Fan Fiction: Competitive Erotic section

From time to time my brain conjures something so far afield that I leave it to fizzle out before it breathes fire unto itself. Sometimes it's so embarrassing I would rather nobody see it, rather not be associated with it. But sometimes it's so embarrassing and gross and weird that I'd rather just admit this is a part of my psyche that should get entertained and let the dogs run themselves out and over the hillside and be free.

Last night I read the following piece, which I wrote (big "Sorry guys" to my boys), in a Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction show in Seattle. I tied for first place. It is a tale of Jeffrey "Bloeharten" Steingarten, Paula Deen, and Guy Fieri gone wrong. You read the rest. In the voice of Jeffrey Steingarten. A good meal can leave one feeling as euphoric as a restful slumber, waking mid-dream only to drift back into sleep, into the dream of laying under a glass coffee table while Rachael Ray squats over you. As a food critic I have eaten in the top restaurants all over the world. I have sipped 800 year-old beers. My olfactory senses have run headlong into the still-beating heart of a Nile-born crocodile. Once, in Massawa on the Red Sea, an elderly Croatian eunuch who had been force-fed only persimmon and organic brown rice for 2 decades, shat into my hands a product that I can only liken to what God must use for toothpaste. Tonight was different. I was redlining a sensory overload rivaling the time I had to knife-fight a coked-up Anthony Bourdain for calling his taste in cuisine "as influential as the Ramones were to orthodontia." This night, this hazy timewarp had me reeling. There were flavors, not just something my mouth could relay to my brain, but multiple layers of taste and smell. Butters. Creams. Foams. Organ meats. Desserts. Sex. And porkfat. Oh dear... You see, you haven’t had bacon until it’s been run under the sweat-drenched breast of Ms. Paula Deen. "That's ryt, sugar, you just let mamma do the cookin', and you do all the eatin' you can handle. I loooove it when you get a hand in my mixin' bowl and go to work. Hooo hooo, my Mrs. Butterworth done sprung a leak HAWT GOLLY." Wading in and out of consciousness every time she pinched my nipples or drizzled hot clarified butter down my stomach, the booze-drenched coffee cake we’d put away was wrapping me in a mahogany haze of rum and insulin. My senses were crackling like funnel cakes in a deep-fryer thanks to the Ecstasy-infused crème fraiche I previously tongued from Paula’s open mouth. Sure, we’d gone full-sprint into Hedonism a few times, but this was something special. In the past, it wasn't unusual that Guy Fieri would drop in and hang out if he were in the area. Guy liked to do a bump, kill a few White Russians (he once actually choked a half-blind Ukrainian girl to death in Memphis), wait for things to get hot and heavy, then sort of blend into the background – as best a guy dressed like Ed Hardy’s special-needs step-son can - and Guy would tug at his vienna sausage while Paula and I hit the passion buffet. I have never figured out why he wears only one sweatband on his wrist. Paula brings tons of food and asks only that I bring half a Viagra and the Morning-after Pill. As a food critic it’s a pretty great gig. I eat great food all around the world for free, and when it comes to Paula, it’s really all you can eat, if you know what I mean. Or as she calls it, "Drinkin' from the gravy boat." My medically-induced soupbone is throbbing to the point of near pain, and she’s rocking back and forth on me like she's churning butter. At one point I'm pretty sure a testicle went in there. She’s telling me “No don’t you drop the batter on the griddle, hun. It’s not hot enough just yet. Yew hold onta that fer me, sweetloaf. When I need yer frostin', my cake'll be ready. I'm gettin' up on my third orgasm herrrrr, HOLY WAFFLE HOUSE.” I glance down to watch her stomach hit mine as she leans into me, then rocks back, separating us with a gossamer sheen of butter and Bacardi and a dark… what is that… is that chocolate syrup? I black out again and my mind goes to a previous encounter of ours. For a while we used butter and olive oil to saute our main course until she got a blue-ribbon yeast infection, which was probably kicked into high-gear by actual yeast and flour from the floor of her kitchen. For a while her crotch smelled like an old pair of Mario Batali's Crocs. Still, that was literally the best loaf of sourdough I’d ever had in my life. Now and again we mix up a batch for the diners at her restaurant “Lady & Sons.” As I come to, I see a reflection in the mirror. It's the shaved, spray-tanned, Tazmanian Devil-tattooed calf and DC Skate Shoe'ed leg of Guy, off somewhere to my left. I sit, tied to a sticky, fluid-soaked chair with my purple root straining skyward from within a cannoli, my entire carcass glistening like a honey-glazed ham. The air is thick with musk, Malibu rum, peanut oil, an odd metallic scent, and a Glade Plug-in... "Cool Serenity" I think. Paula returns from the bathroom with a stemmed glass, pouring in a Tawny Port to top off our fleshy dessert. I glance over my shoulder and see Guy sitting backwards, but slumped over a chair. His shorts around one ankle, his shoes covered in a glossy red... I take a sip from the glass pressed to my lips as my lover, Ms. Paula Deen, spits in her hand. She reaches down to twirl her fingers around the head of my GAAAA T THTHTTPTPPTTPHTHHFHFHFHFFF I spit out the wine. It's gone sour or it's drugged, I can't tell which. It has a heavy smell, like a handful of old pennies... Like an animal. Like blood. "Okay, sugar," she says, lowering herself to the floor, her sweat-matted head of lavender hair tickling my full stomach. She takes a big sip of the bloody port, spits it onto my love mushroom, and begins crunching through the cannoli. "The griddle is ssssMOKIN' hot, sugar… Let's have that batter."

