A Hole In The Head

It's Official...

2006-02-09T14:21:00.000-06:00

...I am now another myspace asshole. I only have time for one blog, so I'm shifting over to that one. MySpace is a clusterfuck of worthless interactions and jiggly visuals, but what little there is that's worthwhile may be enough to make up for it. I'll leave this up about another week.

One Year

2006-02-07T11:20:00.000-06:00

This Thursday, it will have been one year since I first got onstage. In that time, comedy has earned me damn near fifty dollars. Comedy has also been directly responsible for me getting laid even less than before. Not that I expected to just walk onstage, tell a few shitty jokes, and get a free pass to the post-open-mic orgies, but I am a bit surprised that there seems to be no such thing as comedy groupies (actually, there is, but she lives in Decatur). So, for those of you looking for a career that will provide you with wealth and plenty of hot young ass, be a priest. It's basically the same job, anyway - every weekend you stand in front of a crowd, say a bunch of made up shit, and fuck a 12-year-old boy in the mouth.

I realize now that I haven't done a lot of religious material over the past year. I have my opinions about religion, but I don't suffer the delusion that a few jokes will change anyone else's mind about that. I firmly believe that every American has the inalienable right to subscribe to whatever bullshit fantasy he wants, even if it provides barely a moment's relief from the tedium of his miserable, opinionated existence.

And I respect that.

Anyway, I'll be celebrating my first year as a shitty comic by violating everyone at the Jukebox before J. Scott Homan shows us why we all suck.

Back

2006-02-02T11:36:00.000-06:00

I went onstage for the first time in a couple months last week, again at the Jukebox. The crowd was small but responsive, and there were a few new guys in the "am" portion of the "pro-am" night. The pro spot was occupied by Tom Foss, whose energy (and appearance, sort of) reminded me of Robin Williams.

Glancing over this morning's headlines affirmed my heartfelt belief that the religious among us should be boiled in bat shit. Not because I don't share their beliefs but because they have no sense of humor.

On our side of the oil-slick, Xians - in observance of their long tradition of forming opinions and judgments without evidence - are complaining (what else?) about an episode of Will and Grace that hasn't aired yet.

Idea: Line up "people of faith" against a wall and, one by one, tell them a joke. Those who laugh, live. Those who don't...

Matt Hall, Bob J, and a bunch of douchebags

2005-10-08T09:26:00.000-06:00

First, I've activated word verification to prevent spam in the comments area (I'll hunt my own MILFs, thank you).

+

The twenty "strong" audience at the Jukebox's Thursday pro-am in Peoria hardly laughed at a damn thing. By the time I got up, I didn't give a rat's ass - partly because the crowd didn't respond well to most of the folks that went up before me, partly because I was tired, and I walked up there in a kind of funk. According to a friend who often comes with me to these things, the attitude turned out to be an unplanned step in the right direction. He's one of the three people I know whose criticism is always brutally honest and usually accurate, so I'll have to look at the tape and see for myself.

Matt Hall did the guest spot ahead of Bob J. Matt's been at this for several years and has a good stage presence and solid material, but the audience wasn't buying it for some reason, and finally he just snapped: "What the hell is wrong with you people!" He said this with a big smile on his face, and this got a laugh. "Gas is $3 a gallon dammit, now laugh at my jokes!" This also got a laugh. Maybe Matt and I both learned the same lesson. As Bill Hicks said, the act is something to fall back on when you have nothing to say.

Bob J may be the closest thing to Rich Little currently working. He may be better. He did Robert Plant singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," complete with Jimmy Page riffs. He did the entire casts of South Park, King of the Hill, and The Family Guy - all at the same party. I've heard enough Shaggy/Scooby Doo impressions to last a lifetime, but I have to admit that Bob J's were the best I've ever heard, and audiences never seem to tire of those voices, so more power to him. Even with all that, the crowd didn't put out as much as they should have for him.

Doug Stanhope will be there at the end of this month. I'll go if I have any gas money left.

No, seriously...

