It’s fucking 10:59 p.m. and I am sitting in a research department at a NEVER GOING TO HAVE A NAME major, federally funded research laboratory kind of anonymous place. That is the scientific part. The hypothesis that is irrefuteable and incontrovertible:

I AM A LOSA!!!!! (As they say in my native tongue. Others may say “loser.”)

The evidence to support this claim — Did I mention it’s 10:59 p.m.? Oh wait, make that after 11 p.m., and I am in my FUCKING OFFICE!

Now, if I’m lucky I’ll be home before Letterman (you know, late night, fucking television) comes on.

Either I so totally suck at my job, or I’m a goddamned saint. I honestly don’t know any more.

First things first, based on the comment section below: I don’t even have a straight razor. Closest thing is a few disposable two-track kind of razor gizmos, left behind by a certain handsome fella who one might think cares if I off myself. Astutely, and no doubt sarcastically, the same guy points out I love myself too much to dispatch my own wonderfulness. Far better that I inflict myself on you the other members of the planet.

Also related to that comment, don’t you think it would be kind of creepy if the only thing between me and the final adios was meeting a guy? I mean, he’s cool and all, but I’m not quite that psycho. Or my psychosis doesn’t run in that loop. Tomato/Tomahtoh, I guess.

Speaking of living, man oh fucking man, did a ghost just remind me of how choices can affect you. I worked late tonight and then fellow ridiculous work-later Julie and I grabbed some din-din. Consequently, I rolled down my street at about 11 p.m., and right there outside my car door is my old neighbor, Jimmy, who used to knock on my apartment door borrowing a cup of tequila to get him through his jones du jour. Jimmy who always assumed me far hipper than I ever will be (I know this because I never once indulged him in his invitations to share whatever drug was being served on our stoop). I mean, I’m as curious as the next whitebread, yuppie suburban transplant on enjoying the sweet seduction of smoking the rock, but just the same, no thanks.

Anyway, back in the day, Jimmy used to tell me I worked too hard and having a 9-5 gig was bullshit and I had to learn how to kick back more. His advice, quit my job, look into welfare, check out Section 8 housing and, if need be, try to get some workman’s comp/insurance fraud/disability kicking in for me. Then, I would enjoy the succulent pastures of freedom and free time. Alright, Jimmy, SWEEEEETTT, where do I sign up?

I didn’t quit my job. Duh. And, I still tend toward working too much.

Flash forward a decade or so, and we are at 11 tonight in the streets of Cambridge. I’m pulling in in a convertible, he’s walking. I’m wearing a leather jacket from back then that still fits me, he’s in raggedy looking sweats. I’m sober, he’s… OK, that’s all superficial. But, I fucking swear, we used to be around the same age. Now, one of us looks fucking old and beat down and not quite healthy and like life has smacked down more than a few harsh realities of hard living. Salt and pepper with more salt, pallidness and bad teeth, bulk over tone, and clearly still drinking and smoking and whatever the fuck elsing. He looks like 40 looked when men died from factory work and bad healthcare well before 50.

Turns out freedom takes it’s motherfucking toll. Shit. I’ll hold onto my middleclass complacency and keep working for “the man” if it means I get to enjoy and work with what I got.

Speaking of choices, I haven’t had a chance to check in on my favorite conservative Catholic sites for awhile. Caught up tonight. Motherfuckers! Lots of anti-feminist, “pro-life” style women bashing and the homophobia seems to be at a good old hysterical pitch. (Best comment was something about how some colleges now approve sodomy in men’s rooms around campus. Do people really believe this shit? What school is saying “yeah, in addition to co-ed toilets, we really need ass-banging and glory holes!” If you must rail against PC bullshit, there’s enough there without making up mad, sex romping sanctioned by bureaucracy lies. On second thought, keeping it coming because while I love hating your narrowminded arrogance, it’s even more fun when you project in your own little swirl of perversion.)

Finally, here’s some good news. With JetBlue and America West offering up some Cali to Mass and back runs for the low, low, low price of $198 round trip, looks like someone might get to see someone else sooner rather than later. It’s probably another bit of evidence in the pastiche of my sick mind that I almost groove on the romance of the estranged couple separated by a continent. It ain’t so bad to think that maybe somewhere someone might be missing you, is it?

