Somebody Likes Your Stuff

We started the rehearsal process last week for the WNEP Dada show which means my mind keeps slipping down back alleys and making up poems. Completely without my permission. Here's one. Not very Dada, but I thought it was fun.


Somebody Likes Your Stuff

You think you've got chubby thighs.

Believe me, there's somebody out there who wants to put ice-cream on those chubby thighs.

Freaking out about the freckles on your nose.

There's someone out there who sees nothing but constellations in them.

Moles are nothing but chocolate chips.

As we merrily march towards our inevitable deaths... Cheer up.

No matter what you've got and no matter how you feel about it.

Somebody likes your stuff.

Sober, even.


THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

On Monday, I asked this question...

"A trucker in England is suing his employer for discrimination ever since they found out what about him?"

33% answered "His middle name is Obama." Nah, they don't care about that sort of ridiculous stuff. It's England, not America!

16% answered "He gives handicapped people rides." Nope. They have to use their own wheels. Or crutches. Or stumps.

50% answered "He can't reach the peddles." Actually, he can. Especially when he wears his CFM pumps.

If you haven't guessed, the correct answer, which nobody got, is "He wears dresses."

According to the UK newspaper The Daily Mail, Mike was a well-respected top truck driver until he informed his bosses he was a transsexual, changed his name to Vikki-Marie and started wearing dresses to work. They started cancelling her regular shifts and co-workers who were once her friends started to taunt her. Vikki-Marie used to be a soldier, has been married twice and has a teenage daughter. And she really looks tough in a dress. A very difficult look to pull off. You go girl!

Standing Up

From approximately 1986 to 1991, I made my living as a stand-up comedian. There was quite a stand-up comedy boon going on at the time, probably due to the infiltration of cable television into our homes in the '80's and the cheap and easy way stand-up specials filled the airwaves.

My first professional gig was after my first year at college at a club called Giggles just south of Toledo in Perrysburg, Ohio in 1981. They were one of the first chain comedy clubs to emerge that decade. On Sunday nights, they hosted an open mic night. The winner got to come back that week to be the opening act for the headliner plus $50. Even then, club owners knew how to save a buck! For four weeks in a row, I would write material at home, practice it, and come in and do ten minutes. I was disappointed at losing the first few times, but felt good about my sets and my friends encouraged me to keep trying. The fourth time, I won and got to come back to open for Bruce Baum. Bruce Baum was pretty huge at the time. He was a regular on a game show called Me Me Laugh and had just come out with a popular novelty song called Marty Feldman Eyes - a very funny parody of Bette Davis Eyes.

I was in heaven that week and really got a taste of what it's like to perform stand-up every night with an audience. Bruce Baum was a great guy who let me ask a lot of questions about the business. When I went back to college, I found a club in Dayton, Ohio called Wylie's that I developed a relationship with. I became a "go to" guy for them when they needed an emcee or last minute replacement. It was never a huge source of income. Just a creative outlet. I stopped doing it near the end of college because I just needed to focus on having a job and making money. About a year later, my girlfriend at the time who knew about my stand-up past took me to the Red Dog Saloon in Cincinnati for an open mic. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in years and they encouraged me to start coming in and getting back up on stage. And so I did.

Right at this time, stand-up comedy was becoming big all over. Wylie's was selling out every weekend. A Funnybone moved into Cinci. Suddenly, open mic-ers found they could find enough work to start building a career. Once I was able to book a month's worth of work, I quit my job as a nightclub dee-jay.

A lot of people have the misconception that stand-up is a very cut throat-y back-stabby business. I never had that experience nor did most of my friends. If another stand-up liked your work, he or she told you. If they had a suggestion on a way to improve upon a joke or your act, they shared it. If they knew a club or a booker they could help you get in with, they helped.

