I’m not sure if I’m living wisely.

I revealed to M. my ultimate plan for West Coast domestication — I hit 300 pounds, sit around the house and adopt that shrewish tone I always seem to hear out and about. You know, “Hoooney, you’re not leaving the house looking that way are you?”

I swear to God, last time I was at the airport with him, we were next to a couple where the frowny faced (i.e. sourpussed, probably everywhere she had a puss) chick kept at the poor guy, ending with something like, “Well, fine! If this is the wrong line, then I guess you’re just going to have to stand there and be wrong. And, then you’ll get to stand in another line. But just stay where you are.”

Maybe I’m just no good at being a chick, but whenever I adopt a tone best left for very small children and dumb animals, I fully expect to see some jaw clenching, if not fist clenching. Experentially, I’d say most guys aren’t real cool with commands like “Sit!” and “Stay.”

(I should say that at the current time, every time I hear a woman in public shrewing it up and just sounding like a stone-cold, drag of a cunt, I want to trade my ovaries in right then and there and throw my NOW card on top of them. Of course, all that’ll be changing when I join their ranks.)

Everything will change when I make it to the Golden West. Shrew all the way, baby. B I T C H. Like every man’s nightmare. This pussy has teeth, all that man-eating shit.

Or at least that’s what I’m telling M.

I figure that way when we’re living together, and I’m my usual self I will seem twice as good and cool. Like I said, may be not what you would call “wise.” But, a chick’s got to have a plan.

Yeah, my clock is winding the fuck down and I’m not ready.

Three days and counting until I carve another age notch on my belt. Four days and counting until M. does too, and I do my last show in the area as a Cambridge resident. Five days and counting until the moving van gets here on Friday and I attempt to have a party. Six days and counting (maybe seven) until I see my family for the last time in a while.

Fucking hell. Beads of sweat just appear when I think of it all.

For the most part, these last weeks of trying to get my shit together have been great. There’re so many people that have come forward to make me realize that there are a lot of things I’ll miss around here. Last night I did a show at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway with Deb Farrar-Parkman that was all women, including the small, but very friendly, audience. I’m proud to have made some friends among Boston’s funny women and to have been included with a pretty eclectic group.

The last minute invites for some shows before I go and some of the conversations I’ve had of late have done a lot to bolster my faith in friendships and shore up my almost always shakey and completely fucked up sense of self-esteem.

Of course, a couple of ass clowns have managed to do what they can via email and whatnot to also remind me that the comedy world is full of assholes and selfish pricks. Rumor has it they’re planning some last minute “roasting” to see me out the door. But, since they are complete and total pussies, it’s all being done on the sly, therefore I can’t plan any counter maneuvers.

The irony of that is the two principle players are the biggest couple of old lady, gossipy whiners I have yet to meet in comedy (and that is saying a fucking lot). Any prank they’re not in on is unfair and unfunny and otherwise low, and to hear them speak, they have a corner on the humor, funny, ha ha market and all other comics suck. Only thing is mostly they’re wrong, especially about their own talents.

My revenge, I guess, is only this — thank fucking god I’m not them, and since I actually have a grown-up life to lead, I don’t think I’ll be missing them much.

Here are a few links, if anyone gives a shit about my Spamcop woes and the little gal getting pushed around.

A white paper from Fastmail.FM (a competitor) (Unlike anything on Spamcop’s site it’s readable and clear, uncluttered by jargon and attitude.)
Someone with a situation similar to my own
Someone who has worked with Spamcop.

I guess the good part is misery loves company.

As of last night, I was feeling like maybe Spamcop isn’t entirely evil, because one moderator took the time not to be a flaming asshole.

Today, though, I’m back on the blacklist, and I’m rethinking the “not evil” appellation. No matter how they couch the language, they are imperial stormtroopers making decisions for me (and a whole lot of less educated, less fortunate souls). Decisions I never asked them to make.

