Do you know why I love July?

“Why?”

Because it’s not December.

“Whoa. Are you saying that you don’t like the holidays?”

How dare you, disembodied voice in my head! I’m not saying any such thing. I’m just pointing out that in December, EVERY columnist is doing a year-end summary or a top ten list. But in July, I pretty much have that territory all to myself. AND I LOVE TOP TEN LISTS.

“Good for you.”

So, let’s do one. Let’s list the top three sitcoms of all time!

“Um, I thought you were going to do a top TEN list.”

Yeah, well, good writing requires twists and turns. Besides, I’ve always felt that round numbers like 10 and 100 suggest manufacturing and overreaching (if not out and out deceit) on the part of the list compiler. I may not be everybody’s idea of a good writer (though I try), but I can be everybody’s idea of an honest list compiler. And the truth is, as far as I’m concerned, there are only three sitcoms that have separated themselves sufficiently to have attained my highest rating of “all-time great” (and for those of you movie fans who are looking for a conversion scale, that’s like, oh I dunno, eight thumbs up).

By having to name only a top three, there will be no hemming and hawing (not that I know what hawing is. Actually, I don’t know what hemming is either. How do you like that? I don’t know what hemming or hawing is, yet I’m perfectly comfortable using the phrase “hemming AND hawing”. Ain’t language fun?).

Anywho, let’s get to that list!

Number 3 – The Larry Sanders Show. For the record, if we were doing a bottom up list, Larry would be the greatest of all time. The Larry Sanders Show was the most consistent “all-time great” sitcom ever to air. There was never a sub-par episode (unlike numbers 2 and three on my list).

My favorite line of all time belonged to Hank Kingsley, when he bragged that he had managed to snare the caterer from one of the Godfather movies. “Which one,” someone queried.

“Godfather 3,” answered Hank, “you know, the good one.”

Number 2 — The Simpsons. If you are arguing that The Simpsons doesn’t count because it’s animated. I pity you. Not in the way Mr. T does, where he pities the fool, but in… no, wait… actually, I do pity you the way Mr. T does. I pity the fool!

My favorite all-time line from the Simpsons came when Homer was shopping for a computer. “Buy this baby and you’ll be surfing the internet in no time,” said the salesman.

“Oh,” exclaimed Homer, “they have internet on computer now?”

Number 1 – Please ignore the finale. Seinfeld was the greatest sitcom of all time. You just gotta ignore the finale!

My favorite line from Seinfeld came from Kramer.

“Darren,” said Kramer, “if you’d have told me ten years ago that we’d be standing here right now, about to solve the world’s energy problems, I’d have said you were crazy. Now, let’s push this giant ball of oil out the window.”

Well, there they are, people: the three greatest sitcoms of all time. I’ve laboriously laid out an airtight, inarguable case for each of my choices, so don’t bother disagreeing with me. Just make my favorites your favorites and we’ll get along just fine.

In the remote circumstance that you still have different favorites, please feel free to name them in the comment section below (but really, all you’ll be doing is setting yourself up for justified ridicule from anyone who reads your silly words).

Until next week, this is the Eric Somers wishing you good night and good news (no, the Mary Tyler Moore Show did not JUST BARELY miss the list, but I did like The Mary Tyler Moore Show).

At a show last night a friend brought a friend who brought a friend and the friend said “I think comedians should get drunk before they go on stage”. I didn’t, had a great set anyway, but it made me think about how is it that we break down walls. In my email in-box I subscribe to a thing called Notes from the Universe. I know it sounds cheesy, but modern times call for modern measures. In other words, secret “that shit in” folks, whatever “that shit” may be. Anyway the note I got yesterday said. “Be still, Leisa, (yes they address the lovely notes with your name, cute huh?) Stop thinking, feel, take action. It made me wonder if I “feel drunk” would that be enough. No seriously folks, can I have six Martini’s. Soliciting laughter whether it is while high on substance, or high on life is serious business.
Maybe the key word is soliciting. No we are not soliciting the way prostitutes solicit sex, of course if you have a good set you might get some (insert smiling emoticon here), but we are soliciting, aren’t we? The literal definition of solicitation is to urgently ask for something. The aim of a comedic set is to KILL the audience, and sometimes in less than 6 minutes, that seems urgent to me. Other words that replace the word solicit would be incite, woo, hook, move or persuade. Hooking the audience sounds pretty dead on for what we need to do to get the response we want. We are the protagonists and it is our job to get people interested in us. If we wait for the audience to tell us that they like us first we have wasted too much time.

One of the first things I realized as a yoga teacher was that I couldn’t let the class have more control than me. I have to dictate how the class will run. If I walk into the room and the class is tired then it is my job to get their energy moving. I can’t say “Look, I can tell you guys are tired, and that half of you don’t really want to be here, but is it ok if I try to make you work hard anyway”? My job is to make them sweat and loosen up and feel good. On stage my job is to make them laugh and loosen up and feel good. As comedians we can’t ask for permission to make them laugh, we have to make them laugh whether they really wanted to or not.

Why don’t bad things happen to good people more often? Rather, why doesn’t the appropriate thing happen to the deserving person more often? Life needs to teach us lessons, no matter how severe, in order for us as a species to evolve.

There was an incident in Connecticut last year (and I’m really on top of it) that bugs me every time it pops into my head. It was a gratuitously violent episode born from human arrogance and ignorance. An attack by an animal, something that may otherwise be considered a predictable part of nature, was triggered by a person doing what people do best- acting like an asshole. No offense to any homo-sapiens that might be reading this, but the poor animal in this story (a trained ape that had a higher I.Q. than two out of the three guys in Green Day) never stood a chance. His primal instincts were no match for her modern retardation. She deserved a healthy dose of ape-shit craziness. Only thing is, it didn’t happen to her and the ape was killed by the pigs (that’s street for police, whitey) in the woods moments after the fifteen minute attack relented.

I’m getting ahead of myself here. In case you missed it in the news or on Nat Geo (that’s street for National Geographic), here’s the skinny. A lonely old lady wanted to bypass the two-dozen cat route that her fellow widows had taken by getting a chimp. The two of them were inseparable for years. One day, surprise, he snaps and starts acting like an… animal. He maliciously shredded apart his owner’s friend. Not a few scratches and bites. He fucking ate her face and shat out her features. Next thing you know, the cops are chasing him through the woods with their firearms drawn, like he was Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Obviously, the victim didn’t deserve such a bloody fate. The only thing she did wrong was befriending a buffoon.

You see, the owner was just as responsible for the attack transpiring as the chimp was, if not more so. She tried to humanize the critter in a way that wouldn’t be fit for an actual human. Armed with only the power of perception and utter disregard for decency, the dumb bitch decided to pump her dangerous pet full of mind/mood altering drugs. Xanax, to be precise. Apparently, she noticed that her special little guy was exhibiting the symptoms of anxiety. An anxious chimpanzee, ya don’t say. Isn’t this the same animal that breaks from turrets screeches only to fling hand full’s of feces at anything that is not yet covered in feces? The same animal that displays dominance over a fellow adolescent male by ripping his foe’s ape junk off with his bare hands…talk about cock blocking. The very same creature is showing signs of anxiety? God bless you for noticing. Your faceless friend would thank you too, but post-accident, she can’t open what used to be her mouth without important stuff falling out. The chimp, let’s call him Travis, because that’s his name, drank wine for years with no ill effects. As soon as he started popping pills, it was the beginning of the end. Just like most teenage school shooters, he had a head full of anti-feeling drugs and he snapped violently on the innocent. Side effects may include face consumption.

It’s atypical of mankind to try to meddle with nature. Attempt to fix or improve it with the man made poisons that we desensitize ourselves with. It amazes me that so many parents fail to see how detrimental that shit is for their children, but to give fist full’s of psych meds to a potentially dangerous animal; I don’t see how that’s even legal. Granted, a lot of the testing is done on animals and the rest of the test subjects are poor people. The F.D.A. views them as one in the same. I guess what I find most frustrating about this incident is that it speaks volumes about how warped peoples sensibilities have become.

We’re a nation of dope hating drug addicts. People actually believe the pills that turns their kids into slobbering drones is medication. The worst thing in the World would be for little Tyler to smoke a joint at a party with his friends, even though Mommy has been redirecting his brain signals since he was nine and he would become restless on long trips. Lazy parenting has a lot to do with how deep the pockets of the drug companies in this Country have become. It’s unsettling to walk into a Doctor’s office and see Pfizer stickers plastered all over the donated equipment and supplies. Drugs that fuck us up more than our alleged ailment ever could are crammed down our throats and some of us can’t get enough. The commercials are frightening. Are people really willing to die in order to sleep better or pee less often?

When will America awake from its chemical induced slumber? If a teenager whacking his teachers and fellows students doesn’t wave a red flag, what will? Perhaps eyes would open up a little wider if one of these drugged little shits stayed home from school and ate Mommy’s face for fifteen minutes before ripping Daddy’s scrotum (Junior’s former home) off with his bare hands.

Stop popping pills, America. You’re better than that. I’ll wrap it up now, the Vicodin is starting to wear off.

When does fearlessness become recklessness? When does honesty become irresponsibility and meanness? When does Eric Somers stop asking questions and get to the meat of his column?

Another Heavy Hitters columnist that I respect a lot (I won’t give his name but it rhymes with Mason Mature) recently turned me on to something really, really good. And that something good is comedian Doug Stanhope’s website (dougstanhope.com). In particular, Mason’s sound-a- like insisted that I would love Doug Stanhope’s journal.

Well, oh my God. I’ve read only one entry but I’m already hopelessly hooked. Doug’s July 12th entry, which talks about the evil nature of comedy classes, is one of the funniest, most stinging blogs I’ve ever read. Unlike me, he names names – big names, and he calls out all of the wannabe emperors, not just for having no clothes, but for shamelessly profiting on their bogus flowing robes. Doug Stanhope doesn’t make any friends with this blog, but if you liked Joe Rogan vs. Carlos Mencia, you’re gonna love this. You’re gonna love, love, LOVE it.

Consider this is my gift to you, faithful reader. It was generously passed along to me and now I’m paying it forward. You can thank me later.

Now, on to the unpleasantness. Despite my overall review of “read it,” I feel compelled to add the following little disclaimer to my recommendation of Doug Stanhope’s journal: IT’S NOT ALL GOOD. You see, I’ve got a problem with Doug Stanhope. I say, I say, I say boy (in my best Foghorn Leghorn attention-commanding voice), “I’ve got a problem with Doug Stanhope. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding even a little bit.”

As much as I respect Stanhope for taking on the profiteers of the comedy world, I think he takes his act way too far when he names the names of civilians. It is one thing to call out a powerful, well known wrong doer. That takes balls. But it is something else altogether to tell a humiliating story about a private citizen who is not in the limelight, does not seek the limelight, and did nothing worse than choose between the lesser of two evils.

“But, Eric,” you might object, “I read that journal entry and I don’t remember anything about a humiliated private citizen.”

Scroll down, young Skywalker. I beg of you, scroll… down.

Just beneath Stanhope’s brilliant “Comedy Death Camp” blog is a comment section where some woman berates Stanhope for using the story of their relationship as a bit in his stand up act. More specifically, she berates him for revealing the embarrassing details of their first sexual encounter.

At first glance, you might think that this woman (and I) might be overreacting. After all, comics talk about their sex lives everyday. But a closer look reveals something sinister. In fact, a closer look reveals something sinister on two levels.

First of all, it is almost always wrong to brag about any sexual conquest (because bragging suggests that you weren’t deserving of the implicit trust that a person places in you when they have sex with you in the first place), but to record a comedy album where you give the first name, last name, and hometown of that partner, a girl that you haven’t even seen in fifteen years, is beyond insensitive. It’s reprehensible. In Stanhope’s defense, the story is terrifically entertaining, but it would have been just as entertaining if the girl’s name hadn’t been revealed. The girl’s name has nothing to do with the greatness of this story.

Second (and this is the sinister aspect that provoked me into writing this column), it is sinister for Stanhope to deflect and be intellectually dishonest when discussing this situation. When this woman complained that Stanhope’s story was an embarrassment to her in front of her friends, her church, and her current husband, Stanhope tried to make himself out to be the victim. This is wrong. This is just plain wrong.

Despite Stanhope’s protestations that this girl misunderstood the point of his story, that she was too dim to understand that he was calling her a beauty that could be compared to a mountain peak or a sunset, and that, by the way, this might not have been the first time she had engaged in an encounter such as the one they shared… I say, “Come on.”

Seriously. “COME ON!”

For a guy who so vigorously takes up the cause of the little guy in his hopeless fight against the big bad world, I say, “come on.”

You know better, Mr. Stanhope. You are too bright not to know that every part of your story is embarrassing to this woman. Yeah, she shot off her mouth, and yeah, it led to her giving you sex (that she may or may not have really wanted to have with you), but as ungentlemanly as you portrayed yourself within the story, it doesn’t compare to how mean and ungentlemanly you have shown yourself to be afterwards. You should never have recorded this girl’s full name and address on a comedy album, and I think you know it. Don’t make it worse by shrugging and throwing up your hands. If this girl hurt you in some way and you wanted to get even, then man up and say so. But please don’t play dumb. It’s unbelievable and insulting to your audience.

Just own it, apologize, and get back to attacking Carlos Mencia. Believe me, you’ll never catch me writing a column defending him.

So, that’s it for this week. I’m spent. I’ve just discovered, and then crucified, someone I suspect is 99% good guy… and I’m feeling a little frustrated. I’m gonna go have a stiff drink and take a long nap. I’ll see you next Tuesday.

I have recently been watching the television series the Dead Zone on Netflix. It is loosely based off Stephen King’s best -selling novel of the same name. Johnny Smith, the main character, has the ability to see the future. As a child he fell and hit his head while playing hockey and he became a little bit psychic, but then years later he got into a car accident and went into a coma for 6 years and when he woke up he became really psychic. Now all he has to do is touch someone and he instantly travels through space and time and sees what is about to happen to the person he is touching. The place in his brain which gives him this ability is called the dead zone. On the most recent episode I watched Johnny, super psychic that he is, brought in to help the U.S. Government track down the perpetrators of 9/11. Eventually Johnny is taken into the psychic holding room where he meets others who have access to their dead zone, there are two guys and a lady and the lady is playing with tarot cards. For those of you that don’t know, tarot cards are an ancient method of divination. There are 78 cards in each deck; each card had a different image which gets interpreted for fortune telling. Of course, all of these psychics were skilled in remote viewing, the tarot cards were just for fun.

Seeing the lady with the tarot cards reminded me of being a teenager. I bought my first tarot deck when I was 17. I used to spend all night long at the local Denny’s or Perkins giving away free readings. I liked Perkins better because they actually gave you pots of coffee, so you didn’t have to wait for the waitress to fill your cup. Also they had chocolate chip muffins, and I love chocolate chips. So every night a few people would come by my table and I would tell them what I saw. Most of the people I read for were teenagers like me, and most all suffered from an exaggerated dislike for their parents. Of course, I do not think anyone needed to be psychic to assess that. But there was one night crew customer that was very interesting, his name was Paul and he was 78. He also read tarot cards so we would practice on each other. He was writing a book about astrology and women. Being old as he was, he said that he had managed to sleep with women from every sign of the zodiac more than twice over and because of that he became an expert on astrology. I wish I could remember what he was going to title the book, but I don’t. Anyway, I grew up in hippy dippy Boulder, Colorado and there were a lot of characters.

Years later I worked on a Psychic hotline, I went by the name “E”, because Miss Cleo was already taken. This seemed like it was going to be fun, but it didn’t take long for my dead zone to tell me it was lame and unfortunately the government was not ringing me for my services. I became a phone sex operator instead. I just want to pause for a moment and acknowledge how great it is that I am a comedian, because if I was running for political office I don’t think I would be allowed to share any of this with you. Being a phone sex operator is interesting. The lady who hired me was over three hundred pounds and I when I first met her I thought to myself, “whoo hoo, this is where all the fatties come to talk dirty”, it was very exciting. I can’t tell you all the details; sorry you will have to go to my porn site for that. When I was younger I had wanted to be a stripper, but I ate too many Twinkies. Anyway, within 2 weeks of working in phone sex I was the number one most requested operator, and they said it was because of my ability to empathize. Hmmm, phone sex psychic, was I using my dead zone? I quit the phone sex after my client, Marlene who was really Brad who was planning on having a full blown sex change convinced me that I should be living a different way. No, not as a man, just not as a sex worker, so I became a political fundraiser and pretended that America had something to stimulate the masses. Phone sex was better.

I was the number one fundraiser for five years they said it was because of my ability to empathize. Hmmm, dead zone fundraiser? What is the point I am trying to make? My point is that I don’t think that you have to get into a car accident, go into a coma and awake as a super duper dead zone receptor name Johnny Smith to experience that which might normally be considered psychic. The dead zone is defined as a part of the brain which is unreachable by conscious mind. Since our conscious minds aren’t reaching this part of the brain than it seems that it must be un-used as well. But, I think we are using this part of our brain all the time, especially comedians. No, I have never seen a comedian tell somebody their fortune on stage; maybe I will make that my shtick. I do however think that comedians have to break done walls of consciousness not only in themselves, but in the audience as well. When you witness or experience a “bomb” in the comedy world, you and the audience feel separated by the thickest of walls, completely impenetrable. And when you witness or experience a “killing” in the comedy world, you feel like the whole world is at the edge of your fingertips. It feels like you have straight access to each and every person in the room, the unconscious flood gates appear to be wide open. It makes me feel like I should start my set with, “Good evening everyone, welcome to the dead zone.”

People never cease to surprise. Every once in a while, here and there, somebody will open their mouth in my direction and proceed to spill out a gem of pure retardedry. After the initial dumbfounded reaction passes, I may grow inspired. Next thing you know, thanks to an absurd statement made by an otherwise harmless fella with a little water on the brain, I have a column on my hands. Finally, societal stupidity works for me, rather than against.

It should be noted, the offender in question is a friend, outside of comedy, and he has an exceptional I.Q. He’s accountable. No excuses. Anyway, I’m running some material by him- nothing too obscure, easily accessible stuff. His critique was inexcusable. He said the writing was great and all but if I want to sell it to the general public I should dumb it down. Mind you, he’s an outsider to comedy, not a Last Comic Standing judge. His demeanor was sincere. He was serious. I had given him too much credit as a human being.

For years, he would relentlessly mock, antagonize and bitch about every stupid person he came into contact with. Now he’s suggesting that I, not unlike Pam Anderson, spread the disease. No dice, dick face. You can’t complain about frustrating idiocy in everyday life then encourage someone else to plant seeds of ignorance and water the existing crop. Get yourself another patsy. I have too much…(not money, what’s the other thing)…integrity. I was sort of irked by his belligerence, but it got me thinking. I wonder what the future will be like if the number of comics that were in it for the right reasons- like being uncompromisingly funny while sticking to their true style- what if these righteous misfits became outnumbered by the type of comic that would take such tainted advice? Let’s just call it what it is, badvice.

As I am well aware, dumb people are inescapable. They’re at work, school, shows, practically everywhere. The only place you won’t find them are places that are tricky to track on the map. If they can get to your town via a straight line, they’re a comin’. However, the optimist in me needs to believe that a slight majority of society is, at the very least, semi-intelligent and equipped with common sense. My faith in that sentiment sometimes becomes shaken.

I’m not gloating, here. Believe me, I’ve had my moments. I think it might of have had something to do with falling out of a moving vehicle when I was two, or maybe it has something to do with the same thing happening when I was five. I’m not pointing any fingers here, Mom. It was the Eighties, before all that car seat hysteria dictated policy. Point is, I’m somewhat intelligent but I do some really stupid shit. Like the time I accidentally sprayed myself in the face with black spray paint or the time I (not)accidentally sprayed myself with the pepper spray that happened to be dangling from my Mom’s keychain, hanging from the unattended ignition. Perhaps it was insensitive of me to refer to the weapon as anti-rape spray. I deserved to burn. Burn I did. Then I ran into a room where my Dad was with about a dozen of his buddies; blithering and panicking like someone that had just tripped off of the mini-bus, crying about my self-inflicted eye melting. The pride he must of felt. I’ve had plenty of Ralph Wiggum moments. I consider myself smart and stupid. Which is why I can be un-biased when I say that smart is better. It’s the kind of World I want to live in.

The alternative scares the herpes out of me. Don’t judge, just imagine the hijinx we’ll be in for once Fox News and Wal-Mart and MTV and American Idol and America’s Got Talons officially take over. The smart people will have to band together in barricaded safe-houses, listening to Radiohead and playing Scrabble until it’s safe to go outside again. It will be a much simpler time. Pesky shoe tying will be a thing of the past! No more stick shifts!! One utensil for EVERYTHING!!! “This many” will become an official unit of currency measure. The streets will be littered with the aloof, as they walk their leashed children to McDonald’s for a sausage sammich. While we’re at it, no more Jeopardy. Think you’re better than me, huh? Bye-bye, Trebek. You’ve shared your final Final Jeopardy clue.

It’s a reality that can very well be right around the corner. While I’m sure that me and most of the comics I enjoy and respect will not succumb with compromise, I can’t say the same for other comics I know personally or some of the mainstream acts that hack it up in return for a handsome living. For the sake of example, I’ll give names but I must alter their identity. Sob Baget and Ben Bailey (I flipped Bailey’s initials, too, in case you were wondering). Saget has a decent brain. It gets plenty of rest, 90% of the time Bob’s on camera. His contribution to America’s Funniest Home Videos caused me intense, crippling depression when I was but a boy. How rude (? like little Michelle used to say in that other show Saget shat on). Playing the game, subscribing to the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”” mentality has made Robert substantially wealthy. Nauseously wealthy. Excuse me…(dry heaves of bitter jealousy ensue for many exaggerated minutes)- he has cashed in considerably, but at what price? You part from your precious money at death, greatness lasts forever. Nostradamus is still a pretty great guy, even if he can’t spell Hitler.

Speaking of Hitler, Cash Cab’s Ben Bailey makes no effort to hide the fact that he isn’t the lisping, autistic sounding dingus that he personifies in his stand-up act. More people know him from the Discovery Channel, so they know he’s sharp. Then he goes on stage and his split personality, which happens to have an unhardened soft spot, takes hold. I think he’s playing both sides for all he can get. Put on a good show to get the nerds at Discovery in his favor during the day, dumb it down at dusk for lazy crowds, go home, yell at the dog as a venting mechanism, cry in the shower, go to sleep, get up the next day and repeat. That’s how Ben Bailey must roll.

Other than this spiel, my friends comment had little effect on me. If anything, it had an adverse effect. I’m going to ignore the temptation to have an automatic success of a set by feeding dimmer crowds my easier material. I’m going to joke about the Gold Standard and Corporate Welfare in Crenshaw. Not to imply that the Shaw is slow. Please don’t shoot me.

