Political Theatre – This Isn’t “Hamilton”

This week America will witness the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, a malignant, delusional wanna-be dictator and elite-level, flaming-pants liar. I’m only somewhat stunned that the Republicans in Congress haven’t come out against him in hopes of righting the listing frigate that was once the pride of Judeo-Suburban America. I grew up in a conservative house that attended church a LOT, and the Regan era was spoken of in tones of reverance in a manner I can best describe as “brainwashed.” I see it again with people I know to vote, lean, or finger-point as Republicans.

While the GOP’ers will cry “foul,” and say that you cannot impeach a President after they are out of office – and are going to keep screeching that this is all “Political Theater” to punish the Trump legacy (yeah, no shit, that’s the reason you indict and pursue people for inciting riots and insurrections that result in the deaths of 5 citizens) – those who speak out publicly FOR the impeachment from the Red side of the aisle are the bravest in the room. They have a bigger vision of what the Republican Party could be, a new messaging and re-branding with a cleaner identity than the hilariously misguided, easily-duped, Confounded-by-Consequence Honkeys (PIPE BOMBS, folks) who chant their own mottos but vote Republican out of a moral conviction to screw over an imaginary, darker-skinned person.

Trump’s rise to popularity, and the subsequent rise to power, led to some exposure of America’s fault lines of tectonic bigotry. He bobbed to the top of a movement of faux-psychology around the “demasculinization” of The American Male. I have a bit in my comedy act about how, if anybody were to try and storm the cockpit of an airplane, there are a lot of guys on there who would relish the chance to live out their bloodsoaked Rambo fantasy. Odds are, without a gun in their hand, 99% of men with this idea wouldn’t budge from their seat. And it’s that same mentality that has led to…

“this study pinpoints a more powerful influence: how much people buy into the idea that men are dominant, tougher, more powerful, or high-status than other people.”

My opinion is (worthless but I think) that Republican Senators value their seats in office more than upholding the Constitution. They’ll use word salads and mental gymnastics to state why the former and worst-ever President can’t be impeached having left office. So the GOP’ers will sit on another one and wait around for the next election cycle while collecting paychecks for having done little to nothing to help their voters. Instead of taking time to divest themselves from a malignant presence and re-think their messaging and platform it’s easier to just point at Democrats as being on an expensive witch hunt to destroy the legacy of Donald J. Trump. I would say it’s a great reminder of how close America is to getting its Reset button pushed. Until then, grab your popcorn and vote like it matters.

February 9, 2021 1

A Winter Break

Good gawd this drawn-out, long-ass, ridiculous-or-necessary lockdown is doing in our minds. At some point the return to whatever the next Normal will be us going to be a bit unwieldy, and I foresee people having reunions with old and new acquaintances ranging from “big dog happy pouncing” to “half-circling with a hand hovering over our phones in case this isn’t working.” Both are valid. And Washington state is now traipsing towards a re-opening, so getting back to “normal” is going to look like when Martin Luther King, Jr. hoped people be judged “on the content of their character”; not everyone is ready for that.

Coming out of the Winter/Holiday/Christmas break was much needed. On the horizon is “mid-Winter Break” which was also the unreleased Sting album that was to coincide with a Seth Rogen rom-com which Zoe Saldana dropped out of. MWB is the break between the Holidays and Spring Break to keep parents guessing as to what else they’re supposed to do to occupy their family’s time 6 weeks after 2 weeks of at least being able to look forward to Christmas. Not this time.

And hey… which Maker of Rules decided that families have to “go somewhere” every time a dead hero’s birthday rolls up? It reminds me of the time an exasperated friend of mine told her tale of woe on Martin Luther King, Jr. day about being unable to find a theater that was playing… “Selma“?
No…
“Paddington.” Bummer, Tina.

So now things change up a bit. I have a new schedule each day, and it’s quickly showing me how important my time with my kids has been. As I get back to work here soon I am condensing everything I feel is a loose end and managing the fact that I’m not going to be as available as I have been for the last 7 months. After all this time off, I need a break.

January 30, 2021 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

My Smartest Joke Of All Time?

