It's Everything That Is Connected And Beautiful

I find most art books to be utterly uninteresting and unengaging. I think it's the skill with which the art is photographed and reproduced on the page that puts me off. It's glossy, slick and perfect and it almost always bears no resemblance to what the artist created. There really is no substitute for being in the same physical space as a work of art, for sharing the same air and light as this thing. It becomes more real for me and I feel a real sense of communion that I never find from a reproduced image on a page.

Art in a book is separated from reality and the limits of the physical world. It becomes eternal and perfect, and I hate it. I hate it for the same reason that I am utterly bored by Superman. Because it is so removed, so unassailable and so fundamentally alien. It bores me.

But when I can see a piece of art, see the light reflected off of it with my own eyes, that is something very different. I never feel jaded when I stand face to face with a work of art, even the really shitty ones. Ultimately, I find beauty in the flaws. When I can see the grain of a canvas, or the irregular swirl in a brushstroke, or an errant drop of paint that landed on the picture in defiance of the artist's wishes, I see myself, and my flaws, and I find it very reassuring. We live in a flawed, beautiful world and seeing these works or art, and all of their cracks and blemishes, reminds me of just how beautiful this imperfect world can be.

There's also an impermanence to these objects. And they are, after all, simply objects. Paint, cloth, wood, bronze, clay, etc. These things begin as unremarkable pieces of stuff, and through human industry and invention become transcendent. That's fucking beautiful. But they remain things, existing in our physical world, and all things are impermanent. Things break down, they disappear. Each moment they are on display, each moment they exist, brings them one moment closer to their inevitable end. I work in an archive and the one thing I've picked up is that everything we try to preserve will one day perish from this earth, no matter what we do. Lock it up in a sealed, UV-protected vault at the Louvre all you want, but someday we will have to live in a world without the Mona Lisa. That's fucking beautiful. That's life. It's sad, and terrible and tragic and beautiful. It's perhaps the best metaphor for the human condition that I have ever found, and I'm constantly looking.

I just wanted you all to remember that I do have a soul as you listen to the hate-filled piece of shit I recorded at Othello's this week. And to all my friends who stuck around for the whole show, I apologize for throwing such a weird and embarrassing hissy. And thanks for coming out anyway, I hope you had a good time.

Winston Smith's Five Minute Hate

And go to the Oklahoma City Art Museum, dammit.

And It Gives Me Something To Laugh About, 'Cause My Real Life Ain't Fucking Funny.

Nathan told me recently that comedy at the club level is all about selling beer.

There's something disturbing, yet comforting about that idea.

When I think about the performances of great comedians like Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor, I focus so much on how groundbreaking they were and how amazing their material was that I forget the rooms were full of people who just wanted to have a good time. They didn't necessarily care about changing the rules of our culture or shining lights on the dark, hypocritical corners of society. They wanted to laugh, be with their friends and have a drink. If they weren't there buying tickets and booze and shitty, stale bar food there wouldn't be a club in the first place. And Lenny and Richard would just be some really funny homeless guys.

So thank you, beer-swilling crowds. You make it possible for me to do something I love. No matter how much you may suck, nor how much you may hate everything I say or do, I will always love you, just for showing up and spending your money.

Next week will be my one year anniversary of doing comedy, and I'll be hosting at the Loony Bin all week, doing my level best to sell some beer.

Come see me.

In the meantime, check out my set from Tulsa last week.



Or download

In The Company Of Strangers With Some Vulgar Shit To Say

So, while I was in Dallas, I made an appearance at the Back Door Comedy Club. Funny thing about the Back Door is, you have to be clean. Not just clean, but really clean. No expletives, no bodily fluids, no sex acts, no nothing. So, you can guess it was easy for me to pick out three minutes of material. The sound quality on this is pretty awful, and you've probably heard it all before. So, don't listen to it. But if you really must, you can listen here.

It's The Same Old Thing As Yesterday

June has been rather unbloggy. Sorry about that. Don't expect too much from this one, either.

I'm in Dallas right now, having just seen the Police live in concert. It was a great show. If they come within 500 miles of you, see them. It wasn't perfect. Some of their reinterpretations of their old hits were a little too chill for my taste, and oddly inappropriate for a large arena tour. Sting's son's band, Fiction Plane, opened the show very ably. I'll probably purchase the album.

Here's the setlist from Sting, Andy and Stuart's portion of the evening. Note the phrase "Third Encore." They played for nearly two hours. These guys are old, but they can still kick out the jams.

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity 2
Walking on the Moon
When the World is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around
Don't Stand So Close to Me
Driven to Tears
The Bed's Too Big Without You
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
De Doo Doo Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking in Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne
First Encore:
King of Pain
So Lonely
Second Encore:
Every Breath You Take
Third Encore:
Next To You

Also, I'm going to be performing tomorrow night at the Backdoor Comedy Club's Open Mic night here in Dallas. Come see me if you're in the area.

And I Swear There's Something Evil In The TV

Anyone who has talked to me in the past six months probably knows just how much I like the show Heroes. It's awesome. Watch it. Watch it and then talk to me about it. Seriously.

