Last night I performed at Jazzoetry IV, reading one of my essays. It’s about a girl I fell in love with and is called “Heaven on Earth”.

PS - I resisted the urge to add canned laughter to the video, so please bear in mind that there were only nine people in the audience. (Ten if you include the bartender).

PPS - I can’t believe that there were only nine people in the audience! And six of them were performers! That’s absolutely ridiculous. Jazzoetry is an awesome monthly event that combines music with words and takes place at the Liberty Bistro in Toronto. It’s also free! Next one is March 19th. Click here to see a short promo.

So I’m sitting with some friends in the thirteenth row of some second-rate theatre. We’re watching As You Like It by William Shakespeare and awaiting the appearance of our friend Rob. He has a major role in the play as the young heartthrob, Orlando. It’s the fight scene, which he has also choreographed. I watch him flip his opponent to the ground like something out of the WWF. I lean forward. Now we’re talking. The fighting reminds me of that scene in Star Trek where Captain Kirk is forced to battle Spock in the alien coliseum. All that is missing is that excellent Star Trek battle music:

♫Da da, dah dah dah dah, da da, dah dah drrrrrrreeeee! drrrrreeeeee!♫

Sigh…the fight scene is over. That was quick. Again, I’m bored out of my mind. I can’t understand half of what is being said and I have no idea what is happening. Nor do I want to know. Granted, the actors are doing as good a job as they can possibly do, what with the dated material — all these couples in love and all of them wearing disguises. How come nobody recognizes each other? Their disguises are worse than Clark Kent’s glasses. Why am I here in the first place? Twenty-five dollars down the drain. I would never have come to this play if my friend was not in it.

What is it about plays and friends? Why do we have to go see them? I’m told it’s because “that’s what friends do.” Friends support friends. You want me to come to your play? Well, let me ask you: back when I was in the real world, how come you never came to my office and applauded me for my work? I don’t remember you calling for an encore after I gave a particularly good presentation, or giving me a standing ovation for a well-crafted spreadsheet. Oh, but the theatre is entertainment? Well, masturbation is my entertainment. So I expect a bouquet of roses next time I pleasure myself. Just be careful with those thorns.

And then the play finally ends. My friends and I exchange quiet smiles and we all head outside the theatre to await His grand arrival. He comes out, all dressed in black. He grants me one millisecond of eye contact before his eyes dart off in other directions as he takes in his admirers. The irony is that for all the acting Rob did, we are the ones that are going to deserve an Oscar for the performance that we are about to put on:

“Yes! That was great!

“I got to say, you were so believable. I literally forgot it was you. You were the character!”

“Awesome, man. Great play and you really stood out!”

And if that’s not bad enough, afterwards we then follow him and his actor pals to some party that is filled with even more actor friends. They are all high on booze and coke. They are talking shop and nobody cares about us. I sit on the edge of the sofa listening to them criticize other actors, directors and shows. To make conversation, I turn to another actress in the show and compliment her on her role. I get a half-smile and some uncomfortable silence before she moves off in another direction.

And of course, my acting role does not end that night. The show must go on, and my performance is on an extended run, as over the next few days, other friends ask what I thought of the play. This is most painful if Rob is in earshot when I am asked. Even if he is fully engaged in conversation with a third party, you can still see his head tilt slightly and his ear start twitching as he waits for my scripted response: “Yeah, the play was great, and Rob … fantastic. You must see it!”

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Oh — and I’m hoping to get called up again for Yuk Yuk’s Amateur Night next Tuesday, October 23rd. Here’s hoping you can make it…

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Yesterday I fell in love. She was working out at my gym, Diesel Fitness, which has a reputation for its attractive female members. She wasn’t over the top beautiful. She was quiet and had an intelligent look to her. I figured she was a doctor or a robotics engineer. I saw another member talking to her, and afterwards I went up to him and asked him what her deal was?

“Oh, Angel? She’s a stripper.”

