I'll tumble for ya!

I think this page has officially been retired, from now on I'll be blogging and making hilarious witty commentary on my tumblr page, www.ryesilverman.tumblr.com

A Sermon

I wrote this with the intention of performing it at a show a few weeks ago, but I unfortunately ended up not getting to go up. I found it today when looking through some of my files and thought it was worth posting for the fun of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you can forgive my interruption of your evening of Godless and sinful humor, preceding what I can only assume will be a night filled with harlotry and perhaps a dash of sodomy to bring you this simple message that was delivered to me by the divine hand of the lord himself, just earlier this very day as I partook in the viewing of a religious film on the TV. A certain film celebrating God’s glory in the form of a beautiful marine creature, the immaculate Great White Shark.

In this particular film, this creature, had gone mad, and was fixated on sinking his teeth into the good people of a small beach town called Amity. Now, Amity as we know means friendship. So of course we can plainly see that this “Jaws” serves as a metaphor. For we all have an Amity in our lives, do we not? A peaceful seaside town in our souls that is in constant danger of being attacked by a vicious, mean eating shark named not “Bruce,” but Lucifer! A great white morning star that will swim up and devour us like a scantily clad jezebel out for a late evening swim! This shark swallow you whole! Swallow you whole with Sin and Temptation. Little shakin, little tenderizing, and down you go.

Now, the thing about a shark is, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes like a dolls eyes. When he comes at ya, he don’t seem to be living till he bites ya! Now naturally for most of us, the reaction we have when we hear someone yell shark is to get out of the water. You yell shark and there’s a panic on our hands on the fourth of July. But we can’t allow ourselves to shut down the beaches in our hearts; shut ourselves off from the joys and experiences in our lives. We got to fight back.

That is why I stand here today, To speak to you about one of God’s chosen warriors. I’m of course talking about one Martin Brody. Sure, like many in scripture, Martin was reluctant at first. "Shut down the beaches!" he’d exclaim, "paint up those signs, that’s some bad hat harry!" But ole Martin, once that shark had threatened his own son, despite his fears of the water, set out on a holy mission with with a drunken pirate and that man from the Mr. Holland’s Opus movie. He told his wife, tell the kids I’m going fishing.

And those men, set out, with the power of lord on their backs. And they are tried and tested by that devil fish. They struggle, and tell stories of their exploits, and yes, though they lose their drunken pirate friend, but Martin and Mr. Holland, backed by the faith of their lord, stand triumphant, warriors of God’s power, and they blow that demon shark right back to the hell it came from. So take heed. When the demons of temptation threaten to close down the beaches of your heart, you stand firm, you stand proud, and you say to the world, "you’re gonna need a bigger boat!!" Can I get an AMEN?! Amen my brothers, now enjoy your debauchery, as I raise my communal cup to the heavens and declare: Here’s to swimming, with bow-legged women.

Due to pending legal action, "Smurfs" may be called "Blurfs"

There’s a Smurfs movie coming out next year. Yeah. Prepare for another barage of commentary about the ruining of a lot of childhoods. Now, had someone taken the SNL sketch with Garth Brooks and turned it into a real movie, I might be excited. Or, had someone taken the Smurfs cartoon and turned it into a real movie, I might be excited.

Instead, here’s the plot: the Smurfs, after being pursued by Gargamel, end up in a strange land known as Central Park. That’s right, it’s The Smurfs Take Manhattan. In other words, despite the fact that there was a wealth of Smurfs cartoon material to draw from, so much so that the excess scripts were adapted into their underwater counterparts the Snorks, the writers tasked with bringing Papa and his crew to the big screen chose to do it in the lamest way possible.

Listen, the Smurfs live in a fantasy land with giant mushrooms and evil wizards. You know what kids like? Fantasy lands with giant mushrooms and evil wizards. You know what kids don’t give a shit about at all? New York City. New York is a fantasy land for jaded grownups. Of all the classic cartoons to adapt, it feels like the Smurfs by far would’ve been one of the easiest, take the already created world, combine a few of the best episodes, and sprinkle in some modern CGI sculpting to bring said Smurf Village to a new generation of kids. Instead we’ll have the certainly never creepy and always successful combination of CGI sprites with human actors, and tons of inventive jokes involving the Smurfs’ fears of things like cars or hot dogs. And certainly some sly in-jokes to the new york loving grownups in the audience that even the filmmakers get how silly it is to be making a Smurfs movie.

That’s really what annoys me the most whenever one of these old TV remake movies come out. The common complaint is that Hollywood has no original ideas. That’s true, but it never did. So I care a far deal less for originality than I do for a good story. I’d always rather see an old story told well than a “clever” twist done lazily. Yet, every time one of these remakes comes along, there’s always this “nod, nod, wink wink,” feel to it. There’s always some interview with one of the actors in it says something about how the movie “doesn’t take itself too seriously,” or it just “has a real sense of humor about itself.”

