Detroit and Stuff

A couple appetizers...

-Next week, I'm shooting a pilot for NFL Network. It's a cool concept for a show. I'll post updates when I know something.

-I'm starting a podcast. We're recording the first one tomorrow. The goal is one per week, or every other week. I want to make sure none of the material is dated, so people can listen over and over. I'm not sure how we're going to distribute yet. Most-likely iTunes. Just subscribe and whenever a new one is complete, it will automatically download. Of course it would be free. The podcast will be hosted by myself and my roommate, Alan. Each show, we'll have one guest who will contribute. We aren't going to interview anyone. It's just going to be a structured conversation.

Over the weekend, I drove to Detroit. Why would I drive to Detroit? Because I booked a flight on a hunch. Let me explain. My agent told me he booked me at Oakland University. I thought, "Cool, I'm going to California." Then he told me it's in a suburb of Detroit called Rochester. I assumed he was misspoke and it was in Rochester, Minnesota. I did a Google search for Oakland University and still somehow concluded that it was in Minnesota. So, I booked the flight for Minneapolis.

Three days before the show, I was talking to Danny Rouhier. I told him I had a show at Oakland University, and said, "I thought it was in California," and was about to say, "But it's in Minnesota," but he cut me off, laughing, and said, "But you're going to Detroit." I got really quiet. After a couple seconds, he asked if I was still there. What do you mean, Detroit, I asked. That's where Oakland University is, he confirmed. Shit. He and I decided that Delta would probably switch my flight for $50. Wrong. $750. $750, on top of the $300 I had already paid. You know what that means? It's time to drive to Detroit.

I asked a few comics to open for me, all of whom couldn't come because they swore they had shows already booked, but I'm guessing the whole "Let's drive to Detroit!" offer threw them off a bit. I don't really care about having the crowd warmed up before I go on. I usually have openers just to help people out and give them stage time, and so I have someone to hang out with when I'm doing these shows. So, I opted to bring my roommate, Alan, instead. Alan doesn't do stand-up. Alan doesn't drive. Alan doesn't eat fruits, vegetables or condiments. So why did I bring him? Because he agreed to come. Kidding. I knew it would be fun. Plus, we're planning a trip where we drive West to London, and I wanted to experiment with having a passenger who doesn't drive before we head West to London.

Brief description of West to London from a 2007 blog entry:

It's an idea my friends Al, Jim and I came up with. We were watching Discovery's "Building the Ultimate," and it was about a bridge being built over the Bering Strait. Within 30 seconds of tuning in, I said, "Jim, let's drive to London. West to London." He was in. Al was in. We called Glen and Craig. They're in. I think we have a couple more as well. I don't remember who though. We're going to take three cars, like they did on sailing expeditions. We'll have a food car, a tool car, and a spice car. It will be a 90-day voyage (none of us like driving long distances without stopping). We will stop each night and take in a town (there has to be a less gay way to say that). The interesting plot points would include:

1. Spending 40 days in remotes areas means someone will die of a disease that will eventually be named after them.

2. Al only eats chicken breasts, burgers, fries, cheese pizza, and French bread. Therefore, he's not going to be able to eat from the time we reach Siberia until we get to Germany. That's dangerous. He also doesn't drive. That adds the element of "Why did they bring him along? What is he contributing? He must be great at conversation or something."

3. Finding roads in Siberia and Mongolia will be tough. There are less than 200 roads in all of Mongolia. We only need to find the one that will take us to the Mongolian BBQ.

4. Chances are, if we go anywhere near Albania, we will be kidnapped. That will get the State Department heavily involved. When was the last time the State Department got involved in your vacation to Ocean City?

5. We will probably run into a Chechen warlord. We can cross that off our To-Do Lists.

What we didn't realize at the time is that the episode on the Berring Strait Bridge was a show on theoretical engineering. There is no bridge. There will be no bridge. We cannot drive West to London. I think about this weekly.

Anyway, back to Detroit... Alan already wrote a recap, so I'll post his in italics and comment on it.

This weekend I rode with my roommate, comedian Ryan Conner to his show at Oakland University outside of Detroit. See the perks of being unemployed - I have the freedom to spend ten hours sitting in a Japanese made sedan hurtling towards the epicenter of the rust belt economic collapse.

The car is Korean, not Japanese. Right off the bat, Alan is spreading lies.

- We left Friday morning at 7:30. Upon pulling out of the parking spot, Ryan warned me: I have a sore hamstring, so don't be alarmed if you see me stretching awkwardly to relieve the pain; also, the soreness extends to my right buttock and we might have to make frequent stops so I can apply balm lotion to my ass. I was the Virgil to his Dante, and we had entered the first concentric circle of hell.

Seriously, my right hamstring has been killing me since November. I need an MRI, but don't have insurance. And the cream is an arthritis cream that I was prescribed for an arthritic sternum a few years ago. It was a misdiagnosis (the arthritis turned out to be awesomeness that was trying to escape through my chest), but that cream is the shit. For about 18 hours, it will make your leg burn so badly that you forget it hurts. And it works in waves, which is a lot of fun. I was on stage, with about 20 minutes left in my set. All of a sudden, my ass felt like someone was flambeing it.

