I'm the Little Kid From 'Liar Liar' and I Declare War On Bullshit

Hi, I'm Max. One time, I made a birthday wish that my dad couldn't tell any lies -- and it worked! Then he got back together with mom and our lives were enriched. But lately I've noticed that my dad wasn't the biggest liar, the whole world is lying everyday! Everyone is lying to everyone, and it's sad. So I made a wish. I wished everyone's bullshit would dissolve and we could all believe what he see and hear. Let's call it like it is. It's OK if the truth is ugly, just be honest...

At the Movies

These exciting new movies are coming soon… To your imagination!

 Everywhere you look there’s a heart -- ripped swiftly from its chest, struggling to complete one last haggard beat. Everywhere you look is the face of someone who needs you -- melting off the skull into a gelatinous slop. Here is the brutal wrath of Jesse & The Rippers! When this raving rockstar is reduced to a brat-raising sissy, the countdown to carnage begins! Who would’ve thought this full house was harboring such a hellish hatchet man? Heeeeeere’s Jesse! (Have No Mercy, ★★★)

She’s exquisite; stunning and sophisticated with an equally beautiful heart. He’s bold. He’s sensuous. He’s sweet… He’s only a boy. They were born to be together, only 25 years apart. They want to, but they shouldn’t. No, they can’t. But they must! It’s a forbidden love that burns so hot it deeply chars the souls of the beloved, who would give the world to be in each other’s soothing arms. Witness this delectable tale of secret passion, as this junior gentleman is beckoned by his best friend’s mother to taste the sweet, sticky syrup of seduction. (The Motherfucker, ★★★★)

Lying By the Lake

If I would’ve come up with this idea like a week or so earlier, I would’ve entered the Mule Day Liars Contest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s an event in which contestants tell farfetched tales -- usually about farm life or rural goings-on -- at Columbia, TN’s annual Mule Day festival. I’ve never been to one, but I sure enough love to tell bullshit stories, so it’s one of the little goals on the mundane edition of my bucket list. More than most of my typical babble, this story may or may not fit the wholesome, homegrown humor Mule Day patrons are comfortable with.

Ok, please picture me telling this story on a stage in front of, oh say, 146 people. Account for the obvious applause and laughter breaks. Then interweave the flashback of the actual story transpiring, and of course you should picture those scenes coated in a dreamlike haze. Otherwise this shit’s not going to make any sense.

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Ok first thing y’all gotta know about me is: I’m straight, I’m not gay, and I like women. Yea I know this here’s a liars contest, but that ain’t a lie! But let me tell you ‘bout something that went down when me and a bunch of friends went down to the lake one night.

There was around nine of us all together, and a couple of them I didn’t know, but I was friends with them on Myspace. Anyways, we were drinking Coors and smoking weed and shit -- then one of the guys says, “Hey let’s skinny dip!”

I go, “The hell you say! We ain’t doing that!”

He was talking crazy, but thing was, the girls were all like, ‘Hell yeah!’ and I was like, ‘Damn!’

So it’s like four chicks and they’re pretty hot. And they’re giggling and whispering, then they strip down, but not all the way. They’re covering up with their hands, and me and the boys are like, ‘This is bullshit.’

One of the girl says, “Only way we’re gettin’ nekkid is if you all strip first and chug another beer outside the water.” Then the girls jumped in the water, laughing their ass off. It sucked, but at least we were gonna see some boobs.

There we were, five guys in the buff drinking as fast as we could. All I kept thinking was, “Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t. Get. Hard.”

And basically what happened next was, you know, we jump in; we’re all just cutting up, checking each other out. I’m trying to hook up with one of the girls, but she used to date one of the dudes. So he’s totally trying to cock-block -- can I say cock? -- he’s trying to wiener-block me. Next thing I know, almost everybody’s running out of the lake and grabbing their clothes and running off. I’m like, “Dude, what is it a shark?”

Sons-of-bitches ran the hell off with all our clothes! All I noticed at first was them kind of laughing and hurrying off. Then it’s just me and these two ex-lovers, and they don’t see jack cause they’re too busy freakin’ making out! So I get on out and see that, yup, they got my clothes. But they left the girl’s dress, and I found out later that they left it cause they didn’t want to totally screw over their friend. Oh no that’d be too mean.

