Somehow (and I’m not sure where now), I ran across a pointer to a YouTube video entitled “Jesus shaves” by David Sedaris. I wasn’t in a position to watch it at the time, so there it sat as a lonely, forgotten Firefox tab while life pulled me in other directions for several weeks.
Today, however, I returned to this tab as part of my post-Naples electronic housekeeping. This was mostly dominated by really exciting activities, such as the disposal of hundreds of e-mails promoting conferences and workshops in areas I know almost nothing about; telling me of events back at UMM that I can happily ignore; advertising baby cribs, pick-ups, and houses for sale; and promising to make me an irresistible sexual dynamo that can finally, truly satisfy the woman in my life. (I forwarded the latter to WeatherGirl for review.)
After all that fun, I finally got to the Sedaris tab, and I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. Then, because my to-do list hasn’t quite gone into triple digits, I wandered around YouTube listening to other “videos” of him reading is stories. (Few of these are actually videos in the sense of “moving pictures”; they’re mostly just audio recordings with a still plopped on top so YouTube will swallow it.) The better part of an hour was spent giggling my way through random stories, and now my stomache muscles are slightly sore, so I thought I’d type for a bit as a form of rest.
There appears to be quite a lot of Sedaris material on YouTube, and everything I listened to was enormously fun. I love his deadpan voice, and suspect the experience of listening to him is actually funnier than reading him on the printed page. I would love to have him on my iPod when going to work, but suspect it would be hard to avoid embarrassing myself by laughing out loud in response to things that the people around me can’t hear.
Some of the bits that I enjoyed in my little distract-o-fest included
- Jesus shaves
- The squirrel and the chipmunk
- Bend over and say “Ah”
- Sedaris on Letterman reading his essay on the Stadium Pal
All definitely recommended.
But don’t blame me if that important project falls behind…
Having seen Sedaris live in Portland a few months ago, I heartily concur. Ive read many of his books, listened to his essays on public radio, but an hour and a half non-stop in person was the greatest treat.