Long-overdue update

As I've gotten busier with everything going on, with art shows, stand-up, freelance work, and the day job... It's been tough to muster up the energy to update the blog. So, with some prodding from a regular reader (cough, Scott), I'm updating you all on the goings-on.

First of all, Personality of Cult: Episode Deux opened on January 30, and it was a greater success than last year's show. My Jaws piece took the second runner-up award, and I've been digging the prizes that came with it. A good time was had by all, even though the silent auction didn't come out as well as I had hoped. But hey, that's what comes with opening an art show during a recession and in the time of year when people are still paying off holiday debt.

I'm planning the next four art shows over the course of the next year, which is gonna go a lot smoother now that I've had two PoC shows under my belt. Next up is the MixTape art show. It follows the same basic premise as PoC, only our focus is music instead of movies. Also, All pieces are gonna be the same size as a standard album cover (12" X 12")... Easier to set up, easier to sell. We're shooting for a July opening on that one.

I'm also working on a solo show that will happen when it happens. I've been working on a new style of art, typographical caricatures, which I'm dubbing Typos. Here's a sample of one i did for PoC2, named Look Sir... Times New Roman!

In December, we'll have Personality of Cult: Special Edition, which will feature the best pieces from PoC 1 & 2. This will lead up to PoC: 3-D, which will open at the end of January.

So, lots to do...

Stand-up is going well. Tomorrow morning, I get to do a live morning show segment on Fox 23 to promote the Nightingale show this Sunday. I've got some new material written, and I'll even be emceeing the show. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Tonight was Eloté for their first night opening for dinner. Eloté catered the PoC2 opening, and It is my new favorite restaurant. I swear, they spike their food with Ecstacy. After eating there, colors seem brighter, air seems fresher, and i have an uncontrollable urge to hug everyone I come across. I've been working my way through the lunch menu for the past couple months, and now there are some new dinner entrées to work through as well. Tonight, it was the Carne Guisada. If I could marry this meal, I would.

I got to design Eloté's kids menu, which was a blast. I've always wanted to design a kids menu, with puzzles and everything. I got to hide my own name into the word search. Freelance gigs with Easter Eggs, gotta love it.

Day job has been pretty frustrating this week. It's been one of those phases wherein every job that comes across my desk comes with at least five interruptions. It's been extra frustrating given that everyone I've come across this week suddenly forgot the difference from their ass and their elbow. Oh, well, all things must pass.

I came to a decision the other night. I was looking around my house, and realized just how many things I own that I acquired from ex-girlfriends. Perhaps the time has come to get rid of these things and start from scratch. Sofa, coffee table, side tables. recliner, etc. all have a some funky juju with it. The bed should be on that list, but I may hold onto it as a matter of practicality. Who knows? Something to do in the next couple months.

Aftermath from a good night.

There's a post-script to my last post, but first, a pre-script:

A couple months ago, a mixed martial arts/extreme fighting studio moved in next door to the comedy club. More importantly, they moved in to the space that shares a wall with the comedy club's showroom. Even more importantly, there is practically no soundproofing in that wall.

Now, on with the story:

After my set, I was watching the rest of the show. During my friend's set, someone next door started using the speed bag next door. And it was pretty frickin' annoying. So, in the same fashion as shushing a loud talker in a movie theater, I went next door with the intent to politely ask them to keep it down.

The conversation went like this...

ME: Excuse me, is someone in the back using a speed bag or a punching bag in the back?

THEM: Probably, why?

ME: Well, they're in the middle of a show next door and the noise is kinda disrupting the show.

THEM: (in a huff) Let me tell you something, we have to listen to your noise every night, and you don't-

And that's when I walked out. I didn't go over there to get yelled it, nor am I the kind of guy wanting to walk into a martial arts studio to pick a fight.

Notice I said "They're in the middle of a show..." and not we. I was not presenting myself as a representative of the club's management. I went over there as an annoyed member of the audience, and I kept it perfectly diplomatic, kept a civil tone and never lost my cool.

Anyway, the noise stopped. Not because I spoke up, but because they heard my friend make a comment on it from the stage about being heckled by a wall. The acting manager of the club had a word with me after I got back from next door, asking me to let them handle that stuff from now on. Which I got, but I figured they might respond better from hearing from a member of the audience rather than people they've been butting heads with since they moved in.

So, lesson learned, or so I thought.

By Saturday, I had heard through the grapevine that the comedy club owner had found out about what I did. Panic set in. How pissed was she about this? What was gonna happen to me? For the next four days, I calculated possible scenarios. No matter what, I figured I kissed my chances of ever emceeing at the club goodbye. Would I be temporarily barred from performing? Would I be permanently banned from performing or from the club altogether? I had no way of getting in touch with the owner, thus I had no way of knowing what my fate would be.

