• Washing and drying a few loads of snuggies, slankets and bariatric slipper socks. #
• RT @toddbarry: My favorite part of getting the Sunday NY times: throwing out the Sports section. #
• “Osama Bin Laden has never touched a dime of his Al Qaeda money, living entirely off of his stand-up income.” Late Show fun fact 10/9/2009 #
• RT @Anundson: Chad Riden and Jesse Perry live in studio on Tues Dec 8th 8-9am WRVU 91.1. The final Get Up Stand Up! streaming @ wrvu.org #
• #CHADRIDEN1K started on Oct. 8 with 388 followers. I’m now at 414. I’m starting to think we’re not on track to hit 1,000 by NYE, everybody. #
• Remember my pledge to donate ONE THOUSAND pennies to charity if I get 1,000 followers by the end of 2009!? C’mon, Twitter.. where’s your <3? #
• IT’S FOR CHARITY, people. Surely we can find 586 twitter users who like random, passive-agressive jackassery? Tell a friend: #CHADRIDEN1K #
• Uh, oh. I’m getting all retrospective-y on 2009.. I only kinda remember what I did this year, so I’ll mark it down as a success. #
• In 2010, I’ll continue my quest for more & better quality of everything, but will settle for whatever and be satisfied with none of it. #
• Callia and I tastefully decorated the house last night. My lovely wifera just said, “it looks like Christmas threw up in here.” #
• Woke up thinking WWJD?, so we’re sitting around the fireplace drinking whiskey & singing ironically anti-semitic lyrics to Christmas tunes. #
• Endorsement – Dr. Bamford’s NO SOAP™ http://ping.fm/ESu0h #
• RT @Anundson was just informed I am not welcome back on WRVU, seven hours after I announced I wouldn’t be back. another bridge burned #wrvu #
• Jim Hayes, Assistant Director of Student Media/Broadcasting at Vanderbilt University, is a giant dildo. (it’s not libel if it’s true!) #wrvu #
• Once again, telling Callia that old story about the time I got into a gunfight with Santa Claus. (Don’t hate on me, he started it.) #
• actually it was TG2:EB2: Electric Boogaloo’er! // RT @themightychuck @GeoffBreedwell Chad just celebrated Thanksgiving 2 Electric Boogaloo #
• Dear Internet, could I please have more shitty Tiger Woods jokes? I can’t get enough of ‘em! I just know they’ll stand the test of time.. #
• ha! David Letterman’s first message on twitter: RT @Late_Show Do you smell veal and peppers? // yes, Dave. Yes, I do. #
• judging from the evidence I’ve gathered in and around my bathroom, last night I brushed my teeth with A+D diaper rash cream. #
• the anchor on CNN just said, “electriZZZity.” could someone around Atlanta please punch her in the face for me? ty #
• Callia brought home her first Kwanzaa related school work today. mat? fruit? candles? ears of corn? unity cup? gifts? we’re converting. #
• Project: Scientology Sucks (a video prank contest) – cash prizes! I want to do this: http://ping.fm/qHrJz #
• I just try to steal their hearts. // RT @Grimeys: it makes me cry when you steal from us @Grimeys… just so you know (via @NashvilleCream) #
• I feel sorry for the people who hate the USA but love Lee Greenwood. #

Back before there was YouTube or FunnyOrDie, there was a rag tag site called “MangyDog.com“. Starting around the fall of 2000, Jesse Perry and I filmed a couple dozen sketches or skits or skitches and put them online in the incredibly shitty RealPlayer & Windows Media formats. People liked ‘em and stuff, but trying to put video on the internet at that time was kinda like squeezing a fat man into a tiny jacket. Some of those old clips are still online at MangyDog and/or at YouTube.. some are sitting on a hard drive somewhere still waiting to be edited.. and some never got made.

