Last night I performed at the Comix New Talent Showcase in New York, but since practically everyone I know in the world was there, you probably already knew that. It was an audition for some industry people, so for weeks now I’ve been getting my set ready and working on getting people out to the show. The show was a bringer, which means I needed a certain number of people to show up to get to perform. These are awful, but the unfortunate standard for new talent to get on stage in New York. I had to bring 15 people out for a 9:30 show on a Wednesday which is ridiculous, but not only did I get enough people, I almost doubled the number.

I think the show went really well. I’ll get the video later this month and I’ll post it so you can see for yourselves, and so that people on Youtube can tell me I’m gay. I just want to thank everyone who came out last night to support me, so thanks.

We got home sometime between 2:30 and 3:00am and I almost immediately passed out for the night. Elvis woke me up around 10 to go outside, at which point I realized I slept through the alarm I set for 5:30am to try to find a subbing job for today. I’m glad I did. I’d have been useless at work today. After I put Elvis’ radio collar on him and let him outside I went back to sleep. I’m assuming Steph let him back inside at some point. I then woke up at 3:00pm when my Aunt Helen called about my trip next week to Colorado to help her move back to New Jersey. (Probably more on that later.)

I slept for twelve hours last night and I still feel exhausted. It’s remarkable the amount of stress and effort that goes into 6 minutes of stage time.

I need a nap.

Did I mention the show went well? Thanks, everyone.

Guts… do you have it?

As a child I watched a lot of television. (As an adult I watch a lot of television, but on my computer.) One show that got a lot of play was Nickelodeon Guts. Oh how I loved to watch the contestants in their over-sized pads and bungee harness bounce around a series of ridiculous obstacles. Despite having sent in a postcard to be on the show I was never given the chance, so my dreams of one day bringing home a piece of the Aggro Crag for my very own were dashed.

The Aggro Crag was the final event. It was a giant fiberglass mountain full of obstacles meant to keep its pre-teen conquerors from reaching the top. If you beat the other contestants to the top you were awarded what Mike O’Maley assured us all was an actual “glowing piece of the radical rock”. Of course it wasn’t, or the Aggro Crag would have gotten progressively easier to scale as the show went on, and then would eventually have ceased to exist.

Since the show’s cancellation and my being way too old ever appear on it (Except maybe as host. Are you listening, Nickelodeon?) my only chances of ever owning my one piece of “The Crag” would be to win one at auction on eBay. For years I’ve been searching the site hoping to see one pop up, and tonight thanks to bakedp0tat0e I have my chance.

He just listed one on eBay for the low low starting price of $1000. It’s not that I don’t have the money, but I have the money because I’ve been saving to buy a new car when my sweet deer-dented ’98 Kia Sephia finally dies (any day now). My pitch to my wife that if I had a piece of the Aggro Crag I wouldn’t ever need to leave the house fell on deaf ears and she insists that I buy the car instead of an insanely expensive souvenir from a children’s show.

My only hope is that this opportunity presents itself again when I find myself sitting on a much higher disposable income. Until then, the Aggro Crag will continue to be my white whale.

You win this round, Aggro Crag.

Since last December I’ve hosted a weekly comedy open mic at The Wardell in Phillipsburg NJ. I adopted the gig from my friend and fellow comic Jason Brown, and for months it was going like gangbusters. There was an audience. There were comics. It was pretty good for everybody. Then in March someone ran a truck into it. Last Tuesday they closed for “renovations” to fix the hole. Now they’re closing to finally repair the damage. It took less time for BP to cap the oil spill than it has for them to start trying to fix the truck-sized hole in their wall. That’s how dedicated the owners were to that place. Less dedicated than BP is to not spilling oil all over everything.

I’ve been to a few comedy shows with the guys who regularly came out to my show at The Wardell and they ask me about it like it were a sick relative. “How’s the Wardell? Do you think it’s going to make it?”

No, I do not.

I found out via text message Tuesday night that they would be closed and there would be no show the following day. That’s not a big deal, I thought. What’s one week off? Turns out they will be closed for four weeks. It also turns out that they didn’t feel that was an important detail to share with me. Considering I booked several great comics to come do a show there on Friday July 30th I disagree.

