The 2.0 Heart

Recently, I gave up dating or making any attempts to get involved with women. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
I just want time to examine the choices I have made with women and put myself back together in such a way as to not leave myself open for any more of the same kind of damage.
A very interesting side effect has occurred; I have never had more female attention!
The Universe plays a practical joke on you when you attempt this. The desperate or damaged signal is no longer being broadcast to women. Instead, they are picking up a signal that quietly says, I am OK with being alone at this point in my life.
Who knew that the ultimate way to attract women is to be comfortable with who you are? Oh wait, that's what they always tell us!
I think it is the same phenomenon that happens when you are truly over the X. That's the moment when the X contacts you again.
The same thing happens on a national level too. A few years ago, there were stories that America had finally come to terms with it's war in Vietnam. Sure enough, Vietnam contacted us to see if we wanted to resume normalized relations.
We did.
It's going to be a long time before Iraq calls us to hang out and catch up over a cup of coffee and talk about old times.

I am being flirted with at random places during the day. I am getting phone numbers from women after shows. Women are telling me they are interested in me. What do you say? I say, thanks, but I really need to get this stuff figured out before I get involved with anyone else just now. No sex, no random hook-up's, no trolling the craigslist or hanging out by the door after shows to pick up the strays that fall behind. Nope. Just talking to women and making friendships. Turns out, I am a pretty good listener when I am not trying to get in their pants. Who knew!
Don't get me wrong, I still think about sex every other second, thats just being a guy, but at least I don't do or say something that embarrasses me now.
Much.

The first thing to do is look at the women I have been involved with and look for the things they have in common. Chain smoking. The one thing the women I have fallen for or spent any length of time with all had in common was chain smoking. Chain smoking is the emotional equivalent to a car parked on the side of the road with it's hazard lights on. Why are cars usually parked on the side of the road with their hazard lights on anyway? Something is broken but you don't know what. let me repeat that.
Something is broken but you don't know what.

The two women I have lived with also read books like you and I breathe. At first, it seems harmless enough. No one gives people who read a lot a hard time about it either. I mean, how stupid do you sound if you try? "Damn it! Have you been reading all day again?"
With reading, you sort of have to shrug your shoulders and think, hey-she's smart! Thats what they would do for most of the day though, chain smoke and read. That's it. Seriously. Granted, Borders Books is a far better crack house, but it's still a crack house for them. Somewhere in between chapters they would fit me in and any complaint of mine would be greeted with a condescending, "I'm reading."
So thats the second big thing they all had in common; they read books for escape.

They had extreme family issues too. I know; who doesn't right? But I mean extreme issues. One or more of the parents is extremely religious and emotionally distant. In fact, this is part of the insanity they had to grow up with that I really understand. I had to grow up with it too. My Mother constantly talked about God and Jesus like she had lunch with them everyday. Since we failed to believe in their views, we were considered let downs and in spite of God's eternal love and blah blah blah, we got emotionally distant Mothers who treated our lack of faith as a charter flaw to be pointed out constantly. They wanted us to learn about God and the Church. Instead, we got a lesson in hypocrisy for our childhood.
Thanks Mom=)
So it's fair to say that they all have abandonment issues.

Lets put the list together:
1. Something is broken inside but you don't know what.
2. They read for escape.
3. Extreme abandonment issues.
I am getting hard just reading that list! You see. Thats the problem! Something about this short list of charter traits is attractive to me. Of course they don't seem very attractive right now, but put it in context of a real world encounter. A beautiful young girl pages through a dog eared used book store copy of catcher in the rye. She sits outside a cafe casually drawing a breath off her cigarette held between slender fingers. When she exhales, she moves her hands and face in a gesture of gracefulness that stops you in your tracks. You manage to strike up a conversation and in the first minuet she makes you laugh with a sarcastic comment about her Fathers lack of attention in her life.
This is the part where I fall in love. Every time.

If we could pick who to fall in love with it might be a quieter world, but I suspect not a more interesting one. So how do you change what you are drawn too? Do you change something in you or do you look deeper at this list and look for what it is about their issues that gets you? Were they all looking for a Father figure to make up for something they didn't have in childhood? Are they looking for a knight in dented armour to rescue them from dragons in their heads? I don't know. I know it always starts out amazing and ends in drama I should of seen coming like a bad sit-com. Oh, they also hate science fiction. I mean hate! Thats another clear signal to me. In my head, it must function like this; she hates something I am wildly interested in, hates her dad but really wants his affection, smokes and reads. LOVE!
Kinda fucked up. I know.