My humor really comes from a few layers under the “joke,” finding wit and layer under the window dressing. Sometimes it’s mean, sometimes it’s really lame, sometimes nobody gets it.

But this may be the smartest joke I’ve ever written.

“And as Pheidippedes last few breaths came and went, he uttered to his Athenian brethren;
Let history resound my love for Greece on every new moon, with 18 consecutive hours of reality television programs!’ “

In other words, we use the word Marathon quite liberally in the American language (I don’t want to offend the English). We misuse a LOT of words for slang and what-not, but sometimes, were you to put yourself in the place of the person who invented or is afflicted by a word used for marketing or humor, hey, maybe not so funny.

Another example;
If I were an addict, I think I would take great offense to somebody tagging their peccadillo with “-aholic.” Like a “shop-aholic” or a “chocoholic.” Because alcoholics struggle to control the signals in their brains and thoughts on a moment-to-moment basis so they can keep their lives together, and that shouldn’t be taken too lightly. Unless of course you tried to rationalize that time you blew your friend’s step-dad for a bag of miniature candy-bars, of course, OK, you ARE a Chocoholic! Now THAT is a Hershey’s Kiss. You need to get to a meeting and stop Looking For Mr. Goodbar.”

So anyway, don’t accept lame comedy. You’re better than that.

February 17, 2014 0

If you’d like to see how quickly the civilized world is degrading, look no further than the Comments section of any on-line local news story. What starts as a forum for community members to express their opinions of how much clothing a barista needs to wear, quickly spirals into political pissing-matches, name-calling, race-baiting, Obama bashing, and general dumbassery. It’s the kind of language that if used in a public place across a table would get the speaker either removed from that city council meeting and/or punched in the face many times. Many, many times.

For example, after reading this article about a man arrested for cutting into safes and being caught, here is one of the comments… Is it about the detectives? The criminal? Let’s find out!!!

Thats why I read the story. Wasn’t anything near a safe. Maybe sheeple boxes, but definitely nothing I would have much less use for storing anything but crap in.

Keyboard Badasses. Qwerty Warriors. Internet Assassins. Trolls. This dude’s lettin’ people know ain’t nobody gonna do nothin’ to his safe that’s not a piece of crap no-how.
The anonymity of the internet allows people to express, at times, a linguistic acuity within a spectrum of “skull half-full of sloth vomit” to “prison-educated neo-Nazi.” And it’s all because we gave people with access to the internet a “voice” via the Comments section. And that’s how we’re using it. #ApocalypseNowPlease

But lately there’s a growing genre of internet input that I am calling full “BULLSHIT” on. It’s the “Epically Hilarious Customer Review,” which started, I think, with the Amazon reviews of the Bic “For Her” pens. The reviews took a sarcastic tone early on, and for good reason. While Bic aimed at a pretty pen women would enjoy, the interwebs took it to a new level, submitting reviews such as this one from “Amy O’Rourke:”

“For years I had dreamed of penning a masterpiece and yet, when it came to that blank piece of paper the harsh offensive masculinity of the pen was just too intimidating. Finally it seems someone has actually considered what it is like to be female in this cruel world and how easily our little minds can be intimidated and denied the opportunity to do our life’s work. Five stars. “

And this one… from a”daveyclayton:”
“I bought this pen (in error, evidently) to write my reports of each day’s tree felling activities in my job as a lumberjack. It is no good. It slips from between my calloused, gnarly fingers like a gossamer thread gently descending to earth between two giant redwood trunks.”

Right… Because lumberjacks use parentheses and words like “gossamer thread gently descending…”

Now comes the Haribo Sugarless Gummy Candy reviews.
Sugar-free candy is loaded with an artificial sweetener like a sugar alcohol, which is a solidified, probably indigestible form of the gas kinda like your intestinal flora create when it can’t digest something properly. Primes the pump for some serious issues in the back of the factory. If you like to fart, I mean like LOVE TO FART… I mean like “Competitively Fart”… eat some sugar-free ice-cream the night before a road trip with a friend. You’ll set a record for decibels and oxygen displacement.

