Comedian Sven Wechsler's Blog

Hey 2009

2009-01-12T20:14:00.003-05:00

I acknowledge the new year. There. Can we move on. I will not dance. I will not promise. I will not regret.

No, I have not seen Slum Dog Millionaire.

So, that about covers it then.

Talk to you next year.

Haven't posted in a while....

2008-02-11T20:13:00.001-05:00

Now, that's no longer true.

Dental Inquisition

2007-05-04T12:47:00.000-04:00

I've been visiting the dentist at the New York University School of Dentistry. It's cheap, because student doctors work on you. While, you might think this is would be a ticket to increased agony at the hand of a nervous, fumbling student, it's actually pretty good dentistry. I should know, I've had a lot of dental work. I like candy. Plus, the professors are always there looking over students shoulders to make sure they don't accidentally drill into my skull.

What always gets me is the guilt I feel whenever I visit the dentist. When you first visit, there's that questionnaire. "Do you smoke? Do you drink coffee? How much? How many fruits and vegetables do you consume each day?" They dish out more guilt than the clergy. And the punishment for your moral indiscretions is painful torture. It's Draconian. It's like a dental Inquisition, and there's a drill in my head telling me to repent.

At one point, while being confronted about my poor life-decisions by an aspiring BMW driver in a lab-coat, I offered, "I'm a comedian." As if that would explain my poor life choices. As if a bank robber could just say, "Hey, I'm a bank robber. Sometimes you have to shoot a hostage."

Then, the condescending tooth-brush lesson. I know how to use a tooth-brush. I'm just lazy about it. Thank you for making me feel like a 3-year old. Little circles? O.k... Yes, I'll be a good boy. Can I keep the brush? Can I have one of those little tubes of toothpaste? Oh joy!

I suspect most people avoid trips to the dentist, because of the threat of severe damage to their self-esteem more than any fear of physical pain.

BRAINYAXE

2007-04-04T16:37:00.000-04:00

Hey all. Please come check out the new monthly show I'm producing at The Bowery Poetry Club:

BRAINYAXE

Reggie Watts, Craig Baldo, Baron Vaughn, Tom McCaffrey, John Mulaney. An evening of brainy comedy. Hosted by Sven Wechsler. D,J,'d afterparty with free food!

Thursday, April 12th @ 10 p.m.

The Bowery Poetry Club

308 Bowery New York, NY 10012 (Bowery and Bleekker)

F train to Second Ave | 6 train to Bleecker

www.brainyaxe.com

Rockin' the Casbah

2007-03-28T02:22:00.000-04:00

My new neighborhood is Arab. There's a Mosque across the street and about 20 hookah cafes down the next 3 blocks. I see women in headscarves all the time. Tonight, I went to the kebab place on my corner that is open till 4 a.m. and got a burger. A guy with corn rows walks in, lays his German WWI military helmet (for his motorcycle) on the counter and orders in Arabic. Outside, an older Egyptian (guessing) cabby shouts hello's to his buddy's as The Scorpions blast from his car stereo.

Welcome to the jungle baby.

(The pic is of the 80's German glam-rock band, The Scorpions, for those too old or young to recognize.)

Buying Furniture

2007-03-25T01:32:00.001-04:00

I went to IKEA with my girlfriend and we spent over $500. We didn't mean to. It just sort of happened. We exercised restraint. Several times I put things in the cart and then returned them to the shelf, because... Do we really need a stainless steel pots-and-pans organizer with a hanging spice-rack and hooks for whisks and spatulas over my stove?

No. We don't.

We bought a bed frame, which... we needed. I mean, we're adults and we can't very well keep the mattress on the floor, can we? I mean, we're not peasants. Lay down with dogs, rise.....

We bought a sleeper sofa (glorified futon), because, when friends and family come to visit, we can't make them head-to-toe it on the couch... can we?

And, we bought a medicine cabinet, because the previous tenants unbolted theirs from the bathroom wall and took it with them. (We will be doing the same.)

Now I can't break up with my girlfriend, because we own furniture together. That's how we commit to relationships. We share investment in material possessions. Not to mention the fact that all this furniture we are gathering has been hauled up four flights of stairs. That would have to be one hell of a fight to warrant lugging it all the way back down.

Now, I wasn't thinking about breaking up with her. I'm in love with her. But, I must admit, the ephemeral nature of our union was more romantic than this tangible wood and metal construction project named after blond children.

It's all very appropriate. My name is Sven, and her's is Stefka. We actually sound like we're related to the furniture we bought, cut from the pine forest dream in the "Land of the Midnight Sun".

We're not getting a fucking cat.... yet.

My Bulgarian Vacation and Dental Surgery

2007-03-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

Alright... here goes. As mentioned, I went to Bulgaria. Why, because my girlfriend is Bulgarian. Many of you are just now learning that a place called Bulgaria exists, because I am telling you about it. I could say anything about Bulgaria, and you would have to believe me. I could say, "The national anthem of Bulgaria is Duran Duran's 'Notorious'. They just replace the word 'notorious' with 'Bulgaria'." That is not true. I'm not sure what the national anthem of Bulgaria is, but I'm pretty sure it's not 80's new wave music.

I was worried about this trip, as Stefka is much younger than me, and I'm pretty sure her family did not expect her bringing home a poor comedian as part of the American dream. However, after sitting on the couch of her family home and listening to her step-father's album from the Bulgarian glam-rock band he was in, I felt I could fit right in to this family. To understand what his band sounds like, first picture 4 Bulgarians wearing white leather jump-suits with leather tassel wings under each arm. Then imagine the The Scorpions had sex with Queen. You're there. They were around during communism, so most of their music had to be inspirational as opposed to angry, although occasionslly sung in English. "Leev for your dreems! Theer awwl yooo hyav!". (Mitko, if you’re reading this, please smile with me.)

Stefka's mother and her boyfriend (who I've referred to as stepfather because I felt like it) live in the same apartment Stefka grew up in. It's a nice place, recently remodeled, and with a shower that is the entire bathroom. It took some getting used to, but basically, the shower head just sprays into the middle of the bathroom. The entire room is tiled, and the water just drains in the middle. When you're done, the toilet and sink and all the walls are wet, but they're all water proof. You can pee in the shower and be peeing in the toilet. I've decided that this is the way all bathrooms should be. Somebody make it so.

Stefka and I slept in her old bedroom, which apparently doesn't look much like it did when it was hers (you can never go back). A sleeper sofa was purchased specifically for our visit. Bulgarian sleeper sofas can take a beating. Enough said.

Bulgaria has taken to capitalism quickly, and the whole place is under construction. With the exception of the occasional Romas (often derogatorily referred to as "Gypsies") riding a rickety cart pulled by a donkey through rush-hour traffic, the place is pretty modern. The old Soviet-era gray blocks of apartments and government buildings are still there though. These buildings, no matter what country they're in, always look like misery personified. One gets the impression the communists actually saw happiness as a bourgeois emotion that the victorious proletariats should be liberated from, a process many Eastern Europeans seem to have embraced long before communism (see Dostoyevsky).

Sophia has a large population of stray dogs. Most of these seem fairly well-fed and tame. They're dirty and probably not in perfect health, but people put collars on them to make them look like somebody owns them, apparently so they won't be euthenized. I've seen stray dogs in Africa, and by stray dogs, these guys are doing pretty well. Sophia doesn't have a harsh winter. Often, store owners befriend the dogs, putting food out for them.

There is a lot of public transportation. There are trams, busses and trolleys. I'm not sure which is which, but some of the buses and all the trolleys run on electricity from wires that hang above the streets all over the place. There is a subway system under construction. It has been under construction for 20 odd years, and a common joke in Sophia is that during construction they found the archeological remains of the earlier subway construction.

There are lots of cars, most of which you would never see on an American Street. Many of them are eastern European brands like the “Lada” or weird Russian trucks from the 1960’s. Other than that, there are European versions brands like Toyota and Subaru. There are also B.M.W. S.U.V.’s, which, just like in America, are inevitably full of assholes.

Bulgarians, however, are not a miserable bunch. They're excited about the future and the fact that at the beginning of 2007 they joined the European Union. Even before that, western Europeans have been pouring into Bulgaria buying up Black Sea-front property and ski villas in the Balkan Mountains which run right through the middle of the country. Racism doesn't seem like much of an issue, although every Bulgarian knows about the hundreds of years they spend under the "Turkish Yoke", which either refers to an omelet or tyranny by the Ottoman Empire. Statues of heroes who tried to overthrow the Turks and never reached age 25 are abundant.

I would be able to tell you more about Bulgarian history, but I spent much of my time in Bulgaria at the dentist's office. Yes, the dentist. Little did I know Bulgaria is part of the burgeoning medical tourism industry, and it's know for it's dentistry. Now, by dentist's office, I mean apartment, an apartment in one of those giant Soviet-Era blocks mentioned earlier. Inside the office there is a waiting room, but people don't do much waiting. They walk around and talk to the dentist while she's working on patients. While I lay mouth open having my soul drilled out of me, cousin Sasha would come in and gossip to the lady holding the drill about how his wife can’t cook. She’d answer him, then turn to me and tell me to spit.

I needed X-Rays, and was sent a few blocks away to get them. The “X-Ray Shop” (blury picture to right) was located behind an car repair shop in an alley. You walk down a dingy hallway, give somebody 2 dollars (equivalent) and sit in a folding chair while a Dr: Who-styled laser gun shoots radiation through your body. They give you your x-rays 2 minutes later, and you walk out past the auto mechanic shop.