The last and most important thing they all have in common was me. If I ever got rich enough and crazy enough to do it, I would track them all down and bring them to a hotel to meet each other just to see how they would react to each other. I am pretty sure they would hate each other. That might be the way to find out their flaws, let them sit around a pool chain smoking and reading as they trade sarcastic insults with each other about defects only they can see.
I think I smell reality show!
Eventually they would put it together that I was the common link in their lives. That would have to be creepy. It would creep me out if I was hanging out in the lobby of a hotel and after conversation with some strangers realized that at one time we all dated the same girl. At that point you would have to freak out a little bit. Then the embarrassment would come. Only the last boyfriend would be immune from the stories. He would know them all. The reason she broke up with the last guy, the troubles they had, what she really thought about things years after they happened, and the secrets she swore never to tell anyone that she of course told the next serious boyfriend.
I would need a lot of ash trays for my X-girlfriends' convention.
I wouldn't even have to be there for this. I could send market researchers to ask questions with clip boards in hand. Thats right, I would get all my X's together and do a focus group. What is something you didn't like about Joe? OK. Now name something that you really really liked him? You get the idea. Then, with genetic engineering, some education and a lot of positive reinforcement, I could grow the perfect cloned version from a little bit of all the girls I ever had feelings for!
Girlfriend 2.0
Girlfriend 2.0 would be on great terms with her family. Mostly because she would have no family. Girlfriend 2.0 would sit and talk Star Wars with me for hours as foreplay. Girlfriend 2.0 would have just enough ADD added to her genetic makeup so she couldn't read for hours on end. Girlfriend 2.0 would also eat meat, not smoke, not want to change my hair, be as dirty as a porn star but never send weird signals to my friends, love comedy, not have a cat, and develop a rash in the shape of a tear drop on the small of her back that would let me know when she was thinking of another man. Girlfriend 2.0 would be perfect!
Until of course she met some jaded womens Boyfriend 2.0 and runs of with him because they have more in common with each other than us. But hey, can you think of a better, This is how we met story than this?
Wishful thinking. I guess what I truly need is a 2.0 heart.

Fire him!

Well, it's official; Never before in the history of modern polls has a President's approval rating been so low. Never before have more Americans said the country is headed in the wrong direction too. So you have to ask yourself, if you had been given a job review with such low marks, would you still be allowed that parking space? Probably not. But Bush still gets to direct the military, sign bills into laws and pretty much continue to run the country like he ran everything else in his life before he became President. Look, why don't we just sit him down, give him his last check and say goodbye? Seriously. What company would allow an employee that had fucked up as badly as Bush has to stay employed? He will be fine. Like Millions of other Americans he is eligible for unemployment. But if he stays on in his current position, millions of Americans will also be signing up for unemployment.
Did you know that Bank of America recorded a 70% drop in profits last quarter? Do you realize that all this rhetoric about a war with Iran only succeeds in driving the price of oil up? Did you know a local news station in New Orleans found a contractor working on the levee repairs dumping news paper into one of the new levees because government money had not come through as promised?
That is an outrage!
Doesn't he know old newspaper belongs in the recycle bin?
I don't know how to break it to you guys but were broke and Bush is pushing the accelerator to the floor. The Guy knows he is not only out of office in January, but he is going down as the worst President in modern history. Why is he still allowed in the White House? Send him on some do nothing trip, like a vacation to his ranch in Crawford, TX and while he is gone, change the locks on all the doors. He will get the message.
Shareholders are allowed to hold a vote when they loose confidence in a CEO.
Managers are allowed to fire employees who fail to do a good job.
Why can't we just send him a letter and be done with it? I'm not talking about impeachment, I'm talking about firing Americas Chief Executive Officer because he has fucked everything up so bad it will take two generations to fix things. Seriously! Why do we just accept behaviour from the President that wouldn't be tolerated anywhere else?
I was thinking about the whole Mission Accomplished banner some more and I thought, you know what, I believe him. If Bush had done it, it would of been misspelled.
Fire him!

