Rolphing is an example of something which is fucking hilarious — or totally stupid and annoying, if for some reason your sense of humor is broken. It was pioneered by Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda of Blame Society Productions, aka the comic geniuses behind interweb sensation Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager.

In rolphing, one begins speaking with no idea what they’re saying, just making a random sound. It is then up to the rolphist to wrassle this formless speech into the first intelligible word or phrase that comes to mind. The results are unexpected, absurd and paaaatently carrrrnivorous.

A handy instructional:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7io1iAwTNI

and rolphing at work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYhoFXvXAwc

Apologies to those who will be henceforth unable to stop doing this, and the people that love them. For those of you who need further explanation, here’s a handy video on why it’s funny, appropriately titled Rolphing: Why Is It Funny?

Apart from their name (a minor reservation I’ve learned to live with), they have that magical combination of things that I love in a band: individual personalities within a strong band personality, fierce musical skill without pretentiousness, tight arrangements played with a loose feel, and well-written songs — but most importantly they’re just fun as shit. Their sense of humor and weird-but-right group aesthetic reminds me of what I love about NRBQ (the reason I have to watch this clip daily). Also similar to the ‘Q is their respect for and ability to play jazz without being bound by its pious trappings. Easier said than done.

I’ve seen them live all of once, but they have an infectious series of YouTube clips that have been quietly stoking my fandom. They’re simple, one-camera, lo-fi productions and showcase their knack for using simplicity to their advantage. The one limitation of the small screen is that it doesn’t accurately portray their ability to really rock a room. Live, they are a fantastic explosion of energy. Regardless, their clips are cute, and isn’t that what YouTube was built on?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ilIa0VHrk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUkF5eIUPrA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxpOT9-iZmw

Find more here and here.

PRINCE DECLARES, “SMARTPHONES ARE OVER”

The Purple One has seen the writing on the wall in the possible recall of iPhone G4s — the smartphone, Prince says, is over. He revealed this insight in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times to promote the packaging of his new album, FUTUREK00L, with every new IBM Selectric typewriter sold in 2010. “It was just a matter of time,” said the pint-sized genius, shaking his head as he got up to change the channel on his TV. “All those little pictures and colors are confusing people’s minds. Eventually we’re all gonna go back to those little phones that were the size of a bar of hand soap. They told the time, had a little calculator in ‘em, had the numbers 0 through 9… that’s all you need,” Prince snorted, noting that he wore out the numbers 2 and 4 unusually fast when he texted, requiring him to order a specially modified model.

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PRINCE DECLARES, “MICROWAVE OVENS ARE OVER”

His Purpleness leapt out of irrelevance this week and shocked news outlets with an equally irrelevant proclamation — microwave ovens, Prince claims, are over. He revealed this insight in an exclusive interview to promote his new cassette JeHOVaHSeXXFuNKY, which will be distributed with every copy of The Watchtower, the official publication of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Yeah… they were all the rage for awhile,” said the scarf-bedecked icon, easily slipping his 4-foot frame into the driver’s seat of his custom DeLorean. “But y’know…” he chuckled scornfully, “so was the Rubix Cube.” The Rock Hall Of Fame inductee predicted a faltering of the worldwide fast food industry if they continued to “go nuclear”. “People want their food cooked in real ovens, with heat. All these high-powered rays with their laser cooking gonna bring the Purple Rain, if you know what I’m sayin’.” No one did.

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PRINCE DECLARES, “CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS ARE OVER”

His Purple “Mountains” Majesty made a grand declaration today via ThaFruitedPlains, his home-published commodities tip sheet — credit default swaps, Prince decrees, are over. He revealed this insight in his weekly editorial, $PACEKI$$, along with an announcement that inside the sleeve of his latest long-player, PAIN2HEAR will be hidden five golden tickets. (The tickets, he also revealed, will be discovered by The Jackson Five, who will come live with him in his bouncy-castle home, where they will make music and be best friends forever and ever.) “The age of these complex derivatives is through,” chuckled the Lilliputian funk icon as he settled down to his loom, “People are gonna acknowledge that being long and selling short has an asymmetric risk/reward profile. The mispricing of financial instruments can affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect.” He claimed this was all elementary, and could be revealed by long hours of play at an original arcade version of Asteroids!, of which he owns the world’s remaining 37 models.

