Without a doubt, standing in front of large groups of people and trying to make them laugh is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. Every time I go up on stage, I learn something new and when it works -it is one of the most rewarding experiences imaginable… but when it doesn’t work, it can be one of the most degrading, shameful experiences of your life.

That’s why most comics have balls of steel… even the women. Sooner or later you realize, “bombing” is inevitable. It HAS to happen in order for you to get any better. You can learn more from bombing than you ever will from your greatest set and on another note, I still distinctly remember bombing in spectacular fashion at a show nearly two years ago… it haunts me… but the people at that show? Let’s face it, they don’t even realize I exist -so me getting all worked up over it, is actually pretty silly.

This is the crazy paradoxical zen state that every comic strives to achieve. Reaching that point where you really just don’t care what happens on stage. But of course, you still want to get laughs -otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it. But the more desperate you are for laughs -the harder it is to get them. The desperation shows and an audience wants to be confronted with a confident “professional” who just does not give a fuck.

That’s why bombing and shitty mics can be so important. You need to learn from your mistakes and build those calluses… you need to get better… it’s the only way. If all you ever do is bomb -STOP… make room for everyone else. But if you are genuinely working it out and have a genuine sense of humor -bombing can be a blessing.

Embrace the shame.

The first year I started doing standup, I regularly performed at a bar show. This show was rarely promoted and usually resulted in a handful of comics wandering into a bar, grabbing a microphone and then telling jokes to six angry people who just wanted a quiet night out with their closest friends. Nobody told them a comedy show was about to happen and they were not happy about it.

It was awful… I saw things… terrible things… but it also made me a better comic.

Before long, I started to wonder why we even bothered to tell anyone in advance we were performing… including the venue… maybe we should just stroll on in to a laundromat and start a comedy show… or maybe the monorail… at least then, we would be virtually guaranteed an audience and a comic is always desperate for a new audience. After all, they can’t walk out when they still have underwear to fold and if you want to build up those comedy balls of steel -grab a mic, post up in the frozen foods aisle of your local grocery store and go for it!

So that’s what we did.

One day, my buddy Anthony Robinson and I decided to literally walk into a laundromat unannounced and put on a brief comedy show.

Honestly, it couldn’t have gone any better. Anthony is a great comic, so I wasn’t surprised he could win over a crowd… but in a laundromat… unannounced…?

Watch for yourself…

Bolstered by the success of our debut laundromat show, we decided to extend our comedy tour to where else but, the frozen foods section of our local grocery store.

Initially, I thought folding your underwear might be a private moment… a moment where people might be upset if you come barging in with a video camera and start telling jokes. But I guess people in laundromat’s are starved for entertainment. They have to be there and who knows how long they have been staring at their socks spinning round and round in the dryer?

Grocery stores -not so much. As soon as we started up, people scattered like cockroaches. Apparently, nobody wants to be seen buying Ben and Jerry’s and it’s certainly no time for jokes. We lasted all of three minutes before being escorted out of the building by the police… that’s right… the police.

Comedy is serious business.

By now I was addicted though. Who needs venues? Who needs crowds? You wanna do some comedy? Let’s do it right here! Right now!

Which is exactly what I said to Albert Kirchner before marching in to a random McDonald’s and starting up an open mic with him.

I have seen a lot of heckles and threatening to call 911 is definitely in my top three list. How does that phone call even start?

“It’s a comedy emergency! He won’t stop telling jokes in my McDonald’s! Dear god, someone save us!”

I’m starting to sense a pattern here… wherever there is a person in a position of “authority” -they feel as if they have to “flex” it at every opportunity. Otherwise, the illusion of your authority might fade. How do people know you’re in charge if you never actually prove it every once in awhile? … and what better opportunity to flex your authority muscle then when something completely unexpected happens?

This is not a part of my routine! Therefore, it must be stopped at all costs!

That’s when I started to think maybe we should avoid cops and people with a desperate need to prove their authority all together… clearly, this style of comedy is dangerous stuff… we needed to find some place where the audience was still trapped, but the odds of there being someone hanging around who was convinced that everything should go exactly according to plan were slim… like the Sound Transit Light Rail, for example.

… or even Seattle’s famous Monorail.

But perhaps my favorite Guerilla Comedy moments, were the shows put on in the middle of the street. There is no pressure on the audience. They are free to come and go as they please. The comic has to actually earn the crowd and it just might be standup in it’s purest and most basic form. I like to think this is the way they did it back in caveman days.

Say what you want, but that’s a pretty impressive performance by my buddy Mitch Burrow. In under three minutes, he draws a crowd into the middle of the street, completely unannounced and doing standup without a net… and at the end of his set, everyone applauds. They enjoyed it… even appreciated it and for a brief moment in time, three bitter and cynical comics actually became a little less jaded about the art of standup.

If you aren’t impressed by that, try it yourself some time.

… and last but certainly not least, one of my favorite Guerilla Comedy performances was truly spontaneous. We just happened to be walking down the street with our gear when we noticed a religious maniac screaming and yelling at everyone who passed by.

What better place for a comedy show?

Watch as the comedian becomes the heckler and the religious nut goes from foe, to adversary to friend all in the span of seven minutes.

So get out there, embrace your shame and don’t be afraid to say something that’s not funny every once in awhile… and if you see a couple of scruffy looking guys wandering around town with a mic stand and a video camera -enjoy the show.

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Well, it happened again… in his continuing effort to pay off his life debt to me (I once took a bullet for Rogan in the Brazillain rain forest after an unfortunate miscommunication due to our translator’s low tolerance for psychotropic entheogens), Joe Rogan once again put me on a stage in front of 1,700 blood thirsty savages completely out of their minds on the DMT and Alpha-Brains.

Damn you, Joe Rogan!

Of course, Rogan and I chat more than two teenage girls with ADD, a fresh Adderal prescription and unlimited texting -so I saw this coming a mile away… and by “saw this coming a mile away” I mean, Rogan made some vague reference to me on Twitter two days before the show.

So… either he was planning on putting me on stage or hoping I could cast out the lost souls of 19th century whores that are said to haunt The Moore. Having to prepare for either possibility was difficult beyond measure, but I have Battle Ropes three times the recommended size if you know what I’m saying.

Originally, Rogan wanted me to do three hours -but seeing as how I don’t like to perform rigorous physical activities like standing for more than ten minutes at a time, he agreed to bring in the very funny Tom Segura to fill in the gaps after my balls out, no holds barred, joke your fucking face off, epic twelve minute roller coaster of laughter and intellect. Frankly, I thought we should just shut the whole thing down after my performance but I guess it was some kind of union labor law or whatever that forced them to continue with the show.