“What!” I was completely taken aback. At least she wasn’t a lawyer. But I was still less than pleased. “She’s a stripper? No! She seems so nice. So sweet!”

“Yeah. She is nice.”

“Nice? How’s she nice?”

“Whenever I go to Club Paradise, she always tells me who gives the best lap dances.”

I was heartbroken. The love of my life, grinding some guy in a club when she could be worshiping me. There is a part of me that’s always disappointed when I find out a woman is a stripper. But it’s not because I have a problem with stripping. If I were a beautiful woman, I would be a stripper. I would strip for a few years, rake in some serious cash and then use that money for a business or an education or a house. “You want to give me money for this? Yes, please. How ‘bout dat? Yah! Thank you very much!” I don’t actually have a moral problem with somebody voluntarily taking her clothes off for tons of money. I did far worse than that in my years working in finance. And now? Strippers may bare their bodies, but I bare my soul. And I’m not even getting paid for this.

But I’m not being honest. The truth is, I don’t think I could be a stripper. It’s not that I don’t have the physique. I’m six feet tall so my long legs would look great in a pair of six-inch stilettos. No, that’s not the problem. The problem is that strippers actually make the bulk of their money from lap dances — not stripping. This is something I’d be less comfortable doing. I feel bad for strippers who come face-to-thong each day with men’s depravity. I feel bad for strippers because I wonder what sort of normal life a woman could ever have if she worked as a stripper. I imagine she could never have a fulfilling relationship and would eventually grow to hate all men.

But then it suddenly occurs to me that I have no idea what a stripper would actually think, because I’ve never actually spoken with a stripper — outside of a strip club. For all I know, it could be liberating for them to truly understand what men are really like. Sure, it seems highly unlikely. I know the stereotypes. I’ve heard some stories. But I like to think of myself as open-minded. I don’t know if these stereotypes are actually accurate. In fact, as I write this I imagine that there might be as many different kinds of strippers as there are different kinds of doctors, lawyers and engineers. On second thought, that’s probably not true. There’s only one kind of lawyer — pure evil.

I start to think that maybe there is hope for the two of us. I begin to imagine a future with Angel, the two of us married and living in Forest Hill. During the days, I’d putter away on my laptop while she’d lie in the backyard tanning and reading a copy of Bonsai Bush, the Japanese periodical with all the latest in stripper grooming and fashion. In the evenings, I‘d visit her at her workplace, bringing her a thermos of hot cocoa and a fresh towel. And family? We’d have a dog and a cat and of course twins: a boy and a girl. We would raise our children in an open and honest environment. We would have lively debates over dinner about the ramifications of the decline of the bush in the West. Angel would teach our daughter, Angela, the importance of pole hygiene — always bring your own wet naps, sweetie. I would teach our son, Louis, the merit of wearing sweatpants before sitting down for a lap dance.

But life goes on. Angela turns eighteen and moves to Niagara Falls — can you blame her? Louis lives at home until he’s thirty before moving to Montreal to study at the prestigious linguistics center, the Gentlemen’s Club MC Academy. My heart is bursting with pride at my children’s accomplishments. Life has been good to me.

The seasons pass and I go gray-er. My muscles shrink and between my hernia, my plantar fasciitis and my arthritic shoulder, I can no longer workout let alone bench press 225 pounds for 3 sets of 12 repetitions. Instead, I focus on my daily walks, once a day around the block. I smile and make eye contact with every youngster I see during my ninety minute regime. Gotta keep moving. Don’t feel sorry for me. My eyes twinkle.

One day I come home from my morning workout to see Angel lying on her side in a puddle of clear liquid. She is unconscious. She has broken her hip doing her morning exercises and in the fall had burst a saline pack. When she returns from the hospital, she is changed. She is not the same person she was before. She walks with a limp, shoulders stooped, head down. But her eyes are wild. Her memory is fragmented: Alzheimer’s.

We spend our golden years sitting in the park holding hands and looking off into nothing. Young couples walk by. They smile at us two old lovers, before scurrying away in fear when Angel opens her legs at them, cackling wildly.

