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I produce a show called "Recovering Commies" with fellow comedian Vladimir Khlynin. Here is a promo Vlad created for our touring comedy show. If you want us to come to your town, let your local comedy club know!



See us live with Headliner Kira Soltanovich from "the Tonight Show with Jay Leno." We will be performing at Cobb's Comedy Club on 12/8. Tickets are available here: http://bit.ly/vlTcsO

Growing up poor, Acting and stuff.

Growing up, we were pretty poor. I didn’t have to turn tricks to get the lunch money and later hand over to bullies or anything like that, but we were poor. My mother and I were poor enough that I was able to get California’s finest pubic school lunches for free. Where the corn dogs were occasionally green for no apparent reason and fruit was covered in enough corn syrup to piss off Paula Dean and the food was good enough to clog an artery with one bite.

We were poor enough that in high school I didn’t have to work because I wanted to or was forced to. I worked because it was something I needed to do to get where I wanted to go. It was in about seventh grade that I realized that I would need to get a job and that every grade past 6th was a joke. I hated school in the way other kids hated Brussels sprouts. This was when I decided that I wanted to be an actor. This wasn’t a new revelation, but it was a new action. It was then that I figured it was my duty to become a famous child actor like the Olsen twins or the chick from “Small Wonder” that no one remembers.

I made my mom drag me to auditions in LA. We lived in San Diego at the time. I pushed to get headshots and go the whole nine-yards. This was also my excuse to get out of school, which was brilliant. I imagined that some tutor, would educate me eventually, like the kids I had heard about on TV. I would buy a $50,000 car cause I could. I would go to some amazing Ivey league college like Brooke Shields. I would fit a B-rated film, maybe a “Poison Ivy” sequel, “Poison Oak” during that hard freshman year of college. There would be many awkward scenes in this movie that I would later regret according to People Magazine, as I would try to break away from that teen persona. I would also end up on the cover of Rolling stone wearing a leather jacket and burning one of those little American flags on that was the toothpick on my sandwich for controversy.

Back to seventh grade I worked to make these daydreams happen. I got an agent who sent me to a few big auditions including playing Jason Alexander’s fat blob son on a show that didn’t make it past it’s pilot (I was too thin so my mom said) and one for a JCPenny Commercial. The commercial auditions were my favorite because I would pretend that I was the guy from the infomercials that always sounded surprised and smiled for no reason. It was great. At the JCPenny auditions I auditioned as the nerd prom date for some hot girl and her father was played by the dude who was in a whole bunch of 80s movies including “the Boy Who Could Fly.” It’s okay; no one else remembers his name either. It was odd that he was playing a father figure when he was only 10-12 years older than me at the time.

By sixteen or seventeen I filled some of my time with extra-work and a part-time job at the amazing Carl’s junior. I was practicing my on air voice while working drive-through. People there hated me cause I would pretend the drive-through was my radio show and ask customers inappropriate questions, like “when did you’re love of food take over your life?” I oddly was never fired from there.




I took many drama classes and on-camera acting classes taught by jaded actors, along with has-been casting directors. I met parents who had no life and lived vicariously through their children. I knew kids who thought fame and popularity equaled happiness. They had all the personality in the world while the camera was on, and were like talking to paint when the camera was off. This would be my experience later in life with guys who did porn (they called themselves porn stars, but you’re not a star if no one knows who the fuck you are), but that’s another story. I was an extra on every Disney show that people are embarrassed to admit they watched, and a few Aaron Spelling Shows, which were quickly cancelled. The highlights of my short-lived television career included over 10-episodes of “Lizzy McGuire,” an Aimee Mann Video and a reenactment scene of “America’s Most Wanted.” I played the Jewish kid the neo-Nazis were chasing around campus.

During the acting days I met Yasmine Bleeth a few weeks before an alleged coke bender, which landed her on the news. I met Hillary Duff before anyone knew who she was or that she was and Miley presumably stole her thunder.

