My Getting Paid Saga

A few people have asked so allow me to fill you in on my efforts to get paid by Last Comic Standing.
Just to recap, NBC claimed some Bullshit about not having to pay us because we were not "professional" comics. Turns out we are. Then it was some nonsense about not being a member of AFTRA/SAG. Thats where the story got weird cause I was made to join AFTRA or I could not have done Live at Gotham on Comedy Central last year. They had all the comics lined up in the basement of Gotham filling out paper work and signing our checks over to AFTRA. Turns out this wasn't a AFTRA Representative at all who I trusted with my paper work. It was a Comedy Central rep whose job it was to bring everything to AFTRA. Apparently it didn't work because a check was still floating around out there for me and AFTRA had me down in their, needs to pay for the next job or else, list. So that answered that. After several phone calls with AFTRA reps in San Francisco, they told me they have the check, will mail me half and then I can pay the rest of the initiation fees over time. Meanwhile I had been calling and e-mailing the producers of Last Comic Standing in an effort to get paid. I finally sent an e-mail explaining that my next step was to get the media involved or even a lawyer. After all, I wasn't the only one having a hard time getting money from these guys. A week latter a FedEx letter showed up with the paper work I needed to fill out to finally get paid. I filled it out and send it back. So here is whats happening now. I am waiting for a check from AFTRA. I am not sure of what the amount will be because frankly I don't trust anyone in this process any more. I don't even get the check. Standard operating procedure is to have the check sent directly to AFTRA first. They take their cut and then mail me mine. Will see.
Some where floating around out there is a nice little sum. Now will see if any of it shows up after jumping through flaming hoops of bullshit just to find out that I owe money to AFTRA for something I did more than a year ago and I might not get any of the money from Last Comic Standing because it has to pay for the initiation fee I thought had already been taken care of with the check I never saw and no one bothered to tell me was outstanding.
Showbiz. You gotta love it cause doing it for the money will kill you.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

God must hate the Republicans right now. The opening day of their convention and a Hurricane slams into Louisiana just in time for everyone to remember Katrina drowning New Orleans.
The Governors from three states canceled their speeches and George Bush pulled out to.
Then comes the announcement that the Republicans have chosen a virtually unknown Alaskan Governor to be McCain’s running mate. In a blatant attempt to grab all those alienated female voters who wanted Clinton, they pick a woman. A woman who happens to have a pregnant 17-year-old daughter. No one has said this inconvenient truth should be exploited for political gain. This is only a big deal for the same reason John Edwards lying about an affair is a big deal. These people set themselves up as more than politicians. They proclaimed family values and high morals as something they live by. Then something embarrassing happens like your 17-year-old daughter gets knocked up just in time to become a poster child for real sex education in the schools. Not the abstinence only program her mother has voted for over and over again. You look like a hypocrite or at the very least ignorant. But none of these are reason to not vote for McCain. Consider this. John McCain is a 72-year-old man who has had several bouts with skin cancer in the last few years. You have to think there is a 50% chance he will die in office and his VP will then become President. Haven’t we seen what being against abortion, for guns and tax cuts for the wealthy can get us? Could we even survive another four years of that philosophy?

She doesn’t think global warming is man made.

She thinks creationism should be taught in public schools right next to evolution.

She has called the invasion and occupation of Iraq as being part of “God’s plan.”

She has far less experience in public office than Obama. There goes that argument for the GOP against him at least.

Do we really want another Dick Cheney for Vice President?

Friday afternoon I was on the phone with my Doctors office waiting to hear the results of a test. It wasn’t a test for cancer or an STD, but it was still a test with a certain amount of fear attached to it. I am waiting on hold for five minuets before it hits me, where is the music? If ever there was a time for music, this is it. No one wants to be alone with thoughts racing around their head as they wait for medical news. At the very least play some Phil Collins. That guy can really use the royalty payments now anyway.

Turns out I am OK. I should eat better and blah blah blah.

For two dollars I saw a new product. It is a plastic thing that hooks onto your belt and can hold a regular size bottle of water at your side. Think of it as an aqua fanny pack. Some see this and think it’s a great idea. People need to drink more water. I see it and think cars should come equipped with cup holders. Not people.

Saturday night I drove to Yuba City, CA. Ever been? There is no easy way to get there. You leave the well-traveled familiar Interstate 80 for tiny 113. Then you twist and wind your way across fields and through peach orchards until you reach the Bowling alley where the gig is held. I did this gig once before. I don’t know that I need to do it again. This room is what I like to call a knife fight. The crowd is almost pre-wired to yell shit. That and they were treated to some decidedly lowbrow stuff long before I got a hold of them. It is a Bowling alley though and quality of content is not something I think they are that concerned with. By the time I got on stage to close it out, they were drunk, loud and stupid. Imagine that? A bowling alley comedy audience in the central valley wasn’t so smart. I spent forty bucks in gas and two hours driving to wait three hours and four comics to do 40 minuets in front of a crowd I probably don’t see eye to eye on anything with. Was this a good use of my time? Probably not. Such is the life of a comic. I have been doing more road stuff again lately because I missed it. I think that phase is over for now. Time to take a shot at the next elusive level again.

Sunday I watched a friend get married. I smiled a lot and thought the whole thing was beautiful in a way I am not use to feeling. Then I felt depressed as shit and thought about my brief time in L.A. The friend who got married has a baby and a job as an apartment manager now. Comedy is still on the list of things he does, but it’s part of a list now.

I have been looking for an agent and manager lately. Enough fucking around in the trenches with the little stuff. I kept looking at everyone at the wedding and realized that out of everyone there I am still single and still gigging as hard as ever. The grass is always greener right? They must think I have all this freedom while I think they have people to go home to that love them.

This weekend was a wonderful demonstration in what if and what didn't happen. What if I had found a way to stay in L.A. instead of returning here? What if things had gone well and I got married? What if? Well, this is what I got. More friends are getting married and each time we get together in a group it seems as though more kids are running around. That kind of shit makes you wonder about life. Have I built anything of value? What is the quality of my life? What do I want and what is important to have? None of these are easily answered questions. The best you can do is show up, kiss the bride and eat the cake that is offered. Such is life. Such is my life.

Metaphor

It can be a dangerous business mixing metaphor with resolve. John McCain recently said he would pursue Osama, “…to the gates of hell!” Doesn’t that just wanna make you climb up on a pick up truck, wave the American flag around and blast a Toby Keith song? It sounds dramatic enough but there is no need to go to such extremes.

Obama has said he would go into Pakistan and get him. For saying this, he was criticized. It doesn’t matter that they are saying the same thing. It doesn’t matter that one is throwing bumper sticker solutions not grounded in reality to supporters. It doesn’t matter that every intelligence agency in the world places him in a tribal region of Pakistan. McCain has said over and over that he would not go into Pakistan to get Osama. Where would he go to get him? Well, to the gates of hell, fagot! That’s where!

Maybe if you look closely at a map of Pakistan, somewhere there is a tiny little region named, gates of hell. If that’s true, then they are saying the same thing.

You can’t use metaphors to stir up the patriotic and then mock the other guy who is saying he will accomplish the same thing in reality. McCain might as well have said, “I will pursue Osama to the forest moon of Endor!” or, “I will chase him into Morodor along side Hobbits and men to bring peace to Middle earth once and for all!”

I would love to write a John McCain speech.

“Today we have Sand-People and Elves standing together. Pod racers from Tatooien and residence of the shire, all-coming together to vote for leadership. As I stand here today on the deck of the Battlestar Gallatica, I promise that we will chase down our enemy no matter how far away or mythical a place Osama is hiding! If Narnia is harboring terrorists, or second life, we shall do whatever is needed to bring him to justice!”

He would have the sci-fi fantasy vote.

"59!"

I don’t understand. On the day that Russia rolled tanks into the country of Georgia, the news talked only about John Edwards having an affair two years ago that his wife had already been told about. He is not running for public office or currently holding one. Besides, did I mention Russia invaded a country?
Now, with all that is going on all I keep hearing about is how offensive the movie, Tropic Thunder is. Like a lot of the people who are complaining about it, I haven’t seen it either. It just reminds me that here in America, we get very upset about words. It’s a pretty nice problem to have. Sorry to say so but I laughed every time I saw a network anchor or reporter refer to the word retarded as, “the R-word.”
The R-word? Seriously?
Do you remember growing up and ever hearing, sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me? What happened to that concept? Cause I gotta tell you, most of the world is going to bed hungry tonight and were arguing over words.
Retarded turned into disabled. Then it was special, differently abled and now the correct term apparently is intellectually disadvantaged. Fine. That describes the President pretty well.
At some point I believe America will start to drown in all the real issues we would rather deny. I have invented a scale to determine how close we are to social collapse based on the amount of letters in the alphabet that are used in place of “bad words.”
For instance, I think most people would know what word I was thinking of if I said the
C-word. Then of course there is the N-word and now we have the R-word. Those are just three letters of the alphabet. Granted, those are horrible words used to convey hate, but they are words.
I predicted that when 15 of the 26 letters are used in place of “bad words” we will be exprcing black outs and food riots.
20 out of 26 letters and it will be complete anarchy in the streets with whatever government that’s holding on about to fall. When all 26 letters can also be used to denote foul, racist or derogatory terms, we will start using numbers.
You get cut off by a driver and instead of yelling something or giving the finger, you just yell a number at people. “59!”
“I can’t believe you said that around children!”
My point? Rome is burning while we turn offensive words into single letters. No problem is solved. No war is ended or homeless fed. At least we can take comfort in the knowledge that right now only 3 letters stand in for “bad words.”
Just a note to my Uber Liberal friends, ever consider looking at the context the word is used in? I am just saying, sometimes you have to use the bad word in order for people to know what you are ironically making fun of. In fact, look up the word ironic and then get back to me.