Isn’t addiction awesome? The way it destroys your life and the lives of those around you? The way that once it has a toehold in your consciousness, it’s exceptionally hard to not have it define you forever? Ask anyone who’s ever been touched by the ravenous scourge of addiction, and I’m sure they’ll tell you it’s kinda like snack food. Really! Or at least the makers of snack food will.

So I’m having lunch with the lady yesterday and we discovered that both of our snack foods were emblazoned with proud claims about their addictive properties. Hers was an addictive assortment of savory and salty peanut snacks! Mine — a vegan cookie, of all things — was purportedly wonderfully addictive! What’s so blazingly fantastic about something being addictive?

Seems like everyone these days is trumpeting how addictive their product or service is, like it’s the new fried chicken. Sorry, I just had to stop typing there for a sec and run next door to the bodega, shoot the owner in the face and clean out his cash drawer so I could go score the new KFC shamewich. Shit, I said it again. BRB! OK. Back now, bloated, self-loathing and a wanted felon. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Boy, you know what would go great with this inky blackness of grinding torment? A bag of “totally life-destroying” corn chips!! When you’re addicted to addiction, you just can’t get enough addiction! And oddly enough, the products that could actually back up their claims somehow choose to demur: Marlboro Wonderfully Addictive! Grey Goose Come For The Intoxication, Stay For The Crippling Habit! (Then switch to Ruble Vokda)

It’s so fantastically fashionable to be six kindsa wrong these days. Hotmail’s latest grasp at relevance is that it’s made for The New Busy. Ads on buses inform me that for a member of The New Busy, this isn’t just a boring old bus, nooo. For The New Busy, it’s an office! Library! Nap room! Getaway car! Waterloo! Orphanage!

What’s so “new” about The New Busy, you might ask? Well, now that they’re through privately destroying their own lives, and they’re totally into destroying your life! Because for The New Busy, their car is their new phone booth! Chatroom! Text hut! Sauna! Chill pad! Gas chamber! The Starbucks is their new message center! Networking hub! Conference room! Sweat lodge! Speed date! Room 101!

You know The New Busy. They’re the ones whose response to any innocent salutation is to grow suddenly wide-eyed and heave a theatrically exaggerated sigh: “busy.” Or perhaps their style is the quizzical, surprised look “whew! busy.” Like it just unexpectedly hit them on the head. Wow man, I’m sorry. Is that the right response? How are you? Oh, you know… hardworking, but generally well-rested and satisfied. Really, dude? Maybe readjust your priorities and jam some miserable in there. After all, as they say: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!! (ie. Happy? Shame on you, you ignorant shit.)

What’s happened to the Old Busy? You know, Ol’ Gil from “The Simpsons.” He’s out of fashion, love. Apparently, he hasn’t gotten a hold of the new snortable sleep replacement they’re developing at UCLA. I hate to break it to you geniuses, but some colleagues and I already did some deep research into snortable sleep substitutes back in ‘98 at a little Puerto Rican bar in Brooklyn. I would direct you there, but I hear it’s been shut down. Anyway, results were awesome brain lightning, followed by the worst 12 hours you can possibly imagine.

I guess the good news about addiction is. . . aw, fuck it, there’s no way to get out of that sentence reasonably. You either die, quit, or live out your days as a pitiful wraith. So will our society ever kick its addiction addiction? You’d certainly need more space on soda cans:

Delicious! Have one, and you won’t want any more for a reasonable length of time until you decide it’s prudent to have another! At which point we fully encourage you to make your choice free of duress!

Sounds awesome. I can’t wait to get hooked on patience and contentment!!

1. I already have an iPhone

What is better than that? I can text, phone, email, browse the web, get GPS directions, etc. etc. etc. It does everything but make toast. I was a little bummed at first that I couldn’t hold a drink AND jerk off while watching porn on it, but then the Right Hand Sally app came out and we were off to the races.

