Daily Joke 2 - Staying Healthy

Could transition from "Fat Kid" routine: 

Since I've grown up I get a lot of advice from people, but I'm so confused with all the advice I get as to what advice to take and what advice to ignore.  

Everyone has something to say about nutrition; "don't eat so many carbs," "don't eat so much fat."  Well what the hell do I eat, then?!  Everything, other than fuckin' air has either a carb or a fat in it,. 

There was a lady in my last work office that would always tell me that I need to drink less diet soda, because it puts weight on people.  This lady was probably 300 pounds.

Now don't get me wrong: I don't have anything against her because she's fat.  I'd be a real hypocrite if I did that, because I used to be a porky little shit when I was younger because of [Skittle Soup Bit].  

The thing I have a problem with is how cake-zilla figures she can give me dieting advice even though whenever she goes jogging she gets chased by bawdy Australians with dart guns?  Thankfully she jogs only when the planets align...oh God...2012...

People like that, who give advice even though they have absolutely no right or reason to, befuddle me to the ends of the earth.  This lady giving me unsolicited dieting advice is like a criminal who is wanted for murder telling a kid not to jay walk or he might get in trouble. 

Daily Joke 1 - Back in the Day

Starting today I'm going to bang out at least one joke a day.  This may be a one-liner, or it may be a full bit.  Some days I may figure out a one-liner and then try to develop it, later, into a bit.  I know a guy who used to, in an effort to become a better photographer, take one "Photo of the Day" (PoTD).  He eventually found a stupid fiance and stopped trying to take decent photos.  He would still put up a PoTD, but it would usually be of whatever knife he bought, or a gun, or ammo.  It was lazy.

A lot of my daily jokes will be bad.  I'm not doing it to amass a repertoire of jokes I can throw around, but more so to try to actually figure out my writing style, refine it, and just generally always try to come up with something better.

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"Back in the Day":

On the tops of most people's "what I couldn't live without" lists, is probably the internet.  Google, wikipedia, facebook, twitter, to name a few, are things that have become as commonplace as cars.  The internet is something that kids will grow up having, something that companies and people use to make their lives infinitely more convenient, and something we are starting to take for granted.  The internet has revolutionized how we learn and share information.  It has opened doors for endless opportunities.  For example:

*building expectation*

Has anyone ever seen An Officer and a Gentleman?  Richard Gere is in it, and it is about Officer's Candidate School.  I LOVED that movie.  I got my hands on it when I was 10 years old.  It was one of those movies that I discovered before I could really understand it, but I thought it was amazing anyway.

*pause*

If I had had the internet when I was 10, I wouldn't have had to wear out the tape by rewinding that one awesome minute-long sex scene over and over and over again, and then explain to my parents, later, why it is the only part of the movie that no longer plays correctly.

If I had had google, I could have loaded up my computer after watching that scene over and over and over again, typed "inexplicably stiff penis" into the search bar, and known what the hell a "boner" was.

If I had had wikipedia, I could have learned about the multiple uses for a boner, so I'd of been able to figure out jacking off before I was 18.

If I had had facebook I could go friend the actress in that movie so I could stare intently at her pictures at 3am until the delirium and lack of sleep makes me think I can see her nipples.

And if I had twitter: I could take all my newfound knowledge and tweet about my boners, becoming one of the many people with things so urgent that they can't wait to be shared with the world.  My 10 year old tweets would be every bit as crucial as most of the tweets done TO THIS DAY.

-------------------

I might develop this joke in other ways in the future.  Like, rather than being that adult that says "back in my day kids had respect" I can say something like "back in my day kids had to deftly steal their dad's nude-y magazines when he wasn't home."

Losing My Job

I spent my previous Friday getting fired.  It was on the agenda eventually.  Invariably I leave all of my jobs because I'm not happy with them, but as I grow older I find that I don't have as much time to waste, and my performance got ahead of my nature.  In truth I didn't do my job poorly, as funny as it would be to joke about it.  I became the victim of office politics and a fragile ego.  These things happen.

Friday was rough.

I spent a lot of time thinking about why I got fired, and about the firing itself.  I didn't have any trouble figuring out who I should contact as soon as I got fucked though, and that was very comforting.  My weekend-of-suck continued on by me finding out, on Sunday, that I have to pay the government 3,700 dollars in federal taxes, and 366 dollars in state taxes.  It's cool, finding out immediately after you get fired that you owe lots of money.  That is Charlie-Sheen-Drug-Money.

Sunday was worrisome.

I have my best friend Birk to thank for cheering me up on Sunday.  We ate chips and drank beer.  Played some Rock Band.  I really miss that game.  Birk had work to do but made the time, anyway.  I really appreciated that.

Yesterday, and today, I don't feel so bad about it.  It's odd, even to me, but I feel more or less fine.  I owe money, but I can pay it back over time, and I can find another position.  I'm even giving myself a week to get completely settled and make sure that this isn't just me being out of touch with reality.  I'm often out of touch with reality, and its taken 25 years but I've learned to preempt myself.