Medford, OR

Every once in a while you encounter a living metaphor. I spent the weekend in Medford, Oregon performing at a sports bar. That's not the metaphor part of this story but its close. Saturday afternoon, the other comic, Dax and I went for a drive. I had met Dax four years ago in the Seattle Comedy Competition. The first thing he said to me when I saw him was, "Are you still in love with that girl?"
I was teased constantly by everyone for having my cell phone always up to my ear talking with Samantha.
"No. I am pretty much a shattered man these days."
Funny how that sentence changes the mood in a room.
I wanted to get an oil change but when we couldn't find a place I settled for a car wash. Ten minuets and five bucks in quarters later, my car was free of the dust and mud a five hour drive put on it the day before. Less than a minuet after we left I pulled up to a light. Dax and I turned to look and there on the corner stood two cheerleaders going through routines as they pointed to a car wash sign.
Imagine that. Just half a block away stood girls in skirts holding sponges ready and willing to clean my car but I had already washed it.
Ah life! How you love to mock me!
You can't turn into a gas station for a hand wash from cheerleaders with water literally beading on your windshield. Well you can if you want to be an Amber alert.
We smiled at the girls who smiled back, all of us seeming to appreciate the irony of the situation. In fact, even the homeless guy standing on the opposite corner got into it. When he saw them dancing, he danced too, sign in hand. It made an affect on a guy riding his bike. He stopped and gave the homeless guy a dollar.
The light changed and we were on our way again.
Medford is a quiet enough little town just pass the Californian border. The shows, sponsored by the local classic rock station, went well. It was a classic one nighter gig. The crowd was rowdy, it was a riff-a-thon from word one and just up the street from us was a town named white city. What is white city? It is a trailer park where people are known for making and selling meth. In fact, more than a few people came up to me after the shows and said, "We call this place Meth-ford. Not Medford."
Nice.
A place with meth and mobil homes could only be named White City if you think about it. That or they should put up a sign that reads, Irony?
All in all the shows were fun and the drive wasn't too bad. My little Honda handles the distance with ease. Once you get up toward Mt. Shasta, the scenery is beautiful too. It wasn't my first time doing comedy in Medford either. Driving around with Dax, I remembered staying at a Red Lion in town for a show that was canceled. The other club in town where comedy use to be done is named, Ground Zero. If it sounds like a stupid name before 9/11 then you have to wonder why they didn't change the name after 9/11. I had worked there about 10 years ago. It stands out in my mind only because I went home with a girl I met after the show. everything seemed to be on track for a fun night when I had to excuse myself from the girls room. I went outside and proceeded to spend the night vomiting in her drive way till morning when the other comic who went home with her friend came and picked me up. Ugh!
I vividly remember making the five hour drive home thinking I cannot drink anymore. As I recall, it still took a few more embarrassing instances before I actually did quit.
Back then all I wanted was to headline these gigs. These days I turn these gigs down more than I say yes to them. Between the cost of gas and the average crowds at these road gigs it just doesn't make sense to put the millage on you or the car. Not for what the average gig like this pays anyway. I took this gig because the pay was better than what you normally get for these. I also wanted to get in with the Booker who books a lot of stuff in the greater Pacific Northwest.
It was only once I was there that I realized I had been here before. That might be the lesson on this trip. Each time I have passed through Medford I have been in an agitated state of mind wondering about my career in comedy and my future. This time was no different. Maybe it's not about finding meaning or deciding where I want to be in comedy. Maybe it is just about acceptance. If I want to make a living at stand-up, the work is out there. Problem is there is a whole lot of other Medford's out there and what is required to make those gigs work is not always what you can justify to your sense of doing art.
Thats the lesson or, if you want to get a car wash, don't turn into the first place you see. There might be high school cheerleaders around the next corner!

Change?

Dear regular readers and those curious enough to stop by,
I find myself at an impasse in life. Turning forty in a few months has me thoroughly freaked out. Aren't you suppose to have an idea about where life is headed by now? Shouldn't you have something to show for being alive on this world after four decades? I don't know. I do know this; I want a new day job. I could survive on comedy but I don't want to just survive anymore. Not at this point in my life. I like having health care. I need a new day job. Something flexible enough to allow me to still take off for gigs when I need too, but also something with purpose. If I could work with kids or in a organization that does some good in this world, I would be willing to work for half of what I make at my day job now. A job that has slowly devolved into number crunching and paper pushing. So I ask you dear reader or fan, got any ideas? I am not giving up on stand-up. It is too much a part of my identity to ever stop, but if I am going to stay in San Francisco and only work the gigs I want, a day job is a necessary evil. Thing is, I don't want it to feel evil anymore.
If you have any thoughts please shoot me an e-mail.
Thanks

Eva 4eva!

http://view.break.com/549769 - Watch more free videos

Well I don't get it. This is the commercial that has been banned by every American network. This is what we think shouldn't be on TV? If we are so worried about kids getting the wrong messages from TV, what does it say about our society when a hot chick's body is deemed inappropriate but Bush can hold a press conference where no one calls him on the lies that fly from his mouth? Maybe if we were a bit more comfortable with sex and treated violence like we now treat sex, we would be a healthy happy culture instead of the confused people we are.
Just a thought.

Black Guys for McCain?

A friend sent me a link to a blog named, black men for McCain. Check it out. Read some of it. How could a black guy be for McCain? I don't know if he knows this, but McCain voted against giving Martin Luther King a Holiday in Arizona. How bad do you have to hate a guy to vote against a day off? McCain is also in favor of what are the Bush Tax Cuts. It's a nice phrase but don't be fooled. The Tax Cuts were only for the richest 1% of Americas richest 1%. Way to go!
How many black males in America are in that category exactly?
A black guy voting for McCain makes as much sense as a black guy voting for McCain. Seriously. What is McCain going to do for the average anyone in this country let alone a black guy? Voting against a holiday for King is about the only thing McCain hasn't flipped flopped on.
He was against off shore drilling. Now he is for it.
He was against the Bush tax cuts because he knew what they really were.
Now he is for them.
He is against gay marriage because he believes marriage is a sacred thing between a man and his wife. Hard to tell if he thinks his previous marriage was sacred. He left his first wife after she was crippled in a car accident. Yeah. You wouldn't want gays messing up an institution like that. They might stay together and adopted the kids straight people are producing with no thought. Dear God!
Now if he hates gay people that much what do you honestly think he thinks about black people?
The guy voted against a MLK holiday!

The Jock

Rarely do I get an answer from the crowd that confounds me. Being a comic that works the crowd you are sorta like a lawyer; don't ask any question you don't think you already know the answer to. This is not always the case of course, but most of the time I am not too surprised by an answer.
Allow me to set the scene. This is a college/private gig. I say partly private because the entire audience was composed of 40 incoming Freshmen from all over the planet. We were in a tiny room that was 20 degrees warmer than just outside the door. The average age was 18. Do you remember being 18? Remember that look you had? No? It is something in your eyes and your body language. I can now identify it as not giving a shit. Did I mention this event was mandatory for them?
Let's revue- 40 kids in a hot room for a mandatory event staring me.
Got it now?
I had never heard of this tiny college somewhere down the peninsula. But it's there. These kids parents were rich enough to send them across the world but not rich enough to get them into the Ivy league schools. But they still exhaled a sense of entitlement.
About half way through the show, I ask a "jock" what he is going to school for.
"Play football." He says.
"Oh. Do you want to play professionally someday?"
"No. I want to get into politics."
That's the answer that had me thrown.
I think a good tackle might make debates a bit more interesting but other than that I don't know how one does anything for the other.
When I tell him this he replies, "It worked for Bush."
OK. That's the reply that got me.
First of all, this kid is 18. Who they hell idolizes Bush enough to follow his lead? Who models their academic career after Bush?
Hasn't he fucked up? A lot?
By the way. When he attended the all boy's school of Andover, he was actually a cheerleader. Google it. I'll wait. Hopefully you get to see the photo of him looking every bit the douche he is holding a megaphone as he readies himself to cheer.
There turned out to be more than a few kids who proudly called themselves conservative.
I don't get that. It's college. I never went but from what I can gather college is suppose to be all about getting laid, high and occasionally staring at a Lava lamp under the influence of Mushrooms communing with God. You don't walk in saying. I am opposed to joy! Not at 18 you don't. Course, I am getting all my info on what college is from movies.
At some point I say to the crowd that Obama scares the shit out of vast swaths of the country because he's black. In one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments I have witnessed in a long time, my statement on Obama was met with a very enthusiastic head nod in agreement from the Jock.
What were the odds a rich white kid named Kyle, was going to be scared of black people?
Welcome to California kid. I would love to see where your head is at in four years.
What caught my eye at first was his gum chewing. He was smacking away on it like it held the antidote to boredom. No matter what I said or implied, he sat there calmly chewing his gum with the erie confidence of the dim. Maybe he has more in common with Bush than I thought.
Good luck=)

Mark David Chapman

John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, was denied parole for the fifth time Tuesday.
The New York State Division of Parole issued a release saying Chapman's request was denied "Due to concern for the public safety and welfare."
Really? Public safety?
He stays in jail at this point because if he ever got out someone would shoot him.

