Current diary entries and everything after April 1, 2004 is at http://basilwhite.livejournal.com.
Important actions (in order):
1) Purchased island
2) Hired goons
3) Recruited and programmed followers (Thanks Toastmasters!)
April Fool,
Basil
February 25, 2004 - My buddy Kevin Downey on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"
I've worked with Kevin at home and on the road, and I've threatened to visit him at his place in Brooklyn for years. He's politely told me "I've got a couch." I saw it on television last night. The Washington Post Express blurb described Kevin as an "obsessive-compulsive who manages to be a slob." This was the first of many salvos. I watched it with a long-time Queer Eye fan who doesn't know Kevin, who commented, "They (the Fab Five guys) are being meaner to him than anyone I've ever seen on the show." The blonde guy picking out wardrobe for Kevin didn't even make eye contact with him.
My guess is that the Fab Five tried to intimidate Kevin with their overt homosexuality (admit it, it's the sadistic straight-baiting reversal of fortune that sells the show). I think that Kevin, being a road-hard, emotionally advanced being, probably turned the intimidation right back on them in a way that was probably funny but didn't "set the tone the producers wanted." Looking at how something is edited is a great way to gain insight into what the producer wants to hide.
Caveat: I have no insider information. I deliberately wrote this before talking to Kevin about it. This is all my nonsense speculation, and should be treated like any other symptom of mental illness.
The woman I love happens to be obsessive-compulsive: I happen to be a slob. Together, we're Kevin. We're getting along in years, so instead of having a kid together, we're going to adopt Kevin as our son, considering he's already an amalgamation of all of our assets and defects. Consider the following true story rendered in comic strip format: http://www.basilwhite.com/comics/comic13.gif
February 9, 2004
I had a nervous breakdown in December and cancelled all my gigs. A lot of people have asked me how I am and what I'm doing, so here it is.
First, a lot of people have shared their concern and best wishes for me, and I'm very grateful. I had no idea that I'd be missed by so many people. I keep telling people who call that there are 7 billion people on the planet that care less about me than they do. That puts it in perspective for me.
I'm confronting what my problems are, what role I've played in them, and what I have to do to solve them.
I'm bombing on the road. Road audiences don't like me. They don't get my jokes, don't want to get my jokes, insulted that I would tell a joke they don't get, and seem to be proud that they don't get my jokes. To add insult to injury, the host goes onstage, tells dick and beer jokes he copied from the Internet, and rips the house.
I had a nervous breakdown onstage during a road gig. I'm bombing, they're booing. I realize that I don't mind that I'm bombing. In fact, because they don't like me, I'm enjoying the fact that I'm not giving them what they want. I'm glad they don't like me. I don't want them to have a good time. I want them to suffer like they've made me suffer. I want them to have a bad Saturday night.
So I cancelled all my gigs and got into therapy. I feel that comedy was a distraction from working on critical defects of my character. I feel that performing was a substitute and a shortcut for the self-acceptance that I wasn't healthy enough to give to myself. I'm working on the character defects for no reason or outcome other than becoming sane. I deliberately left my comedy future in the air, because I don't want my recovery to be about anything other than my recovery.
I miss the creative work and the writing and the crafting of jokes. That's a relief, because I seem to miss comedy for the right reasons. I'm at the point that I'm ready to make a contract with myself that IF I do these things, THEN I can perform again IF I want to. And it's a tall order: I have to change my attitude about other people, take full and ongoing responsibility for accepting myself, and execute a plan to improve my ability to see myself as others see me. If I do comedy again, I have to be able to work so that 100% of my effort and focus is on making them laugh and 0% is about how their behavior makes me feel about myself, because I accept sole authority and complete responsibility for my self-regard.
I'm not there yet. I'm working a plan, though. The more I do it, the better I feel. I'll accept, without judgment, any response you have to what you've just read, including no response at all. If you pray, I'd be grateful if you prayed for me. Thanks.
January 27, 2004
A fan says I look like a guy in the band Three Doors Down. Thanks, pal.
October 27, 2003 - Eddie Izzard, Warner Theatre, Washington, DC
I take my seat next to one of Eddie's stalkers. She stands up for the entire show. Eddie's a genius. The noun in every punchline is a premise to another joke that gets called back using the same irony. Every punch noun is threaded to every other punch noun.
September 27-28, 2003 - Comedy Connection, West Chester, PA
Driving up I-95 with a convoy of Massachusetts cherry picker trucks going home from fixing the power lines after Hurricane Isabel. Nice drive. I meet Bruce Larkin, the owner of the Comedy Connection. Nice guy. The speaker Dave Schwensen shows up. He picked comics for A&E's An Evening at the Improv.
Dave runs us through a round of the improvisational game Pockets to show how to get in the mode of accepting stage events you can't control as offers to go somewhere new. This was the most valuable lesson I learned when I played ComedySportz.
We each do sets for Dave and he stops us with notes. I'm not going to go into more detail about Dave's workshop, but I will say that it exceeded all of my expectations. I recommend it wholeheartedly. It would have been worth three times the price.
I find out the headliner is Kevin Sullivan, so I drive farther up Route 202 looking for something to do to kill time before the show. When I hit the second Ground Round restaurant, I realized I had completed the cultural loop and seen everything there was to see, so I go back to the Comedy Connection and kill four hours reading the manager's book on the history of U.S. baseball parks.
At the show that night, Dave sits next to me. I listen to the host. He has a premise for a joke, but doesn't take it anywhere. I think of a good joke for it. I keep it to myself, because I am a whore. I share this with Dave. He smiles politely.
Workshops have a way of exciting you about the craft. I write until 4 a.m.
September 18-21, 2003 - Boone NC / Knoxville TN / Bristol VA
Government's closed Thursday for Hurricane Isabel, so I leave DC Thursday morning at 4 a.m. I don't see a drop of rain all weekend. Foo Fighters and Jimmie's Chicken Shack get me out of Northern Virginia. Deftones get me to the Cracker Barrel in Christiansburg. Everything in Cracker Barrel contains pork. It's not so much a restaurant as a pork medium, like water or air: it's a pork substrate where rednecks metabolize and thrive. They make the mistake of seating me in front of the exit, where I frighten people with my emotionally climactic response to my ham steak. It's 11:00 a.m. They've just closed the DC subway for Isabel. I wonder how they're holding up. LED highway sign says "High Winds Ahead - Use Caution." Bring 'em on. Really nice people at High Country Inn. Big sign in the lobby with photos of me and the headliner, Jody Kay Kerns. I'm a day early, so I kill time in the bar stomping ass in NTN Trivia. I watch hurricane coverage on the Weather Channel from the safety of my mountain lodge room. I'll never live on the beach. If you live in a neighborhood with signs that read "Hurricane Evacuation Route," evacuate forever. Rip off the rear-view mirror and don't look back.
I drive to Knoxville to get my aunt Eileen to bring her to the show. She's an artist, and I've been loitering at her art shows since I was seven years old, so this is an opportunity to turn the table. On the way, I see a painful abundance of pristine muscle cars. I saw the one I want for sale at a gas station: a 1971 Mustang Mach 1 in Grabber Lime. Kill me. Aunt Eileen and I eat steaks in the bar with Jody.
A guy in a blue Gillian hat vomits in the urinal before the show. I tell on him in my act. Boy, do I know how to make friends. The audience at Boone was mostly rowdy college kids who wouldn't shut up. They yelled and talked over Jody, who remained cool and in top form. She got a partial standing ovation at the end.
The Saturday show was with B.C. in the Holiday inn in Bristol, VA. I do a lot better with this crowd. I get off stage and I'm ravenously hungry. I'm sitting in a hotel bar, the last Krystal restaurant is two exits away, and I'm too drunk to drive. Damn you, demon Bacardi. Then I remember: Hotels have food. I am not the idiot my mamma raised. This is new mutant idiot behavior. Mom, sterilize the grandkids.
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 Watauga Mountain Times, 9/18/03, page 12-B. |
 I came here to do two things tonight: shoot guns and vacuum carpet. Looks like we're almost outta carpet. |
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September 11, 2003 - Downtown DC
Patriot Day. I work across the street from the White House. The President's attending a vigil at St. John's Episcopal Church next door. The whole street is lined with Secret Service agents and their black Chevy Tahoes. I go up to the agents and say, "Has anyone seen my black Chevy Tahoe? I know I parked it around here somewhere."
If you can get Secret Service Agents to laugh, you can get anybody.
Here's my September 11 comic. Relax. It makes fun of alcoholism.
September 10, 2003 - Workshopping
I've paired off with a few people already and run them through my interpretation of Judy Carter's Comedy Buddy Workshop, which I've irresponsibly adapted from her book, The Comedy Bible.
Here's my reinterpreted version of Judy's workshop. You get another comic. You meet alone, without distractions. It's like Animal Farm: two comics good, three comics bad. Three comics, it becomes a party. Two comics, it's work.
