The Steelers Suck (And You Can, Too!)

Through some unholy necromancy, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the Superbowl this year. Since there’s so much hype around this team, I figured a lot of people would want to emulate the qualities of the AFC divisional champs who hail from the Dirty Burgh, so I’ve put together this easy step-by-step guide on how to be just like the Pittsburgh Steelers. And since it’s a tax write-off, I’m not even going to charge you for this handy-dandy guide! Go me!

Dustin Heveron’s Official Guide to Becoming Just Like the Pittsburgh Steelers:

Step 1 — Suck.

Step 2 — Suck at everything, on and off the field. Here are some examples of ways to suck: suck at sports, money-management, relationships, public speaking, and playing fair. Don’t donate to charity, steal from the elderly, shoot people and animals indiscriminately, be friends with Dallas Cowboys’ LB Adam “Pacman” Jones, invest in the stock market, eat at McDonald’s, be friends with NY Giants WR Plaxico “Frogger” Burress, vote republican, urinate in public, vote democratic, be friends with Bengals WR Chris “Mario Bros.” Henry, spit in the subway, chew sunscreen and wear tobacco, be friends with Cleveland Browns TE Kellen “Pong” Winslow, write checks to pay for everything, and brag about how much Axe® Brand bodyspray you can chug.

Step 3 — Dress like you’re colorblind. Since when do neon yellow and pitch black make a good color combination? Well if it works for bumble bees and yield signs, why not for a group of fully grown men and their fans?

Step 4 — Play dirty. Pretend you’re a vodka martini with three olives, extra dirty. How can a team with a mediocre quarterback and a banged-up offensive unit win a playoff game against the dirtiest bunch of cheaters in the AFC (The Baltimore Ravens)? By playing even dirtier. Purple nurples, sneaky Houdinis, horsecollars, atomic wedgies, waterboarding and some good ol’ fashioned teabagging…just do whatever underhanded BS you think you can get away with on the field — you’re the Steelers, people expect it!

Step 5 — Pretend Bill Cowher was good. At anything. The final step in becoming just like the Steelers is to sit down, look at yourself in the mirror, and try and convince yourself that Bill Cowher was good at/for anything. For advanced bandwagoners, go the extra mile and try and convince yourself that on top of that, Bill Cowher is in any way a decent human being, that you are proud to be associated with him and that you think he was a wise head coach and is a good NFL commentator. If you can brainwash yourself completely enough that you can honestly say with a straight face that Bill Cowher is anything but the world’s biggest a**hole, then your journey to become just like the Pittsburgh Steelers will be complete.

Congratulations! You are now just like the Pittsburgh Steelers! Sit back and enjoy your completed transformation by grabbing one of your subordinates by the facemask and screaming at them for something that was primarily your fault for 12-15 minutes. If you can get some of your spittle to fly into their eyes while you’re yelling, great, but don’t worry if you can’t, this course is just for beginners and we’ll cover the more advanced techniques to becoming a Pittsburgh Steeler at a later date. In the meantime, try to get used to drinking Yueng-Ling (Pittsburgh’s favorite urine-flavored beverage) and defending Three Rivers Stadium to your friends from out of town. Phrases like, “the smell’s not that bad once you get used to it” are pretty effective.

In closing, I will be rooting for Kurt Warner (The Six Million Dollar Man…he’s more machine than man at this point) and The Arizona (Phoenix) Cardinals this weekend. And to answer your question: no, I’m not still bitter about the Steelers taking a cheap shot at Carson Palmer in the ’06 playoffs that resulted in the destruction of Palmer’s ACL and the Bengals franchise along with it. Why would you think that?

Seacrest out!
Dustin

P.S. Angry propositions (aka mad props) to my chum Colin for pointing out that I probably need an alternate sign-off to replace my usual “Cheers” while I’m detoxing. We'll see how long I can use this one before I get sued for copyright infringement.