As far as my material writing is concerned, I’m never going to be afraid to articulate my point of view or to make a joke a little longer in order to make it better. Fuck whoever’s impotent attention span I’m failing to placate. Fuck it with a spoon, whatever that means. It’s sad that “alternative” usually serves as code for “smart”. Why should smart have to settle for being the alternative? Obviously, that contradicts our Nation’s intentions, seeing how we have an educational system and all.

There are signs of hope. Rock group The Scorpions are releasing a “Goodbye” album, with a promised band-wide suicide to follow. Thanks, guys. I think what I get from the 30% of the smartly funny comics and regular folk I encounter conquers the other 70%, comprised mainly of Jackassholes. Which is comforting. If you experience similar frustrations, then build a wall of interesting people around you and pretend that the rest of the planet is okay. There’s only so much you can do to help the comfortably numb. In the immortal words of Franky the mute, “let the clowns hang themselves with silly string”.

I would just like to take a moment to send a special message to those audience members who attended the comedy show at the Hollywood Hotel Lounge Friday night.

F.U.C.K. Y.O.U.

May all of you get exactly what you want and deserve; a boring, unexamined, unoriginal, sterile, insignificant, fruitless, banal existence. And cancer. May you all get cancer. The type of cancer doesn’t matter so long as it makes you lie in your death bed, eating at your organs at a slow enough pace to get you to realize that you wasted your life fearing your death, and that you should have laughed more.

No, let me clarify. You should have laughed more at yourselves. At your insecurities and your prejudices and your fears and your shitty jobs and your designer clothes and how ridiculous this all is. This existence.

There, that feels better. I’m glad I could get that off my chest. I tried to say as much as the show was ending but what can I say? I’m better at writing than I am at improv. All I got to was the “fuck you” part.

They say that a comic should never blame the audience. By “they,” I’m referring to those who suck at comedy and try to stay relevant in the industry by dispensing shitty advice for a nominal fee. Fuck them too. Nobody knows anything in this business and if you want to know my opinion on that, see the first piece I wrote for this site. You can find it here.

Sometimes you get in front of a crowd that is a perfect microcosm of a facet of humanity that stokes the embers of cynicism and hatred that led to comedy in the first place.
Friday night was that crowd.

It’s not like I’ve never eaten my own ass on stage before. In fact, it’s happening more and more. A sign I’m growing, I’d like to think. Some nights I’ll get on stage with one too many cocktails and only a half formed premise and I don’t get surprised or angered when it fizzles off into the ether to be met with silence. I’m no twenty year vet in comedy but I have been in this game long enough to know when I’m on, and when a bit is good. Even then, if it bombs, I don’t get too bothered by it, save for the slight disappointment and embarrassment. Sometimes, people just don’t feel comfortable laughing out loud. But when the crowd suddenly is LOLing at hacky tricks and predictable punchlines, the hate begins to well up and the cancer fantasies begin.

Friday night was one of those nights.

You might say that I sound bitter and pathetic and you would be right. I am bitter and pathetic. Like the late, not-so-great, George Steinbrenner said, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” Still, I can’t help but be honest. Comedy is the only place left in the world for honesty these days, no matter what that Friday night crowd might think.

So it is with honesty that I shared with you my opinions of stick-up-the-ass comedy show audience members. And it is with honesty that I share with you the real reason for writing this piece. One to vent. And two, to say this. A lot of comics, when they don’t get laughs, will blame the audience. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to blame them as an audience. I’m going to blame them as individuals. It is, individually, their own fault for not laughing at my bits on how gay marriage could be legalized if they simply made a Morgan Freeman movie about it. Or how we shouldn’t be putting Dick Clark on television after his stroke. Or how people who believe in the 2012 apocalypse shouldn’t rely on the Mayans as a credible source. Of course, it was all puched up and hilarious but you’ll have to come out to a show if you want to hear the bits. And if you do and don’t find it funny, then I will be honest and say that I won’t blame you for not laughing. I’ll blame you for the Holocaust. I’ll blame you individually for the Holocaust. Cause, really, if I’m going to hate you, I don’t want it to be for something petty like silence.

Oh, do I have your attention now?

Because I’ve added a little something to this week’s column. As you know, the body of this column is an exercise in irrefutable analysis. The headline, however, is something different. The headline, this week, is a piece of poppycock.

“Louis C. K. is a jerk,” is a blatantly false, attention grabbing publicity stunt. It exists only to raise your ire and provoke you into reading this column. Does that make me the jerk? Maybe. But what it definitely does is invite the following question:

Why do comics love Louis C.K.?

The general public hardly knows who he is, but comics just love him. WE LOVE HIM.

I contend that we love him because his comedy contains the three things we admire most in any stand up — truth, honesty, and vulnerability.

“Wait a minute, Eric, those are only two things. Truth and honesty are synonyms.”

Yes and no. Rest assured that I’ll clarify the difference. Don’t forget that I promised you irrefutable analysis.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about the I. A.. Sorry.”

No apology necessary.

What I mean by truth is reality. Louis talks about the true world. He talks about his car and his kids and the airport. His comedy, while personal, is relatable because he doesn’t warp or exaggerate his surroundings for the sake of some silly punch line. When I say that Louis C.K. gives us truth, I’m saying that he finds the funny in the real world.

When I talk about honesty, I’m talking about his reactions to this real world. Many comics address issues in the true world, but then make us laugh by pretending to take wild and utterly unbelievable actions. Not Louis. When Louis talks about paying a huge premium for a Cinnabun at the airport, the comedy comes from his admission that he has just landed. He isn’t forced to pay a huge price because he is stuck waiting for a plane. He’s just an addicted fat fuck. There’s no dishonesty in that humor.

Compare that with George Wallace’s classic bit about being charged $18 for room service raisin toast. “I told the waiter to go back downstairs and scrape off $15 worth of raisins… then I handed him three raisins and said, ‘here’s a little something for yourself.’”

Funny… but bullshit. It never happened. You diggin’ my smoke?

(And for you die hard George Wallace fans, please don’t send me cards and letters. Believe me, I’m a bigger George Wallace fan than you are. I love George Wallace. It’s just that George Wallace takes liberties that Louis C.K. doesn’t. I’m just making a point about styles of comedy.)

Finally, I’d like to address Louis C.K.’s vulnerability. It’s frickin’ key.

You see…I know that Louis C. K. is smarter than me and funnier than me, but somehow he comes off as more humble than me. That’s awesome. How can you dislike a guy who is GENUINELY pointing out his own flaws on a regular basis? The reality is that he has earned the right to be arrogant some of the time, but he never seems to be. That’s also awesome.

My readers know that I love Craig Kilborn and Dennis Miller, but I don’t think anyone would have raised a fist in anger if I’d run a headline calling either one of those guys a jerk, mainly because a lot of people think smug guys are jerks. Nobody has ever accused Louis C.K. of being smug.

As for his new TV show, LOUIS, I’ve only seen the first two episodes. But I loved them both and I think they capture the comedy of Louis C.K. in the same way that Curb Your Enthusiasm captures the brilliance of Larry David. Maybe I’ll give the show a full review at the end of the season.

As for Louis C.K., the comic, I say this: You are an awkward sage, Mr. C.K. (and most decidedly NOT a jerk).

I’m embarrassed to post things on the Internet. I’ll admit it. Each time I send something in, or make a Facebook update, or log into Twitter, it doesn’t matter how, I always feel a little self-conscious about it. I don’t like feeling obligated to tell everyone what’s going on all the time. I know that’s a little odd for a comic to admit, being that I’m supposed to readily tell you everything that’s in my head, but for me, that’s on stage. I also know that I hardly ever update my column, something that’s an outlet that some very good friends gave me as both a favor and a responsibility, one that I should want to fulfill. It’s easy to say that I’m embarrassed to tell you guys about myself. I could just as easily say that I’m lazy, which is also true. I’ve been playing quite a few shows lately and really haven’t had much time to myself, but really, how long does one of these posts take? You know damn well this is the only draft I wrote and just immediately sent this in with the arrogant fervor of a know it all prick. Maybe that’s it: I really just think I’m too good for this shit, and I compensate for that with an inferiority complex. Yes, I’m embarrassed to put myself out there. I compensate for that with standup. I compensate for everything with standup. It gives me purpose. I really just want to be a good comic, and then let that dictate my place in wherever I am in the universe. Hopefully, nobody there asks me to do my act for them in public when I’m not on stage. I fucking hate that shit. I really do. Why do I have to do it? Am I not good enough to do it, or should the person asking me to stop what I’m doing to perform for them on the spot have the respect to see me in the proper environment? Granted, if you’re a hot woman, I’m probably already using my material in the conversation that we’re having. But for the rest of you, really, and though I can’t speak for other people, I would rather you see me on stage. I think that’s only fair. Anyway, I hope you guys have a great 4th of July. Thanks a lot for reading, and I’ll see you on the circuit.

More decent than this guy’s.

Personally, the Fourth of July is my ninth favorite of the ten federal holidays, just inching out Columbus Day cause fuck that dude. Throw in the unofficial holidays like Halloween, St Patrick’s Day, and the Super Bowl, and the Fourth of July drops down to somewhere in the teens for me. It’s not like I don’t understand the significance of the day or its importance in our nation’s history. I don’t like the Fourth of July for the same reason I don’t like to see old pictures of myself; because it is just another reminder of how much potential we had and how much we’ve let ourselves go.

How many times have you heard, “America is the greatest country in the world!”? Between Presidential speeches, fireworks shows, and Fox News, my guess is you’ve heard it plenty – especially this past weekend. I am wondering upon what this claim can be based. Now, I want you to really think about that. Freedom? That is the answer I hear the most. “America is the greatest country because we have the most freedom!” First of all, that is not even accurate. Go ask a gay person who wants to get married or join the military how much freedom we have. And secondly, it doesn’t even make sense. If the measure of a country’s greatness is determined by the freedom of its citizens then the greatest country in the world is Somalia. They don’t even have a government. You can do anything you want over there.

“Obama can’t take our guns!”

Granted, exercising your Somali freedom can lead to death by starvation, AK-47 or Navy Seal, but nonetheless, you’re free to do as you wish. So freedom can’t be the reason America is so great. What else? Money? We certainly have plenty of that. Military might? Oh yeah. We can kick ass with the best of them. But if our greatness comes from the fact that we’re rich and can beat up everybody else, then basically we’ve become Johnny from “The Karate Kid” and is that really so great?

Johnny Lawrence: American Greatness

The last time I checked, everybody in America dies just like everywhere else. So we can’t be that great. It would be a different matter if we had some immortals running around. Because, let’s face it, that is what everybody wants, right? Immortality? There is a school of thought out there that hypothesizes that most negative human behavior, from violent patriotism to religious extremism to infatuation with vampire movies, stems from the basic fear of death. Now, if we didn’t have that fear because we actually could achieve immortality then, hell yeah, I’d be onboard that whole “Great America” train. But we can’t, so I won’t.
Now there will be those that read this and say the same bullshit I always hear when I question our country’s greatness. “If you don’t like it, then you can leave!” Like the country where you were born into citizenship is nothing more than a neighborhood full of meth labs you can just pack your bags and move away from. It is that kind of thinking that got us here. I would argue that it is more neighborly and more patriotic to want to clean up this hood. Fix the problems instead of waiting for somebody else to do it. Rather than being the fat, lazy, son of the CEO, who inherits his father’s company then proceeds to run it into the ground through ineptitude and inaction, I want to be the guy who starts off in the mail room and works his way up, improving it as he goes. You know, The American Dream. Remember that idea? It’s what once made this country great and the only thing that is going to save it from going straight into the shitter.

America had it coming. Harsh? Nah. Hear me out, here. First of all, it should be clarified that I’m not referring to America the Country- full of morally responsible, ethically cognizant, humble-hearted patriots. I’m not talking about you, Gus, so go ahead and cancel that noose fetching request. I’m speaking of America the corporation- full of ruthless greed and ulterior motives. As in most cases, my beef is with the Government, not the people. As anyone that is reading this is brutally aware of, Government is sub-human and anti-citizen.

After decades of constructing a bloody legacy of oil-fueled terror and white collar criminal decadence by destructing whatever, and whoever, is in the war path- Mother Nature has shot her proverbial wad all over US. Our unhealthy obsession has led us to die, kill, ravage and pillage in the name of oil; now we’re covered in the shit. Our life source has been spiked by our other life source.

Enlightened minds may perceive this man made catastrophe as a wake-up call. Others might choose to hit the snooze. For the most part, the World’s energy seems to be consumed with hatred for British Petroleum. Everybody knows that justified hatred is the Cadillac of hate.

Most decent people witness something irreprehensible happen to their home planet and squirm accordingly. Ben Stein, however, is not most people. He expressed more empathy for the distressed BP C.E.O. than he did the “poor little sea birds”, as he so prickishly put it; making no mention of the eleven flightless rig workers that perished in the mother of all fuck-ups. Granted, the Man was entertaining on The Wonder Years and that game show where he gave away his own money (I believe it was called “The Jimmy Kimmel Show”), but underneath the façade of the cool nerd that is equally monotone and engaging, enlies a elitist jerk-ass. A stark Republican that slangs Clear Eyes to our Nation’s stoned youth, thus abetting them in their attempt to evade the naturally clear eye of the Pig that has their hot box on wheels pulled over. Thanks to Mr. Stein, the cop can’t tell that the kid is lit, assumes everything is Code-4, sends him on his way; next thing you know- SPLAT! There’s a pancaked five year old laying next to her mangled tricycle in a fast food drive thru. When will the Right stop drugging our teens and crushing our precious toddlers with their slow-moving murder vehicles. Not soon enough, that’s when. The spill did occur on 4/20, after all…The plot thins.

When reached for comment regarding the matter, former Vice Devil Dick Cheney confessed that he felt sorry…for the oil. Oil that will never realize its potential as genocide incentive. Obviously, Big Oil’s imprint of evil has minimal effect on voters in this Country. Why else would a former Oil company C.E.O. be elected Vice Devil? While I agree with the outrage directed toward BP, I know to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. To look at who’s sustaining these oil monsters. All of the pseudo-rage and concern Obama can fling at me will not compromise my stance. Where was the deafening outcry against Big Oil prior to the spill? Where is it now? It’s all being centered in on a single entity, rather than at the Beast as a whole. BP is merely an indication of a much more dire issue.

The Government loves war and they love oil. Luckily, the two go hand-in-hand. If they were serious about utilizing an alternative energy source, they would have done it by now. The technology to make an engine that is powered by water has existed for over half a century. If meager Brazil can achieve independence from the oil companies via the magic of corn, then so can we.

It’s not about what’s best for Americans. It’s not about what’s best for the World. It boils down to one word: Power. If oil was replaced as our “mother’s milk”, a legion of very powerful, corrupt Swine-people would stand to lose a substantial amount of existing and forthcoming wealth. So for now, we’ll seek out short term fixes in lieu of attacking the problem at its core; and with the help of Government, ours and others, the BP’s of the World will do their part in speeding along the entropy process. The sky will rain oil (here), bullets (there) and doom (everywhere).

If I’m going to continue to idle in my Hummer with the A/C on while I type this, I’d better go fill up.

If you stink at comedy, nobody is going to tell you to your face. Nobody wants you to hate them, and nobody wants to be responsible for killing your dream. For some reason, good friends and family think it’s kinder to let you waste several years of your life discovering horrible truths for yourself.

I, however, ain’t your friend, so here’s my list of comics who I think should quit immediately.

Just kidding. Did you really think I was going to name names? C’mon. I’ll tell you what I will do, though. I will help you break the code that the people in your life use when they are subtly trying to tell you to quit.

The following is a list of “compliments” that you never want to hear.

1. “You really owned the stage.” This means that you are obnoxious instead of funny. Even though the audience couldn’t take their eyes off you as you danced around like a Banshee (or Dane Cook), you have absolutely no talent for storytelling or joke construction.

2. “You have great stage presence.” Not to be confused with number one, this one means that you acted and sounded like a professional, but your jokes were terrible.

3. “You are a great writer.” This means that you have no stage presence.

4. “Have you ever considered a career in comedy writing?” This means that you have no stage presence AND it’s pretty clear you never will.

5. “How long have you been doing comedy?” This means that you are funny, but only in the way that your drunk uncle is funny at Thanksgiving (hey, the kids told him he could be a comedian).

6. “You seemed really comfortable up there.” This means that, not only are you not funny, you’re giving the impression that you are also very unsuccessful in the rest of your life as well. It’s like… you’re totally at ease with failure. How else could you have stayed so calm when you were bombing so badly?

7. “Have you ever considered acting?” This “compliment” is a combination of “you seemed really comfortable up there,” and “you really owned the stage.” This person is saying that since you’re clearly living in your own world anyway, you may as well create a false reality as a profession.

8. “You were the best one.” This means that everyone else in the show stunk too.

9. “Have you ever considered using props?” This means, “Oh my god, there’s absolutely nothing funny about your act. Anything, and I mean anything, would be an improvement.”

10. “You sort of remind me of George Carlin.” This means, “I’d rather watch a corpse do comedy than ever watch you again.”

Here’s the thing. If you are a good comic, people will laugh. That is the best and only way to measure your success. If people genuinely think you’re funny and they say anything afterward, it will simply be that you are funny. That’s it. They will not pick out some obscure aspect of your set and praise that. They will not say, “I loved your last joke,” because unless they think that you’re an idiot, they’ll know that you’ll know that what they’re really saying is, “I hated everything except your last joke.”

So, that’s the code, my fellow stinkers. The truth is — we only hear what we want to hear anyway, and on the off chance that we really do stink, it’s only because the audience doesn’t get us. Right? Am I right? Who’s with me?

I watched Headline News for one hour last night with the T.V. on mute, while talking to my mom (Happy Birthday Mom on July 6th, everybody say Happy Birthday please) and this is what I learned.

Jersey Shore has gone wild and all the mayhem has been caught on tape. The new season features brawling and drinking. OMG! We have a situation. Please, don’t hurt Snookie. Kate is in a battle with Botox. Sorry Kate, Botox wins. Britney- Madonna drama?! Madonna says “no more kissing”. Britney threatens to take it out on Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes. Jessica Simpson, is she a hypocrite or brilliant? Is this really a question? Jessica says she “has been called on a mission of beauty”, by who, her agent? In other news people are still calling her fat. Jake the Bachelor goes Buff. He dumps Vienna for Playgirl Magazine, it’s the naked truth. Playboy Magazine in contrast says, “There is no interest in Jake’s jolted lover Vienna, AT ALL”. Larry King will continue to host specials for CNN for the next 50 years. Thank god! Paranormal 2 Trailer pulled from Texas theaters for being too scary. That’s frightening isn’t it? Kelsey Grammer’s wife Camille files for divorce after twelve years of marriage. Oh Well. Twilight Saga – Eclipse makes first day record for Wednesday opening. That’s neat. Elena Kagan Supreme Court nominee grilled about twilight during the daylight. Her answer “I want to suck you blood Washington”. Oh this just in, Twilight Star Kristen Stewart juggles on Lopez. Neat again. Sandra Bullock still loves Jesse. They were married for FIVE WHOLE YEARS!! Janet Jackson Exclusive! She reveals one breast at a time, again. Rihanna tells Seventeen Magazine something, but nobody knows what. Lindsay’s has a new legal battle her sixteen thousand eight hundred dollar shopping bill goes unpaid. Tiger Woods ex Elin, gets seven hundred and fifty million dollars, and the kids. Mama Jackson wants to make Jackson home movies into theater movies. Naomi Campbell, Naomi Campbell, Naomi Campbell! Pee Wee Herman Movie. Yes, finally something good. The world needs more Pee Wee Herman.
Life is provocative. Life is now. Happy Fourth of July! Did you see the fireworks!

Somebody keeps keying cars in my neighborhood and I would like nothing more than to watch the son-of-a-bitch die. That may sound like a harsh statement to read. Even to me, as I read it back, it seems like a harsh statement but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t true. Should I feel this way? Probably not. Do I deserve it? Probably. Without going into any of the self incriminating details, I’ve done enough vandalism in my day to deserve plenty more than a scratch in the paint of my car. Yet I can’t help but fantasize about catching the motherfucker in the act. The pure joy I would feel in being able to seize the, all too rare, moment of teaching somebody a lesson they would never forget.

Of course, I’ll never get to fulfill this fantasy. Even if I did catch the asshole do it, I’m not sure what I would do. Probably something lame like call the cops. Let’s face it, we as a society have become so impotent and litigious, that justice can only be dispensed through the justice system. Street justice has been corralled and sectioned off from our civilization, only to be practiced by the most criminally indifferent. In short, I wouldn’t have the balls. But I know somebody who would. Somebody who has never been restrained by the conventions of society. Somebody who grew up in a time where an eye was truly for an eye and sometimes even a head was for an eye. Who is this somebody, you ask? Well I’ll tell you. It is my Dad.

To call my father old school would be like calling Abraham Lincoln a politician – a gross understatement. He is the epitome of old school. Born on a farm in Louisiana in 1935, he grew up in a time and place where you handled your own and you got what was comin’ to you. My Dad’s biography reads like a Jim Croce song and to this day, people still know him by name in the small town of Natchitoches. Now, I’m not going to write you a report about my Dad, my hero. I just wanted to share a couple stories with you about my childhood and what it was like to grow up as the son of “The Badest Man on Cane River.”

We moved to Kent, Washington in 1980. We lived in one of those suburban housing developments where every house was identical to the fifth house away from it and everybody’s mailbox sat in a quaint little maibox house complete with its own little shingled roof. For whatever reason, the lot across the street from our house was never built on and it served as a playground for me and my friends for several years until a developer, much to our chagrin, finally decided to build two more houses on it. As is often the case with track home developers, certain details went overlooked and our new neighbors moved into a house with no mailbox and, more importantly, no little mailbox house. It needs to be mentioned that on our block, the little mailbox house sat in front of our house, right next to our driveway. I needed to tell you those details so I could get to the real story.

It took about two weeks before our new neighbor attempted to remedy his mailbox dilemma by nailing a 2 X 4 to the exterior of the mailbox house and mounting an ugly aluminum mailbox to it, jutting out from the quaint little mailbox house like an undeveloped fetus of a conjoined twin. Unfortunately for us, but more so for our neighbor, the 18 inches of new mailbox stuck directly into the path of our driveway. Being the fair man that he is, my Dad left a note in the mailbox, explaining our problem with the driveway obstruction. A week went by. Nothing happened. My Dad left another note. Another week. Another nothing.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in the summer. The sun was shining. Everybody in the neighborhood was outside mowing their lawns and watching their kids play, including our neighbor. My Dad went outside too. But instead of bringing a lawnmower, he brought a saw. Very calmly, he walked over to the Siamese mailbox and began slicing his way through that 2 X 4. Our neighbor watched the whole time. He did nothing. What could he do? After my Dad cut through the 2 X 4, he turned and, with mailbox in hand, walked about halfway across the street. He stopped, looked our neighbor in the eye, and threw the mailbox at him. It came to rest right at our neighbor’s foot. My Dad turned and went back into our house. It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. A few weeks later, our neighbor put up his own quaint little mailbox house right in front of his own. We lived happily ever after.

