So, this is my first blog post in about three and a half years.  When looking back on where I left off, it is amazing how much can happen in such a short time.  Three and a half years, and my life is completely different.  I am still doing stand up gigs every once in a while, though not as often as I would like.  My time is filled something much more important to me… my two children.  Yes, I had 2 kids since my last blog post.  See, I told you that a lot has happened.  My daughter was born in April of 2007, and I just had a son 11 days ago.  So, as you can imagine, I don’t have as much time to devote to comedy.  I have been getting out every so often and traveling further to some of the gigs which is a lot of fun.  I don’t know if I could live in hotels for an extended period of time, but when I get to travel out near Pittsburgh and other cities, it can be little a little vacation that I make money on.  Not to shabby.

I have some great stories from the road that I want to write about on here so that I don’t forget about them, because they are funny and weird all at the same time.  Hopefully, I won’t let three and a half years go in between my next blog post.  Oh, you could be so lucky!

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Ok, I had to look it up online. The definition of a blog is “Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.” The last time I updated this was May. It is now December. I guess that I can’t really call this a blog if it is infrequently updated. It is more of a “It’s kinda fun to do this every once in a while, but then I forget about it for half a year then come back and try to be funny in it…log.” Ahh well, here it goes.

So yes, it has been a while. Let’s see, where did I end off last time. Oh, yes, talking about absolutely nothing. So why stop now? Over the summer I got kinda burned out with comedy. I played the same two rooms all summer long. The audiences never got above 15 people, and that was the good night. Good comedy needs a bigger audience. If you are playing to 10 people, nobody wants to laugh out loud and possibly be heard by the comic who will then pick on them for the show. So everyone kinda laughs to themselves and the comic goes home and contemplates suicide again, calling himself a pussy for not being able to do it the previous week and maybe now he can be a real f-ing man and finally finish something he started. At least, that is what I have been told.

So anyway, I have taken a break. I am not out actively seeking gigs or hitting the open mics trying to be seen. Rather, I am just staying at home and wondering why I am not out actively seeking gigs or hitting the open mics and trying to be seen. I will do gigs when friends of mine ask me if I am interested in doing a show with them, but that’s about it. And they aren’t asking very often. It was kind of nice at first having my Friday and Saturday nights free, but then I really started to miss it, especially lately. I have been trying to write some bits, but I just can’t seem to get motivated. I have a lot of what I think are funny premises, but when I sit down to try to write out the funny…nothing. I get this really bad A.D.D. where I am distracted by anything and everything. Oh, look! There is a dog across the street taking a crap. Oh, hey! There is the mailman across the street taking a crap. Look at that! There is a mailman taking a crap of a dog taking a crap! Damn this A.D.D.! How am I supposed to get anything done?

I guess that I should sum up what else I did over the summer…I got a new job, I went to Germany for two weeks, and I didn’t update my blog…The End. I just need to sit down and force myself to write these new bits. No matter what is taking a crap across the street, I just need to write it all out and hope that the funny comes. Now that I have started to write in this blog thing again, I will try to keep up with it as often as possible…even if it is to just tell you all about what is happening on the lawn across the street.

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So the shows this past weekend were the same as almost every other weekend… one really great show, and two that I could have done without. Friday night I was in Skippack, PA at one of Chuckle’s Comedy Clubs. I was kind of worried because at about 15 minutes before show time, there were like 7 or 8 people there. So I went down to the bar for about 10 minutes, and when I walked in, there were about 30-40. Much better! Not 20,000, but better. Besides, it is a small room, so it doesn’t take too many to make it a good audience size. The show ran kind of long that night with Regina Smith Kyle Hoffman, Jason Flowers, Bruce Larkin, Marlon Martinez, Ed O’Hanlon all performing as well. I did get a great compliment with one guy telling me that he couldn’t breathe during one of my bits from laughing so hard and was hoping I would stop so that he could breathe. I guess the ultimate compliment a comic could get is if someone passed out during a show from not breathing due to laughing to hard. That is my new goal. I want to see someone fall out of their chair and onto the floor passed out from not breathing. I have seen drunks pass out during shows which is always a crowd favorite. Especially when they go from standing to flat on their face. Then their friends come over, “Dude, you ok?” With the drunk responding, “Of courth I am ok fucker! Leave meeee alone. Get awayyy from mmee. I’m fiine. I love you man.” Ahh yes, the good old days. Damn, I forgot to tell a good drunk story that happened a few weeks ago. Ok, I’ll tell you all now you lucky bitches.

