Hot Pockets

Found out I'll be performing at the Tampa Improv in April. I'll be opening up for Christian Finnegan the 27th-30th. Christian's a very funny guy. He's had his own Comedy Central half-hour special and can be seen on VH1 and the Chappelle Show. I'm really looking forward to it. My best friend and his wife live in Tampa so I'm going to visit them while I'm down there. It'll be a fun trip.

Last night I watched one of my favorite comics, Jim Gaffigan, perform. If anybody's looking to hear smart, funny material, defintely check out his hour long special on Comedy Central. He's got this bit about Hot Pockets which was incredible. I'm addicted to those things so the entire bit hit real close to home. While we were watching it, Elsa asked "Why don't you come up with jokes like that?" Thanks Elsa. Yeah I'll get right on that. Let me just pull this brilliant bit out of my a___.

I can't believe I didn't think about that before.

I Have A Dream

So last night I'm performing and it's clear from the beginning the audience doesn't like me. Which is cool cause I don't like me either, so we had a nice bonding moment. Tried some new stuff out and it went about as well as expected.

So I'm tracking the bird flu now. I'm obsessing about this thing and it didn't help that "The Stand" was on tv the other night. I'm telling you this is all I can think about right now, well that, global warming and the fact that my office is having a pool on how soon I knock up Elsa. Can I get in on that action? I need the bread.

Back to the bird flu, it's now in Turkey? I'm envisioning a bad Leno joke coming up. I'm imagining hundreds of hack comics coming up with the brilliant notion of how ironic the bird flu would strike a country named after a bird. They would sandwich their outrageous "Turkey/Bird Flu" bits between their "Viagra" and "BrokeBack Mountain" bits (BTW - not sure if you've heard, but apparently that movie has some homosexual overtones). Throw in some midget jokes and what a comedy Nirvana that would be. Like MLK, I can only dream.

Can't Sleep

I really should be sleeping right now. I got to get up for my day job at 6AM and I'm not thrilled at the prospect of only getting five hours of sleep. I'm sure a shot of NyQuil will do the trick. Whoever invented NyQuil, you the man. I'm forever indebited to you.

Tonight I was at the Funny Bone. It was fun. Arvin Mitchell hosted and did a great job warming up the crowd. Some of my favorite comics here in town performed, Andi Smith, Jeremy Essig and John Doelling. John had a great set tonight. His materal and delivery are so sharp. I urge everybody to go out and see him perform. You won't be disappointed.

My set went well. I tried a new bit tonight that did ok and my other stuff seemed to go over well. After the show one of the comics told me "Great job, I don't know what you did differently." Wow thanks for the back handed compliment. That's really sweet of you. Next time just say, "Hey you normally suck, how the hell did you pull that set out of your ass?" Stop it, you're making me blush.

I'll be at the Comedy Forum in St. Peters tomorrow night. Come on out if you got nothing better to do.

I'm Just So Delusional

Happy New Year to the three people who are reading this. It's been a while since I've blogged. Couple reasons for my inactivity:

1) I've been sick, I still can't shake this nasty cough.
2) The holidays. I've been getting fat on gooey butter cookies. Damn you Elsa for baking them.

As far as the comedy thing, lately I feel I've been more consistent with my stand-up. The last two weeks at the Funny Bone, I feel I've had solid sets. Last week I performed at a place called T Billy Buffets. Fellow comedian Chelle hosts the show and she was nice enough to invite me to perform. I wasn't sure what to expect at first. TBilly's is a bar and whenever you perform at a bar, you're not sure how the audience is going to react. They may shut up and listen or throw beer bottles at you cause you're blocking the game. It was a fun show. Chelle did a nice job setting it up. There was a good size audience there and everyone for the most part paid attention, even the guys sitting at the bar watching the game. Chelle's been hosting the show for the last couple of months and I hope it can continue. It's always nice to have another room here in St. Louis where comics can develop. From first hand experience I know how tough it is to keep a room going, so I wish her nothing but the best. Come on out and support it. The show is every Wed at 9pm at T Billys and it's free.

One thing I've been thinking about recently is my attitude towards stand-up in general. Look I'll be honest, I have an ego when it comes to comedy, always have, which is why I want to do this. You got to understand I've never been egotistical about anything else in my life. My self-esteem is so low, I'm the first guy to admit when I can't do something. In fact I almost take a warped pride in being incompetent at so many things. But stand-up and in particular comedy writing, I've always felt like I can do. I don't know why, I've just always had that feeling. And that scares the shit out of me. Because my biggest fear is being delusional. My biggest fear is I'm not funny and that's what drives me, to prove that fear wrong. Now you're probably asking why am I writing this? What's my point? (To be honest I don't know if I have one. I just started writing and hoped it would all work out magically in the end.) I think my point is I need to stop taking this thing so seriously. I have to realize I'm going to have off nights, that there are going to be other comics who will have better sets and get breaks that I wanted and for me not to treat this thing like a competition. But to instead focus on being the best comic I can be and believe in myself for really the first time in my life. Someone said if you're a perfectionist, comedy will kill you. And they're right. Faith is a scary thing.

Note. The above feel good, chicken soup for the soul bullshit was for my own well being. If anyone got nauseated reading this self centered crap, I'm truely sorry and I promise in the next blog entry, d*ck and midget jokes for everybody! HOORAY!