Shit's F'ed

As I watch the upheaval in the Middle East, North Africa, Japan, and Wisconsin, I make note that most other countries live with a passion about politics that America finds barbaric and frightening. We prefer to withhold such emotion until it really matters, like when our team wins a championship, or Black Friday. Nothing says "You get out your the powerseat or we'll burn your house down" like riding your best camel into a duel before the prayer hour.

The threat of arrest is very real when you take a day off work. It multiplies by at least 3 when your PTO coincides with you being fed-the-fuck up with people protesting a war on the corner of a quaint suburban business park. (I'm talking to you, Iraq war protestors in Lake Forest Park!) Yes, we have the right to free speech, to assemble peacefully, and to petition the government without being hole-probed. But to be honest... THAT DOESN'T DO SHIT.

You can vote the bastards and bitchloads out of office. Another fartfactory will take their place. Politics are business, and the business is about Getting Rich, Staying Rich, and Face-Fucking the Opposition but Not In The Good Way. If you aren't sure if I'm fed up, I am. But what can I do about it?

Well, I can be cool as hell to my neighbors. I can be a better dad than I have been. I can get a control on this ridiculous ADD issue I'm having. I can act locally, shop locally, buy organic, and read-up on History. How did this all play out before? This isn't the first time dictators have been moved upon. Africa, by the way, is the world's crotch now. For anybody who wants to debate me about Africa being the cradle of civilization, that was most-likely what is now Southern Europe/Turkey/North Africa. When left to their own devices, i.e. America staying out of their affairs, look at what an incredible job African nations do.

It's up to the world to get Africa back on its feet. Oh wait, Japan is about to melt down because they have been too cheap to pony-up to keep their reactors up to code. Thank you, Japan. Probably gonna get enough cement dumped on you to sink part of that island. Sorry Africa, you'll have to wait. We'll keep sending aid to 47 countries in Africa, you African dictators keep acting like human ass-rashes, and we'll stand by and neglect our education system.

Here's what's so incredibly wrong with our society.

You can have a protest that blocks streets and takes people out of work and screws up people's commutes home, and yet still lose the vote to criminalize caffeinated baby formula.

Or you can get some real shit done by blowing up the factory that makes it and go to jail for it.

I'm happy as hell to see the protests in Wisconsin, and hope to see more.

Washington state is by far the most liberal-minded, conservative-walleted state in America. Our desire to force state and local governments to do "more with less" is crippling social services. Schools are getting hammered. And 27 year-old software designers are driving A-8s to Beer Pong at The Boat night. Awesome. We suck.

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Bill Hicks's Principles Of Comedy

Bill Hicks is a name I found after about a year into stand-up. I didn't ever hear of him until one night when I totally F'ed around at a small Irish Pub, where the bartender told me to go up and fill time being funny between the band's sets, and he'd let me drink free for an hour. He lost.

(pointless rambling about how I found out about Bill Hicks in 1999)


Bill had died by then. Like many of the high-vibration creative artist souls, he was gone way too early. He was 32, and passed away from pancreatic cancer in 1994. He had quit smoking and drinking and drugging before he found out he was ill. The day he got his diagnosis, he got in his friend's car, tore the butt off a Marlboro Light, and lit up. WTF, indeed. There are videos of him performing his ass off until the final few days, noted by his consistent rubbing of his right side. The show must go on.

Reading up on him (American Scream, great read, and "Love All The People," his writings), he was widely regarded as the most-honest, unflinching, intelligent, socially-relevant, funny, and brilliant comedian of his era, and top-5 of all time (Pryor, Carlin, Cosby, Bruce, Hicks). That was the Sam Kinison era. The Dice era. The pre-"Seinfeld" Seinfeld era. The Denis Leary era. (Denis Leary's "No Cure For Cancer" is based heavily in material stolen, lifted, nipped, whatever you wanna call it but truly TAKEN FROM Bill Hicks.) He despised Gallagher and CarrotTop, Michael Bolton, and commercialism.

And after hearing Bill Hicks, I stopped doing comedy for 3 years because I realized how far away I was, and I sucked that bad and wasn't close to the principles below. So check these out. This is a philosophy. I love it, and find that I have been working from these for quite some time. Very validating, and all the same, just a flag to fly. So here ya go...