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MC, HOST, CORPORATE, COMEDY, SEATTLE, GEOFF, LOTT

Backing Up

It's been a while since I was regularly on-stage. I don't really know why, but I can easily misdirect any number of reasons to my job, my disinterest in my act, being wiped-out, lacking a stage-hunger, being happy, or any combination of those. There's something lacking in the FIRE department, wherein most of my act should be scrapped while I build up something meatier, more reflective of my attitude towards society. At least the parts that most folks wouldn't label as racist.


After headlining in December, I decided a lot of my material just isn't fun to do, or should be more deeply extrapolated, if not looked into further. I think extrapolated is a great word. Recently I went to a chiropractor for the knot in my back and the displacement of my hips. Turns out that sitting on a wallet for 25 years has pushed my right hip forward and under. It's a half-inch lower than my left hip, causing some issues that include tingling in my leg, a strained right erectus muscle in my back, and mild bigotry. Pain can push us to horrible places. Pile that on top of all the stuff in the first paragraph, and you can start to see why I don't hit the Tuesday night bierhaus shows for 5 minutes between the 2 guys who just broke up with non-existent girlfriends and smoked pot at their sister's wedding.
NOT
INTERESTED


So now I have 3 weeks of shows to handle. Feature work, headline work, and a headline gig at a bar. 2 clubs, one bar, one private show. Mostly I am at the point that the best thing for me is to stop relying on material that works and just let-fly with what I want to do. This of course is the same for Life, overanalyzing every little move to the point that I ruin my Gavin chinos instead of just going into the open stall and gettin' some Tank time. Drop that shit, kid, you have LIFE to do. And a big part of my life is stand-up comedy.


So as I look forward to, and at, the next 10 shows I hope to get some new material to share as it goes along. This includes being able to just go in and riff and be loose and let whatever happens, happen. Being tired, happy, and sore is how much of my life has gone. It's part of the gig. And I have learned to embrace the moments of calmly explaining to people why they are fucking up the process for everyone else. If we let ONE person bring their dog into the store, soon we have to let EVERY Eastern Bloc trashbag bring their Mastiff-boxer mix into Babies R Us, or else it's discrimination. People are not generally good, people are generally BORING. And many of them are decent. But those that stand out are either attractive or annoying as shit. And that's where my comedy comes from. I know I can be that annoying. I just have to try harder.

So really, what I am saying for now is that I am maxed out. I can't take on any more work from the day job. I can't do any more work in comedy. I am at the mercy of a changing, incommunicative bus system (and a socially retarded driver on the 7:23 255 route), and basically unable to do anything more than make money and not power-drink at the bus stops. I am doing all I can to find time to work out to keep the nervous energy low(ish), and operating on adrenaline and the love of/from my family and friends. Without those cornerstones (Love, Effort, Faith, Chocolate), this isn't a workhouse, it's a tent in the wind.


