Zen of Funny

The 2011/2012 New Years Gig

2012-01-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

New years is always a big deal kind of night no matter what. The crowd has an energy unique to the event and the pay is better than usual if you’re a comic. To be honest, I've always considered it a huge mind fuck. You have no choice but to reflect on your year and what you want for the new one. Granted, I am coming at it from a cynical point of view at the moment. A few days before New Years I was suppose to open for a band in Modesto, CA. It didn't happen. A few days before that gig the booker sent me an email saying they would prefer no opener. Actually, he forwarded me an email from the bands management saying they didn't approve of an opener nor did they want one. The whole thing left me feeling a little screwed. What made it all the more frustrating was that for once I asked for more money and got it. I got an extra hundred bucks but not before the booker made sure to tell me the theatre didn’t think my clips on line were any good anyway. Thanks for that added bit of passive aggressiveness. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway because as the forwarded email explained, they didn’t want an opener.

Then there is my love life. Single, 43 and enough existential baggage packed by the skeletons in my ever enlarging closets that any women I am slightly interested in better have the emotional equivalent of a very large luggage rack. When midnight hits, the crowd transforms into a sea of couples. It is a very unusual sensation to be standing in front of a crowd of people all focused on you and feel utterly alone. No matter how much I tell myself that this holiday is over hyped with all the expectations to have a great time next to someone you love, I can’t help feeling like those aren’t such terrible things to wish for on yet another New Years. Anyway, thats whats going through my mind as I show up at the theatre in The Marin Center across the Golden Gate Bridge. When I step on stage, all that disappears. I am in my element doing the thing I am best at.

As New Years shows go, this one is pretty cool. I have the cake slot. I am up after the opener. He kills, I kill and then its a half hour intermission before another comic and the headliner go up. In theory, that should take us right up to 11:55 when we all go back out on stage and do the count down thing. That isn’t exactly what ended up happening.

Its never fair to judge a stand-up comic by one show. Anyone can have an off night or a show go sideways on them. It happens. Its part of what makes stand-up dynamic. You are only as good as your last joke. No matter how much the crowd is with you they can always stop following you. There is something exciting about that. As a comic, the art is balancing what you want to talk about with the audiences expectations. Since all audiences are different, no show will be exactly like the last one. Where one crowd is excited by something another is repulsed. Some comics love to push a crowd past their comfort zone. Some comics are safe. Most of us are a mix in unequal parts of what we want to express with what we know will work. Reading a crowd isn’t about selling out your voice, its being respectful of an audience. Looking at them they don’t appear to be a crowd that wants dick jokes or to hear the word fuck, a lot. This doesn’t deter the headliner. I’m in the green room with the other comics when we start to notice how quiet its become. There should be the usual laughs coming from the crowd. Thats when the organizer of the event walks in and raises his hand. “He just took this show from here to here with a cock circle bit.” He says, lowering his hand.

“Cock circle?” I ask.

As he starts to explain, we can hear someone from the audience yell out, “Move on!”

I start to walk to the wings in morbid curiosity.

Perhaps its the same person but when I get there I can clearly hear a male voice shout out, “Enough Vagina jokes!”

The headliner, is now dealing with something of a mutiny. He’s asking the audience if he is right or this guy is right? I look at my phone and can see we are less than fifteen minutes away from Midnight. The organizer walks past us and says, “He’s losing them.”

People are starting to leave, too. Like, a lot of people. The headliner smirks and says, “Any man who says, no more vagina jokes should turn in his dick at the door.” The crowd laughs in an awkward way. More people in the crowd yell out more feedback. The comic isn’t backing down. In fact, he starts doing something you might of seen happen before- he starts punishing them. They don’t want dirty jokes so now he starts giving them his roughest stuff. Peaking through the stage door I can see people streaming out. Its five minutes before Midnight. The scene inside the theatre is tense. The organizer walks up to the host and just says, “Get out there!” He wants us all out there, too. Now, the four of us are standing there on stage with one microphone. At least its not in the hands of the headliner who stands there holding onto the Mic stand and looking down. We have five minutes to cover. The opener tells a joke. The organizer hands me another Mic and I say, “Welcome to the most awkward New Years count down ever.” The crowd laughs. Great, we covered another fifteen seconds. Then I hear the headliners voice again. “In my defense...” I’m not sure what else he said. I looked at the comic standing next to me who is showing me that we are almost at midnight on his phone. The headliner starts telling a joke that starts with asking the crowd who has step kids. I’m already shaking my head as he starts in about how evil they are. Oh God. Is this really happening? The joke continues with something about him confronting his step kid by shouting his job is to fuck his mother. You can imagine how well that goes over. Then, the comic next to me says, “It’s Midnight.” He doesn't have a mic so I yell it again, “It’s Midnight!” The host starts to loudly count down “10! 9! 8!...” When we hit midnight and everyone applauds, we can’t get off that stage fast enough. Wow! What a phenomenally strange and uncomfortable way to ring in the new year.

After the crowd has left I head back stage to grab my coat. The headliner is sitting on the table looking dejected. There isn’t anything to say. He looks up and simple says “I just lost the will to do comedy.” Thats fairly dramatic. I’ve had that sensation on stage at times too. However, I wasn’t beating the crowd up with more of what they were hating.

That was New Years 2011/2012 for me. How was yours?

Starbucks, Christians and Free Speech

2011-12-20T19:58:00.000-08:00

Let me start this blog by saying, I love Starbucks. I know, I know, I'm a socially responsible left of Jesus liberal and I am professing my love for a corporation. To be an American who tries to put their ideals into action means you have to live with a certain amount of self hypocrisy. We all have what we politely describe as, guilty pleasures or, I know I shouldn't but I like it, habits. Civilization depends on it. I know friends who wear fur, but since they got it in a second hand store, thats OK. Some still smoke cigarettes, but its American Spirit brand, so somehow that makes it more acceptable to them.

My indulgence happens to be Starbucks. They make a good cup of coffee. More importantly, they allow me to make several minor choices at the cash register while people behind me get exasperated because I am taking my time doing so. In a world I scarcely understand anymore Starbucks gives me two things I desperately need to start my day; a sense that I can control something and caffeine.

When people tell me that supporting a corporation leaves them with a bad taste in their mouths I simply say, then your company doesn't make gingerbread lattes.

Do you know the secret to being a pretty good comic? It's not having a filter. We are trained since birth to not say what we are thinking. Lawyers make a living hiding intentions behind phrases. Poets convey meaning by coming at it sideways and anyone whose ever sat in a cubicle knows how often they have to swallow their words. I don't have a filter. It's what makes me a good comic but a lousy boyfriend. It also produces what can best be described as sit-com moments. I don't know why this stuff happens to me in Starbucks, but it happens to me there a lot. A stranger says something, other people look sheepishly at their feet because it was ignorant, hateful or just wrong, and before I realize what is happening, I’ve blurted something out that is causing some people to slap me on my back as they say, I wish I had said that, and others to look at me with undiluted hate steaming from their eyes. Partly, its just the hyper polarized, political mess of a country we all live in now. That, and as I’ve explained, I have no filter. I like to think of it as an allergic reaction to stupidity, speaking before thinking or, my favorite description, morally outraged turrets. Being in line at Starbucks can be a lot like being on Facebook, too. You interact with people who have different opinions you might not ordinarily interact with and occasionally, they poke you. I poke back.

A few months ago I was in Sacramento, CA. In line, in front of me, two guys were talking loudly. They looked like construction workers. One of them kept repeating a sentence over and over. "Can you believe it? A lazy fucking Mexican took my job!" it didn't matter that most people in the place were nervously avoiding eye contact, they kept looking around for people to agree with them. No one was. Finally, the guy whose been saying this turns to me and repeats it, "a lazy fucking Mexican took my job." I suppose he thought I should say something like, I can’t believe it!

Instead, I said "How good could you have been at your job if a lazy guy could replace you?"

That earned me my first round of applause at a Starbucks at a free coffee from the Hispanic guy working the cash register after they kicked out the two guys.

Score one for me.

Neutralizing ignorant bullies with comedic logic is something I have a black belt in.

Today, this happened to me in line at a Starbucks. Its Sunday before noon so the line is long. There is a large group of people waiting for their drinks as the Christmas music blares down on us all. In front of me are two well dressed woman in their early fifties. Leather boots, expensive hand bags and huge sun glasses on, they talk loudly to themselves. They have just come from church. They are talking about the sermon, Newt Gingrich and who Jesus would endorse if he could.

I am biting my tongue.

It's only when they get to the register that I notice the girl behind it is Muslim. I am presuming this because she is wearing a scarf on her head and she peers out at the two woman with large brown eyes and a dark face. One of the woman orders a drink and then says, " ...can I also get one of those low fat turkey bacon things?" The girl informs her they are out. "Are you just saying that because you don't want to touch bacon?"

Accept for the song, Here Comes Santa Clause, the room goes quiet. The woman laughs one of those socially awkward laughs and says, "I was just joking, dear."

Sure she was.

I haven't had my coffee yet and I am just not going to get into it with two gold plated crucifix wearing cougars. And then, like so many other times, I hear something that causes me to speak before thinking. The two of them are speaking to each other again and I hear "...the republican party IS the party of Jesus."

I can’t help it anymore.

"Sure, the republican party is the party of Jesus if Jesus was a fat white CEO of a company taking government contracts to build bombs preaching about family values with his third wife standing next to him."

Incredulous and stammering, before the woman responds, the Muslim girl leans on the counter and says, "your coffee is free today, sir."

Score another one for me.

Now comes the aftermath. The drama of petty people whose egos have been dented publicly is practically our national entertainment these days. The women demanded to speak to the manager. Other customers rise to my defense. Others shake their heads at me. The woman, composed now and clutching her latte, demand I apologize for Christian bashing. I point out that I am not Christian bashing, I am, in fact, ignorance bashing. That goes over as well as you might think it would go over with them. Their voices raise. I smirk, and like playing their part in a script I’ve read a hundred times before, the woman says something like, you want to love people who will blow up your children and ruin this country, thats fine, but this is a Christian nation! I fire back with something like, its a nation of laws founded by people who made a separation between church and state. If you want to live in a country that has one religion you are welcome to but I doubt they will let you dress like a mermaid in heat or drive!

Now comes laughter, raised eye browns and the intake of shocked breath before they storm out. Mermaids in heat? I don’t know what that meant either but it put them over the top.

Lets review what might of missed your attention and certainly missed the two women’s.

If its Turkey Bacon, its not made of pork. Its made of Turkey. A Muslim can touch it.
At a time when religion and politics were the same thing, Jesus was killed for disagreeing with both. I doubt he would endorse a political party that just raised taxes on the poor but refuses to consider raising taxes on millionaires no matter how many times they invoke his name.
Newt cheated on his wife while trying to get President Clinton fired for doing the same thing. That should be all anyone has to say to end his run for the White House.
OK, he never took government money to build bombs. I was speaking pre-caffeine rhetorically.
Dressing like Lindsay Lohans mother and coming from Church feels a little off to me.
Muslim women are free to be wage slaves in America just like anyone else!

Thus concludes another thrilling adventure in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of coffee with a little bit of conversation. I'm not even going to go into what happened when I posted this on Facebook.

Merry/Happy Christmas/Holidays~

2011-12-18T15:12:00.000-08:00

There is a war against Christmas. It's being waged mostly by the people who claim there is a war against Christmas. The AFA or, American Family Association runs a website, naughty and nice, that helps good Christians buy their Christmas presents from pro-Christmas companies. Companies that say merry Christmas in their ads get a green light. Companies that use Christmas in some of their ads get a yellow light and companies that use the term, happy holidays instead of mentioning Christmas, get a red light. No surprise that the AFA is at the top of the green light list with their on line store.

Isn't this beautiful? This year when you buy a present for the holiday named after a man who forsake all worldly possessions, you can do so at companies completely using his name to sell you stuff! Way to miss your own point that the message of Christmas is being drowned out by commerce.

Then again, maybe it was always this way. Even the three wise man showed up to Jesus's birth with gifts. Two of them had to be pissed when they found out that one of them bought gold when the other two had incense and body oil. Actually, for wise men, I can't think of three worse gifts for a baby. Maybe the term "wise men" was the first instance of the bible trying to be sarcastic. Maybe it's also the answer to Jesus and his selfless ways, too. Of course he could preach love, tolerance and embrace poverty when he had been given gold as a baby. Jesus was just another trust fund kid preaching against capitalism. Dirty hippy!

How did the modern republican party get to claim Jesus anyway? Seriously. How do fat old white dudes on their third marriage and a voting record against any humane public service for the least among us get to say anything as stupid as, there is a war against Christmas, when their entire public service has been a war against any of Jesus's teachings? If you are wearing a two thousand dollar gold cross around your neck, you don't get it.

Rick Perry released a YouTube ad where he starts out saying he isn't embarrassed to be a Christian. Why would anyone? I mean, Jesus was a man who preached love and tolerance. But then Rick follows that statement up with this nugget of compassionate genius "You don't have to be in the pew every Sunday to see that something is wrong with our country when gays can openly serve in the military but our children can't openly celebrate Christmas."
What. The. Fuck?
Singling out people for the way they are is in the Bible, but it was the Romans. I'm pretty sure that Jesus would be totally cool with gay people. Why? Because they are persecuted people. I'm pretty sure Jesus wouldn't be for the military. Why? Because he was for peace. Why are conservatives so afraid of gays? If gay people are so terrifying to them then we should just have an all gay military. Since the countries we invade seem to be as homophobic as the generals in the military, this should make them surrender before we send the "boys" in. And, we don't have to call it an invasion or regime change. We simply call it redecorating.

By the way, can someone show me the kids who, in their own homes with their own parents, aren't being allowed to openly celebrate Christmas? Is Obama sending secret service agents out to bust kids who were found to have a few ounces of tinsel on them? Give me a break!

Are you telling me FOX NEWS would embrace Jesus if he showed up again? I'm sure they would rush to the side of a long haired, middle eastern guy wearing sandals and giving away free health care as he talks about the evils of money. Are you kidding me? They would charge him for the cost of wood before they crucified him again for being against every single concept their hate filled little world is built upon while telling us how much they love him but not his lifestyle. Its what they say about gays all the time, right?

Happy holidays, merry Christmas and whatever. If you are buying presents on a AFA approved website, you aren't a good Christian. A good capitalist, sure. Part of why happy holidays has become the greeting of choice is the ever changing demographics of America. We are, after all, a melting pot. There are plenty of people who don't celebrate Christmas. As much as FOX NEWS wants you to believe this was a nation founded by Christians on Christians ideals, it's a nation of laws that specifically put in place a separation of church and state. Google it, for Christ sake!

Most of the founding fathers were Deists, too. That's a whole other blog. Point is, happy holidays isn't a war against one religions holiday it is an acknowledgement that other people have other beliefs, too. Then again, what can you expect when most paintings, statues and images of Jesus are of a white guy who looks more at home in a early 90's band?

When I was a kid growing up in the Midwest, you would see manger scenes everywhere. In front of banks, DMV's, police stations and movie theaters. They are still very popular in the Midwest. Out here, in California, you don't see them too often. I took a friend who is Indian to a Christmas lights display. These are very common out here. Basically, a park covers every bush, tree and shrub in lights. You drive through with the lights off on your car listening to Christmas music. Its drive through, Christmas!

They have candy canes, elves, Santa clause, reindeer and almost every variation on the Christmas theme you can imagine made with lights. She saw four snowmen, made up of lights wrapped around steel mesh, standing between two trees. "Is that a manger scene?" she asked half joking. How would she know? She has only heard about them. It's now become a running joke between us. We will be driving, she will point to a group of people and ask, "is that a manger scene?" I will look. "ah, no. That's a bus stop."

I have to admit that when I see a news story about a manger scene being removed, it makes me a little sad. Not because of any religious issues, I'm smart enough to know that the founding fathers viewed religion as a corrosive element in any free thinking society, but because it makes me think of being a kid. That's when Christmas had the power to mean something. Not because it was the birth of Jesus or I was going to get presents, it was, for lack of a more cynical description, the holiday cheer. People were nicer, lights hung everywhere and my family was together. If Christmas means anything in our culture right now it means black Sunday, cyber Monday and half off. That, truly is sad. Buying a present on credit for someone you feel you are obligated to buy something for at a pre-approved Christmas friendly website is about as far from holiday cheer as you can get. What modern Christians seem to be confused about most seems obvious to me; you can't chase profits and claim to follow the words of prophets at the same time. Considering the only time your boy Jesus lost his temper was about money, just whose side do you think he's on in this age of protesting?

Merry/Happy Christmas/Holidays~

The Open Mic Over Share

2011-12-13T10:47:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been returning to the open mics and loosely booked showcases to try out new stuff. I have found myself wondering if I have become a prudish old man or have younger comics just confused saying something shocking with being funny. Just to be clear; being dirty on stage is fine. It has to be funny first and then happens to be dirty. Not the other way around. Being dirty will produce a reaction but if laughter isn't in the top five responses, its not a joke; its a cry for help!

I closed a showcase recently where the preceding comics carpet-bombed the audience with jokes about jizz, rape, and pedophile jokes. What makes a comic think that after an audience hears 4 other comics bomb with their jizz, rape and pedophile jokes, he is going to get them with his jizz, rape and pedophile jokes? More to the point, if you are new and trying to get opening work, what club is going to want someone to open a show with that? Comics will say, "Louis C.K. does this kind of stuff!" Yes, he does. He also has 20 plus years of skill and rarely is dirty for the sake of being dirty. If a comic like Louis C.K. makes a jizz joke, it usually serves a wider purpose in some social commentary bit.

Then there is the conversation starter of, "No subject should be off-limits." I agree. However, putting all of the most challenging subjects into one seven minute set doesn't work either. A litany of porn, jacking-off, and "women are bitches" jokes isn't going to produce laughs when you are pushing buttons in the crowd. If the joke is about pushing those buttons, it actually stands a better chance of working than something that simple ends with your yelling, "jizz!"

I really do believe no subject is off limits. I also believe most comics don't approach difficult subjects correctly. A female comic asks me, "even rape?" Even rape. You can make a joke that makes fun of peoples attitudes about rape. You can use the word rape in a set up to something else. What you can't do is make light of rape. Besides, it is a loaded word. Bringing it up is bound to create an emotional reaction in more than a few women in the audience. This is a sad reality of society. Thats why young male comics throwing the word around should never be surprised when the audience doesn't go for their rape jokes.

No one gets into comedy to be told what to do. I'm not telling other comics what to do. The audience however, is. When a joke didn't work last year, last month, or last week, why are you still trying it? If a joke ends in a moan from the audience over and over again stop doing it. If you want to tell the audience about your drinking problem, porn addiction, or masturbation habits, go for it. It's your stage time. You just can't be surprised when the audience responds negatively. Then again, if the audience you're performing in front of is other comics waiting to go on after you at an open mic, this stuff is probably working. At a certain point in any comic's early development, shitty open mics where "anything goes" actually hurt. The goal isn't to get the loudest reaction at an open mic on a Tuesday night, the goal is to make a paid crowd laugh hard and often at a club or theatre that is paying you. Here is where the "sell-out" argument starts.

Selling out and getting work aren't the same things. When I work a club, the audience is coming to my home. I am allowed to do whatever I want. If I am working a private or corporate event, I am going to their home. I have to play by their rules if I want to be paid. Somewhere along the path to whatever career I have, I learned that an audience laughing at jizz jokes isn't usually the audience that will pay my bills. I also learned that what I wanted to talk about at 25 no longer interests me at 43. Besides, all jokes aren't created equal. Dick jokes are easy. They will almost always work. So when they don't work you really have to ask yourself whose fault that is. It's not the audience's.

A stand-up comic's job is to train the audience to see the world through his eyes. Jizz jokes might be part of the personal formula for finding out how to do that, but when so many people around you are shouting the identical punch line, you have to wonder just how unique your view is.

A Puppet and a Fist: Open Mic Night

2011-10-28T02:38:00.000-07:00

The only difference between people in Greyhound bus stations and people going up at comedy open mics is, the people at open mics want to be discovered. Often times they are just as crazy but they still want to be seen. I'm not going to lie. A bad open mic can be just as enjoyable for everything that goes wrong with at it as an open mic where everyone kills. Standing in back and burning karma by talking shit about what you're witnessing with a few other people can be a lot of fun. I know. I'm a bad person.

Rooster T. Feathers is a club I love. It also runs one of the last truly open Mic nights in a comedy club anywhere. There was a time when most clubs had an open Mic night. Most have stopped, a few do a partial open mic with a few pros in the line up to keep it good and some do one once a month. Roosters keeps the tradition alive by doing one once a week. Its also a pure open mic in the sense that if you sign up you go up. If you bring people you get more time but it remains a pretty democratic system. This means someone without a clue can get on stage for five minutes and try to hold the attention of the crowd. It also means someone with undiagnosed mental illness can get on stage, too. I said crowd but in most cases we are dealing with twenty or so people scattered at the various tables and chairs. Most are friends of one of the performers going on that night. A few are people who wandered in out of curiosity.

On the night I am closing the show, I am in the back burning Karma with Bay Area local legends, Larry "bubbles" Brown and Jimmy Gunn. It is the usual open mic with plenty of poorly constructed jokes on masturbation, pot, porn and rape. I don't know what it is about white guys and jokes about rape, but there are plenty of both of those. Here and there, in random moments, a few jokes pop out of the mouths of the mostly confused people on stage. One after the other they all go up and get a crack at the ten people who make up the "crowd."

Three people are sitting up front at a table. One of them, a woman in her late 40's, heckles the comics. She continues to comment or awkwardly compliment the comics. This wouldn't be all that unusual accept she is suppose to go up too. Quick hint to anyone thinking of trying stand-up comedy out. When you go to your first open mic, don't sit directly upfront and "talk" to the other performers on stage. She isn't being funny or cute, just very annoying. The manager goes over to her and asks her to stop. She does. For a while and starts up again. She is reminded again that this isn't a conversation and once again she stops and then starts up again. The comics, God love them, are all new. Awkward, nervous, attempting to be edgy and coming off creepy; all but a few are pretty grim and none are helped by the heckler. The fact that she is going up and that she is so completely clueless is hilarious.

The night progresses and eventually we are down to the remaining two or three comics. I've lost track. A man in a suit goes up. his timing is impeccable but his jokes are awful. What becomes rapidly hysterical to me is that after each punch line fails to get a laugh he simply says "Thank You" in a forceful baritone. It becomes one of those things that is so ridiculous and you know its not actually funny but you can't help it. He tells a vaudeville type one liner. Thud. "Thank You." All this and the lady up front still hasn't gone up.

Finally, we're down to the woman who won't shut up. Before she is introduced she comes to the back where she has left a plastic pumpkin and some other items. She puts on a Dracula cape. A Dracula Cape! When she is introduced she walks on stage with a swagger ordinarily reserved for people going to the electric chair with crazy smiles. And, wearing a cape. She puts her hand above her eyes because the lights are bright and promptly tells us "I'm so high right now and that's no joke." Awesome! Larry, jimmy and I are all watching in awe. She tells us that she has a surprise. Its hidden under her cape. She pulls it aside to reveal one of those puppets that has its arms wrapped around her. WoW! Just when I thought this couldn't get any stranger, it does! She introduces her puppet as her wife. "we got busy the other night." She explains. Larry, Jimmy and I are observing this with guilty grins. In front of us, sitting at the side of the bar, a man turns around with a business card in his hands. "This is her card." If you believe what the card says, the woman on stage is a massage therapist. "She specializes in prostate massage." All I can say is, Google it. It makes sense, in a weird way, when you look at whats happening on stage. She keeps asking if there are any couples in the audience. Then she asks when was the last time "...you got busy?" I'm not sure if anyone ever gave her the answer she was looking for but she begins to give what she calls a deep organ massage to the puppet. At this point, Larry leans in between Jimmy and I and says "It's a Lemur, I believe." This makes me laugh so hard. At about the same time she starts to thrust her fist into the butt of the puppet making loud noises in what I'm guessing is her idea of what you would hear when they get busy. Wearing a cape and fisting a puppet does make you stand out at a show. I will give her that.

Then, its my turn. I walk on stage and all I can say is, I've seen some shows but wow. Its great to be here on mental health night. And thats about how it goes for the fifteen minutes I'm up there. Comedy. Its bold and beautiful, wonderful and scary. Those are the good nights, folks. On the bad nights its stunning for all the wrong reasons. I have seen a lot of shows. I've done comedy for twenty years. Until this night though, I hadn't seen anyone fist a puppet on stage.

Good Luck, America! Part 1: The Republican Debates

2011-09-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

I just watched the Republican debates. My favorite part was when Rick Perry was asked about Global Warming. He said that all the science on global warming "...wasn't in yet..." and then noted that "Galileo got out voted for a spell too..." Really? You're using Galileo as your example of waiting for all the facts to come in? You mean the guy who figured out the Earth actually went around the Sun and the Catholic Church called a heretic placing him under house arrest till the day he died? That Galileo? You mean the guy the Catholic church apologized to 400 years later because they were wrong? You can't use one of the best examples of someone being punishing for science when you are the one against science. Then again Texas leads the nation in the high school drop out rate at 25%. It's not like education is very important to Rick Perry. In fact, denying the science behind his states record drought and wild fire season is only the start. He cut funding for rural fire fighters, where most of the wild fires originate from, and asked the people of his state to pray for rain.

If that "spell" Rick Perry is talking about is a 400 year long wait before all the facts are in then it's safe to say Texas isn't going to make it. Good luck, America. This is the Republican front runner.

Why are Christians falling all over themselves to claim God is punishing parts of the country with Hurricanes and earthquakes? The state of Texas is on fucking fire! What is God telling them?

At one point in the debate, all the Republicans agreed that what is killing the economy right now is Obamacare. That is hilarious to me! Most of the provisions of "Obamacare" won't take affect until 2014. The parts of the plan that are working now make it a law that HMO's have to spend 85% of every dollar collected on health care. That, and a kid can stay on his parents plan till he is 26 and HMO's can't denny health coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. If this is what is killing the economy then by all means, lets start killing these kids and letting CEO's of HMO's spend money on private jets till all thats left for ICU's are IOU's.

Over and over almost everyone of these followers of Jesus claimed that government and its regulations are what is in the way of people getting quality health care. They would prefer "market based solutions" for dealing with health care.

Market based solutions is a wonderful little term. Instead of the government testing products for safety or making sure a product does what it says, the market can dictate which business makes it and which business goes bankrupt because consumers won't buy an inferior product when they can get something better from a competitor. Maybe, but before people realize a company is selling bad spinach or a car is dangerous, they have to die. A whole lot of people have to die before the market catches on. Does anyone really think market based solutions is the most humane way to help sick people? The best example of what can go wrong when there is zero regulation is THE ECONOMY! You remember that one, right? The banks, investment houses and credit rating companies said they can watch over themselves. After all, if a company screwed up the market would provide a solution. Actually the market collapsed along with billions in pensions and 401k's. Never fear, the American tax payer bailed out the banks. Its funny because when we give government money to struggling people the rich scream socialism but when we do it with companies we say, they were too big to fail.

When it comes to health care, this so called Christian nation is decidedly anti-christian in its approach to helping sick people. And what's with the screaming about socialism? Jesus healed the sick and poor for free. Jesus got mad at money changers in the temple. Jesus said a rich man has as much chance getting in to heaven as a camel does getting through the eye of a needle.

Jesus WAS socialized medicine, America!

I guess in their minds Jesus wasn't put to death. It was simply a market correction by the Roman authorities who were too big to fail.

Never mind, America. Go back to the Jersey Shore.

Last week Mitt Rommney unveiled his economic plan. Its a 150 page booklet you can download from Amazon Kindle. In talking about it he said, "I don't know if it's free or not..." Your campaign manager must of shit hearing that. You're telling the American people you don't know what your plan will cost them? Literally!

I think I finally figured out the Republican plan. Since they are obsessed with security they are going to allow the country to fall into bankruptcy and refuse to fix our crumbling infrastructure so if the terrorists ever return to America they will look around and think someone else already set a bomb off here!

We are spending two billion dollars a week to be in Afghanistan.

If we aren't going to spend money here to educate the next generation to find better solutions that we tried and we aren't going to rebuild the crumbling bridges, roads and tunnels then what are we actually protecting America from?

