We have all seen the mixed message car. The bumper stickers and license plate holder have sayings on them that conflict in philosophy. Yesterday, I saw this.
The Jesus fish, I 'heart' the U.S. Army, and Go Army as Bumper stickers. Last but not least, the Peace symbol in camouflage.
Camouflage?
Why hide Peace? Why disguise it? Like you would hide in a bush waiting to jump out at someone with Peace?
If we have learned anything over the last eight years, it's that Peace cannot survive in a Bush.
Then, add in the Jesus fish and army stuff and you have a four wheeled contradiction. How else can you explain it? I don't get it. There were a lot of armies back in his day and I don't recall most of them doing good things in the Bible. Do you? How did we get Jesus enlisted in the United States Army?
My friend says, "Why do people keep getting to use his name?"
Like it was a trademark issue or something that the courts and yet to resolve.
"Yeah. Why is that?" I sagely replied.
"People attach his name to everything."
I pondered this for a moment. I am an agnostic. That means I believe that their might not be anyone ignoring our prayers.
The polite thing to do at this point is to write something like, if you are a Christian and serve in the Army, thats cool. So there that is.
Is there a passage in the Sermon on the mount that mentions anything about making war? If there is I can't see it.
Jesus does not salute.
Is Jesus copyright protected? Is he considered intellectual property? Does someone own his image? These are the big questions.
How can I make money on Jesus?
Not saying that the Church and people with sincere belief have not done a lot of good, but everyone can name a few periods in history where his name has been attached to some horrific episodes. When the good stuff did happen, it was when Jesus was alive. When he showed people what he could do. They killed him.
So mixing the Symbols for Peace, Christianity and the Military seem a little strange. Or very American.
I beat up Jesus a lot in my blog. Not him really, but what has been done to his name. Jesus was not white. If he was, that might explain why he had such a hard time in the Mid-east two thousand years ago. Jesus is also not unique. Don't freak out yet if you are reading this with contempt. What I am saying is, the whole saviour for our sins, rise from the dead and even his birthday were all key elements in other cultures myths before his time.
In what is now Iran, the Persian people once believed in a God named Mithra. He was crucified to take away the sins of the world and was said to have been born on December 25th.
Tibet, also had a man known as a God and Saviour, Indra. He to was nailed to a cross, his mother was a virgin, he had to die for mans sins, he rose from the dead and was believed to be eternal.
These are just two examples. Almost every major culture has had the appearance of a 'Jesus.' Makes you think. Hmm?
My friend in the car happened to be a Christian. Don't ask how we get along. We manage. When I list off these various incarnations of what I see as an enduring myth that cuts across so many different histories, he says, "Maybe he appeared to them too. Who knows."
"Who knows? You do. You keep saying you know. You and everyone else who calls themselves Christians speak as if you know the truth and the only truth. You can't sit there after I have told you lots of other cultures had a Jesus figure with most of the same claims-he was born a virgin, he died for the worlds sins, he rose to Heaven and returned to life three days latter- doesn't that make you wonder a little more than, maybe he appeared to other people? Where is that in the book?"
He sits there with his eyes wide and uncomfortable. What is he suppose to say? I can't make one guy answer for a two thousand year old church. Can I?
He takes a breath and attempts a good natured smile. "I have always meant to ask, what happened to you?"
This only makes me more angry.
This usually happens. I talk about religion in my act a lot and in my blog because they interest me and I did not in fact have a very good experience with it growing up. But this, this question of what happened to you always infuriates me. Implied in the question is the idea that something bad must of happened to me as a boy to make me turn away from God. I turned away. You see what they accomplish in the argument with this? It is my fault that I don't believe or don't understand and not the creator of the universe whose son supposedly died for me and could work miracles. Get it? It's my fault and not God's even though he is much more powerful than any of us, it is still us. Hence the invention of original sin. The idea that we all enter this world with an automatic debt of having done something to offend the Almighty. That sounds like a God I can really get behind.
"Why do you think something bad happened for me not to believe in God?"
"Something did though, right?" He says with confidence.
"Actually, nothing happened. That was the problem. Everyone kept telling me to listen to my heart and guess what, God wasn't talking to me like my heart was a radio. I don't believe because I have not had the experiences you have had and history tells me that the Jesus myth is common to many cultures."
Now it's quiet. I think it's a fair statement though.
Then, right on time and as if it has been scripted, he makes the comment that everyone makes at this point in the conversation. "I feel sorry for you."
Is this written down somewhere in a play book for talking to those who don't share your faith?
"Thats funny. I was thinking the same thing about you."
Bumper stickers. Fucking bumper stickers.
Maybe in a thousand more years the bumper will be regarded as a religious icon. People will pray to it and question it and debate it. Who knows? Maybe it is really just a bumper or really it is something more than anyone could hope to understand.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Let Them Eat Pizza!
I think it is a commercial for Pizza Hut. Two men stand in front of a huge wall mounted weekly calendar in an office. They are looking at what fast food restaurants have deals for that day of the week. One place has four dollar Tuesdays. Another place has Seven dollar value meals on Friday.
His friend, holding a slice of pizza simply says, Pizza Hut always has five dollar lunches every day of the week. I'm not putting it in quotes because it was late and I was falling asleep. But as I nodded off I got to thinking about that sales pitch. The young good looking and fit spokesperson tells you with a slight smugness that you should just go to Pizza Hut everyday of the week. After all, it's just five bucks.
Thats an office I would love to work in.
"Why is there such a long line for the bathrooms?"
There not selling the product based on it's merit. They are selling you the product based on how broke everyone is. These are the times we live in.
With everything we know about nutrition, adds will always appeal to the higher anxiety. Being broke right now is the national anxiety. It might be shit food, but at least I can afford to eat it.
With the stroke of his pen, the President made legal what they had been doing for years illegally; wiretapping everyone. The one tiny provision they made is that the Government can only listen in on the conversation when it is a call originating from outside the United States by a known terrorist to someone in this country who has done business with them in the past.
By that definition, the Bushes and Bin Ladens have been doing business together for decades. I guess there is a lot of tape somewhere with conversations between the President, and them.
The Fourth Amendment has been killed.
That was the amendment that guaranteed us privacy, the right to be secure in our personal papers, safe from government intrusion in our homes, and freedom from any search by the government without probable cause.
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the second amendment when it told Washington D.C. that the 32 year old ban on Hand Guns inside the city was unconstitutional. That got a lot of press and a lot of overweight white people holding misspelled signs of congratulations over their heads. Not only has the fourth amendment silently been destroyed, but the bill doing so granted immunity to the phone companies and Internet providers that went along with it. The worse part though is Obama voted for the law. Obama. Our great hope to restore all that Bush has done just voted in favor of a law that effectively demolishes every Americans right to privacy.
I guess now that we no longer have any rights to privacy, we might need all those guns.
This is the grand non-conspiracy at work. There never will come a time when the Government will knock at your door to take guns out of your hands. They don't need to. It is far easier to grant people the illusion of control than to use force. Great, you have a hand gun. Good for you. Do you know what the government has? A transcript of every web site you ever visited. A chat log of any conversation you had while on line. A complete list of phone numbers and recorded conversations. Satellites 42 miles above the Earth that can read vin numbers through clouds and the glare of windshield glass. Micro chips embedded in your passport. Get it? They don't need to take your guns because they already have the inside of your head. If they can make you believe attacking Iraq had something to do with what happened on 9/11, you have to ask yourself the much scarier question of what else did they pull off that we don't know about? That is not a fringe element crazy guy question to ponder at all. The fact is, we no longer have any privacy. We know this. But just like the lure of five dollar pizza lunches, we don't care. We will trade our privacy for porn, priceline, prescription medications, google, Youtube, Myspace and craigslist. So what if there is a vault somewhere sucking in all this information. Isn't it to keep us safe from those that want to hurt us anyway?
You will loose privacy, but you will get protection.
You will save money, but you will put on 15 pounds.
Same thing.
We always go for the bait switch. It's almost programed into us as Americans. There is an understanding that a con game is working on us, but we are strangely fascinated by it. And honestly what are you going do? Never use the Internet again? Throw away your cell phone? To a lot of people, the Internet doesn't seem real. You can't point to it. It is intangible. But a gun. It is solid, real, firm in your hand. The idea of that being taken away is easy to imagine. The idea of someone listening in to an instant message conversation seems far more distant. Besides, the reasoning goes, I don't have anything to hide. Right?
I will just eat five dollar pizza three times a week. That can't be that bad. Right?
If this trend continues, the Government giving it's self more power to monitor citizens that have broken no laws and advertisers pushing shitty food that will make you fat and constipated, then the people with headphones in the basement of the Pentagon are going to hear a lot of talk about diarrhea. With all the talk about "black outs," "dropping a bomb" and the next guy walking in and dying because of our "chemical warfare," a lot of Americans are going to end up on no-fly lists just cause there telling another buddy about the state of their bowels. That will be a lot of Americans ending up on the no fly list. Result? The airline industry, already falling apart, will go under all because the country is now a police state with upset stomachs from only being able to afford cheap food. Besides, a nation of fat people with guns is really not a problem for a government with flying drones equipped with heat seeking missiles. Enjoy the illusion of freedom, America. Enjoy the idea of being a free thinker in a land bombarded by commercials every where you turn. Enjoy your guns too. The Poor will not be wiped out with a hail of lead from masked SWAT teams at your door. The poor will be wiped out by coupons to Pizza Hut.
His friend, holding a slice of pizza simply says, Pizza Hut always has five dollar lunches every day of the week. I'm not putting it in quotes because it was late and I was falling asleep. But as I nodded off I got to thinking about that sales pitch. The young good looking and fit spokesperson tells you with a slight smugness that you should just go to Pizza Hut everyday of the week. After all, it's just five bucks.
Thats an office I would love to work in.
"Why is there such a long line for the bathrooms?"
There not selling the product based on it's merit. They are selling you the product based on how broke everyone is. These are the times we live in.
With everything we know about nutrition, adds will always appeal to the higher anxiety. Being broke right now is the national anxiety. It might be shit food, but at least I can afford to eat it.
With the stroke of his pen, the President made legal what they had been doing for years illegally; wiretapping everyone. The one tiny provision they made is that the Government can only listen in on the conversation when it is a call originating from outside the United States by a known terrorist to someone in this country who has done business with them in the past.
By that definition, the Bushes and Bin Ladens have been doing business together for decades. I guess there is a lot of tape somewhere with conversations between the President, and them.
The Fourth Amendment has been killed.
That was the amendment that guaranteed us privacy, the right to be secure in our personal papers, safe from government intrusion in our homes, and freedom from any search by the government without probable cause.
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the second amendment when it told Washington D.C. that the 32 year old ban on Hand Guns inside the city was unconstitutional. That got a lot of press and a lot of overweight white people holding misspelled signs of congratulations over their heads. Not only has the fourth amendment silently been destroyed, but the bill doing so granted immunity to the phone companies and Internet providers that went along with it. The worse part though is Obama voted for the law. Obama. Our great hope to restore all that Bush has done just voted in favor of a law that effectively demolishes every Americans right to privacy.
I guess now that we no longer have any rights to privacy, we might need all those guns.
This is the grand non-conspiracy at work. There never will come a time when the Government will knock at your door to take guns out of your hands. They don't need to. It is far easier to grant people the illusion of control than to use force. Great, you have a hand gun. Good for you. Do you know what the government has? A transcript of every web site you ever visited. A chat log of any conversation you had while on line. A complete list of phone numbers and recorded conversations. Satellites 42 miles above the Earth that can read vin numbers through clouds and the glare of windshield glass. Micro chips embedded in your passport. Get it? They don't need to take your guns because they already have the inside of your head. If they can make you believe attacking Iraq had something to do with what happened on 9/11, you have to ask yourself the much scarier question of what else did they pull off that we don't know about? That is not a fringe element crazy guy question to ponder at all. The fact is, we no longer have any privacy. We know this. But just like the lure of five dollar pizza lunches, we don't care. We will trade our privacy for porn, priceline, prescription medications, google, Youtube, Myspace and craigslist. So what if there is a vault somewhere sucking in all this information. Isn't it to keep us safe from those that want to hurt us anyway?
You will loose privacy, but you will get protection.
You will save money, but you will put on 15 pounds.
Same thing.
We always go for the bait switch. It's almost programed into us as Americans. There is an understanding that a con game is working on us, but we are strangely fascinated by it. And honestly what are you going do? Never use the Internet again? Throw away your cell phone? To a lot of people, the Internet doesn't seem real. You can't point to it. It is intangible. But a gun. It is solid, real, firm in your hand. The idea of that being taken away is easy to imagine. The idea of someone listening in to an instant message conversation seems far more distant. Besides, the reasoning goes, I don't have anything to hide. Right?
I will just eat five dollar pizza three times a week. That can't be that bad. Right?
If this trend continues, the Government giving it's self more power to monitor citizens that have broken no laws and advertisers pushing shitty food that will make you fat and constipated, then the people with headphones in the basement of the Pentagon are going to hear a lot of talk about diarrhea. With all the talk about "black outs," "dropping a bomb" and the next guy walking in and dying because of our "chemical warfare," a lot of Americans are going to end up on no-fly lists just cause there telling another buddy about the state of their bowels. That will be a lot of Americans ending up on the no fly list. Result? The airline industry, already falling apart, will go under all because the country is now a police state with upset stomachs from only being able to afford cheap food. Besides, a nation of fat people with guns is really not a problem for a government with flying drones equipped with heat seeking missiles. Enjoy the illusion of freedom, America. Enjoy the idea of being a free thinker in a land bombarded by commercials every where you turn. Enjoy your guns too. The Poor will not be wiped out with a hail of lead from masked SWAT teams at your door. The poor will be wiped out by coupons to Pizza Hut.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Lips
There is a a girl I cannot to talk to anymore. Here is the reason; her lips are perfect. Don't read to much poetry into what I am saying here cause what I am saying is that I can only think of one thing when she is talking. It's crazy and absolutely understandable as more than a little creepy, but that fact remains, I can't hear a word she is saying because her lips inspire nothing but blow jobs fantasies.