Until…

Another time my Dad was disrespected only this time it was by kids. We lived very close to an elementary school. I went to that school. My sister went to that school. It was cool because we could ride our bikes there. In fact, right next to our house was a bike trail that would lead to the school. Dividing the bike trail and our front lawn were 10 small pine trees, about six feet tall and separated every three feet. I was in high school when my Dad, who was retired, began complaining about some sixth graders who would venture off the bike path, ride through the pine trees and through our front lawn. They would power slide and skid and basically tear up the lawn. Yes, my Dad became that old guy who would tell the kids to keep off his lawn but he was justified. The kids would either ignore him or flip him off or laugh as they rode off. Being a man who didn’t take kindly to being disrespected, my Dad devised a plan. One day he was watching television as school let out. He didn’t get up. He didn’t rush to the window. He waited and waited, patiently. Then he heard the crash. He, very calmly, got up and walked out the front door to see the kids sprawled out across the lawn, bikes mangled, faces horrified. You see, when riding a bike full speed through six-foot pine trees separated every three feet, it is very difficult to see the metal chain strung between each one. Those kids never rode through our lawn again.

I can go on and on. There are a million of these stories about my Dad and I love each and every one of them. A man who never took any shit from anybody. A man who lived by a simple rule, don’t fuck with me and I won’t fuck with you. As I sit here typing this, I wonder how he would handle the mysterious keying cocksucker that is roaming my neighborhood. Actually, I don’t wonder. I know exactly what he would do but like I said earlier, I don’t have the balls. Still, maybe one night soon, I’ll stay up late, wait in the shadows, and try my best to impersonate my idol.

Craig Kilborn

Do you like snarky? I like snarky. I like snarky a lot. I think that when you find a person who’s snarky without being the least bit mean spirited, you’ve found a gem.

Shakespeare was snarky. Oscar Wilde was snarky. J D Salinger was snarky.

Oh man, I’m excited about this one. Let’s do this.

I am a Craig Kilborn fan.

I make that statement up front because a lot of people are going to dislike his new show, and since I’m going to be defending it until the day it’s canceled (hopefully a long, long time from now), I want to be clear from the get go that I understand why people are going to disparage it, but that doesn’t change my fan status one iota.

In fact, I want to direct this column to those people (who you calling “those” people) who initially dislike the show. Though I fear I might be barking at the moon, I’d like to acknowledge the show’s so-called flaws so that I can encourage its knee-jerk detractors to take a second look.

At first encounter, many viewers will dismiss The Kilborn File as silly. They will cite sight gags such as “the Situation in the gulf” and “What’s Happening in Washington” as proof that The Kilborn File is juvenile.

I say, “Look closer.”

The Kilborn File is not juvenile. The Kilborn File is clever and brave: clever in that it can deliver all types of jokes, from the savviest of political barbs (even though Kilborn claims to distance himself from political humor) to the silliest of “obscure reference” sight gags (see above) and brave in that it isn’t afraid to combine those types of humor.

Many of the same people who dismiss The Simpsons and Family Guy as silly cartoons will be quick to write off this show. To those folks I say, “Stick with Kilborn (and rethink your blanket dismissal of animation while you’re at it).”

Here’s my case for Craig:

A good joke requires at least some misdirection between set up and punch. Kilborn’s wide range of acceptable of comedy allows him to be funny in a multitude of unpredictable ways. To put it another way, Kilborn’s brand of comedy is the opposite of Two and a Half Men’s brand of comedy (where every character has a narrow, unflinching point of view and where every, sigh, joke is a predictable reflection of that tired viewpoint).

When Kilborn starts talking, I don’t know where he’s going. That’s a good thing, people. That’s a very good thing! Unpredictability is essential for comedy that keeps you on your toes (which is not to be confused with the unpredictable, yet utterly unsatisfying, blathering of a character like Tracy Morgan’s on 30 Rock. I contend that unpredictability only gets credit when the joke makes sense. Unpredictability can not be a substitute for making sense. Silly or sophisticated, a joke still has to make sense)!

Much like David Letterman and Johnny Carson, Craig Kilborn isn’t afraid of goofy. The intrusive wipes between jokes (which are reminiscent of Fred Armisen’s Saturday Night Live character Fericito’s, “I’m just kidding,” between jokes) are practically camp. The hacky segues serve as a joke about hacky segues.

Just like Carson wasn’t afraid to don a turban and become Carnac, just like Letterman wasn’t too dignified to don a Velcro suit and trampoline onto a Velcro wall, Kilborn isn’t above engaging his sidekick (who is billed in the closing credits as “sidekick”) in a staring contest. That’s not happening on most shows.

Maybe you could have predicted that Jeff Foxworthy would crowbar portions of his act into his “conversation” with Kilborn (making us groan in the process), but we shouldn’t hold that against Craig. Instead, we should focus on the utterly unpredictable delights of the show, like that faux staring contest that he had with his sidekick where they faux accused each other of having plastic surgery. I know it reads silly (as I see now that I’m reading it back), but trust me, it played funny and original.

By the way, I’d like to offer a quick tip to Jeff Foxworthy and all other comedians who do talk shows: IF YOU WANT TO DO YOUR ACT, DO IT BEFORE YOU SIT DOWN. Do it honestly as stand up before you sit down for your “conversation” with the host. I’m not saying you can’t do prepared material while on the couch. I’m saying that you should prepare additional material that feels natural and organic in a conversation with another person, not jokes that you (attempt to) warp from your stand up monologue. I suggest telling a funny story (but please don’t feel compelled to give me credit for this suggestion. I’m totally stealing it from Bill Cosby (who also stole it, I suspect, from Mark Twain)).

Onward and upward.

Kilborn’s round table of comic minds (where Craig’s guest panelists speak out on an assortment of topics ranging from current events to memories associated with dessert) has potential written all over it. In fact, the premiere’s sharpest barb occurred during this segment when Seth MacFarlane, oh so justifiably, called out Jerry Seinfeld for his hypocrisy in the Lady Gaga incident.

My only real objection to this show is Craig’s resurrection of his famous “5 questions.” I don’t get it. In truth, I never got it. Why are you asking celebrities general trivia questions? Are you mocking the ending of Inside the Actor’s Studio? Are you trying to scare away guests? What the hell are you up to?

In any case, you had me at (however the hell your show began). Funny and smart is funny and smart, and I welcome you back to the airwaves. My prayer is that The Kilborn File is programmed in a timeslot opposite a rerun of Two and a Half Men, because I love it when people have a choice between good and evil.

On a Sunday afternoon T called and asked me to check on my neighbor. T was my neighbor’s best friend for over 20 years, and my friend too; we had become friends through him. I knocked on his door but he didn’t answer. I started to worry, still no answer. I checked his door and it was unlocked so I opened it. As I opened it, he was slowly coming towards the door and I said, “Richard, how are you doing”. Normally, when I asked Richard this question he would say “Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive”. I have lived in my apartment for just over 3 years, and Richard has lived in his for 15. Our iron screen doors often cross and compete like swords. We live on the second floor of the middle bank, there are 12 apartments total in our building. In other words the stairs leading up to our apartments lead to ours only. I have talked to Richard every single day, unless I or he was out of town, since the day I moved in. Richard was 74.

He wasn’t responding, so I studied his face. He had a blank kind of child like stare and he was drooling a little bit. I was pretty sure that he had a stroke. He didn’t answer and turned around and started studying the wall as though he was busy looking for something. He reminded of my grandma after she had a stroke. Damn, T was right, “something wasn’t right with Richard”. I told him that we were going get him some help, he turned and stared at me with the look of I am fine, don’t you dare. It felt like a catch 22, but I had to call back our friend, her concern for his life was tremendous and her intuition was right. So I phoned her back and told her that something had definitely happened. Richard talked with you non-stop and he couldn’t speak, so she called the ambulance. Last year he had also had a stroke which only intensified my concern for his life.

He is an actor, does commercials and also is a regular part of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! It is on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network, he did some segments with Jimmy Kimmel, and he has a huge fan base. Richard loved making fans, within twenty-four hours of moving into my apartment, I had five of his headshots and knew the website to his show. He cherished his fans and he corresponded with them intensely. He knew all their names; he knew all their faces, which state they came from. Facebook was constantly ablaze in his apartment; he made his fans his family. He was constantly working to increase the popularity of the Awesome Show, “Leisa, we almost have a fifty state fan base”. Richard would report to me every single day about everything, his fan club, every single one of his auditions and acting jobs. Every time he got an acting check he would say, “This is a great way to make a living! “Can you believe I got all this for only 8 eight hours!” He started acting when he was 62. He tried to make me Chief Officer of his Hollywood Fan club once, but I didn’t do it. The truth is I was a lousy fan, but I sincerely loved Richard’s reports, he cared, I cared.

The ambulance arrives and five firemen storm the stairs. I make a mental note to invest in as many firemen calendars that I can get my hands on, they looked good; these boys were stacked with serious muscle, it was pretty exciting. Don’t mean to regress, just trying to lighten the mood. Richard tried to block the door, Richard didn’t weigh much, he was skinny, but his determination was fierce. You could hear his spirit screaming “Hell no, I won’t go”. Richard had a lot to do, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way, certainly not sickness. He couldn’t answer the questions required by law to leave him alone, he finally relented, and they took him to the Hospital. By Tuesday, although still in the hospital he was doing ok. He was paying his bills and T and I were having lots of fun with him, the comedian in him turned on and he was waving his hands and ready to go, we were relieved. However, by Wednesday his situation took a turn for the worse as he was placed in ICU. Early in the morning on Friday June 4, there was a call to race to the hospital; by the time I and several others arrived he had already passed. We stayed with his dead body until the time permitted by the hospital was enforced. We were left with a list of funeral homes and some directions to take. A couple of days later his son arrived and there is, of course, so much more that happened, other people involved and helping, but it is not part of this story.

This story is about using your life until its last moments. Only the last 45 hours of Richard’s life were not awake and on his feet, out of 74 years that is pretty amazing. He fought the fireman so adamantly because he had plans for going full steam ahead, plus people were depending on his continuation, people really loved him. My view was only of the last three years of the end of his life. In some ways it is an incomplete story, I am sure like everyone else, his life had its share of big time wasted moments and tragedy. There are things that I will never ever know about him, and I don’t know if I really need to. Like all of us, he has been good, and he has been bad. What I knew was a person who had discovered a passion and a purpose and he went for it. In the end his purpose was bringing others happiness and joy. Regardless of his failures, and regardless of his successes or actually probably because of them, he had developed a never give up spirit. That’s what I want at my death. I want to have a never give up spirit until the day I go. That had to have been his prayer, “I just don’t want to quit”. His L.A. Times subscription has been cancelled and I don’t hear T’s boots up the stairs anymore. The remodeling of the apartment a few feet away has begun, and it is clear that the seasons have changed. Everything comes and goes. I sure do miss him. His friends called him Pep Pep, T called him her Avatar, and I called him Neighbor. I know I will get a new neighbor soon. Richard if you are listening and have any after death abilities bring me someone good, another kindred spirit perhaps, or maybe one of those firemen, now that would be fun.

“Technically, porn is still acting. I’m so broken.”

I’ve been having employment on the brain lately. Not sure why. Maybe the recession. Maybe the Gulf Oil Spill. Maybe I’m getting to that age where I should start giving a shit about money. Whatever it is, I thought I’d share some thoughts I’ve had recently about the topic of employment.

First of all, I think we can all agree that work sucks. I don’t care what your job is. I don’t care about how you feel about your job. Your job sucks ass and I can prove it to you with one question. Does your company ever recruit? Job fairs? Monster.com? Careerbuilder? Craigslist? If the answer is yes then ding ding ding ding, tell ‘em what they’ve won, Johnny! That’s right, it’s a shitty ass job!!

Two shitty ass jobs.

You see, anything you have to recruit for, inherently, blows goat balls. If it didn’t, people would be lined up to do it. The job, not blowing the goat balls. Corporations, the Military, Religion, if they’re recruiting, bring out the goat. That’s why comedy is so awesome. You’ll never go to a job fair and hear, “Have you ever considered a career in stand-up comedy?” Never, and do you know why you’ll never hear it? Because comedy does not suck. People will volunteer to do it.

Last Comic Standing 1956

How absolutely tragic is it that the unemployment rate still hovers around 10%? That there are educated, skilled, good hearted folks out there with no job and little hope? That everyday, more people are getting laid off and they don’t know how they are going to feed their family? How sad is that? And yet, some guy over at the Coors Light Research and Development team just got a big, fat raise for having the brilliant idea to cut a hole in a beer box and call it a “window.” Are you fucking kidding me? Is that the best they can do? Coors Light with windows? “Why the fuck does a fucking beer box need a fucking window?!” I screamed at the Indian kid standing next to me in the liquor store. He didn’t know but his mother did. Apparently, it’s so you can see the mountains on the can turn blue when it’s cold enough to drink. Call me judgmental but if you need your beer to tell you when it is okay to drink then maybe you’re not the type of person who should be drinking alcohol in the first place. You got some things you need to take care of first, like a vasectomy.

Coors reminds you to drink responsibly.

And don’t try to act like this whole temperature sensitive material thing is something new and revolutionary. Did we not learn anything from HyperColor shirts? People don’t give a shit and they won’t buy it. And I’m asking you to not buy it. Fuck those lucky, no talent hacks over at Coors. They need to be relieved of their duty like General Stanley McChrystal.
Speaking of General Stanley McChrystal, this week, the unemployment rate got a little bit higher when President Obama gave ole Stanley his walking papers. Apparently, the man over seeing the war in Afghanistan got fucked up in a bar in Paris with a bunch of commandos and a young reporter from Rolling Stone and decided to reenact the house party scene from “Almost Famous.”

“I am a 5 star Golden God!”

People were shocked to hear a General act so callously on the record and they couldn’t believe he didn’t show more restraint when expressing his opinions of the Obama administration, in particular Vice President Biden. Shocked? Really? Didn’t they know what this guy was? Before being put in charge of the war, Stanley McChrystal was in charge of all Black Ops in the United States Military. What did they think was going to happen? I’ve seen enough of the Bourne movies to know how those guys view authority and we’ve already established that being in the military is a shitty job. So, basically, the White House promoted the real life equivalent of Colonel Trautman to be the voice of the Afghanistan war.

“If you decide to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, don’t forget one thing. A good supply of body bags.”

And then they got mad when he spoke the truth.

“You want me in that sand. You need me in that sand!”

Of course this is nothing new. These days, countries are no different than corporations. In the effort to maintain an impossible veil of competence, the right person for the job is often cast aside to make room for the person who says all the right things. Even if what’s being said is total bullshit or Coors Light with windows.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times… so with apologies to Charles Dickens (and to a lesser extent, the rock band Styx), I’m co-opting that whole “best/worst” characterization and applying it to 2010 TV.

The good news is – I’m bringing you with me! In fact, I’m deputizing you as a junior law man (crap elimination division) so by the time you’ve finished reading this column, you’ll be ready to identify crap TV for yourself.

“But Eric,” you might protest, “being a critic seems like hard work… and I’m a lazy American.”

Fear not, fellow patriot. By simply maintaining your current television viewing habits, you will have fulfilled 90% of your new assignment (the additional 10% is to scream at the top of your lungs whenever you watch something that you hate).

“You want me to become a loudmouth?”

Exactly (but not in a bad way, in a good way, for the benefit of society).

“I don’t know. As a critic, will I have to make up a bunch of top ten lists? Because I don’t want to be spending all kinds of time writing things down.”

Man, you really are lazy. But that’s okay! Though many critics do feel a need to rank everything, to create a pecking order, to divide and subdivide ad nauseum, my philosophy is simply to draw a line. Good or bad. Thumbs up or thumbs down. I tell you yes or no. And I also make you comfortable doing the same thing for other people.

“But if I become a critic, won’t people hate me and think I’m a snob?”

The only people who will hate you are the producers of crap, and even some of them will secretly like you, because deep down, they’re hoping their crap will get called out and canceled so they can move on to produce something good.

As for your concerns about being perceived as a snob, well, I’m a critic, and I contend that I’m no more of a snob than anybody else. In fact, I think I’m less of one. I love music from all genres (even, gulp, some country). I think certain horror movies are as excellent as the best dramas. I think certain fast food is as recommendable as Ruth’s Chris. And, Lord help me and my cosmopolitan ambitions, I like camping and fishing as much as I like five star hotels.

On the other hand, I do desire excellence in all of those areas. Is that snobby? I can’t deny that the few country songs I like have melodies that could have been written by the Beatles. The horror movies I tout have plots that rival those in the best thrillers and mysteries. My fast food choices usually boast high quality ingredients that are only “fast food” because they are assembled in quick-to-prepare dishes. And when I go camping, I go out of my way to camp next to creeks and waterfalls that are so beautiful, they make me forget that five star hotels even exist.

But here’s the thing, when I tell you that I enjoy a fish taco as much as a filet mignon, I’m not trying to portray myself as an everyman, I’m trying to make the point that excellence and quality can be found everywhere.

If you like game shows and reality TV, you don’t have to worry about exposing yourself as an idiot. You’re not an idiot. And what you’re going to say about these shows is going to help remove the “idiot” stigma that is usually attached to the people who watch them.

Because you’re going to identify the EXCELLENT game shows and reality shows.

“But Eric, how am I going to do that?”

You’re going to do that by applying the only criteria that matters when it comes to judging a TV show. After you’ve watched anything, you need ask yourself only one question. If the answer to that question is yes, bingo, you’ve found an excellent show.

“What’s the question?”

I’m glad you asked. The question is: Was I enjoying this show while I was watching it?

“That’s it?”

That’s it. If a show ends, and you realize that you enjoyed it, then it’s an excellent show. You can feel free to recommend it.

“What if I only enjoyed parts of it?”

Then it’s probably a turd. Many turds have a few corns (which are non-turd) but we don’t let those hiccups of goodness obscure the fact that the show as a whole is a turd.

Whenever you read reviews that say a certain actor was good, or joke x or scene y was well executed, you’re reading a review by a critic who picks out the corns. It’s okay to do that, but when a show ends, and you say, “Well, Alec Baldwin was good, but the rest of the show made no sense,” you have just watched a turd.

Whenever you like a show for the first 15 minutes, but then get bored, it’s a turd.

Whenever you get up to go to the bathroom without recording what you missed, it’s a turd.

Whenever you start flipping, it’s a turd.

It’s very, very simple.

You don’t need to worry about identifying riveting storylines, transcribing engaging dialogue, or detecting relatable characters – if you kept watching, and you were enjoying yourself, then you can just assume that the show had these elements. That’s why you kept watching.

I never watched an episode of Seinfeld, and thought to myself, “I really loved the way Elaine related to Kramer in the second scene,” I just got lost in the show.

I never said, “I was moved by the arc of Ari’s character in season 2 of Entourage.” I just really liked the character of Ari on Entourage.

I never thought to myself, “The casting was just perfect on The Sopranos.” I just liked The Sopranos.

Being a critic doesn’t mean acknowledging and analyzing every detail. It simply means honestly conveying an overall opinion. Let’s face it, nobody wants to know that the cinematography is breathtaking if the show as a whole is unwatchable. And if the story and acting are good, we’re not going to be upset because the cinematography isn’t majestic.

Did you ever hear anyone say, “I thought The Godfather was excellent, except I couldn’t get past the fact that the restaurant where Michael shot the cop seemed like a dive. The décor of that restaurant ruined the movie!”

To quote Carlin, no one ever heard it, ‘cause no on ever said it.

All anybody ever said was, “Man, you gotta see The Godfather.” And, if you think about it, that’s all anybody ever really needs to say.

And I know you can do THAT.

Try it with me, “You gotta read The State of Television, because even if you don’t like the writing, you’ll love the font!”

Being a critic is fun and easy. You get to call things turds, and you get to praise things that are not turds.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga, Lady Gaga. Why? Because when I asked my Starbucks Barista what I should write about this week she said, Lady Gaga. Now I expected her to want me to rake the nails over this Pop Culture Diva, but that wasn’t the case. She was in defense of Lady Gaga. Here is how our conversation went:

LM (that’s me Leisa Mills): Lady Gaga? You mean about how I try not to pay attention to her.

SB (Starbucks Barista): No! What? Lady Gaga is so amazing

LM: What are you talking about, she sucks.

SB: No, she doesn’t suck, she is a genius. She speaks like five languages.

LM: Well, if she is a genius then I don’t want to be smart.

SB: Whatever. Well, if loving her is wrong then I don’t want to be right.

LM: Cute

SB: She is a revolutionary.

LM: There is nothing revolutionary about her.

SB: I can’t believe that you think this way. I can’t talk with you about this, I like you to much to talk about it.

LM: I expected a deeper form of worship from you.

SB: I just love her.

LM: Shit, I think I am going to be sick.

Currently Lady “Gag Me with a Spoon” Gaga is embattled in controversy with the Catholic Church over her new hit single “Alejandro” where sacrilegious images are portrayed throughout. I just watched the eight minute and 43 second video for this new song and I repeat “there is nothing revolutionary about Lady Gaga”. The Catholic Church is outspoken over images and nothing more, the lyrics themselves are unbelievably elementary and have no religious theme whatsoever. In the video she stuffs a rosary in her mouth and frankly I do not believe for a second that Lady G suffers from repression or being guilty in the eyes of GOD. Really, the majority of the video was her virtually naked and surrounded by a bunch of well cut virtually naked men. She is dominating them and they are dominating her, I guess. I can see why gay men like her, because she provides plenty of naked man eye candy for them. The naked men looked good to me too, but I knew that they weren’t there for me.

What the f*%$ this video is really about, to me, is absolutely nothing. How your passion could be stimulated over machine guns hanging from her tits, while she sings the lyrics “Don’t call my name, don’t call my name, Alejandro. I’m not your babe, I’m not your babe Alejandro”, is beyond me. Maybe if she sang it in each of the five languages she speaks, I might be more inspired. I loved Madonna when I was twelve, but by the time she had cones hanging off her lovely lady lumps, I was out of the picture. There was not Vogue dancing for me, I had moved onto Heavy Metal, Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne. Now there is someone whose image matched what he was singing about. Ozzy was fucked up, is fucked, and looks fucked up. The head of that poor bat didn’t have a chance. In other news, a pampered Chihuahua just inherited three million dollars, and the oil spill still looks really bad.