First of all, Obama has turned out to be a disappointment to everyone who put him into office. So when I start bashing the Republicans who are largely to blame for why we are in the mess we are in right now, please don't fire back that its Obama's fault. The Republicans were wrong about EVERYTHING they said for eight years, folks.

When Bush was handed a CIA memo titled, Bin Laden determined to strike in America, he stayed on vacation. Wrong.

When we were attacked on 9/11 he attacked Iraq. Wrong.

He said they had weapons of mass destruction. Wrong.

They told us the banks needed further deregulation to get people into their own homes. Wrong.

They told us New Orleans had nothing to fear. Wrong.

They told us lowering taxes on the wealthy, something never done in 2,000 years of recorded history during a war, wouldn't hurt the economy. Wrong.

They told us raising taxes on the rich hurts their ability as job creators. Bush lost jobs at a historic rate while the rich were taxed at historically low rates. Wrong.

Blaming Obama for this economic mess was like Bush blaming Iraq for 9/11. Wrong.

You can blame Obama for being a pussy. You can blame Obama for caving in over and over again. You can blame Obama for a lot of things but it seems the biggest problem most conservative minded people have with Obama is Obama is the president.

What is their plan to get rid of him? The Republican tea party plan is to keep things shitty in America so people blame Obama and vote him out. You think I'm kidding? Check this out. The Republican tea party idiots allowed the credit of America to be downgraded by not agreeing to raise the debt limit.

You heard a lot of people screaming about balancing the budget and we have to learn to live within our means during this disaster, right? They are all idiots. The budget is how we agree to spend money in the future. The debt limit is about continuing to pay interest on money we already borrowed. What was that money spent on? It was spent by the Republicans for wars that weren't paid for. While every one of the wannabe Republican president hopefuls demanded the president do a better job to fix the economy, no one seems to remember its a direct result of the Republicans doing exactly what they wanted for eight years. Getting our credit downgraded by refusing to pay for wars you demanded we have is not a solution to fixing the mess. However, it is a great recipe for getting Obama out of the White House.

Do you see their strategy? They gave a black man in public housing bad credit. Its what rich white people love doing only this time its the president and the house isn't the White House, it's America.

Its like they bought the biggest most expensive flat screen 3D wifi ready plasma TV and after making payments for eight years suddenly decided that the best way to get out of this economic mess is to fuck up our credit by not paying for it anymore! This is Obamas fault?

Like I said, Blaming Obama for this economic mess was like Bush blaming Iraq for 9/11. Wrong.

Mitt Rommney, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are the leading contenders for the Republican ticket. The fact that two out of three of them claim God told them to run for president should be a red flag. If you believe an all powerful being registers disapproval with homosexuals wanting marriage by shaking the earth but then takes time out of ruling the universe to say I want you to be the leader of one nation on one planet in one galaxy, you should automatically be disqualified for the office. Besides, if God really talked to Michele Bachmann I think the first thing he would say is, you know your husband is gay, right?

My Comedy CD is Finally Here!

2011-08-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

It's finally here! It took most of the last four months to finally get it ready, recorded, printed and shipped but my first ever full length comedy CD is ready for you to download! I was seriously starting to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could deal with at the moment. I started planing for the actual show the same day I was laid off from my day job. That was tax day, April 15th of this year! When the night finally came the little theatre, Stage Werx was sold out! It's the same place I do my storytelling show, Previously Secret Information at. I did an hour and a half that night. Not only that, but I did it with almost no riffing! If you've seen me before you know how rare that is. With eight pages of notes on a music stand and the most adoring, incredible, wonderful group of fans I could hope for, the night went about as perfect as you want a night to go when you're recording your first ever comedy CD. The tickets paid for the sound engineer who recorded it and if things keep up the way they seem to be going the first 100 actual copies will be paid for by the end of the week with downloads! I could not be any more proud right now!

Alright, so how do you get yourself a copy? There are three main ways.

1. Download an MP3 directly from iTunes for $9.99

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/joe-klocek/id460831872

2. Download a copy from CD Baby for $9.99

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/joeklocek

3. To get an actual CD mailed to you

The cost is slightly higher (it covers the cost of shipping the CD)

and has a few more steps. Visit my website to see how you can do this via PayPal here.

http://standupjoe.com/www.standupjoe.com/Comedy_CD.html

Please leave feedback at whatever site you buy it from!

Thanks and I hope you enjoy it. The second CD is already waiting to be mastered!

Too Good or a Fail?

2011-08-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to be in trouble for being too good? I've got to check my ego, take a deep breath and ask myself if I am really seeing the whole picture with that statement. Allow me to explain.
I performed at a club where I was the feature act. A reviewer came to the first show of the week.
I left right after my set so I can't say what exactly the headliner did or didn't do. Long story short, the reviewer didn't like the headliners act. He seemed drunk, the reviewer said. he seemed off his game, the reviewer noted. What the reviewer did like was me. What was suppose to be a review for the headliner that week became a glowing endorsement of the Klocek experience. Hands down, it was the best review I've ever had as a stand-up comic. Not just because I stole the show but they got me. Even reporters who do dig me sometimes fail to explain what I am doing with the crowd. Because I treat the audience like we are friends hanging out, I get to be the smart-ass friend who gets away with making fun of you. I might say fuck you but it's always with a wink and a nod.
This reviewer got that.

It was the next day at the club when the manager brought the article to my attention. He was angry that the headliner and by extension, the club had been given a poor review. he realized it was great for me but in an effort to ingratiate myself I suggested that I too was unhappy with the review because it gave away several of my punch lines. The manager said he was going to complain to the small on line paper and that was that. I didn't think anything more of it until a few weeks later when I was back in the area doing another show and I posted the link to the piece. A few people emailed me asking what did I do. What did I do? the link wasn't just dead it now brought you to a page that said the article had been taken down for illegally being used. What did I do?

I emailed the reporter who had friended me on Facebook. She seemed friendly enough. I asked what happened to the article and thus began a frustrating afternoon of figuring out exactly how good I should be when featuring in clubs. My first shock came when she replied, I thought you had asked for it to be taken down? WTF! Why would I ask to have the best review of my stand-up comedy career removed? She told me her editor had said the manager of the room said I wasn't pleased with the number of punch lines the article contained. Ah oh. Here is where everything suddenly clicked into place. The manager has a job to do. Promote the room. Instead of saying he wasn't pleased with the treatment of the headliners set he went with me being the bad guy to get a review that cast the room in a poor light taken down. End result; the best article written about me as a live stand-up comic cannot be googled, downloaded or seen by anyone.

For a few days I wrestled with going back to the manager of the room and requesting that he contact the editor and have the piece put back. What would this accomplish? More than likely the manager would think I was a dick and I might alienate myself from a good room. That and why the hell did I even say anything bad about a glowing review in the first place? What a mess. I felt like I couldn't win for doing a great job. Like I was being penalized for just doing what I do on stage. Besides, I didn't see the headliners set but the rest of the week it looked like the guy was crushing. Still, the idea that I got in trouble for being too good stayed with me until I convinced myself it was just silly and I was hanging onto it because it made my ego feel good.

Another week in another club came around. I was the feature act again for a headliner with hip TV credits, a podcast following and the added bonus of having worked with him before. Everything seemed fine the first night. The second night I had a fun set too. The only thing I can comment about that second night was that the crowd was a little weird. There were three different tables that were a little vocal. Not drunk or out of control, just a little vocal. I had decided that this week I was going to work on material and keep the riffing to a minimum. I engaged the tables one by one, had some fun and then politely shut them down before moving onto the new stuff. If a comic can't handle drunks in a night club they might not be ready to headline. Period. I didn't watch their set but supposedly they had a little trouble dealing with the more vocal fans. Thats the other thing, they had almost the entire room there to see them. After the show the headliner sold his CD and shirts to adoring fans and I passed out fliers to my storytelling show. Thats when a woman came up to me and in front of the headliner said "You were funnier and should of been the headliner." I'm not a dick. I just smiled, thanked her and hoped the headliner hadn't heard them. Well, he did. The headliner didn't say anything to me about this. In fact, I might never have known anything about the incident but he told the opener who then told me. Ah, thats right. This is pure passive aggressive Hollywood style. Again, I felt like I was getting in trouble for doing great. I didn't think too much about it but then the opener told me they thought I went long on the late show Friday. If I had gone long the Booker, who never hesitates to tell any comic when they went long would of told me and I checked with the manager who also confirmed I did not go long. At this point I am just pissed. Fuck these Hollywood pussies! You have TV credits, fans and the much larger pay check to be here this week. I don't have the luxury of relying on fame, I have to win my audiences over by being a damn good comic. Its the mark of a weak headliner when they start blaming the feature act for their lack luster performances. Besides, if one person says I did better than maybe you should worry about the people lining up to give you an additional $20 for your T-shirts and CD. They seemed to like you just fine. Why take it out on me?
And so it went.

The headliner didn't like my set for some reason, told the opener and then went on stage and had OK sets in front of the audience their name brought out! To my face everything was always, nice set! Good stuff! Thanks for being on the show! I felt like we were divorced and the opener was our child bringing messages between us. Only, I had nothing to say. I hadn't done anything wrong. I wasn't riffing like I usually do. I wasn't going long by anyone elses standards and I started the week as a fan excited to be working with him. In fact, I was hoping to ask the headliner if he would take me on the road. Yeah, that clearly wasn't going to happen.

My problem is this. I can't headline because in this day and age of marketing is everything, I have not appeared on an HBO show. I don't have a well subscribed to podcast. I don't have Comedy Central specials under my belt. I am just a fucking great comic who has to earn his fans joke by joke, show by show. Most of these L.A. wonders developed inside the bubble of L.A. They can act and network but most do not have the skills to keep a live audience of their own fans interested for forty five minutes. If I am in trouble for anything it is for doing my job well. Period. Who am I? I am Joe Klocek. I am funny. If you can't follow me don't invent bull shit like I went over my time to sooth your ego. Hire me to write for you. That way I can finally make some money in this fucked up business and you can give your fans a good show.

The Seth Meyers Gig

2011-06-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

I live at the edge of America. Directly on the beach, at the end of the Avenues, in the Sunset district of San Francisco. Whatever bit of sunlight the day has, it lands on the balcony window overlooking the sea. I've lived here for two weeks now. I am now as far from my mid-western roots as I can possibly be. Literally. Dark angular shapes- cargo ships- make for the horizon, or set course for the Golden Gate. It's beautiful. Living with a view of the ocean is like having a painting that changes by the hour. In the evening, people will gather at the walls built to hold back drifting sand, and stare out at the sinking sun. They come because they believe there is a green flash right before the sun disappears from view. Others stand alone in front of the waves just looking outward. I imagine some of them are saying private prayers locked in their own sense of deep grief, or solemn wishful thinking. There are also the lovers, holding onto each other, smiling, and bracing against the wind. They look at each other more than at the ocean. Every night, a new collection of people brave the cold to bear witness to the day’s final moments. I'm sure it has different meanings for all who attend.
Yesterday, I watched the sun slowly fall toward a bank of clouds that looked like a throne. As soon as the orange and gold globe hit the clouds, the cotton edges glowed like the tips of ashes in a fireplace. The more the clouds swallowed the sun the more its rays shot out and lit up the distant darker clouds. Crimson, rust, pinks and even a slight green could be seen before the final molten glass piece of the sun disappeared.
I watched as my headphones pumped in the opening to the Pink Floyd Album, “Wish You Were Here”. I can’t think of a better way to end a day by yourself.

The life of a comic. It's always the same. Sort of. Just after 6PM on a Tuesday I get a phone message from the Booker of Cobb's Comedy Club. They are looking for an opener for Seth Meyers this weekend. Am I around and do I have a clean smart clip I can send him to forward to Seth's people? That's the kind of phone message that makes you pull over. I call the Booker back and say “Yes, and yes!” As luck would have it, I've been working with the producers of Craig Ferguson to get on so I have a few clips posted on YouTube that I can forward. There is a lesson here for any young comic. Have a clean, TV-ready set somewhere on line, that you can send to a booker. Not just the local open Mic or another comic, I mean the bookers you want to be working for. That set is worth gold. After I send it, I’m told they’ll watch it. All I can do now is wait, and brag to a few friends about what I might be doing this weekend. The gig isn't at Cobb's. Friday night, it’s at a theater in Napa, CA; Saturday night takes place at the Montbleu Casino in Tahoe, NV. The money is great, the crowd will be hot, and I get a hotel in Tahoe. All in all, it’s pretty awesome.
Wednesday comes around and Tom, The Booker at Cobb's calls. "You got it." Beautiful. That Friday I get a phone call from Seth's manager. He explains that Seth likes to be left alone before a show to prepare, and that he’s a mellow, easygoing guy. If Seth talks to me after the show, then it's cool for me to respond but for the most part he likes his privacy. I tell him I totally understand, and will give him his space. I can only hope to reach a point in my career where someone else calls up the opener to make a passive-aggressive suggestion to leave me alone. I have no idea if Seth Meyers asked his manager to specifically make this call. Most big league managers are over-protective of their clients. But, whatever. As long as I get a crack at his crowd, and the check clears, who cares what he’s like?

I arrive at the theater in Napa three hours early for sound check. The Uptown is a gorgeous palace. It was reopened after remodeling just a year ago. I walk in, taking it all in. Just under 1,000 seats, with art deco paintings on the ceilings, it’s the kind of place every comic imagines playing when they start. There isn't a bad seat in the house. Tonight it’ll be sold out. I have twenty minutes up front, and the excitement is starting to build. I meet the sound guys and they ask if I’m ready for the sound check. Sure. To me a sound check is basically turning the mic on, making sure it stays on, and then waiting to use it. These guys are professionals that leave nothing to chance. They show me a back up wireless mic, and another corded mic, at the base of the monitor directly in front of me. The main mic stand sits by a stool, on top of a well-worn, handsome area rug. It looks like the back of an album cover from the 70's. It's perfect. They turn the mic on and I start speaking. They ask me, is that enough monitor? How is the echo? Do I like the mix? Ah, yeah. That’s good monitor for me. That’s good echo, does it sound good to you guys? I’m bullshitting my way through the sound check. I don't have a clue what they mean by these things. I’m used to small rooms and faulty equipment – usually, the guy running it answers any question about quality by shrugging his shoulders. It suddenly dawns on me that here I am, again, in a big-time situation; and as much as I know I deserve it, I’m a little lost. Still, the sound guys aren’t only pros, they are cool. In fact, everyone I met that night at the Uptown was incredibly accommodating. Killing time in my dressing room, anyone who came by would stop for a second to ask if I needed anything. The fridge was stocked with a sampling of almost every beverage I could think of. They had chocolate and cheez-its, coffee, tea and WiFi. If there was something else I needed, I wasn't aware of it. I kept looking in the mirror, feeling like a girl, thinking,  “I’m fat - and I hope Seth likes me.” That’s the thing about opening for big names, the fantasy is always that they’ll take a liking to you and ask if you want to hit the road with them. After all, Seth Meyers, hot off the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where he killed Trump, is the head writer for Saturday Night Live. Things lead to things, and as I pace in the small dressing room just off-stage, I keep trying to reign in my expectations. When Seth does show up, I’m afraid to make eye contact. Not out of shyness, I'm just not sure if his manager said it was OK. Seth smiles warmly, extends his hand, and I tell him how thrilled I am to be opening for him. He thanks me for doing it and says his manager has sung my praises. And then, he's gone. He goes to his dressing room to wait till the show that’s still two hours away. His dressing room is directly above mine. I can hear him moving around up there. I wonder what he’s doing/how he’s preparing? At one point he comes downstairs, knocks on my open door and says "Hey, I taped a set list to the floor - I hope that doesn't bug you or anything?"
I smile and just say, "I might start doing some of the jokes by accident."
He laughs a little, saying "You could probably improve them."
It feels like flirting. I mean, it is flirting. Not in a sexual way, more of a, “I have a career crush on you”, sort of way. I watched the Correspondent’s Dinner monologue, and kept thinking, “I’ld like to do that. Man, that guy’s good.” Now, here he is, dressed in a simple hoodie and jeans, being self-deprecating.
He returns to his dressing room, where I can hear him continuing to pace, too. I trade text messages, post excited announcements on Facebook, and look in the mirror for the hundredth time. As showtime draws closer, the place starts to hum with energy. I peek out from the wings and people are filling up the front section. There are still plenty of open seats, but I know we’re sold out. The energy is pulsating, and finally I commit to putting on what I’ll wear, and stand in the wings, waiting. There’s a host to intro me, a sound guy controlling everything, and me. It’s dark backstage, except for a few blinking lights and the buzz of equipment. Finally, the host walks out and, after a moment of welcoming them, introduces me. I walk out onto the large stage, bathed in a follow spot. I stand in front of the mic and begin. A few minutes in, I see the one main theatre door directly in the center of the theatre opening and closing with silhouettes of people coming in. That’s the shitty thing about being the opener - you're killing time for the people to get seated. Still, about ten minutes in, everyone is mostly in their chairs and I-am-killing. God it feels good! Since the room is so large, you have to wait for the laughs from the rear of the place to catch up with the laughs right at your feet. The result is a wave of laughter that rolls over you. You have to take an extra beat before starting the next line. I also understand the importance of the monitor now. Without it, timing that roll of laughter would be harder. Oh, and the echo is just fine.
And just when I get them where I want them, I have to let them go. Warmed up and ready, my job as loosening the peanut butter jar lid is complete.
When Seth steps out there, they love him instantly. I look forward to that day when a majority of the crowd knows who I am and knows I’ll make them laugh. Till then, it’s one crowd at a time, and tonight, I’m reminded, that’s OK.
Saturday’s show is even better! Another beautiful stage and a sold out crowd. I don't get a green room, I get a condo! It has a bar, giant-screen TV, the longest couch I've ever seen, a bathroom/dressing room and a coffee table that I’m betting has never seen coffee, but probably a whole lot of "sugar." There’s even a guy whose job it is to make sure the talent is happy. All in all, it’s a great time. At the end I thank Seth, and ask him to remember me if he should need an opener again.

Life is about balance if it’s about anything. The Seth Meyers gig came along, and a week later my car got booted. It’s OK, because I had more than enough cash to pay off the tickets. Another gig in Sacramento canceled on me the day before, but then a gig I had done at Stanford paid me almost twice what they originally said they would, pay due to a delay of payment. All in all, things tend to work out (when I’m not obsessed with things working out exactly the way I want them to).

Take a Look at These...

2011-05-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a tour of recent weirdness and wonders seen at airports and in city streets. They run the gambit from horrific to weird. Enjoy.

Obama With a Hitler Mustache

It's hard to know exactly where these people thought they were. This was just outside Union Square in San Francisco. Seems like a strange place to get signatures. Here is the truly weird part. They were seeking signatures to bring back an arcane banking law that would of prevented the financial meltdown we had. It was put in place after the great depression and repealed some years ago by Clinton. It's where most economists trace the beginning of our current disaster. That is something a lot of SF people probably know. What they don't like is to see Obama with a Hitler mustache. The woman in the photo looking at me and seeming confused had just been yelled at by an elderly black woman for participating in hate speech images. After hanging around the outskirts for a few minutes it seemed the plan was to excite people, draw them in and then they would find out the kids with the pens and clip boards were on the same side. Fail. Big fail. This became more of a lesson in marketing than politics I think.

Borders Book Store Sign

I saw this at a Borders. Who ever put this sign together either had a sense of humor or this is the best unintentional demonstration of humor and irony. I find it hysterical that recovery is one direction and Self Help the other. The bottom two subjects also seem curiously related. One direction is weight loss and if that doesn't work, Divorce and Separation. For that matter, with the clothes pre-teen girls are wearing, maybe Child Psychology is the opposite of fashion. Erotica or Psychology? Mmmm, I'm not sure.

Free or Free of?

You can throw any piece of shit out on the median lane of a road and it's free. Putting a spray painted sign on a battered and stained sleeper sofa is beating a dead horse. By the way a dead horse is also free.

Really?

I saw this in the Phoenix Airport a few weeks ago. It's a store with the look of a cave named, Caved Inn. Get it? What does it sell? Same crap every store barely hanging on in an airport sells and rocks!

I wonder if gift shops at mining camps have stores named Plane Crash?

I want to meet the guy with big enough balls who talked a company into opening a store in an airport that sells gum, newspapers and mining games. Wow!

Some Good News for a Change

2011-05-18T08:42:00.001-07:00

Dear Readers,

This has been a good morning. Turns out my storytelling show, Previously Secret Information won the 2011 SF WEEKLY award for BEST NEW STORYTELLING SHOW in San Francisco.

That would be pretty cool but as an added bonus I also won BEST COMEDIAN in the Readers' Poll! What's funny is today I have an interview at the unemployment agency to prove I am excited and eligible to work. Maybe this is the universes way of keeping me humble.

The timing couldn't be better. Wednesday, June 29th I am finally recording my first ever LIVE stand-up comedy CD at StageWerx Theatre in San Francisco. Tickets are just $10. You can get them on line at Brown Paper Tickets HERE.

Thank you to everyone who voted on line=) It means a lot to me.

Joe K.

The Wavy Gravy Gig

2011-05-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

"Wavy Gravy killed us tonight."

These are the first words spoken to me by one of the producers when I arrive at tonight's gig.

"What?" I ask not sure exactly what she just told me.

"Wavy Gravy is having his 75th birthday party next door, " she says, pointing to the building where all the noise is coming from. "Great," I think to myself, "it's always something."

Wavy Gravy is a counter-culture hero from the 60's. He started out as a clown, was part of the acid-dropping "Merry Pranksters" (Google Ken Kesey for a quick history lesson, kids), and for a short time had the unusual honor of being managed by comedian Lenny Bruce. This entire place is one giant old factory. The warehouse section has been left open for raves, concerts, and tonight, Wavy Gravy's birthday event. People are wandering around wearing everything from capes, to pajama pants. One woman has a giant mushroom hat with light-up sunglasses. Another guy has a big, red, fake clown nose. Most of the people walking around are a little drunk - and a lot high.

I start blinking, as my eyes are stinging slightly. Not from pot smoke drifting in from next door; from the kitchen. The entire place smells of burnt hamburger. White smoke is collecting in the rafters. They've opened the front doors to help with ventilation, but all that's doing is making the place cold - and smoky. About five minutes before the show starts, one of the comics bails out due to all the smoke upsetting her lungs. Another comic, who came to see the show, has agreed to take her place. Between the noise, and the constant foot traffic of burned out hippies and young stoners from the Wavy Gravy birthday show, the place is like a train station; noisy, and full of people who look lost.

Here's something people don't understand about stand-up comedy. It requires the attention of everyone in the place. Shouting over the din of conversation from people who didn't know there was a show happening, or don't care, destroys any subtlety, grace or nuance in a bit. Even if a small handful of people sitting close to the stage are there for comedy, having another 70 people wandering around trying to order beer from a party next door, ruins it. For all its bravado, comedy is actually delicate. It's not a band in the corner. It's conversation. As a comic my job is to go on stage and tell jokes. Those jokes, no matter how funny, won't work if they can't be delivered in a professional environment. As I will learn later, that's apparently pretty much just my opinion - not the opinion of the producers.

This is the second time I've been at this venue. It's damn near impossible to find. I'm not kidding. If you go to the website of the place they have a video you have to watch that helps you find it. As soon as I walk in I suddenly realize what a mistake it was to take this gig seriously. So many things are going wrong, that by the time I'm arguing with the producer about not going on, in the middle of the show, I realize I should have just walked out earlier.

The comic who opened isn't an opener. He is a very funny feature act. While the ten people who paid for a ticket attempted to listen, anyone paying attention to their body language could see they weren't happy. At one point a guy wearing a big red clown nose walked up to the edge of the stage and yelled, "Say something funny!" When the next comic went on, a burned out hippy lady sat down and ate his food. That was bad enough - but when the mic went out, no one seemed to know exactly what to do. (It was later explained that the sound guy didn't show up.) Having a huge room filled with people trying to talk over each other is not conducive to quality stand-up. After 20 years I've paid enough dues. I'm not going to yell at people so I can make them laugh. With the noise, smoke, faulty equipment and poor quality everything, this was not just a bad place for comedy: it was downright toxic.

Eventually it was my turn. I told the producer I didn't want to go on. They flipped out and yelled at me explaining that these people would then go home and tell their friends that they saw a show where they pulled the plug in the middle and that would not only be bad it would make me something less than a professional. No, I explained, these people are going to leave here tonight and tell their friends about the completely horrible show they saw, that the producers didn't have enough sense to stop. At this point, the producer starts yelling at me about all his problems, and how I have to go on stage. This is exactly what every comic needs right before going on: to have the producer complain to them about their problems. Look, unless you're the guy going on in front of this mess, you don't have problems. What you do have, is a shitty show. Sometimes "the show must go on" is a bad idea, especially when most of the people in the place don't even know there's a show going on. It's hard for me to grasp the logic of making a comic go up in front of 100 people because 10 paid. It's hard to find the logic in any of this. Producers/Bookers don't do their job of preparing a room, but then still want you to do your job, expecting you to somehow magically make it all better. Again, yelling at a distracted crowd that wants nothing to do with a comedy show is as effective as yelling at an anorexic to eat.

When I go on the mic is feeding back. It takes another few minutes to figure that problem out. Almost everything else is forgivable. Almost. The one tool we use, the microphone, has to work. That's just common sense. At one point two girls yell "tell a joke." I thought that's what I had been doing. In fact, all of these jokes have worked every time I've done them before. Why? Well, they're good jokes, but the crowd was there to see comedy and paid attention. I ask," why are you here?" The answer: "To get beer and pee!" Ah, my ideal comedy audience. Then, a spotlight that I guess was suppose to be turned on at the start of the show is turned on in the middle of a joke. Nice! Just as I was getting a little bit of traction with them some genius interrupts it by deciding to turn the spot light on. It's kind of hard not to notice when light suddenly blinds you. The audience member directly in front of me is physically shaking from the cold trying to huddle in his jacket. The noise is overwhelming and I can see still more people from the party next door, coming in. This sucks. And really, the person I have to blame for all this is me. I took the gig. I walked in prepared to have fun and do my best, and when I told the booker this was awful, he yelled at me for believing my lying eyes. I'm sick of this shit. This is what killed comedy. People always blame the comics for poor shows, what about the bookers? They picked the talent, found the venue and set up the sound and lights. Why can none of those things be working properly, and it's alright? But the moment I point out how awful it will be for me on stage, I'm unprofessional?

This is what hurts live stand-up comedy. A bad comic in the middle of a good show can be overlooked. Great comics on a bad show gives us all a bad name. Sure, most of the people here don't want to see stand-up, it's smoky, noisy, the mic isn't working properly, the spot light stepped on a punch line just as I was getting somewhere with this crowd - but I'm the asshole for saying I don't want to go on because the conditions are ridiculous? Give me a break!

When I come off stage, I take my money from the guy without saying a word, and keep walking out the door into the rain. I don't feel bad. I'm angry. I'm angry that incompetent people have run stand-up into the ground with poor quality shows. I'm angry that other comics take this work because they think it's all part of paying their dues. I'm mostly angry that a show I was looking forward to playing on turned into a reminder of everything wrong with live stand-up. What's really sad, and what the producers don't seem to care about, is how much these people will remember how awful this show was, and what that does to stand-up as a whole. The next day I look at my calendar and decide three shows are going to be shitty. I cancel them.

The Facebook debate also begins. One of the other comics on the show posts a quick neutral breakdown of events. I chime in, the producer chimes in and once again I am told that what I saw wasn't what I saw. Again, he leaves a long list of things they had no control over and again I remind him that a producer's job is to have control. I am told that the smoke filling up the place wasn't a result of a grease fire and it wasn't that bad. Never mind that the comic who left was coughing up a lung and my eyes were watering. I am told that there was no threat of violence. It doesn't matter that I never said that. I am told that the restaurant didn't honor its agreement to stop serving at nine, that the sound man not showing up isn't their fault, and those ten people sitting in the cold with facial expressions that read as anything but enjoyment, enjoyed the show. We go around and around again and finally I just do what I should have done that night: stop talking and walk away from it.

Now I have to ask myself the big question, the hard question; what is my part in this? Besides saying, "My part was thinking pros would be putting this on," of course I have a part. Sure, I can't blame them for the grease fire that resulted in smoke. I can't blame them for the place not honoring whatever agreement they have in place. And here's the thing; I didn't do anything wrong. I showed up early, first one there, came with a great attitude (because after 20 years I still love being on stage), and all I did was speak a truth that was self-evident to anyone with eyes and ears; asking a comic to go up with everything stacked against him is disrespectful.