What do you need to convince the parole board that he deserves to stay in prison?
A copy of the of the White Album should do it.
It's not like his life is so bad in jail. Check this out-
For the past 16 years he has received conjugal visits with his wife, Gloria. The visits are part of a state program called "family reunion" that allows inmates to spend up to 44 hours at a time with family members in a special setting.
That is more time than most people get all week with a wife or girlfriend!
The dude shot John Lennon and he still gets to get laid? What is prison for exactly?
He shot a Beatle by the way. John might forgive him and this is the first parole hearing that Yoko did not submit a letter against it but I think most people would be extremely pissed if the guy who shot John Lennon ever got out. Make him take guitar lessons. Tell him that when he can write a song like Across the Universe, then maybe we will talk about it. Better yet, let him out with a gun and a list of bands like Duran Duran and the Eagles. No more come back tours boy's!

Lots going on and yet nothing inspires me to write anything. Oh well. I am sure that the creative juices or my Muse will return any day now. I promise some new blogs soon.

These Modern Times

Ever get trapped in the whose more San Francisco game? Fun, isn't it? It gets played a lot in the Marina at trendy new restaurants and in the mission at hipster cafes and the Sunset in donut shops. Stay here long enough and you will end up playing it too.
I finally found the answer that shuts everyone down instantly no matter what anyone else has said.
"I buy pot on Hippie Hill in Golden Gate park."
Good for you. But my answer is better.
"I am third generation born and raised in San Francisco."
Way to never get out there and see the world. Nope. I still have a better answer.
"I'm homeless."
That does it. That ends the stupid conversation in a hurry. Try it sometime.

In a Walgreen's recently, I came across this odd site. Behind an old woman pushing a shopping cart, a young girl furiously texted.
She had one of those phones with the fold out key board. The young girl was the old woman's helper I think. When ever the young girl looked up, the old woman stopped. Only after the young girl went back to her phone did the old woman move again. For a second though, it looked like the girl had this old lady on remote control.
I literally did a double take.

I understand text messaging is not going away. I use it. Just not on the level some people do. What drives me crazy is when I am having a conversation with a person and in the middle of a sentence, they pull out a phone they had on vibrate. They nod their head at you and throw in a lame, "Uh ha" but their thumbs are pumping away at a tiny key board as I wait for our conversation to resume.
It does. But then, right on cue, another text message must be answered. Sometimes, when I have asked, they tell me they are having a conversation with 3 other people as they talk to me.
What?
Does all the medication people take for ADD make this possible? How can you have any meaningful connection if you are trying to keep three other conversations straight in your head? I can barely remain coherent during one conversation let alone three!
I don't want to sound like the old man here, but is anyone experiencing anything in real time any more? TiVo lets you zoom past commercials. Great.
Texting lets you have multiple conversations in play with a media that is largely hard wired to be passive aggressive. Awesome.
That is what I consider most text messages to be by the way, passive aggressive.
I still think that TiVo is witch craft. How do they stop a live show and then let you pick it up again? What alternate universe do we get shunted off to when that happens? I am only half serious here. I will watch the commercials because I feel like I am connected to other people by virtue of the fact that we are all experiencing this together. It's sad. I know. It's sad mostly that I feel connected to people because I watch the commercials. When I am in a group of people and I am not comfortable, I don't think of commercials or anything like that, it's just that you can imagine what is happening in millions of homes at once when a commercial comes on. I can't explain it. Just know that TiVo is evil and will be found to cause cancer just like cell phones do now but no one wants to know.
Have you thought about that? I asked myself one night what I would do if some giant well researched warning came out that cell phones, the backbone of modern communications, caused cancer. I would keep using mine. I would. People smoke and everyone understands what a hazard that is now.
I already have to go outside to have most conversations on my cell. I can keep the smokers company.
All this communication technology we have built has only succeeded in removing personal interaction. Cell phones, e-mail and text messaging is a way to avoid conversation. Not help it. And when we find that our world is lonely, we sign up for computer dating. Call it whatever you want, but it is computer dating.
We have removed poetry from the world. Do you know what I mean by that? Nothing is allowed to happen naturally anymore. When was the last time you heard of a friend meeting some in public? It's almost weird to hear such stories. Internet commercials for hot girls wanting to meet me flash by in the margins of myspace and facebook, my spam folder is over flowing with pleas from other hot girls that want to meet me. All the girls they use to market these services do not look like they need such services. They are always young hot and sometimes partially dressed.
You can't meet a guy?
I tried it once. It was a long process, but eventually I had a "date." I put it in quotation marks because we were not physically in the same place. It happened entirely with the aid of a camera and our computers. In the middle of the conversation she picked up her phone to text message someone. This is intimacy now? This is what passes for getting to know someone?
The goal of the second date is no longer the blow job. Nope. The goal of the second date seems to be seeing them in person.
"Dude, last night I got to third base with this new chick I am seeing."
"Third base! She sent you a photo of herself on her phone? Damn!"
"If I play my cards right, I might get to see her live!"
This is modern romance now.

No Longer Angry

I don’t know when it happened, but recently I woke up and the anger I had carried around toward my X was gone. I don’t know why either. It just wasn’t there anymore. That place inside me where truths that are too painful for the light of day was simply less heavy.

It just burned out I guess. Anger like that bleeds heat like radiation. It takes effort to maintain. I nursed it. As time moved on and I didn’t, it became the last thing I had that connected me to her. It is so cliché and so ridiculous. I would go on walks where I would deliver a well-rehearsed speech about all of her betrayals. A speech that got better and better every time I gave it alone in the dark, but a speech that would never be heard either. For so long it was just a part of me. I didn’t fight it or question it. It consumed me like a cancer. For a while I was simply a wound. I did not hate her but my anger at her could not be resolved let alone dissolved. So I carried it with me. It became as familiar to me as my eye color or a mole I have had since childhood. Then one day I was sitting in a café on the weekend drinking coffee and I realized something was missing. I could not say what was missing. I just felt different. Only after sorting through the inner architecture did I notice it. My anger had spent itself. It had gone out in the same way it had started.

I remember three distinct times in my life when I woke up on a morning and realized I was in love with someone. Not having that fire inside me anymore felt the same now. It was a revelation, a relief in everyway. Now what? I think I kept the anger for so long because it allowed me to not look at my own shit. It wasn’t really denial; it was just a louder voice at the table inside my head. No matter what was going on, that anger was present. Yelling, screaming, demeaning words at a ghost. That’s all I was doing; belittling a ghost that wasn’t giving me any thought. It didn’t matter how many times someone pointed this out to me. It didn’t matter that I knew that I was inflicted with a disease I did not want a cure for. All that drove me in the course of my day and every choice I arrived at came through that anger. Not a wall or a cloud, nothing like fog or sadness, it was acid. I had done all the crying and was done with that. But the anger would not leave.

She contacted me a few times at random intervals. Always e-mails. When I first responded I told her I was angry. I told her why I was so angry and told her there was no reason for me to speak with her. We weren’t getting back together and I certainly don’t need a friend I can’t trust. She responded with a sarcastic e-mail about my e-mail response to her! She said it vibrated with anger. No shit. What made me more pissed was that she never even thought I had a right to be angry. Then I thought, that whole year we spent back together, she never once sincerely or otherwise tried to apologize for cheating on me. There was the occasional sorry when the conversation strayed toward the topic, but it was always an abrupt sorry. I should have understood; there was no future for me with this woman. Love has a way of blinding you though.

Those occasional e-mails I would get from her always lacked a basic awareness of the harm she had done. I wasn’t looking for some elegant fall on my sword apology, but not once did she ever make the attempt to understand why I would be so angry. My God! We moved in together down in L.A. and with in six months it was over. I was broke, depressed, had no car and now my girlfriend didn’t want me anymore. She was cheating too. Something I found out after the initial shock of being told she didn’t love me anymore and didn’t want to live with me. It was like a movie where the bad shit just didn’t stop happening. The entire breaking up process was dragged out and made more difficult by her. If there was a way to make things more humiliating, she found it. Try figuring out what you can take with you in a rented car while your X girlfriends best friend and Father sit on a couch you bought as they watch you do this. Keep in mind the only reason I had rented the car and was now trying to figure out what I could take and what had to be left behind, was the night before she text messaged me. Even though she had agreed to let me leave my until I could get them, she now wanted everything of mine gone or she would throw it away.
Stuff like that is like radiation. It will keep burning you and burning you from the inside out long after it has happened.

