Thursday, December 29, 2005  

A Very Dysentery Christmas

At about 8:00 pm on Christmas Eve, Jude looked up from the fourth straight viewing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, turned to face us, and with a yelp, vomited about a gallon of hot milky puke all over me and my wife.

The holiday only got worse from there.

Sixteen hours later, my wife was announcing that she was going to be taking a nap on the bathroom floor, and the only emotion it evoked in me was a faint twinge of jealousy, because that tile looked oh so nice and cold.

And the holiday only got worse from there.

I can now report that contrary to my own assumptions, every year's episode of ER where people dress up in Santa hats and bake cookies and walk the hospital caroling is not entirely inaccurate, because the good folks at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Medford, Massachusetts, do exactly the same thing. I can report this because that's where we spent Christmas night after my wife passed out from puking and knocked the sink off kilter.

It's not the first Christmas I've had where someone passed out. It is, however, the first Christmas where it wasn't me.

Camden, of course, was fine the whole time, because he got his flu shot. He got his flu shot because he's a baby, and babies get priority and because we're apparently no longer a first world nation that can make enough medicine for all its citizens. Of course, we don't seem to ever run out of prozac or viagra, but then again, who I am to stand in the way of boners and smiles?

But I digress.

The kids, for their part, had a great holiday, devoid as it was of any parental supervision whatsoever. As I was lying on the couch, praying for swift yuletide death, Camden waddled by with a steak knife in each hand. I lifted my head shakily and murmured, "Merry Christmas, buddy. Merry Christmas." Then the world spun and I had to close my eyes. Just the knowledge that there was CREAMY EGG NOG IN THE FRIDGE made me want to hurl, purge, and die. We've been pretty lucky with illness, but this time, illness won by KO, while the flu galloped through our house like a band of whooping Sioux.

By Monday, we were all on the mend. By Monday night, everyone's presents were opened and it even felt a little like Christmas.

And then on Tuesday, Cam sprained his ankle.

Tonight, I'm at Steve Sweeney's Comedy Cafe at Jae's Asian Grill at 711 Boylston Street in Boston. Showtime's 9:30. It's my first time at this new club, and I gotta say, I'm pretty excited to be working a room where the likelihood of seeing NASCAR jerseys is less than 2 percent.

Merry

Typical, isn't it?

Almost two months since I last posted anything. We've gone from gentle autumn to hellcold winter, and you haven't heard a peep from me. Not a word. Not a sound. I post a (goddamn brilliant) story about going to LA, and then disappear. DON'T I KNOW YOU WORRY?

I haven't said anything, you see, because there's been nothing to say. I write when I either have a show I want people to see (rare) or a story I want people to hear (much more likely), and lately, I haven't had any of either. Tap city. A drought. It's been tumbleweeds blowing across hard, cracked earth while I grind away at meaningless gigs for (frankly) insulting money. I've been doing the comedy equivalent of paperwork - dull, neverending, pointless. A dozen shows in grey and faceless towns across New England. Legion Halls in Connecticut, function rooms in Maine. Punch the clock, say the words, and drive home wishing you'd paid the extra two hundred bucks for a CD player, because not even AM radio is good anymore.

These have not been bad shows. They've been fine. Funny, even. Occasionally fun to do. But never interesting. The only shows I promote to you, the poor empty-eyed saps who read these noodlings, are the ones that are going to be spectacular - good or bad. I want you to either see the really great shit or hear what happened when it all went bad. There's a lot of middle ground there, though, where it's all just fine. Decent. All right. Who gives a fuck about all right? Not me, and I know not you.

But I have not been idle, my friends. My second comedy CD, Scatterbrain, is all but finished, and is only missing a little cover art before it goes to the manufacturer. I'll miss the Christmas rush (I like to tell myself there would have been a Christmas rush), but it will be available soon enough. It's very different from the last one, and, I must say, much, much better - or at least more honest. Don't worry - you'll get a preview long before anyone else can hear it. In the meantime, I've made Poor Impulse Control available for free download on the website (http://www.reverendtim.com). Come and get it. If you want to toss me a couple of bucks, go ahead, but you're under no obligation to do so.

So you probably won't hear from me again until 2006 when I'm pimping the new record and (hopefully) some shows that will either be really funny or really horrible. Until then, it's back to the grind and time to hunker down against the snowstorms. I've got a bottle of Old Overholt and a shitload of Uncle Tupelo records to keep me company this year, along with Clan McIntire, who grow bolder and cuter every day. I have not successfully tricked them into a trip back West, but I am working on it, because the need to listen to good rock music in the harsh desert sun is getting overwhelming, and I have always known that the ONLY thing I am qualified to teach my children is how to take a proper American road trip. I might be running out of adventures, but they've still got plenty ahead of them, and I figure it's my job to help them hit the road and find them.

And if that's not the Christmas spirit, I don't fucking know what is. See you next year.