Bill Cowher: He's got a face only a mother could love...if that mother was blind, deaf, dumb and loved ugly/angry things.

Dustin Heveron: Year Two: The Journey Towards Lame: Special Colon Edition: With Bonus Colons

If you and I have taken a picture together in the last four to six weeks, you should be furious with me for not making them available online yet. I’d like to tell you that I was just waiting for all the New Year and Inauguration hype to die down so that people would be able to properly enjoy me and my friends in all of our photogenic-ness…but anyone who knows me knows that I’m just being lazy. Anyone who doesn’t know me, though, is probably still under the impression that I’m a decent and likeable guy. Suckers.

For those of you keeping score at home, I have officially lived in LA for a little over a year now. When I first moved out here, my primary goals were to obtain a decent job; live in a nice part of town close to the beach; reunite with old friends and make new ones; and cure cancer. With some minimal resistance along the way, I have done all of that pretty successfully (still working on that last one). The key to constant self-perfection is remembering to set new goals as you achieve the old ones. So that said, my short-term goal for the new year is to become lame. This is kind of an odd goal for me since I’m already so predisposed to lameness (I’m skinny, dorky, uncoordinated, etc.) and I’ve spent roughly 24.75 years of my 25-year life pretending to be cool and not lame. However, it’s time to cowboy up and embrace my inner lameness in order to achieve my ultimate goal of advancing in the entertainment industry.

A quick aside: Mark Cuban is a major major douche. If you don’t know who Mark Cuban is, he’s the billionaire part-owner and resident douche of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. And aside from being living proof that money can’t buy happiness (or tact, or love, or brains, or fashion sense, or likability, or a decent haircut, or an NBA championship), he is perhaps the second biggest douche associated with professional sports (behind only OJ Simpson). Also, he’s a douche. And now you know.

Now back to the most important topic: me. What exactly do I mean when I say that I will be striving to become lame? And how will being lame help me with my goals? Well let me break it down for you by telling you some of the things I’ll be doing in order to achieve my version of lameness:

-Go Out Less
I love LA, and there are a million things to do in this city at any given time (except when it rains), however, by going out less and staying in more often I can maximize the amount of time I have for important things like sleep and networking; while minimizing the amount of money I spend on unnecessary things such as extra gas, alcohol, cover charges, etc. Which leads me to my next step…

-Drink Less/Detox
Drinking’s awesome, you guys (if you’re over 21, of course). And even though I drink responsibly and within my limits, drinking even less (or not at all for a limited time) will help me save money that I can spend on headshots, union dues, and the like. Also, I’m trying to get into some kind of decent shape, and I’ve yet to see a fitness program that includes doing shots of tequila before working out. So unless it’s some kind of incredibly worthy occasion, I won’t be consuming anything really bad for me (as I deem it: coffee, alcohol, fast food, and anything else detrimental) until I break my detox in March to go back to Vegas with some friends for Spring Break (and yes, apparently you can still take a spring break when you’ve been graduated for almost three years).

-Read More
It’s a fact: reading sharpens the mind, widens the vocabulary, and repels cool LA girls. With a sharper mind, wider vocab, and fewer girls to distract me, who knows what I could accomplish?

-Shop Less
As much as I hate to admit it…I probably have enough stuff for the moment. I recently stocked up on some things I needed to replace, but really I can do without a PS3 and new shoes and all the other stuff that usually catches my eye.

-Write More
There’s a lot of things I like to write (scripts, comedy bits, blog posts, love letters to Rachel Bilson), and hopefully my newly cultivated free time will allow me to focus on doing more of that writing. That’s a bonus to you, too, since you clearly love my writing enough to make it this far down into a relatively boring post. Don’t worry, I love you, too.

-Work More
Whether it’s working extra shifts at work, or working as an extra on film sets, or whatever other odd jobs God drops in my lap, the fact of the matter is that money is necessary evil (SAG membership doesn’t come cheap) and accumulating it while I have the time to is probably a good idea.