A Lot to Prove

You ever sit at one of those tables outside the restaurants on Columbus Avenue? It has always looked so romantic to me. Saturday night I was walking with a friend from the Purple Onion to Cobb's. Nothing makes you feel like a San Francisco comic more than making this little trip. Leaving one venue to perform at the late show of another club is awesome. As we walked and bumped into people, I looked at the couples actually seated at those tables. You know what I noticed? The way complete strangers had to grind their crotches into the backs of peoples heads just to get around these tables. I know, sweet! You save for years to take a vacation in
San Francisco, have a meal in North Beach and when it finally happens, your wife's head gets pushed by a strangers groin into the glass of wine you just toasted your second honey moon with.
The weekend was good for me. I did the show at the Purple Onion then walked down Columbus Avenue to do the late shows at Cobb's. Here is a nice moment; It's Saturday night and I am headlining on the Cobb's stage. The crowd didn't come to see me. They came to see Jay Mohr, but he canceled at the last minuet. People were given their money back and told if they like, they could pay to see a local show. I not only did well, I crushed it! I crushed it to the point that when I told the crowd I had to get off stage, they moaned in unison wishing for the show to continue! That's a pretty cool feeling.
Then came Sunday.

In comedy, it feels like the Universe balances the scale with ruthless precision. Those shows where you feel great and everything is clicking are usually followed by the sort of events you don't care to remember. That was Sunday. The universe balanced it's books with a rash of phone calls and e-mails filled with drama and misunderstandings. Shows canceled, events moved, checks bounced, Booker's thinking things were explained that were not and a few random what the hell is this e-mail about, that contributed to my I hate the world rant on Monday.

Monday night came along and in a sour mood, I headed down to the Punch Line to perform in a benefit show for a high school. Comics get asked to do a lot of these shows. They are usually great. Everyone in the crowd is aware that they are here to raise money and the comedy is a nice bonus. This one was slightly different. It was to raise money for Belmont's Special Ed. Students. Or, as those of us not so P.C., it was for retards. Too mean? Well, you have to understand what a panic this set off in us. Comics were in the green room thinking over their acts for any reference to that word. Turns out we all had a lot of references to this word. In fact, one of the comics big closers was all about them.
Nice!
That didn't end up being the problem though. The problem became apparent almost as soon as the show started. This crowd was not the sort that usually ventured out to comedy clubs. So when the "fucks" and the "Cum" and the other various words started flying, the moans and groans of shock began. Standing in the back watching all of this, I thought it was pretty funny. But so what, I told the crowd when I got up there at the end. Yes, these are dirty sometimes vulgar jokes. But it's for the kids!