So the reviews start off with a few funny ones, then somebody went all-in, and it got a little viral heat on the web. Then people went batshit and piled on and WOW, all of a sudden the internet is not only full of people who have a real gift for literarily expressing bodily functions, but THEY ALL SEEMED TO HAVE EATEN THE EXACT SAME CANDY WITHIN A FEW DAYS OF EACH OTHER… ? Is that possible?

Does a sugar-free gummi bear make you shit in the woods?
That’s why you gotta soak ’em overnight in tequila. Pfff… amateurs. Go back to your parent’s insurance coverage, noob.

Call me a buzzkill, a jerk, a loser, a pooh-poo’er, a handsome-as-hell-despot-of-backlashing-to-attempts-at-comedy, I don’t mind.
But here-forthwith, I put into this internet record a declaration on all “Hilarious, Epic, Embarrassing, Overly-Detailed Product Reviews” as BULLSHIT.

Please leave a comment.

January 30, 2014 0

Recap of Crap

Well it’s been a pretty crazy 2 weeks for me. Even as the year comes to an end, the world of business begins it’s own Casual Friday, and insurance companies stare back from the Abyss, my life has sped up a bit. In good ways, mostly. I can’t complain… WAIT, I take that back. I can, and will, because otherwise I’ll start crying and yelling at the same time and then i won’t be able to go back to that Starbucks.

Let’s work backward from today about crap I want to leave behind.

Negative Self-Talk: Before 9am today I had counted about 12 put-downs of myself, for everything from the shape of my body to “not being retarded and forgetting Gift XYZ I need to return!” Well I forgot it anyway because I didn’t take my ADD pill, and had no coffee because I was going in for a doctor’s appointment and wanted a clean blood stream.
30min late! I was 30min late for the doc because, well, I don’t know why. I had apparently transposed the times of appointments and was 30min early yesterday for a different one. So I had less time to talk with this doc. But soon after arriving, I was told they no longer accept my insurance (as of last week), albeit for a noble cause. Doctors sometimes do NOT get paid by insurance companies for any number of reasons, and the cost falls back to the patient, so in this case the doc decided to cut my carrier out as of MONDAY. So… a short, intense appointment nearly followed by $500 worth of blood tests, so already my day’s just going greatly…
No Blood Test; A $500 hit in the next month isn’t totally undoable, but certainly it is NOT a budgeted expense at the moment. I know I have ranted against the insurance system in America before, although it does have its place and can be helpful… But I’m the child in the divorce of Doc and Carrier, so I have to deal with the overflow there.
NO COFFEE OR ADD PILL: By the time I got to work there was already a lot of mental traffic to sift through, from paying for the doctor’s appointment that barely happened, to rescheduling with a recommended doc for Monday, and 2 other phone calls I need to make. All of this without the quieting effect of a low-grade stimulant for which my career and many relationships should be thankful.
Light and Sweet, AH SHIT: I get to work and get a machine-made cuppa, and when I reach into the shared fridge for my cream (real cream, not fat-free Hazelnut Cinnamon Elf Creamer) some dickbag had knocked it over with his bagged lunch, spilling a good 50% of it onto the shelf. So let’s add another 10min blankspot to my day while I clean that up. Pill still hadn’t kicked in, and my coffee was getting cold, so the emotional weight of the moment was pretty palpable.
Ante-up: The Fed is tapering off their dollarly funneling of stimulus into the American economy, which means anything subsidized, backed, hugged, or accepted by the Fed as “good for business” will get less financial backing. Fannie and Freddie’s demands and rates will go up if you wanna buy a house, unless you have great credit and/or a phaaat down-payment. Not great news for this family here trying to save for a new house in the next 12 months.
Figuring The Finances: Soon, businesses with big ticket items, including “Tom’s House of Oversized Novelty Tickets and Certificates,” will have to decide if they will stand firm on their pricing in an effort to not lose a profit percentage on every sale, or if they can drop their prices in an effort to drive volume. This is where the real “Trickle Down” economics lesson could apply: If suppliers charge less and retailers charge less, everybody’s money aligns a little better. Idiots trying to outbid each other for homes that aren’t worth $450K just piss all over those of us waiting in line for a good $350K house.
Check, Please?: I have a couple hundred in outstanding invoices for comedy shows I performed recently. One of the checks is overdue, the other was mis-dated and easily fixed with a group I love working with. So I have calls to make. (Or I could write a blog entry)
Duck Dynasty Dismissal: One of the hill-billies from a TV show called “Duck Dynasty” had some comments that amounted to his not being even a little bit accepting of sexual encounters between men. WHY that concerns him, I don’t know. If he’s thinking about it a lot, well he has some of his own blinds to quack from. He got ousted because his employment with the show depends on the show being watched by people who advertisers will target and pay for commercial time during said show. Ultimately, too many Americans would rather support dummies via viewership than ignore them, drive viewership to the bottom of the holler, and move on down the road.
Holiday Spirits: I got accidentally drunker than a Kennedy on Saturday night, not factoring in the few tugs of Fireball I had in between my 3 cocktails over 5 hours. Took me all day to recover on Sunday, so I am pretty sure, yeah, I need to pace my Fireball consumption. I just cannot recover the was I used to. It wasn’t until I had a bottle of low-cal Gatorade, dinner, and half a beer that I felt somewhat normal. Oh well, lesson learned. STOP MIXING SHOTS WITH COCKTAILS!
Wrap it Up: It is a great fear of mine that my 4 year-old son will make realizations about the existence of Santa Claus and feel disappointment at a young age. I was 5 or 6 when, overcome with excitement, I awoke to sounds at 3am and snuck down the hallway to see my parents “in the Santa way.” It crushed me. I laid in bed and cried. A co-worker told me her 10 year-old son just figured it out earlier this year which I think is on the other end of the spectrum, possibly a disservice to the kid AND the parents. I don’t think parents and family members should bypass getting some credit for their giving and thoughtfulness by letting Santa take all the glory in his absence. Instead, I think we’re doing a decent job of involving our oldest guy in gift-giving to others, as he got to choose a few toys and some clothes for other families in need. He may not get his head or heart around it, but I’d rather have THAT take root in his sweet little heart as a part of Christmas than the idea of giving Santa all the credit after we’ve worked all year to pay for new underwear.