So this dress -- it’s one of them spaghetti strap, fine jersey numbers, and like with a stripe print -- it’s pretty skanky. I don’t say nothing to the two in the water, and they ain’t paying attention no ways. I’m just looking back and forth at them and the dress, it’s like ‘fight or flight’ time. And it was a good thing I drove myself there -- cause y’all -- I put on that dang dress and ran like a maniac to my truck. (Pause here for, presumably, the loudest laughter/applause break of the whole show.) And I ain’t the kind of guy that’s into that stuff, wearing a dress. But I was gonna cover my naked behind, it didn’t matter if I looked like some kind of fruity hoochie on the way home. 

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And I’d like to end my story with a badass mic drop, like something Kenny Powers would do. It’d give it that “Yea obviously I just blew y’all’s minds” type of punctuation. But I think the vibe would probably be way too nice and cheerful, I don’t really need to take it there. But I want to do a dramatic mic drop, one of these days. But I mean, sweet story, right?

Freescore Fails to Score Any Points with Bald Men

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is regarding your television commercial and its loathsome, hackneyed portrayal of a bald man. Whether it is out of poor humor, ignorance, or pure hate, your ad department has postulated a scenario in which good credit scores are signified by physically attractive males with great hairlines, while a man with receding hair (and for some reason a hockey mask?) is the suggested equivalent of a poor credit score which, of course, no one wants. Just where exactly do you get off trying to perpetuate this fallacious stigma of bald men? This implication -- that bald men are shameful, undesirable buffoons -- should be abhorred by men and women of all hairlines. This is how you try to sell your product? For shame.

The ad that originally incited my vexation featured two young, white males as emblems of prosperity. This is particularly offensive as a racial matter because it does not embrace the multicultural community and potentially promotes white supremacy. In direct response, or perhaps preemptive, to a letter such as this one, you have cast an ethnic man as the exemplary figure. (By the way, great job casting the most ambiguously-ethnic man possible. He really could be of any race.) This shows that you may be somewhat sensitive to multiple types of people. But in reality, your political-correct tokenism comes off as half-hearted pandering.

Suppose this was a Freescore ad: A man learns that he has two good credit scores and one bad score. The good scores would be represented by thin, tan female supermodels; the bad score by a pale, overweight woman with acne and glasses. Would that be an appropriate message? Could you get away with it? Absolutely not -- it would be a sexist and poisonous effigy of women that would never be allowed on television. There are many types of people in the world -- we all have feelings and we all deserve respect.

I am officially boycotting your company and its services until you send me a written apology and produce a proper, respectful commercial. The actors in the ad must be cast as follows: one bald, white man as a good credit score; the other played by a black man in a hockey mask. The poor credit score should be played by a moderately attractive woman. A realistic commercial such as this shall be the only way you can restore your integrity and assuage the vitriol of the bald, minority, and female communities. But the fact that you offer a “free” service leads me to believe that it is a total scam, thus I would never dare disclose my personal information to such a degenerate, fly-by-night organization.*

Sincerely,

Pablo von Plinko** 

* I actually sent this letter.

** Pablo von Plinko is like the Art Vandelay to my George Costanza. 

What's On My Mind?

Here we have the most dazzling and elaborate video I’ve ever made. It’s a high-speed excursion through a surreal funk world -- where every person, place, or thing is a continuous portal into future action. This is a true boogie utopia, where everything is as it should be: the good guy always gets the girl, and the girls all have serious, major, monumental, big time curves.

The characters that inhabit this funk zone were created by Matt Rowland, and before they were brought to life, they resided on the album cover for Back To Reality, a compilation of underground boogie hits by Tony Cook. Tony, by the way, played drums in James Brown’s band The J.B’s, and produced some of the most sublime and ingenious funk of the 80s; The song’s vocalist is Dam-Funk, a modern funk mastermind himself. I’m a huge fan of both artists, as well as everything that Stones Throw Records puts out -- so it was a real treat to be asked to do the video for them. An iconic label of international esteem, Stones Throw personifies all things eclectic and creative, and I’m very excited about having some of my work figure into that equation somewhere, not to mention the exposure. It was only a couple years ago when I was just trying to figure out how to make music videos, and one of my earliest experiments happened to involve Tony Cook’s music, before Stones Throw reissued his catalog, and before I had substantial editing skills. Coming full circle, sort of like the video.