Sometimes comedy is simultaneously uplifting and fucking humbling with a capital ‘H’ although, I guess, you wouldn’t really emphasize humble.

Take tonight, for example. I go into the Comedy Connection with essentially zero expectations. Pretty close to 8 p.m. or so, there’s not really an audience, and I’m talking to a guy that is a nice man, and who gets paying work, so what do I know, but he doesn’t really hit me on the trite-o-meter scale (actually, I guess he does, he scores pretty high in trite-land. Not only have I seen him do old one-liners circa 1952, I’ve heard him do a street joke, and an incredibly unfunny, racist one at that. To be fair, he’s getting better and performing “original” stuff, in that he wrote it but it’s incredibly derivative. Kind of the comedy equivalent of “moon, June, spoon” poetry).

Anyway, he’s telling me about all the places he works and shows he does, and in the back of my head I’m sharpening the straight razor I imagine drawing across my own throat in lieu of ever getting a foothold in the stand-up world. Sometimes it seems like I couldn’t get money at a comedy show even if I handed out five dollar bills to the audience and then asked them to hand back a dollar in change. There are two things I have learned from conversations like this one (1) many comics lie, boosting their own resume and making every show sound like a packed stadium with everyone chanting their name and crying for more and (2) audiences laugh at some seriously low-brow shit, and that isn’t a play on words. You can’t imagine if you haven’t heard it how many comics refer to dump taking, fart making, sex not getting or endless chick banging HI-larity. So, basically there’s no figuring on what will bring success or whose success is legend in his own mind fantasy. Still and all, it’s pretty daunting, because you have to constantly remind yourself it’s all shit talk, and that must be like a mantra or a prayer, unceasing.

So, that’s the humility. I can’t get paid to suck dicks backstage (OK, that’s not fair, I haven’t tried that), but there are people jingling change in their pockets earned through comedy that my sensibilities as an “artiste” cannot pursue.

But, then, right before the show starts, a smallish crowd, but a legit audience wanders in seemingly together. Then, a bit later, you are on stage and the folks are listening to your own bullshit rap, and they’re with you for the ride and laughing in all the right places. And you feel like maybe communication ain’t dead and maybe it’s worth it and goddamnit you are funnier than these mooks around you, who are unplagued by self-doubt.

I came home and put the straight razor away.

Here’s the thing, to the guy on the corner of Columbia and Broadway, Ted Bundy ruined it for you.

As is quite usual, I was running late for work, and I’m stopped at a red light. A guy is pointing to what I think is the red light and smiling and gesticulating. This behavior continues, and I feel that he is trying to communicate with me. He’s a regular looking, Cambridge guy–button down shirt maybe, glasses, beard and mustache with some salt and pepper. Basically, he looks like a math teacher who may be the one to volunteer for afterschool clubs that need chaperones and whatnot, not hip but not an asshole who the kids really like but think is a bit nerdy. My curiousity peaked, and I rolled down the window.

“Mass Ave and the BU Bridge?” he asks. (They don’t actually intersect.)

“Huh?” I thoughtfully reply.

“Are you going to Mass Ave and the BU bridge.”

“I’m late for work,” is my non-sequitur.

“Great, yeah, if you’re going to Mass Ave, that’s where I’m going,” he’s smiling and cheerful. He continues, “I’m hitching a ride, and you’re going that way.”

I’m thinking, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I’m a little slow, you’re hitching a ride,” I say, “Yeah, sorry, I’m late for work,” and take off through the now green light.

Here’s my question: Is there really anyone in the world in 2004 who thinks a woman driving alone in the city should be picking up strangers? Not to be a total dick, dude, since I’m sure you really thought you needed the ride, but, ummm, Ted Bundy was supposed to be most charming, until he raped and strangled you. Would you want your partner, sister, mom, whoever to be that trusting, or are you willing to cop to the fact that we don’t live in that happy, hippie villa where all is peace and love and no one will harm you?

Sorry, dude, but I’m living in the real world where the streets can get mean. So, all you did was make me feel guilty and then angry at you for even asking.

It isn’t really that far a walk from where you were (I’ve done it many, many, many times), so, um, hitchhiking middleclass Cambridge guy, next time leave the house a little earlier.