Finally, Wednesday night came, and I was still anxious about my fate. First good sign was I got let in the door. Second good sign, I found out that what I did was just one of many things that went wrong on the one night they owner was out of town. By comparison, my indiscretion was small potatoes. The owner had a talk with me, and things were OK, provided that I never do anything like it again. Again, lesson learned.

But I found out that who the owner heard from about me: the people next door. So, obviously the data was skewed in my favor from the start. But after talking to the club owner, I had a better understanding about the tensions between the comedy club and the extreme fighting dojo next door. I mean, after all, we're all training for the same purpose: to entertain people. We tell jokes, they beat each other into early onset Parkinson's Disease. Which seems oddly parallel, given some of the crowds I've performed for.

But it was the other things that went on that night that is bringing about some changes in conduct for open-mic-ers. We'll each have to sign a list of rules that, if broken, would carry consequences. Common sense stuff, mostly, but still... they wouldn't have to enact these rules if not for the people who didn't respect the rules, or the club itself for that matter.

Time for some professionalism, and now I'm on track.

A good night

Last night, I had a great night at the comedy club. It could've gone downhill very easily, but my stuff killed.

I drew the fifth spot out of seven for open mic night. I drew up my set list. I was gonna try some new stuff: Revised versions of the Chinese food and Hitler jokes that I posted on New Joke Different Day, a new bit about this poor kid from New Jersey that I read about whose name happens to be Adolf Hitler Campbell, and finished it all up with my "To Catch a Predator" bit... Always a good closer.

But...

The guy that went up second, it was his first time. I felt a sense of dread as he did over a minute about Chinese food. I was about to re-do my set list before a friend told me I shouldn't. He said, "Do your joke. Fuck him. They should hear at least one funny Chinese food joke tonight." So, I felt better.

The woman who went up before me, went up and did five minutes about being the crazy cat lady. She went over by one minute, which happens from time to time, but when you get the 30 second warning light, it's a sign you should wrap things up. The flashing red "Get off the stage, now!" light, is NOT the time to say, "OK, one more before I get off." It's not any different if you're doing well and getting great laughs. "You get four minutes" means you get four fucking minutes, not five.

The fact that she did five minutes about her cat, and boring the audience in the process, made me feel better about doing my Chinese food joke, because it also involved the killing and cooking of cats. These two comics I speak of, while their material was hardly what you'd call-what's the word I'm looking for-GOOD, I owe them for a tremendous setup.

The Chinese food joke, one of my darkest, was a decent opener. The crowd could've easily turned on me, but i managed to pull it off in a manner that no one took it too seriously. It also helped that I acknowledged immediately afterward that it was a pretty sick joke. Then, I went into the Hitler joke, and I ad-libbed at the end of it, "What, did you think I was gonna get up here and do pro-Hitler material? I'm German, but I'm not that German!"

That segued perfectly into a new bit about this kid, and it was a good middle-of-the-set joke. If you read the article, you can tell that most of the material writes itself. I gotta get it on video, it's pretty good. I got the 30-second light, and the "To Catch A Predator" joke fit perfectly, as it usually takes 20-25 seconds. Perfectly timed, and I was proud of how it all came together.

I dig doing this stuff so much.

Do androids dream of fried chicken?

If you listen closely, when RoboCop picks up the fridge, I swear the music playing is the "western" theme from Back to the Future Part III... Which only makes this all the more insane.

New Blog

I started a new blog to collect the jokes I'll be writing each day: New Joke, Different Day. I'll still post these jokes on this blog, but only when I'm particularly proud of them.

A Joke a Day - Day 2

I have this one friend who, every time we'd eat Chinese food, would make the same tired joke about how you never see stray animals near the restaurant. Then he'd make meowing and barking sounds every time I'd take a bite. For years he would do this, until one day, when his mouth was full of Pad Thai, I said, "You know what else you don't see near Chinese restaurants? Missing child posters."

20 ways to organize your James Bond DVD Collection

1. Alphabetical.
2. Chronological.
3. Domestic box office gross (with or without adjustment for inflation).
4. Body count.
5. Estimated dollar amount of property damage throughout each film.
6. Order in which you first saw them.
7. Alphabetical by director's first name.
8. Cheesiness of villain's plan.
9. Numerology value of Bond girls' names.
10. Cost to license Bond's vehicle if he lived in New Mexico.
11. Total number of scenes in which any character is saying something smug.
12. Number of respectable films each Bond girl has made after appearing in a Bond film.
13. Plausibility of Q's gadgets (either by today's standards or the time the film was made).
14. Number of times the word "revenge" is uttered.
15. Suckiness of theme song.
16. Number of scenes in which you almost see a woman's nipple, divided by level of disappointment in the situation (graded on a scale from 1 to 10).
17. Applicability of film's name as the title of a porno (start with Octopussy and work your way down the list).
18. Order in which you can recite the titles without looking them up.
19. Number of times you've noticed each film has played on late night cable since you bought the DVD.
20. Random

A Joke a Day

Not necessarily a new year's resolution, but an experiment I wish to attempt, to see if I could do it. I'm gonna write one joke each day for a year. Now, I can't guarantee that they'll all be funny or even make sense, but at least I'm gonna try. If I miss a day on the blog, I'll post an extra one for each day I miss. And. Here. We... Go:

1/1/09 - I believe new year's resolutions to be a little too cliché. I suggest using a different holiday for yourself to make resolutions, that way no one will ever see it coming. I, for one, will be using Arbor Day, which is fitting because I really want to stop compulsively lighting forest fires.