It was at 18 when I did my last Hilary Duff Music video (if you watch really slowly, you can see my back), when I realized that I was getting too old to be the next DJ Tanner and didn’t know if I had it in me to become the next Balkey from “Perfect Strangers.” It was then that I decided it was time to go for plan B. I went to college. I decided that LA wasn’t ready for me and I would become a writer or maybe go into advertising and if that didn’t work out, revisit the concept of turning tricks.

I was 19 and working as a shift manager at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, attending a local Junior college when I decided that I would really let go of the “dream.” I realized that I wanted to write, live, travel. It was then I decided that I would transfer to a college in San Francisco and become a writer. I of course wouldn’t major in creative writing because well what is that useful for? So I majored in something equally useless and general, Speech Communications (Public Speaking). It was this choice that set the stage for everything I have done since. I would spend the next few years living, writing, drinking and working on creating the shit-storm that is my life and my stand up. You’re welcome.

Chapter 6.

Being there is like living inside the eye of a traveling tornado. There are always new people flying in and out of that place. I'm constantly waiting, to one day glance out the window of the bar and see the drag queen/witch on the bike. It’s San Francisco and that is very likely. Often it seems like more people go through that place than a toilet at a chili cook off. Besides the drifters, there are the core people who have been there for years, they seemingly keep that place together like the cheap bricks hiding inside the walls of that place. These people, though they would never admit it, are what I call the lifers. We don’t get to this place intentionally where they are at the bar every waking moment. We just end up being a part of the foundation that holds the place together, the glue, so to speak. This is until we reach our expiration date. Like modeling, bartending at this bar means that eventually you will be replaced or phased out by someone who is younger, maybe prettier (but not necessarily), naive boys and girls who will be the jaded bartenders of tomorrow. It's like being a 75-year-old's 19-year-old wife, you know that if they don't die on you in 5 years, there will be someone younger and hotter to replace you and make the money you can’t. Often lifers are the ones who help keep this bubble we work/live in intact. This is until they themselves are fired. Almost nobody quits this place. The ones that do are few and far between. It’s a good gig, why leave while the getting is still good? After they quit, they often come crawling back begging for their jobs because as reality has it, the real world sucks far more than living in this suds-reality of the Labyrinth and the Castro bubble.

Besides the lifers, the rest of the staff hasn’t been here long enough for me to remember their names. As a result of this, I just call them lemmings. Like the game or reference to "Never Been Kissed," they just walk around aimlessly, a part of our homogeneous group. It’s been nearly a year that I have been at the Labyrinth and I still don’t know everyone here. If I don’t know a person’s name, I usually call them Michael or Chris because it’s generally a good guess. There is always one of those two in a crowd and it sure beats calling the guys “hey you.” It’s like when you’re taking a multiple choice text and you know if you pick C, you will be less likely to pick the wrong answer. On my SATs, I did this. I also got bored on the math section and ended up just drawing pictures of Garfield eating Pizza on the written Math section. As a result of my art work, I ended up getting probably the lowest score in my high school.

I am usually lucky enough to get at least a shift a week where I worked with Michael who soon since has become one of my best friends. Michael is an interesting guy to say the least. He isn’t the type that you would expect to be a bartender. I guess the longer that I work here, the more that image in my head of a bartender changes. He isn’t cocky and is definitely not a beef-cake jock. He is normal, slender and genuine. He is a video game playing, trekie-loving, introvert that on first glance seems to be best suited for a different line of work. Once he goes behind the bar, it is like another person awakens inside of him. This person is outgoing, loud-mouthed and without any internal censors much like myself. This is what we all love and respected about him besides the being completely devoted to and in love with the man he says he will marry once it’s legal. They are of the few gay male couples I know who are not in “open relationships.” They are absolutely devoted to each other. Mikey, is known for being that person that will talk about others behind their back, but in front of their face. It’s much in the same fashion that old Jewish women talk about each other. At least that’s how they work in my family so that they can eventually gang up on you and make you sure you feel inadequate. They will with make sure that someone is chatting about your problems and keep your insecurities not only alive but you will leave with more insecurities than you came with. It's quite the Jewie phenomenon.

