I swear I mean it this time...

Just like an abusive boyfriend promises to change, I promise once again to start blogging. I plan on even having a link to it on my website, I swear. I'm also going to start going to the gym again... I promise.

Lazarus Blog Post!!!

That's right, this bog has risen from the dead! A conversation with comedian and friend Jared Stern has renewed my interest in blogging. He posts something each day which I can't even comprehend, but he said that it helps him with his writing and Jared is a great writer, so there must be something to it. I have been feeling like my writing muscles are starting to atrophy, so any exercise that I can get them would be a good idea.

yet another crooked contest

well, i didn't make it to las vegas and the comedy festival after all. i want to thank all the people that voted for me, and spread the word to others to vote as well. i know that a lot of people (too many to list right now) spent a lot of their time voting in an effort to help me secure a spot at the lucky 21 show in vegas, and it means a lot to me. i soon learned that some comics appeared to be cheating, and it seemed so blatant that they were sure to be caught. at one point, roughly 500 votes equaled about 1%, and i watched one particular comic jump from 6% to 20% overnight. that's about 7,000 votes in the middle of the night. right. that's legitimate.

i was told by a friend of mine that they were probably using a "script" or "macro" to generate the votes, and i thought maybe it was something traceable and they would be disqualified. apparently not. a macro is basically a program that you tell to do certain actions (open a window, go to a website, vote, close window) and then repeat. there isn't really any way that the website can tell if it's your finger clicking the mouse, or your computer doing it, because it looks the same on their end. i realized that a better system would involve "one i.p. address= one vote"

i had a friend tell me that he was going to write a script or run a macro for me and i told him no. i believed that anything like that would be found out and i don't want to get disqualified, and i thought i would have the votes legitimately anyway. besides that, i don't cheat. period.

let me explain. i don't cheat, i don't steal jokes, i don't kiss people's asses, i don't justify the means with the end, and i still believe that the good guy will eventually prevail. i didn't get great grades in school because i never cheated on a test. it would go down like this: i didn't study (because i was setting off fireworks or something stupid) and then when the test came and i was unprepared, i would do poorly. basically, i screwed up and i took my lumps. when i got busted, i went to detention. when i get nailed by radar, i pull over. i never copied someone else's homework. i wouldn't get answers from somebody else's paper. i never copied someone else's book report. in a nutshell, i've always done my best to be honest. i play by the rules. and it's getting me nowhere.

thank you to everyone who got behind me on this, and thank you for voting for me. thanks for giving a shit and wanting to see me succeed. thank you for wanting to see me make it to the next level, and taking action to make it happen. all i can say is that i am truly sorry that the votes you cast were rendered mute, and your voice was not heard because of a flawed system. i can never prove anything, but it doesn't matter anyway. i feel happy enough to know that you guys were there for me and had my back.
thank you.

by the way, i'm thinking of abandoning this blog as i don't know how many people actually come here, so if you are reading this please leave a comment so i have some idea as to whether to pull the plug on this blog.

is anyone reading this?

i haven't even checked my own blog, much less written one in ages. not that anyone is chomping at the bit to hear the latest. i assume that everyone is reading and posting on myspace rather than here. if you are reading this now, please email me and let me know... otherwise i will abandon this blog.
mike

i'm thinking of giving up my dream

i don't know how much more of this i can take. i have been doing stand up comedy for almost nine years now, and i don't know what i'm doing wrong. i have been fighting the urge to just give up and quit for longer than i like. as a comic, you see or hear things that make you question your talent, your strategy, your overall game-plan, and make you wonder if it's just not going to happen for you. that's one of the reasons that some comics don't like to hear about who got what development deal, who's going to aspen this year, or who just landed a spot on comedy central. because it can really fuck with your head. it makes you wonder why you didn't get asked to do a television spot. it makes you wonder what you forgot to do, who you should have called, where you should have sent your tape to, or have been on a particular night.

i think i'm a pretty good comedian, i could be wrong but other people come up to me and tell me that they think i'm funny, so i trust their judgement. i do my best to write good material and perform as strongly as i can, but it seems like the comedy world is passing me by.

my friend andy kline said it best, "we're the lost generation of comedians". when i was first starting out, i used to hear the older comics talk about television auditions and guys they started out with making it big, and figured it was just a matter of time before we matured to the rank of comics that got looked at for festivals and television specials. somewhere along the way, we got skipped over. we continued to work and hone our craft, getting funnier and better, hoping that we were going to be given our due, but the next thing i knew younger comics were doing those same auditions and showcases that i had been looking forward to. we got passed over.

i used to skateboard when i was a teenager. i wasn't very good, but i enjoyed it. i had dreams of one day being sponsored and making a living as a professional skater. one day i was at the skatepark and saw a twelve year old pulling tricks that were light years away from anything i could even attempt... and he was landing them. it was at this moment that i realized i was too old to catch up to where this kid was, and at the very best i could only tread water to keep up with him at any contest. shortly thereafter i quit skating and started drinking heavily. i started drinking because my dream was gone. i'm feeling the same loss and surrender now as i did then. i can see that me and the comics in my graduating class have missed our time. it's the younger comics that are going to be getting the spots on comedy central. it's the newer comics that are going to the festivals. it's the comics that started after us, that still have a shot at making the dream a reality. not us.