I cannot be alone in this phenomena. Her lips are a shape and color that are so fucking hot that God love her, she might be saying some wonderful stuff, I just don't know it-her lips are that pornographic perfect!
Porno hot! I know, It's terrible. I'm a pig.
That is the greatest compliment one man can say to another man about the beauty of a woman; she is porno hot. More than primitive I guess, but the unspoken truth. It's a huge compliment. So know it when I say it, her lips are porno hot!
The world wants a blow job from perfect lips on a hot young girl. Who doesn't?
All those Billboards and magazine adds where a slender young girl poses near whatever it is they are selling, poised and confident with moist red lips around a slightly suggestive open mouth in an expression of surprise or wonder perhaps. Whatever. Just what do you think they are playing to when they give you shots like that? It's not your sense of economics.
What do you do when you are confronted with the real thing?
Honestly, not a word, not a single word do I remember from a "conversation" we had recently because thats all I could think about! It's like coming out of a black out or even missing time like alien abductess report.
Maybe thats all thats is happening in the case of UFO's. It's just porno hot women we see naked? I know what you will say to that. You will say, that can't be it because a lot of the sightings of UFO's take place in remote places and desolate areas. I would say to you, thats what makes it perfect!
Too rapey?
She might have told me the cure for cancer or the secret to life but it didn't register. What a curse for her. We must seem like dogs to her. She has to know that as she speaks, what she might read as active listening is just lust. Shameful very bad dirt dirty lust. Fuck!
No one is a winner here. We all lose. It's a horrible trick life has played on her. She should be thought of like a good person. A real person. A wonderful intelligent interesting person. Not the kind of person I imagine her to be; bad.
I hope so anyway.
Sure. It is wrong. But thats the beauty of it. It's fucking wrong! When will people understand that wrong is the biggest turn on in life?
Wrong is the reason we have at least 312 of the 834 know sex positions.
Yeah. There are that many!
I love you and want you to feel good as my partner who is equal in all things, was not the thought that went into 7 of my top 10 all time favorite sex positions. It was dirty Internet inspired acts of poetry porno perfect lips, a chair, and stockings. Fill in the rest with your own imagination.
I think this is honest. I think this is what starts to happen as you age too. Young girls walk by you in the street and you realize, thats never gonna happen like I thought it might some day. That time has passed. I am not saying that I did not have some luck in my day. I had a few hot girlfriends. Everyone should have the hot young girlfriend experience at least once in life. I highly recommend it. I have had the slutty hot girlfriend, the smart hot girlfriend, the young hot girlfriend and of course the crazy hot girlfriend. None of it ended well but it was a hell of a ride for a while.
Lips. Something as simple as lips and I can build a theme park in my mind around them. But I am realistic. There is not another young hot girlfriend experience waiting for me. I walked pass a couple waiting at a bus stop. They each held a greasy oiled up slice of pizza. All I could think was, If I eat that, I won't shit for the next three days.
I don't think you get wiser with age, you just spend more time in the bathroom reading. When someone can quote you a recent magazine article or an authors column, they need a laxative.
I cannot be alone in this phenomena. Her lips are a shape and color that are so fucking hot that God love her, she might be saying some wonderful stuff, I just don't know it-her lips are that pornographic perfect!
Porno hot! I know, It's terrible. I'm a pig.
That is the greatest compliment one man can say to another man about the beauty of a woman; she is porno hot. More than primitive I guess, but the unspoken truth. It's a huge compliment. So know it when I say it, her lips are porno hot!
The world wants a blow job from perfect lips on a hot young girl. Who doesn't?
All those Billboards and magazine adds where a slender young girl poses near whatever it is they are selling, poised and confident with moist red lips around a slightly suggestive open mouth in an expression of surprise or wonder perhaps. Whatever. Just what do you think they are playing to when they give you shots like that? It's not your sense of economics.
What do you do when you are confronted with the real thing?
Honestly, not a word, not a single word do I remember from a "conversation" we had recently because thats all I could think about! It's like coming out of a black out or even missing time like alien abductess report.
Maybe thats all thats is happening in the case of UFO's. It's just porno hot women we see naked? I know what you will say to that. You will say, that can't be it because a lot of the sightings of UFO's take place in remote places and desolate areas. I would say to you, thats what makes it perfect!
Too rapey?
She might have told me the cure for cancer or the secret to life but it didn't register. What a curse for her. We must seem like dogs to her. She has to know that as she speaks, what she might read as active listening is just lust. Shameful very bad dirt dirty lust. Fuck!
No one is a winner here. We all lose. It's a horrible trick life has played on her. She should be thought of like a good person. A real person. A wonderful intelligent interesting person. Not the kind of person I imagine her to be; bad.
I hope so anyway.
Sure. It is wrong. But thats the beauty of it. It's fucking wrong! When will people understand that wrong is the biggest turn on in life?
Wrong is the reason we have at least 312 of the 834 know sex positions.
Yeah. There are that many!
I love you and want you to feel good as my partner who is equal in all things, was not the thought that went into 7 of my top 10 all time favorite sex positions. It was dirty Internet inspired acts of poetry porno perfect lips, a chair, and stockings. Fill in the rest with your own imagination.
I think this is honest. I think this is what starts to happen as you age too. Young girls walk by you in the street and you realize, thats never gonna happen like I thought it might some day. That time has passed. I am not saying that I did not have some luck in my day. I had a few hot girlfriends. Everyone should have the hot young girlfriend experience at least once in life. I highly recommend it. I have had the slutty hot girlfriend, the smart hot girlfriend, the young hot girlfriend and of course the crazy hot girlfriend. None of it ended well but it was a hell of a ride for a while.
Lips. Something as simple as lips and I can build a theme park in my mind around them. But I am realistic. There is not another young hot girlfriend experience waiting for me. I walked pass a couple waiting at a bus stop. They each held a greasy oiled up slice of pizza. All I could think was, If I eat that, I won't shit for the next three days.
I don't think you get wiser with age, you just spend more time in the bathroom reading. When someone can quote you a recent magazine article or an authors column, they need a laxative.
Monday, July 07, 2008
The Weekend of Many Sets.
Monday.
After a three day weekend complete with fireworks and crazy amounts of stage time, slipping back into the real world after playing rock star comedian sucks like you can't believe. Such is life I suppose. I manged to do sets at every club in town this weekend. I pulled off three sets on Saturday and two on Sunday. I love it when that happens! It made up for the disaster that was Santa Cruz last weekend.
A San Francisco 4th of July is basically a life lesson in let down for those who have not enjoyed the spectacle of watching clouds change colors when you wanted to see fireworks. Five minuets into the show, people started leaving. Little kids were perched backwards over strollers hoping for a glimpse of those hoped for explosions, only to be told, "next year, kid." by parents who now had to walk a mile or so back to where ever they had come from. It was a strange scene. Hundreds of people all walking with their heads down as thunder and color lit the clouds from inside. Red, blue, sometimes a sparkle, but no giant blasts of clear and easy to see fireworks.
Saturday night I pulled off a triple play. First, I did a show at Cobb's, then a set at the Clubhouse and then back to Cobb's for the late show. All this required cabs, luck and the generous offer of rides from a new young comic. There is something about doing multiple sets on a weekend night that adds an extra rush to the whole evening. At Cobb's I worked with Rob Riggle. He is a Daily Show corespondent and has an interesting problem. "People think that because I am on the Daily Show, they are going to see smart political comedy. Thats not me."
He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Almost the anti-headliner in a lot of ways. No trace of ego and an all around fun guy to hang out with. But, as he said, his comedy is not smart political stuff. It is in fact, pretty basic. I don't think he would disagree with that assessment either. In fact, he was an Improv guy for most of his career until he landed the Daily Show and saw his co-anchors hitting the road as stand-ups and bringing back nice checks.
Fame.
Any degree of it can always be parlayed into stand-up appearances. It is the great thing about stand-up and the worse thing about stand-up. It proves everything that is good and bad about this business. Fame, as this weekends crowds learned, does not always mean great stand-up.
And so it went. I did my set at Cobb's and took off for the Clubhouse. I love the Clubhouse and it's funky almost home made club feeling that it has. Five floors up in a converted office space, they have manged to carve out a name for themselves in San Francisco. More importantly, they provide that much needed place where new comics can find their voice before hitting the bigger clubs and making a play for a larger career. That is my thinking anyway. I don't think it is the prevailing attitude of the owner. My intro was this, "You could of seen this comic tonight at Cobb's, but you were smart and paid half the money to see him here." Don't know how I feel about that exactly. The Clubhouse sees Cobb's and the Punchline as an enemy when those clubs barely know it exists. It's the L.A. San Francisco thing at a micro level. People in San Francisco will go off on how horrible L.A. is, but bring up S.F. down there and people just go, "I love that town!"
I did my set at the Clubhouse with an emphasis on trying out some new stuff. Mostly happy with how that turned out, I left the stage to be taken back to Cobb's by a young comic just starting to take classes at the Clubhouse. He was all smiles and nervous energy. Thanks Dude. Back at Cobb's, it was time for the late show where this time I waited for the crowd to leave so I could pass out fliers for me. Thats when temptation showed up in the form of three young hot girls who wanted to know why I wasn't the headliner. Oh hot young girls! You are my weakness and you know it. When they asked if I wanted to join them at the bar, I said I didn't drink. Well, that cock blocked me pretty efficiently. I would so like to come back to this world as a pair of girls jeans.
Sunday nights crowd at Cobb's was great! I got my check and was off to the Punchline where I found a dead crowd. They were OK for some people and then no where to be found for others. I followed a five minuet video that is best described as quirky. It's not that it wasn't funny, it's just that seeing a video near the end of a stand-up show is sorta like seeing a car commercial in a theater when you expected movie previews. You know? The crowd was done but with in a few minuets of loading and reloading the riff gun, they were on board and we all landed together in funny. I even manged to sneak in some bits before returning to a crazy Irish man in back that cackled like a gay Satan and shared with the crowd that his favorite drug was speed balls. That, and a guy up front who was very upset that somewhere in the middle of it all I made fun of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Yeah. That was my weekend. I am a lucky Dude indeed to pull of sets at all three clubs in town on the 4th of July weekend and I know it.
After a three day weekend complete with fireworks and crazy amounts of stage time, slipping back into the real world after playing rock star comedian sucks like you can't believe. Such is life I suppose. I manged to do sets at every club in town this weekend. I pulled off three sets on Saturday and two on Sunday. I love it when that happens! It made up for the disaster that was Santa Cruz last weekend.
A San Francisco 4th of July is basically a life lesson in let down for those who have not enjoyed the spectacle of watching clouds change colors when you wanted to see fireworks. Five minuets into the show, people started leaving. Little kids were perched backwards over strollers hoping for a glimpse of those hoped for explosions, only to be told, "next year, kid." by parents who now had to walk a mile or so back to where ever they had come from. It was a strange scene. Hundreds of people all walking with their heads down as thunder and color lit the clouds from inside. Red, blue, sometimes a sparkle, but no giant blasts of clear and easy to see fireworks.
Saturday night I pulled off a triple play. First, I did a show at Cobb's, then a set at the Clubhouse and then back to Cobb's for the late show. All this required cabs, luck and the generous offer of rides from a new young comic. There is something about doing multiple sets on a weekend night that adds an extra rush to the whole evening. At Cobb's I worked with Rob Riggle. He is a Daily Show corespondent and has an interesting problem. "People think that because I am on the Daily Show, they are going to see smart political comedy. Thats not me."
He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. Almost the anti-headliner in a lot of ways. No trace of ego and an all around fun guy to hang out with. But, as he said, his comedy is not smart political stuff. It is in fact, pretty basic. I don't think he would disagree with that assessment either. In fact, he was an Improv guy for most of his career until he landed the Daily Show and saw his co-anchors hitting the road as stand-ups and bringing back nice checks.
Fame.
Any degree of it can always be parlayed into stand-up appearances. It is the great thing about stand-up and the worse thing about stand-up. It proves everything that is good and bad about this business. Fame, as this weekends crowds learned, does not always mean great stand-up.
And so it went. I did my set at Cobb's and took off for the Clubhouse. I love the Clubhouse and it's funky almost home made club feeling that it has. Five floors up in a converted office space, they have manged to carve out a name for themselves in San Francisco. More importantly, they provide that much needed place where new comics can find their voice before hitting the bigger clubs and making a play for a larger career. That is my thinking anyway. I don't think it is the prevailing attitude of the owner. My intro was this, "You could of seen this comic tonight at Cobb's, but you were smart and paid half the money to see him here." Don't know how I feel about that exactly. The Clubhouse sees Cobb's and the Punchline as an enemy when those clubs barely know it exists. It's the L.A. San Francisco thing at a micro level. People in San Francisco will go off on how horrible L.A. is, but bring up S.F. down there and people just go, "I love that town!"
