In October of 2012, I helped produce a benefit show called Thirst: The No Round. The event was an evening of short plays performed in a bar. All profits went to Minnesotans United for All Families to help fight the marriage amendment that would change the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. (The amendment was defeated in November of 2012.) A lot of people believe marriage equality is a political issue. In my opinion, many of America’s current political issues are matters of simple human decency. This two-part monologue was my attempt to sum up some of my feelings about political activism, romantic relationships, and also Harry Potter. Enjoy.
CURSE OF KINDNESS: PART ONE
Excuse me! Hello! May I have your attention? My apologies for interrupting your meals and drinks. I realize you don’t know me. I’m just some guy in a bar. My name is James. There. Now I’m not some guy in a bar, I’m some guy named James in a bar.
Anyway, I was wondering if you would all be willing to join me in a toast? I would like to toast the concept of kindness. If you think kindness is a good thing, please lift your glasses and on the count of three join me in a toast. One, two, three–bullshit!
Kindness is bullshit! That’s right, I said it. I used a swear word right out loud in a bar. And I will do it again if I have to.
I’m sorry to be so edgy, but I’m a little out of control right now. I’m supposed to be getting married next week and I just had a horrible fight with the woman who may or may not still be my fiancée.
We’ve been together for a few years and we’ve never had a real fight. And it was starting to make me nervous, so I said, “Hey, sweetie, before we get married, I think we should have, like, a practice fight.”
She thought that was ridiculous. When I asked her why she called me a name. A horrible name. A vile, cultural epithet.
She called me a Hufflepuff.
By a show of hands, how many people here know what a Hufflepuff is?
It sounds horrible doesn’t it? Hufflepuff. It sounds like a noise an old British man would make when he’s choking on a crumpet. Hufflepuff. Or like a really lame drug addict. Like someone who tries to get high by sniffing Play-Doh or something.
But the true meaning of Hufflepuff is even more insulting.
For those of you who don’t know, a Hufflepuff is one of the four houses at Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as featured in the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling.
People who are in the Gryffindor house are brave. People in Ravenclaw are smart. People in Slytherin are evil. Hufflepuff is for EVERYBODY ELSE.
If Hufflepuff were real that’s where they would put the stoners and the dumb kids who try hard. Hufflepuff is the AV club of the Harry Potter world.
But the most common virtue of Hufflepuffs is that we’re supposed to be kind. Not surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of Hufflepuff characters featured in the Harry Potter story. Just Cedric Diggory. And do you know what he does? He spends about six hundred pages standing around being nice and then he dies.
That’s who my fiancée thinks I am. That’s what she thinks should go on my tombstone: “He was nice until he died.”
Do you know why that’s an insult? Because nice is a codeword for cute. When someone crinkles up their nose and says, “Oh, isn’t he nice?” what they’re actually saying is, “He reminds me of that puppy I had on my trapper keeper in seventh grade.”
Even worse, nice is a codeword for harmless.
No one respects nice people because kindness is a passive virtue. And I am done with that. I am done being a Hufflepuff. I told my fiancée that I was going to show her. I told her I was going to go out to a bar, get drunk, and go nuts in front of strangers.
Which is exactly what I have done!
Except for the drunk part. This is an O’Douls, so I’m not really drunk. But I do feel bloated and I have to pee. So, brace yourselves– because this Trapper Keeper puppy is about to urinate all over your minds!
Who wants it first?
Hey, you! Yes, you! I would like to confront you about an important, divisive issue that a lot of people feel pretty strongly about. I personally do not think that the Harry Potter films are as good as the books. What do you have to say about that?
DON’T ANSWER! I am going to tell you what I think! I think the movies are emotionless, tarted-up turds with too many special effects and not enough Dobby the House Elf. Saying you know the story of Harry Potter because you saw the films is like saying you know about current events because you watch Fox News.
That’s right, I just attacked Fox News. Does anyone here want to defend Fox News?
Wow! No one? Okay, that makes me feel a little better.
But how about this? I think people who hang their toilet paper under-handed are sick. They’re terrible, manipulative people. I believe strongly in an over-handed toilet paper hanging approach and I’m willing to stand up and fight for what I believe in. I will stand up and fight like a Gryffindor for people’s right to hang toilet paper over-handed!
And I will tell you something else–now that I hear myself say that out loud in a bar full of strangers, I’m realizing that perhaps my issue is not with you people but rather with my fiancée. My cruel, name-calling, underhanded toilet paper hanging fiancée.
So, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to go use the bathroom. Then I’m going to leave an inadequate tip at the bar to prove I can be as evil as a Slytherin. Then I’m going to go home and face my issues with my fiancée head on.
