5 Things I’m Pretty Sure I Invented
By Luis Prada
You’ve probably experienced it before: you came up with an awesome idea, and then sat on it for awhile due to laziness, or you simply lacked the means to produce it. One day you discover that while you were lounging around dreaming of all the crazy sex you’ll be able to buy with the money you’ll make off of this idea, someone else had the same idea, manufactured it, and is now paying for all the sex you wanted to pay for. All creative types go through this– myself included– mostly in the form of unwritten Cracked articles that get stuck in the idea phase as they lay on various legal pads strewn about my desk; X most horrifying blah-ba-di-blah’s in the history of vaginal rejuvenation, The X most {adjective} { subject} ever.
We’ve all experienced this to a certain extent. We all have those little ideas that have the potential to be something wonderful that no one else has thought of before, yet pop-up in the heads of dozens of others around the world almost simultaneously, at which point it becomes a race to see who came bring it to life and present it to the world first. This process, this mysterious cosmic force that bestows humanity with great ideas, is undoubtedly, and without question, a complete asshole. It has screwed me plenty of times in the past and I’m sure it will continue to do so in the future.
Today I present you with 5 ideas that I’m pretty sure I came up with first and felt so very unique for creating, only to have them later presented to me by a another person that has no clue that I – yes, I – invented it. It’s a lot like that legendary historical moment when George Washing Carver’s neighbor said to him, “Man, you should really get down on this peanut butter shit. Only losers don’t eat peanut butter!” to which Mr. Carver famously replied, “No, I have not tried it. But your wife said that there is a wonderful interplay of flavors when peanut butter is combined with my balls. Yes, Jim, your wife licked peanut butter off of my balls.”
“It goes great with milk, too.”
The Retard Joke
When I was but a wee child I showed early signs of my current whip-smart observational musing. Every person that gets in to comedy can remember the point in their younger days in which they first became aware of their ability to be funny. For me, it was during my 4th and 5th grade school years. Just before the 4th grade ended my teacher presented each student with a certificate, a kind of diploma, honoring a child for whatever special quality they brought in to the classroom environment. Looking back, it seems to have been the early stages of the current pussification of children by having them step on each other’s shadows instead of playing tag; giving them all blue ribbons on field day, even if they lost; and completely eliminating dodge ball because getting hit by a red rubber ball ripple-effects a child in to an emotionally crippled adult. Well, when I was in elementary school we didn’t have dodge ball. We had Wall Ball. Up to five students would line up against a concrete wall while up to 30 students lined up in front of them with dodge balls in hand. When the whistle blew the ball holders bombarded the kids along the wall with surgical strikes of rubbery joy. It wasn’t so much dodge ball as it was a firing squad; a game for kids that accepted their lot in life and were ready to die. I played that game countless times and look at me, I’m alright. I’m down to three crying sessions a day.
Anyway, my teacher presented me with a certificate that read “makes people laugh” because she probably felt the more straight-forward “class clown” title would plant the seed of an existential crisis that would sprout in my mid-40s.
The more memorable moment of my comedic awakening was in the 5th grade with my best friend of the time, Michael. At some point Michael, who was never a very humorous kid himself, found his interpretation of funny in the making fun of the mentally challenged. He would parade around his house belting out a series of daft grunts as he mimed the classic “retard” hand motion of curling the fingers of his right hand in to a deformed claw and beating it against his chest.
“dhurrr ba-dhurrr ba-dhurrrrrrr!” is what we would say to fill a lull in conversation that could have very easily filled with actual humor and jokes and such.
At first I found it amusing. As soon as I realized that it was the only bit of material he had in his comedic repertoire I began to cringe at every “dhurr!” and chest beat. Having never been one for repetition, I decided to add my own bit of funny in to the mix. I carefully examined his shtick and formulated an original setup-punch line retard joke. I came up with it while on the shitter, which should instantly tip you off to the joke’s inherent comedic value. It went a little something like this:
“How do you kill a retard?”
“How?”
“Give him a knife.”
I would then beat the clawed-hand against my chest, just over the heart, while stupidly shouting “DHURRR AH-DHURRRRR!” Every time I preformed this joke I would get uproarious laughter from my fellow 5th graders. It was a hit. It was the first truly original bit of funny I had come up with on my own; some could argue that it was also my last, but that’s neither here nor there.
Years later I found myself within a conversation with a high school friend named Rey. I felt it was only fair to let him in on the little joke that I had written years earlier.
“How do you kill a retard?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Give’em a knife, right?”
“Excuse me? You’ve heard that one? Have I told it to you before?”
“Nah, I’ve just heard it somewhere.”
Goddamnit. How did my joke get out without my knowing? Did it really spread so virally that others could claim, “Yeah, I’ve heard it before”? And how about a little credit, huh? Where’s the tag, “I heard it was forged by a stoic comedic figure that goes by the name Luis Prada”? I deserve that much. But that’s the problem with non-sardonic jokes; no one takes the time to source them. As soon as the joke is out there it’s gone and its creator is regulated to a life of bitter hatred of all of those that know it.