Well, Smurf you then. Has anyone ever really stopped to think that maybe this is why these type of movies usually suck? Amazing how a project that never once had a single ounce of sincerity the entire time it was being conceived, then falls flat once it is actually made? Perhaps self awareness in movies isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When a computer becomes self aware, it typically tries to kill its creators, with the exception of Johnny 5, of course. (Sidenote: for those who find the premise of this Smurfs movie familiar, see Short Circuit 2.)

At this point I have to become self aware. Yes, it does seem like I’m getting awfully riled up about something as trivial as a Smurfs movie. I get that. I honestly don’t even really care all that much about the little blue fellows. It just happens to be the most recent example of such a remake that I’ve seen. I could have easily written the same thing about the upcoming Yogi Bear movie.

Arguably one of the best remakes in a the past decade was Ocean’s Eleven, because it was made by a filmmaker who said, “hey this was a good premise for a movie and I bet there’s something I could do with it.” Sure, the likes of Soderbergh wouldn’t put a hand on Smurfette, but that doesn’t mean that a little more effort couldn’t have gone a long way in making a cool update for today’s kids, instead of a lame nod that’s clearly more targeted at the parents taking them to the theatre.
Having said all that, if anyone in Hollywood is reading this, please contact me if you’d like to read my spec script for “Duck Tales: Chinatown Surprise.”

The "Why" of Rye

I’ve had the urge to sit down and write a little about my crossdressing the last couple of days. It’s not something I blog much about much these days now that I openly talk about it and furthermore actually do it. But a few things have interested me about it recently that I’ve as of yet not found a way to translate into my act about it and I plan to write a handful of blogs about it in the near future. For now I’m going to focus on the thoughts I have about the relatively new experience it has been in my life to actually be open about it.

What continues to surprise me to this day is how much most people don’t seem to care about it at all. It’s only been a little under a year since I really went public with it, posting pictures to my facebook and talking about it in my act and it still surprises me how little an impact it has really had on my life in regards to friendships and relationships and such. Before revealing it I was convinced I’d lose friends over it or have people treat me weirdly at the least, but for the most part people just kind of write it off as another of my many peculiarities. Which, frankly is awesome, thought also frustrating when I think of how much of my life I wasted on needless anxiety over the unknown of what would happen. Since my revelation I haven’t had a single bout with insomnia, something I dealt with since I was a teenager, and I have no doubt that there’s not a connection there somehow.

I think the thing I was expecting the least was just how many times I would actually have to “come out,” about it. It makes sense that I have to do it a bit here because no one really knows me here, but there’s a lot of people in my life who I was surprised didn’t “get the memo.” Before last year, I assumed that once I started crossdressing at shows the gossip gates would open and people who knew me would hear it through the grapevine and I’d get ribbed for it the way comics often do. Instead, I’ve created the occasional awkward moment of disconnect when assuming someone knows about it and dropping mention of it in casual conversation as if it was common knowledge and then needing to back up a few paces.

It’s always a strange conversation too because at the end of the day we’re really just talking about clothing preferences, and so there’s not much to actually say about it outside of the initial revelation. Sure, there’s the occasional follow up questions in regards to things like sexuality or underwear, which are easy to answer, straight, and yes, but then there’s some that are harder to really put to rest in conversation. Someone will ask me “Why?” and I’ll answer, because I like it. And then it is awkward because I think I have answered the question, but they do not. So I’ll say “I’m a bit of a crossdresser,” and then it is awkward because I think I have answered the question, but they do not.

Just the other day my friend Maria commented that someone had asked her why I do it. Maria has known about it a lot longer than most of my friends, but she found herself not really knowing the answer. The fact is, I don’t know the “Why” myself. Do I have theories? Sure. But sometime in the last couple of years I stopped caring about the why. I’m 28 years old, and this is something that has been a part of me my entire life, I’m comfortable with it, I don’t feel like it’s anything to be embarrassed about and at the risk of sounding a little egotistical in the process, I think I actually can throw a pretty nice look together when doing it.

With that in mind, I think the reason that the “why” conversations feel so tedious to me is that when someone asks me why I’m wearing a skirt, I’m starting to just answer “Because I have the legs for it,” and that both of us will feel like I answered the question.

Driving Me Mad!!!

The traffic in LA sucks. But you know where else the traffic really sucks? Everywhere. That’s right Hollywood, you’re not special, you gather people into a major city and guess what, it’s going to take a long time for the mass group to move from one area of town to another. Before moving here people drilled into me how bad the traffic was going to be. I was led to believe I’d spend hours in traffic to go five miles and get mugged. But the fact is, the only times I’ve ever had to sit in traffic for more than a reasonable amount of time, the only times I’ve ever truly *sat* in traffic with no forward motion whatsoever have been where there has been a serious accident on the road that has stopped us from moving.