“Ass” was the fifth word in his sentence in the first sentence of his set. I think the first four were, “ You ever notice somebody’s…?” And just like that, the MC, holding his own mic and sitting off to the side of the stage interrupted and said, “OK, that’s all. Thank you very much. Our next comic coming to the stage…” The comic’s audition was over before he could even tell his first joke. This was at the Laugh Factory here in Hollywood not two months ago. They call it an open mic but it really is an audition. Comics show up at around 2:30 in the afternoon to wait in line until 5:00 to try to get the first ten to fifteen spots for the following week’s “open mic.” The rules are simple. You get three minutes. The owner watches. If he likes you, you get “passed” to do a showcase. You have to be clean. Apparently, “ass” is dirty not just in the literal sense of the word.

I found it amazing that the owner of a comedy club would deem, “ass” as offensive all the while a billboard in front of his establishment advertised for the movie, “Kick Ass.” I remember marveling at how stringent they were to their cursing rule. To drive the point home further, the following comic, an elderly woman in her sixties, made it all the way through her set without interruption and without cursing. However, her entire set was about fucking men her age and Viagra and the real possibility that her wrinkled pussy could kill a man. But she didn’t curse. Not offensive at all. The thought I had before my set was, they don’t seem to care about content. Just don’t curse. No problem. I’m a pro.

I was about one minute into my set when I did my bit about how Muslims throw their shoes when upset. Here’s the punch line: “…cause in the Muslim culture, throwing your shoes at somebody is the highest form of disrespect you can show another human being. Okay. Where do you think suicide bombing falls on that list of disrespectful things?” I know, gold right? I got about half way into my next sentence when that fucking MC interrupted me. “OK, that’s all. Thank you very much. Our next comic coming to the stage…”

Son-of-a-bitch! I didn’t curse at all and they gave me the hook. I was fuming. As I left the Laugh Factory that evening, I saw a sign on the door. I can’t remember it verbatim but it said something like this, “Due to the incident on November 17, 2006 (Michael Richards meltdown), we here at the Laugh Factory want you to know that we will not condone offensive material regarding race, religion, culture, etc…If at any time you are offended, please let us know…” Because of the Michael Richards incident, the fucking Laugh Factory now wants to put a leash on all the comedy that goes through there. Now you may be thinking that the elderly woman’s comedy was self-deprecating while mine was commentary on a religious group. But really, how would anybody know if I’m Muslim? And it’s not like I was saying that all Muslims are suicide bombers. I was simply telling the truth that, right now, all suicide bombers are fucking Muslim. But that’s neither really here nor there. I don’t need to defend my set. I told you this story to demonstrate what I’ve been seeing as a growing and concerning trend in stand-up comedy; the censorship of comedians to protect the sensibilities of those in the audience who might get offended. Well fuck that shit!

The Laugh Factory is not the only club guilty of censorship. Comedy contests, clubs and rooms all over this country are subscribing more and more to the “clean only” school of comedy. The World Series of Comedy Contest held in Las Vegas has it right there in the entry form. “Not too dirty. When you’re a headliner, you can curse all you want.” A booker recently just told me that she was hesitant to book me because of a set online of me doing seven minutes on religion. It’s not even dirty. It just makes fun of God. Like God can’t take a joke. God made marijuana, birth defects and Tyra Banks for Christ’s sake! If God didn’t like comedy, do you really think She would have created farts? Of course not and do you want to know how I know? She told me while I was high on mushrooms, farting and having sex with conjoined twins.

The purveyors of this clean comedy coalition call themselves righteous for steering up and coming comedians away from the blue material. They think they are doing comics a favor by forcing them to work clean. After all, cruise ships and corporate events don’t pay to hear dick jokes. And that’s all well and good if you got into comedy to work on cruise ships and corporate events. But I didn’t and I don’t think most comics did. And if you got into comedy to do that, you should stay the fuck out of comedy clubs and open up a room in a vegan coffee shop.

Another argument I hear is that it forces a comedian to be funny without having to rely on saying, “fuck” every other word. What a bullshit argument. Do you want to know what forces a comedian to be funny even more than working clean? Silence from the audience, which is exactly what a comedian would get if they say, “fuck” every other word.

I’m going to leave you with this to think about. Who was the first comedian who really made an impression on you? Nine times out of ten, the answer is Carlin or Pryor or Bruce or Murphy and the tenth time you’ll hear Cosby. Okay, I’ll give you Cosby. But my point is that the game changers of stand-up. The ones who really left a mark would never censor themselves. That was the whole idea. Stand-up comedy is THE last bastion of free speech. Be it curse words or content or both, the idea is to get to speak the things that others think but can’t speak for themselves. If that involves a little cursing or the mocking of a group of people then so be it. In a comedy club, the only thing that is offensive is telling the comics what they can and cannot say.

An ominous shadow of mediocrity casts over pop culture. It’s as ever-present as it is gloomy. You’d think I’d be used to it, being born into Reagan’s America and all. To some sad extent, I am used to it. Used to the kink in my neck obtained from shaking my head in disapproval toward whatever’s being spat at me. Lately, though, it’s just been a little harder to dismiss the distaste. The media’s behavior is beyond unscrupulous. It’s deplorable. Downright shitty, if you will. If you won’t, you should. Trust me on this one.

I can’t check out at Ralph’s and pass the magazine rack without catching a hideous glimpse of how warped the media’s sensibilities are in my peripherals. I can’t make a trip around the dial without being stalked by banality. We’re practically smothered by it. Just when you think they’ve bottomed out in the quality/ taste department, the rabid rodents keep burrowing lower.

Who likes mediocrity? Most people. What do they know? Not enough, unfortunately. Power in numbers, being what it is, those of us with…(what’s the word…haven’t heard it used in so long)…standards, we have to be exposed to what has been deemed acceptable by people that don’t know any better. We are setting a trend for future generations, and most of the people molding that future have one curled hand rested on their chest.

Is MTV even trying anymore? Years of not playing any music, let alone any tolerable music; years of scripting reality shows; years of barely making any indication of an effort to please their mush-minded minions has turned the network into the fat, lazy, dazed and sterile shit machine that undermines creative evolution today. Movie award ceremonies were held earlier in the month. Usually the “shocking” moments are pretty easily recognized as being planted, but the phoniness was just out loud and blatant this time around.

The piece of writing that lead into the Sandra Bullock/ Scarlett Johansson kiss was, from the viewpoint of a writer and a viewer, sloppy. Lay-z. Painful to watch, even. It took anyone working with slightly more than retard brains out of the moment the show was “trying” to create. Not that, had it been executed more tightly, I would of believed that A-list actresses like to spontaneously lesbo out on one another whenever the urge so happens to arise- but what transpired couldn’t have come off as seeming more unnatural. I’m not griping as some panting perv, feverishly wiping his clammy palms on his sweat panted knees, instructing the girlies in the TV to “make Daddy believe it.” I’m not that guy. I’m griping because I despise manufactured, non-shocking snippets like this that are sold as being the opposite. It leaves the lingering taste of Splenda in my mouth. Much like Sandra left Scarlett with the lingering taste of third-hand Nazi stripper twat in her mouth.

After decades of a steady nose-dive decline, MTV wants to be part of whatever the kids are calling the counter culture these days, even though they consciously offer a lame product to people with dictated tastes. There’s nothing revolutionary about that.

Another troubling aspect of the kiss was the fact that Betty White had just fumbled through some outrageous observations that certainly weren’t age appropriate. That gag will never tire. SNL didn’t drive the final nails in that coffin. Yes, that was factiousness. I have nothing personal against that sweet, decrepit ol’ biddy. I’m not saying she should join her cast-mates for The Afterlife Presents: Golden Girls on Broadway. I just hate how the industry uses her. I don’t blame Betty for playing along with a bad, yet profitable, formula. If Hollywood offered my grandma Betty White money to regurgitate dick jokes from over-sized cue cards; well, let’s just say I’d have some digging to do.

MTV enjoyers are ignorant, desensitized and they have an immature pallet. In some severe cases, they’re partially lobotomized. I’ll accept that explanation. That checks out. What I fail to understand is: who’s in the market for hauntingly morbid Gary Coleman photographs? Poor guy, left this world prematurely as a frustrated security guard in need of an insecurity guard. I can’t see how someone can justify having an interest in what Globe magazine is offering. Seeing him on the cover like that was even more disturbing than seeing him on magazine covers when he was alive. Luckily, Larry David on the TV Guide cover was standing by as a suitable shield. If the media had a soul, it’s brutal ugliness would be reflected in the pain and misery shown on the front of that waste of a tree of a magazine. Also seen in the photo was the woman that, at the very least, killed Coleman’s spirit. I hope he knew better than to include her in his what you talkin’ ’bout WILLis. Expect a reality show from her in the fall. It’s the (new) American way.

I wish all that was bad and wrong, like the above mentioned, ceased to be and that we could start over with a purely quality template. I know asking for integrity in journalism is naïve of me. Especially considering programming like TMZ is flourishing like the venereal rash that it is. It has become painstakingly clear: as long as the majority rules, the minority shall suffer. I think Gandhi said that. It was either Mahatma Gandhi or Todd Bridges.

Okay, so… we’re two episodes into Last Comic Standing. Here are my thoughts.

Who is that woman sitting between Andy Kindler and Greg Giraldo? Seriously. I watch a lot of comedy. Who is she?

Didn’t this show used to be hosted by a comedian? I’m almost certain Jay Mohr used to have something to do with this show. Then the guy from Yes Dear hosted and then Bill Belamy… exactly who is Craig Robinson playing straight man for? Is he not ALLOWED to be funny? I think he should be allowed to be funny.

I think Andy Kindler and Greg Giraldo are being relatively nice and situationally funny, but who is that obnoxious woman sitting between them? Seriously.

Enough with support staff, let’s talk about the contestants.

Really? Those are the best you could find? Okay.

I really liked about three of them. I guess that’s something. I liked David Feldman. Tommy Jonagin is funny. Is that three?

I think that chick judge is named Natasha. They should let her judge the first round and then be a contestant for the rest of the show. It doesn’t appear she would have an edge over any of the other wannabes. I dunno. When I saw her dancing behind Craig Robinson, I thought she was doing the Elaine from Seinfeld.

Gary Gullman and Chris Porter were really funny several seasons ago. Can they come back?

I think the idea of having really funny comics do really funny material is terrific. When will that part of the show start?

I think the naked guy and the guy in the bear costume on stilts should have made it into the semis and then into the comic house, with the stipulation that they had to wear their “costumes” for the duration of the show. The show isn’t about the stand-up anyway, and watching those two compete in daily tasks would have been hilarious. And what about their serious moments around the house? I know I wasn’t gonna miss the episode where the naked guy and the bear on stilts have their first “heart to heart.” Then would come the inevitable betrayal – “I know I’m funnier than a bear on stilts.” Followed by, “That’s funny, ‘cause I know I’m funnier than a naked guy.”

Carrot Top thinks this show lacks substance.

Gallagher thinks this show is gimmicky.

I like the way they profile some of the comics at their homes before they audition. It creates a lot of suspense because the profiled comics have only moved onto the next round 100% of the time.

Spoiler alerts think this show lacks suspense.

I guess, what I’m sayin’ is – I’m a fan! I really would love to be on season 8. Thank God nobody from that show reads comedy websites. I mean, they can’t possibly be aware of what people are saying, right? I mean, clearly, they’re not worried about critics, right? I’ll be fine. No way I’m getting blackballed.

On an unrelated note, do you know if they take comics with fake names?

Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Wikipedia says, quoting Albert Goldman the biographer of Lenny Bruce, that “…precisely at the moment when he sank to the bottom of the barrel and started working the places that were the lowest of the low…” that he suddenly broke free of “…all the restraints and inhibitions and disabilities that formerly had kept him just mediocre and began to blow with a spontaneous freedom and resourcefulness that resembled the style and inspiration of his new friends and admirers, the jazz musicians of the modernist school.” I repeat, Lenny Bruce is not afraid. I know I do not have this level of fearlessness in my standup comedy yet, but there have been other times when I exercised complete fearlessness. When I look back on some of my shenanigans as a youngster, I think to myself Leisa Mills was not afraid. Like the time I robbed a Dairy Queen. In the end I got three hundred and twenty-five dollars, and a blizzard.

Here’s the story morning glory. I was sixteen years old. I was living in green trailer number ten in the north part of Boulder, CO. I had moved out of my parent’s house and was living with my best friend Sandy. We both worked at Dairy Queen. I was not a good child, and the truth is I had been a professional thief since the age of six. I started by stealing M&M’s and gum from the checkout isle while my mom was paying for the groceries. I stole 100 bottles of Wet n’ Wild nail polish from Claire’s Boutique, but I am even with that karma because someone else stole them all from me. I got arrested only once for shoplifting when I was twelve, I was stealing Madonna merchandise form Target and an undercover followed me through the store and they snagged me. Although I got busted, I used my sweet face and sweet talking ways and in the end I only had to do one hour of community service. I was supposed to do eight hours of service at the local recreational center. After an hour of cleaning the pool they told me I could go home and sent me on my way with a letter to the courts that I had done nine hours. Lucky me, I was a very polite criminal.

Sandy and I had been working at the Dairy Queen for a couple of months, neither one of us was attending High School, so we would work during the day and then party hardy at night. I was a bad girl, but looked like a good girl and so my managers entrusted me to make the daily bank deposit. I might have been a high school dropout, but I excelled at math and it took no genius to see that these people were shitty bookkeepers. I stole twenty dollars from them every single day; I needed the money to pay for alcohol and cigarettes. Before the reading audience gets scared, I stopped stealing before I was 18. Either a guilty conscious set in or I was not about to get caught as an adult and do adult time. I was shitty, but I wasn’t stupid. Although I will admit that from time to time I take, I mean sample, nuts and chocolate from the bulk section at whole foods market. Anyway, I had never intended to take more that the twenty dollars a day and rob them rob them, but then Sandy decided to move and things got crazy at the local Dairy Queen.

On the day that Sandy was leaving town she came in to say goodbye. It was busy, but she wanted a soda so she came around the counter to get it herself. I turned around and bumped the soda out of Sandy’s hand. Jackie came around the corner and slipped and fell. Jackie was sixteen and pregnant. Yep. Being sixteen and pregnant was happening 20 years ago. Actually it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but anyway I digress. Nobody liked Jackie, not because she was pregnant, but because she was addicted to cocaine and a liar. Yes I know, “Wow Dairy Queen hired some real winners” and “Isn’t that calling the kettle black”? We were sixteen and subjectivity was not our strong suit. Jackie told my managers that I pushed her to the floor on purpose and was trying to make her miscarriage. Of course, there was no truth to that statement, but they fired me on the spot. Two weeks later they realized she was lying and they hired me back. I wasn’t going to return I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction, besides having no responsibility was pretty cool. However, my new BFF Lena and I needed money; we wanted to get to Washington DC to watch the Grateful Dead. I wasn’t even a Dead Head, but I wanted to be one, more than anything though I wanted to get out of town. So I called back Dairy Queen and said yes. I robbed them, with Lena’s assistance on Tuesday, the same day I started back again.

The Dairy Queen I worked at was not just ice cream; it also served hamburger, hotdogs, chicken sandwiches and fries. It was a restaurant with tables and booths. It was a peaceful robbery, I was raised Buddhist, it took six hours. Lena came to work with me and sat in one of the booths reading a book and writing. The only other employee there that day was the Manager’s son. For the most part he was in the kitchen cooking and I was at the counter. Every chance I got I would go over and talk to Lena and at the same time bring her money from the cash register. After six hours I took a peak at my register and saw that the only money left was a twenty dollar bill and a roll of quarters. “Shit”, I thought, “I have to get out of here now”. I gave Lena the signal to leave. We had a designated meeting place two blocks away. Believe it or not what I was most worried about was Lena running with the money. She was bad to the bone and there was no reason why she wouldn’t rip me off. I watched her leave with all the money and quickly thought of a way to exit the building. I went to my manager and said, “Oh I am feeling really sick”. I held my stomach and made sick desperate faces. He said, “What do you need”? “I need a breath of fresh air, let me just step outside for a second”

He let me go outside, at which point I took a huge gulp of fresh air and then I ran. I ran fast across the shopping center parking lot to the next shopping center parking lot. As I was running I threw off my Dairy Queen smock and just kept running to our meeting place. Lena was there, phew, now we just had to get to the bus station another 6 blocks away and then we would be home free. The Manager’s son called his mama right away and the cops too. As Lena and I were navigating the mean streets of Boulder, CO we saw the Manager’s big black Lincoln cruising around and 2 cop cars. My heart was pumping, this by far was the worst crime I had ever committed, and I was determined not to get caught. Somehow we made it to the local bus depot just as the B bus to Denver was leaving. We hopped on. Got to Denver, went to the Greyhound bus station and bought two one-way tickets to Washington D.C., the tickets cost two-hundred and twenty dollars. We had gotten three-hundred and twenty-five dollars. So we had some money to spare, we bought cigarettes and snacks for the three day bus ride and changed our names to fit our new lives as Dead-Heads. Lena now called me Indica and I now called her Raven. We made it to our destination, but that is another story for another time.

I never did get arrested for it and now twenty years later I am hoping that the statute of limitations has run out. However, if I disappear all of the sudden, maybe I am doing time. The Manager, the owner of the big black Lincoln, took the hit and made it a tax write-off. Karma is no fool though; today I am completely lactose intolerant, no more ice cream for Leisa. A few years after the robbery I ran into the Manager’s son, I tried to avoid him, but he came right up to me. He said “I watched you the entire day”, “Really?” “Then why didn’t you stop me?” He said, “I just wanted to see if you could get away with it”. I realized that day that people are always watching, watching you push your limits and seeing what your next move will be. Maybe this is what Lenny Bruce finally tapped into, once the walls were down, once it didn’t matter who was listening or not he definitively became who he was and those that followed him “just wanted to see if he could get away with it”, they loved his courage. And he realized that people were watching, watching him for him. No more stealing in order to see what I can get away with, I am using the standup comedy stage for that. Whether those walls are down yet or not fearlessness is still an intrinsic part of my makeup, and that which makes me “mediocre” is being stripped away. Lenny Bruce is not afraid, and neither am I. I repeat, Leisa Mills is not afraid.

I once read that comedians should always have a pen and notebook with them so they can be prepared when lightning strikes and that million dollar idea pops into their head. I think it was Judy Carter’s, “The Comedy Bible.” It was the only thing I got out of that book, but I did heed that wisdom and for the past four years I have had a notebook on me. I’m on my fifth one. Most of the ideas never make it to the mic. Most of the jokes that make it to the mic never make it to the set. That is the process of prospecting for gold. Lately I’ve been going through a bit of writer’s block. I’ve had this current notebook for three months now and I’m only 20 pages in. I need to do something to break down that wall so I figure I can kill two birds by purging the jokes from my notebook here in this column. If you don’t like them, I don’t blame you. Just be happy you’ll never have to hear them on stage. So here it goes.

People who believe in astrology use the argument that the stars’ and planets’ gravitational pull on our bodies affect us like they do the ocean. Then I guess I don’t have a receding hairline. My head is just at low tide.

(For when I’m drinking on stage) I’m too drunk to be doing comedy right now. I should be more responsible. What I should do is walk off this stage, out this building and drive my ass home.

People in LA love TV and film credits. It doesn’t even matter what the credit is for. “Wait a minute, you’re Bernie DeWitt, right? Rigging Gaffer? I loved your work on the movie, “Ricochet.”

Rape has got to be harder than it looks in the movies. They always make it look like all it would take is a couple punches and they’re ready to rape. I’m no expert but I bet real rapists carry lube.

Morgan Freeman has a shitty last name. Not necessarily for him but for his slave ancestors. Talk about kicking somebody when they’re down. “Hey, Free-man! Pick that cotton!”

Can that Taylor kid from the Twilight movies be anymore gay? Oprah asked him what he looks for in a girl. He should have said, “cock.”

I’ve noticed that all transvestites either look like a super slutty sex pot or Bea Arthur. What ever happened to the tranny next door?

All religious texts were written by man. The Bible, The Torah, The Quran. All men. I’m just surprised they don’t have verses describing how big God’s dick is. “And He hath a phallus that stands four timbers tall. And it is good.”

This notion that women are more mature than men is bullshit. My wife regresses to a five-year old every time we talk. “Are we compatible?” “How are we compatible?” “Why are we compatible” “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” Fuck, dude, I don’t know!

People use the argument that you should get married so you won’t end up alone in a nursing home. That’s a stupid argument. First of all, people don’t “end up” in a nursing home. They’re “put in” a nursing home. Who do you think is doing the “putting?”

Maybe God created the universe but I’m pretty sure he’s not watching it like religious people would have you believe. Imagine how bored he would be by now? “I wonder what’s going on over on Jupiter? Oh, right, the same exact fucking thing that’s been going on for hundreds of billions of years…nothing…I hate this job.”

The world is a fucked up place but if somebody were actually watching all of us, don’t you think it would be even more fucked up? I gotta think that being God would be a lot like playing the Sims. You can’t play that game for more than an hour before you start fucking with the people in that world. “I’m going to have this man run that baby over then make him eat his own shit.”

There’s nothing worse than having to sit at home, next to your wife, as she roots for comics on Last Comic Standing. “Oooh, he’s good. I like him. One day, that guy is gonna be a star!” I don’t do that to her. I don’t sit there as we watch Kim Kardashian and say, “Oooh, she’s good. I like her. One day she is gonna be my wife!”

Women are better than men in arguments because they can always remember everything the man ever did wrong in the past. We can’t compete with that. I’ve stopped trying to compete with that. So now whenever she brings up things from the past, I counter it by bringing up things from the future. “What about the time you cheated on me with that rich guy?!!” “I never cheated on you with a rich guy!” “But you will….you will.”

Okay, I feel better now. The notebook has been purged. Much like a person with bulimia, I’m ready to binge on the funny again. Go Lakers!!

Fair enough. I won’t talk about it. I’ll write about it. It was recently brought to my attention that my stand up act is too focused on material and, subsequently, neglectful toward the crowd. “People want to be pulled in, Man. They want to be a part of the show.” Why, thank you for the input, random tooth-deprived chemical enthusiast at this shit bar that happens to have an amp and a mic. While I can appreciate the fact that people like to be involved in the show they’re watching, I refuse to believe that crowd work should triumph material on a comic’s priority list.

