Baby Got Book

You are welcome.

Good Business

-The blogs have been coming slowly. My badsies. No time lately. Way behind. I'm going to do a full, legit blog here. Expect another power blog in the next couple days.

I was in Seattle and Portland for a few days of shows last week, as well as a few days of hangout sessions with Andy Haynes (Yes, the Andy Haynes from my links page). On day two, we got up and had breakfast. After breakfast, we had no plans until a show that night. So Andy walked up to me and said, "Hey, want to drive into the mountains and get into a giant hot tub?" My response was, "That sounds really gay. But yeah. Let's do it." I won't go into details right now. However, I will say that the day included espresso and Hans Blix. Seriously. The real Hans Blix. I will post a photo diary of the day soon, once it is published. Stanley Dirkson is writing about the day for the newest issue of Seattle Friendship Magazine, in the Lazy Thursday's section. Be on the lookout.

-I recently met the smelliest person I've ever been around. He stunk so badly that he clouded my judgment. This prompted me to sincerely ask one of his friends if he "keeps shit in his pockets, or if he's made out of assholes?" Neither are the case.

-I had a show a couple hours from Chicago last week. Had to rent a car for the trip. Once again, I rented the cheapest available and was upgraded for free. This streak is at about 15 cars now. I rented a Kia, and got a Prius. That's like getting a promotion when you thought you were going to get fired. Lesson: Always rent cheap cars.

I forgot to bring CDs for the ride. Instead, I scoured the radio. Listened to Bush's press conference for about 40 minutes. Two questions: 1. How can he still not say "nuclear"? It's a really easy word to say. New-clear. It's easier to say and sounds better than "New-cu-lar." And he's an adult. So, why does he still say it incorrectly? If you can't pronounce a word that you have to say on a regular basis at your job, you should automatically lose that job. Scandals aside, shouldn't that be enough for impeachment? New grounds for impeachment: Treason, Perjury, Talking like a moron... Question/Actually a Statement #2: The president used the phrase, "This ain't my first rodeo." The problem wasn't that it's not a presidential phrase, which it isn't. The problem was that he used it in a context that made no sense. The press corps is so desensitized to this kind of thing that they weren't even phased. I don't remember the exact question, but it was equivalent to someone asking you, "Are you going to get gas before you get on the highway?" This ain't my first rodeo. "I'll take that as a maybe."

14 months left. If you're thinking about who to vote for in the primaries, before you even look at anyone's politics, be cognizant of the fact that Fred Thompson may be a worse speaker than Bush. Do we need four more years of the world thinking we're illiterate?

-I was carded at a bar. The bouncer looked at my ID, then looked at me. Then looked at the ID again. Then he said, "Look at you. You have old eyes. I thought you were younger than that." I have no idea of what this could mean. Not even a guess. I have "old eyes," but he thought I was younger than my ID says, or my eyes suggest? There's a lot of contradiction there. I don't get it at all.

-My show in Illinois last week was at Eureka College, in Eureka, IL. It was a nice little town, a fun school with cool students, and a great show. Now that the pleasantries are out of the way...

Ronald Reagan went to this school. I know this, because there were signs that let me know this posted at 15 feet intervals. I'm sure it's a good school. And I'm not an elitist in any way, especially when it comes to education. But I don't think a president should be able to go to a college that only 700 people have heard of. I don't think they should have to go to an Ivy League school, but maybe Stanford, UVA, Michigan, UT-Austin, UW-Madison, UC-Anywhere, UNC. Not a small liberal arts school. That's all I have to say about that.

My favorite part about my trip to Eureka was the conversations with students after the show. A guy named MJ, came up to me. He had a twang in his voice. It didn't sound southern though. It was a hybrid accent that I had never heard, but it sounded cool. I thought he said, "Hey man. You rocked my socks off, for real."

So, I said, "What was that? I didn't hear you."

He repeated it. Sure enough, he said, "Hey man. You rocked my socks off for real." And this time, he followed it up with, "Good business." Recap: "Hey man. You rocked my socks off, for real. Good business. Good business." That is the best compliment anyone has ever paid me. Actually, second best. One time, my mom said, "Don't worry, all the cool kids will work for you one day." That makes a kid feel great, especially when it's preface with "Don't worry." Anyway, MJ's compliment will be on every flier for every show I ever do ever from now on, ever, forever, ever. I don't know how he's created his own vernacular, but I salute him for it. Good business, MJ. You're going in my Top 8.

