You Had Me At Idiot

My Tapeworm's Name Is Legion, For He Is Many

Today, at first I was thinking of writing about how much I really hate politics and I cannot get away from it no matter how hard I try or where I turn my head and that it doesn't matter which side you're on anyway because there's really only one political party anymore and its controlled by a bunch of fat ass morons who start every sentence with "Now I'm not racist but..." and have convinced me that well over half this country is now officially retarded, and I don't mean regular retarded, I mean really, really, really retarded, I mean Sarah Palin retarded, and I know you're going to to say, wait a minute, there's another major political party, but they don't really count because Democrats are basically pussies, they're like a little dog in your living room and all you have to do is stand over them and stare into their eyeballs for about 30 seconds and they will pee on their own feet from paralyzing fear, but I have to keep reminding myself that none of it really matters because I figure that I should be dying around the same time that the world runs out of oil and I can rest peacefully in my death slumber knowing that all of the pasty white fat ass offspring of the pasty white fat ass Republicans will suffer endlessly because there will be no more gas and they won't be able to drive to Golden Corral anymore for their hourly injection of gravy and they will curse the day their Mongoloid parents with their abnormally distended bellies somehow conceived them via asexual reproduction, even though they always taught them that Jesus would always protect Americans because he was born somewhere in the Midwest and that all of the really smart nerd kids in school who grew up to be scientists were just making up this stuff about climate change because, and I quote, "Sometimes it still gets cold," and instead we should be taking our scientific cues from some fat ass right-wing whackjob congressman who had a C- average in high school and spent his time in biology class eating his own toejam. That's what I was thinking of writing about today. But instead I decided to write about macaroni and cheese.

As most of you probably know, I now have a relatively healthy diet as a result of Executive Order 82991, which was handed down by Jodi a couple of years ago. That's why last night's events were somewhat surprising. We were having our daily husband-wife marriage enounter session. You know...

"What do want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I don't know, what do you want to eat?"

"I asked you first."

"I asked you second."

"I asked you third."

"I asked you fourth."

Finally, I just blurted it out. "Well, you know what I've been craving the last couple of days? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese."

"Then have it," she said.

That's when I knew she had lost her mind.

"What do you mean? We can't have that!" I said.

She replied, "Everything I've read says that if you have a craving, you should just have it and then get on with your life."

I don't know where she read that, and I actually don't care. I suspect she probably read it in Oprah's magazine. Yeah, you know, Oprah's magazine. That one magazine that's called "Oprah" and is all about Oprah and every single issue ever published has a giant picture of Oprah on the cover. But I am told this is in no way narcissistic. Doesn't matter, because now that I know about this craving rule, I'm going to start telling Jodi that I'm craving taking a bath with caramels and root beer.

So off I went into the night in search of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

I can't remember the last time I bought a box of this stuff, but I seem to remember it being sold at gas stations, between the lighter fluid and the beef jerky made from abducted children. But I went into the first gas station near my house and they didn't carry it. What kind of gas station doesn't carry Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?

So I went all the way to the white trash grocery store. They had it. Of course they had it. They had an entire aisle dedicated to it. They had all kinds of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese--big macaroni, little macaroni, macaroni shaped liked dinosaurs, macaroni shaped like baptists carrying signs saying there were no such things as dinosaurs, etc.

At first I picked up the regular box with the "original" recipe. But as I walked away I thought, "Is this going to be enough? It's been so long since I bought this, I don't remember if this is for one person or two. I better get a bigger box." So I grabbed a bigger box, paid the mutant high school preggo with the dirty face, and headed home.

When I handed the box to Jodi, she said, "What's this? This isn't the regular kind."

And it wasn't. I didn't read the box carefully enough after I grabbed it. Apparently this was the "Deluxe" version. Unlike the "Regular" version, which is 95% chemicals and 5% butter and milk, the "Deluxe" version is 100% chemicals. You just boil the macroni and then squeeze this giant orange, gooey, turd-looking thing out of a packet and into the macroni. Now I finally know what the Vietnam guys were always talking about when they mentioned Agent Orange.

How does crap like this even make it to the shelves in the first place? I'll tell you how. Because the Food and Drug Administration is run by the same people who own Golden Corral and think Jesus was born somewhere in the Midwest. I swear to God, mark my words, in 5 years these dipshits are going to make it illegal to grow actual tomatoes in non-toxic dirt, but we'll be seeing more and more boxes on grocery store shelves that are filled with urine, pubic hair, and shards of broken glass, with big purple labels that say, "NOW WITH 15% MORE MONKEY SPUNK!"