Not every comic that thrives off of the crowd can be a Don Rickles. A lot of comedians, especially on the open mic circuit, will sometimes pester the room with “where ya from?” or “ I wanna fuck you because you’re a girl” or “you look like someone who’s not you.” It’s a sign of either being unprepared or having a lack of confidence in the material that they have. I think riffing off of bystanders can enhance a set, but there are only a small few that can or should build their entire shtick around that.

Besides, I give the average comedy fan more credit than that. Granted, we are living in a self-obsessed society… let me rephrase that: I realize that I’m living in a self- obsessed society, but I’ve always considered stand up fans to be smarter, more socially conscience, more broadly minded than the average citizen. After all, there is a vast disparity in intellectual maturity between those that can take a fucking joke and those that cannot.

Not to speak ill of my contemporaries, but I have sat through countless sets that have totally lacked entertaining substance. For a comedy purist, there’s nothing more frustrating than watching someone that doesn’t have any material. It’s a waste of stage time and it fucks off the vibe in the room for the talented and prepared performers that have to follow that shit. If the guy (or girl, or tranny with a cell phone at The Comedy Store) that came to do their act, but didn’t bring an act, were to make up for their dip-shittery by owning the room with clever, off-the-cuff observations about the people in attendance and about the night in general –that would be peachy. It’s just seldom for things to go down that way. Odds are, if you fail to write five minutes of funny fodder then you’re probably going to struggle with turning small talk into laughs off the top of the head.

I’ve seen comics nonchalantly piss away the meat of their set with “what do I want to talk about tonight?” or “what do you guys want to talk about?” Aren’t we exalted on a stage, voice amplified, because we have something to say? Isn’t that the whole point? Some of the best in the business –Oswalt, CK, Attell, Cross –hardly ever stray from their material to pay special attention to one in a countless sea of attentive fans. If they so happen to, it’s usually because they’re provoked, by an attention whore, to do so. The only place for an attention whore at a comedy show is on the stage.

Not to say that sticking to a script is a must, some of the best moments and biggest laughs in comedy are ad-libbed, I just urge whoever gets on the comedy platform do so with a point of view or a few punch lines. Something. Make the effort because the payoff is outstanding. When you create something that you’re proud of, then you share it with a room full of strangers and everything clicks and they dig it and they laugh their assholes off –it induces quite the cathartic feeling and triggers an endorphin release that all of the sex and drugs in Hollywood would fail to rival. That’s why successfully selling material and killing it provides an adrenaline rush that lasts well into the next day. It’s enough to give me a raging heart boner.

That’s why I’ll never mind being considered a “material comic” versus being considered a “crowd comic.” Anyone that can effortlessly work a crowd and have a stellar set without using a single prepared bit has my full-blown respect. That’s an important attribute to be equipped with. At the same time, writing is as vital to stand up comedy as a distorted level of self-esteem (be it too low or too high). Hardcore writing, at that. In the inspiring style of such Men of the pen as Bob Dylan and Hunter S. Thompson. I’m talking about staying up all night with the notebook, exploring ideas, going off on tangents, making connections, getting every last drop of your creative juices on paper so you’re ready for the stage and you’re not referencing scribbles on an El Pollo Loco receipt. I’m not saying I posses such ability, but I stride for that. It’s all a part of the journey.

As rightfully beloved and unquestionably hilarious as a crowd guy like Rickles is, I don’t think his zinger-rich act can hold a candle to the material presented to us by the powerful minds of guys like George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Dave Chapelle and so on.

As far as my act is concerned, I’ve performed less than 70 times and I have approximately 500 jokes/ bits that I consider stage worthy. I’m not a seasoned performer, my delivery needs more polishing than a pair of hobo’s boots, and my shit will always have room for improvement –but I’m ready. Not ready for the big leagues, not ready for an HBO special. I’m ready to make an effort on stage. Ready to present my perception of this enigmatic cunt we call comedy. As long as I consider myself a comedian, I will live and die by my material and, more often than not, I will throw down my punch lines through the entirety of the set without even referencing anyone in the room. Does that make me a prick? No. It makes me a storyteller. or at least, for now, a joke teller.

That’s just me, though. How you doin’?

Are you a fan of excellence?

“Great question, Eric, but the answer is no. Like most people, I prefer mediocrity and lousiness. When I’m at a restaurant, I want the food to be overcooked and served by a hostile waitress. At the movies, I want predictable storylines and stilted dialogue. And when I’m bowling, I want the rental shoes to be torn and smelly.”

Oh, I get it. You’re mocking me. You’re saying it’s a dumb question because, obviously, everyone is a fan of excellence.

“Duh.”

Okay, my bad. I wasn’t clear. Do you think I could start again?

“It’s your column.”

Great! Let’s start over. Ahem. Good morning, readers. I hope you had a great weekend.

“It’s Tuesday.”

So it is. As we all know, everyone is a fan of RECEIVING excellence. What I want to know is — are you a fan of PROVIDING excellence?

“Oh no, here we go again. This is another one of your unprovoked attacks. You’re about to tell me that I don’t work hard enough… again. You’re about to lecture me on being excellent… again. How fresh. Okay, Mr. One-Note columnist, hit me!”

Settle down, Mr./Ms. Sensitivity. As always, in the back of my mind I am concerned with making you better, funnier, and more crowd friendly than ever before, but today it isn’t about you. In fact, it’s about everyone but you.

“Oh. Okay. Good. I’m, uh, tired of talking about myself. Let’s talk about other people for a change.”

Okay.

“I mean, you can talk about me a little, if you need to. I mean, I do SORT OF like it when you include me, but I’m not an egomaniac or anything. I mean, we all like a little attention, right? That doesn’t make me a bad person.”

No, that doesn’t make you a bad person, but something important happened this weekend, and I want to talk about it.

“Oh, something good happened? That’s nice. Let’s hear about that.”

John Wooden died.

“John Wooden died? How is that good? What the hell is wrong you?”

I never said something GOOD happened. I said something IMPORTANT happened. You put words in my mouth.

“I put words in YOUR mouth? Um, ok.”

And the reason it’s important is that when a great man, a truly great man, passes, people stop and reflect on GREATNESS. They honor greatness. They honor excellence. And I like that.

“Oh. Now I’m on board. You want to honor John Wooden.”

No, I want to honor greatness. But, first things first, let’s talk about your (purportedly obvious) fandom of excellence. Let’s see if it applies UNSELFISHLY.

“Unselfishly? Why is that important?”

It’s important because excellence does not exist in a vacuum. Excellence is not just for you and your family. It’s for all of us, and the truth is, you and your family benefit most when you honor other people’s excellence.

“How so?”

Well, when you need an operation, you wouldn’t want it performed by a surgeon who got his job just because his Mom went to college the hospital’s CEO, would you? You’d want the best surgeon, regardless of who he was friends with.

“So, what’s your point?”

My point is that we need to start acknowledging excellence, encouraging excellence, and rewarding excellence… regardless of our relationship to the person who is providing the excellence.

“I don’t follow!”

Let me ask you a question. Who are your favorite comics of all time?

“Chris Rock, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor.”

Great. Now, did you (or do you) personally know any of them?

“No.”

Then how come you liked them?

“I liked them because they were great comics. They made me laugh. They were smart.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. You didn’t care if they were your buddies. You didn’t care if they made you money. You weren’t jealous of them. You just loved their excellent comedy.

“What is your point, Eric?”

How do you feel when you’re waiting for your turn onstage at an open mic or at a bringer?

“Honestly?”

What the heck. Why not?

“I usually feel impatient.”

Why?

“Because if the comic onstage is horrible, I’m afraid he’s going to walk the crowd before I get my turn, or turn them off so much that they don’t even want to laugh by the time I perform.”

And if he’s good?

“If he’s good, I’m afraid he’s going to make me look bad.”

So, really, you can’t win?

“Sure I can win. I can win if I get up there and crush.”

So… it’s all about you.

“No, I’m just sayin’ I feel like I win if I crush.”

But when the other comics are performing, you worry about how their performances are going to affect you?

“Yes.”

When you reflect back on your favorite performances by Carlin and Pryor and Rock, did you ever get the sense that they were in competition with other comics?

“No.”

Did you ever get the sense that they cared how the comic before or after them performed?

“They just did their acts, man. It didn’t seem like their focus was anywhere but on their acts.”

But they really were in a competition, right? I mean, there were only so many slots on The Tonight Show, right?

“I guess.”

Let me get to my point.

“Please.”

Is it better for you if the other comics stink?

“Yes.”

No.

“No?”

No. It’s better for everyone if the comics are good. Better comics means the comics push themselves to become even better. We rehearse more. We write more. We think more. Audiences return again and again if the product is good. Bad comics make us all look bad.

“So, what do you want me to do about it?”

Start pubbing good comics. Instead of booking your friend, book a comic whose set you admire. Start rewarding excellence. Start rooting for excellence to be rewarded. With any luck, er, I mean hard work, one day you’ll be the excellent comic who is rewarded – not as a manipulated prize winner, but as a hard won prize earner.

Stop wishing ill for other comics. Start being positive. A rising tide lifts all boats. So, help each other. Otherwise, the bad guys and manipulators will win. They will keep booking unwatchable shows. Unwatchable comics won’t get any better because they’ll have no incentive. The vicious cycle will continue. Let’s stop the cycle.

Seriously, let’s stop the cycle. You can start by genuinely complimenting the next comic you’ve never met whose set blows you away.

Next week: my opinion of Last Comic Standing. I’ll see you then.

I’ve realized that a lot of my articles have to do with problems I have in standup as a new comedian. Open mics, bringer shows, last comic standing, cliché jokes, parents threatening to cut me off, you know, all that shit. But what about the accomplishments? What about the good times? What can I learn from those? Recently, I had a really great set and even earned some cash. Nothing big, barely covered parking, but it was nice. On the way to the show, a girl I’d been seeing broke up with me over text message and I not only managed not to let it bother me, but I also turned it into my first joke. The whole thing felt like a quelling of the usual voices in my head that question my every action. But later on, the questions came.

Was it just because the room was warm? Was it because I went up over an hour into the show? Did the last guy do so well, that as long as I didn’t forget anything, I was okay? Did it even matter? I don’t know if you can relate to this, but I am a very harsh critic and very capable of destroying myself at any moment. The slightest bit of doubt can put me in an introverted state where I just walk circles in my head. So as soon as I started evaluating the night, I forgot about good: the income, the laughs, the comfort. Instead, I decided that anyone with any joke could have killed in that setting. Maybe that’s true, but it’s also that self-doubt that makes me not want to go to open mics to try out new things. It’s what makes me wonder if I’m even doing the right thing, AND THIS FROM A GOOD NIGHT!

Another cliché I’m running into in my writing is the ending always being the same: keep working, keep writing, and keep showing up. It’s as though each thesis is “What the fuck am I doing?” and each conclusion is, “Quit my bitching; go back to work.” But maybe that’s a good thing. I need to defy those internal self-defeating voices if I ever want to have another killer paid set. Also, I should probably just quit my bitching. See you on the circuit!

Cha-motherfuckin-Ching!!

No? Liars. That’s okay, I’m not writing this to tell you how to plan for your retirement. I am writing this to talk about the seven deadly sins and how it relates to comedy. Why? Because I love the movie “Seven,” that’s why. And I just watched it recently and realized how much ass it kicked. It had all the makings of a great movie; the gritty realism, the Morgan Freeman voice over… Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box. So here it goes. The seven deadly sins in comedy but without all the divinity. All inspired by my favorite buddy cop movie.

Gluttony:

Remember the fat guy? Forced to eat spaghetti until his stomach ruptured? He was the first victim in the movie and gluttony seems like a good place to start here as well. Gluttony in comedy, however, has nothing to do with a person’s weight. Fat is funny. No doubt about it. A funny joke spoken by a thin person becomes a brilliant joke when spoken by a fat guy. I don’t know why. It’s just one of those laws of nature, like retard strength. No, the gluttonous comic is the person, who night after night, set after set, keeps doing the same material and night after night, set after set, keeps eating it on stage. The Glutton has seven minutes of material and it is set in stone and it never changes and it sucks terrible, bitter monkey balls. It is truly disgusting to watch. Is it laziness? Is it a disorder? Who fucking cares. What it is is not funny and the Glutton should pay for his sin. As John Doe, to turn the sin against the sinner, I would punish the Glutton by forcing him to do a six month nightly show as the headliner at a maximum security prison. I know, I’m sick.

They told him not to do the Lorena Bobbitt joke again.

Pride:

In “Seven,” the pride victim was a model who got the old Fallujah Face Lift from John Doe and was so disturbed with the way she looked that she opted for suicide rather than live the rest of her life with a disfigured face. I guess she hadn’t considered a career in comedy. If she had, her sinful pride could have probably won her a few comedy contests. We all know comedians with handicaps, right? We also all know comedians who talk about their handicaps, right? And we also all know comedians who ONLY talk about their handicaps, right? Doesn’t it make you want to give them another handicap just so they would talk about something new? It doesn’t have to be a disability either. It can be a race (Dat Phan) or sexuality (Mario Cantone) or socioeconomic status (Jeff Foxworthy). The prideful comic latches on to the one subject matter that can get them laughs and clings to it like Brett Michaels clings to bandannas. These comics are so ugly on the inside that they can only talk about what we see on the outside. The prideful comic thinks style is synonymous with subject matter. Yes, gay comic, we know you love the cock but do you have any thoughts on, oh I don’t know, anything non-cock? Let’s hear them. Hey mixed race comic, why don’t you make like your parents and try something different? As John Doe, to turn the sin against the sinner, I would punish the prideful comic by forcing him to do a six-month nightly show as the headliner in the burn unit at a hospital.

If I was a burn victim my mother would be like, “Dat Phan, why you so melty?”

Lust:

Lust in comedy has nothing to do with sex. Sure I hear comics complain about other comics who got a career boost by giving a “tight five” on the casting couch. And in the movie, the lust victim was a hooker. However, in comedy, sex of any kind is worth its weight in jokes, usually about 185+ lbs worth of jokes. Be that as it may, it can never be sin. No, in comedy, lust is stage lust. It is a lust for the limelight and not the spotlight. They care more about being “known” than they do about being funny. These are the comics who arrive late, get on early, fuck up the list, ask everybody to watch their set, then leave five minutes later. These are the comics who whine and complain and lie to the hosts to get their way like it is owed to them. Then when they do get their way, they show all the gratitude of Kanye West. These comics put more effort into manipulating, backstabbing and lying than they do writing, performing and putting in dues. The lusting comic is common in Los Angeles and unfortunately is often rewarded for his sin. Fucking slut. As John Doe, to turn the sin against the sinner, I would punish the lusting comic by giving him his own HBO one hour special…tonight.

Something funny should go here.

Sloth & Greed:

In the movie, the sloth & greed victims could not be more different, a lawyer and a junkie. In comedy, however, they are often the same person. Sloth & Greed shows up, not necessarily, in comics. It shows up in bookers. The slothful and greedy bookers are the ones who are too lazy to scout talent. Instead they’ll put up anybody who has five friends who are willing to pay the $10 cover and two-drink minimum. Even if that “anybody” has never set foot on stage. Rather than telling a newbie that he is not ready to be in a real show and that he should do more open mics, he says, “How many suckers, I mean people can you bring?” Rather than making fliers, they make Facebook invites. Rather than producing a quality show that will have repeat customers, they rely on a bait and switch technique to pray upon the naïve enthusiasm of green comedians’ friends. Rather than nurture, they corrupt. Like lust, sloth and greed run rampant in the Los Angeles comedy circuit. As John Doe, to turn the sin against the sinner, I would punish the slothful and greedy booker to booking a nightly open mic in Juarez, Mexico.

“Hey, I got 5 amigos, puto. Lemme get the mic, eh?.”

Envy:

This is an easy one. The comic whose sin is envy is a thief. Joke thief, bit thief, style thief, thief. This comic can’t think for himself so he steals others’ ideas. As John Doe, to turn the sin against the sinner, I would punish the comic who envies by making him spend a year opening for Carlos Mencia.

“This sucks! This guy’s got nothing! Dee De Dee!”

Wrath:

Wrath holds a special place in my heart. Probably because I am guilty of it. The wrathful comic lets all the other sins get to him. Wrath alienates audiences and polarizes comedy bookers. It clouds a comic’s judgment and cripples his creativity. Just look at this piece. It started off kind of funny and now it just needs to end. So that’s what is about to happen. So what is my punishment, you ask? Didn’t you see the movie? Brad Pitt’s character, Detective Mills became wrath. His was the only sin that went without punishment. He got to shoot John Doe in the head and then he got a police escort home. So that’s what I’m doing. Don’t like the ending? Fuck you. I’m wrath, bitch. Now cue the Morgan Freeman voiceover.

By a round of applause, how many of you remember the “tenth column tradition” here at The State of Television? Really? That many? Oh, I’m blushing. A standing ovation? That’s too much. Really!

Okay, Jason and Mike, you can sit down. You’re embarrassing the other readers.

As for the rest of you forgetful freddies, I’ll loop you in one last time. Every tenth column, for the better part of a year now, I’ve evacuated my bowels. I’ve pooped from my mouth. I’ve aimed my excrement at as many irritants as I could think of, and I didn’t even try to provide a coherent (let alone memorable) message. I’ve just spewed, people. I’ve just spewed.

Today, that wonderful tradition continues.

First up, the LOST finale:
The LOST finale sucked! If you disagree, you are a moron. This is not debatable. Here’s why. A comedy must include jokes. A love story must include love. And a mystery must REVEAL the mystery. You can’t bill yourself as a mystery and then not address 90% of the questions you raised.
A church full of cast members sitting around grinning like mental patients is not a conclusion, it’s an ad for Xanax.

Next victim, The Dog Whisperer:

Hey, am I the only person who thinks that The Dog Whisperer is creepy? Admittedly, I’ve only seen about five minutes of his show, but I’m pretty sure he’s channeling the spirit of Mister Rogers (if he had facial hair). It’s the whole “soft spoken authority” thing that he’s got going. What is that? Stop doing that. You’re making Cojo from Entertainment Tonight seem like a regular guy.

Now, let’s talk about American Idol. More specifically, let’s talk about the finale.

Um, truthfully, I thought it was pretty good. I liked having the contestants sing and then immediately be joined on stage by real recording artists who could show them up. That was fun.

As for the Janet Jackson appearance at the end of the show – WHHHAAAATTTT WAAAASSSS THHHAAATTT???

Was she lip synching over a Michael Jackson recording? Did she forget to put on her wig? Did she have a butt implant sewn into her dress?

You’ve done the unthinkable, Janet. You’ve out-crazied yourself. You’ve made the Superbowl boob incident seem dignified.

More Idol observations:

The way those magnificent bastards at Idol stretched a 10 second result into a two hour extravaganza (that still somehow managed to go over by four minutes) was a work of witchcraft that had viewers in Salem bowing down.

Seriously, if you had told me that including William Hung in a “Pants on the Ground” extended remix would have been compelling television, I would have said you were smoking the crack, but you’d have been prophetic. I, for one, found it impossible to look away.

Then, having Paula Abdul return to the Idol stage with a monologue that was so uncomfortable, David Cook refused to be a part of it, well, that was also pretty darned good television.

But spending the last 20 minutes on Janet “the train wreck” Jackson was undeniably genius. I mean, every viewer in America sat there thinking, “Hey, if SHE could be a superstar, why the hell couldn’t Lee DeWyze or Crystal Bowersox? This thing is for real!”

Finally, I have a message for the TV show Glee. Please stop advertising. I love music. I think Jane Lynch is hilarious. But I don’t even want to watch LADY GAGA dressed up as Lady Gaga.

Why the hell would I want to watch a stage full of teenage boys dressed up as Lady Gaga?

And you know what? That image isn’t going to just erase ITSELF from my memory. I’m going to have to have therapy… or at least the administering of some street drugs.

And I don’t even KNOW the guy who hooked up the cast of LOST. Zing. Snap. And on that note, I’m outie.

I got a spam ad sent to my in-box today it said “Is your child lacking in discipline”? “BOOT CAMPS”! “Help them find the straight and narrow”. My mom threatened to send me to military school once. She said I needed boot camp. I called her barefoot from Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado singing BRAIN DAMAGE lyrics by Pink Floyd and laughing hysterically. “The lunatic is on the grass; got to keep the loonies on the path”, “giggle giggle, giggle”. I was using the pay phone in front of the courthouse lawn and I was high as a kite on more LSD then any sixteen year old should be. By the time I called her I was having a great time, but she was pretty sure that I was on the brink of insanity. Military school seemed like a double win option for her, I might find the straight and narrow and she might be able to breathe of a sigh of relief. I was having fun, but to say that she was deeply concerned for my life, would be an understatement.

I was pretty rotten. I didn’t feel rotten though, I felt fearless and that the ordinary ways of living were boring. I was pretty uncontrollable. I had zero desire to sit inside of a classroom, getting good grades was as easy as snapping my fingertips and I couldn’t comprehend living for the future. I lived in the moment every moment and I much preferred my life of doing whatever the hell wanted. This, typically, included coffee shops, reading Nietzsche, and taking psychedelics. Such was my teenage life. Most of my negative rebellion phased out like a popular fad, and I never went to military school. I did go to a Liberal Arts College and studied the classics (Nietzsche included); great books, no gym. Funny enough I watched 20 year olds drop acid for the first time. I watched then wave cigarettes and incense in lieu of drumsticks in the dark, but for me the mystery of the drug had worn off. Without the intrigue it was pointless, intoxication minimal.

When I graduated from college I was intending to become a professor of philosophy and write great books about public education reform, pretending that it was my rotten high school that made me drop out instead of my “I do what I want self”. Never did go to get a masters degree or a PhD. I spent time in the cubicles of corporate America, but once you learn the job, there isn’t anything else to get. No mystery, no intrigue. No room for creation. I became a yoga teacher, a writer and a stand-up comedian instead. It is the latter two things that will persist; eventually the yoga teaching will fade away. I will always try to contort myself into a pretzel; I just won’t always be teaching you how to do it. Nietzsche says “For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.” This is the thing I like best about stand-up comedy and writing, the intoxication; it always keeps me coming back for more. The intrigue is always there, the way the words or the laughter spring out at me is far more mysterious than any LSD trip, high school diploma, or punching a computerized time clock.

Every once in a while Hollywood manages to remake a classic film, and it touches our hearts. It captures the lightning of the original film, bottles it, and then catapults it into the stratosphere erupting in a downpour of film making magic as drops of genius rain down to quench our thirsty souls.

Do you think that’s how they pitch these remakes? Can’t you just see a room full of suits over at Columbia Pictures, sitting around an obscenely long table, jerking each other off in these bullshit pitch meetings? “Goldstein, quick, what did you love as a kid?” “Uh, I used to watch the A-Team.” “Of course! That show with George Peppard and Mr. T and all the guns and explosions and nobody ever got killed! That’s genius, Goldstein, green light it!”