Yelling, “I came up with that joke! I swear to fucking God I did!” at a party after the joke has been told by someone else pretty much guarantees that you won’t be getting laid that night, or any number of subsequent nights.
Dipping Wendy’s fries in to a Wendy’s frosty
As I was still riding high on the fumes left behind by the cinematic power of Emilio Estevez in his gritty portrayal of Coach Gordon Bombay in “D2: The Mighty Ducks,” my mother decided the best way to cap off the day would be to grab a couple of greasy burgers from the nearest fast food joint. Seeing as it was within walking distance of the theater, we decide to head over to a Wendy’s that would end up being the very same Wendy’s that I, years later, would not only ask out my first serious girlfriend in, but would also be the one and only place in which I would see a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend do a bump of coke and proclaim, “Chicken breast get my dicks hard…” Sadly, it is only now as I type this that I realize the previous quote would have been much funnier if this person would have made the slight adjustment of, “Chicken breast, get my dicks hard!!” Much more commanding that way.
As we ate in this Wendy’s that I would soon have so much history in I became reminded of something that never hits me until about minuet-ten of a trip to Wendy’s: there is just as much awesome in getting flicked square on a testicle as there is flavor in Wendy’s fries. If ever there were a French fired product that was so boring it could be used as a sedative to calm down a man on a 12-hour speed binge, Wendy’s fries are it.
I reluctantly chewed my fries under the watchful eye of my mom who would always shoot some guilt my way in the form of an evil eye when I left uneaten food on my plate. After a while I had reached the point where chewing the same fry for the 6th minuet was about to kick my gag reflex in to gear. In an attempt to distract myself from the starchy torment in my mouth I forced my eyes to wander around and find something – anything – of interest. I looked to my frosty as its thick, creamy top smushed against the lid, squeezing out a smidgeon of chocolaty goodness from the four-triangle’d straw hole. My eyes slowly opened wide; I had an idea. It was a crazy one, but hell, life it worth livin’ if you ain’t doin’ no crazy shit.
“Mom? What do you think it would taste like if I dipped my fry in to the frosty?”
“Dear lord, it never stops talking to me…” she replied, grasping at the bridge of her nose.
I whipped off the lid with quickness. I reached in to my fry carton and grabbed one by its hilt (yes, fries have hilts). I slung my fry in to the creamy murkiness of the frosty’s top layer. I crammed the drenched fry in to my mouth like a man ready to be judged by whatever almighty being that resides on the other side.
I chewed…
A carton of fries later, and half a frosty down, I knew that I had finally given my mother a reason to be proud. In a moment of desperation I had created one of the most delicious customer-made food combinations in the history of things that are of no importance in the grand scheme of life.
In that moment I knew that I would go on to do great things…things that I have not yet gotten around to doing.
I felt I had accomplished something. But, apparently, so too felt the lonely guy in the corner munching away on his burger as he casted a sinister eye upon my creation. I assume he was so filled with jealous rage over the fact that he didn’t have a mommy to buy him delicious burgers or fund his culinary innovation, that he felt it his duty to steal the idea of an 8 year old just to finally get some validation in his life.
I hope he died of brain freeze.
Computers that are like paper
This will be a quick entry because I really can’t come up with any jokes for it without resorting to bottom of the barreltype of stuff. “Regular paper is old, stupid and can suck dick till it gets cum’d all over!! Yeah!!” See? That’s not humorous commentary worthy of such an upstanding site as this. Therefore, this entry will be pretty straight forward.
What is digital paper? Well, digital paper is a common item found in many sci-fi novels, films and TV shows. The idea is simple, but the creation of it would probably be a bit tough. (This coming from a man whose idea of technical know-how goes no further than smacking my TV and its connecting cables whenever the picture gets snowy.) It’s basically a computer that has been engineered to be as flexible and light weight as a sheet of paper. It can bend, it can crumple, and it can be folded in to a paper airplane that veers off course and crashes two feet away from you just after launching because those fucking cool kids in school would never tell you how they made theirs soar with the eagles because they feared releasing one of the many secrets of being a cool kid. Fucking cool kids.
If you are a sci-fi nerd like me, than you probably watched the first episode of the Battlestar Galactica spinoff, Caprica, on DVD recently. Digital paper is all over Caprica, and it looks sweet as all hell. Just imagine a world where you can pull out a sheet of paper during as test that your teacher thinks is for figuring out a tough math problem, when in reality you’re cursing youporn.com because you gave up on that class months ago.
I imagined that world way-back-when. Newspapers were always a prominent fixture in the Prada family household. Every Saturday, when the newspapers would all have to be tossed in the apartment’s recycling bin, it was my job to do it. I hated that job as a child. It was my personal 9/11. Can you imagine having a 9/11 every Saturday? It would be like, all shitty and stuff.
So, with my childhood hatred of taking a stack of newspapers down three flights of stairs to the trash, I came up with a brilliant idea that would not only save me the trouble, but would also, I don’t know, revolutionize the world as we know it?!1? I thought it would be much easier to just have some kind newspaper that could update itself. You just bought one physical paper and every new edition would get piped to it every morning.