Today is aiiight.

My comedy promoter (well, lots of people's) Dave has been taking great steps to cheer me up.  All of these cheer-ups revolve around mentioning that there are loose women that I can fuck.  He also mentions "with your no doubt huge cock."  I cracked-wise that "you know me all too well; nothing brings a smile to my face like becoming the first in a long line of mistakes of a young impressionable girl."  He has helped, though.  His ill-thought-out jokes about the situation make me see that this can be something that I can joke about, and that if it were truly dire, I wouldn't be able to.

I don't want to talk about the job-loss when people try to cheer me up.  Really, at this point I don't want to be cheered up.  I've told the story to so many people, and gone over it so many times, that it is just best to not even think about it outside of jokes that I might make about it.  Its not that I can't handle talking about it, or that it makes me feel bad when I do, but I hate explaining the same thing over and over again.  It's a pet peeve, and a big reason that I wouldn't be a very good teacher.

Tomorrow will be good.

Valentine's Day

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Order for Sunday, 1/09/2011

-End of Holidays/Christmas Time

*MAYBE do the cold-out-here bit, but limit it to a quick one-liner: "That's a pretty lazy way to have a conversation, and it would be great if it worked for stuff that wasn't the weather.  Say you're on a date to a movie theater, and a daycare for the mentally handicapped has gone on a field trip there, and they sit right next to you.  You're blanking on what to say to your girl, so you say: 'man, it sure is retarded in here!'"*

-"Speaking of retards: I was reading about Justin Bieber, recently..."

-"I've often fallen into the 'friend zone' and had to listen to my female friends talk about how frustrated they are with whatever guy they are after at any given time.  Because I love dealing with drama without any of that troublesome sex getting in the way.  Much like how I love vomiting when I'm sober.

They meet some guy in the gym, or at a bar, and I always hear the same thing: 'why are men so difficult to understand?!'  Like we are masterminds that speak in riddles.  They build these guys up like they're so terrifically complicated.  I'd like to take this opportunity to dispel this rumor that men are intricate like grand pianos. 

We are not like grand pianos; exquisite, refined, and difficult to learn.  Ladies: men are like harmonicas; simple, cheap, and if you blow in one end, sound comes out the other."

-"I shouldn't be too critical, since I'm not very good with women, myself..." *Do the "didn't kiss a girl" bit and the "baseball bat" bit.*

If I have any more time after that, I can dip into older stuff.  Facebook is always a good go-to.

Next couple o' Shows

So I signed up for a show on Sunday of this week, and then the 11th, next week.  I thought: "for sure, if I sign up for the show this Sunday, I'll rally and do a lot of work on my set, and have some new jokes."  Ha-ha, well I'm a retard and only have two.  I definitely want to use the Christmas bit, since it's brand new.  I like new, conversational stuff.
My biggest problem with the last show that I did was that I wasn't really speaking with the audience, I was speaking at the audience.  Reading from a script is no fun, especially if you're there to be a part of a conversation.

The Justin Bieber bit is going in there.  I like it a lot.  It's quick, non-committal, and topical.  I'm a big fan of all these things, since I have very little time on stage, and I have to make sure that either a. a bit lands, or b. a bit is easy to shrug off if it doesn't land.

Ideally I'd like to lay off of my "old" material for the majority of this performance tomorrow, and the one on Tuesday.  I think keeping stand-up fresh for me is even more important than keeping it fresh for my venue (both matter, though!).  If I don't get a kick out of doing it, then I'll lose my motivation.

------------------

"So recently I was in the market for some porn on the internet, because I'm classy, and I came across an oriental porn titled: 'Korean Schoolgirl Fuck.'  I liked it: simple, to-the-point, not much room for interpretation.  The comments section was three pages long, and it was nerds arguing about whether she was Korean or Japanese.  It contained such riveting arguments as 'I watch a lot of anime, and therefore I recognize the Japanese language present in this video.' 

Someone followed that up with 'I'm asian and I take offense to this. We do not all look alike, whoever posted this video is a racist.'
At first I thought that disputing something as silly as this on a video that was made in someone's basement in Asia is a bit silly, but then I thought more about it, and I realized: 'what am I thinking?  Do I have no standards?'

I for one am elated that someone drew attention to the girl's nationality. As a gentleman of porn, there is no way I could jerk it to an improperly labeled video. The entire time I'd feel filthy, like I was debasing myself and doing something people would think is gross.

What sort of pervert would I look like if someone was on computer and found mislabeled porn in my meticulously organized porn database?  What if some anime enthusiast loaded this up, hoping to see some sweet Korean porn, and a Japanese girl was the one they were laying pipe on?  They'd think to themselves 'I thought this guy had an English degree, this is sloppy work.  As a professor of anime I give this labelling a C-.'"