But before I go, I want to leave you with a good toast. I’m sure many of you here tonight are in relationships. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or celebrating your 50th anniversary, relationships are hell. So, I propose a toast not to kindness, but to something I believe is really universal in all relationships. I offer a toast….to bravery!
Now, where the hell is the bathroom?
CURSE OF KINDNESS: PART TWO
Excuse me! Excuse me! May I have your attention again? It’s me, James. You might remember me from earlier as the guy who was yelling about Harry Potter and the toilet paper.
Look, I just came back to the bar to apologize. I brought you guys a flower. It’s just one so you’ll have to share.
Feel free to pass it around or keep it for yourself depending on where your moral compass points. I’m not here to judge.
Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry for freaking out and yelling at you earlier. Also, I figure you guys have a right to know what happened when I confronted my fiancée.
So, I went home to yell at her about being so cruel as to call me nice. When I got home, she was sitting on the couch watching a movie. She was crying and eating ice cream out of a tub with a soup ladle because she couldn’t find any clean spoons.
And I was really angry. I was riled up from all that O’Douls I slammed and the movie she was watching was Prisoner of Azkaban—which is the worst Harry Potter film because they don’t even tell you why Harry’s patronus is a stag. And you just have to infer who Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail, and Moony are, and the Whomping Willow just moves locations. It’s so stupid!
I wanted to just scream and smash the TV, but I didn’t.
I went full Hufflepuff.
I sat down and I hugged her. I made the active choice to be kind. And I realized I’m not sick of being nice, I’m sick of the world acting like being nice doesn’t make a difference.
So, excuse my language, but dammit all to hell I am going to be kind. I am going to be actively, almost aggressively kind.
For example, on the way here, I tried to do as many kind things as I possibly could. I bought you guys the flower, I picked up some litter, I helped an old lady cross the street.
Technically, I tried to help an old lady cross the street. She was moving really slow so I came up from behind and took her arm and she hit me with her cane and blew this whistle she was wearing around her neck.
But! I apologized and clarified what I was trying to do. And she said thanks and gave me a piece of butterscotch candy. The kind of candy that I think just naturally grows in the purses of old women.
Anyway, I’m not here to stereotype people. I’m here to celebrate. Because I don’t want to spend my life being angry about what makes us different, I want to make the choice to celebrate the things that unite us.
Whether it’s over-handed or under-handed, we all use toilet paper. Whether you like the movies or the books, we all like Harry Potter. I accept that there are some people who just plain don’t like Harry Potter. Probably the same kind of people who like Fox News. But that’s not the point.
The point is—I would like to offer a toast. May I borrow someone’s drink? Thank you. Is there alcohol in this? Whatever, it doesn’t matter, I’ll deal.
Earlier tonight, I toasted the concept of kindness with sarcasm. Now, I would like to offer a sincere toast to all that kindness entails—empathy, understanding, love, and just general Hufflepuffery.
After all, what is the point of bravery if it’s not coming from a place of kindness? And so, you nice strangers in a bar, I offer a toast to the power of kindness. Cheers!
Now, I have to get home to my fiancee before she starts watching that piece of crap movie about dragons and formal dances that the producers have the audacity to call Goblet of Fire.
Thank you all and goodnight!
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my writing, check out other stories like this in my book Comedy of Doom.
Filed under Comedy Story
I’m a big fan of old horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. I also spend a hideous amount of time playing with my smartphone. This led me to think about what kind of story these masters of macabre suspense might write if they were alive today. Enjoy.
I would like to tell you a story about a terrifying, soul-sucking, life destroying thing that happened to a friend of mine.
He got a new smartphone.
My friend—whose name was Jonathon—was a huge fan of Apple. He once sent me an article saying experts predicted that the next iPhone after the iPhone 4 would be the iPhone 5. To which I responded, “Which experts are saying this? Counting experts?”
But the next phone was, strangely, the iPhone 4S and Jonathon dutifully lined up in the middle of the night to buy one. But while he was waiting, a small wizened old man with a crooked smile and bulbous eyes emerged from the shadows of a nearby alley. The old man wanted to sell Jonathon a knock-off iPhone called an itPhone.
Jonathon laughed and said no, but the more he played with the itPhone, the more amazing it seemed. So fast, so responsive, so intuitive as though the phone knew what Jonathon wanted even before he did. On an impulse, he bought the phone.
At first, he was thrilled. Jonathon’s phone was always the fastest. He was that annoying guy at the bar who could look up character actors’ names on his phone faster than his friends could remember them with their slow human brains.