- Ryan's GPS advised us to dive right into downtown Newark morning rush traffic. Machines can't yet replace the human eye. When it comes to getting directions, I still trust more a gas station attendant whose English vocabulary is more limited than the words on a Twinkies wrapper.

I just want to add that I have the worst GPS in the world. It's a Navigon, the Radio Shack house brand. I know, only buy batteries and wires from Radio Shack. But this GPS has all the bells and whistles. It really does. The problem is that it gives terrible directions. It once sent me on a 35 minute route to get a haircut. Once I got there, I realized it was about four miles from where I started. Also, the voice of the GPS sounds like a German tranny with a speech impediment.

- Stopped at an Arby's in central Pennsylvania, one of those isolated, homogeneously white towns where I feel especially welcome and remember fondly all the times I've been warned that I have a "Jewish look." Ten minutes earlier I was explaining to Ryan how my mother country Croatia collaborated with the Nazis to run concentration camps. I ordered two small roast beef sandwiches and some curly fries.

True.

- Ryan and I held a conference call with comedian Jon Mumma. Each of us had an ear piece tethered to the phone, and I kept having to lean in towards the microphone on Ryan's neck to talk, and the only way I could stay comfortable was to stretch my arm across the upper back of his seat. The passengers in the car ahead of us kept looking back, seeing my positioning and proximity to Ryan, seeing me smiling widely from the conversation and wondering just when I was going to go down all the way.

Also, I was holding the phone out over Alan's lap, because I was already leaning toward him and needed to put my arm somewhere. So, to other drivers, Alan was sniffing my neck, while I gave him a manual.

- We saw a sign outside of Detroit directing traffic to Fangboner Street. You know Fangboner Street, it's the road you take to reach Gnashedcock Avenue. This was the first time I ever saw a street sign that made me queasy. I can't wait to stumble onto that fetish the next time I'm wandering about porn sites. You win, Twillight readers, I'll submit to that skin bleaching session now.

What year was this street named? When was there ever a time that Fangboner wasn't a funny name for a street? I just can't imagine a planning meeting where someone suggested, "How about we name this one Fangboner?" and everyone said, "Outstanding name! Finally a tribute to the Fangboner clan of Westhampton!" They must go through three signs per day. We also saw a street called Big Beaver.

- Prior to the show we met my friend Erik from high school, whom I hadn't seen in almost twelve years since we graduated and he moved to Michigan. I never forget people who have had an impact on my life, and despite the gap in time within three seconds we were back to our old bantering rapport. We used to drive to and from school hollering to pedestrians random graphic phrases like butt sex and piss fetish. Erik's a cop now.

- I knew Ryan before he became a comedian, and it still amuses me to watch female groupies queue up to talk to him after shows. He's in a relationship, so these conversations with fans are purely professional, but still, I'm jealous. That doesn't happen to writers. I sit in my cramped bedroom and blog in my underwear and a stained wifebeater, and I type hoping all this will get me laid, and then I go fix some beef hot dogs and a scalding cup of chicken broth.

Re-read that first sentence. Yeah, son. Proof.

- Erik and I accompanied Ryan to dinner with the school's extracurricular activities committee and the student comic who hosted the event. I just turned thirty and I'm in a phase where I want to relate to college kids by giving them unsolicited advice. We went to a Mongolian barbecue buffet, and since I wasn't eating, I waited for everyone to return to the table. The jockish, glazed-eyed host sat down before the others, and I started talking to him. He told me he was an English major and twenty years old, and I jumped to tell him my background and how much he had to read Willa Cather novels. I kept eagerly suggesting we should exchange contact information, and before he left I cornered him and gave him my email. He didn't ask for mine, but I'm still really hoping he's into me.

This is the second reference to Mongolian BBQ in this entry. Impressive, I know.

- After the students left the three of us wandered to the bar and spent thirty minutes relaying bizarre medical stories, twenty minutes commiserating about my bad luck with women, and two minutes making fun of dead Estelle Getty.

We'll probably cover a few of the bizarre medical stories on the podcast. I also want to touch on Alan and Erick both knowing about pedophiles walking around with padlocks on their junk to stretch it, as well as info on re-creating foreskin, like they both subscribe to the same Dick News RSS feed. I'm still a little weirded about by this.

- On the return trip we cut across Canada, heading towards Niagra Falls. When we got there, it was thirty degrees outside, heavy rain with thirty mile winds. We spent just five miserable minutes there, and the scene did not provide the romantic moment we were hoping for. I had to settle for an ass balm session outside of Buffalo. I was the Beatrice to his Dante, and we had entered Paradiso.

Fact.

Check back here for info on the podcast and the Crucial Element series. It's finished. We're just figuring out what to do with it.