BILL HICKS’S PRINCIPLES OF COMEDY
1. If you can be yourself on stage nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered.
2. The act is something you fall back on if you can’t think of anything else to say.
3. Only do what you think is funny, never just what you think they will like, even though it’s not that funny to you.
4. Never ask them is this funny – you tell them this is funny.
5. You are not married to any of this shit – if something happens, taking you off on a tangent, NEVER go back and finish a bit, just move on.
6. NEVER ask the audience “How You Doing?” People who do that can’t think of an opening line. They came to see you to tell them how they’re doing, asking that stupid question up front just digs a whole. This is The Most Common Mistake made by performers. I want to leave as soon as they say that.
7. Write what entertains you. If you can’t be funny be interesting. You haven’t lost the crowd. Have something to say and then do it in a funny way.
8. I close my eyes and walk out there and that’s where I start, Honest.
9. Listen to what you are saying, ask yourself, “Why am I saying it and is it Necessary?” (This will filter all your material and cut the unnecessary words, economy of words)
10. Play to the top of the intelligence of the room. There aren’t any bad crowds, just wrong choices.
11. Remember this is the hardest thing there is to do. If you can do this you can do anything.
12. I love my cracker roots. Get to know your family, be friends with them.


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Bus, STOP!

Riding on public transportation, one is bound to see a number of abnormal happenings.

Guy staring at the floor while mindlessly sipping from the largest-you-can-legally-buy can o’ Iced Tea? Check.

Woman eating a single Reese’s PB Cup, though it’s been squished near-flat and she’s scrapin’ at it with her bottom tooth-stumps to get the what’s-left out of the cup? DING.

Black guy rollin’ his head and finger-pointing to the beat of music only he can hear… though he’s not wearing earphones? PO PO ZAO.

Mexicans? AY AY AAAAY!

Blacks? Unh. (na-na-na-nAAAA)

Asians? Hai.

White(s)? Yeah.

The Journey of Life is much like dealing with public transportation. Not everybody has to share the same journey, getting in and out, off and on here and 3 stops ago. See, what happened to me a few times the past 2 weeks is this. There’s a schedule drivers are s’posed to keep, from stop to stop. It keeps them from being a giant bus train all over the city, and keeps people from congregating for an hour until their bus comes… or doesn’t.

I was about 3 minutes behind schedule leaving work on foot a couple weeks ago. I walk a quarter-mile to the bus stop at Fairfax & Beverly, home of CBS TV Studios and the occasional transvestite slap-fight. At the corner I get to, I have bus option 1, the 217 that takes about 25 minutes in rush traffic to get to my home-stop. Option 2 is the 780, the Express that takes about 19 minutes and has fewer stops on the way to my destination. They arrive, usually, 7 or 11 minutes apart, then NOTHING for about 15minutes. So if you miss ‘em both, you got 15minutes to contemplate why you left work 3 minutes late. 780, 7 minutes, 217, 11 minutes, 780, etc. Miss one, and your evening drinkin skej goes pear-shaped.

Today, walking home from the store, with a schedule in my head to e-send something to My Wife!, I decided to make it faster and catch the bus. This time it’s a 3minute bus ride or a 20min walk. Bus runs every 12minutes, usually, so even if I miss one, I’m gonna make up the time. Well I hit the stop and wait. 8minutes past when it should’ve come, not bad. Took me 5min to walk to the stop and no bus passed me, so the bus is running late. I waited a few more, then realized, hey, by now, I could be WAY the hell closer to home and further from what botanists call “probably a hobo’s drying pee.”

The bus is late, way late. And things to be done are waiting. Where da bus is, yo?

And I said “well I can’t wait for this power trip, I gotsta GO,” but to myself. In a very H&R Block-friendly voice. And I started walking. I cross the street, parallel to the bus lane o’ travel. The bus stop, not 1minute behind me, is empty. Just me, a bit East of ‘er. Walking.

And then That Bus blazes by. I’m 100 feet from the bus stop. The bus, now 8minutes behind on the day before damn-near ever’bawdow has a day off and traffic is lighter than Heidi Montag’s “Thought Book,” rips by me. RIPS. 50 in a 35. Ain’t my fault.

And a theory of Life hit me as the wind rolled up my back while I said, “Mother ASS BITCH POO STAIN.” It may have gotten racial. Sorry. Public Transit is piloted by some WEIRD people. Would YOU wanna drive strangers up & down the street all day? No. You’re too busy thinking of ways to cook loin of venison with a red wine-cocoa nib reduction. So what was I talking about? LIFE.