And then I get a phone call. It’s the police. Angel is inside a subway car. She is upside down, hanging from one of those poles that lead from floor to ceiling and she is refusing to move. Two policemen try to forcefully remove her but they cannot. The power of her stripper thighs has not diminished despite her age. It’s always the last thing to go, they say. I arrive and plead with her to come down. But she is crying and says repeatedly that she can’t come down until they play Joan Jett’s “I love Rock and Roll.” The police are concerned. There is no music playing. And besides, China is now the world’s sole economic and social superpower. Everybody’s listening to Cantonese opera-pop nowadays; it’s the law. Angel’s clearly lost her mind. They want to put her away in a nursing home. No, I beg them. Nursing homes are 80 percent women, and Angel’s never liked woman-on-woman action.

But they do not listen to me. Angel is locked away. Less than a year passes before she dies. I am left alone with my thoughts … and my memories. The days are difficult, the nights impossible. I find ways to pass the lonely evenings. I return to her old workplace. It has changed so much! I am amazed at the talent of these proud, young performers as they zoom above me on their bam-bam hoverstages with hydroponic stirrups. What will they come up with next? But despite all these newfangled gimmicks and accessories, I am relieved to see something that I had thought gone forever. The bush is finally back in all its 1970’s Devil in Miss Jones glory. The Brazilians had not killed it, after all.

I smile to myself. What comes around goes around. Angel was a good woman. She was a good wife. I had a good life. Life goes on. And I am wearing sweat pants.

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Watch my reading of this essay at Jazzoetry IV, in Toronto

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I’ve been in a bit of a fog over the last few weeks — anxious, troubled, uneasy. My internal momentum and positivity are being tested. To be fair, I continue to make progress: I finished the video (again) this morning. It’ll be uploaded in about a week. I’ve distributed some two hundred bookmarks outside of Random House and McClelland & Stewart’s offices. My website visits continue to grow — 3,900 unique visitors as of yesterday. And I did another stand-up routine, this time at the Laugh Resort. It went well, and no, I did not talk about my penis.

Nonetheless, I feel discouraged. All these other activities are taking place at the expense of my writing. And the simple truth is, nothing gives me as much satisfaction as writing. Every time I finish an article or a blog, I feel a sense of purpose.

But there is something bigger gnawing away at me. With the exception of an article that was reprinted on One Degree’s website, I’ve yet to publish any of my writings in a magazine. I’ve yet to earn even one penny from my new career. In fact, I’ve been so obsessed with my promotional activities, I haven’t actually submitted an article to a magazine since I sent “My Fact is my Fiction” to The American Scholar in late August.

Part of the “problem” is that there’s no gun to my head. No pressure to write about politics or the local social scene or the danger of too much sunshine. I’m fortunate that my previous career left me comfortable enough to afford myself some time to “do it right.” I tell myself that I didn’t quit a lucrative job in finance, writing about shit I didn’t care about, to get low-paying freelance work, writing about shit I don’t care about. So, I write what I want. No pressure here.

This is what I tell myself. But the truth is: I’m not sure it’s true. This holier-than-thou stuff smells of bullshit. There’s no escaping the pressures of the material world. I spent fifteen years working in it. I’m still living in it. It was a big part of me. I may not need the money — right now — but I do need its validation. I need to publish some of my articles.

I learned a lot of things in the material world. For instance, a large part of my job as an investment analyst was writing lengthy research reports — the thicker the better. In the investment industry, research is mostly a marketing gimmick. When you walk into a meeting and put down that thick research report and it makes a loud “thunk,” then you clearly know your stuff. I cannot tell you how many times I plagiarized myself, copying sections of an earlier report in order to fatten up an argument.

I bring this up because, in the same spirit of blatant commercialism, I am reposting a portion of an earlier blog. That blog perfectly sums up my current state of mind. (You can read the whole blog here if you’re so inclined).