That’s gotta be how they do it, right? Just recycling old ideas rather than putting in the work to make new ones. Like a guy who is too lazy or scared to go out and meet somebody new, so he spends all his time at home, masturbating to the memory finger-bopping his prom date. I rarely see the remakes. I see a trailer for a remake and I dismiss it as soon as I recognize the first piece of regurgitated dialog. Before they can say, “Unleash the Kraken!” I’m out that bitch. I won’t see it. Ever.

People often accuse me of being too judgmental (by people, I mean dipshits) and that I shouldn’t judge a movie until after I see it. This is where I have to disagree. If there is one thing Hollywood can do, it can make a trailer that reveals everything you need to know to A) Know the plot twist. B) Know the movie will be shit. C) All of the above. With that said, let’s examine Hollywood’s newest remake, The Karate Kid, and why it will be a glorious turd.

Setting:

In the original version, it was easy to be sympathetic to the plight of Daniel Larusso because he had just moved cross-country, from New Jersey to Reseda, had no friends, no money and had to get around the valley on a bike. How could you not feel sorry for a kid who had to live in New Jersey AND Reseda? Needless to say, it was hard for poor Daniel to fit in with the popular rich black belts that live in the Hills. But in this version, The Karate Kid is an African-American kid who has to move to China because his selfish mom can’t find a job in the western hemisphere. Be that as it may, he’s an American living in China. I imagine that all he would need to win the hearts and minds of his new classmates would be a box full of Kobe Bryant jerseys, an ipod full of hip hop and some Jordans. Throw in a good lie that he’s Diddy’s nephew and he’s the most popular kid in school. Even the bike angle won’t work because he lives in China. Everybody rides bikes there. That’s like moving to Beverly Hills and all you have to drive is a Bentley.

Suspension of Disbelief:

Sure the original Karate Kid had many levels of bullshit. Like a Super Bowl sized crowd at the All Valley Karate Tournament, a crane kick that, “if done right, no can defense” – until part 2, and a 23 year old Ralph Macchio playing a high school kid but it was 1984. It was a simpler time. We could suspend disbelief that a high school kid could wax some cars, paint a fence, paint a house, sand the floor and become a black belt in a semester; especially if he was fighting some rich white kid who was taught Karate from a sleeveless, alcoholic, Vietnam vet. But this is 2010 and this new Karate Kid is shown in the preview jumping, spinning and kicking like he’s Jet fucking Li. I don’t remember Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel nunchucks. And are we really supposed to believe that round eye can learn enough kung fu to beat up these grasshoppers in their Shaolin Temple by Spring Break? C’mon.

Dialog:

“Get him a body bag, Johnny!” “Sweep the leg.” “Mercy is for the weak. We do not train to be merciful here. Here, on the streets, in competition, a man confronts you he is the enemy! An enemy deserves NO MERCY!” Those were the shit. How many times have you heard those lines? The Karate Kid had some of the most memorable dialog for 80’s movies. How do you think that is going to sound by somebody from China in 2010? “Get him body bag, Xian Chan!” “Sweep reg.” “An enemy deserves No mercy. And now we do Buddhist meditation.” It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

So there you have it, three very good reasons not to see this new version of The Karate Kid. Of course, there are many more. Like the fact that they aren’t even doing karate, they’re doing kung fu. Jackie Chan is way too badass to play the Mr. Miyagi role. The Karate Kid is fucking twelve in this movie. And if the UFC has taught us anything, it’s that kung fu, karate or any other type of aesthetically pleasing martial art doesn’t really work in a street fight. Daniel would be better served to learn a rear naked choke and maybe a little ground and pound. I don’t know why Hollywood keeps trying to remake the classics. I would rather see them take another shot at a movie that sucked the first time around. You know, to get a little redemption. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake of Howard the Duck.

I’m a little weary from the road as I type this. I just drove in from Scottsdale, in an effort to collect signatures for my petition to get reimbursement for illegal immigrants that have payed into social security. It went…okay. I’m all for having less people around, cluttering up my travels and whatnot, I just think the sensible bunch of us should be entrusted with the vital duty of handpicking those that truly deserve to go. Guadalupe and his three jobs and his family-packed mid-Nineties mini-van (complete with large Tweety Bird sticker on back window), don’t make me as uncomfortable as the pumped up, pissed off Travolta in White Man’s Burden meets a younger, more energetically hateful Johnny McCain type. The type of hooligan that might take a pickup truck load of Mexicans from Home Depot and drop them off in front of Lowes, just to fuck with their heads. Let’s send that guy somewhere that’s not here. Mexico, perhaps. I hear there’s an ever-increasing amount of available land out there. That should be the compromise. We’ll accept your honest hard-workers, and the women that don’t look like Paul Rodriguez. In exchange, you have to harbor America’s mullet. Bada-bing, bada-bop.

Can the rest of the country have Arizona deported? We’ll throw in the charming border (prison) town that is Blythe, California. Yes, the parentheses around prison was meant to be symbolic; but I digress. I like digressing.

Before I digressed like a motherfucker, I was discussing all the problems in the World. Which brings me to the source of all of the World’s problems: China. Finally getting with the fifteenth century, talks of lifting the one child per family ban have surfaced. If this concept materializes, China promised that it will continue to drop unwanted girl babies off of steep cliffs because it is, quote, “the right thing to do.” I bow a bow of respectful disagreeance.

The very same America loving (not that there’s anything wrong with that), Mexican hating (undocumented Mexican hating, that is) lummox that will call you a fag for driving an import, even if it was assembled in Wisconsin, might be surprised to see how much of their Wal-Mart money goes to stimulate the Chinese economy that, in turn, stimulates his economy and allows him to work so he can jerk-off half of his paycheck to buy horribly shitty product from a depression-factory of a store like any given Wal-Mart. Such is the circle of life.

Yes, Wal-Mart. Where the greeters keep their hands in their vest pockets to hide the slit marks on their wrists and the people in the isles move about like confused dogs that shit in their own food dish, because they don’t know any better. I have no empathy for anyone that has ever made me feel claustrophobic while buying Visine, by the way. They can all be deported, promptly.

That same misguided consumer might even succumb to talk radio induced paranoia about their “half-not-white” President. Obama doesn’t personify the image of a scary black guy (if you saw him walk past you at an ATM at 3:30am, you wouldn’t clutch your purse to your frightened bosom, fella’s) so the neo-con’s have to work that much harder. They push the Muslim thing pretty heavily. They won’t rest until they sniff out the bean pie that’s cooling in Barack’s jacket pocket. He’s not the type of Muslim that is driven by the promise of sweet, plentiful, untapped ghost pussy -so I’m not sweating him. I have the same amount of mistrust in Obama as I’ve had for every President that has ever asked for my trust; afraid of him, I am not. My subordinance is at a healthy, yet rational, level -I’m glad to report. On a side note, I attribute broken campaign promises and deployment of troops to the White politician in him. White Devil Barry is fucking up the program. Point being: Obama isn’t scary, his bosses are. Some of which are the aforementioned, slick talking Chinamen. Such is the circle of life.

I hope this piece on immigration, China, Wal-Mart, thy President, and sweet ghost pussy was as informing for you to read as it was for me to write.

Some people say it was a bad week for Wanda Sykes. Some people say it’s a shame that she had two shows canceled in two days. Some people are just plain stupid.

Hallelujah, the networks set Wanda Sykes free!

Thank you, Fox. Bigger thank you, CBS. Now that The Wanda Sykes Show and The Tired Adventures of Old Christine have been canceled, Wanda is free to do what she does best – edgy stand up and edgy co-starring on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Wanda, you were a 10 starring on a five and a zero (wait, can I make Christine less than zero? Would anybody mind that? No? Ok, Wanda, you were a ten starring on a five and a negative infinity).

Quick shout out to Julia Louis-Dreyfus. You are also a 10. Why don’t you make that idiot husband of yours write you a better show? If he could write for Frasier, he could write for you.

Back to Wanda. Wanda, now that you have some time on your hands, I’d like to encourage you to do some public service. First, I’d like you to march over to CBS, thank them for liberating you, and then plead with them to liberate Jay Mohr from Gary Unmarried. Could you do that? Could you please, please, please do that for the people?

Then, if you know anybody over at NBC, could you ask them to let Alec Baldwin out of his contract? Watching him on 30 Rock is like watching Anthony Hopkins in a scene with Flavor Flav. Sing it with me, “One of these things is not like the other.” Bobcat Goldthwaite thinks Tracy Morgan needs to ratchet it down a couple notches.

Next, you’ll be off to the homes of Aaron Sorkin and David E. Kelley. Your message to them will be: if they’re writin’, you’re actin’. Other than House and Breaking Bad, there is not a brilliant drama on the air (please don’t send me hate mail, fans of Mad Men, Lie to Me, and Friday Night Lights – you’re good, but not brilliant. Deal with it). We need another West Wing and Ally McBeal.

Lastly, you’ll be paying a visit to your good buddy, Jerome Seinfeld. “Jerry,” you’ll say, “nice game show you got going, now write me a sitcom.”

Please accept your mission, Wanda. And in parting, let me be the first to say congratulations on your recent good fortune. Seriously, congratulations.

So I was just about finished writing and ready to submit my column, (yes the one you are reading now) when I had to switch gears. I was going to write all about conspiracies and the end of the world on December 21, 2012. This is how it started.

December 21, 2012 is when the Mayan Calendar ends and some people believe that it signifies the end of the world. There are people that believe that the Mayans, because they were so advanced in knowing things, must have been predicting the end of the world otherwise they would have made a calendar with an extended expiration date. Of course, I just think that they ran out of paper. (Wikipedia says: “Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing.”) Anyway this end of the world date was also predicted by Nostradamus. What is expected to happen is a Polar Shift, which means that the North Pole and the South Pole will switch places. Scientists say a Pole shift is a rare phenomenon and that a Polar shift is a process that roughly takes 5,000 years to complete and doesn’t start on a specific date and time.

Take away the polar shift theory and still People have found reasons for our demise. Michael Drosnin, author of “The Bible Code,” found a hidden message in the Pentateuch (the first five books in the Bible) that predicts that a comet will crash into the earth in 2012 and annihilate all life. If that is not enough there are designers and clothes makers ready with apocalyptic gear. Oh goody, at least I will be looking fresh when it all comes to a screeching halt. And of course there are always the Aliens. WAIT, STOP. What comes next, you will never know. This is where I had to switch gears, because there was an earthquake and big green heads started falling from the sky. No, I switched it up because I read fellow Heavy Hitters columnist Jason Lacour’s wonderful weekly column as it hit the internet. Title: Aliens. No, this is not now an editorial about coincidences. It is not about being on the same wave length. (Although, I have to admit when Eric Somers, another Heavy Hitters columnist, mentioned the Movie 2012, in his commentary, I got a little bit freaked out!)

Honestly though, these things happen all the time. Normally I would keep it all to myself and just move onto a new subject and no one would know about my little deadline dilemma, but it made me think about focus and how to keep it. How to keep focused even when you have to change direction at the very last minute. I mean, I am sure it has happened to every comic, you are about to go on stage and the person before you is doing their set, everything is copacetic. And then you hear it, for example, (actual example changed to protect the innocent) “cock and balls, cock and balls” What? You look at your set list and see bit name: cock and balls, scratch. Ok so maybe it doesn’t happen verbatim like that, but you say to yourself, “Ok, I am definitely not talking about that tonight”.

To me it is not even about being original, I mean we are human and we do share so many common experiences. I think whose take is funnier is also irrelevant. It is really just about the experience of the whole show. Does the audience really need to hear about “that” whatever “that” is again? Writing, comedy, life it is all a gamble and getting too attached can be detrimental. Kenny Rogers said it best in his song The Gambler, “Now ev’ry gambler knows the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep”. Of course if love the chorus: “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away”, but, well….did you really need to hear it again?

Buddy Hackett

A friend from work told me about how he got to see Buddy Hackett perform in Vegas for the last time in 1996. I was confused because I didn’t think he had died until recently. After doing some research, or checking Wikipedia as it’s known more colloquially, I discovered Buddy Hackett had quit performing regularly in ’96 due to stage fright. Stage fright?! How is that possible? This is Buddy Hackett: purveyor of blue! You know, The Love Bug guy (whoever worked at Disney at the time knew how to cast against type)! How could THE Buddy Hackett suffer from stage fright? He claimed it came from the side effects of a surgery he had, and that makes sense, but still. The experience alone means I should be a better comic in my seventies than I am now in my twenties, and not just because of the old people jokes.

The thing is that I still get butterflies in my stomach before I get up. I was sort of hoping they’d dissipate by now after two years, and while they don’t come on as strong as they used to, they still happen. This is another thing experience should take care of, but I’ve also heard long time comics say that they still get the nerves, performance anxiety, stage fright, whatever you want to call it. A lot of those guys say that the day they don’t get that feeling is probably their last day performing, because it means that standup doesn’t mean anything to them anymore. Physically, they are not compelled.

For Christ’s sake, I hope that’s not true. Jesus, how many articles in a row is this where I speak about the shitty sides of comedy? Between confidence, nerves, open mics, bringer shows, cliché jokes, exactly what the hell am I supposed to find? I’m hoping for a point of comfort. I’m getting there, again, with time, effort, and patience. It just scared me that Buddy Hackett of all the people had something as debilitating as stage fright hit him so late in his career. As I mentioned earlier, he associated it with side effects of surgery. So, once again, the conclusion I’ve drawn is that I should probably just quit my bitching and get back to work. See you on the circuit!

We come in peace, putos!

That’s right, space aliens. What was once deemed a subject of science fiction has slowly moved into the realm of just-plain-science. One of our greatest scientific minds, Stephen Hawking, recently produced a show about the likely probability of the existence of space aliens. The History channel has been running marathons of “Ancient Aliens.” Even Larry King had an entire show dedicated to aliens and although he didn’t say it at the time, might have been interviewing a real life space alien who called himself, “Dan Aykroyd.”

I come in peace, putos!

It seems that everybody has been having aliens on the brain these days so I thought I’d share some thoughts with you on the subject. First off, I believe aliens exist, which is to say they do exist. I don’t believe in much but what I do believe in are odds. And so does just about everybody. Show me somebody who doesn’t believe in odds and I’ll show you somebody who will take the Rams to win the Super Bowl this year.

We’ll take that shit right the fuck to the bank!

The universe is just too big. Almost too big to fathom. Put it this way. If our Milky Way galaxy, which is over 100,000 light years across and has over 100 billion stars in it, were the size of a CD, the universe, by comparison, would be the size of the Earth. Or to put it another way, if our Milky Way galaxy was an actual Milky Way candy bar, the universe would be about 3 of Kirstie Alley’s stomachs.

What do you mean you’re out of galaxies?? Kirstie hungry!

So yeah, there is alien life out there. But that is where I draw the line as far as my belief is concerned. Whether or not they have been here, are here or are coming here is anybody’s guess. Because the truth is, like any other kind of belief, we have no fucking clue. But it sure is fun to listen to them try to convince you. My favorite ones are the people who speculate what aliens would be like because they always give them human qualities. Even the illustrious Stephen Hawking couldn’t escape the arrogance of comparing space aliens to humans. He said that if there are intelligent aliens out there, we should do our best not to contact them because, most likely, they would be hostile and would want to exploit the resources of our precious Earth the way the white man did the Native Americans. Wait a second, Stevie. You mean to tell me that an intellect so powerful as to create and master intergalactic travel would want to come here to get our resources? What resources? Wood? Oil? Nuclear material? Dirt? They better hurry. We’re almost out of the good shit. What could we possibly have that a super race of aliens couldn’t extract from the billions of other planets out there? Bullshit maybe? We’ve got lots of that. And there are over 6 billion of us crawling on this rock with our germ infested, war mongering asses. To come here to exploit our resources would be like sitting on a pile of fire ants cause the dirt is soft.

This looks like a good spot. Don’t worry, they’ll move.

The History channel’s “Ancient Aliens” proposed that ancient civilizations could have had relations with space aliens and that genetic hybrids could have been created. The evidence they cite to support such claims are simply the large amount of human / animal hybrids we find in hieroglyphs, statues and art. Okay, that makes about as much sense as an episode of Tyra. Don’t any of these people realize that ancient humans were still humans? My bet is that they were just as full of shit as we are. Maybe the ancient artwork and hieroglyphs were nothing more than their pop culture. Can you imagine the shit you could come up with if you saw our culture 2000 years extinct? You would probably think that we were a race of people that bred with teenaged vampires and worshiped giant silicone dildos.

Sally never felt comfortable in church.

Look, I don’t know what the answers are. But what I do know is that nobody else does either and probably never will. Let’s be honest, if aliens ever decide to come here, most people wouldn’t think they’re aliens anyway. They would call the aliens Jesus or the Jew Messiah or the Prophet Mohammad or L. Ron Hubbard and would be happily vaporized by their death ray in the name of the rapture and Armageddon and the promise of Heaven. Isn’t that a movie? If it isn’t, it should be.

Should you give up comedy?

If you are an unsuccessful comic, is it mostly because you haven’t gotten your big break, because you haven’t given yourself enough opportunities to succeed, or because you weren’t lucky enough to be born into a showbiz family?

Or… is it because you simply aren’t good enough and are therefore destined to fail?

I’m not sure, but my gut tells me that most failed comics spend a long, long time believing in column A before, either in a final fit of rage or a last gasp of exhaustion, they succumb to column B (which leads to an even more painful realization: that you’re about to slink away from the bright lights of the Sunset Strip to the dark and dreamless streets of your hometown (almost always Toledo or Poughkeepsie)).

Well, I think that whether you’re untalented or unlucky, focusing on either almost always insures that you’ll never make it into column C.

“What’s column C?”

Column C? Why, column C is the holy land. Column C is where you want to be. Column C is where you’re saying, “Thank God I stuck with comedy, it’s given me the life I always dreamed of living.”

Woody Allen, Lisa Lampanelli, and Larry the Cable Guy are all card carrying members of column C.

“But how do I get there, Eric?”

That’s the real question, isn’t it? How do I get there? Well, I’d say that the way you get there is …

Wait! Who cares what I’d say? I say a lot of things. Let’s glean a little wisdom from a real comic first.

“Now you’re talking.”

Um, no, actually, I’m not talking, I’m writing, and it’s not very nice how you agreed with me so enthusiastically. I mean, I’ve got feelings too, you know. In fact, wait, I’m digressing again, aren’t I? Ok, let’s move on to that other opinion.

Renowned comic and fellow Heavy Hitters columnist Jason Lacour recently encouraged his audience to sit down and write. He said we needn’t worry about a subject. He said we should simply start writing and that we would be happily surprised by the wildly exciting stories that would appear on the page.

I think Jason Lacour gives his audience WAY too much credit.

No offense, Jason, but the average guy on the street can’t tell a five sentence joke without tipping the punch line or interrupting himself with laughter. Why should I believe that, all of a sudden, he can write even a READABLE story, let alone an INTERESTING one? I mean, for crying out loud, Joseph Six-pack can’t even REPEAT a good story!

Storytelling (not unlike stand up comedy) is a craft that takes years, nay, decades to master. Regardless of what Jason Lacour says, it is not easy.

But, here’s the thing. The formula for interesting writing does indeed come easily for Jason Lacour — because he has been listening to stories and analyzing stories and CRAFTING stories his whole life! Before doing comedy, Jason was making a living in sales. And what is sales except storytelling where the payoff, instead of laughter, is getting them to sign on the dotted line?

I think Jason thinks storytelling is easy because it’s easy for him. And I think it’s easy for him because he put in the necessary work to become extremely good at it before he ever started telling stories on the page or on the stage. He’s like that Kenyan runner who ran 10 miles back and forth to school everyday from age 6 to age 16, then got interviewed after winning a track meet at age 17 and said, “Oh, running is easy.”

Being a good storyteller means learning how to start your story provocatively (to gain interest), to present events which are both logical yet unobvious, and to finish with a conclusion that is unpredictable yet makes sense.

Yes, Jason can write a random sentence on a page and then use it as a springboard for a wildly entertaining story. That’s because his mastery of storytelling guides him through all the heavy lifting.

Do you want to hear my favorite Jason Lacour story?

No? Too bad, I’m telling you anyway. Snap. Zing. No, he di-ent.

My favorite Jason Lacour story is the one about how he got into comedy. As he tells it, he was simply being himself during a sales meeting when one of his sales people said he would be a natural on stage. Flash forward three months, and Jason is doing a set at the Comedy Store with the pacing, stage presence, and material of a seasoned veteran (my description, not Jason’s, but you can Youtube it if you don’t believe me). Sales guy was right. Jason was excellent from the start.

But — does that mean he was a natural?

Hmm.

Well, that was three years ago, and Jason still doesn’t have his own late night show, or even representation, but he’s making progress on the L.A. club circuit the way countless other successful comedians have before him. It’s really just a matter of time. Sales guy says it’s because he is a natural.

I say it’s because he honed his comedy chops for a decade and a half before he ever stepped on a stage. I say it’s because he spent 15 years intermingling wit and charm and truth to get people to give him their money for his product..

So, getting back to you, aspiring yet fledgling comic, I ask you again, why are you not successful?

No break, no connections? Just not good enough?

Jason Lacour suggests that putting together a comedy routine is as simple as writing down what comes out of your head. Jason, of course, is absolutely right. If you’re a comic, you simply need to combine your talent with WORK.

Do the heavy lifting! That means writing. If you have a voice, trust that voice. Use what you’ve learned about what works on stage to make fun of everything. That was Jason’s point, you know. If any random sentence can be the start of a fascinating story, then any random sentence can be the start of a hilarious bit.

If you’re really a comic, with vision and skills, you’ll always find the funny. You’ll edit ‘til it’s funny. You’ll tweak it onstage until it’s funny. You’ll do an impression of Jim Carrey talking out of his butt cheeks if that’s the only way to make it funny, but somehow, you’ll make it funny.

There are no naturals, people. There are only craftsman, risk takers, and tireless workers. If you’re not successful, work harder until you are. Not getting enough laughs? Keep honing your act until you do. Getting laughs but not getting discovered? Get in front of more industry.

Oh, and in the unlikely event that it turns out you ARE completely untalented, congratulations. You have just punched your ticket for a limitless career on reality TV. Yes, I’m talking to you Pumpkin, New York, and Bill Rancic.