Getting Caught

Getting caught masturbating is a lot like waking up from a good dream. 

You've got completely unrealistic things floating around in your head, and right before the good part, you're cut off. 

It's impossible to jump back into that dream after you wake up.  Just like it's impossible to finish jacking off after your dad sees you with your pants around your ankles. 

And if someone sees you afterward and you're in a foul mood, you really can't tell them why.  It's really difficult to give a shit about: "oh I was just about to start flying in my dream and I woke up," if you weren't the one there.  Much like how "well I was about to splooge to some big booty bitches, and my dad saw me," carries little-to-no weight with anyone. 

Christmas Time

So we just made it through another holiday, did everyone have a good Christmas and New Year? 

I had a great Christmas; I got everything I wanted, and I really nailed it with the Christmas gifts that I gave to people this year.  It always feels really good to know that you got someone something they'll really like even if they didn't tell you what to do.  It's like solving a puzzle, or giving a deaf girl an orgasm.

(Hopefully there are no deaf people in the audience.  Hopefully also that if there are, that they are legitimately deaf and not pretending to be deaf because they know women love that.)

Sometimes this goes over fine.  Like when someone gives me something *I* really wanted but didn't ask for, I say: "oh wow, yay, I really wanted this."  However, sometimes your relatives make you feel kind of bad for buying them the gift that you did.  We've all heard: "oh, you shouldn't have."  Usually you can brush this off and say: "oh, you're worth it," or "yeah, I know, you're a terrible family member."

My grandmother doesn't let that sort of thing go, though.  I gave her three swanky gifts this year, and she said: "you are too generous!" 

Which is true; I am very generous.  You ask me for a dollar, I give you three.  You ask me for a cigarette, I will give you a birthday cake.

I said to her: "no, you're worth it."  Right?  That should be it.  My grandmother, with the coup de grace: "Oh, Matthew, you can't spend so much on me; you're a young man just getting started, and I'm an old woman on her way out."  Let me say that again, in different words: "Matthew, don't buy me gifts; I'm going to die."  Merry Christmas, and also: headshot.

Now I see the nobility in being selfless, but to pull out a bomb like that on Christmas puts me in a really awkward position.  I just have to kind of chuckle and say "ha-ha, I hope you like them."  Because I can't say: "oh, you're right, here, let me take those back." 

What would I tell the salesperson if I brought them back?  "Hi, yeah, sorry I'm bringing these back.  My grandmother really likes them, but she'll probably be dead soon, and I can use this money on gas and cheeseburgers." 

Fuck it's cold!

Help me trim this down.

----------------

"Woo!  It sure is cold, isn't it?"

I hear that a lot when people have nothing else to talk about, this time of year.  Picture this: you're at a bus station: it's just you and an old lady who is waiting for a bus, because it is a bus stop.  What else would she be doing at a bus stop?  Hooking?  Selling meth?  Don't over-think it, you guys, I'm making all this up.

You have nothing to discuss, but it's awkward to stand next to old people and listen to nothing except for the chilling silence of them slowly dying, so you say: "whew, it's cold out here!"  She agrees.  BOOM: you have communicated.

Not really, though.  It's like the illusion of communicating.  Like telling someone he is a person and having him say: "shucks, you're right."

(Say "it sure is seated" or some crap to the audience)

If only this conversational method of identify-something-obvious-and-then-describe-the-immediate-area-with-it worked for anything.  Like saying "woo, it sure is athletic out here" at your kids' boring soccer game, or "golly it is delicious in here" during an awkward date at a Chuck-e-Cheese between two 25 year olds.

Unfortunately, this method can turn on its owner faster than that horse turned on Christopher Reeves.  Too soon?  I'm being edgy up here, and I'm pretending "up here" is 1995.  Relax, he isn't here.

Example:  you're at your job at a school for mentally retarded kids, school's out, and you're waiting for one of the teachers to give me a ride home because I can't afford a decent car and my degree is useless.  Anyway!  You have to wait in the classroom, you're bored, so you look at the guy next to you and say "whewf!  It sure is retarded in here!"

One example is never enough.

Say you're lying in bed next to some troll that you just slept with while under the influence of alcoholic b-e-v-e-r-a-g-e-s.  You have very little to talk about, because she won't be interested in hearing about the mistake you made five minutes ago, and you have no interest in pie or Edward Cullen.  So you stretch out and say, "wow isn't it unfortunate looking in here."

 

2011 is my year

I didn't make a New Year's resolution to start being a better comedian, or to update this blog more often.  My New Years resolution was to stop jerking off to pictures of car wrecks.  Ha-ha, kidding: resolutions are for faggots.  If you didn't have the motivation to enable yourself to change before January 1st, you sure as shit aren't going to be able to affect any meaningful change post January 1st.

Bring on the mangled bodies, because I'm horny and want to crust a sock.

