Ka Boom

Humor is an effective tool for dealing with the insanity of day to day life. Ask most any comic and their answer will, in a round-about smart-ass way, point to my point. Life is too weird not to laugh at. Prior to stepping on the stage, I would randomly hear the complement “you should be a comedian.” Kind words alone were not enough to persuade me to become a comic. I needed an extra push. A push that would happen during a trip to Alaska in the Summer of 2007. It was such a strange, eye-opening, horrifyingly beautiful experience that it just about spun my head around. By the time I returned to California, I was ready for anything Hollywood had to throw at me.

My system practically went into shock my first week in Anchorage. My smog-spoiled lungs didn’t know how to react to the oxygen-rich blue sky and I hacked up a few reminders of home before I adjusted. Once I did, I was better able to take in the surrounding beauty. The dying brown foot hills I was used to seeing were replaced with snow-capped mountains. I saw Bald Eagles and Blue jays instead of pigeons and telephone wire bound sneakers upon tilting my head upward. It was such a refreshing contrast.

I decided to become more familiarized with a bike ride around the park. Fuck Texas. Everything is bigger in Alaska. I rode around aimlessly for miles and miles without covering the same track twice. When I came to a secluded, woodsy area I heard a rustling. Being baked and paranoid and from California; I could only assume the source of the noise was a moose with a rifle lurking in the bushes. As I nervously peddled faster, the noise continued to follow and intensify. Turned out to be a couple of gnats copulating in my ear. Can’t say that I blame them. My ears are larger than average. It must have seemed like a penthouse to them.

My internal clock had to adjust to the constant presence of Sun light. There is something liberating about heading home from the bar at 3 am with your shades on. I think the desolation had an effect on the population. I’ve never seen so many discarded liquor bottles. Entertainment was scarce. I was taken aback after witnessing a “rat race” at one of the many town bingo parlors. They take a live rat, place it on a roulette-style wheel, spin it, and bet on which numbered hole the startled rodent will run into. It’s the only game that can be rigged with cheese. There was a lot of positive buzz going around about a certain Governor Palin. In retrospect, I can see something was off about this beautiful place.

While meeting the locals, I was duped by a shaved Yeti, cleverly disguised as a young Eskimo woman. Fellas, if you have a fluctuating nostril hair fetish, stop reading this right now and book yourself a flight. It’s similar to the flow of jellyfish tentacles. As time progressed, the situation became more bizarre. It went from “oh, you like to drink. That’s fine” to “oh, you saw the devil when you were five. Inter-es-ting.” I thought this chic was crazy when she told me that she had a dream where she shot my girlfriend in the head and woke up feeling relieved. I knew she was crazy when she told me she dreamed that I defended her honor from the animated Gods by using the power of the Sun to melt them. I did what any concerned, rational guy would do. I dropped her off at work one day, and by the time I was due to pick her up, I had driven half way to Canada. With Bob Dylan in my ears, and determination in my eyes, I drove 3,400 miles back to the familiar brand of chaos in Southern California.

A month or so before I fled, I got to see an inspired set from Bill Hicks’s childhood best friend and writing partner, Dwight Slade, at the local wallowing perch, Chilkoot Charlie’s. Nine bars rolled into one. Described as a “Disney World for drunks.” Watching Slade control the room with his free-flowing energy was just what I needed. I had seen other awesome stand-up performance before this, including the Master, George Carlin, but something about that particular set made something click inside of me.

The five day trip home gave me plenty of time to think. I had this nagging urge to do what felt right. Comedy. I didn’t hit the stage for another year, but hadn’t I had the Alaskan experience, I would probably still be a funny carpenter rather than a broke comedian.