But after a few months, Jonathon started having problems with the phone. One day, he called me and I was terrified. Because who the hell uses their phone to actually call people these days?
Also, my ringtone is the Wilhelm Scream. For anyone who is not familiar with the Wilhelm Scream, it’s a famous audio clip used in many films when minor characters die or fall from high places. It sounds something like, “oooWAAUHHHooohhh!”
Anyway, Jonathon was in panic about his phone.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“It’s…it’s haunted,” Jonathon said.
I asked for some examples of what this haunted phone was doing.
Jonathon quickly rattled off a list. “It keeps giving me the wrong directions! And it autocorrects all of my texts! And without asking me it keeps poking all my Facebook friends!”
“Yeah,” I said supportively, “That’s what phones do.”
“You don’t understand,” Jonathon shouted, “It took a picture of my junk while I was sleeping and sent it to my co-workers!”
“Well,” I said, “Was it a good picture? Tasteful lighting? Did it use an Instagram filter?”
“This isn’t funny!” Jonathon whisper-yelled. “It downloaded an app and I can’t delete it.”
“What does the app do?”
“It makes it so the phone screams if I stop touching it.”
I laughed and the line went dead. I almost called back but I really, really hate talking on the phone. It just seems so much easier to send a text, you know?
Anyway, I didn’t hear from Jonathon for a little while. But I assumed he was alright, because he was always online. He was very active on Facebook. And Twitter. And Google+. And Pinterest. And Reddit. And Tumblr. And Etsy. And Regretsy. Even LinkedIn. I admit, that gave me some pause.
Eventually, he stopped responding to tweets and texts, so I decided to make a personal sacrifice, stop everything I was doing, and call him on the phone like a savage.
The phone rang and rang and finally Jonathon picked up and said in a raspy voice, “Hello?”
“Jonathon. It’s me. I decided to call you. On the phone. Because I figured what the hell is a phone for after all?”
There was a pause. And then Jonathon cackled like a maniac for a solid minute. He followed the laugh by quietly saying, “LOL.”
That seemed redundant to me. Then he said something even more bizarre. He said, “No, seriously. Actual LOL.”
That just pissed me off.
I mean, LOL stands for laughing out loud. When you add the “actual” you’re just admitting that the majority of times you say LOL you’re lying.
But I digress.
Jonathon hung up and didn’t answer my calls after that. He started changing all of his profile photos. Strange, artsy shots of the corner of his jaw or just his eyebrow. Thankfully, never his junk. At least I don’t think so.
I emailed his co-workers and discovered he had stopped showing up to work weeks ago.
I decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. I decided to physically get in my car, drive through actual traffic to his home, and speak with him face to face. I even parallel parked. It was horrible.
When I arrived at his house, the door was ajar. I gently pushed it open and it screeched ominously. The house was a mess. Clothes, food, bottles, and papers everywhere. It looked like the home of the least organized serial killer in the world. I heard the soft mewling of a cat.
As far as I could remember Jonathon didn’t own any cats.
I followed the noise to the bedroom. There was a dim glow coming from inside the room. I steeled my nerves, peeked inside, and saw him.
Saw it.
Illuminated by the glow of the phone, it was clear that Jonathon had changed. He was shriveled and hunched. His tiny arms could barely support the weight of his hands. His thumbs were enormous and his fingers had developed into fine points. His hair had fallen out and his head had contorted to make more room for his eyes….his giant bulging eyes. His whole body was bent and angled as if it were being pulled into the phone.
His huge, bloodshot eyes seemed to strain out of the sockets as they stared at the phone.
Stared at cat videos on the internet.
I stood there, arms grasping the door frame to hold myself steady. “Hang in there,” I thought, “Hang in there like the cat on the motivational poster.”
Almost against my will, I heard myself saying, “Jonathon?”
Suddenly, his huge bulbous subterranean eyes locked on mine.
“You,” he croaked, “I know you from the Facebooks.” Then he reached out one of his tiny, pointed fingers and growled violently, “POKE!”
I ran out of the house, screaming and thinking to myself, “THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS IN PERSON!”
By the time I had run halfway down the block to my car, I began to doubt if I had even seen it. There was a phrase nagging at me, some traditional wisdom, handed down through the generations. Then I remembered.
The phrase was this: “Pics or it didn’t happen.”
I made my way back to the house. My trembling hands pushed open the door. It screeched again. This time there was no cat sound. I trudged through the debris to the bedroom door and looked inside. Jonathan was gone.
I began to explore the house, my heart lurching into my throat every time I opened a closet door or pulled aside a shower curtain. But Jonathon was nowhere to be found.
