So, if you were to go back a little in time and read through my old ‘blog (before the inception of dee-rob.com), you would see a lot of angst in regard to a comedy show. For a whole lot of reasons, I had a hard time fitting into a group of women for a special all women show. Overall, the show came together pretty well, and I felt like I contributed to it. I also honestly like the women in the show, and I respect the woman who organized it considerably. She works hard at comedy, is funny and is getting some well-deserved recognition.

But, throughout the rehearsal process I couldn’t shake a lot of negative feelings. I think in hindsight a lot of what I felt was partially attributable to both what I enjoy and value in humor and my own sense of womanhood not being in sync with the group. The other, harder part for me was that the show stretched me to be different from who I am both on and off stage (e.g. dancing), which is generally a good thing. However, in the context of this show, my own insecurities felt magnified, because it seemed at the time that everyone else was on board and I was out of step (lame dance pun, I know). I felt very adolescent, because it seemed like the other “girls” were cool and fine, and I was different. I wanted so much to be a part of the whole, but I couldn’t do it.

Toward the end of the rehearsal process, I realized that I wasn’t alone, once I talked with someone else in the group. Again, it was like a teenage dynamic for me. Like you do before becoming an adult, I struggled with acceptance and expectations and trying to find people with whom I felt comfortable.

Now, far away from the rehearsals and perhaps for having done them, I can see clearly that my folly was trying to fit in with the group. Of the core women, their average age was a good decade less than mine. My parents are both gone, so clearly they are not a factor in my current life. I have a mortgage. I’ve probably dated as many men or more than the group had combined (or women since it was an inclusive lifestyle group). I don’t have roommates or car problems or many of the worries that are key in your twenties and early thirties. Socially, then, for me it wasn’t exactly a peer group.

In terms of comedy, I struggle with confidence issues, although in my heart I am proud of my originality, and in terms of writing alone, I am comfortable. I’m also more or less comfortable with my self in general (yup that is equivocal). But, I have a hard time with stage fright, and I lack some of the assertiveness you need to get your name and face out there. The confidence thing is hardly a universal feeling in comedy, so I have a difficult time finding my ground and holding it, while others around me are fronting their agendas with wild abandon. So, in this group I was lost. I was afraid to speak up and when I did it felt awkward, and the teenage angst would outweigh any point I wanted to make.

And, in the end, I would have to admit that some of the sketches or ideas just weren’t my cup of tea.

All of what I have written is mature (I hope), reserved, realistic (I believe) and genuine to how I feel. I truly can accept that not all things are for all people. I understand that development of friendships among other people does not mean that I am unliked. The one person with whom I felt most comfortable in the show told me how she had bowed out of any future productions, because it wasn’t in line with what she wants to do in comedy. I didn’t do that, since I honestly couldn’t decide how strongly I felt.

However, having written this all out, I have to admit one thing to myself. It does hurt that I wasn’t asked to be part of the next outing they plan. (Truly a wasted emotion, I might add, since it is scheduled two days after my 40th birthday, when I plan to be in California or six feet under.)

I have to remind myself not to get too discouraged by work. Ultimately, I will not allow it to be my future, because retiring as a careerist administrator like so many with whom I work would by necessity end with me, barbituates, booze, razor blades and tears of regret. So, I should be there in the present, but not let work dull me or discourage me.

Shout out to my clan, especially my uncle for filling in down below some details of vague prejudices I don’t understand. At the end of the day, I think my uncle has a point about the certain rat bastardness that runs through my Boston Irish people. Who the fuck cares if some immigrants took the northern route?

Planning a trip to New York City next week. I haven’t been there since September 9, 2001. Besides the obvious shift in world politics a few days later, I’m not sure I would recognize the person I was just that short time ago. So much has happened since, both personally and globally.

The point of the trip is, of course, to be with M. Come check him out at LinuxWorld. ( I wonder if I should tell him this is my third trip to NYC on account of a boy. I guess the concept of “three’s a charm” will rule supreme.)

I don’t sleep enough. I also don’t stab morons enough or hand out bitch slaps with wild abandon enough. I guess it’s all about adaptation.

How could you not like a guy who would email this:

“I would prefer to kick rather than slap since it is harder and I don’t have to mess up my well lotioned metro sexual hands.”

(With my apologies for violating any trust or confidentiality.)

