We Interrupt This Message..

For a word from our inner life coach. You know the guy, the loudmouth inside your head that has something to say about everything. All the time. It's like having a nagging spouse, a Jewish mother, a conscience and the biggest buzzkill you've ever met yammering at you all at once.

I have it a bit worse because in addition to the above, my coach thinks he's funny, and sometimes he is. Never at the right time, and I never know if he's funny until he turns me into his own Achmed the dead terrorist and the words are out. Then all that's left is for me to face the uproarious laughter or the dead silence, and it's about 50/50.

That's why I drink, but alcohol doesn't silence the little bastard, I just have slurred thoughts. Sleep doesn't work either. Oh, I rest all right, but the dreams. The little prick's a sadist too. I have a recurring dream where I'm performing at a nursing home and he forces me to imagine the audience in their underwear. In reality many of them are, but still. I haven't seen that many wrinkles since I managed a dry cleaner's. When they laugh it looks like a huge flesh tsunami.

I tried eating really spicy food once to see if that would quiet my coach, but he gave me funny gas. I didn't even know it was possible to fart the alphabet until then.

The only thing I can do is try to get along with him, but he doesn't make it easy. He let me drink 20 tequila shooters at a company party a few years ago. For an entire week I thought I was gonna die, while he was laughing himself silly. Apparently it's possible to recite the multiplication table while projectile vomiting. I don't recommend it, but it's possible.



Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

Malled

I love it when the sun gets confused. It forgot it's not supposed to be here until August but it's been shining brightly the last couple days. It's almost enough to make me forget how I abhor this dank, dark, dismal excuse for a region. If I'd had any idea the phrase, "Hey! Stick it where the sun doesn't shine" actually referred to a city, I wouldn't've been so free with my mouth.

On that note, I've been spouting comedy for free for years and I am more than ready (readier?) to start getting paid for it. The cancellation of Sunday's improv comedy jam with absolutely no notice has slowed me down but I am still going to hit the stage soon. Comedy's a big world and there is enough room for new blood on any given day.

By the way, if someone wants to give me a day, I'd like Saturday please.

The life of a paid retail mall worker is no way to go. Have you seen the people who go to malls? All of them wearing clothes with more lively expressions than their faces. "Hollister! Abercrombie! Aero! Pink! The North Face!", their attire screams, all of them animated billboards seemingly unconcerned they're paying corporate America for the privilege of being a walking (de)ad. The glassy eyes and slow shambling walk?Zombies, only minus the sparkling personality.

The eyes? More glaze than Dunkin' Donuts, and one simple thought in their vacant minds: "Must shop now."

You wouldn't believe the number of people who came into the store the first day of last month's big snowstorm.

With treacherous, icy roads and freezing temperatures, I thought they were on a mission. "Just looking", they told me and shuffled past clutching a Starbucks cup and shoving pastry into their gaping mouths, chewing mechanically like sedated sharks and dropping crumbs all over their logos.

"Just looking"? On a day you risked life and limb just to get to the mailbox?  The employees were only there because when the mall opened it wasn't blizzarding.

I can hear it now: "OMG Britney, the sewer just exploded at the mall and hundreds of people are in the hospital, and the smell...OMGOMG. The whole mall is all like brown and yellow and stuff and people are like puking and everything. I can smell it from my house. Ewwwww!"


"ZOMG Shaniqualatoyaspice, that's so like bad. Um, do you think any stores are still open and can you drive us?"



Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

Lemme Run This One Bayou

Tomorrow's my WA open mic standup comedy debut. It's at Celtic Bayou, 7281 W Lake Sammamish Pkwy NE,  Redmond 98052. Show starts at 5:30 with folks from Jet City Improv, then open mic at 8.

Standup is different from humor blogging. For one thing, I'll be standing up. But then what do I know? I can't even get a definitive answer on whether it's standup or stand-up or stand up. The only thing that seems certain is I will not be performing lying down, which carries its own issues. I am one of the few people I know who has bedroom performance anxiety.

Many's the time I've suffered the embarrassment of premature punchlines. There are a few worse problems, but not many. I saw a doctor and he diagnosed ED. Entertainment Dysfunction.

He prescribed Niagara, which ensures each punchline falls just where it should. It helped a little, but it generated excess saliva which made me more anxious and resulted in premature punchline with a spit take.

At least at the show, I'll get a second chance as they will be allowing each comedian to perform twice, although at my age it takes a little longer to recover after the first one.

They do limit us to five minutes though and it usually takes me a bit longer than that to finish, so I should be good to go again in about half an hour.





UPDATE 2/6/12

Show got cancelled. Another thing in common with my love life. Hours of preparation and rehearsing, usually for nothing.






Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

Two Karma Garage

Where did I go wrong?

I realize that's too broad. Maybe I should pick a decade. I was gonna be a disc jockey. I was gonna be a comedian. I was gonna do stuff. I did stuff. It wasn't the right stuff.

Once you decide on a goal, you have to focus all your energy on that goal and not turn from the path. It's called determination.

I've got a goal. It's to make people laugh. Not at my bank balance. At my humor. I have given up the notion I have to be somewhere at any specific time in my life. I am here and that's just where I'm supposed to be.