Recently, it's become clear to me that no matter what you do as a comic or how many people laugh long and hard at your stuff, it only takes one asshole to ruin it. More and more the person ruining it, though, isn't someone in the audience at all. Unfortunately, it's the bookers and club owners. I was told by the Booker of a club that I was banned because I called an audience member a bitch, and they couldn't afford to have their guests treated that way. Here's a thought: instead of taking the side of someone who got in for free, showed up drunk, and disrupted the show - maybe you should take the side of the comic who did the job of making the people paying attention laugh? After all, if a comic calls someone a bitch and the audience bursts into affirmative applause, chances are they deserved to be called a bitch. After she left, the show went on just fine. For some reason a lot of gigs cater to the lowest common denominator. Not just in the talent they book, but in the "guests" they encourage to come. If a club thinks they are building a quality customer base by encouraging the behavior of out-of-control drunks who didn't pay, good luck with that business approach. I would much rather play in front of a small but appreciative crowd, who paid to get in, than a large, mostly-boisterous crowd that has to be controlled. A lot of places don't see it that way. Like so many other things in America, they pick quantity over quality every time. What most comedy shows are really selling is alcohol, with a side of stand-up. It has undermined the quality of stand-up because we have to pander to a mentality that thinks being drunk is as much a part of stand-up, as the jokes are. Anytime a business goes down that road, it sets itself up to fail sooner, rather than later. I went around and around with this booker too, before I realized, "I don't want to work a room that values drunk morons who got in for free, more than they value me". What have I lost by sticking up for myself? A few shitty gigs that under-pay me, and under-value the art of stand-up, that's what. And maybe, a little shiny-new self-respect.

Go Back to Where You Came From!

2011-04-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Border Patrol recently discovered smugglers using a new way to get drugs across the Mexican border into America; catapults. That's right! They can get five pound bags of pot almost 500 feet across the U.S. border. Man, you gotta have someone with pretty good aim manning those things or you're liable to make somebody's day on the other side. Then again, maybe that's what's needed to chill Arizona out. Maybe that's Mexico's plan; use medieval weaponry to fire pot into America's litter box and calm all these fat white guys with riffles defending us from the horde of poor people who just want to come here for the chance to make slave wages washing our dishes and cutting our lawns.

Here's my question; how soon before they start using catapults to get people across the border? Conservatives will freak the hell out! "Mexican's can fly now? We don't need a fence, we need a dome!" I think if you're willing to shoot yourself across the border in a drug smuggler’s catapult, to do the work no American wants to do, you get to stay. Especially if you land in this country with a five pound bag of pot. It might not be a green card, but it is green.

America got started, because people looked around and were tired of living in a country where poverty and repression weren't ever going to change. So, they went somewhere else to start a country where opportunities would be normal. We seem to forget that. Of course, people from Mexico are coming here. Besides, if you want to stop people from economically depressed countries from coming here you don't go after the individuals; you make the penalties so stiff for the businesses that hire them that they no longer hire them. Supply and demand, baby! One of the biggest, most-guilty businesses on that score? The agriculture industry. Ironically, they not only don't face massive fines from the government, they receive some of the largest government subsidies. We go after the people picking our fruits and vegetables for crap wages (thereby, keeping the price low), and not only do we not go after the business making a profit on this, we hand them your tax dollars, while rounding up the poorest of the poor people, who will shoot themselves across the border again, first chance they get.

A few years ago the newest Superman movie came out, Superman Returns. Conservatives got angry because in the movie someone asks if Superman is still here to fight for "Truth, justice and all that stuff?" You'll notice it wasn't Truth, justice and the American away. People flipped over this! Why? If I have my Superman facts straight, he wasn't born in America. In fact, he's an actual alien! If anything, conservatives should be more worried about Superman than a Mexican. If you follow their logic, Superman can take the jobs of one hundred Americans.

Here is a little fun-fact that explains why America is in the economic mess that it is, and perfectly highlights either our stupidity or cruelty. All of the uniforms for the United States Border Patrol are made in, wait for it, Mexico! All this bullshit about border security goes out the window. What's to stop anyone at the factory from simply putting on one of the uniforms and stepping across the border? That might confuse an actual U.S. Border Patrol agent. "Wow! There are so many of us out here today! Great. We can use all the help we can get now that they can fly."

Part of why we are screwed is we just don't make anything in this country anymore. That and we send jobs overseas. The Border Patrol uniforms are a perfect example of how we screw ourselves. The American company that got the contract for the uniforms sent the work to a factory in Mexico, because it was cheaper to make them there. Not only does that demonstrate why people come here for better pay, Americans lost out on those jobs because an American company couldn't even wait for illegal aliens to come here, they just sent the jobs over there.

This isn't patriotic. If you wanted to be patriotic those uniforms should be made in the right country: China.

While one part of the U.S. Government is spending tens of millions of dollars to keep human beings we call aliens out of the country, NASA just spent tens of millions of dollars to broadcast a message into space for aliens. I can imagine some super advanced species on their world trying to make sense of our message.

"What does it say?"

"Go back to where you came from!"

VOTE FOR ME!

2011-04-18T20:50:00.000-07:00

Every year the SF WEEKLY asks it's readers to vote on the best things in San Francisco. One of the categories is best stand-up comic. I would really like to have this honor. So please vote for me by following the link bellow.

Thanks

http://polls.sfweekly.com/polls/san/bestof11/

The Republicans are Dicks

2011-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

The Republicans have forbidden schools to purchase fruit and vegetables for lunchrooms. You read that right. In the middle of the budget debates someone took the time to write out a special rider to the budget for school lunch programs. In a display of petty spitefulness, the Republicans decided to give the presidents wife a big fuck you by saying no federal money could be used to buy healthy food. Wow!

What brand of special ass-hole do you have to be to ignore the epidemic of fat kids in the country just to give a finger to Michelle Obama? While FOX has been busy planting the idea in little fear based minds that the government "...wants to tell us what to eat now!" your kids have been eating preservative laden plastic wrapped crap that comes in fifty gallon drums available at their school for purchase with their parents money. Why would anyone want to introduce a selection of fruit and vegetables? Why change the system of churning out intellectually void and physically unfit junior Americans?

Do you get what I am telling you? While the country is going through three fucking wars, the greatest economic melt down in our life times and the hijacking of one political party by crazy Jesus freaks who don't realize they are protesting for corporations best interests and not their own, the Republicans said, sure all that's happening but do you know what we really need right now? We need to send a message to the presidents wife that we don't like her at the expense of this nations kids!

Seriously? What brand of mentally deficient willfully ignorant moron decides to put in black and white language a rule that states no federal lunch program money can be spent on food? Real food, too! Not the powdered add water shit we shovel into kids mouths or the sugar and fat ka-bobs available from vending machines that are there only because schools have been so under funded that they bring in companies that split the cash with them.

Has anyone ever thought that the rise in ADD coincides with the rise of sugar in our kids diets? You know what might be good? Some fruit and vegetables. Nah!

This is what politics has come to. You don't have to like Obama or his wife but you're going to be against fruit and vegetables in schools just because the presidents wife is for it?

Sorry, I just can't wrap my head around this one at all. They put it in writing! They took time from trying to decide what our countries economic priorities should be to come out against fruit and vegetables. FRUIT and VEGETABLES!

Oh well.

A link to a list of riders in the Budget. http://www.ombwatch.org/files/budget/OMB_Watch-HR1_Policy_Riders.pdf

10 Things Wrong About America Right Now

2011-04-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

1. Taco Bell now offering a burrito made with frittos inside. Because America isn't fat or they know their stoned demographic?

2. Bottled water.

Why is it that the more expensive the water is the more they have a story about the pristine mountain lake fed by glaciers on the label? Then it has an expiration date. Also, if a can of coke is cheaper than water what does it say about your product when adding ingredients to water makes water less valuable?

3. On Facebook, where it asks, Political Views and people respond, Christian.

Christian is a religion not a political view. If you think mixing politics and religion works out, remember that's the mix that killed Jesus.

4. The dream ticket for conservatives is now Donald Trump for president with Sara Palin as VP.

That's right America, two reality TV stars are the Republican front runners.

5. We have three wars going on.

Four, if you count the war on drugs and five if you count the class war.

6. Charlie Sheen.

Enough said.

7. If being a christian means following the teachings of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ said he was for the poor and sick and a majority of conservatives say they are some type of Christian, WHY would you be for corporations making a profit off sick people and against any sort of humane reform in health care?

8. America has 50,000 troops in Germany and 30,000 in Japan and Korea and those wars ended a while ago.

You really think we are leaving no military behind in Iraq? Get use to Iraq being the 51st. state, America.

9. The people who brought about the greatest economic collapse in world history didn't go to jail.

They went to work for Obama to "fix" the problem they created. Meanwhile, the rich are getting tax cuts as the government cuts back services for the old and sick and to make up for the budget shortfall, the rest of us will pay more taxes on lower income as the banks continue to use the bailout money they got for screwing us to pay lobbyist to stop the government from regulating the banks.

10. G.E. made 14 billion dollars in profit, paid $0 in taxes and received 3 Billion back in tax credits.

They employee 975 tax lawyers to make this happen while I struggle to make enough money from telling dick jokes to strangers for love I didn't get growing up on the road just to pay my overworked tax accounted to see that I ONLY pay some of what I owe the government now and some of it next quarter.

A review of Previously Secret Information

2011-03-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2011/03/previously_secret_information.php

My Civics Lesson or, Airport Security Got to Second Base With Me!

2011-03-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

All I have to do is say the words "airport security line" and almost everyone shakes their head in shared frustration. How is it America, to protect itself against extremist Muslim terrorists, subjects its own citizens to a humiliating degree of security? And Israel, a nation surrounded by Muslim countries that routinely vow to wipe it off the face of the Earth, doesn't?

The national airline of Israel has never had a hijacking. How do they maintain security, in what is, essentially, a 24x7 live war zone? They’re trained to pick up cues, while questioning every passenger efficiently, ushering people through security lines based on when flights leave, not the cattle call, one-size-fits-all approach we have here.

When you enter an American airport, you start hearing the taped announcements, "Homeland security places the threat level at orange." What does that mean? Does anyone remember what level orange means? It sounds like an early 80's band. Is orange good? Is that level bad? Have they poisoned our vitamin C? After awhile, all you really register is the word: “Threat.” Then there are the classic announcements, also played in a loop. “Keep your bags with you at all times.” “Report anything strange right away to the authorities.” When you boil these phrases down, the message is distilled simply to: there is something threatening here; don't trust others; people who look different are bad.

If those don't get to you, then all the books written by conservative commentators will drive the point home, too. Maintaining the fear generated by the 911 attacks has become a lucrative business, so it makes sense that people buy books claiming to fight "them." After all, you're in the airport, with that constant loop of fear-based messages filling your head. So when you see a book that claims to lay out the entire agenda of "them", asking why we aren't doing enough to fight "them", why wouldn't people’s reptilian brains make a fear-based purchase?

America, as a country, probably still suffers post traumatic stress disorder from 911. Telling people to be scared of stray luggage, and using a phrase like “threat level” over and over before we board planes, isn't exactly helping us move on.
The airport has become equal parts civics lesson, re-education camp, and just a general pain in the ass. It's a sort of no-man's land, where most of the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply. You actually leave America when entering an airport, and only return to it when you exit at your destination.

When I get to the part with the plastic bins, I get behind a guy who hasn't been to an airport for more than ten years because he is mystified by it all.
"Take off what?" he asks a TSA agent pointing to his shoes. Finally, he pushes his five individual plastic bins into the x-ray machine. Five! A solo traveler with their laptop in a plastic bin should take up no more than 3. As a pro traveler I only use 2. I have slip-off shoes, a quick release belt, and my coat is off before I even get to the bins.

The guy keeps setting off the metal detector. They keep asking him "Are you sure you don't have any metal in your pockets?" He keeps shaking his head and everyone in line behind him shakes theirs, too. After the third time, they use that Jedi wand thing, and it reacts around his knee. "I have a titanium implant. Do I take that out?" He really asks this! After the backup, I’m kind of tempted to watch him try!

Taking your shoes off and removing your belt is exactly what anyone under arrest has to do during jail intake. The only difference between airline travelers and just-arrested suspects is – they read suspects their rights. I think the TSA should have someone standing there, giving you the anti-Miranda speech.

"You don't have the right to be silent. Any and all questions must be answered and must be answered free of sarcasm, frustration or sense of humor. You give up your right to have an attorney present during questioning. You give up the right to the first Amendment, which states you have a right to free speech. You don't have a right to the fourth amendment which states that the police or other government authority can only search your private property with reasonable cause that has to be demonstrated to a judge who will issue a warrant. Should you choose to exercise any of these rights spelled out in the constitution you could be delayed, subject to more intrusive security measures, and, in some cases, arrested and charged with a federal offense that carries jail time of four years and a fine up to $100,000."

I push my stuff into the machine, and in stocking feet walk over to the latest piece of equipment our tax dollars have purchased. It's a futuristic-looking, glass and plastic cylinder you step into, and in a demonstration of exactly how much of our rights we surrender, we comply when told to put out hands above our heads. There is no sound as some long bar between the walls of the cylinder rotates around and an image of you is uploaded to a computer. It sees through your body. Basically, it’s a digital strip search. It sees through your clothes. It can see a pacemaker in a chest, a tampon inside a woman, and, in theory, any hidden explosive materials inside the human body.

A properly-trained dog can sniff out the same thing, for a lot less money. In fact, a recent article suggests that dogs can smell cancer. That’s great information, because full body scans, medical exams that seem designed to find lumps (masquerading as pat-downs for bombs), and dogs that can smell cancer, might be as close as Americans will get to universal government health care.

When I step out of the machine, I’m told to wait. To make sure I know exactly where to stand, they’ve painted the shape of two yellow feet on a rubber mat. Believe me, it's not a Welcome mat. I stand there a moment as other people are allowed to move past me. The TSA agent stares at me. It's not a "I know you from somewhere" kind of stare; it’s a cop stare. Something in her eyes is predatory. It’s unsettling. I ask "What's going on?"
Nothing. No answer at all. Just her unwavering eyes. I ask again.
"Is there some sort of problem?"
Her walkie-talkie crackles at her side. I can't hear what is said into her ear or even what she says into the microphone clipped to her shirt. When she ends her transmission, she simply says in a flat monotone, "A supervisor will out in just a moment for an enhanced pat-down."
I drop my shoulders, close my eyes, and exclaim a little too loudly, "Great!"

I notice a few other TSA "blue shirts" looking at me now, from a back wall. They seem to have no other job than to do just that. All I can think is, “This day’s been hard enough, and I’m so close to making it to my gate. Why me? Why did I get picked for additional security?”
"Would it speed things along if I just took off all my clothes right here?" I say this half-jokingly. TSA doesn't respond well to jokes, I find.
"If you do that we will call the police." She says this in the same flat, bureaucratic accent that probably hasn't changed since the first time someone dutifully uttered the chilling phrase, “I’m just following orders.”
To me, this is funny. I laugh. She doesn't say a word, or blink, just cocks her head a little, in that time-honored silent way of asking, "What’s so funny?"
"If I get naked, right here in front of all these people, it's illegal; and I could be arrested for exposing myself in public. But, if I refuse to go through this imaging machine that takes a nude picture of me, I could be escorted off airport property. That's irony!"
"Threatening language to a TSA agent is a crime," she says.
It’s more than menacing now. I’ve already surrendered my fourth amendment right, and now I’m not-so-subtly being told, there are limits to my first amendment right here, too.

If all of this is to protect us from terrorists attacks, and the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, then good news: our freedoms are disappearing, so they should be cool with us soon. In fact, between America sliding faster and faster toward some Fascist state, and the Arabic world slowly moving toward more freedoms with recent protests, we should all meet somewhere in the unsatisfying middle, really soon.

As I shake my head I notice that over her shoulder I can see a series of dark plastic, half-globes in the ceiling. Just like the security cameras all over the casinos in Vegas. That's exactly what they are. I realize, somewhere, in some other room in the airport, someone is looking at a bank of monitors and I’m the current star. Did I trigger something in a facial recognition software program? I know from reading that these programs are designed to pick up "micro-expressions." These are common expressions on the face of any human under great stress. It doesn't seem like my expressions are very micro at all. I'm pissed. Besides, describing someone as being “under stress” could describe a suicide bomber, trying to fool security; but looking around, I realize it could also describe most of the faces around me in the security line.

It’s weird to see those half-globes. It’s weird to know that, in a basement somewhere, a supervisor is telling the agent in front of me to hold me. It's 2011, and we finally have the technology to live like it's 1984.

A man comes up to me, another blue-shirted TSA agent, and asks me to follow him. I walk to where there are several small rooms set up against the back wall. He asks me to step inside. I enter the room. The two plastic bins of my stuff are already sitting on a shelf. A second Agent now stands in the doorway, watching me with that same unsettling look. The first guy starts to put on blue plastic gloves. He doesn't look me in the eye, just says to me, "I need to tell you that I am going to be touching your crotch and putting my hands on you. Is that OK?"
"Do I really have a choice?"

Neither of them answer. Instead the one with the gloves simply says, "Raise your arms please." Thoroughly and efficiently, he does, indeed, pat me down from head to toe, even squeezing my pockets, gripping my ankles where my socks are, and going around my beltless waist. Then, he gets down on his knees and does to me what priests and creepy uncles have been thrown in jail for. This is an enhanced pat-down in the same way interrogations in Iraq were enhanced. He puts his palm flat against my penis and slides left than right, up and down, rubbing the front of my pockets and almost squeezing my inner thigh, looking for something their billion dollar-machine missed, I guess. I instinctively flinch. "Jesus! Shouldn't you be asking me to turn my head and cough?"
When I am uncomfortable, I tend to joke.
Still on his knees he says, "You should know the TSA takes sexual harassment very seriously."
"You're the one feeling me up, Dude!" Maybe I say this with a little too much anger. I don't know. He lets out a sigh, completes the government-sponsored groping, and stands next to his partner in the door, who finally speaks. "You don't have to like us but we're doing our job and you need to respect us."
"No, I don't." It comes out of my mouth before I can check myself. It just pours out in one sentence as I put my belt back on. "The government just detained me, felt me up under the threat of not being allowed to travel to my destination, and subjected me to humiliation. I wasn't shown respect so no, I don't respect you or your job."

I'm angry now. I feel my body flood with adrenaline. I am shaking a little. He clenches his jaw measuring his words. Before he speaks again I reach for my shoes when a sensation overtakes me.

It's fear.

I suddenly realize, this is how it happens. For the first time in my life, I actually fear my government. I'm in a windowless room with no cameras and two government agents. They have all the power, and I don't even have my most basic civil rights.

His jaw muscles flex several times in rapid succession. I do that, too, when I’m trying to decide to say out loud what I know I shouldn't say. This makes me more nervous. He just keeps looking at me. “This isn't going to end well”, I think. In a split second, his clenched jaw changes to an easy smile, as a look of recognition spreads across his face. "You were at the Punch Line a few weeks ago! You were funny, man!"

Holy shit! I'm not famous or anything. I get recognized every once in a while around town, and it's cool. I realize this is how famous people go crazy. They are caught doing something illegal and then get off the hook, free to go on snorting a line, and end up like Charlie Sheen.

When they leave, and I’m allowed to go on my merry way, I realize the President’s plane, Air Force One, is still on the ground here. That explains all the extra attitude, I guess. I get on the plane, and before it takes off, I get the special speech from the flight attendant, because as luck would have it, I'm in the exit row. They ask you if you understand English, and then essentially deputize you as emergency-door-operator in the event of an emergency.
What?
You're telling me that after going through a million dollar x-ray peeping Tom machine, a regular x-ray of my bags, security dogs, cameras, and all the built-in safeguards on a modern jet - the entire billion dollar safety and security apparatus that’s in place - if there’s a disaster, comes down to me?
Awesome! I want a blue shirt, name tag and the ability to feel up my fellow American's!

I get to the gig and tell this story. After the show the tailor in town comes up to me. "Hey, do you want me to make you some special pants so when they do that to you again something comes out?"
I already have that. It's called every pair of pants I've ever owned.

""You People""

2011-01-31T18:52:00.000-08:00

I was on stage at a cool little hipster bar in the gritty mission district named, The Make-Out Room. I was doing a joke about San Francisco outlawing toys in happy meals. It started out with my sister making fun of San Francisco by saying, "What's wrong with you people? You outlawed toys in happy meals!" I couldn't finish the joke because a young hispanic girl in the front said, "I hate it when people say, you people!"

I asked her "It's usually one of my people that says something like, you people to people like you isn't it?"

She smile and nodded.

I asked, "Do people say that to you when you're alone?"

"Yes!"

I think I figured out one of the causes behind racism. If someone is saying the problem is "you people" to one person, I bet they are drinking heavily and have double vision. Thats why they are freaked out. They think there are more minority people than there actually is. You see, the problem isn't racism, its alcoholism.

I asked her, "When was the last time someone yelled at you, You people?"

Without hesitation she quickly responded, "A guy fell off a roof."

The audience started laughing along with me.

She didn't just answer the question with an unexpected response, it's that she said, fell off the roof, with air quotes around it.

"Did he actually fall off the roof?" I asked.

"Yes!" she responded as if I was asking a crazy question.

"Well, if he actually fell off the roof I don't think you can use air quotes. That means he didn't actually fall off the roof. It means you're using it as a metaphor or some phrase we all know means something else so, did he fall off the roof or did he, fall off the roof?" I asked, complete with air quotes around the final, fell off the roof.

The crowd laughs, she turns a charming shade of red and meekly responds, "No, he really fell off the roof."

"And someone blamed, you people, for this even though it was just you standing there? Are you sure you didn't push him off the roof or something?"

"No, he just fell off a roof and I was standing there."

I thought for a moment and said. "So a guy falls off a roof, lands next to you and some other person looks at the guy who fell off the roof on the ground, then turns to you and yells out, what's wrong with you people?"

She nods her head yes.

"There has to be more to the story!" I say.

It quickly reminds me of a scene I witnessed in golden gate park once. Two men were sitting on a bench having a conversation. I couldn't hear what they were saying but one of them raised his arms to make air quotes around some point he was making. The reason it stuck out in my mind was, he was missing his left hand. That makes that sentence grammatically incorrect. It's a run on sentence, right? The quote is never closed. If he was telling me a story and used air quotes around something like, you people..., I could only sit there and wait.

And all of this happened with my camera sitting in the car. Damn. I broke my own rule about recording every show. You never know what will happen in a show.

State of the Facebook Union

2011-01-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

I just finished watching the President give his state of the union speech. I went to Facebook, our new digital town square, to see the general take on it. What caught my eye right away was a response to a friends update. It said, "I've been crying for two years with this do nothing president!"

It was all in caps, too.

I am tired of hearing conservatives complain that Obama isn't doing enough to lower the deficit. It's a deficit THEY created with two unfunded wars, Medicare part D and a massive tax break to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Now that all the bills for what they bought have come due, they want the President to find away to pay for their bad choices.

This isn't opinion, this is math.

Maybe he could get something done but the Republicans won't allow anything to even be debated in Congress. This isn't some hyperbole comment either, this is an easy to confirm fact. Go Google how many times the filibuster has been used.

Here is a quick link.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/republican-filibusters-skyrocket/

The Republican plan for America is simply do nothing. No exaggeration. Their plan is to simply block, slow down and bring the business of government to a grinding halt. Then, they go on TV and cite FOX news polls that suggest Americans think the government can't get anything done and surprise, just enough people fell for this to elect them back into the majority of government to try the same ideas that got America into this mess in the first place!

WTF!

Of course people think government can't get anything done. There are too many Republicans in it.

If you want to save a lot of money right away, get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and close all the military bases your tax dollars support around the planet. We are an empire. Only an empire maintains military outposts all across the globe to project its power and protect access to resources. Now days we call this "protecting our interests" but when those interests are in another country, things tend to get messy.

Expensive, too.

I don't know if you have noticed but our roads have potholes, our schools are closing, firemen are being laid off and huge cuts are being made not just to obscure social programs you think you will never need, but to basic services while taxes on the least among us are being raised.

It costs one million dollars a year to have a US soldier in Afghanistan protecting us when teachers, cops and firemen are being laid off. Does that make much sense? If this keeps up we will eventually not have to worry about terrorist attacks. Not because of our troops abroad but because there won't be anything working anymore. This is what we are protecting?

Facebook turns out to be a melting pot in real time. I got into a debate with someone I can only imagine has a giant American flag on his pick-up truck with a gun rack and a Jesus fish stuck to the bumper. I said, "Get out of Afghanistan now" and he said, "We needed to stay until there was a true victory for America."

True victory?

Nine years, more than 3,000 dead service men, more poppy fields than before we went in, rampant corruption and no clear end in site; I think we should just declare victory and get out.

His point, "We can't cut and run!" If we just leave it will be seen as a solid defeat. We have to stay till the job is done.

This went on for a few hours. We traded comments with a few other people jumping in pro or con from time to time but mostly, it was just the two of us. He ended one comment with the words, "That's it. I'm done!"

No one can really have the final word on Facebook. Simply saying I'm done doesn't mean the other person now has to sit silently at their keyboard thinking "Damn! I had such a good point to make and then he went and said, I'm done! Now I can't respond."

I responded with a fact and something sarcastic and this caused him to jump back in. This time, he ended his rant with the words, "I'M OUT!"

Yup, all in caps and an exclamation mark too.

I laughed out loud. That's right, I actually LOL'ed for the first time ever at my computer. Why? He just ended his argument on Facebook with my argument for leaving Afghanistan. You can't win an argument doing the one thing you are arguing against. He just proved my point better than I could have! When you can't win, leave.

If you can't handle a debate on the Internet maybe you shouldn't be suggesting war strategies.

All of this reminds me of another debate I had on Facebook around security and the economy. In a global economy sometimes making something cheaper goes against the conservative demand for securing our borders. You want a perfect example of this conservative oxymoron?

All the United States Border Patrol uniforms are made in Mexico.

You read that last sentence correctly.

Gee, how are people from Mexico sneaking in do you suppose?

You can't demonize Mexican people for wanting to leave sweat shops and come here for better pay. The only reason America makes border patrol uniforms in Mexico is because the company we gave the contract to outsourced it there to save money. What's to stop someone from stealing one of the uniforms? How committed to security and legal immigration do conservatives look when they fight to preserve a companies right to make official US government uniforms for the branch that watches the border in the same country they blame the most for illegal immigration?

If they were true patriots those uniforms would be made in the right country.

China.

As I finish writing this I keep checking in on a Youtube debate. I posted a short clip of my "confederate flag story."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54PKxGdB7Y4

A day later a white guy from Mississippi sent me a very long explanation on why that flag is no more racist than the American flag and anyone who sees otherwise is wrong.

My response?

As two white guys I don't think it's our place to tell African-Americans which flag is and is not offensive to them.

I would of thought it was over right there but no. Just because I'm white that means I can't have an opinion, he asked? Of course you can. You can say any stupid thing you want. This is America, damn it!

His next response is the one that made me LOL for the second time. If you talk about a controversial issue like this you have to expect the other side to respond.

WOW. This is still controversial?

I didn't realize there was another side in what is widely considered a symbol of racism to people way smarter than him or I who happen to be black, white and brown. Did you? I thought we kind of settled this argument a while back. That flag represents slavery to a whole lot of people. But, just for the sake of peace, I will no longer say it is a flag representing racism. From now on I will say the Confederate flag is the flag of the losers.

Better?

Classes

2011-01-07T14:21:00.000-08:00

I've done OK for a comic who doesn't want to leave the Bay Area. A few years ago, I started getting lots of people asking me for advice on Riffing. It's the one thing I do better than most everyone else. It’s taken me some years to proudly and honestly state that, without following it up with some sarcastic, self-deprecating comment. The truth is I am a damn good comic, who has a great skill. I also believe that in a field where a lot of people charge a lot of money for something they aren't doing themselves, I charge a fair price for imparting my accumulated knowledge.

I started teaching classes on riffing, with the understanding that I couldn't make anyone funnier; I just gave them a basic understanding of what happens when a comic is flying without a net. Those went over really well. I also learned I’m a pretty good teacher. In fact, it’s something I’ve come to enjoy as much as performing. I can also say that with a degree of sincere humility, and mean it.

