.com.

A Man And A Woman

This is the first short film my husband and I made together. It's only three minutes long, so, when we say short, we mean short. It was featured at the Boston Comedy Festival and in Comics With Cameras at the M Bar in Los Angeles. To view our other masterpieces, go to our YouTube Channel.

That's Some Good Squirrel, Aunt Bea!

Can't decide what to make for your holiday feast? Just turn to page 515 in your Joy of Cooking to learn how to prepare some tasty squirrel. If you're not into squirrel meat, there's also instructions for porcupine and raccoon. (Afterwards, you can use the porcupine quills to pick your teeth.)

Gray squirrels are preferred to red squirrels, which are quite gamy in flavor.

I'll keep that in mind.

This may be the only recipe in existence that requires a boot.

Bon Appetit!

Beauty Before Age

Bloggers who blog about blogging have concluded that posting a picture of a cheerleader is a guaranteed way to drive traffic to your site. As a chick, however, I would feel a bit uncomfortable using a fellow chick's body as blogger bait so, instead, I've decided to upload a photo of my own perky pom poms. Admittedly, this is me 20 years ago, but if you close your eyes real tight, I look exactly the same.



My husband innocently offered to take a more recent pic. I laughed, coughed, laughed some more, cleared my throat and said, "I'm 42-years-old. Who would want to see me dressed as a cheerleader?" He laughed, coughed, laughed some more, cleared his throat and said, "Uh, I would."

That's when I realized that the only people who have a problem with women aging is...women. Men don't care. Men love us. Men aren't turned off by laugh lines. Men just want us to laugh.

Women have watched so many Lifetime Movies about men who dump their wives for younger babes that we've completely lost touch with reality. And if your husband did that to you, then you married wrong in the first place.

On my local newscast last night, a reporter, who will obviously will do anything for ratings, showed the Jennifer Love Hewitt "big ass" photograph to average Joe's and Jane's who were walking the cold Philadelphia streets. The woman were shocked. The men, not so much. One male said, "Oh sure it could be a little tighter, but I like it." I could tell that's how they all felt.

Jennifer Love Hewitt shot back on her official website criticizing folks who criticized her bum. Personally, I would rather have read a statement from her fiance who was no doubt sitting on the beach in Hawaii while she frolicked in the surf thinking, "Oh sure, it could be a little tighter, but I like it."

I can only assume my husband will feel the same way when go to Hawaii next year for our 20th wedding anniversary.

I don't look the same as I did when we first got married. But I realized the other day that every beauty product I own has the word "age defying" written somewhere on the bottle. The girls over at Fug posted an absolutely frightening photo of aging actress Joan Van Ark who, apparently, is spending lots of cash trying to stave off the inevitable. It's sadly ironic that in an effort to look youthful, she looks closer to death than ever. Only if she were lying in a coffin would people look at her and say, "She looks good."

Perhaps our brain needs to be the only age defying product we own.

This Is Spinal Tap's Air Conditioner

"Why don't you just make 10 colder and make 10 be the top number and make that a little colder?" "These go to 11."

Is It Happy Hanukkah or Chappy Chanukkah?

O, dradle dradle dradle I made you out of clay
dradle dradle dradle, I'll save the world today

Hey, kids, Hanukkah is bad for the environment.

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."

Talk about the perfect Christmas gift for the White Supremacist on your shopping list. Now they can even blame global warming on the Jews! Of course, skinheads probably don't give a hoot about climate change, but they'll learn to care if it helps them in their quest to rid the globe of all things Jew-y. "Hmmm...if eliminating one day of Hanukah will save the world, imagine what would happen if we got rid of all eight nights?"

Get a hold of yourselves! Leave the holiday alone. There are plenty of other ways to save the planet.

But the Jewish community doesn't need my help. They will not sit idly by while I speak and merely yell, "You go goy!" Rabbis and other religious leaders are always more than capable of delivering a theological smackdown.

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes.

"The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul."

United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway.

"They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said.

Boo-ya!

I'm just upset because, as a 1/8 Jew who was raised Protestant, I only celebrate Hanukkah one out of the eight days and that's just so I can eat the latkes. (In my case, Hanukkah isn't bad for the environment, but it is bad for my thighs.) What if they knock out my one night? What if the crazed environmentalists then turn their attention to Christmas lights? I can't survive December without fried potatoes and twinkly bulbs.

Jews and Christians must ban together to save our holidays. I think all Christians should light candles for the next eight nights out of solidarity. And I'll do my part by eating latkes for a week straight. Maybe I'll even make the traditional jelly doughnuts.

Mmmm...doughnuts.



See people come together at humor-blogs.com.