2005-09-27T08:05:00.000-06:00

When I said I was selling my television, I wasn't kidding. I informed my cable provider that this month's payment would be my last. Part of the reason is the less-than-stellar internet service, which costs just as much now - if not more - than it did when cable internet became available about 6 years ago. But mostly it's the fact that the vast majority of television programming is a waste of time. I knew that, of course, even before I made my first new television purchase two years ago (I did buy a TV back in 1996 when I lived in Japan so I could watch game shows where half naked women did dishes, but that was special). My intention was to use the cable for movies, PBS, and BookTV, perhaps the occasional documentary. BookTV was cancelled a few months back, PBS is avilable without cable, and the movie selection, even with HBO, blows monkey cock. With all the movies available on any given day, I have watched Boogie Nights three times this month.

In the past month I found myself vegging out to a show on alien abductions, one on Nostradamus, and another on psychic spies, and that was the History Channel. And while you might think a TV is necessary for all the "comedy gold" it provides, I've seen enough to have plenty of jokes for years to come - it's not like TV actually changes, and besides, most jokes about popular TV shows of any decade become hack very quickly. If I were George Carlin and could be pretty sure I'd beat everyone else to the small screen with that material, I might reconsider, but even so, there's something depressing about the fact that so many people watch crap that even hack TV jokes always have some currency.

CNN and FOX and every other news channel have been nothing more than frantic, incoherent versions of The Weather Channel for the last six weeks, as if nothing else required our attention. From the time drunks hit Denny's to when Larry King wraps up, it's hurricanes. How about the weather in Fallujah?

Bomby. Back to you, Wolf.

Then there's the sheer cost. I remember when cable was new - the idea was that you'd pay a small fee to watch programming without commercials. Now we pay for the privelege of seeing more commercials than ever. My TV, internet, and Netflix charges add up to over $1600/year, money I now need for gas.

Katrina

2005-09-09T15:11:00.000-06:00

I'm selling my television.

The Mexican army has sent people and supplies into Texas to help hurricane evacuees. That says something about our "Empire" when we don't have the resources to take care of our own. While the administration is busy fighting a "war" it can't win in the middle east, Americans at home suffer.

It's high time this country - and the world, for that matter - reconsidered its dependence on fossil fuels. It's not just gasoline. Plastics, vinyls, paints, and too many other products to mention are oil-based.

FEMA does not want the media showing pictures of the dead in N.O. When we're more concerned about our image than about the substance of our actions, it's time to roll some heads. The media treats Americans like babies when it doesn't show us the reality of what's happening in Louisiana, or Iraq, or anywhere else. How many times have you seen a news channel hype a "disturbing video" of a tragedy, disaster, or crime, only to announce that they will not show certain portions because they're "too gruesome?" It's so condescending and insulting I could scream. I'm not 12. I'm a property-owning, tax-paying American adult.

This country becomes more infantile and moralizing by the day. I only hope that the revolution begins before I die. I won't be able to watch it, as I won't own a TV, but it probably won't be televised anyway.

Sorry the above was void of jokes. Here's one:

If you're going to subject everyone around you to your cell-phone conversations, the least you can do is call a 1-900 number.

What would a real president do?

2005-09-04T09:29:00.000-06:00

So, the Louisiana Purchase is in the news again...

My thoughts on this whole Katrina mess are pretty well summed up by David Brooks. I will add that the media "coverage" yesterday was shameful - all the bobble-heads smiling and pointing out what a great job everyone's doing. That's the line the White House handed them, and that's the line they're regurgitating. Pussies. Yes, people are doing selfless and heroic deeds, but the spin being put on this is disgusting. Already the weepy montage is in full effect, complete with elderly, mostly black, faces in shock, babies, and plenty of praying and crosses. I watched Anderson Cooper yesterday imply, as did other "journalists," that it is the New Orleans residents' own fault they didn't heed the evacuation order. Hey Anderson, go stand in a hurricane.