I think if you're going to learn to do anything - car repair, computer work, or comedy – you’ll learn more from someone who’s not only already working in that field, but thriving in it. If you want to lean the tools for riffing, I can explain them to you. I’m a working stand-up, who’s known for riffing. I can't think of a better sales pitch than that. If you want more proof, check out this video clip.

http://www.youtube.com/joeklocek

My riffing class is happening at Rooster T. Feathers on Saturday, January, 29th from 1-4PM.

It costs $80 per person. Click here for more details.

http://www.roostertfeathers.blogspot.com

Doing anything for eighteen years not only means you pick up a lot of information, it also means that, like any relationship, you’ll go through periods where you’re just not feeling it. If I had to describe my comedy style, it would be storytelling. The bit that got me on Comedy Central’s, “Live at Gotham” was a story about a homeless man and a pigeon.

standupjoe.com

There are plenty of standups who crave more expression, and they usually go into solo performance, one-person shows. I still love standup, but I saw the limitations of what could be expressed on stage, in a comedy club. I wanted to tell the backstories of how jokes evolved and were formed. Early in my comedy career, when I was on the road constantly, I hit a cow in the Utah desert. It is, I think, an amazing story that’s become the central story of who I am as a comic. I told it on stage one night when I was feeling cocky, and wanted to impress a girl in the audience. It destroyed. That’s when I decided I had to try something that sounded simple: storytelling.

http://www.previouslysecretinformation.com

Somewhere between the plastic, used-car-salesman delivery of dick jokes, and the over-emotional, over-choreographed blocking of a solo performance, there’s the middle ground: Storytelling. Along with a friend, I created a show called “Previously Secret Information”. Right from the start, it did well. The next time we put up PSI, it also did well; and the time after that, and the time after that one, too. At this point, it’s safe to say this isn't a fluke. We’re onto something audiences are hungry for. It’s bare and raw, hilarious, and starkly poignant at times; simply great stories, told well, by people and performers who know how to tell a story. People started asking about classes. At first I thought, “I’m not qualified to teach something I’m relatively new at.” Once again, friends reminded me that I’ve been a storyteller for as long as I’ve been a comic. Not to mention, I started a new show, from scratch, in San Francisco – that’s succeeded more quickly than any show anyone’s seen in a long time. The press likes us, and each person who comes walks away wanting to help promote, create or contribute to it in some way. Another sign that we’re onto something!

Long story short, I’m starting a three-week class in the art and performance of storytelling. Let me be clear about what this isn't. There will be no writing exercises or endless improv games, or a lot of discussion about what your feelings really mean, man. A great story has all those components, and I can help people uncover those, but instead of working along the edges of something I want to jump right in and work to get all those things out of your story, with your story. It just makes sense. I’ve learned, and I think you will, too, that telling a great story is not telling it, but performing it. Memorizing words off a page doesn't make it come alive; it only makes you sound like you're reciting what may have been an amazing personal tale. My storytelling class is all about the mechanics of being on stage. You won't be telling your story. You’ll be performing it. That’s what a live audience wants, and that’s’ what you’ll learn to give them.

Here are the details on my storytelling class.

Saturday afternoons 12-3PM

March 19th, March 26th & April 2nd.

$300 Per Person

at StageWerx Theater

More details on the class? Click the link bellow.

standupjoe.com

January Gigs

2011-01-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

1/10 Little Fox Theater

Redwood City, CA

1/12 Bawdy Storytelling Show

“Sex Wonk”

San Francisco

1/14 Sketchfest/ PorchLight

1/15 “Mahitopalooza”

Scholarship Fundraiser Show

1/16 Previously Secret Information

StageWerx, San Francisco

1/28 Ukiah Comedy Show

Ukiah, CA

"The End 2.0"

2011-01-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

Have you heard that the world will start to end on May 21? Yup. Some Christian with radio stations is letting people know that, after studying the Bible for most of his life, he’s found the exact date that Jesus will return, and the end will start. Awesome. Maybe now I’ll stop getting ads for those Christian dating sites. After all, if the end is only five months away, why get married?

Here’s the thing: he already said the end was coming, back in the 90's. And was wrong. Surprise, the world is still here. Can you imagine being in that room at the end of that day?

"Does that mean I have to pay for all the stuff I put on my credit cards, now?"

In a testament to how badly people need something to reach for in these difficult times, his radio empire of Christian messages has grown. That’s right, he set a date for the end of the world; was wrong; and now has five times the followers he had, since being wrong and looking stupid!

His excuse: “I must of gotten the math wrong.”

If you haven't read anything but the Bible for fifty years, you might want to pick up a book on math, I guess. Either that, or you're just wrong. What’s truly amazing are the people he’s inspired to drive around in motor homes, warning other people that the end is coming. I bet that’s a real joyride!

Instead of driving around helping people (like Jesus might have done) they’re letting people know the end is coming. Sort of the spiritual equivalent of throwing all your pants away, then just walking around in sweats. Why bother? Jesus is coming back. Screw the diet!

Two things come to mind right away when I hear this.

First, Jesus isn't coming. I’ll grant you, there most likely was a man born in the Middle East, who preached a message of love rather than a vengeful God’s wrath; and, he was likely put to death for rousing the local population. But that’s it. If you want me to believe Jesus was the actual son of God, then I still don't think he’s coming back. And here’s why: I'm still mad at my Dad for making me shovel the neighbors’ driveways during winter. Do you really think Jesus is over his issues with his Dad, after being sent to die on a cross? There must be some really awkward holiday dinner moments, in Heaven.

It’s funny to me that Christians put such a huge emphasis on the family, when Jesus comes from not just a broken home, but an abusive, messed-up, white-trash-sounding home. Where’s Mom in all of this? What kind of a control-freak Dad tells his only son that he has a special job for him - like being put to death for ALL the sins of mankind. All the sins? When I was growing up, we were told in Catholic school that even thinking about committing a sin, was a sin. You're telling me that three days was enough to cover the summer when I found those Playboy magazines in my friend’s backyard? I'm pretty sure those thoughts were blueprints for sins.

Anyway, the second reason the world isn't ending is that everyone who ever predicted the end of the world, has always been wrong. Always. We are, after all, still here. The latest craze was the Mayan calendar prediction. The Mayan prediction didn't even say it was an end, it just said, “Hey, this is when you start the calendar over.” But since we seem obsessed with the world coming to an end, people spread the message that the world is ending. It seems a little silly to give the Mayans that much power to predict the end of the entire world, when they couldn't see the end of their own culture coming.

Don't fall for yet another end-of-the-world story. I’m still going through bottled water and canned food from my Y2K emergency kit.

Of course, if the world DID come to end, like Hollywood and hippies have imagined, that would be totally cool, too! Giant earthquakes, tidal waves and UFO's: Awesome!

You could talk to people from all over time, in heaven. A caveman and a Roman soldier could tell you about their deaths, "I fell off the back of a woolly mammoth onto my spear." "I got drunk and picked a fight with someone." Then they ask you, “How did you die?"

"Oh me? Just The End."

You would be totally popular.

If this guy turns out to be wrong, I want a public apology, not another ”I guess I'm bad with math” bullshit excuse. They’re a Christian group, that’s spent a lot of money on billboards, to tell people “give up”, when they could be, oh I don't know, feeding the poor. I would say, “Take away their tax-exempt status!” But they aren't a church. They are a Christian broadcasting network, run for profit. Religion run for profit is not religion. It’s a business. And business is good, because too many of these people made these times bad, by running the government into the ground with Y1K thinking.

I’d like to see their contracts. I’m curious if they expire on May 21st.

If Jesus does show up to greet this loon’s followers, I hope it’s just to slap his face in front of them, remove the Bible from his hand, and replace it with something harmless like Dr. Seuss. Then, Jesus could turn to this guy’s audience and say "Really? You listen to people like this? I hope you kept your credit card payments current this time. P.S. - my Dad is a dick!"

T'was the Night!

2010-12-26T13:17:00.001-08:00

Fellow comic, Jimmy Gunn helps me bring alive a holiday classic. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRNALluidOE

Rick

2010-12-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I performed at a benefit to raise money for a scholarship. It was an incredibly fun show, with its own twists and turns. It was at the Santa Rosa Junior College. The inspiration for this scholarship was a man named Rick Edwards. I met Rick almost fifteen years ago at a gig in Santa Rosa. There was a restaurant that did comedy on Friday and Saturday nights - The Sweetriver. I was the host, and Rick was doing a guest set. I met him right before the show and didn’t exactly know what to expect. He was dressed head-to-toe in motorcycle-gang leather. His boots looked like they were issued by the Klingon high command. His hair was ZZ Top long, and he wore impossibly dark sunglasses. He was, to say the least, intimidating. I asked what he wanted me to say, and he said it didn’t matter, because he had a music cue. When the time came, I said the usual “he tours clubs and colleges” line. From the sound system blared, “Bad to the Bone.” The opening notes sounded more machine gun than guitar, and if you were standing under a speaker you went dizzy. I stood at the mic waiting for Rick. From out of the shadows he slowly walked toward the stage, never looking down or turning his head. His expression was fixed, and if you could have seen his eyes, you would have bet they were glaring. His walk was confident, relaxed and commanding. The crowd was still applauding but now he just stood behind the mic, with the music continuing to play - arms crossed, mouth a straight line, and those dark sunglasses hiding everything but the raw intimidation he was projecting. The music continued. The seconds ticked by and the crowd, mostly 20 something’s, shifted uncomfortably in their seats. The music suddenly stopped and just as it did, Rick took of his sun glasses and in a voice that sounded part Bee Gee’s, part Mickey Mouse and all helium, Rick said, “Hi everyone! It’s great to be here tonight!” The place erupted with laughter. Rick laughed to. It was a brilliant opening. Without a word he established a character and then played against it. He had instant credibility with the crowd.

That was the biggest laugh he got that night.

The rest of his act was about what to do in a prison yard riot, what not to do in a prison shower and how to keep larger more persuasive inmates out of your ass. The 20-something suburbanites sat slackjawed and horrified. Like most comics watching another comic not doing well, I started laughing for the sheer bizarreness of the show. When Rick’s seven minutes were up, I returned to the microphone and said something like, “Stay in school, kids.”

I’d see Rick pop up from time to time, at various gigs around the greater Bay Area. Mostly it was open mics; little road gigs that paid almost nothing. Every time I saw him, he told me how funny I was and asked me how I was doing. The man had served time in prison for possession of drugs and his sad, hound dog like eyes told a story about his past. Rick was never comfortable talking about it at that point in his life. More than anything, Rick gave off a unique feeling of being warm and a little crazy. I was never once afraid, being with Rick. I was just terrified he was going to ask me how his set was, after a show. All the leather and all the posturing was just that, an act. Rick was, for the time I knew him, a sweet, yet troubled soul. Then, he just stopped showing up. I have to admit, I didn’t even notice at first that he wasn’t around. I would ask other comics about him, and no one seemed to know.

Cut to this summer. I get a Facebook friend request from Rick Edwards. The message he sends along with it is overflowing with poorly spelled politeness. I respond and Rick tells me he wants me to perform on a gig at the Junior College he is going to. I say, sure and asked for the date. This starts months of going back and forth, and not getting a response - before getting responses that are strange but friendly. First it will be one date, then a week later, it’s another. On and on this goes, and when I’m starting to get agitated, he just goes silent. He has also told me the amount of money he wants me to perform for, and I write back a terse reply that colleges usually have a lot more money than this for performances. Then he asks for my phone number but doesn’t call. Eventually I get a Facebook message from someone else saying, “Hey, it’s Rick. Could you please call me at this number?” At this point, I am done. No gig could possibly go well with this much drama in the planning stage. Out of the blue, Rick calls me up and I get an explanation about everything; the strangely worded emails with lots of Buddhist well-wishing in them, the long periods of silence and the confusion over dates and money. He tells me, he was in the hospital, in a coma for ten days after coughing up blood. His liver is failing and with it, other organs. He is on so many prescriptions he hardly knows what’s what. In short, his doctors tell him he is dying. Those years I didn’t see Rick are also filled in. He was back in prison for another drug charge. He was addicted to just about everything and when he was released, had that moment of clarity recovering addicts talk about and decided to clean himself up. He started going to recovery meetings, and enrolled at a junior college. It wasn’t easy. Adjusting to life without bars can be difficult. Adjusting to life on life’s terms, even more so. Now, with the doctors telling him of his disease, something else happened to Rick. He wanted to leave behind one good thing. He knew he had made bad choices and polluted the life he had. Before he died, he just wanted to do good. The comedy show would raise money not for Rick, but for a scholarship to help other people in Rick’s situation.

Wow. OK, here is what I will do, Rick. Just nail down the date for me and I refuse to take any money for this.

At one point, Rick tells me his doctor asked him, “Did you ever smoke?”

“Of course!” Rick said.

“You could probably take that back up again if you wanted.”

You know it’s bad when a doctor tells you “Go for it, have a smoke!” It’s not going to be what kills you at this point.

The month before the gig, the date changed yet again. At one point, Rick’s liver was so full of toxins, they leaked into his body, requiring him to go on an all-liquid diet. He couldn’t eat anymore, anyway. I came in to do a cable access TV show, out of Sonoma. It would be the first time seeing Rick in person since hosting that show way back when. His pants kept falling, his eyes wandered around the room, and his mouth didn’t stop talking the entire time he was there. Like some kid with extreme ADD, the medications he was taking at the moment had him flying around; still, there was that underlying sweetness. The plan was for Rick to watch but eventually his off-camera antics couldn’t be ignored and the host asked him to come on. That’s when the show changed. Rick began talking a mile a second, looking in the wrong camera and not holding the mic so we couldn’t hear him. At first it was funny. Then the host started asking him questions. Rick would suddenly pause, and say the most eloquent self-truths - before launching back into riffs that made the rest of the panel uncomfortable. He would be making some gay prison sex joke about the co-host and then say, “I know I’ve made mistakes with my life, and I want to leave behind a good deed. I have 4 to 8 months to live.” Then, he would continue spouting nonsense and 1950’s TV show references. None of us knew exactly what to do. There is no protocol for any of this. A man just told us he would be dead by spring.

The night of the show came, and with it, still more drama. The school wasn’t entirely behind the show. Not because of Rick; they just didn’t want a comic to be dirty. We had to sign contracts. Like that’s going to stop a comic from saying something outrageous. After all, we were all working for free. What were they going to do, keep our checks? The day of the show a staff member called me and reminded me that I had signed a contract not to be blue, then he asked me the strangest question anyone has asked me as a comic, “Do you have any jokes that target a specific protected minority?”

I wasn’t even sure what he said at first. I think I was being asked, in the most PC speak ever, if I was a racist. Yes, as a San Francisco comic who’s appeared on Comedy Central and regularly works every gig there is around here, I’m doing it with racist material. Do you really think I’m going to go up there and do a joke like, “You know who I hate more than women? Blacks!”

The funny thing was, no one bothered to ask the opener this question. She’s self-admittedly dirty. Oh, and we find out in the first few jokes, a bi-sexual too. The guy who called me up came running over to me and gave me the evil eye. I shrugged my shoulders; not only was the crowd laughing, but it wasn’t my job to censor other comics on the show. He looked at me nervously and said, “I have to stop this.”

He disappeared into the sound room and cut her microphone. Welcome to college, 1984 style. Words are dangerous and people’s feelings might get hurt. Hey, I think her jokes were positive; they were celebrating that often-targeted, unprotected minority, bisexuals.

I ended up doing an hour, talking about the phone call (with the administrator in the room), and making my point that comedy should get the same treatment a play or a poet would receive; after all, we were here for Rick, and I don’t think I ever heard him tell a clean joke.

That was that.

Rick and his friends and I stayed in touch via Facebook, and the show went so well Rick wanted to do another one in the spring. There was even news that Rick’s liver had started functioning again.

Cut to Reno, last Sunday. It was the day after their world famous Santa Bar Crawl. 5,000 or so people dress up like Santa and go bar to bar in down town Reno, meeting under the arch at Midnight. It was as debauch-a-riffic as your imagination thinks it was. As I exited the elevator into the lobby of the Silver Legacy, I saw a man wearing Red Santa pants and hat. His boots were black and his beard was still tied on, but he now had a Metallica Tour T-shirt on and was snoring loudly in a chair holding his room key. A family was checking in. Their five year old daughter looked nervously at the incapacitated Santa and asked her mom in a concerned voice, “Will he be alright to still bring presents?”

That’s when my phone buzzed with a text. I looked down. Rick has passed away. Americans tend to describe such emotionally-jarring moments as something out of a movie. I felt this way too. All the lights and conversation that was buzzing around me just went blank for a second, as my chest throbbed from the hammer blow. I didn’t know Rick well, but in every email and conversation, he always asked me first how I was doing. He repeatly told me how proud he was of me, for sticking with comedy and making it onto TV. To all of these things I would always mumble something like ”Thanks, but it was only Comedy Central”, or “Thanks, but it’s no big deal.” It was to Rick. To him, I had achieved every one of the things any comic thinks about when they start. Among everything else, Rick put a lot of my complaints in perspective.

Rick was sweet, crazy, imperfect and charming, off-putting, coarse, loud and beautiful. With the time he had left, he didn’t complain. Instead, he set out to do some good. I was proud to help him in that mission.

Rick Edward's Scholarship Fund

c/o Santa Rosa Junior College

1501 Mendocino Ave

Santa Rosa, CA 95401

New Site is Up!

2010-12-17T02:16:00.000-08:00

Hello. Check out the offcial new site at, previouslysecretinformation.com

December Gig's

2010-12-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

How bad is the economy right now? Burglars in England have been using Google Earth to locate old churches with lead roofs. Once they find them, they steal the lead in the middle of the night, and sell it to scrap dealers. England has thousands of security cameras, all over the country. I guess they didn't put any on church roofs. Guess they thought God had his eye on those Turns out he didn't; but the congregations of those churches are exposed to heaven a whole lot more now, as a result. I don't know what special brand of grief awaits you in the next life, for stealing a church roof, but when historians look back on this era and ask, “What was the final indication of the economic apocalypse?”, I think they're going to say, “When people started stealing church roofs for scrap metal”. How bad are things? Did I mention, people are stealing church roofs!?!

Then again, my business is doing well. Private gigs, and small corporate events for the holidays, have made a comeback this year. Maybe it's a sign of recovery. I like to think there are no bad gigs; but at the same time, there are easy gigs - and then there’s opening for a Michael Jackson impersonator, in front of 40 cancer doctors, at 3 o’clock on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Everything’s going pretty well, until I ask a nurse, "What’s the strangest thing you've seen, as a nurse?" Without so much as a hint of hesitation, she answers, "A patient who drank his own urine."

Wow. Ok, I now know a few things: 1. It's no longer a PG show (as promised), and, 2. I’m going to make a joke about apple-juice-gone-bad, really soon. I’m going to hate myself for it, but it's going to get a laugh. I do - and they do indeed love it.

It was one of those gigs I went into thinking: “It's only half an hour.” That seems like forever, when the crowd is only mildly laughing at jokes that, usually, kill. It takes awhile for them to buy into the whole show; after all, it’s the middle of the day and we’re in a restaurant. I wasn't supposed to go on ‘till all the food was cleared; but surprise, it was getting late and I figured it was now or never. You don't really feel like an ‘artiste’, as busboys bump into you, clearing dishes; or when your best stuff falls flat. At one point, a man asks me to “quiet down” - because his baby starts to cry. Ugh. I glance at a wall clock and realize, I've still got 20 minutes to go. Still, I know I’ll get paid; and I know things are relatively good.

A few nights earlier I had a gig at an Indian casino, in Middletown. Where? Exactly. All I can tell you is: you cannot make it there from San Francisco in three hours, with traffic, and rain. At some point Red, the feature act (riding in my passenger seat), might have been praying. And I’m pretty sure he’s an atheist. We had about 15 miles to go, and needed to be there in 20 minutes. No problem. Well, that was before the rain picked up; the twisty road narrowed to one lane; the mountain closed in; and there was a complete lack of any reassuring signs that there was civilization close by. Like some character in “The Lord of the Rings”, I barreled up the side of Mt. Helena faster than I should be going - all to get there on time, and bring the good people of this Godforsaken place the gift of my wit. It was pretty clear we were going to be late. I told Red we’d pull the “girlfriend needs the bathroom now” maneuver, when we got to the gig. That's where I pull up, you go running out and find whoever’s in charge, while I park the car.

We’d already called our contact person – and been told “They’re off tonight.” Awesome. Red goes running in; a few minutes later, I come in to find him talking to a confused bar manager, who sends us in the direction of the DJ (who’s sitting at a table with speakers on both sides.) "I'm sorry were late," I tell him. He smiles, barely taking his eyes off the TV and says "We usually wait till the game ends before starting the show." Double awesome. Glad I broke more than a few laws to get here, only to have to wait around an extra half hour before starting the show.

I wonder around the casino, and like most small Indian casinos, it’s clean, but sad - in a way that’s hard to put my finger on. The places reeks of smoke; pale, overweight men, and way-too-skinny girls in tight jeans, wander through slot machines - like zombies in a mall after the apocalypse. Why does every Indian casino play a ‘Best of the 70's’ soundtrack, too? Maybe so the gamblers can fondly remember the last time they were winners? I don't know. A Boston song plays; then Dirty White Boy (Foreigner), The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Genesis, when Peter Gabriel was still with them), and the most ironic of songs to hear, while you’re betting what’s left of the 401K at the crap table: The Logical Song (Supertramp).

When Red goes on I look at the crowd. Crowd might be overstating it a bit. There are about 20 people scattered haphazardly around a small bar, just off the casino. Their expressions are a mixture of tea party members being asked to balance their own checkbooks, and the kid who gets socks as a Christmas present. Occasionally, they laugh, but it’s nowhere what Red's jokes deserve. Eventually, it’s my turn. I take the stage, and in a few seconds I realize exactly what it’s like to perform at an ADHD Convention. Slot machine bells, calls from people, and conversations enter the place from the casino, like a wave of distraction. They’ve turned the sound off, but the TV's are still on. There’s a loud conversation at the bar between two guys, but when I think about saying something, I just figure, it isn't worth dying here; so I just let it go. I start my act, but it becomes clear almost instantly, that this show is going to a riffing adventure. Most of the audience is made up of off-the-clock employees. It’s great that they bring in comics every Thursday for employees. Ugh!

For the most part people are laughing and it’s going alright. There’s one table of three, where a woman stares at me like she’s just discovered day-old garbage in the crib where she’s left her baby – and I’m the garbage. Like most comics would, of course, I have to talk to her. I ask her name, and she drones out something I can't remember. I ask what she does for a living, and she says, “Nothing”. When I probe a bit more, she says she can't work because she’s disabled. In my head I’m wondering if it’s just her face that’s disabled - but I don't say that. Christ, this is going to be a long show. I tell some jokes that do alright, but nothing like they should, and that’s when I throw out the first ‘emergency dick joke’ - and BOOM! Damn. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, I’d hoped they’d go a little more highbrow; but dick jokes you want? Then dick jokes, you get. That goes pretty well for a little while, but I have an hour to cover. That’s when one of the other employees tells me to ask the security guard about "poncho."

When she says “poncho”, almost everyone laughs. I love it when the crowd starts amusing itself with inside jokes. I ask - and of course, it’s one of those “Why didn't I get this information sooner?” moments. Oh, and a dick joke. Apparently there was a hypnotist here, and during the show he made this security guard guy think he lost his dick. He doesn't say dick, though, he just points to his groin and says, “Poncho”. This confuses me for awhile because I don't understand why this guy wants to take his dick camping. Then I think this happened to him while he was trying to stop a crime at the casino. That would be a pretty amazing thief. Once I figure it all out, I ask the crowd if he got on the Public Address System and asked people if they saw his boy. "Attention players, we're looking for a lost boy about 6 inches...I mean, 4 inches tall when happy..." This destroys with the crowd. I want a shower.

I drive to Corning, a town outside of Redding. I do an hour for a company that is somehow involved with farms; then turn around to make the three hour drive home. I have to be in Walnut Creek the next day, and Santa Cruz that night.

I’m a comic. That means I drive for a living. Telling jokes is just something I have to do before I can sleep. And yet, I love this! I love opening the door to my hotel room and seeing crisp white sheets. I love the fear and excitement of being handed the microphone, and not knowing what’s going to happen. I love the drive home, with the high of either a great show, or composing another good “I survived a gig from hell” story. I love being a comic, even when it seems that telling jokes is the smallest part of what I do. These road gigs and private shows are fun to me again, because no matter what, when I want to feel like an artist, I have my storytelling show.

And most of these other gigs? They aren't bad at all.

14 Going On 41

2010-10-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

There are nights - and then there are nights.

Comedy, in a small room of mostly-conservative wine drinkers, might not sound like an ideal set-up. The Wild Vine Hideaway Bar, in Danville, is just that; quaint, tiny, and filled with 40-something professionals, seeking the wine-drenched pace of a Norman Rockwell America with wifi. Danville is quiet, dipped in charm and airbrushed with an air of condescension. Basically, it looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting of the place Prozac would go, to retire. I spent some time as a teenager in Danville. Being here feels like stepping back into a life I only recently made peace with.

I've performed there three times now. Every show has been fun, interesting, and a little challenging. The first gig, you can hear as a podcast on my site, standupjoe.com. I didn't record the second gig, but it was fun, with plenty of audience interaction. This last show was by far, one of the more unique evenings in comedy that I’ve witnessed, in a long time. I thought I had seen it all, too.

Young Joey Bragg, 14 years old, fiercely funny, and on fire with his Father's support, like always, is my feature act. I like the kid. He’s wildly talented. I’m also jealous of the support his Dad gives him. He’s with him at every show. I got into standup because I didn't have a lot of family support, or desire to achieve anything in school. His Dad encourages him, drives him to gigs, and tapes him at every show - and is a school teacher! That Dude is everything I thought would have kept me from getting into comedy, and yet, there he is helping his son to be a comic.

Joey goes on stage and starts getting laughs right away. He knows what he’s doing. I can see trouble brewing when his jokes start featuring the words “retard” and “rape”. And, the front table is 7 women, all of whom, I’m guessing, are also mothers. Jokes with “rape” and “retard” in them are a tough sell for any comic, but from the mouth of a 14-year-old boy, I imagine it’s especially troubling for the women up front. It doesn’t help that at least one of them is already pretty drunk. How drunk? She gets up, obviously annoyed at the jokes, and starts toward the bathroom, in back. There’s Joey's dad, camera in hand, recording away. The women stops, and in a stunning display of callousness says to him, "Not Good!"

I’m not a father. I don't know how I’d react if some drunk know-it-all woman swaggered up to me, and told me my child wasn't good at something, while he was doing it. Joey’s Dad says what I think most people would say in that situation: “Fuck you!"

"Excuse me?" the woman asks, incredulously.

"Fuck you!" he repeats.

The women turns, shouts the owner’s name, and instantly, shit is on.

"Did you tell her ‘Fuck you’?" the owner asks.

"Yes."

"Leave! I want you to leave my place right away! You don't tell a patron of mine that!"

Joey’s Dad bolts outside.

Meanwhile, Joey is still on stage, oblivious to the drama with his dad in back. Joey has his hands full with an audience that isn’t buying it. Watching him, I realize that, because he’s young and cute, he gets away with a lot in the clubs. But here, in what feels like someone's living room, doing the most edgy stuff I'd seen him do yet, he struggles with this predominantly-female audience.

The host is trying to get him off stage, too, under the owner’s direction. This is the third time he’s worked here, so I can't imagine the owner is that surprised by his act. Then again, I have to admit to being a little surprised at his choices tonight, myself. The owner asks if I’m OK to perform; as I start up to the stage I think, “Well, at least it will be a mellow little show, now.” The weirdness has passed.

Wrong.

I make some jokes at Joey's expense: "Man that kid is jaded. If I didn't know his age, or how he looked, and I was listening to him over the phone, I would just be like, ‘how long were you in Vietnam, man?’ "

I open on stuff I don't usually open on, Halloween family stuff, but it seems the right way to go. The women up front are laughing, the rest of the house is laughing, and even though I can see a bunch of people outside, still wrangling with each other, I feel like this is going to be another great show here. I start riffing around, and that's when I meet Carol; or rather, that's when I start to deal with Carol.

"Carol, as in Christmas Carol", is how she introduces herself later on in the show.

