Restart My Blart

There are so many things going on that I want to write about, things I can’t quite get all aligned and assigned in my head to get out through my hands. The past 6 months have been intense, busy, good, and fun, for the most part. Youth sports, work, product development, family, stress, illnesses, deaths… so, Life, basically.

We’re here in February (Feb-ya-wair-ee) already and sooner or later I should post something or get rid of this site. So I’ll get into the flow again soon and write. My attitude towards all of this has changed a lot because of social media and how I (mis)perceive other people’s perceptions of me. I have some outrage because I have been paying attention, to reword that bumper sticker I haven’t seen in a while. The other bumper sticker that makes me angry is the “STUDENT DRIVER – PLEASE BE PATIENT.” Oh gawd, come on. Student Driver in TESLA, eat farts. I had to learn in a 5-speed Datsun KingCab pickup truck, NO STICKER. Coddling the youth, yes, let’s continue… I think some people are just bad drivers and pasted a sticker on to throw people off the trail of their inability to navigate the roads.

ANYway, I have a lot more to get off my hands in the near future, but I’ll leave with this; if you have any sort of feelings about Education, Youth Sports, or Wanting To Throw Hatchets Into The Halls of Congress, stay tuned! Should be a good year!

Stay weird.

February 7, 2023 0

Cause Celebre

Wow… if you didn’t see the opening of the Tour de France – and let’s face it, you probably didn’t – you might have heard about the world-class narcissist who stuck their body and a sign in front of the pack in order to get on TV… AND THEN CAUSED A MASSIVE PILE-UP.

On day 1.

At stage 1.

No? See below. It’s just encroyable!

The spectator who caused the Tour de France pileup has reportedly fled the country | The Week

Then this mental mannequin supposedly bailed on a flight outta the country. How do they know? If they couldn’t identify the person then where’s the traceability? Who knows them? I’m sure there’s plenty of guilt and shame lingering over what they call a soul, but I understand why they won’t come forward to accept their punishment. FFS, people have murdered people for being fans of an opposing team THEY DO NOT PLAY FOR… so imagine being the person holding a sign that says “ALEZOPI-0MI!” prior to causing a massive crash that sends heavily-sponsored and (likely drug-enhanced) bike riders to l’hopital! Yeah, get le fuck outta towne.

June 28, 2021 0

Nearly Died Again

I was driving to work yesterday in typically rainy weather in the Seattle area. I live a bit North of Seattle, where the median home price has dipped into the high $600K’s, ha ha ha so overvalued! ANYway, on the road and driving, and the people in my area drive pretty well. But I did have a moment where I thought, “This is it… I’m going to die.” Adrenaline is an amazing window-cleaner of your soul; I was crystalline in that moment, every image of my sons and my wife and my friends blinked. And I was terrified for a moment, but also had a flash of peace.

I had poured myself a hot cuppa into my insulated travel stein, which keeps the contents near their entry temperature for about 2 hours. It was worth the $7 I paid for it at Value Village, just had to scrape the lipstick off the side and paint over the “DONNA’S DIVORCE PARTY 2005!” on the side. And off I go…