I did my set at the Clubhouse with an emphasis on trying out some new stuff. Mostly happy with how that turned out, I left the stage to be taken back to Cobb's by a young comic just starting to take classes at the Clubhouse. He was all smiles and nervous energy. Thanks Dude. Back at Cobb's, it was time for the late show where this time I waited for the crowd to leave so I could pass out fliers for me. Thats when temptation showed up in the form of three young hot girls who wanted to know why I wasn't the headliner. Oh hot young girls! You are my weakness and you know it. When they asked if I wanted to join them at the bar, I said I didn't drink. Well, that cock blocked me pretty efficiently. I would so like to come back to this world as a pair of girls jeans.
Sunday nights crowd at Cobb's was great! I got my check and was off to the Punchline where I found a dead crowd. They were OK for some people and then no where to be found for others. I followed a five minuet video that is best described as quirky. It's not that it wasn't funny, it's just that seeing a video near the end of a stand-up show is sorta like seeing a car commercial in a theater when you expected movie previews. You know? The crowd was done but with in a few minuets of loading and reloading the riff gun, they were on board and we all landed together in funny. I even manged to sneak in some bits before returning to a crazy Irish man in back that cackled like a gay Satan and shared with the crowd that his favorite drug was speed balls. That, and a guy up front who was very upset that somewhere in the middle of it all I made fun of Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Yeah. That was my weekend. I am a lucky Dude indeed to pull of sets at all three clubs in town on the 4th of July weekend and I know it.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Cause and Defect
Ten years ago, the big three auto makers gambled everything on Americas love affair with the SUV. Any attempt by environmentalists to curtail their development was met with open hostility. When Congress attempted to pass legislation to improve fuel efficiency standards, Detroit said doing so would cost jobs. When economists pointed out that a lack of diversity is always dangerous for a company, Detroit pointed to record sales. Every report available at the time said the trend of large cars had to end as oil prices would rise in the new millennium. Here were are in 2008. Japan leads the world in Hybrid production of cars. Detroit has invested almost nothing in alternative fuels or vehicles and as a result, General Motors stock fell bellow $10.00 a shares yesterday on the news that oil continues to rise sharply. That is the lowest it's stock has been since the 50's!
If anything screams American denial, this story does. As the Pentagon geared up for war in Iraq, Detroit continued to build SUV's, slashing whatever small budget it had for research into smaller, electric and hybrid cars. Economists warned them that a prolonged war in the Mideast would spell the end for Americans love affair with large gas guzzling cars. Detroit ignored all warning signs and continued to spend vast sums of money to make and market vehicles that had the worse fuel efficiency ever seen. Now, in Bushes last term with his Oil industry buddies making a blatant grab for all the cash they can get through market manipulation, Detroit's big three auto makers are victims of ignoring the future.
Cause and effect, people.
Make something that runs on what is literally dead dinosaurs and you risk becoming a dinosaur too.
Enter John McCain.
He has proposed a contest where the winner would get 300 million dollars for a new battery that could deliver all our energy needs at 30% of the current cost. Actually, not a bad idea. It was his old man speech about it that everyone should listen to that caught my attention. At one point, he says Americans should use their "creatillity" to do this. Ability? Creativity? Creatively? What word did he mean to use or did he just win a contest to invent a new word needed to inspire a new battery?
If anyone knows of a battery like this, run for your life! Detroit, Saudi Arabia and Standard oil will kill you. Honestly. We are not an economy based on gold or digits flying around the Internet. Nope. We are a petroleum based economy. If you upset that balance in anyway, you will be taken care of. Think I am being to X-files about this? We invaded Iraq to get their oil, what would we do to get a battery that would put all those powerful people out of business?
If anything screams American denial, this story does. As the Pentagon geared up for war in Iraq, Detroit continued to build SUV's, slashing whatever small budget it had for research into smaller, electric and hybrid cars. Economists warned them that a prolonged war in the Mideast would spell the end for Americans love affair with large gas guzzling cars. Detroit ignored all warning signs and continued to spend vast sums of money to make and market vehicles that had the worse fuel efficiency ever seen. Now, in Bushes last term with his Oil industry buddies making a blatant grab for all the cash they can get through market manipulation, Detroit's big three auto makers are victims of ignoring the future.
Cause and effect, people.
Make something that runs on what is literally dead dinosaurs and you risk becoming a dinosaur too.
Enter John McCain.
He has proposed a contest where the winner would get 300 million dollars for a new battery that could deliver all our energy needs at 30% of the current cost. Actually, not a bad idea. It was his old man speech about it that everyone should listen to that caught my attention. At one point, he says Americans should use their "creatillity" to do this. Ability? Creativity? Creatively? What word did he mean to use or did he just win a contest to invent a new word needed to inspire a new battery?
If anyone knows of a battery like this, run for your life! Detroit, Saudi Arabia and Standard oil will kill you. Honestly. We are not an economy based on gold or digits flying around the Internet. Nope. We are a petroleum based economy. If you upset that balance in anyway, you will be taken care of. Think I am being to X-files about this? We invaded Iraq to get their oil, what would we do to get a battery that would put all those powerful people out of business?
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Now I have seen it all...
Muslims in the Scottish district of Tayside are outraged by the appearance of a wide-eyed, 6-week-old puppy on postcards distributed by the local police force, according to the Daily Mail.
Postcards showing police dog-in-training Rebel, a German shepherd born in early December, are causing a furor among the region’s Muslims who believe dogs are "ritually unclean," the Daily Mail reports.
There is a voice in the back of my head that starts to say things decidedly un-P.C. when I hear stuff like this. It's been a growing voice now for a little while. A few days ago I received a call from a woman at Kinko's. I had sent in a print order on line. They were calling to check on something. Her accent was so thick and the connection was so bad, that I had a very hard time understanding what she was saying. Considering that I was spending money to get a quality product and considering they advertise one stop press a button and all is done publishing, it was becoming more and more frustrating to attempt to talk to her. After a while I paused and said very clearly with no anger in my voice, "Could I speak with someone else please?"
There was a pause at her end, a click and then a moment later another voice without an accent.
"Is there a problem I can help you with?" The new voice said in clear English.
"I was having a hard time understanding the young woman on the phone. I was afraid something would get messed up because I didn't understand something." I said a little guilty.
Again, another pause and then with a slightly perceptible attitude I was told, "You might want to try another location next time if our staff is difficult for you to understand."
"Look, I don't want any trouble and I am not some right wing guy inventing issues, even you can hear the static on this line, right? Add to that an accent and it's a little hard to understand what she is saying. Thats all. I just want to make sure my order is fine. After all, you guys called me."
Now I had done it! I had said the one thing you can never say out loud in a liberal city; the truth.
People with accents can sometimes be difficult to understand. Thats it. No bias or racist overtones, just a bad telephone connection with static, a hard accent and now attitude because I was clearly stating a problem that is not suppose to exist in our everybody is equal paradise by the bay.
Now imagine you are a small town police department trying to get the word out about a new phone number. You put an adorable puppy on it to grab peoples attention. After you have printed and handed the cards out with the intention of better serving the population your sworn to protect, you find out that a group in that town is upset because it violates some religious principle you knew nothing about. Man! I can hear that voice in the back of my head. It is my Dad's voice. It is saying some fucked up things, but honestly, who would of thought that a puppy on a card used to inform citizens about a change in police services would of been an issue? Who would of even thought to say, "maybe we should check to see if this is going to piss anyone off?" Besides, and I am going to say it, you are no longer living in a Muslim country. Maybe you should try to be tolerant of your new country. A country whose police does not kick in doors to get information, but instead sends post cards with puppies on it to let people know information. I'm just saying. I am surrounded by people who cheer the slogan, celebrate diversity, but chances are if you printed up invitations to that party, a lot of people would not be able to read the card or be upset with whatever you picked by committee to put on the card.
OK, chances are they are living where they are living because they are refuges from that little war we started. Before FOX news gets a hold of this story and uses it to subtly and not so subtly tell us how crazy "they" are, step back a moment. American is suppose to be a melting pot. Right? But if we are being honest with ourselves, we all know that melting implies conforming and a lot of cultures do not want to conform. Thats fine. Granted, our history is not so good with other cultures anyway. But if postcards with puppies are going to upset people, I really don't know how to take that seriously. Do you?
In other tolerant news, a girl started a Facebook group that has spread. Seems people are changing their middle names to Hussein in honor of Barack Obama. A lot of people have made a big deal out of his middle name. First he was a secret Muslim sent to destroy us then he gets in trouble for having a crazy preacher at the same Christian church he has belonged to for more than 2o years. To demonstrate the sheer ignorance of it all, she simply suggested people change their facebook name to Hussein. It is the "smith" of the Arab world. Maybe there is a Dude trying to get stuff done in Iraq whose middle name is Joe and he is taking shit for it. I don't know. I like the idea behind it. If more people had Hussein as a name, it might not be so alien to people in America. Frankly, the only things we have been any good at integrating into society, is food. French Fry's, Belgian Waffles, Chinese take out, and Pizza. Were not a melting pot so much as we are a 7-11. We will take your food, just not any of the culture that goes with it. If we changed French Fry's to freedom Fry's when America went nuts and was mad at France for not voting for our mess of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, why not rename some food with the name Hussein? Better yet, lets name a dog Hussein.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Blond on Blond reaction!
Pamela Anderson, on a radio interview in Australia, called Jessica Simpson a Bitch and whore for wearing a real girls eat meat, T-shirt. Where do you want to start with the irony? For a woman with plastic tits, enhanced lips, permanent eye liner and a hair color not found in nature, Pamela Anderson has a lot of nerve telling anyone they are not "real." Don't you think?
I'm not fan of Jessica Simpson either. After all, this is the woman who thought Buffalo wings were from buffalo. Anderson, is a member of PETA. Again, the irony factor is pretty high here. People would protest if they did to animals what Anderson did to herself. Besides, Pamela Anderson doesn't eat meat? Thats not what I saw on that tape.
I have no idea whose side I am on, but a plastic injected rock star cum dumpster getting uppity because she only eats vegetables, is pretty stupid. Two dumb blonds, famous for being famous, are in a war over what goes in their bodies. Insert your own joke here.
Crows Nest; YOU SUCK!
Santa Cruz, you can suck my balls!
The one nighter show is by definition the least organized, worse paid and most drunk audiences you will perform for. This is not a hard and fast rule, but one nighters only stand out when they are great or even worse than you thought they would be. The Crows Nest was awful almost beyond comprehension last night. Just getting there was enough to make me question why I found it necessary to drive over a mountain highway with more twists and turns on it than an episode of Lost, complete with smoke so thick you could taste it in your mouth. Perfect. Normally highway 17 is dangerous at best. Four lanes divided by a concrete curtain not high enough to block the on coming drivers brights, but solid enough to insure instant death if you plowed into it. Last night, it was cut down to an even more narrow two lane road divided by nothing but orange cones. Excellent! As we shot the asphalt rapids of death with nothing between us and the passing drivers but clown hats for protection, smoke drifted across the highway reducing our vision to that of a Bush official with cataracts, I started doubting if this was a good idea. Santa Cruz needed jokes though and I was trucking them in over the pass!
It has been years since I worked this room. Now I remember why. When I got there a little before show time, I could see the bar was packed with woman I would like to fuck and guys who like to date rape. Not the sort of people I can hold a conversation with one on one let alone perform for. The noise of the bar and the look of the crowd made me wonder if they would quite down. Apparently management shared some of these concerns. On a landing going up the stairs someone had taken the time to write on a white board, you must be quite during the comedy show. You will be asked to be quite once. The next time you will be asked to leave. Siting in a chair at the top of the stairs, I noticed that no one looked at it. Everyone pays a seven dollar cover charge to enter yet no one seems to be there for the show.
I know the opener from around the Bay Area. A nice enough guy with a guitar and a suitcase full of CD's for sale, he has become a road dog. Whatever else you might think about a guitar act, a crowd will usually shut up for one. In fact, you never want to be the guy to follow one. Well, for the first time that I can remember, this guitar act bombed. I don't mean didn't do well, I mean crater in the Earth bombed. Not his fault though. The manger of the room informed us that he was short a guy and could not do introductions on the off stage Mic since it meant he had to be the one to go around the room and turn off the lights before show. I guess the large guys in SECURITY shirts couldn't help out in any other way. So, this poor guy, guitar in hand walks on stage and without getting the crowd excited or having them applaud for the show they are about to see, launches into some stuff that is the result of working one nighter gigs too much. However, the crowd didn't even register that a show of any type had begun. The noise level in conversation did not dip bellow that of a freight train once. For fifteen minuets though, he held his ground belting out songs about not getting any and attempting to lead those in the crowd who were paying attention in a sing along where the chours was simply 'asshole!'
Then, it was onto the next guy. The next guy is not bad, but he was one of those, I am going to tell my jokes and you are going to listen and if by chance you happen to be a shitty, drunk, dumb crowd, there is very little abilities I have to make you listen, acts. About ten minuets into his act, a comic I see every once in a while shows up and asks for a guest set. You know, I don't want to be a dick, but there is a certain way things are done and there are times when a guest set is simply out of the question. First of all, you show up before the show starts to ask for one. Not ten minuets into the middle acts. Second of all, a guest set never goes up before the headliner. Last but not least, are you paying attention to how shitty this crowd is!? Why would I want to throw one more unprepared novice to these wolves? It only eats away at their booze soaked ADD minds and delays my set, my drive and my distance from this nightmare by another seven minuets. Sorry, but no quest set. Now I have the added delight of getting the silent treatment from him each time he walks by me. Too bad I didn't tell the whole crowd no quest set. That seemed to be the only thing I said all night that got anyone to stop talking.
Then it's my turn. It's a little before ten and I have to put in forty five minuets. No matter that the last guy went short either. I am not going long tonight.