It’s understandable that they’re closing to do the MUCH BLOODY NEEDED repairs, but what’s not understandable- at least not to me- is why they waited four months to do it. Moreso, why’d the wait until a week and a half before a comedy show I’d book there to close for a month? EVEN MORESO why wouldn’t they tell me? I found out through a friend who ran into the event coordinator that the show wouldn’t be happening. He didn’t feel it was important to tell me, just other people he happens to run into at strip clubs.

The official word is that they’ll be reopening in September. I don’t necessarily believe that, but more importantly I don’t care. I’m done trying to do a show at a bar with owners who clearly don’t care. It’s for sale so hopefully after there’s not a giant truck sized hole in the building someone who knows what they’re doing will buy it. Maybe then we’ll start doing shows there again. But probably not.

And now the uplifting ending to our story,

I’ve already found a new venue that’s agreed to having me produce a monthly comedy show and hopefully an open mic starting in September when they finish the addition of a “lounge area”. That venue is The Washington Theatre in beautiful(ish) Washington New Jersey. The owner is actually really excited to have comedy shows there, and I’m really excited to be the one providing it.

The theater was built in 1927 and was both a movie house and vaudeville theater. I’m glad we can bring some of that back. Our first show there in August 13th. The lineup will include:

Ryan Marley
Jason Brown
Alex Sheller
Dina Hashem
Pat Janssen
Tyler Rothrock
Brandon Strohl
Mike Gaul
Yuri

While eventually I’d like the shows to feature fewer comics each doing longer sets, I wanted to make sure to include as many of the comics I had scheduled for the show at The Wardell that I had to cancel. So if you’re around, come out and hear a lot of funny people telling jokes.

I think I’ve made more friends since starting stand up than at any other point in my life. But of course, me being me, there’s a solid number of people I’ve met that I really don’t like. I don’t really see these people as enemies, that just makes a more interesting title for the post. I’m generally pretty civil to people whether I like them or not. Still, when I hear about one of the people I don’t like getting booked for a show or something like that I get jealous and hate them more. I feel the same way when something good happens to a comedy friend.

In any business I’m sure this happens, but comedy is especially competitive. You become friends with other comedians because you spend so much time at shows, and working in the same general area you’re bound to run into the same few people over and over again. Eventually you’re friends with a few of them. I think that’s how it works. I don’t really make friends. I just sort of end up with them. But these are the same people with whom you’re competing to get on stage.

Maybe it’s just me, and I’m more jealous than I want to believe, but if one of my comedian friends calls to tell me they’re opening for Jim Gaffigan my first thought is, “Why aren’t I?”

Am I alone in this? Am I just a bad guy? Please leave a comment about whether you do this too so I know I’m not just a bitter toolbag.

The other night in bed, as we were going to sleep, I said to my wife “When I close my eyes all I can see is pills.”

“Like drugs?” she replied.

“No, pills from Dr. Mario.”

“I think that means you play Dr. Mario too much,” she told me.

“Shhhhh. Go to sleep.”

When she fell asleep I went and played Dr. Mario. It’s the summer time now. I’ve little else to do.

If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Mario it is a Nintendo game that first came out on the NES and has had several incarnations since. Currently it is available as a downloadable game for the Wii that lets you play against people all over the world, and I do this frequently. Arguably too frequently.

“It’s like Tetris” is how I usually hear people explain it, and insofar as things fall down and you stack them, yes I guess it is. But the premise of the game is that Mario, now a doctor, is treating viruses with vitamins (this has no basis in science as being an effective treatment) because the viruses are making children sick. The whole premise makes total sense. There’s a viral outbreak, so they send a plumber to throw endless supplies of pills at the viruses.

After I put an open challenge to play me online someone replied “He’s not a doctor. He’s a pharmacist.” And I disagree. A pharmacist would be giving the pills to a patient. Dr. Mario is testing them on viruses in a lab setting, so he’s a research scientist. There’s no reason to believe that during his adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom that he couldn’t have picked up his doctorate.

Also, I am very good at this game. Better than you. A lot better.

If you want to play me (and lose) in Dr. Mario, my Wii Number is 8894 9606 3283 6072 and my friend code for Dr. Mario is 3597 9646 8752.

Bring it, kids.

Friday night was The Hole-In-The-Wall Comedy Show, the first real headlining event I’ve done at the Wardell, and I think it was a success. My goal for audience turnout was 50, and it ended up around 70. The comics were all wonderful, so thanks again to Ryan Houssein, Craig Sharf, Pat Janssen, Liz Russo, and Simply D for coming out and being funny.