I was going to try to be one with everything, but there just isn't enough space in my room. Not enough room to swing a cat, which is just as well. He makes funny noises when I do that and I don't think he's particularly happy about the whole idea.

I think instead I shall become two with everything. That way I'll have a backup just in case everything isn't all it's cracked up to be. After all, I have been one with bankruptcy and divorce and toenail fungus and that wasn't cool. That was what it was, and was sucked.

I am trying to get on with this whole "it is what is" thing, but that sounds fatalistic to me, as if we can't change anything except our underpants. And really, if you're next to some guy who reeks to the heavens, are you going to be happy if he tells you "it is what it is"? Should that term even apply to stinky Fruit of the Looms? No no say I. Go forth and render your undergarments socially acceptable forthwith.

Thing is, you get exactly what you are prepared to accept. I do not choose to accept skid marks.


Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

Heavenly Shades of Night

I guess I have been around a while. Someone at work mentioned I am now entering the twilight years. I mulled that one over a bit and it really didn't seem that bad.

Then it hit me. This is what I have to look forward to? After years of being funny like a clown, I am going to be reduced to spending the "good" years like this?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I think I just wet myself. What? That too?

Nooooooooooooooooo!


Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

The Moving Finger

Who would have thought time alone to do whatever I wish would result in doing too much of whatever I wish. As Janis Joplin once said, "Where the hell's my Southern Comfort?"

Or even more appropriately, "Freedom's just another word for 'dem ol' cosmic blues mama". I can utterly relate. Sometimes that's the problem with thinking. It leads me where I have no business going. Like the cooking section of Barnes & Noble, or any kitchen store, or indeed anyplace that has to do with food except grocers and restaurants.

I don't cook. I don't hunt. I don't camp. 200 years ago, I'd've been dead. Or the founder of Safeway.

When I think, which is quite frequently, I must always be sure to put my mind on the proper things or I will end up blowing three days like I just did. In addition to performing comedy, I also write it, although you probably can't tell from this blog. Like every comedian will tell you, it is of the utmost importance to keep a notebook and write things down constantly, before you forget them. It does no good whatsoever to write them down after you forget them, unless you're James Patterson.

I do write things down, sometimes even before I have an idea, which is why I ended up doing 6 minutes on my shopping list last time I took the stage. The problem I have is organizing them in a coherent manner so that my monologues make a direct path from funny bit to funny bit, rather than from "Huh?" to "lol", which expression is very hard to make work verbally. It usually means my audience is texting during my act, something I find lots more distracting than the schmoes who do that during a movie.

A few years ago, I did a routine for a bloggers convention and they didn't laugh once. They just flashed "lol" on the screen behind me with PowerPoint. I had to keep turning around to find out how I was doing. I think they were "lol"ing behind my back.


Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle

It's Only Words

All right, so I read a tweet from this activist and curious, I followed the link:

http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/the-daily-barrage-of-insults/

I do not always claim to be right. I most usually try not to offend. She made some valid points, but when I tried to start a discussion, she began at snarky and quickly slid right into intolerant and narrow-minded, which I suppose I should have expected from an activist. I should have known better.

Here's part of the last comment I made:

"I think calm, rational discussion is necessary and healthy."


Then she banned me, and you irony fans might get a kick out of the "Stop Censorship" banner on the upper right of her page.



Yep, I could see how women might get offended at the words "bitch" and "pussy". I am not oblivious. But really? To get so upset you bang your head on the desk and want everyone to change the way they speak? How about not allowing people like that into your world and raising your children not to use the words instead of demanding the world conform to your way of thinking?

Nah. Too simple I suppose. Let's take a look at some choice words.

Pussy


Bitch


Dick


Prick


Macho Asshole


Cunt


Dickwad

Ofensive? To some folks, sure, and to a whole bunch more folks when used as insults. But you know what? If you read the list you'll notice it's not just women who have to put up with the epithets, but guys too. Does our activist consider that? Nope. It's all about the girls.

I get that. I've been all about girls for years now.

Where I got a little miffed was when I saw yet another "oppressed" group was going to start whining about getting their feelings hurt. Really? Women oppressed? I don't know about you, but all the women in my life are some of the most powerful people I know. Strong, intelligent and quite able to tell me when I get too mouthy and offend them. Great! See how easy that was, and they didn't need an activist forming a coalition to storm the internet and dictionary authors and word police to let me know. I got it the first time.

Moms with daughters? Here's what ya do: "Sweetie, I'm so sorry that bully called you a bitch, but you are much more powerful than a simple word and you know you are loved. Now go kick that prick's ass!"

I have watched our right to say what we want erode over the years and I am getting pretty tired of it. I believe anyone has the right to protest, and certainly racial and sexual slurs are unwelcome and wrong. But we all have the right to say them, because for now this is still a free country. You may not like what is said, that's your privilege and right, just as it is my privilege and right to say it.

You also have the right to not listen, because for now this is still a free country. Narrow-mindedness and intolerance on either side is wrong. Sorry about not being very funny today. For the lighter side of this issue, go visit my buddy Suzy.

http://wherehotcomestodie.blogspot.com/


Copyright © 2012 thehumorsmithchronicle