So hey, there ya go. I’m done. Friggin’ tired and gotta hammer away at this work stuff.

Have a Merry Merry Christmas, with family, friends, lovers, and losers. The gift of selflessness is what it seems to be about, no matter how it’s advertised.

December 19, 2013 0

The Time I Met Adam Carolla

A few years ago, about 3+ now, I met Adam Carolla at Laughs Comedy Spot in Kirkland, WA. As a comedian and near deviant in my early 20’s, the work of Adam and Dr. Drew on “LoveLine” was a life-saver. Not only that, Adam’s humor and sensibilities match, and often surpass, my own. When I heard he was coming to my home club I immediately did everything I could to help facilitate the evening. And naturally I didn’t want to act like a total dumbass because Adam’s like the older brother a lot of us wish we had or needed.

Fast-forward to a few things Adam has said about his life and that night in particular.

1) Adam’s wife once told him, paraphrasing, that he has a way of “Bringing out the idiot in people,” I heard this years after the night I’m writing about, but it rang true that night. As part of Adam’s weekend, he was going to jaunt across the parking lot from the club to a bar called the Liquid Lime, wherein he’d sign autographs, take photos, and then try to beat it back to the club a mere 70 yards away. Instead of walking out the front door, or walking all the way from the club to the Lime via the backdoor, I was asked to drive Adam and Mike August, his road manager, over in somebody else’s 1990 Camry. So I did.
Cut to IDIOT TIME.
I gotta get Adam back to the club so we all head out the car which is parked right in the front of the Lime. I’m 8 steps ahead of them so I can unlock the car, open doors, and get back around the comedy club and drop ’em off. First I need to unlock the…
I need to unlock the Camry… Stupid button… What the… Unlock the …
I pushed the button, held the button, etc for about 10 seconds which is an eternity in the world of Adam’s Efficiency Sphere. At which point I hear what equates to “Nevermind, dumbass, I’ll walk.” It was actually “Hey, I’ll just walk.” The Idiot had been brought out. And I don’t think Adam’s being an asshole at this point, it’s just embarrassing and he’s just a guy who would rather not deal with speedbumps, and it ain’t personal.

