There Are Worse Ways For A Guy To Spend His Time

My blog turns 150 posts-old today.

Hoo. Ray.

I've been at this since January 11th, 2005, which means my relationship with bible belt babylon has outlasted any job I've ever held and any relationship I've ever been in. That's kind of sad. A friend of mine said that I should do it for a living if I really liked it that much. I'd really like to, I think. If I were to do that, I'd have to shy away from the pointless self-indulgence that I've come to rely on. I would need content, at regular intervals, and it would have to be good. Well, I'll give it a shot.

Also, I've decided to add advertisements to the site. I'm such a whore.

To make up for that bit of unpleasantness, I'm holding a contest. I recently commissioned some silicone bracelets with an inspiring message, and I'm going to give some away. If you can guess what number I'm thinking about, post it as a comment. You'll need to leave your email address, too. Winners will be chosen, like the number, completely at random. I'll probably give out three or four. And you don't have to actually guess what number I'm thinking about to win. Just, whoever asks, basically. Or whoever is closest.

Finally, some housekeeping: I will be performing 2-3 times next week.
Tuesday is Open Mic Night at Othello's in Norman, again from 9:30 - 11:30ish. Bradchad will be hosting! It's free!
Wednesday, if all goes well, I will be at the Loony Bin's Open Mic for the triumphant return of Joel David. Call ahead if you're going! 405.293.4242! Tell 'em you want the Myspace promo and it's free! Tell 'em you want to see me and it will make me happy!
Thursday I'll be the first act at the University of Oklahoma's Comedy Fight Night at the Union. It starts at 8:00 and runs until 10:00. It's free!
It's going to be a busy week.

But inexpensive, at least.

Oh, Such A Prima Donna, Sorry For Myself

Ugly. There's no other word for it. Wednesday at the Loony Bin was just ugly for us open mic people. There is a moment, I feel certain, when a group of people can become one being, thinking and reacting in unison. It's like a throwback to flocks and herds that can instantly turn on a dime when threatened by a predator. The predator in this case turned out to be jokes. This audience simply decided that they would do their level best to not laugh at anything we did. It was horrible. Getting these people to laugh was less like pulling teeth and more like trying to put teeth back into a person's head while they're running away from you.

They laughed, of course, but it was a strained, forced laughter. They really just didn't give a shit about the "non-professional" comics. There were even a couple of bitches sitting up front that were carrying on a conversation during my brief time on stage. Granted, I often talk during the show, but I don't do it four fucking feet away from the comics.

Terrible. Just a terrible night for us. I recorded my set but I can't bring myself to listen to it, let alone digitize it and put it up on the Internets. I'd rather just put it behind me. And don't worry, you're not missing anything new. The closest I came to a new joke was when I repeated the punchline to my recycling joke until the audience laughed, then I commented that I just recycled the joke. Woof.

I used to get really pissed off and demotivated after a night like that, but it seems to matter less than it used to. I guess I'm at a point where I know that I'm funny, and I can see a crowd response like the one this week as a fluke and not a useful piece of data. And my skin is a little thicker for it.

You Watched Me Hunt For Tips I Was Obliged To Pick Up From The Passing Trade

I took this picture last night before the show at Trust Me Too. In case you didn't know, Trust Me Too used to be a strip club. As far as I can tell, it could still be. Pole on the stage, names on the lockers in the changing room, informative signs on the walls... But now it's a heavy metal bar.

Last night it was a comedy venue. Unfortunately, the comics outnumbered the audience nearly 2 to 1. We still performed. Kyle recorded it. It was less a performance than a drunken workshop.

We might do it again, or maybe split a bill with the heavy metal bands that play on the weekends.

I can't pass up a chance to be onstage, even if it's just for other comics or a bunch of guys who blame Cobain for killing Rock 'n Roll.

And You Wonder Why No One's Ever, Ever Talking To You. No One Ever, Ever Needed To.

For a while I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I was that kid in grade school that made it through the gauntlet of bullies on the playground by being the amateur therapist. I learned at an early age how to get the other kids to talk to me, and I figured out quickly that a little bit of analysis will either a) confuse a bully long enough to get me through recess unharmed; or b) defuse their violent tendencies toward me entirely. I was good, too. And I enjoyed it. It was like solving a riddle, or putting a puzzle together. Yeah, that's right. I played with other kids' emotional trauma because I liked the challenge, not out of some sense of duty to the rest of humanity. Pretty shady, huh?