For the first time in days, eager to feel the sun on my face I left the house. The minute I got to the Harvard Square MayFair, the rains came. C’est la vie, Spring in New England. It was actually kind of nice walking around in the rain and watching people scramble. It made the line for free ice cream shorter. By the way, “Shrek’s Swirl,” which Baskin-Robbins describes as “green-colored grape sherbet and purple-colored green apple sherbet loaded with popping candy” is a little too frighteningly better living through chemistry. It’s so technicolor, it’s hard to believe it’s dairy based (if it is). In a rating system that even includes Bubble Yum, which I still like to blow now and again, Shrek’s Swirl may not rate as actual food. But thanks to the rain, I was also able to snag a couple of samples of Legal Seafood clam chowder. They gave some old lady a $10 coupon. I thought about rolling her for it. Old ladies get all the good stuff.

I went to the final party for the Boston Comedy Fest last night. In the end, what with the reminders of why I ain’t never gonna be no club comic and other indications that I don’t quite fit in to that type of “scene,” my resolve is a bit more strengthed to focus on what I do have going for me. Seriously, fuck the whole concept of contests and competitions, and fuck most of all the guy who word on the street says pulled my name from the list of the fest competitors (must not link to sight…not good idea…must resist). A lot of great people were left out, a lot of mediocre people were left in, so what’s it all show? Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. I did get a chance to see some talented, original, funny people doing what they do and got a couple of free beers, so I guess I got my $35 entrance fee’s worth. Not to mention I got a couple of positive comments on the one set I did get to do and on my other fabulous set, since a couple of lucky folks got a peek at the tits du dee-rob from the owner of the phone cam and fellow naked comic. (I was thinking of adding another link right there, don’t you know, but if that man gets his new moblog going, I figure it patently unwise to mention my tits and his website all juxtaposed and shit. Discretion/valor something like that…)

A couple of other things I got out of the fest were the fun of driving around downtown in my convertible at 2 a.m. Convertibles rock and the freshness of night air blowing off the Charles River as you cross the Mass. Ave bridge (which is one of the best views of Boston you can get) CD player pumping is like feeling blood pump through your heart so that life begins.

The second thing is witnessing perhaps the sluttiest slut dress I’ve ever scene walking down the Boylston Place alley. This dress had it all, tight squeez-y looking probably unnatural fibers, ripply, slanted drapery hanging down one shoulder and one thigh, amazingly using maximum fabric to reveal maximum skin. It was hootchie with a capital ‘H.’ Best of all was the length, in truth, despite the slanting drape effect, while the woman was standing you could tell that the mysterious place where her thighs meet and connect was infintesimally close to the edge of the cloth in both front and back. From a purely engineering perspective, it is not conceivable that while bending or sitting there wasn’t going to be a clear reveal of crack or beaver.

If you’re a college chick in Boston in May, as opposed to say a supermodel or a porn star, what possesses you to look in the dressing room mirror and say “yeah, fucking right, this is the dress for me.” No, really, you don’t have to actually show your goods at the dance club to get a nice boy to dance with you. It’s much more compelling when it peaks out later in the privacy of your own room.

Alternately, I like to imagine chicks like that, sitting on the brink of, I don’t know, actual childhood and full on grown-up sluthood, don’t actually have their sexy shit together. So, right in the middle of her bootylicious gyrations, there are some big, old white cotton panties that her mom bought her for school.

One thing I will always remember about my mom, Pat never bought me the big, old white cotton panties like the other moms. As long as color and lace exist, why not sport a little style where no one can see it? Strangely, she bought herself the big, old white cotton ones, but her daughters were styling.

I have been brutally busy for days and days and days and now, nothing. I am happy for the peace.

I was going to do some chores around the house, but as I can see a little sun, my only thought is “Fuck chores.” Really, fuck ’em. I think walking down to Harvard Square and glimpsing the dirty hippies selling their dirty hippie wares at the MayFair might be just the antidote to a couple of weeks devoted to nightlife. Sometimes you got to get a little sunshine in your life.

OK, I’m not an animal; I loaded the dishwasher and turned it on. I’m a chore churning collosus.

Off to see the sun.