Read this.

Interesting and sad article.

blog entry

-I went to Soho last night. The show sucked, but some non-show events were incredible. I read Chris Barylick's blog earlier in the day. This is the important part:

And now, the hair cut story:
I went home for the holidays as usual and hadn't had time to get a haircut. Long story short, it was looking a little shaggy. Not that this was the end of the world, but it could have arguably stood a trim. For the past decade or so, my dad's offered to cut my hair for free and I've never taken him up on this. Finally giving in out of curiosity and a desire to save $20, I caved in.

Sitting down topless in a kitchen chair with a towel over my shoulders, I let him take over.

When he came down, all he could find was a standard pair of paper scissors (not safety scissors, just the kind of scissors you find in a store and say "Hey, they're $3.29 and I need a pair of scissors") and a half-dull razor. What began next was him kind of trying to remember how to do this in sections (a person I once dated became a stylist down in Atlanta and explained this to me - some people really get into their education at the Revlon Institute and she was one of them), all the while avoiding the tight corners around the ears.

The razor was something else and this was essentially having strands of hair yanked out of your head. It's hard to say if anything improved by the end of it, but I'm going to offer the next SuperCuts employee I see their own pony and a handful of rubies. They deserve it.

And, for the record, Aloysius Snuffleupagus continues to rock with an intensity that perhaps trumps even Whitesnake at their peak.

That's a funny story. With a visual, that's a hilarious story. Here's a visual.

Just look at all that body. And oh what a mind too. Sorry ladies, but Chris “The Body” Barylick is taken.

-During Jay Hastings' set, he ended up talking to an 85-year-old man in the crowd. The old guy said that he cut a hole in his pants pockets so he can play “pocket pool.” I just found out that everyone but me knew that people did this, not only the act, but also calling it “pocket pool.” Anyway, we've established that this old guy is creepy.

During Sampson's set, he talked about some pretty nasty stuff that I would quote here, but I don't want the FBI tailing me. The old guy wasn't fazed by it though. Then Sampson said he went fishing in Miami and caught a Spanish guy. The old guy was walking toward the door during the joke. As soon as Sampson said “Spanish guy,” the old man stopped and turned slowly in a “so, you're the guy who's been shitting on my doorstep” kind of way, and said, with all the spite in the universe, “Why would you say that?” Then he stormed outside to smoke and put his hand in his pocket.

-In New Jersey, I saw two black guys riding in a replica of The General Lee, the car from The Dukes of Hazzard. You're not going to see that twice in a lifetime.

-I saw a couple minutes of an MTV show called The Hills. Apparently it's a Laguna Beach spin-off. And I'm told it's a reality show. I don't understand how they could be real people. They were idiots. They're underage and they went to a bar. One of the girls said, “This place has the best virgin margaritas.” A virgin margarita is just sour mix. What she's really saying is, “I love sour mix.” Then a girl showed up, and they didn't like her. So, one of them said, “She's got huge balls showing up here.” The other girl confirmed, “Yeah, huge, huge balls.” Most likely, the girl didn't have balls at all, but had a hankering for a little sour mix.

-Don't go to the McDonald's next to Grand Central Station after 11pm. If you do, they will not let you sit down. I don't know why, but they won't. The chairs are blocked off. You have to stand by the trashcans to eat. Don't do it. Seriously, don't.

-I'm sure you all know about my competitive eating team by now, The LTF Heritage Union. Not only can we eat massive amounts of food in an hour or less, but our name marks the first instance in American history that a group has had “heritage” and “union” in their name, while not being a hate group. We have a new member who can eat a pound of sugar in an hour. I think it may end up killing him. I'm serious. I see this leading to nothing but death.

A couple months ago, my friends Jim Luoma and John Lundy and I were at the Parsippany, NJ, Outback shutting it down at 11pm on a Monday night. They close at the start of the fourth quarter of Monday Night Football. Outback uses old cans of Fosters to hold up menus on their bars. These cans are many years old. So, I said, “John, I'll give you $20 if you can finish a can. 4 to 1 odds.” I said this with confidence, because my friend, Ryan, had already taken this bet and threw up after two sips. Then Jim said he'd put $20 on it too. John accepted the bet. He opened the can, and instantly the entire restaurant smelled like dog food, mixed with moonshine and piss. He tried to chug it, and got through about one fourth of the can. Then he moaned for about 20 minutes and tried it again. After 2 hours, and the payoff being upped to $50, plus his dinner and drinks, he finished the can, and was clearly very sick.