Upon returning to the living-room/dentist’s office, I am informed I need surgery. Well, why not? When in Bulgaria…. get surgery.

The hospital is a giant, (image to left) somewhat rusty, gray block – “The Ministry of Facial/Crainial Surgery” or something. It’s attached to a military hospital. The elevator up to the specialist’s office is about 3 feet by 3 feet, and don’t go looking for a maintenance certificate. In the hallway outside the office, worried people with bandaged faces wander the halls. I use the bathroom, which is not as clean as the public restrooms in Central Park (NY). One gentleman with a bandage covering most of is head, is in there smoking out of the limited section of his face that he has access to.

After my consultation, I am bounced around a bit. Sent back to the original dentist for more drilling, more x-rays, connected to the head of the department through a friend of Stefka’s mother, go back to the original specialist, get in trouble with the head of the department for going behind his back, and two days later admitted in the morning for surgery. I change into the hospital pajamas, which look disturbing like concentration camp oufits, and wait some more. At one point, I’m in the doctor’s lounge where six doctors and two nurses are sitting and smoking. I didn’t see any of them do shots of vodka, but they probably were just maintaining decorum for me.

Thankfully, the surgical floor looks clean. I even have to wear plastic backs over my slippers to maintain a germ-free environment. Have these people seen the bathroom? I lay on a gurney, while three people attach wires to me, shoot me full of Novocain and occasionally ask “Feel pain? No?”. The rest of the time they joke with eachother about life or death or something. I have no idea. Nobody speaks much English.

And, it’s over. Stefka and I leave the apartment and promptly go climb the mountain at the edge of town. I’ve been at the dentist for half my trip, and need to do something other than lie in chairs and get tortured during my trip to Bulgaria. At the top of the Vitosho (the mountain, which we actually road a rickety ski-lift to the top of), it’s beautiful. There is deep snow, some Bulgarian kids are snow boarding and the mountains of the Balkans stretch out to the horizon. I can’t feel my face.

Busy, busy.....

2007-02-21T01:46:00.000-05:00

I believe somebody actually bitched at me for not posting. It was anonymous, but I do have the feeling that it was not my girlfriend, mother, father, brother or sister, as none of them would refer to me as "man". Well, Stefka (girlfriend) actually did refer to me as "man" for the first couple months we were dating, at which point I kindly requested she graduate me to "dude" or "compadre".

Anyway, to the one non-family-member who reads this, I've been in Bulgaria, and then I was apartment hunting, and now I'm moving, so chill. Yes, I have many tales to tell, but I also have many balls in the air.

I realize there is no excuse for not sitting down and typing a few words on a keyboard for an hour that I am otherwise wasting watching T.V.. I also realize the inevitable apology post for not posting is cliche and also inexcusable, but I am out on stage 4 or 5 nights a week actually speaking words into a microphone in front of real live audiences, so come and see me if you have some desire to receive what I have to offer. My schedule is on my website at www.SvenComedy.com.

No more anonymous comments on this blog. I'm just too sensitive for passive aggressive slights from random electronic ghosts.

Goodnight sir. I said goodnight!

Product Placement

2007-01-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night in which somebody gave me a Blow Pop . There was no stick coming out of it, but the wrapper was unmistakable. I 'm nervous this is the beginning of a terrible trend of product placement in my dreams, and worse, that I will receive no financial remuneration for such advertising. It's widely known by very few people that my dreams are major conduit to a highly coveted demographic of 20 to 35-year old males with limited spending money and deep-seeded suspicions about corporate psychological warfare. I would ask that whoever is in charge of my R.E.M. sleep cycle take into consideration the ramifications of the opening of this market.

While companies like Daimler Chrysler and The Church of Scientology will pay handsomely to have their vehicle driven by my mother into an awkward naked-at-the-coffee-shop with Parker Posey and Barack Obama conversation on dog breeds, or their logo tattooed on the Elephant delivering pizza to me in the steppes of northern Russia - the sanctity of this last respite from the tangible reality that dominates existence must not be corrupted.

Furthermore, whoever is writing my dreams needs to stop with the remakes of previously released dreams. I'm noticing a disturbing trend of "re-imagined" versions of the "Sven Saves Humanity from a Nuclear Holocaust" and "Sven Can Fly and Nobody Seems Alarmed By It" premises.

If these trends continue, I will forgo R.E.M. sleep completely and go directly from deep sleep to consciousness, avoiding the dream-world completely. This may seem like a toothless threat, but the type of people who occupy the various rolls in my dreams are not the kind of people you want unemployed and out on the streets.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T11:41:00.000-05:00

Well, glad that's over. Managed to get through it all without losing my girlfriend, family members, reputation and credit rating; Coincidentally, my resolutions for the new year consist of keeping the aforementioned through the next Winter Solstice. I would also like to become a better conversationalist, or, at the very least, become better at feigning interest.

I hate to be cliché in my holiday cynicism, but I really like the quiet solitude of winter, and nothing spoils peaceful introspection like ritual obligation. The annual parties for various institutions that hardly deserve an annual party (offices, couples, non-existent deities, miracle oils) weigh on my mind and poor conversation skills like large breasts on a girl with low self-esteem - The feeling that simile just gave you is the feeling I have at a New Years Eve party. And, yes, large breasts are a metaphor for being extremely intelligent.

By the way. Rapper’s Delight is playing in the coffee shop right now, and that song really stands the test of time.

French Vagrants

2006-12-20T23:50:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention, I was in Montreal, Canada last month. I flew up there with the same girlfriend mentioned in the previous post to get her visa. For some reason, to get a visa to stay in the United States, you have to leave the United States and get the visa at a U.S. consulate in another country.

Montreal is a big city in Quebec, Canada where everybody insists on speaking French no matter how loudly you speak English to them. There were a fair amount of vagrants around, and I have to say; Homelessness, and mental illness with a French accent are adorable. They all seem like characters out of Les Misérables.

There's more I could say right now about Montreal - the casino, the Biodome, the "mountain", a thousand strip clubs, but frankly, when you live in New York City, every other city is .... not New York City.

Bulgarian Couch Surfing

2006-12-20T23:35:00.000-05:00

I just bought my ticket to Bulgaria. I will be going with my girlfriend to meet her mother and grandparents. Her mother is very excited about our visit, as Stefka has not been home in three years. She has purchased a sleeper sofa for us to sleep on. I'm not sure if the sleeper sofa is the Bulgarian version of dowry, but, if so, I'm not looking forward to convincing the people at the Tyrolean Airlines baggage counter to put it on the plane.

I'm a Mover

2006-12-03T18:45:00.000-05:00

I’m a mover. I move people and things. I do this with a 26-year-old van and 34-year-old muscles. It’s hard, lucrative work. I’m my own boss. I’m off the books.

I get most of my business advertising on Craigslist, an online message board with portals all over the globe. Craigslist is an open marketplace of sex, love, televisions, housing, sarcasm and mental illness; an electronic flea market peddling the cast-off possessions of the middle and lower classes, the apartments to keep them in, and the lives to animate it all. Anonymous and intimate at the same time, people who’ve never met can come together to exchange cats and coitus in a black-and-white environment; tantamount to getting directions from a Russian in broken Spanish, it’s to the point, dictated by necessity.

People are nervous when moving their lives. There are various kinds of moves; divorce moves, marriage moves, eviction moves, graduation moves, new job moves, cheaper housing moves, I suspect I’m an artist who should live in New York City moves. It’s always a big deal to the person moving and almost never a big deal to me, the mover.

I show up, and I just want them to be ready. That’s the most important thing. It seems obvious, that one should prepare to pick up their lives and shift them geographically, that one should pack and protect their possessions, but, apparently, it’s not obvious. Often, I show up to find the remains of the previous evening’s drinking binge. The customer, overwhelmed by having to collectively assess the objects that fill their life, turns to the bottle.

I sometimes wish my customers were coke-heads. Coke-heads pack. Drunks reminisce. Drunks pick up the book, and, before throwing it in the box, remember the girl who gave them the book, the argument about communicating, the need for another drink. Drunks forget to tape the bottom of the box. Drunks put a hundred books in a box, a hundred pound un-taped box of books at the top of a 4^th floor walk-up.

Sometimes, upon arriving, I realize that I am, by necessity, the only person who has ever visited the apartment. Twice, I found an apartment filled with used q-tips. They were everywhere, on the open areas of the floor, and behind dressers and under coffee tables – hundreds of used q-tips. On one of these occasions, in Long Island City, the q-tips were interspersed with coins, mostly quarters, a few hundred dollars worth of coins, and one large jug of change which we were instructed to throw out. The customer, an effeminate 30-something-year-old man with good manners and the disturbingly strong odor of lotion, had also never met a record he couldn’t purchase. Most of these albums would be considered kitsch, married couples singing Bavarian hymns smiling in tight yellow shorts on velvet couches, but I suspected no conscious irony in their presence in his collection. The job consisted of loading the van with 50 crates of records, 10 garbage bags of clothing and abandoning all else to a landlord who would mostly likely burn the apartment down while weeping quietly on the sidewalk.

While our vinyl obsessed, ear cleaning compulsive, lotion reeking host ran out to the store, no doubt for more q-tips, my Moldovan helper and I filled our pockets with hundreds of soon to be abandoned quarters from the bottom of this hopeless wishing well. We occasionally took guilty sidelong glances at each other as we peeled them off the floor, regret that had more to do with the greedy lapse in hygiene we were trespassing than the unwarranted notion that we were stealing. Perhaps we collected enough to buy tetanus shots.

