Comedy Rules

Just added! Shreveport Funny Bone November 13 - 17. Bring a gun.

Also - Tittie bar show in Eugene, OR! Silver Dollar Saloon November 20th. Two shows - call for showtimes 541 485-2303. Don't expect artistic integrity.

In fact, don't expect much after Tuesday, November 12th, as I will be getting a vasectomy on that day. It may be weeks before I can even tell a dick joke. But that'll be a whole other update in itself.

I got into KC a night early to do morning radio. Ricky Smiley was at the club when I came in from the airport and they were patting people down at the door. I left immediately. When did comedy become a form of entertainment that invites gun-play? That's all-pro heckling right there.

Speaking of...

Here's a comedy rule that shouldn't have to be spelled out but evidently does. If you don't have any limbs - don't heckle. I'm with Andy Andrist, who is perhaps the funniest person on the top side of earth, at the Acme Comedy club in Minneapolis last week. Andy tells me he's worried about his extensive "fat people getting handicapped parking/ people in wheelchairs shouldn't get special privileges because a lot of them are in chairs because they are fuck-ups" bit due to a couple of patrons that are wheelchair bound in the crowd, one being little more than a torso.

Andy Andrist and Stand Up! Records' Dan Schlissel

The bit is absolutely ripping funny and can be worked so as not to offend but it's still tricky to pull off. Andy is going to do it anyway because Andy doesn't give a fuck but before he can even venture into it, the torso starts blurting shit out and throwing the room into funeral parlor silence. That's what happens when freaks heckle. If you - the regular drunk-off-the-street guy - starts bellowing out shit, trying to be life of the party then you know what to expect and will be verbally pummeled. But when a mop-top inebriate with 10 inch stubbs for limbs decides to be the asshole for the evening it turns into a black hole of comedy because the comic can't say shit back without the crowd looking at him like he's gut-punting a crack baby.

This has happened to me on many occasions. There was the time where the midget couple brought their retarded son to the front row of a show at Joker's in Dayton. The more I tried to fight out of the hole, the worse I made it. The worst was when I used to work at the other club in Minneapolis years back. There was a regular group of rubberheads that would be brought in now and then under what I assumed to be some kind of "laughter is the best medicine" program. I assume this because these people weren't just a little bit touched. They were full-blown butternoggins who hadn't a clue where they were or why they were there. So you'd walk onto the stage, oblivious to their presence and right in the middle of a set-up you hear a terrifying "DAAAAAAAAAARFPH!" from the back of the room. You don't know if you're being heckled or if you have one ball hanging out of your pants.

If you're lucky, you spot the problem give a shrug and a wink to the audience and try to plow through. But good luck if they happen to be behind the lights somewhere and you go into knee-jerk heckler mode and spew out your best "Hey Chico, why don't you go eat a bag of dicks, you fucking retard!". Now you wonder why the audience hasn't started yelping approval as they usually would so you cup your hand over your eyes and see that you've just publicly berated a low-watt gurgler in a high-back chair who begins to break the icy silence with gutteral sobs.

Try pulling out of that hole. "Sorry, I didn't know you were really a retard." won't get the audience back on your side. Skip your closer and head for the farthest barroom.

Am I saying retards shouldn't be allowed in comedy clubs?

Yes. Yes I am.

I'm not saying it should be a law nor would a post a sign but use some common sense for fuck sake. The caretakers/handlers who brought them would say that it was good therapy for them to be around laughter and smiling people. Well good for them. Put em in a circle and throw a burning raccoon in the middle. They'll all laugh and smile for hours. Instead you put them here where they've turned laughter and smiling people into awkward silence and people who wish they were at the movies instead.

I applaud the people who work with people afflicted with these disabilities and can think of no job that is more selfless or requires more patience and understanding. That's why I didn't take that job and don't want you to put me in that position against my will.

The case with Andy is different. This person had all of his mental faculties (save for what he drank away that night), he just didn't have arms or legs. And he was a belligerent asshole.

Andy played it perfectly and just gave benign jabs in return until he could feel that the audience had spent it's full supply of empathy. Then, among other things, he challenged him to a race up stairs and closed by saying that he now understood why God punishes some people.

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Acme held it's 11th anniversary show at the State Theater with Dave Attell & Patton Oswalt. Dave's always been my favorite and Patton isn't much behind. After the after-party, there was to be an after-after party at some hotel room. About 18 of us showed up at the sleepy Residence Inn in downtown Minneapolis, surly & drunk, only to be told by the front desk douchebag buzzkill that he was calling the police. Why he'd be calling the police before we even went to the room was beyond us but still wasn't a deterrent. So we got in the room with just enough time to grab as much beer as we could before the inevitable knock of 6 or 7 Minneapolis PD ready for battle. The gave us stern looks as we quietly walked out passed them until Attell came out and we found out that a few of the fuzz are Insomniac fans.Then it was all yuks and back slaps. They're prolly all up late with all that confiscated crank watching Attell while their cross-gender incest porn is slowly downloading on a slow, stolen modem.

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Attell, Renee, Doug and Andy

Ms Pine City

Meanwhile, back at our hotel, they were hosting the Ms Teen Minnesota competition. I put a 20 on Ms Pine City on a bad tip that there was a gravy-eating competition and high points for no shame.

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Travel tip - Don't be first or last at the airport gate. If the random security check at the gate is empty, you're it. Just found that out and figured Ii'd pass it on.

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Oh ya, I autographed this girls tits and she has emailed, demanding their presence on the site. So here they are, like it or not.

The DVD is supposed to ready for Thanksgiving. But you can still send me money for absolutely no reason at PayPal. So far nobody has taken advantage of this opportunity, leaving me little ambition to post video clips of my upcoming vasectomy.

Of all the people who would like to stick me in the dick with a knife and here I am paying a deductible. And you try to tell me about God.

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