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/

I win

2005-06-24T11:06:00.000-06:00

I advanced to the finals at the Jukebox, which will be July 28. Between now and then I will need regular oral so I can be relaxed for my set, and you can say you blew me before I became too famous to talk to you anymore.

In all honesty, the competition was young and/or unprepared, so I can't brag all that much. I tried a slower, better-paced delivery, moved around the stage more and felt like my performance was a large notch above what I had been doing previously. It felt good, even though I tried a brand new bit (not the "done thing" in a contest), and stumbled through it a little. But the vibe at the Jukebox is great and the crowd was cool, except for three people in the front row who looked like pissed-off vampires. Or maybe it was just the heroin they did before the show.

Tomorrow

2005-06-22T14:55:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is Round One of the annual amateur competition at the Jukebox in Peoria, which I am very much looking forward to. I'll spend the 6 minutes doing proven bits, plus one new bit that I am very pleased with and can't wait to try out. There will be a handful of working comics as judges, and the scoring is 50% audience response, with the other 50% divided into categories like stage presence, originality, etc. There will be eight comics, two of which will advance to the next round.

In looking over my set list, a few of the general topic areas seem hackneyed (NASCAR, Spam, "This is Bob"...), but I'm confident that my take on these subjects is original, and I've gotten laughs from these bits every time out. My goal for round one is to squeeze as many bits into the six minutes as I can without rushing. Some of my best bits are longer, say 3-4 minutes, and while they've worked in front of audiences also, I'll save those for subsequent rounds should I be lucky enough to get there. As I mentioned in a previous post, at least half of the comics at my first open mic at the Jukebox were abysmal - I don't mean just not getting laughs, I mean bad writing (or NO writing) and no attempt to connect with the audience. If that's the case tomorrow night, good for me.

But I hope it isn't. Good competition means a better set from everyone and a night of good comedy and high energy where the winners can feel like they really accomplished something. I'd rather go up against that than merely be the lesser of eight evils.

flix

2005-06-20T01:55:00.000-06:00

You have to love NetFlix - not only do they have Bill Hicks Live and the complete series of Alan King's Inside the Comedy Mind but also send the unrated/uncut version of Team America when you order it. My video chain would be zero for three this week if I had gone to them.

The Bill Hicks DVD features three sets - one half hour HBO special and two full shows, one in Montreal and one in London. There's a lot of overlap in the material, but both shows are enjoyable. I had to skip the Alan King interview with Robin Williams. In every interview I've seen with Williams, he never gets around to answering the questions.

The web site has hit a snag. Hopefully everything will get ironed out this week.

No Show

2005-06-16T00:08:00.000-06:00

No Springfield, Bloomington, Indy, or Peoria this week. I could have gone up at Friends & Co. tonight, but 9 people at a music open mic - all of whom have seen you perform half a dozen times - you end up just irritating them, usually. I do feel a little withdrawal though, and I'm psyched about the Jukebox competition next week. I spent this week ironing out that set and getting some good new stuff on paper.

Tonight was the first time in a long time I sat in a bar and didn't have a drink. It was good. Not as good as downing three Newcastles and a couple of Jaeger shots. But good.

The web site should be up in a day or two. The main pages are done and look great. The URL is http://dantessitore.com.

Jukebox Redux

2005-06-10T15:17:00.000-06:00

Last night's post was brief due to fatigue.

My great expectations for my first visit to the Jukebox were partly realized in that I got to get onstage there, meet a couple of good folks, and put myself on the list for the upcoming competition. In other respects - getting a large, enthusiastic crowd and seeing some killer comics - things didn't pan out. Two or three of the open-mic performers top the list of the most atrocious I have ever seen. This means nothing, of course, because any one of them could get their shit together and wind up making it some day. I won't name names (because I don't remember them), but at least two guys told jokebook jokes.

Really.

"Three kids go to a whore house - a white one, a black one..." you get the idea. One guy had a red-stained maxi-pad as a prop. I assume it was food coloring because this guy's set wasn't getting him near any vaginas. At one point he smacked his own ass and said "I'm a pad pad boy." I'd rather have my eyelids pried open in the front row of a Gallagher performance, my fellow droogs, than see one more minute of that.

But the most interesting set was Travis Lipski's. You might recall that I tied for first with Travis last month in Springfield at the Funny Bone monthly open-mic. At that show Travis turned out a damn good 6 minutes. He's got the angry-comic persona - raw, rude, etc. - and it works. He opened for Doug Stanhope at least once. The guy's gotten paid. Last night, however, Travis was clearly a little more inebriated. He pulled out two 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper and tried, unsuccessfully, to read whatever jokes he had scrawled on them. There were several moments of silence. There was slow blinking. It was weird. The one admirable thing is that, clearly, Travis Lipski doesn't give a shit, and if you want to be a comic, that's one quality you need.

Despite my fatigue, I couldn't sleep last night and ended up writing/editing a couple bits for an hour or more. I looked at the tape from last night and thought hard about exactly what it is I want to do as a comic. Most of what I've done onstage so far has gotten a good response at least once, but the material is inconsistent. Some of it is cast as short personal narrative even if the stories are not factually true. For example, one bit describes a girlfriend's trimmed pubic hair and segues into a criticism of "porn-fashion" and male vanity (body-hair shaving, etc.). The writing itself is good (toot toot), but while the male vanity bit is me, the little narrative is not - it's wholly fabricated and seems too rehearsed onstage. Because it is. I try to make everything I write multi-layered; even if it's rude or raw, there's a social or political comment underneath it. It's the "underneath" part that's off - my best writing is where that comment is closer to the surface, the impetus of the bit. You can't win an audience by preaching on issues (even George Carlin has once or twice fallen into that angry social critic pit once or twice and gotten fewer laughs), but you can't fake it either, burying the meat of an idea behind a facade.

The most interesting thing I've learned from doing this comedy thing is that you have to learn how to be yourself. Writing funny bits is fairly easy, getting to the heart of what you care about - and making that funny - is tough.

2005-06-10T14:34:00.000-06:00

My anonymous poster from last month has returned and posted two comments to my entry of 5.19 (see archive if you care). Here they are:

...

So now poets and comics have universal rankings, eh? You would not remember me, nay, for I was one of the "cast out" ...cast out from the Welter. Oh, the shame of it all! You even published a poem by Mario Rossetti, of all people! Why did Dorie Cohn's boyfriend get ink? "...the wind mocks her, as it actively manipulates her hair?" Yuk! How atrociously vomitous.

...

I am neither a stalker, nor would you want to shag me. But I am hurt at your lack of external validation, especially when you included two poems in the Welter from someone who had just started writing poetry. Excuse me now. I am crestfallen, and must weep.

...

I have no idea what the "universal rankings" comment refers to. As to the remainder of these comments - I edited the UB English Dept.'s litmag The Welter in 1989-90, maybe 1991. It was your typical undergrad mag from a small department in a small school. If half the contents were crap, and they probably were (including my own contributions), the work that didn't make the cut was crappier. In any case, it is now 2005. I can't place a face with the name Mario Rosetti either - that line Anonymous quoted is, admittedly, terrible.

What I can't figure out is whether Anonymous is deeply troubled or just trying to pull my leg.

Jukebox

2005-06-10T00:32:00.000-06:00

The bad news first: the crowd at the Jukebox for the Thursday Pro-Am was about 20 people, 11 of whom were comics. The good news: Dan the owner is a cool guy, and I got on the list for round one of their annual competition - June 23. Greg Lausch did a good half hour following the "Am" portion of the Pro-Am night, and he was also a nice guy. Next door at the strip club there were two midget strippers performing. If we hadn't had a 2.5 hour trek back to Charleston, we may have taken that in.

2 Nights

2005-06-08T12:40:00.000-06:00

I passed on Indy last night since I wasn't bumped up from the alternate list in time to justify the 2-hour drive. As much as I'd like to be onstage every night of the week - it's just not possible when your home is at least 90 minutes from every stage, and most open-mic's fall on the same weeknights. Tonight will be my fifth trip to the Springfield Funny Bone open-mic, which is monthly, and tomorrow will be my first trip to the Jukebox in Peoria, which I have a hunch is going to be a good time, regardless of how I do. The guy I met in Indy last week is Joey Kirkman, who, if my Google results are correct, is Todd Yohn's manager as well as a comic. His email to me (get ready for shameless whoring):

"I would call him [Dan at the Jukebox] about the competition coming up. You are better than what I saw Thursday night. Much better."

The headliner this week (6/9 - 11) is Greg Lausch, who just happens to be from Baltimore (I grew up near Annapolis and went to school in "Charm City"). I don't know Greg Lausch or what the Thursday night Jukebox crowd is like or what to expect, but I'm looking forward to it.

Looks like the new web site will be a few more days in the making - just tweaking the look, getting photos together, etc.

New Site

2005-06-06T21:27:00.000-06:00

The site should be up soon - dantessitore.com - There's nothing there now so don't bother going just yet. I'll keep the journal there and retire this blog.

