Random Zack Friedman Facts

You know those Vin Diesel and Chuck Norris random fact generators that contain many instances of great mirth-causing hilarity? Maybe not, but I have devoted the last couple years of my life to baring my face before the blazingly bright suns of internet comedy (and getting a really awesome comedy sunburn), so I am well acquainted with their mysteries. Anyway, a couple months ago, I wrote a bunch of facts to submit to their site, except then I never did, and they've languished until this day. Here are my favorites (some of which have been submitted to the fact-gens, hopefully I'll leave my mark/ piss on another of the tallest fire hydrants of the internet):

Note: There's a chance that some of these are a little derivative or outright plagiarized - I don't really recall their creation process but I know I had just spent a half hour reading over the original fact generators - so if you think you've read one of them before, tell me and I'll take it down and feel very ashamed.

To this day, anthropologists still wonder how the people of Easter Island knew exactly what Zack Friedman's penis looked like.

There's no such thing as radio or TV broadcasts, just Zack Friedman's nightmares being projected onto the world.

Zack Friedman used to use photosynthesis to harness sunlight to make food for his body, but he kinda disliked having green balls.

There isn't a subway system in New York City, just the thousands of subterranean passageways Zack Friedman dug for his swarms of albino children.

Zack Friedman and I once went out for a drink after work. He thought that was too easy, so yeah, that's why we had Prohibition.

Zack Friedman isn't allergic to peanuts, he just never cared much for Booker T. Washington.

Someone once left a bloody horse's head on Zack Friedman's bed, but he just hugged it and went back to sleep.

Christians believe in an Immaculate Conception, but what really happened was that Zack Friedman jacked off the other day and his seed is so powerful it can impregnate women thousands of miles and multiple millenia away. The Catholic Church hasn't changed any of its official doctrines yet, but Zack Friedman's willing to give them a couple more years to get their shit together.

Zack Friedman gets most of "Finnegan's Wake," but he'll only talk to you about the parts with fucking.

Zack Friedman starred as Chewbacca’s son-in-law in the Star Wars Holiday Special and his balls received ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nominations for their roles as Tatooine and Coruscant.

Little known fact: The reason the US didn’t find WMDs in Iraq was because Zack Friedman moved out a few months before the invasion. He would have never been used himself on America, though—he was just giving Uday and Qusay some advice on their rape rooms.

America does have an obesity problem, but that’s OK with Zack Friedman—he thinks ‘a hotdog in a hallway’ sounds delicious.

On Halloween, Zack Friedman smeared feces all over his body and walked around town with a giant erection. When people tried to give him candy, he just replied, "No time -- gotta teach Sunday School today." Halloween was Tuesday this year.

Zack Friedman once hit on a girl and got arrested for insider trading.

The 2000 Baltimore Ravens’ defense was as hard to score on as a Pakistani librarian with six burqas. Zack Friedman beat the Ravens 45-6, but he never did get with that chick.

Zack Friedman went to Soviet Russia just so Yakov Smirnov could make fun of him.

When Zack Friedman gets “does not exist” as the answer to a limit equation, he usually just shrugs his shoulders and graphs that son of a bitch anyway. The graph will look like his balls.

Zack Friedman used to use deoderant, but then he realized that compared to his natural scent of sweet cinnamon rolls and semen, Old Spice is shit.

B Movies I Would Have Made Had I Lived In The 1950s

• One-Eyed Swamp Slugs From The Center Of The Earth
• Attack Of The Three-Breasted Woman
• They Saved Hitler’s Brain! (OK, this one is real, but I would have forced my way onto the set and demanded to produce it.)
• Lobra, The Lobster Man
• Amazon Lumberjacks From Space
• Merlin On 42nd Street
• The Return Of The Three-Breasted Woman: Three-Breasted Woman vs. Hitler’s Brain
• Russians From Dimension Z
• Nosferatu, My Love
• Plutonic Relationship
• Three-Breasted Woman 3: Now She’s Got 4.

Project Geraldo: An Introduction

While my friend and I were on the subway earlier this afternoon, we noticed an ad for GERALDO AT LARGE, America's favorite... journalist's Fox TV show. Now this show is certainly not new - I may be accused of being late to the party - but something about the way in which light glinted off that moustache spoke to me. I knew I had to start watching the show.