How do I describe Carol? At one point when another audience member tells her to shut up, she stands up and stares in the general direction of the request. I say, "I think Mount Rushmore just stood up!"

That destroys.

People only laugh if your words paint a true picture, in a way they wouldn't have thought of; or, if it's just the truth.

Is it because Carol has a huge rack? Or that she seems a little like an angry penguin, holding a bolder? I don't know. She’s also loud. Maybe it’s that classic drunk-voice thing, where she thinks she’s being quieter than she actually is; or maybe it’s just that she’s an out-of-control, undiagnosed alcoholic, who’s being incredibly obnoxious, in the middle of a show a lot of other people were trying to enjoy. Any of those descriptions works for me.

At a certain point, or what for Carol was clearly a certain number of glasses, the show becomes about containing her madness. I love talking to the crowd and dealing with hecklers. This is something a little different, though. The crowd completely turns on her, to the point that when I ask the classic question: “Who came here tonight to see me?”, and the place goes nuts, she still keeps going. Actually, she stands up, comes to the stage, and raises her leg to show me that it’s real. I never thought it was fake, but - What? Then, she gives me the finger. Here’s where a flicker of contempt crosses my face. I look in her eyes, and believe I see not just a drunk, but a spiteful person so full of herself that she’s lost all concept of anyone else in the room. I can feel myself wanting to lash out at this disgusting person, but I’ve learned, in comedy, you can’t tear into a drunk, woman heckler like you can with a man. Some social convention is still in place. The crowd won't tolerate a comic being hostile to a woman, no matter how verbally disruptive or abusive the woman is. I've seen whole shows turn because the comic became harsh with a woman heckler. I tolerate her, play with her, firing snappy comeback, after comeback – and, like most drunks, she can't quit. Standing up, approaching the stage, giving me the finger, embarrassing her friends - and still the show goes on, without her being kicked out. This is the difference between a small show in a little place like this, and a club. At a club, she’d be kicked out instantly. They just don't put up with this shit. She remains, for the same reason Joey’s Dad got kicked out; she’s a regular, who goes there a lot, and spends money.

That’s the Danville I remember from my past! I was a bus boy and line cook in a few restaurants there, during the 80's. It seems that the mentality that “image is everything” was born in the day-glow, plastic 80’s. Danville was a town of VIP's, and they never let you forget it. I was the broke kid walking to work, and living with his sister. It sounds like the start of half a dozen teen-angst movies from that era, except I never won the big game, or got the girl. I went home smelling of ribs from Tony Roma's, and stayed up late eating cookie dough, reading science fiction books. When someone asked me recently why I got into stand-up, I thought about it, and explained that I was actually very shy for most of my life. I was the nerd everyone picked on - but I was always listening. Now, when I'm on stage, and blasting the crowd with socially-aware comedy, or searing heckler comebacks, it's really me pointing to them and saying, “Being 14 was hard, but now I’m making you pay for it!” Tonight I’ve seen a comic who’s only 14, blasting away at the crowd’s middle-aged, slightly-drunk psyche, and I wonder, “What is this kid going to be like when he's my age?”

Cynthia, In the Parking Lot

2010-10-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

As I leave Sacramento, I roll all the windows down in my car. I just did an hour on stage in front of a small-but-fun crowd. I deposit my check at the ATM in the comedy club’s parking lot, before preparing my car for the two-hour trip home. The night is still warm and moonless, with something like the aftertaste of dry leaves. It's a perfect early October evening. I put the iPod ear buds in, turn the volume up to what I can just bear, and hit 80 on the speedometer in no time. The wind fills the car, the music fills my head, and in a matter of seconds… I dissolve.

I feel like a comet, frictionless and fast, streaking through the night at ground level. The music is so loud my vision vibrates. I'm sure this isn't safe. I'm sure I shouldn't be doing this. I don't care. I've done this so many times, returning from the Sacramento Punch Line over the years. The rush of air circulating through my car feels amazing. Exit signs, fast food ads, and stray neon beams all brush past the sides of my head. The sense of having a body disappears when The Who's “Baba O' Riley” starts. I'm just sonic waves now, stretching the air as I pass through it, and into the ether. This is good. This is a sort of cleansing to me. By the time Willco's “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” starts, I’m almost to Davis. I’m making great time. The music’s loud in places, contemplative in others. Sometimes it seems to match the lonely section of road, other times it gives voice to whatever emotion wells up in me, resisting words.

I take a deep breath near the end of U2's “All I Want is You”. You know those breaths you take when you’ve been still for awhile? Almost like you haven't been breathing? This was a deep, long, pull of oxygen. I taste a sweetness on my tongue I always think of as autumn, creeping back into the land. There’s a faint scent of diesel and gas from the traffic buzzing in time around me.

I think about an ex-girlfriend, and the moment I knew I had to stop trying to get back together with her. It was in Walnut Creek, CA. 16, maybe 17 years ago. Perhaps longer. I don't think I was even doing comedy yet. She agreed to meet me. Before I left to see her I played that song by U2. It’s a long ballad that moves from somber, to moody rhythms of intensity, before settling down into an orchestral arrangement that sounds like something from a wistful fairy tale that was written in the 1920's. I don't know. I went to see her and the predictable happened; she wasn't interested in any reunion. She wished me well and I knew she meant it - and for that I was even angrier than I wanted to show.

We had to go back to a parking lot, at a Walgreen’s, so she could get her car. She got out of my car, and into hers. Not quickly, but with resolve. It was clear she wanted to leave. I stood by her open driver’s side window, as her engine spit out that same smell I could get a hint of now.

We had lived together years earlier, for a year-and-a-half, before she went off to school. A school her parents decided to pay for, in a plan to get her away from me. That’s where she cheated on me with another guy. The plan worked better than her parents could have hoped, I guess. We tried to work it out, but there are some things that, once broken, cannot be put right again. Still, I missed her. Messy as it had been, I would contact her every six months or so.

As we stood there talking, she indulging me by listening to yet one more plea, a woman in another car pulled up alongside us.

"Excuse me," she asked, while pointing to the road in front of the store, "can I get to Creek Side Drive from here?"

Cynthia laughed for a second, before her face creased into the look I knew as a prelude to tears. I smiled and shook my head slightly. The woman sat looking at us, a little uncomfortable. She couldn't have known Creek Side Drive was the street we’d lived on, Cynthia and me, when we were together. Our 2-bedroom apartment was one of a few thousand on that street. Cynthia and I both knew the answer. I looked at the women and spoke the only words that made sense, for the three of us, at that moment. "No. You can't get there from here."

Three Gigs

2010-10-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

The Sorority Gig

There are some phrases that, during a career in stand-up comedy, you hope and pray to someday hear. "Would you headline a show for 130 sorority girls?" is one of them. I can cross that one off the list now. 130 Berkeley sorority sisters descended on Jack London Square for a show I was headlining. I was outside when they arrived. At first I thought a food court had exploded. The unmistakable sound of young girls' voices, raised to an excited pitch, bounced off cement, a tidal wave of noise and that special brand of hair-flip indignation, that only a pack of 20-something girls can get away with. They filed into the room, all wearing the same thing. A t-shirt with the name of their sorority on it, shorts, and Hawaiian-style leis around their necks. Wow. Nothing says "respect me for the strong independent woman my parents sent me to college to become", like using peer pressure to dress 130 girls, all alike, in an outfit that in downtown Oakland could best be described as "bait".

As soon as they entered the room the decibel level rose dramatically, with the sounds most people make riding a roller coaster. It seemed any question that was asked could be answered with a loud "Woooooo!" Then the sorority chant started.

It sounded like some sort of Lord of the Flies boot camp, except instead of a conch shell, it was a cell phone.

I looked around at the faces of the young comics in the rest of the show. It suddenly dawned on them that this wasn't going to be so great. Then, the guy putting it together sat down at the table and said "Conference time, guys. I've never heard this before but instead of the hour and a half show they asked for they, now want just an hour." The only thing worse than realizing a gig might not go so well is finding out right before the show that your time has been cut.

It made sense that they wanted less time. They'd arrived almost an hour and a half late. Pizzas and plates of chicken wings were being brought out as quickly as possible but we didn't want to start the show till they'd eaten. Performing while people eat usually means the comic will eat it too. So, we waited.

Girls started coming up to us. Almost all of them said one of two things. "Do you work here?" and "Who's in charge?"

The first time we heard it the girl was looking for a Red Bull. She marched up to us and asked, "Do you work here?" Before waiting for an answer she started in "It's been a long day. I need a Red Bull."

"We're the comics," one of the comics said. That didn't matter.

The expression on her face yelled, So? "I really need a red bull," she said one more time. I just sighed heavily, and turned away.

This is how it went. Girls kept coming up to us and asking for more pizza, drinks and whatever else they thought we could get them. Each time we answered with, "We're the comics," and each time they just repeated the first question, blinking at us like wounded deer, from well-to-do families.

And so it went.

The show finally started. And within two minutes, more girls came streaming out.

"Who's in charge?" A group of girls stood in front of the comics who were waiting to go on. This time they didn't repeat the question but they looked at us and one of them said "Could you ask the rest of the comics to do more appropriate jokes?"

We all sort of looked in the open door at the comic hosting the show. Alright, a middle-aged man making jokes about weed and jacking off might not have been the best choice for a host. I'm willing to give them that. What felt strange to me was their reaction to it. Sure, it's a little coarse, and the type of humor that gives stand-up a bad name - but aren't you suppose to be 22? Why are you reacting to this like some 50 year old, Christian housewife, resentful at being exposed to something different?

I watched one girl bitch-out the two servers over the quality of the chicken wings. Their faces were a study in restraint while she worked herself up to righteous indignation over snacks. When I finally went on stage, I had a mixture of indifference and anger at them as a group. The room was pitch-dark, but I could see pools of light shinning up from their laps all over the room, as they texted away during the show. Each joke I set up, and every word I mentioned, created a conversation within ear shot of me. It went like this: I would say a word like pigeon. And then I'd hear a girl say "My grandfather kept carrier pigeons!" A girl in another corner of the room would say "That's gross!" Then another one would chime in with "Becky had one stuck in her hair once." Then the first one would answer "That was a bat!" It was distracting in a way I've never felt before. I also felt old, in that way only a disinterested 20 something can make you feel. One set-up line was greeted with a loud sarcastic "Duh!"

Ah yes, "Duh". Another generation's answer, to the lack of answers, for all the problems my generation is leaving them with. "You do realize," I started telling them, "That Duh, is not a solution to any issues, right? Someday if you're the president and an advisor rushes into the oval office to say, "Mrs. President, the Aliens that just landed want to enslave us because they say we are a primitive and dumb life form', you can't respond with Duh!"

As the clock ticked away, and I spent more time with them, I starting to forget the class issues. (Trust me, watching a 22 year old yell at working people about how the wings she showed up 90 minutes late to eat aren't good enough will bring them up). I started to have fun, and then something caused a loud moan of displeasure to ripple through the crowd. I know it got their attention because most of the little pools of light from cell phones disappeared.

That's when I looked at them and told them to "take the stick out of their asses. You're in college now! You came here to be exposed to things. Well, this is it!"

I finished on my big closer and got the hell out of there, not trusting myself to say anything more to them.

They filed out of the room just as they came in, and I felt an odd wistfulness, mixed with class-based resentment. For them, the adventure is just beginning. They have youth, brains, beauty and all the benefits that an education from a school like Berkeley will give them - and yet, they also have closed minds, like middle-aged bankers who think they know everything. They have no problem talking down to people, over things that don't matter at all. They speak and walk as if they expect the world to only present them things they like, and want. I remember an article I read once about political correctness being taught as a subject in Berkeley. The professor in it said, "Everyone deserves to live in a world where their feelings aren't hurt." Maybe, but that world isn't reality. This is where you grow up and learn to think critically, not bitch out the local wage slave over chicken wings and be shocked when a comic says a bad word. Sure, I'm generalizing. I'm sure I only noticed the few of them with these qualities. At least, I hope so.

The Private Gig

I love private gigs. Mostly I love the money. They pay well. The most common thing I hear when I show up is a story about the last time they tried having a comic. People walked out, the comic was too dirty, the F-bomb was dropped liberally, and the board of directors is extremely nervous about trying it again. I've heard all of this at one time or another, at these small private gigs.

My latest adventure with corporate America took place in Selma, CA. Before you make an Alabama joke, I've already heard them all. Almost no one knew that California had a town named Selma. If I hadn't had a gig there, I wouldn't have known, either. After being there for an afternoon, I think the only difference between the two Selmas might be that civil rights hasn't made it to the one in California, yet.

Selma is located in the central valley, about 150 miles north of Los Angeles. You get there by taking highway 99, or what I now think of as I-5's reason to feel good about itself. Highway 99 is "Grapes of Wrath" country. You see rusted-out trucks, almost completely obscured by roof-high weeds. Abandoned hotels line the route like Aztec temples, peeking out of the jungle. Well, more like white trash temples, I guess. Parking lots are cracked where the plants try to reclaim the asphalt. The signs are little more than faded billboards with ghostly letters. I imagine that you'd have to whisper the names if you were to read them out-loud.

I pull up to the gig. It used to be a "Pea Soup Andersen's". You know, the place with the giant windmill? Apparently they also built one here. "Pea Soup" didn't make it, so Holiday Inn took over. There's a small man-made pond, with a sign in front that says, 'Remember, Swans bite'! Inside, I'm greeted by a 12-foot-tall statue of a raisin. This is raisin country, I guess. Those California raisins are all over the place. The statue looks like a huge purple ballsack. There is a small kiosk with a video screen. It has a single red button beneath it, and a dusty sign that reads, "Hear the story about Pea Soup Andersen's and the Honda car lot". Wow, they are starved for entertainment. I push the button but nothing happens. No flicker of static, or peal of music, just an unsatisfying click noise. I see my fingerprint clearly on the button after I press. How long has it been since anyone pushed this?

The gig is for a company that sells crop insurance to farmers. No doubt they are conservative. I am not too worried about that, really. I am smart enough to avoid politics at these shows. That doesn't stop them from bringing it up to me.

First, there is no stage. I am standing between two tables and addressing the group of 50 or so people, who just finished lunch, at round tables. The man sitting about 10 feet away from me makes a crack about San Francisco. Of course he does. I ask him what he means and he responds "You're from San Francisco. I have to keep you on a short leash."

Without thinking I just blurt out "That is the gayest thing I've ever heard!"

The crowd laughs. He makes a face best described as sour.

Here is where the show takes a turn. Well, here is where it could have taken a turn. If we were at a comedy club, I would have made it my mission to climb up his ass, and retool his thinking; but this is a private gig, so I have to behave. Sort of.

I riff out a bit about him taking me for a walk. There are a few faces around him that suggest I have taken this too far, but so what, the majority of the crowd is laughing. Later on I ask him what he has against the city. He says, "It's fine. It's the people that live there that are the problem."

The crowd takes a sharp collective intake of breath. I know better than to press this any farther. He is at the edge of his tolerance scale. When I finish the show, people come up to me and shake my hand. One woman has blue eye shadow, that she has evenly applied around each eye, causing her to look like a punk raccoon. I bite my lip and shake her hand. A few of them say, "You had to pick on the biggest red neck in the room." I remind them he spoke first, and all I did was hang him with his comment.

A day later I get an email from two women who were at the show. They send me a photo of a pickup truck. We think this is that guy's truck. It has bumper stickers that read, "NRA", "Fire Pelosi" and "Obama's last day".

If only I'd been at a comedy club when this guy started up! The thing I'm amazed at with any of the Tea Party people, is the total and almost complete lack of logic. Sure, you can say it's more about fiscal issues, and it's not about racists with guns, and badly-spelled signs. Sure, you can say with a red face that you want to take your country back, and return it to the way it use to run. What I am shocked at, is that none of them seem to realize that the economic mess they're blaming Obama for now, was created when "their side" was running things - the way they want to take them back to. Returning to what fucked us is not a solution. It's social suicide by willful ignorance.

But it isn't in a comedy club, and I'm not going to say that, because no matter what, I win. I get paid, and he will be bitching about this for months to come, in Selma,CA. Score.

The Cool Gig

I was outside the UCB Theater in Hollywood. There was a young couple holding hands. He had a beard, unruly hair beneath a cap, and a simple t-shirt with some ironic saying printed in a retro font. She was from the school of photogenic teens, who knew everything about vampires. Slim and stylish, dressed in torn jeans, they each moved in a way that suggested hours spent in fascination, staring at their favorite stars on red carpets. They had a practiced indifference to them. They were detached from everyone else around them. In other words, they were cool.

Hipsters in every sense of the word, they didn't walk down the street, so much as stroll upon it, like their every step carried some supreme meaning we couldn't hope to divine.

The squint of his eyes, the pout of her lips, the length of their stride - all might as well be one, big, casual shrug of the shoulder, in answer to an unasked question. It was how they lived their lives, I thought. Los Angeles is a dirty city full of beautiful people, and here was a perfect example of its children. They were young, beautiful, and I could rush past them because I was on the show. That pleased me far more than I care to admit.

When I was on stage, I noticed how beautiful all the girls were, and how handsome the guys were. That's what they were, too, guys and girls. It makes sense. It's L.A. How many beautiful people go there to be the next 'whatever'? Here they were.

After the show, I wandered around to the front of the theater. I was tired and distracted, trying to orient myself with the street signs so I could find my hotel. I heard a male voice say, "You were great, Man!"

I turned and there they were, beaming smiles with perfect brilliant teeth. He held her hand, but the other was stretched out for me.

I blinked and she said "I loved the Admiral Akbar joke!"

She said it in that way where her eyes went wide as she lingered on the "o" in looove.

"Thanks," I lamely said. In my head I was thinking, "I was hating you about two hours ago, now you're my biggest fans." God, I can be such a judgmental prick sometimes.

Squirt Gun Perfect

2010-10-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

We're driving home from the Airport. It's late August, a few weeks before the start of school. Heat waves shimmer above the black top in the distance. Huge clouds, that look more like foam on a beach than clouds, appear on the horizon. My Sister Michelle, my brother Pat, Dad, and I, are in the car. He drives slowly home. I am maybe 9, 11 at the most. A lot of my memories of my father are of him sitting behind the wheel of our car. Most of our conversations took place like that. I'd watch the side of his face for a clue to his mood. Smooth and solemn was normal, but crow’s feet spreading across his right cheek were preferred. Today, he's not only smiling, but trying to control his laughter. We're driving back from O’Hare Airport just outside of Chicago. The circumstances of what-for and why, have been lost to memory. More than likely we went to watch planes land. We did a lot of that growing up as a family. We went to Navy Pier in Chicago to see the giant cargo ships. We went to a railroad yard to watch freight trains from a run-down bridge, that we lovingly nick named, "the rickety old bridge". Trust me, this was good entertainment back then. Standing on a bridge held together with little more than warm tar, and a soft blacktop surface, as we watched slow-moving engines shove empty box cars around in the heat, was a perfect day.

We pull up to a stop light. The windows are all rolled down, just like most of the cars around us. That stands out in my memory. You could be at a red light and a complete stranger would be a foot away in the car beside you. They'd turn and smile, or simply just nod. You could hear the radio station they listened to, catch a bit of conversation, or make awkward eye contact - all without glass between the two of you. We tend to think of the world as being a little smaller when we were young. I once went back to my grade school after being in Junior High for just a year. I walked into the gym and was stunned at how small it had become. I think this is different. The scale and pace of life was both smaller, and more open back then. I can't explain it any better than that, either. I fear falling into nostalgia, but I clearly remember a freedom back then that's been traded for iPhones, rolled-up windows, and everyone staring at movies running on little screens. When I imagined the future, I pictured everyone somehow more close, more happy, more perfect. I never saw that all these devices would isolate us in the midst of each others' company.

My sister holds a squirt gun in her lap. It's a square angular thing with the words, "quick fill cap" printed on the side. Super Soakers were still a decade or more away: this model, with a large screw-on cap that could easily be held under a faucet, started the squirt gun arms race that ultimately lead to those, I guess.

We are all struggling to keep straight faces. She raises it slowly to the lip of the window, waiting for the light to turn green. It’s an eternity. A childhood's worth of Christmas morning expectation crammed into a minute. The light turns green; my sister raises the gun slightly above the window, aims at the driver in the right turn lane next to us and pulls the trigger three times before lowering it again. The cars around us move forward, but as we do, we see the driver reach to his neck and then look out the window in bewilderment.

It is supremely funny to all of us in the car.

What makes it more than just funny is my Father being a willing accomplice. At first my sister hides it from Dad. When she gets caught, he does the responsible parent thing of warning her about how someone might crash. 'Course, he says all this with a smile. This was also before road rage stories flooded our urban legends and evening news. This was still completely innocent. At the next light, he points out an open window. When we realize he's giving us permission, a thrill goes through the three of us. Dad is in on it! We promise to only do it at stop lights and not while the car is moving. We pull up to the next light and this time, I'm handed the water pistol. The driver sits shirtless in his wreck of a car, Rush or some 70’s band pounding from the stereo. My Dad can’t do it, so I get in position from the back seat. It will be a tricky shot. I aim just as the light turns green, and try to hit him diagonally through his open back window, from my open window behind my Dad.

“It pulls a little to the left,” my sister advises me. I crouch down. The “target” is air drumming, his head going up and down in time to the music. Again, the wait feels impossibly long. My brother is giggling next to me and my dad is whispering to “…be quiet.”

The light finally flashes green. I aim and squeeze the plastic trigger. The first shot misses.

“To the left!” my sister says, a little loud.

I correct my aim and the next two streams of water hit him behind his right ear and shoulder. Even as we pull away, none of us can help busting up. He goes into a fit, thrashing around to find the source of water. Cars behind him begin to honk. As we pull away, he sees us cracking up. We hear the start of what I can only assume is a "fuck you!" That makes us laugh harder.

For the entire two hour ride this is what we did. Like bank robbers, we perfected our technique. Dad would even slow down to make sure we would hit red lights. He was the getaway driver every time.

When we pull onto the little street we live on, we're disappointed it's over. I didn't know that the moments like this were coming to an end. In a few short years, I wouldn't want to be caught dead with my Father. The ability of fun to stop time, completely, for an afternoon, would happen less and less too. Those massive, billowing clouds that would collect in the corners of the Midwestern summer sky, would lose their fascination for me. Looking at trains, planes and ships would be lame. But for that afternoon, everything felt as if everything was where it should be. It was perfect.

The Impossible Day That Went Perfect

2010-09-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

Driving to L.A. has always felt like something out of a fairy tale, mixed with some Mad Max, post-apocalypse epic. There is nothing out here. Around the halfway point between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the weeds in the middle strip of the highway grow tall. Dust just sort of lingers, like a dark smudge where the horizon should be. The power lines stretch off into the distance, like soldiers in formation. Rectangles of green and patchwork quilt sections of brown dominate the landscape. To the east is flat, hot land. It rolls right up to that out-of-focus border of pollution, a dirty wall surrounding an impossibly large kingdom. To the west are mountains, that don't look all that tall. Behind me and in front of me, there’s only the road. In some places they’ve repaved it to a reassuring, hard darkness, with fresh asphalt. In most places, though, it’s still a faded ribbon, cracked and pocked.

Every time a sign rolls by telling me how far L.A. still is, I glance at the dashboard clock. It seems like only time, not distance, is passing.

I have to be in L.A. by 8 p.m. Actually, I have to be at the Improv on Melrose Ave. for a show that starts at 8 p.m.; then I have to run off-stage, jump in my car, and get across town to the UCB Theater to do the “Comedy Death Ray” show that starts at 8:30. Oh, and the day started at 7:00 a.m. in San Francisco, where I got up to drive the two hours to Woodland, CA, for a private lunchtime gig. I have to finish THAT gig, and be in my car by 2 p.m. if I expect to make the first gig in LA on time. In other words, everything has to go exactly as planned, with nothing getting in the way to disrupt things. This includes my baggage around LA, any car issues that might pop up, and shows running long, short, or whatever. The thing that upsets all my finely- tuned plans turns out to be something I didn't even know could break. A cigarette lighter. In the car. My GPS/phone, which is plugged into this cigarette lighter, stops working 20 minutes from the first gig in Woodland. Did you know those things can break? It has to be a blown fuse or broken connection - but I thought those things were pretty much unbreakable. This means all the addresses I loaded are unavailable to me. A friend offers to email me Google map directions. The plan: stop at a Kinko's and print them out. We can't find a Kinko's close enough to the 5 to make that work, so it looks like I’m going to be driving with one hand, holding the Blackberry with the other as I navigate around LA. How could that go wrong?

I haven't performed in L.A. in about five years. The last set I had there was a good one. It was at the UCB Theater. Jeff Garlin, from HBO's “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, asked me to do his show there. Hey, I had even gotten back together with my girlfriend. It seemed like things were going my way. Shortly after that, we broke up again, and I decided, “Fuck LA, I’m staying in SF and that's that!” No matter how good the SF comedy scene has been to me, though, the industry is in LA. With my new teeth and rebuilt sense of self, it was time to show my face in LA again. What better way to accomplish this than doing a show at the Improv built around Bay Area comics? Then I got the crazy idea to do what everyone else does, reach out to bigger names for help getting on shows. I've never done that. I guess I was always afraid to do that, for some reason, but it’s how the business works. I texted Greg Proops and boom, just like that, I’m on

‘Comedy Death Ray” at the UCB Theater in Hollywood, baby! The catch is, I also have a private gig that afternoon outside of Sacramento. I decide to try and pull them all off in one day of driving, soul searching, and testing the limits of my inner acceptance. I mean, if you're gonna try you might as well risk a little sanity too, right?

I like the drive to LA on the 5. I think it’s because I know that for those 6 hours I have no other responsibilities. Most of the ride I alternate between phone calls and rolling the windows down to lose myself in that jet engine sound, of wind filling the car up. I suppose it’s a sort of Zen. That seems like a fitting meditation, approaching a city where the car is everything, and everyone comes with expectations that defy any attempts at being realistic. When I’m 100 miles from LA, the Grapevine is yet to come. When I’m 50 miles out, I’m still descending through the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s 7 p.m.; that sooty, filtered light I think of as unique to LA, obscures the sun, spilling the remaining day like butter across my windshield, as I push 85 m.p.h. to make it on time. This is where the excitement of getting there becomes the mild anxiety of reading directions from a cell phone screen. I’m looking at the names of streets and freeway numbers, and I flash on a hundred movies, TV shows and magazine articles, where these names are mentioned in passing. Arriving in LA is always a curious mixture of longing, and nostalgia for that dream of being a star you can only have, before you actually get to LA. The city is dirty. A hot wind, carrying grit and car exhaust, occasionally moves the candy bar wrappers and Big Gulp cups around the streets, but mostly the air is stagnant. The 70's architecture doesn't go well with the palm trees and mega-sized billboards proclaiming the next piece-of-shit sitcom as the ‘show to watch’. My eyes go back and forth from dashboard clock, directions on the Blackberry and, oh yeah, the road. Scary, huh? I ‘m a menace! At one point I’m on Hollywood Blvd. I pass the theater where the Oscars are held. Traffic is slow. Busses, cars and tourists, paying even less attention to the other cars than I am, all seem purposely put in my way to make me late. I’m squinting at street signs, pushing my foot down on the accelerator darting in and out of lanes, all while looking at the damn clock that never tells me what I want to see. I turn off Hollywood Blvd. I know my next turn is Melrose, and when the realization hits me a new set of concerns crowds into my brain. Will I look like I just drove 6 hours across the desert with red, ragged eyes? Will I be able to get lucky not once, but twice, with parking, so I can make both shows? Last, but not least (and I laugh to myself when I realize I am just thinking of this now), what is my set list?

I make the last turn and there it is, the Melrose Improv. I recall the line Obi-Wan says to Luke, in Star Wars, just before they meet Han Solo, "...you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy..." It's not that bad at all. Walking into The Improv, you bring all your expectations and fears with you. Instead of a metal detector, the doorway somehow magnifies the feeling of “less than”. I’m smiling because I found parking a block up, and tonight there really is no other pressure than having a good time.

I’m up first so I can make the other venue. The host kills, introduces me, and like coming out of a blackout I’m on stage, holding a microphone in a packed, air conditioned room, thick with excitement.

I kill.