Here is a photo of me changing the course of comedy history on that fateful night. Apparently, this photo was taken from outer space.

A photo I wish I really had though, is one taken from the other side of that microphone. If you haven’t been there, you cannot possibly imagine what it is like. In a lot of ways, comics are like a cult. They have “special knowledge” gleaned from unique experience, posses “information not pertinent to your degree” and bond like war buddies after knowing each other for less than five minutes. Experiences like feeling that huge wave of laughter come crashing out of the darkness from 1,700 strangers while you stare up into a light brighter than 1,000 suns is one of those shared moments that comics and only comics can bond over. It’s beautiful and terrifying all at once.

It’s not a drug. It’s not a rush. It’s just… indescribable. Some goofy little thing you thought of one day just made almost 2,000 people so happy they spontaneously had to laugh when you told it to them.

Next up, was Tom. That dude must have balls the size of Jupiter’s moons, because he strolled on out there like a boss -not even breaking a sweat over the fact that he had to follow what was quite possibly the greatest twelve minutes of comedy The Moore has ever known. Not only that -he killed it. I don’t know why comics say “killed it” all the time, but if anybody killed it -it was this guy… in fact -he killed it, poured gasoline over it, set it on fire and then buried it in the desert.

Here is the photographic evidence. Of course, you might not know he is killing it in this photo because again, it was apparently taken from outer space and Tom’s delivery is so casual you might think he is an usher about to announce the license plate number of a Lexus that is illegally parked in the loading zone. But then you realize, “God damn, this is the funniest fucking usher I have ever heard in my life!” 

Here is a picture of Tom and myself hanging out backstage at The Moore. It is dark and grainy because the backstage area of The Moore is actually a cavernous dungeon lit only by candlelight and this photo was taken with what must be the first iPhone ever manufactured.

Tom is one of the nicest guys I have ever met… and he also has a beard. You should buy things from him: http://tomsegura.com/

Do I need to even mention Rogan’s set? I mean… seriously. I think we all know what happened. Even if you weren’t there, certainly you heard the deafening roar of laughter and applause thundering throughout the streets of Seattle as Rogan unleashed almost an hour and a half of all new material. Tom and I were laughing so hard back stage, we begged The Moore staff to stop the show before Tom busted a vein in his forehead and I blew a stitch out of my recent butt implants.

This is what Joe Rogan looks like from space.

… and this is a photo I took backstage while watching a Carlos Mencia stand up special on television during Rogan’s performance.

After the show, Rogan stuck around to shake hands and take photos with every single maniac in Seattle. I fought against this tradition and hid, lurking in a corner. I was spared the indignity of having to come into actual contact with my fans by utilizing my Ninjitsu stealth training and also the fact that I have approximately three fans, until security actually came over to me and angrily insisted I stand next to Joe and Tom.

I swear I am not even making that last part up. Apparently, a handful of people had asked about “that freaky guy” and they assumed that was me. Now security was pissed that I was “slowing down the flow”.

“We don’t want to be here all night,” they grumbled while pushing me into the throng of rabid Rogan maniacs. Now at least fifteen different people are trying to explain to their friends why they felt compelled to have their picture taken with a homeless guy at The Moore.

Immediately after the show, I thought I might check in with Twitter and squeal with glee at the thousands of new followers I must surely have after single handedly re-shaping the Seattle comedy scene.

Instead, I was confronted with this ominous message:

No email… no warning… no nothing. Just like that, I was locked out of Twitter and all of my followers were deleted. That’s when I fell to my knees, threw my fists into the air and began shouting at God through tear stained eyes and the torrential rain (at least, I would have -had there been a torrential rain and such a thing as God). The “Rogan bump” not only resulted in 0 new followers -it actually resulted in negative new followers considering the ones I did have were now gone. That’s when Rogan found me in the fetal position and took pity on me.

To this day, I have no idea what I did to offend the Twitter gods. My account just magically started working again three days later, but my followers were still gone.

Then this happened:

Now I know why people say things like, “Powerful, Joe Rogan”… 700 Twitter followers and counting after just a couple of hours. But of course, I will be telling everyone I earned those Twitter followers after a handful of truly genius tweets.

There is no fan base like the “deathsquad” fan base and that’s probably because there is no comic like Joe Rogan. That guy sits down and talks to every single one of his fans and not only do they respect him for that, they respect each other as part of a larger whole when everything is said and done and I am honored to have been a part of that love.

For example, one guy from Friday’s show was a human mine/IED detector in the army… one of those guys who goes around sticking a probe in the ground to see if there is a deadly explosive hidden just inches beneath the soil. Apparently, they have to use a plastic knife because metal sometimes sets off the explosive devices. I know this because he brought his with him and gave it to Joe. Joe and I talked about the hundreds of times that guy held that knife in his hands not knowing if he was about to be incinerated at any second… and then he gave it to Joe. That’s some powerful voodoo, right there… and I know a thing or two about voodoo.

Powerful, Joe Rogan.

Thanks for all the Twitter love guys and if you were at the show Friday night -thanks for laughing at my goofy jokes. It really does mean a lot to me.

If you missed the show, you can still buy Rogan’s latest special for $5 without even leaving your seat.

… until next time… #DEATHSQUAD

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If you’ve read this blog post then you know Joe Rogan was crazy enough to give me a spot at The Moore when he rolled into town with Greg Fitzsimmons a few months ago.

I’d like to say I earned it, but the truth is -I once saved Rogan’s life in a freak whaling accident and he has been working off a life debt to me ever since that fateful day.

This is why he put me up again at The Parlor when he came back with Sam Tripoli a month later. Of course, I didn’t know he was going to do this and neither did The Parlor. I found out about an hour before the show when Joe texted me asking if I wanted 10 minutes. I think The Parlor found out about five minutes before the show.

That’s because we’re all living in Joe Rogan’s world, people. Joe Rogan is the type of guy who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself, “I think I’ll buy a life sized replica of a freakin’ werewolf today” before texting some dude named, “Voodoo Chicken” and asking him if he wants to crash a sold out comedy gig.

When I arrived at Rogan’s hotel room, he was beaming with joy while looking at pictures of his latest purchase -a life sized replica of the werewolf from “An American Werewolf in London”. That’s right, Casa de Rogan now has one of these bad boys roaming around somewhere. I’m guessing in the kids room.

While we were admiring the online photographs and discussing the many obvious benefits and advantages to having a life sized replica of a werewolf in your house, Sam Tripoli came through the door and told Joe the club wanted to know what song they should use for his “walk-out” music.