I mean we were absolutely disgusted at the sight of that giant orange turd of cheese sitting there in the macaroni. I was just vile.

But we ate it.

And as a result, I've been up all night long. I haven't been able to sleep one bit, because the tapeworms growing inside of me are now craving donuts.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of cheese, I now officially hate the Green Bay Packers and hope they all get polio.

DOUBLE DREAM HANDS!!!

Been way too busy the last couple of months to write in my blog. So in the meantime... DOUBLE DREAM HANDS!!!

 

My Shortest Blog Post Ever

Jodi has discovered a new television network called OWN, which stands for "Oprah Worship Network." My life as we know it is over.

And now here's a picture of a chicken sandwich.

 

Awkward Family Photos

Jodi recently bought me the book "Awkward Family Photos" (you can check out their website too at awkwardfamilyphotos.com). Here are a few of my favorite pics from the book.

 
 
 
 

Oh, and since we're on the subject, here are a couple of my upcoming shows...

Dec 28 - Zanies (Chicago) - doing a guest set

Jan 7-9 - Edgewater Resort (Laughlin, NV)

The Mouse That Died From Yoga

So last week Jodi and I were staying for a few days with our good friends Sean and Lori. One evening, Jodi and I went up to our bedroom. I walked around to my side of the bed and saw a little brown thing racing under the bed.

"Mouse," I announced. I said it just like I was a tennis umpire calling a ball out.

"Where!?" Jodi replied.

"Under the bed. A mouse just ran under the bed."

"Really?!... Ooh! I see it!... What should we do?"

I looked at her and said, "We should close the door, move to the empty bedroom downstairs, and pretend this never happened."

"But that means we have to move all our crap. I don't wanna move all our crap."

Well, if it had been up to me, I would have moved 25 metric tons of crap all by myself just to avoid the mouse. But it wasn't up to me. And because I don't deal with wildlife personally, I had to come up with another plan.

"I'm telling Sean," I said.

So I walked downstairs.

"Hey Sean, there's a mouse in our room."

Without even the slightest trace of joy in his voice Sean said, "Shit."

The next thing I know, Sean and I are in the bedroom with the mouse. Meanwhile, Jodi has retreated to safety in the next room.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"It went under the bed... There it is!"

Sean thought for a moment, then went to a walk-in closet and pulled out an empty white three-ring binder, his weapon of choice. Then he walked back over to where I was standing and said, "Okay, scare it out to the other side toward me."

Instinctively I stomped my feet and made loud tard sounds while waving my arms in the air. I don't know why I did that. I guess I thought that's the kind of thing that would really scare a mouse.

And apparently it did. Because within moments it came scurriying out past Sean.

"There it is!" I shouted.

"Where?!"

"Over there! In the corner!"

Sean turned, spotted the mouse, and quickly brought the fat edge of the binder down, trapping the mouse.

"Okay! Go get a book out of the closet!"

So I ran into the closet and saw a bunch of books on a shelf. I scanned the titles, trying to pick just the right book for whatever Sean had in mind next, whatever that might be.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" he shouted. I think the urgency in his voice was due to the fact that the binder was the only thing holding this mouse by its tail, and this particular mouse had to weigh—oh I don't know—two, maybe two and a half, ounces.

I grabbed the first book and hurried back out to him.

"What is it?" he asked.

I looked at the cover. "Yoga Anatomy," I said.

"Okay good," he said. "Fuck yoga. Bring it here."

I handed him the book, which he then used to squish the mouse's brains in.

"Ah man, there's blood everywhere," he said. "Get some toilet paper."

So I ran into the bathroom and returned with some toilet paper.

A few moments later, Sean's wife Lori walked into the room. "Did you get it?"

"Yeah, we got it. We killed it with a book."

"Oh good," she said.

We all breathed a sigh of relief. The great tragic episode was over. We could all finally go to bed.

Then Lori looked at us and said, "What book?"

Goodbye Lucy

The thing about human beings is that they often make you feel worse than you already do. On the other hand, dogs usually make you feel much better. And the better the dog, the better you feel. Let's just say that Lucy was a very good dog.

The cutest puppy I ever saw.

 

The absolute cutest.

Monte didn't know what to think of her at first, but I couldn't keep my hands off her.

That one marble in her head made it really hard to pottie train her. But did I mention how cute she was?

One day she grew these things called legs.

