Life, in comedy, is interesting to say the least. As a comic, you make the choice to get up in front of a room full of strangers, share with them your thoughts, and hope they not only agree with you but laugh in the process. It is a tall order to do both. I mean, sure you can talk about universally hated topics to get them to agree with you. Things like traffic, air travel, blind dates and children but these dead horses have been beat, and it takes a very skilled comic to get a genuine laugh while discussing them. On the other hand, you can go for the easy laughs by discussing universally funny topics like terrorism, suicide and abortion, but these are highly contested subjects and can prove difficult getting the audience to agree with you. Throw in the fact that everybody thinks they are comedy experts and will confidently, and without solicitation, give you advice on what would make your set funnier and it’s enough to make you want to quit or pick up a weapon.

Personally, I have struggled throughout my comedy career trying to decide on which side of the fence to walk. Do I go for the easy laughs, talking about subjects that are funny but unimportant to me? Things like stereotypes and the apocalypse? Or do I focus on the things I really care about but which often fall on deaf ears? Like the destruction of organized religion and Magic Johnson’s AIDS? I’m happy to announce that I’ve recently had a revelation and I will share it with you but before I do, a little back story is in order.
I used to think that I would never make it in comedy. Not with this extraordinary intelligence. Not with this biting wit. Throw in the fact that I’m tall, relatively good looking, have near perfect teeth, am not Jewish and/or black and a career in comedy seemed about as likely as Florence Henderson winning “Dancing with the Stars.” And this notion was reinforced by the masses. Since the beginning of my comedy career, every time I’ve met somebody and told them I’m a comic, I’ve received the same front-handed, bitch-slapped compliment. “You sure don’t look funny to me.” Thanks, dick. Since we’re going on first impressions, then you obviously have a flourishing career as a jizz-mopper at the Dirty Sanchez.

I would have sets that I thought were brilliant but would fall flat in the “laughs per minute” criterion.

I would have sets that I thought were unimaginative and predictable but they would kill.
I would listen to the critiques of bringer show comedy “aficionados” when they would tell me their pseudo-expert opinion on what they found funny or unfunny.

I would tell myself that they didn’t matter. It didn’t work.

I would get angry and lash out at the simple minded lemmings in one of these columns. It didn’t work.

I resided that I couldn’t always just say whatever I wanted and that the audiences’ enjoyment was paramount. That lasted about an hour.
I was conflicted.

Then last week, something happened. I was sitting in the back of a comedy club, listening to one of my friends eat shit on stage. To say he struggled would be like saying Somalia’s political system is struggling. He was in a four alarm, DEFCON 1, shit storm of a bombing. To be more accurate, they hated him. I could tell when I heard a couple behind me say, “I hate him.” Then they shouted, “We hate you!”

The thing about it was he wasn’t being offensive. He wasn’t sharing radical ideas that conflicted with the foundation of everything they held sacred. I think he was doing a bit about the difference between “cocksuckers” and “assholes.” I wanted to turn around and tell them something mean and petty like, “If you’re going to open your mouth during a comedy show, make yourself useful and let me piss in it.” But I didn’t. When I looked at them I had a vision. It was like that scene in “The Matrix” where Neo gets shot, is reborn and can see the Matrix for what it actually was. I saw these two people who were nothing more than spectators. Passive spectators. What they felt or what they said, good or bad, was completely meaningless. To a comic, they were and are an illusion.

As I said in the first paragraph, a comic makes the CHOICE to live in a world of comedy. What never occurred to me until that night was that the choice doesn’t start and stop with the stage. It is a way of life – comedy. All day. Every day. And the only obligation the comedian has is to do comedy.

His comedy.

However he sees fit. If people love it, great. If they hate it, great. It doesn’t matter either way.

People get into comedy for a myriad of reasons but the one thing every comic has in common is that they love the funny. Too many of us get caught up in what that “funny” is. As if it is one thing. The only thing that matters is our own funny. That’s the only funny worth defining.

Since that night, I’ve had lots of funny in my life. Not just on stage but everywhere.

I was walking my dogs the other night when a shirtless douche made a point to tell me not to let my dogs piss on the new plants in his apartment’s flower bed. Because, according to him, “For the first three months of a plant’s life, dog urine will throw it into shock and kill it but after the first three months, dog urine actually helps it thrive.” I looked at him and said, “Just like babies.” Then I turned and enjoyed a good laugh to myself.

The following night I met another person who made a point to tell me that I “don’t look funny.” When he told me that he was a sales manager, I replied with laughter, “You’re a manager? Like you’re responsible for other people? And they listen to you??!! Stop, you’re killing me.” I think he got the point. I found it hilarious.