On the Road

2005-06-05T11:24:00.000-06:00

I'm on the alternate list for the Crackers open-mic Tuesday - hopefully someone will cancel so I can get bumped up, otherwise I might skip it. Wednesday is the Springfield Funny Bone and Thursday the pro-am at the Jukebox in Peoria. Springfield is the closest at 90 minutes, so I'm in for some serious driving this week if I do all three: 6 hours of road for 20 minutes of stage. As long as I get some good sets on tape out of it, I don't mind - otherwise I'll just be spinning my wheels, literally. Gotta make it count.

Indy 5.31

2005-06-01T17:13:00.000-06:00

Got a great response last night at the Crackers open-mic. I finally got a set on VHS, which means I can convert it easily to digital and post it on the new site, which is in the works.

Met a guy whose name I've forgotten (I suck) who is opening for Todd Yohn at the Jukebox in Peoria this week. He was very complimentary and encouraged me to head up there for their open-mic, which I did not know they had. The Jukebox is something of a landmark as Richard Pryor is from Peoria and worked there in his early years.

I mentioned before that I don't see the attraction in bad-mouthing other comics, but when someone is an asshole to other comics during his set, I think it bears mentioning. I've been to Crackers in Broad Ripple three times, and three times I've seen the same comic begin his set by criticizing the previous comic. The asshole in question is Luke Fair (sp?), and last night he took the mike and tried to make a joke about the previous comic's reference to Steve Austin, The Million Dollar Man: "Know your audience dude. They think Steve Austin is [blah blah blah - some reference I didn't get]." Then he tells us all he's moving to New York (pregnant pause) "CI-TY." He had no joke for that but simply segued into bashing his home state of Indiana and everyone in it. You can do that, of course - New Yorker/LA'er jokes are as old as NY and LA, but you need a glimmer of humility and empathy to pull it off, and Luke Fair hasn't figured that out yet. I sincerely hope he does. I applaud anyone willing to make the move to start a career, but I'm willing to bet NY audiences are likely to be less forgiving of arrogance.

As it turns out, the woman who made a backhanded comment - onstage - about my set last month is Luke Fair's girlfriend. She likewise has an arrogant persona onstage, which could work if there were at least a little crack in the facade, but there ain't.

End of rant.

Tonight is Weedeater at Friends & Co. here in Charleston. I have yet to see these guys, but I understand they are very loud and very nasty.

sha na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye

2005-05-31T10:23:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow, June 1, I am going on the wagon.

I have never considered myself an alcoholic in the addicted sense - drinking every day, blacking out, waking up as someone's prison bitch - but I've spent all but one of the last fifteen years drinking like a college student at least once a week, and it's time to pack it in. Even though I exercise regularly, which helps a lot, my body doesn't recover like it used to. The day after a night out is a fog - very little gets done or written. I'm 36 and don't have time to be a zombie if I want to take this stand-up thing to the next level. And the next time I say "take [something] to the next level," please do me a favor and throw a shot glass at my head.

The other issue is money. I live in a town where you can get a good buzz on for $20, but it adds up, and now that I a) own a house, and b) drive anywhere from 90 minutes to 2.5 hours at least twice a week to get onstage, my income simply can't finance unnecessary habits.

So, done.

This afternoon I'm making the haul to Indy to do the open-mic at Crackers (Broad Ripple Village). I will only get one slot, possibly two, in June, then a few in July. That plus a monthly set in Springfield and a weekly set here gives me only a handful of opportunities to get good sets on tape so I can begin trying to get paid for my efforts. I don't plan on being an open-mic'r any longer than it takes to polish at least half an hour's worth of material, and I'm confident I'll do that by year's end. 21-year-olds have the luxury of dropping everything, moving to New York, and bombing for five years. I don't.

The Good, The Bad, and the Indifferent

2005-05-26T09:54:00.000-06:00

I wrote before about the benefits of doing different kinds of open-mics, not just comedy club open-mics. There are disadvantages, too, like doing a set in front of 9 people, 6 of whom are not paying any attention, as I did last night.

Star Wars

2005-05-23T17:25:00.000-06:00

Good news: with the release of Star Wars Episode III, the franchise is officially over (at least until Lucas remasters the films for DVD, filling in every corner of every frame with even more spaceships going nowhere).

I was - and still am - a fan of the original Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back. Return of the Jedi had too many teddy bears. If you think Episodes I and II were good, please feel free to email me and offer to eat my ass. If only Lucas had hired someone who can actually write dialog that didn't make me want to affix my earlobes to my temples with a staple gun, things might have been better.

Episode III is leagues beyond those two, but it has another problem - too much digital. The irony is that bazillions of dollars worth of animation technology does not make everything look more real; it makes everything look too fake, too slick, too clean. Every exterior shot features hundreds if not thousands of ships, droids, and goofy aliens, to the point where the effects cease to have any, well, effect. Remember that lone starcruiser in the opening shot of the original? That was cool. 305 of them is just overkill.

Trinkets...

2005-05-23T00:34:00.000-06:00

I mentioned Jim Norton's Trinkets I Own Made from Gorilla Hands in yesterday's post. Here's a full review:

Buy it.

This CD was recorded at The Stress factory in NJ in late 2003, when the D.C. snipers and the French heat wave were news and Christopher Reeve was still alive. Norton takes shots at Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sufferers, "ethnic pride," current TV sitcoms, Cosmo magazine, and white people who say the N-word, among others.

"How does a show like Friends become the #1 show in the only country to have dropped a nuclear weapon? You know what Friends episode I want to see? When Charles Barclay kicks the door down, throws acid in their faces and tea bags them. Then Kobe comes in and rapes everybody."

I'll be ordering Yellow Discipline promptly.

"Fat Pigs Deserve to Cry"

2005-05-21T10:28:00.000-06:00

My title for today's post is what's scrawled in the cartoon that serves as the disc art on the new Jim Norton CD I just received in the mail, Trinkets I Own Made With Gorilla Hands, and I agree wholeheartedly. Now before you go rolling your eyes at my "sexist, size-ist comments," please know that I am not contemptuous of all fat people. I had an aunt who smoked, drank, and hustled pool, who was fat and knew it and flaunted it and didn't give a shit, and that's fine. If you're that kind of fattie, you go girl.

If, however, you're one of those young, in-denial fatties who displays your mid-riff despite the fact that you appear to have just eaten a bag of road salt, who carries a little tiny handbag with little tiny straps that gets lost in the oatmeal cookie dough you call an armpit, who secretly resents the fact that your hot friends get laid, this tale's for you, so listen up.

First, a little background: I teach freshman English, which is a euphemistic way of saying I am currently banging a 20-year-old bottle-blond. Let's call her "Katie," since I seem to have at least three Katies in every section I teach these days.

SIDEBAR: If you're over 18 and still like to be called "Katie" instead of your given name of Katherine or Kathleen, please stop. Your given name is much sexier. If you sign your name, "Katie," with a little heart over the "i," please set yourself on fire.

So Katie was back home with her folks for a few weeks, which is a euphemistic way of saying I wasn't getting any during that time, and just got back to town this past Thursday while I was at the Bloomington FunnyBone telling tasteless Michael J. Fox jokes. I knew I'd find her at Friends & Co. sipping a double white russian when I got back to town, and I did. Katie is one of those rare young women (but not too rare, thank god) who is smarter than her years and, in this case, can actually write. You wouldn't know it looking at her calf-high suede hooker boots and mini-skirt which would more accurately be called a belt. I know that sounds like a load ("I think that stripper really likes me!"), but trust me, at 36 it takes a bit more than T&A to get me aroused.

Katie insists that, before I take her to my place to T-bone her on my giant red porn-ready sectional, we drive to her apartment so she can grab a pair of gold-flecked high heeled shoes because they "will so totally match the decor." So, like an idiot, I did and passed at least three police cars in the process, but we made it back to my place sans DUI. Having been up for more than 20 hours, I was unsure of my stamina, so first I treated Katie to a good fifteen minutes with the vibrator (the motor died months ago, so it's actually a dildo with a screw cap) then T-boned her on the bed, which the heels did not match at all, a fact Katie was quick to observe.

CUT TO:

"My boobs hurt." Gentlemen, there are two reasons why a woman would say this: 1) new, bad bra, and 2) pregnant. Oddly enough, Katie had a new, bad bra she was showing off that night, so I told myself that was the cause and continued, adjusting my nipple-tweaking accordingly.

CUT TO:

INT. FRIENDS & CO. - LAST NIGHT

"I have to talk to you." You can probably see where this is going, so I will cut to the chase. Katie's fat friend has laid the whole I'm-so-happy-for-you, Can-I-be-the-godmother, But-it-has-a-heartbeat trip on her because she is one of those women for whom pregnancy is the only thing that will justify her fat stupid existence, who dreams of being a "soccer mom" and dropping a screaming, pink tax-credit from her big, floppy vagina every nine months, who will no doubt grow up to be fat stupid Christians.