Simply watching it wasn't enough, I realized as soon as I got home. No, I was going to take part in a grand sociological experiment. I was going to watch GERALDO AT LARGE (GAL - not an appropriate acronym, since Geraldo is 100% rugged he-man; the guy could teach Charles Atlas a thing or two about testosterone) for one week, not getting news from any other sources, and see how that altered my worldview.

I started today, just to get a taste of what lay in store for me. Unfortunately, I forgot when it started (6:30 - book it) and missed the first five minutes. Then the Chinese food got here around 6:47, so I only viewed 40% of his walrus-like facial glory and journalistic triumphs. I think I saw enough to make some passable commentary on the show, though.

The first segment I saw started with a very poorly done montage on the history of the use of DNA evidence to overturn or support convictions that managed to use an impressive amount of video footage and voiceover narration without me feeling that I'd actually learned anything or even heard any sort of point being made. Several flashing graphics that displayed GERALDO's name in caps and that did little swooshy things later, I discovered that today's issue revolved around the ethics and legality of procuring DNA evidence without a court order or the suspect's consent. A police lawyer sent a Washington man suspected of a rape back in the 1980s a letter requesting him to fill out some forms and other procedural etcetera's. This was of course a clever ploy; by making him lick an envelope, the cops deceptively acquired the evidence they needed to prove him guilty. (Which is awesome, kinda - I always thought of DNA evidence as like hairs found on a corpse or semen on a rape victim, not something so innocuous. I better stop hocking loogies at cops on the subways.) Is this ethical? Legal? I wasn't sure, so I knew I had to listen to the upcoming teleconference debate in which two opposing points of view would be presented; as an informed viewer, I would be able to weigh the different arguments carefully and make up my own mind as to which position was correct. Here is a very rough paraphrase of what followed:

[Member of the Washington Bar Association, a bald, Jewy guy] : Hi, Geraldo.

[A woman labeled as a prisoners' rights advocate, which seemed strange given her stance. Maybe I misheard.] : Hi, Geraldo.

Geraldo: So what do you think about this issue?

Lawyer: I think that it is wrong for the police department and their lawyer to act in this way because it undermines public opinion of lawyers. [Ed. comment: No comment.] A lawyer is supposed to represent his client and always act in his interest. These devious tactics help erode trust in the legal system.

Woman: Was this man forced to lick the envelope? Did he not do it of his own volition?

Lawyer: The point is this undermines the sacred trust between an attorney and a client.

Woman: Just answer me. Was there a moment when the lawyer said, "I am your lawyer. You have to lick this envelope." No, it was perfectly legal.

Lawyer: [Volume steadily increasing] Look, these devious tactics further the erosion of legal ethics.

Woman: [The decibel level soars] Was there coercion? Nope, he made a choice.

Lawyer: [Shouting] Undermine-

Woman: [Screaming] Volition!

Geraldo: OK, thanks, guys, that was an interesting debate. Good to have you on the show.

CUT TO COMMERCIAL

Basically, each of them came onto the show with exactly one talking point and proceeded to paraphrase it (probably varying their actual words even less than they do in my semitranscript) several times, raising their voices instead of responding to each others' arguments. I know I shouldn't find this at all shocking - I've heard Jon Stewart's (and other more serious folks') critiques of Crossfire et al, and I've even masochistically watched a little Bill O'Reilly bloviation when the internet tipped me off that he had said something particularly ludicrous, but the lack of anything even resembling intelligent debate is still somewhat striking.

Two or three promos for "Celebrities on Ice" later, the mustachioed marvel returned, promising something about stripper's butts and cheerleading casualty rates. Ah, I thought. Now we are getting somewhere. Pants may or may not have been removed. The first of these issues was raised in a 'news update' given by a vapid blonde midlevel news desk type who was notable only because of her blatant disdain for Geraldo. She ran through a litany of semi-wacky human interest type stuff, making special mention of strippers organizing to protest a New Jersey ban on smoking in bars. So he meant that sort of butts. God damn me and my selective hearing. Anyway, she passed the baton back to Geraldo, basically grimacing as she said, "And we now return to your studio host [oh god what the fuck went wrong with my life that I'm working for this buffoon], Geraldo [ignorant clownish lowbrow trash] Rivera." That exact wording was conveyed implicitly by her facial gestures. It was worth noting. So anyway, Geraldo shows off some stock pictures of human pyramids (Springfield High, not Abu Ghraib Junior Varsity) and starts blathering about cheerleaders [this one is closer to the actual text than the last one]: "Cheerleading: Is it becoming an extreme sport? Cheerleading has always been a pleasant suburban extracurricular activity, an essential part of the American high school experience. But recent reports show that this innocent after school activity has become more competitive - and more dangerous. More and more girls are getting injured performing routines that seem like they belong at the X Games. Many have found themselves in the ER. Some have even ended up in the morgue." That was about when the doorbell rang. It was a nice way to close out the evening, though.