This is how it goes. I tell a joke and a few people up front laugh. I tell another joke and a few more people laugh in the crowd. Eventually I have enough of them listening that I feel like this can be done. But it is just in that moment of relief that the noise from the back of the room jumps up to that of a jet engine. Off to the side of me, a whole section of the room just sits in silence looking at me like I should do something about this. The front row is composed of a woman who is texting, a young gang all wearing white t-shirts and matching sideways ball caps and a girl who is clutching herself with the sort of fear you might see in a bank customer who walked in just in time to be taken hostage during a robbery. Thats my crowd, an entire section in back by the bar that paid seven bucks to attempt to talk over the guy with the microphone, gang members, the meek and what I can only assume after some decent jokes that get nothing, the dumb. Do I sound harsh? Good. It was only when I started going after them that they listened and laughed. All the girls were hot, so I can only assume they were use to abusive relationships. "He is yelling at us and saying how bad we are. I think I love him!"And so it went for the next forty minuets. I tried jokes that every crowd before them has always laughed at and was rewarded with the placid cow eyes of non comprehension. When I fucked with them, I got laughs and shouted threats. In fact, the most intelligible heckle was, "get a hair cut!' Get a hair cut? Perhaps you noticed we are in Santa Cruz, it's 2008 and unless you are a time traveler from a show in the 60's, yelling out to a comic that they should, get a hair cut, is about the lamest heckle I have ever heard. Did I mention the guy at another table who looked like a shaved head steroid monkey wearing a shirt that I can only imagine summed up his philosophy; tap out! Ah Santa Cruz. In three weeks a check will show up and I will look at it and think for the hundredth time, this is not worth it.
The one nighter show is by definition the least organized, worse paid and most drunk audiences you will perform for. This is not a hard and fast rule, but one nighters only stand out when they are great or even worse than you thought they would be. The Crows Nest was awful almost beyond comprehension last night. Just getting there was enough to make me question why I found it necessary to drive over a mountain highway with more twists and turns on it than an episode of Lost, complete with smoke so thick you could taste it in your mouth. Perfect. Normally highway 17 is dangerous at best. Four lanes divided by a concrete curtain not high enough to block the on coming drivers brights, but solid enough to insure instant death if you plowed into it. Last night, it was cut down to an even more narrow two lane road divided by nothing but orange cones. Excellent! As we shot the asphalt rapids of death with nothing between us and the passing drivers but clown hats for protection, smoke drifted across the highway reducing our vision to that of a Bush official with cataracts, I started doubting if this was a good idea. Santa Cruz needed jokes though and I was trucking them in over the pass!
It has been years since I worked this room. Now I remember why. When I got there a little before show time, I could see the bar was packed with woman I would like to fuck and guys who like to date rape. Not the sort of people I can hold a conversation with one on one let alone perform for. The noise of the bar and the look of the crowd made me wonder if they would quite down. Apparently management shared some of these concerns. On a landing going up the stairs someone had taken the time to write on a white board, you must be quite during the comedy show. You will be asked to be quite once. The next time you will be asked to leave. Siting in a chair at the top of the stairs, I noticed that no one looked at it. Everyone pays a seven dollar cover charge to enter yet no one seems to be there for the show.
I know the opener from around the Bay Area. A nice enough guy with a guitar and a suitcase full of CD's for sale, he has become a road dog. Whatever else you might think about a guitar act, a crowd will usually shut up for one. In fact, you never want to be the guy to follow one. Well, for the first time that I can remember, this guitar act bombed. I don't mean didn't do well, I mean crater in the Earth bombed. Not his fault though. The manger of the room informed us that he was short a guy and could not do introductions on the off stage Mic since it meant he had to be the one to go around the room and turn off the lights before show. I guess the large guys in SECURITY shirts couldn't help out in any other way. So, this poor guy, guitar in hand walks on stage and without getting the crowd excited or having them applaud for the show they are about to see, launches into some stuff that is the result of working one nighter gigs too much. However, the crowd didn't even register that a show of any type had begun. The noise level in conversation did not dip bellow that of a freight train once. For fifteen minuets though, he held his ground belting out songs about not getting any and attempting to lead those in the crowd who were paying attention in a sing along where the chours was simply 'asshole!'
Then, it was onto the next guy. The next guy is not bad, but he was one of those, I am going to tell my jokes and you are going to listen and if by chance you happen to be a shitty, drunk, dumb crowd, there is very little abilities I have to make you listen, acts. About ten minuets into his act, a comic I see every once in a while shows up and asks for a guest set. You know, I don't want to be a dick, but there is a certain way things are done and there are times when a guest set is simply out of the question. First of all, you show up before the show starts to ask for one. Not ten minuets into the middle acts. Second of all, a guest set never goes up before the headliner. Last but not least, are you paying attention to how shitty this crowd is!? Why would I want to throw one more unprepared novice to these wolves? It only eats away at their booze soaked ADD minds and delays my set, my drive and my distance from this nightmare by another seven minuets. Sorry, but no quest set. Now I have the added delight of getting the silent treatment from him each time he walks by me. Too bad I didn't tell the whole crowd no quest set. That seemed to be the only thing I said all night that got anyone to stop talking.
Then it's my turn. It's a little before ten and I have to put in forty five minuets. No matter that the last guy went short either. I am not going long tonight.
This is how it goes. I tell a joke and a few people up front laugh. I tell another joke and a few more people laugh in the crowd. Eventually I have enough of them listening that I feel like this can be done. But it is just in that moment of relief that the noise from the back of the room jumps up to that of a jet engine. Off to the side of me, a whole section of the room just sits in silence looking at me like I should do something about this. The front row is composed of a woman who is texting, a young gang all wearing white t-shirts and matching sideways ball caps and a girl who is clutching herself with the sort of fear you might see in a bank customer who walked in just in time to be taken hostage during a robbery. Thats my crowd, an entire section in back by the bar that paid seven bucks to attempt to talk over the guy with the microphone, gang members, the meek and what I can only assume after some decent jokes that get nothing, the dumb. Do I sound harsh? Good. It was only when I started going after them that they listened and laughed. All the girls were hot, so I can only assume they were use to abusive relationships. "He is yelling at us and saying how bad we are. I think I love him!"And so it went for the next forty minuets. I tried jokes that every crowd before them has always laughed at and was rewarded with the placid cow eyes of non comprehension. When I fucked with them, I got laughs and shouted threats. In fact, the most intelligible heckle was, "get a hair cut!' Get a hair cut? Perhaps you noticed we are in Santa Cruz, it's 2008 and unless you are a time traveler from a show in the 60's, yelling out to a comic that they should, get a hair cut, is about the lamest heckle I have ever heard. Did I mention the guy at another table who looked like a shaved head steroid monkey wearing a shirt that I can only imagine summed up his philosophy; tap out! Ah Santa Cruz. In three weeks a check will show up and I will look at it and think for the hundredth time, this is not worth it.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The Weekend
I had a classic anxiety dream the other night. I was in a comedy contest. I went for a walk and realized I should be getting back. I was in hills and fields though. As I headed back to the location, I realized there was someone else with me. She had on hells, so she was moving slower than I. I was torn between be a gentleman and waiting for her to catch up and running to get there on time. As is the way in dreams, every turn I took only succeeded in making me farther away from my destination. Eventually I crossed a highway, my friend in heels struggling to keep up was still up in the hills. When I got into the building, it had the feel of a high school. Hallways shot off in every direction, people stood around telling me with panic in their faces that I was next and the host was looking for me. Classic. I had not thought about my set and now I was consumed with the fear that I would miss my introduction. Right as this anxiety reached fever pitch, I woke up.
Sweet!
The other night after a show where the crowd was bathed in booze, a young comic interrogated me on all things comedy. He wondered why more established comics didn't answer basic questions and why comics didn't help each other out more. Why? It's the reason why there is no comics union. There will always be that guy willing to do a show for less. A lot of clubs exploit that. New, not so good comics get used for M.C. work all because they want to be on stage and the club sees this as a pool of free hosts. Comics are selfish creatures. Not all of them, but by the nature of what we do, we are loners. People are afraid that by giving information, they will somehow loose out on opportunity. As if there is a finite amount of opportunity to go around. It's ego too. Why bother to answer some piss ants question?
So far the weekend has been marked by smoke and alcohol. The state is on fire and my eyes are burning like coals. Fridays crowd was young and drunk. I worry about the Clubhouse. The BYOB policy is something of a mixed brown paper bag. You know? By the time I get the crowd, they have been drinking for more than hour. When I say drinking for more than an hour, I mean I was watching crowd members bring in card board cases of beer. That can't be good. It's a beautiful looking room, but it's starting to slip in quality. When BYOB is the attraction and not the comics on stage, you have to wonder whats going on. Long story short, a crowd in that state limits exactly what you can do. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but it's more crowd control than art.
Saturday I was in Napa at the Opera house headlining a benefit for the Big Sister Big brothers organization. It is always such a treat to perform in a room that is beautiful. Throw in the added karma bounce of doing it for a good cause and I am making money, you can't beat it. Every show should be this good. I had to follow Leland Cotton Brown. Way back in the day, I once watched him get a standing ovation in the old Cobb's. Needless to say, it was more than a little intimidating thinking I had to follow him. The host, Michael Pritchard is another name that is big in the San Francisco comedy scene when there was an actual scene, not the small collection of bars and big clubs we have now. If you want to know who he is, youtube the episode of TAXI, where Judd Hersch dances with a gay man in a bar. Thats Michael Pritchard. How I got on this show is beyond me, but there I was, the headliner. Just as I feared, Leland cotton brown destroyed. He had a guitar and Jack Nicholas impressions. Dear God! Follow that, smart ass. No ones attitude was like that, but I didn't want to trip over the shadow of these guys. When I was new these guys were giants. For personal and other reasons they decided against the lure of bigger careers, but they are and remain very talented people committed to various causes that help others. There is some inspiration in that. Pritchard was holding court back stage. The man is a wealth of stories and some interesting philosophy from a comic. If you know a comic, you know that they are not the most fun people to hang out with it. Thin skinned, easily distracted and given to thoughts of glory while being consumed with self doubt, anytime you meet a well adjusted comic, you listen. he was telling us that studies had been done on the brains of people who thought of themselves as reasonably happy over a period of time. Turns out the secret can be summed up in one word; compassion. Having compassion for others results in a state of well being. Now, my jaded sense of self was screaming bullshit in the back of my head, but I had to admit, even though I had to follow in the foot steps of some big names, I was curiously at ease. I wonder if it had anything to do with being a part of a show for a good cause? I ended up having a wonderful set. The jokes worked fine, but me being me, I had to talk to the guy in front.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I sell nuts."
You wait years for a serious answer like that from someone in the crowd. That was set. Screw with the nut man. The jokes did fine too. All in all, it turned out to be great. When the show was over there was even a friend and fan waiting in the lobby to give me a Star Wars T-shirt. You can't beat that folks. You really can't.
Tonight, I am Santa Cruz bound. Closer to where the state burns. My eyes have stopped watering and the stinging sensation that even drops could not rid me of has gone away. The coughing and heavy chest has gotten better too. Yesterday I woke up with a horrible pain in my chest coughing like a miner with black lung. A thin mist of blood covered my pale chest. I went from sleepy to hyper awake and freaked out in seconds. Turns out, having asthma as a kid makes me super susceptible to tiny particles in the air. Breathing it all night on my back only managed to collect them in my lungs passageways and create a nest of crud that worked like steel wool on the tissue. I was seriously panicked but I remembered I had health care.
The doctor cautioned me against needless talking (something I was being paid to do that night) and staying away from the source of fires. (Napa and Santa Cruz are prime locations for our states apocalypse)
The sky down in Santa Cruz is other worldly. The sun is a tiny brass ball with orange vapor passing in front of it. All the fires have made for an amazing sunset. I can actually taste the smoke down here. I thought it was my car at first, but nope; it's the sky. I wonder what it will be like tonight? The Booker called me to confirm around 5PM and the two guys he told me that were on the bill with me were unknown to me. That's not a bad thing, but a lot of these L.A. comics have something to prove and I have to be the guy to follow them. The show starts at 9PM, but down here that usually means 9:30. That means I will get home around 1am tonight. If I am lucky. Highway 17 slows everything down.
I am not looking forward to Monday. Much to get done and I am a lazy Dude. I had a big money private gig cancel on me for reason I cannot dispute. There was a death in the family. I am so cynical that when I first read the e-mail I thought, they must of seen me on line and decided to get someone else but didn't want to tell me that. Then I thought, thats the lie I would of told to get out of it. Christ! All this really means is I have to keep the gig I originally booked on that night.
Tonight's show will be what it will be. I will put on some Death Cab for Cutie as I drive home and in a few weeks the check will show up as a happy surprise.
Ah the life of a comic.
Sweet!
The other night after a show where the crowd was bathed in booze, a young comic interrogated me on all things comedy. He wondered why more established comics didn't answer basic questions and why comics didn't help each other out more. Why? It's the reason why there is no comics union. There will always be that guy willing to do a show for less. A lot of clubs exploit that. New, not so good comics get used for M.C. work all because they want to be on stage and the club sees this as a pool of free hosts. Comics are selfish creatures. Not all of them, but by the nature of what we do, we are loners. People are afraid that by giving information, they will somehow loose out on opportunity. As if there is a finite amount of opportunity to go around. It's ego too. Why bother to answer some piss ants question?