-Athlete More
Football with coworkers, basketball with roommates, snowboarding with chums from all over…the Greeks knew eons ago that athletic activity was a great release and one of the essential components to becoming a dialectic thinker. I’ve never let lack of athletic ability keep from participating before, and it certainly won’t stop me now. My main goals are to get decent at the major board sports this year (surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding).


…There are other things I’m forgetting on that list, no doubt, but you get the idea. Basically, for the first time in my life that I can remember, the social aspect of my life is taking a backseat to the responsible aspect. How long for? I’m not sure yet. Right now I’m thinking about six months of being lame ought to be enough to build a good foundation for the future, but really it’s going to go on for as long as I think I need the extra focus on my first love: performance. Hopefully around six months from now I’ll be able to start swapping out some lame things for slightly cooler things like more legit auditions, classes and networking, and maybe even shooting some of my own stuff just for the hell of it. All I really know for sure is that for the moment, this feels like the right thing to do. Don’t worry, I’ll still go out and see movies with people, I’ll still plan cross-country trips to visit family and friends (I hear NYC in the spring is awesome), and I’ll still make completely inappropriate comments at completely inappropriate times. And regardless of how other things shake down, I’ll still keep you posted with real stories from my life and fictional stories from the wine cellar of my imagination here in Blogland.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get a full night’s sleep so I can write you something entertaining after I work all weekend.

Cheers,
Dustin

It Costs $50 to Spit in New York City

…which leads me to my thesis statement of this post: it costs more to spit legally in New York City than it does to park illegally in Los Angeles. Must be the recession.

So I’m watching The Forbidden Kingdom on dvd (I lost interest once one of the bad guys started fighting with her hair) and I decided to reflect on how amazing the past year has been for me. Because that’s what I do when I’m bored: I think about how awesome I am. For those of you unfamiliar with my life story (detached enough to not know my history, yet interested enough to read this blog?), a quick year-by-year recap would look like this (all dates are approximate):
+1983 — Born in California (Palm Springs).
+1984 — Learned to pee.
+1985-1987 — Napped.
+1988 — Went to Disneyland for the first time.
+1989 — Cast in first acting role; portrayed Mr. D, a character on the educational children’s show, The Letter People.
+1990 — Got yelled at by my teacher (Mrs. Klebe) for referencing The Letter People on the first day of 1st grade. It dawns on me that she was probably younger then, than I am now. Which just makes her more of a jerk.
+1991 — Started rooting for the Cincinnati Bengals…they wouldn’t post a winning season for the next 15 years.
+1992-1995 — Watched/Quoted The Little Mermaid.
+1996 — Kicked out of then-unknown boy band N*Sync for being “too good looking.”
+1997 — Learned to pee in a bathroom.
+1998 — Didn’t happen. I’m convinced that 1998 was just a figment of my imagination.
+1999 — Saw The Matrix.
+2000 — Fixed the international “Y2K bug” using only a garden hose, some Silly Putty, and the color cerulean.
+2001 — Fixed the less-popular “Y2K1 bug,” which turned out not be a bug at all, just a crappy VCR.
+2002 — Graduated…kind of (can’t seem to find that diploma anywhere).
+2003-2005 — Mostly blacked out.
+2006 — Graduated…kind of (I don’t know if it counts as graduating if no one outside of Westerville, OH has ever heard of your college).
+2007 — Did some “real world.” Didn’t like it.
+2008 — Fined for peeing.
+2009 — Fined for spitting.