Then I heard something, very faint yet very close. Was it a cat? No, it was a scream. A repeated, muffled scream.
And I realized the phone call was coming from inside my pants.
Idiot.
I pulled out my phone, cursing my choice of the stupid Wilhelm Scream for a ringtone. I touched the answer button and held the phone to my head.
“Are you looking for me, Facebook friend?” Jonathon rasped.
“Yes, Jonathon, yes I am.”
“I’m in the bedroom.”
“No, you’re not, Jonathon. I’m standing in your bedroom right now.”
“I’m right where you left me. On the bed.”
I turned and looked at the bed. I gathered my courage, terrified that I knew what I was about to see, and I pulled the covers away.
Sure enough, there was Jonathon, his horrible face writhing with laughter.
Writhing inside his phone.
His pointed little fingers scratching the glass surface from the inside. He stared into my eyes and said, “END CALL.”
The line went dead and Jonathon’s phone went black. I left the phone there, raced to my car, and drove straight home.
Well, not quite straight home, I got lost and had to do a google map search, but the point is I never saw Jonathon again.
No one did. At least, not in real life. He’s plenty active online though. He always says YES to my Facebook invites, but he never shows up. So in many ways, he’s living a very normal life.
I’ve tried to tell mutual friends what happened. But they never believe.
After all, there are no pics. So maybe it really never happened.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoy my writing, check out other stories like this in my book Comedy of Doom or support me on Patreon. Thanks!
Filed under Comedy Story
John Moe, host of Wits, is obsessed with The Seattle Sonics, Sharon Stiteler aka BirdChick claims she is NOT obsessed with birds, and random audience volunteer Lee is obsessed with virtual pet-site Subeta. Joseph uses his sensitive voice, his high-pitched voice, and his Jack Bauer impression to interview all three.
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I was thrilled to be a special guest performer and honorary lady on the Ladies of Ragnarok tour. The titular ladies are singer/songwriters Molly Lewis, The Doubleclicks, and tour manager Dammit Liz.
I joined the ladies for shows in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison. What follows is a behind-the-scenes peek at the insanity.
When I met up with the ladies, the first thing they did was buy some uppers on the streets of Chicago.
Then we went for a ride in their van. They had a lot of duct tape in the back. It was like they wanted to kidnap people, but keep it lighthearted and fun.
They took me to visit a giant reflective statue that is meant to symbolize successful grant applications and tourism. It also looks like a giant space guy dropped his space burrito.
The function of the space burrito seems to be primarily photo taking. It emits a hypnotic suggestion convincing humans to take awkward bathroom mirror MySpace photos with half of Chicago in the background. I have no memory of taking this photo.
Then we met up with Bill Corbett and did a fun show. I told jokes about Star Wars, condoms, and poetry. I sold copies of my book Comedy of Doom. A man dressed as a pirate paid me with fifteen shiny dollar coins. He said nice things as well as “aaarr.”
Later, in my hotel room, I was disturbed by the CLEAN REMOTE. I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering how many businessmen had ordered dirty adult films using the clean remote.
We went to Minneapolis and did a show. I told jokes about James Bond, haunted smartphones, and mortality. We were joined by Kevin Murphy and a Velociraptor. (Kevin Murphy not pictured.)
Then, the ladies were guests on my podcast OBSESSED which will be out in a few weeks. After that we went to Madison and did a show with Dr.Noise. I told jokes about superheroes and bears and chatted with the audience about tacos. The show was held in a gaming room attached to a game store. The store had very severe rules.
We obeyed the rules and everyone was happy. There was also a man named Benjamin on the tour who had the job of dealing with all of the Velociraptor’s needs.
The photos above represent some of the finest photos I have ever taken. Like I’m probably going to take that big frame off the wall and swap out my wedding photos for these.
Thanks to the Ladies of Ragnarok for the fun shows, fun times, and, of course, the Velociraptor photo opportunities.
Filed under Comedy Trip
Random audience volunteer Barbara aka Courtney McLean’s mom has got it going on in this ELVIS obsessed episode. Courtney’s Mom also has a long and serious answer to the question, “What is happiness?”
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Recorded live at CONvergence 2012, Paul Cornell (writer for DC Comics, Doctor Who, and much more) sings the praises of Kate Bush! Bonnie Burton (Author, host of Geek DIY, Googly Eye fan, and much more) smashes everything with her love of Godzilla! Random audience volunteer, Amanda Nerud aka MsDemeanorMaven, body checks the mic on the topic of Roller Derby! Plus, a brand new OBSESSED theme by Molly Lewis!
