Caskets & Charge Cards

I'm undergoing a few negative vibes at the moment. This is unfortunate because I should be highly elated right now. I finally got my camera ordered. It's a beautiful HD camera that comes with all sorts of gizmos including a tripod, lights, memory card, lenses and it's own carrying case. I got a great deal on everything for $2500. Right now I should be thinking about all of the fantastic videos I'm about to make but instead I'm thinking about how fucking broke I might end up being.

I love my job but I'm only making $8 an hour and 20 hours a week. That comes out to $160 a week, $320 biweekly, $640 a month without all the taxes getting taken out. I'm paying off this camera monthly at $200 a month. That leaves me at $440 a month. My free ride in Dave's house is over. I now have to start paying rent at $490 a month. That leaves me at -$50 a month. Now I need another source of income to cover food and gas. This also means I'm going to have to sacrifice some luxuries. I don't know how I'm going to decide all that. No more drinking and no more going to the movies for me. My dad said he would help me out but I really feel like I've got to do my best to get this done myself. I recently got some investment funds transferred over into my name but my dad stressed not to use that money because the market has bottomed out and has nowhere to go but up. Each account has $6000 and $27000 in it respectively. But this isn't money I can just pull out of the ATM. I can't imagine how quickly I would blow through it if I could. All of this number talk has already got my head spinning. I wish we would just switch back over to the barter system. I give great back rubs.

In addition to feeling like I have no money, I've got death on my mind. You know those people who say they aren't afraid to die? How do they know? Right now I can say I'm not scared but that's because the notion of dying seems impossible. I recently heard a story on the radio about a guy who killed a bicyclist in a car accident and wrote a book about it. I found the story touching but also haunting. It made me think about how it is so much easier to die than it is to live.

These feelings warped me back to a time in elementary school. We had a guest speaker. She had every one in the class do an exercise where you would wear a hand puppet and through the puppet you would express your greatest fear. I guess this was to prevent you from feeling embarrassed about saying it out loud. Going around the room, kids only said one of two things. Dogs and the dark. Finally, it got to me. I truly was afraid of the dark but I didn't want to say it because so many others already had. I was anxious about being called a copycat. My answer was drowning. My response derailed the exercise. Both the guest speaker and the teacher started to talk about how it was natural to be afraid to die. Them making such a big deal about the issue didn't soothe things. If anything it made me more anxious.

It's not as if death is all I think about now. It certainly became more real though. I wonder a lot about how I'll die. What it would be like if I died right now. How it would affect my parents. What would become of all my things. Whether there would be a memorial. How long until everyone would move on.

I don't think I'm being morbid. In fact, I say thinking about death keeps me humble. It keeps me appreciating what I have to live for.

"Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. And they grew next to each other. And every day the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and he would say, "You're crooked. You've always been crooked and you'll continue to be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!" said the straight tree. He said, "I'm tall and I'm straight." And then one day the lumberjacks came into the forest and looked around, and the manager in charge said, "Cut all the straight trees." And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange."

The Take

Today I check in talking about my identity. Not in terms of 'who am I' and 'where am I going.' I'm speaking in terms of who I am as a comic and what I'm trying to personify when I go on stage. I found myself first trying to discover the answer when I went to my film school interview at FSU back in the fall. I told them I did stand up comedy and one of the board members asked me what my take was. Take? I had never been asked that before. That was seven months ago and I still don't know the answer.

I came up with this explanation a few months ago. I am unassuming and I go into situations always expecting positive results. I put too much faith in humanity and get burned by it. Or perhaps I am a little too cocky sometimes and the world proves to be a much bigger and badder wolf than I thought it could be. This seems like a lot of words after you look at a successful comic like Lewis Black and realize his take is: We're All Fucked. Three words to sum up his act and he slays every where he goes. I'm not sure if my "take" is even really mine. I think of it as the bullshit answer you give on an exam just because it is slightly less embarrassing than turning in a blank sheet of paper. How about this for a take? I'm funny but I'm working on getting funnier.

