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The Economic Recession Commuter Show (episode one)

ByNalts

Yesterday my wife and I were finalizing our information for a financial counselor who will tell us that we’re too deep in debt, not saving enough, and have precious little buffer. So naturally I found myself humming this intro tune all morning. I shot half of this on the way in, and then wrote a little more at lunch and shot the rest on the way home.

I probably should have dumped a lot of it, and made it one show. But I grew too attached to parts that (in retrospect) are a bit slow. So now I have a few more minutes of footage for a sequel tomorrow… I think it will be better because Nalts gets more and more desperate. Trying to give blood, stealing from his courier packages, and driving off without paying for gas.

This video goes in the “it’s funny because it’s true” file. But at least I’m listening to the self-help audio tapes you hear throughout this video. Can you guess which ones they are?

Here’s episode 2.

P.S. I didn’t really get laid off yet! Why does everyone think that’s real?

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52 Comments

  1. Recession? Is there a recession? Nobody told us po’ folks. Well, shoot. You’ll have to vote for Obama then. He’s promised to take the extra money out of your pockets and send it to me. Putting an Obama sign out in the front yard now!

  6. Yeah, where is everyone?

    I’m worried about sukatra…after her last comment was so basic. It scared me a little. Hope she’s ok.

    “That was awesome. I wish I had seen that live.”

  12. @1:

    “but, but, it’s my life’s savings!”

    “too bad, we’re taking it to give to the poor.”

    “then I’ll be poor!”

    “then we’ll take someone else’s money”

    hey, I just had a video idea, too bad I’m too busy commenting on- I mean doing homework (no, really, I am, click) – to make a video.

  19. Instead of paying for our internet, We just hack into the unprotected wireless networks of our neighbors.

    Gas cans sitting out in people’s lawns near their lawn mowers/ can we say free gas?

    it’s handy to ‘drop in” on your more generous friends and family right around dinner time.

    the best groceries are the ones you get for free from the local food pantries.

    When it’s time for new furniture, the best place to start is the goodwill drop off site. After midnight.

    all of these would really be funny if I hadn’t done or considered doing them recently.

  20. Take in boarders. Youtube boarders. I can see pipistrello living in your barn, edbassmaster in your garage, whatthebuck on your couch in front of the TV, MarkDay living in whatever part of your house has a urine-yellow wall.

  21. @9 All you guys are in my prayers MM.

    @10 Is this the calm before the storm? Are you about to wig out on
    us?!

    @11 ROFL! <— copied Nalts.

    @19 “When it’s time for new furniture, the best place to start is the goodwill drop off site. After midnight.” That was awesome!
    Can’t wait for your next comment!

    :o)

  22. @1 I thought Nalts ran over you?
    @3 you mean 2.5 don’t you? Stop exaggerating!

    In this economic recession my suggestion is, JUMP!

    The build up will be worth it. In scratchy B&W, subtitles and 1920’s movie piano music Nalts is on the edge of a 2nd story window, he is weeping bitterly into his worthless Lehman and Bear Stearn’s stocks. Stroking “the same shirt everyday.” He reaches for a hankie from his shirt pocket and blows his nose into an Enron Certificate; he looks at it and lets the certificate fly into the wind. Still crying, he grabs what he thinks is a tissue from his back pocket and finds it’s an Arbusto Oil stock sheet. He’s overcome with bad investment grief and falls off the ledge. BUT, since this is the modern era, Nalts lands on a government trampoline. Bouncing up and down he slowly realizes that it’s not that bad to be broke. He hugs “the same shirt everyday” (himself) as words from ‘The Secret’ now play in the background. “yes you can! you will survive! give yourself a second chance!” Nalts begins to bounce up and down now with joviality and happiness into up close and mindless slow motion oblivion. But, like everything else in life nothing good lasts forever. Nalts soon discovers that there are two other people bouncing along side him, a cop and the repo man. They are smiling too as all three now bounce in unison. The voice of the secret slows to a scratch as Nalts’ smile turns into a frown and his beloved “the same shirt everyday” turns into a black and white stripped prison suit. The scene cuts to his grief stricken family as they stand in the driveway huddled together in WEB 2.0 media clothing holding on to an IBM 386 PC. They wave tearfully goodbye to the repo man as he drives off with the mini van. Meanwhile, brilliant fast motion piano chase music catches Nalts trying to run away from the law and his neighbor. Unfortunately, he trips and falls on the neighbor’s lawn, “Oh my sciatica!” he yells, as the cop forces him to his feet and the neighbor throws hollowe’en candy corn at him. He is escorted to debtor prison. The jail door bars slam shut on our hero’s face. The End.

  24. @22,

    brilliant! But I did have a suggestion: the cop aught to be Ponce, the “Retarded Policeman”.

    Also, I could play the repo guy. I’d love to steal Nalts’ ride. Every time I see it, I think “Man, that middle aged white dude has to be the envy of soccer moms everywhere.”

  26. @ 22 LOL!

    I had an AST 286 with a 40 meg hard drive! Not 40 gigs, 40 megs! I was such a BIG BALLA back in the day! I miss being able to put my monitor on top of the CPU. Whatever happened to that?