I later deposited the albums, garbage bags and, it turns out, great conversationalist, at a home in a suburb of Boston, where his unsuspecting and unfortunate new roommate helped carry a plague from my van into an immaculate two-bedroom.

I love my van. I’ve loved all my vans. They are traveling boxes of security. Generally, all of my earthly possessions can fit into a van, although I have been trying to avoid proving this to myself as of late. This particular van is a 1990 Dodge B350 Ramwagon. It has a huge 8 cylinder engine and almost never breaks down. When it does, I forgive it, because it’s my van.

It’s 14 feet long with windows all around, like a church van, although in it’s previous life, it was owned by a university in Texas before being purchased by a gay accountant for the sole purpose of moving to New York. He sold it on Ebay – to me. Since then, it’s been broken into 4 times, had most of its front end replaced, received new tires, many cans of white spray paint to cover graffiti and rust, gained a home-made roof-rack and visited Pittsburgh, Boston, D.C., Philly, Baltimore, Richmond and all points in between. I’ve put forty thousand miles on it in a year-and-a-half. It was built in Canada.

Volume is a puzzle. Couches are not big. They only take up the volume of air they displace. That is to say, they can be surrounded on all sides and in all orifices, and I am the conductor of the symphonic geometric orgy that takes place in my van daily.

Nobody thinks I can fit their stuff in my van. They have generally been wrong. It has 9 by 5 by 5 feet of cargo space, and a roof-rack. I strap mattresses to the roof rack, and, if necessary, anything else that attempts to refuse inclusion. I am limited only by aerodynamics, for which I have little respect. On one or two occasions, I have almost doubled the height of my van. I have only once gone under a bridge and lost the legs of a kitchen table, and only once forgotten to strap down a mattress, which may still be in the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.

My downfall is Ikea. Ikea furniture is not built to be moved once assembled. Optimistic, upwardly mobile youngsters bring compact boxes named after blond children home and with dowel and metal hook engineering, guided by Swedish hieroglyphics, puzzle together sheets of air, woodchips and Viking spit into clean, modern Scandinavian furniture. It works great as a thin, pine-laminated veil over emotional and financial poverty, but it doesn’t last a trip up a staircase.

I defend Ikea, even as I’m busy destroying their products during a move, because I’m Swedish, and an insult directed at Sweden is an insult directed at my mother and her cooking. Ikea isn’t to blame. People who don’t dismantle their Ikea furniture before moving are to blame. Ikea IS made of air and woodchips, and that’s why it’s cheap, environmentally friendly (pine is a renewable resource) and easy to assemble and disassemble. It’s not built to move whole. If you’re upset that you bought something that should move without being dismantled but falls apart into an environmental disaster every time you move it, you have a Ford Econoline, not an Ikea.

When I think of it, I explain to the customer that I can’t be responsible for assembled Ikea furniture breaking during a move, but usually I forget, and, if it breaks I’ll shrug and say “It’s Ikea crap, man. The stuff’s disposable.” - The equivalent of a waiter blaming his errors on an innocent kitchen.

Now, just so we’re clear, I’m not a careless mover. I don’t break things often, but, some damage is inevitable. If you wanted a perfect mover who was insured for damages, you would be paying two or three times what you’re paying me. I’m not quite the back-alley abortionist of movers, but I don’t have a medical degree either. I’ll scratch your coffee-table, but I’ll deliver your guitar unscathed, and most of my customers have guitars.

I’m a semi-professional mover. I’m a writer, a comedian, a recovering addict, a friend and I’m good at moving people, strange, flawed, nervous people with too much crap and nowhere to put it.

1969 Econoline

2006-11-24T20:30:00.000-05:00

I’ve always owned vans. The first one I got was a 1969 Ford Econoline. I paid for it in some minimal amount of cash and half a pound of Mexican brick weed, the kind that gets smuggled across the boarder crunched into its densest possible form and inserted into something innocuous, like a car driven by a drug dealer. I also bought a dog with the same currency during this period of my life. This speaks as much to the proprietors of the establishments I shopped at as it does to who I was at the time.

The van was metallic green with a yellow Starskey and Hutch stripe on each side – think of a more angular Nike swoosh. The grill and round headlights spoke of it’s age, as did the font of it’s logo. It had the obligatory shag carpeting on the floor, walls and ceiling. Homemade benches and camping utilities and captains chairs. By the time I came into possession of this vintage love-machine, it was 1993, and the carpet had absorbed the sordid events of dirty hippies, metal heads and deteriorating dreams for a quarter of a century. I had delusions of rebuilding the green machine to its former glory, but these disintegrated in clouds of pot smoke at a slightly faster rate then the sheet metal of the Econoline was disintegrating into rust.

The steering linkage was so worn out that one could turn the wheel 180 degrees without affecting the direction of the tires. This didn’t stop me from sailing it home from Boulder, Colorado, where I was attending university, to Deerfield, Illinois one summer and parking it in my parents suburban driveway. The neighbors on our quiet street must have considered keeping their kids off the streets upon seeing this leaking abduction mobile lurking in a puddle of it’s own filth on Linden Ave.. My father insisted on bringing the beast to a shop to make my trip back to Colorado slightly less suicidal, and the mechanic, after making a couple repairs (the equivalent of dropping a bucket of water in an empty well) suggested that the vehicle wasn’t worth throwing away, as it was likely to voluntarily evaporate into vapor within the week. None the less, I was adamant that the first piece of shit transportation I had ever bought with my own money/drugs would not be abandoned in the land of large yards and small minds. It would return to the land of big mountains and cloudy minds.

The van should not have been on a highway. The aforementioned steering issue and long stretches of Nebraska highway combined to make my job more akin to sailing a large yacht in treacherous waters than driving. I would spin the wheel from one end of its free zone to the other, bouncing back and forth as if tacking upwind. I must have yelled “coming about” a few times to my first mate, an unfortunate cannabis-traded Golden Retreiver – Wolf hybrid fighting for balance in the back, wondering at her fateful ownership.

I should also mention, that the van contained everything I owned, as upon leaving Boulder, I had been homeless, one week out of my lease and sleeping in my ship. When, somehow, I made it back to Colorado, I lived in the Econoline for another week or two, going to my job as a bellman/elevator attendant at the Hotel Boulderado and leaving my poor dog with a bowl of water and food under the van to fend for herself in the blocks surrounding my parking space. I would come home in the evening and call her name – Sasha, and 9 times out of ten, she would come, sometimes a day later.

I found housing with friends and the Econoline slowly faded from use. I can’t exactly recall what became of that van. It’s lost in smoke to me. Perhaps it did finally evaporate. Perhaps I sold it to some naïve sap. Maybe it’s been reborn into new purpose and identity as I have in the many years since we parted company. Most likely, it’s rusting in a field somewhere in Colorado. You can see it from the highway, sinking in the tall grass, waiting for the snow to blanket it and the many stories it has carried.

Ignoring Everybody is Better at a Coffee Shop

2006-10-13T15:44:00.000-04:00

I could stay home and not pay attention to other people. It would be easy. Other people are not there... in my room I mean. But, it's much more enjoyable to ignore other people at a coffee shop. I just bring my laptop and zone out, you know? This way, I can keep track of them, in case they try to sneak up on me or grab my attention through some trickery or antics.

Sometimes I go into the crowded streets of Manhattan to avoid the clawing, needy reach of society. There, on 1st Avenue (a famous street in Manhattan), I weave through the crowd, avoiding their touch, their eye contact.

I'm king of the world.

Avert your eyes troglodyte.

Is it me, or did the Velvet Underground suck? The only song I like of there's is the Cowboy Junkies cover of Sweet Jane, which is nothing like the original. I'm pretty sure it was all Andy Warhol behind their fame.

There's a giant map of the world on the wall at the coffeeshop I'm at. It's old. Still has "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" on it, and Yugoslavia is one country. It's a climate map, so Greenland is covered in white to represent the fact that it's covered in a glacier. I don't understand why they never got around to switching their name. It's just silly.

Death.... yes, a happy post.

2006-09-11T12:23:00.000-04:00

Last night I could not get to sleep. I kept tossing and turning worrying about dying. I have no immediate plans to die, or any information regarding the proximity of said event, just a nagging fear of my inevitable demise. For some reason I go through my resume during these moments of angst, as if death is a position I need to qualify for, and frankly, my resume just doesn't hold up.

It is my understanding that I will be allowed to die whether I am qualified or not, but who wants to die and have everybody whisper at their funeral how unqualified you were for this level of advancement? "Who does he think he is. He was never even approved for a mortgage, let alone a peace prize." Does anybody else hand out peace prizes, or is it just the Nobel gang? Perhaps I can win a Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce Peace Prize.

Now, I'm an Atheist, so I'm not worried about an acceptance committee at a gate asking why I never held any student council office, just a lot of passive aggressive mumbling at a funeral. I'm extremely sensitive about the level of sarcasm that will occur at my funeral.

To most, it seems, having a family, a career and a house is a successful life story. But seeing as one can achieve these things through a lottery ticket and a broken condom and a lack of imagination, I'm just not sure this represents the level of honors I'm gunning for. I do buy the occasional lottery ticket, but this has more to do with my having too much imagination.

