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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His comedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such as:

A handful of classic Carlin HBO specials.

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since I started doing comedy four years ago, I have been called an angry person on numerous occasions. Sometimes it is complementary, like after a rant on stage. Other times it is an accusation, like after a rant on stage. It strikes me as funny because up until I started speaking into a microphone, “angry” would be the last word somebody would use to describe me. “Smart?” Sure. “Funny?” Sometimes. “Alcoholic?” Occasionally. But never “angry.” The thing is I’m not an angry person. Sure I have hate and cynicism enter my thoughts on a daily basis, but honestly, don’t we all? Don’t you find yourself thinking things to yourself that you would normally never say aloud? For whatever reason, be it political correctness, etiquette or job security, people generally cannot freely speak what they think, even though we’ve all been raised to speak the truth. What they should have told us as kids was, “Try to speak the truth. However, if you do, many people might consider it angry, rude or judgmental. But truthfully speaking, those people are just assholes who have never been honest with themselves a day in their life and they’ll probably live a miserable life and die an uneventful death. Now go outside and play, ‘lil tiger!”

After several grueling seconds of contemplating what type of comedian I am, I have come to the conclusion that I am not an angry comic. I have a lot of fun on stage. What I try to do is tell the truth and sometimes that truth comes across as anger. So with that caveat, let’s talk about some truth.

Am I the only one that feels really good about this housing market? I can’t begin to tell you how much it pleases me to see these people on the news complain that their house is under foreclosure. “All the banks get a bailout but I don’t get any money? Where’s my bailout? How come I don’t get any money?” I’ll tell you why you don’t get any money. Cause you’re a fucking idiot. You bought a half million dollar home with zero down? You work at Auto Zone, dipshit. What did you think was going to happen? Did you think there would be a sudden shift in the market place and all of a sudden we were going to have a surge in demand for fuzzy dice and hubcaps? You get nothing but what you deserve, asshole.

Realtors are to the housing market what pimps are to 3rd world hookers. They’re greedy, unwanted and serve only to inflate the price of pest infested boxes.

For years I sat by in my rented apartment and watched greedy, impulsive fucktards make a killing for doing nothing. Buy a house. Wait six months. Sell it at a huge profit. “Let’s flip this house! I’m so smart. I flip houses. Real estate always goes up! I’m a goddamned genius. Look at me. Look at my Mercedes! Look at my chai latte! I’m so smart! Look at the TV in my car! It has a TV! I flip houses! Look at me!” And look at ‘em now. Maybe instead of a TV, they should have installed a shower in their car cause it looks like they’re gonna be living in it.
So sad. So true. So funny.

I’m growing tired of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Here is another group of people who don’t want to acknowledge the truth. Drunk drivers don’t kill people. Bad drivers kill people. Drunk drivers just pay the inflated insurance premiums. Don’t sit there and tell me that buzzed driving is drunk driving. It can be argued that driving buzzed is better than driving sober. Ever seen a buzzed person drive? It is the epitome of focus. You can’t even change the radio station in a buzzed person’s car. “Don’t fucking touch it! You’re distracting me! Do you know how much it is going to cost me if I get pulled over right now?! Well do you?!” Compare that with the average asshole boning out down the 101 at 90 miles per hour, texting on a cell phone, looking at their GPS, sipping on a cappuccino and searching for Lady Ga Ga on their ipod.

Now I’m not saying that everybody should get wasted and hop behind the wheel. If you’re too drunk to walk then you’re too drunk to drive. But get the fuck out of here with that .08 bullshit. That’s like 4 beers. I took my S.A.T’s with a.08.

And don’t try to tell me that all this is in the name of protecting life. If Mothers Against Drunk Driving were only interested in saving lives, they would take the $50 million dollars a year they raise and invest it in autopilot cars. Problem solved. But they wouldn’t do anything that fucking dumb because it would put them out of business. And that’s exactly what it is, a business.

The truth is, MADD is just another interest group that uses bullshit PR scare campaigns to raise more money to influence more legislation to lower the legal limit to bust more responsible drinkers to get more money to pay their inflated salaries and expand their political power. What a bunch of cunts.

