Spoiler alert, Shaq likes me.

Simple. Masculine. GOOD. You can do this.

A few weeks ago my friends and I went to a party at a guy’s house. This dude and his friends were very cute and funny, with great arms and taste in music — AND YET upon walking into their apartment my pussy dried up and left. It put on it’s little pussy hat and coat and hailed a cab and I haven’t seen it since (so thanks a lot, Kevin.) Why? That place was awful. That kind of apartment is pretty bad when you’re 25 — once you hit 30 it is a complete vagina repellant.

DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU, GUYS. Don’t wait for a lady to come into your life and fix your apartment. Any girl who is attracted to you and your apartment in it’s current state is attracted to you either because she wants to “fix” you, or because she needs a new place to leave her old syringes and tufts of hair. You don’t want either.

So here is an easy little checklist to start getting your place in order:

• NO FOUND ART. That beer sign, or street sign, or flyer is trash. You have TRASH on your wall. Trash goes in the trash can. Even worse if it’s broken. If it’s broken just assume that your mother is somewhere weeping for you and your future. Think of that every time you look at it. Your mother, who RUINED her body for you and loved you with all her heart is crying over that shitty broken Slippery When Wet sign.
• NO FOUND FURNITURE. It doesn’t have to match perfectly, but your furniture should look like it belongs together. The the couch you found on the street and the chair you got from your aunt’s garage look like they belong in a dump. They are no longer appropriate for anything execpt letting rats give birth inside the cushions. Get rid of them, go to Ikea. UNLESS MAYBE — you have it cleaned and refinished / reupholstered. But even in that case, allow me to mention that my whole apartment building once got bedbugs from a used bedside table, so.…
• THINGS SERVE THEIR INTENDED PURPOSE. No spool coffee tables, no milk crate shelves, etc. Unless you are the type of guy who is looking for a crafty woman who crochets dresses for her toilet paper, quit being crafty with your furniture. Again — you are sitting on garbage.
• CURTAINS. You should have curtains and/or blinds in your windows. Not sheets. Not towels. Not boxes. Curtains. You’re right — sheets, towels, or boxes could sufficiently block the light, but they make you look like you live in a terrorist cell. It would also be cheaper & effective to wear cardboard boxes on your feet, but you don’t do that, right?… RIGHT?
• FRAMES. Frames do amazing things for art. Put your Godfather / Shawshank poster into a frame and suddenly it looks classy. The type of classy girls want to fuck. Frames are magic! Get a bunch in the same color and you can throw all kinds of bullshit on your wall and look like a grown-up creative dude who’s in control. Frames are the first step towards tossing out your novelty cups in exchange for some nice weighty glasses.
• TOSS OUT YOUR NOVELTY CUPS IN EXCHANGE FOR SOME NICE WEIGHTY GLASSES.
• PUT YOUR XBOX AWAY. I know you like to play it. You also like to play with your dick but you know enough to put that away when you’re done. Your game console should have a place where it fits and belongs — controlers, too — and that place should not be your floor.
• CLEAN. Listen. I know it was hard to clean before, but now that you got rid of the garbage on your walls and floor, it’ll be a little easier. So do it. … Ok, now do it again because it’s still disgusting — whatever you did is not really cleaning. There are still pennies and matches everywhere. You could even hire a maid service (they cost less than you think). Even just once so you can see what she does and then do it again yourself. Added perk — you might stop itching so much!
• TOWELS. Get some new towels. If it looks like you might have cleaned an animal shelter with your towels, it’s time for new ones. They are not supposed to last forever. That goes triple for bath mats.
• YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY DOING THIS, BUT.… I have found that guys are usually pretty good about taking care of their beds & electronics. But just in case: You should have a mattress pad on your mattress, and sheets that are under 2 years old (or at least look & feel like they are), and a comforter that looks clean and feels soft. You should also have some sort of method for playing music easily. (You should not have to twist a couple of wires together to get anything to start.) A computer is ok, a stereo system is better, a turntable is nice but pretty much says “I either have this to impress girls, or I am an insufferable asshole about sound quality” so proceed with caution.

Ok! Now you can get a pet! You don’t have to get throw pillows — that is the type of thing you can leave up to the girlfriend. She’ll like that.

Photo via ApartmentTherapy

Okay! You’re stranded on a desert island, what top picks do you bring with you?