So I manually unlock the car, alarm goes off, we get in hastily and I hit the button to unlock it and stop the alarm.
The alarm stops, I start it up and we go.

As we enter the back of the club I hand the keys back to the owner of the Camry, a guy who’d been hired as “Security” for the night. Nice enough guy. I say “Your unlock ain’t workin’,” and he goes, “Oh yeah, I heard the alarm! HA HA HA I should’ve told you it was broken.” Yeah. You should’ve.

2) Adam has referred to this particular weekend as a gauntlet, which went from I think 4 shows to a whopping 9 shows over 3 nights. He’s just so damn popular people wanna get close to him, and Laughs was exactly the spot to get close. Adam’s a worker, a do-er, and this was a weekend that put everything else I’ve done to shame. 9 shows, 90min at a go, on-stage alone. Fuggin’ amazing. Since then he’s only done bigger venues and fewer shows for more money, deservedly-so. It’s a great model to follow; if you can get to the same audience with less repetition, you’re not working harder, you’re working smarter. And less. And that’s good. No need to burn out making people laugh. Truly a hard working entertainer and philosoteur.

They say “Never meet your heroes,” because the shine’ll come off the bust. Not true. Adam’s a dude doing what he does, and great at it. I haven’t hit the Bucket List item with Adam, which is getting invited to Jimmy Kimmel’s Football Sundays and catch a Mangria buzz. But until that happens, we’ll always have a fritzed car alarm story.

November 22, 2013 0

CrowdFund Your Motivation

I’m still not sure if I like crowdfunding, the ability to ask friends or strangers for, and sometimes receive, financial backing for your pet projects. It’s not exactly on-line panhandling, but it’s not really fundraising. It IS, I mean, yeah, you’re raising funds for whatever it is you haven’t saved for, but do you really appreciate it and let it be YOUR baby? In this case, we’re talking fundage, financially, money. Mmkay?

Admittedly, I did use “GoFundMe.com” earlier this year to help a single mother get her car repaired. She had no money, was living in a church, and needed a new transmission in order to get her car running to get around for job interviews. The need was there, the means were there, so I cobbled together a few things and posted it and promoted it. We made our goal in a few days, and I can only thank the kind people who gave anywhere from $10 to $50 to $300. It was an inspiring influx of empathy and care, and very much appreciated. There’s always more to the story, of course…

Of course, like anything that goes online, it had its share of trolls asking why a transmission cost of $600-something (labor included) was the target, why she didn’t just get a better car, etc. By ignoring some of them or calling them out for being dipshits we were able to just focus on the goal. Don’t feed the trolls.

I’m not going to say this isn’t some sort of meta-trolling about the intent of using crowdfunding to fill a project’s financial gap. I’m not tearing a rotator cuff to pat myself on the butt for a job well done, either. Just stating what is possible when you present a need to people who want to help. It was really great to see it come together. Hell, what would YOU do with your pet project if you had another $1,043 laying around? Would you use it properly? Could you/I be THAT accountable? That’s why I wonder how much a person can appreciate the gifts they promote themselves to receive. Some people are making movies. Some people are trying to pay off medical bills. Who’s to say who’s right? The people with the money, that’s who’s.

The “more to the story” is that I had two situations where fundraising for a cause took very different turns. In one, I produced a comedy show to raise money for a family friend whose mom had been left with a mountain of medical bills after her husband passed away. I don’t know how much was raised, all I know is the place as packed with concerned friends and a lot of love. We did very well, and my friend’s mom was incredibly appreciative.
The other turn was that a person who I did something financially-beneficial for via fundraising really didn’t take advantage of the upturn. There was an option there to move ahead with what they had been asking for – and given, but they either moved at a glacial pace as to appear immobile, or just bided their time. Then kept hinting how they needed more of this, or didn’t have any of that. In a side-project we also provided a lot of resources to help them get back on their feet, but nothing in the form of straight-up cash. And pretty soon it seemd as if they’re just hoping to get more of something without putting out anything. As much as I want to see everybody doing better for themselves, I want to see people DOING, unless some sort of crippling disease has taken their ability to leave the house and interact with people or bring me homemade cookies and/or dark beers from around the world.