Bring several pieces of paper. You agree to how long you want to meet, then you split the time even. Comic 1 talks about a topic for a joke. Comic 2 asks what's weird, stupid, hard (difficult), and scary about the topic. Both comics write down all the answers to all four questions. Then Comic 2 asks what's weird, stupid, hard and scary about the answers the both of you just wrote. You keep asking the four questions until Comic 1 wants to stop. Then the two of you come up with a premise that declares a universal truth about something weird, stupid, hard or scary about reality. Then Comic 2 hands the notes to Comic 1 to keep. Do this until it's Comic 1's time runs out. Switch.
Go home and write the joke. Adjust the joke so it reflects the universal truth of the premise. Then adjust the premise so it reflects the joke.
I've gotten killer material in every instance of this workshop. I have no authority on how comedy is created or what the best way is to approach comedy writing, I'm just sharing a method that works for me and seems to work for others.
I'm convinced that what makes the workshop effective is the Judy Carter part of it. I suggest that people experience Judy's knowledge firsthand before they take my interpretation and re-re-reinterpret it for themselves.
Caveat: Basil White is admittedly full of cr@p, and this may be yet another example. As with all advice, take what you like and leave the rest.
September 4, 2003 - Auditions for John Waters' "A Dirty Shame", Baltimore, Maryland
8:30 a.m. Two hours early. Nothing in the neighborhood is open but the bar. I have a Budweiser for breakfast. There's a mural on the facade of a happy guy in a hardhat watching basketball on television. I watch Throw Momma From the Train on Comedy Central.
The audition's in the Broom Factory, now converted into rehearsal/studio/office space. Three-floor walkup. There's a rock band rehearsal space on this floor. The casting agency office is decorated with a hip first-apartment-after-college dog theme: dog paintings, Taco Bell chihuahua plush toys.
When I talked to the casting assistant last week, I had the presence of mind to say "Tell me what you can about the role." He told me that the role is for an obese brain-damaged nymph0m@niac. Hi. I'm Basil.
The other guys waiting in the office to audition are dressed normally. I'm dressed in black dress boots, black jeans, black leather jacket, and my t-shirt from comedian Susanna Lee that reads "I (heart) Sluts."
It's my turn to audition. I enter a room with a middle-aged lady and a young man with a videocamera between them. I lean back in the chair opposite of them and channel Gary Busey. "Hot d@mn. Let's go." I read the script. I have a blast. I think I did extremely well, considering that I'm not an actor and I've never auditioned for a role before. I'm lazy: my friends are in TV and movies and sometimes I'm fortunate enough that they bring me along.
September 1, 2003 - Soho, Washington, DC
Paul Schorsch from the DC Improv runs this event. I usually can't work weeknight shows, but it's Labor Day so I'm here. The new volume of material I have really showed. I finally have the luxury of choosing what I want to perform, among a list of proven material that's much more than I need. I'm within reach of my next milestone: becoming a bulletproof feature act. Keep praying for me.
August 26, 2003 - Manassas, Virginia
I accept this gig today to help the manager with a fallout, but I'm short on sleep, so I have to press on through the fatigue.
Loudest laughter I've ever received. I do an airplane bit, and then my closer about speaking Spanish with a Sean Connery accent. For the first time, I add a segment where I do the airplane bit again in Spanish as Sean Connery. I never thought people would make so much noise that I couldn't hear myself tell a joke. Thank you, God. The funny's not from me, it's through me.
I've been very needy of comedy. For a long time, it was the only way I knew how to like myself and feel okay. It's amazing how I've been able to improve as a performer now that comedy isn't the only way I have to feel like a visible human being with a voice.
Now I remember why I don't take a lot of weeknight gigs: Even if I get home at a reasonable hour, I'm too jazzed after the show to sleep. I wake the next day happy, but feeling like I've been in a fight.
August 13, 2003 - Downtown DC
I'm walking past the White House to a meeting. Gallagher, the prop comic who destroys fruit with mallets, is walking back and forth in front of the Treasury Department with a gigantic tin cup raising money for bankrupt California. I didn't recognize him. I thought he was just another protestor carrying a huge prop. With all the demonstrators marching around with puppets and sculptures, it's hard to tell the difference between the protestors and the prop comics. Either way, it's best not to look them in the eye. You'll just encourage them.
I don't get the gigantic puppet heads at demonstrations. I'm willing to receive the message of the gigantic puppet heads. I'm just not receiving the message. I feel old. Help me.
Report from Pennsic: Pennsic was 14,000 people arguing about how to pretend correctly.
July 18 & 19, 2003 - Comedy Zone, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Awesome. Class act all the way. Worked with Mike Veneman, a true comedy veteran. The food, staff, room, all of it was A+. A server commented that he had told his friends how good the shows were and his friends wouldn't believe him 'cos a show that good couldn't possibly exist in Harrisburg. It does. Working with a franchise that puts its reputation on the back wall of the club makes a difference.
An assistant manager asked me what I thought of the room. I told her everything is fantastic. She responded insightfully (PAY ATTENTION CLUB OWNERS) by asking me for detailed explanations of how and why everything was fantastic. That's the mark of a professional room manager: to not just ask what's wrong, but to also ask what you're doing right so you can reinforce or promote it.
My favorite thing about the room was that there was no sensory stimuli available to the audience other than the comic onstage. Minimal lighting other than the spotlight. Quiet waitstaff that gets in and out, speaks quietly, and keeps the audience quiet. Architecture that minimizes noise from outside the room. High ceiling that absorbs crowd noise. PA speakers throughout the room so the volume is even throughout the room. Clean carpet and furniture. Fast kitchen and simple menu.
All these factors yield a bottom line of no sensory stimuli other than the comic on the stage. Easier to follow the show, easier to perform, everybody wins. To me, sensory control is the true bottom line that makes a comedy show work. Thousands of bar owners don't know or refuse to accept this, and keep the video games and pool tables and televisions going during the show hoping that patrons will glom onto one stimulus and stick with it. When I am king, they'll be the first against the wall.
Can you tell I was a psychology major? I recommend that all psych majors get the same weekend job I had: nightclub bouncer. It's like gettin' paid for field research. I'd see a drunk assault his best friend and then cry, I'd think, "Oh yeah, I read about that."
Heat lightning struck during the MC set. Mike Veneman leaned over and told me the power was going to go out. He was right: it went out while I was onstage. We sang "The Banana Boat Song" in the dark until the power returned.
I talk to Joel a few weeks later about new Comedy Zone venues. I'm high on Diet Coke, so I apologize for rambling. He says it doesn't matter 'cos he had some banana pudding in front of him. Joel's new quote for my bio: "After listening to comics plead for work and share their psychotic conspiracy theories, I like to sit back and enjoy some banana pudding."
June 21, 2003 - Funny Bone, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Pittsburgh Funny Bone is in Station Square, a very tony DisneyWorld Pleasure Island-slash-Baltimore Power Plant unnecessarily winding artificially vibrant prefabricated entertainment sector. The Funny Bone and everything about is is absolutely first-rate, including the management and staff. I'm grateful to work anywhere, and I don't look to find fault, but there's just not a single thing wrong about the Pittsburgh Funny Bone. Everything is done right. It's almost creepy. It's shows like this that make irresponsibly-managed clubs seem even more irresponsibly-managed.
The comics for the first show are sitting in the balcony. No one's talking to me, so I sit with the sole African-American, Eric Bowens, and introduce myself. In a room full of strangers, I've always been better off hanging with the brother man.
The first comic finishes his set. There's a flurry of activity as the staff gathers ballots from the audience. I'm in the second show, so I take a break and meet the Dean Martin impersonator whose show will compete with me for audience.
I notice a poster for an amateur standup contest being held on the weeknights during the pro contest. For the first time in my life, I'm in a competition with varsity and junior varsity skill levels and I've made varsity.
Second show starts. The local boy killed, but didn't win. Despite Jon Miller's encouragement and advice to "be the Happy Basil," I sucked. I flubbed the first joke and never got them back. They were bored. More conversation than I've ever had from an audience. Later I realize that I'm still making the mistake I've been making for years: I'm writing when I should be rehearsing. Writing is so difficult, I never thought that writing could be a diversion from doing harder work, but it is more fun than rehearsing and rehearsing...helps. I've been memorizing the set, but memorizing is not rehearsing. Rehearsing is performing, stopping, fixing, and starting again.
This show was also another lesson that I have to be myself and not care when I'm onstage. I'm gonna keep receiving these lesson until I learn them. That's how it works.
Coming back on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I see a billboard that reads "Saturday = the true Lord's day. Sunday Laws = The Mark of The BEAST." Seventh-Day Adventists? Rich lunatic? Both?
Later on the turnpike I pass the gigantic windmills at the Somerset Wind Farm. These things are so huge they gave me a Science-Fiction unreality this-isn't-happening feeling.
