Bandages Have Advantages, Too.

Tonight was a good night at the Loony Bin for me. I didn't go first, for one thing. And I kept things simple. Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton and Dog Phone were all notably absent. The most challenging jokes were the ones that drew the slowest and least sure response from the audience, which was not surprising. For the most part the jokes were simple, personal, and came out of real pain. I guess that makes sense. Whatever.

I'm just glad my pain could bring momentary happiness to a roomful of strangers that probably wouldn't talk to me if we met at a party.

And I want to give a special thanks to my ex for being cool with these jokes. I wouldn't be telling them otherwise.

Click here to listen!

And I Can't, Can't Get That The Future Might Depend A Bit On These Mistakes I Keep Making Over

Walking to work yesterday morning I slipped and fell on the ice again, not 20 feet away from where I fell on Friday. My favorite part of the whole experience was watching a station wagon drive past me without stopping to check and see if I was hurt. I can only imagine that it must have looked pretty funny to the driver. I felt angry that they didn't stop to see if I was hurt, but for all I know they could have been dealing with something far worse, so I won't judge too harshly. We all have our own burdens, and it is a rare person indeed who would stop to help a stranger. I realized, as I lay twitching on the sidewalk, that human kindness should never be taken for granted. It is the simplest, most beautiful, and sadly, the most rare gift we can give each other. I felt blessed, actually, to relearn that lesson.

I didn't feel so fucking blessed when I fell again walking home from work that afternoon. Yeah, twice in one fucking day. Three fucking times in four fucking days, and I should point out that I didn't even leave the house on Saturday. So, I'm averaging one fall per day. If I was your fucking grandma, I would be fucking dead by now. How fucking hard is it to put some fucking salt on the fucking sidewalk? Understand, people, that we are a fucking family, all right, and that we have to fucking look out for each other. If you own a fucking building with a fucking public sidewalk, and it fucking freezes, throw some fucking salt on the fucking ice, you lazy fucking bastards! Society depends on people living up to their fucking responsibilities to other members of society. This breakdown of order is un-fucking-acceptable, largely because it directly affects me, but also because it speaks to a growing inability or unwillingness on the part of certain fucking individuals to accept that with power and possessions come duties and obligations.

Anyway, I guess I'm just saying be careful out there, and try to look out for each other. Oh, and I fucking hate ice.

Twenty-Twenty-Twenty Four Hours To Go. I Wanna Be Sedated.

It's times like these that I'm ashamed to have strident, unwavering and extremist political views. Because it is people like me that, from time to time, do their damnedest to ruin something fun for everyone else. This time, the target is television's "24."

The charges include collusion in PNAC's wet dreams and unfairly depicting Muslims as terrorists. I wonder if these people have ever watched the show.

TwentyFour is a hyperbole. Yes, threats to America are more dramatic on television than they are in the real world, and yes, jihadi salafist martyrs make pretty good boogyemen for American television viewers. That doesn't make make the show a neo-con Chick Tract. It is easy, though, to focus on a couple of hot-button ideas like evil brown men and dirty bombs, but that simplistic view ignores a great deal about the whole. For one, the show takes a dim view of preemptive military adventures. It takes an even dimmer view of large oil companies and Presidents who lie to the American people and claim extra-Constitutional powers. And just so we're clear, racism and religious intolerance are cast in a poor light as well. But to get to all that, you've got to actually watch the episodes, perhaps even an entire season, before making a judgment.