So far the weekend has been marked by smoke and alcohol. The state is on fire and my eyes are burning like coals. Fridays crowd was young and drunk. I worry about the Clubhouse. The BYOB policy is something of a mixed brown paper bag. You know? By the time I get the crowd, they have been drinking for more than hour. When I say drinking for more than an hour, I mean I was watching crowd members bring in card board cases of beer. That can't be good. It's a beautiful looking room, but it's starting to slip in quality. When BYOB is the attraction and not the comics on stage, you have to wonder whats going on. Long story short, a crowd in that state limits exactly what you can do. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but it's more crowd control than art.
Saturday I was in Napa at the Opera house headlining a benefit for the Big Sister Big brothers organization. It is always such a treat to perform in a room that is beautiful. Throw in the added karma bounce of doing it for a good cause and I am making money, you can't beat it. Every show should be this good. I had to follow Leland Cotton Brown. Way back in the day, I once watched him get a standing ovation in the old Cobb's. Needless to say, it was more than a little intimidating thinking I had to follow him. The host, Michael Pritchard is another name that is big in the San Francisco comedy scene when there was an actual scene, not the small collection of bars and big clubs we have now. If you want to know who he is, youtube the episode of TAXI, where Judd Hersch dances with a gay man in a bar. Thats Michael Pritchard. How I got on this show is beyond me, but there I was, the headliner. Just as I feared, Leland cotton brown destroyed. He had a guitar and Jack Nicholas impressions. Dear God! Follow that, smart ass. No ones attitude was like that, but I didn't want to trip over the shadow of these guys. When I was new these guys were giants. For personal and other reasons they decided against the lure of bigger careers, but they are and remain very talented people committed to various causes that help others. There is some inspiration in that. Pritchard was holding court back stage. The man is a wealth of stories and some interesting philosophy from a comic. If you know a comic, you know that they are not the most fun people to hang out with it. Thin skinned, easily distracted and given to thoughts of glory while being consumed with self doubt, anytime you meet a well adjusted comic, you listen. he was telling us that studies had been done on the brains of people who thought of themselves as reasonably happy over a period of time. Turns out the secret can be summed up in one word; compassion. Having compassion for others results in a state of well being. Now, my jaded sense of self was screaming bullshit in the back of my head, but I had to admit, even though I had to follow in the foot steps of some big names, I was curiously at ease. I wonder if it had anything to do with being a part of a show for a good cause? I ended up having a wonderful set. The jokes worked fine, but me being me, I had to talk to the guy in front.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I sell nuts."
You wait years for a serious answer like that from someone in the crowd. That was set. Screw with the nut man. The jokes did fine too. All in all, it turned out to be great. When the show was over there was even a friend and fan waiting in the lobby to give me a Star Wars T-shirt. You can't beat that folks. You really can't.
Tonight, I am Santa Cruz bound. Closer to where the state burns. My eyes have stopped watering and the stinging sensation that even drops could not rid me of has gone away. The coughing and heavy chest has gotten better too. Yesterday I woke up with a horrible pain in my chest coughing like a miner with black lung. A thin mist of blood covered my pale chest. I went from sleepy to hyper awake and freaked out in seconds. Turns out, having asthma as a kid makes me super susceptible to tiny particles in the air. Breathing it all night on my back only managed to collect them in my lungs passageways and create a nest of crud that worked like steel wool on the tissue. I was seriously panicked but I remembered I had health care.
The doctor cautioned me against needless talking (something I was being paid to do that night) and staying away from the source of fires. (Napa and Santa Cruz are prime locations for our states apocalypse)
The sky down in Santa Cruz is other worldly. The sun is a tiny brass ball with orange vapor passing in front of it. All the fires have made for an amazing sunset. I can actually taste the smoke down here. I thought it was my car at first, but nope; it's the sky. I wonder what it will be like tonight? The Booker called me to confirm around 5PM and the two guys he told me that were on the bill with me were unknown to me. That's not a bad thing, but a lot of these L.A. comics have something to prove and I have to be the guy to follow them. The show starts at 9PM, but down here that usually means 9:30. That means I will get home around 1am tonight. If I am lucky. Highway 17 slows everything down.
I am not looking forward to Monday. Much to get done and I am a lazy Dude. I had a big money private gig cancel on me for reason I cannot dispute. There was a death in the family. I am so cynical that when I first read the e-mail I thought, they must of seen me on line and decided to get someone else but didn't want to tell me that. Then I thought, thats the lie I would of told to get out of it. Christ! All this really means is I have to keep the gig I originally booked on that night.
Tonight's show will be what it will be. I will put on some Death Cab for Cutie as I drive home and in a few weeks the check will show up as a happy surprise.
Ah the life of a comic.
Friday, June 27, 2008
666, Lesbians & Spell Check for Guns.
Years ago, when I worked as a cashier in a 7-11, this happened a few times. A customer would come to the counter with a handful of small items, I would ring them up and the total would come to, $6.66. Every time this happened, the persons eyes would go wide and they would reach for the nearest thing to change the balance. A candy bar, gum, beef jerky. Whatever. One time when this happened the guy looked up at me in shock! He reached for a plastic cigarette lighter and said, "You wanna be right with the lord."
Yes. I'm sure the Zig Zag rolling papers, condoms and breath mints are OK with the Lord.
People would get so worked up over that number. One lady made the sign of the cross when the amount came up and put back a scratcher lottery ticket explaining, "There can be no good luck for me now!"
She left the store with her head low. Her whole day was ruined now because her purchase was not six dollars and sixty sixty cents. Her purchase was the number of the beast! either she believed that she was now the Devil, or that her day would end with seeing the Devil. My point is, people have an amazing capacity to find what they are afraid of or what they are offended by. I do it too. I can make anything into a "sign." Good or bad. But numbers are just numbers and letters are just letters. We give them power. We give them meaning.
The guy who said to me, "You wanna be right with the Lord" are you kidding me Dude? You are obviously buying rolling papers to get high, attempt to have sex with someone and desire clean breath to do this. But 666 pops up on the register and you think a 99 cent lighter is going to cause the devil to stand down? Like he is in hell watching all this and can do nothing until someones purchase comes to that number. The devil must of watched the counter like a game show. "Come on, fat man! Stop staring at the candy and pick up the Mars Bar you always get. If you just add that to your twizzlers and Sunday paper, my lucky number will pop up and I will control you through your purchase! I shall reign evil down upon those close to you with...a Twizzler, Mars bar and the In Style section of the San Francisco Examiner?" I think not.
But people do get worked up about the meaning of things. Especially when two things happen to share a word or term. For example, the island of Lesbos.
Check this entry from Wikipedia.
Yes. I'm sure the Zig Zag rolling papers, condoms and breath mints are OK with the Lord.
People would get so worked up over that number. One lady made the sign of the cross when the amount came up and put back a scratcher lottery ticket explaining, "There can be no good luck for me now!"
She left the store with her head low. Her whole day was ruined now because her purchase was not six dollars and sixty sixty cents. Her purchase was the number of the beast! either she believed that she was now the Devil, or that her day would end with seeing the Devil. My point is, people have an amazing capacity to find what they are afraid of or what they are offended by. I do it too. I can make anything into a "sign." Good or bad. But numbers are just numbers and letters are just letters. We give them power. We give them meaning.
The guy who said to me, "You wanna be right with the Lord" are you kidding me Dude? You are obviously buying rolling papers to get high, attempt to have sex with someone and desire clean breath to do this. But 666 pops up on the register and you think a 99 cent lighter is going to cause the devil to stand down? Like he is in hell watching all this and can do nothing until someones purchase comes to that number. The devil must of watched the counter like a game show. "Come on, fat man! Stop staring at the candy and pick up the Mars Bar you always get. If you just add that to your twizzlers and Sunday paper, my lucky number will pop up and I will control you through your purchase! I shall reign evil down upon those close to you with...a Twizzler, Mars bar and the In Style section of the San Francisco Examiner?" I think not.
But people do get worked up about the meaning of things. Especially when two things happen to share a word or term. For example, the island of Lesbos.
Check this entry from Wikipedia.
The word lesbian is derived from the poems of Sappho, born in Lesbos, which contain powerful emotional content directed toward other females and have frequently been interpreted as expressing homosexual love. Because of this association, Lesbos and especially the town of Eresos, her birthplace, are visited frequently by lesbian tourists.
Apparently the good people who live on the island are tired of their name being associated with the whole lesbian thing. You have to feel sorry for the people who live on the island of fagitos.
The people of Lesbos are suing a Greek gay rights organization with the word lesbian in it's title. They say only residents of the island have the right to call themselves Lesbians. Being known as the capitol and birthplace of woman on woman love does not sit well with them. If the law suit succeeds, they say they will take the action global. Well God Damn! Are they aware that the word Greek also has another meaning? If you are going to sue over the meaning and use of the word lesbian, you might want to think about the name of your country also meaning anal sex. Just a though.
Then there are protest signs.
A few days ago the Supreme Court ruled that Washington D.C.'s 32 year old ban on hand guns violated the second amendment. For the pro-gun folks, this was a huge victory. The supreme court had remained silent for more than a hundred years on the meaning of the second amendment. But thats not the point. The point is this sign, held by a pro-gun owner outside the supreme court.If Guns Kill People...Do Pens Misspell Words?
Well, guns do kill people. That is what they have been made to do. Kill. There are sportsman, but their targets are in the shape of people. It sort of implies that if you want to step it up a notch, the next logical target is the real thing. Then there are of course starting pistols. When you hear that go off what are you suppose to do? Run! Why? Because it's a fucking gun! Guns are scary. There is no such thing as a, lets all take a breath and sort this out, pistol. It doesn't exist. Guns have one and only one function. To kill. They have been made extremely lethal and scientifically efficient for this purpose. Guns of course do not kill on their own. They have to be connected to the hand of a person. Why do I have a feeling that most of the people who are happy about this ruling are the same people who would not be able to spell second amendment?
Ink might come only in permanent form, but lead is definitely forever. If a kid who doesn't know any better picks up a pen, he usually doesn't show up on the news the next day. If a kid in school has spent every day of his life tormented by bullies and doesn't get the help he needs at home, cameras don't show up if he one day sits down in the cafeteria and writes a scathing journal entry. Course, if he actually writes a story about shooting people and turns that in, he will be in a shit load of trouble. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but a pen misspelling a word is not the same sort of mistake as a bullet leaving the barrel is. No one looks at a misspelled word and thinks, "Why didn't we see the signs?" I don't know why cause chances are those signs were spelled incorrectly. Pretty hard to miss those signs. There is no equivalent to spell check for guns. None that I know of. You can tear down and throw away a human shaped target, but when you get a gun outside the range and they go off, people don't circle those mistakes in red. They circle them in chalk.
If guns kill people do pens misspell words. What a douche!
Ink might come only in permanent form, but lead is definitely forever. If a kid who doesn't know any better picks up a pen, he usually doesn't show up on the news the next day. If a kid in school has spent every day of his life tormented by bullies and doesn't get the help he needs at home, cameras don't show up if he one day sits down in the cafeteria and writes a scathing journal entry. Course, if he actually writes a story about shooting people and turns that in, he will be in a shit load of trouble. The pen might be mightier than the sword, but a pen misspelling a word is not the same sort of mistake as a bullet leaving the barrel is. No one looks at a misspelled word and thinks, "Why didn't we see the signs?" I don't know why cause chances are those signs were spelled incorrectly. Pretty hard to miss those signs. There is no equivalent to spell check for guns. None that I know of. You can tear down and throw away a human shaped target, but when you get a gun outside the range and they go off, people don't circle those mistakes in red. They circle them in chalk.
If guns kill people do pens misspell words. What a douche!
Cobb's
Cobb's was awesome last night. Paul F. Tompkins is a master story teller as well as a pretty nice guy. It's a great room when it's packed and last night, it was packed. Standing in the back of the room and looking at him on stage I wondered if I looked that cool up there? It's a classy set up these days down at Cobb's. Gone is the painted back drop no one ever understood and instead, there is a classic black curtain lit with colored spot lights. It's a great stage!
Nico was the opener and Paul was the headliner. In my hot dog T-shirt and second hand leather coat, that made me the worse dressed comic of the evening. The crowd was good for me, but they were so obviously there for Paul. I get so envious of these guys who can draw hundreds of people on a Thursday night. It's all about exposure. The dude is all over VH1 and does commentary for the Keith Olberman show too. Damn! Could that be any cooler?
After the show, Nico had me laughing so hard that I was crying as I tried to talk to people on the way out the door. I was pissed that I forgot fliers to hand out to people. These were so the people I want coming to my shows!
And that's it. No wild story this time or crazy heckler situation. Just a good night at a great club with a smart crowd. You know, the way it ought to be all the time.
Nico was the opener and Paul was the headliner. In my hot dog T-shirt and second hand leather coat, that made me the worse dressed comic of the evening. The crowd was good for me, but they were so obviously there for Paul. I get so envious of these guys who can draw hundreds of people on a Thursday night. It's all about exposure. The dude is all over VH1 and does commentary for the Keith Olberman show too. Damn! Could that be any cooler?
After the show, Nico had me laughing so hard that I was crying as I tried to talk to people on the way out the door. I was pissed that I forgot fliers to hand out to people. These were so the people I want coming to my shows!
And that's it. No wild story this time or crazy heckler situation. Just a good night at a great club with a smart crowd. You know, the way it ought to be all the time.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
WTF...
RALEIGH, N.C. — Thanks to some text message-savvy grandchildren, North Carolina drivers whose license plates have the potentially offensive "WTF" letter combination can replace the tags for free.
Well, there you go folks. We have now decided that Ritalin cracked Myspace junkies will determine what combination of letters are deemed offensive. George Carlin talked about the 7 words you couldn't say on TV, we now have three letters you can't use on cars. Great. All I can really say about this is, WTF?