Isn't the Senate deliberating over whether or not Sam Alito should be approved to the Supreme Court, a decision that could impact American politics for decades? Isn't there all sorts of drama going on regarding Iran's decision to resume its nuclear program? And Jennifer Aniston didn't know that Angelina Jolie was pregnant. (At least I think that's what's gone down.) Certainly, GAL could have touched on these subjects in the first five minutes which I missed. But I'd guess it's more likely that it dealt with something like a pair of gay Elvis impersonators trying to resolve custody of their adopted Vietnamese child after a messy breakup. (Well, that's not really the impression I have of the show - it's NY Post trashy, not Enquirer-esque, and besides, that story wouldn't allow any cheerleader outfits or G-string closeups. Ugh, at least I'd hope it wouldn't.)

Over the course of next week, as Project Geraldo gets into full swing, I'll decide what I really think about this show. Is it utter garbage, a man with a rather unique moustache egotistically placing himself at the center of every vapid story? Or is it somewhat benevolent, a less serious show that just cuts straight to Americans' most inalienable right, the right to watch TV with plenty of T & A? Well, I think I already know the answer to that question, so I'll probably just talk about each day's highlights, the zaniest of the zany one only encounters in that special little town called Geraldoville, and that moustache. Oh God, that moustache. If you think that myself or anyone else overuses that, please just go look for a picture of him and you'll understand. If not, God help you.

John Cage Strikes Again

639-Year Concert Lets Loose 2nd Chord

AFP

Jan. 5, 2006 — A new chord was scheduled to sound Thursday in the world's slowest and longest lasting concert that is taking a total 639 years to perform.

The abandoned Buchardi church in Halberstadt, eastern Germany, is the venue for a mind-boggling 639-year-long performance of a piece of music by U.S. experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992).

Entitled "organ2/ASLSP" (or "As SLow aS Possible"), the performance began on Sept. 5, 2001 and is scheduled to last until 2639.

The first year and half of the performance was total silence, with the first chord — G-sharp, B and G-sharp — not sounding until Feb. 2, 2003.

Then in July 2004, two additional Es, an octave apart, were sounded and are scheduled to be released later this year on May 5.

But at 5 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) on Thursday, the first chord was due to progress to a second — comprising A, C and F-sharp — and is to be held down over the next few years by weights on an organ being built especially for the project.

Cage originally conceived "ASLSP" in 1985 as a 20-minute work for piano, subsequently transcribing it for organ in 1987.

But organizers of the John Cage Organ Project decided to take the composer at his word and stretch out the performance for 639 years, using Cage's transcription for organ.

The enormous running time was chosen to commemorate the creation of Halberstadt's historic Blockwerk organ in 1361 — 639 years before the current project started.

That original organ, built by Nikolaus Faber for Halberstadt's cathedral, was the first organ ever to be used for liturgical purposes, ringing in a new era in which the organ has played a central role in church music ever since.

As part of Halberstadt's John Cage Organ Project, a brand-new organ is being built specially, with new pipes added in time for when new notes are scheduled to sound.

Cage was a pupil of one of the 20th century's most influential composers, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).

Cage's avant-garde oeuvre includes works such as the notorious "4'33," a piece comprising four minutes and 33 seconds of total silence, all meticulously notated.

The organizers of the John Cage Organ Project say the record-breaking performance in Halberstadt also has a philosophical background — to "rediscover calm and slowness in today's fast-changing world."

Albums I Think Sufjan Stevens Ought To Make

• Utah: Almost Quadrilateral
• Cuba: In Defense of the Ostend Manifesto
• Pennsylvania: Keystone State… Or Disgusting Kidney Stone State?
• [Native American]a : Celebrating Our Country’s Rich Cultural Heritage, Basketball
• Wisconsin: America’s Love Handle
• Californication
• Louisiana: Rawk You Like A Hurricane
• Virginia: 72 Of This State Will Greet Martyrs In Heaven