Month: March 2011

Check out the Bill and Dan show, episode 126 starring Bill Arrundale, Dan Swartwout, and me.  http://billanddan.libsyn.com/the-bill-and-dan-show-episode-126

Every once in a while I google my name to see what pops up.  This is something I should not only never do, but hate myself for doing it at all.  I found out a radio station in 2010 put one of my audio clips up for their DC area listeners.  I was at first kind of excited, then annoyed when I realized they never contacted me.  This was followed by the realization that any exposure was great for my career.  At this moment, I looked down and realized there were no comments on act and was again at once deflated, yet relieved no one had been bashing my act for six months without a chance for a witty retort.  I am pathetic.

I rarely get heckled.  Not b/c I am the greatest comic ever – clearly I am in the top ten, but I digress.  Maybe it’s my voice or my rock hard body.  Who knows?  I hate hecklers due to the fact that they want to be part of the show, but clearly don’t have the nuts to get onstage.  Plus, if you go after them, you’re somehow the dick.  I handle it thusly – first, I ignore them.  Second, I be nice and acknowledge the fact that they are annoying.  Finally, after nearly a minute of wasted time, I go after them with gusto.  My first heckler was a chick w/ two green mohawks (yes, two, like a double Roman war helmet).  She screamed that I sucked before I ever took the stage.  I asked her if she hated her mom or her mom hated her.  “Oh, clearly your mom hates you; because you have two green mohawks you disappointment.”  She ran out bawling, so I nailed it, but the crowd was done with me.  Oh well.  I have seen probably 100 hecklers, 90 of whom were wasted, so they were useless in the back and forth.  I was at an unpaid show last night with about 25 crowd members and one guy decided to bash my buddy Jeff Burgstrom, who is a prodigy at crowd work.  His only contribution was “Be more funny” which wasn’t funny very quickly.  Way to contribute, catch phrase old douche still wearing hipster black rimmed glasses at 50.  You’re not young and/or humorous.  Rather, you made every patron’s experience more tedious.  Too bad you still feel it necessary to hang out at campus bars, alone, at that age only to be destroyed by a comic and add 10 minutes to the show.  Your mom clearly hates you.

I may indeed lose my mind today.  I just remembered I bought a mega millions ticket last week, now it is gone.  The chances of me even winning my dollar back are millions to one, but already my brain is racing with the possibilities of what I could do with the money.  Buy a house, invest, start a philanthropy…OK I would actually just build my own brewery/still, a lifetime supply of canned chili and disappear off the face of the earth.  A decade later, some news organization would hunt me down and find me, 350 lbs. and insane from lack of social interaction, probably living naked in a tree house.  Maybe I should stop looking for this ticket…

I remember when I first started comedy and someone told me “Women dig guys who are onstage.”  This may be true for singers, musicians, hell – even beat poets and auctioneers, but not comedians.  Onstage, I talk about every flaw I have; excess drinking, poor life decisions, my abundance of ass hair, and every personality hiccup.  Chicks usually shun comics like Muslims shun a woman’s ankle.  Not the best analogy, but whatever.  I do know, though, that fat drunk dudes love me more than George Lopez loves to raise his eyebrows and stare at the crowd.  “Can choo beleaf that?”  RAISE EYEBROWS AND STARE!  I could look like Brad Pitt and women would hate my guts – I can deal with that, but enough with the drunk guys.  “Hey man, my buddies say I’m hilarious.  Here’s why…”  15 minutes and five lost T shirt sales later, he finally goes into the parking lot to smoke weed.  Trust me, I’m an attention whore, but I don’t want to talk to Jim and his weave belted jorts for an hour after the show about the intricacies of his inner thoughts and why he should quit his job at the foundry to tell 80’s trucker jokes in his town of 3000 citizens.  Hey, there’s something shiny!  (Run to my car)

I broke my Maryland cherry tonight and did a room on the eastern shore.  Crowd was good, but the mike took a shit right out of the gate.  I did 30 minutes sans microphone, but luckily my voice sounds like two inbred grizzly bears mating through a bullhorn, so I survived.  After the show, I had this really young blonde chick ask for my autograph…then had me sign the other comic, Mark Poolos’s CD.  Thanks.  I feel like a champion now.  That said, it went well but I still had to hold the dead mike b/c I didn’t know what to do with my hands.  The whole show was me with a mike in the off position screaming to the club.  Could be worse, I could have a seven hour drive home tomorrow.  Oh wait, I do.  If my iPod runs out of juice, I may shoot up a gas station on the way back.