She would hint at the fact that I did not seem angry in that year we were back together. True. I was happy to be back together and since we still lived in separate cities, we agreed to wait till she moved here to do the hard part of sitting down and working this shit out. But that’s the thing. We didn’t sit down and work this shit out. For a year, I held my anger. It was stupid. A good portion of that rage was at myself for being like that.
As time went on all that remained of our romance was white-hot anger. I told her so in her last e-mail. She did not bother to write back or ask why. Then again, I asked her not to contact me anymore. The biggest reason I was angry, the unforgivable sin she had committed besides the obvious one, was her good-bye to me the second time around.

It came down to this. She agreed to move to San Francisco and a month latter she was calling me with anxiety about our relationship. All that talk of someday and moving on had sunk in. She realized that she was moving to San Francisco. Her career would be far more difficult to start in this city. There would a lot of shit to work out between us. She didn’t talk to me about this. I am sure it caused her a great deal of inner turmoil. I say that, because on my last visit to see her in L.A. I found a girl whose size double zero jeans hung off her frame. She had stopped eating again. She was now burning instead of cutting. At night, she would drink wine and smoke with a roommate who made our drama look like a comedy. Every negative behavior she had ever done had come back and then some. Of course I was concerned. Of course I was worried. What could I do?
Here are the two groups of people I would split the world into. One group tells you what they are thinking and gives you some idea of the actions they will take. The other group takes actions and lets you figure out exactly what that means inside them and inside you.
She was the take action type.
Her large brown eyes, now sunken and dull, implored me to stay. She wanted to be taken care of. She didn’t want to come here or deal with all that needed to be dragged out into the light. She was now asking me in action to do for her what she could not do for me when I needed help. At one point, without having directly talked about it, she said to me, I don't want to ask you to stay.
But you did.

She was putting me in the position of having to stay. My feelings for her were now a trap. A trap to get things the way she wanted them. I would stay with her in L.A. to get her healthy again. But I didn’t. You have to understand that after our break up I came back to San Francisco. It was awful. I felt suicidal for at least the first month and remained in a dark dark place for well over a year. I rebuilt myself though. I came to terms with the loss and went about the business of getting healthy. Good things flowed from that. I had a legit job with benefits and the biggest paycheck I ever got on a regular basis. Gigs were coming in too. I had managed to save money, buy a car and make myself relevant again in the San Francisco comedy scene. Now she wanted me to come back to L.A. and help her. I couldn’t do it. It struck me right there in that moment as she silently prepared herself to drive me to the airport. She told me she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave the house and I would have to find some other way to the airport. I knew then. I knew it like you know there is going to be rain. You feel a slight awareness inside. That’s all. This one registered.
After I told her I was going she left the room and called her grandmother. Of course retired rich Grandma would come to town and save the day as she had before. She didn’t even wait with me for the airport shuttle. Only when I gathered my bag to wait outside did she follow me out to the gate. When the van came we kissed good-bye. I think she knew it then too. I did not make the choice to leave out of anger, but I was amazed at her lack of understanding. Did she see the situation she was putting me in? Did she see that I was in this condition and was given no choice when she asked me to leave her life? At the time I was not angry. I was hurt with the knowledge that things had ended again with someone I truly loved. It would take time and a few fumbled attempts at contact from her for that to finally come out in anger. Maybe she wasn’t trying to trap me. Maybe. But after I left she made a rapid recovery. In fact, she would meet another man and decide to live with him when they moved to a new town together to start a life.

The thing is, if I didn’t have what I had rebuilt here, I might have stayed. But I had rebuilt my life. She was asking for so much without even allowing me to be angry at the original situation. How was that suppose to work? We would sleep together in the same bed and on the days we were not in couple’s therapy, she would go to the doctor for help with her anorexia?
A year latter and everything was reversed. Kind of. I wasn’t kicking her out and being unresponsive to talking about things. I wasn’t throwing her away because she was broken. I just needed to have my anger acknowledged. How do you ask a person literally starving them self to death that you need time to be mad at them? It was an impossible situation. There was no way it was healthy for me to stay and no way to keep her in my life if I left. More than anything else, even the cheating, this became the ember that never died out. I have played that day over and over again in my head. I wasn’t going to yell at a sick person.

Writing this, I feel the edges again. You can never hope to close a wound of this nature completely. Just as you wake up one morning and realize you have fallen in love with someone, I woke up one day and wasn’t mad at them anymore. Now what?

Adult?

At some point I have self destruction in every relationship I have been in with a woman. I fell apart and wanted to be taken care of. Thats one theory I have been told. I prefer to think they were all two timing whores. It's not pretty language but it's an easier myth to buy than to see my part in things. Besides, what do those guys twice my age and a wall full of degrees know anyway?
My guy is a decent man. He doesn't remember in detail, but I can't decide if it's bad memory, being too busy, or he doesn't care. I think he cares but he is too busy. We talk. He writes prescriptions for sleeping pills and anti-depressants. I tell him about my quest to become an adult. Thats literally what we talk about. It kinda feels like that might be common, but there it is; I don't feel like an adult.
It's not what I thought it would be. I never felt it happen. It is probably a dumb thing to reveal. Did you feel it? What was the moment or action that brought it on? Did it feel like that, like a switch flipped or something just seemed right? What is it? I didn't feel it. For better or worse degrees, I have not grown up. Not in the way I imagined. Instead, this feels like some strange land I wondered into by mistake as I was just walking along. Things are familiar yet the colors are drab. Wonder is scarce and responsibility is heavy. I am a child in a mans body. A broken body, slowed down by years of that someday I will eat right diet and late night food. Still, I thought it would be different. I thought things would be easier because I would be an adult and adults know how to handle stuff. Nope. Turns out I am not alone in this feeling. Adults don't know any better than kids, really. Adults just have more stuff that can go wrong and more pressure to get things right. At some point I think you realize that school was complete bull shit. The book stuff comes in handy and socializing is important, but everything we were taught about sharing, respecting others and playing fair is not how the world operates. Sure, you can be the good guy and do all those things. I am not saying people don't. I think most of us live in a world of compromises. Nothing is ever black and white. Nothing. There are shades to every choice and every choice leads to several other branches that lead to still more doors. Maybe thats not right either. It feels like possibility becomes a precious resource that starts to dissolve over time. And here is the thing I know about me; I know what the right thing to do is every time. I really do. Sadly, I only chose to do the right thing about 45% of the time. I am not talking stealing or breaking store windows in anger, I am talking about those little white lies we all use to navigate our way in social situations or the short cut you take at work and hope people don't notice. It's the difference between sitting down at the computer and working on my act or downloading more porn to what I can only imagine is a very sticky hard drive at this point in my computers life. Being an adult seems to take place between what is said and what is not said. It is knowing how to read what takes place in that intersection that makes you a successful adult. At a certain point you realize the things you wanted to have or do are not going to be. I am never going to be a singer song writer now. For a large portion of my life there was a vague idea that was always present inside me that ultimately that is what I would be. I had the guitars, had 60 or so songs and even recorders. I haven't touched my guitar in about a year. When I think of that, it makes me sad. All those years I spent driving around doing comedy from one shitty location to the next shitty location, I would not have survived if it wasn't for my guitar. Countless hours were spent in run down hotel rooms writing songs I couldn't play for anyone. Instead, I just told jokes rather than really tell people what I felt. But that dream, that idea that I would eventually over come that brand of stage fright and start to play in front of audiences never came to be. Each new years that came and went carried with it the resolution to try and play at a open Mic. It never happened. I never did it and now the guitar sits in the corner as a symbol of something I can't think about for too long or I feel the trap of regret spring on me. That becomes a regular emotion, regret.
What are you suppose to tell children? You can't sit them down and tell them that life is not going to be the adventure you think it's going to be. When parents give you the realistic speech, as it came to be known in my house, it doesn't register. I didn't think I knew better than my parents, I just knew I didn't want what they had. I thought that would be enough. I thought that alone would create a life different from what their lives had become. My life is nothing like my parents, but like them, I have invisible baggage that is not always easy to claim. Everyone must. That is part of growing up. Life is not bad or boring for me, it just isn't the shape I thought it would be when I had the luxury of not knowing any better. Not knowing has saved me from being crushed. Sometimes. Not knowing has also launched me into whole decades that turned out to be vast detours I had to back out from. Stand-up comedy was one of those. Not knowing how hard it was going to be and not knowing the amount of self I would pour into it, prevented me from ever thinking realistically about it. I still think there is a chance I could be a star in it. I don't know, maybe that idea will someday rest with the guitar in my room. Until it does, I will keep doing it though. Too much of my identity is wrapped up in it now to ever really stop. Drugs. That was something I had to back out of more than a few times and still don't fully have the entire situation under control. By that I mean, the craving to be else where without actually moving makes drugs a powerful force in every adults life. This is San Francisco. I can't go a day without smelling pot drift across my path somewhere. The very first time I smoked pot I thought to myself, now I understand why there are drug addicts. That scared me enough to not try it again for a long time. When I did pick it back up again in my middle 20's, it lead to doors I have since tried to never knock at again and profound grief in how it dissolved me. Pot really was a gate way. I told a friend once that what I liked most about it was the way it made me feel like a kid. It did. When I was a boy, I loved the borders of paintings and pictures. I could sit and look at them in books or on school walls and what really fascinated me was the implication of everything that happened outside the frame. We were only looking through a small square window into another world. When I first got high, I felt like all that went on just past the picture frames was coming into focus. Its a weird way of explaining it I suppose, but it was a potent sensation I reached into again and again only to come back with empty hands. Cynicism became a shell I lived in. Still do to a slightly lesser degree, but like a hermit crab, I wear it on my back and scurry awkwardly into it when trouble shows up. Hard to say what exactly built such a thick insulating shell, but I don't blame any one person or event for it. Maybe it is like an emotional calcium deposit that naturally builds up over time. The thing that seems the hardest to resolve as an adult are the loves that ended. When i look at my early 20's, I see a man who was heart broken over the loss of a girlfriend. That feeling, more than anything else defined who I was for a very long time. What replaced her was another loss. What replaced that girl was all my reaching into borders. That blew a few years. When I met Sam, I had resolved myself to being alone. I wasn't sad at this thought or mournful anymore. I felt strangely OK with the idea and felt a certain comfort even freedom in it. You know when you hear, don't look for love and you will find it? This is the state of mind I think people are talking about. It wasn't that I had given up, I finally felt comfortable with who I was and what my situation seemed to be. That felt very adult. That was also the moment a beautiful girl showed up in my life who continues to haunt me with what if. What if, what a fucking useless wish what if turns out to be. You beat it and beat it and the very thing you don't want to see again just falls out with all the shrapnel of any bomb going off in your face. More than any other expression, what if seems to be where much of my adult life has unfolded. After all the self help books, therapy, programs, girlfriends and professional successes, what if is a living thing that you can only hope to diminish. One part of this has dropped away from my thinking. The idea that anyone or anything is "normal" now seems ridiculous to me. Normal is societies greatest lie. It is a standard that we are all pushed toward as children but come to find out later in life is a convenient myth. Normal doesn't exist. I doubt if it ever did.
Somewhere in all this is an adult. Maybe only in age, but I am an adult. Funny, I didn't think it would feel like this at all.