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When I was in my early teens, I was a nerd – although I begged to differ. I liked my science fiction, I liked my Dungeons and Dragons and I liked my comic books. My friend and I hung out at a local comic book store after school, where we talked superheroes and took art lessons; I daydreamed of becoming an artist. My favorite comics were The Uncanny X-Men (but only in the John Byrne & Paul Smith days) and Daredevil (but only in the Frank Miller days).

The bulk of my allowance went to my collection. I read the comics carefully, never folding back the pages and always taking care not to crease the spine. I then placed them in plastic bags and stored them upright in special storage boxes. I rarely let my brothers read them; I wanted to keep the “books” – as we serious collectors called them – in mint condition. The boxes were stored in a cupboard, which I locked with a padlock. My brothers still occasionally outsmarted me. Once I came home from school to discover the oldest had gotten access to my collection, by unscrewing the hinges that secured the door.

My father was never impressed with my hobby. He thought it was a waste of time and money. I repeatedly tried to convince him that it was a “smart” hobby. “Comics are good investments,” I claimed. But he never bought into it: “You say your collection is a good investment, but I’ve never seen you sell a comic book. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Each year, there was a comic convention in the city. Collectors and retailers would come from around North America and set up booths at the exhibition center selling comics, posters and other paraphernalia. I decided to take some books to the convention and prove to my father that my collection was valuable. I planned to scope out the players and sell a few to the highest bidder, playing them against each other. But I was more than a little overwhelmed by the crowds. This was my first – and last – convention and it was more popular than a Batman costume at an S&M party on Halloween.

After ninety minutes of walking up and down the aisles, I finally approached a stand. I had brought my ten best books. The owner refused to bid on my comics individually saying that’s not “the way it’s done.” He offered me fifty dollars for the lot and I “held out” for sixty dollars – about fifteen dollars more than I had paid for them. The collection had a street value of around two hundred and fifty dollars. I had never negotiated for anything before, and was easily outmaneuvered. I was just a pimply-faced nerd. He on the other hand was a much savvier, pimply-faced nerd. I felt dejected and disheartened as I left the exhibition. I had sold the best of my collection for much less than I had expected. I spent a third of my profits at Burger King on the way home.

That day essentially marked the end of my childhood hobby. I lost interest afterwards and within a few months had stopped reading comics altogether. The irony is that my childhood friend, who continued collecting, today generates a significant income from trading books. His collection today is easily worth several hundred thousand dollars.

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There’s a voice — my father’s voice — which is also my voice. And it’s the voice of a large part of society. It’s the voice that says until I get published, what I am doing is not worthwhile. It’s the voice that asks how long I will keep doing this? It’s the voice that is getting increasingly frustrated with my lack of progress — commercially speaking. Nothing happens fast enough for this voice.

I don’t want to sell my comic books before their time. Not again. Not when this direction feels so much more right than any other path I’ve taken in my life. Not when I’ve just turned forty. It may be a cliché but we really do only get one chance to live our lives. Age makes that so much more apparent. Does that make sense? Perhaps. At the same time, it doesn’t quieten the voice. But at least now I have a second voice to counter it.

I haven’t been writing as much as I would like over the last few weeks. A number of things have been distracting me:

• My video (argh!)
• My birthday (40th! Kill me please)
• A woman

I started dating “Nadia” three weeks ago. We’ve been seeing a lot of each other. She’s the first woman I’ve felt a real connection with in a long while. But at the same time something was missing. Last night, we went out for dinner and we realized that we both felt the same way. As break-up dinners go it was better than most dinner dates. We ended up having a lot of laughs and downing two bottles of sake. By the end of the evening, I was ready to ask her out again.

Since my divorce, I’ve realized that I’ve been given a second chance. A chance to get things right. A chance to find a person that I can connect with on all levels. I consider myself very lucky.

I tried the internet dating thing for a few months and it’s just not for me. It’s too easy to be flippant and too easy to be dismissive — for both parties. I think people treat internet encounters differently than they would treat these same people if they were to meet in more traditional circumstances. And to be frank, I’m a little afraid of some of the women I’ve met on these websites. There was a fear in their eyes and a hunger for a man — any man — that frightened me.