I fucking hate anyone acting like they are my savior or the rest of the world’s savior, when no one asked. It’s the same mentality that tries to shut down pornographers, picket (and worse) abortion clinics, install V-chips, label music and movies and otherwise save me from myself. You know, fucking no thanks.

Here’s a few of the tactics I figure smack more of power tripping, delusion than the “help” they are supposedly offering:

I dunno. If they are legitimate and good-hearted in their desire to help other people, the message is completely lost by their bully boy bullshit.

M. has been scouting us some digs to live in once I get to Silicon Valley. Man, I’m feeling seriously goose pimply with the excited anticipation.

I confess a certain anxiety on my part about the shades of surreal. Who would ever have thunk lil’ Nise-y here would have been planning a cross country trek to meet up with her boyo and do some housekeeping. Nutty, crazy world this here place is turning out to be.

On top of that, I’m feeling pretty OK about getting a sketch written out for the final show in town. Did a few read threws with a local actress and comedienne, whose website I would link to if only she had one.

Here’s a bit of trivia about my sick mind. Whenever someone tells me that I am a good writer (such as when I actually put a sketch idea on paper), my very first reaction is, “Yes, I try to be very careful with my typing and punctuation.”

I am absolutely positive “good writing” is simply that which is devoid of typos.

Man, what a pain in my ass, although for the moment it’s been salved.

So, the IP address on which my domain name resides has triggered some spam traps somewhere in the universe, possibly (but not definitively) because someone within the same server space is using it for spam. The result is the IP address through which I have been sending mail from dee-rob.com has been blacklisted by Spamcop and some other anti-spam vigilante sites.

Foolishly, I went to Spamcop’s forums to get some possible advice on dealing with a situation that is just hugely difficult given that I’m about to move and have no home-base ISP. I didn’t want to have to use Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail, given that I have a perfectly good website of my own.

I say foolishly I went to the forums, because although some of the advice was good or reasonable (and, a couple of folks seemed to realize that blocklisting does create collateral damage among innocent bystanders), by and large the attitude was thickly pompous and condescending. Apparently, they feel quite righteous in what some of their threads hammer as the “war” against spam.

Frankly, I just don’t buy that attitude, any more than I buy the Patriot Act or roadblocks to stop drunk drivers or any number of things that fuck with innocent folks to snag the guilty. Yeah, spam sucks. It’s annoying. It’s pervasive. But, I happen to think my not being able to contact someone for whom I’m doing a web design or one of my oldest friends, because their ISP or hosting uses Spamcop, sucks more.

Worse than being guilty until proven innocent, I’m limited because someone in my ‘net neighborhood might be guilty. And, since I have no access at all to any of the reporting or background information or any control over whether the report is sound and whether my hosting company is responding appropriately, I just have to take it.

Maybe that would be an acceptable price to pay for some people. For me, it’s not.

But, more aggravating than any of the several conversations with my hosting company’s tech support has been the Charles Bronson smugness of the forums. My attitude and my rethinking need to be adjusted to see how Spamcop is helping, and I should be joining in on the blocklist movement to pressure ISPs and hosting companies to root out spammers.

While “helping” me, I got called stupid, my ability to research and think through the issue has been questioned, and it was suggested that since I paid my hosting company who in their eyes hosts criminals, I’m complicit in the criminal activity or at least tainted.

Problem is what constitutes spam is subjective.

Moreover, many within the Internet community disagree with Spamcop’s and others’ blocklisting approach. One of the best metaphors I saw on other websites likened Spamcop’s tactics to burning down a bakery in a mall or torching the entire mall, because the mall owners allowed a massage parlor to set up shop next door. The other one I liked was it’s like the post office in your home state stopping any mail from New Jersey, because a lot of junk mail comes from New Jersey.

At the end of the day, I have to lean heavily toward libertarianism and disagree that my losing my ability to confidently send email is a price I have to pay.