Before you recoil in horror at that one, please also know that I am not anti-religion. I am, however, against people who project their insecurities, fears, and resentments onto others under the guise of faith because they're fat and can't bring themselves to either do something about it or go with it, and I wish some professional psychologist would write a book on this particular type of chubby vampire.

Luckily, Fatty's protests are in vain, and I won't have to make her cry. Katie and I are on the same page about this, and I'll probably be chauffeuring her on the appointed day later this week.

CUT TO:

The Moral of the Story:

Buy a vibrator.

Bloomington 5.19

2005-05-20T09:41:00.000-06:00

Last night was the final College Night at The Bloomington FunnyBone till September, and I turned out a good 5-minute set, as did the rest of the open-mic folks who went up ahead of Ty Barnett, the headliner. A crowd of 150 is easier than a crowd of 15 any day of the week. I pulled the mike out and - voila - no jitters. Then I yanked out my poem sheet and, damn, shaking. But this time I was prepared and told the audience I was just working out my Michael J. Fox impression, which earned me the loudest, unanimous groan I have ever heard.

It was great.

Ken Jr., whom I saw his first time onstage in Springfield a couple months back, was much improved already and really had some good structure to his set. A guy I've seen three or four times now and whose name I cannot remember for the life of me also did well. He reminds me of Mitch Hedberg but with a slightly angrier edge to his delivery. Greg Larson wrapped it up, and it was on to Ty, who killed for most of his set.

Driving home, it occurred to me that if I get my usual class schedule in the fall I will miss these Thursdays. This morning I shot off an email to my department chair asking for earlier sections. I felt like a whiney ingrate for doing so - this is the easiest and best teaching gig I have ever had - but I really do not want to miss those Bloomington shows. Besides, the waitress in our section was a very sweet and very striking young woman named Bambi. And that alone is worth the drive.

And you are...

2005-05-19T12:21:00.000-06:00

One thing about the internet that's both wonderful and somewhat disturbing is that it allows people from your past to find you and leave anonymous comments on your web site. I've left anonymous comments on a couple of the blogs I frequent, but not when I was personally acquainted with the blogger. Short, anonymous comments that include details to let you know that the poster knows you make you wonder if the poster is being sarcastic, is someone who has always hated you, or just needs a thorough shagging. All of the above might make it interesting.

In any case, my anonymous commenter, I cannot place a face with the name Dorie Cohn to save my life, but I remember Denise Fair very well and recall hearing that she had published a book some time ago.

A Google search turned up one weblog at Holland College and a book on sexual abuse recovery but no photos or anything that would confirm it is the same Denise Fair with whom I took an undergraduate writing shop at the University of Baltimore some 16 or 17 years ago, where I also edited the campus lit mag for a year and, yes, sent Lyn Lifshin's poems back to her on more than one occasion, so drunk was I with editorial power.

I recall that she sent at least a dozen pages, folded separately, smudged, and falling apart at the creases. When I asked her to limit her submissions to five pages that were actually readable, she did the same thing again. Of course, hate mail was in order. I don't recall what I wrote, but we didn't get any more work from her.

I've put some dumb things in print in my life - a few of which I hope no one kept - as well as some not-that-dumb things, but I usually put my name to them. I invite "anonymous" to do the same.

Summer, College Town

2005-05-19T03:41:00.000-06:00

After waiting an hour after the usual start time to see if anyone would sign up, I did my MC set to about 12 people. I recorded the set on a four-track, and while my voice sounds good, I'll have to paste in some cheers and applause from a Denis Leary record, or maybe Kiss Alive II. I didn't even bother with the video. Not a minute after I stepped down, another dozen strolled in, all smokin' hot chicks.

Of course.

I'm on the list in Bloomington tomorrow. It will be their last show till September (college town). I really want to do well there because the owner fills his opener/feature slots on the weekends with guys from his open-mic's. Doing well there means doing it reasonably clean, unfortunately, but I'll take that as a challenge.

Lenny

2005-05-18T20:23:00.000-06:00

Watched the Lenny Bruce documentary Without Tears the other day. Believe it or not, I had never seen Lenny Bruce perform before. I'd heard some audio clips, but that's it. The great thing about his early years is how personable he was on stage even when challenging the social conventions of his time with his material. He would come on in his neat black suit, all smiles, and attack.

a few things...

2005-05-17T08:59:00.000-06:00

1. Clothes Make the Asshole.
I found myself reviewing my last few sets again and still flip-flopping on whether I should wear a suit onstage, and right now I am writing about my self-consciousness on the internet like a fat chick without a prom date.

So yesterday I went to Tuscola to an outlet mall frequented by soccer moms dragging around their fat-ass bratty spawn and bought two decent but inexpensive suits. If I'm going to say "cunt" in front of strangers, I might at least look good doing it.

2. Clean vs. Dirty.
I don't always say "cunt." In fact, about half of my material doesn't even contain much, if any, foul language, though most of it is probably offensive to someone in terms of content. The distinction between clean and dirty has always been blurry to me. When Jim Norton says, "It's not rape if she blinks twice for yes," is that clean or dirty? The implications are obviously X-rated, but the language is not. I don't think about clean/dirty when writing. I think about funny. Or pussy.

3. Trash Talking
Why do some comedians feel compelled to trash talk other comedians onstage? I've seen this happen three or four times since I started in February. One time it was a not so thinly veiled jab at one of my own bits. Good - at least they were paying attention. On another occasion a guy poked fun at another guy as he was getting off stage. Recently, a guy at an open-mic opened with "And the crap fest continues."

Thanks man 'preciate it.

I've seen at least three different comedians blow shit at the Blue Collar crew, particularly Larry the Cable Guy. Don't get me wrong, I don't care for their brand of humor either, and frankly I fail to understand how Bill Engvall strikes anyone as funny. But I don't feel the need to use my precious few minutes of time onstage to trash anyone who's actually made it. It ain't easy. I have other material I want to do, like aliens abducting the Olsen twins and making them play "tickle the taco."

4. Whoopi
If you haven't caught Whoopi Goldberg's Back to Broadway on HBO, do it.

"I am Rourke, your host..."

2005-05-15T14:32:00.000-06:00

...welcome to Rape Fantasy Island. I will be hosting the Friends & Co. open-mic this Wednesday and, hopefully, making professional audio and video recordings of the set, which I hope to post on a new web site this summer.

For those of you who are looking for more stage time, I highly recommend you find a music open-mic in your area. There are several advantages to this:

1. Most comedy club open-mic's give you 3-6 minutes, max. Music open-mics generally give performers three songs/ten minutes, whichever comes first. If you're getting laughs, no one will mind you being up there for ten minutes or more.

2. In my (admittedly limited) experience, comedy club audiences are attentive and reasonably well-behaved. This is not true at rock and roll bars, where often the only ones paying attention are the other musicians, some of whom are just being nice until it's their turn to show off. Everyone else is drinking and talking. Why is this an advantage? If you can get laughs out of that crowd then you're accomplishing something.

3. At comedy clubs you're going up with anywhere from three to a dozen comedians. Even if you're funny, people will forget your name and most of what you said - your performance is buried in a blur of 5-minute performances. If you do even a barely competent job of getting laughs at a music open-mic, you will be a welcome change of pace, "the comedian," and before long folks will show up just to see you (it may be only three people, but hey...).

4. There's a sound board and a guy who knows how to use it - you can tape all your sets free of charge and build up a demo CD or tape. Comedy clubs often will offer you an audio or video tape of your few minutes but charge you $10 for the privelege.

5. If you're friendly and show up every week, sooner rather than later you may get the opportunity to host the thing.

6. Last but not least, unless you're doing an early evening open-mic at a coffee shop, there are no restrictions on language/material. If your stuff is R-rated or above, you can let her rip.

So quit your whining about not getting enough stage time and make your own stage time. A microphone and a stage is a microphone and a stage. Rock it.

Tape Doesn't Lie

2005-05-13T13:37:00.000-06:00

Just watched the tape of last night's Bloomington set. Below is the set with laughs ranked on a scale of 1-3 "*":

Mr. Clean's Evil Twin**
NASCAR***
The Bears [forgot this joke!]
Poem: "Meth"***
Rock & Roll Sucks*
Poem: "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll"***
The Grateful Dead Box Set**
Hippies**
Poem: "After the Frat Party"***

First of all, I have to get my appearance/presentation in order and consistent. I've tried the casual untucked look, the suit, and the t-shirt/jeans/denim jacket. I think the plain tee with jeans (that fit) is the way to go, sans jacket. My material is not Leno or Seinfeld, and while I think I look good in a suit, that doesn't feel right. Tees with logos or rock band names or silly phrases are something I never wore in the first place, and at 6'3" and 230 lbs., they would be obnoxious and distracting anyway. Besides, I always think comics who wear Blink 182 shirts are working too hard to advertise how cool they are.

