Last night somewhat under the influence, I wrote, "I've found my voice onstage. It's taken me a few years to evolve/devolve in my comedy, but it's turned into a somewhat tired disdain for society and every day life. Irritable yet amused...that's where I find myself."
This came from having a decent set at open mic at the Velveeta Room, the same club and comedy night where I started over 12 years ago. My 6 minute set wasn't spectacular, nor did anything stand out about it that I can recall. What it was that really clicked with me was how I felt onstage and how I delivered what I wanted to say (which essentially was my strong distaste for bums).
"The only thing that separates me from a bum is a mailing address and 401k."
I spent the last year doing less comedy than I have in the past twelve years since I started in Austin. This was due to a number of reasons, mainly laying low after a felony DWI conviction with 5 years probation. It was also due to staying at home with Audrey vs going out all the time, and another reason would be the drugs.
I consider this time in my life to be one of my moments where I look at myself and ask, "Well, asshole, what do we do now?"
The only answer I have is to just keep being me. It's an interesting feeling to not particularly care for yourself that much and at the same time be glad that you're you and not anybody else because you think everyone else sucks.
"I may be an asshole but at least I'm not you." - The name of my first book.
I have a feeling this time in my life will be a defining moment. We all have these moments that shape our lives forever, where years from now we look back and point at it and say, "THAT'S the moment when everything changed for me" or "And that's when I gave up hooking" or whatever.
My biggest defining moment was the summer of 1995 when I worked at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center. I'm going to post a blog soon about that summer because I went there a nice religious college kid and came back 2 1/2 months later an agnostic, chain-smoking drunk with tattoos, blond hair, foul mouth and a chip on my shoulder.
Another defining moment would be when I finally divorced my ex-wife after two years of wanting to leave. The divorce itself was not the moment. No, what I turned into with the freedom from the divorce is the moment in this case. Oh boy did I turn into something.
And we have the me of today...bouncing back and forth from being a shut-in to being social again, from writing lots of material and blogs to writer's block, from no alcohol to immersing myself into an unhealthy alternative.
Regardless, I can't help but feel like right now is the beginning...I'm taking off from here and we're just going nowhere but up from here. We may not go much higher...we might plateau after a few few, but goddammit, we're not going down, that's all I know. Up, I tell you, up.
The purpose of this was to expand on those few words I wrote 24 hours ago...to try and explain what I was trying to say yesterday. I think instead I've made less sense and rambled like a drug-addled monkey on a typewriter trying to spell out what he wants ("banana") but instead typing "cigarettes", "cocaine" and "coffee".
"Poor Fucking Monkey" - The name of my first album.
Anyway, I've got some shows I'll be lining up over the next few months that I do plan on getting recorded and dumped onto the web. Hope to see all of your smiling and puzzled faces at one or more of them.
Ask Uncle Cranky is starting to take off, too. In a perfect world, people would start paying me to give them advice without sugar-coating it and then I can stop working in a fucking cloth-covered box 40+ hours a day assisting gamer nerds with their passwords...but until then, follow my ass on Twitter. Or here.