It wasn’t till a short time ago that I found out that digital paper is an idea that has been around since the 70s, at the very least. Now, I’m not claiming that anyone stole my idea for digital paper, but I am. They stole it from me. Yes, the clandestine group known only as “They” stole the idea from me with the aid of a time machine, which I also invented.
“They” also stole my ideas for the “mince” button on blenders, plastic tips on shoelaces, pizza with cheese in the crust, and birds (all of them).
The Macarena
Okay, look, I didn’t write The Macarena. But, I am one of the people responsible for its popularity. Again, way back in elementary school, I was selected to perform the Macarena at a school assembly because my name sounded Spanish-y on paper. Little did the teachers running the operation know that I’m about as Spanish-y as things that aren’t as Spanish-y as you’d think they are upon first glance. I guess they just assumed that my inherent Spanishness would come pouring out of me once I heard infectious Latin rhythms. It doesn’t work that way.
For weeks, about 20 other Spanish-y students and I rehearsed the Macarena to an empty cafeteria. It is safe to say that I performed the Macarena enough times to officially qualify as something I regret in life.
After weeks of intense rehearsal, it came time for our performance. It was the stuff of legend. As we performed it, a single student off to the side of the cafeteria began to dance along with us. Then, another. And another. Another, another, another. Once Mr. Benton, the cool 5th grade teacher, began to dance, everyone in the cafeteria joined in. It was glorious. Directly in front of me was a sea of idiots dancing the Macarena in unison. It was, and still is, one of the most incredible/off-putting sights I’ve ever seen live. Seeing as I was front and center on the stage, I felt as though I had somehow commanded the student body in to Macarenaing via hypnotic suggestion. I truly felt powerful. That is, until one of my jealous classmates told me — to my face — that I didn’t deserve to be up there dancing because I was doing it all wrong. A wheelchair bound paraplegic can’t even fuck up the Macarena. There is as much rhythm and soul involved with performing the Macarena as there is in ripping a fart as you stretch after a restful nap. I just assumed this kid had been held back a few years and I moved on.
But, as I have mentioned in a previous post, I have no real concept of time. I’m not sure if the Macarena was already in regular loop on MTV, top 40 radio and geriatric centers around the country during this time, but I like to think that the popularity of this dance craze began with me at the frontlines of a school assembly and slowly trickled outward on to your TV screens soon thereafter.
That being said, I will now apologize and take the blame for any instance in which you found yourself performing the Macarena while wearing the underwear of the opposite sex in a back alley as a fat, cigar-chomping hobo-clown laughed and tossed uncooked pork chops toward your genitals as a his leashed monkey slashed at your ankles with a rolled-up TV Guide spackled with the doo-doo tracks of an unaccounted-for 4th party.
I’m sorry.
A line from “30 Rock”
The morning my “The Dreaded ‘N-word’” article went up I found myself sitting at a table on my college campus. I had completely forgotten that my first class had been canceled, so I ended up just sitting around for an hour. I decided to make good use of my time by trying to scribble down the first draft of an article I was planning on posting here at Scenic anemia. The article was going to be about my home state of Florida, and I was going to attempt to explain why it’s filled with lunatics, scumbags, and assholes. The piece never really went further than a paragraph and a half because I had pretty much summed up everything I wanted to say in that much space. I may one revisit that idea on the inevitable day that Florida ends up on the news in the form of another reason we should go all Lex Luthor on the Florida/Georgia border and separate this place from the rest of the country. But until then it will just be a scrap of paper with illegible hand writing that I threw away after I typed it up for safe keeping.
A little under a month passes, and I find myself watching an episode of 30 Rock on Hulu that I had missed the night before. In it, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) discovers that his mother is dating a married man from Florida. This causes jack to rip in to the state on a couple of occasions in a rather humorous manner. In one such instance, Jack tells Liz Lemon (played by Tiny Fey, the women I will claim to have had sexual relations with when I become old and senile) a little fact about Florida: “It’s America’s Australia.” This occurs at the 7:23 mark of the episode entitled “The Natural Order” which aired on 4/30/2009, a full 29 days after I wrote that exact line out of boredom on my college campus.
Did they steal it from me? No, of course not. I could have possibly made that argument had I ever posted the article, but I didn’t. The weird part is I wasn’t even angry when I heard the line. I paused the video and celebrated for a few minutes as, to me, it just goes to show that maybe — just maybe — I can one day write alongside the great Tiny Fey in to the wee hours of the morning. Then, when she removes her glasses and stretches her neck, I’ll be all like, “Damn, baby. You gots all these knots in your shoulders. Let me rub one out for’ya.”
And then I give her a very pleasant and platonic massage. What did you think I was going to do? I may one day find myself being interviewed by her for a writing job.
“So, Luis. I was looking over your portfolio and…well…why is my name in the same sentence as the words ‘and then I plow her’?”
If you have ever had a great idea that you feel was totally stolen from you, let us know about in the comments. I’d love to know that I’m not the only one the world is fucking over on a daily basis.