I did an all right job with the delivery, and it was tighter than in previous sets, but it's still inconsistent and a bit wordy. I need to think about my facial expressions/attitude when switching gears between bits and poems. I didn't take the mike out of the stand because in Springfield on Wednesday my hand visibly shook despite the fact that I didn't feel nervous, and I wasn't about to risk that in front of 200+ half drunk students. The problem: I made one quick attempt to adjust the stand and failed, so I was hunching a bit over the mike. This accentuates my neck fat very unflatteringly.

I flubbed a couple lines but not in a way that anyone would notice. I forgot my Chicago Bears joke entirely. The new material (Rock and Roll Sucks) needs fleshing out. Despite all this, the response was positive, and afterwards at least twenty people (several with very impressive racks) came up and complimented me on my set. I've only been doing this since February and have been on stage a grand total of a dozen times, so... so far so good.

Bloomington

2005-05-13T01:17:00.000-06:00

Did the open mic ahead of Full Impact at the Bloomington, IL Funny Bone tonight. My set went well (I did a couple minutes of brand new stuff and a new opener). The 200+ crowd of ISU students was great, and I was reminded why I wanted to get into stand-up in the first place - a room full of smoking hot ass. Greg Larson organized the open mic. Cool guy.

I have to say that the guys in Full Impact are pretty damn good, though it's not the type of show I'd drive for if I wasn't already in the room - musical numbers, etc. Tim Kaminski is one of those "seasoned veteran" comedians who really knows how to work an audience, and I laughed at his stuff the most, but the only bit I remember well is Having Fun With Cops, which alone is worth the price of admission. Steve Kramer, the youngin', did great impressions and played all the music. I haven't heard an impression bit that made me howl since Eddie Murphy's "Delirious," but I'm always in awe of people who can do them well. It's a skill I don't have.

All in all, it was a fun night, and I'll go back next week, which will be that FB's last show till September.

1 Night

2005-05-12T01:10:00.000-06:00

Tied for first place with Travis Lipski at the Funny Bone (Springfield) open mic tonight and won my gas money back. Once again, the poems stole the show. I did the Evil Dead II bit, and that went over like a passenger jet on 9/12. Word of advice: most audiences over thirty in the midwest haven't seen that movie, so unless you're prepared to do a lot of set-up, don't expect a big response to any bit based on that.

I forgot to pay my tab before driving back to Charleston through one hell of a rain storm and doing the same set in front of 12 very unappreciative fucksticks in my own town. For the second set I added new bit on cop shows that I thought worked all right and got three laughs. I'm hosting that one next week, so they'll pay.

In Springfield, one guy got on stage and took his clothes off then put on a fake beard and hat and mumbled incoherently in (lame) black voice for five minutes. For a closer he said "cock fuck bitch nigger" and walked off to dead silence. Either he lost a bet or has balls the size of Mars. Either way, he got nothing. There was a good crowd and about ten of us going up, so it was a good time, and Don the owner promised me a slot at Bloomington tomorrow (5/12).

I'll be there.

2 Nights

2005-05-05T05:55:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night in Indy went well. Matt Holt gave me 6 minutes for my drive (2.5 hours) rather than the usual 3. I did my Hitler-Pussy routine with the poems from last week's Friends Show mixed in. Again, the poems were a hit, so it's time to crank out a few more of those. The response to the routine was mixed but mostly decent, but once again I got a few handshakes and enthusiastic compliments afterwards. I'll go back in June. Oh, and these guys were there.

Wednesday at Friends & Co. was, well, Wednesday at Friends & Co. - about 20% of the crowd paid attention. The rest talked amongst themselves and looked vaguely pissed off. I did the same routine from Tuesday sans poems and left out the best line. I didn't even know it till I saw the tape. Part of the routine discusses ladies' pubic mohawks, and luckily for me an ex-student was there, right in front with his mohawk (on his head). So I had a target. A current student, Matt Moran, got up a little later and did OK, considering the drunken college crowd.

Crackers, Broad Ripple, IN

2005-05-02T06:52:00.000-06:00

My mother and stepfather will be here Thursday for Mother's Day weekend, which means I have to finish painting the newly drywalled living room by Wednesday so I can move the couch from the center of my kitchen back to where it belongs. I also have quite a lot of cleaning up to do - removing body hair from bathroom surfaces, hiding the vibrator, that sort of thing.

On top of all that I have to prepare three minutes of knock-down, drag-out laughs before I make the 2.5 hour drive to Indy to do the open-mic at Crackers. Somewhere amidst all of that I have to do final grades for my three comp sections as well as get another 10 minutes together for Friends & Co. on Wednesday.

I have never been restricted to three minutes, but I think the pubes routine will fit nicely, so long as there are no unexpected content restrictions. Crackers' open mic does have a "no fuck" rule, but that's to be expected.

Question: why do comedy clubs have such terrible names? Crackers, Zanies, Bananas...there's even one called (get ready) Hilarity's. Here's an idea: Fuk'n Yuks.

Last Night...

2005-04-28T14:15:00.000-06:00

The set went over pretty well, at least for the 10% of the crowd that actually listened. Apparently the sound was not good in the back, which I only found out afterwards. Oh well. The Evil Dead II bit (sexual implications of having a possessed hand - you can figure it out) was the only bit I had done before, and it worked again. The poems were a new addition, and they were what I got the most compliments on.

Uh oh - I have a schtick.

Johnny Shaw, an EIU senior trying his hand at stand-up, had to suffer through a drunk Abercrombie & Fitch sweater wearing frat boy heckler who actually ended up ON STAGE with him. I felt for the guy, but the thing to have done was not let him up there in the first place. The host should have headed him off, and Johnny should have not handed him the mic. To Shaw's credit, his comebacks were good, and he didn't let himself get too flustered.

Open Mic

2005-04-27T18:57:00.000-06:00

Tonight's set list:

Stacked (Pam Anderson's show, boob jobs)
Poem: Meth (see below)
Price of Gas
Price of Bottled H2O
Bottled Air (it's coming)
Poem: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (see yesterday's post)
Wolf Blitzer (the coolest name on TV)
Laid
Evil Dead II (the hand)
Poem: After the Frat Party

Meth

A leprechaun
on cocaine
trapped
in an elevator

After the Frat Party

I'm sorry
Let me get you
a towel

I signed up for an early spot so I can defuse the hippie vibe.

Today, a Poem

2005-04-26T02:16:00.000-06:00

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

sex and drugs

and rock and roll

hepatitis

+

Crackers

2005-04-24T16:56:00.000-06:00

I'll get 3 minutes at the Crackers (Broad Ripple) open-mic on Tuesday May 3, for any of you folks who live in Indy and like amateur comedy.

foetry

2005-04-24T16:46:00.000-06:00

This whole Foetry.com thing is fairly amusing. I'm on the fence with regards to poetry contests. I recognize that nepotism is going to happen (poetry is a small world), but I hate it when I send my $25 to a press for a contest whose winner turns out to have been predetermined. But my main problem is not the judging - it's the numbers. The lowest number of entrants in any contest I entered last year was just under 600, and that was a small press. I just don't see how that many manuscripts can be fairly judged.

I think it perfectly fitting that someone call presses on their selection processes, so long as they do it fairly. Alan Cordle may have shot himself in the foot by making a few tenuous claims, but the attention he recently got from the NY Times and NPR will only draw more attention, which will hopefully make the foetry forums a hot spot for entertaining rants and flames, at least for a while.

Hell hath no fury like an angry poet.

+

I Hate Bongos

2005-04-21T14:03:00.000-06:00

Friends & Co., 4/20/05 - The "host" decided it was fitting to do some extended jams with his hippie ensemble and set the whole night off by more than an hour. It's just an open-mic, but it was still unprofessional and not a little arrogant. Three bongo players plus a drummer plus a guitar doing your favs from the 70's. By the time 12:30 came around, I was tired and still sober (drinking before a set takes my edge off) and had no interest in trying to capture the attention of the drunken students who had been noodling for an hour.

I Suck

2005-04-14T12:35:00.000-06:00

Did the Funny Bone in Springfield last night for the third time. I won third place. There were four of us. The room is a bit tough, being a mix of middle-aged adults having an after work drink, many not even aware that they've wandered into an open-mic, but looking at the video I realize just how little of an impact even a 6'2", 240 lb. guy can have when his delivery isn't honed. Among the many flaws, I used too many filler words and allowed lines to trail into questions in that I'm-interacting-with-the-audience kind of way. My instinct has been - and my writing has leaned toward - attacking the audience, not bonding with them. Which means I should also ditch the dress-shirt/sport jacket comedian uniform and go back to my original t-shirt/denim jacket. But more importantly, I should re-think some of my bits that lend themselves to talkiness and transitions and questions. Anyway, Pamela Anderson's sit-com debuted last night. Her character works in a bookstore. The show is called "Stacked."

What? That needs a punchline?

*

But Seriously...