Anyway, it all went pear-shaped for me in junior high. I was at lunch with my Dad's cousin Bob and his son Matthew. Bob asked me what I wanted to do with my life. First of all, that's a fucked-up question to ask a thirteen-year-old, in my opinion. I'm still not sure what I want to do, but that's another post entirely. I told him that I was thinking about psychiatry.

Matthew, who is a few years younger than me, asked "what's that?"

Bob told him "well, when people are sad, they would go to see Seth, and talk to him about why they're sad, and he would help them to feel better."

My dream died right then and there.

It sounded so touchy-feeley and Alan Alda-esque that I got the same creepy feeling that I get when strangers talk to me about their faith. I wanted no part of it. I didn't want to help people feel better, damn it. I wanted to solve puzzles. I certainly did not want to listen to people telling me their stupid problems and feelings for the rest of my life. But it was too late. I had spent so much time and energy becoming that guy that listens to everyone that I didn't know how to go back.

I'm a listener now, which makes it difficult for me to talk to people. I think it also makes it hard for people to listen to me. There's something jarring about me opening up to people in the real-world, one-on-one, look-you-in-the-eyes sense. If you've been on the receiving end of me "sharing" then you know that it's more than a little bit awkward. And I apologize for that. But as weird and uncomfortable as they are, I still treasure those moments.

It's also why standup comedy appeals to me so much, and why I blog so damn much. People listen, or read, or whatever. And they respond, or they don't, and it's fine. But I wish I was better at the real-world interactions. I'm working on it.

Maybe I should see a psychiatrist.

The Present Is A Gift

I worry about things. I worry about global warming. I worry about AIDS. I worry about the end of the world. I spend so much time worrying about these far-off threats, which are scary as hell, that I sometimes lose track of what's going on in the here and now.

And fundamentally, here and now is all that we ever have. I have struggled my entire life to realize that there are no act breaks in my life. Each moment leads inexorably into the next, whether or not I'm aware of the change. I guess that's why procrastination is so damned seductive. If we can compartmentalize our lives into "now" and "then" we give ourselves the illusion of control. We can trick ourselves into thinking that Time's March is interrupted from time to time, giving us a chance to breathe and reflect before we carry on. That would be nice. But it's bullshit. I think it's more important to disabuse ourselves of that idea and concentrate on "now."

I'm not sure if I mean to say that today is all that matters or not. I think maybe I do, actually. Today is the day that we write that novel, or we don't. Today is the day that we cure cancer, or we don't. Today is the day that we take that drink, or we don't. It's really not even today, though. It's the moment, and the next moment, and then the one after that. Each one is a gift, and how we use them will determine what kind of gifts we get next. But, regardless of how we use them, they keep coming until they stop.

I think I've wandered a bit off my original topic, so I'm going to get back to it now.

What is it? Simply this: the future is uncertain. It may be shitty or it may be great, and a lot of it depends on us. But all we can do is to make the best choices now, today, in this moment, in each moment. Being alive may seem like an unrelenting task sometimes, but it is one I firmly believe is worth the trouble.

Because I Wanna See People And I Wanna See Life

So, last night was the first ever Open Mic Night at Othello's in Norman. It was great. We packed the place, which means we'll get to do it again. March 27th. Mark your calendars. I want to thank everyone who made it out to the show. I know Tuesday is a pretty crappy night for going out, so I really appreciate it. I hope everyone had a good time. I also want to thank the comics who came to perform. We only had seven comics show up, but they were good, so I'll get over it. Also, thanks to Howard, Evan, Anna and Terry at Othello's. I hope you guys made some money.

So, like I said, we'll do this again on March 27th, 2007 at Othello's of Norman.

In the meantime, you can listen to me introducing the evening's festivities.

March 6, 2007 - Download.