Christmas 2008

Wednesday

Got off work at noon. Plenty of time to pack and straighten up the apartment before getting out of Dodge. Stopped by Mary's to drop off a key so they could feed Chuckles while I was away.

Went to my grandmother's house for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange. My uncle Daryl was absent, which kinda sucked because I had so many things to bug him about. The new car, the Obama sticker on the new car, the fact that I'm still smoking, etc. I was preparing myself for a verbal throwdown with him, but alas, no.

I had a great time with the extended family. My second cousin Zachary relied on me to remove his gifts from the packaging. On a side note, thank you so much, shoplifters, for making manufacturers revamp their packaging to the point that a remote control car can't be freed without a blowtorch.

After a few rounds of dominoes after presents, I continued the last leg of my journey to Little Rock and got to the folk's house around midnight.

Thursday

We got up- at the crack of 10:30, loaded up the car and headed to the step-grandparents' house for the second Christmas dinner of the season. It's been a while since I've gotten car-sick, and their steep-hillside house made the last leg of that trip all the more fun. Nice to get my bearings just to succumb to vertigo.

We had a big dinner that couldn't be beat, and went in to open presents. For some reason, my brother and his family brought my presents only to tell me that they couldn't be opened until Saturday. I at least got my Monty Python desk calendar open before being informed of this.

On the trip back, I had the foresight to take Dramamine before leaving, which assured the trip would last mere minutes for me because I passed out hard as soon as we got back to the Interstate.

Back at the folks' house, I continued my own yearly tradition of watching the least Christmas-y movie on Christmas night. Last year, it was O Brother, Where Art Thou?, this year, it was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Friday

Didn't do a damned thing. Just goofed around on the internet, watched DVDs and Hi-Def Cable.

Saturday

Stayed in my pajamas until the guests started to arrive. A quick shower and hung out with the family. We opened our presents, and the kids got quite a haul. I got some pretty awesome books, including the long-lusted-after I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski, a great book all about the Big Lebowski and it's cult following.

Dinner was great, and I filled myself stupid with one plate. In my own defense, I was snacking all day. And in lieu of antacid, I piled on some peach cobbler a la mode. Some much needed couch time soon followed.

My folks got me this wooden puzzle that frustrated the hell out of me. That is, until i had to look up the solution on the internet. the crudely drawn instructions sent me into a near murderous rage. I got it solved eventually, but got frustrated yet again trying to get the puzzle back into it's original state. Screw you, puzzle man.

Stayed up until about midnight playing online poker. Slept like a baby.

Sunday

Hung out with the family, and basked in their company until about 2:00, when I got back on the road. Should've timed it better, because the sun was in my eyes the whole way back. In retrospect, I should've moved East instead of West.

Got home and Chuckles the cat was nowhere to be found, until I noticed the hall closet door was ajar. Chuck came out and I pet him for about a half hour straight. I missed the little guy.

9 Ways to make the holidays a little more fun.

1. In lieu of wrapped presents, just write everyone checks for random amounts. $12.63, $41.08, $3.79. Be sure to tell them, "Don't spend it all in one place."

2. Just before dinner, swap out the cooked turkey with a raw one that's been carefully spray painted with light brown paint to give the illusion that it is thoroughly cooked. Store the real turkey under the bed in the spare bedroom. Let everyone ponder what the hell happened for as long as possible. My personal best is three hours, twelve minutes.

3. For out-of-town friends and relatives, buy them gift cards from businesses that are not in their immediate area. I recommend EuroDisney.

4. After your presents are wrapped, coat them with about five to eight layers of high gloss polyurethane. If they want that bread machine, they'll have to work for it.

5. Before everyone else wakes up on Christmas morning, stuff all of the kid's presents into the chimney. If there's something that won't fit, take it apart and shove the pieces in haphazardly. Leave a note attached to the top gift: "Overpopulation. Tight schedule. Here ya' go, kids. Love, Santa."

6. Call everyone by their middle names. If they complain, don't be afraid to resort to shouting.

7. Cover your doorbell with pine tar, so everyone that rings it will get their finger stuck. Next year, cover the front door knocker as well. Year after that, the whole door. Year four: the front steps.

8. Spike the egg nog with No-Doz.

9. Stock up on greeting cards for other occasions and amend the messages with "Merry Christmas." The further removed from Christmas, the better. My favorites are "You're turning 40, Merry Christmas.", "Happy Arbor Day, Merry Christmas.", and "Sorry for your loss, Merry Christmas."