2005-04-11T08:03:00.000-06:00

Today's post by Ron Silliman, in which he shares a piece of hate mail from another (Pulitzer Prize winning) poet, reminds me why I have allowed myself to drift out of the po'biz loop these past several years: what often passes for a "literary community" is really a mutual agreement to acknowledge each other's sense of self-worth, to participate in one another's fantasy of literary immortality. When you're young, this can be fun and encouraging - after all, you're immortal already, your art simply a logical and natural extension of your divine ass self. But it soon gives way to fear of being forgotten among too many who stay in the game. Ron's correspondent clearly feels the need to fill some britches.

Death Week and a Day

2005-04-08T13:57:00.000-06:00

As it turns out, my colleague appears to have taken his own life. There were a few details to suggest this right away, but I had dismissed them as after-the-fact interpretations, circumstantial evidence, etc. And the rumor mill in a college town never stops turning. But new details of his last day seem to confirm that his death was indeed a suicide. I won't bore you with those. There were other matters with which his friends were already familiar, such as some recent bad news from the doctor.

I was strangely relieved that this was the case, knowing now that he himself had determined when his last breath would be and how he would spend his last day. I was also more depressed than I have been these past several days, finding it difficult to think of someone being in that situation, coming to that decision, and following through with it - alone. He spent that night doing what he loved doing, playing his songs with and for his friends at our local haunt. He said good night and left with a smile on his face, as usual.

Friends & Co. 4.06.05

2005-04-07T00:17:00.000-06:00

Didn't go up this week. I probably should have but was not in a very comedic mood. Tomorrow is the service for Marty Scott (see below). Apparently his ex-wife, a psychotic pain in the ass no who swooped down on his few possessions before he even grew cold, has insisted on being at the service, which will probably make it tense at best.

Death Week

2005-04-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

Haven't felt much like posting these past few days. On top of all the televised death last week, we had an unexpected death in our department here last Thursday, one of those "it just isn't fair" kind of deaths where a guy leaves the bar, says good night, wanders out with a smile on his face then gets found face down in his hallway the next day. Martin Scott was a poet, essayist, and musician as well as a respected teacher here at Eastern Illinois University. A collection of his essays, Stealing Books, is due from Water Press & Media any time now.

He was 45 years old.

Friends & Co. 3.30.05

2005-03-31T13:50:00.000-06:00

Last night's set:

So Kirstie Ally has a new show - Fat Actress. It's a reality show where she tries to lose weight, It's not going too well, apparently, because last week they just disconnected her feeding tube.

The Pope needs a feeding tube, it turns out. He doesn't have a problem with it, but he does have one request: He wants his feedings administered by Jose Conseco.

Did everyone have a good Easter Sunday? Get some chocolate? They arrested another protester at the hospice where Terri Schiavo is. He tried to sneak her a bottle of Hershey's syrup.

Michael Schiavo has had a little change of heart, apparently. He said if he knew Terri was going to suffer so long he would have just called Robert Blake in the first place.

How about this Boy Scouts of America official, Doug Smith? He's been with the Boy Scouts for 39 years and was arrested yesterday on child porn charges. His computer was full of kiddie porn. According to him, though, he wasn't doing anything wrong, he was just working on his Neverland Badge.

I get a lot of X-rated email. I know how I get it, too - I spend a lot of time whackin' it to internet porn. But this email amused me - it said: satisfy her every time. Get a 10" cock in 24 hours. So I clicked it. The next day Ron Jeremy came over and fucked my girlfriend.

Then I did my porno movie bit and part of the pube-shaving bit. It all sounds pretty well done on the audio tape, but onstage there was hardly any response I could hear. Again I got plenty of compliments afterwards, but during the set I was competing with the din of dozens of conversations going on. The lack of response (and a couple beers beforehand) made me lackadaisical and so I ended up cutting a chunk where I heckle the college audience about their porn-star inspired fashion choices. I wrapped it up in about 6 or 7 minutes. I have video of this one, and eventually I hope to have a new site with the clips.

Frank Rich of the NY Times

2005-03-27T16:23:00.000-06:00

Preach, cracker!

Friends & Co. 3.23.05

2005-03-24T20:04:00.000-06:00

Last night's routine:

Nazi Green Party (Minnesota school shooting)
I Was There (that annoying guy who has to one-up you on cool concerts he's seen)
Demos (that same guy and his CD collection)
Grateful Dead (the nightmare box set)
Hippies (hit the showers!)
Terry Schiavo/Pope (I get the two confused)
Terry Schiavo/Michael Moore (just think "feeding tube" - you can figure it out)

Total time: 8-10 minutes

I got a good response on most everything, though the closing bit was weakest. No hecklers this time. I suppose presence does something to help, because the audio sounds sloppy and poorly paced. I have yet to see myself on stage, but I will begin to remedy that next week.

oops

2005-03-21T23:36:00.000-06:00

This is what I get for not watching Leno every night. Sometime last week Drew Carey did this one:

Michael Jackson apparently threw his back out.
Well, kids are getting heavier these days.

And here's the difference between a rough joke and a polished joke. My bit about MJ being outweighed by 13 year olds is all right and makes sense because everyone knows how thin and frail MJ is, but Carey's line has the added feature of drawing on another familiar issue, childhood obesity. Hence, two jokes (or at least a joke and a half) for the price of one.

Just for Kicks

2005-03-21T14:58:00.000-06:00

I don't spend a lot of time working on topical humor, but I do write jokes based on the day's headlines. I consider this practice, only rarely producing something that will still be funny in two or three days. Below I've posted a handful of jokes I've written over the past couple days on the Michael Jackson trial and the Terri Schiavo situation. It will be interesting to see whether the same gags - or similar ones - show up in tonight's talk show monologues. Please note that these are unpolished, off-the-top-of-the-head jokes.

1. Michael Jackson was late for court again today. He had to drop his boyfriend off at school.

2. They’re not showing much of what’s going on inside the courtroom. The networks are afraid one of his breasts will fall out.

3. Michael Jackson’s doctors claim he had a back injury. That’s what happens when a 13 year old boy outweighs you.

4. Bono, lead singer for U2, talked with World Bank president-elect Paul Wolfowitz about poverty. That’s like Michael Jackson talking about being black.

5. The Vatican has come down on the side of keeping Terri Schiavo alive, which is not surprising considering that the Pope will need a worth successor soon.

6. So gas has hit $3 a gallon in some states. Can you believe that? That's almost half what I pay for water.

I can never keep up with all the nighttime shows, but you can hear monologues at various websites:

Letterman
Leno
O'Brien (selected)
Bill Maher (not posted)

I don't know if Jimmy Kimmel, Carson Daly, or Craig Ferguson do monologues, as I've never seen these shows. If they do, they are not featured on their web sites.

Bullshit

2005-03-20T23:49:00.000-06:00

Once again the federal government in its arrogance has seen fit to intervene in citizens' lives -and deaths - and to show contempt for state legislatures.

Dear Paula Zahn,

2005-03-17T21:35:00.000-06:00

People being shot and killed in the course of their work day is a tragedy - for those involved and those who care about them, not for every American citizen who has had to listen to you and every other news reader warp the Chris Nichols/Ashley Smith "story" into a slobbering Lifetime Channel premier. All that's missing is the sex. I heard you describe Nichols' courtroom shooting as a "rampage." I have yet to hear Terry Ratzman's actions of Saturday described in this way, though he killed eight people including himself. In fact, I've seen very little coverage of that grisly tale at all since Sunday, while Ashley Smith's having spent half a day with Nichols apparently warrants 48 hours of coverage. Does the fact that Ratzman was an evangelical Christian who shot other evangelical Christians at a church service affect the news-worthiness of this story in some way? As much as I would love to believe that you and CNN find the ultra-religious killing each other to be funny and nothing to worry about, I fear that the motivation for ignoring this tale has more to do with an unwillingness to place God-fearing Christians in a bad light or call into question the psychological and emotional effects of their beliefs and teachings. It reminds me of the non-coverage of the Catholic sex scandal. Because what you do is often not journalism but pandering. It's much easier, and potentially less offensive, to play up the all-American blond-haired heroine who convinced the scary black rapist to turn himself in.

Rampage. Really. The mainstream news media's ability to warp public perception through language is truly impressive. I especially appreciate how, in Iraq, "militants" became "insurgents" became "terrorists" in a matter of weeks. In the past, the people one fought were referred to as "the enemy," a term I have not heard once since the whole thing began. But that is another story altogether.

And you wonder why people find weblogs more appealing places to read news and analysis. It's because you suck.

Broad Ripple

2005-03-16T12:35:00.000-06:00

I had never heard of the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis until I looked up Crackers Comedy Club, where I went last night for their weekly open mic. BR is a nice area to say the least - one of those "desirable locations" most cities have, where old money meets trendy restaurants, with a healthy dose of the arts. And yet, like a lot of places in the midwest, I've noticed, mostly devoid of pretense.