Runway

WASHINGTON - John McCain and Barack Obama vow to reform the nation's defense procurement if elected president, yet each is unwilling to take a firm stand against the skyrocketing cost of a plum White House perk: the new Marine One helicopter.
The project is now projected to cost $11.2 billion.
The fleet of helicopters cost $400 million apiece. The British have bought the same base model helicopter for $57 million each.

Wow! I did a little research. That $11.2 Billion is for 22 helicopters. When ever the president is aboard one of them, it is called Marine one. It is usually accompanied by two or three as decoys. The most common flight it makes is from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base where the president boards Air force One.
It takes ten minuets.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build a runway for Air Force One next to the White House?

Media

I have heard the question asked by more than a few people. Is Obama receiving fawning press coverage while McCain gets little more than a notice? Yes. Obama is a rock star. He is young, energetic, compassionate, able to speak with clarity and has the ability to give people hope. McCain, no matter how valiant his service to this country was, is yet another old white guy who will do everything his predecessor did to see that the rich will get richer and cruelty is rewarded with power. Period. Obama is no saint. No one comes out of Chicago politics without learning the game very well. But to make a bad pun, the comparison is black and white. Of course a young man who is half black and running for the president of the united states of America is going to get a lot of press coverage. You know why? Because he is the liberal Regan. Regan was a great communicator. He was funny, always had a smile and knew how to speak to a crowd. Sound familiar? America has not had a charismatic young leader since Kennedy. If you think the press is not going to follow him around and make a big deal out of his slightest utterances, than you don't understand the American media where a celebrity announcing they are going to have a baby often times trumps real news.
What I have noticed about the coverage of McCain is that the press seems unwilling to point out when he makes a mistake. The latest was a interview where he talked about the danger along the Iraq Pakistan border. Iraq does not border Pakistan. A country by the name of Iran, sits between the two countries. If anything, the media seems unwilling to be critical of his statements out of fear that people will think they are pointing out his age. Fine. Call him out on his policies. Call him out on the huge issues he has changed his mind about and ask him why. Call him out on the fact that his campaign has had to fire lobbyist after lobbyist when their conflict of interest is brought to the attention of the media. The fact is, Obama has yet to make a major misstep. When he does, the media will be all over it. There is nothing we value more in this country than the fall of a star. It will come. Until then, he is just that; a star. Obama is more than politician or leader. He is the agent of change in a time when no one particularly knows how to change. America has some very hard choices to make. No one is telling us this yet because the leaders are scared by what they see too. The fact is, we are headed into a decline of Americas power.
Story after story comes in from people traveling every where that the dollar, the currency of the planet, is no longer being accepted by the road side merchants in India or the small shops in Cairo. The dollar is no longer respected or strong enough on the global market to be of any value to even the people on the fringes of their local community. Prices for basic items are going up. Our military is fractured and over stretched. The writing is on the wall for anyone who wants to see it. If we are to maintain anything like the power and prestige we once had on the world stage, it is going to take some dramatic changes in policy. Change, as you might have noticed, is not something we do well here. We have all been conditioned to trust that the next generation will have it better than the last generation. Maybe not this one. Education standards continue to fall. Well paid jobs in industry and technology are getting harder to find for even the best educated Americans. We have sat transfixed by reality TV as the machinery built to grant everyone life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has been dismantled. It has been taken a part by men in power to give those who already have a lot, more. Deregulation has driven prices up, not down as they told us it would. We might not have faced any more terrorist attacks on home soil, but an entire generation of adults will come home from Iraq damaged in ways we scarcely understand. Money will not be there for all their issues. Help will be rationed and only the worse who act out will get attention. In every way, they too should be thought of as victims in a terrorist attack. I do not think Obama is a saviour or anything more than a politician. However, he has shown the capacity for greatness in a time that needs a leader that can inspire us to change. John McCain is the total embodiment of all that rests in the past. This is not his fault. It is just not his time. One more rich white guy with all the privileges and lack of understanding for anyone else is not what we need in the White House right now. We need to hear how bad it is along with a solution. We need to be able to trust that leader and allow him to push us toward difficult changes. Do you really think McCain is that man?
It's easy to lavish Obama with praise. He is a phenomena. The press is reflecting what the population feels for him. I don't know if that means he will be able to guide us onto a new path or even how much worse things will get. If anything, the media seems more determined to not let us know the true state of things. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness might be a right to all in the Constitution, but those three things are in short supply lately. The Constitution has never faced a more scornful administration for the rights it grants every citizen. You might have the illusion of being safe from a terrorist attack, but the leaders who remind you every chance they get that they are responsible for that are the same leaders who deregulated the banks. Last time I checked, it wasn't Al Queda taking peoples homes in record numbers, it was the banks who have politicians on their boards that are forcing people out of their homes. Gay marriage is not responsible for Americas big three automakers refusing to update their technology and are now paying for it with inventories filled with gas guzzling SUV's and nothing to offer Americans who want a cheaper more green alternative. Burning the flag has not kept American troops under hostile fire in a war that has been based entirely on lie after lie for an agenda that will benefit a handful of petroleum companies. Believing in God has not kept our educational standards from falling lower and lower in a world we are told we must compete with in a global economy.
Stop voting against your self interest America. Being for or against abortion will not fix the system of money lending we created to destroy the middle class. If you are truly pro-life, then end our billion dollar a day experiment in empire and bring the troops in Iraq home. We are hated and shot at everyday while we are there. No good can ever come from that. Every stray bullet we fire and each child harmed in a normal bomb dropping operation spawns a hundred more sworn enemies of America. This is how we created Bin Laden. If Iraq is doing anything, it is making a thousand more of him that your children will have to face. Not us. Not today.
I don't know what Obama can do to turn us from a dreary path. I have no illusions that he is anything but a man. But I have concrete belief in the fact that McCain will only continue a slash and burn attitude toward the dying middle class. McCain will be another out of touch guy use to money and power who will take America away from what it was set up to be. That I believe.