Monte started to come around.

And soon she began to follow the ways of the Dark Lord.

Loved the sun.

Loved her brother.

Loved her naps.

Sweetest dog you would ever meet.

The sweetest.

When we lost Monte, I held him in my arms and whispered in his ear the only words that came into my mind... "You're a good boy. You're a good boy. You're a good boy."

When it was Lucy's turn, I held her in my arms and whispered in her ear... "You're a good girl. You're a good girl. You're a good girl."

And she always made me feel better, right up until they day she left.

Goodbye good girl.

The Secret to Installing Storm Windows

As most of you know, I'm really quite talented and handy around the house. Hence, the extension cord dangling from the ceiling of our garage and my preference for whacking nails with the blunt end of an orange electric screwdriver.

So naturally putting up four new storm windows was no big deal for me. 

First, before you order the storm windows, you gotta make sure you measure the window frame correctly. Then, after you receive the storm windows and discover that you didn't measure the frames correctly, you gotta trim the edges of the storm windows and force them into place. I like to use old crusty pliers to trim the edges of the metal storm windows. This way, you end up with storm windows that look like they have decorative jagged teeth. And of course the best way to force the storm window into place is with the blunt end of an orange electric screwdriver.

Next, use the other end of the orange electric screwdriver to screw in most of the screws that came with the windows. If only half of them make it into the wood, that's okay, the windows can handle it. That's why they're called storm windows.

Now comes the tricky part. The glass on the top part will want to keep slamming down to the bottom due to gravity. So you gotta squeeze those Alcatraz things in with your fingers and try to raise it back up to the top. But you have to be really careful when you get it to the top. If you make any sudden or wrong movements, the glass will fall quickly back to the bottom of the frame. But if you try again and again and again over a period of, say, 5 hours, eventually it'll stay in place. Then, you gotta hope and pray that nothing catastrophic touches the storm window, like rain drops. If that happens, the glass at the top will come falling back down.

Also, if you want to adjust the glass in the bottom half so that you can let fresh air come through the screen, don't even think about trying it. There's no way to do it. Believe me I've tried. Even if you wedge the orange electric screwdriver under the glass at the bottom and then climb on top of the stepladder to pull the bottom glass up to the top, it won't work. Because as soon as you breathe or make any kind of vibration, the glass at the top will come back down again.

I told you it was tricky. And that's why you need to know the secret to installing storm windows.

Wanna know what it is?

Here you go.

Make sure you don't put them in upside down.

Thought you'd like to know that, just in case you make a big mistake and buy storm windows some day.

And now something that has nothing to do with storm windows. Here's a new video of my performance on a TV show called "Who's Laughing Now?" Actually it's a 4-minute interview followed by a 6-minute performance.

 

Stand-Up: How I Started... And the George Carlin Connection

When people find out that I do stand-up comedy, the first thing they usually ask me is, "What's wrong with your face? Has it always been like that?"

And the second thing they ask me is, "How did you get started?"

Today I'm gonna answer the second thing, and then whenever someone asks me that question in the future, I'll just hand them a slip of paper with this URL on it so that I don't have to talk to them.

As with most comedians, the seed was planted early. When I was a little kid, I used to kill a lot of time listening to the modest collection of vinyl albums that my family had stored in a wooden record thingy in our tiny dining room. Why were the albums and the record player located in the dining room? Probably for the same reason my mom used to give perms in the kitchen.

It was in that tiny dining room where I first realized my mom was a little nuts because she had some Slim Whitman and Boxcar Willie records and she wasn't ashamed of them. These weirdo records were mixed in with other records that belonged to my brothers. It wasn't their music albums that I was really drawn to; it was the comedy albums. There weren't a lot a lot of them, but enough to get me hooked. Bill Cosby, Cheech & Chong, George Carlin. Those are the albums that I listened to over and over until I could recite them from memory.

The Bill Cosby albums were amazing... Cosby making the sound of a Cessna engine in a car for a driving test... Noah building his ark in a guy's driveway... The coin flip at a football game, turning into a coin flip between General Custer and the Indians... Everything was hilarious no matter how many times I heard it. And I didn't have to worry about my parents knowing I was listening to it.

