Month: February 2013

Trends find a way to annoy me quickly.  Partly because of the trend, mostly because of the fact everyone likes to think they’re an expert or were the first.  I walked past the casino poker room last weekend and remembered when every man in American was Texas Slim, poker champion.  A lot of money changed hands before that petered out.

The worst thing ever is when someone takes a trend and tries to shove it down your throat.  Example one was ska music.  I was in college and had a chance to get a radio call in show.  Me and my pal Don had everything lined up and ready to roll, except one small detail – the last spot ahead of us was filled by a senior who loved ska music.  Don’t worry, I got the open spot for Adult Album Alternative.  I don’t know what that is either.  I quit the radio the next week.

Now Lincoln is cool all of the sudden.  Was it not cool to free slaves and preserve the Union before Spielberg’s movie?  Apparently not!  I know all us Millard Fillmore fanboys can’t wait for his bio to hit big!  At least people aren’t completely subject to stupid trends like mullets, Zubaz pants, and Ricky Martin.  I wouldn’t want to live in a world like that.

I was going to blog about the Oscars, then I remembered the Walking Dead was on and I would rather blow my brains out than watch Hollywood collectively put its face in its own lap for five hours.  “We’re so important, look at our richness and good looks!”  Yuck.

I stupidly decided to try and do my taxes in the down time.  I am fully convinced the government’s only function regarding taxation is to confuse Americans so much, it will possible to imprison everyone for tax evasion.  Forget that deduction that would’ve saved you $50 bucks?  Too bad!  Forget to report $50?  Audit time!  Oh, and don’t forget the penalty.  There were three new sub-categories for me to mess up in healthcare alone.  Hope I don’t screw it up and go to prison!  If so, I’m telling everyone I killed an endangered Bengal tiger with my bare hands.  That has more weight in jail than “I forgot to report $27.54 in income, please be gentle as you ravage me.”

I gave blood last night and passed out at like 10 pm, so this is going to be brief.  I’m such a good person, by the way.  My blood has probably saved 43 children so far.

I remember when I first started comedy.  I thought every other comic was a dick.  Not many people talked to me or even made eye contact.  Then I did stand up for about three months and realized why.  I sucked and most new people quit.  It was like a platoon in Nam that gets a new guy.  If he gets clipped and you befriended him, it sucks.  If you didn’t know him, then oh well.  That and new comics are usually overenthusiastic and think they’ll be working the Tonight Show in four weeks.  The bitterness hasn’t taken hold yet.

My pal Dan was emceeing the other evening and a newb was introduced…then took about 30 seconds to get to the stage.  Dan made a comment about the amount of time it was taking, to which he said, “What’s the rush?”  Dan said, “Um, THE SHOW?”  The audience laughed very hard and the rube proceeded to eat his own ass for about four to five minutes.  Well, I’ll probably never see that soldier again.

I was emceeing the first show of three last weekend.  I need a little prep time for myself, but one part of emceeing is finding out who is on the show.  That usually helps.  Neither comic was anywhere to be found, which adds a tinge of anxiety, but I can BS my way through an intro, so no big deal.  It was a sold out crowd and the place was buzzing.  It was a good start to the evening.

I hit the end of my set and was closing on a joke/story about a mentally handicapped man shaking his penis at me.  I suddenly noticed the staff was putting their hands together, then spreading them apart wider.  Ah, messing with the emcee!  Trying to make me laugh with penis hand motions!  You no good, dirty…oh wait, another one is tapping his watch.  Keep it going.  I was about 15 seconds from wrapping it up when I realized I needed to keep plugging.  Thankfully, I had a lot of stage time that week, so it was no big deal, but there was a lovely six to eight seconds of holy shit, I was not ready for that.

That’s the rough life of world famous comedy star like me.  Whatever my fans need, I give it back!  Actually, no one would remember my name either way.  That’s the fun of being of comic.  It could be worse.  I could be a mime.  No one likes mimes.

I did a show last week at the Rehab Tavern in Columbus.  I at first thought it was a bar where everyone that went to after they quit drinking, but I realized it was because it was remodeled.  I am kind of stupid.  What kind of bar caters to people that quit drinking?

The bar was actually really nice and they had an Elvira pinball machine that I would love to have.  Not so much for Elvira, I just like the late 70’s pinball machines.  I was onstage closing, so I was prepared to do about 45 minutes.  Fourth joke in, the mike cut out.  You may think I know about mikes and speakers and such, since I have been doing comedy for several years, but you would be wrong.  So I just did the rest without a mike.  It worked pretty well, thanks to the low ceiling and very cool (and quiet) crowd, but my throat still hurts.  After the show, the bartender flipped one switch and it worked instantly.  Remind me to learn something about sound equipment someday.

I recently lost about five-six pounds through smaller portions, spacing out snacks and drinking more water.  I was very proud.  Then today happened.  One co-worker brought in red velvet whoopie cakes (I didn’t name them, that’s what the sticker said).  Another tossed me an extra double cheeseburger that McD’s accidentally tossed in his bag.  Then a customer showed up with a tray of fresh egg rolls.  Guess who put on four pounds today?  Son of a bitch.

The best shape I ever got into was the summer before my junior year of college.  I cut back on the beers (mostly due to being poor), started eating less (again, poor), worked out everyday (too poor to do anything else) and our cook at the frat house was off.  I came into my junior year of college 14 pounds under my high school playing weight.  I actually had stomach muscles.  Then our cook came back and dumped cooking grease called Whorl on everything, the parties started back up and I put 15 lbs. on in a month.  I have found out my only chance of being in great shape is total human isolation or just go back to being poor again.  I generally like money more than people, so I’m either going to have a beer gut or you will never see me again.