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...

Awesomesicles

Arrested Development is a television program that ran from 2003-2006, and while it is a funny show and all-around pretty good, I have found that sometimes people identify with the show as a means to establish intellectual dominance - in much the same way someone might like Frasier. This is unacceptable.

Recently, when out to dinner at the Fireplace in Southington, and, mind you, where part of our group was standing and chatting away from the group with some hanging-on interlopers, while we were trying to eat, which of course was very disconcerting and I'm fairly certain rude, the topic of Arrested Development came up quite excitedly from a member of the group. I agreed that the show was good, but added that it was over-rated. This caused great indignance on the part of the late-twenties female I was talking to, who immediately challenged me to produce no less than four better shows. I thought four was a bit much.

Surprised by the idea of any sudden challenge, let alone something so inconsequential and aggressively posed,  I immediately went blank, having not worn the right kind of shoes for this terrain. After taking a moment to get footing and take a breath, I was able to quickly spout in succession, a stream of superior shows: The League, Bored to Death, Modern Family and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia* were the first ones that came to mind. In a purposefully crass show of brute dominance I held out my hand with my thumb hidden behind my palm, wiggled my downward pointing fingers and said: "Awesomesicles!"

* I actually referenced The Inbetweeners here, but wasn't able to remember what the other show was at the time of pressing.