See and Be Scene
It's been 6 days since I last set foot upon a stage, and I'm fine with that. The more I hear stories about the muck of the Seattle Comedy Scene the happier I am to be spending my nights writing and getting my life in order. To say or believe "I must be on stage!" in dramatic "Our Town" fashion would be egotistic if not overreactive. Comedy isn't going anywhere.
Take that last sentence any way you like.
The Seattle comedy scene stinks. No newspapers have a "comedy club" section. Clubs are lumped in with 100 other "To Do" events, but the advertising and hype just isn't there for comedy. KMTT, 103.7 does a pretty fair job of pushing the scene, but only if there's somebody "big" in town.
How often can you go see Hit Explosion? Oh yay, The Retros are playing again… yay and stuff. Comedy is way more adult-oriented than any of that crap. You can be any age and come to an early show in a Seattle club, and you're not going to have your eardrums blown out or get roofied by pooka-shell Frat droppings. Usually. We want to entertain you. Come see us. We love yooooou!

Rumours and Tumours

The company I work for (DeathStar Communications) is in turmoil. When you're lied to for a year, and lied to about being lied to for months after that lie is made public, then your job is sold out from under you, turmoil tends to bubble up from beneath the feelings of betrayal and dysentery.
In the midst of all of this we now have a "stock issue" where the bid price for the cash buyout is about 9% higher than where our stock is already… meaning that even when someone says "you're worth X-much," management still cannot live up to that expectation.
In the midst of both of those comes the "in-house industry analysts" who read or thought they read or read about what someone thought about this whole box of rocks. These turds then walk around trying to strike up conversations about what's going on, because they have some stolen perspective on the topic.
Tell me again… how does a person with such "expertise" of Corporate Acquisitions and Mergers, as well as stock price-gap analysis, end up changing copier ink cartridges for $15 an hour? Why howdy ho, they ought'n to be runnin' this show! Don't ya think?
These are the same people who go to the doctor with pain in their chest and a tingly left arm and say "I slept on it wrong. I'm positive it's just from sleeping on it wrong." And that's why this company has no heart.

And While I'm At It

If you have kids, stop talking about your kids all the time. If you can't have kids, stop talking about your pets all the time. Your cat doesn't have trust issues with you. It hates you. That's why it filled your Aerosoles with Kitty Roca. I grew up with cats and never came back to a slipper-load of Tabby Tootsie Rolls.
And… are you sure it wasn't your husband, send you subtle hints about your wardrobe being a turn-off, thus your lack of offspring?
Who wants to bring kids into this world, anyway? It's horrible! With the war, the famine, and Freddie Prinze, Jr. movies, what kind of world is this to raise kids in? How can you give them hope when Heather Graham has a MOVIE career?

What's My Problem Today?
I'm endulging my meaner side. We all have it, and nobody lets it out. They try and wrap it in the success of their latest diet (The Chicago Pizza/No-Crust Plan!) and choke it back with a double-thick hate shake. People can annoy you even if you don't let 'em. I can get used to my alarm going off in the morning, and sleep through it. I can get used to a dull ache in my face from having my gumline restructured. I can even get used to a dog yappin' on a lazy (i.e. vodka-blurred) fall afternoon when I'm trying to nap.
But I can never, and will never, get used to people overpowering conversations with banality and a breadth of pop culture knowledge that drops off around 1985. The world kept turning, why didn't your wardrobe?

Comedy isn't going anywhere. I am. It starts with an "O" and ends with an "A," and there's an "M" in the middle of it.
~Geoff

"I've never paid for sex, but I've had a couple of great dates where I paid for dinner."
~ Geoffrey Lott

Is That A Threat?

I got a call for a Pat Wilson run in May... Rah Rah Rah. Hey, anybody wanna tell jokes to drunken hicks who are more interested in shouting "show us yer boobs!" to the new waitress over your jokes, while you drive 250 miles and make $175? Sorry, I'm worth more than that. I get this line from the booker, "Well, you need to call with your available dates at least 2 months in advance, because we're booking that far ahead." And the tone was "you're going to be missing out. Your loss!" Maybe they caught me on a bad day, but they want to threaten me with THAT? WITH WHAT? When will I ever reach my goal of MC'ing the Bremerton Howard Johnson??? There's nothing more entertaining than a comedian with money in their pocket. They don't need the $50, so they're gonna pull that funny trigger until you're riddled with funnies. Pat Wilson runs are like vibrators with no batteries. I understand the need, but really, there's nothing in it for you.