Tuesday was OK. Right down the middle. Not spectacular nor a train wreck, a good show. Last night was the one I worked myself into complete worry over. Here's why; Margret Cho.
Margret Cho is a San Francisco comedy icon. Say what you want about her, but she truly is a icon in this town. Apparently she is filming some new sort of show for VH1. If I had to guess, I would say it's some kind of reality show. I say this because the front row was composed of her parents, guys dressed like the gay version of Miami Vice and a midget. Here was the plan as it was explained to me. The camera crew would come in early to set up. The host would go up, do a few minuets and then bring Margret up. Word had been leaked and people were showing up to see her. This made us all a little nervous because she was literally doing 10 minuets at the top of the show and then leaving. Not just her either, but the cameras had to be broken down, the front row was to go with her and all this while we attempted to continue with our little show. The fear was a portion of the crowd would go with her or if they stayed, none of us would be able to rise above the star factor of her being there. There had to be 30 people there just to work the cameras and walk around with a smug sense of superiority holding radios and wearing appropriately ironic T-shirts. They all to leave too. How was this not going to create havoc in the middle of my little show? Oh and me being me, I had to come an hour early just to make sure I would be pissed off and jealous. Yeah. Thats how I roll. Thats exactly what I did too. I came to watch this spectacle to make myself feel jealous and upset. Well, it worked. A crowd began to gather at the front door all there to not see me. Cameras started rolling. The other comics were scared of fucking up in front of the person who inspired them to get into comedy. And I, I drifted into the kitchen muttering under my breath about it all. You have to understand, I have been at this now for 15 years. I also had spent my own money to place adds in the local edition of the Onion all to get a few people out for my show and it was now being completely upstaged by fame I can only wish for. So yes, I was unhappy and working hard in the way that I do to make myself more pissed about the whole thing.
When she went up. A huge round of applause greeted her. Here's the thing; she did alright. You certainly couldn't say she killed. She didn't bomb either, but the set was just...OK. You could feel the crowd shift uncomfortably in their seats as they realized, this was it. Once again, fame had attracted a crowd and like so many times in this situation, fame was the only attraction.
Then, after ten minuets, she said good night. Her parents, the cameras and the midget all disappeared out the side door of the club and once again, it was my show. When it came time for me to be introduced, I kept telling myself not to go up angry, not to go up pissed, not to go up and say something stupid. In 2 minuets I had my first applause break and never looked back. In fact, I killed. Afterwards, a lot of people said the same thing. "I came because of Margret, but you were amazing!" All in front of the Booker too. People had also come because they had seen my add in the Onion. All in all my worse fears about what would happen didn't even come close. All in all, it felt pretty great. Not because I did better than Margret, but because I did better than what my expectations were for the night. As for Margret, well the thing I have observed about famous comics over the years was perfectly demonstrated in all this. She has fame and fans and people love her, but the fire in her for stand-up is clearly not what it once was. And even though you have the fame and fans, if you don't deliver the jokes, you leave them with an odd sense of let down. I doubt she left with a sense of let down, but I know that when I took the stage I took it like a man who had everything to prove. That is the secret to a great show from a comic; do they have something to prove? Margret doesn't have to prove anything anymore. People will show up if you put her name on the door. Because she has reached the level I want to be at, she can deliver a so-so performance and let the TV crew edit it as they see fit for whatever show will continue to grow her fame. But for me, every time I get introduced, I feel the crowd look at me like who are you? I feel their expectations drop when I am introduced. Not because they are cruel, but in this world of fame is everything I am unknown. Unknown, in this day and age is equal to, He must not be that good. Thats the thing that gets under my skin and drives me fucking crazy. There is absolutely no connection between famous and good. None. Night after night, show after show I go up and kill and gather a few more fans. Why? I still have a lot to prove.

Mission Accomplished: 5 Years After.

The check is in the mail, I won't cum in your mouth and now ladies and gentleman, The Mission Accomplished Banner the President displayed five years ago tomorrow was not for Iraq, but the sailors on board the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
This is what the White House Press Secretary said about it today.
"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
Really? Cause I have looked at the speech he gave that day and he mentioned the sailors were done with their deployment. That was about it. He did say this however.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on."
Man these people lie like the rest of us breathe! That banner was put there by the White House as a back drop for the President to claim victory in Iraq. 5 years later, were still there. Oops!
I want to buy that banner. I'm sure someone will sell it on eBay someday. I want to put it on the White House lawn and turn it into a slip and slide with a rock just under it at the end. The President would have to run and slide down it every time he makes any statements about Iraq, the war on terror and especially 9/11.
So the Banner was suppose to read, Mission accomplished for the sailors who are on this ship?
I am surprised they don't claim that they were saving the people money by simply abbreviating the message. Kinko's is not cheap people!
When it started to become apparent that the Mission in Iraq was not accomplished, the White House threw the sailors of the U.S.S. Lincoln under the bus. They in told reporters that they had nothing to do with it and it was the sailors who put it up.
Dumb lie. Easy to check.
The Commanding officer told the press that it was in fact the White House who approached them with the idea of putting up the banner.
After that came out, the White House did admit to it. Two years later.
If you go to the official White House page and view the photos of this historic speech, you will notice that in all the shots of the President, the Banner can not be seen.
Now, five years after the speech we are told yet another version of what it was and what it meant. Don't you see people? Your lying eyes are the trouble here. Not the White House.
Holly Shit!
Just fucking admit that your ego got the best of you and you put up a giant sign that said we won, way to early and now it rightfully does haunt you! It had nothing to do with the sailors on board or the military or even 9/11 for that matter.
Please save that banner though. On the morning of President Obama being sworn in, I want that banner hung over the steeps of the capitol; Mission Accomplished!