Unfortunately, I did not get on the list to perform, since I was unaware that I was to have emailed a request to get listed a week or more in advance. Such is the popularity of a comedy club in a large city - something that a few years in a small town can make you forget. Fortunately, I got to eat a fabulous Italian meal unattainable here in my own small hamlet, and I stayed for what turned out to be an entertaining show.

Not that all, or even most, of the 15 or so people that went onstage killed. Not even half. In fact, only one performer - a tall thin guy named Mike(?) Chin, did a solid funny three minutes.* He did some racial stuff about being Asian American and trying to date white women, which in theory is the sign of a professional hack, but he was original enough and funny. His opener was the observation that Sarah Jessica Parker was both sexy and hideously ugly at the same time. Forgive my inability to render this perfectly here. Trust me, it was hilarious.

About three or four others had a minute's worth of funny, and the rest, well, I can't remember what they said or did, so there you go. One guy, who looked like Redd Foxx but weighing 400+ pounds, rambled endlessly about the reefer-heads in his building and never once delivered a punchline. He also broke the open mic No-"Fuck" rule. Twice. He is now barred from performing for 3 months. At first I was a bit contemptuous of the rule, but when you listen to 15 comedians in a row, and knowing how liberally people will pepper their speech with the word, I can appreciate it. Two people did Old Men in Locker Rooms bits, a topic I did not know was so popular.

No one can guarantee they won't bomb, and even good material falls on deaf ears from time to time, and this happened to at least one performer last night, but I'm confident that my best three minutes will get laughs in that room. Unfortunately, I won't be able to find out until May, since my teaching schedule won't allow me to make the long drive to Indy in time for the shows.

*If you think it's easy to be funny for even one solid minute, and you have never tried it in front of 60 strangers, please, go out to an open mic this weekend and shoot yourself.

...

Family Viewing

2005-03-15T05:40:00.000-06:00

Interesting post yesterday by Joe Duemer that highlights what I see as the fetishization of the family. I always understood family to mean relatives, but the religious right has succeeded in warping the term to mean our current political and social climate's most priveleged unit, in which adults have no identity as such but children remain children. And not just children as in people who are not yet adults, but THE children (read: that segment of the population regularly exploited by a radical minority for religious/political purposes).

When people complain that something is inappropriate for "family viewing," what they're really saying is that they find the material objectionable - not just for children but for themselves because of their own religious/political agenda, which they were busily foisting onto their unfortunate progeny when you're "inappropriate" art barged in.

It's About Time

2005-03-14T09:05:00.000-06:00

...

In the past, I have done the vegan thing - zero animal products. It felt great, and I don't know exactly why I went off of it. I had even gone through the holiday season without folding. But that was when I was living in south Florida - Boca to be exact - and there were entire grocery stores devoted to health foods (I now regard the term 'health food' as synonymous with 'smaller, more expensive food') and vegan alternatives. When I moved to southern Illinois, I found the stores specialized in bratwurst - miles of it. I became something of a weekend carnivore, eating a fair number of vegetarian meals at home during the week and succumbing to bratwurst at Saturday cook-outs.

Now it's time to go back to full-time veg. There's nothing exceptionally noble about my decision - it isn't moral or philosophical. My 36-year-old body just seems to be telling me it's time. I was never much of a "dieter" in the sense of calorie counting, etc. (when you're an enthusiastic beer drinker, what's the point?), but I'm at the age where I can easily tell how my body responds to certain foods, and meat is an energy-zapper. So is beer, and that is on its way out, too. I may keep a few eggs in the regimen. I like eggs more than steak or anything else animal, and they present one with a legal way to eat the unborn.

I am often amused by people who devote inordinate amounts of time and energy to dieting, which for most people means finding some magical formula that will allow them to lose weight and still "eat the foods they love." They will torture themselves with counting grams of everything in every meal they eat, all for the purpose of justifying a piece of fried chicken or a Jack and Coke. Wait, I take that back - it's not amusing. It is absolutely hysterical. It is so much easier to simply not eat pork than to devote one's time to calculating how much of what kind of sausage one can consume at what time of day how many times a year.

Why am I writing about my dietary practices on a weblog? Someone please beat me with a garden hose.

Zen and the Art of Irritating the Fuck Out of People

2005-03-12T07:48:00.000-06:00

...

You know what I hate?

Reading.

Well, not reading so much as having reading recommended to me, usually by some screeching twit who thinks I'd just be sitting on the edge of the bed setting my pubes on fire were it not for his literary promptings.

The irritating thing about book recommendations is that they are rarely about the book as much as they are about the recommender, who has obviously identified with some character or philosophical aspect of whatever book it is and is seeking validation, confirmation, or sex.

"Have you ever read The Sorrows of Young Werther? No? You should. It's fascinating. I'll lend you my copy." Translation: I am Werther; please blow me, or I will kill myself.

The most irritating thing about such recommendations is the "should." I hate people who liberally pepper their conversation with shoulds and should nots. I'm not talking about a teacher addressing a five-year-old who just peed on the crayons, I'm talking about adults addressing one another. Implicit in the "should" is the idea that you have a problem which the book will solve. This is not limited to self-help titles. Often the recommendation is a Zen book, which, unfortunately, too many people consider a form of self-help book - a habit many publishers are only too happy encourage. Witness the ever-growing shelf space devoted to such books at your local book hangar.

"You haven't read The Way of Zen [or The Three Pillars, or Zen in the Art of Archery, or Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, or...]? You should. I think you'd like it." Translation: I am Werther; please... Have you read Zen and the Art of Shut the Fuck Up? You should.

You know what I hate?

Zen.

Well, not Zen itself so much as the way the word is bandied about to describe everything from office wear to home decor. Zen is not a style, an attitude, or a brand of coffee. Zen is sitting on the floor in a burlap robe with twenty other suffering baldies in an un-air-conditioned room staring at the wall until your legs develop gangrene. Because recommending Zen books is so irritating, I gleefully suggest...

Hardcore Zen by Brad Warner.

...

Springfield Funny Bone Open Mic #2

2005-03-11T12:05:00.000-06:00

...

Thank you for asking. It sucked.

Not because it isn't great to have an open mic at an actual comedy venue and work out my stuff. That's great. It sucked because they make it a contest where each person throws in $5 and the first place winner (as judged by staff voting) takes all. Second and third place get tix to their weekend shows. I could care less about that or the money. What sucks is doing 6 minutes of material I know is good and seeing hacks get the encouragement of my $5.

Last night there were ties for a couple spots, so 6 out of the 9 people won, and I was not one of them. I shared the distinction of being voted into the 33rd percentile of the night's performances with a guy who read his lame routine off a piece of paper and ended with Jeff Foxworthy "You might be a redneck if..." lines based on his recent trip to Graceland, which he prefaced with the disclaimer that he wasn't stealing, he was "sampling." No, that's stealing. The really funny thing was that those bombed, too.

The winner was professional and funny if you enjoy blue collar comedy type stuff and Premium Blend. That's not as big a jab as it sounds like - most people can't manage that for 6 minutes, and a lot of people like it, so what can I say. He tied for first with this very large man named Ray who was either half black/half white or the greatest Whigga ever. He had one good line about being asked what his race was and his answer being whichever side was winning the bar fight. The rest of his stuff was pot jokes, none of which I remember. People love pot jokes, too. I wish pot was legal just so people would stop telling them.

One of the runner-ups was this Mitch Hedburg wanna be who had some decent jokes but did the exact same 6 minutes he did last month, when he also won. Another was a fat black guy who did jokes about being fat and black. I remember thinking he didn't suck, but then again I don't remember any of his routine. This middle-aged woman did some Rosanne Barr type stuff but without much of an edge. People love that as well, so no comment. She had a good line about being mistaken for a lesbian because she teaches phys-ed. A 20-something woman with a beer gut did my terrible love life stuff. She would say something such as, "When I go out I get THE BEST come ons..." then do that ridiculous head-cock/forced smile that a lot of women comics substitute for punchlines and wait for a laugh, which she got because people like that too, especially lonely women with beer guts.

Before we went up, the manager admonished us to do as clean a set as possible, specifically with regard to "pussy jokes," because his dad (the owner) wants to see if you can be funny clean. That is not the most unreasonable request - he makes money from tickets and beers, not a guy who can use "cunt" as a verb. But then Dad himself gets up to introduce the next performer and tells this joke:

A six year old boy ran to his father yelling "Daddy Daddy, Mommy has a shrimp on her!"
"No, she doesn't, son."
"Yes, she does! Come look!" The boy drags Dad into the bedroom where Mom is napping, totally naked, and points.
"That's not a shrimp," said the father. "That's her clitoris."
"Oh," said the boy, "sure tasted like shrimp."

I did an abbreviated version of last week's Friends & Co. set, which included taking an online longevity test, exercise, and things I ate in Japan (whale and horse, raw). I didn't do the most stellar job, but I got laughs, and I know what my writing skills are, so of course I felt gypped. I'm the only one of the couple dozen people I've shared a stage with in the past 5 weeks to actually do 6 - 10 minutes that is thematically unified while not being your typical Men vs. Women/Black vs. White stuff.