Cheech & Chong were so funny and unique, exposing me to an entire world of weed and cholos that I never would have known about unless Carlos Mencia had been around at that time to steal their material... Forgetting about the guys in their trunk at the drive-in... Earache my eye... Dave's not here... No way in hell would my dad want me listening to it. But I did. And early in my comedy career I actually had the opportunity to open for Tommy Chong, which was surreal. To perform with and introduce the guy who was the voice of Blind Melon Chitlin that I used to listen to in our dining room was both exciting and weird, kind of like when you're just sure that you're all out of peanut butter but then you look in the pantry and there's a new bottle. Exciting and weird, just like that. 

But for me, George Carlin was the guy. He's the one I identified with most... Catholic kids listening to each other's confessions and assigning penance... Class clown... And of course, seven words you can never say on television... That's one that I definitely would never have been allowed to listen to without being executed by my dad with a belt. 

Maybe my dad never knew about the Cheech & Chong and George Carlin albums, or what was on them. Because I can't imagine him allowing me to even be in the same house with them. But there they were, and I listened to all of them, time and time again.

If my dad was in the house at the same time, here's what I would do... I would put on a George Carlin record and turn the volume way down, so that I had to put my ear up next to the speaker. And I would sit there with the Bill Cosby album on my lap, in case he came in and asked me what I was listening to. A plan so brilliantly retarded that it always worked.

So the seed was there very early, but I could never imagine that one could actually "choose" stand-up comedy as a career path. And besides, I was too much of a coward to even entertain the idea. I was destined to make safe choices for awhile.

I would say that my first real experience with writing and performing original comedy material came in college, even though you couldn't really call it stand-up comedy. A small radio station in my hometown had a segment each afternoon where one DJ would watch "Days of Our Lives" and then call the on-air DJ to give his report and make fun of the show. One day the first DJ left the station, but they wanted to keep that segment going, so they openly asked the audience for a volunteer to be a replacement. And I was just stupid enough to respond. So for a few months, I would skip class, watch "Days of Our Lives," write smart ass material making fun of the show and its characters, and call the DJ to give my on-air report. The segments never lasted more than 5 or 10 minutes, but what a rush. The whole idea was so stupid that it was actually a lot of fun. And I can remember moments when both the DJ and I were laughing so hard on-air at the stupidity of it all that neither one of us could talk for large chunks of time. The segment was a hit with the audience, which probably consisted of tens of people. But after awhile, the coward in me emerged, and afraid of failing the class that I had been skipping, I quit the segment and returned to class to salvage my grade.

In a profession where most successful comedians begin in their teens or early 20s and it takes years and years to find your voice, I was a dinosaur by comparison when I started. I was about 30. The idea had been messing with my mind for 20 years, and I finally got to a point where I had to at least try it or I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

But how do you start? I didn't have the first clue.

At the time I was living in St. Louis, so I got out a phone book and found a Funny Bone comedy club listed. You wouldn't believe the amount of nerve I had to gather just to call the phone number just to ask my dumb question. But finally I did.

"Funny Bone."

"Yeah, uh, so, uh, if a guy... uh... let's say that... uh... Okay. Um, so, yeah, new comedians... So what I wanted to know..."

"Open mic is on Tuesday nights. Call the Sunday before to sign up." Click.

I didn't know what the hell an open mic was. And this was in the days before Google, so I had to really do my homework to figure it out.

Even after I discovered what an open mic was, I still didn't call back for a long time. That's not my personality. I'm not one of those guys that just drinks a bunch of whiskey or smokes a bunch of pot and then goes on stage to act like an ass. And yes, believe me, there are people who do it that way. Years later I found out that my personality actually was a lot like George Carlin's in terms of preparation. I had to write and re-write and re-write and re-write and prepare and re-write, and then I was ready to begin just thinking about getting on stage with the material.

After several weeks I had my material all written and ready to go.

I picked up the phone. I signed up for the next open mic.

On the night of the show I grabbed my horrible material and left for the club with my wife Jodi and my little brother.

My stomach was in knots all day, and I ran through the material in my act over and over and over. Every time someone tried to talk to me that day, they interrupted my thought process and I wanted to kill them.

While Jodi and my brother sat in the audience with the other five or six people, I stayed in the back of the room to stand with the other open mic comedians. And like most open mics I would do over the next several years, we comedians would easily outnumber the audience. But a brand new comedian doesn't think, "This sucks!" A brand new comedian thinks, "People! People are here! This is so awesome!"

A local headliner with a mustache gathered all of us "comedians" into a huddle in the back of the room and explained that we each had 5 minutes on stage. And when we had a minute left, he would shine a flashlight for us to let us know we needed to wrap it up and get off stage. Later I was to find out that going over your time on stage (especially if you are an open mic comedian) is one of the worst things you can do. In civilian terms, it's like stalking and raping an entire preschool. It's that bad.