I'm fresh faced after leaving my position with a certain wireless carrier, and I think that the life change will help me write more.  As evidenced by the fact that I've cleaned my room, and am no longer wallowing in the filthy shambles of my neglected hobbies.  I've been going to the gym a lot more since my job ended.  I know what you're thinking: "why am I reading this?"  And hopefully as an accessory to that: "you're probably going to the gym because you have nothing else to do since you're jobless."  Well, you're half right; I don't have much else to do, but I've always had enough free time to do what I wanted in the evenings and on my days off.

The problem was that regardless of what I was doing, I felt like I was wasting my time.  I dreaded going back to work so much that I figured all that I should do when I wasn't there was maximize how much I unwind, so that the next time I walk through those doors, I wouldn't want to murder someone.  My hobbies became burdens, my fitness became an obligation, and I didn't really take much joy in anything.

Granted, all I did was work retail, and some people don't mind it.  Some people enjoy getting to work with new people every day, even if each and every one of those people are intolerable.  Some people would be completely cool with a two hour round-trip to be at a place they can't stand.  Some people have the patience to deal with crap they don't care about.  Some people don't have the luxury of being particular about what job they work and whining about it on the internet.

I am not one of those people, and regardless of how much of a bitch I sound like, the bottom line was that I was genuinely unhappy.  It's difficult to make any positive changes, much less write comedy, when you get home livid every night.  I can attest to the truth of that statement firsthand.  It doesn't mean much coming from me since I'm the source, though.  Like if Jeffrey Dahmer said: "I sure didn't rape and murder people, you can believe me because I was there when I wasn't killing them."

When you hate where you are, the best strategy is to change where you are.  Derp derp.  I didn't change where I was in the smartest way.  I quit my job before I had another one lined up.  It's foolish, and it's unjustifiably the wrong way to handle things.  It has done wonders in making me happier, however.  For the first time in a long time, I've wanted to write, a lot.  I couldn't think of a better thing to do tonight after I exercised and showered than writing in this blog (except maybe save Virmire from Saren but sorry dawg I got home too late!).

I may get a job at my alma mater, shortly.  I find out this upcoming week whether or not I got it. I really hope that I do, because it will be a cunt punch if I don't.  But even if I don't, it won't be the end of the world.  2011 is going to be a good year for work, and a good year for comedy, because it has already started off great.  I sure am glad I wrote this for two, at most three people.  I include myself in this number.

Happy new year, you homos.  Hopefully it stays that way.

Getting Organized for 12/10

This is a placeholder for the jokes I plan to use at Timeout Sports Bar and Grill.  I'm also going to be writing at least two new ones expressly for the show!  I'm going to be doing this DURING WORK tomorrow because I have to wake up at 5am!

Competitive here too? fuuuuuuuuuuuu

It never fails: I always wind up being hyper-competitive in something that I do.  I blame my self-worth as a child being defined by how much I can win at whatever sport I'm playing in whatever sport-season.  Most of the compliments I received when I was younger revolved around winning or competing in something.  Don't get me wrong, I know how messed up this is, but it's a tough conditioning to shake.

One of my peers in stand-up has been far more proactive than I have about getting his face out there, and as a result has been invited to do stand-up in New York venues, and has been meeting popular comedians, there.  It feels like he is starting to take off, and all I'm doing is pithy shows in Baltimore and DC.  I need to step things up, here.

This comic's name is Ben Rosen, and I have performed alongside him twice.  Prior to even doing stand-up for the first time, I went and watched all the videos of prior performers at Magoobys, just to see what my competition was like.  He was the only one that I was remotely concerned about at the time.  After performing next to him twice, and drinking with him once, we established a tacit rivalry.  In that we both started cold-turkey and were immediately accepted into the Baltimore scene as rising talent.

I want to be better at stand-up, because it is what I want to do.  More than that, though, I want to be better than Ben Rosen.  I think I already am, I just have to make more people think that, also.

Cashing In

I was recently online reading about Justin Bieber, because I'm looking to be topical and really capture the 14 year-old-girl demographic in my audience.  And it turns out Justin Bieber and I have a lot in common!  Ha-ha, no: we don't both have vaginas!

We both always look confused regardless of what we are doing.
We both have caught every pokemon imaginable.  I'll sign autographs after the show.

And we both like making money.

Justin Bieber, and I am not making this up, is releasing his own line of nail polish.  I can think of fewer masculine actions than that, you bunch of naysayers.

He is calling his range of nail polishes: "One Less Lonely Girl."

Which is nuts, since I was in the process of marketing a collection of nooses with that exact same name. 

Now I can't release that collection, because someone stole my title!  But I'm a man who can appreciate irony, and I think it's a little funny that I'm leaving my customer's hanging, heh.

The Truth, all of it

TheTruth is an advertising campaign that makes all those informercials which go out of their way to convince people that tobacco companies are evil and making products that kill them.  You all may be most familiar with the Shards of Glass commercials.