Soapbox moment: The Surge

The surge is not a new energy drink. It is in fact, a polite term to describe an escalation of American troops in Iraq. Obama has just said he thinks it failed. Violence is down in Iraq and the whole point of the surge was to give the Iraqi government room to sort its self out with out factions taking to the street. It seems to have worked. Right? If we understand the surge to be a political move more than a military one, the surge has still failed for a number of reasons that go unreported in the American media.
Without using names no American can pronounce, lets just skip to the chase on this one. Iraq has three groups. Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.
Saddam was a Sunni. All the leaders under him and the vast majority of those who belonged to his ruling party were Sunni. When we stepped in, we got rid of every Sunni in power.
The Shia's were always a majority of the population in Iraq. Under Saddam, they were treated as less than second class citizens. Guess what America? Iran is almost entirely Shia. What years of war and thousands of years of fighting had not been able to accomplish, we did for Iran when we got rid of their opponent. Nice of us to help Iran out on that one, ha?
Why am I telling you all this? So you understand the situation. When that conservative family member who gets information only from Rush or Fox news starts vomiting the talking points they want you to have, you will have easy to check facts and an even more interesting question as to why we don't know these things.
We are told that the situation in Iraq is getting better. That the surge did it's job and the government of Iraq is finally getting stuff done. Nothing could be further from the truth. Violence has all but stopped. True. However the government of Iraq has never been more fractured. The Kurds in the northern part of the country are cutting their own deals with oil companies for exploration and development. They are operating like an independent nation. The Sunnis, who were always a minority walked out on the last government meting where everyone was to vote on a bill that would give America control to negotiate oil leases for Iraq. The shias remain in power and friendly to us because we put them there, but thousands of years of culture and other similarities are hard to break when the center of the Shia Muslim world is right next door in Iran. Thats right America, we gave Iran what they have wanted forever, a Shia Muslim government in Iraq.
In other words, we have pushed ourselves and all interested parties into a stalemate. A stalemate we created because until Iraq agrees to let us stay as long as we want and lets us decide on how to develop their oil resources, we will continue to tell the American public that the situation in Iraq is not stable enough for out troops to go home.
You see whats going on now? It's blackmail on a huge scale. We want their oil. Period. To think this was ever about something else is beyond ignorant at this point. The Iraq government said they want a time table for us to leave. This is coming from the leader we installed. Not hippies in America or Al Quedia forces we allowed into the country when didn't pay attention to the borders. Yet, we continue to say the time is not right. Until we get an agreement on the oil and the permanent bases that now dot Iraq, we are staying in force. That has been what has been going on for the last year now. The extra troops sent over in the surge were not to help stabilize the fledgling government, they were there to keep down the overwhelming decent among all groups in Iraq for the deal we want. Right now, we are just waiting for a signature on a contract that has been unsigned for more than two years.
Look folks, if you want to look at it from the perspective that we freed them, then you have to admit staying long after they have asked us to go makes us seem like an occupying army.
Being angry at Iran for helping their Shia brothers makes us look almost retarded when our actions have never made it easier for Iran and Iraq to communicate directly with each other. The Kurds, who everyone has fucked over in history, have decided they are going to pretty much do their own thing with or without the rest of the country. Meanwhile, 7 years after we invaded Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban, they are still attacking U.S. forces. In fact, last month we had more troops die over there than in Iraq. If you think the surge has worked, then you just are not paying attention to the news you can get outside of America. Lets be honest here, we are not telling the Iraq's that we are staying until all power plants and hospitals are rebuilt. We are not telling the world that until Iraq's museums have their cultural treasures back, we are staying. We are very precisely telling Iraq that until we get exclusive rights to develop and profit from their oil reserves, we are staying. We are staying at a staggering cost to us tax payers and staying despite the overwhelming emotional toll it is taking on our dangerously over stretched armed forces.
So you tell me, what was this war all about and why are we still there?

Stockton, CA

Ever been to Stockton? It is one of those small cities that have seen better days in the Central Valley. I am sure that San Francisco is used as a punch line for many a gay joke told in bars around Stockton. It is only fair to report that Stockton, like Modesto is a punch line for ignorance out here. That’s the beautiful thing with comedy sometimes. You go out to a location with one idea in your head and come back with another.
I was hired to be the comic at a fundraiser for a woman running to be a city council person. I am not the first comic I would of thought of to do this gig but the Booker told me I was the first comic he thought of who could handle the gig. That’s a flattering thing to hear. Well, the money was OK too and I am always up for a challenge.

Ever try to get to Stockton? There are two main routes and I apparently took the more scenic one. Each road I drove on lead to a road narrower than the last. Eventually I was out in the delta twisting across two lane highways that connected islands. I even crossed a drawbridge. I didn’t know we had those anymore.
I found the place, walked in and immediately felt out of place. I had on a blazer, but I went with the 80’s comic style of a T-shirt underneath. Mistake! The crowd was white, rich and old. You know, pretty much the exact opposite of what I would call my crowd. I have done gigs like this before and they go great. I can play on being the outsider and them being rich. Not this time. The thing about a private gig/ fundraiser for conservatives is that laughter is a sign of weakness. That and there are not a lot of rich, old white dudes who are known for having a great sense of humor. Think John McCain and you will have a pretty good idea of who these people are.

My opening act, for lack of a better description, was the Sheriff. My front row was comprised of the Booker, the Sheriff, the candidate and her husband. I now know what the Berlin wall must of felt like when East Germans looked at it. I started well. One joke fell flat. Into the void the candidate who hired me said, “not funny.”
Sweet, ha?
What can you do? I still have 20 minuets, haven’t got the check yet and I will be damned if some politician in Stockton is going to win a battle of wits with me. But, it is a private gig. It’s there house and their rules and blah blah blah.
Ever try to work the room when half the room has hearing aides? It’s not so easy. The sheriff’s name is Sheriff Moor. Now come on? With a name that sounds like gay porn you don’t expect a comic to not say something? Actually, I was under contract not to say anything. I got the whole speech before the show from her supporters about how open they are and how they believe in freedom. Thats great. I wanted to tell them, really? I got handed a list of subjects not to bring up. Politics was the first thing on the list. Followed by religion, sex, drugs and abortion. What comic would show up with 5 minuets on abortion for a private fundraiser in Stockton? I don’t know, but I am writing some stuff for next year now.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Right?
I left the gig without getting the check. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t great either. I knew I would see the Booker when I returned to work his regular room that weekend.
Saturday night comes around and as I wait for the show to start who do I see walking into the show room? The Sheriff, his wife, the candidate and her husband.
Great!
About 10 minuets into my act, I turned to look at the table. They were up front of course. They all turned out to be good sports. I broke down how impossible the other gig was and thank God they could see me in my natural habitat.
After the show, I talked to them again. Like a lot of people, it is hard for them to separate their public face from their inner desires. A fundraiser is no place for jokes because someone is going to be offended. Hell, it happens in a regular show too. But once they were free of holding themselves up in a respectable way, they just laughed at all the stuff anyone would laugh at. I also learned that I did much better than I thought I had at the first gig. I must have. Other wise why would these people come back? A few other people were in the second show from the fundraiser too. They also enjoyed both shows and were curious to see me with no restraints. The lesson? Don’t beat myself up so much and have fun. After all, I am a comic.

Then came Monday.
Getting on local radio has become almost impossible for a local comic. They want the big name. I managed to get myself on Live 105 because they had talked about my performance on Last Comic Standing. I sent the producer an e-mail and they agreed to have me on. It didn’t hurt that I could plug a comedy show sponsored by the Onion at the Punch Line. I got down to the station early in the morning, excited, yawning and over caffeinated. Like Stern, you get introduced as you walk in and sit down. Soon as I took a chair they went off on Cobb’s. The PR staff and these guys had been in some war for a while now. I got a front row seat for it. It was awkward. I love Cobb’s. I have nothing to do with any of the PR stuff. I am just a local comic looking for some airtime. That’s all. So I sat there hoping this wouldn’t be my entire segment. After a few minuets, they dropped it and I started getting some solid laughs. They kept me on for half an hour. I think that means it went well. Eagerly I checked my web page to see how many hits I got. The sad thing is, I got hits, but only about 400. I just don’t know. I don’t know what you have to do to get people to check you out and come to a show. There are so many gifted local comics that are screaming in the dark. People go to a big name show and leave disappointed while quality locals play in front of crowds of 30.
Well, at least I know I am big in Stockton.

The Bad Commercial

I enjoy bad TV commercials. The kind where you can sit around and drive trucks in and out of the logic they have set up. Sometimes the commercial is just dumb and other times it leaves me with questions. When I can sit around and dissect something that is only on for 30 seconds, it means I have too much free time. Still...

Yellow Book Commercial.
A woman is getting married. Looking in the mirror as she tries on her wedding gown, she notices that on the small of her back is the name Mike. It's a tattoo that is hard to miss for it's size and cursive font. It's the future in this commercial, so she goes to a wall sized visual phone book and looks up tattoo removal. A man comes on and asks, "What can I do for you?"
The girl turns around and shows the name tattooed on her back.
The man asks, "So. When do you marry Mike?"
The girl says, "Umm. Tom."
"Oh!"
Let me get this straight, you are getting married to a guy named Tom, and this just now has become an issue? How much does this new guy really know about you? You have a guys name scrawled out in some 12 year old girl's Myspace font right above your ass and he never mentioned anything to you? Either you have not had sex yet, he hasn't done you doggy style or he is the biggest idiot that ever lived.
"Hey. When I was pounding you from behind last night, I couldn't help but notice another guys name looking back up at me."
"So what? You got to fuck me, right?"
"Well, yeah. But were getting married and I thought it might be nice if you at least don't wear a backless gown so as you walk down the isle toward me at the altar, everyone sitting down doesn't see another guys name above your ass when you walk past them. Cause that sorta makes me look like an idiot."
"Whats the big deal, George?"
"It's Tom!"
"Whatever..."
At least this is the back story I think happened.