And there you have it. My quarter-century of existence reduced to a few fragmented sentences and a couple heavily-misused mathematical symbols. That’s what a $30K-per-year private college education gets you, apparently. However, all you Dustin Fans out there needn’t worry, the story doesn’t end here, it only gets more exciting! Don’t believe me? It’s probably because I’m lying! No but really, here’s a look at some of the amazing and exciting things I have planned for the next several years of my life:

+2010 — Figure out some sort of shortened slang for the new year since we can’t say “Oh-Nine” to mean ’09 anymore. Nobody wants to go around saying “Twenty-Ten” every time they need to reference the current year.
+2011 — Assassinate Mrs. Klebe.
+2012 — Singlehandedly save the entire world from complete and total annihilation and anarchy. Just to spite the Mayans and their crappy calendaring skills.
+2013 — Hold hands with a girl.
+2014 — Get thrown in jail all year for something bodily-fluid related.
+2015 — Star as one of the main characters in either/both Shrek the Seventh or Saw XII (that’s Saw 12 for anyone who doesn’t do Roman Numerals).
+2016-2018 — Power nap.
+2019 — Use my accumulated power, connections, fame, and wealth to really make my kids feel inferior to me.
+2020 — Make nonstop Hugh Downs/Barbara Walters jokes/puns.

So as you can see, things are really looking up for me over the next decade — and if you’re lucky enough, maybe you’ll all be around to share in my amazing life (except Mrs. Klebe, who will have met her early demise in an unfortunate “accident” of some sort. Nobody disses Mr. D).

Until next time the voices in my head command me to write, I bid you adieu.

Cheers,
Dustin



That'll be $50, please. No, we don't take Metrocards.

Who Cares About '08: Oct, Nov, Dec

In the thrilling conclusion of my year in review, we see what fascinating things took place in the final three months of 1908. Thrilling.

+1908 Year in Review, Part 4 of 4+
October:
5 – Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman Empire says to a trusted advisor, “Oh, they’ll be back. Just you wait and see. A few days on their own and they’ll be begging me to take them back.”
14 – The Chicago Cubs win The World Series. After the win, Cubs’ manager and first-base coach Frank Chance is quoted at a press conference saying, “I think this is the start of many, many World Series’ wins for the Cubs — The Frank Chance Era of Greatness, if you will — and 100 years from now I think people are going to look back and say, ‘Wow, that Frank Chance really started something legendary. I’d love to run into him on the street and tell him exactly what I think of the path he started this Cubs’ franchise down.’ So to all Cubs fans past and present, let me just say ‘You’re welcome’ in advance and that we’re all gonna get exactly what we deserve. That’s the Frank Chance guarantee.”


Frank Chance says, "Only YOU can prevent National Championships for the Chicago Cubs." A slogan taken far too literally amongst Cubs' fans.


November:
3 – U.S. presidential election: Republican William Howard Taft defeats Democrat William Jennings Bryan, becoming the first and last set of presidential debates to promise “Willy on Willy action” to horrified-but-curious potential voters.
13 – Andrew Fisher becomes the fifth Prime Minister of Australia, having won the title in traditional Australian fashion: getting lowest in the Official Prime Minister Limbo Challenge.


This is the guy who won second place...congrats on being Vice Prime Minister of Australia!


December:
2 – Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at age 2 — immediately has an extramarital affair with an intern, starts supplying weapons to Darfur, and begins to irreversibly pollute the atmosphere around Beijing. Thus the phrase “The Terrible Twos” is coined.
17 – The Converse Rubber Shoe Company is formed in Malden, Massachusetts. The company’s slogan “Progress? What progress? Our shoes are just fine the way they are and we’ll NEVER change them. So there,” turns out to be shockingly accurate.
25 – In a press conference, Jesus Christ is quoted as saying, “Eh, this Santa Claus guy is pretty new to the scene, but I’m not really worried about him. A little competition is healthy, but people would have to be downright idiotic to believe in him over me. What, are people going to replace the ‘Christ’ in Christmas with an ‘X’ or something? Don’t be ridiculous, give people a little credit for being smart enough to know the difference between a ludicrous child’s story and the savior of all mankind.”
31 – A pair of New Year’s Eve partygoers comment to each other, “Oh thank God this will be the last year for those ridiculously tacky 1909 glasses where the 9’s are the eyes. Now we’ll never have to see those eyesores again.”
“Well, there’s still the 2000’s, they could use the 0’s” replied the friend.
“True, but by then I’m sure all the imbeciles who fancy those things will have long since been removed from the gene pool due to their stupidity.”
“Ah yes, I’m sure you’re right. Now let’s party like it’s 1909!”


