Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

      I started playing Magic: The Gathering back in the fall of 1994 (which was probably still a little too late, from a value perspective, but bear with me here). Unlike many people who got sucked in during the initial wave of mania surrounding the game, I never sold my collection. This ended up paying off for me, unlike, say, Beanie Babies collectors from the same era, who are still waiting for their time to shine. Actually, I'm sort of one of those too, having pillaged my mom's storage locker after she passed away for collectibles that might help mitigate the funeral costs, but let me tell you, the Princess Diana bear is still not worth anything despite pre-TNA Don West's promises of yore and internet urban legend . But anyway.      Magic cards from back then are increasingly scarce, is my point. And though I don't have anything as brain-meltingly expensive as, say, the fabled Alpha Black Lotus, I just so happen to own something quite a bit more scarce. As in, some

     If things had gone the way I'd hoped, I might have been working on a sitcom pilot for NBC right now. Needless to say (although I'm saying it anyway), that didn't quite happen. But hey, let me tell you about it anyway.      As you may be aware, I was once a fixture on local public access television as part of a comedy show called Steel & Marsilio . In fact, I once wrote a needlessly exhaustive history of the program on this very site . Since then, I've mostly moved into other mediums to water my creative lotus, but every once in a while, my former co-host Garrett Steel and I will put together a video or skit or something, and somewhere deep down I still have a love for producing televised media. Therefore, when Garrett brought it to my attention that none other than NBC (America's Network, or so I hear) was running a competition in which they were looking for fresh new ideas for comedy shows, we were all-in. We figured we at least owed ourselves a shot a

     I came upon this appalling bit of "cinema"while scouring Youtube for concise, informative how-to videos about varnishing cabinetry:      Needless to say, this crude claptrap contained few, if any, valuable varnishing hints. Quite the contrary! Instead, I was greeted with binge drinking, cartoon pornography and references to reptilian genitalia. I would call this video garbage, but I don't want to insult the pile of used syringes behind my apartment. But lest I come off as unfair, allow me to break down this buffoonish enterprise to fully enlighten you as to the depths of its inanity.      We open with Garrett Steel making a laughable attempt to pretend to be waking up. I can pretend to wake up better than that in my sleep! But Steel's thespianism in on par with that of Jeremy Irons compared to his clownish compatriot, Joey Marsilio, who we are introduced to via uncomfortable closeup, his face practically glistening with Italian grease. Marsilio, who clearl