They're pretty looney, because people know what will happen if they smoke, but they do it anyway.

If you made tons of commercials about cinnamon rolls making you fat, and there were warning labels on every box of cinnamon rolls that said: "Surgeon General's Warning: Consumption of Cinnamon Rolls may lead to crippling fatness," I would still eat a pack a day.  Consequences be damned, they're delicious.

I'd pass by all the posters and billboards that have a picture of some blimp with cinnamon buns rolling out of his hand as he wallows in a gutter.  The message: "1 out of 4 cinnamon rollers suffer from chronic unattractiveness and sugar lung."

I'd like to fill you in on some of the hard-hitting facts that theTruth uses to get people to quit:

17.5% of white U.S. high school students smoke cigarettes.

9.9% of African American high school students smoke cigarettes.
10.8% of Hispanic high school students smoke cigarettes
6% of Asian American high school students smoke cigarettes.

It looks like white people need the most help looking cool, thank you truth.com
I can make that joke, I have white friends.


Nicotine has been found in the breast milk of animals exposed to tobacco.
If I hung out with a smoker and tested my breast milk, only to find traces of nicotine in it, the nicotine would not be my chief concern.

Innuendo

I was opening a box for a customer, recently, and before I opened her merchandise for her, I said: "I'd better get a razor for this; I don't want to mangle your box."  My co-worker next to me started laughing.  He said "yeeeeah, you mangle lots of boxes because you're so rough."

Now I didn't know at this time that a "box" actually means a woman's eye-socket.  In which case yes I have turned a lot of "boxes" in my time.

Ever since then, this co-worker has been constantly taking everything I say, and turning it into some kind of innuendo:

-"You have to turn on the phone for me to transfer the contacts."  He'd say: yeeeeah, you know all about turning things on, don't you, sir?

-"I'm going to go stock the cabinet."  He would interject: you're awesome at "filling up" things right?!

-"If this phone had an asshole, I would tear it to shreds by cornholing it without lubricant."

Stuff like that I mean seriously?!  Nothing sexual at all about any of that!

Friday, October 15th

I will be doing my first show at a club that is decidedly not-comedy.  I honestly expect this to be the biggest bomb of all time.  I will have to do 15 minutes of time before a band without that big of a following goes on.  Who knows what sort of people will be there, from all different demographics?  I know what most of them will be, though: drunk as shit.

Don't get me wrong, drunk is can be a double-edged sword for a comic.  On the one hand: everything I say will be funnier than it otherwise would have been if the drunk audience is receptive to me and my jokes.  On the other: if the drunken crowd is not receptive to me and my jokes, they will be far more verbal and ruthless about it. 

Whenever I have been at a music club waiting for a band to go on, and bear in mind that I'm the least patient individual on the face of this fucking planet, I get pissed when the band is delayed, or the band could go on, but don't.  When I'm drunk, and I get pissed about something trivial, I am more of a dick about it than I otherwise would be. 

Bottom line: I doubt people will give two shits about comedy, and I will probably get my shit heckled to bits.

I think that this is a good thing, however.  Of all places to get booed off the stage, a punk/metal music club is not one that will leave a lasting blight on my stand-up career.  If the club hates me and never wants to see me again then that is completely fine; it's a music club that probably has never had stand-up there before.  The showing will be tiny, I'd suspect, so only a few people will think to themselves: "what a waste of my 15 minutes, I could have been dropping a deuce or trying to fuck some bald chick."

I don't want to bomb, I've made that abundantly clear.  I will do all that I can to make this a successful show.  I plan to attempt to work the crowd in this room, because otherwise I'm dead in the water.  A crowd like this, at the time I will be going, needs to have you remind them that you exist like every 20 seconds.  I know, because I've drank with this sort of crowd after this band's shows, and they pride themselves on how "raw" they can be at all times.  Good for them, I don't.

I want to talk about customer service

Hello I want to talk about customer service.  I want to talk about customer service, because there are few instances in my life I can remember where I can walk into a room, be instantly uncomfortable, but not be able to pinpoint the source of it.  When I walk into a retail store, it is a race between what is going to ruin my day first: the customers I have to talk to, the coworkers that I hate, the management team I can't stand dealing with, or new company policy that was seemingly generated by a retarded kid after he was spun in circles on a playground for six hours.

I can't talk about this for stand-up comedy, though.  You know why?  Because I would have a really difficult time making people relate to how much we all suck.  I would in essence have to stand on stage and say: "hey fuck-ups, did you ever have a time where you were a huge fuck-up and ruined some innocent person's day because you felt entitled?"  Then the whole audience would be lost while I hurf durfed my way through some angry diatribe about retail.  Here is that diatribe:

Screwed if you do, screwed if you don't.