I’ll have information this week for the next one, but as of right now I only know that there will be a next one- which I guess is a good thing.

Today is the longest day of the year, and it sure feels like it. I hate the summer. A lot. Except maybe for the fact that I have two months off from working as a substitute teacher, but even that has its drawbacks. The biggest of those is of course my total lack of income. So I don’t exactly get the same thrill about it being summer time that I’ve been hearing from a lot of people today.

This will basically be the model upon which all the remaining days of my summer will be based. I woke up around nine before laying in bed for almost an hour trying to get the motivation to do anything besides play chess puzzles on my iPhone. By ten I had gotten up and poured myself an overflowing bowl of cereal, a habit I learned from my late grandfather Charles Gensheimer.

This turns breakfast into a game. You fill the bowl with cereal  so that when you add the milk you must do so slowly or the cereal will fall over the sides. Now you have to carefully move the spoon to get the cereal out of the bowl without any collateral damage.

I carefully took my cereal to the living room and Elvis and I watched Let’s Make a Deal! and he ate any of the Lucky Charms that fell to the floor.

After breakfast I got my laptop and started doing some work on the animation project I’ll be working on this summer. Today the work consisted of swearing at various versions of software I have been trying to use but have been unsuccessful in getting to work properly. Tomorrow’s animation time will probably be filled similarly.

We watched The Price is Right then Elvis and I took up to do some yard work. By my wife’s request I trimmed the cherry tree in our back yard. It’s branches had begun to hang low and were getting bothersome when she would try to weed under the tree, or when I would try to mow the yard. After I cut the branches Elvis celebrated by pissing on the tree. I might have done the same, but my next door neighbor was out doing yard work as well.

When I had cleaned up all the fallen branches I went and sat on my hammock for a bit. This is my favorite thing to do outside. The hammock is placed perfectly under our maple tree so shade is provided regardless of time of day. I fell asleep for a little while but was woken up by Elvis barking at our neighbor’s dog Dylan.

I had planned to spray some overgrown areas with weedkiller, but the container said not to use in temperatures about 90 degrees, and today was at least 400. The instructions didn’t say what would happen above 90 degrees, but I assume my yard would explode so I decided to wait for a cooler day and just pulled some weeds and cut other ones down with my trimmer. While I did this Elvis found and ate several bees that were flying around our fish pond.

The fish pond no longer has any living fish. So I guess it’s just a pond.

We went inside and each had some water before trying and failing to find something to watch on TV, so then it was time to start cleaning my office. I made some headway, but not much. So the quest continues. My drive for a clean office is due largely to my desire to use my drafting table again. It, being at angle, is itself clear, because if I put anything on top of it that thing would slide off. The area around it, however, is crammed with bins of art supplies.

Around four Steph came home and I made some tuna melts for an early dinner because she was leaving to go see her friends and their baby.

It’s now five and I’m writing this after realizing I forgot to write something yesterday like I’d intended. So now I have to occupy the remaining hours of the day. Probably with Dr. Mario.

If you find yourself wondering at any point this summer what I’m doing, it will probably be this same day over and over again.

I substitute teach at a school district whose year is over on Wednesday. I’ve been so far unable to find a summer job, so it looks like for two months I’ll be a full time writer, comedian and animator. Last summer I had off as well, but my wife and I had just moved in to our new house so I had a lot of jobs around the house to take care of. We shot part of a script that I wrote years ago, that I wasn’t really excited about making. It’s coming up on a year since we filmed it and the editing’s still not finished. This fact drives me to a deep dark depression, so I don’t want to get in to it, but the experience has turned me off to working with people in general and a few people specifically. To avoid a similar situation, this summer I will be animating a short film by myself. I will be bringing in a few of my comedian friends for a day to record the voices and then I’ll spend the next two months animating alone in my office where I belong.

Another large portion of my time will be spent writing about (and probably drinking) whiskey for The Whiskey Road with Eric Smith. I’ve outlined several of the chapters I’ll be writing and have large sections of two of them already written up. I’m really happy with how it’s coming together and I really look forward to putting my stuff together with Eric’s for the final book.