Where I live in Brooklyn, owning a Cadillac Escalade seems to be a good marker of accomplishment. Judging by the size of most of these Escalade owners, their shiny tanks will have to double as coffins in which to bury their fat asses. And, considering they blew every cent they had on the Escalade, it's the only coffin they will be able to afford.

It is doubtful that I will run for office, although I have spent time running from officers. I have, in the past won a few drinking contests but have been removed from such competition by doctors and the aforementioned officers. I doubt I will cure AIDS or Cancer, so it appears that I will have to resort to curing boredom. Excellent. Glad I got that sorted out. Now I can get some sleep. Rest up for the battle ahead and all that.

Mr. Productivity

2006-09-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

I have an amazing ability to be counter-productive... or maybe it's dis-associatively productive... well, you decide.

I have something to do, like write the comedy that will keep me in cocaine and Learjets for years to come, but I manage to find something else to do - that is also work - instead. I've done laundry when I should be updating my blog, changed the oil on my car when I should be writing a screenplay and gone grocery shopping to avoid sending mailings to bookers and agents. It's as if I prefer mindless menial labor to meaningful mental labor. AS IF.

I don't like cleaning, or changing oil per say. I'm pretty sure that it's just easier to see the fruits of my labor with such tasks. I can see the clean room. I can't see the positive reception to my brilliant musings. Maybe I'm afraid that I will fail. Is it fear of success? Then why this constant fear of failure? If I'm afraid of failure and afraid of success, does that make me mediocre? But I'm pretty sure I have a fear of mediocrity too - I mean, doesn't everybody? Don't answer that. I've lived in the suburbs.

I'm not lazy. I'm always working. Even when I was being a drug addict, I made sure I was a drug dealer so I wouldn't have to depend on hand-outs. I'm very self-reliant; wouldn't ask for a life-preserver (or heroine) if drowning and all that.

I'm very good at preparing to do work, but never doing it. I've bought pens, expensive electronic equipment such as a video camera, voice recorder and laptop to streamline the recording of my rapid flow of creativity, so that no ideas would slip through - out into the ocean of lost and forgotten premises. I have sat down at my computer with the full intention of writing my observations and imaginations in sweeping prose and punchline only to find myself spending two hours surfing Ebay in search of a laptop on which to record the same when at a coffee-shop on some future date - and I have never in my fucking life been productive in a goddamned coffee shop. There is nothing creatively inspiring about Starbucks. Nor am I inspired in any independent coffee shop whose entire ambience is dedicated to seeming as un-Starbucks-like as possible.

I quit smoking in part because it is the perfect excuse to procrastinate. I may have to abandon coffee for the same reason. Also, it's hard to have a cup of coffee and not a cigarette. If you're going to make your mouth taste like shit, you really have to go all the way... but I digress.

I could make promises, but I've made promises in the past. I'm just going to try to make a point of being a total slob with a broken car and dirty clothes. This is obviously the only path to glory.

Here's some Ping Pong:

No Smoking in the Rain

2006-09-05T17:42:00.000-04:00

Rainy, rainy day. I'm not sure that I actually enjoy rainy days, so much as I enjoy the fact that I don't seem to be nearly as affected by them as those arround me. I suppose I could wax on about my Swedish heritage and how hundreds of generations of living under gray skies in the "land of the midnight sun" have steeled the Swedes and those whose fathers scored Swedish girls against the depression induced by gray skies. But Sweden has one of the highest national suicide rates in the world, so that would not ring true. Swedes apparently react to rain and clouds by closing the garage door on their running Volvo... but, knowing Swedes, they probably wear their seatbelt for this operation.

I think part of what appeals to me about rain is the same as what appeals to me about snow. It sends everybody running for shelter. It clears the streets. For the most part, your biggest assholes, those obsessed with their appearance or too spoiled to risk a chill or any discomfort whatsoever, run for safe confines, and the world outside achieves a sort of asshole-less utopian feel. Yes, I know it's not perfect. Some assholes are water-proof or so relish the shittyness they dole out on a daily basis, even inclement weather won't keep them from their calling. But, there are less of them. (The preceding paragraph could have easily been replaced by quoting Robert Deniro's character in Taxi Driver, saying the famous line, "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.")

I quit smoking two days ago. This began as an act of bravado following my girlfriend commenting that I smoke too much as we sat on the couch watching television. I immediately broke my last cigarette in half and said, "O.K. I quit." Very macho. If only quitting cocaine had involved jumping a motorcycle over flaming barrels, or a pond full of piranhas, I might have kicked it much sooner than I did. Unfortunately most positive change in the world is the work of un-romantic, fairly tedious drudgery... like Non-Governmental Organizations, public education and highway adoption.

Anyway, what my lungs need is a real rain to come and wash the scum out of them, but I suppose I'll just breath in and out for 20 years and see what happens.

Macy's Fireworks - NYC

2006-07-04T23:14:00.000-04:00

I ended up going to the park at the end of Grand St. In Williamsburg. Thought I was so smart. Brought one of my moving blankets so we could stake out a spot. The place filled up, and then, once the show started, we realized we had our view obstructed by a giant tree. About 500 other people also realized this and a great exodus begun to break through the wall of factories and power plants to the East River... to the light.

We ended up a few blocks north looking through a chain-link fence, surrounded by Puerto Ricans, Indonesians, Polish, Chinese, hipsters, African Americans.... I quickly remembered that fireworks are always fireworks... really not that impressive. But, the ethno-melting pot factor of the couple thousand people wandering the streets around me did actually make me feel patriotic, which is a feeling that rarely rises to the surface these days.

It was actually pretty cool, like a Dead show, but I wasn't on acid.

It's my Birthday

2006-06-21T10:06:00.000-04:00

Joy.

I'd like to say that I'm either excited or depressed about the occasion, but I am neither.

Frankly, it just doesn't mean that much to me. No, I don't see this as a sign of depression. I'm not. I've just never been big on birthdays. They're artificial markers of time gone by. Yes, I know that's not a revelation, but I really believe it. I mean, I hope my car insurance goes down. I hope my girlfriend doesn't realize how much older I am than her. But, generally, I just don't care.

Anyway, I'm driving down to D.C. to see the family before everybody heads off to different corners of the planet. My parents are going back to Venezuela. My brother is already in Darfur. My sister-in-law and niece and nephew will be off to Budapest before moving to Stockholm, where my brother will join them. Somehow all this makes pursuing a career in show-business in New York City seem less exciting. While I'm in D.C. I will register as a resident, because New York auto insurance is ridiculous. My sister has a house there, so it will all look good on paper. Don't tell.

I'm done promising to keep up with this blog. I also don't believe there are too many people waiting with baited breath for my next installment. It's not low self-esteem. It's just that I'm so inconsistent about it, that my dedicated readers have long moved on to more prolific bloggers. And that's fine.

Love Sven

Happy Days....

2006-04-09T19:25:00.000-04:00

Have accidentally stumbled into a relationship that doesn't require a constant suppression of inner-dialogue. Would write more about it, but I suspect this would be unwise. Best to leave well-enough alone...

I just spent an entire weekend doing almost nothing but wandering around and looking around. It was perfect. I believe people who are in the habit of labeling such moments call this "living in the now". Fortunately, I managed to avoid those people during my weekend, which is part of the reason it wasn't annoying.

Thompkins Square Park was full of thirty-something, used-to-party-artsy-wild-lower-east-siders and their open-minded-urban-ironic-t-shirt toddlers. I'm sure we all look forward to the smug "I grew up in the lower-east-side and remember when...." pseudo-intellectual hipster pricks these kids will inevitably grow up to become. For now, they play with soccer balls and use words they don't fully grasp in hopes of impressing their poet-dread-lock fathers. It was nice.

There is a Pakistani guy at the corner of Bowery and Bleeker just north of CBGB's who has a vending cart called Serendipity or Karma or something. The whole thing is decorated like one of those Cornucopias from Pilgrims Thanksgiving illustrations had exploded onto a hot-dog stand. Even a simple hotdog comes in a spinach tortilla, with soy-beans, turkey-bacon, tahini, green onions.... It's good but a little aromatically confusing. Meanwhile the proprieter (a really nice guy) seems to be suggesting subtly that he is of Native American descent with long braids on each side of his head and, for some reason, a Caribbean accent. It's there from like 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. many nights, although, don't hold me accountable, as it would seem things like rain or one two many joints will cause our culturally plural restaurateur to leave the shop in the garage for the evening.

Item... Punk is now gay. I'm not sure when this happened, but I've been noticing that most of the mohawks, army jackets and combat booted lower east siders are gayer than (insert obligatory homosexual cliché here). The mohawk is the new assless leather chaps.

New graffiti on my van every week. Fortunately the local Brooklyn graffiti artists seem to have limited their color pallet to white, and my van is white with the exception of the back door. It had been falling off, so I went to the junk-yard in Jamaica Queens and replaced it with a black door. Soon, however, thanks to this plague of monochromatic urban vandals, said black door will be white. Until that time, "Chico 49ers" has fended off the existential angst of his seemingly meaningless, disenfranchised life by advertising his earthly presence on the back of a 1990 Dodge Ramwagon that has been known to travel to the far reaches of the Upper West side (a place that would otherwise not be aware of said life-force).

I’ll write more from now on. I promise.

Cryptic

2006-02-09T18:17:00.000-05:00

I’ve been swingin’ a little wide lately. It’s odd. This is the most frustrating business, but I know it’s going to always be frustrating, so why am I spending all my amo right now? I’ve got 25 years of fight left (Give or take), and I’m beating myself up over this little moment. I don’t know what I’m talking about either. I just wish my demons would form themselves into some sort of cohesive figure. I’m beginning to suspect they are of my own creation. My vague “everybody’s so full of shit” theory is tough to act on.