One of the most generous guys I ever worked with was a Cincinnati home boy named Michael Flannery. Sometimes I would find myself stuck out on the road with a week to kill. Well, that can be a huge financial drain. Michael let me share his hotel room in Detroit once while he was working Chaplin's with Dennis Miller. So, not only did I get a free room for a week, I got to meet Dennis Miller at the height of his SNL popularity. And for the record, he was a really nice guy. He bought us drinks and told us stories about SNL all without us having to beg, which we would have done gladly. Michael helped me get over an unrequited love I had for a waitress in Kalamazoo by sitting up with me playing Wheel of Fortune on a computer and sipping Nyquil (hey - the bars were closed!). The greatest thing Michael ever did for me was get me an Emmy for writing. He hosted an afternoon kid's show in Cinci and asked me to write some character monologues for him, which I gladly did and for free. Unbeknownst to me, he submitted the final product to the Emmy review board. And I won. Pretty cool. Michael has become quite a celebrity in Cinci, even using his gifts to help kids with special needs. Check out this video. (If you watch this video, you'll be flabbergasted to find out this TV station didn't renew his contract this year. They're fools! He got them tons of community lovin' with his work. One of the other stations in the Ohio Valley would be smart to pick up Mike.)

My stand-up career came to an end for several reasons. One, I was single and pretty lonely on the road. I felt the need to be more grounded and, hopefully, find a girlfriend. Two, my act was becoming something I didn't like. It was becoming more vulgar as I started to go for the lowest common denominator just to get laughs. And three, I was a horrible businessman. I never negotiated for more money, I took gigs that paid shit, I didn't promote myself well with booking agents or the press.

So, here are the lessons I learned from stand-up...

- If you want to be on TV or film, move to LA. Maybe NYC, but really, more likely LA. I opened for several comics that ended up working very lucrative jobs in television. They did that by going to LA.

- Talent doesn't speak for itself. Being good only gets you so far. If you don't know the business side of things, then assemble a team of people, like an agent and a manger, that believe in you and will take care of you.

- Always work on your craft. Always hone your unique perspective. I was not very disciplined in this area. I did what I thought was funny. I read papers and watched the news for material, but I didn't hunt it down. If it came to me, I used it. If it worked, I kept it. My act was a little schizophrenic because of my laziness. Talking about silly family or dating things, surreal one-liners here and there and political humor. But always ending on a dick joke. I even had a couple of prop bits (look out, Carrot Top!).

I cherish my stand-up days and occassionally think of trying it again, but for myself.

Until then, I'll just keep telling you what I think is funny.

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

On Saturday, I asked this question...

"On Monday (today), crewmen on the International Space Station will be taking a spacewalk for what purpose?"

Nobody fell for "Just going out for a leisurely stroll." Although I hear the stars are lovely this time of year.

33% answered "Just fixing that damn antenna." They really haven't had any problems since they got high-speed cable installed.

Another 33% said "Just checking on the neighbors." Sorry, no one else has moved into their interstellar cul-de-sac.

The correct answer, that 33% of you knew, is "Just taking out the garbage." According to Rueters, nearly 1600 pounds of obsolete gear is going to be hauled out to the curb to ultimately burn up in the atmosphere as it falls to earth. Unfortunately, it takes about 300 days to do that. So, til then, the Vulcans are going to look down their pointy ears at us and our space litter.

Saturday Morning Cartoons!

The Archie Comedy Hour (1969)

Okay. I wasn't much for comic books when I was a kid. There was only one comic I ever bugged my parents to buy me. I even went on to get a subscription to it. It was The Archies. I thought Jughead was hysterical and Betty and Veronica were HOT!

In 1968, CBS had a big hit with "The Archie Show" based on the comics. They came back the next year with an expanded format, "jumping the shark" before that phrase was even coined. They added a bunch of cute characters, including Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and made the gang a band. Which is kind of weird. Nobody liked Reggie, and yet, there he is, in the band. Guess they were hard up for a rhythm guitarist.