This is serious? Please. People seem to think that the law should keep them from being offended at anything any time. It's letters! Thats all. Letters. Will we someday live in a time when saying a single letter to a person will be taken as an insult?
"Dude. You are such a W!"
I guess we already live in those times if you think of the President. What Hitler did for that style of mustache, Bush does for the letter W.
I heard V and X won't even appear with W on Sesame street anymore.
If W is now going to be partly offensive due to it's association with the combo WTF, then what are we to think when we see two W's in the WWJD combo? Seriously? This is of great concern to me as a reader and writer who encounters letters on a daily basis. What other potential combination of letters lurk in the alphabet ready to poison our children's minds and render the backs of cars foul?
Here are a couple of other combinations I find offensive and dangerous in these times.
IRS
CIA
FBI
NSA
You get the idea.
Well, there you go folks. We have now decided that Ritalin cracked Myspace junkies will determine what combination of letters are deemed offensive. George Carlin talked about the 7 words you couldn't say on TV, we now have three letters you can't use on cars. Great. All I can really say about this is, WTF?
This is serious? Please. People seem to think that the law should keep them from being offended at anything any time. It's letters! Thats all. Letters. Will we someday live in a time when saying a single letter to a person will be taken as an insult?
"Dude. You are such a W!"
I guess we already live in those times if you think of the President. What Hitler did for that style of mustache, Bush does for the letter W.
I heard V and X won't even appear with W on Sesame street anymore.
If W is now going to be partly offensive due to it's association with the combo WTF, then what are we to think when we see two W's in the WWJD combo? Seriously? This is of great concern to me as a reader and writer who encounters letters on a daily basis. What other potential combination of letters lurk in the alphabet ready to poison our children's minds and render the backs of cars foul?
Here are a couple of other combinations I find offensive and dangerous in these times.
IRS
CIA
FBI
NSA
You get the idea.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Gloom and Doom Report
Ah the news.
I have been so preoccupied with my own gloom and doom lately that I have almost completely missed out on the worlds gloom and doom.
Iowa is now one of the great lakes, the Philippines got hit with a massive storm and China is still dealing with the after effects of an Earthquake leveling an entire city of millions. Meanwhile, California reportedly has 800 separate wild fires going. Food prices are on the rise, gas at the pump is on the rise and tomatoes are the deadliest thing you can find at airports. Not terrorists.
The Taliban, by the way, had a prison break in Afghanistan. 400 inmates got out and have now taken over a town. Good thing we have troops close by!
Like in Iraq.
A campaign worker for McCain has been let go for saying a terrorist attack on America right now would be good for them. Damn! Looking at the current state of the country, exactly what could a terrorist do to us? Are terrorists handing out BLT's to relief workers along the banks of the Mississippi? Are they banks foreclosing on homes? Are they FEMA telling people they didn't flood insurance only to turn around and say, you did?
The Bible people are almost beside themselves with the belief that all these natural disasters mean we are in the end times. The prospect of a black guy in the White House seems to be one of their four horse men of the apocalypse too. Or, we could all face reality and prepare ourselves for a readjusting and an eventual return to more sane times. But first, we have to hit bottom. That means putting regulations back in place on the companies that control the resources that have a direct effect on Americans life, liberty and the pursuit of our happiness.
Oil is going through the roof not because the "Arab's" are raising the price. It is the speculators on Wall Street who are creating an artificial lack of supply. Remember ENRON? California deregulated the energy business. ENRON, a company that didn't make energy but owned the power lines, jumped in the second regulations were lifted and made billions of dollars while whole cities were blacked out because there was a shortage of power "on paper." Same thing is going on now with oil. The richest one percent of Americans who had their tax's cut by Bush and friends, are now being given the legal ability to fuck their fellow, poorer Americans by artificially driving the price of oil up. The government regulations put in place to prevent just this sort of thing from happening were removed. Surprise! The rich people did not trickle down their record profits to the rest of us because of tax cuts. That is the lie they use to sell this crazy idea every time they do it. Even Bush's Dad called the economic their Voodoo. Instead, we have been getting a golden shower and being told we better learn to love it.
The weather has gone nuts because for the last 50 years we have been belching TONS of carbon into the sky. In the last ten years India and China have almost caught up to us in that department. The first effect of "Global Warming" is more frequent and more intense storms. Have you been watching the weather channel lately? A report that said this would happen has a 20 year old date on it's cover. NASA recently admitted that politically appointed staffers were directed by the White House to minimize reports on the effects of global warming. People still want to argue that blasting tons and tons of pollutants into the air can have no effect on the climate. Really? These are the same type of people who put Galileo under house arrest for saying the Earth went round the Sun.
These are not the end times folks, these are the consequences of what we have been doing. Or better put, this is the result of letting the people in power direct us into oblivion for the sake of making money.
Every time some one tells you we need less government so business can prosper, point to ENRON and now the speculators driving the cost of oil through the roof and ask them, how much is enough? Those regulations are put in place because people with a lot of power and money, tend to get greedy. Maybe you have noticed.
I have been so preoccupied with my own gloom and doom lately that I have almost completely missed out on the worlds gloom and doom.
Iowa is now one of the great lakes, the Philippines got hit with a massive storm and China is still dealing with the after effects of an Earthquake leveling an entire city of millions. Meanwhile, California reportedly has 800 separate wild fires going. Food prices are on the rise, gas at the pump is on the rise and tomatoes are the deadliest thing you can find at airports. Not terrorists.
The Taliban, by the way, had a prison break in Afghanistan. 400 inmates got out and have now taken over a town. Good thing we have troops close by!
Like in Iraq.
A campaign worker for McCain has been let go for saying a terrorist attack on America right now would be good for them. Damn! Looking at the current state of the country, exactly what could a terrorist do to us? Are terrorists handing out BLT's to relief workers along the banks of the Mississippi? Are they banks foreclosing on homes? Are they FEMA telling people they didn't flood insurance only to turn around and say, you did?
The Bible people are almost beside themselves with the belief that all these natural disasters mean we are in the end times. The prospect of a black guy in the White House seems to be one of their four horse men of the apocalypse too. Or, we could all face reality and prepare ourselves for a readjusting and an eventual return to more sane times. But first, we have to hit bottom. That means putting regulations back in place on the companies that control the resources that have a direct effect on Americans life, liberty and the pursuit of our happiness.
Oil is going through the roof not because the "Arab's" are raising the price. It is the speculators on Wall Street who are creating an artificial lack of supply. Remember ENRON? California deregulated the energy business. ENRON, a company that didn't make energy but owned the power lines, jumped in the second regulations were lifted and made billions of dollars while whole cities were blacked out because there was a shortage of power "on paper." Same thing is going on now with oil. The richest one percent of Americans who had their tax's cut by Bush and friends, are now being given the legal ability to fuck their fellow, poorer Americans by artificially driving the price of oil up. The government regulations put in place to prevent just this sort of thing from happening were removed. Surprise! The rich people did not trickle down their record profits to the rest of us because of tax cuts. That is the lie they use to sell this crazy idea every time they do it. Even Bush's Dad called the economic their Voodoo. Instead, we have been getting a golden shower and being told we better learn to love it.
The weather has gone nuts because for the last 50 years we have been belching TONS of carbon into the sky. In the last ten years India and China have almost caught up to us in that department. The first effect of "Global Warming" is more frequent and more intense storms. Have you been watching the weather channel lately? A report that said this would happen has a 20 year old date on it's cover. NASA recently admitted that politically appointed staffers were directed by the White House to minimize reports on the effects of global warming. People still want to argue that blasting tons and tons of pollutants into the air can have no effect on the climate. Really? These are the same type of people who put Galileo under house arrest for saying the Earth went round the Sun.
These are not the end times folks, these are the consequences of what we have been doing. Or better put, this is the result of letting the people in power direct us into oblivion for the sake of making money.
Every time some one tells you we need less government so business can prosper, point to ENRON and now the speculators driving the cost of oil through the roof and ask them, how much is enough? Those regulations are put in place because people with a lot of power and money, tend to get greedy. Maybe you have noticed.
Monday, June 23, 2008
"...if you are reading this, it can only mean one thing..."
I just told my friend about falling asleep inside my car with the engine running. She said, "What if that would of happened in a garage? You are lucky to be alive!"
I didn't get it for a second then hit me, people would of thought I committed suicide!
To avoid this situation in the future, I am preparing a suicide note now. This is tricky. It has to be worded just right. If I say in the note, it was an accident, people will read it and go, "How sad. He thought his whole life was just an accident."
I'm adopted. It is. But I don't mean that in this case.
Next idea; I didn't mean for this to happen. Again, even if I fall asleep in my car with the engine running and die, people will read this note and assume that I not only committed suicide, but that I was being dramatic. I think people already think that of me, but still, a suicide note should be short but epic. Will get back to this later on. I just think it's good to be prepared. I mean, I don't really own anything so I don't need a will. Anything I thought worthy of keeping is either already in my blog here or in a card board box at the foot of my bed.
To eliminate all possible chances of people assuming I killed myself when instead I was simply an idiot and natural selection bumped me off, you have to write something that sounds very dry and very specific to the situation.
If you find me slumped over against the wheel of my car and don't find any other note but this one, I didn't kill myself. I fell asleep at the wheel with the engine running. Sorry I was an idiot.
There are two problems with this.
1. Now I have to write a note for every possible stupid thing I have ever done that I might do again resulting in my death. I could write a hundred notes a day till the day I die and still not get them all down on paper. Note to reader; if found dead while writing suicide notes, it was probably old age and not any of the dumb things that did me in.
2. I have left a giant loop hole if someone wants to murder me. Besides, I don't want my last words to sound like a disclaimer. People might still think I did it on purpose anyway. There is no good solution to this unique problem. I sorta like the disclaimer idea though. It is very multi-purpose. I could die in any number of stupid ways. So maybe a disclaimer is the way to go. This is the note I am going to now keep in the glove compartment of my car.
Life was OK. Your results may vary. Inspector 68.
I think the inspector 68 is a nice touch. It doesn't mean anything, but it seems mysterious and kinda like those labels in clothes where it just says, inspected by number 12. People might think it was clue to a safe deposit box or the to the person that killed me or some final enduring mystery that will live on in chat rooms and Myspace comments. You know, what passes for eternity now.
The thing is, I really got to thinking about this. I think that if someone had found me slumped over in the front seat, people could make a good argument for me wanting to end it all. Don't get worried or sad folks, I would not exactly say I am great, but I am well and this is not a subtle cry for help.
Or is it?
Gotcha! Thanks for caring folks.
Seriously though. If people found you in that situation would they think it was an accident or you did it on purpose? Look, I know my life is crap. You know how I know? I get phone calls from friends with wives and houses and careers that I haven't heard from in a while. They all start out the same way. "Something terrible just happened to me and I knew if anyone could understand it, it would be you."
I am the Guru of shit.
Thanks friends. Maybe someday after a particular hard part of your life people will find you at the wheel of your car with the note, Life was OK. Your results may vary. Inspector 68.
I think I just admitted to having homicidal thoughts toward friends.
Watch it!
Just kidding.
So, after much thought (About an hours worth) here are two notes. One is for an actual suicide and one is for an accidental death.
1. Actual suicide: Thanks, thats been my time.
Classy, ha? If you find that note on me then you know I had enough. I 'got the light' as we say in the biz.
2. Accidental death: At exactly the same hour as my death, my X girlfriend will also pass from this world. I hope you are right, my beloved.
You have to love this! It's revenge on a beautiful scale. Dark. But beautiful. Lets think this through. Because of my preponderance for doing dumb things and the general bitching I do about the state of my happiness, there is a good chance an accidental death will appear to be a suicide. In the event of this, it will look like I left a note detailing a suicide pact. When people find her still among the living, they will give her a hard time and say, "Can you believe how cold she was? Making a pact with him and then not going through with it!"
I know. Its pretty evil, but you have to admit thats pretty good! I am thinking of pitching a whole new line of cards to Hallmark. Graceful exists, I will call it. No wait, better yet, a brand new type of fortune cookie to be distributed at your funeral! Yeah. You pick the message before you die and we will hand them out at the service. It could say something as easy as, It seemed like a good bet. Or, Spring Break 09! Think of the possibilities!
That could be one too. We could specialize in various jobs or occasions. I am going to look for a domain name in a second now. I think the site is a tomb stone morphing into a fortune cookie with these words bellow; Thanks for stopping by. Obviously you have figured out that you do some pretty dumb shit from time to time. Since death will be traumatic for those you leave behind, don't let them feel the extra burden of thinking you killed yourself. Pick one of our sayings for the appropriate occasion or write your own and we will put it in a cookie to be delivered any where in the world upon notice of your death.
Come on! Tell me that wouldn't be an over night success?
I didn't get it for a second then hit me, people would of thought I committed suicide!
To avoid this situation in the future, I am preparing a suicide note now. This is tricky. It has to be worded just right. If I say in the note, it was an accident, people will read it and go, "How sad. He thought his whole life was just an accident."
I'm adopted. It is. But I don't mean that in this case.
Next idea; I didn't mean for this to happen. Again, even if I fall asleep in my car with the engine running and die, people will read this note and assume that I not only committed suicide, but that I was being dramatic. I think people already think that of me, but still, a suicide note should be short but epic. Will get back to this later on. I just think it's good to be prepared. I mean, I don't really own anything so I don't need a will. Anything I thought worthy of keeping is either already in my blog here or in a card board box at the foot of my bed.
To eliminate all possible chances of people assuming I killed myself when instead I was simply an idiot and natural selection bumped me off, you have to write something that sounds very dry and very specific to the situation.