In Hagerstown, Maryland, traffic slows to a crawl for twenty minutes fo people could get a good look at the car on fire on a nearby road. I love people. Every cowardly, angry, retarded one of you. No, I'm not bitter.
The following Tuesday I get an e-mail from one of the judges who tells me she's read the diary you're reading now and tells me that I didn't suck. I'm still not brave enough to watch the tape.
June 6-8, 2003 - Waynesboro and Staunton, VA
I'm here because I keep seeing a sign for the Artisans Center of Virginia on I-81 driving to and from gigs, so I take a weekend and go.
I check into the hotel. I check the yellow pages in the room for coupons. As far as I can tell, I'm the only person who takes coupons out of hotel room phone books. Thank you, universe, for saving all the hotel room coupons for me. No coupons in the Waynesboro yellow pages. Not even a listing for escort services, which I like to embellish with notes, like "You should be ashamed of yourself. Call your wife. -God." What's the greater sin, whoremongering or blasphemy? I'll leave that question to the philosophers.
Another fun evil trick: Bring a spare yellow pages from your town to your next out-of town hotel stay. Leave your yellow pages and steal the yellow pages from the hotel room. Switch those yellow pages with the yellow pages from the next hotel. Repeat for the rest of your life. Project Mayhem is in full swing.
I notice a museum next door, so I go there. It's the P. Buckley Moss museum. P. Buckley Moss is a current living artist. She has a museum. That's about it.
My interpretation of her work is that she applies formal principles and techniques of painting to reinterpret näive rural artwork. She uses Mennonites as subjects, and the museum has a Mennonite Church History Chart from the Mennonite Historical Society on display. For me, this was the most interesting object in the museum.
A news article mentions her dyslexia, which she's incorporated in her work to positive effect, much like El Greco interpreted his visual perception problem into his elongated figures.
I go next door to the Artisans Center of Virginia, conveniently located in the Waynesboro Outlet Village just off of P. Buckley Moss Avenue. Waynesboro Outlet Village is an outlet of the dead. Saturday, 11:00 a.m., and every store in Waynesboro Outlet Village is closed except for Artisans Center of Virginia. Artisans Center of Virginia is just a cooperative store of Virginia artwork. The side of the parking lot away from the mall has a sign indicating a gentle walkway to the P. Buckley Moss Museum next door, in case people weren't aware of their proximity to the P. Buckley Moss Museum.
The high point of the day was the Frontier Culture Museum, a set of period pilgrim farms representing British, German, and Irish pilgrim farms, and at the end of the tour, the integrated cultural achievement that is the American farm.
It's a fun place. The animals were all rescued from abusive and/or neglectful owners, and the pilgrim reenactors were helpful and informative. My Renaissance Festival experiences are full of reenactors trained in the idea that "denial of reality equals entertainment," bullying you into humoring them like the borderline sociopaths that, in fact, they are. The Frontier Culture Museum reenactors were nice, informed, sane people. In my empire, only reenactors from the Frontier Culture Museum will be spared the bullet.
The hotel room is infested with ants. Put down a candy wrapper, turn around, ant party. The hotel manager cut my bill in half. Good people. Note to self: bring your own ants.
There's background music in the lobby and elevator. I'm convinced that a hotel employee changed the Muzak channel to a channel absolutely not intended for hotel lobbies or elevators, and no one has noticed or cares. It's a happy mistake: In my empire, all hotel elevators will play Devo and Run DMC.
I go to Montpelier, James Madison's estate. They're between renovations, so the house looks a little small and shabby for a Founding Father's mansion. It's also in that Federalist style Deep Southerners like me have seen in every town in Tennessee big enough for its own mayor. Non-Southerners probably look at Montpelier and swoon at the expansive porch and bulging columns. I look at it and think, "Junior College."
Rick the tour guide is intelligent and capable of abstract thought. That's what you get when you offer staff jobs to people who visit as tourists. Smart decision. There are little crosshair circles on the interior and exerior walls. Rick explains these are to measure the settling of the house thanks to the DuPonts tearing out three load-bearing walls for an expansion. The points are also data points to help render the house in 3-D and to reverse-engineer a set of blueprints. Virtually every wall has a small exposed area, showing the layers inside the wall. This is to deterine the different versions of the parts of the house by the differences in construction.
Montpelier was expanded first by Madison and then by the DuPont family, so defining which version of the house is the version they want to restore and what that house looked like is complicated and subjective. Also, we don't have many records from Madison since their heirs burned them to preserve James and Dolley's privacy.
Rick said most of the facts he shares on the tour are only known to humanity from a newspaper interview of James' personal slave. Rick tells us they only determined the color of the crimson wallpaper when scientists found a scrap of it in a mouse nest they found in the wall.
Rick links the disarray of the mansion, records, and Madison legacy to Dolley's son from a previous marriage, an alcoholic and gambling addict whom James gave full rein to burn through the family money because James didn't want to embarrass Dolley with the facts.
This decision put the mansion and their property on the auction block, and keeps us ignorant of most of the facts about James Madison. You could say that Montpelier is a monument to the sin of codependence.
Classiest historic mansion I've ever visited. More fun than Monticello, Mount Vernon, you name it. Much more human experience, too.
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 I play along at Montpelier. |
 In my empire, all street names will be at least this nonsensical. |
 This is in Staunton, Virginia. I'm a giant teapot, tall and stout. I got your handle right here, fella. |
Hello to our new SLOB chapters in Phoenix, Arizona, Clarksburg, West Virginia and Tyler, Texas! To join the Secret Loyal Order of Basil, send your name AND YOUR ZIP CODE to
May 19, 2003 - Internet Movie Database
Looked at my entry on the Internet Movie Database to get a sense of my age compared to some famous people. I'm 11 days younger than Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Six days younger than Hugh Jackman. One day younger than Ziggy Marley. Four days older than Shaggy. Thirteen days older than Vanilla Ice. A month older than Owen Wilson.
Lots of acid. Loooooots of acid.
May 16 & 17, 2003 - Coopersburg/Quakertown/Whitehall/Frackville/Girardville, Pennsylvania
It's raining: therefore, I'm driving to Pennsylvania.
Yahoo! Maps tells me to drive from Northern Virginia to Allentown via the Baltimore Beltway. Yahoo! Maps smokes crack.
I have perfected the art of coffee maintenance. Start with McDonald's coffee. Strong, reliable coffee in a strong, reliable cup. In my truck is a Nesquik container with an even mixture of Nesquik and instant coffee. I use this to doctor the coffee. When I get to the next stop, I buy coffee, add the Nesquik coffee mixture, and mix it with using the two cups. I keep the strongest of the two cups, which is invariably the McDonald's cup. This is important. A weak coffee cup causes spills, soils clothing and can cause injury or death.
I go to the first show, a rod & gun club in Coopersburg. I find the rifle range, so that answers the gun part. I wanna ask about the rod part, but I leave well enough alone.
 The gun part of the Rod & Gun Club. |
I walk in the place. There's a portable stage underneath the desk, but no stage for us. Nice people, bad environment for comedy. To wit:
 Are you ready to have a good time? Make some noise! |
Kevin Downey shows up. One of the funniest comics I've ever seen or worked with. Looks like Tav Falco on a better diet. We talk about racist towns. Downey tells me he was at a show in Boston full of rowdy Irish and Italian hecklers. There were two African-Americans in the audience. They heckled. The cops went through the Irish and Italian hecklers to throw the two African-Americans out of the club.
Tonight's gig is a "double-up": two gigs in two locations that overlap each other so that the feature performs Show #1, leaves the stage, and immediately drives to Show #2. Meyers Restaurant in Quakertown is a nice banquet restaurant. The comedy room looks like a small banquet room in a hotel. On the way to the room I pass the bar where a guy is playing the guitar and singing. His Dave Matthews songs are spot on. Nobody cares: the Sixers are beating the Pistons. Priorities.
Nice, low-key show. Warm lighting, big open space, smiling people happy to be there, curvy serpentine mic stand. I felt like James Taylor. Downey spent the whole time reacting to the crowd. That's what you can do when you spend your life reacting comically to everything. They loved him. My highlight of the evening was when he pulled down the projection screen behind him and said, "Maybe I should shoot myself, like a Salvador Dali thing. That was for you, Basil."
Kevin and I go back to the hotel, where the host from our first show was hitting on three women. Imagine a young Wilford Brimley. A lot of his material and crowd work involved accusing people of being homosexuals. Kevin and I make suicide and cunnilingus motions behind his back.
Later, in the room, I ask Kevin what he would have done differently if he had been me fighting with the crowd at the early show. He said "Stop caring." This gives me the idea to try the "coping skills" angle I thought of a few months ago, where I present my whole act as a series of survival techniques.