I had developed this awesome coping mechanism of "not giving a shit" when I sold things.  The whole, like, "I'll give it my all, but if my all doesn't work, I'll relax and let it be."  But when I do that, the management calls me into the office and says "hm, well you know we have noticed that you're not Mr. Happy-go-lucky anymore, can you tell us why that is?"  I don't know, it could be because I'm in a professional environment, being identified by management as "Mr. Happy-go-lucky?"  And it was announced like they had uncovered some grand espionage by me.  I would walk into work everyday looking like the most depressed guy on earth for six months straight, and they finally decide "hey folks, maybe something is up here?"

They are keen, so very keen.  I can't slip anything past these people.  I tried really hard to conceal the rain-cloud that was following me around by wearing one of those fuckin' bearskin grenadier hats that a british royal guard wears, and I only polished my suicide-revolver during my break, but somehow they were still able to figure it out that I wasn't too happy.  Even my more subtle indicators like attempting to relocate to another store for five months while simultaneously requesting certain shifts on certain days that would make my life a hell of a lot easier.

I can't imagine a person choosing this life, which is probably why they look miserable most of the time, as well.  It could be that, or maybe it is the constant stream of shit-kickers that walk through the doors high on the idea that if they have a bad experience, they are allowed to treat other people like dirt.  "My [whatever dumb shit I bought] doesn't do [whatever dumb shit I expected it to do] and because of that, I am entitled to take my anger out on you."

I get tired just ranting about it, I can't imagine someone enjoying jokes about it.

  

Illusions Setlist

Opening:


-"So I know people usually do magic, here, so I'd like to stick with the theme, and for my next joke, I am going to make my sex appeal DISAPPEAR."
-"Hey everyone, how's it going? Neat. I am Matt Caron and I am new to stand up.

-"I'm more nervous now than I was..." has to stay. It got laughs.

-"Similarities/someone laughed" is good.  I'm expanding it, however: "thank you for laughing at that joke, by the way; it went over really well with my test group...which was my grandma.  She said 'oh Matthew that is funny because it is true!'  And I said, 'you're an asshole, grandma.'"

-"She was correct, though; she was there when it happened.  And just so you all are aware, there is nothing that downright slays a boner quite as much as your grandmother walking in on you as you make out with an invisible person."

Start Segment: Relationships

-"Who here has ever been dumped?" Is staying. If the audience doesn't respond as loud as they did at Magooby's then I'll need a different line than "woah, it's a room full of losers."

If I get nothing but indifference I'll probably run with: "Maybe you all misheard me; I didn't ask: 'who wants to see me naked, I asked 'who here has ever been dumped.'"

-"I was recently dumped, and I could see it coming, because she was sending me those subtle signs that you women send.  Signs like starting every conversation with 'I dreamt that I cheated on you.'"

-"I don't blame her for dumping me because I would ruin potentially sexy moments pretty much habitually, as you all are no doubt aware, by now."

-One time we were making out, right, we were kissin'--this guy knows what I'm talkin' about--hi5, man. I don't know how to high five really well because I'm uncool."

-"She asked me to talk dirty to her, and that's not something I'm usually comfortable doing, because I feel like I'd really fuck it up. You know, she'd say something like 'tell me the craziest thing you'd do with me,' a-and that is my impression of her she sounded just like me it was eerie, and I would just zone out and answer honestly: I'd be like 'oh my God, baby, I would...burn down a Hollister."

-"The moral of this story is that honesty ruins relationships."

-"I'm not very good at relationships because I got kind of a late start. I didn't actually kiss a girl until my senior year of high school..."

"I caught on to kissin' pretty quick though. I was the Luke Skywalker of making out. By the end of my senior year I was bullseyein' fat chicks resembling womp rats no wider than two meters. That's a little private joke between me and everyone else who isn't getting laid tonight."

End Segment: Facebook

-"Anyone here use facebook, anybody, facebook? Cool."

-"Facebook has been getting a little annoying to me lately with all of its suggestions everytime I log on. 'maybe you should friend such and such,' or 'reconnect with such and such,' or the similar-hobby suggestions, which really drive me nuts. Because it's always something embarrassing: it's like, 'people who like dungeons-and-dragons...are also big fans of angry masturbating.'"

-"Facebook recently made the news and I don't know if any of you read this online, but: a 15 year old kid posted on another 15 year old kid's wall calling him a pussy. Which is a pretty harsh toke."

-"The kid that was called a pussy did the only thing a thinking, reasoning human being could do in that sort of situation...uh he stabbed him. He said the reason he stabbed him was because he felt belittled and had to protect his street cred."

-"What's ridiculous here is not that a kid stabbed another kid over a facebook comment, interestingly enough, but that this kid had apparently never been called a pussy in his life before this time?!"

-"Let me tell you all from personal experience: I have negative street cred, that is a debt I will never be able to pay off. I have been called a pussy so many times...If I stabbed a person for everytime I'd been called a pussy I wouldn't be up here being hilarious right now, they would have electrocuted my ass by now."