So, ladies, my excruciating loneliness is beginning to boil over into action, clumsy, il-advised action. Stay clear. It’s not healthy for anybody involved. If you find yourself accidently making out with me, smile sheepishly and slowly back away. This too shall pass. There, now I’ve made sure this entry will be of major concern to family members who are in the habit of reading my blog.

I’m moving soon. I’ve decided paying $1500 a month in rent is idiotic for someone in my position, which is the position of somebody who doesn’t want to pay $1500 in rent. I’ve decided I’m someone who wants to pay $700 or less in rent, and that it would be nice if that $700 included utilities and a roommate who isn’t a cocaine addict/dealer (had problems with this in the past). It’s funny. I used to look at the “roommate wanted ads” that said “no drugs” with disdain, assuming the potential roommate was an uptight, obsessive-compulsive who wore sweater-vests and meant it, but now this requirement peeks my interest. I’m actually more interested in living with someone who did drugs but stopped than someone who never did drugs. Because, people who never did drugs are still very likely to start doing them with all the gusto of the newly converted, and who needs to wake up and find a born-again meth tweaker in the livingroom.

Anyway, the long and short is that I’d rather work 10 hours a week to cover the rent and such instead of 25 hours a week. Yes, it’s a tough life, but don’t forget I spend my nights running around the city begging stagetime from people I often don’t respect to get up and speak to an audience I don’t respect, all so I can find self-respect. And, that’s taxing.

For the record, my favorite food is Port Wine Cheese. I like it on crackers.

That is all.

Random Evening

2006-01-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

So I went out last night with the intention of doing on open-mic. I was tired and just figured I owed it to standup to make an effort at something for the evening, but when I got to the place, I realized I was going to be waiting all night to do 5 minutes in front of a crowd that was only half watching, and I lost interest. Two young comics I know come up and say they're heading to the Cringe Humor show at the Laugh Factory and do I wanna go? I'm not really a Cringe Humor guy - dick/racist jokes that are supposed to be edgy and push boundaries of intollerance to bad racist jokes, but I was bored and looking for an excuse to leave.

We go. Rich Vos is hosting. Man. Not a fan. Maybe a little more time in the tanning booth will make you feel 21 again Rich. It's what I expect for the most part, and I sit through it patiently. God knows why. Juvenile, pedantic shit. "Ain't no reason to hate people for the color of their skin. [insert racist joke] It's just jokes folks." Fucking kill me. As I'm leaving I run into Katie Lazerus (sp?) and Dan Allen who are just leaving the "World's Funniest Reporter" show, which Katie has won. I've met Katie a few times and saw her set at Carolines "New Class Clowns" (which I am finally booked on March 14th), where she was brilliant, and an audience nurtured on Larry the Cable Guy and Jessica Simpson didn't quite follow . She is a brainiac and so is Dan Allen. They invite me to join them for a drink, and we end up at a bar in the Westin, where I'm feeling underdressed in ripped jeans and a hoodie. We're sitting with the reporters from News Day or some equally yellow publication and the Pentagon correspondent for CNN, Jamie McIntyre (Pictured). Now, he should be interesting, but he, along with his wife, is a pompous ass. At one point she (wife) goads him to tell us why Rumsfeld likes her. At another they ask the waiter where he is from (Serbia). Our high level Pentagon reporter says "Didn't we bomb you guys?" "Yes, it was terrible thing." "Hey, no hard feelings." Wife: "We did it for the right reasons. You forgive us right?" All this with a jokey, smarmy tone. I wanted to eat broken glass. I really wanted the waiter to blow his top. This and these fucking journalists (not Katie, who writes some stuff for the NY Times, but is really a standup comic), are doling out observations about standup comedy. I'll let Katie blog her own story, but man, she has a good one. One night boring the living shit out of an audience of friends and co-workers, and they know what the standup life is all about.

Anyway, I got a ride to Union Square from Dan and called it a night, but Dan pointed out that the way my evening was going, if I accepted one more randam invitation I would probable end up on the 105th floor of a building in a penthouse with a dead body and a pile of cocaine, going "Man, I should have called it a night."

P.S. I would like to add that my observations about the people involved in this evening are my own and nobody elses. Also, there was on guy from Boston, an entertainment reporter I think, who was a decent guy and had actually done some standup in the past. I would also like to add that I was a journalism major in college and worked as a reporter and editor for a few years before falling into comedy. Do not check this piece for style or spelling.

Rollin' along....

2006-01-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

Did the opening set at the Bowery Poetry Club's O'Debra Twins "Show and Tell" last night. Fifteen minutes of the kind of comedy I can't get away with doing most places. I actually stayed until closing and now know how the show ends. Won't reveal here. Those girls have incredible patience though - sitting in the front for most of the show and watching every act. Not every act is that watchable, but they stick it out.

I think I'm going to call the Bowery my home.

Holiday Limbo

2005-12-27T15:33:00.000-05:00

In limbo between Christmas and New Years. I'm not much obsessed with the holidays, but the effect on my environment makes an awareness of this period inevitable. When you don't drink, you notice drunk people. And when you don't god, you notice god people.

I just returned from Washington D.C., where I visited my brother and sister and family for Christmas. My family used to pay lip service to Hanukah, as we are half and half (my father is a Jew, and my mother a Swede/Lutheran - all atheists). But, Hanukah has lost its footing over the years, and just can't compete with the neon distraction of electrified Pagan Jesus abuse.

My brother has two children, 3-year-old Aaron and 5-year-old Anna. Both of whom run on high octane and require attention at all times. Fortunately I relate to children on a one-on-one basis more readily than adults, so I spent most of the weekend discussing Spongebob and junglegym diplomacy with the two. No existential angst can withstand the genius of "Be the monster, and I'll hide."

We took the inevitable trip into the city to look at the monuments on the mall. The Vietnam, Korean and WWII memorials continue the tradition of turning this place into a glorious cemetery, with Lincoln at one end somberly looking out the cost of "freedom". I'm not completely ironic about that, but I couldn't bring myself to type "freedom" without quotes, as it has been used as a catchphrase and weapon by politicos for so long, the word seems to lost some of its innocence. No matter where you are in this city, you can see the Washington Monument pointing skyward in tribute to Egypt. Between this and the pyramid on the dollar bill, one begins to wonder that the hell the pharos have on us.

Looming in the coming week for me is New Years. Now a year-and-a-half sober, I don't know what to do with this holiday. Going to a "meeting" and listening to the tragic, self-absorbed tales of A.A. is not tempting. Going to a party and watching the everybody actively drink themselves into who they wish they could be without drinking is also not tempting. I'm sure I will make no plans and end up doing something last minute that will involve the latter rather than the former. It's not that hard not to drink. It's just hard to be around people who are drunk without being drunk.

Alright... back soon.

Strike!

2005-12-21T16:42:00.000-05:00

So, the DeNiro movie thing fell through in the end. I waited on set for 12 hours only to get cut from the scene the second they started filming it. Made about $300 for the trouble. Got a union waiver, but no place in the credits. I talked to an optemetrist whose job it was to put Matt Damon's contact lenses in and take them out every day. This has been her job for 3 months. Another guys job is to be his stand in, when they're setting up camera angles and blocking. He also has been at it for months. At one point we all got champaigne and toasted Matt Damon on his marriage that day at City Hall. This may sound exciting, but honestly the whole thing was really very boring.

The MTA strike is on here in NYC and its just not easy to get anywhere. I'm going to drive into the city tonight if it kills me, because I'm getting cabin fever. I've been on message boards starting arguements and generally making a nusance of myself.

I somehow had hoped this strike would be more exciting, but it's just kind of killed things. Comedy shows are dying left and right, because comics can't get to the shows, and audiences are staying home. The coffee shops in Williamsburg are full. Lots of people trapped.

I really want to climb down into the subways and explore, since they're dead, but there are cops posted in every station, probably to keep people like me at bay. There's a whole world down there. The "Mole People" - vagrants who lived in the tunnels of the city in the 70's, 80's and 90's, have long been flushed out, but I've read that the amount of abandoned space beneath the ground in NYC is enormous. Tunnels that haven't been used since the 1800's. Abandoned subway lines....

I feel like I should comment on the holidays. But, I don't think I should feel that way.

I get a part in a De Niro movie.

2005-12-08T23:58:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, I'm driving around helping this Israeli guy move a T.V. he bought from the Upper East Side to further Upper East Side and, just as we finish lifting this 200 pound T.V. out of my van, my phone rings.

"Hello"
"Hello, is this Sven Wechsler?"
"Yes"
"This is so and so from such and such casting. Would you be available to have a meeting with Robert De Niro on Wednesday about a rold in the movie he's directing?"
"Uhm, has anybody said no to that question yet?"
"No. Nobody has."
"Right, well I'm up for that."
"Great."

Cut to two days later (Today). I show up at a mansion in Yonkers and am directed to holding area with all the extras and other people there for "interviews". I wait four hours in a room with no heat. They eventually build a fire in the fire place, but you had to be standing in front of it to feel any of that. Finally, they tell me and the two other guys up for the role a Swedish janitor at the U.S. embassy in Stockholm to stand against a wall. The two other guys are blond and actually speak Swedish. (There might be a line in the film). Robert De Niro comes in. I don't notice because I'm laughing at the crazy old lady who hasn't shut up the whole day. By the time I notice De Niro is standing in front of me, they tell us to sit down.