The next morning I rewrite my act on the way to the Frackville Motel 6. They tell me about the discount at Granny's Restaurant across the street, which I dismiss, unfortunately. Usually these proximate discounted restaurants are crap, but Granny's is a diamond in the rough. It's at Highway 81, get off at Exit 124B (Hwy 61 Frackville). If you're on Highway 81 or Highway 61 near 81, go there. Lace curtains and tablecloths, a front drawing room, Victorian lamps on the tables, bathroom walled with antique license plates. Also a bed and breakfast, although I didn't see the rooms. Go.
Motel 6 gives me Room 6. Room 6 has no number. I locate it through process of elimination.
 Motel 6, Room 6, where you learn to love Big Brother Tom Bodett. |
Antiseptic fake floral scent. Clean and safe, though, and I'm grateful to have it. Downey teaches me the trick of leaving a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and the tv on in case the hotel gives your key accidentally to another guest, and the trick of deterring thieves by leaving shoes at the end of the bed and cracking open the bathroom door.
Downey and I go to the Moose Club so I can sponsor him for the Moose. Great idea if you're a comic: nice safe friendly place to drink cheap beer and recruit locals and do paperwork. Moose is closed, so we go thrifting. The junk shop guy tells us a story of meeting Moms Mabley.
Tonight I rolled with the new survival skills angle. Went really well. Downey destroyed. On the way back, I sponsored Downey for the Moose.
Downey and I have breakfast at Granny's. We talk about big-city yankee culture versus big-city southern culture. Country rednecks assume big-city rednecks think they're better. And we are. People from Chicago and Indianapolis ask Memphians if we have cable TV yet. I always respond with, "what's cable tv?" We talked about discovering punchlines and writing jokes to fit them. Time to go home. Why do I know this? Because it's raining.
Hello to our new SLOB chapters in Sacramento, California and Pocatello, Idaho! To join the Secret Loyal Order of Basil, send your name AND YOUR ZIP CODE to
 The vigorous, manly Potomac River. |
 Basil White, River Tourist. I bowl for Satan. |
Hello to our new SLOB chapters in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Youngstown, Ohio and Glasgow, Scotland! To join the Secret Loyal Order of Basil, send your name AND YOUR ZIP CODE to
May 3, 2003 - Alexandria, Virginia
Went to a party. Met retired Major General Leo Brooks, father of the Army general who look slike an African-American Harry Connick, jr. that gave the daily briefings at Qatar during Gulf War II. I told him I was a comic, and he told me about old USO comedy shows. "And then what did Don Rickles say, Grandpa?" I told him if I get a USO gig, I'm gonna open with my jealousy that I like military haircuts but they don't work on fat guys 'cos people assume you have leukemia.
April 13, 2003 - Baltimore, Maryland
Took my friend to Cirque du Soleil in Baltimore to make up for two missed birthdays and a Christmas. Cirque du Soleil mixes French absurdist theater with street performer talent, Asian acrobatics and postmodern musical theater. They coulda called the show "Asian Gymnasts' Butts" and it still woulda been worth $145.
There was an intermission, so I used the bathroom. A bar of soap came down from the ceiling suspended from a wire. Amazing.
April 6, 2003 - Wedding near Annapolis, Maryland
My wife thought her car would be in the shop, so we go together to the wedding even though she has her car back. Ironically, we signed the property settlement agreement two days ago. More irony below.
I always ask "What's the weirdest experience you've had at your job?" when I meet someone with a job for which I haven't been able to ask that question. I meet the bride's dad. He's a pharmacist. I ask him, "What's the weirdest experience you've had at your job?" He said, "That would have to be when the lady tried on the diaphragm." I told him, "You win." That beats the police officer at the jail who took the finger off the incoming inmate, the Smithsonian guard who found the boa constrictor in the backpack of someone entering the museum and the home inspector who found the snake nest in the attic.
Wedding disco music hurts. Medley from Grease. Strokin'. Chicken Dance is fun, though.
I spent the whole wedding with my soon-to-be ex-wife. I caught the garter. That's the irony I promised you before.
Mar. 28 & 29, 2003 - Comedy Zone, Johnson City, TN
Back on I-81 South. I stop in a truck stop in Dublin, VA that provides entertainment not unlike gambling. There's a machine that dispenses phone cards, and video games of poker and blackjack that accept the phone cards and add credits to the phone cards for winning hands. It isn't gambling, though, and you'd be a slanderer and a communist to say so. The same truck stop sells its own t-shirt of Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves with a declaration that terrorists will learn to "Say Uncle."
Listening to Stephen King's "The Gunslinger." It's fueling my road warrior paranoia. I stop for directions at Bristol High School and find a brand-new softball in the parking lot. I see the three-star flag on Tennessee. Somewhere, I crossed an unmarked state line. I pass a drive-in theater converted into a theme park and then the Bristol Motor Speedway, a high metal cylinder of grandstands that reminds me of the Colosseum in Rome remade in sheet metal.
I take a photo of the room and meet Mark Klein, the headliner. Mark's a decent guy. He looks like Scott Bakula. He calls me "kid." I'm not insulted, just disoriented. I meet Jack Kearney, the feature act. I learn the show logistics with the manager. A lot more logistics when you're hosting. Jack thinks I look enough like Nathan Lane to bring it into the act. Jack's a true road warrior. He has 385,000 miles on his car. Thin crowds for both Friday shows. Jack reads tarot fortunes after the show. Hotel is nice, despite the aroma of dope and the barking dog.
I spend Saturday morning driving to Knoxville to visit my mother and her sister. I stop on the way to get coffee at a McDonald's restaurant dedicated to the memory of "Hee Haw" television personality Archie Campbell. I roll up to the shopping mall in Knoxville and see a crowd of war supporters gathered at the entrance. One of them holds a sign that says "Impeach Martin Sheen." Huh?
I take my aunt to my mother's house. Mom's going to a funeral, so I wait in my truck to follow her husband to the church. Their cars have bumper stickers that read "Abortion Kills Babies But Jesus Forgives And Heals" and "Abortion Stops A Beating Heart". After the funeral my mother and her husband showed me their new home in progress. Their porch has an unobstructed view of the Smoky Mountains. I drove my mother to the funeral and told her that even if she had called her friend last week, there'd still be another missed opportunity that she'd be using to chastise herself. I told her that the goal of life wasn't to make ourselves available to others all the time. Sometimes we just need to answer the mail and get some sleep.
We have lunch at Ryan's, a buffet restaurant. I had my first paying job at Ryan's in suburban Memphis exactly half my life ago washing dishes. Ryan's public address music has greatly improved in 17 years. ELO. Mom hadn't seen me since I lost 141 pounds from gastric bypass surgery. This is the first time I've seen my mother since my sister's wedding 3 years ago, and the first time in five years that I've seen her by choice. It goes well. I think I'm fine until I start driving back to the gig and start vibrating with emotion. I think I needed to cut myself off from my mom for a while to fix myself. I need to learn my own lesson that sometimes we don't take opportunities with people because they distract us from taking care of ourselves.
I read something in my hotel room about sensing and conveying equality, so I use equality as my mantra on stage for the shows. It seems to help.
I wake up Sunday to a snowstorm and a half a foot of snow. It's March 30. I'm in Tennessee. Excuse me?
Mar. 24, 2003 - Standup NY, 78th & Broadway, Upper West Side, NYC
First gig in New York City, or as I call it, "Satan's Outlet Mall."
I meet Pauline Ball at her house in Northern Virginia and sat in her Cadillac all the way to NYC. This is Pauline's second time to NY and she's driven both times. She drives through Manhattan without fear. I'm scared to death, but she dismisses me with a wave and says in her Leeds accent, "you have to drive like this, love, or they won't respect you." She's probably right. We meet her friend Julie, a fellow Brit expat in her apartment in Morningside Heights and have lunch.
Morningside Heights is a curious neighborhood. All the cars are well-kept and polished. I don't see a single cigarette butt on the street. This is a neighborhood where people care. Despite this fact, there's a layer of soot on every surface. I ask Julie about the soot. She tells me it's made out of Midwesterners' dreams.
I go early by myself to Standup NY and meet the manager, Nick. He reminds me of a homosexual Meat Loaf with a perm and red dye job. Nice, funny guy. Kevin Downey showed up to meet me after his Hoboken gig. We talked in the alcove where Jerry Seinfeld talked to his manager in the documentary Comedian. I tell Downey that I get up at 5 am and get home at 7:30 pm four days a week so I can have Fridays free for comedy. He tells me that when comics tease him for having a day job, he tells them "I have a day job with benefits and you can't follow me." He's right. Downey has to go, so I talk to Pauline and her friend Charles Churchwater. Pauline tells me he's a design editor for Vogue and former partner of fashion photographer Herb Ritts, who just died last December. Charles is what the Dalai Lama would be like as a gay fashion designer: the kind of guy you think is a great conversationalist, until you realize later that you did almost all of the talking. Sprinkle on a little gay, and that's Charles.