As a comic, I find it fun to hold a mirror up to society. Sometimes that may offend people. Sometimes people may love it. Whatever, if it is funny to me then it plays.
If a comic makes the choice to live in a world of comedy and a person enters that world voluntarily then they must automatically succumb to the laws of that world; love it or not.

Brain..brain! I used my brain to compile these observations….

I still haven’t made my mind up about the new lead singer of Sublime. I’m not sure if he’s a nerd or if he’s a tool. Maybe he’s multi-dimensional. All I know is that Brad Nowell, the original singer, died for his lyrics (songwriting was one of the excuses he used to justify his heroin appetite)- as simplistic as they might have been. Now some new guy is regurgitating mushy music vomit into my ears, like a Mama bird with vertigo. Why has originality in entertainment become as prevalent as diversity in Indiana? I’m tired of the industry feeding me what I had for lunch at dinner time.

Dat Phan is more than just a comic. He is a living testament to the fact that the attack on Hiroshima was a catastrophically violent tainting of an entire Nation’s gene pool. A morally irresponsible act, the ramifications of which can be seen in the physical and mental deformities of generations past, present and future. Dat Phan isn’t Japanese, you retort? Well, his mother’s vagina is. He does an impression of it in his act.

The passing of proposition 19 would make California a better place. You’d have to be a Nazi to vote Nein on 19.

Obama being bi-racial brings an interesting dynamic to the presidency. Back in the pre-Lincoln days, if you were black and white, you had conflicting rights and were considered to be self-employed. My nieces and nephews are mixed, which gives me carte blanch, as far as that joke goes.

Skinny jeans give emo kids the hugs that they never received from their parents.

Wendy Williams is the answer to the age old question: what would happen if Tyra Banks fucked a pile of extra chromosomes.

Christopher Columbus may have not been first to discover the Americas, but he was the first to realize that Indians could be used as dog food. My country celebrating the historically evil has enabled me to miss over a dozen Mondays in school, so I guess it all worked out.

Almost half a decade later, and the remaining Kennedy files are still being kept in an inaccessible, Government-controlled hiding place, along with Dubya’s service record and Reagan’s memory.

Comedy isn’t dead. It might have died briefly in 1994, when Bill Hicks passed and Carrot Top was voted comic of the year, but it was quickly resurrected, thanks to a variety of factors….

Such as:

A handful of classic Carlin HBO specials.

The emergence of such explosive stand-up acts as CK, Oswalt, Atell, Chappelle, Giraldo, Blurr, etc.

A solid alternative scene spearheaded by the likes of Odenkirk, Cross, Thompkins, Galifianakis and others.

The prolific comedy writings of Gould, Apatow (sometimes), Horowitz, David, etc.
…and so on. So, you see, comedy isn’t dead….anymore. If anything, it’s in a zombie state. If it’s done right, it will consume your brain.

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Wow, things have really gotten serious around here, haven’t they? If you’ve been reading the columns and the comments on this site with any regularity, you would probably have mistaken this comedy site for an actual news site. Let’s recap.

August 17, 2010 Got Talent? Can America Even SPOT Talent?: The Eric Somers rails against contemporary television programming, citing reasons like ineptitude and nepotism for the lack of quality programming. For the record, The Eric Somers really likes Seinfeld.

August 18, 2010 Obese City: Mike Fellows rails against the obesity epidemic that is destroying America’s arteries. The “advertisement-fueled media” is the primary culprit, hawking their high fructose corn syrup laced goodies for all the junk food junkies residing on couches all over the land.

August 19, 2010 The First Rule of Omelette Making: I hypothesize that the downward trajectory of our popular culture is a direct result of a collective “fuck it” attitude which has descended on our populous. The comment section gets weird as philosophy turns into politics and being told that I should be a politician sends me into a severe depression for the next 72 hours.

August 24, 2010 Working It Out Onstage: The Eric Somers shares his 80/20 rule on polished material vs. new material for comics doing bringer shows. The piece is light and insightful until the comment section turns into a petty battle of whether or not my blow job jokes were polished. They were.

August 26, 2010 Truth Hurts…So, Good!: I try to convince readers that I’m not an angry comic. Rather, I simply try to tell the truth. Then I go on two rants about the housing market and Mothers Against Drunk Driving which come across as very angry.

August 31, 2010 My Most Disturbing Column Yet: The Eric Somers, following the trend of negativity, writes his most disturbing column yet. No mention of Seinfeld in this one.