Of course, I instantly suggested the great Madonna classic “Papa Don’t Preach” and I was dead serious about this. In fact, not only was I serious about this… and I swear I am not making this up -Rogan, Tripoli and myself all spontaneously launched into what can only be described as a very masculine and totally not gay rendition of the song… and we knew every word. All three of us.

I am not ashamed.

We headed over to Bellevue where our driver dumped us like a sack of unwanted kittens behind a dumpster in the Washington Square Mall parking lot. Apparently, there was supposed to be some sort of special VIP entrance back there, but when it appeared our driver might have to actually exit the vehicle to find it -he simply said, “Here we are!” and then waited in awkward silence until the rest of decided to crawl out of the vehicle and fend for ourselves.

Normally, this should not have been a problem because I have been to The Parlor many times. However, unbeknownst to me and without my approval -some maniac or rogue organization has decided that the month of December would be an excellent time to fill the streets, sidewalks and generally all available spaces with drummers, jugglers, ten foot tall walking nutcrackers, elves, fake snow and just about everything obnoxious that has anything at all to do with Christmas.

Words cannot describe the madness… as we rounded the corner I began having vivid LSD flashbacks while Rogan managed to stammer, “Uh… is it always like this…?”

The funny thing is, I have wandered the streets with Rogan on a few different occasions and typically you can’t go further than ten feet before some drug crazed lunatic comes charging out of the shadows screaming, “UFC!!!!!” or “DMT!!!!” or some other three letter acronym. But this was probably the only place on earth where Joe Rogan could walk the streets completely unnoticed amidst the swirling candy cane chaos that came crashing down all around us. I honestly thought I would turn around at some point only to see that Joe and Sam had been completely engulfed by this madness, only to be found days later living off the remants of discarded holiday fruit baskets that now littered the streets.

Once we finally found our way inside and back to the green room, the manager wasted no time in making introductions.

Joe politely shook his hand and then said, “First thing -where can we smoke some weed?”

You know, I’ve been to a lot of comedy clubs and I’ve hung out with a lot of comics. It’s pretty much just assumed that smoking pot is one of those things that’s going to happen sooner or later if you exercise poor enough judgement to actually invite a comic into your home or place of business -but I’ve worked with the manager of this club before and I always got the impression that he ran a “clean” club -so this might explain why he suddenly had a look on his face like Joe had just asked for naked pictures of his mom.

The manager politely deferred to Big Irish Jay who happened to be standing by and is the house comic/MC. Jay led us outside to the balcony while the manager shrugged and said, “Oh well… I guess at least it’s legal now, right?” while we puffed away above the holiday madness spilling out into the streets below.

In fact, on that very day recreational marijuana had become legal in Washington state and we wasted no time in testing the boundaries of this wonderful new legislation with a joint so potent -I suddenly understood what all those ABC after school specials were actually about and what a terrible person I am.

Once we had confirmed that you can smoke weed in public in the city of Seattle, Sam and Rogan returned to the green room for deep pre-show meditations while I wandered the halls desperately trying to think of something funny to say… preferrably something ten minutes long.

Apparently while I was wandering the building in a fugue state, Sam was asking Big Jay if he thought Bellevue was the type of crowd that might freak out of he got a little edgy with material about race.

Jay told him he should be fine as long as he didn’t say the dreaded, “N” word and this was actually pretty good advice… advice that I clearly did not hear because 30 minutes later I was on stage doing a bit where I say, “drug crazed nigger faggots” at least three times in under two minutes.

My buddy Jonny managed to get footage of this little faux paus on his cell phone.

Fortunately, I managed to actually get a laugh out of this nonsense and when I returned to the green room -Sam was completely freaking out.

“They told me to stay away from that stuff, man! I have a bit that would have killed!”

For a second, I think he even suspected we intentionally punked him -but honestly, maybe I’m banned from The Parlor by now, so who really got punked here?

Of course after my set, Rogan strolled on out there and completely destroyed the place for well over an hour without even breaking a sweat.

I hate him… stupid Rogan and his stupid life sized American Werewolf in London replica…

As usual, Rogan hung around and shook hands with every single random nutjob who wandered in off of the streets that night before retiring to the adjacent pool hall.

You may not know this about Rogan, but he is some kind of amateur pool shark. Apparently, he spent a lot of time in shady pool halls out in Boston when he was still an amateur comic and he’s even one of those creepy pool guys who has his own collapsable cue that he carries around in a special little case and stuff… his cue probably even has a name… a girl’s name… anyway, you may have not known that about Rogan -but I suspect The Parlor did because surprise, surprise, who should happen to be hanging out in the VIP pool lounge that night but some semi-pro female pool shark.

She even had… and I swear I am not making this up -a giant bag of deer meat for Rogan.

Let me tell you something, you give Rogan a giant bag of meat, rack ‘em up and then say “break” and it is on.

Even though I strongly advised him against accepting a giant bag of meat from a total stranger that maniac was in heaven and there was nothing we could do. From that moment forward, Sam, myself and my buddy Jonny were slaves to that woman’s cue and the spell it held over Rogan. I’m not really complaining though because the pints of Guinness were free and I’m pretty sure I drank at least 46 of them that night in between Sam, Jonny and myself ducking outside to make sure the marijuana legalization laws were still in effect.

Eventually, I think it was discovered that I had drank roughly $3,000.00 worth of Guinness though because I suddenly found myself being whisked away to downtown Seattle whereupon Joe stuffed a fistful of UFC tickets into my pocket and then made his way to his hotel room presumably to feast on raw deer meat while staring at pictures of his newly acquired life sized replica of a werewolf.

I ended up sleeping in Jonny’s basement that night with a giant dog named, “Outlaw”… good times.

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Rogan and redban dropped by The Warehouse of Dreams this weekend (11/03/12) to throw down a little pod before heading out to The Moore theater for a standup comedy extravaganza with myself and the very funny Greg Fitzsimmons.

Here is the official Rogan Board thread where it all went down in real time:

http://forums.joerogan.net/showthread.php?t=261172

First off, I want to say that I may have been a little out of line when I threatened to put Rogan in a “real naked choke” once it appeared that he would be a couple hours late… and despite my initial suspicions that Rogan may be “in the bubble” due to his wealth, fame and inability to keep track of time -I can now say unequivocally that Rogan is probably the most grounded dude I’ve ever met. For example, he showed up driving a rental SUV and parallel parked that thing like a boss right outside our studio. I know that may not sound like a big deal to most, but many celebrities don’t even know how to toast a piece of bread and if I had RoganBucks, my primary mode of transportation would be a bed of bald eagle feathers, stitched together with golden thread and carried on the backs of my harem of strippers -so kudos to Rogan for keeping it real.