I have a fear too. But it’s not a fear of being alone. In fact, it’s just the opposite. I’m more scared of being in a relationship. But it’s not because I’m ruined or torn or damaged from my divorce. No, something happened to me recently that changed me. Something so profound that I realized I need to be alone. I can not be in a relationship right now. Not if I want to truly control my life, my destiny, my future.

You see a few weeks ago I went to see a psychic. Now, I’m not a superstitious type — far from it. I grew up on science fiction and fantasy but once I entered the real world, I put those books away. I’ve always considered myself open-minded but this perception is probably not accurate. The moment somebody speaks of spirits, energy or psychic powers, I tend to dismiss them as a flake.

No, I’m not a superstitious type. But at the same time, I don’t go out of my way to step on any sidewalk cracks. During the Toronto Film fest, the streets were crowded. One could barely see the sidewalks, let alone the cracks on them. I wandered through Yorkville with a friend one evening. We suddenly found ourselves standing next to a psychic. She had set up a card table with two chairs on the sidewalk. I’ve never been to a psychic. I would never go to a psychic. Especially a psychic who couldn’t afford an actual office.

But we were having a good time. We started to talk to the “customer” who was just leaving. He raved about her. He’d been consulting her for ten years.

“This card table’s been here for ten years?” I thought but did not say.

Still for only ten dollars she would read my fortune. Lack of office notwithstanding, I decided to go for it. Michael Landon didn’t have an office in Highway to Heaven, and it didn’t stop him from saving humanity. So why not give her a chance? I sat down. She asked for my hand. I started to give it to her, but then I suddenly pulled it back.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I need to understand this better. Just what exactly is your job as you see it?”

“I will tell you about your past, your present and your future.” She reached for my hand.

“Hang on for a second,” I said, holding my hand close to my chest. “I don’t need to know about my past or my present. I’m already familiar with it. I don’t want you to waste your power on stuff I already know. Let’s just get to the meat of it.”

“OK, OK,” she said. Her hand reached out for mine.

But then I suddenly realized that perhaps I didn’t want to know the future. I’m not a superstitious type, but why risk it? I asked her, “But what if you read my fortune and you see something terrible about my life? I don’t know if I really want to hear it.”

“Do not worry. I will not tell you bad things,” she said. Her hand twitched.

“But wait a minute. I don’t want you to lie to me,” I said.

“I won’t lie to you.”

“But I still don’t know that I want to know.”

“Don’t worry so much. Besides the future is not set in stone.”

“It’s not set in stone? I can change it? Really?”

“Really.” She looked at me. I grudgingly gave her my hand. She gripped it firmly and started to read. She got off to a shaky start, I have to admit.

“You’re married.” She declared.

“No I’m not!” I blurted out. “I’m divorced.”

She stared at me and carefully enunciated. “I was not finished. You are going to be married. Again. Next year.”

Oh. Wow, this woman was good. She went on. In a nutshell:

• I’m going to get married next year.
• We will have two kids.
• I will make money in real-estate. She recommended I buy a condo. Now.
• I will be very successful. I will work very hard for the next three years and then the money will “flow in.” In ten years time, life will be very easy.
• I will have good health and live a long life. Oh, and die when I’m eighty eight.

“Wait a minute!” I screamed. “What do you mean die at eighty eight? You said a few minutes ago that I could change the future. You said it’s flexible! Are you telling me that I am 100 percent going to die when I’m eighty eight.”

“Yes,” she said. “It says so right here. Eighty eight.” She pushed her finger hard into my palm. Why was she smiling?

I felt sick to my stomach. My future was set in stone after all. My friend couldn’t understand why I was so bothered; eighty eight is a pretty long life. But I told him that in forty years time we’ll all be living on the moon and living to three hundred. I’ll be dying at the prime of my life.