Sir Elton John says, "I don't see anything tacky about those New Year's Eve glasses at all!!" So there you go.


That's it for now, let's march bravely forward into the new year...and be sure to tune in next year for a review of 1909! It's promises to be...outdated.

God bless,
Dustin

Who Cares About '08: July, Aug, Sept

Part 3 of 4 in my look back at the year that was 1908. The year 2008? That's so yesterday. 1908 is the new black.

1908 Year in Review:
July:
1 – “Damn, I’m late for work” is yelled approximately 75,374,081 times at various housewives around the nation, as if it was their fault. In an unrelated story, 75,374,081 housewives mysteriously developed a headache late that night, right about the time their spouses attempted to initiate coitus.
3 –Major Ahmed Niyazi, with 200 followers, begins an open revolution by defecting from the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia, decamping into the hill country. The “Niyazi’s” as they were known, would spend the rest of their campaign futilely explaining to people across the globe how they were “different and totally unaffiliated with those douchebags from Germany.”
4 – Fireworks Store senses danger, hops into a nearby telephone booth, removes glasses, and emerges as Fireworks Superstore.
6 – Robert Peary sets sail for the North Pole, only to find “Freddie wuz here” written all over it in sharpie.


The North Pole: Cool weather, cheap haircuts.



August:
24 – After an intense power struggle, Sultan Abd al-Aziz IV of Morocco is deposed, and is succeeded by his brother Abd al-Hafiz. Onlookers knew the battle was over once the elder brother finally got his sibling in a headlock and administered the “Royal Noogie of Deposition.”


This is actually a preferable alternative to the "Political Revolution Wedgie" often used in South America.


September:
8 – The Danish minister of Justice, Peter Adler Alberti, is revealed to be an embezzler — but only after Shaggy and Fred made their incorrect guesses as to who The Embezzler was beforehand.
17 – In Ft. Myer, Virginia, Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. Thomas would exact his revenge on the pilot, Orville Wright, by forever cursing all who flew to sit through the monotonously boring “stewardesses’ safety brochure speech” before they were allowed to take off.
27 – Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile. Moments later, Ford invents the first pair of fuzzy dice.


Henry & Mrs. Ford at the first and last themed Christmas party they'd be invited to.


Not bored yet? Then come back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to the best of 1908! It'll be more fun than the bubonic plague!

Much love,
Dustin

Who Cares About '08: April, May, June

!Hõla niños! Back with another installment of the año in review...but decided that since 2008 was lame, I'm gonna turn my insightful eye back on the year 1908, recapping all the important things that happened in that epic year. Enjoy.

+The 1908 Year in Review+
April:
20 – Sunshine Train Disaster: Two trains collide in Melbourne, Australia, killing 44 and injuring 400. A massive candlelight vigil is held to remember the victims, but quickly evolves into Australia’s second largest barbeque.
21 – Frederick Cook claims to have reached the North Pole on this date. He then claims to have invented the internet; a tactic that would later be copied by many other lame middle-aged men looking to give their life some meaning.
24 – The seventh deadliest tornado in US history strikes the towns of Pine, Louisiana and Purvis, Mississippi, killing 143 people and injuring 770. But the real controversy would be how the tornado was ranked sixth in the Coaches’ and AP polls, leading the nation to once again question the accuracy of the current ranking systems and instead demand an eight-tornado playoff at the end of the season.


The seventh-ranked tornado, just prior to claiming it should be ranked sixth, and that it wanted to take on USC in the Rose Bowl.



May:
10 – Mother’s Day is observed for the first time at Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. Prior to that, the congregation’s mothers were only acknowledged during the annual “Maybe My Mom’s a Witch” Potluck/Barbeque.
28 – Ian Fleming, author of the famed James Bond series is born in England. His British nanny is instructed that the child is to be shaken, not stirred.