What follows here is an IM conversation Jesse and I had years ago that exemplifies our creative process: both on the clock, at work, collaborating on a script/concept. After work, we’d either shoot it, or go do a show or drink and rip on each other in my back yard and forget the whole thing. This is one of those forgotten things. I’d emailed this conversation to myself with the subject line “Pull My Finger” (the email was dated January 29, 2003 4:22:25 PM CST) – I think we were hashing out a script for a “Vaudeville In The Village” show we were about to put on at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville:

chadriden: we could come out and start some scene and have one of us flub a line or do something that causes the other to get pissed off and start a fight. we could declare that the live performance was ruined and ask somebody in the booth to just play a tape instead.. then they could play our clip.
MangyK9: Yes, and the clip is of us on the Belcourt stage doing our skit, with crappy sound so you can’t hear it
chadriden: ha
MangyK9: so then we come back out and ask Matt and Clay to perform the skit for us
MangyK9: or, the clip could be of us screwing up the skit and getting to a fight again, so then it’s a clip of a clip of a clip
chadriden: then come back and interrupt it all, saying “dammit. that’s gotta be the wrong tape.. that’s the tape of us screwing it up. play that other tape.. the one that has the last time when we were really funny.” and it’s a tape of a couple little kids starting a skit and then fighting.
MangyK9: HA!
MangyK9: Then the kids go, “wait, wait, wait, put in the tape from last week,” and then we film the tv
chadriden: film the tv?
MangyK9: of their clip from the week before
chadriden: oh oh..
MangyK9: they get up, grab a tape, and put it in the VCR
MangyK9: and one of the kids has a bald spot
chadriden: the other.. a beard
chadriden: and glasses
MangyK9: and they’re black
chadriden: ha
MangyK9: come out and just do a stupid, non-sequitur sketch, called “The Handyman and the Peanut,” or something . . .
MangyK9: We’ll be performing “our best-known and most beloved sketch, a timeless piece of American Comedy”
chadriden: “Pull My Finger”
MangyK9: “The Farting Penis”
MangyK9: Yes, “Pull My Finger” . . . you get made when I can’t squeeze one out
MangyK9: mad, not made
chadriden: that’s kinda funny
MangyK9: Either that, or film Those Wacky Brits
chadriden: maybe when the pull my finger thing totally is over, we can just “give up” and tell them to play whatever they find laying around.. then that’s Those Wacky Brits
chadriden: or whatever
MangyK9: We could talk about where we get our distinct brand of comedy . . . from that classy cult known as the British
MangyK9: Now, a special presentation of our favorite British comedy program
chadriden: “like most American Television shows, we get all of our ideas from the British. They’re much funnier than we are. ”
MangyK9: “That’s why they’re the Master Race, Chad.”
MangyK9: Of course they’re brilliant.  That’s why they’re so snooty!”

I love it when I sit down to write about a particular subject and end up writing about everything EXCEPT that.

Callia was a flower girl in Jesse Perry & Candice Self’s wedding Sunday. It was beautiful, fun and most importantly a SHORT ceremony. There were two 3 year old boys who rang bells, then an older flower girl – maybe 5 or 6? – then Callia and another 2-ish year old. Despite a good rehearsal, the young flower girls were slow to go down the asile. When they stopped, amazed by all the people looking at them, they got applause.

Callia lit up for a second, then started crying and turned around looking for Mommy. I was standing at the end of the asile, video taping.. but I’d all but set the camera down trying to wave her my way. When Laura picked her up and carried her back to her seat, she was screaming for Daddy and I DID set the camera down to go to her. I couldn’t help it.

It was a great time and we all had a lot of fun. It was an outdoor thing.. we had a reception right there immediately after the nuptials. The kids played and ran around, but Callia spent more time on the stage thing dancing to the music.

Later, at Verago – a restaurant they rented out for another reception, Callia was a social butterfly, going around talking to everyone and busting moves on the dance floor. She even got to toast the couple when they busted the champagne out.

The bride was thoughtful enough to go get Callia a champagne flute full of water for her to drink. This was really cool.. she didn’t drop it or spill any.. she held her glass up high and drank at the appropriate time. She has actually been doing “cheers” for a while – when we fix chocolate milk she’ll sometimes say, “cheers?” and want to clink glasses and then drink up. She also does it with popsicles.

Those are some of her passions now. I introduced her to the joys of chocolate milk as a treat for Valentines Day and she’s been obsessed ever since. She’d drink it all day and eat only popsicles, if only she could get that fridge door open herself.

I tend to eat a lot of peanuts during the summer.. I keep a bucket of them around the house & on the porch sometimes. Callia puts the whole peanut in her mouth and enjoys the roasted, salted dusty husk. She can bust some of them open herself, but usually hands them to me asking, “open it?”

She likes to sit in the hammock and go for walks and take rides in her wagon. Occasionally, she’ll ask to ride her bike – usually after seeing another kid on one. She also gets excited about motorcycles.. calling them bikes, too.

