Saturday, January 17, 2004  

Urgent Plea for De-Assification

Hey, all...

I'm noodling with the site, but for me, "noodling" translates to "cutting html code from other sites and trying to figure out how to make it work." If some kind wandering web Samaritan wants to let me know why my style sheets look like ass in Mozilla/Netscape, I would be eternally grateful and would buy you a beer. Adam Pearlman, I'm looking in your direction.

Ice, Ice, Baby...

It's so cold here that they cancelled school because the OUTDOORS might KILL THE CHILDREN. Why in the fuck would people settle here? How bad must the King have been for the Pilgrims to stay here? I'm pretty sure I woulda been like, "Thanks for the pumpkin pie, but this SUCKS! You savages can freeze your balls off, I'm going home. The Church of England is oppressive, but at least it's fucking WARM."

Become the Media!!!

The digital revolution continues:

The Brand New Boston Comix Moblog

(P.S. I realize it may be a bit of an overstatement to call two grainy pictures of Sam Walters and myself a "revolution," but give me time to get some good stuff up there.)

I can't decide if I want to run it all myself or open it up to anyone in the Boston comedy scene with a futurephone. I think I'll err on the side of democracy and then slam the door shut later if it gets too stupid. I anticipate many shots of Chris Walsh's hog.

True Story

From a local comic comes this resounding endorsement of Poor Impulse Control:

"True story.

I was coming back to a funeral for a friend in Springfield, and got caught in a speed trap doing 85 on the Mass Pike.

The cop came up to my window and said "Sir, do you realize how fast you, oh, sorry father."

It took an extreme effort not to do a double take.

"Excuse me?", I replied, feigning nonchalance.

"Well, Father, I am sorry to have to pull you over but you were going a little fast there. It must have been those CDs you were listening to. "

I looked around, and realized. I was wearing a black suit, pants and shirt all black. I had the directions to the funeral folded on the seat next to me that looked from a distance a lot like a priest collar. On the seat next to the paper, was my CD player with three CDs in plain view.

One was the Reverend Horton Heat "Forgive the Sinners", but my CD player blocked it just right, so you could only see "The Reverend" and "Forgive the Sinners".

Next to that was the Cd of my friends punk band "Father Jack's Dilemna."

And there in plain view was The Reverend Tim McIntire "Poor Impulse Control".

I came back to my senses. "Yes, they are quite good for the mind and spirit."

"Ah, well, Father, just slow down okay. I won't ticket you, but take it easy."

"Thank you."

"That Reverend Tim McIntire, I never heard of him. Is he good?"

"He a Protestant, but he can really move a crowd." "


Thanks, JJ...you made my day!

Self-Indulgent Artistic Noodling - FAIR WARNING

I just had to get this out of my head. It's boring and not in the least funny...so skip it if you want to.

So I bagged the Studio on Thursdays, and already I can tell it was the right choice. I feel a little fire in the gut that I vaguely remember as being related to the creative impulse. It's good knowing that I'll have to get off my ass a little and ask people for stage time if I want to try something new. Not that I've wanted to try anything new for an awful long time, mind you. It really struck me today how apathetic I've become...not just in my writing, but about being a comic in general.

When you first start, EVERYTHING is grist for the mill. You're so excited to even be doing this stuff that you churn over every news story, scandal, family legend, stupid friend, drunken binge...all you want is material, and you can't write fast enough. Something like Schwartzeneggar getting elected is a gift from God, 5 pages of jokes, easy. Sure, they'd all blow, but you'd be on fire to write them, because you were finally a comedian, and that's what you want to DO.

Then you get some traction, some notoriety, and the impulse changes, but it's still strong. Now you have to get gigs, so you gotta kill. Or you get a following, and you want to keep them. Something happens, and you sit down at the computer or in the coffee shop, and your process is mature now. You don't bang out 5 pages of shit. You know your voice, so it's maybe 2 pages of decent stuff, lots of potential. You know that in a week, you'll have weeded out the crap jokes and you'll have a kickass new 3 minutes that you can't wait to tell. You hit open mikes you usually avoid because you're dying to try them out.

I am in such a different place now, and I don't know if it's a sign of artistic maturity or the begining of the end, but that impulse, that "shit, I gotta write about that" moment has all but disappeared on me. Everyone seems funnier than me these days. Hell, Dennis Kuchinich had a great line about the Bush administration going to Mars ("I see they're still looking for the weapons of mass destruction"). FUCKING DENNIS KUCHINICH is writing funnier stuff than me. Margaret Cho, who I personally consider to be about as funny as colo-rectal cancer, got off a couple of good ones at the MoveOn.org awards about the Bush/Hitler ads. I mean, there's national buzz about Bush being like Hitler, and it didn't even DAWN on me to try to write jokes. Ditto Bush going to Mars. I mean, I'm even supposedly a political comic, a satirist. But my muse is asleep at the wheel, man. I mean, I've gone through periods of writers block or a streak of bad shows, but at least I was actively engaged in being a comic. Maybe a shitty one at the time, but I was awake for what was going on. I heard Bush was going to announce a Mars expedition, and I muttered "what a dick." That's the sum total of my creative impulse. "What a dick."

My wife's ex-fiance writes comments in her LiveJournal that are fucking funny. Like really, really funny. And he's getting a masters in social work or something. Yet he's writing good stuff! Where the hell am I? I honestly don't know if I've just evolved artistically and am so wrapped up in being intimate that I no longer need stuff like the Mars mission to get me going or if I'm really in a downswing. I know I *can* write good jokes. Sometimes I even do, but man, I miss that drive, that irresistible urge to be the guy who has the great joke about something. Like I said, maybe this is what it's like to be a mature performer, but it sure feels like I've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Hardcore

I ran into Harvard Square to drop a book off to the buddy who loaned it to me, and lingered around the outdoor chess boards to see if I could peep any action for my newfound hobby. Nobody was playing (it's colder than Dick Cheney's heart out today), but there were some dudes hanging around that just LOOKED like chess masters. Heavy beards and crazy eyes...and one of them had a jailhouse tat of a Staunton Queen on the back of his hand. When spring springs, I believe I'm gonna go witness some hardcore chess throwdowns.

I'm Pathetic

While bored at work, I loaded up Blogger's random list of blogs, thinking I'd find something interesting to read. There was one called "Bam Diary." How sad is it that I sighed with disappointment when I found out it was about earthquake victims and not the guy from Jackass?

Crimefighters!

While walking to our car from Return of the King, I had to snap a picture of this window display:



Now THAT would be one hell of a crimefighting team! I also like how Lara Croft is giving Elvis a crusty because his suit is shinier than hers. How weird is it that you can buy cardboard standups of a dead rockstar, a busty movie character, and the actual president? How do the three of them end up getting made by the same people? It's like one of those Mensa games, where you have to find out the common thread that unites the set...

Return of the King

This weekend was our five-year wedding anniversary, so we dumped Jude with his auntie and lived like grownups. Saturday night was spent at an upscale "neo-Bosnian" restaurant, which was awesome, and then watching Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill (more on that in a different post). Sunday morning, we hoofed it to Liberty Tree Mall and finally saw Return of the King, which I loved. Each of the 14 endings was better than the last, and I never thought I'd see the day where I'd hear a mall theatre full of sniffles for dead hobbits.

We picked Jude up afterwards, and while Jeniphir put him to bed, I got absolutely raped by ChessMaster. I'm now its ChessBitch. I don't know that I'm ever going to get the hang of this goddamn game, but I'm still hanging in there.