I probably wouldn’t care so much if they just told the truth.

Anyway, that’s all I have time for this week.

I hope it didn’t come off as angry. It’s just me telling my truth.

It seems many people, these days, are growing fearful about our future. Fearful that the economy will stay in the toilet. Fearful that the climate will stay in the oven. Fearful that the military will stay in the oven-toilet known as the Middle East.

Our kids get dumber as our computers get smarter. Our attention spans are getting shorter all the while our waistlines and our wartimes are growing longer. Money is shrinking as life spans increase. The food supply is tainted and the drug supply is pure. Inspiration and creativity are depleting as search engines and channel packages expand. Corporations grow larger and the work force diminishes. Your job sucks and they don’t care about you.

Do you feel it? Or is it just me? I think you feel it. I think everybody feels it; the growing tension that builds in the backs of our minds and subconsciously tells us that we’re approaching a tipping point.

Well I’m here to tell you to fear not, lil’ campers. We ARE approaching a tipping point and it is GOOD.

Now I’m not talking about some apocalyptic Biblical bullshit here. You won’t find me standing on a street corner telling you the end is near. Jesus ain’t coming. Neither is Allah, L. Ron Hubbard or Elvis. But eventually we, as a people, are going to stop and say, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” It’s just gonna take a little more time and a little more frustration. But, just like your unemployment extension, the check is in the mail.

We, here at Heavy Hitters, are constantly railing against the horrific absurdity of popular culture’s influence on the world. Fantasy and reality are colliding like accelerated particles in the Large Hadron Collider, and it feels like the resulting Dark Matter is going to consume us all. From politics to television to music to comedy to YouTube, all the signs point to end. The fantasy world and the real world have converged. When a vapid, pretentious, supermodel celebrity like Naomi Campbell is involved in a major world news story and her testimony is key to the prosecution of a war lord, the knee jerk reaction is to think this is it. A seal has been broken and behold a pale horse and its rider’s name was Naomi and Hell followed her and all that shit.

Our viewing habits have been dominated by mental masturbation programming like Jersey Shore and our top news stories are dominated by the imbibing habits of Lindsay Lohan and the sexual practices of Kendra.

We focus on the trivial. We are so consumed by it that it makes us blind.

Folks protest about the construction of a mosque and its location to the sacred World Trade Center memorial without realizing that perhaps the construction of McDonald’s next to sacred mosques is part of what led to the tragedy in the first place.

Our government debates about guns; who can have them and what type of guns. And then we arm the world.

We use clean burning fuel to extract oil.

People fight and kill under the pretense of protecting life.

And on and on it goes. It feels desperate. It feels hopeless. It feels like insanity has descended on the populous like a disease. But take a step back for a second. Look at the big picture. These things are not a disease. They are but symptoms of the real disease. And like any disease, if we treat it, the symptoms will disappear.

What is this disease, you ask? Simple; life, as we have come to know it, is not worth living. And we know it.

As a whole, we don’t have much to live for. Why do you think people watch these horrible, mindless reality TV shows where terrible excuses for human beings fight, fuck and forage for fame? Because even in that shitty world, it still provides an escape. It is still better than our lives, working for companies that shit on us as we help them shit on the world. Snookie is a celebrity because, compared to the average American, a life spent drunk, stupid, orange and televised is better than a life spent sober, stupid, enslaved and anonymous.

The American dream where you work hard for a nice house and a nice car and a nice life has turned into an American nightmare where you work hard for a house that is under water, your car burns too much gas and your life is just a never ending cycle of trying to keep your head above water. It’s enough to make a person say, “fuck it.”

People around the world pick up on these silly causes because they have nothing else to do. No real purpose. Some pick up a picket sign. Some pick up a gun. Some pick up a religious text. From Kansas to Kandahar, people seek to give their life meaning without realizing that life has no real meaning but what we give it.