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Singer/songwriter Jeremy Messersmith has a passion for hunting the mushroom. Joseph makes up meanings for fake words to justify playing them in Words With Friends.
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Comedian Lauren Anderson’s spirit animal is the noble, deadly, drunken elephant. Joseph imagines the horror of a president who “thinks like normal people.”
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For many years, I’ve been involved in a performing arts festival called The Minnesota Fringe Festival. There are many Fringe Festivals across the globe and while my plays have been produced at other festivals many times, I’ve never personally experienced another festival.
On twitter, I recently described the Minnesota Fringe Festival as a mash-up of vaudeville and an all you can eat buffet, but better.
The vaudeville aspect is easy to define. There’s comedy, dance, music, drama, storytelling, stand-up, and strange hybrids. Some year, I will attempt to combine every possible style of performing arts with a show called Mein Kampf: The Musical. It will have singing, dancing, storytelling, probably some mime, and it will be a comedy with moments of dramatic relief.*
The all you can eat buffet is a more bizarre comparison, but more accurate. The festival embodies all that I think is good, and a few necessary evils, in live performing arts.
There are something like 800 performances of over 100 shows. It’s impossible to devour it all. But that whole buffet is spread out in front of you, so you feel like you should keep loading up your plate. Some of the shows will be the best thing you ever tasted, others will be amazing delicacies that are not for you, and just a few will be food poisoning covered in a light Hollandaise sauce.
The sickness inducing plays are one of the absolute best things about the festival. Because the festival is non-juried, anyone can put up a show. A lot of the shows that are difficult to sit through are by young, inexperienced performers. The Fringe offers them a place to learn so the world can later have more awesome, experienced performers.
The first show I did at the festival was far from polished. I got cut in the face with a plastic battle axe while wearing a propeller beanie. I got blood on my hand and when I went to toss a fellow performer a rubber chicken, it stuck to my hand because of the band-aid I had sloppily slapped on my fingers backstage. It was not as entertaining as that makes it sound.
Early on, it was also not the most organized festival. One year, I got my cut of the box office directly from the festival producer. He handed me cash in Loring Park. If you are not from Minnesota know this: At the time, it was not unusual for an older man to hand a younger man cash in Loring Park. It was just not usually for doing a comedy show.
The festival is a well organized buffet now. Audiences stand in line for the beef stroganoff, passionately debating whether or not the macaroni n’ cheese needed sausage or if the meat just made the dish too flamboyant.
The performers and the audiences mingle as they rush from show to show and hang out at bars and restaurants. There is a sense of community, energy, and even urgency. After most theater performances, audiences shuffle quickly out of the theater to go hug their televisions and tell them they were missed. The direct connection between artist and audience at the festival is a powerful experience of the “live” part of “live performance.”
The festival has also had great success getting audience members to write online reviews. The vast majority of them are full of passion and excitement to share new discoveries and old favorites. Some are bitter debates. “It’s called MACARONI N’ CHEESE why is there f**king SAUSAGE in it?” A few are posted by straight-up internet trolls. Artists will find themselves chastised by people who don’t use their real names. We thank you for your incredibly strong, often factually inaccurate, and safely anonymous opinions, Butthead 27 and Theatre Luber.**
Again, the reviews are like a buffet. Some of them are delicious. Others are hard to digest but there’s no way for an artist to learn to stomach a coleslaw stuffed turkey dog without the practice.
The festival has been a big part of my life as a writer, performer, and comedian. It’s given me a place to experiment, succeed, fail, and succeed again. I’ve had a chance to interact directly with the audience, both onstage and off. I’ve met hundreds of other artists. I’ve drank thousands of beers with them. And a huge amount of my name recognition and success in Minnesota (and nationally as a playwright) is because of my performances at the Fringe Festival.
My show this year is a comedy about fear called Nightmare Without Pants. Over the years of doing the festival, I’ve learned what dishes I like to create as a writer and performer. It’s a comedy, but there is meat to it. It’s chocolate with chunks of bacon in it.
If you live in or near Minnesota, and that sounds intriguing to your palate, come check it out. And see as many shows as you can before the festival ends on Sunday, August 12th.
Gorge yourself until you are stuffed full of art, entertainment, and opinions about all of it.
Stay out so late drinking beer and/or pepto-bismol that your television starts to wonder where the hell you are.
Thanks.
*This is a joke. I will never do this. Hitler doesn’t deserve the press.
**These are not, to my knowledge, real reviewer names. I changed the fake names of people to other fake names to protect the probably not very innocent.
Filed under Comedy Trip, Uncategorized