It's a bringer show, which means you're supposed to bring friends, but I don't have any. Josh Wade, the MC, lets me on last. I do really well. Until now I've been intimidated by the NY comedy scene and its audiences. Not anymore. In fact, the Standup NY crowd was cake: they were smart, they got the jokes, and they were ready for the next bit as soon as the last one was over. I also found out that very few NY comics work the road, which makes absolutely no sense to me. I think Downey has the optimal situation, because he lives close enough to NY to work in the city and far enough to be able to garage a car so he can work the road. Kevvy's a clever one.
Driving south out of town into New Jersey, I see the "Drive Safely" fuel storage tank from the opening credits to The Sopranos. It makes me think about how for a lot of people, most of their experience of human relationships is from watching television. But the people in the television never take the risk of making us question our own values, so we mimic the self-ignorant little box people and remain emotionally retarded.
God, I miss Prozac.
Mar. 21, 2003 - Four Points Sheraton, Harrisonburg, Virginia
I get to Harrisonburg and stop at Big Lots for cheap retail crap. I park next to a truck the same make, model and color as mine with a license plate that reads BIGLOTS. This is a clue, which I refuse to get.
Four Points Sheraton is nice. I use the gym, skip the indoor pool and go right to the hot tub. The room is free, so I'm obligated to exploit every free amenity.
I meet Dennis the host. I ask one of the hotel door guys to turn off the TVs and the video golf game. They turn off some of the TVs and leave the video golf game on.
Greg Poole does a guest spot, then Dennis the host brings me on. I start my act with a bit on Big Lots. They just stare at me, confused. Too close to the bone, I guess. Maybe the BIGLOTS license plate was a hint that these people are proud of their clearance stores and don't ridicule them. Maybe people in small towns assume that I'm making fun of dumb people because I work smart, and that I think small town people are dumb. I'm not doing or thinking any of these things. My friend Scott suggested that because my act is self-ridiculing, it makes people in the audience who are like me feel the pain that I'm trying to direct just at myself.
The video golf game heckles me during my act. I'm setting up a punchline and the game tells me to buy a mulligan. If only I could.
Ken Reeves headlines. He keeps the crowd, but they fight him the whole way.
Basil answers a letter
I'd like some advice in how to develop a stage presence, me being an amateur comic and all. What advice, if any, could you offer a schlub like me?
Take a stack of index cards. Write something you don't like about yourself on each card. Write a paragraph about it in the most sincerely, disclosively painful way you can until you're satisfied that you've explained this thing you don't like about yourself. Then rewrite it with an "And beyond that?" comment for each sentence you wrote. Then edit the copy for the following issues, in order:
Hostility, topic sentence lede, telepathy transcript, Target, Monoperspective, Exaggeration, Maslovian need, Relevant, Emotion, Realism, adverb-free (very, ly before verb), True, Surprise, Clear, Concise, short-worded.
Take the bit and a cassette recorder to an open mic, conveying as strongly you can the emotion you truly feel about the words you're saying. Listen to the cassette in your car a few times, then rate each joke with a plus, zero or minus. If a joke gets three pluses in a row, add that to your show set. Order the jokes in your show set putting the jokes that reveal the most real true personal information in the beginning.
If you get a booking, record the show. On the way home, pick the weakest bit, take it out of your show set and put it in an archive file. Time the show to update your running tally of jokes per minute, e.g., "0.9522 jokes/minute over 17 shows."
Now do that for four years. Piece of cake. Walk in the park.
Mar. 17, 2003 - Improv, Washington, DC
Hosting for recovering addict/alcoholic and former homeless felon Mark Lundholm at his annual charity show at the DC Improv, this year for the Caron Foundation. Caron Foundation business rep guy wants to say a few words first. Mark says to give the business guy a funny intro, so I introduce the business guy as Carrot Top.
Business guy does his thing, then I told the audience that I saw Mark for the first time on his Showtime special last fall and immediately bugged the DC Improv for the privilege of bringing him up. Mark came on stage and told me that was a nice thing to say and gave me a hug, so I pinched his butt. It seemed like the right thing to do.
As people left, Mark thanked his fans for being open-minded and tolerant. He talked about addiction being a behavior we love that we don't want those we love to emulate. Now I'm trying to behave the way I'd want my son to behave. My son has become my role model. Damn you, Mark Lundholm. Damn you straight to hell.
Sam's Club is selling 3-map sets of the U.S., the world and Iraq. I don't want a map of Iraq. I don't want to need a map of Iraq.
Mar. 14-15, 2003 - Ramada Inn, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Eastern Pennsylvania is what Maryland must look like to the colorblind. Grayer, but more details. Lotta hand-painted yet correctly-spelled homemade billboards, a rare experience for a redneck such as I.
Ramada's nice. Illustrations in the lobby in the style of Erte. The lobby foyer has two main rooms right across from each other. One side is the bar, where I'll be performing. On the other side, the restaurant seating area is where my competition, a dinner theater company, holds Friday and Saturday performances of "A Very Brady Murder."
I check in and unpack. Or rather, I try to unpack. I have a "pack list" of everything I need when I'm on the road. Every time I'm on the road and don't have something I need, that thing goes on the list. I check off the things on the list as I pack them in the bag. Good plan, unless you leave the bag at home.
I worry that I'll have to wear the same clothes for three days and go without shaving, brushing teeth, or changing clothes. then I realize that I can be responsible for the problem and tell someone that I have a problem without feeling like I've put the problem on them. I can just state the facts and solve the problem. This is, by the way, a new way of thinking for me.
The desk clerk asks if she can help me. I tell her, "I have needs." I admit my mistake, and she gives me a pile of free toiletries: razors, shaving cream, toothbrush, mouthwash, deodorant and a comb. This is my first memory of sharing a problem with others without feeling that I'm trying to push my problem on them. For some reason, I came to believe that sharing my problems was trying to pass off my problems on other people. This time, I could be 100% responsible for a problem and still share the fact of the problem with someone else. It earned me a free pile of toiletries and this great feeling of being connected with others. I like this feeling, and I explore it. I realize that they probably sell clothes in Pennsylvania, and in fact, there's probably lots of clothes to choose from in that big mall across the street. Yes, I am emotionally retarded, and I've started realizing that only since I've started hard work of growing up.
The room has the look of a cozy neighborhood bar, a rare feeling for a hotel. Good music. The PA's playing one of my favorite songs from my hometown of Memphis: "Green Onions" by Booker T and the MG's. Good omen. There is a row of six paintings behind the bar. The paintings are all in the same style, and each painting is a colorful illustration of a woman in a different setting and posture. I realize that the paintings represent the moon, the sun, and the four seasons. I mention this to the bartender. He looks at me like I've told him that I'm from Mars. Maybe I am.
I look at the publicity photographs on the wall and recognize a few people I've worked with: Melvin George, Keith Purnell, Kelly Terranova, Gemini. I've never been near this town and I can walk into a bar and see pictures of people I know. I'll never get used to that.
I get ready for the show. Ramada toothpaste tastes like minty rubbing alcohol. I meet Chadeo, the host and Mike Morse, the headliner. He's a prop comic from New Jersey, exit 59. He's tuning his guitar. Every prop comic plays guitar. It's some sort of rule. The Brady Bunch Murder is going full bore in the next room. Mike Morse is hauling in huge crates of props and stacking them on a stage the shape of home plate and not much bigger. Every time I see a prop comic I remember why I quit playing the drums.
People fill the room. I'm running out of places where I can be out of the way. This room is shaped like an L with the stage in the corner that sticks out in the center of the room so you perform for 270 degrees of people. I have enough trouble with rooms with wide seating on the left and right. I have no idea how to perform around both sides of a corner.
It's the first time I have a really good show in a wide room. It was like performing at NASCAR, where I'm whipping my head from left to right every few seconds. They're packed together tightly like fans at a sold-out baseball game, so I get them to do "The Wave."
The room is so crowded that the only seat left is a seat I can't get to without walking right in front of the stage, which you DO NOT DO to the headliner if you're the feature act. There's nowhere else I can stand in the room, so I have to sit outside. I didn't get to hear a word of Mike's Friday show. I know he did great because I heard the screaming from outside.
I wake up to Cartoon Network's salute to 1968. Wacky Races. Banana Splits. I don't understand the live-action segment of Banana Splits. It's called "Danger Island." Blockbuster director Richard Donner directs Jan-Michael Vincent and a large afroed African-American man as they're abducted by a tribe of mildly retarded natives, break their bonds, and attack the natives using slapstick hippie freakout kung fu.
I go for a walk and bump into the Martin Guitar factory. No tours on Saturday. Great show Saturday night. The "verge of tears" approach really seems to be working. I got them to do "The Wave" again.
I listen to Stephen King reading his book "On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft." I think Mr. King and I share a similar view about cursing. He says he doesn't have a problem with cursing, but that cursing does not equal plain language. I think cursing can be a cardboard box that writers and comics use to hide the fact that they don't have the right words, and they know it. I'm not a prude. People who know me know that as a fact. There's nothing wrong with a good ß|°wjob joke, but I'd rather tell jokes about my honest and sincere opinions about södömy.