Along with Rogan and redban, Angry Amadeus sat in on this Modcast and even though it was no JRE, I feel it was some solid pod. Judge for yourself, by watching the video below… we usually fire up the streams and test the gear before we actually start, so you may want to fast forward a bit… also, once we realized Rogan was going to be late we decided to start podding without him -so you may want to skip to about an hour in or so if you are more paggot than maggot.

http://www.ustream.tv/embed/recorded/26694079

One interesting aspect to this Modcast was redban streaming it live from his iPad mini. This gave him the freedom to wander around the studio and get up close and personal with the robots while we podded. The quality is surprisingly good and apparently you can stream video with that thing from just about anywhere… in fact, we found out Rogan was running late when someone told us they were watching him eat lunch live.

That’s right, redban streamed their lunch from his mini and Rogan told me later that about 700 people watched.

You people should be ashamed of yourselves. Seriously. That’s just creepy.

You can see redban’s Modcast stream here:

http://www.ustream.tv/embed/recorded/26697427

After The Modcast, I hopped in Rogan’s Escalade with redban and we headed to the hotel to pick up Greg Fitzsimmons before heading to The Moore. For what it’s worth, Fitzsimmons was also with some cute reporter from NPR who was doing a piece on him so keep your eyes open for that. He wasn’t sure what the name of the show is or when it’s coming out, but I’m sure you can find it if you’re looking once it’s released. Also, go see this man’s comedy and buy his albums because he is seriously one of the best out there.

I have to admit, even though I have done this once before, I still peed a little when I peeked out from behind the curtains and saw that mic stand facing a sea of paggots, stoners, UFC freaks and schizophrenics.

redban went up first and he dominated… seriously. I have not seen his standup before and even though I was mostly pacing behind the curtain preparing myself for my set, I could still hear a good solid rhythm of continual laughter throughout. I was really impressed and anyone who says redban is just getting a lucky break because of his association with Rogan has either never stepped out on that stage before or is just a jealous bitch because nobody can save you once you are out there all alone and he nailed it.

After redban put in a solid ten, I went up for ten minutes or so as well. It feels like it went pretty well, but honestly I was so wrapped up in my material and trying to get everything just right, that the whole set just kind of flew by. Unfortunately, the mouth breathing, slope headed, drooling mongoloids I left in charge of my camera were completely baffled by the ON/OFF switch on the camera microphone, so they were able to capture my moment of glory on video -but no audio.

Dumbasses.

I would have been happy with no video and only audio, but no… this is what I get for associating with a bunch of drug addicts and alcoholics. Anyway, I think jonny may have gotten most of my set on his cell phone, so if he is still alive and not in jail I still might be able to share my ten minutes of glory with you guys. At the end of my set I even “negged, stretched and reported” everyone.

The Fitzdog went up after me and I have to say, not only is this guy a beast on stage, he is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. We talked for awhile backstage and I was really impressed with how personable and open he was. Most comics are really depressing, bitter and angry people, but The Fitzdog opened up and really made me feel like an equal even though I basically had no business being there.

In case you are wondering -here is a glimpse of the celebrity treatment you are provided with at The Moore once you have reached the level of A-List talent.

This is the bathroom… I really had to take a shit, but refrained from doing so in fear of completely ruining the Green Room not only for the evening, but for future generations to come. There’s barely enough room in there to turn around and shut the door.

This is the snack table, which was basically just two bottles of cheap wine (which jonny and I promptly drank) and a cheese plate. Once again proving that Rogan is a down to earth dude, because if I were selling out The Moore, I would insist on nothing less than $60,000 worth of drugs, booze and whores in the Green Room… not $17 worth of snacks from Safeway.

This is a random sink in the corner of the Green Room because there is not enough space to put one in the bathroom. That’s right, you can’t even wash your hands after taking a shit in this place… classy.

Which reminds me… when we pulled up at The Moore, the guy working the door seemed to be completely unprepared for our arrival. The lot was full and when we asked him where we could park, he said he would see if there was room in the parking garage around the corner… so he leaves us there, just idling in the alley while a crowd of gawkers slowly surrounded the SUV in a scene straight out of “Night of The Living Dead”. Right when I thought I might have to leap from the vehicle and protect Rogan from this swarm of pasty skinned, sun deprived, vitamin deficient vegan Seattle-lites the doorman returned and pointed to a truck parked in a prime spot right next to the door.

“That’s my truck.” he said.

“I guess I can move that and let you park there.”

Gee, you think so? You think maybe you can move your truck and generously allow the headliner a parking space by the door? Good to know this was option number two though… hey, let me see if I can find a place for you down the street before handing over my totally bitchin’ parking space. After all, he probably had to make Employee of The Month in order to get that space.

Anyway, Rogan went up for about an hour and a half and of course, he completely destroyed the place. I would say that I have not heard at least 80% of the material he went up with and it was all high level, killer stuff. I have no idea how he finds the time to write all this material.

Here are a couple of pics I snapped from backstage.

As usual, Rogan took all of us out to dinner after the show. Despite the fact that we were viciously attacked by a rat the size of a pony last time we ate at this place, Rogan wanted to give them a second chance. After all, it’s basically right across the street from The Moore and they offered us a free slice of cheesecake once they discovered that my girlfriend had been infected with rabies after the rat incident.

This is Richard, muwt, redban, Fitzsimmons and Rogan at the dinner table.

After dinner, Rogan and Fitzsimmons wisely headed back to the hotel while redban, Richard, jonny and myself headed out to the bars. Ever since the day jonny almost died after I took him to this funky little absinthe bar near the market, he attempts to relive that glorious evening every chance he gets. redban had never had a glass of absinthe and of course, Richard “Heartland of America” Sugarbush had practically never even heard of the stuff -so away we went.

As soon as we entered the bar, Richard noticed they did not stock Miller Lite and he instantly launched into an angry tirade about this fact. He was standing on his bar stool shaking his fists in the air and questioning the credibility of any establishment that did not carry such a fine beverage.

This is when I knew the evening would most likely not end well. Somehow, I managed to calm Richard while ordering a round of absinthe for us all (which redban rather graciously paid for), but the bartender was already pissed. She was mean mugging Richard and asked him if she should even bother serving him.

Once we settled into our drinks, redban fell in love with the cute emo/goth bartender and started to flirt a little. This chick was not having it though. This is how I remember a portion of the conversation between them.

redban: You have a great smile. You’re really cute when you smile. You should smile more.

emo/goth bartender: I fucking hate it when people tell me to smile. It’s my biggest pet peeve… really pisses me off.