Now before you go and call a hotline and report that the Devil’s Advocate just posted a suicide note on Heavy Hitters, understand that I really enjoy my life. Don’t you worry about me. I’m not going anywhere. For two reasons; first, I think some really interesting shit is about to happen in my lifetime and I wouldn’t want to miss it. And second, if I was going to kill myself, I would do it in the coolest, most badass, memorable way I can think of. I would dress up in a seal costume and tow behind a boat through shark alley, near Cape Town, South Africa, where the great whites leap 10 – 15 feet out of the water looking for a meal. Of course it would all be filmed for your viewing pleasure and aired next year on Shark Week. But don’t count on it.

Fortunately for us, deep down in our psyche, in the reptilian part of our brains, is a survival instinct I am confident will save us and me from a painful, albeit sweet-ass, suicide.

I feel we are moving toward a new age. Call it what you want to, a new enlightenment, a revolution, whatever. Again, labeling it is just a product of our tendency to give meaning and compartmentalize things. But whatever name we give it, the world is going to end up better because of it. And it feels like it is already happening. It must be. If I feel it then certainly others do too.

A few weeks back I posted a column titled, “You Big Dummy.” Check it out if you haven’t read it but to summarize, I feel that humans aren’t as intelligent as we would like to believe. I stand behind that. However, we do have the capacity to think. To reflect on the world we live in and to learn from that world. It is through that reflection that I believe humans will eventually figure out that we create our own being. I won’t get into the typical philosophical rhetoric that turns everything into a paradox and turns many away from philosophy (myself included) I’ll put it into more tangible examples.

The internet has brought us unprecedented access to information from all over the world. Social networking and video sites offer access to information and entertainment from anywhere in the world. (Even China) However, because we are a little dim, the majority of the content on the internet is what a retarded person might call, “Fucking Retarded.” Cats that play piano and rednecks shooting roman candles out of their ass are still the majority genres on these sites. But consider this, it is a relatively new phenomena. The majority population of the planet is used to being a spectator. We grew up passively watching, listening and reading others’ ideas. And old habits are tough to break. But give it time. Eventually we’ll grow tired of video of nut shots and audio of autotune and we’ll figure out that we can provide the content. We will create our own being. Tune out the noise we find cacophonous.

Last week, Steven Slater, the flight attendant who quit so gloriously on a Jet Blue flight, became a folk hero. He is an internet sensation simply because he walked out on his job in a fashion many only fantasize about. Not for long. The days of being a “corporate man,” working loyally for a large corporation are going the way of the Dodo. People are realizing that they don’t need to work for bullshit. They are figuring out that it is not worth it. And it isn’t. They will create their own being.

The last American election proved to be, both, a major historical moment and a major wake up call. People are still amazed that a black man could get elected President through the will of the people and simultaneously disillusioned that the “change” we so desperately rallied behind was nothing more than a marketing ploy of half of our two-party, system. One that wants nothing more than to maintain the status quo. Still, it was an important lesson in creating our own state being.

The examples could go on and on just like this column. Sorry if it wasn’t funny. I just wanted to get this off my chest. I keep hearing too much discussion of fear and loathing and worry. We create the world we live in and we’re learning that. Of course, it isn’t going to be easy or pretty. But nothing worthwhile ever is. People will die. Suffering will happen. People will resist the change. But hey, if you want to make an omelette, right?

I have nothing against fatties. Honestly. Some of my best friends are friends with fat people. I recently started a job where I sit at a computer all day, and I can easily see how it could happen to me. I empathize. The intent of this piece isn’t to pass judgment on any individual from any walk (or in this case, wobble) of life. I just find myself growing increasingly weary of watching my Nation- a Nation that, once upon a time, exuded pride and dignity and performance- solidify the perception that we have gone from baddest to fattest. We’ve become an adumbration of Girth, Winded and Fire (roasted marshmallows). I find it especially disturbing that our government, and its bitch the media, are grooming an entire herd, I mean generation of Americans to be obese, desensitized, docile, complacent, apathetic consumer-bots.