  27. got more:
    Nalts start drooling while watching buns and chou chou, cartoon bubbles of baked rabbit pop into his head.
    Charlie starts dressing like Tatum O’Neil, he and Nalts go on a crime spree at all the local dollar stores.
    Nalts sneaks in while Jo is asleep and cut her hair in order to sell it.
    Nalts tries to sell grass from his lawn in a shady part of town, get beaten up.
    Nalts stands on a street corner trying to sell photos of popular You Tubers he’s printed off his computer.
    Nalts goes to church and asks the offering collectors if they have change for a dollar.
    Nalts applies for a job as a car mechanic, he has no idea where or what an engine is. Same as a plumber, carpenter, construction worker.

    What can you do to Nalts?

  31. Another classic, I thought it was very funny and am hoping to see more sequels. How about Nalts volunteering for paid medical studies or a job “recycling” manhole covers at the junkyard?

    Even though I enjoyed the videoo, I do want to register a vote against the text popups in your clips. I’ve been seeing them show up on a lot of YouTube clips and find them very distracting. I wish that there was a way that viewers could disable them so that you could have your cake and eat it too, but I can’t say that I’m a fan of they way they are implemented right now.

  32. @31 D. Freeberg, you can turn them off. It’s the little triangle at the bottom right-hand corner. It should say “turn off annotations” It’s next to the fullscreen button. It usually only appears only when there ARE annotations in the video, so you might want to check there first before viewing.

    LOL @ paid medical studies. I had a friend go in for wisdom tooth removal (both sides!) Her face/cheek looked like a basketball when I picked her up. I was laughing the whole way home. I felt bad.

  33. @32: When my oldest son was about 17, on a regular visit to the dentist, we found out that he had 6 wisdom teeth. While not unheard of, it is highly unusual. All six needed to come out. At the same time. He couldn’t eat solid food for a week.

    Then my youngest son goes to the dentist when HE is about 17, and finds out he has 5 wisdom teeth. What is it with my kids? I guess they are just THAT smart! 🙂

  34. Wisdom teeth are a vestige of our Neandertal genes. They’re for chewing grass.

    Vote for Obama. Anybody making over $25,000 is rich and should pony up more taxes to make my federal disability check less ridiculous. It’s the patriotic thing to do!

  35. My brother-in-law and his wife believe in tax breaks for the rich because the rich are the ones that”create jobs”. Yeah, right. And how’s that been working for you the last 8 years? Most of which, I might add, my sister-in-law spent as a contract employee for the same company that laid her off, because it was cheaper for them that way!!

  36. Don’t share genes with Neandertals. No interbreeding. We displaced those dummies.

    Go ahead, vote for McCain. I just hope he doesn’t declare war on Spain.

  38. We DO share genes with Neandertals. There WAS interbreeding. We ARE the dummies. You’re just wrong. And unlearned.

    Thanks for your permission on who we can vote for. Let’s get them danged Spaniards! Spain: Bastion of fascism, sponsors of the first Jewish holocaust in the form of The Grand Inquisition, bankrollers of the wholesale genocide of native Americans for greed and merchantile interests.

    Yes, let’s get Spain!

  41. The jury is definitely out on interbreeding, and the results from the genome could be interpreted either way. Are you one of the ones currently working on the sequencing?

    Unlearned? I gots me a real good edumacation! Maybe I kin be prezident sumday!

  42. Trivia: Salvador Dali spread goat manure on his elbows before riding his Andalusian horse over to his Cervantes-reading girlfriend’s house to drink rioja and eat tapas because he believed the manure to be a natural pheromone.

    It worked. They married. He bought her a Picasso as an anniversary gift. I met him in New York City back in the sixties. He pinched my dimples.

    El polvo de pulgas es muy barato.

  46. You can’t. I’m a waffling Democrat.

    The conventional wisdom for a while was that there was certainly interbreeding. Now, with an examination of the genome, many are leaning the other way. I mean, those guys were around for hundreds of thousand of years, and showed almost no development in their technology. Then we come on the scene, and after roughly 30,000-40,000 years, I’m talking to your ass on this here fancy device.

    Anyway, I’m betting they find little or no evidence of interbreeding.

    Actually, we’re all wrong. We were probably fighting with the Neanderthals and the dinosaurs for food 4,000 years ago. Ask Sarah. She knows.

  47. Oh, and if we’re gonna name-drop, I was cursed at by Jimmy Page at Stonehenge. I asked if I could take his picture, and he said “Fuck no!”

  49. @45
    Yes, I’m too easy.
    @46
    I thought space aliens came down tens of thousands of years ago and impregnated advanced genes into the Anasazi who looked around at the desert they were living in and said “F this”, packed their bags and moved to Mesopotamia where they founded Babalonia for Alexander to conquer and interbreed with creating the “mud people” your ancestors hung from Oak trees in the deep South.

    My family tree goes back more than 5,000 years (into Asia) and I’m a Christian who believes the earth is millions of years old and that the Bible talks about spaceships (the Merkabah) in Ezekiel so tell me more about what ALL Christians believe.

  50. Take it easy, man. I know I come on a little strong, but I’m just screwing around.

    That part about the hanging is a little warped. Who knows what all of our white ancestors did. I know mine were dirt poor farmers on one side, and Quaker types from the North on the other.

    You know what would be cool? To do that genetic testing thing where you send in a cheek swab to a company and they test it to find out about your lineage. I honestly don’t know much.

  51. ^ Aw nuts. There goes the throwdown. Quick, somebody mention Vloggerheads. That cranks the marquis up.

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