At that point, I seriously expected one of us to get punched in the face by a girl.

Somehow, miraculously -I managed to get the bartender chick laughing and smiling a bit and just when I thought all was well with the world, I hear a loud crash and the sound of broken glass… it was like one of those moments in the movies when the needle grinds across the record and everything goes quiet while all eyes turn to stare… at Richard… standing in the hallway near the bathroom with a broken bottle of Bud Lite between his feet.

This was not good considering he had already been warned before he even started drinking and as the bouncers approached, he started complaining loudly about the “dangerously uneven floors” and how he would “have the city come in here and shut this whole den of snakes run by gypsies and thieves down.”

A single glass of absinthe costs $14, so naturally we just politely sipped our drinks and began damage control while watching our buddy Richard get drug from the building. After all, Richard is a big boy with a cell phone and an ATM card and when you party with savages you have to be prepared to fend for yourself or get left behind.

“I swear I just met that guy tonight,” I said.

“We bumped into him outside and he just started following us around,” jonny chimed in.

Once again, I went to work bringing the bartender back around to our side so we could continue drinking and just when I thought I had her figured out -redban said something about her “butthole”.

I don’t really remember exactly what it was and I’m sure it was meant to be a compliment, but she didn’t seem to think so. Fortunately, before she could punch us in the face Richard came barreling back in through the front door yelling something about how he had to take a piss. Strangely, they let him back in and escorted him to the bathroom. Afterward, he tried to saddle back up to the bar, but they were not having it and once again, we watched while these guys drug him out of there while he was screaming about “dirty gypsy thieves” and snakes and what not.

That’s when the bartender picked up the phone and called the cops while jonny stepped outside to mediate this madness. I knew if I stepped outside, I would probably end up in jail too -so I just stayed put and jonny literally saved young Richard’s life by calling him a cab just seconds before the cops arrived.

That’s right, Richard now owes a life debt to jonny and is his man-slave.

On our way back to the hotel we met a couple of frumpy lesbian chicks who recognized redban and I from the show. They made it pretty clear that they were willing to degrade themselves for a couple of A-list celebrities such as ourselves, but ultimately I realized I did not want to see redban naked -so I bailed… I vaguely recall heading back to jonny’s neck of the woods and stumbling through the streets attempting to locate more booze in vain.

I think this might be when I attempted to call Richard… at first to see if he was alright and make sure he did not wind up in jail, but at the last second something came over me and… well… this is the voice message I apparently left… I say “apparently”, because I don’t quite recall actually making this phone call… sounds like me though.

http://soundcloud.com/richardsugarbush/the-vo

All told, it was an epic journey once again and Rogan is truly an amazing guy and great friend to come out and pod with us and to put a no name like me up in front of a sold out show at The Moore not once, but twice. redban is a hilarious guy and I think the people who hate on him just haven’t spent any time with the guy. Have a few drinks with the guy and you will see he’s just a unique dude… no need to hate. Fitzsimmons is an animal and if you don’t seek out his comedy right now, you are completely missing out on some of the best standup out there.

I guess the only thing left to say is, powerful Joe Rogan.

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A lot of people have asked me about my obsession with Billy Bob Brockali and just what would drive a man to do something like this:

… or even this:

Well… when I was just eight years old my life was forever changed by a television commercial. Of course, this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. In fact, my life was irrevocably altered at least a dozen times an hour every day as I took comfort in my good friend the television set… the television set informed me of all the miraculous inventions and activities that were out there waiting for me in the real world -that is, if I could ever manage to pry myself away from the television set long enough to experience them. It told me about things like the amazing plastic hoop that you could put around your waist and then gyrate spasmodically like an epileptic at a light show… and then there was also the coiled piece of metal that you could set at the top of your stairs, give it a little push and then watch it slowly flop down two steps before veering horrifically off course and twisting itself into such a tangled mass you would have to completely destroy it to ever pry it apart again… good times… good times…

But one fateful day, I saw something truly incredible… more incredible than the plastic hoop and mangled metal coil… it was a place… but not just any place. It was a place that had video games and ball tents and people wearing top hats that sang and danced while they stuffed your face with giant pizzas and… get this… giant animatronic monkeys playing Beatles’ songs! Not just monkeys, but a mouse dressed like a cheerleader and a wolf who did a ventriloquist act and a hillbilly bear that played bass guitar and… well, what the fuck else could an eight year old possibly need?

I knew I had to find a way to this magical place… somehow… some way…

I can’t really remember how I first found myself inside a Showbiz Pizza… I think it was somebody’s birthday party or something… and to be honest, a giant fucking bear, lurching dangerously close to your table while shouting “Love, love me do” as it’s cold unblinking eyes frantically click and pop and roll back in it’s head almost in time to the music is not as cool as it looks on TV. In fact, for an impressionable eight year old such as myself -it was kind of terrifying.

For the next ten years, kids all across the nation were subjected to this bizarre ritual of American gluttony and totally kick ass animatronics… and then the dream was over… just like that. I always imagined Mitzi Mozzarella got strung out on coke and started sucking dick for rocks, while Rolfe DeWolfe was serving 10-15 for aggravated assault and Fatz Geronimo slipped into a diabetic coma and the band was no more.

But fortunately for us -one man… one genius of a man, had a dream. His dream was to get the band back together again… one last time to relive the glory that is The Rock-afire Explosion!

That American Hero’s name is Chris Thrash.

“It just blows you away… you’re looking and you’re like this is really happening… it’s not just some dream that maybe one day… it’s like this is real… I actually just kept pushing and kept pushing… I would not let my dream go… I would not let it go…” -Chris Thrash

Apparently, this guy saved up enough money selling used cars to buy his very own Rock-afire Explosion. Don’t be jealous. Owning The Rock-afire Explosion can be more complicated than you think. For example, where do you put something like that? What good is it if you can’t make ‘em sing oldies at your whim? How are you ever going to get laid with a hobby like that? Well, simple matters such as these could not stop Chris Thrash from realizing his dream. He faithfully restored these animatronic rock ‘n roll has-beens in his shed and then set them up from memory on three separate stages -complete with light show and spotlights, just like it was in that glorious wonderland known simply as, Showbiz Pizza Place.

But it doesn’t stop there… like I said -Chris Thrash is a true genius visionary and American Hero! Men like that don’t stop until their dream is fully realized! He spent the next few months teaching himself animatronics and the necessary programming to breathe that magic spark of life back into his childhood fantasies and reform The Rock-afire Explosion for the first time ever to play…. you guessed it:

“Love In This Club” by Usher.