Because that last post was long-winded and interesting probably only to me, I searched the web to find the dozen strap-on Lilo Happy Meal toy mentioned yesterday. The only place I could find it was a fuckhead on Ebay, who has his image rigged to prevent theft. Probably because of all the revenue producing schemes related to pictures of Happy Meal toys.

But, I did find this:.

Why can’t this country have more Happy Meal toys in sync with the military-industrial complex?

If there were one thing I would change about myself it would be that I get bogged down in unimportant details periodically. I have a sense of order in my head and when it’s disrupted I expend energy trying to “fix” whatever it is, although I logically realize it is merely my flawed perception of order.

So, at work, I am a known resource for all things grants and policy related, which is a good thing. But, I also numb people with boring levels of arcane, esoteric, yeah whatever just answer my question already context. OK, that last bit is an overstatement, someone just thanked me for providing them detailed context for a problem, but I do go to far sometimes in trying to get something “right.”

I say all of the above, because I realize I have no control over the “comedy scene,” such as it is or its individual constituents. So, I get frustrated when they, the other individuals, don’t follow the view of comedy that I hold. For example, my slam last night in regard to the literal-minded young comic who busted my chops over an incorrect literary reference. In truth, of course, my reference was off the mark. But, in my world view right now there is a huge glut of “comedians” who I believe rely too much on cleverness.

In my pure construct, stand-up comedy has a huge component of truth and honesty. The funny comes from the fact that life is funny, human existence is funny, blah, blah, blah. Good jokes scan organically, you can’t see the construction, the wires and pulleys and whatnots that hold it up. Like any good story, you hear the story rather than observe the literary trappings that are the delivery system.

My favorite comics often don’t sound at all like they are telling jokes.

But, all around Boston at the moment, it feels like there are many people formulaically spewing bon mots without context or honesty. It’s very, “Hey, listen to me, because I am clever and quick and have read many books that only clever, quick people read.” Turning a metaphor into a literal translation furthers no dialogue and tells me nothing about you, the teller, and what makes your viewpoint unique. It’s like candy, empty mental calories. Yes, that word does sound like this other word and it would be wacky if they were confused. But, so?

But, the larger question is, why do I care? Why does it bug me? Why not render onto the candy people what is theirs and go tend my own garden and garble and mix metaphors in my own way without worrying about them?

I don’t know why, but every now and again I grab opportunities to bitch slap the clever. It’s a complete waste of my time, logically, yet I feel compelled.

It’s actually the same reason I stopped doing improv. Improv is very fun when people invest in the scene and the dialogue develops, because you are all throwing into that scene. It freezes (and becomes hard to watch) the minute someone makes a choice to promote something that doesn’t further the scene. Sure, it might be a clever reference or a well-done character, but we are all standing around now at your mercy while the scene itself hits the floor.

The kind of stand-up I hate stops the show in the same gears grinding way. If in your cleverness you throw out a joke about another comic’s set, etc. that spotlights your “talent” but doesn’t build from the other comic’s base, I think you are negating the other performance. As with improv, your job is to build the show up by not denying what has gone before. Riff on other jokes/comedians, call them back, even disagree, but if you find yourself telling the audience how you would have done that differently or you are clearly mocking what they do, shut up. Don’t try to make yourself king of the mountain, let the audience pick you by moving the show forward.

OK, I’ve blown philosophical shit out of my ass long enough. I suppose I should work on the stuff that pays my bills.

Someone accessed my website today, because they searched “I hate chinks.”

Just to be clear, I don’t really hate chinks, gooks, queers, dykes, micks, harps, hebes or bean eaters. I like the words, and I like the people.

And, I have to say, I especially like “jaundy boys,” a term I only just learned.

I could live without Guidos.

Oh, and if you are a racist asshole like me, this site is very helpful.

However, I have to point out that “Herring Choker” was part of my youth, and there were no Scandanavians to taunt, so I disagree with the website.

I always took it to refer to either a generic, “mackerel snapper” kind of reference to the Roman Catholic Friday fish habit (which my Catholic mother, who distrusted most clergy including the Pope, insisted was an economic decision out of Rome favoring fishermen who are all RCs, except for maybe in Japan) or the Irish fishermen who ended up in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. For some reason I can’t follow, the urban, Boston Irish immigrants in my family tree would look down their noses at the herring chokers from Canada (who also alledgedly were recognizable by their fat ankles and buried their dead vertically by hammering them into the winter permafrost). Of course, in that same fine parsing of meager superiority among trashy immigrants, no one seems to know (or talk about) where I got my very French/French Canadian sounding surname in the midst of the more typical Irish American names.