Terminix commercial.
We see a bug climbing over rubble. A voice over tells us, "experts say that bugs could someday rule the world. Not if Orkin can help it!"
The commercial ends on this stark visual; a twisted blackened tree stands by a road that leads to a modern city in ruins. The very last thing we see is the Terminix van, a contrasting white, driving toward the fallen city.
What kind of moron decides to keep killing bugs after an apocalypse? The world is gone, Dude! We don't need a bug man anymore. You have gas in a clean van. Let it go, man. Let the bugs go.
Is it comforting to know that in the event of society being destroyed you will still have a guy out there killing bugs for as long as he can? There is commitment and then there is crazy. This is crazy. What Terminix is telling you is, our people are so brain washed that even if the world goes boom, we will still do our job. I don't know if I want a guy like that in my house. Do you?

I drive a lot and my other joy is the bad radio commercial. Kaiser seems to just pour these things out. They don't run it anymore and I like to think it's because someone pointed out the flaw in it. Basically, the commercials tells you how much they care about their patients and how much they believe in prevention over anything else. It ends when the comforting female voice says, "We believe laughter really is the best medicine."
God damn! Here is a giant HMO telling you that they think laughter is literally the best medicine. How nice. Don't go to the emergency room if something is wrong, go to a comedy club instead and be sure to laugh really hard!
Laughter is seldom thought of as a medicine. Laughter is pretty fun and very enjoyable, but I don;t think it cures things like cancer and broken legs.

Tattoo You?

Have you heard this story? A woman wakes up after surgery and finds the doctor has placed a temporary tattoo on her in a decidedly private place. It's true. Now of course she is suing the Doctor, the Hospital and maybe even Miami Ink.
She goes in for a herniated disc. She is on her stomach for the surgery. The next day, her husband comes to the Hospital to help her dress. Thats when they discover a red rose tattoo below her tan line and well bellow her navel. Got the place in mind?
Thats not the best part yet.
The Doctor doesn't understand what the big deal is!
He has done this to other patients and is thought of as a fun loving jovial guy. I bet. He sounds like a riot. What woman wouldn't want a man that waits till your knocked out before turning you over and adding a little welcome mat to your front door? Sounds great.
He doesn't understand what the big deal is? I don't want to go in for some simple operation and come out with a scar and a barb wire tattoo around my arm. (Thats like a members only jacket from the 80's that doesn't come off people. Barbed wire around the bicep; very 90's.)
The woman freaked thinking someone had come into her room while she slept after the surgery. The police were called, she was checked out for any signs of rape. It was only when the Doctor heard about everything going on did he walked into the situation and explain.
Oh no, it wasn't anything like that at all. You see, after the operation I simply rolled her over, opened her hospital gown and applied a temporary tattoo to my patient. Thats not weird. Is it?
Yes. It's a little weird.
Now the hospital is asking if any other patients of this Doc have had this happen and did they also feel violated. Cha-ching! I know I would feel violated! Bring on the lawyers.
Seriously though. You go to the hospital and find the Doctor who operated on you put a tattoo on you? "Hey, check this out. I got some Japanese fish tattooed on my arm in the hospital. That is so not what I went in for!"
It's the Doctors reaction that is the funniest. His whole, whats the big deal attitude? really Dude? You don't get that? You put a red rose tattoo right above a woman's vagina after you operated on her! In the history of creepy, this gets its own special award for being creepy.
A lot of people get tattoos when they go through something traumatic. After this woman wins, I wonder if she will get a tattoo of the Chinese symbol for money?

McDonald's, Gay Rights and a Very Happy Meal Indeed

OAK BROOK, Ill. — A Christian group that opposes same-sex marriage launched a boycott of McDonald's because of the fast-food chain's support for the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

McDonald's probably gets sued the way you and I breathe. You also can't prevent everything with a warning label. After the coffee spilling incident, thats how most companies get out of being taken to court. How would you handle this one? What warning label do you put on the side of a Big Mac so people will be able to handle gay rights? So what. They gave some money to gay people. It's not like McDonald's started putting butt plugs as toys in happy meals.
"Daddy, this looks like what you and Mommy keep under your bed!"
It's not like the Golden Arches are suddenly a double rainbow and everyone wears assless chaps to work in the Playland.
"Who wants to jump into the room of colored balls with me?"
They just gave some money to a group that helps Gay Business owners out.

Warning: A portion of the money you have spent with us today will go toward making leather straps and rainbow flags in San Francisco. If you are closed minded and eat here often enough that this is an issue for you, try Burger King instead. But have you seen their guy? His face is plastic, never speaks and has a cape. I don't know what he's selling, but I wouldn't want my kid around that robo-homo. Would you? Stay with us. Get fat. I bet you think gay people look at you and this bothers you. Have you seen yourself? You have eaten at McDonald's three times a week for the last twenty years. No one wants to fuck you, Dude. If you can't get a girlfriend, then a man who spends money on make-up and gym memberships is not going to give you a second look other than to say, "Ahoy! Check out that beached whale getting his order super sized!" Not eating with us will help you and let's face it, Were McDonald's. We can loose the entire nation of Canada and Americans will still line up at our drive thrus to hand us billions to give them health trouble. It's cool. Take your business else where if you like. We will be fine homophobes.

That would be my warning label idea. Probably not McDonald's.
Eventually the protesters will just go back in. Maybe they will realize that for years they have been saying to a teenage boy behind the counter one of the gayest sentences ever uttered; "I want a Big Mac with everything on it."
Really. Is there a more gay phrase?
That has to be code in at least one bar around here. If not at a bar, then it has to mean something in the craigslist personals. By being homophobic, they are actually going to do something good for their bodies. Well, you can't have everything. Nutritional awareness and a healthy work out program for the body, or hatred for those who are different eating away at your soul like the cancer it is?
Tough call. You know, you could have it all. Crazy, I know! What if you stopped eating at McDonald's, worked out and opened your mind? Too bad there is no machine at the gym to work on that. Actually, it's not a machine. It's called the steam room.
Build up to it. Sit with a towel around you for five minuets next to a naked gay man. Next week, try seven minuets. Eventually you can build your tolerance up to not giving a shit what gay people do at all and you can still get a milk shake every once in a while. But don't say Milk Shake while you are in the steam room. It could result in a misunderstanding and we would have to start all over again.

First Amendment. Good-Bye.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Hope you recognized that. It is the first amendment. Commonly thought of as the right to free speech. In the grocery store, two men were talking. One of them turned to me and said, "Excuse me Sir. Is the first amendment the one that is about free speech?"
"Yes it is." I answered.
I felt a little dumb. I knew there was more to it than free speech so I went home and googled it. Sure enough, there is indeed a lot more to it.

-The government cannot legally tell you to belong to any religion and it cannot legally tell you to not belong to a religion.
Seems straightforward enough. The idea, so we have been told in the writings of those who crafted the constitution, was to keep religion separate from government. Remember, these were people from Europe. They had seen what hundreds of years of religious dispute could do. They also thought anyone should be free to worship as they please. Today, we have the office of faith based initiatives. Religion in government. Any time anyone asks me what is so bad about faith and politics mixing I point to two events every Christian, Jew and Muslim believes happened.
1. The crucifixion of Jesus.
2. 9/11
So we lost that part of the first amendment already.

-It then goes on to tell us we have the rights as Americans to say what we want, that the press is free from propaganda, and we can gather in groups for whatever causes we believe in.
Well, you pretty much can say what you want. Thats what the Internet is for. It is also a very easy way for "them" to keep track of "us." It's not like we lost the right to free speech, we have just lost privacy. But thats the fourth amendment. It got killed when the president started telling congress he could wiretap anyone he deemed needed wiretapping and didn't have to tell a court, a judge or congress what and why he was doing it.
But I digress.
The press, under the careful yet sometimes ham fisted control of Bush, got lazy. They took what the White House said at face value and didn't ask the follow up questions they should have. Intimidation, no comment, lies and half truths pushed the story the way the administration wanted it told.
Examples:
Under Bush, conservative radio hosts were paid by the department of education to say how good they thought Bush was doing with education in Black Communities. Retired generals hired by the TV news to be "experts" were given Intel by the Pentagon they wished to disseminate.
In other words, the free press became a tool of the government to tell the story the way they wanted. You can't trust anything in the mainstream media as impartial and you can't trust anything on the Internet as fact.
Anyone who has been to a protest in the last ten years knows that you cannot simply demonstrate in front of the leader who is there to speak. The police set up what is called, free speech zones. These are small caged areas out of view of any of the intended targets of the protesters.
A free press and the right to peaceably assemble; gone.
Whats left? The right to petition the government with redress to grievances. Yup. You can still write a letter that starts out, You Bastards!
We still have that America. You can still send an e-mail to an elected official.
Yeah!