The inspiration for this column hit me like a bolt of lightning one dewy dawn as I was out in the farmlands, people tipping. I remember thinking to myself “people tipping? This shouldn’t even be a thing”; but it is, because that’s how bad it has become. It’s pretty ridiculous when a homeless guy with man titties is hitting me up for cash because he’s “hungry”. I don’t think my spare change should contribute to his spare tire. It puts me in the awkward position of having to feel sorry for the guy, all the while not allowing man tits to be the reason why. I had to feel sorry for him in spite of that fact. Needless to say, it took some adjusting. A 12 year old boy should discover voluptuous breasts while sneakily sifting through Dad’s Playboy stash or while watching Cinemax on a Friday night, not in the mirror.

Furthermore, kids shouldn’t learn everything they know about football from Madden 11. These sunlight-sensitive roly-poly’s grow into the guy in the NFL stands that applied his fanatic body paint with a wall roller. The very same sloth that spends 3 quarters of the game shouting instructions to hustle at the conditioned, self-disciplined, pro-bowl caliber wide receiver. There is something bizarre about a guy with a double neck and every square inch of his blubbery, living carcass covered in multicolored paint- a guy that resembles a Mini-Coop with its rape whistle-esque alarm going off- warning a World class athlete that he’s “looking like a fool out there”. That guy’s wife would offer her chubby hubby the same warning, if she weren’t blinded by her own tears.

The real irony sinks in during the commercial break. That’s when you get to see these lean-machine athletes hawk beer and high fructose corn syrup to their portly fan base. Obviously, these guys didn’t get to where they are and stay there by indulging in these products as often as they would like us to. Thanks to satellite TV, which is also endorsed by people that are too busy being successful and productive to have the need for 666 channels, we don’t even have to leave the house on game day. We can watch others make the best of the green grass and blue sky. Get yourself a nifty HD 3D television, and it’s almost as if you were looking out of the window….without getting up!

I think that dead-weight-headed man-tard Hank Williams Jr. belting out “are you ready fer some football?!?!” personifies the media’s manipulated perception of the average Monday Night Football fan. The American Broadcasting Company sees fit to open football’s biggest night with a simplistic jingle, fired out like a cannon ball from a bumpkin’s gullet. They also see fit to choose the ramblings of a more relatable, all be it less coherent, John Madden over Dennis Miller’s scrawny wise-ass and his uppity vocabulary. I believe the most common complaint from the fans, about Miller, was that he was a “word fag”.

It’s a small for instance that’s indicative of a bigger, more dire issue. The advertisement-fueled media wants Americans to be fat and simple minded. Most of the tripe they advertise is unhealthy and contributes to our Nation’s ever-expanding waste line. Why raise the ethical bar by using standards and discretion when it’s easier and more profitable to bring people down to their level. Nine times out of nine, fatties would rather go down in an elevator than walk up a flight of stairs, metaphorically speaking.

Given that the media, the seedy corporate underbelly and our façade of a government are all intertwined and internally dictated; having a dazed and confused populous makes for less questions and less resistance. The final product is obliviously “happy”, power conceding consumers. Everyone wins. Everyone that matters, that is. Never mind the 300,000 Americans that will croak this year, due to obesity related complications. Good hearted folk that will have to be cut out of their clothes, and possibly their homes. They are expendable like Stallone. Whatever it takes to keep the wheels that run the capitalistic nightmare machine turning. The millions of overweight Americans that won’t die this year, might be prone to anti-depression pill addiction, due to their infliction. They advertise that shit all day long, as well. Bonus points for the guys pulling the strings.

By the way, in case you were wondering, having a limb amputated due to diabetes doesn’t count as losing weight. Also, junk food doesn’t make your package fatter. It just makes it to where you’ll never see it again because you physically can’t and no one else will see it because they don’t want to. Like I said in the beginning, this isn’t a forum to put people down- whether they be Jeff Ross fat or Ralphie May fat. I’m genuinely concerned. Resist is my message. Question motive and don’t let the bad guys win. They want absolute power over our minds, our bodies, our financial surplus, our free will- all of it. They’re tics, whose swollen pouches are filled to capacity with our blood. If nothing else, we need to give ourselves a flea bath… Shake it off… Good boy.