The show started, and I watched a few of the others take their turn on stage. But I couldn't really concentrate on their acts, because I was far too busy running my material through my head for the billionth time.

Finally it was my turn. The mustached host guy didn't know my last name, so he just introduced me as Paul, which sounded really lame. "And now, coming to the stage... Paul!"

I ran to the stage. That's right. I ran... I ran to the stage. What can I say? I was nervous. I ran to the stage.

Later, after the show, when Jodi was assuring me that I did just fine despite the long periods of silence from the "crowd," she said to me, "Yeah, you know that part where you ran to the stage at the beginning?"

"Uh huh."

"Yeah... Don't do that again."

Once I was on stage, I fumbled with the microphone and began racing through my script. I don't even remember any of the material. I think part of it had to do with politics and part of it had to do with names for hurricanes. But what I do remember is the silence coming back at me.

Except for one small part. There was one line where I received an actual laugh from the people in the audience. It didn't last long, but it was a laugh. A bona fide laugh. In retrospect it was pretty similar to my wedding night.

And that laugh is to blame. That laugh is the thing that hooked me and kept me coming back to the next open mic, and then the next one, and then to the next one...

After I had been on stage for four minutes, I saw the light from the back of the room. But I still had about three minutes of material left in my script. So what did I do? That's right, I started to talk really fast. And the closer I came to the end, the faster I talked. Eventually the guy with the mustache was jumping around in the back, trying to get me to shut up and leave the stage. But I wasn't to the end of the script. So I talked really really really fast. Until I was finished. 

Not exactly a performance worthy of Carnegie Hall, but I had that one laugh to occupy my brain for awhile. 

Fast forward several years to a few weeks ago. Earlier this month I performed several shows over a weekend in Indianapolis. The guy performing with me was Dennis Blair. You might not know him, but he's a fantastic comedian. Great musician. And for 18 years he was the opener for someone named George Carlin. 

And Dennis was kind enough to share many behind-the-scenes George Carlin stories with me. Not big things. Little things. The details. The kind of things that make you feel like you almost knew the man. And it reminded me of those long days back in our tiny dining room, with my ear up next to the speaker, and why I started doing all of this nonsense in the first place.

Our Long National Nightmare Has Ended!

Yes indeed, our long national nightmare has ended!

I just received confirmation that our house is now officially sold! Escrow or escargo or whatever it's called is finished! The house is no longer ours! We're done! D-O-N-E! DONE!!! PRAISE GOD! PRAISE BUDDHA! PRAISE MOHAMMED! PRAISE DAVID KORESH! PRAISE ELRON HUBBARD! PRAISE LYNYRD SKYNRD! DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?!! YES!!! DOWN GOES FRAZIER! DOWN GOES FRAZIER! HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL! GLENN BECK IS A RETARD! GLENN BECK IS A RETARD! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! 

I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE SAYS, I'M GONNA KEEP USING ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION MARKS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY!!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS DAY FINALLY CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M SO HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M GONNA GO BUY SOME SKITTLES AND DR. PEPPER IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOW ALL WE NEED TO DO IS SELL OUR OTHER HOUSE!.................................

SHIT!

If Charles Manson Was On Facebook

I bet if Twitter and Facebook had been around 40 or 45 years ago, Charles Manson would have been all over it. He just seems like the kind of guy who would always be on there, don't ya think? I think he'd be like Chad Ochocinco...

"Charles Manson is now friends with Sharon Tate and 8 other people."

"Just smeared peanut butter on my body and killed a guy with an iPod. LOL."

"Charles Manson was tagged in an album -- High School Memories"

"Just watched The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Boy did that suck ass."

"Anybody know of a good tattoo artist? I got an idea."

"Charles Manson likes Clay Aiken and Glenn Beck's Tardapalooza."

"Charles Manson just planted onions and needs a shovel to bury a body in Farmville."

"Charles Manson is single."

"Nuts! It's only Monday! I need it to be the weekend now!!! Who wants to go hot tubbin'?"

"Charles Manson just wrote some jibberish on the wall using pig blood in Mafia Wars."

"Busy day ahead! Gotta brainwash two loads, then go to two meetings, then lunch, then church, then a human sacrifice, then I gotta drive everyone to soccer practice! I need some ME time!! Calgon take me away!"

I'm just sayin'...