January so far
Sifting through all my false starts.
Earth date, 02, January, 2023: A short time capsule.
I have plans at the moment. I make plans fully intending to follow all of them. My subconscious wisely knows that I just made those plans with the full knowledge that most of them will be unfulfilled. But maybe by physically writing them down in my little planner I will have a shot at doing all of them? If that worked, I might start putting better or more ambitious items on the list. But then those might become “goals” and then those will definitely be destined for failure.
This week’s to do list is mostly boring prep stuff for my upcoming trip to Athens, Greece. I recently purchased a laptop with the intent of using it for my Twitch channel (Painting4sure) which I’ve had for several years but due to my fantastic ability to never get the right part to start doing it the way I want there is nothing there to see. My simple concept or “goal” in this case was to start a painting of a character and live paint once or twice a week, chat with people, and then auction off the finished piece. My computer already being sentient (and an asshole) disagreed with my plan. Every piece of equipment or adapter I bought was soundly rejected and I couldn’t even upload video I already made! I have many friends in the tech world, some with their own Twitch channels, and no solution to my Bermuda Triangle of tech savvy. My latest tech expert is my friend, Steve, who sold me the laptop I’m writing this on. I will be starting a new cult of Steve if he can get me through to the other side!
Along with today’s theme of putting my plans into word form before I do them. I find that I usually reflect and summarize a thing I did as opposed to say what I hope will happen or will learn from it. On Saturday my friend Annie will be hosting a comedy show at her loft. A comedian friend of ours does pop-up comedy shows wherever he can find. And he found Annie!
Last year when we were getting evicted we hosted one of his comedy shows the very night after we moved the last of our stuff out of our old space. There were about 8 or 9 comedians that performed. My new favorite Art Director showed up with the happiest dog and about 20 pre-rolls. She’s a big personality and quickly disrupted the whole thing between the pre-rolls and this bundle of happy energy barely contained in this dog form. I felt awful for the comedians. But as a whole it was a great way to leave the space! There happened to be two saxophone players in the audience to play us out that night.
4, January, 2023
Last night my friend, comedian Ray DeVito, hosted his monthly show at the Stand comedy club. I went to support my friend, also he put me on the guest list! I didn’t know who was on the lineup. Ray warmed up the crowd. I’m pretty sure I had seen everyone who came up on stage at some point in the past I just don’t know all the newer ones yet. The surprise appearance was Jim Gaffigan. He was working out a new bit I guess. It was awesome actually, as he riffed on religion and ballooning with his kids.
Next was Jessica Kirsten. I had never seen/heard her that dark before. She started out her time stating she didn’t feel like being on stage… but there was no follow-up punchline other than acknowledging that that was the worst way to start out telling jokes and making people laugh. She continued being real and lamenting being the breadwinner of her family. She’s on her 2nd marriage and has 4 children. She finally let us off the hook and gave us a punchline of relief. She embraced the idea that the right wingers think that gays and lesbians are coming to change all children to being gay and lesbian assuming everyone knew she was a lesbian married to another woman. Her entire time was intense and brutal! I wanted to give her a hug afterwards though.
Joe List went up after Jessica had destroyed us.
He was mistakenly introduced as Joe List who wrote and starred in “Born on the 4th of July” the Tom Cruise movie. He actually wrote and starred in “4th of July” a wonderful comedy centered around him visiting his Massachusetts alcoholic family and “coming out” as sober to them on their traditional drinking weekend. I personally liked it because there were many appearances by a lot of the comedians I’ve seen here at various clubs in NYC over the last 20 years. Joe worked being mistaken for Tom Cruise all the time throughout the rest of his time. He was amazing even though he started out lamenting he had to follow Jessica!
I feel so fortunate to be in NYC and have access to so much comedy. At the bar afterward having a beer with Ray, Janeane Garofalo was walking past us and Ray said hello so she stopped to talk with us for a minute. It was so cool to be able to just hang out and talk with someone you only knew from seeing them on stage and screen.
Earth date: January, 2026,
I’m continuing my confrontations with the deadlineans. A rigid bunch. Always making demands for work done by a specific time… or else! They come in all shapes and sizes. One is comic book sized and demands pages as soon as possible. Another is demanding that some tile work get finished in the kitchen. After a run in with the electrical race, the deadlineans now want all the walls and ceiling destroyed by the conflict restored back to their former glory. The comic book creatures are always lurking and making new demands but seriously, coffee first.