This was pointless. What a crybaby I am.


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MC, HOST, CORPORATE, COMEDY, SEATTLE, GEOFF, LOTT

Ron Reid Moves On, Up to Street/Sea-Level

Every comedian looks for a break, a chance to show what they can do (as a comedian) as well as they can do it (sober). Part of finding that break is keeping your eyes open for it and ducking in before the Doorman of Fate realizes you’re in the wrong joint.

Ron Reid facilitated/vacillated my “break” in Seattle in February 2003 at the Comedy Underground. It was a Wednesday night show, and I had zero money. I wasn’t even going to go to the show that night to perform because I was DOWN, man. Just off a break-up, bummed, broke with the bills paid, and mired in a George Clinton-esque funk. Slap-bass funk. Durrty fonk, man. But I went to the Underground anyway, hoping there’d be 7minutes for me to scrape a set together. It was the night before Doug Stanhope was coming to the Underground, and Doug’s the closest thing we’ve got to Lenny Bruce since Denis Leary stole from Bill Hicks.

I get there, get a spot, do my set, great response, and hang out, happy to have ventured out of Kenmore for the night. Talking with Ron after the show, he asked if I would be interested in doing some MC spots at the Underground on the weekends. This was great, because weekend time is what new comics drool over, and old comics drool over when they don’t have a gig and want to get out of the house and drink but can’t stand to just get drunk on their balcony, because that’s sad, man. When Ron asked me, I said, “Sure. What about MC’ing for Stanhope tomorrow night?”

Ron did not even blink before hesitating, prior to a minor grimace and stuttering a “Well, uh buh buh I… ga… well, sure.” So Ron gave me a break. He wasn’t really excited, but he warned me the crowd would be kind of wild, and things could get weird, so just be loose. I was too excited to be loose.
The next night I had the best set of my relatively new career. Doug Stanhope told me “Hey, most MCs suck. You didn’t.” Thank YOU, Doug. I met Dave Dennison who has been endlessly encouraging of my career. I met Blaine Reeder and Geoff Brousseau a few nights later, as they’d been to the show. That’s a different kind of story, but all part of that night that Ron had the discomfort of agreeing to let me host.

So Thank YOU, Ron Reid, for all the work you’ve thrown my way, as a comedian, and a thinking human.

With that, Ron’s career in Comedy Management is going the way of Tony Moser’s comedy career. After 30+ years in the world of Stand-up Comedy, Ron Reid is trading his role as the manager of an iconic Seattle Entertainment institution to manage an ironic Seattle Entertainment institution. The new job will likely have fewer drunks but perhaps as much floor-barf. If leaving behind late nights and fragile egos spouting poorly-worded barrages about genitalia and/or the upside of racial profiling wasn’t enough of a health benefit, Ron’s new job will actually have Health Benefits. I figure if Laughter Is The Best Medicine, the counter-activity of a Comedian’s Lifestyle will likely balance out and Ron’s health is right where it ought’n be for a tree-topper of 86.

This is my self-meta-centered take on Ron’s leaving the Comedy Underground, and by no means encompasses all that he’s done in Seattle’s Comedy World. 25+ month-long Comedy Competitions. Showcases for big industry. He’s launched, helped launch, and advanced careers of so many comedians and dreamers and lovers of comedy that we lose track, and many of them are comics you’ve seen on TV, and will see for years to come. This is like Mike Holmgren leaving the Seahawks; All things must change, he's done great things for us, but there will never by another one like Ron Reid.

What a sell-out.

Carl Warmenhoven, it's on you now.

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Top 10 Ways To Celebrate “Walter Jones Day”

Walter “The Wall” Jones, the Seahawks left tackle for the past 13 seasons and easily The Best to ever protect a quarterback’s blind-side, is retiring from professional football. From his first day on the practice field for the ‘Hawks, back when they wore royal blue jerseys and were dominating their way to 6-10 seasons in the AFC West, everybody who watched Walt in practice and on gameday knew this guy was usually “the best athlete on the field.”

