JoeWantsJen – The Lost Episode.. The First Episode

Welcome to episode one of JoeWantsJen.

I’m Joseph Michael Winett and you’ve found the channel where all your questions about life, the universe, and everything will be answered.

Oh, that’s a big promise, indeed, but rest assured, at the very least you will be subjected to a relentless torrent of unsubstantiated conclusions immediately preceded by not completely uninteresting stories from my life. Don’t worry, not everything you experience on this channel will be worthless.

Look. If worthlessness could be measured on a scale from 0, those things being completely worthless, you know, like toe jam, to 1,000,000, those things being universally useful, such as states of total enlightenment, the topics entertained on this channel will score at least an 11, although the delivery may, at times, hover somewhere around a 7.

Ok, first let me make an apology. I’ve just insulted toe jam and I’m really sorry. Not because I’m concerned about toe jam’s feelings or anything (that would be crazy), but because the fine folks at the Toe Jam Institute of Technology in Kansas City, Missouri, are sure to be all over me.

By the way, the Toe Jam Institute of Technology should not be confused with the Toe Jam Theater of Branson, Missouri. That’s where they perform all that folksy mountain music on stringed instruments with their toes. Anyway, the people at TJIT, or Toe Jam IT as I like to call it, frequently release whitepapers on the features and benefits of quality toe jam. Did you know that toe jam formed from the lint off premium brands of fluffy socks gets in between your toes and provides a sort of dry lubrication? I mean, who knows what sort of accomplishments have been made possible thanks to the prevention of inter-phalanges distress that only quality toe jam can provide? When Nixon went to China, conventional wisdom holds that he wore dress hosiery – you know, socks that looked good with his suit. But it’s a little known fact that the Whitehouse had special socks made for Dick’s tootsies. They were regular dress socks down to below his ankles, but there they spliced on a really fluffy cotton-wool blend… and he wore them all the way to China so his toes would have enough time to generate enough jam to protect the President’s feet during tough negotiations. I don’t know what the Chinese word for “toe jam” is, but I’m sure I couldn’t draw it anyway.

I don’t know what it is about Missouri and toes. And I’m not making fun of Missouri. I’m just saying that if cattle had toes, you’d be able to get really tasty barbecued toes at any one of the 400,000 old style cattle cookeries located within 10 miles of downtown Kansas City.

No, I’m really not making fun of Missouri. I love Missouri. I was born in Kansas City, Missouri – not to be confused with Kansas City, Kansas, which is a completely different city. They are right next to each other, though. There’s not a border guard or anything. In south Kansas City, the two states are separated by a road.

There are a lot of world famous barbecue joints in Kansas City. You see, like people in at least 10% of the other United States, the people of Missouri are convinced that their meat can’t be beat. My favorite meat in the world used to be served by Smoke Stack. They used to have this Poor Boy sandwich which was basically burnt ends and fat cut from their briskets. My Dad used to work there and when he moved to Tulsa he had a chance to start a franchise, but it didn’t work out. Oh, how my life would be different if Dad had been a meat cooker instead of a salesman. You see, to be a good salesperson, you have to understand people. To be a good meat cooker, you have to understand meat. If you understand meat, you’re stomach’s well fed, but if you understand people then your soul is well feed. And meat only keeps in the refrigerator for a few days, and friends, if properly maintained, keep forever.

There are still a couple Smoke Stacks around, but the one I remember closed when the original owner died. The food at the others just isn’t the same.

Ok, now I’ve probably irritated a few restaurateurs out there. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Of course, to run a successful restaurant you have to understand people. I mean, you have customers and you have employees. If you don’t work well with people, your business is going to suck. Also, if you run a barbecue place and you have cheap napkins, no one’s going to bring a date to your place. She’s concerned about getting meat in her teeth anyway and if you don’t have the proper grade of hand wipers available, it’s a deal breaker – they’re going to go eat somewhere else.

The catch-phrase, “Deal breaker,” reminds me of 30 Rock and Tina Fey.

One of the subplots on this series will be a complete documentation of my mission to spend an hour in person with Jennifer Aniston. Hence the name, “JoeWantsJen.”

Jennifer Aniston is easily one of the most attractive women on the planet, she’s my age, she seems very nice, she’s talented, she’s funny, she seems smart. I’d like to meet her and find out if we get along. Why not me? She obviously likes guys. I am a guy.

Jennifer’s experienced a multitude of things I haven’t and I really want to hear all about them… And, I guarantee I’ve been through a lot of things she hasn’t. Maybe we can spend some time trading notes on the world at large.

You may be thinking that I’ve set an unattainable goal for myself — that Miss Jennifer Aniston is never going to respond to this sort of tactic. I mean declaring my undying love and devotion for her on a YouTube channel is more of a cry for help than a plausible strategy, don’t you think? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I am not declaring anything. I do not love Jennifer Aniston. I am not devoted to Jennifer Aniston. I do not know Jennifer Aniston.

I am devoted to the possibility that this is worth a try. There are no set rules regarding mate selection. The Matrix cannot tell us what is possible and what’s not.

Look, I think my plan is a good one, besides I’m not going to just be able to walk up and meet her.