Rev. Wright & Wrong

In America, you are allowed to be associated with a minister who says crazy shit if you are white. If you are black, then you are not allowed to be associated with a black minister who says crazy shit. Thats the conclusion I have come to after watching Barack Obama have to answer questions about sermons his Minister gave.
John McCain has the endorsement of a Texas Minister who said Katrina was God's punishment for a gay pride parade New Orleans was suppose to have that day. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have each said that 9/11 was God's punishment for Gays, abortions and the ACLU. None of the White Politicians they gave their endorsements to have had to answer for them. On the rare occasion when the press has asked, people like Bush were allowed to get a way with the answer of, "Thats their right to believe that."
George Bush was asked if he consulted his father before going into Iraq. His answer to Bob Woodward was, "I consulted a higher Father." The implication being, he talked to God and was given to permission to invade a country on a lie.
Thats pretty crazy.
But only Obama has been held accountable for the mind of another man.
I think it is 'code' racism'.
"Look at what Obamas minister thinks. Thats what all blacks think!"
Bias has not gone away, it has just learned to be more polite in the age of P.C. My mother whispers things like this. "Your Father and I ate at a wonderful restaurant last night. Our server, black."
The thing is, you cannot come out and say, I don't like Obama because he is black. Instead, you find someone close to him who has said outlandish things and use that as a club to beat him over the head with. The only way Obama could ease the fears of these white people is to run a Turkey sandwich with mayo on wonder bread for Vice President.
Now, can we get to talking about the war, a falling economy and health care? No? OK. How about Hanna Montana's photos for Vanity Fare? That seems like a very important issue. Who cares?
If you can't see she is ten years away from shaving her head and getting out of cars without her panties then you are not paying attention to what we do to young girls in the press. Disney, a Billion dollar a year company that pushes products and movies to young girls to come out and say she was manipulated into posing for a photo is the height of irony.

I am filled with hate

I hate drama, the little people who make it, spread and deny it, the elderly, the young, the rich, the poor, I hate skittles commercials, Kinko's employees (Do they only hire retards?) people who insist they need two spaces for their car instead of one, passive aggressive communications (text Messaging!) Mothers fawning over their babies, babies who cry, babies in public, the thought of babies, smiling babies, vegetarians (Too easy?) proud meat eaters, people who change their minds after agreeing to something months ago that was their idea in the first place, clowns, comics who do magic-juggling, DMV paper work, drunk people who yell at you that they are not drunk, women who knowingly send mixed signals because they can, men who use gallons of aftershave, any axe product, all the hype for Iron Man, salad, spring mattresses, looking for a new apartment, dreams with X-Girlfriends in them, X-girlfriends, the letter X, Racer X, the term-X marks the spot, x-rays, anyone who spends more than 30 seconds at the milk counter at starbucks after they got their coffee, MUNI buses that were never there when I was riding them but are now always there when I am pulling out of a drive way, any joke about Brittney Spears, anyone who truly thinks Hanna Montana isn't going down the same path, tea drinkers, that stuff in the corners of old peoples mouth (I think it's spite) almost all Facebook applications now, obviously Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, some Saturdays and especially Sundays, 8 of the 12 months, CNN, FOX, NPR, getting sucked into Law & Order marathons and then wondering what happened to my day, really pretty girls who are as dumb as they are hot, dumb girls who think they are hot, older women trying to be young girls, not so hot girls dressing like they are, Myspace error messages, commercials for movies now available on Blue Ray for twice the price it was to buy a ticket to see it when it was in the theaters, people who constantly talk about their work in the third person ("we just finished this project...") anytime my Mother starts to whisper, mixed nuts, old lady perfume, 80's songs used for commercials, not sleeping and staring at the clock thinking I will still get four hours if I fall asleep now, lists like this, top ten lists, books of lists, people who laugh while paging through books of lists, homeless guys in better shoes than I have asking for change, paper cuts, dry skin, becoming immune to porn, any story that starts out with, "My girlfriend and I just love the...", really cold drinks hurting my teeth, really hot drinks burning my lips, really old chap stick, car troubles of any kind, lint covered candy that still looks like it might be good, getting older, scratching an itch that doesn't feel better afterwards, random memories of times you don't want to think about popping into your head for no good reason at all, stale root beer, bad sushi, anyone over the age of 12 that regularly says "Oh my God!" and most likely, YOU!