Freedom Boner

I see no one took me up on my offer for free bad advice, which is understandable. If I stood on a street corner with a sign that said "Free Broken Nose," I doubt I would have any takers. But, in the spirit of the internet - the post will stand! I will find some poor misguided sap to give bad advice to, mark my words.

But enough with the idle threats, we must press forward to more important concerns. Last night, I put my balls on my sleeve and got up again at the Joker's Wild open mic. I didn't bomb like I did last time... don't get me wrong - I still ate it, but at least this time I got some laughs.

The one standout disappointment, though, was that I realized was headed home afterward, I realized I missed an great tag at the end of one of the bits. I was talking about the Bin Laden raid, wondering if it played out anything like an action movie with a cool catchy phrase right before they got him, etc... anyway, here's the missing line:

(Bin Laden has just been killed, the Seal who took him out is standing over his body) He says to one of the other Seals: "I've got such a freedom boner right now!"

Donuts, Comedy and Jesus

About three weeks ago, I got that old itch that I get every few years where I'm compelled to complete the list of things I wanted to do when I was a kid. The list included such glamorous activities as Working at Dunkin Donuts, which I did in High School. I figured you could take the donuts home with you at the end of the night instead of throwing them away, and to be honest, what kid wouldn't want a 50 gallon industrial garbage bag full of donuts? I also wanted to be a Reverend like Reverend Jim on Taxi, by getting the title out of the back of a magazine rather than in the Jesus sense - I checked that off the list in college when my friend Matt showed me ULC.org. I also briefly wanted to attach a hang glider to a mountain bike and ride it down a hill and fly away, but I had to scratch that off the list once I heard about physics, and I'm not so sure I want to do that anymore, anyway.

Surprisingly, riding a motorcycle and being an awesome rock star didn't appear on the list until later in life, and those too have been checked off. This left one lonely little item: Become a Stand Up Comedian. As a kid in the 80's and early 90's I used to stay up late and watch Evening at the Improv and think: I want to do that. Every few years I get the itch, but never really follow through with it - playing in a band always made it easy not to pursue that.

But about two or three weeks ago I got that itch again, and started writing jokes - a lot. Then yesterday at about 10 am, out of nowhere, I got a wild hair up my ass, said Fuck It, and decided that I should go to the open mic down at Joker's Wild in New Haven that night. Woefully unprepared, I threw away almost everything I had written, relying only one bit about texting Jesus, one memory from high school and the Awesomecicles story. I went on at about 12:30 and bombed in front of a dwindling, all-laughed-out crowd of about twenty, which consisted mostly of other amateur comedians, the host and the bartender.

But fuck it, right? I recorded it and listened to it on the way home - I wasn't nearly as bad as I thought I was, albeit I had no pacing, timing, or really any jokes. I was relying heavily on delivery, but I botched that, too. Proudly, though, I can say that I didn't tell one dick joke. Sadly, dick jokes are my wheel house...

So in summation, I will be doing that again, it will be less painful next time, and I have finally completed the list of things I wanted to do as a kid. Oh, and next time, there will be dick jokes...