“But wait a minute,” he pointed out. “Let’s not forget that she also said that you would be married next year. So if you’re not married next year, that proves she’s a fraud, and then you won’t die at eighty eight.”

His logic was perfect. Which means I’ve got fifteen more months to party. And then I can go back on JDate.

Ok, I ‘m freaking out a little bit right now. Trust me when I tell you that what I am about to write is 100 percent true.

So, I just got home thirty minutes ago from my morning coffee. And I stepped into the guest bathroom. Now I rarely ever use this bathroom. The toilet blocked on me once before so I stay away from it. I cannot remember the last time I used it. I have a main bathroom off my bedroom. That’s the one I use. I’ve had no guests over the last few days — not a soul.

So what do I see, but a wet bathroom floor and this:

Look carefully. It’s hard to tell from the picture that the floor is wet, but take me at my word, it is. But even more strangely — and you can see this in the picture — not only is the floor wet, but the plunger head and the first few inches of the wooden staff are wet too! And look at the toilet seat. That’s a drop of water just hanging off the toilet seat, ready to fall: a clear sign of a toilet that’s recently overflowed!

Somebody’s been using my toilet. There’s no fuckin’ question. And that same somebody blocked my toilet. And then that same somebody unblocked the toilet!

Now, the next part is going to sound even stranger. But I swear to God it is also true. It happened not forty-five minutes ago. When I came back from my coffee there was a fire alarm going off in my building. So, I’m standing outside by the fire truck and one of the residents comes up to me and says, “If you want, I’ll go to the bank with you later.”

I did not recognize her, and said “huh?”

She looks at me more closely and says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were Steve. You look just like him. Do you know him? He lives in the building.”

I didn’t know him and I didn’t think anything of it. But she was awfully cute with long red hair. So I went up to her a few minutes later and said, “So, who’s this Steve? Is he your landlord? ”

“No. He’s the plumber. You really look just like him.”

“Oh, that’s great,” I said. “I look like the plumber. ” I told her the story of the time the casting agent wanted me to play the part of a stockbroker in a commercial.”

She laughed and said, “Wow. You really do look just like Steve. He even has a shirt just like yours!”

“What? This is one of my favorite shirts! I bought it at Urban Outfitters five years ago in DC. He uses this same shirt for his plumbing repairs?”

Fast forward to my apartment where I am getting awfully antsy about the bathroom. I decide to search the apartment for intruders. I hurried to my kitchen and grabbed the Chef’s knife. It’s exquisitely sharp courtesy of the honer which I finally learned how to use.

I walked though my apartment, the knife held close to my body. I’ve seen enough movies to know that if you hold the knife out, somebody can grab your arm. I saw no evidence of a break-in. And nothing was missing. My roof door was unlocked but I may very well have left it open myself.

It doesn’t make any sense to me. If it was a burglar or even a poltergeist that used my bathroom, why would it clean up the mess? And if it was going to clean up the mess, why not do a better job and mop down the floor too?

And then I had a mental image: Jack Nicholson in the movie, The Shining. In the movie, he plays a writer who slowly loses his mind — in the isolation of a haunted hotel. Am I spending too much time alone? Have I lost my mind? Here I am suffering poltergeists in my toilet bowl while my next door neighbor mistakes me for the building’s plumber. What are the odds of that? Am I a plumber in some alternate, schizophrenic life of which I have no memory? Am I Steve? And if I am Steve the plumber then why isn’t my toilet working? It doesn’t make any sense.

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Afterword: I bump into my superintendent and ask him if there’s been any technicians in my apartment for any reason. The answer is “no. ” I tell him about the toilet and he comes up to take a look. Turns out that the “thingamajig” is warped which in tandem with the high humidity has caused condensation to form on the outside of the tank. Now I know for certain that I’m not Steve. This leaves me rather happy. I always put 100 percent effort into everything I do, so if I’m going to be a plumber, I want to be a good one.