The Need exists for a little something more; schools, food banks, neighbors, drag show open mic nights, etc. People have needs that aren’t met because of – pick a reason. And if you can help meet their needs, do it. The 1% that made 95% of the income won’t. Our taxes aren’t going to make up for it. Gotta act locally.

Reminds me of a story my maternal grandfather told me. There was a bear who grew up near a campsite. Every Monday he would go to the dumpsters and pick through food and he grew strong and clever, but a little fatter than the other bears in the rivers eating salmon. One Monday morning a park ranger saw the bear and thought he may be a hazard, so he tried to scare him off. The bear didn’t understand the tactics; this was garbage, nobody wanted it, why can’t he have it? But the ranger didn’t want the bear coming into the park at other times, and didn’t understand the bear’s intent was simply to eat from a reliable source at a non-threatening time. In the end, the bear starved to death after getting his nose caught in a plastic holder from a 6-er of Miller tallboys.
The Lesson: You can always get garbage, the good stuff takes some effort, and park rangers are usually assholes.

October 30, 2013 0

The Political Party Parent

In my 4 years of parenting I’ve noticed quite a few things that are likely my own internal judgments come to light…

I am a somewhat hyper-vigilant observer, which is a great help for cultivating material for the stage and this blog, but a terrible trait for, you know, enjoying life. It often makes me, as my wife calls it, “annoyingly uptight.” My uptightness, however, is also the same trait that causes me to hover around my kids in unfamiliar situations until we all know the lay of the playland, keeps them from thunking their head off the ground because I was socializing or phone-gazing or not being at all involved in their play time. That level of involvement/concern/uptightness doesn’t make me “better” parent, but it sure as hell keeps my kids out of harm’s way, aggressive dog’s way, and “over-tall sharply-elbowed aggressive shit-head kid with phone-gazing parent’s” way.

One parent type I’ve run into is who I call “the Political Partier.” I’m not sure they even realize what they’re doing, but this is the parent who shows up at a kid’s party… WHICH ARE ALWAYS A GREAT WAY TO SPEND A FOOTBALL WEEKEND DAY INSTEAD OF WATCHING FOOTBALL ON ONE OF 35 DAYS OF THE YEAR… and doesn’t really “count.” Example? SURE, here ya go….

Couple with 1 kid. Mom and kid come to the party. Dad comes, too. Didn’t have that counted on their RSVP, but hell, we can swing another few inches of the party-sub and a juicebox, dig in! BUT… he’s almost a ghost. Sits in the corner, looks at his phone the whole time, doesn’t mingle, doesn’t really make it known his kid and wife are there, nor how he’s related to any of this. Here’s the Political Issue…

His mere presence now forces the host of the party’s significant other to assess any of that couples’ future parties as “go-worthy.”

What’s the problem? Well, now I would… just using myself as an example, not saying this has ever happened… I would have to ask “is HE going?” when they are hosting a party that I really don’t NEED to be part of. And if he’s going then I have to go because I can’t look like the guy who’s not involved with his family, right? I mean, how many times does the daughter of a mom in your youngest kid’s toddler socialization group turn 2 and have the party at an indoor petting zoo for blind animals? Once? So yeah, big day all around, better tape up my face and go. Paying for another gift and card and taking day off from football isn’t enough. Gotta BE THERE, Dad.

OR, just not go. Take the older kid off for the day while mom and youngest goes off to do their thing at the party. Identify with your other kid in your own space for a while, and bond there. Get your own slice of cake somewhere. Don’t buckle. Get out. Do what you have to do and enjoy it.

Which is a great thing to do as long as you can let go of the other parents judging you.

October 7, 2013 0

When trying to figure out if you have an untreated brain tumor, see if you choose the locker right next to the only other locked locker in a 30-locker bay. If so, YES, your brain is being eaten by a mushroom, you bun hole.

August 13, 2013 0

Tag: Comedy