2. Umm… I said, I already have an iPhone.

Have you seen these things? It’s like a goddamn tricorder on peyote. Feel that? That’s my astral form, spacefucking you. I did that with my iPhone.

3. It’s a video phone.

Benefit, my ass. What about all the cowardly shit I’m able to do over my 3G?: call in “sick” to work, break up with someone over voicemail, tell off some asshole, drunk dials, prank calls, the list is endless. That’s why I use the phone, doofus. You can’t buy features like that. And now you’re telling me I’m gonna have to look at the front desk lady at Marshall’s while I try to ask her with a straight face if she can page my friend Mike Hunt? No fucking way.

4. 5 Megapixel camera with flash, HD video recording/editing capability

Okay, it’s not 2000 anymore. Can we finally say the following?: There are just some places that cameras shouldn’t be. That goes double for video. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is gonna result in some breathtakingly depressing celebrity exposés. I can feel it in my bones right now that it’s only gonna be about 7 minutes before I’m forced to look at some up-and-coming spokes-skank’s celebrity cooch IN HD as part of her manager’s new “oopsie” publicity campaign.

5. Multitasking

This is just an insult, right? Already your iPhone has destroyed my attention span, and now you tell me that I haven’t been multitasking? So what do you call trying to carry on a conversation with my girlfriend over a perfectly lovely dinner while I’m simultaneously fact-checking a Don Knotts filmography on Wikipedia so I can keep my head above water in a breakneck 3-way text argument about Three’s Company? For christ’s sake, I haven’t taken a shit in a solid year without simultaneously updating Facebook. And you’re telling me that’s not multitasking? Now I’ve gotta multitask ON the goddamn phone itself? Fuck you.

It’s especially interesting to note that the Bechdel Test is not even about whether or not a movie has a feminist message, but simply the presence of women in movies at all. Watch:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLF6sAAMb4s

On the one hand, Sex and the City passes this test with flying colors, which is likely why it seems so unique. Still, it’s quite a comment on the state of things that the sheer presence of women in movies is mistaken for feminism.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7eiOsxzjKc

…and then somehow Conway Twitty is singing with The Residents…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK5qKhPBnlA

And there’s some amazing Moroccan music, and fucking Sun Ra, then Bob Weir (?!), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and Bongwater, all at once. On TV! And then — this is fucked up — when the show is over, the channel I’m watching just gives up and goes off the air. Like, stops broadcasting. They show some old movie of the american flag, play the national anthem and then it was just static.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQsR_gZuYCc

How fucked up is that?

How’s that whole hopey-changey thing workin’ out for ya? As in I sure do hopey our dependence on fossil fuels don’t changey the environment too much!!

or…

Over time though, you’ve really taken a dive. As land lines moved to cell phones and VHS gave way to DVD, you went from graceful ribbon to prosaic car magnet, banished forever to truck stops and convenience stores. Anyone care for a watered-down political (or, I dunno… apolitical) statement with their People magazine and pack of Big Red?

Once your war was won/lost you drifted from pillar to post like a forgotten child star, a statement without a cause. Desperate for attention, acceptance and love, you’d eagerly apply your toothless $2 fellatio to any cause that trawled down your alley: arthritis awareness, breast cancer, testicular cancer, hell — all-inclusive cancer awareness. You went so far as to sell out to the other side with the Support Our Troops/Bring Them Home! thing, even took up with the shadowy POW-MIA movement (and yeeesh, those are some greasy bastards).

But as the great sage Tracy Jordan said on “30 Rock” the other night, you can’t change, you’re like a chameleon: always a lizard. And what do you mean now? A morbidly obese woman in phone sales wants to share her love for the ornamental lifeform she owns. Really? Why am I forced to know this? Finally, the last drop of significance has been wrung, and there you stand stick, a lifeless husk. It’s kinda embarrassing to see, even for an old adversary. Still, it won’t keep me from chronicling your demise. Call me a terrible person, but if you look to the left of the picture above you can see a distorted reflection of a figure who’s jumped out of their car at a stoplight to take a picture with their phone.

That’s me, gloating.