I promised myself I wouldn't have artistic pretensions about this comedy thing and would just have fun. It just so happens my idea of fun is a well-written, original joke. I know, I'm being petty. I'm not Denis Leary or George Carlin or Jim Norton or Jim Florentine or..., and no one cares about whether I'm funnier than so-and-so but me.

It's the same as with anything else. If the Butthole Surfers went up against Chicago in a battle of the bands, you know who would rock and who would win. I'm not comparing myself with the Buttholes because, of course, I don't do mushrooms every day, but you know what I'm saying.

In any case, a mic and a stage is a mic and a stage. I'm thankful for that.

...

My First Heckler!

2005-03-03T03:01:00.000-06:00

Went up around midnight at Friends & Co. for the third straight week. Third time's the curse, apparently, because this little drunk truck of a woman came marching right at the stage yelling FUCK YOU about three minutes into my routine. I gave her a line about saving her beer money for a knuckle transplant and kept going, but she did fluster me.

The routine was about exiting a disabled access stall to find a wheelchair-bound person sitting there waiting. This actually happened to me. In the real situation, I apologized and got out of the guy's way. In the routine, I berate the guy for giving me attitude, comparing him to Stephen Hawking and pointing out his deficiencies, etc. That's humor, you reverse the expectation and, ideally, do so towards some end.

Two weeks in a row I did sexually explicit routines, even a little racial humor, and got good responses. Tonight I did a bit on insensitivity towards the "challenged" and got heckled. Some people - no, a LOT of people - have no sense of irony. That is what makes the success of someone like Andrew "The Dice Man" Clay frightening. It's not him or his material, it's that part of the fan base that took him at face value.

I'm glad I got heckled. I felt nervous and flustered, and it was unpleasant, but I dealt with it and kept rolling. On the audio, at least, I don't sound like I missed one beat.

Oscar Night

2005-02-28T04:37:00.000-06:00

First of all, who does Martin Scorsese have to blow to get an Oscar? Has he ever even touched one? He's deserved at least one award for best picture or best director since Raging Bull. I'm not knocking the winners, or the sound and photography people who did win for The Aviator, I'm just saying he's overdue for his very own statue.

Chris Rock seemed nervous the first couple of minutes, and those bits were so-so. Of course, TV-friendly humor is not Rock's forte, and a theater full of fragile egos must be the toughest room to work. The response never seemed that enthusiastic. Still, he warmed up soon enough and lobbed a few good grenades by the end of the opening set. The 'Stars vs. The Merely Popular' bit was good.

2005-02-24T08:13:00.000-06:00

I did Friends & Co. again last night and did the routine from the Funny Bone two weeks ago, unedited. I swapped out the Larry King bit (college student crowd) for a bit on a couple pharmaceuticals commercials - easy stuff, but they liked it. For some reason the Olson Twins abducted by aliens went over like a passenger flight on 9/12, but I got several enthusiastic compliments afterwards. I went up earlier than last week, and the crowd was thinner - maybe that and the lower alcohol content of the audience played a role. Maybe I just wasn't as "on" as I thought. Within 10 minutes of my leaving the stage, the crowd had doubled, and the place was a little more revved up. Note to self: don't sign up for the first few slots, and scrap the commercial stuff. It's easy laughs, but I know damn well 300 comics are doing the same bits.

Friends & Co.

2005-02-17T12:29:00.000-06:00

Did 10 minutes at my local open mic last night to about 50 people and did very well, despite the fact that a drunk guy got onstage with me and "Def Comedy Jammed" my punchlines. After each bit he would say "Damn!" or "Aw Sheeeeaaat!" It blew one line of the bit, but I recovered. I got heckled by one of the bartenders. She is Polish. My closer almost bombed when I didn't get a laugh on the penultimate line, at which point I realized that the leap that seemed so logical to me on paper really made no sense to a bunch of drunks, but I salvaged that well enough, too, and made my exit. Some college student did 10 minutes or so a couple of slots before me. He had a nice blazer.

Today I Wrote a Dick Joke

2005-02-16T09:45:00.000-06:00

I've always loved director Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, especially the scenes in Evil Dead II where Ash's (Bruce Campbell's) own hand becomes possessed and tries to kill him. I've had nightmares about that from time to time. My hand doesn't try to kill me, though. It hires a lawyer and charges me with rape.

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

The Censors

2005-02-12T14:50:00.000-06:00

Reading Joe Duemer's post of 2/11 about a David Rees event reminds me just how much I detest those who would censor artistic expression - either directly or through bullying benefactors, sponsors, advertisers, universities, etc. The impulse to censor, coerce, edit, or eradicate that which does not fit into one's philosophical, moral, or political worldview is one that I have never shared. Telling adults what they can and cannot say is essentially telling them what they should and should not think. People who have no problem doing so should feel fortunate they are not being punched in the head every second.

+

Currently reading:
Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian
Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture

Books on the toilet:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
William Burroughs' Junky
Erich Fromm's Man for Himself

Just in from NetFlix:
Die Mommy Die
The Magic Christian
Barbarella

I have been assured that these latter two are celluloid abominations, but I have yet to see either.

Springfield

2005-02-10T01:24:00.000-06:00

Did the open mic at the Springfield Funny Bone. 12 years of teaching is no prep for trying to impress 20 strangers with jokes. I wasn't terribly nervous, and I did pretty well, I thought, despite the fact I didn't win (it's a $5 entry/winner take all thing), and got good laughs in the places I wanted them. I ended up switching routines at the last minute when the MC requested that everyone keep their stuff as clean as possible. I managed to make the adjustment and keep most of the bit, but I didn't fill the whole six minutes. I did alien abductees instead of pubes. Afterwards some guy came up to me and said he thought I should have won the thing, which was real nice and means more than the $40 that was up for grabs. I'll definitely go back next month, and in the interim do Wednesdays at an open mic in my own town and hopefully a couple of Tuesdays in Indy.

Shit

2005-02-08T11:16:00.000-06:00

Few things give me more satisfaction than throwing things away. I have no illusions about my shit being stuff - my shit is shit. Aside from a handful of items - books my (successful) friends have written, a few first editions, some heirlooms - probably not two boxes worth - everything else could get sucked into Star Jones' ass tomorrow, and I wouldn't miss it. In recent years I have become especially fond of gutting my shelves about once a year and selling or donating my books. When I was a primadonna (if this is spelled wrong, and you know how to spell it, please feel free to kiss my ass) college student and later a grad student, I tried to fill my apartment with as many books as I could afford. I was an English and Creative Writing dude, after all, and nothing turns on hot nymphomaniacs more than 37 back issues of The New Criterion. I'm pretty sure that I never finished a third of my books and another third I never even opened - I just kept collecting them the way fat thirty-year-old women with short hair and bobbly earrings collect stuffed cows. Now, whenever I watch a show on, say, the History Channel (more on this piss poor excuse for a network another time) and see some smarty being interviewed in front of his giant collection of books, I just want to beat him to death with three feet of dry-rotted garden hose. Not that I dislike reading, mind you. I love it, in fact. I just decided that having entire rooms of furniture designed specifically to store and show off shit I have maybe read once and don't entirely understand probably qualifies as a pathology.

Student

2005-02-07T13:28:00.000-06:00

Tuesday afternoon last week a student calls, a student who has only been to one class and has done zero work, a student who is repeating this course because he was too stupid to get a C the first time around, a student who was clearly stoned when he did show up, a student with three functioning brain cells, two of which were keeping his asshole shut, he calls before class on Tuesday and says he's rushing a frat this week and, gosh darnit, all the rush activities just happen to overlap my class hour.
This type of thing is not new to me, and I try to (pretend to) be a professional, and so I politely remind him of the attendance policy and his free will as an adult, etc., and as soon as I hang the phone up I wish I had told him to stop wasting his and my time. Forget college, kid, use the money for that much-needed knuckle transplant, ya mouth-breathing retard. Become a skilled worker, like small engine repairman or fluffer. Wait, here's an idea. Boil yourself in horse piss. Or set yourself on fire. Just take your hand off your cock long enough to fill out a drop form before you do. Student.

schtick

2005-02-05T13:50:00.000-06:00

The wonderful thing about the Blue Collar Comedy Tour is that it won't last, because schtick never does, and the first casualty will be Larry the Cable Guy's contribution to worthless catch phrases, the ubiquitous "git 'r done." I hope he uses it liberally in the second installment, just to hasten its exit from public discourse. Ron White is the only one of the bunch who strikes me as genuinely funny. On the rest I wish an eternity of sell-out crowds in Branson, MO.

Recommended Listening

2005-02-04T14:20:00.000-06:00

I saw this band last week here in our little burg of Charleston, IL. They're from Indy. They rock. The end.