We still go play on the swings and the slide. She’s really quick to learn and remember names of kids she meets on the playground. I’ll “meet” them and their parents a dozen times before I’ll remember them.. but Callia knows ‘em and calls them by name.

She loves Dora the Explorer and Teletubbies.. and still loves Star Wars. As an infant, Callia would NOT watch tv. Hated it.. would walk over to the tv and turn it off all the time.

A while back I was watching the original trilogy dvds and she was totally into it.. she was completely sucked in. Empire was the first movie / tv / video she ever watched. She sat with me and I explained what was happening.. told her about Yoda and the Force.. about believing in yourself and trusting your instinct.. she’d softly repeat whatever I’d say, not taking her eyes off the screen. It was great. Laura hated me for it.

She watches tons of kiddie stuff on tv now, but whenever I play the Star Wars films, she still has the same reverence and excitement for ‘em. And she goes around randomly talking about Yoda sometimes.. so I know that I’ve done SOMETHING right.

I’ll probably take her to see Revenge Of The Sith once the crowds have died down and people won’t be pressing up against me as I file into and out of the theater. We’ll probably catch a matinee in two or three weeks so Callia and I can go together in peace and safety so we can watch the Star Wars movie so dark and disturbing that it got a PG-13 rating. Oh, my! See ya there, nerds!

“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freeeeeeeedooom! Freedom!” Not unlike Aretha Franklin’s character in The Blues Brothers, I have been set free. About ten months ago, a great plague fell upon my household. It wasn’t locusts, drought or syphilis.. no, no, no. I would have gladly endured any of those plights instead of what I had to put up with: the unholy presence of Jesse Perry.

Imagine being completely dependent upon somebody else for every aspect of your day to day life. Housing, transportation, food, cable television, high-speed internet access, you name it. Can you fathom such a horrible situation? Now, pretend that you are the person that somebody else is completely dependent upon. Even worse, picture this: the person permeating every facet of your life happens to be Jesse Perry. The terror!

Yes, the days of Mr. Perry infesting my house and destroying any shred of privacy I once had are over. All he left in his wake was a pile of debris and a spank-it magazine he had stolen from me months ago. Boy is the house different with him gone..

My pets have come out of hiding. I thought they died or fled the property months ago. I can now buy groceries and rest assured that nobody is sitting at my house while I’m gone, devouring all of my food. My shower drain is no longer plugged up with the hairs that leapt from Jesse’s sad, balding head as if it were a burning building.

I’ve aired the place out, and have begun sterilizing the surfaces. The most difficult thing to clean up is the Jesse residue, or “Jessidue” as I have come to call it. It’s an odd smelling, greasy film that can’t be removed with commercial cleaning products. I’ve found that the best way to get it clean is to use a copper brush and acid that I had to special order thru Home Depot. It’s dangerous work.. the chemical is very toxic. I have to wear rubber gloves, a breathing mask and goggles. It’s all worth the effort, though.

Finally, I have my life back. I can now sit at home and enjoy the peaceful silence of a Jesse-Free Zone. The joy! Pure ecstasy, I tell you. My cold, black little heart has warmed up like butter in a skillet in hell.. and it worries me.

With my life back in order.. with the tragedy over.. with the pain gone.. I began to fear that I may lose my edge. My comedy is fueled with smart-assed hate and loathing. How can I continue when I can’t feed off my hatred for Jesse Perry? That is a huge part of the negativity that courses thru me like the heroin in Courtney Love’s veins. But then I realized something that gave me hope for the future: Just because Jesse has moved out doesn’t mean I have to stop hating him!

So, for the sake of my comedy.. for the sake of MangyK9.. for your sakes.. I now make this pledge to you, the Chad Riden Fans: I will continue, strong as ever, with my bad attitude, my jackass behavior, and my cheap dead celebrity jokes. With Jesse out of my way, over at his new “Chateau Debris,” I can spend more time plotting against him uninterrupted. Even considering the worst case scenario (which would be forgetting my absolute despite for Mr. Perry and becoming, God forbid, his friend), I think everything would still be ok because I could focus more of my dark powers on the other marks out there who desperately deserve mockery and humiliation.

Watch out, no-talent pop stars! Heads up, mediocre, low-brow, derivative, unfunny, formulaic, predictable, hack late night talk show hosts who happen to have had a show on NBC at 11:35 Eastern Standard Time for the last ten years! Beware, you over-rated, pompous Hollywood jackasses with enough money to buy and sell me a million times over! I’m fully charged with spite and I’m ready to smother you with slander.