"Whence the Googling? ... Seven Reflections on the Internet"

(This piece appears in print in the Winter 2010/2011 issue of RE:COM magazine.)


1) FACT: The rise in digital music, deep-discount online book-buying, and the Kindle has left us with only 20% of the record-store and book-store employees there were a mere decade ago. As such, each has to be five times the prick to maintain the quantity of customer-facing smugness and snobbery we've come to expect.

7 Ways to Score BIG at Your Next Comedy Fest!

This piece appears in print in the fall 2010 inaugural issue of RE:COM magazine.

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LA-by-way-of-Chicago comic Robert Buscemi was named 2009's "Best Stand-Up" by the Chicago Reader newspaper, just released a stand-up CD ("Palpable") on the Rooftop Productions label, and has performed at the Rooftop Aspen Comedy Fest, Chicago Improv Fest (twice), the DC Comedy Fest, and Snubfest (where he twice won "Best Solo Act").

7 Can't-Miss Festival Strategies for Comedians:

1) Wear one of those costumes onstage where it looks like you're a small person riding an ostrich. Those are HILARIOUS! (The secret to this costume's illusion: YOUR legs are really the OSTRICH'S legs! Oh MAN is it great!)

ROASTING PEEPS: AN EASTER LESSON

I took my niece Sausagella and her brother Dominic camping last spring, and I brought Easter Peeps marshmallow chicks and skewered them so the kids could roast 'em over the fire. And I had my buddy Ernie hide behind my pickup truck and throw his voice so it sounded like the Peeps were Joan of Arc ... "Nooooooooooo! Nooooooo! I'm stabbed and buuuuuuuuuuuuurning! I'm dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying! Peeeeeeeep! Peeeeeeeeeep! PEEP PEEP PEEP!!!!!" to indicate the suffering and the sacrifice of death that's necessary before we can have bunnies and new life and a risen Christ.

Robot Vacuum-Cleaner Scarecrows

Your best defense against thieves when you're on vacation is to create the illusion of activity in your home.

That's why I employ a fleet of a dozen of those new robotic artificial-intelligence vacuum cleaners, jam upright broomsticks into their bases, put a wig and coat hanger at the top of each, hang six tuxedos and six evening gowns, then BOOM: scarecrows. I set my vacuum-motion to "random" and blast Yanni music. Your would-be thief peeks in the window, sees your ballroom scenario, thinks "YANNI COTILLION!," either (a) flees, or (b) joins the party, forgets to rob you, maybe pulls down a little broom-handle-spined robot-Hoover tang. Everybody's happy.

Except maybe your cats, who studies show HATE Yanni's music. They love Yanni; just not his jams.

My Halloween Stand-Up Bit, AND My Vampire Video!

I warn you, this stand-up bit is wrong. But I maintain it's more idiotic than offensive. Anyhow, don't say you haven't been warned.

Oh and click through to the AWESOME new 3-minute vampire webisode that reached number one on Atom.com with like 50,000 hits, AND WHICH I STEAL OUTRIGHT WITH A WICKED CAMEO!

Happy pumpkins, fans. xo BUSCEMI

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I've never cared for the scary holidays. Flag Day, Arbor Day, or Cinco De Mayo--which is fun to mispronounce as "CHINK-Oh" De Mayo because it offends two cultures in just two syllables....

But I especially hated Halloween. Because when I was a kid we'd go to haunted houses, and they'd do that tactile sensation trick, where they'd take you into a dark room and say "Reach in here!" and you'd put your hand in a box or whatever and you'd feel, like, wet grapes. But they'd TELL you it was human eyeballs, so you'd freak out and scream.

Or they'd say "Reach in here", and it was, you know, wet noodles and pasta, but they'd tell you it was ... guts and worms or whatever. So you'd freak.

Well this one year they got me really bad. They did that same thing: "Reach in here!" And I did, and ...

Well, it turned out to be ...

Well, a hippopotamus rectum.

And of course they'd TOLD me it was gonna be ... Frankenstein's rectum.

And I gotta say, it felt just like him.

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Ta-daaaaaa! I told you it was brainless.

Anyhow, now CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VAMPIRE WEBISODE, which they really did make funny and great.

Happy Halloween, everyone.