I love that show for many reasons, not the least of which is Sylar. He has got to be one of the creepiest, most engrossing villains I've ever seen in literature. That's right, I just called a network television series "literature." Deal with it. It's got me thinking about villains, monsters, and antagonists in general. They're a key part to any story. Without villains and their evil machinations, a story is just a series of occurrences. Boring.

When I was in fourth grade we put on a play based on the story of Pecos Bill. There was something wrong with the script, and even I could tell. It took a while to figure out what it was, but eventually I realized that there was no villain. There was no Shere Khan, no Captain Hook, no big ass shark. We had a tornado for a villain. Boring.

I've tried to inject a little antagonism into my comedy. I really can't believe that it took me this long to see the importance of challenging an audience. I'm not there make friends, after all.

Anyway, blah blah blah. I've got a show on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Blah blah blah. Oh, also, I've got a video in the Tenth Annual Open Film And Video Screening at the IAO this Friday. Seven o'clock, five dollars, eighth and Broadway in downtown Oklahoma City. Good times.

Until then, feast your eyes on one of my greatest award-not-winning performances ever. Watch it. [Late Edit: Yes, Laura, there was no audio. Thanks for letting me know. I've reposted the performance, with audio, and with a clip of me giving a short, shitty interview at the end. "Enjoy."]

He Who Fucks Nuns Will Later Join The Church

I feel like I avenged myself tonight. I had a setlist. I had themes. I had callbacks (planned). I had a dead pope joke. By the way, I was feeling reverential this afternoon, and tried to create something that expressed that reverence and respect for God. This is how it turned out. Listen.

By the way, it was Pope Formosus.

(Bam-A-Lam) Damn Thing Gone Wild (Bam-A-Lam)

For the last few weeks, Othello's has been packed. Leah wondered recently if we had created a monster. Perhaps we had. The whole thing had grown and changed in ways we never planned. That's chaos, baby. In fact, last week it was so clogged with people that I didn't even have a seat. It was so loud that I actually shouted "SHUT UP!" at the audience. They didn't shut up, by the way. Then afterwards, Ana told me she was planning to plaster campus and Campus Corner with flyers to try and get more people into the bar. I'm not sure that more people is the answer, but it's not my bar.

I was not really excited about the prospect of more people crowding into the bar tonight, making noise and not paying attention. And as such, I didn't really prepare myself at all. So, I felt like a total douche when a small, attentive crowd showed up for the show. I felt bad about the quality of my performance. Oh, well. I recorded it, though. You can take a listen if you like.

Listen Here

Love Is Watching Someone Die

I felt a lot of love tonight. My friends came out and listened to jokes I had told less than 24 hours before. And they still laughed. The audience wasn't quite as into it, and I don't blame them. I need to write stuff that's more accessible. Really, I don't know what I was thinking. I came up with a minute on a Catholic strip club and I actually thought "this is it! This is universal! This will win them over!"

I just don't understand people.

Listen and/or download it - April 18 2007

You Think You're Dialed In? Someone Has To Win. And You Know What That Means? That Means Someone's Got To Lose. It's Probably You.

Last night I gave a shitty performance. I blame no one but myself. I fucked it up. Pure and simple. I can shake that off pretty easily. I might just have to put down Dog Phone, though. God help me, I love that bit so much, but no one else does. C'est la guerre. I actually got heckled, which was a first for me. I don't see it as a failure, though. I learned some important lessons about taking the performance seriously, and about not expecting too much from the audience. Especially when they've had a few good hours to get drinks in themselves. Like I said, it's pretty easy to shake off.

Tonight at the Loony Bin I gave a great performance. It just wasn't good enough, though. Now that's a shitty feeling. It's times like these that I wish I had never gotten good grades or done well on standardized tests. I'm used to exceeding expectations, and I'm so conditioned to judge myself based on the external validation that comes from other people judging me and deeming my actions awesome. That's what the laughter is all about, right? But let me tell you, comedy is not a standardized test. It isn't a research paper on international media systems. There are no guarantees that your hard work will pay off. It is totally subjective. At the same time, I don't want to downplay the achievements of the (at least) 8 people who were found funnier than me tonight. I got beat. It happens. I'm proud of all my friends that made it to the finals at the Loony Bin, and I'll be there on Sunday to cheer them on. But the overachieving Phi Beta Kappa super-nerd within me is having a nice little identity crisis. And one of the nice things about comedy is that until recently, that square-tied little fucker didn't even know what I was up to. Each time I went up I got laughs or I didn't, and that was it. But in the past couple of weeks it's become about competition. And yeah, I know my perspective would be different if I were one of the 8 finalists competing on Sunday. Well, I'm not sure, actually. I always look forward to performing, even at a sketchy south town strip club. But I was fucking dreading my 5 minutes at the Loony Bin tonight.

Oh well, it's over now. And by the way, I am not fishing for compliments here, nor do I want anyone to try and make me feel better about any of this. I am quite confident in my ability to make people laugh, and I do not want to feel better about losing. I want to cling onto my disappointment and frustration like the last blanket in the Siege of Leningrad.

After all, I've earned it.

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.