Six Minutes

2005-02-02T18:15:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned before, I missed last month's open mic at the Springfield Funny Bone, but I see no reason to miss it next Wednesday. The question now is which 6 of the 45-60 minutes I've written in the past two months I should use. I don't live in a metro area, so it's not like I get to try out two or three bits a week. The answer is, of course, whichever bit is funniest, but as all you creative writer types out there know, everything you do is equally fantastic until someone you respect and admire tells you otherwise. I think I'll go with my routine on pubes. Everyone loves pubes, don't they?

In other news, I am continually amazed at the amount of typing Ron Silliman does before breakfast, not to mention the kinds of things he is lucid enough to think about at that hour. He is one of those rare individuals who seems to be able to type as he thinks and make sense all at the same time. I am not one of these people, and I think this is a large part of the reason why my writing has gravitated towards comedy so much - once the gag is on the page, I lose any interest in dressing it up more than is necessary. For a long while I tried funneling my humor into essays, a la David Sedaris, but what I ended up with after days, weeks, or even months of effort was some funny bits stitched together by outstandingly shitty prose. I think this is why I started writing poetry in the first place - poems are brief (and I was a wit). Anyway, Ron, or one of his more attentive readers, or both, was going on about Charles Olson's idea of notions giving rise to notions, perceptions giving rise to perceptions, as a technique for writing, as if to ask whether it is a viable method.

Robin Williams.

2005-01-28T06:57:00.000-06:00

I've been reading Franklyn Ajaye's Comic Insights, which features interviews with comics from Louie Anderson to Jonathan Winters. The interviews vary in interest and are frequently too short, but what's most interesting is the variety of approaches comics use in developing and presenting their material. Elayne Boosler writes her entire hour. Louie Anderson never writes anything down. I now officially hate Louie Anderson.

more of the same, except...

2005-01-28T06:46:00.000-06:00

I hope Chris Rock can manage to inject his particular brand of levity into this year's Academy Awards Night. The show has long been a bore-fest, teetering between auto-erotica and auto-erotic asphyxiation. Like a lot of late night talk shows, the monologue is the highlight.

2005-01-26T22:35:00.000-06:00

Appreciate!

Breaking The Rules

2005-01-24T16:07:00.000-06:00

Just watched Sam Kinison's 1987 HBO show, courtesy of Netflix, which is the best thing to happen to movie rental ever. I remember seeing him on Dangerfield's special a couple years before then and laughing so hard at some of the bits that I couldn't hear his next line. Now, almost 20 years later, I still enjoyed the show but didn't "die." Being older has something to do with it, of course, but I think stand-up is a particularly transient art, even if you do very little topical material. Kinison's whole marriage bit seems a bit dated these days, though as a piece of comic writing it's still better than anything anyone's doing now, except maybe Chris Rock. I like the fact that comedy is an in-the-moment kind of art. There's no analysis, no explications, it doesn't matter how it looks on paper - people laugh or they don't.

Now that I have my dose of comedy for the day, it's back to the current screenplay (which had best be funny on paper). I've written about half a dozen of these things but have yet to sell one. Typically a novelist writes two or three novels before selling one. For screenwriters that average number is 7 - yes, seven, so it's time. When I first read that, I thought it was horseshit, but strangely enough this one feels different - better, a lot better.

Oh, and some guy who had a talk show just died or something.

Hail to the Chief

2005-01-22T16:41:00.000-06:00

Timmy!

2005-01-12T21:39:00.000-06:00

I missed this month's open-mic at Springfield's Funny Bone due to the fact that my face has been a river of snot for the past three days. Next target - Crackers in Indianapolis (Broad Ripple) next Tuesday. It's two hours to Indy from here, so it's going to be a long day.

Poop

2005-01-12T21:25:00.000-06:00

Big Boy went over pretty well, though there's always one student, usually female, who shuts down at the first mention of excrement in any form or context. You can always tell which one, too - she will try to fold herself up in her seat and disappear, hoping to go ignored until class is over.

Freshmen are usually surprised to be handed an essay like Big Boy on day one of their college careers, but most of them leave the first meeting enthused and looking forward to the second one, wherein they will do a writing sample.

Next week, mind-numbing grammar and usage.

The Day Job

2005-01-11T06:10:00.000-06:00

Classes start today. I have one section of freshman comp and two sections of its sequel, which is basically a writing-about-lit course. I'm taking a slightly different approach with the latter this semester, incorporating more performance with the poetry and drama segments. Because the courses I teach have minimum writing requirements, I have relied mostly on papers, but last semester a few students came up with the idea of doing a skit wherein the characters of Oedipus the King appear on an episode of Jerry Springer. Unfortunately it was a bit too late in the semester, and we didn't pull it off. This time group projects are part of the plan. As for Comp 1, today we'll read David Sedaris' Big Boy, a short essay from the collection Me Talk Pretty One Day about being at an Easter gathering and going to the bathroom to find someone else's (very large) turd in the toilet and fearing others will think it's his. On Thursday they write a short, in-class diagnostic essay. The prompt: "poop."

2005-01-08T17:15:00.000-06:00

In thinking back over all the readings I've seen and enjoyed, I remember very few of the funny moments. I remember Henry Taylor doing a funny bit about a rider being thrown from a horse, and I remember laughing more than once at an Al Gurganus reading. Most readers who have been at it for awhile try for at least one moment of levity during a reading - they know the value of getting a chuckle out of the audience. I'm sure I've laughed plenty of times at readings. But it's interesting that I can't recall exactly what it was that made me laugh. I think most people have a good memory for what makes them laugh - whether it's a line from a film or a stand-up routine. Those lines and anecdotes are easily burned into memory. We recite them to each other for years. They become part of a generational language or code (yada yada, I'm a wild and crazy guy, Jane you ignorant slut, and so forth). Why are the funny poems and anecdotes heard at readings less memorable? Perhaps it's a matter of context. Readings are generally sober affairs, so that the slightest break gets a laugh.

Humor/Poetry

2005-01-07T14:15:00.000-06:00

Brennen Wysong encourages me not to abandon poetry altogether, and I doubt I will. The shift in focus for the blog reflects the shift in my own writing over the years towards comedy, the kind of comedy that is usually not present in poems, you know, the "blue" stuff. I've gravitated away from poems in recent years and towards non-fiction and screenwriting, and now stand-up. I do have a poetry MS, THE SEX SCENE and Other Poems, making the contest rounds right now which contains poems I am certain will offend some of the readers and judges. Hopefully it will entertain and enthuse others. Here's a short poem, "Coming Soon:"

The Wadfather.

I don't know what the folks at Yale or The Academy will think of that. George Carlin describes himself not as a stand-up comic but as a writer who performs his work. I think that's true in his case and others': Bill Cosby, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor... Comics whose whose work has a discernible voice and vision and is more than just an hour of funny bits. If I need to be onstage in order to publish (make public) my work, so be it. Besides, it looks like a lot more fun than a reading.

My poetics are pretty simple: Loren Goodman's "Famous Americans" is the best thing to happen to the Yale Younger Poets Prize in years, and Billy Collins is the Wayne Dyer of American poetry.

I was actually impressed with Colin Quinn's performance poem on Comedy Central's Last Yawn '04. It was easily better than most of what I've seen on Def Poetry Jam. Like most slam-style poems, it doesn't work as well on paper, but Quinn has his chops - see the text here (there are some typos, mis-hearings - but they're fairly obvious).

Question of the Day: can poetry be "blue" and still be poetry?

"We hope you like our new direction."

2005-01-06T13:54:00.000-06:00

I am shifting the focus of this blog to comedy, both writing and performance. There are more than enough poetry blogs. I should be posting regularly again by the end of next week. If you happen to live anywhere near Springfield, IL, I plan on doing my 6 minutes at The Funny Bone's monthly open-mic on 1/12.

Wave

2004-12-31T16:18:00.000-06:00

Ron Silliman points out that back in the mid-seventies an earthquake in China claimed four or five times the number of people killed by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, yet he can't recall ever having heard about it at the time. Given that it was China in the days before 24/7 cable news, it is reasonable to assume that most people westward never knew about it either. What I've been thinking about these past few days is how

1) the constant flood of visuals, and
2) the fact that several hard-hit locations are tropical paradises (at least those we're being shown)

affect both our feelings about and responses to such disasters and where the media points the cameras. For a comprehensive list of known disasters, many of which dwarf this tsunami in numbers killed, go here.

poem

2004-12-15T11:37:00.000-06:00

After Years Abroad

The traffic’s increase, easing up Main.
The fullness of the pines that line the park.
The stark newness of the architecture.
Impermanence is, in fact, just

another name for perfection.
Still it all seems too quickly over
whelmed, the world relentlessly
arriving, a wave that does not reminisce

or dream. And back at the old school,
its rust-red brick intact (the sheer
fact of it!) they’ve automated the bell.

I spend most days now at the harbor,
among gulls, the smell of gas, the familiar
sag of that rope against the bare spar.