Feb. 25, 2003 - Washington Post
The Washington Post took my Douglas Adams rewrite of VCR instructions and is adapting it for their "Style Invitational" contest. Here's my original entry.
Douglas Adams, "The Hitchiker's Guide to the VCR":
Pick up the remote and press the Menu button. It's the one clearly marked "Menu," unless it isn't, in which case you should press the Menu button that isn't clearly marked. There's a menu item Four, which you should press next. Some models have a button with the number four. Some models have buttons in a vicious little sequence that the designers keep a secret, and who could blame them; they spend their lives building control interfaces and it's not like you can impress ladies at the pub with your thrilling dangerous tales of remote control design, now can you? The screen will display instructions to set the clock, or it won't.
If you see instructions, congratulations, you are one in the top .000004% of the species in the galaxy with the patience and misguided priorities to endure such twaddle. At this point, you might as well follow the instructions; tell us how it comes out. We have no friends, and could use a good laugh. WARNING: If anyone ever discovers exactly how to follow these instructions and why they are written in this manner, they will instantly disappear and be replaced by even more bizarrely inexplicable instructions. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Feb. 21 & 22, 2003 - Altoona & Danville, Pennsylvania
Great drive through Pennsylvania. There's no food or bathrooms on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I check into the motel. My motel room wins the Philandering Triple Crown: a parking lot hidden from view, a policy of refusing to disclose guest names or room information, and a tv channel of non-stop hardc0®e p°rn°graphy. I watch Spongebob Squarepants. I go to the club and meet the headliner, Chuck Mignanelli. We hear a radio ad for the show that mentions my name and not Chuck's. The show's about 40% capacity, and Chuck has to perform while a news crew tapes a segment in the back of the room. Great White's pyrotechnics killed 97 people Feb. 20, so the fact that Great White played in this room in 1996 is newsworthy.
I get to the Danville Moose Lodge five hours early, so I walk through the shops around the Lodge. I go into the Salvation Army thrift store and see something I never want to see again. There were Amish women in the Salvation Army. They were shopping for quilts. Which means the Amish are buying our quilts and selling them back to us. What a scam. The Amish are con artists. Nothing is sacred.
The five-and-dime store has Boy Scout and Girl Scout uniforms right on the rack. No embarrassing questions or sales clerks. Let's live here and play dress up.
Wonderful people here at Moose Lodge 1133. I was sitting at the bar pounding Diet Coke, thinking about how the funniest comics make me feel. I realized that they make me cry with the emotional release of laughter. I went onstage and tried to keep myself on the verge of crying. I was deeply emotionally involved in the whole show and got great laughs throughout. Quite possibly the best show of my career to date.
I found out that joining the Moose would only cost me $30, so I joined. I was hosting this show, so I went on after Chris Coccia and Keith Purnell finished their sets and showed the crowd my membership card.
All this time I've been trying to make myself laugh onstage. Turns out it was all about crying. Who knew?
Lots of fog on the drive home. I get home and go to my housemate's office to read my e-mail. I see my reflection in the window. I'm really starting to look like my father.
Fri., Feb. 14, 2003 - Jillian's, Glen Burnie, MD
Room manager told me the people who won the drawing called and surprised her, so she called the booker and complained. No more drawings for passes. From now on, drawings are for a drink on Basil, and you figure your own way into the room.
There's no host. The room manager brings me up on a CD and I have to bring up the headliner. The crowd hated me. I got quick-lighted ten minutes into a 30-minute set. The headliner Joe Recca goes on and does jokes about Muslims, Osama Bin Laden and stinky breath. They love him.
I go on the road to actual comedy clubs and the staff and audience members tell me I'm the best feature act the club has ever had. Two weeks later, I bomb here at a one-nighter in the mall by the airport.
In high school, no one liked me or the college radio bands I listened to. In college, I found out that some people liked me, and that bands like The Pixies were nowhere as obscure as I thought. Then I became an adult and realized that some people will never like me or The Pixies, and that isn't anyone's fault.
I became a comic, and I thought it might be possible to make every crowd laugh. Now I know that isn't possible, and it's no one's fault. It's just the price I pay for being sincere.
Wed., Feb. 12, 2003 - Killing Time at a Business Seminar
I write and edit jokes that I keep on index cards in my pocket. I had an idea to rewrite a joke cyclically, so that the last sentence segued to the first so that the whole joke would have an internal coherence and may reveal a better place to begin and end the joke than I originally thought. It seemed to do both, and does seem like a lot more fun. It also allows me to keep writing based on the joke in my head instead of editing the current version on paper, which seems more sincere.
January 23 - 25, 2003 - Parkersburg WV / Morgantown WV / Marietta OH
In theory, I'm supposed to take I-81 to 68 West to 50 to Parkersburg. This bores me, so I decide to take 50 West all the way through West Virginia. Big mistake. I drive through the highest, scariest lengths of highway in the state. I'm so high in the mountains I can't tell if it's snowing or just blowing the snow off the mountains. Several barns with painted ads for Mail Pouch Tobacco. Lots of pro-life billboards. I see cops in the drug store about two hours before Parkersburg. They stop me after I leave the parking lot and tell me they're looking for someone that matches my description. I don't believe them: I just think they're trying to fill their Ugly Guy quota.
I get to the gig and meet the headliner, Freddie Stone, the "Excitable Boy" from Boston. Freddie is a prop/guitar act. It's a really wide room, which makes it hard for me to connect with people. Went well after I got some momentum going. Freddie takes the stage, does prop gags, plays some guitar parodies, covers the front row with Silly String, then unveils the "Ass Cannon," a mannequin torso that fires ping-pong balls out of its anus. They love it.
Someone, please, reassure me that I'm funny. Tell me my sense of what people want from comedy isn't broken or unrealistic.
After the show a lady came up to compliment me and tell me that she's coming to my show on Saturday. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had a line of Silly String on her chin.
The show ends. I can't interpret the directions to the hotel, so I get lost. I stop for directions and get lost again, this time over the bridge in Ohio. I beg a guy pumping gas for help, and he leads me for ten minutes to the hotel. I demand that he take ten bucks and settle in the hotel room to ginseng tea, a moon pie and Cartoon Network.
I drive to Lakeview Resort in Morgantown, WV. Lakeview is a hotel and time-share neighborhood in a perimeter around a golf course. I never see a lake the whole time I'm there. The fountain in the front looks like a big L'eggs pantyhose container.
Freddie and I leave in the courtesy van for our radio spot at 101.9 WVAQ. We go into the harshly-lit offices of WVAQ and meet Lacey, the on-air personality. He's a young upbeat guy with frosted hair. He asks me what the audience will see from me tonight. "Well, Lacey, you'll see thirty minutes of me tromping through my emotional dysfunction." That ended my portion of the interview. Freddie took over and played a song about violating chickens, then Lacey released us to go on with the rest of our lives. The hotel driver admitted that he loves to drive the comics to the station to get a break from work. I offer to contrive a story about needing insulin so we can go play hooky, but he declined.
I go into the Lakeview sports bar for a meal. Like a lot of sports bars, this one has tables with a television set in the wall at table level. I change the channel to Cartoon Network and watch Spongebob Squarepants. I'm a comic. It's my noblesse oblige.
I meet the host. He reminds me of Red Buttons. There's no stool on the stage. The stage is built out of stage pieces that don't feel like they're secured to each other, so I'm afraid to move onstage. Freddie gets a standing ovation. I just can't compete with the Ass Cannon. Hey, he knows what works. After the show they convert the stage into a dance floor, so I dance with some friends that came for the show. The next day we go for steaks and discount shopping. My friend tells me that I seemed timid last night. She has no idea.
The Lafayette Hotel in Marietta is right on the Ohio River. Very classy. French Provincial, late 19th century furnishings and architecture. The rooms are really intimate and plush.
I've also been worried that I'm not speaking clearly onstage, so I go on the Lafayette stage with an attitude of "enunciation builds anticipation," kepping myself focused on the material by enunciating. Went great. Several people congratulate and compliment me after the show. Two women offered to stick their tongues in my ears. I politely decline. "Sorry, ladies, 'Exit Only.'" A woman begged me to have sex with her because she hasn't had sex since her boyfriend was incarcerated six weeks ago. I told her, "Wow, you are looking more appealing to me by the minute!" I don't think she recognized the sarcasm.
January 10 & 11, 2003 - Henry's, Charleston, South Carolina
Friday, 4 a.m. Following the bread trucks down 95 South. Boring I-95 darkness. Blah. There goes Virginia. 1½ states to go. NC convenience store still displaying a beer promotional banner from Halloween. It's one of those banners with lots of white space for the unit size and price, but it's just a blank Halloween beer banner. Maybe they're just really early for next year. Five minutes into NC and the air already smells like a sewage plant. Flat. High brown scrub grasses. Die die die. Inmates picking up trash with INMATE printed on the back of their orange vests.