This was the age of bubblegum pop music where music producers would manufacture bands and rapidly release songs trying to score number one hits. I'm sure the success of The Monkees had a little something to do with this. Producer Don Kirschner had a hand in both. The Archies would play a rather disposable piece if candy-coated music every week. One of them became a huge hit. Of course, I'm talking about the appropriately named "Sugar, Sugar." It was number one hit in the United States - knocking The Rolling Stones "Honky Tonk Woman" out of the spot - and it was a number one hit in the UK, as well.

Other than "The Banana Splits," I can't think of another group of fictional characters who didn't really sing or play instruments fronting an international number one hit (other than Villi Manilli). The promotional machine behind this hit was pretty crazy. You didn't need to go to a record store to find the single. Honey Combs cereal had cheap vinyl versions built in to the back of their cereal boxes!

The actual performers were an anonymous group of session musicians and, during the run of the show, were never seen or interviewed so as not to spoil the magic of The Archies.





THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked,

"A woman entered a library in Fort Smith, Arkansas yesterday (Thursday) and demanded what?"

20% picked "They hand over the new Harry Potter book - nice and easy." (I thought this would be the higher scorer, given its timeliness and all.)

20% said "They stop dating that fancy talking new music teacher." (Thank you for getting The Music Man reference.)

50% thought it was "They stop harassing her for an overdue book." (Must of been a lot of you burned by overzealous librarians.)

The correct answer, that 10% of you got, was "They hand over their moo-la."

That's right, she robbed the joint. According to the Associated Press, she entered the library with her face covered with a bandanna, handed the librarian a note demanding cash and implying she had a weapon. The bandit made off with less than $20 from the petty cash. Maybe this was a starter robbery and she's working her way up to banks. Maybe they should have referred her to "How to Get Rich with Armed Robbery." Any way, I hope they throw the book at her. And not at me for that last line.

Bible Action Figures

Ten years ago, I had the extreme pleasure of working for Jellyvision and writing for the popular CD-ROM trivia game You Don't Know Jack. One of the best parts of the job was writing fake audio commercials to go over the closing credits. It really was a treat for me because of my love for Old Time Radio. I really cranked those mothers out. One of my favorites was called Bible Action Figures about a mom trying to get kids excited about going to church. Well, ten years later, there really are Bible Action Figures, as my pal Don Hall points out on his Friday Round-Up.

You can hear my commercial by clicking here. The voices are Ali Davis and Jason Meyer as the kids, Michelle Sobel as the mother, Phil Ridarelli as God, and that's me coming in at the end as the announcer. I don't know who the guy is that put this website together, but thanks, and, um, you're weird.

Hardwiring Nature

ROBOWRITER'S ASSIGNMENT

The great thing about doing sketch comedy, or any writing, really, is the ability to take two different ideas and mash them together like a mad scientist. Sometimes you get something that meshes together really well, sometimes you get a creature with a few loose bolts and a nose that keeps falling off.

This assignment is a specific version of a Clash of Context scene. A Clash of Context scene takes two different worlds and highlights what they have in common by bringing them together and creating a third new world. Our two worlds will fit into two categories, Nature and Civilization.

To begin, break out pen and paper - or keyboard and screen - for a list of ten. This is a list of ten processes or systems that one finds in nature, science or biology. Here's mine for an example...

1) pollination
2) popcorn popping
3) two male moose locking horns to impress a female
4) cicadas emerging from hibernation
5) post-coital spiders
6) waking up with a hangover
7) monkeys banishing a monkey from their tribe
8) growing old
9) birds flying south for winter
10) snake shedding its skin

Now, you're on the look for things from your own world, your own culture, that can be drafted to the first idea. My list now looks like this...

1) pollination//blind date or matchmaker
2) popcorn popping//high school graduation
3) two male moose locking horns to impress a female//singles bar or pancake house (I don't know why. It just popped into my head)
4) cicadas emerging from hibernation//coming out party
5) post-coital spiders//third date, first time having sex with someone
6) waking up with a hangover//IRS tax audit
7) monkeys banishing a monkey from their tribe//getting kicked out of a club
8) growing old//all the markers we go through in life (birth, first day of school, last day of school, sex, first job, first real job, retirement, death)
9) birds flying south for winter//retired people who migrate to Florida in the winter
10) snake shedding its skin//trying to mask sunburn

Some fit more easily than others. I have no idea what I would do with growing old or hangover. I like the moose fight and can picture two guys fighting over a waitress at an iHop. With pollination I have some images that come to mind, so that's a good sign. I don't know what the hell I would do with growing old.