Monkey In The Middle of a Test

I have always loved "animals are smarter than people" stories. I love them only because, as a human, I can read the story while the allegedly smarty-pants creature cannot. Don't you just love the irony? In fact, I could roll up the newspaper that contained such an article and kill a fly with it...or hit a pooch on his snout...or line the bottom of a bird cage. The possibilities are endless.

This time it's the lesser primates who are out-smarting the homo sapiens.

Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," said researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.

"No one can imagine that chimpanzees-- young chimpanzees at the age of 5-- have a better performance in a memory task than humans," he said in a statement.

Could it be that our chimp friends just have less on their minds than their human counterparts?

Let's consider what a human might be thinking while trying to perform a memory test.

1. Why did my check engine light go on? There's another $600 repair.

2. When my boss said, "Nice work" was he being sarcastic? Am I going to get fired?

3. Should I vote for a candidate who is concerned about global warming or is the war on terror the only important issue?

Now let's consider what a chimpanzee might be thinking while trying to perform a memory test.

1. Hey, what happened to my banana?

2. Should I sniff that chimp's ass...again?

3. I wonder how far I could throw my feces?

Matsuzawa has his own theory.

He thinks two factors gave his chimps the edge. For one thing, he believes human ancestors gave up much of this skill over evolutionary time to make room in the brain for gaining language abilities.

The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers. The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age. In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study. (Ayumu's mom did even worse than the college students).

So the next logical step, Lonsdorf said, is to fix up Ayumu with some real competition on these tests: little kids.

Ah, now we have a fair fight.

Let's consider what a little kid might be thinking while trying to perform a memory test.

1. Hey, what happened to my banana?

2. Should I sniff that kid's ass...again?

3. I wonder how far I could throw my feces?

They Call Me Mrs. Nip

Today, my husband and I are celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary. We were joined in holy matrimony on December 2, 1988 on the beach in Hawaii. (A day which will live in infamy.) Officiating was the Reverend Richard B. Elsner who was once a bass player for Dean Martin and the Golddiggers. We're not even sure if our marriage is legal.

Below, is a picture from our nuptials. We ran this photo once on SHECKYmagazine and it also currently resides on our MySpace Profile. Look closely and you'll see that it is an incredibly embarrassing record of our blessed union.

Yes, it looks like a Walmart Photo Center fake backdrop. Yes, my husband has the smug optimistic countenance of a missionary who is about to convert the natives. And yes, yes, yes, my nipple is showing.





It's nippy over at humor-blogs.com.

The Worst Dish Ever Created

Somebody must have snuck in some weed to the McCall's Test Kitchen. How else can you explain Ham and Bananas Hollandaise? (At least I hope those are bananas.)

My husband calls it "barf inducing." I can't tell you how tempted I am to serve this to my guests on Christmas Eve.

6 medium bananas
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 thin slices of ham (about 1/2 lb.)
3 tablespoons prepared mustard
2 envelopes hollandaise sauce mix
1/4 cup light cream

Only in the midwest would six thin slices of ham equal 1/2 lb. I live in the Northeast where we have deli's and know how to use them. If we can't see through our meat, it doesn't get eaten.

Oh, I suppose I should also give you the directions.

1. Preheat oven to 400F.

2. Arrange ingredients in baking dish.

3. Clean up barf.

4. Apologize to guests and order pizza.

Go get sick at humor-blogs.com.

Rejected Us Weekly Fashion Police Jokes 2

I have been a Top Cop for Us Weekly's Fashion Police since 2001. (Why do men always call it "U.S." Weekly even when they see it spelled with a big "U" and a small "s"?)

Some weeks many of my jokes are published while other weeks I have to settle for just one or two. Below is a partial list of comments that never made it to the newsstand.



Kristen Bell

I love a dress with a built in napkin.

It looks like a giant lace tongue.

When doilies attack!

Play Along At Home

For you kids who actually buy Us Weekly (as opposed to reading it while standing in line at the grocery store or killing time at the doctor's office) and want to play at home, here are some more jokes written for the celebrity photos that are not posted online.

Victoria Beckham

Now I know what to do with my old table runner.

Rumer Willis

She better hope a musical number breaks out.

Blake Lewis

That bandana is cutting off the oxygen to his brain.

Monique Coleman

High School Seussical the Musical.

Kelly Osbourne

An Osbourne who dresses like an Osmond.

Rihanna

What a "female executive" wears in a porno.

Carrie Underwood

Tissue wads are all the rage.

Mary J. Blige

We'll give you one sleeve now and the other one for Christmas.

Nicole Scherzinger

What a drum majorette wears to the prom.

Avril Lavigne

A penny saved is a penny worn.



Save a penny at humor-blogs.com.