The Almost Best Revenge

As you may have read, I sit near some rather "differently pleasant" people. They make a lot of different noises, from daily coughing fits you can set your watch to (if I know when it will happen, how do they miss it?), to whistling for the sake of looking less like a knob (call it Mission Impossible). So I decided that from now on, whenever they are eating at their desk, I'm going to add a little ambience to the meal... I'm now clipping my fingernails exclusively at work. Those clippings will fly, people, cover your curry!

The Best Music Video You'll Never See:
Michael Jackson walking through Neverland ranch, it's now a ghost-town. Tumbleweeds and Huggies Pull-ups blowing across the walkway, animal cages empty. The ferris wheel has come off one side of the axle… A lone BigWheel tricycle with sunglasses on the seat is blown slowly in circles by the wind.

Jump-cut to: MJ in a jail cell reading Harry Potter and The Order Of Hotwings, tears rolling down his face. Walls covered in pictures of sad kids, drawn in crayon. Empty Capri Sun pouches litter the cell floor.

cut back to: MJ outside of Children's Hospital, standing near a Toys R Us truck, eyes heavenward, tears streaming down his face. Police officers stand btwn him and the entrance...

cut back to: MJ in the jail cell, holding a Gap Kids bag. He reaches in and pulls out a 45 of "ABC - 123," a sequined glove, and a subpoena. Tears fall onto the subpoena, as the ink runs into a single stream, dripping slowly onto MJ's hands, darkening them to the color he was as a child. Multiple images of The Jackson 5, Merry-Go-Rounds, sitting on the witness stand, sick kids in a hospital all flash onto the screen. Michael stands outside a Chuck E. Cheese, head bowed, surrounded by police, church groups, and sad clowns.

The song playing: This Used To Be My Playground

Somebody's been snooping in Casa de Shoogs!

That's all I have time for now. Go get in touch with yourself.

And A Stick To Bite Down On

Yesterday I endured 45 minutes of periodontal assault and battery. Damn the teeth grinding I have had my whole life! I wore down a molar to the point that it needs a crown, but a crown needs a bed to lay in, being the gums. The lingual (tongue) side of the tooth was eroded from the skritching of teef, so the gumline had to be moved down (read: peeled away, jawbone ground-down a bit, gum sutured into place) for the crown. See how smart it is to have healthy gums that don't recede? I took care of my gums, and all I got was this lousy swollen cheek, spitting blood, and 10 Vicodin. No, I won't share. Get your own nightguard.

Just Be Yourself... or try to be someone like you...
You want comedy? Go get it yourself. I'm out of the light for a bit. I realized last week at Pegasus Pizza that there are some people who will NEVER understand what comedy is about. You have to be a funny person before you get on stage to make it work right. But I tried, see, I wasn't BEING. I was TRYING, and that came across in all I did and said. I don't feel very funny right now, not after all I've been through, and even with close to 1,000 people seeing shows over 3 weeks and laughing a LOT at my performances, I don't feel like I'm funny. I simply AM. If that makes people laugh, fine, I'm a comedian. If they don't laugh, fine, I'm a Republican.
That was tee-ball, people! That was peasy.

This is Funny

"M" is out on the road for her job and she's stuck out the Olympic Peninsula, barrelling from town to town on Highway 101. Entertainment in that region of the state is as hard to find as an 18 year-old virgin in that region of the state. While driving back to her home-base on the road she was looking for some musical entertainment via le radio. On the road back from Forks to Port Angeles, what should she find? Perfect... AC/DC's "Highway To Hell." If only those citizens knew God was laughing at them. And if they knew, they'd say they'd be... "THUNDERSTRUCK!"
Two AC/DC refs in one snippet? Who else is giving you this sweet, sweet action? Nobody, party of zero, your table is NOT ready.
And yes, "M" likes that I offer "Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap." I don't know what they are, but it seems to be working okay thus far.

How May I Direct Your Calling?

Everyone has something in their life they are called to do. Whether it be feeding the hungry children of the world, being the most celebrated American Idol cast-off, or finding a cure for Carson Daly, we each have a talent that is our passion, our calling. What's yours? Do you know? What would choose to do if you could make $50,000 a year, tops, but you got to choose the job? Therein lies your passion.
So when someone comes along and mocks it, you would tend to get upset, right? Even if your child isn't that beautiful, yet just wired your whole house to run off a mouse-wheel, even if the mouse ain't on it, you still love that kid. If someone said, "nice wheel, but your kid's ugly," you are within your means to lose your mind on them.
Find what you love. Do what you love, even if you aren't getting paid for it yet, and don't stand idly by while someone steps on it. It's yours. Own it.

I'm out. Time for a Vicodin/DayQuil smoothie.

Geoffers

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Separate Santa Claus for Poor People

I'm going in for oral surgery tomorrow, called a "crown lengthening." Yep, having some jawbone reshaped in order to allow enough gumline room for a fake toof to be put in my mouth… I'm wondering how necessary this is right now. SuperGlue and "Lefty" scissors won't cut the periodontal mustard.