I was driving down the hill from we I live, and the road winds down and around a number of blind curves. To the right is a guard rail, and beyond it a large ravine, as in 50+-foot steep-roll to the bottom-ravine. The rail is scarred and bent with reminders of speed and inattentiveness. A car coming up the hill crossed the centerline about one wheel’s-width into my lane. I swerved and blurted “HEY! Dude.” Nobody wants to die on the way to work, let alone be on the way to work.
Around the bend, near the bottom, is an on-road that is a cut-over street from a neighborhood that sits beneath this hill. That cut-over helps people back in the corner of those ‘hoods to bypass about a half mile of turns, but only legally allows the person to turn to the Right, or DOWN the hill. The person at the intersection, coming up from the ‘hood, darted out to make a hard left UP the hill. The rain and traction didn’t mix, and I began to brake, hard, while the car behind me approached my rear-bumper at about 40mph. A car coming up the hill thought coming into my lane was a good move (it wasn’t), but I swerved, missed the cars, and horns were a-blaring. Heart’s racin’ now.
Around the next curve is an elementary school, and is not in busing zone, so it’s 95% drop-off. Some people park across the street and walk over from a large lot. This was the drop-off period so there are easily another 300 cars in that spot in about 15min. There’s a light at the cross-walk, and to the East of that light is the school lot’s entrance. So if people are crossing, the light’s red, and the cars can turn into the school with no traffic. As I’m going 20 because of the School Zone, the guy behind me gets impatient and wants to cut ahead… As he starts to, a car pulls out of the parking lot across from the school and the cutter gets so close to my car I can smell the scent of his vape contraption (“Slavic Tramp”). He brakes, falls in line, and we’re back to it. This isn’t even a half-mile from home yet…
I get through the left-turn which leads me eventually to work, and make a jaunt to the right at the next light. As I yield to the car coming across (per the signage), the guy behind me jams his horn like he’s in a jazz trio and starts gesturing as if his anti-spaz meds haven’t kicked in. I’m still rolling, just slower than 40, so I point to the Yield sign with my middle finger, which he takes as a conductor’s cue to hit that F# from the Kia again. I accelerate, swerve around another car that decided to just pull off with no warning, and a teaspoon of molten coffee escaped the travel-mug’s sippin’ hole. With the heat of nearly 3 suns, the drop hung in mid-commute, consumed enough gravity to turn downward, and landed directly on the most-specific spot of a man’s lap that hot liquids can cause the most discomfort. I thought “This is it… I’m going to die.”

I didn’t die. I yelled “WHY THE SHIT, AMERICA!?” and almost rear-ended this guy pulling into the gas station without his blinker on.

I did start draping a kitchen towel across my lap while commuting, however. Can’t be too careful.

January 11, 2018 0

Writing Wrong #1

There’s a challenge out there to write every day in November, and seeing as how my last post was a cookie recipe before the FBI started bringing people in, I suppose I should do something.

I have a joke in my act about the “Assisted Suicide” law in Washington state. I suppose it’s not a “law,” you don’t HAVE TO do it, as if there was a Yelp-like site where enough people could all post reviews of why it’s your time and they’re happy to help. It’s legally labeled as the “Death With Dignity Act.” You can take advantage of a medically-evaluated, doctor-assisted, relatively peaceful exit from this mortal plane. So, if you’re in a state of incurable pain, or terminal illness which a health insurance racket/provider will drain you financially for, or you’ve been convinced by a few family members, you can take up this option.

First, there are a lot of ways to make your exit. This is a very clean and controlled one. I think if you had a real friend, they’d probably talk you out of this, but more on that later. This has too many possible breakage points. For example, out of 234 people who took this option in Washington state in 2016, there were 4 participants that did not align with a death certificate. Did they live? What happened? Because if you think you’re going to finally receive the painless embrace of Eternal Sleep, and wake up groggy with all that illness hammering away in you, well I’d surely be writing quite the letter to my doctor.

The doc would be pretty shocked, I imagine, seeing you in the waiting room looking pretty good for a dead person. I’d be telling everyone in the waiting room “Oh really, you have a headache for 3 days? Good luck, this guy – YEAH, YOU, TIM – couldn’t even kill me last Saturday. YES, Carol, I am a walk-in because I didn’t think I would NEED TO MAKE A FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENT FOR MY DEATH.”

Plus, there are far better, more majestic exits to take. I suggest doing it near your place of employment, like on a Tuesday, to give your friends a few days off to grieve and get paid. Don’t hoard it all in a comfy robe in the guest room.

Human Catapult + Live Heavy Metal Band.

That’s all I got. I guess “dignity” is different for everyone. Anyway, be well.

November 2, 2017 0

The Gig Files – No Time

Aaaah, the late show. In comedy, it’s either a blessing or a curse and it’s usually 40/60 to the curse. If you’re in a comedy club doing 2 shows a night, the late show on Friday is either very drunk or very underattended. I’ve seen some for comics (Gaffigan, Maron, Benson, Carolla) that are just as packed as others, but usually it’s 30-50 people who are either just out and about, or out and asleep.

No Time 1:
I accepted a good-money gig for a fundraising auction on a Saturday night. Everything was fine except the start time, in comparison to the time we went on-stage. See, if you give people in their 30’s-50’s 3 hours to mingle and drink before they have to sit and do nothing but try and pay attention… after drinking… and eatin’… and spending money… it’s tough stuff on the attention-needers (me).