This event was predictable, much of the suffering preventable, and now the American people - whose tax dollars will pay for this while they simultaneously get ass-raped at the pump - are being petitioned to send money, courtesy of Eric Clapton, the first of what's sure to be an endless line of Cause Rockers.

I saw a weeping woman two days ago complain that she voted for Bush and was disappointed that he didn't do enough fast enough, and she's right, but she got her $300 tax refund four years ago - I don't know what else she expected. Instead of feeding and clothing her kids with the money, she might have done what her illustrious born-again leader intended and put a downpayment on a bass boat. Or an ark.

Pam Anderson Roast

2005-08-22T04:50:00.000-06:00

Five minutes of Tommy Lee tit-fucking Pam would have covered everything the ninety minutes of jokes did.

Suckin' in L.A.

2005-08-15T13:38:00.000-06:00

Did the open-mic at the Comedy Store last night. Good news: they suck in LA, too. Black guys doing black jokes, gay guys doing gay jokes, unfunny guys doing insane meaningless ramblings - it's all here, baby. The sign-up process is totally retarded. People show up two hours early, but then the sign-up guy takes people's word for it as to when they showed. Guys who got there 15 minutes before sign-up made the list. Out of 40 max they choose 15, supposedly at random, yet you have to wait half an hour for this selection process to take place. One guy got up there and said, "I'm an actor, actually..." So what the fuck are you doing here besides eating up a comic's time, you self-centered cunt? Go do some improv. There were 15 comics and, when I went up second, 8 audience members. It had filled up a bit by the time it was over, but not much. The porch is crawling with lunatics and deluded types and talkers, talkers, talkers.

I find it very encouraging. There is no good reason why a funny person who isn't a dick can't take this business by the balls and make a living.

tell me a joke

2005-08-03T12:27:00.000-06:00

I emceed the weekly open-mic at Crackers in Broad Ripple last night. I don't think I've seen as many people go up onstage with no jokes before. One guy spent a solid two minutes setting us up with a story about picking up a black midget, asked us all to visualize - if you will - he and his other normal-sized white friend escorting said black midget by the hands to his mini-van then said: "You can probably imagine what happened after that," and went on to the next bit, which also had no punchline. At the end of his set, he left his cowboy hat on the mike for the next guy to find something to do with. At least two others went onstage with long-winded stories that went nowhere. Everyone has to start somewhere, and everyone bombs from time to time, but please, if you're going to get onstage for 5 minutes please for the love of God who does not exist tell one joke.

Jukebox Results

2005-07-30T09:28:00.000-06:00

I took third. The prize:

$45
a short guest spot on Friday, 9/2
a couch dance from "Tiffany" at Fantasy Land next door, courtesy of the three degenerates I took with me.

I went up first out of 10 comics, and the 1st and 2nd place winners were pretty good, so I am happy with the results. The judges were Travis Lipski, Brett Erickson, Matt Hall, and a couple folks from an area rock station and newspaper. Had I known three of the judges would be the same as the first round, I might have done some different material, but I went with what worked before, and it worked well enough again. The prize money will more than cover the cost of dry-cleaning my suit, which is now covered in glitter.

Crackers

2005-07-20T15:49:00.000-06:00

After last night's open-mic at Crackers, Matt Holt invited me to emcee the August 2 show. This will be my first emcee gig and my first 10-minute slot. I've done longer sets at my local music open-mic before, but I didn't time them.

Last night's set went well, and I got several compliments and handshakes afterwards, but as usual I spaced a couple lines and my mike-hand shook a bit. Luckily, according to all accounts, no one could see that. I would have sworn I looked like Michael J. Fox up there.

Last night before bed I listened to David Cross' It Isn't Funny, the first full-length show of his I've heard. I was surprised that I didn't like it more. I'm on Cross' side of the fence politically, for the most part, and he has a bit of a "cringe" factor, but for some reason his stuff just didn't nail it for me. He does a bit on electric scissors being advertised during The Simple Life, which is right up my alley, topic-wise, but for some reason I didn't find it funny. Then again, the CD is called It Isn't Funny, so maybe the joke's on me.