He took 245-lb men running full-speed, and leashed ‘em down.
He drove 300-lb behemoths 30 feet backwards, their arms flailing on the TV’s they bought their mother, embarrassed.
He spoke softly and jokingly about his accomplishments. He erased whomever was the best pass-rusher on the other team.
The toll it takes on your body, however, is probably like being run into by refrigerator coming down the stairs 65 times on a Sunday for 12 years. I hope that he’ll live a long life, happy and healthy. Great to watch a legend in our city.

And so, in his honor, here are 10 Ways To Celebrate “Walter Jones Day”
1. Leave every room with a hand-clap and shouting “Break”
2. Push your Cadillac Escalade around the high school track for an hour. (This was Walt’s off-season conditioning program of choice)
3. Throw in some up-downs in the hallway at work.
4. If somebody crosses your face without saying “pardon me,” drive-block ‘em until you hear a whistle.
5. Repeat “Backer Backer Backer SLIDE SLIDE BLACK SLIDE BACKER” until the person next to you responds “CHECK”
6. Wear your mouthguard to all meetings.
7. Stairs, baby. Run ‘til ya puke.
8. High-knee run through the strip-mall.
9. Throw flags on offending parties, be it holding a meeting at 3pm on a Friday or offsides in coming for your dinner.

10. Post-up outside the restroom in a squat-stance with your hands in front of you, fending off potential entrants for a 3-count. The ball should be downfield by then.

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Comedy Dates Update!

I want to extend a hearty, well-oiled, work-appropriate "Thank You" to each and every 9 of you who are asking when my next show is going to be. I feel bad that many of you have told me that you're going to be at a show and then I get there and I think "I must have told them the wrong place or time 14 times because you/they aren't there/here!" Sooooo...

Here is what my comedy schedule will be all about in the foreseeable future!

Jan. 21 - Thursday, 9pm, Owl N Thistle, Seattle - 808 Post Ave - Headlining in the bar I started my college drinking career in! COME SEE THE MAGIC!

Jan. 22 & 23 - Friday & Saturday, 8pm & 10pm - LAUGHS COMEDY SPOT in Kirkland, Featuring For GREG BEHRENDT (Author of "He's Just Not That Into You", and a hilarious comedian!)

Jan. 27 - Thursday, 8pm - AMANDA KNOX Appeal Benefit Show - Comedy Underground, Seattle. $50, must purchase before show time! This is a great show and I'm honored to be part of it. 5 headliners for the price of 3!

Sooo, that's what's-what for January. I'll be in South King County rockin' some stages in February.

Until then, I have a baby boy making goat sounds, which means it's bath & jams time.

Choose Funny. Always.

Moving On Up, We Hope

Moving.
Nobody likes doing it. But sometimes, you have to move. You've outgrown the place. You've outlived the place. Your energies stagnate. The bloodstains won't come off the ceiling. And that spot in the living room? PER-MAN-ENT.

We're moving. To Los Angeles, CA. The area around it, not LA-proper. And there just aren't enough hours in these days to go into the whole philosophy of why. Other than that's where I believe many of my dreams will blossom into their next form.

Seattle, my home. A fantastic place to start a career, build an act. But not the place to sustain a career in comedy, unless one is doing cruise ships. I'm not. So I have to go. Seattle comedy has been good to me, and I hope I have, in turn, been at least gentle to it. I only feel like I have hit a consistent stride in the past year or so. Which makes me laugh when I see guys who've been getting on stages for nearly 8 months...
IN A ROW...
"headline" a show. I'm really learning again how to Feature really well, about pace and letting the space between jokes run their own cadence. Let the crowd dictate what I'd like them to. And I have a LOT to learn.

So I don't know that LA will teach me much. I think guys like David Crowe, Brad Upton, Kermet Apio, Joe Vespaziani, and Duane Goad have taught me more than 90% of the guys in LA will. Ron Reid's been nothing but the sherpa I never knew I would need. And I will heed his advice always.
Brousseau teaches me constantly.
What not to wear.
Nor eat.
But he's a helluva man...

Anyway, there'll be more to this soon. For now, it's late, and we're tired, and I'm blogging away so loudly that my wife has closed the door to the Fortress Of Creativity!