That’s all there is to it. Having a bad set or a good set isn't something I think about much these days. I just do what I do. I look up and notice the light telling me to get off is on. It means I’ve gone too long. I’m not use to short sets but in LA, 15 min. is considered long. I finish up, say goodnight, and all at once I’m back in my car with my Blackberry in hand, cursing the traffic on Melrose and wondering if the left turns and right turns in these directions are actually left and right.

I make it over to the UCB about 10 minutes into the show. The host is on and killing. When I walk into the green room, Janeane Garofalo is talking to someone about smoking in the hall. I look at the list and I’m actually up second, after Natasha Leggero who was a judge on “Last Comic Standing” this year). I’m nervous. The place is packed, and the host is telling a hilarious story about a mushroom trip. When I’m introduced, I walk out into the light and for a split second I think, “I want this to go great!” I’m a little too much in my head, but I do great. I’m not prepared to say I killed - but I do great. I boil down some of my best jokes to just the hits; throw in some riffing because hey, they talked to me; and close on a joke involving Admiral Akbar from Return of the Jedi, that gets an applause break. And just like that I’m done.

Anyone who succeeds in show business, succeeds not only because they’re talented performers, but also just talented talkers. I’m great with crowds. One on one is where I shut down. This time I make myself talk to the other people on the show. I ask advice without saying, “Can I ask your advice about something?” I hang out for awhile, shooting the shit, and then like a wave crashing over my head, all the adrenaline washes out of my body, and a profound exhaustion hits me. Christ I’m tired. I have a shitty hotel room close by, and in five minutes I’m standing in the "lobby" of a $60 a night hotel, listening to the man in the wife beater T-shirt rattle off the rules about visitors, and why the health department won't let him keep donuts out too long in the morning. I’m not a comic or aspiring anything. I’m just a really sleepy guy, whose day started at 7 that morning, in a city 500 miles away, with an impossible list of things that had to happen perfectly, for me to be standing here with a sly grin of accomplishment. I didn't get offers from managers, or stage time from comics who have made it into that next level of possibility; but all I wanted was to feel comfortable on these stages after years avoiding LA. That’s when I think, “It happened.” Everything did work perfectly. Sure, the GPS died, but it worked out. I found parking close to each venue; had great sets; and accomplished the most difficult part of this trip for me - talking to people. When I sleep, I’m not even thinking of the dog barking outside my window, or that the air doesn't work, or why all shitty hotel room bedspreads have the scratchy sensation you don't want to think about for too long, before I fade to black.

Heidi's Boob's and FOX's Boob's

2010-08-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

While people are worried about a Mosque being built at ground zero, lets take time to worry about some truly big issues. Size G fake boobs to be exact. Heidi Montag, reality TV star from The Hill's has decided to remove her cartoon sized fake breast's almost as soon as she got them put in.

There are legitimate reasons to get implants like an accident or illness and I suppose there is nothing wrong with enhancing your natural assets but lets be honest, size G implants are just airbags that deploy upon self esteem hitting bottom.

She wants to downgrade to something smaller. In her own words she says "... D or double D's."

How out of whack is your sense of proportions when D's or double D's are smaller?

Then again a lot of people recently have their sense of proportions, geography and outrage out of alignment with reality.

Fact number one about the mosque at ground zero, it's a community center with a mosque in it.

Fact number two, it is three blocks from the site of ground zero.

FOX News has made a big deal about where the money is coming from. In classic guilt by association the money comes from a muslim and since muslims were on the planes that crashed into the world trade towers it must be terrorist money and therefore bad. If you follow that logic that means FOX News is evil because the second biggest owner in it is a muslim.

That's a fact. Irony or dirty little secret? You tell me.

In fact, while FOX News continues to scream the question, Where is the money coming from they seem ignorant that a big chunk of the money is coming from the man who is the second biggest shareholder in FOX News. It goes like this; Saudi Prince, Al-Waleed bin Talal owns 7 precent of parent corporation, News Corp. That prince has given money to the American Iman, Abdul Rauf's project to construct a Muslim community center in lower Manhattan. Now that might seem a little removed but three steps away from the owner of FOX News is a lot closer than three blocks from ground zero in Manhattan when you really think about it. Then again, who really thinks anymore when fake tits are also covered as a real news story on the same network?

Among Heidi's complaints about her giant boobs is she can't properly hug her four dogs. Why isn't there a Facebook page raising money to get these poor dogs the affection they need? Come on America! Four animals living in LA eating regularly every day and living in better conditions than maybe 80% of the people on this planet can no longer can get close enough to their mistress to lick her face!

Where is the outrage?

I'm suppose to feel sorry for this woman who explains the problem of having to wear only custom made tops now as "heart breaking?"

Breast cancer is heart breaking. Starving children are heart breaking. People believing a community center three blocks from ground zero is a bigger threat to this country than an economy designed to further the goals of the rich at the expense of the other 90% of us is heart breaking. Someone who needs to pump more silicone into their body than the weather stripping around the windows of an average 70 story building to make up for a personality so uninteresting in any other way is a cry for help but it isn't heart breaking. Then again, maybe it is heart breaking but first we would have to get past those size G personality enhancements to see if it is broken or not.

FOX News implying that the money to build a muslim community center comes from some shadowy source when at least some of that money is coming from the second biggest owner in their own company is hilarious! It is also a perfect example of lying by omission. FOX News knows this! Should we be investigating where they get their money from if we now know that their second biggest investor has also given money to the American Iman who raised funds to build a community center three blocks from ground zero that will also have a mosque in it?

The Pentagon was also struck by a plane on 9/11. To commemorate that tragedy, the Pentagon built a 100 seat chapel maintained by their chaplain office. It is a room available to Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Muslim employees. That's right America! In the command and control center of our military on the very spot where hijackers flew a plane into it on 9/11, Muslims get together during the day and pray!

When you look at both news stories side by side you have to reach the logical conclusion that FOX News has bigger boob's than Heidi Montag's. At least her desperate cry for attention wasn't paid for by shadowy men with ties to the middle east.

Of Confederate Flags and Mud Flaps

2010-07-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

When I open the booker’s email, the first thing I see is a short paragraph, written all in capital letters. All caps is never a good sign. It says: “This venue has a Confederate flag prominently hanging above the stage. It is not reflective of the management’s mentality. I have booked many diverse shows there. Have fun.”

Usually gigs don't come with a disclaimer, and certainly not a warning about potential race issues.

When I get there, the first thing I do is look up. The Confederate flag is there, but so is a lot more. Hanging in the rafters is a huge American flag. Bellow that is a regular-sized Confederate flag. On the left and right of the Confederate flag are two smaller, black flags, with those ‘naked women silhouettes’ everyone has seen on truckers’ mud flaps. Beneath all that is a disco ball.

Yeah, I said disco ball.

I see a few people looking at me as I stare at this hanging mobile of mixed messages. What strikes me first is the fact that the Confederate flag is new. Unless you're a Civil War reenactment planner, what use do you have for a new one of those? Besides being a symbol of intolerance to a lot of people, it’s also the flag of the losing side, right? I mean, they did lose. The Confederate flag isn't on any of our stamps; black people aren't slaves. The demographic who likes the Confederate flag seems to be the same group that enjoys chanting “We're number one!” at sporting events and political rallies. That’s funny to me because this flag represents number two. It's the flag of the losing side. There are no big displays of silver medals that I know of. We don't usually hold onto, and proudly display, lottery tickets that were one digit off from making us rich.

I guess I can even understand that it’s there more as a prop for a good old boy bar vibe - but the disco ball?

I never would have put those two together.

You have the women on mud flaps flags that are insulting to women; a Confederate flag that is offensive to African-Americans; and then - a disco ball. I guess they have no problem with gay people?

After the show, I got talking to a woman, and asked if she thought the flag was offensive to black people.

"They don't come in here."

Yeah, because there is a symbol of hatred hanging from the ceiling!

When the show does start, I am standing in the loft area looking at the crowd. The opener happens to be a black guy. He goes on stage, the crowd claps, and everything seems OK. The other comic and I notice something is wrong with the lights. It’s a music venue, so they have a bank of lights hanging above the stage with different colored gels in them. Someone set them up to slowly cycle through the various colors to create a mood on stage when a band is playing. This is weird. All you need for comedy is just a spotlight or plain lighting. Instead, we have this odd effect with who’s ever on stage morphing through all the colors of the rainbow. Whoever set the light board up can't change it. We don't know any of this yet, so my first thought is, “Maybe someone keeps playing with the lights because they've never had a black guy on stage before.” Remember, they never come in there.

Being a San Francisco liberal with an over-developed sense of what is, and is not politically correct, I went into the gig prejudging everything about it. Each comic on the show was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the crowd. They were great in fact! But it all got me thinking about the rise of racism in America right now. Like a lot of people, I assumed with the election of Obama the country had turned the corner on many of those issues. Just the opposite happened. Anything that was bubbling beneath the surface boiled up in rage and misspelled protest signs. But then how much have we dealt with those issues, if the Confederate flag can be seen as “just something to help create the atmosphere of a good old boy bar”? I am grateful they didn't pay me in Confederate money. Those bills are too large for the ATM machine.

WEBSITE!

2010-07-21T18:49:00.001-07:00

I have a new website. Same name, Standupjoe.com but new look with new features like a podcast!

It also has a page just for my storytelling show, Previously Secret Information. I am keeping this blog because well, I've been using it since 2004. There will be a blog on the new site so if you like what I write please come on over and join me at standupjoe.

Thanks

Joe K.

Oil & Irony

2010-07-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

If you dig into the ground eventually you will find a special thin layer that can be found anywhere on the planet. It contains an element rare to Earth but plentiful in meteors and comets. This is a sort of assassins signature. Scientists believe this is proof that a giant meteor struck the Earth 65 million years ago starting the process of extinction for the Dinosaurs. For a layer like this to be found everywhere it means the rock that hit the planet had to be huge. It also means that the debris cloud it caused must of been large enough to settle around the globe. Something that large must of cut the amount of sun shine down to almost nothing for an extended period of time. No sunlight means plant die. The dinosaurs that ate the plants die and the dinosaurs that ate the dinosaurs that ate those plants also die.

We know from the fossil record that Earth was a lush world when the meteor hit. That plant life was covered in dust and then as the Earth remade itself with regular upheavals like lava flows, earthquakes and glacier movements it was pushed even deeper into the ground. For millions of years under enormous pressure it eventually became oil. Every ounce of oil we burn in our cars or turn into plastic started out millions of years ago as food for the dinosaurs. We could not have the society we have built now without the demise of creatures that lived 65 millions years ago without any of this happening.

If you're like me and delight in irony here is irony on the largest scale I've seen yet. Scientist almost universally place the impact site for that meteor in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, its the reason there is a Gulf of Mexico.

The resource we have gone to war for as a nation and the one thing common to industrialized modern society is now squirting from the site of the meteor that started it all at 65,000 barrels a day.

Bravo, irony! Bravo indeed.

The end of the dinosaurs started here and you have to wonder if ours is too.

How dumb are we? I see adds on Facebook for those cause bracelets Lance Armstrong made popular for cancer research. These are for the Gulf Coast Oil disaster or as the bracelets incorrectly read, stop the spill. Its incorrect because its not a spill. A spill implies it has stopped. The wrist band is made out of plastic. Plastic as in made from oil. You can't wrap oil around your wrist to say you're fighting oil. That would be like dinosaurs wearing stop the meteor bracelets made from meteor. Are we really any smarter than them?

Video Clip.

2010-07-11T15:21:00.001-07:00

Time Traveler & Socks

Among the Tea Party Faithful

2010-07-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

The first sign of strangeness in Oroville was the name of a Taco place I saw on the side of the road. Joe Bob’s Taco’s. Joe Bob? That is not the name of someone I think of to make a good taco. A noose yes, but not a taco.

I am working the Gold Country Casino in Oroville, CA. it’s the sort of room where subtly goes to die. Actually, it’s the sort of room subtly would be called a fag, beat up and kicked out for starting a fight. Oh, that is the sign of a good show by the way, not having a fight start. Seriously. Afterward the guy who ran it said “Good show. No fights started.” Man, I guess I have higher expectations for shows. That explains why the bouncers outnumbered the “audience” I guess. The audience was composed of caricatures if you called a casting agent and asked for white trash spectators. I felt like the people in front of me kept thinking, this isn’t NASCAR! Now, I am not going for the cheap shot here when I tell you they were fat. It is the only way to reasonably describe them to you. It is the first thing you notice about the people in the casino. You can’t help notice it. They were either morbidly obese or rail thin. Seems like people picked their poisons to be either gravy or Meth. The five people in front of me were not only huge they were also a family. The Mom, smoking a cigarette from the comfort of her electric Lark didn’t so much as sit in the chair as kind of leak all around it. She no longer had a laugh like we might think of one so much as a cough that indicated laughter. Her daughter arrived late. I remember her entrance only because I was stunned at her size and ability to move so fast. A joke I have told for years suddenly took effort to remember because I could not take my eyes off her with the words, she is fucking huge going through my mind like the crawl at the bottom of cable news channels. I wanted to stop and just say those words. Not to be cruel or try to get a cheap laugh but I was so genuinely amazed. In talking to her I learned that her brother, had a bad knee from a childhood incident where they were riding bikes and she said the street was clear thereby leading him into traffic where he was hit by a car. I wasn’t performing in front of an audience. I was performing in front of a reality TV show!

I would say trying to get these people to laugh was like pulling teeth but that would imply they had any teeth left to pull. Everyone’s mouth lived by the same creed as Highlander; there can be only one! Again, I know it’s a cliché but I now know where that cliché went to settle down and raise horribly unfit children. I saw a baby that easily weighed 75 pounds already. It looked like a seal stuffed into a stroller. People would smile and I would notice a few teeth missing here, a dark corner of a mouth there and plenty of jagged grins. I’m sympathetic to this of course because of my own recent dental battles. Being on stage though I thought, there goes those jokes.

The “room” wasn’t separated from the casino either. It was wide open to the sounds of slot machines, ringing phones and even the PA system. I felt like I had to yell everything and when I did talk to them I couldn’t hear them. Being a poster child for ADD on stage in front of slacked jaw hillbillies where I couldn’t say most of the things going through my mind made for a very long 35 minutes. I think my biggest round of applause came from a joke about the evils of tofu. There’s a shocker! You mean you guys don’t like tofu? Another woman, huge said it tasted like a sponge. I couldn’t open my mouth and trust that the right thing would come out.

Here is the sad part. After my set I roamed around the Casino for a while. A few people who were in the show talked to me. What became clear to me was the mentality. This is Tea Party country, folks. Guns for everyone, keep the government out of my healthcare, Obama is going to turn us into Nazi Germany and misspelled protest signs for all! I pointed out to one guy that he has no healthcare now. Making it more affordable to everyone and creating a climate for job growth does not lead to death camps. Besides, it was the republicans who just blocked even taking a vote on extending unemployment benefits. When you state something clearly without shouting do you know what answer you get?
“Oh.”
Yeah, oh as in, shit maybe I have been voting, when I actually do vote against my own best interests.
Then there is the gun issue. Over and over I am told Obama wants to take away guns. Again a little fact goes a long way. One of the first bills he signed into law was making it legal for people to bring their guns into federal parks. Why you would need one I don’t really understand. Its not like a lot of drive bys occur in Yosemite. One of the guys says, “what about wild animal attacks?”
“I don’t know how many wild animal attacks happen every year in a place like Yosemite but lets be honest, from the look of most of you you’re not getting out of the car so I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Another one of these guys now gathered around me in a circle and sucking on a cigarette says, “I’ve seen animal planet! Those Black Bears can reach in your car window!”
There was something about the way he said black that was unsettling.
I said. “Dude, the only thing going through your car window you should worry about killing you is the shit you ordered at a drive-thru. You have better chance of dying from a lifetime of Big Mac’s than a bear attack.”
Luckily, they laugh. That’s the beauty of honest comedy. People laugh for two main reasons, it is funny or it’s the truth.

This entire evening was brought to you by melting pot irony. Here I am standing in front of a Indian Casino with out of work poor over weight white people who blame a black guy for all their problems as Mexicans handle all the work, Asians deal cards and a tribe rakes in the cash while they complain to me about not needing wanting to pay high taxes to support lazy people and healthcare they don't need between bouts of coughing fits from all the years of smoking.

Life of a Comic part, Whatever

2010-06-29T11:33:00.000-07:00

I did a gig in a barn. No really, I headlined a show in a barn. They stacked bales of hay to make bleachers for people to sit on. Before the people came in it looked something like an Aztec pyramid built by hillbillies or a massive white trash game of Tetris. The crowd was all from Point Reyes, Ca. If you know west Marin then you know the people there are neither white trash or Hillbillies but instead some sort of hybrid between farmer, activist, liberal and hick by choice who enjoy their pot and wine. I’m pretty sure that’s what the 20-minute intermission was for, to let the crowd step outside the barn and get high. That’s what it smelled like anyway.

It was a benefit for a benefit for a benefit. Let me explain. They wanted to raise money for schools in the area so they thought, let’s put on a concert! Well, that costs money so they put on a benefit to raise money for that. That’s where the comics enter into this. If you want to know the food chain of artists its right there. The only artists broker than musicians willing to work cheap are comics. I wonder if that means they had a benefit to pay us with poets earlier in the month?

In typical benefit show tradition the show was overbooked. It started at 8PM and I didn’t set foot on stage until 11PM. Actually, I went up after the intermission where everyone got high followed by a 3 women burlesque group with fake mustaches glued onto their faces you might of missed checking out their other attributes, a raffle where the deaf women in the front row won free tickets to the concert, another comic and then finally me. Mind you, this was after the first half of the show with three comics already performing. By the time I got to the crowd they were tired, getting loud and most definitely ready to stumble home. Within 10 minutes of being on stage a woman offered me evening lodging in her truck with a dog, a woman applauded for me being adopted and a man far up in the hay bleachers wanted to inform me of the 4^th of July parade in another town. The table of four people up front and at my stage right was faced entirely toward the wall. There were bags of animal feed staked above me and because it is California the “barn” not only had Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the rafters but it also had a café, yoga studio and art gallery attached to it too.

Inside a barn with drunk on wine high off weed well-meaning liberals, ballerina and high heel clad dancers with mustaches I performed because God damn it; it’s for the children.

At the start of June I performed outside at a winery to people either spread out on a lawn or seated in plastic lawn chairs. You would think being June and being in the East Bay it would be warm. Nope. I live by the beach in San Francisco. The beach in San Francisco is not the Bay Watch bikini and babes type of California everyone thinks of who doesn’t live here and knows the truth; it’s cloudy, cold and frequently the last stop anyone needs to be pushed over the edge before going through with their suicide plans. On this day a place that routinely has temperatures 20 to 30 degrees warmer than in the city had worse weather than down by the beach. I ended up going back to my car and getting my emergency change a flat by the side of the road Vietnam style jacket and black North Face beanie. In other words, I looked like the guy you would never pick up hitch hiking. The “green room” for the comics was located in a storeroom for the winery. It held giant casks of wine, boxes of their bottles awaiting shipping on pallets and a few bottles for our enjoyment. At some point for reasons that were never exactly made clear to me a group of underage cheer leaders walked in the room too. I guess they were helping out on this benefit as well. Great, wine and cheerleaders two things I can’t have anymore in life!

When I was in Reno working the Catch a Rising Star comedy club inside the Silver Legacy Casino, I had more than a few nights where I wished I had on film. The week started with the host, a guy who sat behind a piano and his usual gig was performing in an Abba tribute band introduced me instead of the feature act. It was surreal to hear my credits and then a black guy walks on stage. After his set when it was actually my time to be introduced the host prefaced my intro by saying, are you ready for the white portion of the show? I ended up riffing on this for a while and little did I know this would set the tone for the week. When I made fun of Reno and the generally sad condition of the place economically and socially judging from the homeless people, thriving pawnshops and more casinos closed than open a proud citizen in the audience repeatedly said, “I’ve been to Cairo!”

What did this mean? It took me about 15 minuets to figure it out but her logic went something like this, I had said earlier I was from Illinois. Illinois has a town named Cairo that is apparently a shit hole far worse, in her opinion than Reno and since I had insulted her town she was now insulting me with the only bad place she knew of in my home state. Oh, and she was a teacher. Her class must be getting some really messed up geography lessons from her.

So goes the life of a comedian.

Just My Latest Two Cents

2010-06-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Fellow Americans,

Sweeping generalizations and overly dramatic statements pass for insight lately. So let me add to it by just saying that conservatives have lost their minds and liberals have become as effective as nipples on a man.

Somehow conservatives have managed to convince a lot of people that Obama will take America down the same path Hitler took Nazi Germany. That is just hilarious when you consider Bush invaded a country with faked proof, suspended basic freedoms and told the same lie over and over enough that to this day a surprising number of America’s still think Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.

All Obama has really managed to do is let down a huge proportion of his base. I know, don’t do the work of the right wing by criticizing him, Joe. He is just setting the stage for his second term. That’s what they tell me. Setting the stage for his second term? You can’t use the same explanation rabid Star Wars fans gave for why The Phantom Menace was so boring in the new trilogy.

The conservatives have managed to pull this transformation off before. They have managed to make themselves believe that Jesus is on their side. Do you really think Jesus would of apologized to a corporation after it poisoned the ocean? Better yet, do you think the guy who went around healing the sick would be against some kind of affordable health care for everyone? If Jesus had to vote I think he would declare himself a green or a socialist based on the stories I was forced to read about him as a kid. If I remember correctly Jesus only lost his temper once and that was over money being exchanged in the temple. Considering religion has become a billion dollar a year industry in this country I’m not sure how cool he would be with the corporations masquerading as churches. Do you? You really think he would have been OK with bank bailouts to billionaires while people lost their homes? Yet, the political party of health care isn’t a right, corporations should have less regulations to do what they want and the richest 2% of Americans shouldn’t have to pay taxes claim Jesus as one of their own.

Is it really that big of a stretch for them to turn Obama into Hitler?

When hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, more than a few religious conservative leaders claimed it was a punishment from God for numerous reasons. Why aren’t they claiming the same thing now with the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? I am half kidding. Maybe it is national Karma. We did Invade Iraq for oil and now we have it washing up on our shores. And please, don’t tell me Iraq wasn’t about oil. When the country was being looted and their museums, hospitals and even weapons depots were being broken into the one thing American troops were ordered to guard was oil wells. Maybe God or the universe or whatever sense of justice is built into the fabric of things just went you want oil I’ll send you some!

When weather destroys a section of the country it some kind of divine punishment from God but when a company’s negligence creates the biggest environmental disaster in America’s history it is called an act of God?

Its not like we really have anyway of stopping the gusher either. Five CEO’s of Oil Company’s stood in front of Congress and under oath admitted there is no technology available to handle this. That didn’t stop them from putting down in writing that they did.

Anytime your solutions to a disaster sound like prison sex terms, junk shot and top kill, you shouldn’t be allowed to drill a mile bellow the ocean and another mile into the crust of the earth. I’m just saying.

Meanwhile, Obama fired the general in charge of Afghanistan and replaced him with the General who was in charge of Iraq. Great. He replaced the leader of one failed war that has lasted longer than WW1 and WW2 combined with the leader of another failed war of choice that has cost us 20 times what it took to go to the Moon. So what? The story isn’t that he fired a guy who talked shit to a Rolling Stone reporter the real story is why are we still there nine years later?

Afghanistan is irony. It is the world’s biggest producer of heroin and terrorism. Doesn’t seem like those things would go together. You would figure the heroin would mellow them out. It might but the other potent drug they have there is religion. Its like the Puritans landed in Seattle during the mid 90’s.

To win the hearts and minds of the people living in Afghanistan so they don’t feel the need to become terrorists and blow our shit up? Thats why we are there? It has to be hard to win the hearts and minds of the same people who the CIA trained to fight the Soviets. You remember that plan don’t you, America? Conservative patron saint Ronald Regan paid the most rabid religious extremists they could find to draw the soviets into a Vietnam style war. It worked. When the soviets left we did too leaving a wonderfully armed group of religious nuts to figure it out for themselves. You know what they figured out? America used us. All conspiracy’s aside it is a fact when people say the terrorists who flew planes into the world trade towers were CIA trained. Osama and Saddam were American products as much as Coke and Ford are American products.

The plan to win their hearts and minds this time around isn’t to give them guns. This time we are building schools for girls. This only helps the Taliban and Halliburton. It helps the Taliban because instead of them having to roam the countryside hunting down the targets of their misplaced hatred we have done the easy part of getting all the girls together in one place for them. Then, they blow it up. This is good for Halliburton because they have the contracts to rebuild the schools.

The entire gross domestic product of Afghanistan is about 3 billion a year. We spend that in a month over there! At this point it would be more cost effective to just hand the money out to the people there. Seriously, people might hate America but most of those same people want to be American. Do you really think anyone is going to want to blow themselves up after they are pacified with TiVo, Facebook, iPhones, cheeseburgers and Prozac? How willing are you to even step away from Farmville to buy organic vegetables for your health? It works! You can’t put on a bomb belt to blow yourself up when obesity has made it to small to put around your waist. I’m just saying flying over Afghanistan and dropping a billion dollars worth of Best Buy gift cards might be an easier solution to Americanize the population and end that war. Instead of blowing up wedding parties with drones we should be registering them and buying gifts like Xboxes so they can “play” war instead of wage it.

Could we stop with the whole Obama was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim?

2010-06-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Could we stop with the whole Obama was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim intent on destroying America thing already? Because if that’s the plot it is unfolding at exactly the worst possible time for any secret Muslim organization. Lets see, we will get a guy born in Kenya because clearly there won’t be any American born radicals, send him to the same Christian church for 30 years just to throw them off, give him the middle name of Hussein, the same name of the leader of Iraq and count on getting him elected as the country fights two failed wars in Muslim countries directly inspired by 9-11?

Brilliant!

If I was a Muslim terrorist organization and I wanted to bring down America I would have an X American President, former CIA chief and oil investor whose son happens to be the President of America at the time invest in a Saudi Arabian family construction business with a son who happens to be a CIA trained terrorist attack America on a day when none of the established protocols for dealing with hijacked planes were followed touching off a war in oil rich Muslim countries where the two families could make profits off fighting, equipping and powering that war and then use that money to make billions more in profit by investing in a stock market that had virtually no regulation and when it eventually crashes pick up billions in stock for almost nothing thereby washing clean all the money made in illegal weapons trade right before the son of that X American President, former CIA chief and oil investor’s son leaves office while the son of the Saudi Arabian family construction business remains free and get everyone to blame the next President who happens not to be white and have a name that sounds suspiciously like the people we are fighting.

That’s what I would do but who would believe such a thing is possible?

Getting Clean

2010-05-11T12:32:00.000-07:00

Two days after we broke up I received a package in the mail. It contained the following items.

1. A toothbrush I used a few times at her place.

2. A small sketch I had quickly done to explain stained glass windows.

3. A ten-dollar coin bank in the shape of a robot.

4. A pen.

I added the contents of this package to the shopping bag of stuff she dropped off for me. That held more gifts I had given her like lingerie and a dress. In short, anything I had ever touched or given to her had been removed from her apartment and sent back to me in some Orwell like cleansing of the emotional record. It was a brilliant passive aggressive move. Instead of just throwing the offending items away that reminded her of me she sent them back to me as if to say, there isn’t even evidence that we were together now.

Wow! It really is one hell of a fuck you.

The bag sat in the back of my car for a week. I couldn’t throw it away. It didn’t seem right. I wasn’t sure what to do with the stuff but the thought of throwing it into a dumpster filled me with sadness. It didn’t seem like the proper way to honor the tenderness we had shared. The other option was to put it all in a box and leave that box in the back of my closet. I wasn’t going to do that either. I already had a cardboard box in there from a previous relationship that remained unopened. I wasn’t going to start a mausoleum of dead relationships.

On Mothers day, after I talked to Mom and got an earful of relationship advice I finally got out of bed took a shower and gave myself a task to occupy my mind instead of self-pity. After all, I was the one who finally said this isn’t working. Time to move on.

I drove my car to the car wash. As I went through the car with a vacuum I was faced with the bag again. What do I do with it? I took a breath picked it up and tossed it into a plastic trash barrel. That was that.

That is that is never just that.

