Suggested reading.

Want a report from Iraq?

Hey, I know most people who read this blog, read the one I'm about to recommend as well but I'm still recommending it. My friend Steve in Iraq. He's got a good day to day report on what's going on over there. www.myiraqnaphobia.blogspot.com

You can watch me flip out for no good reason about being left out of a list of people he likes.

Then, go over to www.hotsandwich.blogspot.com and read Scott's stand-up material...then watch me misunderstand a comment and make a fool of myself on that blog as well.

Anybody else have any blogs they'd like me to make a fool of myself in?

I can do it.

The Poultry Farmers of America won't let me call them chicken anymore.

The Communist Party says I'm not invited anymore.

Henry Rollins wasn't in "Ragtime".

Hanna Barbera was two different guys. Not one sexy playmate.

Bernie Mac didn't even go to my high school.

See what I mean?

Now to go yell at some people that aren't actually mad at me. They're actually talking to that guy by the tree. I can see that now but my tirade is already in motion and you can't stop a Churchill tirade once it gets going. Anybody know a good therapist?

Turns out someone was on my side.

Remember that whole lawn furniture as parking place holder blog? Someone must have agreed with me. I was walking back from parking my car and there was lawn furniture thrown up in the lawn (where it belongs).

Dang it.

That van in it's spot was probably the very van that the lawn furniture was meant to save a space for.

But I hope not.

I hope there was a bloody battle.

Something Dr. Seuss could be proud of.

Out.

Hello reader.

Wondering if anybody had any opinions on my lawnchair ban proposal? (See previous post) I know there are two sides to this but let me add one more thing...I don't have any lawn furniture. I don't have anything I'd like to leave out in the snow to hold my parking spot except a 5'-4" half sicilian/half irish comedian that hates the cold.

Today I meet with Nate Herman. And today I don't consider him "Nate Herman: Double Decker Tour Guide." Rather, today, I consider him, "Nate Herman: Writer with many years of experience (Saturday Night Live and Second City) and connections." He's going to look at my potentially disastrous comedy entitled "Chair". We at "The Co-Governors of Space" are gearing up to put it up in the spring.

After I post this blog, I call him and we go get coffee. I don't even drink coffee much anymore. I tried to give up caffeine but I got really depressed when I quit all at once. My wife quit and became a nice person which is weird. I almost divorced her when she didn't yell at me for forty-five minutes because I talked through a joke on the Simpsons.

The thing is, I'm getting to the age and to the point in my journey where I'd be willing to do a few things that I don't normally do to get a little help. Later I plan on doing some heroin with Cobain. Although, I haven't heard from him in a long time.

By the way, here's the list of people I know who are doing a lot better than I am:
1. Ike Barinholtz-He's on MadTv
2. The Public Radio Sketch Comedy Group, "Schadenfreude"- Luckily, they're still nice to me.
3. Nicholas Roget-King- He's Rene' Russo's youngest son in the recent remake, "Yours Mine and Ours". In this case, I'm actually really glad that he's doing so well. His dad's a trolley driver and we all know Nicky.
4. Nate and Phil of the "House Theater"- Good guys. Former trolley drivers. And every once in a while, you see Nate under some other name hosting some infomercial.
5. Craig and Genevieve Thompson of "Infamous Commonwealth Theater"-Happily, they're getting some good reviews of late.
6. Dan Shaw of the Irish Rock group "The Tossers"- They just got signed to a big record deal with Victory Records and I'm going to his birthday party on Friday.
7. Chemically Imbalanced Comedy- Just got their first series of great reviews for a show that just happened to be the first show I was not a part of in three years.

So...I'm watching people blowin' up all around me. But I'm hoping that the current planning and laying low of "The Co-Governors of Space" will pay off when we unveil our first production in Spring...when I'm even older.

"You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older...and now you're even older...and now you're even older. You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older...and...now...you're...older...still."-They Might Be Giants

Get your lawnchairs back into storage.

Because I was perusing Jackie's blog and saw her lament about parking in neighborhoods after a snowstorm and because I have my own opinions about the whole thing, here I go:
This is actually a logical, scientific explanation as to why putting lawn furniture out in the street to save a parking space is a short-sighted, selfish, stupid thing to do. I know it's tradition but so was slavery.

Okay so say, on the block where you normally park your car there are forty spaces to park if everyone parks well. And there are twenty-four hours in a day. That is a total of 960 parking hours a day. So then ten people dig out parking spots for themselves and park. Fine. Great. Now they leave at 7AM, leaving in their place, lawn furniture. They return at 7pm (because it's winter and it takes a while to get home.) That's twelve empty parking hours times ten cars. So now from the 960 parking hours, one hundred twenty have been removed. That's a decrease in total parking spaces of %12.5. OR in a more clear definition, now there are only 35 spaces in the 40 space neighborhood for each 24 hour day.
That's also assuming that only 40 cars park in the neighborhood within the 24 hours. Chances are that in those "work" hours, others are parking (if only for a few hours) in the neighborhood. So really it's between 60-80 cars probably vying for space and time with the 35 (used to be 40) times 24 carpark/hours. It's simple math, but all I can think of is Mayor Daley sarcastically giggling and then telling people to respect the parking spaces that people hoard for themselves.
This is what I want to do:
I want to get some friends and shovel the ENTIRE block and put lawn furniture on every possible parking surface so that no one can park anywhere. My answer to those who would complain: "All these spots are saved. You'll have to park in Evanston." OR: "What? These are my spots. I dug 'em up. They're mine."

That's why I'm glad my wife has a jeep. 4-wheel drive. We can park in trees. And we knock out the squirrel nests and replace them with dollhouse furniture. "Sorry, squirrels. Humans movin' in. We dug out the spot. It's ours."

My Mexican Marionette alter ego.

I just did "Don't Spit the Water" for the first time tonight with my mexican marionette stand-up comedian, "Jose' Tovar". It was fun. Really challenging. I made up at least 3 new "jokes" for him on the spot. Good to know what you can do under pressure.

Jose' does racially based comedy. Here was my favorite new Jose' joke:

"Why did Turkey cross the road?
To commit genocide against the Armenians in the nineteen teens."

Not so much funny as informative.

He said, "White people dance like this." And then he danced.

He also hit on a beautiful blonde, commenting that, "The last time I was with a real, full-sized woman, I got stuck in there. All my strings were hanging out. She thought I was a tampon." (Granted, he should have said "three tampons"). After a couple weeks, she had "Tovar Shock Syndrome".

And Jose' also mimed climbing a giant black penis.

He does classy material.

Oh, and Jose' (or Josecito, as the friends of the "real" Jose' call him) also made a Wilfred Brimley joke. Jose walks funny. He said he was doing an impression of Brimley without his horse. Surprisingly, that got a laugh.

Never even got around to his Chicago Bears slandering material, his "Pig Latino" lesson, or the moment of silence for Richard Pryor (which I'm sure, in the context of the show would have gotten a laugh).

He also kept referring to me as "that fat fuck over my shoulder." And informed everyone that the reason that I was saying the same things that he was was that I was his biggest fan and I know all the words to his bits.

Jose' did a good job.