On a Guido fist pump website it says that, “to those who don’t know about fist pumping, you don’t know jack”. Guido fist pumping is the only form of dance accepted at the Jersey Shore”. I like Guidos and Guidettes. Right now, I am wearing my hot pink Palermo Italian Restaurant T-shirt in act of solidarity. I am even thinking to put makeup on and do my hair. I am this close to perusing Craigslist ads to find a man with a mission, GTL: Gym, tan, laundry. Yes, give me a Juice head. Actually, the truth is what I am really connecting with is their ability to declare themselves so totally. Of course running in homogenous packs can lead to destruction; looks like the current cast of the Jersey Show may have derailed themselves already, but I still say that being authentic can keep the passivity at bay. I am not really a fist pump dancer or even a fist pumping sports fan for that matter, but if I have to shake my fist at the universe to declare who I am and want I want then I will.

Between my junior and senior year in college I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico thirty-five miles from where I attended college in Santa Fe. I got hired for the night shift at the local Denny’s, ten pm to six am. I really didn’t want the job at Denny’s, but needed a job like yesterday. It wasn’t the hours that bothered me I had worked the night shift before when I worked for Conoco gas station. It was just that for the past two summers and winter breaks I had been working at Applebee’s in Boulder, CO, and that is where I wanted to work in Albuquerque too. A new Applebee’s had just opened in Rio Rancho, 10 miles away, so naturally I applied, but the manager ate desperation for breakfast and didn’t hire me. “Sorry, Honey, but I will keep you on file”. Ugh, Applebee’s had twenty percent tippers and beer and cheer and happy birthday songs and balloons. Denny’s had absolutely none of those things. The fist pump first stirs in the heart.

What Denny’s graveyard shift had was slobbering drunks, prison parolees and penniless disgruntled teenagers. I used to hang out all night long as a teenager at the local Denny’s in Boulder, CO. Could this be Karma? Payback is a bitch! Now I know why the waitresses hated us. I hated the uniforms too. We had to wear dumb ties with smiley faces on them, totally unwarranted by the atmosphere. Wearing sweats and a stained white T-shirt would have been more congruent. The one thing Denny’s had going for it was the drive home at six in the morning, it was beautiful, but by the fourth night of work I didn’t even care about that. Sometimes you just know where you should and should not be. I was definitely in the wrong place, driving home that morning I began to pump my fist in the air. In my car, with fist pumping I started screaming, “Get me out of here, get me out of here, I want to work at Applebee’s”. It was fist pump of intolerance, a fist pump that makes you stomp your foot down and say “enough is enough”. A fist pump ruled by adrenaline to get the hell out, go get what you want and not take no for an answer.

Desperation over, I was done! I got home at six-thirty am and by seven am I knew that I was going to have to call Denny’s and quit. Before I could call, the phone rang. It was Applebee’s. As the manager started talking a huge smile came across my face, they needed somebody that day. They needed me there by 11 am, they were desperate. I said yes, of course, who cares if I wasn’t going to get any sleep that day I knew that I was about to be exactly where I was supposed to be. I called Denny’s and quit. That night I got home from Applebee’s at midnight, I worked a double and made good money, I even got to sing Happy Birthday to a customer. That same night at Denny’s, the Denny’s I had just quit was being robbed at gunpoint. Did my fist pump help me narrowly escape danger? Did a declaration of self keep me safe? Maybe I will start fist pump dancing after all, I really would like to be a Guidette.

Moral question: Does taking that Priceline gig make me a sellout?

I always thought a log’s purpose was to document a point in time; some amazing place or profound thought or anything bearing some kind of importance to be referenced at a later date. You know, a LOG.
Now what is a blog’s purpose? To be a virtual toilet, clogged and filled up to the seat with mental mud butt; an outlet for people to write the things that nobody would want to read. A vehicle to express a favorite ring tone or discuss the layered subtext of a Fergie song. A seed of thought planted, only to grow into a glorious shrub of babble.

He called me, “glorious!

I’ve read blogs about hair dryers. I’ve read blogs about rims. I’ve read blogs about celebrities – who’s fat and who’s thin. (Sorry, got a little Dr. Seuss there)
I know what you’re thinking. “What about this blog? You’re just writing about blogs! What the fuck do you know?” First off, these blogs have purpose. They’re throw away joke premises that are way too long to ever do onstage. And secondly, nobody reads this shit. I’m actually just talking to myself. Which brings me to another thing that pisses me off. WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY READ MY SHIT?!! Jesus, I’ve read blogs two sentences long that say something like, “Got a parking ticket today. Cops are fags.” And the goddamn thing has like 50 comments on it. I’m writing about the shit that matters, like politics and school shootings and school shooting politicians. Well I haven’t written the latter but keep a look out.

Class is dismissed, bitch.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to read blogs and there are many good ones out there. But for every interesting one, there are at least 500 ones that actually make me WANT to go back to work.
People seem to be blogging just for the sake of blogging. I mean, C’MON PEOPLE! Your lives are fucked up. All of ours are. Write about it! Make it interesting! Before you post your blog, think to yourself, “What would Captain Kirk do?”

What the fuck are you doing, Kirk?

Do you think Captain Kirk would ever write, “Captain’s log, stardate 2008. Today I bought an iphone. It rocks!!! OMG I was on it all day today! Spock says its lame but he’s just jealous…..and fat. LOL.”
If you’re going to post your thoughts on the web for the world to see, let us in there man! Inquiring minds and shit.
Go ahead, don’t leave a comment. I fucking dare you.

Um, excuse me, but did you just say what I think you said?

“What?”

I could be mistaken, and please forgive me if I am, but did you just say that you were rushing home to watch The New Adventures of Old Christine?

“Yeah, what about it?”

What about it? What ABOUT it??? I’ll tell you what about it. You’re the guy.

“I’m what guy?”

You’re the guy who makes the world go ‘round. In my whole life, I never thought I’d meet you, but here you are. You’re the guy who makes an appointment to watch The New Adventures of Old Christine.

“Oh, thanks.”

Do you also watch Gary Unmarried?

“Yes.”

And Two and a Half Men?

“Of course. Listen Buddy, I’m not sure I like your tone. Are you saying that I have bad taste or something?”

Not at all. Now, getting back to Old Christine, how come you’re rushing home to watch it? Is your DVR broken, or are you just one of those old-schoolers who doesn’t cotton to all this new-fangled technology?

“My DVR is fine. I just like to watch it live with my son, before he goes to bed.”

Oh my God, so you’re training your son to watch Old Christine?

“I’m not training him to do anything. We watch the show together as a bonding thing.”

And how old is your son?

“Eight.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. So you’re saying that Old Christine appeals to eight-year-olds?

“Right.”

And you watch it because you like to spend time with your son?

“Naturally. You didn’t think I was watching because I thought the show was funny, did you?”

Well…

“Listen, nobody over the age of 12 thinks CBS comedies are funny. We just watch ‘em with our kids the same way we watch Hannah Montana and iCarly.”

Oh my gosh, it is such a relief to hear you say that.

“The truth is, I haven’t heard a single joke on any of those shows where I didn’t guess the punchline before I turned on the TV, but my idiot kids, God love ‘em, they think it’s genius.”

So, you’re saying CBS comedies aren’t even for regular children, they’re for “idiot” kids?

“I think so. I can’t picture smart eight-year-olds buying Gary Unmarried. I mean, no offense to my offspring, but I did meet their mother in a crack den, and she was using right up through the time she squirted ‘em into the toilet.”

You see, this is all making sense for me now. So, tell me, do your kids prefer Leno or Letterman?

“Actually, they prefer Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Even though they don’t get all of the political references, they love that it’s basically the same joke over and over. For the first six months they watched, they didn’t even know Glenn Beck was a person, they thought he was just an all-purpose punchline.”

Terrific. And what kind of shows do you watch when the kids aren’t around?

“60 minutes, Breaking Bad, and House.”

Anything else?

“Well, I do find myself watching a lot of music videos with the sound turned down.”

Let me guess. It’s when the wife has the clicker?

“Bingo. Crack addicts do love a meaningless montage of fast moving images.”

And you watch with the sound off because…

“Hey, just because she uses crack, that doesn’t mean her hearing is impaired. I don’t know of any drug strong enough to make you like the SOUND of Coldplay.”

Fair enough. But just to be clear, you do realize that as a Nielsen family, you have the power to get some of these awful shows off the air by not watching.

“Riiiiiiiiight. And then who, exactly, would babysit my crackhead wife and idiot kids?”

Good point.

So, faithful readers, that’s my conversation with the man on the street. Was it enlightening? Depressing? The story of your life? These are questions that only you can answer.

As for me, well, I’m on way over to CBS. I’ve got a new slogan for them that’s going to blow the doors off NBC’s “must see” campaign. How’s this grab you? “CBS, we’ll babysit your crackhead wife and idiot kids.” It’s clever, it’s catchy, and God help us, it’s true, true, true.

Sunday was the most perfect day; I followed the breeze straight down to the beach. Found an enticing little spot to get out and soak up some pre-noon sun. The little piece of beach I choose was right next to the highway and right next to the water. With the eyes closed it was difficult to decipher the sounds of the water and the traffic. The two sounds one hundred percent joined, a total collision of ambience, surround sound. I was so relaxed lying there with the sun and the sound, smiling, dreaming up life. Everything felt completely in rhythm. The words from the Police song ran through my head “… A star fall, a phone call, it joins all, Synchronicity…”. So nice, but it was time to leave. I was hungry and I had a really strong craving for chips and guacamole.

I rarely crave chips and guacamole, but this was persistent so driving Sunset Blvd back to Hollywood, I decided to stop at the first store up from the beach so that I could get this ‘chips and guacamole voice’ out of my head. Yes, I listen to the voices in my head. The voice in Sarah Palin’s head tells her to rule the world one cup of tea at a time, mine says – eat. I think listening to the voices in my head tell me what to eat is how I got fat. Anyway, the first thing I see when I walk into the grocery store is a table with a tasting demo of chips and guacamole. Well, isn’t that nifty? I love it when what I want is right there waiting for me. “If you act as you think, the missing link, Synchronicity.”

Of course, it is not just about getting what I want, I mean I am a girl, but other things are important too. Seeing patterns and observing signs are also a pretty exciting parts of synchronicity. It was so weird, I was visiting a friend and at the elevator and there was a very nice lady I was talking with. She was older, German, teal blazer, pink scarf. Everything about her was very distinct and memorable. I even mentioned her to the person I was visiting. On the way home, about half a mile from where I was, there she was again waiting for the bus. It was surreal, now just when did she, get from there, to here. Made me think of Joan Osbourne singing “what if God was one of us… just a stranger on the bus”? It was like this lady was clearly marking the beginning and end of a little moment in time. Timing is everything.

We hear that all the time and as a Comedian, it is super important. Without timing, all your best material can feel like a bag of powerless and impotent words, just totally ineffectual. Taking note of all the synchronicities in my daily life is like exercising my timing muscle. My timing muscle in general for a decent life, but Comedic Timing especially. Somehow it makes me think that I will listen deeper to the audience, recognize their ebbs and flows and keep their attention continuously in a stream of laughter. That, I don’t know, maybe the elevator lady will show up at my next show. Funny story, I left to meet a friend for lunch before this article was finished. I turned on the car radio and voice said “wouldn’t it be weird if Jack FM was just a crazy voice in your head, and wouldn’t it be weirder if that crazy voice played songs”? “Synchronicity, a connecting principle, linked to the invisible…Synchronicity.”

This guy totally craps thunder

What in the Sam Hell has been going on since I’ve been gone? I swear, I take a one month hiatus from my global watchtower and, next thing I know, there’s a riot in the yard. Looks like an extremist Muslim sought payback after the creators of South Park punked him for his commissary. Oh the horror. I don’t know about you but I’m starting to see through this whole terrorist bullshit and I’d like to share some thoughts.

In the past I wrote a column on what I thought would be a good way to disrupt communication within these terrorist organizations’ websites by giving us, the tech happy, social networking, American citizens their URLs so we can spam and comment and plug chrisputro.com until their terrorist sites are as baron as Myspace. You can find it here: Click here. Apparently Janet Napolitano either didn’t like my idea or is not a fan of heavyhittersofcomedy.com. I’m betting the latter. So I took it upon myself to start searching the World Wide Web to seek out these websites. It has turned out to be a difficult search. Even with my Google translator set from Arabic to English and searching words and phrases like, “Death to the infidels” and “Jihad,” all I found was an ass load of forums where most comments were positive and informative but there would be one crazy fucker who would say, “Death to the infidels.” Much in the same way you would find that one asshole who says, “I hate niggers” on a Tiger Woods thread.

That’s the guy

Once again, I’m getting the feeling that things aren’t as bad as the media would like to make them seem. This week the Times Square Bomb Scare was the only thing happening in the world if you watched the news. Some dipshit, would be terrorist drove a Nissan Pathfinder into Times Square loaded full of gasoline, some fireworks and an alarm clock as a timer. The news is always quick to tell us how sophisticated these terror networks can be but one look at this guy and you can’t help but think they’re getting their weapons training from Wile E. Coyote. Watch, the next thing you’re gonna see is a terrorist on roller skates with a big red rocket tied to his back. If you happen to see a dish full of birdseed in the middle of 5th Avenue, don’t stop or you’re liable to have a giant boulder dropped on your head. These fucking idiots. It would seem that extremist Muslims are really fond of cartoons. From the Dutch cartoon that inspired riots to the South Park episode which inspired death threats to the stupid son of a bitch who used Road Runner chemistry to make explosives.

“Praise be to Allah”

Are you really still scared of these terrorists? Don’t be. If you go to the website where the death threats to Trey Parker and Matt Stone were issued: revolutionmuslim.com you will see that the example they used to try to instill fear in our American heroes was the stabbing and shooting of a documentary filmmaker named Theo van Gogh by the hands of an extremist Muslim after van Gogh made a film depicting domestic violence in Muslim marriages. Cause he didn’t want to be depicted as violent. That was it. One stabbing and shooting. These people fail to realize that this is America, baby! Stabbings and shootings are like apple pie and baseball. You have a better chance of getting killed over your watch than you have of getting killed over your freedom of speech. Fuck those assholes and don’t you worry, America. If anybody is going to kill us, it’s going to be us. Like our forefathers wanted.

I was thinking some thoughts earlier. Here’s what my head said:

® The modern Barbie doll is realistically detailed. All that’s missing are the armpit scars.

® According to Austrian folklore, Hitler’s missing testicle was reincarnated as Schwarzenegger’s extra chromosome.

® The whole immigration issue has gotten people riled up. If things intensify, Steve Poizner might get beaten with a bag of oranges.

® Cop: “What gives you the right to live in Arizona?”
Immigrant: “mmmm….bad taste?”

® Under new policy, teachers are being fired due to the poor performance of their students. After decades of the opposite occurring, students are now fucking their teachers.

® I’ve been playing a drinking game where I’ll take a shot every time Michelle Obama blinks on TV. I’m as sober as a Mormon.

® Hollywood scarlet’s dropping dead in their twenties. What some call a tragic consequence of reckless prescription drug abuse, I call the menopause antidote.

® I saw this commercial where a woman was badmouthing and complaining about her Gynecologist. I can’t help but think that he’s in some doctor’s circle somewhere, badmouthing and complaining about her vagina.

® China is considering lifting its one child per family restriction. In other news, Wal-Mart announced plans to triple their product quota in the next five years.

® I once took a date to a Church’s Chicken in the urban part of town. We weren’t hungry; I just stopped so she could use the bitch’s room.

“What shows do you look forward to?”

I was asked that question the other day, and you’d think I’d have a list ready. I mean, I am sort of a TV critic. It shouldn’t have been a difficult question… and it wasn’t.

“House,” I answered immediately.

Then I got sad. I got sad, because I had just been blindsided by a seemingly innocent question. And while most people wouldn’t have been affected at all, I felt like I had been hit by a ton of bricks. For several minutes, I was, honest to goodness, devastated.

Does anyone see my problem?

If not, consider that my only goal in life is to write for television. I’ve written spec Seinfelds and Frasiers and Simpsons and several others. I’ve written a pilot that I know will be the next (pick any of those three shows I just mentioned). I love television. So how come I’m not loving more shows?

In retrospect, I realized that I could have added Kitchen Nightmares, Hung, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I didn’t. And the reason I didn’t is because it didn’t occur to me until hours later that there was even a second show on the air that I really look forward to watching, let alone five (probably because those latter programs are on hiatus).

I should also add that I watch every episode of Family Guy, The Simpsons, The Cleveland Show, and Saturday Night Live, but I can’t honestly say that I eagerly look forward to them. They’re great shows, but with exception of The Cleveland Show, they’re old, and I enjoy their company like I do an old friend, comfortably but without any overwhelming sense of excitement.

What I’d like to know is if I’m the exception or the rule. Do you look forward to shows, or do you mostly just watch what’s on?

Is TV even important to you?

The numbers say that most of us watch hours of television everyday. I wonder if it’s because we enjoy it so much that we keep watching or if we keep watching in the hopes that the next program will be better than the last.

My hunch is that most people pretty much enjoy everything. No matter what’s on, most people will find something to like about it. I think people are very undemanding when it comes to TV programming, and that’s why there are so few hits.

Whaaaaat?

You heard me right. When people watch everything, there’s no incentive for the networks to provide excellence in programming, because they know that as long as they’re as unobjectionable as the next guy, they’ll get an audience (HBO is the exception because their viewers, not advertisers, pay the freight. When viewers don’t watch, they cancel HBO, and there is a hard dollar cost).

When everything is “sort of watchable,” the wheels keep turning and every little piece of show finds a little piece of audience.

It used to be that networks were always seeking the breakout hit, but with so many pilots following the formulas of mediocre shows that garner only mediocre ratings, it often seems that quantity is a higher priority than quality.

“We’ve got timeslots to fill, kid. So gimme three Law and Order’s, four CSI’s, and at least one award show every week.”

You want any Datelines with that?

“Yeah, throw in a couple Datelines. Gimme a half dozen sitcoms, you can divide ‘em up between Chuck Lorre, Steve Levitan, and Lorne Michaels. Let me have three medical dramas, three vampire dramas, two supernatural ghost shows, oh, and I almost forgot, give me 17 reality shows, you know — singing, dancing, dating, racing amazingly, and a bunch of wannabe actors, I mean regular people, living in a house.”

You want to see any scripts first?

“Why?”

I’m just supposed to ask. I heard that, sometimes, certain shows that are better than others.

“Poppycock. I didn’t get where I am by trying to reinvent the wheel. Let’s just give ‘em what they’ve been getting and nobody gets hurt.”

Are you sure you don’t want to try something new?

“Something new? I don’t even want to tinker with something old.”

Why not?

“Why not?!? Because once upon a time everybody watched Leno, then all of a sudden nobody watched Leno, just because he was on an hour earlier. You really think I’m gonna take a chance on something new?”

Ok then, I’ll just fill your order.

“Thanks, kid. And thanks for understanding.”

No problem. So, um, I guess I’ll see you at the Emmy’s?

“Don’t get smart.”

Aaaaaaand, scene!

I’m not sure that’s exactly how it happened. I just like portraying the most powerful people in Hollywood as numbskulls. I mean, I’ve done it for the last 35 weeks. Why, oh why, would I ever want to write something new?

I was taking a peak at fresh standup clips on rooftop comedy. I always have this secret fantasy that when the home page comes up there will be like an overwhelming number of female comics to check out on the home page, not to ‘check out’ like that… I like man parts. As soon as my delusion breaks I navigate to “select a topic” drop down menu and scroll to Women Comics’. Female stand up comedians are, apparently a topic. I appreciated the scroll down menu, because it might have taken me days to find some ladies crakin’ jokes. Honestly though, it really is quite fascinating, there we are squeezed right in between Weird Comedy and Work Sucks. If the roles were reversed (calm down, this is not a role reversal piece) you would scroll down to Male Comics. They would be squeezed right in between the topics of Gay/lesbian Comedy and News/Pop Culture/Politics.

In another related story I have had these things told to me by fellow comedians, (comedians found under topic: Male Standup Comedians), “I normally don’t like female comics … but you, you I like”. “… It is just so hard for you, for women comics … it is just so hard”. In some ways I don’t know what to say to these statements, geez, thanks, I think and thank you for the warning. Of course I can react to these statements logically. I mean there are many more male comics than female. And there are plenty of shows were a female comedian isn’t even close to the venue. In fact the New York Comedy Festival this year didn’t even have one female comedian. Outnumbered for sure, hard for sure, but harder? I don’t know. This game is hard no matter what.

There is plenty of not funny being called funny on the air waves today. There is a whole bunch of comedy coming from my T.V. set that never makes me laugh. Mostly men, yep, and only a handful really gets my goat. And for women it is really just the same. Some men are funny and some women are funny. Not all men are funny and not all women are funny. Men and women are both humans, therefore some humans are funny and some humans are not funny. You know what it is always funny? Stupid Pet Tricks. Male or female, those are always funny. In the end, whatever your sex, you have to employ a persistent scrimmage to keep from stopping. I don’t feel like Comedy is a male or female profession, I think it is an occupation of continuation. The comedian exists only by continuing. In other words, when I read back on this in 10 years, I sure hope that I still have the skills that pay the bills, making people laugh.

“What the fuck?” I said as I sat down on my bed. It was the only thing I could think to say which surprised me because I had just spent two hours spinning an elaborate, albeit fictional, tale about the sexual indiscretions of my Resident Advisor to the cops. I guess words are harder to come by when you’re speaking the truth. “What the fuck happened?”

Charles, still visibly shaken by what just transpired, shook his head as he sat down across from me. “He tried to take her, man. I couldn’t let him take her again.”

“Her? You mean your video game?”

“Yeah, man, Michelle. When Dean walked in the rec center and saw us, he flipped out. He started yelling and wheezing and sayin’ some Bible shit. Before I could even pull up my pants, he was grabbing the PlayStation, telling me I was going to burn. It was fuckin’ trippy.”

“No shit. So how did the cops end up here?”

“I was trying to explain it to him but he didn’t want to hear it. All he kept doing was snatching up the cords and telling me what a sinner I was and how I was never gonna live there again and sucking on his inhaler. I don’t know, man, then I just lost it. It was like Michelle’s Dad all over again. He was gonna take my happiness. I grabbed the PlayStation and he was fighting me and kicking me but the wheezing got worse and worse. Finally, I grabbed his inhaler and threw it out the window. He stopped fighting after that. He just kept grabbing his chest and fell over. That’s when I called 911. How did you know what to tell them?”

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t know. I mean it didn’t take Columbo to figure out that Charles got walked in on in the middle of his date with Lara Croft. And when I saw that Dean was speechless, so to speak, I guess I just seized an opportunity. People often look back on the defining moments in their lives with a sense of regret and rightfully so. The, “I should have said this” or “I should have done that” sentiments are usually correct. In that rec center that afternoon, however, I did it exactly the way it should have been done.

“You owe me big.” I said.