Ok, so a few weeks ago I was performing in Carlisle, PA at a pizza and subs shop. You can read more about it in my archives from May of 2005. Anyway, I was just about to go up onstage and I was watching the crowd to see who was there, what kind of people were there, anyone that might cause problems, etc. I see this one woman who is clearly wasted. She is about 5 feet tall and about 140 lbs. She was sitting at the bar with a full glass of beer in front of her and she is swaying in her barstool trying not to fall off of it. I see her go to the bathroom, and she has a hard time getting there even though it is only 10 feet away. I do my set and I don’t hear anything out of her. During the next guy’s set, she sits down at one of the tables near the stage with who I am assuming is her husband. She has another full glass of beer that she spills all over the place while trying to sit down. She sits down and is facing away from the stage. She is staring blankly at the wall opposite of where the stage is. She has no idea what is going on. Throughout the show, she just yells out obscenities for no reason and at random times. “Go to Hellllllll” she screamed out at one point catching many off guard because it was a quiet moment in the show. Everyone laughs at her but she has no reaction. “Bullllshit” she yelled out at another time. She is obviously a mean drunk. At the end of the show, she needs to use the bathroom again and this time she has a really hard time getting there. She stumbled over imaginary things in front of her was hanging on for dear life to each bar seat that she passed. She gets inside and is in there for a few minutes. A couple little girls come strolling out from the back room, probably the owners children, and they need to use the bathroom. So they go over and try to open the door but the drunk woman had locked it. They wait there for about 10 seconds when she opened the door, stuck her head out, and yelled at them. “You little bitches, I am trying to use the bathroom!” Now, these girls were like 10 or 11 years old. One of the girls start crying and ran back into the back room. The other girls followed her. A few minutes later, the drunk woman came strolling out like nothing had happened. She sat down at the table, faced away from the stage and every once in a while yelled out a random obscenity. “GO TO HELL YOU BASTARD!” Her husband just sat there ignoring her. She eventually fell out of her chair and was carried outside by her husband. Oh how I live or those moments. A few weeks earlier I saw a few drunks being carried out of the club in a choke hold by a gigantic bouncer. I’ll save that story for another time.

Ok, back to this weekends shows. Saturday was supposed to be a two show night. The first was again in Skippack, PA and it turned out to be a small show. About 12 people small. But they were a decent audience so it wasn’t horrible. The next show was in Audubon, PA for Chuckles again, but only 2 people showed up for that, so it was cancelled. The comics and I instead went to the bar and saw a couple that had been at the first show that evening. They came over and over the course of about 45 minutes talking to them, I found out that they had met over a phone sex line. The conversation became even more interesting when we found out that she like anal. I discovered something very interesting this weekend. It doesn’t matter what a girl looks like, if she mentions that she likes anal sex, guys will want to talk to her. Now this girl was pretty good looking, but I noticed how all of guys became more interested in what she had to say after we found out. Plus, she was completely open about it (no pun intended) and gave us all tips to make it better for the woman. Believe me, if I could get anal sex, I wouldn’t be in a bar in Audubon, PA getting tips from you on a Saturday night. Plus, I glanced at the TV while Saturday Night Live was on and saw a guy that I know from the Second City in Vegas. He was a writer for SNL and is now a featured player. Congrats to Jason Sudeikis. He will be an awesome performer on SNL for many a year to come. Later Baters.

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This weekend’s shows were supposed to be a couple of easy one’s. Friday, I was supposed to perform at Chuckles Comedy Club in Skippack, PA. At 3:30 pm on Friday, I got a call from a booker whose shows I like doing because they pay more than most other’s pay and most of the time I get to perform in front of crowds that have never seen me before. I have performed at Chuckles Clubs a lot, so there is some repeat business. Anyway, I get a message from the booker asking if I am available to do a show that night. So I call up Chuckles and see how many performers they have on the show. They can get by without me, so I cancel with Chuckles to do this other gig. I call the booker and tell him that I am available to do the show. I ask him where the gig is, and it is in a town 2 hours away called Carlisle, PA. Plus, I have heard some negative things about this place. There is no way I am going to do this gig. I’ll just tell him that it is too far away and that I am doing something later on that I can’t miss. Then I will call back Chuckles, reschedule to be there that night, and everything will be fine. That is all I have to do. Piece of cake.

So I am driving to Carlisle, PA to do the gig. By the way, I thought of all of that excuse to cancel on the way to Carlisle. Hey, better late than never. Anyway, 2 hours later, I get there. It is a small pizza shop called Red Devil Pizza and Subs. They have a small corner and a sound system, so why not offer comedy every week? Well, I showed up there and met the headliner for the evening which was R. Bruce. A very funny guy that plays song parodies with his guitar. The audience loved him. The ride back took too long. Two hours in a car by yourself at night sucks. Especially in a state where radio sucks. I need satellite radio. Which one is better? Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone even reading this?