Resist. Respect yourself, like that rap group Ninja’s With Attitude told us to do. As Eazy-E always said, “to thine own self, be true”. If you’ll excuse me now, I’m totally going to fuck up an animal style double-double from In and Out so the sadness inside of me can pass out. Catch you later, computator’s.

I attended the 2010 Hemp Con this weekend. Here are some notes I took.

Saturday, 12:15 p.m. – There seem to be a lot of people with legal causes here. “Legalize marijuana! Yes on Prop 19!” I’m no conservative but it is difficult to take your political stance on the benefits of the legalization of marijuana seriously when you’re wearing a t-shirt with an Adidas logo in the shape of a marijuana plant and “addicted” is printed below it. Don’t talk to me about taxes when it’s clear you haven’t paid them in years, Moon Child. And Jesus Christ, man, try some Visine and Altoids before you hop on your soapbox with me.

Saturday, 2:27 p.m. – They have every conceivable way to ingest pot here. Candy, cookies, beer, you name it. They have it. I was just given a couple of free pot brownie samples. I’ll eat them now. They probably “watered down” the concentration of weed given that they’re free samples. Probably won’t do much.

Saturday, 3:15 p.m. – This is like a circus here. Every demographic is represented. The hippies, the rappers, the burn outs, the bikers. Haven’t seen any NBA players yet but it’s still early. I think those brownies are starting to kick in. This is probably as high as I’m gonna get.

Saturday, 4:04 p.m. – Just had a thought; chicks with gang tattoos are hot. Again, it’s a commitment thing. Dudes with gang tattoos scare me but chicks with gang tattoos? That excites me. Unless it’s a fat chick with gang tattoos. Then it goes back to scary. I think I’m getting fucked up here.

Saturday, 5:42 p.m. – Holy shit, those brownies were strong. Haven’t been this high since that Ice-T concert.

Saturday, 6:19 p.m. – Got the munchies like a motherfucker. Lot’s of food vendors here but for some reason I’m craving a Big Mac and an apple pie. I think I saw a McDonalds down the street. Do McDonalds signs have an apostrophe? Before I go, I’m going to eat a couple more brownies.

Saturday, 6:55 p.m. – Just got back from McDonald’s. Yes, there is an apostrophe. Told my friend about the bitchy chick at the counter who was bitter, angry and had terrible customer service. The first thing he asked was, “Black chick?” Yep. Stereotypes are funny.

Saturday, 8:05 p.m. – Had a funny idea for a joke but by the time I wrote, “Rape can be funny…” I forgot the rest. Holy Christ, I’m high.

Saturday, 9:12 p.m. – Had to get outta there. Too much going on for my fragile psyche right now. My friend and I are posted up at this little bar. Just a few people here. Why are they playing dance music?

Saturday, 9:57 p.m. – More people are coming in this bar by the minute. Lots of dudes. At least there is now a go-go dancer in front of us at the bar for our enjoyment. Adding a little beer buzz to this high. Contemplating existence. That’s how I know I’m in the pocket.

Saturday, 10:27 p.m. – Wow, I’m so fucked up, I didn’t realize this was a gay bar. You would think the amount of dudes in here would have been an indicator. This is a college town after all. Never realized until now how fraternity guys dress just like homos.

Saturday, 10:36 p.m. – Just about shat myself when my friend went to put a dollar in the go-go dancer’s mini shorts and she gave him a fist bump and said, “Good lookin’ out, nigga.” But in a man’s voice. Jesus, the only chick here is the bouncer.

Saturday, 11:17 p.m. – Observation: If you’re a transvestite, it’s probably not in your best interest to lift weights. I’m lookin’ at a tranny in front of me that looks like s/he just got done with P90X. Tony Horton in a mini dress is not a turn on – for anybody.

