The Bad Commercial

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

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

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

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

Tattoo You?

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Amendment. Good-Bye.

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

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

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

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

Republican Song

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

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

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

Irony is a Cluster Bomb

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

Show Biz

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

Not gonna fly

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

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

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

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

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

All In Our Heads

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

A Car Accident

I have a day job. I like health care and I hate the "road."
The other day, I am in the normal routine. A member and friend was sitting in my office talking to me. Then, as they say in novels, there was a great crashing noise! Any chance to break up the regular day with the promise of something that starts out with, there was a great crashing noise, I'm going with the great crashing noise story.
Thats what it was!
A smashup like I use to envision with my matchbox cars as a kid. Just a little past the intersection, a SUV was on it's back. Black, shiny, like a beetle upside down, broken window glittering on the pavement around it.
I ran directly toward it.
It only occurred to me latter that this had just happened. We literally heard the accident and now, seconds latter, here was the result.
After thinking about my boy scout reaction, I realized more than anything that I was just fascinated. My first impression was how still everything was. I never thought that about a car correct side up. It seemed like it should radiate cartoon like lines or something to imply the action that just took place. It didn't. Being upside down was evidence enough of what happened.
I bent down and placed my palm on the passengers door. It was hot. It had been in the eighties most of the day. Any car would feel hot if you laid your hand on it. This whole thing was so out of the ordinary that every normal reaction seemed heightened, reinforced by how not ordinary this was.
I tried the handle. It didn't budge. The roof was crushed slightly into the frame of the door. I went to the back door next. It opened. Everything was upside down. Seat belts hung in the air useless. The driver, a man whose name I never got, was on all fours crawling out. I remember not smelling anything. No gas, no engine fluids, nothing. I thought, that makes it safe. Right?
I looked around to see if there was anyone else inside the car. Nope. Then I backed away to the curb to see the man who just crawled out. His expression was human. Everything I have come to think of as mellow dramatic, eyes wide and mouth open in shock, this guy was doing. But I realized that what has made them so mellow dramatic is that I have only seen the expression on actors faces. I can't remember the last time I was around a situation where people made this face for real. This was real. This wasn't an episode of Law & Order.
His eyes were lost. You could tell he was getting all this information. It was going in, but he hadn't reacted to it yet. He was in shock. There was too much to process. People were yelling at him, "Are you OK!?"
No reaction. Just blinking.
A fire truck was pulling up. They were out of the truck and rushing to the upside down car at an impossible pace. A firemen yelled, "Don't move your head!" I assume he was talking to the driver. I thought, that is a sentence that wouldn't bring you comfort if it was a cop yelling it.
And that was that. He was unhurt. Not a scratch on him.
He had tried to beat the light. In doing so, he caught the edge of another cars rear bumper moving through the intersection. This seemed to abruptly pull his front tires in one direction. Being a small SUV, it was top heavy. True to all warning reports, it flipped over. The front door guard who saw it all told me latter the car flipped twice.
Amazing.
I felt like a little boy again. Is that strange? Like a lot of kids, I had matchbox cars and hot wheels, growing up. I honestly played with them a lot in a sandbox we had in the back yard. Isn't that sweet? Can't you just picture it? Me, in a tree shaded back yard, sitting in a sandbox making speeding engine noises and holding shinny little cars. They were made with actual metal back then. You could feel their weight and the sun made them warm when you picked them up. The wheels were real rubber too. None of this all plastic shit like now days. That made the cars more tangible to me. They had real weight. Real presence. The fine detail stood out. It wasn't blurred like it came out of some mold in a factory with the small parts not properly cut out. Even though it did. The molds were better then I guess.
I spent many summer days sitting there staging accidents on mountain roads. I would dig the sand into piles with a little shovel our father had left there for us. Once in a pile, I would use the side of my hand to smooth out roads that followed the contours of my pretend mountains. The sand that I uncovered was still cool to the touch. It had been hidden from direct sun by the benefit of it's depth. Using my hand to carve out the roads in a long slow gesture and feeling the cooler sand take shape under my palm was the most supremely satisfying feeling ever. I would make and remake these roads for hours.
You couldn't push the cars along the sand roads though. The sand was too loose and the wheels sunk in. I had to hold the cars just above the surface and pretend they were headed toward each other. It was going to be a catastrophe. On these mountain roads, twisting and turning, you had to be careful. It wasn't the accident I was interested in. It was the change from ordinary to extra so. Thats what every kid wants to see. Thats why all modern super hero movies end on a city street with spectacular collateral damage. The wanton destruction of buildings and cars is cool, but I think what we all like is how exactly opposite that scene is to our daily lives. Same thing with this car accident outside my work. It was different.
Later, alone in the office, I felt my hand tingle. What if it had been a broken bleeding body inside instead of a confused man crawling out? I didn't want to see that. My hand tingled because touching the warm surface of the car brought the vivid memory back of playing with cars in the sandbox. I could remember how contend it made me feel when the little cars were hot from the sun. They were hot like real cars got hot. If they shared that in common with real cars, it made them more real to me. Sculpting those narrow roads really was satisfying. The texture of the sand, the flow of my hand cutting into the mound, the feeling of individual grains compressing to the shape I saw in my head and the contrast in temperature all made sense. A kind of sense, in fact, I have not found as an adult.
Strange. A car accident brings on a memory from such a slender connection. We are wired in ways that are hard to navigate. I don't mind this one though. This one brought back the childhood sensation of feeling satisfied. Can you remember the last time you felt completely one hundred percent satisfied? I can now.

That Conversation again.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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!