Questions of my stage identity have woken in me after a conversations with my girlfriend and my good friend, JC. My girlfriend has been with well before I decided I wanted to be a comic. She already thought I was hilarious but more so because of my personality quirks. She doesn't understand why none of these quirks surface in my act. She thinks my act would go over better if I was able to incorporate them. The problem is my quirks are normal to me. So normal that I don't she the humor in them. Even when my girlfriend points out how bizarre I'm acting. For whatever reason I can't wrap my head around how to be more like myself on stage. Perhaps I should do something on stage to make me feel more comfortable. Something to help me not come off so forced.

JC told me about how I have a split personality on stage. I keep wanting Paul Brawl (my wrestling alter ego) on stage even though just Paul is probably funnier. He told me if I'm dying on stage, I tend to wait for Paul Brawl to bail me out. He does most of the time. But Paul Brawl doesn't want to be a comic. He wants attention and any kind of reaction he can get out of a crowd. What I've got to do is take his best qualities and put them in my act. I need his confidence but not his attitude.

To sum it up, there's a master plan for making my act unique. I've got the material and I'm a good writer. I need Paul the writer, Paul's personality quirks and Paul Brawl's confidence to come together like zords on the stage. But sonovabitch, that is much easier said than done.

"Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!"

Numbers Game

There is no greater feeling in the world than reassurance. (Please make note of this should I ever use this term again. Ex: 'There is no greater feeling in the world than disco tech.') This weekend was full of those things. I got to have a lovely evening out with my girlfriend, threw an awesome party for my friends, and I've been being put to use as a comic. The party was great because I had everything I'm living for right now in a close proximity. I also had seven beers and a four loko. Four loko is a drink I never plan on drinking sober, by the way.

The feeling of reassurance comes via knowing I have a very talented group of people at my disposal. The numbers are great and there is always power in numbers. I went home last week and talked with my father on acquiring the camera I've been wanting. I should have it by next month as soon as I get some credit debt taken care of. This camera will be the missing link in all my creative endeavors. I've got enough people to have a cast and crew and make some real films. Nothing would make me happier than to see TWO HALVES become a feature length film. Right now, I feel like I've got this block of wood and I can carve whatever I want out of it. I'm about to carve out some opportunities. The point I've stressed before is I don't need to go to film school to make films. I'm full of all sorts of ideas and Victor Hugo once wrote, "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

Going completely off topic, I hate rainy days. I hate people who say they like rainy days. (If you've ever petitioned to have class outside, I hate you too.) What is so great about a rainy day? Only fun things get cancelled on account of rainy days like picnics, baseball games, beach trips, white pride parades, etc. If I'm going to buy into this love for rainy days propaganda, I'm going to need rainy days to start ruining things that suck. If I got a call tomorrow from my boss telling me to stay home and play video games because it's raining then I'll be pro rainy days. Until then, grab yourself an umbrella and shut it.

"I don't scratch my head unless it itches and I don't dance unless I hear some music. I will not be intimidated. That's just the way it is."

My Destiny Infinity

This week marked my first week working for Destiny Infinity Financial Solutions. So far it has to be the best job I've ever had. No one makes me clean anything or asks me to carry something heavy. They ask me to make copies of documents and talk on the phone for most of the day. I'm even able to sandbag how hard I'm working by just staring at a folder for ten minutes while I think about new soup selections to submit to Chef Boyardee. (I've got a good feeling about ice cream pizza, especially if it is turkey flavored.) I get to leave every day at 3pm and I get fridays off. Where has this job been waiting for me all my life? I could probably get all of my work done by 1pm if I used my full potential but I'm trying to accumulate hours and make some money. Wrestling rings aren't free, folks.

Part of my many tasks is to update the company's facebook page. This involves posting on the everyone's wall. That let me get creative with it. I tend to go the silly route by personifying bad credit by explaining all of the horrible things I want to do to it like sodomy. But if they don't 'like' the comment without a matter of days then I threaten to unfriend them and update my status to say "Wendy Schlosser could pay her bills on time if she stopped spending so much money on black tar heroin." So call Destiny Infinity Solutions and sodomize bad credit.

"Bastard Son of Barney! Die! Die, stuffed ball of fluff! Illegitimate Teletubbie! Die, you Muppet from hell! Die, you foam motherfucker!"