The group was awesome, don’t get me wrong. They were all very cool people doing a great thing for their community, this time not involving a small-caliber rifle and rodents. So I was happy to be part of it and help out any way I could, which was just to draw a few more in with my comedy skills and local F-list Celebrity status. (F as in “who the Fuck is this guy? He’s Funny, at least.”)

So they have dranks and noshing happening for about 3 hours, and an auction, and the results of the silent auction (Pat & Marty Boudoyn took home the 8-lb chocolate box AGAIN this year, $300), AND the Dessert Dash. AND awarding a scholarship to a local student. AND then it was time for the first comedian, an hour after we were supposed to go on. Why would this suck so hard?

Well, we get paid either way. Regardless, it’s way more fun when the crowd is into the performance. And by then, they were way more into trying to sober up enough to get home before the babysitter went to $20/hr. I understand it. So the 250 people quickly dwindled (walked) to 200 in the first 10min of the show. By the time I went on, I was working with about 80.

And I basically mentioned it as such, really important to fortify the remaining people and give it all ya got to make sure they enjoyed it. It’s a one-off, so I won’t be back next year, but I don’t want to leave anybody thinking they should have left and got more hammered in their garage like they WANTED TO BUT THEIR HUSBAND WOULDN’T LET ‘EM.

So we did the thing and got the money + a little tip which was nice, and a lot of high-fives and hugs on the way out. Not even close to the worst show I ever did. That’s another time.

It’s always a sign of how things went when your closing line is “Thanks so much everybody, I hope you’ve enjoyed watching me fill my contractually obligated time, get home safe!”

The OTHER “No Time” entry is this: I have been doing stand-up comedy for a solid 12 years now. So when I get a text from a booker for a low-$ gig in less that 24 hours with a >100mile round trip, to open for a comic I wouldn’t stick around to watch? Well, I guess I’m beyond being anybody’s booty-call at this point.

Unless Jessica Biel texts me up…

April 23, 2015 0

The Gig Files – No Mic

If y’all like this post, let me know in the comments or the LIKES! or send me a basket of gluten-free brownies shaped like Jessica Biel or Diane Lane (whatever your local bakery will do for you based on their politics). “The Gig Files” will be recaps of shows I recently did from the perspective of the performer. Yelp seems to be a sounding board for everybody’s gripes and very few KUDOS! which is too bad. Then again, I think people want to complain, and a bad dining/entertainment/hash oil-making-via-Groupon experience seems to resonate more than a great one. I’ve had so many dine-outs that could have been ruined because of something small that I just brush it off now. Same thing with gigs; it’s been a while since I had 3 in a row like these…

NO MIC
Saturday night show, crappy sportsbar/roadhouse about an hour North of Seattle. I’ve done 8 shows there and I’ve been happy with 4 of them. 2 were complete failures (back when I was about a year into comedy), 2 were “meh,” and this particular gig I actually rate under the Happy-Withs.

I brought a newer comic along as an opener, dude’s very funny, and is much more slowly-paced than I am. That’s good because I won’t have to really go all-out to get the crowd to pay attention. The bar holds about 80 people, speakers way up in the rafters, and you have to be eating the mic to be heard. I have no idea what the transfer rate of lip-herpes via shared mics is among comedians, but it’s gotta be higher than, say, motivational speakers.

15minutes into my 45minute set, the mic stops working. Cuts out. Dead. I wiggle the cable a bit, it comes back. Then blacks out. Then it’s back. 2minutes later it dies again. Staff kinda works on it, but then it dies again. Dead. Done. DOS(tage). And then they tell me, “Sorry. It did that the last couple shows, too.” Oh, okay then. Happy I’m not the WHAT?

So I shouted the rest of my set into the air. And it was work. I felt like I had to project even more, and subtlety was out the window without being able to whisper.

And it was in those 30-something, unplugged minutes I really felt like, hey, I’m gonna make this a great show for the people who are here. Nobody left, and it wasn’t THEIR fault the mic cut out, so it won’t be MY fault if the show sucks. I was friggin’ exhausted afterwards. It went fine. But honestly, that kinda sucked.

April 21, 2015 0

Category: Comedy