Now I’m gonna take you behind the scenes! Some of the theatrical concepts were predesigned, but it’s mostly organic silliness that I jury-rigged as I went. I used a mix of found footage and original animations -- the animations were hand-drawn, scanned, and sequence old-school style, while the other characters and backdrops were repurposed and re-animated, so to speak. A very wide variety of sources were involved in making this hodgepodge, and when you break down all the individual frames and little images, we’re talking over 700 files going into this bad boy!

Spockadelic: Leader of Michael W. Smith's Secret Satanic Army!

Looks like the sacrificial cat is out of the bag. Actually the cat was let out back in 2007 -- which, as you’ll remember -- was the height of popularity for my former hip hop act, Spockadelic. It was a time of corrupted innocence, when I exposed many a teenager to my deranged, sex-fueled rap music. Christian mogul Michael W. Smith’s all-ages music venue, Rockettown, should’ve been a safe haven for the vulnerable Tennessee youth, but instead served as a modern Sodom and Gomorrah! A recent Google search of  “Spockadelic” brought me to this paranoid Christian blog post -- give it looksee, and then come right back!

Only The Facts: Why Does Michael W. Smith's Rocketown Promote Satanic Bands?   

Thanks to this whistleblower, Christian parents could finally discover the truth about the venue they so willy-nilly allowed their children to attend. Under the guise of a wholesome Christian environment, Rockettown was nothing but a playground for ‘overtly satanic music acts.’ Is that what Jesus would want? Spockadelic is among a who’s who of different devilish music acts, most of which have dumb lyrics -- and also the writer thinks a lot of them are homosexual.

I just want to say that I am so incredibly proud to be mentioned on this dude’s blog, for I have brought glory to the Lord Satan. As much as I appreciate this infamy, I also feel short-changed. First of all, this guy obviously has not heard the entire Spockadelic album if he thinks the most destructive lyrics are the ones he’s cited. He just copy/pasted the particular lyrics I posted on Myspace. Secondly, does he think the worst thing I’ve done at Rockettown is rap? Psssh! How naïve. Try adding an “e” to the end of “rap”, that’d be more like it. 

Also this:

I Can See 20,000+ Eyes

A little less than two years ago I became exposed to the most intoxicating Italo Disco song I’d ever heard, and I’ve been under its spell ever since. “Eyes” has a great beat and a heavenly synth buzz, but nothing is more arresting than Clio’s exotic vocals. As I listen to this song, I feel like a siren is drawing me to another planet -- I’ve just never heard anything like it. Last year, I made a psychedelic video for it and it has now passed the 10,000 Youtube hit mark.

Even if you can excuse my starry-eyed description of the song, you may still find it silly to celebrate such a non-achievement, considering how some of the most moronic things imaginable can get millions of hits on Youtube. That goes without saying, but the boundless size of the internet makes it almost impossible for some things to get noticed. In a nutshell, that’s why the play counts on my songs and videos are so low -- how my gems stay hidden, if you will. Even though “Eyes” is quite a rarity, people all over the world love it, and that’s how my video got so many views (and also I checked on it a lot.) Italo Disco is a total cult genre -- many of the fans are obsessive record collectors like myself, while others were actually out on the dancefloor during the height of the craze. These people have great taste, and the fact that so many of them have left such flattering comments is a big feather in my cap. My intention was to visually interpret a song that I loved, to try to recreate the picture that it painted in my head. It’s been a delightful surprise to find that I’ve struck a chord -- that people, like I am, are infatuated with Clio but also seem to particularly relate to the abstract imagery I’ve attached to the song. Perhaps the video is reminiscent of what they had imagined in their own minds, as if I captured the transcendence of the song through synesthesia, speaking subconsciously to the viewer. Then perhaps Clio is really an intergalactic empress, speaking in a secret language to hypnotize us into worshipping her. Well maybe that’s going a step too far. But the point is that the most optimistic view of the internet is to see it as a vessel for people to people from all across the world to communicate and share the best of what life has to offer. Despite my general cynicism, I can actually appreciate how gratifying the ‘ideal internet’ is. But seriously, give the ‘intergalactic empress’ theory some real thought.