Charles just looked me in the eye and nodded his head.

“You name it, bro.”

I woke up the next morning with a smile. You know how some days you just hop out of bed like you’ve been sleeping for a year and you feel like you did when you were a kid on the first day of summer vacation? It was like that. I jumped out of bed, took a shower, got ready and headed off to class. Charles was still sleeping when I left. I knew he would be happy to wake up to the gift I had left him. Right there in front of the 13 inch television we shared in our room was the PlayStation. Inside of it, Tomb Raider was ready to go. I even added a little note, which read, “I’ll be home by NOON. Enjoy!” We were the only ones who played video games in the rec center anyway and with Dean out of the way, I knew nobody would even notice it was gone.

Class that day was a breeze. Two of my professors had decided to show movies and the other one decided not to show up. In college, you give a professor exactly twelve minutes to report to class. At twelve minutes and one second, class was officially cancelled. At least for me it was. I used the free hour I had to sit in the quad, smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and people watch. There are few places in the world more suited for people watching than a college quad. At any given moment you can have the pleasure of seeing a spectacular skateboard accident, some brilliant hackey sack maneuvers and a wind assisted skirt blown up all in the same location. Life was good.

When I walked back into our dorm room at exactly 12:01 that afternoon, Charles was nowhere to be found. I could tell that he appreciated my gift because he left me with a gift of his own. I grabbed it, dropped off my backpack and headed back out the door for my newest job interview.

The Schoenfeld Medical center was considerably less crowded that day than it had been the previous day. Still, I decided to head back down that stairwell I had found just twenty-five hours earlier. As I bounded down the stairs to the basement it was Journey, once again, accompanying my footsteps in my mind.

“Just a city boy. Born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere…”

I emerged from the stairwell and walked down the hall to the open doors on the right.

“A singer in a smokey room. A smell of wine and cheap perfume. For a smile they can share the night. It goes on and on and on and on…”

Through the doors was a waiting room. There were a couple of students sitting there. Their heads buried in whatever they were pretending to read. I strutted up to the woman standing behind the counter.

“Workin’ hard to get my fill. Everybody wants a thrill. Payin’ anything to roll the dice just one more time.”

The woman behind the counter lifted her head and unenthusiastically greeted me. “May I help you?”

I smiled at her as I said, “Yes, I would like to donate my sperm for cash.”

“Don’t stop believing. Hold on to that feeling.”

Now I know that I told you earlier that with the amounts of controlled substances floating through my body that year, the only thing you would have been able to get from any of my body fluids would have been a confession to the DEA. I did say that and that was true. But I also told you that I had a plan.

You see, donating sperm can be quite a lucrative endeavor. If the sperm bank deems your little swimmers worthy, you can donate them up to four times per week. Each deposit is worth $175 dollars. You do the math. The problem is that most men cannot pass their stringent tests. The perfect candidate would have to live a completely clean life void of any controlled substances. He would not be able to drink. He would not be able to have sex, as it would lower the sperm count on his deposits. Basically, he would have to be kind of a straight edged hermit who only lives to jerk off. Fortunately for me, I just happened to live with such a candidate and he just happened to owe me a favor.

I filled out the questionnaire the woman behind the counter handed me as dishonestly as I could and eagerly handed it back to her. She handed me a plastic cup and with the unsexiest voice imaginable said, “Go into that room and deposit your sperm in this.”

“No problem.” I said as I snatched the cup from her hand and made my way into the “milking chamber.”

Any brilliantly crafted plan is going to have a speed bump or two. In mine, it had to do with smuggling Charles’s sperm into that sperm bank. I won’t get into any graphic details but we’ll just say that all it took was a little Ziploc baggie, some tape, a pair of rubber gloves and my shaved inner thigh to keep those little fuckers warm. The only other tricky part was figuring out how long to wait in the room before coming out to give her the sample. Too quick would seem suspicious. Too long would seem creepy. After four minutes, I emerged, cup in hand.

“It takes about a week to get the results. We’ll call you.” She said.

“Take your time.” I replied. I handed her the cup and walked out the door.

I had a smile on my face. I had a bounce in my step. I had just nailed my job interview and was about to be making some easy money. It would have been perfect had I not seen Candace as I stepped into the hallway. For a moment we both just stopped and eyed each other. It must have looked like one of those old spaghetti westerns where the hero and the villain face off in the middle of the street except in my case; the villain was a tall, pudgy woman who bared an amazing resemblance to Johnny Depp. She looked at the open door way from which I had just exited. Then, as the realization sunk in for her, she laughed under her breath and walked on by. Goddammit.

That week went by quickly. When the sperm bank called to inform me that my donation was healthy and that I could begin my deposits immediately, I was ecstatic. It was to be the best job I had ever and would ever have.
That fall and winter flew by. I was making money, enjoying life and the new Resident Advisor stayed out of our business. By the way, we never pressed charges against Dean so they threw out the case. I can be a prick but I can’t be that big of a prick. Besides, I’m told that a little jail time is good for the soul.

Charles and I had our routine down. He would do the heavy lifting, so-to-speak, and I would reap the benefits. The only downside was the occasional bumping into of Candace in the medical center basement. Every time I would see her I would either ignore her altogether or tell her something witty and mean like, “It looks like you’ve been eating Gilbert Grape.” I even started to look forward to our serendipitous encounters. How could I still be mad? If it weren’t for her, I would have still been working in that dungeon of a copy center. If the satisfaction she would get by seeing me emerge from the spank bank was enough to light up her miserable life and make her smile at me, so be it.

People reminisce about the joys of college for many different reasons. Some people remember the independence. Others remember the feeling of invincibility that age yields. Some remember the friendships, which were created. Me? I remember the parties. Huge, borderline-out-of-control ragers, where the music never stopped playing and the alcohol never stopped flowing. Where drugs were dispensed like relief aid to the impoverished citizens of sobriety. Where a relationship could run its entire course in a single evening. From introduction to courtship to consummation to separation. Where complete strangers would slip out of their daily lives to gather on a location for the same immediate goal; fun.

I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is juvenile. I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is dangerous. I’ve been told that that kind of thinking is wrong. And that is exactly why I look back on it so fondly. Because it’s not like we weren’t thinking. We just didn’t give a shit.

Spring quarter always brought on the best parties. The weather would start to warm up and the clothes would start to come off. As much as people would like to believe that humans are somehow above the primal impulses of the animal kingdom, one only needs to examine a college party in the spring to know that is complete bullshit.

It was a warm Thursday night when I decided to attend such a party. It was huge. Some ex-fraternity guys who had rented a nine-bedroom house decided to blow off some steam and everybody was invited. There was a band in the living room and a DJ in the dining room. There were kegs in all three kitchens and jungle juice in all five bathrooms. Did I say it was huge? By the time I arrived there were already, at least, three hundred people there and by the look of it, alcohol was not the only mind-altering substance on the premises. You can usually tell the drugs a person is on by the dancing. When people are drunk, they dance off beat. When people are on a hallucinogenic, they dance to anything; car horns, crickets, air. Judging by the people dancing in the front lawn of the house, my money was on mushrooms. Yum.

I already had about six cocktails in me when the ‘shrooms started to kick in. I made my way through the sea of people, greeting the ones I knew and meeting the ones I didn’t. I was having a blast, drinking, smoking, snorting and basically consuming anything anyone put in front of me. They say that it is never a good idea to mix drugs and that is partially true. What they should, but never will, say is that you need to mix the right drugs. Coke and alcohol? Yes. Mushrooms and weed? Absolutely. Coke and alcohol and mushrooms and weed? Now you’re pushing it. And that is exactly what I was doing. Pushing it. To say my judgment was a little off would be like saying Kurt Cobain was a little depressed. I was ripped. Looking back on that night, I actually wish I had done just a little bit more. At least that way, I would have passed out, overdosed or got arrested. Anything would have been better than what actually happened. I can’t, for the life of me, remember much of what happened late that night but I do remember running into Candace. Then I remember going home with her.

You know you had too much when you wake up the next morning still fucked up. I found myself staring up at a ceiling fan, not sure if it was actually turned on or if it was still the drugs and alcohol making it look that way. I scanned the room I had never been in before then realized the truth. I was lying naked in Candace’s bed. She was lying naked next to me. And she was snoring. Son-of-a-bitch.

I managed to sneak out of her apartment without waking her. Good thing too. I can’t imagine what I would have possibly said to her if she woke. “This was a mistake? I had way too much to drink and smoke? I loved you in 21 Jump Street?” I am thankful that the only thing I had to deal with that morning was my own crippling shame and the gnawing hangover that was slowly creeping into my head.

By the following Monday, everything went back to normal. Charles and I kept our routine and the foggy memory of that night slowly began to fade. I only saw Candace a couple times after that night. We would pass by each other in the hallway like we never knew each other and we never spoke of that night.

College seemingly grew better with each passing year. I enjoyed lots of parties, lots of substances and lots of girls. Charles and I stayed roommates until we graduated. The saddest day for me was the day he told me that he was going to move to Argentina to find Michelle and that I was going to have to find another job. Nothing good can last forever. Last I heard, they got married. That was thirteen years ago.

I never saw Candace again and, to tell the truth, never really thought of her again until just four weeks ago. I received an email from a “Candace Wallace M.D.” and in the subject line it read, “SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW.” Her email was very vague but in it she stated that there was something extremely important that she had to tell me and requested that I visit her and she left an address. Now I know what you’re thinking. It was the same thing I was thinking. What “important something” could a woman possibly tell a man thirteen years after their only time together? Motherfucker.

Her home was a two-hour drive from where I live. Those two hours were brutally painful. Thoughts ran through my head like a freight train. “Why would she do this?” “What does she want from me?” “How did she find me?” “Goddamn Facebook.”

I pulled up to her home early in the afternoon on a Saturday. She had done well for herself. A million dollar home in a million dollar neighborhood. When she answered the door, I almost did not recognize her. What was once a fat, Johnny Depp look-alike had transformed into a skinny, plastic, Johnny Depp look-alike. She had become one of these women you see on those reality housewives shows. Faces pulled, lips injected, tits inflated shell of a real human. She still had that condescending smile, however. “How are you?” She said. Not in a sincere kind of way. More like the way you see doctors ask on those drug intervention shows. “I’m fine.” I replied. “What do you have to tell me?” I saw no reason for small talk.

She welcomed me inside her home. It was pristine and cold like a museum. The more I looked around the more I got the feeling that nothing in this woman’s life was real. From the never-before-sat-on furniture to the post modernism art on the walls, the house screamed pretension. She sat me down on the couch.

“I wasn’t going to tell you but I felt that you should know.”

“Know what?”

“I don’t want anything from you I just couldn’t let you go through life without knowing.”

“Knowing what?”

“Jesus, my husband even said that it wouldn’t be a good idea seeing how he’s better off without you.”

“Who? Who the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your son. You have a son. We have a son.”

I knew she was going to say that but when your worst nightmare seems the obvious answer, you’ll pray for the long shot. I was clinging to the hope that she might say that she got my copy center job back. My heart sank. Of all the girls and all the parties why did it have to be that one? I didn’t know what to say. She put her hand on my shoulder.

“How could this have happened?” I said as I buried my head in my hands.

“I don’t want anything from you.” She said.

“How could I have been so stupid?”

“I just had to get this off my chest. I had to tell you.”
“I never should have let this happened.”

“You? I’m the one who impregnated myself.” She answered.

“Yeah but I was so fucked up that night and…wait, what did you say?”

She looked at me with that fucking smile. “Well, I think it is safe to say that you and I both know that we had chemistry but it was never meant to be.”

“What?”

“Realistically speaking, I was going to be a doctor and you were just a burn out who couldn’t even hold a job at the copy center. It would have never worked out. I mean look at you.”

I didn’t know whether to be offended by her remarks or confused by what she was telling me. I must have been invisible because she just kept going on like I wasn’t even fucking there.

“Still, I have to be honest, I had the biggest crush on you. You know how stupid kids can be. After that party that night, I was absolutely obsessed with you. Doesn’t that sound stupid now? Anyway, I knew I was about to transfer later that quarter and I knew that you had been visiting the Schoenfeld Cryobank regularly and I just decided to go for it.”

“Go for what?” My outlook on life was having a sudden shift again.

“Your profile. Your sperm. I impregnated myself with your sperm.”

“What about that night at the party?”

She covered her mouth as she started laughing at me. “The party? Oh dear, you weren’t in any condition to do anything at that party. I’m surprised you didn’t overdose. We got to my apartment and you passed out.

I wish I could have had a camera to take a picture of my face at that moment. Pure bliss.

“So you decided to impregnate yourself with the sperm deposits I was making all that time?”

“Yes, that is what I’ve been trying to tell you. But don’t beat yourself up over it. It really is better that you’re not in your son’s life. Not in your shape.” She said.

Goddammit if I didn’t want to kiss that fat-turned-skinny, plastic bitch right there on the couch. I jumped up to my feet. “You know what, Candace? You’re absolutely right. I am in no shape to be in junior’s life but just let me take a peek at the lil’ bastard and I’ll be on my way.”
Candace looked stunned. Just as I had realized that all she wanted to do was give me some kind of sick sadistic final fuck you to me, she realized that I didn’t give a shit. She slowly got up from the couch.

“C’mon, I won’t let him know his daddy is here. I just wanna see him. Give me a memory to go back to my shitty existence with.” I grabbed her by the hand.

“He’s probably in the den playing video games. You can take a quick look but then you should probably go after that.” She said.

She walked me through a series of hallways leading to their den. When we approached the huge den at the end of the hallway, I could see a young teenager sitting on the floor. I could hardly contain myself when I saw that the little fucker was playing Tomb Raider on his PlayStation 3. “Son of a bitch.” I whispered. “If that is not the craziest shit I have ever seen.” I turned back to Candace. “Let me ask you something. How is his singing voice?” She looked at me shocked.

“Actually, he’s in the choir at school.”

“Yep, that voice must come from his daddy.”

I started laughing and it was the first time in a long time that I couldn’t stop laughing. I walked back down the hallway, covering my mouth and laughing. Candace tried to hush me but I just couldn’t stop laughing. I made it to the front door before I stopped and turned around to Candace one final time.

“Candace. Thank you for giving me the greatest gift a woman can give a man. I wish you and your family a nice life.”

I turned and walked out the door. I got into my car and headed home and as I looked back on the memories I had made those four years in college, I just couldn’t stop laughing.

THE END

What up, dawgs?

E to the R to the I to the C here, coming at you with a take that’s as fresh and fly as a white guy tryin’ to sound urban. Awww yeah. I got nothin’ to say… but if I say it in a voice with enough krunk, I know my boyz at HH (what up Mike C) are gonna front the man and put me up for a Peabody. Holla!

I’m talkin’ ‘bout awards, son. I’m talkin’ ‘bout writing awards for spittin’ the truth.

Or… maybe not.

Before I apologize for the preceding copy, I’d just like to say that it was probably more embarrassing for me to write than for you to read, but I did it for a reason.

The reason?

I did it because I could.

“That’s not much of a reason.”

No, it’s not. But don’t all artists adopt what they consider an entertaining persona, simply because they can?

Is Jay Z really a gangster? Was Britney ever the squeaky clean teen role model that she seemed to be when she made her first millions? Was Rock Hudson ever really a ladies’ man?

You get the point. Successful performers pretend. They lie. And it’s a good thing.

“It’s a good thing to lie?!?”

Yes. For artists, it’s practically a duty. Don’t forget that art is short for artifice. A good artist needs to twist and warp and flat out manufacture. He needs to do whatever is necessary to make his point in an entertaining fashion.

“Keeping it real” is never art. “Keeping it real” is a lecture, and usually a boring and predictable one at that.

“Why are you telling us this, E to the R to the etc.?”

Because I want to challenge a prevailing school of thought that is hindering a lot of creative minds. I want to remind artists that just because The Comedy Store says you have to reveal your true self onstage in order to find out what makes you funny, you actually don’t.

Based on their stand up, do you really think you know what Jerry Seinfeld, Larry the Cable Guy, or Jim Gaffigan is really like?

Did Brian Regan ever regale his audiences with endless bitch sessions about how broke he was as a struggling comic?

Do you?

Did Leno or Carson or George Carlin ever drone on about his lousy love life?

Do you?

“But I’m keeping it real, Eric.”

Yeah, I know you are — Real depressing. Joking about how you were molested as a child doesn’t make the audience any less depressed about child molestation. It just reminds them of something unpleasant… and it brings them down.

“But I’m talking ‘bout my life, Eric.”

Who cares? I’m at a comedy club. Just let me laugh without making yourself out to be the strongest survivor since Anne Frank (if she would have survived). Gaffigan does forty minutes on bacon and Hot Pockets.”

“That’s trivial.”

Maybe, but his jokes about bacon and Hot Pockets contain as much truth as your Cub Scout fellatio bit and nobody has to feel uncomfortable. Gary Gullman does a hilarious 20 minutes on grapefruit.

“But I can’t think of 20 minutes worth of material on grapefruit.”

You can’t or you won’t?

“Both.”

I see. And what does that tell you?

“I’m not a fruit guy?”

Maybe, but if we’re keeping it real, isn’t it indicating that you are either stupid or lazy? Maybe you rely on the truth because you won’t make the effort to create real art? Maybe you’re really more interested in the attention you get on stage than in making the audience happy?

J D Salinger once gave writers the following advice (and it was recently echoed outside the Pig ‘n Whistle by one of my favorite comics, Daryl Wright): imagine a story that you would want to read, then write it. It’s not complicated.

TV producers, imagine a show that you would want to watch, then produce it.

Comics, imagine a set that you would like to watch, then perform it.

Too many of us are following conventional wisdom and copying the successful formulas of others, and we’re missing out on the greatness we can bring to the table if we really apply ourselves. It’s a shame, because right now, right this very minute, we really can be anything we want to be.

“Really? Anything?”

For shizzle, my peeps. Ain’t nobody keepin’ a brother down but gravity. Take it from Urban E!

I dropped out of High School when I was 16 because I went to school on to much LSD. The folders I used for each subject were psychedelic fractals and their colors were gold, purple green and blue. I opened my locker and all the colors and fractals shot right up into my face. My first thought, “WOOOOOOW”, and then, “I think I should leave”. I left and didn’t go back for over a year. During that same time I left my parents house, moved into the trailer park in the North part of town, and robbed the local Dairy Queen. I didn’t get much, $325 and a blizzard, of course. I was telling these stories during my set last night. I also talked about getting plastic surgery on my ‘vajayjay’ so that it would be inviting for Roman Polanski, or Art Kelly. I declared that I wanted to get fat enough to go on the Biggest Loser by getting reverse liposuction. Gain some weight to get on the show to lose some weight to make some money.

I had a lot of new friends show up last night, people that I had only known for a short while. In general, I feel like you can’t spend a lot of time worrying whether or not some people are getting offended by what you say, the concepts, the messages, the jokes. Still when new people come out that don’t know anything about my comedy I think two things. First, I hope they have a sense of humor and second, I hope that they can handle the truth. It’s like the famous line from A FEW GOOD MEN when Col. Jessup shouts “You can’t handle the truth”, starts to run through my head. Ok, so maybe I am not shouting, and I am certainly not angry but, there is an element of defiance going through my head. I mean, I am a natural rebel so I do want to push your buttons, and truthfully, more than a little. At the same time, I absolutely would love these casual acquaintances to become permanent fans. I mean I can’t do Stand-up Comedy alone.

I don’t seem to have this problem with perfect strangers, I think because the first they are learning about me is that I am a comedian. With my good friends and family, I absolutely am not worried about what I say, they know me inside out, these relationships are unconditional. No, it’s the people that come out after meeting me once or twice and say, “I would love to come to your comedy show, I bet you are funny”, but then just as fast say, “you don’t make fun of fat people do you, or cuss a lot”? Shit! I mean cuss word, fuck I don’t know, here eat a doughnut. The truth is these types of questions from people remind me that comedy really is a twofold path: Comedy for self and Comedy for other. In other words I want to stay true to my voice, but the reality is I am there for them. It’s a twofold path because they have to merge together. I want everyone laughing even if they are shaking their heads thinking “that is so wrong”.

We have all heard, half the time it is not even what you say, it is how you say it. How do you invite people into your world and keep them there. Lisa Lampanelli is known as the Queen of Mean, she pushes all the limits of race and stereotypes. She has managed to do it in a way though that is not exclusive, she is totally inclusive. At a Lisa Lampanelli show the whole audience is part of her act, including herself. And everyone gets that she is joking, that she is a comedian. It is also obvious when watching her that she is one hundred percent there for the audience, she is not just saying this stuff for herself, she loves her audience. That is also why she is called the LOVEABLE Queen of Mean. So for me, Comedy for self means getting my voice out there so I feel satisfied and happy. And Comedy for other means letting the audience in. Allowing the audience to laugh and be joyful not because they agree with everything I am saying, but because they know that ultimately I am there for them. I want them to feel the love, even if I am telling them all to eat crap (otherwise known as shit) and die.

Tim Kaiser was the classic schoolyard bully, an overgrown ogre projecting his self-loathing on anyone smaller in stature. Tim was a mischief mastermind, as evidenced by his decision to strategically position himself on the opposite side of a picnic table before calling me the unholiest of unholies.

I was well aware that my height and weight were grossly disproportionate, my rail-thin big brother never missed a chance to opine on the dichotomy and my mirror never failed to parrot his opinion. My weight was, as Tim would soon learn, the key to unlocking my inner simian.

Despite repeated commands to cease and desist, Tim continued calling me “Fatso.” Dead set on doing him grievous bodily harm I gave chase. He eluded my pursuit by simply circling the table again and again. Eventually we came to rest, still on opposite sides of the table. I picked up a golf ball sized stone and dared him to call me “fatso” again. He did. I made good on my threat, leaving him with one less tooth to neglect brushing.

My mother arrived at the principal’s office in hysterics. Tim’s mother, on the other hand, remained calm throughout the ordeal. Her contributions were few, brief and mostly meant to downplay the gravity of the situation. I suspect that as his mother, no one was more aware what an asshole Tim could be when he put his mind to it, and ambivalence was her way of saying, “I’m sure my son did something to set Christopher off,” without siding against her own kin.

Due to our ages school officials swept the incident under the rug. My mother did not follow suit. She made me buy Tim an apology gift despite eyewitness testimony that he had provoked my attack. The gift was a toy car, red with yellow racing stripes and substantially larger than a Matchbox. Financing the compulsory peace offering cost me two month’s allowance. Adding insult to injury I was forced to wrap it and pen an apology. If I had had the wit then that I have now (and a way to sneak it past my omnipresent mother) I would have bought Tim a boxer’s mouth guard and wrote in the accompanying card, “Just in case you didn’t learn your lesson.”