Here's what I know, so far:

1. My niece Riley is incredible. I "get it," the baby-having thing.
2. I have work to do on my career as a comedian and writer. And unless thrust into the game, I'll never get to properly play it.
3. Hustle + Talent = Success. If I have a Talent score of 7, I should only need 3 on the Hustle to get my 10 and win Success. But I will need at least a 7 for Hustle in the Beast. Got it.
   
4. I could never do what we're about to go do alone. Some comics mention personal life as a weight holding them down. Instead, my marriage is the cornerstone of the Empire we want to build. I cannot ever thank my wife enough. If you're reading this, I love you. Sorry about the "clown incident" at ROSS.
5. This is irrational, non-sensical, incomprehensible, and dumb. To uproot, rent out, become renters, pay more for rent, leave good-paying jobs, leave friends and family and fair traffic. INSANE.
6. This makes total sense, and without going for it, it will never come to me. I would only end up bitter and guessing. And I'm halfway there now.
   
7. No dream of making one's passion their career will happen without sacrifice, effort, determination, positive thoughts, and luck.
   
8. Fear is a feeling that failure is a possibility, and embarrassment awaits a failure's by-product. Guess what? I'm not scared. I'm excited. I'm angry. I'm motivated.
   
9. I'm a little scared.
10. I have to get more sleep.

What do I know, really? I'm just a guy with a dream of not sitting in a cubicle every day until I decide to retire in a hail of "F*CK Y'ALL" and "EAT SH*T" and "GUESS WHO'S BEEN POOPING IN THE COFFEE MAKER?"

I have a dream of letting my gifts provide me a long, healthy, happy, prosperous career.
Gotta go. Got a dream.


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SICC Again; the Comics You Know

I am a finalist in the Seattle International Comedy Competition.
It hit me last Sunday in a deluge of emails, texts, phone calls, but not a SINGLE chunky muffin basket. Nor a tastefully-shot half-nude of Geoff Brousseau. Thank you very little.

I cannot take all the credit for getting to where I am. I have had the help, support, and well wishes of my wife, my family, my friends, and many of my friends who are comics. I have felt only minor tinges of pain throughout all of this. Sometimes just gas. Sometimes emotional. Oft-times the result of seeing Integrity take a rake to the back. You can't control what everyone else does. The best you can do is control your own moments, your own performance, and dumb it down so very deeply that even the most qualified of comedy judges isn't challenged by what you're doing.

But I progress. DI-gress.

Going into this final show tonight at the Comedy Underground Marcus, an impressionist with energy to burn, is in 1st. He is a stage monster. He is a one-man, live-band karaJoke jam, audiences cannot get enough of him, and he's played everywhere you can play in this state.

Close behind is Tony Boswell, an incredible writer and comedian who reminds me of a very good whiskey, a sweet and smoky warmth that doesn't quite burn. But could. It's like watching a Miles Davis solo in comedy form, laughing when the notes trail to something you thought would go one way, and just give you the chills instead. I wish I would have written a lot of the stuff Tony is doing.

Leif Skyving has impressed me nightly since the beginning with great joke-writing, great performances, and fully embracing the entirety of his life for material. He shies from nothing, and makes it all Funny. I would love to work some gigs with Leif, but that's an awful lot of Northern European man-funny for an audience to unzip for.

Key Lewis has taken rooms over with energy, and has commanded stages with coolness. This guy's got so many talents that there's no way to tell what he can do yet. But it's big. To FINAL your first time through this thing is a Feat. And he's married. With 3 kids. And a full time job that one day had him on the road to Portland at 5am, and BACK to the Vashon show on time. Impressive stuff all the way around.

I'm in the mix as well. Placings don't matter right now. Doing the best possible set I can for the last night of the competition is all that matters.

I will summarize my own feelings throughout the entire run of 18 shows over three weeks of the waning month of November 2007. As autumn has turned earnest, my thoughts of comedy, my own and in general, have been injected with respect, drive, and a focus on Doing The Comedy I Want To Be Remembered For.

I can always write more jokes. Better jokes. Better comedy. Bigger Funny.
And I will.

Oh wait, here's that Brousseau picture!


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