Book: What!? How did I get on an island? What happened to me??

Album: ALBUM? Fuck you. Is there a stereo on this island? Can it be converted to broadcast? Who am I kidding, I wouldn’t know how to do that if I tried. WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON???

Magazine: Jesus, I don’t know, whatever is biggest. It’s going to get dark eventually and I’ll need to burn something to stay warm…and keep the animals away. Oh Christ, I am going to die.

Kitchen Appliance: KITCHEN APPLIANCE??? Isn’t that defined by being in a KITCHEN? Fuck, fine. Ok, an ax. You know, a kitchen ax. GO WITH ME HERE, I AM TRYING TO SURVIVE.

Movie: Do you mean DVD?  I guess Dirty Dancing, I don’t think I’d get sick of that.… WHY AM I ANSWERING THIS?? Get me off this fucking island!

TV Show: That — that doesn’t make any sense. Again, do you mean DVDs? What am I watching this stuff on? WHO ARE YOU?? WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME QUESTIONS INSTEAD OF HELPING ME???

Cupcake: Okay. I get it. This is some kind of fucked up “Saw” thing. You are trying to break me.

Make-Up: WHATEVER I CAN DRINK. FUCK YOU, YOU MONSTER.

Say something funny.

As a professional comedian, I am frequently asked to “say something funny”. You know, like how architects are always asked to “draw something buildingy” at parties. Like how people are always saying “real quick — remove my moles!” to doctors at movie theaters? No?  That doesn’t happen? Hm. Weird.

Last week — as I was being wheeled into surgery*, on a gurney, in a hospital gown with a goddamn IV in my arm — my doctor demanded I say something funny to the nurse. “Go ahead! She’s a comedian — she’s really funny. Do a joke.”

Because it is scary to be in a hospital with a bunch of strangers about to knock you out and poke around inside of you, I was not feeling “hilarious”. So I replied, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m kind of off the clock right now.”

You would think I had just said “Eat a dick, Whitey.” And I kind of wish I had.

“Uh! Whuh! Well, I met Sarah Silverman the other day, and SHE would have told a joke when I asked.”

“Sorry. I guess you should operate on Sarah Silverman then?” The nurse laughed. “And I just made your nurse laugh, so I guess I did say something funny.”

So what I am saying is that I probably have a fork sewn into my intestines now.

*Don’t worry about it. Same old broken gut, nothing too bad.

My newest is called We Pretty Ugly — the prettiest ladies making the ugliest faces.

I know, fellas — It’s pretty tricky to figure out how to approach a lady. Even more so online. What do you say?! How much? When? WHY WONT SHE JUST COME OVER AND LOOK AT YOUR DOG AND PENIS?????? Well, as a lady, I have gotten more than a few emails from men online. Based on the emails I have received, here are a few tips for crafting yours:

1. A good way to stand out from the crowd is to start by pointing out any spelling or grammar errors in her profile. Nothing says “I’m going to be super fun on a date!” like “Too many semi-colons.”
2. A lot of ladies are “almost perfect”, but don’t know why. Grr! Don’t keep your new gal in the dark. Tell her straight out -
   “You’re almost perfect, except too short.“
   “You’re almost perfect, except too much eyebrows. Gross!“
   “You’re almost perfect, except you like Dirty Dancing and that movie blows, stupid! Lololololol, hahaha, also tacos.“
   It’ll be a fun reminder of trying to wish her dad home from business trips when she was a kid!
3. Pay close attention to the time you send your message. Everybody and their brother emails during the day. BORING! Try reaching out at a sexier time, like 3am on a Tuesday, or 9pm on a Friday. Let her know what time of day you are sitting at home, alone, staring at the ceiling with your dick in your hand.
4. Don’t “bust your hump” writing email after email to different girls. Just write one and cut and paste it to a bunch of different ladies! They can’t tell the difference! Better yet, make her do the work and just send a note that says “hi, u.” That way you don’t even have to read her profile! Or be literate at all. Can you read this? Oranges? People phone? Karrowanger flim flak? Hi, u!
5. If you are a middle aged virgin who always pays for dinner and hates taller men, that is part of what makes you special and quirky. TELL HER ABOUT IT! You gotta sell yourself, brother.
6. Definitely don’t beat around the bush! Yes, ask her what books she’s reading, but don’t forget to ask her right away if she likes to suck cock. Not everyone does! It’s important to know up front, and it will be a question she really wants to answer, so she’ll for sure write back.
7. A fun word to use a lot is “obsessed”. As in “I’m obsessed with my dog” or “I’m obsessed with the way my dog smells” or “I have a hard time getting erect around humans.”
8. When in doubt, remember that everyone loves a good story, and ladies especially love to laugh. Send her a detailed account of the time you shit your pants in your pick-up truck outside a stranger’s house. And GET READY FOR TONS OF TAIL.