It’s 7 pm EDT as I write this and I’m about twenty-five thousand feet above Colorado, my head still pounding even though Burning Man ended some sixty hours ago. I’m flying back to Toronto after a one-day stopover in Los Angeles and yes — I am on an airplane. I apologize in advance for the length of this blog. A lot of stuff happened. There are many conflicting thoughts going through my head.

I decided to go to Burning Man for two reasons: One — some good friends were going. Two — it was a completely different experience, out of character for me. My 40th birthday is around the corner. I wanted to do something extraordinary.

My friends and I only participated in the second half of Burning Man, arriving Thursday morning at 10 am and departing Sunday morning at 5 am. Believe me — three days was more than enough. My body is still exhausted and my senses still in overdrive as I write this. To be frank, I was exhausted even before we got there, between flying to Los Angeles on Wednesday and then driving twelve hours in a rented van to the Burn. I slept perhaps three hours on the drive down, one hour on the first night, and two hours on the second.

My body broke down mid-day Saturday and I imposed myself on my new friends from Vancouver, who happened to have an air-conditioned RV. If geese have a god, then that god’s spirit — and feathers — stuffed the couch that graced their RV and on which I slept for a heavenly five hours that Saturday afternoon.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how anybody makes it through the whole week. Three days in a tent in the desert was certainly more than enough for me to taste the Burning Man experience. Perhaps my resistance to a longer stay is resentment because I did not personally experience that most meaningful of BM events. I am of course referring to the only BM that matters: the Bowel Movement. Ever since I ate at the Metropole hotel’s buffet in Vietnam seven years ago, my bowel movements have been as liberating as Operation Desert Storm. Nowadays, I can’t crap in a five star hotel when I’m on holiday, let alone the sweltering, Porta-Potty toilets that were our only option in this unforgiving desert.

Lack of BM aside, this was definitely one of the most intoxicating experiences I’ve ever had and I’m full of many conflicting emotions. Do I recommend it? Most assuredly yes. Would I do it again? Uhhh … let’s wait and see.

What is Burning Man? Well it turns out my previous post — which I wrote having never actually been there — is actually a pretty good starting point to understanding the Burn. Given that I like to think of my blog as a family blog, I’d rather not get into the specifics. Let’s just say that Hunter Thompson would have felt very much at home at Burning Man. Specifics aside, there are two things that make Burning Man very, very special in my mind:

• The overwhelming enthusiasm of its participants
• The harshness of the desert backdrop

The first thing I noticed at the Burn was an overwhelming atmosphere of (more…)

Last night, I performed at Yuk Yuk’s comedy club, as part of Amateur Night. I’ll let the video speak for itself, but on the whole I was happy with the result — particularly since it was my first time doing stand up. My biggest setback was that they cut me off before I finished my routine. I had gone well over the six-minute time limit. I was surprised that I’d gone over. I’d timed myself before I went on and thought I had exactly six minutes of material. But I’d forgotten to leave time for laughter. I guess at a subconscious level, I wasn’t overly ambitious.

I was extremely well prepared for the act. Not so much in terms of my material — or haven’t you seen my rehearsal video? No. I was prepared in terms of supplies. I had all sorts of nifty things in my man bag, just in case:

• A banana: If I got hungry — which I did. I ate it right before I went on. It helped absorb the three rum and cokes I’d drunk before my set.
• An extra pair of contact lenses: In case my eyes dried out and I lost a lens before I went on stage.
• Hair pomade: In case my hair suddenly went ‘bad” before I went on stage. Now that I’ve seen the video I’m wondering if I should have brought a stylist. Or a plastic surgeon; is my nose really that big?
• A small hand towel: I have no idea why.
• A fresh shirt: Just in case my nerves overcame my sweat glands. I didn’t want to go on stage with sweat patches under my armpits. That’s also the reason I chose to wear a vest on stage. Wool has great absorbent qualities.
• Two hundred bookmarks: To hand out after the show — which I did, with the kind help of my friends.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to be prepared. I grew up in a loving but overprotective household — always expecting the worst. Whether it was driving a bicycle on the sidewalk or ensuring that nobody slipped drugs into my hamburger at lunch, there was so much danger to be avoided. I think many of the unconventional choices I’ve made in my life were attempts to conquer my fears.