While in the lobby, after the show, I saw a guy wearing a Manchester United jersey. He was standing in front of me, so I asked, "Man-U fan?" He said yes and asked if I am. I told him, "No, but I like watching them." I asked if he plays for the school team and where he's from. He's from Trinidad and he plays for the team. Then there was a brief silence, which he interrupted by stating, "Your head looks huge on stage."

I asked, "What?"

"Yeah. I don't know what it is, if it's the light or something. But your head looked huge when you were on stage."

"Thanks," sarcastically.

"It looks normal now. But when you were performing, I kept thinking..."

"Maybe you had my hair mixed up with my actual head?"

"No. It's the head itself."

"Alright. Nice meeting you."

Sports

I'm in DC for a few days, as I am currently homeless. Not homeless in a sad, hobo way. Just in a transition.

Yesterday, my dreams came true, as I was able to see three youth sports games in one night. That sentence contained facts and sarcasm. I'll let you sort them out.

I have two brothers in the 6th grade. One plays for his school's soccer team, the other plays football. My 9th grade brother plays JV football.

First was the soccer game. Nothing really interesting happened at the game itself. I felt slightly uncomfortable when I was there until my step-dad arrived. Reason: I was at a middle-school soccer game by myself. I'm clearly too young to have a child in the game. And I look too old to have a brother in middle-school. So, I just looked like a creepy guy.

When I was leaving, I crossed paths with someone I went to high school with. We made eye-contact. I pretended not to recognize her. Social butterfly. I plan on going to my 10-year high school reunion next year to see if I can have an awkward exchange with every single person. After justifying this girl's decision not to befriend me in high school, I walked toward my car. A group of middle-schoolers walked up to me, in a Clockwork Orange kind of way. They asked, "Hey, can we have a dollar?" No, you can't have a dollar. Then there was a pause. "How about five dollars?" Umm... no. They thought the issue with the dollar was the denomination, not the fact that they are in middle school and begging for money.

Next was the middle school football game. My brother on this team is actually a good soccer goalkeeper. However, he's decided to take a year off of soccer to play football and basketball, I think because he sees those sports as being cooler. I prefer soccer, but he is correct.

As I said, my brother is a goalkeeper, but not what you'd picture as a goalkeeper. He doesn't look athletic at all. He loves cake and you can tell by looking at him. Still, as a soccer player, you'd think he couldn't play on the line in football, especially as a 6th grader, playing on an undefeated team. However, he plays center. Center is supposed to be the biggest, strongest guy on the team. He's one of the smallest and he cries. Often. Somehow he's good at center though. No one got by him. Then on what ended up being the last play of the game, the coach put him at defensive tackle. It was his first defensive play ever. There was probably about five minutes left in the game. Last play of the game, with 5 minutes left? How? Continue reading. The other team ran a sweep to the right. Three defenders were ready for him. One was my brother, who slid off the line and was running at the ball carrier at full-speed, which isn't very fast. Then I started watching like it was an NFL game, thinking, "Oh, this guy is about to get lit up," not thinking that they are kids. My brother flattened the kid. Then the kid lay on the field motionless, then started twitching. On my brother's first defensive play, he gave someone a concussion. The ref called the game right there. No whistle or anything. We were watching in the stands. All of a sudden, the teams quietly lined up to shake hands. Everyone except the kid who had been knocked out. I rejoiced in the fact that I never played football as a kid. Some things are best for watching.

Then I went to my brother's JV game. He's a running back on an undefeated team. As a freshman on a team of all sophomores and juniors, he gets few carries. So, I spent the game watching him pace the sidelines and yell during every play. He was loud enough that the entire stadium could hear him.

The only noteworthy thing at this game was an addition to my first-100-hours agenda, if I'm ever president. First on this agenda would be banning cheap toilet paper. There's no need for it. Why is it okay to sell uncomfortable toilet paper? I don't understand why people accept this. Second on the list would be to ban cheerleaders. They can still exist. But they can't talk. My favorite cheers from yesterday were, "Come on defense. Get the ball back... for the offense." My mom responded, "Hmm, that's catchy." My personal favorite was when it was it was 4th and 24 from their own 9, and they were yelling, "Touchdown, touchdown. Let's get a touchdown. Touchdown, touchdown. What do we want? A touchdown."