In other words, Spamcop is loaded with cocky motherfuckers who can kiss my ass with their self-congratulatory sense of right and wrong.

I am a sucker for signs and portents, and here is how my night fed into them.

Early on, I got a phone call from M. the fun to hang out with, who is Asian, by the way. He’s spending some of his spare time checking out apartments for us. I’m totally into the picture of the future, especially as he picks out places. (Places, incidentally that have an obvious predictability around certain factors. Most notably, proximity to movie theaters and places to buy coffee.

He talked to one guy today, who was Greek. My longest rental, because it was a rent-controlled, two-bedroom in Cambridge, handed down to me by my big brother and then girlfriend, now sister-in-law, was with a Greek guy.

So far, the signs look good.

Then, tonight, I did a late show at a theater in Somerville (see post below). One of the performers was a nice, but slightly crazy guy who was one of the first folks to chat with me at open mikes. I think it was because I would give him access to French fries.

Another performer, also crazy, was the first comic to ever treat me completely shittily. Every single chance he got he put me down, bullied me and just generally made it clear I was not welcome in Boston comedy or maybe even the world.

A third performer hung out in the audience. He was the first guy I would see repeatedly who would never make eye contact, look generally uncomfortable and never remember my name. He initiated me into the awkward, shuffling silence that is socially inept comics trying to appear sociable.

Later 2/3 of the three guys above went out for a beer with the group. I was uncomfortable. BUT, unlike 3-4 years ago, when I thought I would never fit in and these guys were people whose respect I craved, I didn’t fucking care. I was uncomfortable, because I knew with certainty that to various degrees these guys who I had previously been intimidated by are fucking losers. Sad, fucking piles of wasted opportunities and impotent dreams.

My life is so much better now. And seeing that small bit of the past fucking underscores that truth with a thick, permanent ink magic marker.

Oh and I forgot, I mentioned M. is Asian, because I can’t believe that two separate comics relied almost solely for large chunks of time on Asian stereotypes. At least I exploited his ethnicity with a somewhat open mind and some originality.

Check out Peter Dutton’s show tonight at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway in Davis Square, Somerville.

$10, $5 for students, beer and wine available

There’s a Clean show first, Dirty show second and it’ll all be over by midnight.

I believe this is the list of performers, but I might be wrong:

Host: Peter Dutton
Clean: Baratunde, Peter Bowers, Rich Gustus and E.J. Murphy:
Dirty: Ben Joplin, Ku, Shane Mauss and Dee-Rob.

If I stay in this town, I will get caught up in some kind of prank leading to the unseemly ticketing or incarceration of a woman of my age. Reason being I hang out with young turks eager to test the bounds of society with fun and hijinks.

As evidence, what I think they called skidhopping in my youth and what the Walsh Brothers were calling bumping:

SPAM-wise, I’m essentially taking it as a two-way gang rape.

I had to spend a lot of time upgrading my weblog, because I was getting hammered with comment SPAM. (Most of it was caught in the moderation area. Still and all, it was mighty, fucking tedious deleting pages of crap.)

Now, it turns out I’m in the cross-fire of SPAM accusations. Fucking hell.

I guess some dick somewhere in the universe of my shared hosting server has been doing a little mass-mailing. As a result, my email IP has shown up on a couple of blacklists. Any site using those lists as holy gospel and bouncing any email from the vicinity are throwing the old baby out with the bathwater and tossing the emails of yours truly.

At least I got my IP addy off of big, bad SpamCop for now. That was really fucking up a couple of things.

My conclusion over all the shit is that, apart from wasting time I don’t have, SPAM really is a metaphor for life.

The problem with an unyielding blacklist approach is you might block something good. The problem with a completely free and unfettered system, the assholes will run roughshod over everyone.

Either way, the vast majority of us who are neither tyrants with maximum control or amoral bottom feeders, end up taking it in multiple holes and just begging for mercy.