I think my problem with this CD is the same one I have watching Bill Maher - I agree politically but at the same time don't want to hear what I already think for an hour. One of my primary goals with my own work is to get outside the politics completely and see how ridiculous those arguments are when looked at objectively.

You know, in the grand scheme of things.

Which doesn't exist.

2005-07-17T15:35:00.000-06:00

The new web site is delayed for reasons that would bore you to tears, but it is coming. Until then, I'll continue posting my worthless thoughts here. Today being Sunday, I have no thoughts, not even worthless ones.

This week I have nothing but an open-mic at Crackers in Indy and Friends & Co. on Wednesday. Next week is Friends again and the finals at the Jukebox annual contest on the 28th. I'm looking forward to that - good crowd, newspaper and radio folks, a bunch of comics. Should be fun.

thin the herd

2005-07-15T21:04:00.000-06:00

moron 1
moron 2

It never ceases to amaze me how incredibly stupid we humans can be. Actually, now that I think about it, that's not true. It does cease to amaze. It's the stupidity itself that never ceases.

Now I know the native Americans have a high rate of alcoholism, but drinking half a case of "the Beast" before giving birth? Having a baby enter the world with a .21 BAC?

That's dedication.

As for the horse-fucker, I know bestiality is not as uncommon as we'd all like to think, but a farm that caters to these freaks? How much do you have to charge someone to fuck a horse to make it more lucrative than racing? And for god's sake, if you're going to fuck an animal, try one that can't kill you.

Fuck the cable company

2005-07-11T16:27:00.000-06:00

I just sent a letter to Mediacom telling them they have received my last payment. Frequent and inexplicable interruptions are the main reason. The second reason is that frequent calls to tech support and at least three visits from Mediacom geniuses have failed to resolve the problem. I hate talking to some "expert" on the phone who is unable to do anything but politely regurgitate page 87 from their manual. The third reason is that I have unlimited high speed access where I work, in my own office, so home access is a luxury anyway. And last but not least, the internet slowly but surely consumes too much time that could be spent otherwise. Reading becomes a toilet/bedtime activity. I've spent more time researching and ordering books online than I have reading them. The TV/internet total comes to over $100/month. Screw that. My contract is six months from completion, but my paying through the nose for shit I don't need and that pisses me off is over as of right now.

2005-07-09T14:15:00.000-06:00

In case you underestimated the extreme right.

What?

2005-07-09T02:57:00.000-06:00

How do terrorists - in a city that supposedly has devoted a lot of time and resources to identifying and monitoring such persons - manage to board several busses and subways and plant timer-activated explosives without anyone noticing?

2005-07-04T21:09:00.000-06:00

For the past 5 hours or more, kids on my street have been setting off their stupid but loud over-the-counter fireworks, threatening every house on the block with a roof fire and generally irritating the fuck out of me. Maybe their parents will get the opportunity to learn a lesson in natural selection before the night is over. It just supports my long-held belief that most people are monkeys who are easily entertained. On a related note: more evidence that the folks out in La La Land are thoroughly out of touch with reality.

In the interest of full disclosure, I myself got sucked into a program about UFOs on - of all stations - the History Channel, which over the past few years has spent more time on conspiracy theories and less time on history. I know comedy gold when I see it, and a subsequent web search led me here. And I have to admit I was intrigued by the video of the press conference available on the site. Not that any of the speakers presented any hard evidence that little gray men are among us, but they seemed like honest folks. If they aren't, every Oscar in every category in 2002 should have gone to them.

I have never seen a UFO or had my butt swabbed by lizards from another planet, so forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical. But I'm more than willing to believe they exist if someone could just provide one irrefutable piece of evidence. And I don't mean a cow with its ass cored out like an apple or an old piece of paper run through a Royal with lines blacked out. Show me a living, walking bug-eyed Kate Moss-looking freak from Zeta Reticuli already. I'm tired of this horse shit.