They say meeting women at the grocery store is a good idea, but in which store would I find Jennifer? (Ignoring the fact that trying to stake out her grocery store is probably stalking…) You’d think she would go to the one closest to her house, but she’s smarter than that.

She probably goes to the grocery store in her helicopter, Jennifer One. The only supermarket she shops at is one she owns. She bought it so she could build the helipad. Oh, you can shop there, but you need an appointment, a month in advance, and admittance requires credit and background checks including interviews with your family, three close friends, and two former employers. You might see her when you shop there, but you can’t get close… There’s security and she rides around in this golf cart/Pope-mobile thing with a robotic arm to grab canned goods and thunk on melons. She can’t hear the thunking through the bullet-proof bubble, so the robotic arm has this microphone on it. Very advanced computer software evaluates the thunking sound and determines the ripeness of the melon.

If you’re in Southern California, within helicopter range of Beverly Hills, and you wonder if your grocery store is her grocery store, you could ask around, but I’m sure the employees are sworn to secrecy. You won’t be able to see the helipad on the roof from the parking lot. The sure sign of whether or not Jennifer Aniston owns the store is that in the checkout lines you won’t see any tabloids.

You know what I think actors aught to do about paparazzi? They should get together and start their own tabloid devoted to scraping up dirt on the paparazzi people. Courtney Cox can run it. When they’re going to be at a public event, they can have their pool of photographers stick cameras in the faces of the paparazzi while the paparazzi are trying to stick their cameras in the faces of the stars.

I mean, I could try to meet her at a party, but to be invited to any party she would attend, I’d probably have to have some standing in the entertainment industry and I think, as you can tell from my writing and performance of this episode, I have a long way to go.

I could kidnap her at gunpoint, but remember she probably has a secret security force. And, I’ve learned that you just can’t get an honest reaction out of someone and try to start a relationship when you’re pointing a gun at them. Pointing a gun at someone is even less reliable than paying someone for their opinion. I mean, you’re just not going to get the truth when you pin a twenty dollar bill to your chest and ask a stripper if your shirt goes with your pants.

So, this is really the only shot I have at meeting Jennifer Aniston – sort of an open letter on video stating that I would like to meet her and then spending the rest of the time thrilling you with exciting, extremely entertaining stories, some of them mostly true, in an attempt to provide you with something of value and her with evidence that I’m not crazy, or at least that I’m not criminally insane.

About Tina Fey: In a perfect world, Tina Fey would also have been a great choice – I mean, she’s smart and she’s funny, and she wears glasses, and she’s smart. But she’s married. I’d still like to meet her. As I said, I think she’s funny. And, it would be so cool if she thought I was funny. She could send me a joke. And I could send her back a joke. We could be like Joke Pals.

Look, hang in with me. Please click Subscribe so you’ll be updated when Episode Two arrives. If you’re not completely satisfied, you get your money back.

You know, it would be cool to have a contest where I give one lucky subscriber a 1974 Ford Galaxy 500 or, at my option, the cash equivalent, split into 48 easy payments.

You know, one of my favorite authors is Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He died a couple years ago. I was really sad to hear it. But, you know, he accomplished so much in his career. I don’t know how many books he sold. I’m measuring his accomplishment in the number of really good stories he told. They all have a purpose. He wasn’t just trying to entertain the reader – he always had something to say about people, or government, or technology. His books are all great reads and very thought provoking.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a list of things to remember when you write a story. One of the items says something like, “The reader’s time is precious – don’t waste it.” Good advice.

I pledge never to waste your time.

I’m not going to say things just because I want to hear myself talk or make myself feel good or to brag. For instance, I’m not going to mention my penis or my IQ or the hair on my chest.

I’m not going to bore you with the story about having my appendix out. I’m not going to tell you that they check your appendix by poking it from the inside and making you scream. I’m not going to brag about how I was able to give myself an enema without crying. (Look, seriously, by the time I got to the clinic I was so miserable, they could have pulled out a dirty steak knife and would have gladly lied down on the table. When they handed me that enema kit, I was confused, but in too much pain to argue or ask why. Maybe when someone hands you an enema kit, it’s obvious they’re planning on sticking something up your butt, hopefully just a finger, but I was oblivious to that reality due to my condition.)

So anyway, if you’ve enjoyed our time together, please Subscribe, so we can get together again.

And, if you know Jennifer Aniston, good God, help a dude out and don’t tell her about me, yet. I obviously need some practice.

Honestly, how do I see this playing out? Well, there’s a pretty strong possibility that Miss Aniston will never know about these videos. A Google Search on her name brings up more than twenty million documents. Even if her PR firm is looking for stuff, they might not find this.

By comparison, my name brings up around 2300 documents. That makes her about 9000 times more popular than I am. Actually, it’s more than that because of the 20,000,000 documents about Jennifer Aniston, she posted 0. I posted about 90% of mine.

Even if Jennifer does see these, and at that very same moment all the planets are aligned, and there’s a full moon, and she’s in a good mood, and she’s thinks about contacting me, she still might not. She’s spent a long time protecting an image which affords her the opportunity to get good jobs. It depends on how well I come across in these videos. Frankly, I’ve done some pretty wild stuff, I’ve made some mistakes along the way and I’m going to be completely honest about them.