Recapping the last few days will be fun! I want to relive all the dead-weight comedy of a man I call "Oafmeal Grunty," so as not to divulge his true identity and allow people to think I enjoy him. I will tell you of his exploits! I will tell you of mine! I will tell you about the ridiculousness of a competition in which highly subjective material is judged by folks who would know very very little about Performance Skills, even if its canines were firmly entrenched in their tone-lacking sit-blobs.

I think it's important to address a fundamental issue affecting the nation right now. We'll get into it later, but I ask you this: A Child's Health Care? How little can they get by with? There will be a quiz.

Yes, I finished my second and last comedy competition on Saturday night. 3 weeks. 19 shows. 2 hours, 45 minutes of performance time. About 650 miles on the road. 4th place overall. Were it not for Oafmeal in the 3-hole bringing an average of 10 friends per show, many of which voted on his performance while submarining other comedian's scores. He's done it the past few years, also. Yes, it's a flawed system. The fact that Oafy was every close to first place, to WINNING, is a joke in itself. So where does my passion for comedy cross over into wanting some integrity in the scene? To the point where I can say anything I want in private to a performer, as long as I care not one iota of clown make-up how they react. Nobody can claim patents on the Chocolate Chip Cookie, because one small change, one different measurement "makes it your own." So what if it's got extra vanilla, it's STILL A CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE, you can't say it's "yours." Oafy is not a comedian. He's a guy who needs a lot of attention and coddling from people in an affluent community so that he can sell them windows or hardwood floors or whatever it is he sells. "Hey Honey, we have a draft here. We should double-pane the kid's rooms. Hunter and Molly both caught a chill last May. Let's call Oafy! His work is a stroke of genius."
Comedy and Writing are my passions, and I reserve the right to talk a LOT of sauce about it. Oafy, it wasn't your cookie to begin with. Get out of the kitchen, or bring something with actual fire to cook with. And that's more than you can shake your Stick at.

I feel truly drained after all those shows, as if comedy and I just had a shouting match in front of WalMart on Christmas Eve. Should have been a fun time were it not for being in WalMart for gifts and getting mad over it! I really don't feel like performing for a while. Then I come back to my "dayjob" and have to sit next to an adult allergy sufferer (i.e. hypochondriac) and the whistly wee-man with upper-respiratory issues. I really need to get my writing off the ground. I can't spend 6 months listening to Wheezy hack and sniff and whistle his way through many more 4-hour days, waxing moronically about the importance of spreadsheet input. The next sound you hear will be a Grey Goose flying home to roost 'ponst m'ice.

Yep, so now here's the Kid's Health deal. "Health-care fee for poor kids causes split." This is a $5/month premium paid by people on Medicaid to give their kids health coverage, voted on by Washington state legislature in the next 10 days. First of all, every child is poor, and are under the care of their benefactors (i.e. Parents, Guardians, Roman Polanski) to be provided with food, shelter, clothing, and an education. The Republicans and The Democrats, honestly two of the worst rock bands ever manifested, are split on this. Scandalous, I know. Here's their take:

Democrats: Premiums will force families to drop out of Medicaid, thus negating all health care to their family. SNAP!
Republicans: Families should take responsibility for paying at least a part of their kid's health care. HUZZAH!

Many families don’t have the extra $5/month to spare for their kid's health. If the kids have no health coverage they have to go to emergency rooms for care. This is time consuming and possibly traumatizing to the kid, not to mention that he's being teased at school for being poor and wearing an original John Deere trucker hat, regardless of authenticity.
If forced to tell my opinion, I'd say this: No child should be going hungry or uncared-for in this country. Every day that Carson Daly has a TV show and a child's tummy rumbles, a TV producer's Wheel Of Karma stops on "Lose A Turn." Yes, I think parents should be responsible for their children until that child is of legal age to drive or run shirt-making machinery. I would gladly pay $5 to make sure my neighbor's child is taken care of, but at what point does that child become MY responsibility? It's an investment in your child. This is health care, folks. Shots, colds, bumps on the head after trash-daddy, uh, nudges them down the stairs. We’re not talking tooth-bleaching trays or rhinoplasty.
I can see why this has taken the back seat of the Handbasket while a debate rages of Gay Marriages. Childhood Ricketsly speaking, What do children need more? Proper health care or a visit from the Fab Five? If a child needs help, Don't suffer the children when we should impose sanctions on the real culprits: Food engineers who haven't included enzymes in Animal Beer and other foods o' the poor which cause people to become sterile if they down more than a half-case a month. Go to the source.

Yeah, I said it. What?
Geoff