Ten minutes later they came up and told the two blond guys who spoke Swedish to go home and that I was in.

Then they took me to go eat with a few guys playing CIA agents and then to wardrobe, where I took off my clothes in front of a couple ladies while they put me in various pants, shoes and shirts. Then, a very gay man cut my hair for a long time (considering how little hair I had to begin with). Then they told me to come back tommorow.

Here's the Internet Movie Database Page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343737/

Also in the movie....

Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Joe Pesci
.... and Sven Wechsler

2005-12-05T01:12:00.000-05:00

Alright, back on the old Blogger. Had three sets tonight, two of them to nobody but comics. It snowed for the first time tonight, and everybody freaked out and stayed in, except for at the New York Comedy Club, where I believe they actually bring audiences in at gunpoint. Although, many of those in the crowd look like they are probably fairly used to having guns pointed at them. They didn't like my Jesus jokes. Interesting how comics can get up and say the most twisted pornographic visual things and have them roaring, but you get up and ponder how Jesus's fame would have waned without martyrdom and they just shut up. Well, maybe they just didn't get it. Maybe I need to smile more.

Into the Heart of Darkness

2005-05-07T14:47:00.000-04:00

Hey, long time no post. I'm not a dedicated blogger.

Anyway, I leave for Botswana, Africa this coming Wednesday. My dad is a diplomat working at the U.S. Embassy there, and I am going to visit my mother and him for a couple weeks. We'll be going to South Africa and out on safari and all those other African things. I should be more excited about this right now, but I'm so wrapped up in my world here, I don't suppose it will register until I'm at the airport.

Still plugging away in NYC. I landed a commercial on Spike T.V. (owned by Viacom - M.T.V., Comedy Central.....). It's a promotion for the new Star Wars movie coming out. Three guys with a flat tire try to use the force to fix it, then it flips to clips from the film. If you actually every watch Spike T.V. (The male version of Oxygen, theoretically) you may see it. I believe it's airing right now.

Very random. I was doing yard-work in Queens that I picked up by advertising on Craigslist (Where I get almost all of my income), when the company that books me on background (extra) work (Law and Order, pilots, movies....) called and asked if I could be at the M.T.V. building in 2 hours. I showed up, read the script with two other actors and got it. I must admit, I felt pretty cocky during and after the audition. I was part of the last group of auditioners after 2 days of auditions. They didn't call until three days later, but I kind of new I had it. That's the way this shit happens though. One second, you've got nothing, the next you're in front of a camera. The whole time, just act like you deserve it.

So, as mundane as my life sometimes scene when viewed from the driver's seat, the two above items (Botswana and the commercial) are fairly big events. Thank you blog, for putting it all in perspective.

Still fighting to get into the goddamn New York comedy clubs. This bringer bullshit (bringing in a certain number of audience members in exchange for stage time) has fucking taken over. I won't do it. First of all, I can't do it. I am pretty much only friends with comedians in this city. Second of all, bringer shows suck, because mostly it's Joe Dickweed from the office who thinks he's funny bringing in the people from the surrounding cubicles. In other words, 90 percent of the comics are terrible, because people with lots of friends aren't funny. Then, if I drag some poor soul to see the show, they have to buy expensive drinks and pay a cover just to sit through a ton of shitty pseudo-comics at a show that inevitably lasts 3 hours. Finally, it's not my goddamned job to sell tickets and beer. It's my job to be funny.

But, every friggin' club is pulling this shit now, and it's next to impossible to get in the door without going through it. I understand if clubs set the bar high, and very few comics are allowed to perform on their stage, but bringers are about setting the bar very low, and using would be comics as cash-cows. Besides the Comic Strip, none of the clubs really hold open auditions.

Fuck it. One way or another, I'll get passed this B.S.

If anybody reading this has an in at the clubs, let me know. I'm going to get out on the road and tour the country over the summer, but I'd love to stay local. Tough to do the different stuff in Ogallala, Nebraska.

I'll get back to this after Africa, assuming I don't join the Bushmen.....

Headlined....

2005-02-26T01:52:00.000-05:00

The Village 247 is my home base it looks like. Somehow this room full of rowdy Brooklyn drunks has welcomed me into its arms. I closed out the show tonight and got called back on stage for an encore. I feel bad, because I kind of half-assed it a little bit. I've been there so often, I figure most of them have already heard all my jokes, but I got love just the same. I have a tape from this room that I have been sending out to clubs and showcases. Only one bite so far, but I blame that more on the fact that most tapes just end up in the trash or in a pile in the corner without ever being watched.

Anyway, on the off chance that this Blog has an audience, the Village 247 is a great room. It's in the basement of a restaurant owned be a very friendly local, and the room itself is run by Tommy Amado. It's every Friday at 10 p.m. 247 Smith St. (btwn Douglass & Degraw) 718-855-2848 - You can get there by the G train, Bergen stop. The word is out among comedians, so spots are getting competetive, but the level of talent is increasing as a result.

Also, I'm working at the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village now (working the door, barking people in), so I'll be going up late nights there. Dave Chappelle started at this club and he shoes up randomly often to spend an hour on stage. This is right around the corner from the Comedy Cellar (the toughest club to get into for comics in the city), so you get a lot of comics walking over to do sets while they're in the neigborhood. It's a good room to meet comics higher up the food chain, so, while I hate barking, it seems like the most worthwhile place to bark.

I've started working as an extra. Actually, my first gig is Monday, when I will be an extra on the new Law and Order. This isn't a way for me to sneak into the film and T.V. world as much as a way to make some money without having to work much or hold down a steady. You can freelance at it through a few casting companies, and it's a way to get into the union.

That's all....

Climbed Under the Old Dodge

2005-02-19T01:00:00.000-05:00

Yep, sure did. Gas tank needed changin', and weren't nobody but me to do it. It's 25 degrees out, so I only got to takein' the old one out before I was so cold I decided to put the new one in tommorrow.

Washed off and hopped on the L to eighth street, where I got on the E up to Times Square to do a little openning set for a play. I "won" this set by answering a trivia question on another message board. Tiny black box theater over a bodega. Six people in the audience. They begged me to stay and watch the play. It's about the trials and tribulations of a young black 17-year-old coming out of the closet to
his family and... himself.

Most ham-fisted, after school special, poorly acted sack of shit to ever grace the stage. The lead character was a replacement 8 days before the show and read his lines off of the scipt in his hands, delivered in a monotone. The best actor was another guy playing a really queeny black 18-year-old. But this is probably only because he was in fact a really queeny black 18-year-old off stage as well.

I ran out as soon as the lights came up. I didn't want anybody asking me what I thought. By the way, the above play was supposed to be a comedy according to the stage manager.

Playing to Morons

2005-02-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

Went to Connecticut and went up after an hour and a half of other comics. Audience huge, but very drunk and already busy not paying attention to the stage. Comic after me actually started his set by screaming in to the microphone "Shut the fuck up!"

Anywho, it occurs to me that I'm a bit of a brainiac (99th percentile) and I've chosen a career that requires me pandering to the average moron, at least until I am known and have a more selective audience. This will continue to be the situation for a while.

Therefore, I'm trying to write some fairly universal material for the average moron that makes up the population, at least so they'll shut up for a moment and let me do the rest of my act. I'm not selling out, just retooling for a long battle.

Meanwhile, I will continue to seek out my fellow brainiacs.

Sometimes, I wish I was dumb.

The Bushman Takes the Stage

2005-02-13T01:28:00.000-05:00

I'm still here. Haven't been keeping up with this little diary. So, still pluggin' away at the New York thing. Went up in the Village tonight at a place called the Village Lantern. I was something like the 10th comedian after about an hour and forty minutes of show, so they were a little drunk and laughed out by the time I hit them with my sophistocated observations, but I got them going. The following joke got an applause break, at which point I decided to take my money (metaphorically) and run:

"Did any of you vote in the Iraqi elections? They got a 95 percent turn-out, so it seems like everybody was in on it. We only had around 50 percent for our last presidential election. Give it a few years and the Iraqis will be that cynical about it. I think everybody in the country is just too distracted to vote. Next election we should just take all the presidential candidates, at the beginning, when there are like 12 of them, and put them all in the White House at once. Then, we can televise it, and every week we'll vote one of the fuckers off. "

Anyway, it was an audition slot, and the guy says I get to come back. I don't think he saw my set even, but as long as it's another room, good enough. I was actually nervous when I went on stage, and I think it showed in my face. In fact, I'm sure it showed. This does not help. The girl who was m.c.'ing was in the process of announcing me, saying how hillarious I am (she's never seen me before) when she forgot my last name, which seems like a small thing, but kind of lets the audience know she was bullshitting them up to that point. She was a good host though and kept the energy up during a long show.

New rooms are tough. I've got rooms that I've been to a few times, and it's just different. I feel like I've proven myself. You kind of get a sense of ownership, like you pissed on the walls and you can smell yourself in the space. You show up in a new room and all the other comics know eachother, you keep getting bumped because Joe just showed up, and come on, it's Joe, and who the hell are you? The audience is different every time, hopefully, but there's still something about knowing the scene and feeling at home in it.

One night you're king of your domain, the next night you're sneaking into someone else's lair, trying to steal their harem. Harem... O.K., there's more going on here. Sven needs a little T.L.C. Seems like I threw the baby out with the bathwater when I gave up drugs. Ladies? Little help here. My romantic life currently consists of seeing pretty girls on the subway and daydreaming about our life together.