Saturday night was a great show. I was at Chuckles club in West Chester, PA. They are running a contest over several weeks to find the Delaware Valley’s funniest educator. When I first heard of this contest, I didn’t think that it would fly. Holy shit was I wrong. There were three teachers competing last night, each one doing about 5-6 minutes of stand up. One of the teachers brought 30 people alone. This tiny room had standing room only. Plus, since they were mostly teachers, they were an educated crowd, quite the opposite of the previous night’s gig. So I was the MC for the evening. I got up and did about 2 minutes of warm up, bull shit stuff then I brought the first teacher up. He was surprisingly good. Though it was his first time on stage, he looked like he had been doing it for a few months. Still a bit nervous, but good stage presence and funny material. The next teacher looked like Larry Davids of Curb Your Enthusiasm. His material was pretty good. Very wordy though. Too much setup for not enough punch line. The third guy got up and did a character name Mr. Kickass. Mr. Kickass was the teacher of a special ed class. It was amusing to watch a guy try to do this character. It wasn’t really stand up, more like a humorous monologue that someone would perform at the graduation of an acting class. Well, the first guy, Jason Armstrong, won for the evening and gets to move on to the next round. The audience for the rest of us comics was awesome. The other comics there, Ed O’Hanlan, David James, and Peter Jung, did an awesome job and no doubtedly loved the audience as well. This was the kind of audience that I really needed after the shows that I have had over the past few weeks. The kind of audience that makes me say, “Oh yeah, that’s why I am in this business.” The kind of audience that makes me say, “Oh yeah, that’s why I left my old life of hookers and blow.” The kind of audience that makes me say, “Oh yeah, that’s why I escaped from the clutches of the Chinese mafia after they threw me into slavery inside their vast network of the sex slave industry. Sure, at first it was fun and lots of partying, but then one day I realized that it wasn’t for me. So after I gnawed my own arms off in an attempt to unchain myself, I used my arms as weapons to defeat the prison guards and run out of that camp only to realize that I wasn’t in China but instead in Duluth, MN where the sex slave industry is thriving.” Damn it! Again with the too much info! I need to learn how to delete.

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Many people don’t know what the comedy dick of death is. Probably because I have only heard one person ever use the expression before. But I sure found out what it was this weekend. Let me start at the beginning.

On Monday, I was reminded that I had signed up for Rascals new talent night. I went to the one two weeks prior, but had recently found the video camera, so I thought that it would be a great place to shoot my act. I set it up, and waited my turn. A few people that went before me did rather well. Most of their material was on the dirty/vulgar side, but whatever works. I get up on stage and do ok. Not my best show, but certainly not my worst. Ok, so I got a decent show on tape. And it wasn’t even my full act, but a hurried 5 minute segment of it. Well, it’s something to look at and see what I look like on stage.

Friday, I am booked in what I thought was a church in Westville, NJ. Hey, you gotta take what you can get. I get there and find out that it isn’t a church, but rather the Most Holy Redeemer Grammar School. Shit, I hope there aren’t any kids there. I find out that it will be an adult audience. I also find out that the booker will be there. Great. Not only do I have to clean up my act a bit since it is the Most Holy Redeemer, but the booker will be there as well. The booker asked the priest that was there if it is alright to use the word “shit”. The priest said “Shit, I use the word shit all the time.” Sweet. So my set goes all right, again. Nothing to write home about. Ryan Maloney was the middle act and Peter Jung was the headliner. Both of them kicked ass. Well, I thought they did, but a woman came up to me and told me about how offended she was because Peter talked about adding cheese to a communion wafer. She explained over a 25 minute conversation about how sacred that is. Apparently, alcohol is sacred to her as well because she was blitzed.

Saturday brought a new club I hadn’t played before. In fact, it was in a state that I hadn’t ever been to. My buddy Glen Jensen was performing at Tracy’s Comedy Club in Baltimore, MD and asked if he could bring me along to do a 7 minute set. The owner of the club said ok, so we car pooled down there. Glen told me on the way down that Larry, the owner of the club, “will be the host of the show and open with 10 minutes of local reference jokes and then bring you up. Now, it is really hard to follow that. Especially with straight material. The audience isn’t used to hearing material yet, so it will take them about 4 minutes before they will start to respond to your material.” Bullshit. I am going to get up on stage and knock a home run. Well, it went EXACTLY as he said. The first 4 minutes on that stage was probably the worst 4 minutes of my stand up career. For those first four minutes I “Ate the Comedy Dick of Death”. I friggin’ sucked. After about 4 minutes they started laughing and I finished up mediocre. Holy crap did I learn a lesson from this. My lesson…DON’T EAT THE COMEDY DICK OF DEATH. It leaves a really shitty after taste until you can wash it out with a good set. Great! A whole week of dick of death on my breath… and I promised myself that I would give that shit up.