Once I started spraying the outside of the car I became focused. At least I could concentrate on the task in front me now. That’s when I looked up and was greeted with a scene that took me a moment to process. A fine mist of water vapor had formed just behind the car and around the trash barrels set out for people to use. The conditions were right that a rainbow had formed over the one I had tossed the bag into. Reaching inside was a homeless man getting the bottles and cans out. In his free hand he clutched a sheer teddy I bought for her no more than a few weeks ago. He stood up and took hold of it with both hands. His hands were huge and encrusted with dirt like two catchers mitts left outside but he held it so delicately as if he understood how special it was. Our eyes met then. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders with what I took to mean the universal body language of; can you believe someone threw this away?

Just as my mind set to work on finding some grand meaning in this sight he shrugged his shoulders again, brought it to his nose and blew. I guess it didn’t have the desired result because he scrunched it up into a ball and tried again. With great effort he repeated this several times looking each time before balling it up a little more and trying again with greater force. Eventually he bunched it up unceremoniously shoving it into his back pocket.

He looked back into the barrel reached in and this time took out the robot bank. We had a private joke involving robots. It’s a long story but you know how couples will develop insides jokes? This was one of those. When I saw it in the window of a store I was walking past I rushed in and got one.

He shook it next to his ear and sure enough a stray coin rattled around inside. I knew what was about to happen next and shook my head in disbelief. He brought the small white statue up over his head and in one single motion brought it down on the pavement in front of him where it broke into a few large pieces. Having liberated the quarter he smiled and once again looked inside this barrel of treasures.

I always want there to be some grand truth in things like this. I want there to be a lesson a punch line or the revealed face of irony. Not this time. Sometimes it is just a homeless guy blowing his nose on the teddy you bought for a woman that he picked out of the garbage while a rainbow lands all around him.

I'm Not Having a Stroke

2010-05-04T14:47:00.000-07:00

I have to learn how to smile. Here is why. For a long time now I have been so self conscience about my bad teeth that I perfected a way of smiling without showing them. I would purse my lips together and will the corners of my mouth to rise. This always took an effort on my part. It meant catching myself in the act of smiling and controlling what is a normal human reflex for everyone else. I'm sure it looked a bit strained too. I wasn't fooling anybody. People would sometimes look at me the same way you look at a person whose nostrils go wide when they try to yawn with their mouth closed.

I just spent $20,000 on dental work. It looks great. Four crowns and a bridge. I have six straight white perfect looking teeth in the front of my mouth and the lower ones will get whitened next week. Problem is, I trained myself for so long how to smile with closed lips that it has become a habit. It doesn't go so smoothly now when I smile. I feel myself doing it the old way and then in mid smile I have to make a conscience effort to open my mouth wide and fight against the taught impulses my face is use to. Even the muscles in my face resist this new natural way. I can see the look on peoples faces when this happens. I think they think I must be having a stroke.

One second I begin the process of trying to keep my lips together as I smile. It's what I am use to. When I notice this I try to correct the problem by saying to myself, smile normal. Its a little like being pulled over by the cops. You sit there behind the wheel saying to yourself be cool. Be cool. Be cool. That usually has the exact opposite effect of you not being cool. Same thing here. Telling myself to smile normal only makes me hyper aware that I am not smiling normal. I'm trying to manage what is suppose to be a reflex. The outcome is a strange and labored response that feels more like doing a bad impression of a smile than an actual smile.

The other day I was at Trader Joe's standing in line. A young girl comes over and says "there is no waiting at my register, Sir." I follow her over.
She looks at me brightly and says "You're the only one who followed me."
In a clumsy effort to be flirty and charming I say "I find that hard to believe" and then smile. Thats where I lost her.
I can see her eyes. They are flattered for a second. Then I smile. It is one of my hyper aware overly thought out smiles. The muscles in my face are confused by this. They must be because this time when I will my mouth open I can feel the left corner of my mouth start to twitch uncontrollably like your eye might if your tired. When I feel that I try to overcompensate with still more effort. I'm sure it looks something like The Joker trying hard not to vomit or something.
All this takes place in a second or two but the result is unmistakable. It must look like I am about to have a seizure or something because her eyes go from embarrassed sweetness with my casual compliment to what the fuck is happening with your face at the speed of light. She quickly looks down at my painfully obvious single man basket of goods, two frozen lasagnas, two frozen boxes of tofu chicken like nuggets and two things of yogurt and stiffly puts them in a bag before flatly reciting my total. I pick up my bag but before I go I want to try and salvage this. I turn to smile and say goodbye or something equally as witty but she has already turned her back and started dealing with the next customers.

I feel a little like an android at this point. I watch people smile and note the ease with which they do it attempting to replicate their human actions. Before I was jealous of peoples effortless smiles now I am resentful. I just spent twenty grand to look at hot cashiers and freak them out?
The new teeth have changed my speech a bit as well. Its not huge but some words are now cumbersome and take extra force to get out of my new alien mouth. My tongue feels oddly large against the backs of these new teeth too like it no longer fits in my mouth. I have become manic about brushing and flossing after every meal. It is a ten minute procedure now that must be done perfectly every time. Can you catch OCD from a dentist? I am in the process of quitting coffee due to the staining. That process is its own ordeal!

The thing I feel most after this is nothing. Nothing, as in I don't feel any different about me. I expected to walk out the dentists door and smile at a cute girl passing by. She would smile back with a look of shared possibilities in her eyes. That didn't happen. Instead I tried to smile at a cute cashier only to have her become horrified wondering if she should dial 911. I guess its an old lesson but changing the outsides doesn't do much to change how you feel on the inside. A little bit sure, but lasting change always comes from the inside out. I am glad I have the new teeth and glad I saved the money to finally take care of it. It wasn't a problem that was going away. It will also help with the career. What I hate to admit is that now the real work has to start again. Shit. If I trained myself how to get around the act of smiling I wonder what tricks I've taught my personality to get around perceived deficiencies? There are no crowns for ego's. Well, they call them sports car but I am not blowing another twenty grand for awhile.

Arizona and Aliens.

2010-04-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

Arizona has made being Mexican virtually illegal. Police now have the power to detain and question someone if they suspect them of being an illegal alien. What would give them reason to suspect someone of being an illegal alien? Suspicious dress is one description in the law. I think they had to say suspicious dress because they couldn’t say brown skin. It is also now illegal to pull your car over and offer someone work. This law isn’t about targeting sombrero wearing prostitutes. It is about the Mexicans who come across the border and have the nerve to do the shitty jobs we don’t want to for slave wages.

Meanwhile, NASA has announced plans to look for Aliens in the universe. Do you really think any aliens out there want anything to do with beings that label other beings illegal aliens? We can’t get along with other people who happen to come in darker shades of skin. Creatures from another planet wouldn’t stand a chance here! The tea party protesters lose their shit now over other humans. They can barely spell offensive names now. What are they going to do when they have to protest beings that have tentacles and communicate in bursts of light? NASA is wasting its time.

I am starting to think that crop circles are just warning signs to other advance cultures not to land here. A crop circle is the universal equivalent to a circle with a red line through it or the signs you see along a highway that read, no services at this exit.

We’re going to spend a billion tax dollars to search the stars for aliens and at least another billion to round up illegal aliens and ship them back across the border at the same time. You know what we should do? Let Mexico take over the hunt for alien signals from space. Think about it. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere and you have the radio on seek, what station do you always pick up loud and clear? The Hispanic music one, right? They already have the biggest antenna and they are already broadcasting. We might want to consider that if aliens from another world did show up they wouldn’t land on the White House lawn or hover above Moscow, Tokyo, Paris or Egypt. They might be headed for Mexico City and their new friends. Where would they land all their flying saucers? On their brand new parking lot named, Arizona.

Smile for the Bunny=)

2010-01-29T21:56:00.000-08:00

Have you ever done something for a woman that you thought would be sweet and sort of charming and then mall security got involved? Recently, I was house sitting for a woman I was interested in. She has a stuffed animal that sits on her bed. At some point in our conversations we started talking about the Rabbit as if it was our Autistic child.
“How is buddy, today?” She might ask.
“He’s good but he misses you.”
“Don’t let him have a coke even if he asks.”
“What if he is a very good boy?”
That sort of thing.
In one of our conversations about Buddy, I said I was going to take him to the mall on the weekend. She thought this was cute and I thought, what if I really did? I could bring him to the mall; snap a few photos of him and I sitting in a food court and send those to her. It would be sweet. What could go wrong?
This is what went wrong.
First of all what did I expect? How would anyone think it was weird that a single man with a stuffed rabbit and a camera wouldn’t raise eyebrows? With Buddy under my arm I marched into the food court at the Merton in down San Francisco. I sat him at a table with a coke and a straw leading to his mouth. I thought it would be cool if I could get a shot of us sitting there with trays of junk food in front of us. So, I went around to some of the tables where people had left the remains of their lunches and piled it on our table. I started to notice people stopping their cell phone conversations, do a double take or simply start to stare in that way where you can’t believe what you’re seeing. It must of looked weird. Why would a guy take garbage from other tables and place it on a table in front of a stuffed Rabbit? Why? Because I like this woman. Because you do mildly crazy things sometimes to hear the person you have feelings for laugh. What are a few minutes out of a Saturday afternoon to achieve that?
Now I needed someone to take the photos. I thought about this. It couldn’t be a teenager because handing a camera to a teenager and asking them to get me and my Bunny seated at the table is just an Amber Alert waiting to happen. It couldn’t be an older person because I would end up with a great snap shot of their thumb. My best bet would be a couple. When they asked why I could say, oh it’s for my girlfriend. Hopefully they would find that charming and it would give the guy a chance to show that he can appreciate sweetness. After setting the scene and ignoring still more curious eyes, I found a couple and just as I thought, they were eager to help me out. They took a few photos and when they handed the camera back to me, mall security came up to me. Mall security, these are people who couldn’t get jobs at MUNI, right? I’m 5’6. The two guys who came up to me were maybe 5’0. They both had a look of fierce determination on their faces. They looked like really upset Hobbits who were forced to leave the shire and get jobs outside of middle earth.
“You have to leave the mall, Sir.”
Those were the first words out of the lead guys mouth. I call him the leader because he was the one without the lazy eye. I guess that makes him a good guard because even though he was looking straight ahead he could still keep an eye on what was happening to his left.
Literally.
My first response was simply, “Why?”
True to form the lolly pop guild repeated, “You have to leave, Sir.”
The lazy eye one put his hand on my elbow in an attempt to get me moving. Here is a sentence I never imagined I would ever say indignantly, “I’m not leaving without my Bunny!”
He picked up Buddy and for a moment it was hard to tell who was bigger.

All my life I have been embarrassed about my teeth. I have often thought that I must be some lesser god of irony. After all, my job is to make people laugh but I am too self-conscience of my smile to let myself smile. I have always thought that to get a woman of quality interested in me I would have to fix my teeth first. Odd thing is, I attracted a woman who truly likes me for me and sees past the teeth. But I need to get them fixed now anyway because she broke one. Let me explain. We went out on a date. It was a pretty amazing date. We got back to her place and things eventually lead to the bedroom. Now, we agreed not to have sex because we want to honestly get to know each other and see if we have something special here. That doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy each other though. Then, at a particularly hot moment, she moved in such a way that I bit down and a front tooth that had a hidden fracture finally broke and flew out of my mouth.
You want to talk about a cock block?
The sound was horrible. It was an inhuman crunching noise that couldn’t be mistaken for anything normal. Her reaction was to stop and say, “What was that? Should we stop?”
My reaction, “No!” Keep going.”
Mind you, I wasn’t feeling any pain. I was too caught up in the moment for that. Nothing puts a stop to the action like having to turn on the lights and pat down the sheets to find a chunk of bone that just flew out of your mouth in the middle of feeling each other up.
I might have found the woman who doesn’t care about my smile but likes me for me, but now because we liked each other hard, really hard, I have to fix one tooth so I might as well finally go ahead and get them all fixed.
Ironic.
That Rabbit was looking right at me when the lights came on too.

By this time, a small crowd had started to form around me at the food court. I could see people taking their ipod ear buds out. People walking by slowed down and sunglasses came off. Teenage girls covered their mouths as they said Oh My God to each other before laughing. Parents hurried their kids along suspecting something bad was about to happen any second. I know that if the situation were reversed I would have stopped and would be telling this story from that perspective instead of staring in my own embarrassing moment. I realized that physically, these two weren’t much of a threat to me but why escalate it to that point? I got my photos so lets just leave. But I also had the feeling I get sometimes when a show is going so bad that all you can do is let go and start to have fun with how incredibly bad the show was going. OK, if I am going to be kicked out of a mall for taking pictures of a stuffed animal to make a woman smile, then I am going to embrace how weird this situation had become and make it weirder.
I looked around at the crowd, all of whom were looking but trying to look like they weren’t looking and then shouted at the mall trolls, “What kind of country do we live in when a man can’t take photos of a stuffed bunny in the pursuit of pussy?”
To my surprise, a handful of people, men, clapped their hands as I walked with my security escort to the front door.

X-mass Time Stunt Doubles=)

2009-12-21T15:54:00.001-08:00

A few years ago I visited one of my sister's back in Illinois. It was Christmas time.
Winter in the Midwest is a bleak affair. The land is flat. The sky is an unbroken gray. It's a perfect movie backdrop for suicide.
I think that's why Christmas lights and baby Jesus scenes become the glowing attractions that they are out there.

Let me explain that my sister lives in a town named Paw Paw. It's supposed to be named after a fruit that grows there or a small Indian tribe. I'm not sure.
There are just too many jokes to make about inbreeding and the identity of fathers.

It's a farm town.
It is two and a half hours southwest of Chicago and trapped somewhere in a 1950's Norman Rockwell America with 70's AM radio for a soundtrack and FOX news coming in loud and clear on the TV's.
Most people set up a manger scene on their front lawns. They do the whole thing; three wise men, statues of animals, Mary and Joseph and of course, little lord Jesus asleep in a hay-filled manger.

All of this pious folk art is then strung with lights. It sort of gives the appearance that Mary and Joseph traveled to Reno instead of Jerusalem.
My sister loaded her family up in the jeep and took us on the annual tour.

I started to notice something as we take in the displays.

Over the years some of the statues must of been lost, broken or misplaced in the huge barns that sit hulking on the barren prairie.
What you start to get is a stand-in cast of whatever figures are available. Problem is, sometimes there not the Biblical figures or the replacements were built on a different scale. The manger scenes then become unintentionally hilarious.

In one scene I see the baby Jesus, two wise men, and Santa Claus.
It's particularly striking because this Santa is one of those plug-in ones that glows with a painted plastic light. Being red, he looks like the Devil.

Another scene has everything perfect but instead of Mary, Joseph is standing next to an elf. I suppose it's possible that Joseph might be attracted to an elf, but it's obvious that whatever set the elf originally came from was a much larger scale.
The elf is huge compared to Joseph!

What is supposed to be a humble smile on Joseph's face seems more of an expression of acceptance. Like Joseph has just learned to accept being this massive elf's bitch.

At least all these manger scenes still stay in the Christmas theme. More than a few just assembled whatever characters they had and placed them in the traditional positions. That's the only way I would know that the little mermaid, Frankenstein, and the tin man from The Wizard of Oz were filling in for the wise men.

During the day one creative farmer tied up live animals around his manger scene. Unfortunately he put real hay in the manger so the two cows and four goats were all feeding on the hay. It looked like the animals were eating the baby Jesus alive!

Letters To Issues

2009-12-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

My therapist suggested I write letters to the people, places and things that upset me recently. Your not suppose to mail them but it seems a shame just to throw them away.

Dear people booking a comic for your annual corporate event,
Thanks for booking me. Seriously. These can be fun shows that exceed every ones expectations. To insure that your gig goes great, please follow the advice of the comic who has been at this for almost two decades. When I say, don't have the crowd of 300 people in a hotel ballroom just sitting down to be served dry chicken and fish as I am about to perform, that means don't have the crowd just siting down to a meal of dry chicken and fish at the same time you introduce me.
Oh, and as I said in the e-mails, comedy works best with intimacy. A large ballroom is fine, but having people sit around the edges of the dance floor, one hundred feet away, and expecting them to pay attention to the guy on the unlit stage as they get served their dry chicken and fish doesn't help. Neither did a shitty sound system that couldn't reach the back of the room.
I think that was mentioned in the e-mails too, but its was a delightful three hour drive in the rain only to see that none of the agreed upon instructions were followed.
P.S.
Let me get this straight, you write the student loans for people all over American and don't see anything just a little unsettling that you have a casino night at your convention? Good to see all that money people are struggling to repay for job's that no longer exist is being gambled away by people who can't follow simple directions.

Dear lawyers at that other gig,
What a surprise that self-satisfied, self important manicured card board cutouts from a Banana Republic catalogue wouldn't laugh that hard. Thanks you for keeping me waiting an hour and a half and thank you for having the meal served just as I am about to perform. It was so very original to hear the guy with a smile like a hatchet eating his chicken like a date rapist say, "tough crowd."
Tough? No.
People with a sense of superiority don't like to laugh. Not because it is a sign of weakness, but because they hate to feel like they have no control.
Laughter is involuntary.
Thanks for living up to almost every stereotype about lawyers.
Thank you Dude in the front for not even turning around during the whole performance but still saying ridiculous shit under your breath as you looked across the room at a poster of yourself waving good-bye. How weird was that?
Thank you head partner in the company doing everything to look above it all. The jeans with a blazer is a nice touch if you were a comic in the 80's. It says, I am so rich that conventional professional dress codes no longer apply to me. But thanks for the check. How many people can say they annoyed a room full of attorneys for half an hour and got money out of them?
I won.

Dear Ambien,
What the hell is in your shit? I took one and woke up the next morning feeling more worn out than if I had just not slept. I think I know why. It's because I lead another life in the hours I was suppose to be asleep. I went on line, called people and generally made an ass of myself as I sleep blogged.
It would of been cool if I had started something like a fight club, but instead I wrote about candy as I instant messaged people.
The warning label on Ambien should say, Don't take with Internet!
Jesus Christ, the whole reason I quit drinking was so I wouldn't wake up feeling like shit and not remember the crazy shit I did the night before!

Dear Apple,
I like your products and yes, there is definitely a sense of being hip when I sit in a cafe and shoot a condescending look at the P.C. user struggling with some Microsoft problem.
Brilliant marketing.
What you lack in bugs you make up for with trying too hard to be unique. Your like the kid who dyes his hair purple and cuts his arms even though you live in the suburbs and your greatest problem is deciding what bumper sticker to post under a stop sign in the neighborhood.
USB, Fierwire connections, different cables, downloading drivers and 'latency' issues all have to be overcome if you want to record your guitar on Garageband. I guess I thought it would be easy because in every official Apple manual I could find all it says is, just plug your guitar into the computer! Even the video tutorial says it but oddly enough doesn't show it. There isn't the slightest mention of Audio Interfaces ANYWHERE other than the blogs and chat rooms dedicated to the millions of other people who had to find out the hard way that you can't just plug your guitar into your shinny new Apple and expect it to do what the side of the box, computer, website, salesperson and manuals all say you can do! Five hundred dollars later and now I can plug it in and you know what?
It sounds amazing, ass-holes!

Dear comments posted and e-mails sent to me concerning my last post where race was mentioned once,
Thank you for pointing out that I am now a racist, wrong or mislead when I said I don't agree that all white people, by virtue of being white, have it easier. I guess I will become like Joe the Plumber, a Klan member or the typical cartoon image of the angry white guy for pointing out what is a huge simplification with punch lines. You know, like comics do. I didn't realize this was the first step in becoming a racist but it must be true because you say it is.
Thanks for telling me what I can and cannot say and then explaining how you're still different from those evil conservatives who censor people. Of course your all correct and I was wrong. Next time I will check with you to see how I feel. Again, I apologize for taking issue with a gross generalization and pointing it out in a humours way.

Dear Democrats,
I know the Republicans have no heart, but do you guys have any balls? Let me see if I understand this right. The health care reform you have been arguing over for a year would make the purchase of health insurance from the same companies that have fucked everyone over mandatory? How is that reform? OK, sure. You say the Bill would make it illegal for them to drop people but the same bill would also let the insurance companies charge elderly people up to five times more. How is this reform and not some give away to the insurance companies? You're going to take tax money and pay the insurance companies to cover people who can't afford to buy it from those same companies and if people don't purchase health care insurance they will be fined?
Are you guys out of your fucking heads?
You guys already get health insurance paid for by tax dollars. Can't we at least have the same thing as our representatives?

Tofu: an essay on the state of stand-up and the fear of losing my liberalism.

2009-12-08T15:22:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time Dennis Miller was cool. He is famous for explaining in an interview why he started self identifying as a conservative. After 9/11, he heard a lot of his liberal friends call Ruddy Giuliani a “Nazi.” He reexamined his beliefs and realized that he now had more in common with conservatives than liberals. Saying anyone is a “Nazi” is always a huge exaggeration. Kind of like saying a health care reform plan that would cover more people and save more lives while denying record profits to companies who have a nasty habit of dropping people once they actually need what they have been paying for is Nazi like. Whatever. I do understand hearing something and having a hard time finding a place for it in the context of what you believe. That was Denis Millers tipping point. I am worried it’s happening to me. It started with Tofu.
I was performing at a show recently when I did this joke.

Science now says that eating too much tofu can have a negative effect on your memory. I think this is true because every time I have it I forget it tasted like shit the last time.

From the back of the room a high-pitched voice went “Come on!”
The tone of outrage was unmistakable. It was a Vegan girl who wanted to dispute the scientific findings, the slanderous statement I made about its taste and her disapproval in general with any swipe at her food of choice.
Since she obviously eats a lot of Tofu I thought, just move on. She will probably forget this in a minute or so.
No such luck.
Here is the thing. I was at the end of a long show already. A show where she had sat quiet or laughed at the usual endless stream of dick jokes, an implied rape joke, a domestic abuse joke and other assorted politically correct challenging jokes ranging from poor taste to borderline racist. But tofu? That is where she drew the line!
Oh San Francisco.
I could write this off to the phenomena of everything is funny until its your issue, but her displeasure at having Tofu mocked while none of the other material she had heard inspired her to comment just seemed more ridiculous to me than usual. I hadn’t made some outrageous statement like all women are objects or God created black people to serve us; I made a pithy little joke about fucking Tofu and she lost her shit!
Stand-up comedy is a lot of things. It is the intersection between art, bad taste, the first amendment and trying to make a room full of strangers laugh in an age where every subject is polarizing. People go out to see stand-up comedy with an expectation that its going to be just like the one comic they saw five years ago on a TV show and then become offended when real issues are talked about. But again, this is fucking Tofu! Her reaction seemed out of proportion for the subject.

I am for Gay marriage, health care reform, a colorblind society, cutting pollution and a woman’s right to choose. Down the line, I am a liberal. What I am starting to have problems with is the mentality, the blanket statements and the lack of willingness to turn that critical eye inward. One day a woman standing in front of me on MUNI was wearing leather pants and going on about cruelty free food choices clearly oblivious to her fashion choice of irony. The bus stopped to pick up a guy in a wheelchair and half the bus with hemp shirts on and End Don’t Ask Tell Now bumper stickers across their Apple Laptops moaned at the few extra moments this process would take. A white Dude with dreadlocks rolled his eyes and loudly said, “Fuck!”
I looked down at him in the seat reserved for disabled and elderly people and went “Are you going to be late to the compost heap?”
So often in comedy shows it really is a case of everything is funny until it’s my issue but so often in San Francisco it seems like my liberal cause cancels out your liberal cause.
It’s a guy in a wheel chair, Ass-holes! You know, all inclusiveness and such? It’s sort of what all liberal thinking rests on.
We always ask conservatives if they have ever asked questions or tested their assumptions, but do we?

I get annoyed at people who wear their beliefs like fashion choices.
Does the color of my breast cancer awareness ribbon clash with my gay rights rainbow flag button? I have a No Blood for Oil bumper sticker on my Land Rover, so its alright to idle my engine for ten minutes as I block traffic waiting to get into the Trader Joe’s parking lot for sustainable farmed free range waffles.
These aren’t such crazy exaggerations.
A girl wearing a fur coat once heckled me after a joke about bestiality. She explained that the coat was second hand and like some moral version of the carbon-offset concept, she could wear it guilt free. This is classic San Francisco thinking to me! Since I didn’t purchase the coat and it looks great on me it’s all right to wear the skin of an animal but it is never all right to have sex with one?
I looked at her from the stage and asked, “So with your logic it would be OK to be the second one to fuck the horse?”

I heard a comic on stage talk about the idea of white privilege recently. He made the blanket statement that all white people have it easier.
All white people?
I understand that many of our institutions still have a bias built into them and that racism is alive and well even after we elected the first black president, but a blanket statement like that, no matter how many guilty white liberals nod along in agreement is still a huge generalization.
I would trade my poverty, my lack of access to dental and medical care, clinical depression, alcoholism, addiction, IRS problems and crushing debt for the cops pulling me over and white woman wanting to fuck me any day.
When I expressed this thought to a friend, she looked at me like I had just put on a white sheet and set fire to a cross! Her argument, more people of color have had it far worse for far longer than you!
True. No argument about that at all. The thing is, I had nothing to do with it. I can’t donate money I don’t have or give jobs in a company I don’t own or make some statement that comes off sounding condescending about the plight of minorities or even sit through Blind Sided. The best I can do is be respectful to everyone regardless of his or her race, color or creed. If that isn’t enough then were in bigger trouble than we want to admit. I walk into a show as a white person but leave black and blue because I get hit over the head with the message so much that I am the problem.
I am a white, heterosexual male.
Apparently I’ve been the problem all along. Slavery, that was me. Denying woman equal pay, me as well. In fact, I had the idea to have Puritans with small pox sneeze on blankets before we handed them out to the Indians.
I’m not saying white people in history haven’t pulled some of the worst shit in history, I am just saying I wasn’t there, don’t agree with what was done and I am one broke barely hanging on guy looking for the answers too and it sure doesn’t feel like I have had it any easier than anyone else.

All of these are examples of those moments when I have an uncomfortable realization; I am liberal, but I don’t exactly agree with what is being said. Sometimes I can’t put my finger on it but it feels wrong or off or maybe just not my truth yet I am scared to say it. I have to think Dennis Miller didn’t just throw out his ideals all at once. It was probably a lot of little moments like this that lead up to it. When that girl shouted “Come on!” after a silly little joke on Tofu, I felt a sharp snap in the back of my head. I’ve had it with this liberal bullshit!
That was my first thought.
In tone, it sounded the way any commentator on FOX news has said it a hundred times before. Thinking about it later, I was a little scared. Am I getting older and growing more jaded to the world’s problems, or am I becoming pragmatic? Are we accomplishing anything or just replacing one set of slogans for another? Can you point out the shades of gray without being labeled a racist, Nazi or hater when everyone seems to suffer from black and white thinking these days?
Tofu is a great way to explain most stand-up comedy. Bland, tasteless and forgettable five minutes after you’ve watch it, Tofu is the mainstay in the American intellectual diet. When most of the population has a better understanding of the plot lines on Lost than the war in Afghanistan, it makes sense to have someone heckle you over soybeans I guess. Part of why I think that heckle happened and not during all the other stuff is a bit depressing to ponder for my art, but it is an inescapable conclusion. Dick jokes and jokes that only work if the audience feeds into some portion of the stereotypes used in most routines are expected. Crude, lewd and decidedly not politically correct is the expectation most people have for a comedy show when they walk in a club. Guys and girls are different, dating is weird and almost any joke that start with the comic emphatically saying, fellas or ends with the comic saying, what’s up with that are worn premises and tools, but it is still the framework for much of the stand-up out there today. When you step outside that narrow margin of safety, you are bound to hit someone’s big red button that almost every American not only has, but also expects you to know about without ever having met them before. I just never thought that Tofu would be one of those buttons.

Long time no see=)

2009-10-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been cheating on you, Blogger. For most of this year I have been posting my musings, imagined genius and two cents on the state of western cultures decay on Facebook. But I miss you, Blogger. That new blog thing didn't work out either. There just wasn't enough people willing to pay for a collection of blogs from comics. That was a kick in the ego! Anyway, I'm coming back to you, Blogger. I miss your familiar dashboard and ease of use. So, were gonna find away to make Facebook and Blogger work together to further my take over of the media.
More to come!

new blog thing

2009-06-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I haven't updated my blog in a while for a few reasons. I am writing on a blog that is attempting to create the new business model for the information age. Its named, www.blogfundy.com
Check it out. Its a collection of funny people writing about everything and anything. Yes, we would like you to become a paid subscriber. For the price of a cup of coffee you could read insightful, funny and unique perspectives on things. Check it out=)
The other reason, I've been publishing blogs to my facebook page. You can read whats what there and eventually they will just publish to both sites.
www.facebook.com/standupjoe

San Francisco Blabity Bleh! at The Purple Onion this Thursday!