-"I'd be wanted in every state, have a mass grave...in front of my house...I wouldn't have a dad."

-"I couldn't hate him for it, because if I watched my 9-year old fat son pretend to be a power ranger in the back yard and then, I can't stress this enough: accidentally lose a fight to the swing set, I'd be hardpressed to not call him a pussy, too."

-"It would be an involuntarily reflex action, like jerking your leg if your knee if tapped, flinching when someone fake-punches you, or projectile vomitting when you walk in on your parents doing it."

Final Bit:

-"I grew up a fat kid."

-"Skittle Soup."

-"Kids get away with things."
Closing: Sign off

-"Alright thanks everybody!  I'd love to stay stay on longer but I have a long night of angry masturbating ahead of me."

Alternative Bits:

-"Uncomfortable-off."

Consolidation and editin' post

I've come up with a good amount of feasible material since the Magooby's show, and this post's purpose is to lay them out, pick and choose between potential bits, and then trim/edit the wording on them.  Any input on your favorites, the ones you feel have more potential than others, or the wording of them: please let me know.  In addition: if you think I'm approaching the joke from the wrong angle, that is the sort of input I need. 

The point of doing all of this, besides just having new jokes I can turn to if my others are failing, is that I want to be able to build a completely alternate routine that I can practice, so that if I want to, I can find a way to seamlessly integrate the two.

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You do Stand-up?

Most of my close friends are pretty cool about me doing stand up. All one of him.

Occasionally, however, I'll let one of the sorta-friends know, and I'll get this: "Oh yeah, you're doing stand-up? Well make me laugh."

And like, I don't think that is really a fair demand.


You know? If one of my friends said: "I'm getting into the adult film industry," my first reaction would not be to say: "Oh yeah? Well be my only comfort eight times a day." - edit
 
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Mistargetted Advertising

You know the first time one of your friends shows you something online and you think to yourself: "well, now I know about it, but I can't ever see myself using one?" Like a she-male or deodorant?

Well, Colgate Wisp is a little mini toothbrush that you can take with you, on the go, to freshen up your breath. The ad goes like this: two really attractive people are playing volleyball on the beach, and the guy thinks "aha, I need to go freshen up," so he takes a step aside and uses his Colgate Wisp in the middle of the game.

Then, afterward, he finds himself in a situation where he has to flirt, face to face, through the net with the hot girl on the other team.  We've all been there.

Listen: the attractive, successful guy who used that Colgate Wisp could have had breath that smelled like a cat's lemony asshole and probably still gotten laid.

I propose a different sort of commercial, where they market it to someone who desperately needs some Colgate Wisp. Picture this:

There is a fat, sweaty, unwashed nerd eating pizza rolls in his mom's basement while he plays WOW, and jerks off to cartoon porn in between applying to jobs at local Gamestops.

Have a commercial where he has to swing by Taco Bell at 1am, and the girl behind the counter is pretty...if you ignore the huge mole on her eye-lid, trucker-mustache, and hook hand on her left arm. -edit

He looks at her and nods like a playa, but then breathes on his hand to sample his breath. His head recoils, offended, as if someone hit him in the face with a phone book. The hair on his arms begins falling off, his skin changes to a yellow color as if he had jaundis, his eyes involuntarily tear up, and his nose starts to bleed.

He steps off to the side and opens his backpack. He brushes his Magic the Gathering cards out of the way and gingerly reaches for his rape-hammer, but it's gone. In its place is a Colgate Wisp, with a small note attached: "Love Mom." - edit
 
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Dick-sucking Customers
I'd like to talk about dick-sucking hypotheticals.

You know how occasionally you'll be bored when you're hanging out with friends and have the "how much would someone have to pay you" conversation? For those of you unfamiliar with this "game:" it is where one guy comes up with something that another guy would typically not do, and then asks how much you'd need to be paid to do it.

Inevitably this will lead to one guy asking all other guys: "Ok dude, so how much would it cost for you to suck another dude's dick?" All guys are repulsed, and always say something like: "oh bro not even if I could fuck a mountain made of bitches, afterward" or some nonsense.

Because if they say "yes," then they'll be ridiculed for being gay.

Unless there was like a gay "sleeper agent" in the game where you say "a dick," and he asks: "well I dunno, whose dick are we sucking about, here?"

I wonder if gay guys ever sit around and have this conversation. Not regular, reasonable gay guys, I mean like the dude-brah equivalent of gay guys. Lets just call them turbo-gays. All like: "Listen up bitch, how much would it cost for you to lick some vagina?"

All the gay guys are repulsed and respond with similar hypotheticals and feigned outrage: "oh my goodness that is filthy. I would never stoop that low, even if the vagina were attached to Adam Lambert's glittering nut-sack."