Chris Thrash, may god bless you in all your endeavors sir. It truly is the lord’s work you are doing. I once thought art and American culture were dead, but I was wrong.

If you want to see more totally badass jams by the reformed Rock-afire Explosion and delve deep into the enigma that is the genius of Chris Thrash -go here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/christhrash

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Joe Rogan is a pretty capable guy and one thing I’ve learned about self actualized individuals is that they are usually overly optimistic about the rest of us. For example, Rogan is the kind of guy that would say something like, “Oh yeah! I absolutely think you can remove your own appendix.” Not necessarily because he wants to see you get hurt, but because that’s how optimistic he is… that’s how much faith he has in you… who knows? It just might work!

So a few years ago, when I told him I had just started doing stand up -he decided to put me on stage in front of nearly two thousand people.

Damn you, Rogan! Always upping the bar…

Rogan was busy masturbating in the shower when I arrived at his hotel, so The Voodoo Posse politely waited in the lobby until he was finished. We had just sat down and made ourselves comfortable when none other than Dana White (the UFC was also in town) came walking around the corner and comped some kid free UFC tickets. But before we could even say, “Can I borrow twenty-thousand bucks?” he was gone. He looked like a nice enough guy though, so I’m gonna go ahead and tell people I met him and he was pretty cool and even offered to take me out on the town, but I was busy.

Rogan finally busted a nut, came down to the lobby and immediately began begging to get a photo with me. He had to wait a few minutes while my fans and a couple of crackheads also had their pictures taken with me, but I promised to send Joe an autographed copy so he would feel special.

Look at him… he looks so happy hanging out with his idol. I think he knew that a mere “Cat in The Hat” t-shirt could not trump my “Meatloaf”… but a korean Cat in The Hat t-shirt… well played, Rogan… well played. Also, that wallet chain has a little alien head on it (like the logo on his site) and I wanted to steal it… not the wallet, just the wallet chain.

We went straight from the hotel to The Moore…

Joe told me Ari would do about twenty minutes, I would do about ten, Ari would come back out for another twenty and then he would finish the show… so basically, I was sandwiched between Ari and Rogan -which of course, was the best possible way to handle the situation, but at the same time… fuck! Going up as, “The Voodoo Chicken” to a packed house in between two seasoned pros is either ballsy, suicidal or just plain stupid… I still haven’t figured out which.

“You can’t fail!” Rogan said.

I almost bet him a dollar that I could.

I hadn’t even finished setting up my video camera by the sound booth before Ari was already on stage and just destroying the place… I ran back down the hall towards the back stage door knowing that I only had a few minutes before I had to go up.

Two security guards starting yelling and waving their arms. “You can’t go back there!” they shouted.

I had to think fast… I had to say something so conniving, so convoluted that it absolutely must be true… maybe I should tell them I’m Ari’s life partner and he’ll have a seizure if I don’t deliver his anal suppository on time… but instead I managed to blurt out, “I’m with Joe Rogan!” … because I’m clever and think fast on my feet. Ironically though, this seemed to stun these two hired monkeys. They looked at each other as if to say, “No one could be stupid enough to think that line would work! … so it must be true!” Either way, I didn’t stick around to hear the verdict. I just yanked open the door and walked right in while Dumb and Dumber attempted to decipher my wizard speak.

Note to stalkers: Just say you’re with Joe Rogan and keep on walking. You might have to go up and do a “tight ten”, but it’s a small price to pay for sharing a glass of wine with Joe Rogan in the romantic dim lighting of a backstage area.

I spent the next ten minutes or so pacing behind the curtain attempting to not notice that Ari was absolutely killing and of course, The Voodoo Chicken was supposed to somehow follow that.

Ari working his magic.

I rushed my first bit and completely forgot to do a callback that I had planned, but other than that I don’t think I really could have asked for a better set. At one point, I actually got a “Boo!” when I suggested I may be a Girl Scout killer. It’s one of those jokes where half the audience laughs and the other half looks at who is laughing with a look of disgust and condemnation on their faces. I find this amusing. That joke is for me -not you.

In a lot of ways Rogan was right. You can’t go wrong in front of a Rogan crowd. They all have a sense of humor, are ready to laugh and are probably high as fuck so… Of course, later Rogan and Ari were singing a different tune… “Oh you absolutely can do wrong… you can simply not be funny.” I’m glad they saved that little pep talk for after the show.

Yours truly suggesting Buddha had a brain tumor at The Moore.

Ari went back up for another twenty or so after I left the stage while Rogan and I had a glass of wine. That dude is all class and had nothing but kind words to say the whole time. Of course, this is just another Friday for these two, but I felt like the little sick kid who pukes up a lung and then gets the VIP treatment from the Make a Wish Foundation for a day or two right before dying a slow and agonizing death.

I don’t know what to say about Joe’s stand up that hasn’t already been said. The guy destroyed it non-stop from start to finish. If you ever have the opportunity to see Rogan live -consider it mandatory. The comedy is fresh, original and unlike most stand-up, it is thought provoking well beyond the gimmicky bits that a lot of comics resort to.

Joe Rogan making heads explode with the power of his mind.

One thing that sucks about downtown Seattle is that most restaurants close around 11:00PM. So basically, when you want a late dinner -you just look for the nearest OPEN sign and walk in. That’s how you decide where you are eating and that’s how Joe, Ari, Misses Voodoo Chicken and myself all ended up at some “Argentinian Steak House” across the street from The Moore.

Rogan and Ari ordered some obscene pile of meat that they brought out over burning coals with wooden plates and sticks for forks while the rest of us ate like civilized human beings with pinkies extended and napkins tucked firmly in place… and then… shortly after our meal… Misses Voodoo Chicken spotted it… a mouse… a vicious, savage beast with blood red eyes and fangs like a tiger scurrying across the headboard of our booth. A giant of his kind -perhaps the size of a large domestic house cat, which let out a mighty roar as it leaped from the booth ledge and sailed through the air towards the jugular vein of Misses Voodoo Chicken. Joe shot to his feet with the reflexes of a frightened gazelle while Misses Voodoo let out a blood curdling scream and clung to Rogan’s thigh like a wounded panda cub clinging for dear life to the trunk of a mighty oak.

I’m pretty sure she touched his wang.

Normally, I must fight men for honor when their wang comes into contact with Misses Voodoo Chicken, but Rogan was dropping favors like Fitty drops Benjamins at the club, so I guess he is allowed to touch the Misses with his penis this one time… one time. But next time -there will be consequences, Mr. Rogan. There will be consequences.