I was at his apartment a few days ago and saw some strange looking pills in his kitchen. I asked what they were. When he drank the beer, it killed all of the bacteria in his stomach, including the bacteria that you have to have in your stomach in order for it to carry out all of its stomach-related duties. So, now he has to take pills to put bacteria back in his stomach.

The End.

Best... Show... Ever...

I did a college show last week that was awful. I won't mention the name of the school, or where it was located, to prevent any backlash. I was actually excited about this show, up until about 5 minutes before it started. I was excited because when it was booked, I was told, “Now Ryan, I don't know if you want to do this or not. They're having a Yo' Mama contest, like the Mtv show, before the show. They'll want to you to judge that, then do your set.”

“Lock it in,” I said without hesitation. I thought it was going to be great, because I've seen the Mtv show, and it may be the worst show I've ever seen. So, I thought the college was in on the joke as well, and it was being done tongue-in-cheek. WRONG!

I got to the school, which was about 60 miles from civilization, an hour before the show was to start. I noticed one bad sign going in. It's a college, not a university. Why would a school not have a graduate program by now? If it's not an historical school like College of William and Mary or Wellesley, and it's not a university, chances are, something is severely wrong at the school.

The show was at a pub in the student union. When I got there, I checked out the pub on my own before checking in with anyone. People were playing pool and yelling at the balls. Not saying, “Come on,” under their breath. They were yelling things like, “Come on faggot! Get in the hole!” I always take things like that as a bad sign. I'm also re-watching OZ now, so I've been hearing that phrase a lot lately.

After checking in with the student activities girl, I asked her what most people at the school major in. Most schools that host comedy shows are either big universities that specialize in everything, liberal arts schools, or engineering schools. This school is a private school for hotel and resort management. Read that again. They're paying $100,000 for an education that will provide them with a job they could get by working at a hotel for a couple years and not being an idiot. It makes no sense. Hotel and resort management is only one and a half steps up from AC repair. It's a fine job, but you don't need to spend 100K on a degree in AC repair. Go to a regular school and major in English or business or something. That was bad sign number 3.

We were about 10 minutes from show time, when I was informed that the Yo' Mama contest may be canceled due to only having one contestant, which would mean that I would go up to a cold crowd. That was fine with me. A cold crowd is better than a crowd that has just laughed at Yo' Mama jokes for 30 minutes.

Standing outside the packed pub of about 80 people, about 2 minutes from show time, I could tell it wasn't going to be a good show. It looked like they were doing a reenactment of Roadhouse in the pub. That's never good. Then I heard a girl standing to my left shouting, “Because they whack bitches, that's why. They a bunch of whack bitches. They's scurred. They's scurred.” I deduced that she was the only contestant for the show. This was confirmed when she started throwing yo' mama jokes at passers-by, who had no idea what was going on. I have to admit she had a couple gems too. “Yo' mama's so stupid, she thought Rubber Maid was the girl yo' daddy has sex with in the daytime.” I think she's saying that someone's dad has a blowup doll or something. That's more of a yo' dad joke, if you ask me. Nevertheless, it's brilliant. But her best, and I think this should go in the next Bartlett's quote book, was “Yo' mama so fat, she has to wear an asteroid belt, as a belt, to keep her pants up.” Ooh, does that burn or what? The extra emphasis she puts on “as a belt” is what really hurt my feelings when I first heard it. “...She has to wear an asteroid belt...”

As what? How does she wear it?

“... As a belt!”

Of course! I was thinking she'd wear it as suspenders, or even a hat. But of course she'd wear it as a belt. After all, it's called an asteroid “belt.” That's why she's the comic genius, and I was 2 minutes away from bombing in front of a bunch of people who wanted to see someone git 'r done. I can imagine her writing process... “Yo' mama's so fat, she uses an asteroid belt to keep her pants up. No. It's missing something. What is it though? Oh, I know... a redundant subordinate clause. Let's throw in, “as a belt,” right after I say belt.” I bet that's what she's thinking.

Just before the show started, I was asked, “Do you want me to introduce you, or would you like to introduce yourself?” Seeing as how it would be impossible to introduce myself, I asked her to do it. Then she asked, “Do you have anything you want me to say, or should I just just do my regular spiel?”

Surprised, and thinking that she knew what she was doing, I said, “You can just do your regular thing and introduce me.”

“Anything in particular that you want me to say about you?”

