What about a BBQ restaurant where you just throw your scraps on the floor…

Bad ideas come in bunches. For the past few months, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen about my movie idea called “Sashimi Murder.” Basically the idea is that a sushi chef is in love with one of his regular customers, but he’s too socially awkward to talk to her. He starts writing love notes on the seaweed in her sushi, but since it’s wrapped in rice, she never reads it. After months of this, the sushi chef begins to take her non-response personally. He follows her home, knocks her out, rolls her up into a rug and chops her into four pieces as if she were a sushi roll. A light bulb goes on in his head and he starts serving raw human meat to customers. All of a sudden he’s the rave of the sushi world and he’s got to continually find new bodies to supply his meat stock. It’s basically a trendy version of Little Shop of Horrors.

The most flattering reaction I’ve received after telling this story (which ends with me saying “that’s why the brutality of humans…is the most beautiful garnish. FIN!”) was a friend saying “I’ll see anything if it’s rated R”.

The jury is still out on “Sashimi Murder” but, so far, the overwhelming conclusion is that it is a bad idea. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a way to capitalize on the plethora of bad ideas I have. If a good idea is worth a million dollars, why can’t thirty bad ideas at least be worth twenty bucks?

Here are some of my ideas that I’ve recently identified as bad:

Electric Security
In New York, you’re not going to install a security system in the apartment you’re renting. Especially because a bunch of noise and the threat of the police showing up 30 – 40 minutes later isn’t much of a deterrent to would be thieves. After a bout of thefts in my apartment building, I started trying to figure out ways to protect my stuff (which is comparable to a piss poor yard sale). The overwhelming solution was to utilize my metal door and its electric conductivity. I think 10,000 volts would keep my stuff secure.

It wasn’t until I took apart my microwave that someone pointed out my home security system was a bad idea. Not only does electricity not work like I had planned, but apparently there isn’t a good way to guard against getting shocked when I try entering my apartment with a METAL key. “Yeah, but I’ll be ready for it,” I said as I touched two wires together hoping to hear a crackle.

Tiny Dance Club
 When people go out, buy $350 bottles of vodka, wear shiny shirts and yell things like “you should be a model” they’re trying to feel like big people. Why doesn’t the night club world realize this and make a club at ¾ the size. Sure, it would be like partying in a kindergarten class room, but you’d feel like a pretty big dude after taking 12 thimble sized shots of something called “Douche Drop.”

Fill Up That Toilet!
 One time I decided that my Saturday would be spent trying to overflow the toilet…with urine. Not sure why I decided to do this, but I knew it had to be done. Sure, this was before I had a car, liked drinking, had a girlfriend or knew how time consuming depression could be, but none of those would have prevented me from marching down to the grocery store and buying thirty store brand sodas for a “project”.

Luckily, my stomach ache didn’t reach hospitalization levels before someone told me that toilets are built to keep from overflowing. To this day I have no idea why I wanted to overflow my toilet and perhaps I should have taken my brother’s suggestion to just pee all over the walls and call it a day.

Garbage Meditation
 Cleanse the spirit by cleansing thy kitchen. Most people would list “taking out the garbage” fairly high on their list of things they hate doing (probably right behind “taking a shower with no hot water”).
 
Trying to make a bad situation good, I decided to combine the task of taking out the garbage with mediation. Now every Sunday and Wednesday I walk to our trash cans saying a mantra of “I am clean. I am free. I am conscious. I am clean. I am free. I am conscious.”

My garbage can has become a metaphor for my mind. The more it is full, the less happy I am. Unfortunately, this has given me a low grade obsessive compulsive disorder. Now Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are hell days for me because I’m feel completely overwhelmed by a ¼ full garbage can and am crazed to get the garbage out…to cleanse my soul. Serenity now.
Sometimes a bad idea is a great idea falling on close minded people. For those ideas it is important to be confident, have faith in yourself and continue to push it forward, despite the outcry of others. However, certain ideas, like “unicycle skateboard,” can be nothing more than bad ideas. Keep the creativity coming, don’t be discouraged by people’s reactions and remember, they’ll all change their minds and beg you for VIP passes to the premier of Sashimi Murder when it opens.