Saturday, 11:42 p.m – Just left the gay bar. Couldn’t take it anymore. Got hit on by a guy who looked like one of those fashion judges on Bravo. It was bitter sweet. Sweet in the sense that it is flattering to get hit on by anybody. Bitter in that it was the first time anybody has hit on me in years.

Saturday, 12:02 a.m. – Jesus, where is the after party? All of these tradeshows are supposed to have after parties. I guess a weed after party is just a bunch of people sitting on a couch, eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching the Discovery channel.

Saturday, 12:17 a.m. – Fuck it. I’m going to bed. I’m stoned and buzzed and just realized that heterosexual males are not as dominant as we’d like to believe. Take a couple of straight guys and put them in a gay bar and all of a sudden we turn into bitches. “I’m going to the bathroom.” “Wait for me, I’ll go with you. I don’t feel safe here.”
Saturday, 12:28 a.m. – What a day. Hemp Con was cool. I think I’ll vote yes on Prop 19. But not for the taxes and all that political bullshit. I like getting high. Yes We Cannabis! I just thought of that right now.

First, I would just like to take the time to mention that I am terrified of sharks. Always have been. Always will be. To me, the worst way to die, other than being beheaded by terrorists on YouTube, would be to be eaten alive by a shark. (And the terrorist thing is simply because I know it would get more hits than my stand-up)

Speaking of terrorists, I’ll be bombing tomorrow night at the Comedy Store…

People have tried to suggest to me that being eaten alive by any animal would be horrific and that I should be equally scared of any such carnage. Nope. Becoming lunch for a lion or bear or a pack of wolves would definitely suck, but it would pale in comparison to being attacked by Jaws for one simple reason; drowning. That’s right. When you get killed by a shark, not only do you have to deal with the fact that you’re being consumed like prime rib at a Hometown Buffet, you’re also drowning. It’s like the worst buy one get one free you could imagine. In addition to that little factoid, you also get the nightmarish dissatisfaction of knowing that your last thought would be, “I could have totally avoided this.” Let’s face it, we don’t belong in the ocean. Been that way for a few million years now, I suspect. So do the math, eaten alive + drowning + knowing that a trip to Vegas would have been a much smarter way to take a vacation = worst way to go, EVER.

If I make it back from this god damned honeymoon, I’m divorcing that bitch.

Still, I love to watch.

All of the programs they throw at us during Shark Week are gold, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be the Survival Guide programs. The ones where a former Green Beret or Navy Seal jumps into shark infested waters to demonstrate how to “stay alive” in certain scenarios. Because it is well documented that our military’s special ops units go through extensive “punch evasion through nose impact of shark” training. Or “PENIS school” for you military types. This year, I found out what to do if my boat explodes at sea and all I have to survive is a beer cooler and an empty Fuji water bottle. Apparently, I’m supposed to use the empty bottle as goggles to see the harmless non-maneater reef sharks swim below me for about five minutes, then I’m supposed to get picked up by my camera crew. And not panic. That is the theme of any survival training, “Don’t panic.” That’s great and all. But to really convey the message and teach the lesson, I’d like to watch him not panic with some great whites in the water with him.

How about now? Can I panic now? It feels like I should be panicking now.

There seems to be a rule in television programming; making sense makes no sense when it comes to ratings. And the execs over at the Discovery Channel know this all too well. One hour of programming describes terrifying shark attacks in unlikely places, like Catalina Island (Did you know there are fucking great whites there that will eat you?) and rivers. (Did you know that man eating bull sharks can swim up stream in fresh water rivers and eat you?) They show these programs with voice over narration so ominous and terrifying that they make Quint from Jaws seem like a card carrying member for Greenpeace.

Remember, don’t panic.

Then they show a program with a bunch of hippie marine biologists talking about how misunderstood these beautiful creatures are and how we shouldn’t fear them. Well fuck that noise. I’m going to go ahead and fear them and I won’t go in the ocean and I won’t go on some shark killing spree. How’d that be? That sound good to you, Chief? But by all means, you keep getting in the water with these swimming flesh blenders and you keep giving me a great week of television during the summer. I’ll keep watching.