i don't want to be the grumpy cigar smoking road warrior that sits at the hotel bar bending the new kids ear about how, "i started out with that guy, he used to open for me" long into the night. i don't want to be the aged one-nighter dinosaur that still hangs onto the futile hope that maybe the powers that be will come to their senses and realize that i am a good comedian who deserves a shot at making more than a pizza hut driver. i love doing stand up. i love the feeling of being onstage and having an audience laughing hard and spitting drinks out. i love the actual act of doing stand up comedy. i just don't know how long i can survive the disappointment. i don't know when someone is going to get my back and go to bat for me, or if it's ever going to happen. i am broke because of my love of doing stand up. i made more money when i delivered cheesesteak subs and fries, which really sucks if you think about it. comedy is hard. most people wouldn't want to even get on stage, let alone keep getting onstage long enough to get good, but we do it over and over. our job is a specialized skill that very few posses, but we don;t make shit. think about it: some dude from a bombed out third world country can come to this country, get a job chauffeuring food at papa john's, and within a month is making more money per year than a comedian who has been honing his entertaining skills for 5 years.

i can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. i'm tired of getting nowhere.

Canadian Rap

I was watching the canadian music channel and was a bit stoned and came to a realization: they actually play songs with a video that goes along with the music! wow, what a novel idea! somebody should do that in he united states, instead of airing road rules or cribs or the real world 32 times a day. what ever happened to showing music videos on the channel that is supposed to show music videos? it's like the old cliche, "dance with the one what brought you".

the other thing i noticed was i was watching rap videos in french. i couldn't understand it any less than an american rap video. a lot of gesturing and mugging for the camera, flashing bling but without the same level of production values and extravagance we are accustomed to in the united states.

here's what got me the most: there was a rap video where you never see the actual rapper. he's rapping about something, and there's a white guy reading a newspaper in a diner and he looks really stressed out about something. he's the one the rapper is talking about, and he's the protagonist. WHAT THE FUCK!?!?! a honkey is actually the hero? clearly these canuck hip-hoppers don't get the art form at all. white guys can't be the good guy, they're not even supposed to be benign or neutral. they're supposed to be crooked cops with a hot temper, an old uptight business guy who owns the media banks and country club, cracking a bullwhip in the cotton field, or a judge. that's just the way it is. if you see a white guy in a rap video you can just assume that he's the bad guy. it's like any action movie ever made: the guy with the foreign accent (usually german or russian) is usually the terrorist that has the uncanny ability to spot the local renegade flatfoot's wife amongst the hostages. that's how it works. (sidenote: there used to be a lot of arabic/muslim terrorists in movies right up until spetember 11th, then it was verboten to portray them as the kind of people who would do such a thing, which they in fact did). i wonder if it's taboo to have bad guys with irish accents in english movies?

i know feel like the reverse racism in rap videos is perpetuating the problem. all crackers do is punish the brother, whether as a slave owner, policeman, loan officer or judge. i typically forget the fact that i'm white until it's pointed out to me by someone else. sometimes i feel that black people are intent on keeping the divide between us, and that attmepts to bridge the gap are rejected on the grounds that they need to "keep it real" and not sell out and play the white man's game. i don't think i'm in the game, because i'm still poor and owe lots of money to the government. in the white man's game i think i'm just a benchwarmer. i don't remember who said it, but when asked how to end racism and bigotry he said, "stop talking about it". so i will.

forward this blog

i just got another godamn forward from someone who didn't have the common courtesy to blind carbon copy. so now i can expect 432 replies from every jackass who also doesn't have the decency to "reply to sender" or "b.c.c.", but replies to everyone else that got the stupid thing. i don't want to hear about the angels in iraq, or spend 15 minutes looking at pictures of a kitten with a bong propped in front of him as if he smokes pot.

i think forwards like this are worse than surveys. at least with a survey you get the illusion that the person who sent it wants to know what you would choose: eting a sandwich from a homeless man, or licking a handrailing in the subway? but we all know this is just a guise because they really just want us to read their answers and laugh at how clever they are. a forward is just cut and paste soapboxing. it's a hallmark card that can be a little more politically slanted than a greeting card company would allow.

i know what you may be thinking, isn't that precisely what a blog is? an internet based soapbox for me to bitch about soapboxing? no. the difference is that you came here on your own volition. you're not reading this from your inbox along with 982 other victims who had no choice but to get chained to the water cooler for the next 4 days because it wasn't b.c.c.'d.

forward are usually stupid, but if one must keep their friends in the know about the latest "chickenlittle-x virus", please have the decency to keep our anonymity intact. don't be a dick.

p.s. if you know anyone who does this and pisses you off, forward this blog to them along with 33 other emails.