If you find me slumped over against the wheel of my car and don't find any other note but this one, I didn't kill myself. I fell asleep at the wheel with the engine running. Sorry I was an idiot.
There are two problems with this.
1. Now I have to write a note for every possible stupid thing I have ever done that I might do again resulting in my death. I could write a hundred notes a day till the day I die and still not get them all down on paper. Note to reader; if found dead while writing suicide notes, it was probably old age and not any of the dumb things that did me in.
2. I have left a giant loop hole if someone wants to murder me. Besides, I don't want my last words to sound like a disclaimer. People might still think I did it on purpose anyway. There is no good solution to this unique problem. I sorta like the disclaimer idea though. It is very multi-purpose. I could die in any number of stupid ways. So maybe a disclaimer is the way to go. This is the note I am going to now keep in the glove compartment of my car.
Life was OK. Your results may vary. Inspector 68.
I think the inspector 68 is a nice touch. It doesn't mean anything, but it seems mysterious and kinda like those labels in clothes where it just says, inspected by number 12. People might think it was clue to a safe deposit box or the to the person that killed me or some final enduring mystery that will live on in chat rooms and Myspace comments. You know, what passes for eternity now.
The thing is, I really got to thinking about this. I think that if someone had found me slumped over in the front seat, people could make a good argument for me wanting to end it all. Don't get worried or sad folks, I would not exactly say I am great, but I am well and this is not a subtle cry for help.
Or is it?
Gotcha! Thanks for caring folks.
Seriously though. If people found you in that situation would they think it was an accident or you did it on purpose? Look, I know my life is crap. You know how I know? I get phone calls from friends with wives and houses and careers that I haven't heard from in a while. They all start out the same way. "Something terrible just happened to me and I knew if anyone could understand it, it would be you."
I am the Guru of shit.
Thanks friends. Maybe someday after a particular hard part of your life people will find you at the wheel of your car with the note, Life was OK. Your results may vary. Inspector 68.
I think I just admitted to having homicidal thoughts toward friends.
Watch it!
Just kidding.
So, after much thought (About an hours worth) here are two notes. One is for an actual suicide and one is for an accidental death.
1. Actual suicide: Thanks, thats been my time.
Classy, ha? If you find that note on me then you know I had enough. I 'got the light' as we say in the biz.
2. Accidental death: At exactly the same hour as my death, my X girlfriend will also pass from this world. I hope you are right, my beloved.
You have to love this! It's revenge on a beautiful scale. Dark. But beautiful. Lets think this through. Because of my preponderance for doing dumb things and the general bitching I do about the state of my happiness, there is a good chance an accidental death will appear to be a suicide. In the event of this, it will look like I left a note detailing a suicide pact. When people find her still among the living, they will give her a hard time and say, "Can you believe how cold she was? Making a pact with him and then not going through with it!"
I know. Its pretty evil, but you have to admit thats pretty good! I am thinking of pitching a whole new line of cards to Hallmark. Graceful exists, I will call it. No wait, better yet, a brand new type of fortune cookie to be distributed at your funeral! Yeah. You pick the message before you die and we will hand them out at the service. It could say something as easy as, It seemed like a good bet. Or, Spring Break 09! Think of the possibilities!
That could be one too. We could specialize in various jobs or occasions. I am going to look for a domain name in a second now. I think the site is a tomb stone morphing into a fortune cookie with these words bellow; Thanks for stopping by. Obviously you have figured out that you do some pretty dumb shit from time to time. Since death will be traumatic for those you leave behind, don't let them feel the extra burden of thinking you killed yourself. Pick one of our sayings for the appropriate occasion or write your own and we will put it in a cookie to be delivered any where in the world upon notice of your death.
Come on! Tell me that wouldn't be an over night success?
Home
Nebraska was a surprise for many reason and in many ways. The people displayed a generosity of spirit I have never come across in all my years of travel in this country. When I hear conservative, I will understand now that they are not all alike. Hopefully, I have left a positive impression too. Norfolk, is America. It is the America you want to believe we are and the America you want to believe we came from. It is the three block main street and the people waving at each other. It is a church on every other corner, but it is also the pastures and fields I find what I imagine they must find in those churches. I like knowing that Norfolk is a real place with real people leading normal lives. The thought that families still farm is comforting in some way. Norfolk is the kind of town you can't wait to get out of when you are young. But it is also the town you can't wait to get back to. It explained a lot of why Johnny Carson was the way he was. His temperament and interview style was always patient, always sincere and never really about him. That was his great talent. I remember watching him over my dad's shoulder as a kid. My parents would leave their bedroom door open at night. I would sneak out of bed and stand just outside the open door in the hall watching the comics. I understood very little of the jokes, but I could hear my Dad laugh and knew that it was funny. This went on for years before I was old enough to sit at the foot of their bed and watch. Eventually, I watched alone in the basement den. Being there, in his home town and seeing what he came from, I thought about that memory again, watching him over my Dad's shoulder. When I did get a joke, I had to work hard at not laughing so I wouldn't be heard. I kinda felt like thats what the crowd was doing sometimes.
My favorite memories from this are not the big bright ones. They are the little moments when I was talking with Robert Mac in the back of the Bus on the way to the airport. It was having Dick Cavett tell me I reminded him in some strange way of David Bowie before turning away to someone else leaving me with my mouth hanging open. It was being on a hay ride with 20 other confused comics trying earnestly to listen to a lecture on watering crops and while fitting this moment into reality. Those were all great, but what really made an impression was the last show. I am not use to sitting still and watching stand-up. I fidget too much anyway. But on the last night, I sat in the audience and watched. People look so small from the crowd. But each person, some more polished than others, stepped out on the huge stage and filled it from their first word. It made me hungry to be on stage. It made me realize again how fucking cool it is to do what we do as comics. It made me want to go home and write jokes. Not long winded stories or bits that I could never tell on TV, but solid practical jokes like I was hearing now. That was the moment I realized I still have a creative level as well as a business level to reach. I thought I was creatively far along. Watching these other comics, I know that I am very very good, but I also know now that there is a lot more I can do with what I have. The joke, that short sentence of set up and punch, is still an amazing thing to watch when done right. I did feel like a lot of the delivery was very similar though. Everyone started to sound like they had the same cadence. If anything, I want to keep my delivery, but I can see where the tightly worded, beautifully constructed joke is the thing to aim for. Personality will take care of the rest.
I hate travel. Not the seeing new places, but the actual moving from one place to another part of it all. I love staying in hotels too. It doesn't matter if it is a big one or a small one. I know I have stayed in way too many though. Every knock at my bedroom door now I just say, "No thanks! Not today!"
It took all day to get back into San Francisco. When I finally made it, I found the rarest of things; a parking space directly in front of my apartment door! I wanted to do a set at the Punchline last night. I love coming home from a long road gig and stretching out in the living room that is the Punchline. Thats how comfortable I feel on that stage! I couldn't nap. I showered, put on what was left of my clean clothes and got in my car a little reluctant to let this space go. I thought about taking the bus. I turned the key, pushed the button for the radio to come on and thats the last thing I recall. The next moment a roommate was knocking on my window asking me if I was alright. Near as we could tell, I feel asleep right there on the drivers wheel. The car ran until the gas was gone and thats where he found me at 5:30AM this morning. Damn! I really need to take better care of myself. The dreams were crazy vivid. Those dreams you only have when you have been fighting sleep for hours. What I was thinking and dreaming merged seamlessly. One second I was thinking about the Greased Pig story and the next I was in a field with a shovel looking at an impossibly huge sun thinking, that is not the normal color. Then, my roommate beating on the window thinking something terrible had happened to me. I had to go to the nearest Gas station, wait for them to open and get gas before I could get coffee. After I filled up again and headed down the road to Starbucks, I got pulled over by a cop and given a fix it ticket. One headlight and a brake light were out. What! The car simply sat in a garage for a week. Excellent. Nothing like starting the day with no gas, waking up in the same clothes you had the night before and having a cop inform you that you must now spend money on a car problem or face a fine by the state.
How did your day start?
My favorite memories from this are not the big bright ones. They are the little moments when I was talking with Robert Mac in the back of the Bus on the way to the airport. It was having Dick Cavett tell me I reminded him in some strange way of David Bowie before turning away to someone else leaving me with my mouth hanging open. It was being on a hay ride with 20 other confused comics trying earnestly to listen to a lecture on watering crops and while fitting this moment into reality. Those were all great, but what really made an impression was the last show. I am not use to sitting still and watching stand-up. I fidget too much anyway. But on the last night, I sat in the audience and watched. People look so small from the crowd. But each person, some more polished than others, stepped out on the huge stage and filled it from their first word. It made me hungry to be on stage. It made me realize again how fucking cool it is to do what we do as comics. It made me want to go home and write jokes. Not long winded stories or bits that I could never tell on TV, but solid practical jokes like I was hearing now. That was the moment I realized I still have a creative level as well as a business level to reach. I thought I was creatively far along. Watching these other comics, I know that I am very very good, but I also know now that there is a lot more I can do with what I have. The joke, that short sentence of set up and punch, is still an amazing thing to watch when done right. I did feel like a lot of the delivery was very similar though. Everyone started to sound like they had the same cadence. If anything, I want to keep my delivery, but I can see where the tightly worded, beautifully constructed joke is the thing to aim for. Personality will take care of the rest.
I hate travel. Not the seeing new places, but the actual moving from one place to another part of it all. I love staying in hotels too. It doesn't matter if it is a big one or a small one. I know I have stayed in way too many though. Every knock at my bedroom door now I just say, "No thanks! Not today!"
It took all day to get back into San Francisco. When I finally made it, I found the rarest of things; a parking space directly in front of my apartment door! I wanted to do a set at the Punchline last night. I love coming home from a long road gig and stretching out in the living room that is the Punchline. Thats how comfortable I feel on that stage! I couldn't nap. I showered, put on what was left of my clean clothes and got in my car a little reluctant to let this space go. I thought about taking the bus. I turned the key, pushed the button for the radio to come on and thats the last thing I recall. The next moment a roommate was knocking on my window asking me if I was alright. Near as we could tell, I feel asleep right there on the drivers wheel. The car ran until the gas was gone and thats where he found me at 5:30AM this morning. Damn! I really need to take better care of myself. The dreams were crazy vivid. Those dreams you only have when you have been fighting sleep for hours. What I was thinking and dreaming merged seamlessly. One second I was thinking about the Greased Pig story and the next I was in a field with a shovel looking at an impossibly huge sun thinking, that is not the normal color. Then, my roommate beating on the window thinking something terrible had happened to me. I had to go to the nearest Gas station, wait for them to open and get gas before I could get coffee. After I filled up again and headed down the road to Starbucks, I got pulled over by a cop and given a fix it ticket. One headlight and a brake light were out. What! The car simply sat in a garage for a week. Excellent. Nothing like starting the day with no gas, waking up in the same clothes you had the night before and having a cop inform you that you must now spend money on a car problem or face a fine by the state.
How did your day start?
Carlin
We lost one of the greats today. George Carlin was the comics comic who made the crowd do what the best of us desire to accomplish; think while laughing. There are only a few comics who blazed the trail we take for granted. Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor and George Carlin. They were not just stand-up comics. They were philosophers who accurately spoke about the insanity around them. I always felt like Carlin was more an anthropologist with punch lines, than anything else. He would stay quiet for years and then blast back onto the scene with his latest observations on America. More silly than Hicks and more sane with his drugs than Bruce and Pryor, he defined not just a style that would be copied by many comics who came after him, but he took the risks and paid the price that allowed any comic to say what they want on stage in front of a live audience. I will admit to not being his biggest fan, but I always respected the man for his work and always felt like I owed him a debt of gratitude for making the English language we actually speak a living thing that he pulled art from.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
I'm Up!
Tonight I will not sleep. Instead, I will be alone at my key board updating my Facebook status every few hours in some misguided idea that I am reaching out. I will sleep on the bus that leaves here in the morning at 7:30. I will sleep in the airport and on the airplane and maybe through the next anxiety attack if I am lucky. I have stayed in so many hotels that I greet any knock at the door like it's the maid. "No thanks! Not today."
Can you put a do not disturb sign on your life? I think, I have.
How do you let anyone in when you have put all your energy into building your defenses? How can people you have vastly conflicting philosophies in life with be so kind to you?
Watching the inky storms light up from the inside and move past my hotel window as delicate as Bee wings has been a highlight to this whole unique adventure. Isn't that what life is suppose to be? Who said it? John Lennon? Life is what happens when your making plans? Or is it waiting for something to happen? I don't know.
Tonight, I saw the Booker of the David Letterman show give a bunch of comics advice in the parking lot of a HiVe grocery store before he got into a limo twice the size of my bedroom.
I saw Dick Cavott reminisce about a time on TV when there were no pre-interviews and go way long, freaking out the production staff. I saw Robert Kline tell jokes about the fallacy of the Iraq war. The crowd went dead quiet, too polite to ever heckle and then switch to dick jokes before doing a long musical bit with a piano to close on. It killed. Tonight, I realized we have become a society of narrators, obsessively updating our Myspace and Facebook status messages. We look down at our phones and keyboards and life passes us by as we tell no one and everyone that we are awake at four in the morning and craving cookie dough over human contact, but someone might find it interesting to know that, so I will type it into the correct box and it will neatly appear for all the universe to see and for no one in particular.
Dick Cavott gave the best description of depression I have ever heard. If there was a magic wand sitting ten feet away from you and you knew that you could wave it and all this sadness that sits on your mind would be lifted, you would feel like it was too hard to reach for it. That's it!