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Saturday night. Doylestown, PA. In one corner was me, confident, cocky, and ready to throw down after a good previous weekend of comedy. In the other corner were 45 people, most of which were age 50+. The setting, an upstairs room in a Moose lodge. I sit in my corner anticipating the bell, just waiting to come out swinging. My opponent, sitting there with that smug look on their face, was drinking beer, snacking on chips, and ready to get on with the show. The announcer enters the ring. He recites the tale of the tape and introduces yours truly. I stand up, walk up on stage and start jabbing. I get a few good punches in right up front. Nothing that will hurt, but it does sting. I step up my game and start to throw some punches that should leave a mark. Oooh, I missed a few. No problem, I’ll get them with a flurry up against the ropes. Hmm, they are tougher than I expected. Ok, I’m tired of this. Time to show them who the hell I am. I throw a huge right uppercut…and miss. I am taken aback. How did that not connect? How is it that they weren’t knocked down? Did my opponent last week just have a glass jaw? Were they some kind of chump that was there to fill my ego just so that I could get it crushed? How the hell am I supposed to recover after throwing that giant punch and missing? I am suddenly weak in the knees. Cut me Mick! I throw some more jabs hoping that one of them will connect. I get a few more jabs in and prepared for my special move. The move that won me the nickname of “The guy that does that one thing”. I go for it and only slightly connect as they were moving away. Then I hear the final bell. It looks like this one is a split decision. There will be a rematch Doylestown Moose…oh yes, there will be.

The two other fights for the evening are easily won by Stan Stankos and Keith Purnell. The press event afterward showed that my opponent wasn’t as tough as I thought. Perhaps I just didn’t give 100%. Who knows. What I do know is I still hate that fucking woman in the front row. Why sit up front if you aren’t in the mood to laugh, if you aren’t in the mood to play along, and if you aren’t in the mood to act like a fucking human being for an hour and a half and try to enjoy something.

So now I need to wait a week before my confidence level has a chance of raising up just a bit. I guess that next week, I will just half to throw a sucker punch below the belt right up front just so that they know that they are my bitch. Holy crap! Reading back on what I just wrote made me realize that I need to stop watching The Contender.

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So, Thursday night I had the pleasure of performing at Rascal’s New Talent Night at the Rascal’s comedy club in Cherry Hill, NJ. Two weeks ago at the previous New Talent Night, 138 people attended the event and supposedly they were a great crowd. This one had the makings of a great show. A funny headliner, a funny female MC, decent new talent night comics, there was just one thing missing… the friggin’ audience. Damn it! What is with Rascal’s and me on Thursday nights? The last Thursday night show that I was a part of at Rascals, 8 people showed up, six of whom I had invited.

So when show time came, there were about 10-12 people in the crowd. They delayed starting the show and by the time they started, the audience had doubled. Ok, I have performed for much fewer, and they weren’t too bad before. Hopefully they came to laugh. Well, it turns out that they didn’t. Traci Skene was the MC and did a good job even though the audience wasn’t always with her. The audience blew. It just sucked. There were 8 new talent comics including yours truly. I was the last to go, and by the time I got up there, the crowd loosened up just enough to let out a few laughs. The headliner, Brian McKim, had a tough time with the audience as well. After my set, a woman who comes to these shows, tapes the comics and sells them copies of their performance on DVD came up to me and said she loved my act, which on a night like this is well appreciated. She said that when I first got on stage, my head is a bit out of frame, so she will give me a copy for free. Sweet! I have never seen myself perform… on stage. And this was a good show to see, simply for the reason that at one point I completely went blank on stage. Right in the middle of the joke. Right at the punch line… nothing. I couldn’t remember any part of the punch line. I thought that it was pretty funny, especially when watching it back. Good times, good times.

From a shitty crowd, to the best one of my career, Saturday night was incredible. The room at Ruffini’s was completely packed and the audience was ready to laugh. And they laughed hard. I had to wait after every punch line for the laughter to die down a bit. So that’s what a real audience is like. Kind of nice.

The second show of the evening was at The Courtyard Inn. The headliner was Keith Purnell who did a great job at both shows. The crowd at the second gig sure as hell couldn’t compete with the first, but they were still pretty good.

Then there was the Sunday night benefit show to help raise money for a woman with a lung disease. All 7 or 8 comics had volunteered their time to be there, and we outnumbered the audience. We had a good time joking around in the back of the room and making fun of audience members while on stage so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Hell we even helped to raise some money for the woman’s family… even if it was only $17.

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