Our waiter offered us a bottle of wine for the trouble of being infected with rabies and body lice after dining at their fine establishment, but it was late and we were all ready to go home… and shower… thoroughly. That’s when Rogan paid it forward… rather than insisting we be comped -he comped them! “You wanna see a UFC fight?” he asked our waiter who had spent the entire evening attempting to refrain from kissing Joe Rogan… and that’s how I wound up sitting next to an Argentinian mob boss who had some shady connections in the restaurant business at UFC Fight Night.

Once again, Rogan gave us third row seats on the floor… I’m starting to think maybe Rogan is a little miserly with these tickets because I couldn’t help but notice that Bruce Buffer was a full twenty feet closer to the octagon than I was… what the fuck, Rogan?

Ari was already there when we arrived and I gotta tell ya, that’s one lanky jew who just does not look like he belongs in a sea of roided out douchebags in muscle shirts… I guess it wasn’t helping that he had on a bright red “Garfield” t-shirt… seriously… I am not making that up. The dude wears a Garfield t-shirt to a UFC fight. I’m surprised he didn’t get his ass kicked just out of principle.

I sit down next to Ari and he says, “Do you wanna breath strip?”

“What the fuck? Why is Ari offering me a breath strip? Does my breath stink that bad?” I had to admit, it was a distinct possibility… “Sure.”

He hands me one -which to my surprise, tasted like wet dog with a hint of cinnamon.

“There is no way this is helping,” I thought.

In fact, the breath strip had the curious effect of pretty much instantly giving me the wickedest dry mouth I have ever had in my life and making my breath smell like wet dog with a hint of cinnamon. I noticed he gave one to someone else too. For some reason, Ari is really concerned with the state of everyone’s breath.

Ari after realizing he was stuck sitting next to the Argentinian Mafia lookin’ dude from the restaurant.

Dan Hardy making eyes at my woman right before getting his ass beat like the no ground game having bitch that he is.

Ironically, one of the best moments of UFC FIght Night for me had nothing to do with the fights… instead it was when Ari’s breath strip finally crossed the blood-brain barrier and I finally understood why Ari’s breath always smells like wet dog with a hint of cinnamon… it was during an intermission and there was some… ambient noise emanating from the PA system… I could swear it was Bruce Lee saying something about “emptying your mind” and “being like water” … over and over again… like some sort of shamanic command from high above echoing and reverberating throughout the building up and down, blasting through the multi-million dollar sound system at Key Arena and pounding through the very core of my being… “be-like-water-be-like-water-be-like-water” and then… silence.

For a split second I thought I had imagined the whole thing… I realized for the last few minutes I had no idea where I was or what was going on around me as I emptied my mind and was like water with Bruce Lee behind a funky techno dance beat… “Fuck, I wonder if Ari is as high as I am?” I thought.

It was at that exact moment that I heard him suddenly shout, “YES!” as the shaman song ended.

I don’t know… I could be wrong. Someone may have asked him if he liked pussy and beer right before that song ended and I simply didn’t hear that part of the conversation, but I like to think Ari’s wet dog breath strips resulted in some sort of bizarre Bruce Lee vulcan mind meld if only for a moment when we were both able to empty our minds… like water… formless… crashing and flowing…

After the fights Rogan called me and said, “Let’s go get a bite to eat.”

“Where?” I asked.

“That same place we ate at last night.”

“You mean the place with the mouse…?”

“Yeah!”

Rogan sure loves his piles of sizzling meat, so Misses Voodoo Chicken and I met up with Rogan, Ari, Denny, muwt and muwt jr back at the rat house. At the end of our meal we were given a dessert plate on the house for the previous evening’s episode, but I still felt like it was too little too late. So if you’re ever at the Argentinian steak house across the street from The Moore, just tell them you saw a mouse and they will totally believe it and maybe even give you a piece of cake. I will not rest until there is free cake for all of Seattle.

Joe Rogan thank you, for giving me one incredible weekend that I will never forget… and Ari you are a comedy master/pimp. Even if your breath smells like wet dog with a hint of cinnamon.

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I don’t have a Facebook account and I’m not a very social person, so I’m usually the last guy to find out about anything going on locally… like say, a comedy competition. So imagine my surprise when I strolled on in to one of my favorite open mics one night only to be told that I would have to sign a waiver and consent to being filmed if I wanted any stage time. Furthermore, it was explained -signing this waiver would constitute my entry into a comedy competition and my set would be judged by a group of people seated at the rear of the club.

Naturally, my first instinct was to run screaming. There is a special level of hell reserved specifically for comedy competitions and the only good that ever comes from them is when the comics are finally cast aside after having had all the life force completely sucked out of them until the only thing that remains is a bitter, shallow husk of the human being they used to be… then and only then are they prepared for the world of stand up comedy.

But I had just driven twenty minutes to get to this thing and I desperately needed some stage time.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I thought. “They will tape my five minutes of shame, cringe at how awful it is and then we can all move on with our lives.”

So I signed the waiver.

Unfortunately for me, all of the other local comics actually DO have a Facebook account, are well informed and were scrambling to get their shot at comedy competition glory that night. By the time the dust had cleared, I was slotted to be number 23 on the list.

I’m not even kidding when I say the judges had already left the building by the time I went up. I know this because there were roughly 12 people in the room at that point and the only reason those people were still there is because they had all come with the comic who went up before me. Now they were desperately flagging down a waitress so they could pay their bill and leave while I was telling dick jokes.

This is a picture of me staring at them condescendingly while they make their escape.

Naturally, I cried in the shower that night after falling to my knees in the rain, thrusting my fists into the air and cursing god for this life as a shitty amateur comic. So imagine my surprise, when all the local comics began slapping me on the back and congratulating me at the next open mic I attended.

Apparently, I had somehow been accepted as a semi-finalist in this comedy competition. I don’t know if the judges actually watched my video later or if my name was simply thrown into a hat. Again, not having a Facebook account somehow resulted in me being the last to know.

“Well… what’s the worst that could happen?” I thought.

That’s when I learned the video of my shame was proudly displayed on the website of the radio station sponsoring this competition along with the other semi-finalists. Now everyone could bask in the glory that is me telling dick jokes to twelve disinterested people who are in the back of the room and on their way out the door. Not only that, the general public was now invited to vote on each semi-finalist’s video… not just “thumbs up”, but also “thumbs down”. After all, we don’t want to know just how well liked you are -we also want to see just how despised you are. It’s more fun that way. Perhaps not surprisingly, each comic had at least as many “thumbs down” votes as there were comics in the competition.

