Month: May 2013

I got to emcee the semifinal round of the “Open Mike Talent Search” at the Columbus Funny Bone this week.  I enjoy emceeing these, because it means I’m not in them.  Contests can be rough.  You spend days agonizing over which jokes to tell, hope you don’t go first or accidentally dribble pee on yourself, and finally watch as some other contestant brings 75 friends to the round you’re in, while you have 8 people show up.

It was a strong lineup, but having comedy A.D.D., I have a hard time sitting still.  I make a game of finding one liners and quips to say during the show, sometimes it kills, sometimes it doesn’t.  Example – I told everyone at the beginning not to get all white trash excited until the clapoff at the end.  Apparently, “don’t get too excited” was including at some of my act.  One comic was doing a rant on babies and I relayed a fun joke about how I heard a PSA about shaking babies.  I don’t know which is sadder, shaking babies or the fact someone thought a PSA would fix the problem.  NOTHING.  Apparently everyone in the crowd had been abused.

I redeemed myself with a few lines.  One comic did a joke about being a creepy drunk.  I retorted that I didn’t think she was creepy at all while I was watching her through her window.  That worked…and probably made some ladies check their purses for mace.  The only sad part of the night was I accidentally hit the door frame with my arm and dropped my beer.  I can still see it in my mind’s eye.  I felt like curling up into a ball and listening to Jewel the rest of the night.  Why God why, must this happen to me?  I’m a good person!

Each time I think society can slip no further, I am sadly never disappointed.  My lady had a girls’ night function, so I fought the instinct to burrow away like a rodent and got instead the present of watching a cavalcade of reality dance shows.  The first one was So You Think You Saved the Last Dance?  Nope, You Got Served or something.  The last was Dance Moms.  I knew I hated the show instantly when the sassy lady did the double head shake with the shoulder shrug.

The show is basically a horrible witch who needs a penis like a smack addict needs a needle.  She berates children until they cry.  Then a gaggle of harpies known as the dance moms curse in front of said children, complaining alternately about each other and/or how their pampered low talent offspring is treated by a woman who is clearly too fat to dance.  Throw in a poodle haired “rival” dance teacher (who was probably created for the show) who is equally as unlikeable and you have the show.  Someone please take their kids away.  I realized if they make a show called Dance Moms Death Match, it would be my favorite show ever, barring one called “The Kardashians Headbutt Moving Traffic.”  I will drive the first vehicle.

The fair was always a big deal in my smaller town.  I remember the death trap rides, the horrible food (I still can’t eat pork sandwiches thanks to a rather violent puking episode in 1992), and the games.  I got decent at the ring the bell with the hammer game.  It was great because the carnie gave all us 14 year olds a cigar if we hit the bell.  Take that, rules of society!

Now, they have nicer versions of carnivals like Dave and Buster’s.  It’s cleaner, they serve booze, and you get tickets instead of cheap, stale cigars.  I laughed to myself as my girlfriend and I filled up a huge bucket, spilling over the edge.  These rubes cater to kids, but now they’re dealing with a seasoned veteran, skilled in games of chance!  After two hours we went to collect our rewards.  New iPad mini?  Xbox?  “1120 tickets, sir.”  I then realized we had enough for a whoopie cushion, a rubber band gun, and after another run…a head massager that appeared similar to a whisk you make scrambled eggs with.  By my calculations, if I go every day and drop about $50 a shift, I should have something useful by mid-November.

– Trying to keep people from telling me what is happening on Game on Thrones is getting difficult.  I may have to quit all social media until I get caught up.  Also, it only took me three episodes to hate Joffrey with all my being.  Now it’s beyond human emotion.

– I slid last night in softball, ripping a lovely strawberry the length of my shin.  Everything in me said not to, but the subliminal brainwashing from nine years of baseball took over.  Why can’t something cool, like assassin training be buried in my brain instead?  Martial arts?  Nope, my pants stick to my half bleeding leg.  Thanks, coaches.

– I used to complain about paying condo fees before I moved into a house.  I remember when my biggest decision on projects around the house was whether to take the trash out or run the sweeper.  $100 bucks a month goes a long way when you’re being eaten by mosquitoes doing yard work.  If anyone needs B- blood, just look for a morbidly obese flock of those bastards in Columbus.

 

A new craft beer store (I don’t know what they’re called officially) opened within walking distance of my new home.  They have fancy pants beers that I can’t pronounce.  I feel like an immigrant trying to communicate with them.  “BUSCH…LIGHT…COMPRENDE?”  I am white trash.  My old local beer store actually stocked dirty 30’s just for me.  Just doing my part, America.

I finally caved and bought a four pack of some Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrell Ale.  I strutted up to the register, proud that my stupid ass finally had become an adult.  “$16.00, sir.”  Excuse me…I thought you said $16.  That’s funny.  “No, that’s the price.”  Well, I bought it to save face, pissed at the world.  Then I drank two and was loopy like after my third concussion.  (Fastball to the face, in case you were wondering).  Not bad, Dragon’s Milk!

The only intolerable part is the general snobbery of other patrons.  “I’m looking for a craft brew, not too hoppy, but with a nice barley aftertaste.”  Yuck.  I’m all like, “What will make me forget I’m not the lead guitarist in a late 80’s trash metal band?  Dog piss?  $7 a case?  You drive a hard bargain, my good man!”  The bar is low kids, but that means so is the letdown.  Now excuse me, I just found out the corner store beside this one sells Steel Reserve.

Strange title?  Perhaps, but I am doing a rarity this Tuesday – a benefit show for a person I’ve actually met.  My pal, fellow comedian Bob Cook, is having a fund raiser to gather some coins for gastric bypass surgery tomorrow at the Columbus Funny Bone (columbusfunnybone.com).  Probably to lose weight, but knowing Bob, perhaps to shrink his stomach enough to get crocked on two beers.

Usually benefit shows are pretty strange in that as a comic, they sometimes don’t tell you all the details…or you’re not paying attention since they are being done for free.  Once I showed up to a cancer benny (that’s what us stars call benefits) and found out that kids were present.  As in five and six year old range.  That was a lovely mad scramble to come up with jokes in about ten minutes that wouldn’t scar children for life.

I think my favorite was the show where I realized a “signer” was onstage with me.  I spent the whole week dreaming up vile and disgusting things I wanted to see someone have to sign out as my devil horns popped out in pure evil ecstasy.  Then I got there and they told me nothing too dirty or cursing.  I died a little that night.  I still managed to tell the signer onstage she was a lucky woman and not to take credit for my jokes with all the deaf people.  She was a pro – she signed away, but I could feel the hate in her stare.  I had fun.