“Just my name is fine... actually you can say “from XM Radio” too.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Fast-forward forty-five seconds. She's on stage. “Hey everyone. Welcome to Yo' Mama comedy night. Unfortunately the Yo' Mama contest has been canceled because we only have one contestant [boos rain down]. But we do have Ryan Conner, who's been on XNM. So, come on up.” And so I did. I came up to a cocktail of silence, indifference, conversation, and a smattering of boos. I pretty much bombed for forty-five minutes. I break my sets down into blocks of five jokes. One out of every five went over very well. Two got a lukewarm response. And the mic may as well have cut out for the other two.

My favorite moment of the night was when I did a joke in which I say the Contra code. It's funny because I'm saying it in a context outside of Contra. That's the joke. But a guy yelled out, “That's the Contra code,” as if I didn't know. He said it as if I threw out a random combination of Nintendo buttons, and accidentally spelled the Contra code. He said it as if he was thinking, “That code is already taken. You should pick something else. Contra uses that one.” The code is, Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left Right, B, A, Select(for two players), Start. What are the odds of anyone accidentally saying that? I think if you had an infinite amount of chimpanzees with an infinite amount of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, they would get the Contra code just before they finished the works of Shakespeare. And I'm sure if he read that, he would say, “Do any of the chimps own a Nintendo? Because that would probably help.”

I doubt anyone from that school would be reading this, but if you were one of the seven people who actually laughed throughout my set, thanks for doing so.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

No blog today... probably tomorrow. For today, just a book recommendation... "Why We Can't Wait," by Martin Luther King Jr. If you like to read, this is a great book.

Nanny O'Briens

The Washington City Paper published an article about the Nanny O'Briens' comedy show being cancelled. They interviewed me for it, and they took everything I said way out of context in the article. So, if any of you have read it, please know that my quotes do not represent my opinions of the place or the show.
The worst example was when they asked how much the show paid. I said, "You don't do shows like that to get paid. You do them to get better. But we'd usually get a free grilled-cheese and a beer. And if you hosted, you got paid, but not a lot." Of course the writer made it sound like I was complaining that we didn't get paid.
The only negative thing I said about the place was "There's so much reverb there that it sounds like you're performing at Madison Square Garden, when in reality, you're performing for 10 people at a shitty bar." But I don't even think that's negative. It's accurate. The reverb was ridiculous, but everyone was used to it. And it is a shitty bar/dive bar/hole-in-the-wall... whatever you want to call it.
The air has been cleared.

Snapper

-I want to note that the previous blog of bad songs on my iPod is not the list of the worst songs that I own. It's only the worst songs that I keep with me at all times. My computer has worse songs on it, including:

Hungry Eyes – Eric Carmen

Several Aerosmith songs

Roni – Bobby Brown

Special Delivery – G Dep

Rhinestone Cowboy – Glen Campbell

Pumps and a Bump – Hammer (Not M.C. Hammer)

Milkshake – Kelis

The Ketchup Song – Las Ketchup

Love is a Battlefield – Pat Benetar

-I get most of my good ideas when I'm falling asleep, driving or in the shower. All three are times in which I can't write them down. I get my worst ideas when I'm sleeping. I don't know if every comic does this, but at least once per week, I wake up thinking I had an amazing idea. I write it down. When I look at it the next day, I think that I must have had some form of short-term retardation when I wrote it. Here is last night's film idea, an idea that I think is my worst ever, as inspired from a dream. This is the exact text that I wrote down, in the format of a studio pitch, with the responses from the studio execs.

Me: We've seen tons of natural disaster movies, sci-fi predator movies, mob movies, and every other formulaic form of suspense that one could imagine. What have we not seen? A cougar with a vendetta... in the suburbs... A group of kids are playing badminton, when one looks over the hill and sees a cougar sprinting at them (Note: In my dream, the cougar was larger than a lion). One kid, who knows the cougar is after him, yells “Cougar!” and all the kids scatter into a house. Then a Cujo-like scene, with a twist of Lord of the Flies, ensues with the cougar trying to get the kids who are in the house. The movie will last a lot longer than Cujo though, because you can survive a lot longer in a house than in a car. So, the boys call the cops and tell them a cougar is trying to get them. The cops say, “What does the cougar look like?” They describe it, and tell him it's name is “Steve.” They know it's name is Steve because it can say its name.

Studio Exec: So, it's a talking cougar?

Me: Not really. It can only say its name. Back to the story...The cops say, “We can't kill Steve cougar. It saved a little boy who fell down a well in '87.”

Studio Exec: Is it the same boy it's now trying to kill?