I have threatened/planned to get a tattoo for years now. It has taken a long time to wear down my mother’s panic from a “next you’ll stop wearing a bra and get raped in a van by a carnie” fervor into a dulled “what will your children say”/“when you get fat it will look melty” throb. I am also very indecisive, and have occasional bursts of horrible taste. If I had gotten the tattoos I have wanted I would currently have a Mary Jane wrapper on my ankle, an E.T. tramp stamp, the word “Shameless” across my back, and — I assume - a job at a gas station.

But now I am older and wiser, and I figure the world is ending in 3 years anyway, so it’s time to tattoo it up! Here are the ideas I am considering:

• Kittens with bows and tiny machine guns
• Purple pieman holding the severed head of Strawberry Shortcake with the words “Sic Semper Tyranus” under it
• Seagulls all over my face
• The latitude and longitude of the birthplaces of Angelina Jolie’s children
• 01110011 01101100 01110101 01110100 (Binary code for “slut”)
• Cat eyes with dancers for pupils on my shoulder blades
• Screaming half-melted ice cream cone
• The Jem Glitter and Gold roadster I never fucking got for Christmas.
• The phrase “Remember, the enemy’s gate is down.” In Klingon.
• “Xavier Roberts” signature on my ass.
• E.T. tramp stamp

Of course, all of the above would say “Tyler Perry’s _____ tattoo” above them.

I’ll post a pic when I get it finished!

Jem Glitter and Gold Roadster.
It plays tapes! This would have been a sweet Christmas gift, seriously.

When I was a kid I decided that if I knew I was going to die I wanted to go one of two ways: sucked into a black hole, or eaten by a shark. Both of them are things that you can only experience in death. Now, sure, you could argue that ANY way you die is going to be something you could only experience by dying. But I was like, 7, ok? Plus, I don’t care to know how it feels to get shot in the face. I DO want to know what the inside of a black hole looks like, and I would like to get up close and personal with a shark.

I think the black hole thing makes universal sense. Who WOULDN’T want to get sucked into a black hole? I mean, sure, you’re probably going to get stretched and torn to pieces just on your way in. But, WHAT IF YOU DIDN’T?? Then you could at least get a minute or two of “HOLY SHIT!! This dimension is exactly the same except here ponies brush US! Numbers are sentient!!!” before the diabetes gets you.

The shark thing might be weirder. Sharks are fucking terrifying. They are real, live, murderous dinosaur monsters — they kill, they fuck, they die. That’s about it. No art projects, no dams or nests to build. Even bears take care of their young and like honey — that’s relatable. Sharks will fucking cut a bitch. If you look into the eyes of a tiger, you feel something. Look into a shark’s eyes? Nothing. Blank. Total murder. Somehow, getting very close to something that powerfully threatening is fascinating. But you can’t just touch a shark — I mean a REAL shark, not one of those tiny ones — you have to be ready to go all-in.

Plus, for just that one moment while it’s eating you, you are the most important thing in the world to that shark. There is no other way to have a shark give a shit about you. Maaaaaybe if you and Roy Scheider spend days on a boat trying to kill it, MAYBE then. But for the most part they just don’t care about you.  You could say that their brains are too stupid and primitive to care about anything, or you be cool and romanticize it like I did above.

Now, my mother reads this blog — so I am trying avoid the comparisons to  swimming nightmare dicks. But come on, they are. I mean, look at that photo. That is super sexy. I mean “scary”!  WHATEVER. If sharks aren’t an answer to vagina dentata, I don’t know what is. Women often get a bad rap for being attracted to “bad boys” or “assholes”. That seems misguided — I think maybe what we all really want is a supportive relationship with a nice cute guy, and then to be eaten by a shark. Or to get sucked back into a cosmic vagina.