I guess the competition organizers thought opening the vote up to “the general public” might even out the odds somehow. Of course, what they didn’t count on is just how much comics are social media whores. Within seconds, some semi-finalists had thousands of votes, while guys like me -with no Facebook account, languished in the double digits.

“Finally, this madness will be over.” I thought. “There is no way I can compete with these Facebook whores and my five minutes of shame will quickly fade into obscurity.”

So imagine my surprise when at the end of the month -after receiving maybe 60 votes compared to everyone elses thousands, I received an email informing me that I was now a finalist in this competition! Equally surprising was the admonishment in this email to “work clean” during the finalist round when it was basically a dick joke that got me there to begin with.

More bad news came when I read that I was expected to be at Snoqualmie Casino no later than 11am the day of the competition even though it didn’t start until 8pm.

“What the hell am I going to do for 9 hours?”

This question was answered in the form of an itineray constructed by the radio station that thoroughly documented every second of every minute of that long 9 hour stretch to show time.

Oh joy.

The good news was, Rich Vos would be there. The bad news was, we were expected to actually take part in something described as a “one-on-one workshop where you will perform your material for Rich Vos and he will provide constructive feedback”. Not surprisingly, no one was looking forward to being locked in a room alone with Rich Vos and performing stand up for him while he scrutinized you from a dark corner… what the fuck is that all about?

Fortunately, Rich turned out to be a very nice guy and he knew as well as the rest of us that this workshop idea was creepy as fuck -so we all just hung out in the green room for a couple of hours and talked shop. This was definitely the best part about this whole experience. Rich told us a story about how the first time he was in “Last Comic Standing”, he was obsessed with winning so much that it really adversely affected his performance and he did not win that season. But when he came back for a second time, he was over it and honestly thought he had no hope of winning -so he just tried to relax and enjoy the ride instead… and he won.

This was one of those moments of supreme irony in life, only I did not realize it at the time.

At this point, I noticed the comic who had gone up before me on that fateful audition night (and had also made it to the finalist round) was pretty much in full on panic mode. He was pacing back and forth in a corner and staring at a slip of paper with a handful of jokes scrawled on it. Apparently, he did not have the required five minutes worth of material committed to memory. In fact, he seemed a little surprised that none of the other comics appeared to have any notes at all.

“I probably shouldn’t go up there with a bunch of notes…” he wondered aloud.

“Relax man, just go out there with your favorite bit. It’s only five minutes.”

This is when the single funniest moment from this entire comedy competition occurred. This guy admitted to me that he had never done stand up comedy before that open mic audition that landed him in the finals. He was writing a paper on standup comedy for some sort of liberal arts class and as part of his final thesis, he decided to go to an open mic and actually tell a few jokes… and… well… here we were. He told me he was pretty sure he didn’t even have five minutes worth of material.

I swear I am not making this up.

After Rich left the green room and show time approached, the conversation quickly turned towards the prize. Believe it or not, after all this time -no one had actually thought to ask what the prize for winning this thing was. Some quick iPhone Googling revealed that last year’s winner actually won some cash, but details seemed vague about this year’s competition. When the lady coordinating the event made an appearance in the green room just before show time and was asked about this, she delivered a rather lengthy rambling speech about, “… being on the radio and maybe some other stuff, but we are still hammering out the details…”

This was not a good sign.

In fact, this is roughly the point in time where it occurred to me that we were basically the radio station’s painted whores for the evening. Somewhere months ago, a group of marketing guys got together in a boardroom to brainstorm cheap ways to drum up a little publicity for the radio station.

“I know, let’s have a fundraiser for the homeless!” one said.

“No… we might actually have to give homeless people money. Let’s just tell a bunch of amateur comics they are in some sort of competition instead… won’t cost us a dime!”

Flash forward six months later and I’m standing back stage at Snoqualmie Casino telling myself this slow motion trainwreck is finally coming to a close. Nothing else could possibly go wrong. All I have to do now is go out there and suffer for five more minutes and then it will all be over.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen, right?” Of course, by now I should have known better.

I’m not sure what kind of drugs the host was on, but I am very much interested in experimenting with some -as long as I can do so in a safe and private environment. Hosting a comedy competition is probably not the best time to experiment with powerful, mind bending chemicals though as was proven by the bizarre, rambling non-sensical intro the host spit out before someone pushed me onto the stage in the hopes that it would finally shut her up.

Since we had been told to “work clean” and stay away from “blue material” and dick jokes, I instead insinuated that I was a Girl Scout murderer and then made fun of Jesus for awhile. I was exhausted and ready to go home… there was still much crying in the shower to be done that evening and I had a good one hour drive ahead of me.

This is a picture of some random moron ruining a perfectly good radio station ad.

After all the votes had been tallied, they called us back on to the stage for one last public shaming… and believe me, I was just as surprised as everyone else when it was announced that I was somehow the “winner” of this madness. But sure enough, I was handed a small wooden plaque that said, “WINNER” on it as the other comics gathered around to congratulate me.

When we were all leaving that evening, Rich bumped into us in the hall and asked who had won.

“I did.” I said, as I proudly held up the miniature wooden plaque with the word, “WINNER” inscribed across the front.

That’s when he gave me a look that said, “I thought you were the janitor…” as he turned to exit the building.

I have to admit, winning a prestigious comedy competition like that really changed me. I did in fact, “win the opportunity to maybe work with Rich Vos in the future”… just as the host had promised. I also won the opportunity to maybe impregnate Britney Spears with a three headed love child in the future, but so far -no word on either of these things actually happening. I also won a jar of candy which had at least six Jolly Ranchers in it. Sadly some of them were apple, but that just made me savor the watermelon ones even more… although, I have to admit it did sting a bit when I learned ALL of the finalists had received a jar of candy.

This is a picture of me questioning reality.

They did make good on their promise of me “being on the radio” though. Apparently at some moment in time, they played that awful clip from the auditions of me telling a dick joke to an empty room on the radio. So thank god for that, because that is EXACTLY how I want to be represented.

Anyways, that’s the story of how I accidentally won a comedy competition one day.

I realize this blog entry may sound really douchey but that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I’m sure everyone involved had the best intentions at heart and hanging out with Vos for an afternoon made it all worthwhile. I guess my point (if I have one) is that comedy competitions in general are a terrible idea and anybody in that group could have won that thing. We could have held that competition ten days in a row and I’m sure a different comic would have won it every time.

Don’t believe me?

Then enjoy my shame and witness for yourself indisputable video evidence that comedy competitions are bullshit.

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