I cross into South Carolina. If you've ever been on I-95 between Florida and Baltimore, you've seen a segment of the 600 miles of billboards for South of the Border (WARNING: CRUDE RACIAL STEREOTYPES). The best billboard says "Smash Hit!" with a wrecked car bolted to the surface fo the billboard. South of the Border is a...hmm...a...location at the northernmost exit in SC. This is just my opinion, but if you've ever wondered about the SOTB experience, here's an analogy: Dig a hole. Fill it with dog feces. Paint it flourescent orange. There, now you don't have to go. You're welcome. A dozen restaurants in this place. None of them looked safe to me. Ironically, I was hungry for a burrito.
On the road again, still hungry. I pass a sign advertising Maryland Fried Chicken. That's disorienting.
Nice and hot down here. January 10 and I'm using the AC and building a nice forearm tan.
Finally in Charleston. Charleston cops drive Camaros. Later, I meet the first cop I've ever met who doesn't know where to get a late-hour meal in his own town, and that Charleston has one of the highest murder rates in the country. Maybe everyone knows that the cops go to bed at 9 p.m.
Henry's is a classy place right in the center of the covered open-air market that runs down the median of the boulevard. There's a big poster with my picture on it both inside and outside the club, flyers with my name on 'em, and half of the back page of the weekend section of the paper is a color ad for the show. The other half of the page is for the other comedy show in Charleston this weekend: James Gregory, my father's favorite comic. I call my dad to tell him that I'm competing with James Gregory for the Charleston audience. I feel like rebuking my own patrons for not going to see James Gregory instead.
Henry's has pimento cheese in their appetizers and burgers. Yum. SC bars are only allowed to sell miniature bottles of booze. I keep looking above my bar stool for the button to signal the flight attendant. I meet the headliner, Allyn Ball. He's nice. He's a large man. Nice classy upstairs room.
Shows are tough 'cos I found out after I took the booking that I had to work squeaky clean, so I had a lot of editing and rehearsing to do. A long-time regular told me I was the best feature act he's seen at the club. That felt good.
Up on Saturday. I find the Jiffy Lube and the 24-hour Harris Teeter grocery store within a mile radius of the hotel. Huddle House Restaurant actually shares a wall with my hotel. Let's live here. I'm having the Huddle House Big House Breakfast Platter (for late-night diners homesick for jail!)
I go sightseeing. Old Town Charleston is dense 18th-century townhouses and wrought iron with trendoid boutiques surrounding a three-block open market and the old slave market house. A rickshaw driver tells me that when white people ask black locals for directions, they like to start with "well, you go past the old slave market..." Protestant churches every few blocks. It's like Old Town Alexandria with more Jesus. I walk down Church Street (may have something to do with all the churches) to the waterfront and
down to the Coast Guard Station and look for a cross street to the market. Jan. 11, and it's too hot for a jacket. I'm walking around wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt with the logo from the band Big Black. Charleston's bigger than I thought: my little circuit hike takes 3½ hours.
I rejoin the sane tourists at King Street. King Street, Orange Street. I hate the Tories. I finally check out the open-air market as it's closing. There's a weaver of traditional South Carolina palmetto leaf baskets. The rest of the retail was touristy knick-knacks. One guy sold charm bracelets for various professions - lawyer, nurse, etc. I never see career-centric doodads for writers or comedians. I guess they don't look to charm bracelets and ceramic figurines to express themselves.
Last show of the run was the smallest crowd. They were also the happiest, best crowd of all four shows. No logic in comedy.
January 4, 2003 - The Improv, Baltimore, Maryland
I go up to Baltimore to catch Mike Storck's feature weekend with Bobcat Goldthwait. Mike takes me shooting. I haven't shot a handgun since I was a teen. We get our eye and ear protection and go into the range. I'd forgotten the air pressure impact on the solar plexus from gun blasts. There's a guy shooting a .50 caliber rifle a few lanes over-- one of those guns so loud you hear it and think, "Nah, that couldn't have been a gunshot. No." I make the classic newbie mistake: Mike tries to say something to me. I can't hear him, so I open the ear protection and say, "What?" BLAM BLAM BLAM.
Bobcat is great. Becoming a comic has taken away my opportunity to go to a show and lose myself in a comedy show, 'cos I can see punchlines coming around the corner now. Not so with Bobcat. Too smart for me. Despite the fact that earlier in the day I had what my wife declared was our last and final marraige counseling session, Bobcat was able to capture my head and make me forget my hellish existence for an hour and a half. I'm glad I got to thank him personally for that.
Bobcat was heckled in the late show. I used to think that if I became famous, I wouldn't have to deal with hecklers anymore. Thanks for crushin' that dream, Bob.
I was working on jokes between the shows. The waitress found a copy of one of my jokes on the table. Later, she told me that she had read it to every employee in the room. She was reading it to the manager as I left with Mike to go barhopping and look for John Waters.
December 7, 2002 - Wiseacres, Tysons Corner, VA
Todd Yohn was the headliner at Wiseacres this weekend. He runs a couple of the Funny Bones, so I wanted to show him my skills. I did a guest spot at the late Saturday show. Selling the anticipation of the lines is working better than I could have imagined. Every joke, bam, bam, bam. Thank you God.
Todd destroyed. Partial standing ovation. I hurt my fist from pounding it on the bar.
November 30, 2002 - Foolio's, Woodbridge, VA
There are three kinds of rooms in the Comedy Triage Model:
This show I focused on selling the anticipation of revealing every line. I think it worked.
November 22 & 23, 2002 - Ralph and Maria's, Hagerstown, Maryland
November 22:
I have one of the best shows of my career. Every joke hits, even the weaker ones: bam, bam, bam.
There is no rhyme or reason to comedy. It is a God-given craft with no justice, up or down.
November 23:
November 15, 2002 - Hightop Inn, Boone, North Carolina
How was Boone? Well, let me unpack my adjectives.
Going through Charlotte to the ubiquitous I-81. Charlotesville doesn't have an antique mall: it has an Antiquers' Mall. I imagine glass cases full of elderly women in embroidered sweatshirts. So many Virginia towns look like this: manicured trees, wide commuter highways. Welcome to Woodburgbridgevilleton.
Listening to the Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks CD. Moby's version of "Verb" does, in fact, rock. A truck has scribbled in the dust on the rear doors "Passing Side" with a left arrow and "Suicide Stupid!" with a right arrow. Helpful.
I saw the Seinfeld documentary "Comedian" recently. He talked about creating funny silences. I've been working on that, and it's helping me economize words.
In Boone. Very high. Not me, the ground elevation. Lotsa mountains. A lot of the driving involves going up. Stores here have Grape Nehi. Hell yes.
The lead story in the town paper is about an unidentified viral pathogen that's hit 51 residents of Boone. Might thin out the crowd a bit. The club is a wonderful sports bar with separate bar and dining areas. Full-size stage, nice backdrop. First showis eight people, five of whom are angry. The second show is twenty people, three of whom were angry. I think the funny silences trick is gonna work for me.
The MC is a guy named Matt. He and the assistant manager are the only people in the building anywhere near my own age. Everyone else are boomers or college kids. Matt runs every show with no backup guy to take his place if he's sick and no open mic to try new material. It's a tough spot to have to try new material in primetime like that.
I go back to I-81 through NE Tennessee. There's an event here called "Trout Rodeo." Very country. Fireworks stands and handpainted Jesus signs. I'm playing Johnny Cash Unchained in keeping with the theme.
November 2, 2002 - "Comedian," Countryside Regal Cinemas, Sterling, Virginia
In the film, Jerry dumps his entire act and starts the long slow crawl to building a new act from scratch. His first headliner spot with the new material is at the Improv in DC. I'm in a theater watching Jerry Seinfeld get ready to do the same thing I've done in exactly the same place. I've been in that same green room with that same look on my face talking to Improv employee Paul Schorsch, felt the same emotions as the host yells out my credits onstage, walked through that same black velvet dungeon, and I'm seeing Jerry Seinfeld do it on the big screen. It was like watching Nicholas Cage get dressed in my clothes and go to my office at my day job and start reading my mail. Eerie.
October 25, 2002 - Comedy Factory Outlet, Baltimore, Maryland
Really rowdy crowd, but the staff takes care of business. Lotta security guys, including one guy who looks just like Delroy Lindo. Two patrons started fighting each other. Fortunately, they eventually took it outside. Now I understand the security. The headliner, Mac McClellan, handled it onstage like a total pro.
The sniper was caught yesterday by the dragnet led by Montgomery County, Maryland police chief Charles Moose. Driving home on the beltway I see a sign someone's hung over an overpass: "Thanks, Moose". Thanks, Moose.
I was slammed on alt.comedy.standup yesterday. If I wasn't a sociopath, that sort of thing would probably hurt my feelings. It's tough being a pacifist and a sociopath. I don't want to hurt people, but I don't want the fact that they exist to affect my life anymore.