Now, it's time to test out the ideas by fleshing them out a bit more. The first choice I have to make is picking which world the characters are anchored in. For example, are they animals that act like people or are they people who act like animals?

Let's take pollination. One scenario might be a flower and a bee on a first date, or blind date, getting to know one another. Or maybe they are with a matchmaker or they are further along and are with a relationship counselor. Maybe one of them is tired of the other sticking his stinger into anything that doesn't move. Another might be to have two people interacting with each other like a bee and flower do. So, maybe they're on a dance floor and the "bee" is juking on the "flower" until he's had his fill and then he heads over to another "flower." Our bee's a player.

The assignment is to build a scene that borrows part of it's world from nature and another part from civilization.If you have any questions or want to share your lists of ten, go ahead and post them in the comment section.

Here's a good example from Woody Allen's Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex - a very funny early Allen movie. In this Clash of Context scene, the biological system is what happens to a man internally while on a date and hoping to score and the cultural aspect is that the brain runs the body like it's a command center all the way down to the sperm who are like paratroopers. Enjoy the French subtitles, too. On the house.




The BS News Quiz of the Day Answer

On Thursday, I asked this question...

"Earlier this week, the town officials of Brattleboro, Vermont met to pass an emergency ban on what?"

Terrorism (No one fell for this one, although it seems quite possible to me.)

Smoking (28% said this one. Not a bad guess.)

Smoking while driving a car full of explosives (14% picked this. While I'm sure it's illegal in most states outside of Tennessee, it's not correct)

57% of you are smart cookies and picked the correct answer... nudity. Public nudity, in fact. Brattleboro thinks it's just fine and dandy if you go skinny dipping or sun bathing au natural. The problem was too many people extending, so to speak, this privilege beyond the beach. Apparently, the dangling straw that broke the camel's back belonged to an elderly gentleman who walked through the middle of town wearing nothing but his flip-flops and a fanny pack. The fanny pack was large enough to hold his goods, but not conceal them. It is unclear if the "flip-flops" were footwear or a description of the sound his nether regions made when walking unadorned.

Salary Disputed

The President of the United States' annual salary is $400,000.00

The Vice-President's annual salary is $186,300.00

U. S. Congressmen receive a yearly salary of $165,200.00

A first year private in the U.S. Army receives around $12,060.00. There's some variance based on skill and assignment, but it's not going to go much than a thousand or two in either direction. Broken down to an hourly wage, a soldier in Iraq makes about eighty cents more than a burger-flipper.

I don't need to tell you what's wrong with this picture.

It gets worse.

Halliburton CEO David Lesar made at least $12.3 million in 2006. There are some reports on the web that he actually makes twice that. Up siginificantly since the War on Terrorizing America's wallets and purses began. Halliburton has earned over $20 billion from the U.S. military in war-related contracts in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

And I'm sure he has found ways to thank Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney for providing him with the blood and oil needed to line his pockets. Especially Mr. Cheney, who is Halliburton's former CEO and who has stock options in the company worth $10 million.

You want to support the troops, Washington? Bring them home so they're not pimping out their lives for minimum wage in an unnecessary war brought about by the guy wearing the velvet cowboy hat.

Sorry. Not a lot of humor in this one. Must be that War Fatigue Bush says that I have. I'm glad he understands me.



THE BS NEWS QUIZ


Yesterday, I started a new feature called The BS News Quiz (cue trumpet blast). The "BS" stands for "Bite and Smile," of course, but if you thought something else, that's okay, too.

Wednesday's question was...

"Pagans, upset at Homer Simpson's appearance at the site of Cerne Abbas, have vowed to do what in retaliation?"

