Blog headers...harder than it looks

Like any sane person whose adolescence occurred in the '90s, I watched an awful lot of The Simpsons growing up.  Because of this, I am not-so-uniquely qualified to definitively say that the "Clown College" episode was their finest moment. 

Also known as "The University of Michigan"

Of course, even the casual fan can pick out the two running jokes during the intro: Bart forever writing on the blackboard:

And the "Couch Gag":

I've seen most of these gags--at least from the first 8 or so seasons--thanks to the magic of the VHS tape that allowed a poor college kid to record the 14 daily showing of the Simpsons on Fox to be rewatched later, over many, many beers.

In the 2000's, Fox and Matt Groening--the creator of the Simpson clan--upped the ante by annually releasing The Simpson's DVDs.  I only bought the 1st season before realizing that I could never afford each season as it came out so I just borrowed each season as it was released from my buddy Brad.  It is because of these DVDs that I was introduced to the magic of the "director's commentary".  I LOVE the directors commentary (DC).  For those not in the know, the DC is an alternate audio track that plays along with the movie that features--duh--the director as well as the producer, some of the principle actors, maybe the cinematographer or the writer and they all sort of talk over the movie with interesting trivia facts and such.   I've watched most of my favorite movies with the DC turned on (Braveheart was weird because instead of the commentary being provided by any of the folks above, it was provided by Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson alone.  177 minutes of Mel Gibson rambling on and on by himself in what I imagine to be a candle-lit room full of Nazi propaganda posters.  Probably naked.) as well as the entirety of the 1st 8 seasons of The Simpsons.

Remember, I was unemployed for 6 months in 2006.

Of course, each Simpsons episode kicks off with the above two jokes.  The goal was to have two unique jokes for each episode and, for the most part, that has been the case.  You do tend to see repeats of the couch gags more often than repeats of Bart at the blackboard but they do happen.  What Groening discovered, according to the commentary, is that it is damn hard to write these two jokes week after week and keep them fresh and funny.  Even with a team of writers.  In fact, he joked--I think he was joking--that he often pushed the blackboard gag off on The Simpsons unpaid interns.

For the 5 of you that have followed my blog from the beginning, you may recall that I used to have a little witticism that appeared beneath the title of my blog that changed all the time.  The line was--for the most part--about Bonzer T and it at first changed daily, then every couple of days, then weekly, then my Mom died, then, after the last one sat there for a couple of weeks, I just pulled the joke altogether.  That's not to say that the gag will not come back...it's just really, really hard to do.

At first I thought "How difficult can it be?  Just pick a historical figure, make the person say something that he or she would never say and always make it about how awesome/offensive/manly you are.  You're super awesome and offensive and manly!  Piece of cake!"

Let me tell you, that shit is hard.  What I've found is that some days I'm not at all creative, or pissed at a masturbator that just called into work, or super hungry, or sometimes I'm sad, or disproportionally horny, or just plain tired.  Those are the days that you have to force yourself to stay clever.  It's one thing to be paid to do so and it's another thing to keep clever on a totally rad PG-13 blog in my spare time.

That said, what follows are each and every blog header that I kept for the 1st couple of months of the Home Skillet.  I think we can all agree, the work suffered as time went on:

“A safe place to bash Julia Roberts”  --Winston Churchill

“The window dressing of the Gods.”  --Jesus Christ

"Super cute!" --Madeleine Albright

"Thrusting towards mediocrity." --Millard Fillmore

“Jettisoning the philanthropic and crusty.”  --Brian of Nazareth

"Seriously, Julia Roberts sucks." --Marie Curie

"Sucking the shrimp out of life, one tail at a time." --Col. Sanders

"Eternally rolling with the homies."  --Peter Tork

“Arrrg!  ‘Tis only one rum better than mine!”  --Captain Morgan

“How'd the play end?” --Abraham Lincoln

“DAMN!  You lookin' gooooooood, sugar!”  --Bill Donohue

“On the 3rd day, Bonzer did rise again”  --God

“Oh shit”  Osama Bin Laden

“Dead on balls accurate” --LL Cool J

“Christ, this guy rambles”  --Jesus Christ

“Well, he's no Shatner”  --Bender Rodriguez

“Sniff, sniff”  --Barrack Obama

“Tougher than a pommel horse on fire.”  --Curt Thomas

“Sad Panda.” --Norman Schwarzkopf

“I dunno, dude. You're the shit.” --Yahweh

Honestly, I don't know how that "Red Meat" guy does it.  

The "T" is for Terriffic!

Seriously, it is.

A few folks have asked me what the 'Bonzer T' is about.  Fair question.  The short answer is that it is my video game alias.  Not for cool games where people wear headsets and play Mortal Combat with a friend in Vietnam; I don't have the technological wherewithall to play anything like that.  No, I'm referring to old school games from the N64.  With my super-secret alias, my ninja-like character named 'Bonzer Terriffic' can shoot up Nazis and the Nazis will never know it was actually an unshaven fat guy on a couch wearing only his boxers named 'Mike Jacklich'.  I'm safe from retribution.

The longer answer is that 'Bonzer Terriffic' is my porn alias.

You know that game--Mom, maybe you don't--where you take simple information like your pet's name or your middle name and then tack on the street on which you grew up and that becomes your pornstar name?  I always hated that game.  But then again, I don't like these so called "rules".   I will admit, that sometimes those rules come (har!) up with some pretty wicked adult film names.  I have an ex-girlfriend whose porn name was "Dolly Yukon" by these rules.  That's pretty good.  I have a former friend (he knows what he did) whose name turned out to be "Charles Timberridge".  I would absolutely buy that guy delivering a pizza to a lonely housewife.  Maybe he looks like this:

I always preferred to be a bit more creative when it came to such life long decisions like what your porn name must be.  By the rules, my porn name should have been "Hugh Yackley", which, I must admit, has grown on me.  It's solid.  But it lacks the pizazz necessary for such a career.

Anyhow, many moons ago, in college, I was an underrage drinker at the Outback Steakhouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  A few guys in my fraternity worked there so us poor, underage kids could drink beers and order off the childrens menu thereby getting drunk in a public place while spending as little money as possible.  For those unfamiliar with the Outback Steakhouse, it is an Australian themed restaraunt that could be considered the Olive Garden of steakhouses.  You get a decent enough meal but if you're looking for a good steak, you're in the wrong place.  In this instance, "the wrong place" was "Tulsa".  As Tulsa often is. 

On this particular evening, I found myself gazing at the coaster beneath my mug.  Listed on the coaster were a few Australian translations of typical English words.  In this case, the coaster read, "Bonzer = Terriffic".  I turned to my friend Marc (probably he was there...he was always there with me) and said "Bonzer Terriffic would be an excellent porn name".  Or, more likely, I said something like "Boszner Terristific wuld be as awesoms porn num. Hoooooooooo!"

I drank a lot in college.

From this one absolutely forgettable evening, I created a life-long, completely ridiculous alter-ego that is only mentioned within the context of video gaming or the above porn name conversation.  And now, Bonzer Terriffic is the title for my totally rad blog.