50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
So what are you doing on Saturday night?
I’ll tell ya what I’m doing…I’m performing with The Liquid Radio Players at the ACME Comedy Theatre!
I’ve posted about it before, so I won’t re-hash all the details, I’ll just encourage you to go and read them again.
Come on out and see us! You’ll be glad ya did!
I am really loving this.
How cool is this?!
For the record, I only drink beers that you can’t see through, but I really appreciate the sentiment 🙂
Did you see the Leonids over the weekend? Wow. I watched them from my backyard, and, even through the haze and light pollution of the city I was able to convince my step-kids that the world was ending, and it was their fault.
How about the Simpsons Sunday? I was so happy to see completely random, unresolved, bizarre shit back on that show. I loved Bart just digging that hole. Up there with “Forbidden Donut”, if you ask me.
Guess who’s going to see Tenacious D, Weezer and Jimmy Eat World?
Well, lots of people, because it’s sold out. But guess who has the coolest brother in the world, whose cool fiancee gave him her ticket?
Oh yeah, baby. Jeremy’s fiancee totally passed the torch.
One last thing: I wrote some satire for BBSpot, and Brian published it! Before you read it, please read BBSpot’s WARNING first:“BBspot is a satirical news and comedy source and meant to be funny. If you are easily offended, gullible, or don’t have a sense of humor we suggest you go elsewhere.”
Oh, and rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.
We had my Aunt Val’s memorial service yesterday. It was really wonderful. We had it at her son’s house. The whole family gathered in his living room, and we all just shared stories and memories of her. It was the most perfect memorial service I’ve ever been to. See, I think that a service should reflect the person you’re (or yr, if you’re a hipster) remembering. I’ve been to so many funerals and memorials, where they have little or nothing to do with the memory of the deceased…and I always leave feeling cheated. But I really didn’t feel that way. All of us, just sitting in the living room, remembering how wonderful she was, and how special she made each person feel…
My mom had asked me if I wanted to say anything, and I told her that I would, but I just didn’t want to say, “Me, too.” So I looked through my bookshelf, trying to find someone else’s words that I could use to express the dichotomy within me: I feel like I should have this debilitating sadness. My Aunt Val was so important to me, that I feel like I shouldn’t be able to do anything but sob and grieve over her loss…but when I think of her, I feel happy, remembering all the cool things we did together, and what a simply amazing woman she was…the only time I’ve felt that crushing sadness was last night. I woke up in the middle of the night, with a start, thinking “Oh my god. Aunt Val is really, truly, gone.” It took me close to 2 hours to fall back asleep.
So I’m looking through my bookshelf, and all I have is Shakespeare (too flowery) and Wilde (not exactly appropriate for a memorial)…then I see, tucked in between my “Tao Te Ching” and my “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran. It belonged to my Aunt Val, and she loaned it to me about 2 years ago. I remembered that it was so important to her, and I looked though it, to see if I could find something that was appropriate…and I did. I read the following, from a chapter entitled “Joy and Sorrow”:
Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
My Aunt Val was my delight.
Bill Hicks was one of the greatest comedians of all time. He is one of my greatest influences.
Disinfo has this great story about the man they called “the Nietzsche of comedy, the most legitimate social critic of the 1990s: a renegade messiah who tried to make people laugh, but usually ended up pissing them off, or drawing blank stares.”