Even at a young age, Fleming wastes no time in developing his famous fictitious spy character. This is right before he shot the recess monitor with his 9mm pistol.


June:
Everybody just took a big o’l nap, on account of how “powerful warm” it was. Several women in and around the Alabama/Georgia/Louisiana areas publicly declared to be suffering from “the vapors.” Their collective self-diagnosis was later proven by a team of neurosurgeons to just to be a “lame attempt at flirting with that Johnson boy” who lives “down the road a spell.”


This man won both best and worst dressed of 1908. He also might be a young Colonel Sanders.



Ok, I'm off to dreamland, another three months in review to come tomorrow. Be there! ...Or don't be there. Those are pretty much your two main options.

Ciao,
Dustin

Who Cares About '08 : Jan, Feb, & Mar

Salutations, world!

As you may have surmised, I have been busy something fierce the past few weeks, but it’s ok because I’m here now with the obligatory “Year in Review” article that all bloggers/families/missionaries/inmates are required to write. SO you’re wondering, what all happened in ’08 that was worth remembering? Fret no longer, true believers, I’m here to tell you about each and every discovery/accomplishment of note that took place in ’08. Let the reviewing begin!

…Oh, there’s just one minor thing to note…since 2008 has already been year-in-reviewed up the wazoo, I thought I’d put a little tweak on things and do my year-in-review on the year 1908. I’m sure it’s just as relevant.

January 1908:
1 – A ball signifying New Year’s Day drops in NYC’s Times Square for the first time. Killing 19 people and injuring several others. In future years, a light-up sign of the current year would be put at the base of the ball to avoid a repeat massacre.
12 – The first long distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower. The radio message encourages the recipients to “stick around” for Bob & Tom in the Morning Zoo,” and assured them that France would be “right back with the best hits from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today.” The transmission is followed by 94 minutes of nonstop mortgage refinancing commercials.
13 – A fire at Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, kills 170 people. The tragedy is a catalyst for stricter fire safety laws nationwide; specifically the now-famous “Don’t Start Fires in Opera Houses” Law of Pennsylvania.
21 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public. However the law also cites an exception for women who are only “smokin’ hot.”



I'm sorry miss, but you're under arrest, you're gonna have to come with me. ...What's that? What do you mean you have your own handcuffs and you don't need mine? ...I didn't realize pink and fuzzy was police issue 'round these parts.


February:
1 – King Carlos I and Infate Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon, deeply damaging Lisbon’s newly-instated “Come to Lisbon, You Won’t Get Shot! Especially if You’re a Foreign Dignitary!” Tourism campaign.
11 – Australia regains The Ashes (a hotly sought-after trophy) with a 308-run cricket victory over England. That victory becomes the last thing Australia would do better than England for the next 100 years.
12 – The first “Around the World Car Race” begins. Followed closely by the first “Around the Slow Driver in the Fast Lane Middle Finger.”
18 – Japanese immigration to the USA is officially forbidden — this law is quickly lifted once US officials realize that Speed Racer is only a cartoon, and poses no real threat aside from early-onset epilepsy.


Go Speed Racer, Go! ...No, really, go...you're not allowed in America anymore.


March:
4 – The Collinwood Schools Fire, near Cleveland, Ohio, kills 174 people: 150 students; 23 teachers, faculty and staff; and “that creepy guy in the van by the playground.”
27 – The first overseas Boy Scout troop is formed in Gibraltar, giving new meaning to the phrase “mounting the rock of Gibraltar" and creating the first-ever merit badge for Fortress Construction & Fortification.


Hell of a commute to scout meetings, but easily the safest troop meeting spot in the world.


Ok gang, that's it for now, be sure to check back tomorrow for another season's worth of updates from the year that was 1908! I know I will!

Cheers,
Dustin