My plan is to just stay awake till the morning. I will try to sleep on the two hour Bus ride to the airfield. I will try to sleep on the two hour flight to Phoenix. I will try to sleep on the one hour lay over before I try to sleep on the two hour flight to San Francisco and what is, for better or worse, the life I have created.
You know what I want more than anything right now? I want to make out with a hot chick who is cool. Remember kissing? I feel like that is what people see stand-up comedy as; kissing. It is the thing you do on your way to the thing you really want to do. That is a metaphor that can go wrong quickly. Why the fuck not?
This is a photo of me at now.
If I could post all of this as an update I would. Someone might care to know that my mind is heavy. Or that I am in Nebraska. Or that I am thinking about making coffee with the little coffee pot in my room. Or that I have a million little things to do when I get back. Or that I bought a shirt at Wall-Mart yesterday against my better judgement. Or something that will make them send a pithy comment and we can both feel like we have made some meaningful contact at this late late filter free hour. I'm up!
Can you put a do not disturb sign on your life? I think, I have.
How do you let anyone in when you have put all your energy into building your defenses? How can people you have vastly conflicting philosophies in life with be so kind to you?
Watching the inky storms light up from the inside and move past my hotel window as delicate as Bee wings has been a highlight to this whole unique adventure. Isn't that what life is suppose to be? Who said it? John Lennon? Life is what happens when your making plans? Or is it waiting for something to happen? I don't know.
Tonight, I saw the Booker of the David Letterman show give a bunch of comics advice in the parking lot of a HiVe grocery store before he got into a limo twice the size of my bedroom.
I saw Dick Cavott reminisce about a time on TV when there were no pre-interviews and go way long, freaking out the production staff. I saw Robert Kline tell jokes about the fallacy of the Iraq war. The crowd went dead quiet, too polite to ever heckle and then switch to dick jokes before doing a long musical bit with a piano to close on. It killed. Tonight, I realized we have become a society of narrators, obsessively updating our Myspace and Facebook status messages. We look down at our phones and keyboards and life passes us by as we tell no one and everyone that we are awake at four in the morning and craving cookie dough over human contact, but someone might find it interesting to know that, so I will type it into the correct box and it will neatly appear for all the universe to see and for no one in particular.
Dick Cavott gave the best description of depression I have ever heard. If there was a magic wand sitting ten feet away from you and you knew that you could wave it and all this sadness that sits on your mind would be lifted, you would feel like it was too hard to reach for it. That's it!
My plan is to just stay awake till the morning. I will try to sleep on the two hour Bus ride to the airfield. I will try to sleep on the two hour flight to Phoenix. I will try to sleep on the one hour lay over before I try to sleep on the two hour flight to San Francisco and what is, for better or worse, the life I have created.
You know what I want more than anything right now? I want to make out with a hot chick who is cool. Remember kissing? I feel like that is what people see stand-up comedy as; kissing. It is the thing you do on your way to the thing you really want to do. That is a metaphor that can go wrong quickly. Why the fuck not?
This is a photo of me at now.
If I could post all of this as an update I would. Someone might care to know that my mind is heavy. Or that I am in Nebraska. Or that I am thinking about making coffee with the little coffee pot in my room. Or that I have a million little things to do when I get back. Or that I bought a shirt at Wall-Mart yesterday against my better judgement. Or something that will make them send a pithy comment and we can both feel like we have made some meaningful contact at this late late filter free hour. I'm up!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Nebraska! Part Three. Or; I'm Still Here.
Tonight, the eight winners will compete against each other for the five thousand dollars and the attention of Edie Brill. I am on the fence if I even want to go or not. I know, it seems rather small of me to not show up at the thing, but the idea of watching other comics do their thing from the sidelines is a little depressing. Frankly, if I could, I would be on the next flight home. Today we went to a farm. First it was a two lane modern black top road, then a narrow road and eventually just a dirt path to a clump of trees where a beautiful new house sat under shade. They had prepared a picnic lunch of hot dogs and burgers for us. Again, everyone was so kind and so polite. It was very sweet. It made me think of just how much we have lost living in the city. How much I take for granted and how much I just nod my head at as normal. Such is life. It was on the way to the calf feeding that we passed a barn holding an airplane that I really got an idea of just how lazy I am. You see, the guy who lives here with his family built it in his spare time. He has a wife, kids, runs a small family farm and when he is not busy, he built an airplane. OK. It's a small two seater, but it works! I have trouble building plastic models of planes that work. This guy built a real honest to God flying plane. God I'm lazy!
Sure enough, there were two calves afraid of us at first, but once they got close and we held the bottles out, they came right up to the fence and drank. They were shy, a little skittish, but warm and sweet with large brown eyes and friendly faces. I felt a little queasy knowing I had just finished two burgers and a hot dog. Then it was off for the hay ride!
I gotta tell you. Never in a million years when the Booker for the David Letterman show called, did I foresee being driven around on a flat bed trailer sitting on bales of hay listening to an explanation on water pivots. Pivots are the large metal things on wheels you see out in the fields. They turn slowly giving every part of the field just enough water. The real surprise came when I said, "Show us the marijuana!" The farmer turned around, bent down into a small patch of weeds and pulled up the unmistakable leaf that anyone can identify. It surprised a lot of us. It's not the pot you would smoke though. It's the male plant so it's lacking in any THC. It's just wild hemp. It just grows because it can out here. Makes you wonder why we don't grow it on a large scale for rope and clothing if it's so easy. Oh yeah, were America and crazy about drugs. They have no redeeming benefits. Right?
So there we were, sitting on bales of hay being driven across a cow pasture under a post card perfect Midwestern sky of bright blue and clouds that float like towers made of cotton. It's beautiful, but what the fuck does any of this have to do about comedy? Surreal is the only word to describe the feeling most of us were having. I am in the middle of a cow pasture in the middle of Nebraska and I am here to further my career in stand-up comedy? Yup. That about sums it up.
I do understand that this is a big deal for the town. The front page has been about us all week. The local radio is about us. They want to meet us and talk to us and feel like they have touched something outside their own small life. I don't say that with any big city sarcasm either. Their life might be small in scale to what I am use to, but it's quiet, clean and apparently you can build a plane in your spare time. It's sweet. Every where we go we are treated like visiting royalty. People wave at one an other and ask if we are one of the comedians. They want us to be what they think of when they sit down after a long day and turn on TV. The truth is, we are both a little surprised by each other I think. Small town America is not populated by toothless hicks and dumb hillbilly's. The people are well mannered, intelligent and more willing to help you than anyone I know in San Francisco. I feel guilty about the joke I do about there being nothing between California and New York. On the flip side of the coin, we are not all dressed in suits and quick witted with a willingness to listen and be a part of new things. For the most part, a comic is a solitary creature that wants as little contact with the audience as possible. Seriously. I know that might sound ridiculous if you are a crowd member or towns folk, but the truth is, we are odd people who are trying to make a living with an extremely narrow range of abilities. We want to be able to observe and then go report it on stage. At least I do. I don't want to be the center of attention all the time. So the hay rides and cook offs and trips to fossil beds, yeah, they are all great and I am glad that my sense of guilt propelled me to go on them, but sitting there today under a spectacular blue sky with hay getting in my pants making my ass itch, all makes the frustration incredibly surreal. I am holding a giant baby bottle as a calf drinks from it. Is this getting me on Letterman? A man explains to me the unique geo-chemistry that had to occur for these rhino's to be fossilized so perfectly. Do I put this on my bio when I try to get a manager? A waitress patiently describes exactly what Dorothy Lynch dressing is best on. This will get me on a season of Last Comic Standing? No. None of those things will. But I know that life experience does. Thats where all the best comedy comes from. I know this. I truly do. I am grateful for the adventure this has been but speaking for all of us that didn't hear our name called at the end of those shows, it's hard to get into the spirit of learning about small town life when you can stop thinking that I lost again and now I have to milk a cow.
Sure enough, there were two calves afraid of us at first, but once they got close and we held the bottles out, they came right up to the fence and drank. They were shy, a little skittish, but warm and sweet with large brown eyes and friendly faces. I felt a little queasy knowing I had just finished two burgers and a hot dog. Then it was off for the hay ride!
I gotta tell you. Never in a million years when the Booker for the David Letterman show called, did I foresee being driven around on a flat bed trailer sitting on bales of hay listening to an explanation on water pivots. Pivots are the large metal things on wheels you see out in the fields. They turn slowly giving every part of the field just enough water. The real surprise came when I said, "Show us the marijuana!" The farmer turned around, bent down into a small patch of weeds and pulled up the unmistakable leaf that anyone can identify. It surprised a lot of us. It's not the pot you would smoke though. It's the male plant so it's lacking in any THC. It's just wild hemp. It just grows because it can out here. Makes you wonder why we don't grow it on a large scale for rope and clothing if it's so easy. Oh yeah, were America and crazy about drugs. They have no redeeming benefits. Right?
So there we were, sitting on bales of hay being driven across a cow pasture under a post card perfect Midwestern sky of bright blue and clouds that float like towers made of cotton. It's beautiful, but what the fuck does any of this have to do about comedy? Surreal is the only word to describe the feeling most of us were having. I am in the middle of a cow pasture in the middle of Nebraska and I am here to further my career in stand-up comedy? Yup. That about sums it up.
I do understand that this is a big deal for the town. The front page has been about us all week. The local radio is about us. They want to meet us and talk to us and feel like they have touched something outside their own small life. I don't say that with any big city sarcasm either. Their life might be small in scale to what I am use to, but it's quiet, clean and apparently you can build a plane in your spare time. It's sweet. Every where we go we are treated like visiting royalty. People wave at one an other and ask if we are one of the comedians. They want us to be what they think of when they sit down after a long day and turn on TV. The truth is, we are both a little surprised by each other I think. Small town America is not populated by toothless hicks and dumb hillbilly's. The people are well mannered, intelligent and more willing to help you than anyone I know in San Francisco. I feel guilty about the joke I do about there being nothing between California and New York. On the flip side of the coin, we are not all dressed in suits and quick witted with a willingness to listen and be a part of new things. For the most part, a comic is a solitary creature that wants as little contact with the audience as possible. Seriously. I know that might sound ridiculous if you are a crowd member or towns folk, but the truth is, we are odd people who are trying to make a living with an extremely narrow range of abilities. We want to be able to observe and then go report it on stage. At least I do. I don't want to be the center of attention all the time. So the hay rides and cook offs and trips to fossil beds, yeah, they are all great and I am glad that my sense of guilt propelled me to go on them, but sitting there today under a spectacular blue sky with hay getting in my pants making my ass itch, all makes the frustration incredibly surreal. I am holding a giant baby bottle as a calf drinks from it. Is this getting me on Letterman? A man explains to me the unique geo-chemistry that had to occur for these rhino's to be fossilized so perfectly. Do I put this on my bio when I try to get a manager? A waitress patiently describes exactly what Dorothy Lynch dressing is best on. This will get me on a season of Last Comic Standing? No. None of those things will. But I know that life experience does. Thats where all the best comedy comes from. I know this. I truly do. I am grateful for the adventure this has been but speaking for all of us that didn't hear our name called at the end of those shows, it's hard to get into the spirit of learning about small town life when you can stop thinking that I lost again and now I have to milk a cow.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Nebraska! Part Two.
Competitions. Every comic hates them. Every comic does them. I am not moving on to the next round. It is the way to be seen and to meet other comics doing this crazy thing. I am not depressed that I didn't move on. Let down, sure. But it is what it is. I watched some really good people do amazing and also not get picked. I also watched some really good people in front of a crowd we would never ordinarily be in front of do great. All in all, everyone actually deserved to be there.
Here is what I am taking away from this. I don't really have an act. I riff great and I have some interesting stuff. But in all honesty, I don't really have a piece of material that says, this is me and this is what I am about. What I do have is also not "clean." At least not TV clean. What I talk about and how I talk about it is not TV comedy. That's not a bad thing, it just means I am not a TV friendly Dude in a business where you have to be on TV or parish. Wait. That is a bad thing then.
I have uploaded some stuff to the Internet and in time I will get more up there. Mostly, I am bummed that I am not taking home any money from this week. But I would like an act. I would like a definitive chunk of stuff about me that I could do on TV. In the mean time, I am going to keep uploading stuff to the Internet and start learning how to place it every where and any where in the hopes of building a crowd.
TV is undeniably powerful. I still get about two e-mails a day from people who just watched me on that episode of Last Comic Standing. Amazing! Less than six minuets of network TV generated so much attention. It's why we all go to these things. It's why we put ourselves through it. Every comic just wants the chance to stand in front of "His" crowd.
Here is what I am taking away from this. I don't really have an act. I riff great and I have some interesting stuff. But in all honesty, I don't really have a piece of material that says, this is me and this is what I am about. What I do have is also not "clean." At least not TV clean. What I talk about and how I talk about it is not TV comedy. That's not a bad thing, it just means I am not a TV friendly Dude in a business where you have to be on TV or parish. Wait. That is a bad thing then.
I have uploaded some stuff to the Internet and in time I will get more up there. Mostly, I am bummed that I am not taking home any money from this week. But I would like an act. I would like a definitive chunk of stuff about me that I could do on TV. In the mean time, I am going to keep uploading stuff to the Internet and start learning how to place it every where and any where in the hopes of building a crowd.
TV is undeniably powerful. I still get about two e-mails a day from people who just watched me on that episode of Last Comic Standing. Amazing! Less than six minuets of network TV generated so much attention. It's why we all go to these things. It's why we put ourselves through it. Every comic just wants the chance to stand in front of "His" crowd.
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