july 8th, 2010 - got 2nd place at the weekly qualifier for Battle of the Comics. beat a lot of seasoned guys.

henry miller's constant relevance in my life never ceases to amaze me. i haven't read him in a few months and what should the next passage be about? comedians.

"He was the whole show and it was a show that contained more therapy than the whole arsenal of modern science. They ought to have paid a man like this the wages which the President of the United States receives. They ought to sack the President of the United States and the whole Supreme Court and set up a man like this as ruler. This man could cure any disease on the calendar. He was the kind of guy, moreover, as would do it for nothing, if you asked him to. This is the type of man which empties the insane asylums. He doesn't propose a cure - he makes everybody crazy. Between this solution and a perpetual state of war, which is civilization, there is only one other way out - and that is the road we will all take eventually because everything else is doomed to failure. The type that represents this one and only way bears a head with six faces and eight eyes; the head is a revolving lighthouse, and insead of a triple crown at the top, as there might well be, there is a hole which ventilates what few brains there are. There is a very little brain, as I say, because there is very little baggage to carry about, because living in full consciousness, the gray matter passes off into the light. This is the only type of man one can place above the comedian; he neither laughs nor weeps, he is beyond suffering. We don't recognize him yet because he is too close to us, right under the skin, as a matter of fact. When the comedian catches us in the guts this man, whose name might be God, I suppose, if he had to use a name, speaks up. When the whole human race is rocking with laughter, laughing so hard that it hurts, I mean, everybody then has his foot on the path. In that moment everybody can just as well be God as anything else. In that moment you have the annihilation of dual, triple, quadruple, and multiple consciousness, which is what makes the gray matter coil up in dead folds at the top of the skull. At that moment you can really feel the hole in the top of the head; you know that you once had an eye there and that this eye was capable of taking in everything at once. The eye is gone now, but when you laugh until the tears flow and your belly aches, you are really opening the skylight and ventilating the brains. Nobody can persuade you at that moment to take a gun and kill your enemy; neither can anybody persuade you to open a tome containing the metaphysical truths of the world and read it. If you know what freedom means, absolute freedom and not a relative freedom, then you must recognize that this is the nearest to it you will ever get. If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist - it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God."

feel the urge to catalog and brag about my comedy accomplishments in the last week, so i might as well do it somewhere where no one is listening anyways:

1. did a solid set at Meatheads. got off 'stage' and Myracle handed me an application for the Battle of the Comics, saying i should enter. also, another comic named Shelly got my number because apparently she is the local comedian rolodex. she said i was really funny and she'd be in touch about shows. who should call the next day but Shelly to offer a set at Tommy Rocker's on friday.

2. did really well at Tommy Rocker's. booked another set for two weeks later. the host liked me. ended up being the best night of my life (6/25/10, in case you wanna know later on).

3. the monday before i went to Mulligan's Landing to check out their comedy night. inquired, got a dude's name, found him on facebook, messaged him, ended up being a very nice guy and he got me a slot at the next show. didn't do terribly well, but one of the guys, rhino, who is helping start up freevegascomedy.com said they wanted to showcase new and interesting comedians, took me aside for an interview, and said he'd post my whole set on the site in the next couple of days. and he ended up doing this.

4. did Meatheads open mic. again, didn't do terribly well, but as soon as i got off stage, Angie and Myracle asked if i wanted to host next week. who knows if this will actually end up happening, but that would be crazy.

now, i realize these are pretty modest accomplishments, but i've done stand-up seven times, i'm not good by any means yet, but all this has happened. not sure what it means, but i gotta realize it doesn't mean anything. i just need to keep doing my thing.

man this ride is bumpy. but damn. those ups are fucking worth it.

get up, stand up

March 10th, 2009:
"i'm addicted to stand-up.
i'm gonna be one."

"They said it was not inside my heart.
It was.
They said it should tear a kid apart.
It does."

" In the tomb which is my memory I see her buried now, the one I loved better than all else, better than the world, better than God, better than my own flesh and blood. I see her festering there in that bloody wound of love, so close to me that I could not distinguish her from the wound itself. I see her struggling to free herself, to make herself clean of love's pain, and with each struggle sinking back again into the wound, mired, suffocated, writhing in blood. I see the terrible look in her eyes, the mute piteous agony, the look of the beast that is trapped. I see her opening her legs for deliverance and each orgasm a groan of anguish. I hear the walls falling, the walls caving in on us and the house going up in flames. I hear them calling us from the street, the summons to work, the summons to arms, but we are nailed to the floor and the rats are biting into us. The grave and womb of love entombing us, the night filling our bowels and the stars shimmering over the black bottomless lake. I lose the memory of words, of her name even which I pronounce like a monomaniac. I forgot what she looked like, what she felt like, what she smelt like, what she fucked like, piercing deeper and deeper into the night of the fathomless cavern. I followed her to the deepest hole of her being, to the charnel house of her soul, to the breath which had not yet expired from her lips. I sought relentlessly for her whose name was not written anywhere. I penetrated to the very altar and found - nothing. I wrapped myself around this hollow shell of nothingness like a serpent with fiery coils; I lay still for six centuries without breathing as world events sieved through to the bottom forming a slimy bed of mucus. I saw the constellations wheeling about the huge hole in the ceiling of the universe; I saw the outer planets and the black star which was to deliver me. I saw the Dragon shaking itself free of dharma and karma, saw the new race of man stewing in the yolk of futurity. I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous breasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision." - Henry Miller

in a dark house

on a bright day

with endless friends

afraid to be by myself.

this is why

"The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured - disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui - in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle which will render life tolerable." - Henry Miller