40% of you answered "They are going to boycott the movie."

None of you fell for "They are suing Fox."

40% of you answered "Nothing. Pagans don't believe in Homer Simpson."

The correct answer, that 20% of you nailed, is "They are going to perform "rain magic.""

According to the BBC, Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: "We'll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away." Rain magic, by the way, is not so magical. It involves standing in a circle, drinking several pints of Guinness, and precipitating.


ROBOWRITERS TONIGHT!


It's Thursday. That means you can meet with me at 6:30pm at the Uptown Writer's Space and get feedback on your written scenes. It's only $5 and if 80,000 of you show up, I'll make as much as the president without nearly as much bloodshed.

Just a Friendly Reminder, Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

You're a busy guy. You probably haven't thought about this much. You've got a lot on your plate, what with Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran and Israel and Palestine and Russia AND the United States all clamoring for your attention. But I just wanted to remind you about your oath.

You know, the one you took when you were inaugurated. Both times, in fact. Same oath. They didn't change anything on you. Easy to forget, for sure. It's brief. Not very eloquent. Not the best work from those "We the People..." dudes.

The first time you took it, back in 2001, you were probably rushing through it since your limo had just been pelted with eggs. Check out the picture above. Good thing the secret service thought to erect that egg-proof plastic shielding. (And what's up with Mr. Chief Justice's freakish right hand? Looks like all the fingers are the same length. Even the pinky! Well, that's a whole other can of satan-worhsipping worms that I'm not ready to get into.) In 2005, when you took the oath a second time, you didn't have any eggs pelted at you, but you probably felt one pointed at you, much like an animal might sense being in the cross-hairs of a rifle. You probably rushed then, too. And there was certainly no incentive for you to read it in advance or learn it by heart. Rehnquist fed you all your lines. Bet you wish all your speeches were that easy.

Well, here I am to refresh your memory. You can look it up yourself. It's specified in Article II, Section 1 of our Constitution. Oh, you know what? Apparently you don't have a copy of that. Here's a website that will tell you all about it. It has lots of pictures. There's lots of interesting things about "checks and balances" and "doing the will of the people." Good stuff.

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. President - George, if I may - I strongly recommend you jot this down. Put it on a Post-It note and stick it on your desk where you will see it. Put it on your bathroom mirror so you see it first thing in the morning and at night before you go to bed.

Now, it could be that I am misjudging you. You probably heard about this oath thing and had Harriet Miers go over it with a fine-toothed laser-guided loophole-seeking comb. That "best of my ability" sure is vague, I concede. There's also that minor loophole of not really being elected president. You can probably try that "not a part of the executive branch" tactic Brainy Cheney tries when it's in his favor to claim so.

But if it's a case of you being aware of the oath and having your hand on the Bible really does mean something to you and you really are operating at the best of your ability to defend the Constitution, then all I have to say is... YIKES!

Sincerely.YIKES!

Please move over. Excuse yourself from the grown-up table. Take Cheney with you. We'll take it from here. The people, that is.

Your friend,

Joe

P.S. Glen Ford, a commentator over at The Black Agenda Report, has this message for Washington about your blatant disregard for the law of the land...

Impeachment, like all criminal processes, is designed not just to punish current lawbreakers, but to prevent future criminality. George Bush and his gang have been running a massive criminal enterprise for more than six years, effectively nullifying the Constitution. The Constitution does not automatically come back to life after the two top criminals leave. It must be enforced, or it is just an old, moldy piece of paper. The question is not whether there is time to impeach Bush and Cheney, but whether there is time to rescue the rule of law - domestic and international.

You can read the full article HERE.

THE SIMPSONS

I love The Simpsons, but sometimes I think it's shameless how far they will go commercially. They seem to simultaneously embrace and chastise selling out in America (Not surprising, considering they are a very subversive liberal show on FOX.)

This is hysterical, though. It looks like Cerne Abbas, the fertility giant, could use a Homer-sized doughnut for his, um, hunger.