Tonight I'm Gonna Have Myself A Real Good Time

I've been up for a while now, having risen early to work on my thesis. But I was also troubled by a dream I had this morning. In this dream, I am in Venice, Italy hanging out. Jerry Orbach is there, protected by a large number of Italian S.W.A.T. team members in a safe house. Someone kills him, and all the men protecting him, and for some reason I am tasked with tracking down the perpetrator. I find him rather quickly, because it is a dream. He's in the midst of eliminating all the evidence of his crime. He's standing on a small boat, somehow pushing a Maserati into the canal. Yeah, he has his Maserati on the boat, which is about as big as a canoe, and he's picking up this sports car and dumping it into the water. It makes no sense, but whatever. My partner and I grab a boat and row out to him. Oh yeah, I have a partner from the Venice police department in this dream. Next, the murderer throws his bloadsoaked coat into the water. Lastly, he drops his pistol into the water, only I manage to catch it first. I tell him that he will confess and stand trial for his crimes. He runs, I shoot him in the foot. He keeps running, I keep chasing him. I'm out of bullets, so I pick up a nice bottle of port from a table at a café as we run past. I get closer to him, and I start whacking his head with the bottle. It is the sickest feeling I have ever known. And I can't stop. I know this is a dream now, but I can't shake it off. And I see myself, in third person, striking this man over and over with this bottle that never breaks. He's staggering but won't go down. So, I grab his head and start bashing it into a large rock, right on the corner. For some reason there's a blank television screen right in front of him, so I can see the reflection of my handiwork as his skull goes from "perfectly intact" to "broken eggshell." Thankfully, that was the end of the dream. Any thoughts?

In less disturbing news, I'll be performing tonight at Othello's in Norman. It's a comedy open mic, the very first that Othello's has had. If it goes well, it could become a weekly thing. You might even see some of the better comics being picked to provide entertainment on more popular nights, and being paid to do it, too. I really hope this goes well. It starts up at 9:30, but I'd get there a bit early to sign up and go over the ground rules. I'm so excited, I might actually smile today. I hope to see all my 405-ers out there tonight.

In the meantime, I shall fill my day with thesis, work, and hummus.

I See The Sky Above Me Like A Full Recovery

Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. It was right around this time of year, actually. It started right before Valentine's Day, with some symptoms that I won't enumerate here, and ended up taking (as I recall) two months of fever, pain and fear to diagnose. I was thirteen years old at the time.

I try not define myself by negative space, but that was my childhood trauma and that was what informed my adolescence. That's what turned me into who I am today. If you think back, you'll find that moment when the ground just fell away beneath you, when you realized that Mom and Dad were not all-powerful, and that the world wouldn't stop because something shitty happened to you. I almost feel like my life was split in two at that point. There's a thirteen-year-old me, stuck forever in the fear and pain of that time, and another me that was born the day I found out what was wrong with my body and what I could do to fix it.

I can't help but remember that bifurcation each spring.

I absolutely love spring. Springtime in Oklahoma makes the rest of the year tolerable. I have yet to see anything in this world as beautiful and terrible as the sky in March, April, and May. This dark, soft grayness just hangs in the sky, blotting out the world for miles in the middle of the day and the sun, no longer the harsh and angular tormentor of the winter months, falls soft and warmly upon the deep green of cross-timber foliage. It is birth, it is strength, it is verdant and beautiful. I've never missed a springtime in Oklahoma in 28 years. I try not to dwell on the death and destruction that follows so swiftly after that plush gray curtain in the distance.

But spring has held another meaning for me for the past fifteen years. Spring and Autumn are the times when I'm most likely to fall ill now. Maybe it's allergens in the air, maybe it's the changing temperatures. Who knows? For whatever reason, these seasons come tinged with dread. Will this be the year that I lose my colon? Will this be the year that my body no longer responds to my medication? Who knows? The thing about a chronic condition is that it's, well, chronic. I will never experience a full recovery. The condition I'm in, and I'm freakin' ecstatic about my condition, is the best that I will ever get. I will never wake up and suddenly not have Crohn's Disease. There will never be a year when I see that first wall cloud off in the distance without feeling a pang of fear.

We all have trauma, and triggers that bring us back to that pain. Maybe it's the book you were reading when you found out your Grandmother had died. Maybe it's song you sang right before the car crash. Maybe it's the lotion that Buffalo Bob made you use. Who knows?

I do know that the thirteen-year-old me is utterly useless at this time of year. He's nothing but fear and self-pity. But fifteen-year-old Seth is a different story entirely. He's handling things a lot better than he used to. And he's getting better at it every year.