October 24, 2002 - Washington, DC Somebody sent me an article about running a writing workshop. The article reminded me of a quote by William Faulkner. Here's my comedy paraphrase:
October 21, 2002 - Washington, DC
Another sniper attack - this time in a neighborhood where I used to live. The victim was a man waiting at the bus stop, like I did in that neighborhood for a year. I'm sick of my neighborhood being in the national news every day. Maybe I live in the wrong town.
October 19, 2002 - Zig's Cafe, Alexandria, VA
I drive almost nonstop to Alexandria. I meet Tom and Wanda, the couple who own the place. Nice neighborhood bar, great sound system, really nice people. Unfortunately for me, it's what I call a "Redneck Casablanca" room: comics have to compete with the video game and the television sets and the pool table for attention. Not a judgement of the bar, the bar has to make money, I wouldn't run a bar for a million dollars, just a burden that I have to suck up. I keep telling myself that it's good for me: to paraphrase Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, Rednecks invite me to take extraordinary measures. There are a lot of Redneck Casablanca rooms, 'cos that's what works a lot of the time. This is the best R.C. room I've ever worked. Still tough 'cos of the competition for attention, but a great time.
October 18, 2002 - Mesh Cafe, Greenville, NC
To Greenville through the beginning of I-40. I-40 begins in Wilmington, NC; ends in Barstow, CA. Interrupted only by midtown Memphis. First mile of I-40 is dedicated to Michael Jordan. Work zone speed limit of 70. 70? Unlimited highway worker employment opportunities await. I'm 34 years old today. Half my life ago I was two months into my fourth miserable year at Catholic boarding school. The cotton is in that floral, not-quite-ready-to-be-picked pretty stage. Of course the highway I need is closed. No way could I do this job without an atlas and Yahoo! Maps.
In Greenville I tune to the radio where I'll be doing my second promo ever. I hear the first advertisement for a show I'm in. Doesn't mention my name, but still it's surreal. The DJ I'm supposed to call later says on the radio that he's appearing right now at a phone store by Cici's Pizza. I look to my left: CiCi's Pizza. I go in and say hello. I eat pizza. I have a Pepsi. I go to the club. Meet Joey, the MC for tonight. I go to the hotel. Very nice. All the amenities. Hotel clerk gives me an ECU homecoming button. Everyone in town and many of the vehicles are dressed in ECU purple and gold. The club, the Mesh Cafe, has a beautiful nouveau southwestern architecture to it. There's an Indian motorcycle in the foyer.
The food is phenomenal and everyone here is real nice to me.
A bunch of ECU alumni, including some ex-cheerleaders, are here getting an early start on tomorrow's homecoming game. There are some pretty women here. DC has pretty women, but DC is saturated with a lot of people attracted to the potential of living in a community where looks don't matter. I feel sorry for the gorgeous Capitol Hill short-timer appointees: they must get hammered with date offers from dorks like me every day. Fortunately for me I have a beautiful woman who doesn't know she's beautiful. Makes me feel like I'm getting away with something.
First show crowd is tight. It's billed as a dinner show. I guess they weren't in the mood for jokes about cat vomit and selling babies. Boy, can I read a crowd. Second crowd was small but they rocked. The most biker-lookin' guy in the crowd calls me over and his girlfriend, who's also celebrating her birthday, buys me a drink. Of course he's a molecular biologist. I'm gonna try to get him a job at NIH. I sleep until 11:00 a.m.
October 17, 2002 - Paradise Cafe, Ocean Isle Beach, NC
I leave DC early morning going south as the commuters head north. Southbound traffic is happy and sparse. Northbound traffic is a line of aluminum. I get to Richmond, Virginia. Richmond's a real town, not like DC. Smokestacks, skyscrapers, billboards. Flipped off the Phillip Morris factory on the way outta town.
The landscape changes abruptly south of Richmond. Very flat. Very delta. (deltan?) Cool blues music on the radio. "I've done all the worrying I can do/I'll leave worrying 'til tomorrow." Would that it were so. Been thinking about taking a cinematic approach to my act, gonna try to remember to try it tonight. Southeast North Carolina has a lot of signs in Spanish and English. Good. they'll get the Superamigos bit. South of Clinton, NC I stop in a country store. On the counter is an open pack of Newport cigarettes in a clear takeout container that sell for 25¢ a cigarette. Ah, delicious Newports. Cool satisfaction.
The motel in Ocean Isle Beach does triple duty as a BP/motel/fishing shop. I'm a redneck, and they sell bait I've never heard of before. Ballyhoo? I go upstairs to the room and two of Ocean Isle's Finest are getting the maintenance guy to open one of the rooms. He responds, "Is this about Darryl?" I don't ask. The doorknob to the room has been kicked in and marginally repaired. No hot water in the shower. No alarm clock. Not even a Bible; a Bible would be inappropriate here. The carpet is sticky, and there's a large, suspicious brown carpet stain between the bed and the window. If I had tape, I would've outlined a body with the head over the stain. I go down to the gas station attendant/tackle shop clerk/doorman. I have to pick my battles carefully, so I just tell him there's no hot water. He tells me "It's fishing season." This is a non sequitur to me, so I say, "Okay." He might as well have told me that zombies rule Belgium.
I go to the grocery store. They have fat back, ham hocks, and stuff I've never heard of: salt bellies. Pork liver pudding. I do find my favorite southern delicacy, though: pimento cheese. Mmmmmmmm.
I go to the club and talk to a man and woman who used to maintain the rooms in the motel/gas station/tackle shop. He asks me what my room number is, and they start laughing sardonically. I don't ask.
A gastric bypass patient shows up with her significant other. She had some problems and had to have some reparative surgery. Another couple comes to the club thinking that I'm Basile, another comic who performs on a radio station in Baltimore. Sorry.
The headliner, Akintunde, brings a guest spot. Odd that this guest doesn't host the show since we don't have a host, but I'm not runnin' the show. I go onstage. "Two African-Americans with a redneck in the middle. Welcome to the Oreo Comedy Tour!" They go wild.
This club's gonna make a lot of money. It's a beach club with great food that packs the room in October. The owner will be tearing out walls and kicking people out by March. They gave me a great meal to go, which I ate in the hotel room while watching Dragonball Z on the discolorated TV screen. It still beats the rest of my week. I drove through eight sniper dragnets in three days to go past the recently repaired Pentagon to my job office that they've closed a dozen times this year for riots and bomb threats where mail was delayed by up to four months after our mailroom was hit with anthrax. Gimme cartoons and sticky carpet anytime.
October 15, 2002 - home answering e-mail
People keep asking me if my show is clean or dirty. I don't like to call my show an "act", because there's no acting. To answer the clean/dirty question, I've adapted the two-dimensional representation of character alignment from the game Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to answer this question.
Note: the comics names below are for illustrative purposes only. No relative or absolute quality or value of the comics or performing styles is implied or inferred.
Good (Clean Subject Matter) Evil (Adult Subject Matter) Chaotic (Adult Words) Lawful (Clean Words)
October 3 - 5, 2002 - The Funny Farm, Broadalbin, New York
Driving to the southern Adirondacks from DC. The whole of Western Pennsylvania smells like horse dung. My directions, in summary: Take I-81 North. If you run out of America, you've gone a bit too far. 81 has a sign that says "Warning: Deer crossing next NINETEEN MILES." I don't know what New Yorkers are doing about their deer overpopulation problem, but we rednecks eat them, and it's been working out really well for us.
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Danville, PA Moose Lodge flyer.
The big board.
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Friends at steak place in Morgantown, WV.
Urinal, steak restaurant, Morgantown, WV.
I think about Elaine's comment about my timidity. I realized that for me, comedy requires a bit of emotional aggressiveness, and my personal life is so painful these days that I can't cope with any aggression, so I don't have any to give onstage.
Room, Lafayette Hotel, Marietta, OH.
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The tower of flourescent dreck beckons you.
Outside poster. Inside poster. Foreground: Nice reservations lady.
Back of weekend section, SC Post & Courier.
Interior of Comedy zone room at Henry's.
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Category 3 is the rarest of all. Foolio's was the most intense Category 3 experience I've ever had. This club has a reputation for angry, loud hecklers. Full rowdy bar in the back of the room. I led with aggression and anticipation, and turned their attention around to me and what I had to say. It took buckets of sweat, but I kept them on the path.
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16 people in the audience. The place is absolutely dead until right before the show. I figure this is gonna be one of those dues-paying gigs.
Oh, they hated me. The worm turns on a dime.
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The comedian's only responsibility is to their comedy. A good comedian will be completely ruthless. A good comedian has a dream. It anguishes them so much they must get rid of it. They have no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to be the comic they want to be. If a comic has to rob their mother, they will not hesitate; "Live on the Sunset Strip" is worth any number of old ladies.
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Basil White: Lawful Evil. At your service.