2009-05-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/62136

Upset Over the Little Stuff?

2009-05-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Swine flu.
By now you have heard about it. The cable news networks seemed to take a delight in telling us how dangerous the swine flu could be. I got the feeling watching some of the coverage that not since the days following 9/11 has CNN had something so juicy to scare people with!
So far, only one person has died in America from the swine flu while 13,000 people have already died this year from the regular flu.
In other words, salmonella tainted spinach has killed more people. Hell, bad peanuts have killed more people than spinach this year. In fact, America has killed as many pirates this year as the swine flu has.
Yesterday, the acting head of the health department announced that the swine flu is no more deadly than the regular flu.
How about that? We closed schools and diverted flights, wore masks and ran out of hand sanitizer for a virus that is no worse than a really bad cold.
What is it about us? Why do we constantly get upset at the wrong things while the more dangerous things in society are regarded as business as usual situations and not problems?
Example-
Gun shops across the country are reporting a run on ammunition, a phenomenon apparently driven by fear that the Obama administration will increase taxes on bullets or enact new gun-control measures.
When Bush got elected a second time, liberals stocked up on sugar free snacks and poster boards for protests.
Almost four months into a new presidents term and the right is stockpiling arms.
Great. How can this go bad?
If the gun lobby had its way, guns would be sold in vending machines outside school cafeterias.
Thats the only way I would agree to school prayer in public schools.
By the way, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said there were 37 known vending machine fatalities between 1978 and 1995. Every year about two Americans die when they shake a machine trying to get a stuck snack out. Thats why we have warning labels on the side of Coke machines telling you not to shake them.
Vending machines killed more people last year than swine flu so I guess there pretty dangerous. If thats so, why don't guns at least have a warning label? I don't know exactly what it would say, maybe something as simple as WARNING: the U.S. Surgeon general has determined that guns can create big fucking holes in people!
If vending machines killed 10,000 people on average every year do you think there would be a strong lobby in Washington D.C. busy keeping them legal and on the streets?
Vending machines don't kill people. People kill people!
"You will have to pry this can of Coke from my cold dead hand!"
Squirt guns that look too much like real guns are against the law.
Law darts were made illegal after a kid was killed by one.
Vending machines, killing two people on average every year have more precautions built into them than guns do and guns were designed specifically for killing. Yet the idea of making them less available to society at large is seen as an attack on peoples personal liberties.
I can't think of a greater way to deprive someone of their personal liberty than shooting them, yet suggesting we do something about this uniquely American problem gets people crawling out of the wood work and screaming, "Second Amendment rights!"
The only way to remove a gun from the streets is apparently to announce that it was held by a Mexican with the flu.
Course, the people with guns will only say, we need to strengthen immigration laws!

Carrie Prejean is back in the spotlight again. She is better known as anti-gay marriage Miss California. She is now a spokesperson for traditional marriage and in trouble over topless photos of herself. Little miss traditional values posed for some racy photos back in the day! The photo—showing a topless, pink-underpants-wearing Prejean with her arm strategically placed—first appeared on TheDirty.com before making its way around the web.
I could care less. What makes this truly hilarious is her sanctimonious defense. If the traditional marriage people think a model who is already notoriously bad with words is a good spokesperson then you might have just proved you are dumber than her.
And that is saying something!
She called the release of the photos, "attacks on me and my integrity as a woman."
Lets stop right there for a moment, shall we? Think what you like about nudity or values or whatever. Its none of my business what you do. But the argument can be made that a woman of integrity might not pose topless in her underwear for money. I don't think that way but I am guessing the people who hired her as a spokesperson do.
Oh but its gets better!
"I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith."
Your being mocked, bubble head because you posed nude and still want to claim you're a Christian.
How do you reconcile this in your own head? Jesus, hung almost naked on the cross so its alright for me to pose naked? Even if it is a sin, he died for those already, right?
Can't you almost see her incredulously stomping a single pump wearing foot down when she says, "I am a Christian and I am a model!"
"I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be. But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should show respect for others' opinions and not try to silence them through vicious and mean-spirited attacks."
If you're a model people will use your photos to make the most amount of money they can. Now that you are shilling for family values, anyone who ever snapped a photo of you is going to release them for profit and in the process irony laden statements like this one will erode your credibility while it drives the price on your old photos up.
Also, you're defending traditional marriage? Whose attacking it? Far as I can tell, its the straight married people who are attacking gay peoples self evident right to ruin their lives as they see fit. If anyone is attacking the sanctity of marriage its married people. It ends in divorce 50% of the time. In fact, I bet at least one married man jacked-off to her photo. If anything, this model Christian has created more situations that put traditional marriages in jeopardy than a gay couple wanting the same rights society gives other married couples.
Unless your husband in jacking-off to gay guys posing in their underwear. If thats the case you might be married to the leader of a church.
What everyone is missing and what seems to be lacking in any intelligent debate about gay marriage is the fact that marriage fails half the time. Why defend anything with a 50% failure rate?
It would add an extra sense of adventure if guns only went off half the time. Might give animals being hunted a sporting chance too. I doubt anyone from the gun lobby would defend a product that only worked half of the time.
I say, get that statistic up to at least 80% before you go claiming another group is going to ruin it. Maybe one way for people to take the whole traditional marriage thing seriously is not hire a spokesperson who can be found nude on the internet. I'm just saying.

Aren't we suppose to be the good guys?

2009-04-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

I was on a radio show talking about torture in the course of discussing the weeks news. A guest called in. Conservative, Bob, the host said.
Apparently they knew him.
He summed up the conservative point of view on the entire torture scandal with the official position from Bizzaro world.
Where is it written down that torture is illegal? He asked. Because if it was, his reasoning went, then Dick Cheney would be in jail by now.
Reasonable men can agree to disagree. But what do you do when faced with this?
All I had to do was Google, laws on torture.
The geneva conventions are pretty clear on what torture is. This is only the first section of many many that spell it out in detail:

-CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
Part I
Article 1

1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

This seems pretty clear to me. Torture is illegal.
Shortly after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on a Sunday news show and told the American people that we would deal with our enemies by working on the "dark side."
We now know what he meant.
What the Bush administration did was not only illegal, but profoundly stupid for reasons that will become clear soon.

To find some kind of a blue print for how to torture, the White House turned to a military program ironically designed to train our servicemen how to cope with torture if they were ever captured. Not just captured, but captured by countries who didn't sign the Geneva Conventions. That means, countries that still use such practices as water boarding.
They reverse engineered programs and techniques to help withstand torture into a seriously flawed program designed to torture.

The name of the program is SERE; Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape.
During the Korean War, the Communist Chinese used it on P.O.W.'s to get false confessions for propaganda purposes.
A lot of research has been done on torture. Turns out, when people are being subjected to extreme pain, they will say what they think the interrogator wants to hear to make it stop.
This is the method they picked. Its bad enough that it was morally repugnant and against the law, but they chose a technique known for false confessions.
The White House was not only cruel, but stupid as well.

The SERE program's chief psychologist, Colonel Morgan Banks, issued guidance in early 2003 for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy although he has emphatically denied that he had advocated the use of counter-resistance techniques used by SERE instructors to break down detainees. However, records show he was in Iraq as a consultant.
All of this is bad. Today, it got worse. Under oath, people are now coming out on the record to tell us that torture was being used on detainees to create a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

If you think torture is the best way to capture terrorists and get intelligence you are wrong. Instead of pointing out studies I offer this fact as evidence. After the first attack on the World Trade Center, the Government treated it like a crime scene. Evidence was collected, leads followed and eventually with skilled interrogators and patient research, the people who planed it were found, tried and are now in jail.
No one was tortured to solve this. No country was invaded to solve this. No bombs were dropped on innocents civilians by mistake. No secret prisons were set up outside America to get a conviction. New law didn't need to be hastily written to give legal cover to unethical acts to get the information required to get convictions.
The White House made a clear and informed choice to use ineffective brutal methods that are defined as war crimes.
Aren't we suppose to be the good guys?

News That is Good!

2009-04-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Hello all!
If you have been a reader of my blog for awhile, thanks. I enjoy writing them and I hope you enjoy reading them. Times are changing. In a few years news papers will probably disappear from the street replaced by blogs and subscriptions to news websites. While blogs will remain free, I think you will also start to see a new trend. Subscription blogs for an inexpensive monthly fee.
I was recently contacted by a man who wants to do just this. Some larger recognizable names to draw people in and guys like me. Might just work. Who knows? But being paid to do what I have been doing free since I started this blog is cool! This blog will still exist. I hope to start using it more for video clips soon. I hope if you have been a loyal reader you will make the jump with me.
I will let you know the details once everything is signed on the dotted line.

Bigger news!
Every Friday afternoon I can now be heard on KSRO the Drive giving you a break down of the weekly events complete with punch lines! If you can't get them in your area, you can listen to it on line and eventually in podcast form here, Facebook and who knows where else.

Cross your fingers and stay tuned!
Check out my calendar on my website for Gig's. standupjoe.com

New Wrinkle.

2009-04-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

Everything goes in cycles. Only these days I wonder if were going backwards with in the vast cycles that history repeats. President Lincoln freed the slaves in a war where states wanted to secede from the union. Why did the south want to leave the union? The south wanted to maintain slavery and the north thought it was barbaric.
With Americas first African-American President in the White House, the governor of Texas is now seriously talking about seceding from the rest of the country over what he calls the federal governments oppressive reach. Thats how he refers to the stimulus money.
This might be the clearest example of the difference between conservative thought and liberal thought. When the liberals are out of power they write blogs. If they are feeling really naughty they might have some meat instead of that veggie burger they normally get.
Three months out of power and the conservatives want to leave the country!
That would make them something they have been calling liberals for a long time now: Un-American!

Let them go.
This is the same action as an immature kid loosing his fifth game of checkers in a row. They basically want to flip the board over. Only the board is the country and its not a game.
Come on Texas. If you got real about this situation you would see that Texas needs America a lot more than America needs Texas.
This what Texas offers. More wool comes from Texas than any other state in the union. So we lose them. So what? What do we really lose, sweaters, ignorance and Chuck Norris?
Texas ranks #49 in verbal SAT scores and #46 in average math SAT scores.
That means if you wanted to confuse a Texan a sentence like this might do it:
If you're making less than 250,000 a year how much are your taxes going down under Obama?
I think I am starting to see the problem.
When Bush was governor of Texas they were 49th in education.
That means they could beat Mississippi, they just couldn't spell it.
Hell, let the entire south go if they want. Don't let the Mason Dixon line hit you on your ass on the way out.

Glen Beck. Know the guy? He is the next generation Bill O'reilly and one of the chief architects of the tea bagging movement. I might be wrong about this but if one of the guys talking about your movement works on TV where he talks for a living, I don't think you can claim your movement is grass roots.
On Tax day, Glen Beck held a rally in Texas at the Alamo. If you know your history then you know the reason why Davy Croket was fighting the Mexican army. Mexico had outlawed slavery and the good people of the nation of Texas were fighting to keep slavery legal.
Texas lost the battle of the Alamo, but when you think about the current condition of Mexicans working for slave wages across America in jobs you or I wouldn't do, you might think Texas won the war.
Odd place to announce you are a "real American with old fashioned American values..." cause I gotta tell you, the kind of old fashioned American values a place like the Alamo represents is the reason we passed the 13th Amendment,
abolishing slavery in the United States. I'm just saying if you want to reboot a revolution you might want to choose a better backdrop for it than a fort that was defended by red necks who were fighting to keep humans like animals for labor.

The NSA announced that it reviewed the current program of wire taping communications in the United States. The NSA said it "over collected" information and had a hard time distinguishing between domestic and international communication.
Over collected? What a polite way to say you eavesdropped on everyone. Do you know that right now the Justice Department affirms its right to go into a citizens home, search their computer and personal papers and never tell you they were there! The United States government says it can go through my stuff and not tell me?
I don't remember dating the government.
Also, its pretty clear on my bill what is a domestic call and an international call. If these guys couldn't even figure that out why would we think they could interpret terrorists plots talked about in code over the Internet?
But here is the real kicker.
It also found evidence that the NSA attempted to wire tap a member of Congress. This is the NSA saying this in their own public report. This isn't some urban myth being passed around by bloggers strung out on red bull this is your government admitting that it not only spied on U.S. Citizens but it actually made an attempt to bug a member of congress.
People sometimes tell me I swear too much on stage. If you're watching the news and not swearing with a few choice expletives when you hear stuff like this, then you just don't get it.
This is bad people! This is really bad. I know, its depressing and stunningly unfunny so here is a dirty joke to take your mind off of it before we get into more hard to hear truths.

I told my brother something he had never heard before apparently, because he said, "New wrinkle."
I asked, "What does new wrinkle mean?"
He said "Every time you learn something new your brain gets a new wrinkle."
"Oh. I guess that makes my testicles a genius then."

Thats how I will get you to pay attention. I will tell you something you should know and then follow that bitter truth with a bipartisan dirty joke.

Obama released four memos from the justice department written at the request of the Bush White House on the subject of enhanced interrogation techniques. They are little more than disgusting verbal games written in legal prose to not say the word torture. Its clear that the authors, one of whom is now a sitting federal judge, knew they were being asked to invent law to make torture appear legal.
OK. Thats pretty scary stuff too. Here is another dirty joke.

My brother told me his girlfriend had tricked him into getting pregnant. How is that possible? You're a grown man. What did she do, cover her vagina with leaves and you tripped and fell in?
Then he asked, "Thats how women get pregnant?"
"yes!"
he said "New wrinkle."

Obama has said they will not prosecute anyone at the CIA who participated in these types of "enhanced" interrogations. We have to move forward not look backward. This is the Obama doctrine. As much as I believe in what the man has come to represent I think almost everyone can agree that a blanket forgiveness without even a formal confession of wrong doing is premature.
You might not have to go after the people who were "only following orders" but shouldn't we go after the people who gave those orders?
I think we should.
No dick joke here folks. There isn't one powerful enough.
The fact is were suppose to be the good guys. The ones who don't put aside their values even when it seems we would gain by doing so. People say, thats naive. America has to live in "the real world."
America was founded on the idea to change the real world. But there right. America doesn't live in the real world. It exists in a better world. Torture has no place here. Thats why we have laws against it. Thats why we don't recognize a king or allow our rulers to abuse religious belief to control people. Right?
We are a nation of laws not a nation of what ever those in charge want to do. The truly scary thing is that all the enhanced powers the Bush administration gave itself have not ben given back yet by Obama. One of the oldest laws of man states very clearly, power given is rarely returned. If we are willing to set aside the values that make us better than the terrorists this time, what will we set aside next time?
I just hope that someday I won't be talking to a 20 year old kid and after I tell him what freedom is, hear him reply, "new wrinkle."

Of Powdered Wigs and Tea Baggers.

2009-04-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here is the non-story everyone will be talking about this weekend. On Jamie Foxx’s satellite radio show, he recommended that Miley Cyrus make a sex tape. Lets not feel too bad for the 16-year-old millionaire. She is the new Olsen twins. In fact, since Miley has arrived on the scene you don’t see them too much anymore. I think the Olsen twins were somehow combined into one bratty child star known as, Miley Cyrus.

I can’t feel sorry for her in the least. She is living every 16-year-old girls dream. Her Dad works for her, she is star and she has a 20-year-old Italian underwear model as her boyfriend. By the way, why are people getting worked up over Jamie Foxx’s comment? I thought statutory rape was a little more important than talking about what is only a matter of time.

Between pirate attacks and tea party protests over taxes I am wondering if we are repeating the 1700’s again? I hope not. There is no way I am going to start wearing a powdered wig.

I have a question. When do the pirates get their own reality show? Each week you can watch as they take a ship. Who wouldn’t watch that?

I have to admit. I feel a little sorry for Mr. Bush. I don’t know if he has been watching the news lately but if he is you know he is sitting there going “My first test with the military was 9/11 and Obama gets pirates? Unfair!”

If ever there was a guy who wanted to fight pirates, it was Bush. If it had happened during his administration you would of seen press conferences where Bush tells the America public that Johnny Deep is living somewhere in France so we are going to invade to Iraq.

The tea baggers! I love the fact that apparently no one on the right thought to Google tea bagging before they pronounced themselves proud tea baggers. And what was the protest all about?

Paying too much in taxes.

It doesn’t exactly ring true when 95% of the people in this country are getting a decrease in taxes and the other 5% who are lucky enough to be among the wealthiest humans on the planet will get a 3% increase or what it was under Bill Clinton.

I saw some of the protests yesterday. I saw people with signs take public buses to public parks. I saw police officers directing traffic and doing security. I saw elected officials giving speeches trying to talk over work crews repairing public streets. In other words, all things taxes pay for. Now I know, no one likes the idea of taxes and I think the protest was more about the bail out of banks than anything else. Everyone hates the idea of handing billions of dollars to the people who screwed us all over but I also understand you can’t just let the entire system collapse before you do something about it. Do you know what you get if you do?

Pirates!

Why do you think Somalia has a pirate problem in the first place? They have no government, no public services and the means to collect taxes for those public services. So what did they turn to?

Piracy!

Pirates and tea bagging, folks. Sounds like a normal weekend in the Castro.

Tea bag all you want folks but the truth of the matter is Americans pay less in taxes than most of Europe. While we bitched about gas going up to five bucks a gallon last year, England was paying twelve bucks. Still are too. I also find it hysterical that most of the nut jobs on the right (FOX) defended the AIG bonuses. So I’m confused. The bail outs of the banks to maintain the level of society we have come to rely on was wrong but the million dollar bonuses paid with bail out money to the people who fucked the economy up was right?

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t keep screaming that Obama wants to change our way of life when our way of life was what got us all into this mess. You can’t be against the bail out but for executives getting their bonuses because, “that’s how capitalism works!”

I can’t think of a better example than this for why it might be time to take a very close and very long look at our finical system and change a few things.

Have you ever heard the term, Paradox of thrift? It’s the term given to this situation: As the economy goes down people start to save more and spend less. As they spend less, the economy goes down even more. What is good for the individual is bad for the system as a whole.

That’s crazy!

If we live inside a system where saving is bad for the system then the system might be the problem. Not people saving. The system we live in now depends upon it growing constantly. Our economy is like a shark. If it stops moving it dies.

That’s crazy too!

The only other model I can find that is similar to how our economy works is cancer. Cancer, you may know, is the sudden and unknown growth of cells in the body. Eventually, you die from it. And if you don’t die that means you survived one of the toughest treatments there is in medicine, chemotherapy.

I say it is time to apply chemotherapy to the economy. Don’t take my word on it. Check out this quote from a dude you may know.

Thomas Jefferson -"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Lets go to Applebees and plot like crazy people!

2009-04-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

You got to see this to believe this. If you want to know what the hard right conservative base is up to check this out. Make sure you watch all the way till the end when the girl holding the camera shout "Burn the books!"
She wasn't kidding.

Vegas again.

2009-04-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

Is anything more American than Las Vegas? Everything you shouldn't do is available here with a half off coupon. Its spring break for adults. Consumption is conspicuous and behavior that would get you arrested any place else is encouraged with the now well worn mantra- what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Trust me. You will take home those extra pounds.
Watching your weight with portion control?
All you can eat buffet!
Get caught looking at other women when you're with your wife at home?
Enjoy the topless review in the crazy girls show!
Holding onto money now that the economy sucks?
Come stick that 401K in the most liberal slots. After all, vegas gives you better odds these days than Wall Street.
I'm working at the Rivera Casino all week. Its a long week too. Monday-Sunday, two shows a night. Fourteen shows in seven days is a grind for any comic. The upside is you can refine bits all week. Tweak them a little and try out different tags. Anything to keep it interesting for yourself.
The Riviera is old Vegas. You can find traces of its glory days in the black and white photos of stars when we really had stars. The greats worked here. Bob Hope, Bob Newheart, Steve Martin, Don Rickles and major names in theater and music. Buts its also old Vegas in the literal way. They are a mixed bag this gray and graying crowd. I am struck by how many canes, limps, wheel chairs and plus size wardrobe I see. As a people, we are in horrible shape.
I am the opener. It stings the ego a bit but in Vegas you get paid what a lot of clubs pay for a Headline week. Still, fifteen minuets up front is not as sweet as walking into the glory position of headliner.
Comedy seems to follow a sort of rhythm. The highs get smoothed out by the lows. In the long run, if you can be even then you can be a success. This week I am the opener but the opener in Vegas at a classic hotel. Last week I was the headliner at a show and got a standing ovation after Riffing an hour long show for a fair sum of money.
Its all Good.
During a show I am talking to a guy who says this is only the second time he's been to Vegas.
"How did it go the first time?" I ask.
"I lost all my money and I came to get it back."
The way he said it sounded like he was going around town hanging up missing posters of his cash.
"It's gone, Dude."
The scale of Vegas was built to inspire awe and gluttony. Its all about excess here. A friend I haven't seen in forever happens to be in town the same time I am. We go to Lunch at the Rain-forest Cafe inside MGM Grand. Every few minuets you hear one of the waiters shout, "Volcano!" As soon as the other waiters hear it they start yelling it too. What gets this introduction is a dessert. I'm not sure what it is. All I can say is it came in a bowl that looked more like a sink. Ice cream was piled high. Slabs of what I think were chocolate seemed stuck to the sides of it too. To top it all off they ad a sparkler on the top.
I think they yell volcano because thats more appealing than shouting diabetes!
Everything in the cafe is plastic. The trees, plants, leaves and name tags. Fake animal heads stare out at us from the plastic canopy of plastic vines that line the walls. There is a thunder storm every twenty minuets. The lights flash and a sound track provides the audio component. All in all, it is how Americans like there outdoors-brought inside and made to run on a show schedule with people bringing you food named after a natural disaster.
My sister lives in Henderson. It is suburbia anywhere just a half hour drive from the strip. When she picks me up she drives past a mega church.
"Its where I take Bible study classes." She proudly informs me before adding, "you can think what you want about that."
Done and done, sister.
She explains that the church is so big it has its own Starbucks.
Excuse me?
Hello. I would like some no foam, half caf forgiveness, please.
At my end of the strip, Vegas is a little worn. The Riv is a classic, but she is showing her age. At this end you see a lot of people who probably remember this place back in the day. At the other end of the strip the average drops into the twenties. You see groups of guys all looking like they're staring in their own private episodes of Entourage. The girls have bought the myth of Vegas. The uniform for girls seems to be slightly slutty dresses with the time honored accessories of high heels, that after drinking make them all walk like a tipsy valocaraprtor, and of course those wacky long skinny drinks in novelty shapes that are really just portable lack of inhibitions delivery systems.
All in all, I have a fun week. Everyone at the Riv treated me great and the other comics on the bill were pretty cool too.
Till next time, Vegas.

Metaphor This!

2009-03-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Republicans released their budget yesterday. It was 19 pages long and contained no numbers.
No numbers?
No numbers.
Seriously.
Obama basically called them out Tuesday in his press conference asking his critics where their budget was?
If you were looking for a metaphor about our times and how we got here I can't think of a better one than this. A bunch of Republicans smugly waving around a thin folder containing no financial data what so ever and saying, trust us!
Excuse me if I am stating the obvious but isn't this exactly how we got into this disaster in the first place?
19 fucking pages with only the numbers that number the pages is not a budget guys. Its barely a book report. Even cookbooks have more numbers in them than this did. Probably not a good idea to say cooked and books around these guys.

Even members of the conservative press were pissed at the Republicans during the press conference for this. Every question the reporters had was answered with a very lame, we will be releasing more information next week.
Like the numbers?
The big idea in the budget was a 10% tax cut for the wealthiest American's. Because that already worked so well for us.
For the last time-trickle down economics didn't work!
Your just embarrassing yourselves at this point guys.

The government is inspecting all the showers on military bases in Iraq. Of the 20,000 already inspected, 7,000 of them had electrical problems. KBR, one of Halliburton's companies, was found criminally negligent in the electrocution deaths of 3 solders in showers built by KBR.
The company that just got the multi million dollar contract to rebuild the showers?
KBR.
And that is your metaphor for how much corporate America cares.
If they could feel OK about making a profit on selling showers that killed our solders in Iraq, then you know they didn't think twice about stealing money from grandpa's pension plan on Wall Street to buy another penthouse on park avenue.

The thing that really makes me slow down and stare at the train wreck that is the Republican party right now is listening to them scream about one party rule in Washington and a White House that won't listen to their concerns. Obama has been called a dictator for wanting regulations to prevent this finical disaster from happening again.
Your kidding, right?
Thats pretty much how you guys ran things when you were in power!
And before you think I am turning around and childishly saying, now you don't like it do you? Consider this little fact.
In the history of the Congress the filibuster has been used sparingly. A filibuster prevents any vote on a bill from happening.
Since January, its use has gone up 90%.
The Republicans not only don't want to consider any new ideas they don't even want to hear any conversation or debate about them either.

Last but not least, the mother of metaphors!
The U.S. military has just begun work on a mediaeval style wall with only four ways in or out around the city of Baghdad. Everyone will be searched on the way in. Yup. Nothing says mission accomplished like a giant castle wall surrounding a city in an architectural style best associated with the dark ages.
Let freedom ring!
If you still believe that anyone in Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 then perhaps you can torture logic just a bit more to convince yourself that if those people attacked us for the simplistic reason said over and over again, they hate us for our freedoms, then a wall between them and freedom should make everyone happy.
Right?

Bullshit. Part Infinity.

2009-03-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

The White House said today that Michelle Obama would be planting a garden on the White House grounds. Great timing! The bullshit has never been thicker or smeared more people.

The best thing a social commentator can do is cry bullshit when he sees bullshit. It shouldn’t matter whose bullshit it is, Republican bullshit or Democrat bullshit. The point is bullshit is bullshit, red or blue.

Fact: Democrats were fully aware of the $165 Million dollars in bonus pay that went to the company that almost single handedly destroyed the economy. We know this because while everyone was tossing blame around like a beach ball at a Phish concert, officials at the Treasury, the Fed and Federal Reserve Bank of New York exchanged e-mails about the bonus program in late February. AIG revealed the bonus plan in filings last September. In November, Treasury and Fed officials negotiated the terms of these retention payments; and in December, Democrats called for a hearing on the bonuses.

This is what makes people jaded about politicians. These guys weren’t outraged. They were acting outraged when the public found out about bonuses they had already decided to pay.

And that my friend is bullshit.

Here is where the fun starts because both sides seem to have come up with solutions that are crazy. As mellow-dramatic as they possibly could be, the Democrats held a special session of Congress and passed a tax law. 90% of the AIG bonuses would be taxed!

That’s a pretty awesome thing right?

It’s unconstitutional.

If this comes to any court, and it will, it will be found to be unconstitutional for one reason. The U.S. Constitution states very clearly that the Government cannot make a law after the fact to punish or single out a person or group.

Singling out only the executives at AIG who got multi-million bonuses and slapping them with a 90% tax rate seems like we are indeed singling out and punishing one group. Yes they deserve it but if Democrats spent the last eight years pointing out when Bush didn’t follow the constitution then turn about is fair play.

So of course the Republicans tripped all over themselves when they had the first legit criticism of the whole bail out mess. They must have been tripping on something because now a lot of them are OK with AIG keeping those bonuses. You read correctly-they are in favor of letting the morons that almost bankrupted the world economy keep that money.

That is exactly what Rush Limbaugh and other high profile conservative leaders have been saying now. Why would they defend this gluttonous act of greed with Wall Street in its death throws?

Because they believe in capitalism!

Bullshit indeed.

It’s hard to tell who is crazier on this subject now. One side knew about the insane amount of money these losers were getting and pretended to be outraged when the rest of us found out and the other side says capitalism is all about people getting the most they can and so what that 50% of all mortgages held in the country are behind.

Then there is us. The American public. We are truly a strange crowd. What we decide in mass to get upset about often times isn’t that big of a deal. So I say, who gives a shit about $165 million bucks? It represents less than one percent of one percent of the $170 BILLION DOLLARS that AIG owes us so far. Whats the plan for getting that back? I haven’t heard it yet either. Have you?

Bullshit=)

Let Them Keep Their Million Dollar Bonuses!

2009-03-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

BUT...