September 10, 2010 Yee Haw Jihad: Commenting on the absurdity of Pastor Terry Jones’ plan to burn the Qu’ran on the anniversary of 9/11 ignites a heated religious debate between myself and SantaAnitaKid (Heavy Hitters’ most fervent reader) In a drunken attempt to be bold and edgy, I offer my address and telephone number in the comment section daring any “insane” person to call and chat. I get called by SantaAnitaKid that afternoon. Draw your own conclusions. (Nothing but love, SantaAnitaKid)

September 14, 2010 Making Light of Darkness: The Eric Somers gives a lengthy list of topics he does not joke about because he does not like to laugh at suffering. Coincidentally, his list is basically my entire set list.

So what is my point? Why have I given synopses of columns listed on this site for the past month? Columns which you could have just clicked on and read for yourselves? Why am I doing this? Why do I keep asking myself questions? Filler maybe?

I guess I just felt that things were getting a little serious on this here site and just wanted to comment on it and remind everybody that this is comedy. It doesn’t have a real definition. It has no rules. It has no taboos. Funny is funny. It doesn’t matter if it is a dick joke or a Dick Cheney joke.

I can romanticize it by saying all the clichés we’ve already heard. It is the comedian’s job to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Comedy makes the tragedy of life more bearable. Comedians are the truth tellers of the world. All that stuff we’ve all read before and gives each comedian a nice chubby every time he or she hears it. Cause female comedians can get chubbies too, FYI. I can say all those things but that would be taking this too serious again. So instead, I will list some jokes I have always found funny. Some are harmless. Some are racist. Some are sexist. But they are all funny to me and I just thought we could use some more laughs. Enjoy!

Your mama is so ugly, she entered an ugly contest and they told her, “Sorry, no professionals.”

A monkey is sitting on a tree limb, smoking a joint. A lizard walks up to him and says, “Hey monkey, can I hit that joint?” The monkey says, “Sure.” So they sit on the tree limb and get high together. After a little while the lizard says, “Man, I’m so high. I got the worst cotton mouth. I’m going to get a drink of water.” As the lizard goes down to the river to get a drink, he sees a crocodile. The crocodile says, “Hey lizard, what’s up?” The lizard says, “Oh man, I was just getting high with monkey.” Croc says, “Can I get some of that?” Lizard says, “Sure, just go up to the tree and ask the monkey.” So the crocodile heads up to the tree to smoke with the monkey. When he gets there, the monkey looks down and says, “Duuude! How much water did you drink??!!”

What do you call 200 white men chasing a black man? The PGA tour.

What’s the difference between a woman and a washing machine? A washing machine doesn’t follow you around after you drop your load in it.

A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer and says to the bartender, “Hey, I got this great Polish Joke…

” The barkeep glares at him and says in a warning tone of voice: “Before you go telling that joke you better know that I’m Polish, both bouncers are Polish and so are most of my customers” “Okay” says the customer,”I’ll tell it very slowly.”

What do you call a black man flying a plane? A pilot you fucking racist.

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class one day. ‘In English’, he said, ‘A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.’ A loud voice from the back of the room piped up, ‘Yeah, right.’

Why doesn’t Mexico do well in the Olympic Games? Because everyone who can run, jump or swim is in the United States.

A Priest and a Rabbi are walking through a park when they see a ten year old boy. The Priest says, “Hey, let’s go fuck that kid.” The Rabbi says, “Out of what?”
There you go. And remember, let’s keep it positive.

Is there nothing more compelling than the moments right before a fight? The tension felt as each side pounds on their chest, draws a line in the sand, and dares the other to cross? That feeling of nervousness and excitement as the inevitable clash draws near? I love it. It serves as the best reminder of our primal, not-too-distant, past. It is a reaffirmation that, as much as we may not want to acknowledge it, we are all just another species on this floating rock; animals all the way, through and through, marking our territories and defending our herds.

Of course, we like to distinguish ourselves as superior to our animal brethren because we have developed higher brain functions such as creative and abstract thinking, problem solving and consequence recognition. But make no mistake; while mankind loves to suck its own metaphorical dick, loving the glamour of these higher brain functions, we tend to forget that under it all lays a more primitive, narcissistic brain which plants us at the center of the universe and still dictates the way we behave. The human ego. As we evolve as a species and as individuals, it seems as if we are in a constant state of struggle between these two driving forces in our cognition and I cannot think of a better way to demonstrate this tug-o-war of consciousness than to examine what we have created with our religions.

I am sure you have been following the story of Pastor Terry Jones and his, “Burn a Koran Day” to commemorate the 9th anniversary of 9/11. If you haven’t then maybe you should consider reading something that is not about teenage vampires and Kim Kardashian and join the group. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

All caught up now? Good. Everybody is offended. Muslims are offended. Christians are offended. The Qu’ran burning hillbillies are offended that everybody is offended. It’s absolutely god damned terrific!