I'm not supposed to get involved with women until I'm a year sober, but I'd be lying if I said that's what's holding me back. I just don't know how make a move when I'm sober. I've never gotten anywhere with a woman without a few beers in me at least. Coward? Yes, but everyone's a coward when it comes to these things. If you aren't scared, you're not looking for what I'm looking for.

Oh well, I'll just keep my mind on my career. Yes, that's the way to spin it. Too busy for love, that's me.

I'm going to Africa in May. I don't know how that's going to happen, but I've committed to it. My parents live there. My dad is a Foreign Service Officer posted in Botswana at the U.S. Embassy, and my mother works part time in administration at the embassy. I also just realized that I have to be back before May 30th, because that's the day of my audition for the Comic Strip. The Comic Strip, where Jerry Seinfeld, Ray Romano and Chris Rock, among others, got there start. I'm going to southern Africa, the other side of the planet, and all I can think about is getting back in time for an audition. Hey, Africa's not going anywhere. My future will fade if not kept after.

I have a vision of walking off a plane at J.F.K. wearing native African clothing and hopping in a taxy straight to the Comic Strip where I am instantly whisked on stage. I proceed to do my entire set, which has no references to Africa or even black people in it. I make no comment about the fact that I'm dressed like a Kalahari Desert bushman, because I'm too wired up on airplane coffee and no sleep to realize. I get off stage and Starla (who hosts and judges the first round of auditions) asks me, "Uhm, so what's with the Zebra pelts and gourds?"

That's all for now...

Bowery Poetry Club

2004-12-28T02:52:00.000-05:00

Went up at this open mic (poets, musicians, comedians, freaks) in the Bowery (which actually still has some brick streets, making one expect to see vagrants in knickers stealing bread). Anyway, I loved it. After I left Boulder, I kind of fell out of the "art" scene and into the comedy scene, and I miss it. There's a naked honesty there, at least at the street level, you know, unfiltered as it were. It's like talking to people in broken English - simple, but so much more sincere and revealing. I know, comedy is art, but as comedians, we're not supposed to say that out loud or even discuss it amongst ourselves.

The Shapiro brothers, two separate comedians who happen to be twin brothers, both went up and have such a stream of consciousness, abstract sensibility that is hilarious and poignant at the same time. Frankly, I felt hack going up after them and doing "straight" comedy, even though I usually seem to come across and "brainy" and "cerebral" according to many a comedy host. Next time I go up at that place, I'm doing something more performance oriented than straight writing oriented. Anyway, there's a community feel to the place, and I'll feel more at home if I keep coming back. It's definitely a place where you can try out different stuff. I love any place where the mentally ill intermingle freely with people who don't think they're mentally ill.

Was invited to a New Year's Party by two people in the audience. They told me to bring as many people as I wanted, but I don't know anybody, other than my roommate Nate, and he's in Tennessee. So I'm considering showing up alone. How weird would that be?

There is a mouse problem in my apartment, and they seem to be getting braver. Not sure how to handle this situation. Maybe I should show up in their homes and start shitting and pissing all over the place, eating their food, but as they live here and eat my food, this would probably be counter-productive.

Too Dark?

2004-12-23T23:56:00.000-05:00

I've been told by more than a few that my last post was a little "dark", and that it sounds like I'm really depressed, which is not the case. Sometimes anger motivates me to write, but that is not to say that I am permanently pissed off and miserable.

I've been going up nightly, with a little down-time as a result of the holidays, and things are going very well, despite the fact that life is finite, and this will all be over in the blink of an eye...

So, anyway, what are you guys up to? Uhm, looks like rain. Maybe that will wash all the scum off the earth...

Right, so I'm going to eat a salad, and I'll come back and talk to y'all later.

Reluctant Proletariat 12/04/04

2004-12-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

Somehow the alarm clock going off at 5 a.m. is always a horrible revelation to me. It happens every day, but I still wake up as if a newborn blinded by the alien harsh cold of the delivery room. This tragic and endearing naivety fades quickly into the cynical reality of what is happening to me. And, knowing that I am not alone in this morning ritual torture doesn’t help.

I go to work on the train with a bunch of other people who, for the most part, hate their jobs too. Oh, some of them claim they love their position as marketing associate at ACME Corp.. In fact, they may even believe it. Somehow they manage to find finishing the promotion package for the new “line” rewarding; perhaps because, like politicians, they have lived and worked in that vague, spin, double-speak world for so long, they actually believe their own bullshit. They have to, or risk becoming aware of the empty futility of it all, and who am I to judge? But in the metal box propelling us towards the city center, such suspension of disbelief echoes hollow.

Now, as previously stated, I’m a waiter currently (besides my burgeoning comedy career). No, I didn’t play waiter with the other kids when I was little. Nor did I play fireman. I seem to recall playing mad scientist with a chemistry set, but to pursue a career in mad science these days is limited to stem-cell research and bio-weapons production (although I believe nuclear physics has been co-opted into this grouping). In any case, by the time I was a teenager, I had settled into a career as a mad pharmacist, more specifically, Dr. Jekyll, which has lead me here.

It isn’t just that “Work sucks. I wish I was rich.” It’s the quiet desperation most of us seem to accept as status quo. Yes, we have to pay the bills, and homelessness isn’t the bucolic, free-spirited, nomadic existence it appears to be. That myth is quickly overwhelmed by the stench of urine. But, I just can’t settle for this mediocre existence.

I suppose many of us opt to not see the forest for the trees. We do this one task well, take personal pride in it, but don’t step back and look at the giant mindless gear it is a tooth in. People at giant corporations that have fallen into universal disfavor, such as Enron, probably managed to separate their own role from the overall result in this manner. “I filed my paperwork on time every day. I brought donuts on Friday mornings. It’s a shame about the lying, cheating and stealing, but I was a good little worker-bee, and my desk was personalized with endearing knick-knacks.”

We have to do this all the time. If I look at the universe as an infinite conglomeration of energy and mass randomly bumping into itself in an endless chain of action and reaction, I’m gonna have a tough time getting up in the morning. So, I think, “I better get up, so I don’t get fired.”

Who am I to write so knowledgeably about the trials and tribulations of the working class?

Well, in my search for satisfaction in the labor force, I have explored many lines of work. In restaurants, I’ve been a busser, cook and waiter. I’ve picked fruit and avocados in Israel, where I also constructed an automated chicken coup and a gas-proof bomb shelter, sprayed a swamp for mosquitoes, worked at a cannery and as a bartender – all at the age of 17. I’ve worked construction, demolition and water treatment, once wading at the bottom of a raw sewage sludge treatment vat in hip-boots with a squeegee, scraping the snails off the walls, so they didn’t cog the filters.

I was a 1908 Otis Elevator attendant (The elevator was from 1908, not the work schedule) who rose through the ranks to head bellman at a Victorian style hotel. I’ve worked in offices as secretary, marketing writer, on-line futures brokerage computer help desk operator and medical record file clerk, the last being the closest thing to hell on earth I have experienced – yes, worse than the sludge vat. I’ve worked at a discount clothing outlet, putting the clothes nobody puts back on the hangers back on the hangers. I’ve been a golf caddy.

I’ve gotten a degree in journalism and worked as a reporter, photographer and editor; At one small-town newspaper, these were all the same position. I’ve been a Boy Scout camp counselor and a babysitter, pizza delivery driver and Chinese food delivery driver (People are more likely to answer the door naked and stoned to the former.). I was a drug dealer for years, partly to support my habit and partly because my habit made it hard to hold down any other job for long. (This is a bit of a running theme.)

I was web designer and multimedia director for the Chicago Improv Festival for two years, sold tickets at Improv Olympic Theater for one and interned at The Second City Training Center for six months. There were a few paid acting gigs, and I was once offered money for sex but turned it down, a move I regret, as it would make a nice addition to my resume. I had my own lawn-mowing and leaf raking business at age 13 and co-owned and operated a Hawaiian Shave Ice cart in Boulder, Colorado at age 25. I’ve also done some temp work. Well, It’s all been temp work, hasn’t it?

I am a knowledgeable about many things and well-versed in none, but for fuck’s sake, haven’t I done enough?

It’s not that I don’t have a good work ethic. I feel as unproductive and guilt-ridden as the next Puritan on my days off, but can I please not hate my job?

Now, more about the magical dream job that is comedy.

Since writing the previous paragraphs I went down to another part of Brooklyn, Carol Gardens, an affluent neighborhood directly south of Manhattan. I live in Williamsburg, east of Manhattan, an expensive neighborhood filled with people who are not affluent but are pretty sure they can paint. I went to Carol Gardens to perform standup at a bar. I went up after a beat/spoken-word/comedian/poet/actor reciting his work over jazz fusion and before a stripper. And I tanked.

I didn’t tank a little. I tanked a lot. I did the same jokes that killed a week before at a bar one block down the street and have consistently hit at bars around New York, but the crowd that had shown up to see a Burlesque show at the Boudouir Bar wasn’t having it.

Now mind you, this isn’t a strip club, and I’m not Lenny Bruce. It would be easier to spin it that way, and in 40 years, perhaps we can look at it through those rose colored lenses. This is a little bar that fancies itself a French nightclub out of the 1920’s. Burlesque, from my limited understanding involves women stripping out of men’s clothing, or slapstick in your underwear, or World War I era German soldiers in pith spiked helmets sitting in an audience and sipping Liebfraumilch while they pretend to be in on a joke, a joke that is apparently not to be laughed out loud at. I don’t know, but suffice to say it’s goddamned ridiculous. I like eccentric and am somewhat eccentric, but this place is deluded and sad. It’s cute when little kids try to act like adults, but when dumb, uneducated people try to pose as intellectual artists, it’s just pathetic and annoying - though often re-packaged as “kitsch”.