I’ve always had tremendous respect for stand-up comedians. I actually surprised myself by deciding to try it for myself. I didn’t overly dwell on the decision. I pulled the material for my routine out of one of my book chapters: “Too Big or not Too Big — That is the Question.” The chapter as a whole — at 2,500 words — would have easily run over twelve minutes — without laughter. I cut it to 1,200 for the routine. I practiced it for a few hours the day of the show.

I didn’t want to memorize my bit. I thought it would sound too rehearsed. But I also didn’t want to risk panicking and forgetting my material during my set. So I employed a standard memory trick I learned back in college — word association. You take words that you would normally easily remember and associate them with words that you are trying to remember. The more ridiculous the association the more likely you are to remember it. For instance, let ’s say you are trying to remember the word dolphin. You might take a familiar place — such as your apartment —and imagine yourself walking through it. You might then imagine suddenly seeing a dolphin in the toilet. It’s that simple. For each word you want to remember, all you need do is remember the path that you “walked” through the apartment. This memory tool has always worked beautifully for me. But it’s not working so beautifully for me right now. You’ll understand it after you watch my routine, but as I walk around my apartment, all I can see are penises.

If anybody wants to know how to lose weight fast, I’ve figured out a surefire method. I haven’t been able to eat a thing today. As promised, I’ve signed up for Amateur Night at Yuk Yuk’s this evening. I’ve got six minutes of material which I’ve adopted from my “Too Big or not too Big” chapter.

I decided to sign up this morning on the spur of the moment. I didn’t want to give myself too much advance notice. I’m nervous enough as it is. With more notice, I would only have been nervous for a longer period of time. I also figure, the less time I have to practice, the more authentic my final product will sound.

Do not think for a moment that my acceptance to Amateur Night is evidence of any innate talent I have for comedy. There was no interview process. Just about anybody who wants to get up on stage at Yuk Yuk’s can get up. What happens, happens. I’ve been to Amateur Night a couple of times over the last few weeks and I’ve seen some terrific crash and burns.

Why am I doing this? I figure I need exposure and one way or the other it’ll give me something to blog about. It’ll also give me a outlet to get rid of some bookmarks. I’ve got a couple of friends coming who don’t yet know they’ll be handing them out post-show.

Oh — and check out this video of me practicing. (more…)

In six weeks I turn forty. I’m not leaving my thirties without a fight. I’m meeting some friends in Los Angeles next week and we’re driving ten hours to Burning Man. Burning Man takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada and runs for seven days each summer. I’ve never been, but judging from the website, I’d say its Survivor meets Woodstock meets Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome meets the Museum of Modern Art. When I say it takes place in the desert, I mean it takes place in the desert. There’s nothing there when it starts and nothing there when it ends. Everything you need to survive you must bring with you. I’m bringing condoms and Honeycombs cereal.

Until recently, I hadn’t thought too much about turning forty. Thirty was a much bigger deal for me. When I was nine years old I saw the movie Logan’s Run. In this post-apocalyptic, futuristic sci-fi flick, all inhabitants are “renewed” on their 30th birthday. For some reason, this movie struck a chord with me, and over the years, images from it have occasionally flashed before my eyes. As my thirtieth birthday party approached, I had a flashback and remembered as a young boy thinking to myself, “executed at thirty - what’s the big deal? Who the hell wants to live past thirty?” Let’s just say that this particular movie memory dampened my party mood on the big day itself.

So here I am ten years later, still having somehow dodged the Sandman. Now, partying with my best friends at Burning Man may be a lot of fun, but the event takes place several weeks ahead of my birthday. Any residual good —uhhh — “feelings” will have already left my system by the time my fortieth birthday rolls around. Which leaves me in a quandary. (more…)