The First Day of School

or "A LIST OF FIFTEEN PEOPLE - REAL, FICTIONAL, MYTHICAL, AND SUPERNATURAL - OF WHOM YOU SHOULD FEEL NO FEAR"

Today’s the first day of the final semester of my life as an undergraduate. I started at Los Angeles City College, an excellent community college, and now I’m graduating from USC.

“As if millions of IP attorneys cried out in the darkness and were suddenly silenced.”

Parenthetically: Yes, trust me, I know the school’s nickname is the “University of Spoiled Children”. I also know it’s this nickname that gets gear store owners trying to steer me towards the most expensive version of an item that shouldn’t cost more than five bucks. I’m not that kind of USC student, unfortunately.

So just as a heads up, as the semester progresses and my headspace gets taken up with schoolwork—especially around midterms and finals—the Monday morning new comedy bit columns might occasionally be replaced by older work from the vault.

Thursday will remain essay day, but you might notice a looser “first draft best draft” quality to them.

I mean, even more so than usual.

Some people might say I’m being a bit neurotically exact about a blog that still has under 100 subscribers. But I appreciate that you guys open it on the regular, and that some of you even pay for the privilege!

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A LIST OF FIFTEEN PEOPLE - REAL, FICTIONAL, MYTHICAL, AND SUPERNATURAL - OF WHOM YOU SHOULD FEEL NO FEAR

1. Retired veterans of the KISS Army.

2. Professional font designers.

3. 1987 World Wrestling Federation Tag Team, “Spandex Pete and The Human Hug Machine”.

4. Any comic book supervillain whose greatest power is not to feel self-conscious about how tight their costume is.

5. Generational Trauma Ghosts, which are the ghosts of people who, themselves, died of fright when encountering a ghost.

6. Bookies who only handle bets on professional figure skating.

7. The obscure mythical beast The Bentaur (half-horse, half-Pat Benatar).

8. The guy in the mosh pit crying and shouting “Not my face, not my beautiful face.”

9. Any drug dealer who calls themselves “The Blow Bird of Happiness.”

10. Dudes who can only talk to women if they’re pointing a phone camera at them.

11. James Bond villains named “Toefinger,” “Dr. Probably Not But Let’s See How the Evening Goes,” or “Froggy Joe.”

12. A guy who introduces himself as a lion tamer, and then when you go and see him at the Circus it turns out he trains men dressed in lion suits who go “Rowr rowr,” like Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz.

13. Any clown, but especially Captain Thom Yo-Ho-Horke, lead singer of Rodeohead, the All-Rodeo Clown Radiohead Cover Band Experience.

14. Members of biker gangs with names like “The Hamburger Helpers,” or “The Unitarian Universalist Church.”

15. Guys named Francis.

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