We have stops in life. Moments. Milestones. Wait points. Who knows when you’ll get off at one. When another bus comes around, it may not be y’all’s. But those stops are there. As you wait at your stop, some may think, “Look, that sex-diesel is waiting for a bus!” or “If I were at that bus stop, I’d keep my distance from that one. But then again, my raw food diet means I rabbit-fart day long.” But there you are. Bus Stop Waiting.

Because you could just start walking, too. You could up and go. Sun on you. Wind at you. Rain soak you. Breeze cool you. Tiring you out. Because you cannot wait. You can’t. And That Bus isn’t coming around, or hasn’t, and if you walk, you’ll be closer to your destination, and can likely pick up a bus at another stop down the way there.

Or you could wait a bit more. Because when it does arrive, you’re then speeding along at a much faster rate than you can walk (no offense), and back to reading “The Outliers,” ironically, for your present sitch.

Do you know when it will arrive?

Or do you just Know it will, and when it does, you’ll be ready for the ride?

Sometimes it’s better to just hoof it and get there.

Sometimes you miss it by a second and your effort closes the distance.

You may wait much longer than you want.

You may hit it at the right time.

You must know it will come for you. Have Faith. You’re on your way, even if you aren’t moving. But… You can walk and get tired. Or!!! You can wait while others think you’re lazy for not just walkin’. Your faith that it will arrive can save you the effort of “doing it yourself.” And just a bit-more waiting as you read your hot book gets you to where you’re going much, much faster.

Or you can walk and see where a homeless guy OBVIOUSLY took a shit in a Von’s bag and didn’t seal it in front of what was once Culver Nissan.

And no, I’m not saying God is a Bus Driver, nor Black, Mexican, or Multi-ethnic. But he doesn’t have all day. Pay up, get on, and shut your taco-catch. If you can't enjoy the ride, at least enjoy your read.

And some. Well. Some never get on that bus.

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Well CRAP, I Guess I'm a Nice Guy

We're gonna elect a new president tomorrow. Like it or not.
Along with that is a bevy of local votes that will determine everything from the cost of imported milk to legalizing prostitution, or "Consulting."

Many people have asked me recently, "Sir... was that you?"
Sorry. Dairy issues.

I have ideas on the Issues. And here I will pontificate on them...
IN PUBLIC.

First, I must go throw laundry in. I AM ON A SCHEDULE.

I am a good guy. When you're a "good guy," and genuinely so, which I really try to act like I am, people can sense it. You know who can sense it? People who are more open to the auras and energies of other people. And you know who they are?
Crazies.
Not the jarred-poop-collecting crazies (some of it their own).
Not the squalor-induced craziness crazies.
Not the GOD WARRIOR crazies, hello Margeurite Perrin. Who wouldn't want to sit down in a praise service next to this angel in support hosiery?

JEEEEEEZUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS!

See, when you're a good guy, and told you are by a number of people under various levels of medical supervision, they feel they have a safe place to talk about what's on their mind. And what's on their mind revolves around three things.

1. The "government" (always mentioned with quotation fingers)
   
2. The Shadow Government (always mentioned by pointing to the "SG" tattoo on their palm)
3. Health-related issues, usually ear canals or bowel obstructions caused by antibiotics

The old saying "Nice Guys Finish Last" is because a nice guy stopped for a glass of water while helping his cousin move a cartload of figs, and the water vendor started in about how the sun god Zoalu was taking away his daughter's desire to work through the night as a plow-puller. The Nice Guy's cousin made it on to the market over the next 2 hours, while the vendor never stopped fucking talking about his daughter's ailments, which, these days, would be attributed to syphillis, if not "too much mung." And the Nice Guy, no matter how far away he inched from the conversation, nor tried to return to reading his Entertainment Weekly, if only to get ideas for his next haircut - because he LOVES Daniel Craig's crop - well the Nice Guy just couldn't get away from it. Because the vendor needed to talk.

And to kvetch about the whole thing must fashion a few layers off the niceness, right? My intent is always pure; I enjoy the stories of others, sometimes watching as they go high into the wall and just keep the throttle open while the tires blow and the flames fly high. And right when I think to myself "What am I getting out of this?" I have to remind myself that I can read Mickey Rourke's comeback story anytime. What I get out of it is what you're reading.

So while I have to search for Daniel Craig pics to take to a barber instead of just taking the coffee-shop's EW with me, I am only minorly annoyed at the extra work. I could have found those pics by now.

But it's not every day that somebody wants to bet you their van, parked RIGHT THERE SAME SPOT EVERY DAY, that by this time next week, we'll be under Martial Law. Try for THAT at your Star'sBucks.

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