And let me be clear, I'm not saying that people shouldn't take entertainment seriously. After all, I'm writing my thesis on biker films, so it would be a bit hypocritical of me to say "meh, it doesn't matter." Television does matter. It reaches almost as many Americans as water, and what it says says a lot about the culture that makes and consumes it. Of course, what we read into our entertainment, and how we read it, says a lot about us as well. If we're going to examine ourselves, let's do it right, otherwise it's just trainspotting. Oh, and I wrote a couple of papers about TwentyFour a while back. Feel free to take a look:
British Culture and spooks
Family, Fear, Paranoia and Revenge in 21st Century America: A Cultural Analysis of 24

I'll Stop The World And Melt With You

While walking to work today, my mind was drifting about. I was listening to Death Cab For Cutie's cover of "Earth Angel" and thinking about Back to the Future when all of the sudden I started to move in directions I didn't like. My feet shot out from under me, and I started to fall backwards into the slush and snow-covered ice that blanketed the pavement. As I went down, I noticed the dark green Range Rover stopped on the other side of the intersection and was glad that someone got to see my go down. 'Cause falling down in the street is like drinking: it's just not that funny if you do it by yourself. So, not to draw out the suspense too much, let me just admit that gravity won our little skirmish and I ended up flat on my back in the street. I did not crack my head open, though, which is nice, but I did break my fall with my iBook again. Strangely, the iPod never even paused.

So, I'm laying in the street, and for some reason I feel compelled to make that "aww shucks" arm-pump and snap, like that's going to show the world that I'm not dead and I've still got a sense of humor about it. Really though, I just didn't want Range Rover calling 911 for me unnecessarily. I stood up, brushed myself off a bit, and then made a flourishy dismount motion with my hands and the Range Rover drove off.

All in all, I felt like a total corncob.

As I kept moving on towards work, I was eventually glad that I had not died or cracked my noggin open on the street. But, I do think if I had to do it over, I'd nix the "aww shucks" and the dismount. Instead, I think I'd rather just lie there and twitch for a bit.

As I got closer to work, though, I kept thinking about how much I'm not willing to die for my job. Or any job, for that matter. And I thought about how shitty it would be if I had made some brain-omelet trying to get to work and wound up as the 24th Oklahoman to die from the ice storm. There's something very unsettling and necessary in there, about turning the dead into numbers. I'm not sure what it is, but I did take a Loritab about an hour ago, so that's how it goes.

Anyway, the same spot of ice was waiting for me when I walked home this afternoon, still slick and hateful as ever. I imagine that it's always going to be there in one way or another, waiting in the wings to spoil me and steal my potential. Well, not literally of course, as this damn ice will eventually melt.

But you knew what I meant.

It's The Terror Of Knowing What The World Is About

I may well be the last American to realize how hilarious the U.S. version of The Office really is. But there is a horror to it as well. These characters are, for whatever reason, mired in this meaningless paper company, unable to move on to anything else. Unable or uninterested in moving on, I should say. There is a gentle numbness in routine, in corporate culture. There is a comfort in steady paychecks and medical benefits. There is little incentive to do anything else. And maybe there's nothing wrong with supplying paper to businesses in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Someone, after all, needs to do it. There's no shame in becoming part of a cog in the machine that keeps society running. Although, honestly, I can think of precious little as soul killing as working in the micro-bureaucracy that supplies office products to the macro-bureaucracy. But, then again, there are people who literally eat shit for a living.

It made me think about my dreams, and what I really want to accomplish before I die. I'm 28 years old, and I still don't know what I really want to do with my life. I know that I don't want to eat shit for a living, so I guess that's a start.

I do know that I want to write, and I'm becoming less and less particular about how exactly that shakes out. Speeches? Sure, absolutely. Humor columns? Yeah. Dramatic monologues? Okay. Screenplays? I think so. And as I move farther away from that, the more likely I am to see my life as a failure.

So, there's my arrogance for you, I guess. No matter how successful I am at other endeavors, if I'm not a success as a writer I will always be a failure in my own eyes.

Wow. That's kind of a downer.

I Wanna Stand Up, I Wanna Let Go

You know it's going to be a good set when you're up first and the MC gets your name wrong. Seriously though, I wish I had more time with the audience. Not because I liked them, but rather because I hated them. I hated them because they were cold. They were cold because I was the first comic they had seen that night. It took them a while to warm up, and admittedly my material is not the most accessible and winning stuff you'll hear. People laugh at keywords like "penis," "head," and "Jews." It's like they aren't fully tuned in yet. "Slave Trade" and "seller's remorse" don't really penetrate. Swear to God, if I'm scheduled first next time, it will be four minutes of dying baby impersonations. Maybe it will be baby "Jews" choking on "penises" while giving "head." That's should warm 'em up.