Then, get this. Really, fucking get this. I finish my set and walk off stage to the back, where I hit the stop button on my video camera. I will later be hitting the erase button. I go out and smoke a cigarette and come back in to stare at the floor so I don’t have to become a homosexual, because this could turn me off women forever. Then, when the act ends, the owner comes up to me with some guy who works there, who by-the-way put up a play before this show that we’ve been told is about “freedom”, using burlesque as a metaphor for “freedom” and who has a Bo Derek braid Mohawk and a sparkling sequined sports jacket on. She tells me I need the artist’s permission to videotape. Apparently I’m being accused of videotaping the naked lady.

I’m not sure what’s more offensive, that I’m being called a pervert at a strip show or that the chain-smoking, unhealthy looking 45-year-old woman who just did a poorly realized and overwrought striptease to Joe Cocker’s “Leave Your Hat On” is being called an artist. And let’s face it, while a naked body is nothing to be ashamed of, not every naked body is something to be particularly proud of.

I explain, that I only videotaped my set and stopped the camera after that. I go out and smoke a cigarette. Standing outside is a guy who spent my entire set sitting at the bar talking loudly with his boyfriend. He tells me he missed my set but his friend laughed at one of my jokes. He then proceeds to suggest that perhaps I should leave a little bit more time before my punch-lines, that maybe I’m rushing the joke. From what he caught, it seemed like it, he says.

I stare out down the street, waiting for the bus. I’m not taking the bus home. I don’t ride the buses in New York. It’s not that I have something against busses. I just haven’t figured them out yet. I need a bus though, because I’m going to have to shove this motherfucker in front of it. No bus comes though, so I just nod and walk back in to get my stuff.

Inside the staff are still giving me sidelong glances, obviously still suspicious that I am absconding with a digital recording of this sagging tit trainwreck. The other comic, a good comic, is on stage, fighting the fight. I can see the look in his eyes. As comics, we realize when the battle is lost, but running off stage crying isn’t a good career move, so you just march on, like the Australians at Gallipoli into Turkish gunfire. You switch subject matter a couple times to do a final check that it isn’t just that they’re not fans of subway jokes, perhaps keeping some vague hope in the back of your head that the tide can still turn. But for the most part, you know it’s over. Sometimes, as my friend suffering on stage likely did, you realize it before you even walk on stage.

This is an audience of people who came to see a sex show. They are embarrassed about it. They’re nervous about it. They’re having a hard enough time pretending they know something about the wine they’re drinking, pretending they’re not drinking it too fast, pretending they’re not a combination of disappointed and appalled at a plump girl with a mustache taped to her upper lip slowly removing a stocking from a pasty white calf. They’re not about to call attention to themselves by laughing out loud.

Every time he comes up between acts the poet/host keeps calling the audience “poetry fans”, a categorization none of us is particularly confident about.

I take the F train cuz the G train runs rarely at this hour. This will take me through Manhattan to get back to Brooklyn. One stop before my transfer to the L train, the conductor announces that the train will now run express and takes me two stops passed my stop, so I have to backtrack.

It takes me one-and-a-half hours to get home.

You know, it’s funny. It’s all so fucking funny.

Foie Gras

2004-11-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

One month in, and the thrill of the subways and crowds has waned somewhat. I have come to New York to seek fame and fortune, or at least not to have to wait tables anymore. This is the capital of standup comedy, with more clubs, showcases, open-mics, auditions and television opportunities for aspiring comics than any place in the world. Yes, I have heard of L.A., but you have a lot of aspiring actors playing standup comics there. And, I’d rather live here. People in L.A. pretend to be nice. People in New York don’t. If you’re going to be an asshole, at least be honest about it.

I wake up each morning and ride the L-train into Manhattan to wait on the wealthy and powerful at a fancy French bistro. I tell myself that the more I hate this job, the more motivated I will be to rise through the comedy ranks and out of the hair shirt that is the day job. Insert obligatory witticism about “character building”.

We sell a burger for $32. It’s ground sirloin stuffed with braised short-ribs, foie gras and truffles. Three animals had to suffer so these pricks could chortle smugly, play at provincial-everyman and say, “Well I guess I’ll try the burger.”

For those who don’t know, foie gras is fattened goose liver. To produce it, the goose is force-fed with a stick and not allowed to move or exercise until its liver nearly explodes. Then, mercifully, they kill it and soak the liver in brandy. Sometimes I think the fabulously wealthy find it an empowering sense of entitlement to have their food tortured and humiliated before it shows up on their plate. I’m waiting for Mr. Witherby III to request that his salad be slapped and forced to beg for mercy before arriving at the table.

My customers are either arrogant, condescending pricks who think their wealth is testament to their greatness, wealthy Europeans (who fit the above description, but have and accent that makes it seem more aristocratic) or desk-jockey yahoos who want to play Manhattan socialite on the company dollar. There are a few lost tourists and retired elderly couples who have the naïve, un-cultured tendency to treat me with respect and say thank you with sincerity.
Somehow all of the above, with the exception of the last, seem to think that their presence in these ultramodern-hipster-French décor-confines reflects a level of refinement that gives their opinions importance and validity. I show up at tables to hear quick-fix solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, inner-city education and national security.

All this social-consciousness from people eating tortured fowl.

Let me grab a stick and help you with that burger…

I’ve decided to become a vegetarian. “Drugs and meat in the same year?” you say. Well, I’ve been feeling better, and every time my stomach fights an acidic battle with beef or pork, I think, “Why should I be part of the machine that inhumanely mass-tortures animals, screws up the environment and wastes valuable resources while perpetuating malnutrition and a national health problem.” And, frankly I’d rather have coffee after lunch than guilt.

Besides the supermarket in my area of Williamsburg, Brooklyn smells like cat shit, which changes the aura of the meat cooler dramatically. The reason it smells like cat shit is that there is a cat in the supermarket. I gather this is a solution to a rodent problem. Suffice to say I may start fasting soon.

Anyway, New York has enough ethnic variety and generally metropolitan market abundance to make vegetarianism a more viable option than it might be in rural America, where the local Beef, Bait and Guns Emporium is always flush out of tofu - although, I fully expect to find a Whole Foods inside of a Walmart in the near future.

So, I go through the motions at work, and walk out, leaving it behind me, go to the park and look down at the pigeons and squirrels, asserting my position in the social hierarchy…

O.K., hold on.

I’m not really this bitter. I love the pigeons and squirrels. I love the park, and I love waking up in the morning. I love my dog (who I need to walk more). I just hate pretense and dishonesty. I spent 15 years pissing away my potential, on liquor and drugs. I lied to everyone and myself about everything and nothing, and now I want to embrace life, be true to myself and make up for lost time, so if frustrates me to interact with the fake and shallow so intimately all day.
That, and if I write about fluffy clouds and the love energy that flows through all of us, this will quickly become a private diary. And, without an audience, I’m nothing but a lonely tree fighting a losing battle against gravity.

Comedy. The carrot on the stick. The goal. The light at the end of the tunnel. It rounds out the hard edges, makes it bearable… sometimes.

I go up every night I can. I go to open mics. I go to showcases. I bark on the street, promoting shows in exchange for stage time. I suffer through hacks, waiting my turn and fend off hecklers to protect my stage, my moment in the light.

It sounds so romantic when I write it romantically.

There are a lot of comics in New York. There are a lot of terrible comics in New York. There are a lot of terrible comics everywhere, on television, in the movies and at the dinner table. I am required to sit through it, and wait my turn. Most people can stay home and turn the channel to avoid another ironic comment about masturbation. Note: There is nothing ironic about a comic commenting on masturbation, because every hack on the planet talks about masturbation. In fact, for the most part, their entire act is emotional masturbation. Unfortunately, the audience is more likely to be receptive if you emotionally have sex with them. The bar is low, and I spend my evenings tripping over it trying to spin humorous analogies about existential angst, because I’m so friggin’ brilliant…

There’s a compromise involved here. You want to make the audience think and laugh, but you have to play to a certain level, or they’ll just “think” you’re not funny and start talking to their neighbor about sports. I don’t live in a vacuum, so I’m aware of the banal voyeurism that pervades popular culture. The trials and tribulations of eight self-centered, physically attractive twenty-somethings living the “reality” of being the voyeuristic object of the drooling masses is topping the Neilsen Ratings. I’m not going to get a lot of mileage pointing out the hypocrisy of Christian Calvinism… unless I couch it in a joke about MTV.

Fortunately, I realize my own hypocrisy; that I’m not always the sophisticated altruist I like to think I am, that I am weak and human, and that’s how you get ‘em. I’m the victim. I’m the drooling idiot. I’m the bleary-eyed sucker waking up from the propaganda. Now the audience feels it’s okay to look at their own foibles, because I’m standing naked in front of them pointing out mine. I mean, make no mistake about. I know I’m a brilliant martyr who will save the world despite being misunderstood, abused and under-appreciated. But, for ten minutes on stage, I’m the everyman giving voice to thoughts we all have; giving perspective on the absurd, making the pretty girls laugh…

Would you like pommes frites with your burger, sir?