Speaking of Canadians, they are lame. On the same racial slur website, they refer to Americans as Hot Dog Eaters. Fucking creative, eh?

I’m simultaneously happy and disappointed with McDonald’s. I finally got a fun Happy Meal toy. It’s a little “Lilo” of Lilo and Stitch. The fun part is the Play-doh that comes with it. (As an aside, George Foreman has a Play-doh grill with sizzling sound. I love him.) Anyway, the Play-doh extrudes from around Lilo’s waist creating a circle of Play-doh strap-ons.

I’m disappointed, however, that McDonald’s does not appear to have pictures of their Happy Meals on their website, as they used to, so I can’t share Lilo’s porntastic Play-doh effect with the world.

On a bright note, they do have all sorts of bullshit information on how eating McDonald’s can be part of a healthy diet.

Maybe I’m just jaded on Play-doh, because as a kid one of my favorite toys was the Funny Pumper. I would sit on the floor extruding for hours as the adults around me snickered at my industry. Only later, as an adult, did I come to appreciate the humor in extrusion.

I hate people. OK, mostly I just hate people who post here. Which is why I wish people would post here instead. On this alternative, non-commercial site, one could tell idiots they are idiots without fear of a nicey nice reprisal.

It makes no sense that I get aggravated, since it truly is a waste of my energy, but where there was once a vital community there is now vapidity. For example, if you are new to stand-up comedy performance, NO, it is not best to learn it through observation or discussion. Writers write, performers perform, loggers log, fishermen fish, preachers preach. They do not log into a website to suppose on these things. If you want to masturbate, go to your room, dim the lights and for fuck’s sake turn up the stereo so we don’t have to hear your feeble moans and groans.

In the same vein, when posting to a community website for “comedy” and you suck on stage as a comic, you probably suck in this forum as well. You know how the audience doesn’t universally laugh at your bon mots? It’s because they are not funny, either because your work is obvious and trite or you have not as yet honed your craft to elicit the giggle you seek. In short, save your snappy, yet lame, rejoinder unless it is helpful to your fellow readers or you are supremely certain without one pale shadowed sliver of doubt it’s funny.

Finally, you are not all intellectuals. Arguably, many of you are feeble-minded, perhaps educable at best. I am sure that your mommies and daddies have told you wonderful things about your abilities. They lied. There is no Santa Claus either.

Your leaps into didacticism are precocious. The preciousness of your youthful endeavors are matched only by the naivete of your world view. One of the strange little quirks of life is that in youth you burn with a fever to parse and opine and thrust your treatise upon the world, despite it’s very core being unformed and underdeveloped, because your world view is far more myopic than you can know. As you age, your treatise will gain flesh, blood and depth, but, alas, by then the fever will have subsided and your desire to scream your opinions from the mountaintop will be tempered by your desire to hear other opinions and to silently think.

Someday soon, I think I should compile and enemies list here, just for kicks. It would be much more civilized than heads on pikes arranged around my yard.

Maybe I shouldn’t spend all weekend alone. Misanthropy is fun and all, but do I want to make it a lifestyle?

Here’s an email I got today:

Dear Online-Citibank Clients,

This message was sent by the Citicard serevrs to veerify your e-mail
addres. You must clempote this pecsros by clicking on the link
below and enteering in the smmall window your Citi-Bank Debit
full Card nummber and PiN that you use on Atm.
This is done for your perctotion -T- becourse some of our memmbers no
lengor have acescs to their email adsersdes and we must verify it.

To veerify your e-mail adress and akcess your OnlineCitibank account, klick on
the link beloow. If ntohing happnes when you clik on the link -K copye
and paste the link into the addres bar of your web browser.

http://www.citibank.com/?jrkph5eDbfeAAUxm5ZVbbW8qnZte9j8uMtU4z8TJnWkYPTlWRh

———————————————
Thank you for using Citbiank!
———————————————

This automatic email snet to: dee-rob@attbi.com
Do not rpely to this email.

83ehvChZQpjZU7rOc2XU

The first tip off that this might be a scam – I’m not a Citibank customer. Apart from that, though, it comes from a computer world without spell check. I’m thinking the major banking institutes know about spell check.

What I can’t figure out is why does the link actually bring you to Citibank? If it’s a scam, it’s kind of conscientious.