And come see me, Anthony and Leah at the Electric Chair Gallery next month. Those crazy kids over at TheKND are putting together an End-of-Reality-Blowout. Be there, or cease to be.

In the meantime, listen to this shit.

And don't forget Momentum this weekend!

Is There Life On Mars?

Maybe. Maybe not as much as there used to be. C'est la guerre. I'm just glad there was something there to be killed, if that makes any sense. And I'm glad it didn't embark on any bloody reprisals. We're pretty good with the smashy-smashy, and it was really just a matter of time before we let the hammer drop on another planet, right? Fortunately, there's still life here on Earth. Even in Oklahoma City. And things are gettin' lively for me, let me tell ya.

I found a new coffee shop last night, Sauced, on the Paseo. I'm glad I did. I went in last night and wrote a few jokes, and by being around other people I didn't feel quite so alone. It's strange, but once I get back to my apartment, I'm pretty well cut off from the rest of the world. I can't watch local television or listen to the radio, so either I sit in silence or I watch DVDs or listen to music. There's a real disconnect, because I know that no one else is sharing the experience with me out in the rest of the city. No one else is popping in Disc Three of Scrubs Season Four at 8:43 p.m. on a Monday night, and that uniqueness is not at all comforting. It just makes me feel more isolated, and weird, and apart. There's a familiarity in this solitude, and I hate it. I hate it's ubiquity. I hate it's ceaselessness. Mostly I just hate how utterly necessary it is.

But this isn't some whining from a sad sack who's trolling for invitations to sockhops or mixers down at the local youth center. I'm okay, and like I said, life is gettin' lively for me. So, here come the pro forma performance plugs:
I'm going to the Loony Bin tomorrow night, hopefully to do some standup.
I found out tonight that I will be doing some spoken word this weekend at Momentum. You can come and see me Friday and Saturday night. I won't be doing comedy, per se, but rather some humorous monologues. The whole thing feels a bit like high school speech and debate and maybe that's why I'm excited about it.
Also, I may be the opening act for an art show next month.

That's it. I don't really have an end to this blog, nor do I have a great life-lesson to tie it all together. Whatever.

Done.

My New Resolution Is To Be Someone Who Does Not Take Everything So Seriously

I am an idealist. According to the Myers-Briggs personality test, that is. That means I'm an Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving person. But what the hell does that really mean? Nothing. Not a fucking thing. It doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know about myself. I know that I'm introverted; I know I don't give myself credit for the things I do well; I know I would rather be kind than be right. And I know that I am a mopey, emotionally burdened emo kid who from time to time engages in epic self flagellation. Surprise! Anyone who has spent half an hour with me would know that.

And I don't think I can change it. I wouldn't want to. David Lynch famously declined psychiatric treatment early in his life, as he would not take the chance that a "healthy" Lynch would be less creative and effective than the buttoned-down nutjob that would eventually give us Blue Velvet and Eraserhead . That's hardcore. That's devotion. And ultimately, that's the definition of being true to yourself, for better or worse. That's my goal. But I have to remember that not everything is tsunamis and executions in my little world.

The last couple of days, I've been bursting into tears at random intervals, finding chili fascinating and hilarious, and writing some really good jokes. See, I got dumped. Well, "dumped" is probably too harsh a word. My emotional stock market underwent a healthy correction this weekend. And I'm okay with it, really; and I pray to God that she's okay with it, too. But I am starting to develop a Phoebe-and-the-dentist relationship with Winter holidays. Anyway, like I mentioned, I've been having some fun mood swings, and with each swing of the pendulum I keep getting trapped in my head and that's not super-pleasant right now. So, I figure my only option is to make it work for me. We'll see how it works out, I guess.

In the meantime, I've got chili cooking on the stove.