Clip for Norway's version of The Daily Show

Great Christopher Hitchens' Article from Vanity Fair

Read this.

NEW CE SONG. and other things.

-The latest Crucial Element track is now available here. It's called "Hos Run in Packs (They Run in Packs)," and its the best CE track by far. This is the "radio" release. We'll be releasing the "Album Version" soon on our myspace page. It contains an additional interlude. Yes, "additional" does imply that it already contains at least one interlude. Who knows, maybe more. Listen to the end. Every second.

-CBS still airs Big Brother, a show which I thought lasted one season about 10 years ago. Apparently it's at least slightly popular. Popular enough to have a supplementary show on Showtime, called "Big Brother... After Dark." When I see those words, I think along the lines of "Springer: Too Hot for TV." Something filthy. Not the case here. Al and I watched for about 20 minutes recently. It was a live feed of a woman painting her toenails. That's it. That's the entire show. They just show whatever is happening at the house at that time, regardless of what it is. I highly recommend this show if you're into horrible things. It's impossible not to laugh hard when you see that things like this are on "premium channels."

-Friday night, I did my second show this year at a venue called Toquet Hall, which is in Westport, CT. It was awesome. I did 1:15 and felt like doing another 30. Small, but great crowd. Matt Mayer came with me to do 10 minutes to open. In addition to Matt, the venue booked a couple students to go up before him. First was a guy named Nate. He was naturally very funny, and has a ton of potential. The second guy... and I'm only saying this to give advice to guys who are just starting out... Humility is important. Don't do the following things if you're a new comic and were booked on a legit show: 1) Talk to the other comics as if you're too good to be on the show. 2) Ask the other comics how much they're getting paid. 3) Walk by the stage to leave during the next comic's set.

-Nimbus makes a bad-ass toothbrush.

-Thursday afternoon, as I was writing the previous blog, I got a call, asking me to do another show that night. It was a cool show at Comix NY, called Dating It. The show has been featured at Montreal (Just For Laughs) for the past several years.

The show consists of 5 comics. Each does a 4 minute set. Then people from the crowd raise their hands to volunteer to go on a speed-date with the comic on stage. Sounds awkward at first. It was the opposite. Unawkwark. Non-awkward. Anti-awkward. Comfortable. Something. At the end of the speed-date, we were to check a yes or no on the back of an index card (Hello, elementary school) to determine whether the couple goes to the next round. The second round was similar to The Newlywed Game, with everyone getting the same questions, and the contest being whether or not your answer matches your partners.

I was up last, and had a ton of time to kill. And free beer to kill. I normally drink only water before performing. However, I feel like I can do four minutes even if I've been doing shots of Lysol. So, in the hour before I went up, I had a Stella, a Heineken and a Guinness. That's not much to most people. But for someone (me) who has roughly four alcoholic beverages per month, that's enough to make that someone (me) extremely limber (almost drunk).

We had to answer four questions for our intro.

Hometown: Woodbridge, VA

Turn-ons: Funny, smart and negative STD tests.

Turn-offs: Self-conscious, superficial people. I'm also not into cleft pallets or artificial limbs. But you never know.

What celebrities have you pleasured yourself too: None. I know my limits.

My set went well, as did all of the comics'. That's not what mattered though. The important thing was the speed-date. Going into it, I was slightly worried that there would be no volunteers to join me. I told the host, the very-funny Collette Something, to bring a guy on stage if no women volunteered. I couldn't promise that there would be a second date if a guy came on stage, but I'll talk to a dude for three minutes anytime. No problem.

The girl who came up was named Krista. She was cool and Asian. If my 11-year-old brother, Sam, saw her, he would have said, "Mmm... She's doing something right." He actually said that about Hillary Duff. It was the opposite of comfortable.

It was time for the three-minute date. I can't stress how limber three beers in an hour makes me. I pulled out my notebook, which I filled with date questions. Let's just cut to the transcript from here:

RC: I'm not really good with icebreakers, I guess. So, I'm just going to jump right in. Is that okay?

K: Sure.

RC: Do you support the War on Terror?

K: [laugh] No.

RC: Have you always hated freedom, or is this a recent thing? Okay, now we know you're a bad American. Let's move on...

Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

K: No.

[fist pound]

RC: Now you ask me a question.

K: Do you like baseball?

RC: [Notices her Yankees necklace] Hate it.

K: Would you talk to me while I'm watching it?