Republican Song

OK, it's Florida. No one should be surprised that anything shocking and political comes out of that State anymore. It would be one thing if it was a Republican billboard. It's not. It was put up by one man with a mission, Mike Meehan. Among other things, Mr. Meehan wants to warn the good people of American that voting for a Democrat has dire consequences. What better way to show that then using 9/11. An attack, for the record, that Bush ignored all warning signs about.
But thats not really what this tasteless Billboard turns out to be. It's an add for his website. A website that exists so you can listen to and buy a copy of his song. I always thought if the Republicans had a song it would be a march. You know, something with a goose step rhythm to it. I haven't listened to it, but here are some of the lyrics I got from his page:

The Democrat secular progressive move,
political correctness is killing us too.
They want to take the money from the hard workin man,
and give it to the lazy folks that don't give a damn.

You can see now why he went with the twin towers instead of just putting these words up on a Billboard. It's a commercial for his song. Thats it. Thats all it is. He using 9/11 to get people to his site so they can buy his undoubtedly shitty little tune. Oh, and the guy is no genius when it comes to grasping foreign affairs either. On CNN, he said, "I believe 9/11 could of been prevented if we had a Republican president at the time."
You fucking moron, we did!
He also went on to say that Clinton, should of done more to catch Osama. Yeah. Like the time we bombed a milk factory with 40 something cruise missiles and the Republicans screamed, he is diverting attention away from Monica Lewinsky! You mean like that?
Turns out, Clinton was going after Osama. He also did something Bush has yet to do, catch anyone who plotted a terrorist attack. All the people who participated in the first attack on the world trade towers, were found, tried and convicted where they now sit in prison for their crimes today.
After thinking about this for awhile, here is the Billboard response I would put up next to Mr. Meehans commercial:

Irony is a Cluster Bomb

Irony is like a cluster bomb. Sometimes the exact people you agree with become the very people hurt by the joke. I don't always have to get the joke to get that it is a joke too. Understand?
What I am talking about is the cover of The New Yorker. Obama and his wife have been given every cartoon fear the right thinks about them in a cover illustration meant to demonstrate how ridiculous those fears are.
Anyone old enough to remember when All In the Family was on TV? It was a show about a loud mouth, racist man who was watching his world change and lashed out in cruel words rather than be part of that change.
It was a comedy. It was an ironic comedy.
It was meant to demonstrate how ignorant Archie Bunkers mentality was. His character said some truly awful things. The kind of things that would get a network sued now days. In fact, when Cartoon Network began to air them again, they had to put up a disclaimer. In one generation, the comedic tool of irony was destroyed in the name of Political Correctness.
It's not good enough to say, that is dumb. It's not always enough to simply say, they use bad words. You can't always tell people what is dumb or bad.
But you can show them.
Irony has always been a dangerous tool. Either stand-up, illustrator or author, it has a way of back firing on you.
Tom Sawyer is considered an American classic. However, every few years a school makes the news for trying to ban it because the N word appears in it. Thats the thing with irony and truth; you have to actually use the words of the people you want to make fun of. You have to hope your audience is smart enough to understand you don't mean those things.
Tom Sawyer was considered trash when it was published. Not because it had the N word in it, but because it was written as people spoke out in the street. Language that was course and unrefined was put into the dialogue. People thought it was a scandal that an author would resort to actually writing the way people spoke. Imagine that.
It became a work of art because later generations understood that Twain captured a time in America as it really was. Racist thoughts and all.
The cover of the New Yorker might not be funny to you, but I can tell that it was meant as a joke. Twain was just telling the truth and he landed in trouble. Archie Bunker was a comedic device designed to demonstrate how ignorant his thinking really was to a nation bleeding with change. The cover of the New Yorker is an attempt to show how foolish all those rumors about Obama really are. Thats all.
Maybe it's a failed joke, but the audience it was intended for are the same ones voting for him. Ah Liberals. Once again we create our own issues and waste time on them. Once again we have proven to be the good little self deputized thought police that Orwell envisioned. Instead of going after all the failed old ideas coming from McCain, lets worry about offending ourselves.
Great idea!

Show Biz

Ever since Last Comic Standing aired, I have been waiting for my check. It's not a huge amount of money, but it's money I earned that hasn't arrived yet. Larry "Bubles" Brown also appeared on the same show with me. He recommended I call a guy in the local AFTRA office. I did. He gave me the name of a woman in L.A. Just as I was about to call, Robert Mac, who also appeared on one episode called me. He told me the woman I was about to talk with would tell me that I would have to prove I was a professional comedian by sending a resume for me to get paid. Amateurs did not get paid.
I see.
Dear fellow comedians working your way up the chain. This is how it is. It never stops and it never goes away. One dick leaving the scene is replaced with a bigger one. This kind of petty, self-esteem diminishing, passive aggressive excuse for doing business never stops. The money gets better and the stakes higher, but this kind of petulant, we didn't know you were a professional shit, never goes away until you are famous enough to surround yourself with people who tell you all your choices are correct. How else do you explain Eddie Murphy making, Meet Dave?
The woman in the AFTRA L.A. office called me back today. She asked for a web site and if I had anything on it that proved I was a pro? Ah, there is the first video clip of me being introduced on Comedy Centrals, Live at Gotham. Does that count?
Yes, she tells me, that will work. Then she lets me know that the Producers will now have seven days to scrutinize my "claim" of being a professional. If they find that I am, I will finally get a check for appearing on the most rigged show since the Bush 04 election. If they decide I am not a pro, there by saving the show enough money to buy lattes for all the A.P.'s on one special day, then at least I still have the experience of standing next to Bill Bellamy.
This could be a whole new reality show to pitch; Trying to get paid from appearing on Last Comic standing. Each week, we watch as another comic gets kicked in the self-esteem one more time by being asked if he is a pro or not after 15 years. Then, he has to go through hoop after flaming hoop to get the carrot at the end of the stick.

Not gonna fly

ALBUQUERQUE - John McCain says the troop increase strategies used in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan, and that he knows more than Barack Obama about "how to win wars."

McCain has told a town hall crowd in Albuquerque, N.M., that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is working. He argues a similar approach — more troops, more counterinsurgency programs, and more coherent military organization would arrest the growing violence in Afghanistan.

The Republican nominee-to-be charges his Democratic opponent, Obama, is offering misguided military plans for the region before he's even set foot in the country.

McCain says more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, particularly the southern part of the country where the Taliban is strongest.

First off, McCain doesn't know more about how to win wars. Obama was 6 when McCain was shot down over Vietnam. Not a war I would bring up when trying to prove I know how to win one. Please, no passive aggressive e-mails about McCain is a national hero. No one is disputing his service to America under unimaginable conditions. General Wesley Clark did say in an answer to a direct question that, "being shot down does not qualify anyone to be President."
That doesn't seem like such a horrible point to make. Especially if you are using Vietnam on your resume to be President and your counting it as a win.
How about McCain's revolutionary idea on how to win in Afghanistan? You know, send more troops! Why does the Taliban have any strong hold in that country after 7 years of being there? Oh thats right, troops were pulled away from Afghanistan and the search for Bin Laden to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Perhaps if we allowed the military to conclude operations in Afghanistan, like all the commanders on the ground said we should do, then we wouldn't need to think of Taliban attacks as seasonal. So even though the military has been stretched to the breaking point and units in the field that have been told they are going home have had their tours extended three and four more months now, McCain wants to send more US Troops into a country where the only thing that has changed since America took control 7 years ago is that heroin exports have gone up more than 100%.

All In Our Heads

IndyMac is open for business today. If you don't know who they are or why it's a big deal that they are open, then you are lucky. They are a bank that specialized in mortgages for credit challenged individuals. The next time someone on the right says we should not bail out people who are loosing their homes because they got themselves into the mess, remind them of IndyMac. The government just stepped in to bail out a business that got it's self into trouble with questionable practices.
The federal government locked the doors Friday afternoon. No one could get their money. It is the second largest financial institution failure in the history of America.
Thats really saying something when you factor in the great depression and the 80's disaster with Savings & Loans.
Accounts $100,000 or less are insured by the Federal Government. Anything over the $100,000 mark, and you might get half of that. Might.
Last week, Phil Gramm, senior advisor to the John McCain election, was quoted as saying that we are not in a recession. In fact, he said it was all in our heads by saying we are in a "mental recession" and America has become a "nation of whiners." Good to know that McCain is surrounding himself with the same reality based group of experts that Bush had on the payroll.
I don't know if Gramm is aware that we just had the second largest collapse of a bank in America or that gas prices have risen faster in the last eight years than at any other time in our history. I don't think any of this is in our heads. Do you?