Me: No, but I like that. I'm sure you're already into the story, but you haven't even heard the kicker yet. Here it is: The neighborhood in which this takes place is exactly like my grandma's old neighborhood, except, get this... there's an extra row of houses. [Then I nod my head as if to say, “Try turning this movie down.”]

What you just read was easily the worst idea I've ever had for anything. Once, while playing soccer, I decided to go for a ball that ended up causing me to break my arm in seven places. This was a worse idea.

There is so much wrong with it. First, cougars don't just seek people out and attack. Kids don't play badminton. Cops would shoot the cougar upon sight; cougars can't save boys from wells. If a cougar went down a well to save a boy, it would be stuck at the bottom of the well with the boy. I'm going to stop writing about this.

• I went to a Vietnamese wedding on Saturday. I have two Vietnamese brothers. And my family has sponsored the immigration of 4 or 5 Vietnamese families over the past 15 years. One of the families was my oldest Vietnamese brother's sister's family. That sounds confusing, but it makes sense. The wedding was for my niece, from that family. It was a lot of fun, but very different from American weddings. There were only three non-Vietnamese tables. Two were for members of my family. Sitting at my table was five of my brothers, a nephew, two nieces, and wives. My brothers and I are very competitive, and all are funny. Events...

• A band was playing what can only be described as “Vietnamese music.” If you've heard it, you know what I'm talking about. All the songs sounded exactly like “Black Magic Woman.” Because everything sounded the same, I thought it would be funny if one song started, and everyone in the room went crazy, like when James Brown would sing, 'Please, Please, Please.” No more than one minute after having this thought, it happened. It was a great moment. Then I discovered that the cheering that sounded like it was coming from the entire room was only coming from the table of my parents and younger brothers. Inappropriate.

• The dinner had ten courses, and I had to leave for about an hour to do a set at the Hyatt in Bethesda. I instructed my brothers to save some food for me. When I got back, my brother, Brent White (Not to be confused with White Brent... I have two brothers named Brent who are the same age. One is black and named, Brent White. The other is white and named, Brent Conner. Brent White. White Brent.) said, “Try the flat rice noodles. They're great.” I did and it tasted like a trash sandwich. Then everyone started laughing. They weren't rice noodles. They were shreds of jellyfish. Never eat food at a Vietnamese wedding unless a Vietnamese person tells you what you're eating.

• Note: I was once grounded for two weeks for saying, “Damn,” when I was in the 7^th grade.
  White Brent drank quite a bit of Cognac, and he isn't a drinker. Sitting next to my 11 year-old brother, Sam, he said, “What's up, Sam?” “Nothing,” Sam replied, “What's up with you?” “Dude, I'm so fucked up right now,” Brent shot back, topping my parents' and little brothers' previous random cheering for the most inappropriate moment of the night.

• My step-dad doesn't drink at all either. I've known him for 22 years, and have seen him drink less than ten alcoholic drinks in that time. For some reason, on this night, he had a six pack of Heineken, which prompted him to say, “We're going to have to go soon. I'm starting to understand what they're saying.”

• One song featured a random bird call sound. Bizarre.

• Vietnamese dancing is an exact replica of the way people dance when they're on E, except there's less sweating involved.

• One of the dinner courses was Red Snapper, which was great. It's served whole, with the eyes and everything intact. When it was placed on our table, its mouth was directly in front of me. So, naturally I said, “Brent [Conner], I'll pay you $5 to eat its teeth.” He laughed. But Sam, the 11 year-old, heard me. Not only will he do anything for money, but he'll also eat anything even if no money is involved. So, as if someone just offered a million dollars to eat a cupcake, he yelled, “Oh, I'll do it for $5... shoot...” We told him he has to eat the fish's whole mouth. He agreed. When we turned the fish toward him and he saw the fish's mouth, he got scared and started to walk away. Then White Brent said, “I'll put five on it too.” Somehow, word spread to my mom's table in about 0.3 seconds, and she came over with her camera. Brent White's phone has a video camera built in. Enjoy the video.

Short one

Blogger is messed up and won't let me publish anything. They're trying to figure out what the problem is. When it's fixed, I have a lot to write. I'd say give it a few days.
This article provides evidence that Justin Schlegel names all of the gangs in Edmonton. The gangs are called:
Alberta Warriors, Crazy Dragons, Crazy Dragon Killers, GTC (Get The Cash), Indian Posse, North End Jamaicans, Redd Alert, Southside Boys, West End Jamaicans and White Boy Posse