RC: Yes, I mean no. Hold on, should I?

K: No.

RC: No. And if you talk to me during a Bulls game, consider this thing over, [looks at her name written on the table], Krista.

Can you tell that I do 300 push-ups every day?

K: [laughs] No. Do you have a magnifying glass?

RC: Me either. Maybe it's my form or something. I figure it has to be technique-related. I feel like I do them. The results aren't very visible though. Maybe I should have someone watch my form.

You ask a question now.

K: Do you have a problem with lawyers?

RC: No. But way to throw that out there. Great question.

I've noticed that you don't have a glass eye. Do you have anything else that would bother me as much as a glass eye, such as a prosthetic limb? (No offense, Bryson.)

K: No. But I have two tattoos.

RC: That's fine. What are they?

K: A phoenix...

RC: A phoenix, like the bird?

K: No, the city.

RC: Good point

K: I have a map of Phoenix.

RC: Why a phoenix? I can't understand that? What does it symbolize. [In female voice] "Because I will rise again." What the fuck does that mean?

I think we should move on. Ask another question.

K: What's your favorite color?

RC: What? I don't have a favorite color.

K: How do you not have a favorite color?

RC: I'm a guy. No guy has a favorite color. We just accept that every color exists. We wear them and look at them on an as-needed basis.

Are you any good at Madden?

K: No.

RC: Hmmm... questionable.

K: Do you like dogs?

RC: Not really.

K: How about cats.

RC: No. This is going well. I mean, yes, I love cats.

How many pillows are on your bed?

K: Four.

RC: Not bad.

Bell rings. Date over.

I didn't get to one of my key questions: "Abortion, yea or nay? Cite examples."

All five couples checked yes for the second round. They asked all of us the same questions and we had to see if our answers matched. At this point, I may have been beyond limber. Not sure. I know I had a hard time understanding words.

Question #1

You want to put on some music to "set the mood." What do you play, Sinatra, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, or CATS?

I think Sinatra is great if you want to set the mood for dishwashing. Kanye West contains too many 80s samples to be considered even slightly sexual. CATS. And Arcade Fire sets the mood for buying a new Nintendo shirt that is four sizes too small, and complaining about corporate corruption. I still went with Arcade Fire because of the song "Tunnels." Krista went with Sinatra. What a whore. What a G-D whore.

Question #2

You decide to watch a porn together. Which is it? Debbie Does Dallas, Where the Boys Aren't, Chitty-Chitty Gang-Bang, or [Something about a tranny]?

My answer: Where the Boys Aren't, part 8. Shit. I just told on myself. I was in college.

Krista chose Debbie Does Dallas. I would have chosen that too, but I didn't know if we were referring to the original or the remake. I didn't want to ask., because I didn't want to tell on myself. Irony.

We got a couple right after this.

Question #5

[At this point, I didn't even know what was going on.]

In Superman, what does his penis do when he's around kryptonite?

I haven't seen the movies in a while, so I thought I forgot the answer. I didn't know we were supposed to make something up. Makes sense, as they probably wouldn't address that in a children's superhero story.

Most of the answers were along the lines of "See through vaginas." I thought they had seen the movie, which caused me to panic, thinking, "That makes sense!" But it was my turn and I had to tell them the answer on my card, which was, "Shit. He shits out of his dick. That's pretty super, right?" It got a big laugh, but I don't think it's in the movie.

Question #6/Challenge #1

Dance together. I forgot what song was playing. It was a common hip-hop song. I couldn't think of anything. Krista suggested we dance "middle-school style." That was the idea of the night. We practically stood still, my hands on her waist, hers on my shoulders, arms fully-extended. And we were talking loudly.

RC: What time is your mom picking you up?

K: 9:30.

RC: Mine is coming at 9:15. I guess you're going to have 15 minutes to yourself. [Insert nervous laugh.]

End of dance.

The crowd voted on the best dance. We won. That propelled us to the two-team final.

The final challenge, which I had to ask Collette to explain two or three times, due to my lack of understanding of words, was to act out the scene at the door at the end of our first date.

We stood there, looking around, nervously.

RC: So, umm, I had a really good time.

K: Me too.

RC. Haha, good. That's good.

K: Yeah.

RC: Umm... are your parents home?

K: Yeah. But they're cool.

RC: High-five!

We exchanged a high-five.

Game over. We won and walked away in opposite directions. Hooray and huzahh.