On the comedy front I’ve talked The Wardell into letting me do a professional headliner show on June 25th (please come to this) with Philadelphia comedian Simply D. He’s a guy I’ve met a few times at different venues and he’s always funny and a genuinely good guy. The opening acts are my friends Pat Janssen, Liz Russo, Ryan Houssein, and Craig Sharf. All very funny people. I’ll be hosting the show, so again, please come out.

I’ll be doing at least one show in New York this summer as well. Once I have something booked I’ll let you know.

I anticipate lawn care and playing with my dog and other pets will fill the remainder of my time.

So that’s what I’ll be doing. Hopefully I will get paid for one or more of these things.

Field Day was a great divide in my childhood. I’m assuming all schools did this, but in case yours did not I’ll take a moment to explain what Field Day is:

Field Day is when a school tries to kill all its students by forcing them to be outside on invariably the hottest day of the year and compete in ridiculous physical challenges. Like an underage suburban Survirvor. At the end of day most students were rewarded with an Icy Juicy. The rest got heat stroke.

Having graduated from elementary school well over ten years ago, I thought I was done with Field Day, but on Friday I found myself substituting at a local high school for their field day. Sure enough, it was one of the hottest days of the year so far, and there was no shade to be had.

When I checked in at the office that morning the secretary apologized for not calling me to tell me it was Field Day. She said this because she thought that if I knew it were Field Day I wouldn’t have come to school in a suit. Of course she was wrong, and I would have anyway. Recently I’ve stopped adhering to the Glen Tickle Uniform, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to show up for work dressed like a savage.

After checking her list of teacher assignments for the different events for Field Day she noticed the teacher I was subbing for was not assigned to any event.

“Maybe they’ll let you pick,” she told me. “Take a look and see if there’s one you want to do and I’ll try to get you on that event.”

I didn’t think it would matter what I picked. Everything involved with Field Day seemed pretty awful– but wait, what’s this? Chess is an event?

“If there’s any way you could have me playing chess for field day, that would just be wonderful,” I begged her while reminding her what a nice and pretty lady she is.

I used to play chess a lot. I was never on a team or anything, but still, I played a fair amount, but that’s not why I wanted to play chess on Field Day. I wanted to play chess because it’s a game one generally considers an indoors event. And I am nothing if not an indoors-loving kind of guy.

Sadly though, it wasn’t. Five or six chess sets sat stacked on a few tables in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill where all the other events were taking place. There was absolutely no shade and temperatures were approaching the nineties. A few students began to trickle over, and as you would expect, they were about as excited to be outside as I was. These were my people.

Occasionally as a substitute I encounter students who remind me of myself as a kid. Normally it happens at random, but if you ever want to find a kid who is like I used to be in high school, set up a chess board about 100 yards away from every other student on Field Day and they’ll come running. Alright. Walking. But briskly.

For about an hour I had a great time, but that’s when the heat started getting to me. Not just me, but all of us. Pieces were melting. Not really, but it felt like it.

We played a few games, and as the day dragged on we found ourselves exhausted. It wasn’t even fun anymore. We just wanted to be back inside.

“I hate outside,” a student moaned, actually near tears. “It’s why man invented inside.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

He continued, “You go to school so you can get a job so you can work and get money so you can afford to be inside. This is unnatural. I can’t think like this. Sunlight doesn’t do anyone any good.”

“Superman,” I reminded him. “Superman draws his powers from Earth’s yellow sun.”

The kid pointed out that he was not from Krypton, and then everyone had to go up the hill to play tug-of-war. Each class faced off against each other and the winning team got to go against the teachers team, for which I was recruited. My only real qualification as a tug-of-war contestant is my size. I don’t envy anyone trying to pull me with a rope. There’s a lot of me. Unfortunately my size, and the above average size of most of my fellow teachers failed us and we were dominated by a team comprised of high school juniors.

A local Italian Ice vendor was sponsoring the event with free Italian Ice, but by the time anyone told the chess kids they were all out.

I hate Field Day.

I’ve decided what the problem is. Facebook and Twitter provide such easy, quick outlets for things I think of that they tend to be my go-to sites for me to write things I want to share. If I think of an idea, I usually just put it up on one, the other or both of them which leaves me with few ideas to write about here. So how about this, imaginary reader, you get one well thought out, well written essay a week. Column-like. Let’s say on Mondays.