What if someone threw something into that game and said: "How much would someone have to pay you to go to an awful place where everything you do makes you miserable, all the people are terrible, and anyone else that visits is allowed to treat you like shit for no reason. You have to act like you enjoy it. Every. Damn. Day."

For me, the price is about 11.50 an hour.

Never before retail or food service has a person ever been able to be so ignorant, so belligerent, and go so unpunished for it.  The employees can't do a thing about it!

That shit would not go unpunished in a group of friends. If some dude is being a stupid dickhead in a conversation, his friends will shut him down. If some girl is an unreasonable bitch, we are at liberty to let her know.

In retail or food service, your sales clerks and wait-staff can't do that.

You may be that customer who is a dick which customer service people have to reluctantly suck. Those of us that ring up your purchases are not getting our dream homes for deep-throating your complaints and then taking your bullshit in the face.

So be gentle, finish quick, and tip your waitress really well.
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Lets Talk About My Boners
 
I miss the days when my biggest concern was whether or not I'd get a boner in high school math class.

I still remember the day my boner snuck up on me in Algebra 2. We were discussing mathy-stuff that I didn't understand, the bell rang, I stood up, excited to get to lunch and: "bonk." The desk shudders, heads turn, and a single tear rolls down my cheek.

Lets not kid ourselves, guys: that is something we have all had to deal with. I cannot tell you the number of times I'd be sitting in class, the topic of discussion is decidedly-not-sexual, and my boner thinks: "now is the time."

I'm sure some of you are getting boners right this instant and you're, hopefully, completely oblivious as to why.

Getting called on to solve a problem on the board is the WORST in this sort of situation, because then you have to hold your book over your groin when you walk up to the front of the room, and try to pretend that you always hold books that way.

And how do you get a boner like that down? Usually men can think of something non-sexual and get our inconvenient hard-ons to retreat...but what the hell is less sexual than Algebra 2? There is nothing less sexy than that! Thinking about history is more sexy than thinking about math; at least there are people in history. Granted Elizabeth the Great wasn't a choice peace of ass, but at least she had boobs.

I would get truly stumped. "Maybe I could think about a less-sexy equation," I would reason, but then I'd realize, "no no no that is just validating the fact that my boner is here!"

I came up with a term for when your boner takes over and acts against all reason: "Hulking." We've all seen The Incredible Hulk, right? Bruce Banner would say: "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry" and then he would unintentionally turn into the Hulk and do things he was later embarrassed about and could not stop doing by thinking of other stuff that would ordinarily calm down my erections.

"Hulk" is of course a relative term. In my case it isn't necessarily the "Incredible" Hulk so much as the "not-bad-for-a-white-guy" Hulk.
 
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The LOL IRL
 
I think I could do something with how people say "lol" in phone conversations when they don't know what else to say to a person's last text, and how awkward that would be if it were used to carry on an otherwise boring or dead conversation.
Like someone tells you "my mother just died in a tragic garbage truck accident." You wouldn't know what to say to that. You'd say, "I'm sorry," by default, but you wouldn't really know what else to get across. So they'd respond, "she lived a full life." Rather than silence, you could start busting out laughing.
 
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"For Women of Color"

I don't think things through very often.  That is a quality that I get from my mom. 

My mom recently colored her hair.  This hair-coloring coincided with her need for some new shampoo.  So while she was perusing the shampoo store for some shampoo, she came across a bottle that said "for women of color."

My mom thinks to herself: "well, I just colored my hair!  I'm a woman of color," and picks up the bottle. 

She saw that there was a black lady on the bottle.

Then when she gets in the shower and begins applying the shampoo, she thinks, "w-wait a second, I suddenly feel louder and sassyer..."

After the shower when the family is watching a movie during dinner, she won't shut up.

I'm always afraid of this sort of thing happening, that is why I only use shampoo labelled "for men-decidedly-not-of-color." Every time I use it my ability to both dance and jump get worst.
 
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That is enough to edit for now.  There are others that I'm more familiar with that I can put on the backburner (cars, uncomfortable off, ghost adventures, etc.) at the moment.

Fate

Whenever I feel like something is not going so great in my life, my mom tries to console me by saying "things aren't that great now, but it's all part of God's plan."

I mean you could justify that for something like not getting a job in a certain area, but what about the time at my 10-year old birthday party that my dad broke a stinkbomb in my bedroom and locked me and all my friends in?  Jeremiah puked all over my Batman trashcan!  It was ruined!  How could having that trashcan intact affect my life adversely?!

What about the time I was going number 1 in the urinal at my college's dining hall and then number 2 was like "SURPRISE!?"  How does having to throw away my christmas-fun boxer shorts in my school's cafeteria fit into your plan, God?

God must just get kind of bored and think to himself: "ha-ha, they totally buy this whole 'plan' thing."  I think God is that bully that would give you a wedgie and then stuff you in a locker when you were a kid.

Speaking of predestination:

[AT&T commercial bit in the works]