Wednesday, December 31, 2014

This Play-Doh Applicator Needs More Flair




Play-Doh is deleting comments from their Facebook page after parents expressed outrage over a new penis-shaped toy.



11/20/14

Dear Bob,

Saw your sketch for the applicator tube the other day. Looks stark...needs more flair. Don't think kids will be able to hold it well, either. Can you make a ridge that circles up the tube for easy grippin'?

Thx!

Sam

11/20/14

Hey Sam,

It does look a bit plain, huh? I'll make that ridge for ya!

Best,

Bob


11/22/14

Bobby-boy,

We just got a memo from R+D re: beads which kids looooove these days. Can you make a ridge of beads that circles the tip of the applicator? Thanks bud.

Best,

s


11/22/14

Hi Sam,

I appreciate all the research you're putting into this and I'd love to design that ring of beads for you. This dough applicator is going to look really artful and interesting!

I'm just a teensy bit worried that, with the beads and the ridge, this applicator pen might start to look like an adult-oriented pleasure object? Just my POV, could be totally off. Don't mean to imply that's what you're goin' for. But...do you know what I mean?

Best,

Bob

11/25/14

Nope, can't say I do, Bob!

11/25/13

Okee-dokie, just my imagination then. Get your brain out of the gutter, Bob! Hahaha.

I'll get right on those beads.

11/26/14

Hi Bob,

I totally forgot about it, but we need finger holders at the base of the tube. Alright?

11/27/14

Ha, you must mean the base of the shaft? 'Cause this is what it looks like now:

11/27/14

Sorry, that joke was in poor taste. Sometimes I joke when I'm uncomfortable. It's a compulsion, really. My wife always complained about it (things were really bad when her Mother died).

Obviously, we are all just trying to create an object that allows children to use their imagination  + satiate their hunger with a little non-toxic dough now and then.

I didn't mean to imply whatever you think I meant to imply.

All the best,

Bob

11/28/13

YOU'RE FIRED BOB.

Just kidding: we love the new design! It looks like Rapunzel wrapped her hair around a beautiful tower.

Thx so much,

Sam

12/05/13

Sam,

I've been having dreams where plastic penises (penii?) fly towards me. Today one pierced my heart and I died on a trash can. When I woke up, my mouth tasted salty, like Play Doh, and I felt like vomiting.

12/28/14

WTF, SAM? I'm being crucified by management! You told them I wanted to put the beads on the fucking penis? You're the pedo creep who wanted to make a fucking sex toy for toddlers! I will fucking recruit Fucking Kim Jong Un to hack this mainframe and find the emails. YOU WILL WAKE UP IN A PENIS-SHAPED CASKET, MOTHERFUCKER.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Surviving Winter in Los Angeles



You're sitting on a repurposed car seat, typing on an IKEA desk. The bed next to you has legs that sit in circular plastic plates to keep out the bed bugs. Your legs are twitching. Earlier today, in a state of manic depression, you pretended you were giving a tour of your apartment on MTV Cribs. "Here's the couch we got," you say to an invisible audience of millions. "We found it on the street."

Sometimes, you compare your living situation to a prison because it makes you feel better. "At least we have a fridge," you think to yourself. You spritz some cologne in the stale air around your sad desk, just to try to remember what it was like being an upper-middle-class kid in the 90's. Then you sneeze because you're allergic.

A cold draft slips in through the windows -- that is the only punishment winter knows how to inflict on Los Angeles. It's more annoying than anything else, like a bee that wants to pollinate with your ear.  

Your partner is in the other room, immersed in a goddamn script. The sight of him so focused and full of passion enrages you. How is he able to write when all you want to do is reorganize the bookcase again, buy a wicker basket to hide the computer cables, paint the bedroom burgundy, then burn the whole place down and move to Venice? 

You take the pool float that's been taunting you from the corner of the room and stick it in the shower.   

You close your Netflix window, bidding adieu to the fantasy lives that provide momentary pleasure. You close your Twitter account, furious at the New York literati that never pay any attention to your quips. You close Facebook because you're neither pregnant nor outraged about something. You throw the New Yorker across the room because it's just too fucking good.

You sit at the computer and think, there's got to be something you can do with all of this.  You're not going to become a YouTube troll. You're going to use all this alienation and loneliness. You're going to be a Jenny Lewis song and rise up with fists. You're going to be a better listener, a better partner and you're going to treat the cashier at the supermarket with the kind of patience Sarah Koenig treats the investigation of a botched murder trial.     

You're going to survive winter in Los Angeles.