It’s not the traffic that sucks here, it’s the drivers. And I don’t even mean to say they’re particularly worse at driving than in other cities, but rather that they just suck as people. There’s something about getting behind a wheel of a car in Los Angeles that instantly transforms a person into an asshole. I think it’s because people spend so much of their time outside their car being fake that when they finally get behind the wheel the darkest, most vicious parts of their personality are just screaming to be unleashed. On a regular basis, I will hear someone honk at an intersection for the first car to go, while the light is still changing. I’ve been honked at for having the audacity to pause and let a stranded left-turner go so they don’t get stuck in the middle of the intersection. I’ve heard someone call my friend Maria the c-word because they were mad they had to wait for her to pull out a parking space she was wedged into. And absolutely no one here does the courtesy wave to a driver who lets them over.

But what really drives me crazy are the occasions where someone actually gets mad at me because they were wrong. Yesterday I had a driver in the right hand lane refuse to let me over for three blocks despite leaving my blinker on and making many attempts to get over. When I finally gave up trying to get over and punched my steering wheel in anger, the guy screamed at me from his window, asked me if I wanted to pull over and fight over it, and then he spit on my car. Let me reiterate again, this guy spit on my car because he cut me off. Today, the same thing. I was trying to find a parking spot, found one on the left hand side of the steet, and so I flipped on my blinker and started to pull into a driveway to turn around and park, and the car behind me decided that instead of waiting for me to turn, he would dart around me into the oncoming traffic lane, almost T-boned me as I turned, and then he honked his horn at me and threw me a double dose of middle finger. Let me repeat that. This guy got mad at me because he almost hit me when I was in front of him and he was driving in the ONCOMING TRAFFIC LANE.

That’s all I have to say about it, and I know what you’re thinking, “Is this really the end of this blog entry? Come on Rye, we just read three paragraphs of this thing and you don’t have the decency to wrap it up in some poignant way? ” You’re right. I wrote this blog wrong, and hey, go fuck yourself!!

Awkward Moments with Famous People

Another title for this entry could be "I really need to start blogging again," which is probably the most frequently written phrase in any blog I attempt to keep. Here goes yet another attempt.

I've been in LA for almost a week now, and mentally it definitely feels better than my last attempt to move here. Turns out spending most of your time on a couch watching syndicated reruns on broadcast TV, while leaving a laptop open to a blank word document and calling that "writing," is not the best way to handle a move to a new city. This time I'm keeping those blank documents open at coffee shops in different parts of the city that I'm driving to. Today I'm at a Coffee Bean in Studio City, but I've also not written at such places as the Bourgeois Pig, Solar de Cahuenga, and Aroma Cafe. Seriously cannot recommend these places enough for slacking off on your life passions.

The fatal flaw of this city though may be the fact that it is already so beautiful that it makes it kind of hard to get too down on yourself for being unproductive. I mean I'm sitting right now at an outdoor cafe with a full view of palm trees and attractive people. So what if I never finish this screenplay? Who needs self respect when you've got sunscreen?

I've met two famous comedians in the last week and both encounters couldn't have been more awkward, so that's fun. I've always fancied myself as someone unfazed by famous people because I've met so many comics over the years and had cool relaxed conversations with them, but it turns out the vital ingredient in those scenarios was the fact that we were working together at a comedy club. It's easy to feel like someone is a peer when I'm working with them, not quite the same when I run into them on the street while they're walking their dog and all I can stammer out is "Um.. I hate to be this guy, but.. lot's of respect," which wouldn't really be that bad were not preceded and followed by the multiple minutes of awkward silence and then walking down the street way too fast in what was a blatant attempt to escape from the whole scenario. Seriously, I probably should have just kicked Dave Foley in the shin and ran away.

Beer Battered Kittens

So PETA has launched a new campaign to stop people from fishing and eating fish.  Their plan is to rename fish "Sea Kittens" and yes, it is for real.  This isn't someone making a satirical campaign to mock PETA, this is for real.  Setting aside the irony thatPETA kills a very high amount of cats in their shelters, I just find the whole thing hysterical.  Because if you look at their site, there is a lot of production value in it, they clearly spent a lot of time working on it, probably hired a design contractor to do the site, had creative meetings on the "Sea Kitten bedtime stories" and the "make your own Sea Kitten" function, which by the way includes amongst the things you can dress your own Sea Kitten in, a set of swim floaties, which I'm pretty sure would kill a fish, as they tend to want to remain below the surface, and you know, continue to breathe. 

But what makes me laugh the most about the whole campaign is this:  It's made me eat fish.  I've eaten fish three times in the last five days, and I think I'd eaten it maybe five times in the past year before this.  And I'm not doing it out of some asshole attempt to spite PETA, I'm not saying screw them I'll eat more fish.  Reading their site last week just made me feel a craving for fish, it made them look more appealing than usual. 

I first ate a fish sticks TV dinner from my freezer on thursday, ate a fish sandwich at a pub-style restaraunt on saturday night, and then had a Filet-o-Sea-Kitten at McDonalds last night.  And they were all AWESOME.  I had sort of forgotten how good a fried fish filet could be, but PETA made me crave a little tartar sauce, with a hint of malt vinegar and hot sauce on the breading. 

It almost makes me curious how their land-dwelling cousins taste...