Personally, I have found this news story to be the most interesting event in recent memory. Sure, on the surface it just looks like some right winged, Yosemite Sam lookin’ ass Bible thumper pulling a publicity stunt for his congregation of rednecks, but look closer. At the core of this story lies the reality of the entire human condition; a total contradiction between our ideals and our actions.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s examine the two religions at the center of this shit storm, Christianity and Islam. Both religions are derivatives of the Old Testament so it seems that would be a good place to start. And since we’re going to the start, let’s start at the start of the start; Adam and Eve and the parable of Original Sin. Although there are some subtle differences in the story, both religions would agree on the main plot points. God creates the Garden of Eden which contains a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge. God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. A serpent convinces them otherwise. They defy God’s order and eat anyway. God makes them self aware and they become shameful in their nakedness thereby inventing the first fig leaf banana hammock / bikini. They get kicked out of the Garden of Eden and are sent to Earth to forage, reproduce and do the human thing. The Tree of Life is left to be guarded by an angel with a light saber or, “flaming sword” for you sticklers. Agreed? Agreed.

Now since that is the first story in the Old Testament and the Qur’an and those books are supposedly the word of God and we are to learn from God’s teaching, we should consider it the first lesson of humanity. Agreed? Agreed.
Now I want to use a little logic here. Adam and Eve could have resided in The Garden of Eden forever had they eaten from the Tree of Life which would have given them immortality. The only caveat was that they were not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. By eating from the tree, they gained self awareness and therefore could no longer reside in paradise. By becoming self aware and shameful of their nakedness, we can deduce that the human “ego” was born. We can further deduce that eternal life cannot exist while possessing self awareness. To exist in that realm, one must transcend the “self” and exist in a different state; certainly not a human state. Agreed? Maybe.

Now if a religious person’s goal is to follow God’s teachings and reside with God in paradise and God dictates that one cannot exist in paradise with an ego, then let me ask you something. How the fuck is it possible that the most religious people are so easily offended? How is it that these so called people of God have the strongest egos? Are you following where I’m going here? Burning flags, burning Qu’rans and burning Bibles can only offend those who are narcissistic in their thinking. Their ego is what gets offended. It is their selfish, self awareness shining at its brightest. Not very divine. Not very enlightened. Not very Jesus or Mohammad like. Fucking bat shit stupid might be another way to put it.

What’s really eye opening is that it’s lesson number one. It is the foundation upon which all other lessons can be taught. And they completely fucked the pooch on it. Debating about burning Qu’rans or construction sites of Mosques without this realization is like debating string theory with the belief that 1 + 1 = yogurt.

By the way, if you really want to understand what it means to lose your sense of self and have what could best be described as a religious experience, then eat some magic mushrooms. You’ll understand what I’m talking about. In fact they just released a study concluding that terminal cancer patients who take magic mushrooms significantly lower their stress regarding their impending doom. Do you want to know why? It is because the experience of consciousness without self is, in fact, a heavenly experience.

Upon typing this, I just learned that Pastor Jones has decided to cancel his “Burn a Koran Day.” The news agencies are claiming a victory for common sense. I can’t help but be a bit disappointed. I actually wanted to see it happen. I wanted to see him cross that line. Then I wanted to see some extremist Muslims drive a truck full of dynamite into his church. I really wanted to. I’m not going to lie. You see, this so-called compromise doesn’t change anything. The narcissistic thinking will continue. Nothing will be gained from it. People will go on believing in their misguided religions, living in a perpetual state of their terrible twos. Selfish, ego-centric and looking at the world through their “mine, mine, mine” filters.

I’m no war monger but I feel, as a species, we need to get past this hang up if we are going to grow and evolve. I didn’t buy the arguments that our government was feeding us that by burning Qu’rans, that church was putting soldiers’ lives at stake in the Middle East. Like they’ve been all comfy and safe over there before this story broke and now that they’ve decided against the book burning, the bombing will stop. I give it a week before we hear of a new attack. And on and on it goes. You see, many people are looking for peace over there but it is my contention that it cannot get better until it gets worse. I wanna speed up this holy war. Because that’s what it is, right? Stateside, you would never hear a politician call it that but, believe you me, that’s what it is. I say, let them all kill each other. Take all the extremist Muslims and all the extremist Christians and line them up in the desert across from one another, strap some C4 to their chests and have the greatest game of Red Rover ever played. “Red Rover Red Rover, send Pastor Jones right over.” BOOM!!

Talk about losing a sense of self. It would be spread all over the desert.

Unfortunately, true learning can only be achieved after loss. We only grow after we fail. And anything other than letting it all fail will stagnate us as a species. Like the old comedy adage goes, “There’s nothing more painful than watching a comedian grow on stage.” So too is the case for spiritual enlightenment.