So I ordered the book. I felt a wee bit dumb doing it, but I justified the purchase by telling myself that it's a win-win situation. If the book turns out to be poorly written, unsubstantiated crap, I can mine it for comedy material. If it turns out otherwise, I can mine it for material that will allow me to write a conspiracy-theory book and go on Larry King.

Here come the jesters, 1 2 3...

2005-07-03T12:21:00.000-06:00

First, another dissenting view of Live 8.

The late Allan Bloom, in his The Closing of the American Mind, faulted contemporary pop/rock music concerts for luring audiences into what he called "the illusion of shared emotion," that heady sentimentality that permeates, say, a U2 show. What's illusory is not the emotion - music is emotional, even if it's sappy, self-righteous blather - but the feeling that it has meaning, a feeling that makes cause-rock events like Live 8 unbearable. Which brings me to the point of today's worthless post:

Rock sucks.

This is not to say there are no good rock and roll bands. I've seen them. I know they exist. But the bands that dominate the charts and video channels and bloated self-congratulatory festivals are not them. Most of the "rock" vomited up by pretty-boys with big label contracts is self-absorbed, self-centered, solipsistic, narcissistic [insert your own redundancy here] whiney bullshit that makes Motley Crue look like classic rock.

I turned 12 the year Reagan took office, and I'll be honest, I feel a little gypped. Yeah, the 70's had its overstuffed prog-rock titans (ELO, Yes), gooey pretty-boy bands (The Bay City Rollers), and disco, but at least the idea of Rock as a party was still in effect. In the 80's the party was surrendered to hair metal, and everything else was lame pop and whiney gay men from England's industrial towns. Like most teenagers in the 80's, I was sucked in. I even saw The Smiths. Twice.

The 90's were not much better. Say what you want about Nirvana reviving the genre, but we have Kurt Cobain to thank for all the tortured-artist posturing we've had to endure for the last 15 years, and in the end even he couldn't take it. This decade hasn't produced much that's very promising (with the exception, perhaps, of bands like Kings of Leon), unless some of the non-major-label acts I've seen can save the day (Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band, Bad Wizard, Broken Teeth...).

But I don't think it's going to happen, not soon. The culture has changed since 1980 in ways I've only been able to get my mind around in recent years (since I was just a polyester-wearing, pre-pubescent twit in the 70's). Anything and everything that seems a challenge to the status-quo is quickly absorbed by the market and sold as just another fashion statement. Rebellion is no longer something you do - it's something you listen to, something you wear, something you buy.

If you were hoping for a punchline, I'm sorry, I don't have one. Live 8 only serves to remind me what a corporate-driven culture we currently wallow in. Fuck Bob Geldof and his Rock and Roll fantasy.

2005-07-02T10:28:00.000-06:00

1. My new hero, David Stubbs.

2. The man behind the curtain.

2005-07-01T14:00:00.000-06:00

Brooke Shields just rose to the top of my MILF list.

I haven't been onstage since last Thursday in Peoria, though I had intended to go up at Friends & Co. on Wednesday - until I had a couple of gin and tonics and a Jager and said "screw it." I'm hardly a "bad drunk," but alcohol is obviously not my friend when it comes to writing or performing. I was never able to drink and write, which is probably why I'm not a full-blown 24/7 alkie. Today is the first day of a renewed attempt to get on the wagon and stay there. Besides, I just got my first ever property tax bill, which equals about 30 nights worth of drinks.

I am currently working on my seventh screenplay. They say that on average a screenwriter writes seven screenplays before selling one, and I hope that's true. I deserve to sell one and to be paid handsomely because I am a talented, funny motherfucker with a larger than average penis and a smaller than average salary. If any of you three is an agent or studio exec, you suck, but you can suck less if you do the right thing and email a request to read my stuff.

Tom Cruise, A-List Idiot

2005-06-28T09:13:00.000-06:00

If Gary Coleman had jumped up and down like a retard on Oprah, as Tom Cruise did last week, he would have been prescribed Ritalin. But Gary Coleman won't make it onto Oprah or be interviewed by Matt Lauer because, though he is also an idiot, he is not a good-looking A-list idiot who put his wee wee in Nicole Kidman's and Katie Holmes' woo woos. Tom Cruise told Lauer he "knows" psychiatry is a pseudo-science, which is a sure sign (as if being a Scientologist weren't enough) that he needs psychiatric care. Once again the American masses could see for themselves that talent and money are not immunizations against stupidity, and once again, they don't care. Right now thousands of high school girls are surfing the internet to "learn more" about Scientology, their woo woos stuck firmly to their desk chairs. Wait a minute, isn't the root of the word "Scientology" science? If you're going to subscribe to a religion wholly invented by a science fiction writer, try Christianity. At least Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's contributions to SF have stayed in print.

Just when I was beginning to think Stephen Spielberg had half a brain, he has volunteered that he is confused by the fact that there has been a decrease in video-documented UFO sightings since the 70's. I'm not confused - they don't exist. Yes, I've seen the video clips of alleged alien craft on TV. Yes, some of them look odd. But the only thing that confuses me is how video of UFO's is always fuzzy and dark while video of Junior hitting Daddy in the balls with a bat (Ha ha ha ha ha ha that one always kills me honey pass the tater tots!) is always crystal clear.

Fuck War of the Worlds. I'm through contributing to the bank accounts of morons with preferred media access.

One Giant Step Backward

2005-06-27T10:43:00.000-06:00

The Ten Commandments can be displayed on government land, sayeth the Supreme Court, but not inside court houses. Like most of the folks in D.C. these days, the justices came to a compromise. Isn't anyone willing to publicly tell the Bible-pounders that they cannot recreate the country, and everyone in it, in their image?

You'd have to be living in Star Jones' ass not to know that there is a very vocal fundamentalist minority determined to eliminate the separation of church and state and remake the United States according to their own theocratic wet dream. I have a theory about such people: they are not satisfied with life as it is, live in fear of not only what happens after death but also what happens in other people's homes and minds, and so devote their lives to altering it - through legislation if necessary. I've met a lot of religious people - Xians, Buddhists, Jews - and most of them are perfectly satisfied with their faith and practice regardless of what others do or think. Not so with these assholes, who won't rest until everyone conform to the morality dictated by their superstitious bullshit.

I have to hand it to them, though, their kicking and screaming makes for great PR. You want your 15 minutes of fame? Just piss off the evangelicals. Witness Robert Mapplethorpe, a merely competent photographer who made a mint when they bitched up a storm over his pics of men fisting each other.

In other news, the House has approved a constitutional amendment that would outlaw desecration of the flag. As usual, the conservative control freaks will argue that it is unpatriotic and offensive to burn a flag, while the ACLU will argue that such a law is an affront to freedom of expression. We'll be subjected to this tired debate 24/7 via the news, and we'll never hear a word about the real issue, which is: Why the fuck is Congress, whose ever-increasing salaries are paid by us, spending one second of time on this non-issue when so many Americans don't have health insurance?

Now we can look forward to endless coverage of hippies burning flags as a symbol of their inability to do anything worthwhile, like bathe.

"News"

2005-06-25T15:18:00.000-06:00

Here are the number of news segments that mention these stories: (from a search of the main news networks' transcripts from May 1-June 20).

ABC News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway":42 segments; "Michael Jackson": 121 segments.

CBS News: "Downing Street Memo": 0 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 70 segments; "Michael Jackson": 235 segments.

NBC News: "Downing Street Memo": 6 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 62 segments; "Michael Jackson": 109 segments.

CNN: "Downing Street Memo": 30 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 294 segments; "Michael Jackson": 633 segments.

Fox News: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 148 segments; Michael Jackson": 286 segments.

MSNBC: "Downing Street Memo": 10 segments; "Natalee Holloway": 30 segments; "Michael Jackson": 106 segments.

The Voice of Reason

2005-06-24T13:18:00.000-06:00

http://www.venganza.org/