For Michael, if I would point out an attractive guy in the room, he would shout out “what? You like who? Cover his face and you’re good.”

Mike would say things just loud enough so that others could hear. The best part is that he simple doesn’t care about others accepting him. He is a treckie who isn’t ashamed of being vocal about his love for conventions, Vulcan ale and all sorts of nerd crap that I would never admit to liking. He doesn’t give a shit what others think of him. I aspire to get to this point.
While Michael is an example of one of the hardest working individuals there, he also has shows me how to have fun and really make the most out of this place. He often finds a way to be playful with the people we meet while working. He casually asks hot guys that we meet to show off their “man hood”. Whenever I hear him say that I wonder what the fuck he is talking about. Sometimes I’m like a small child and need some time to connect the dots. Then I get it. He’s talking about their dicks. He gets these guys to whip out their dicks. Color, size, width, cut, uncut, he gets anyone to do it. Usually this is done strictly for entertainment value alone because really we aren’t aloud to drink while working at the bar, so we got to get our shits and giggles somehow. Now, it becomes game of sorts. It’s way more fun than Blackjack and less costly. Whenever there would be a hot guy asking Michael or myself for a free drink, Mike would ask how they wanted to earn it.

He would then go on to tell them “sweetheart, nothing is for free, we all gotta work to get what we want.”

He would then turn to me and say, “Just cause I am married, doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes and a pulse. I can look for Christ’s sakes. It’s like being on a diet, you can still look at food!”

While Mike plays good cop, I take on the persona of the bad cop.

I casually respond to Mike’s comments with a “he is shy” or “he doesn’t have anything to show.”

The fact that it’s so easy to play these men is both funny and really sad. What’s funny about some men when their drunk, the second you make a comment about their dick size being sub-standard, they get so defensive and over-protective. While stupid, the game often will entertain us and our coworkers while these boys step up to the plate for a free drink in the name of honor. It isn’t about the final result of seeing the little or big piece of flesh hidden inside of a man’s trousers, although that alone is worth it. It’s more about getting there.

During fleet week we have a slew of marines come in the bar. Michael is like a kid in a candy store. He always uses single me as bait. After one shot, these boys don’t even need to be challenged. They will do it willingly. It’s like one of those “girl’s gone wild” videos, but with hot and some not so hot men. Well actually, mostly hot men. The less attractive and short the guy/marine is, the more likely they are to step up to the plate. Maybe it’s due to their little man syndrome? They are those guys who probably drive little red sports cars to make up for their lack their of… Be it gay, straight, cut, uncut, black, white, red, blue, anacononda-esk, elephant trunk, noodlesk, wine corkish, and microscopic, we see them all. There is no racial divide here, equal opportunity all the way.

Besides the games, since Michael isn’t single there is that whole element of competition that are taken out of the mix. He is very sure of who he is and isn’t. Unlike many single gay men, he is sure of where he could has love and doesn’t need to go looking for it. This energy from him on that level is very empowering to me.

After finishing work at 3 or 4 in the am we often then head to his house. We get milkshakes or burgers and hang with our friend Mary. She helps us relax. We spend many a night watching TV and talking about everything from politics to bar gossip. Michael has become my backbone in some ways. He is also the first friend I have from this new bar lifestyle where I feel like I could just be myself without putting on a show or entertaining. There is no game face needed with him. I am not worried that he will stab me in the back. For some reason I have a soft spot for him. He is like the perverted big brother I never had.

Story 5 "Atlanta"

Often I don’t know what to do after my shifts. Going home is an expensive cab ride, where once home, one has to be sure that is where they want to be. That’s how living in a city without a car works. It’s something we get used to and the reason cities seem to have more happily inebriated people. It’s cause we can without worrying about who we will trick into being our designated driver. Even if you have a car, good luck finding parking. If one goes home, once there, the question will be, “now what?” Being a Leo, I often yearn to be out, to be seen, to meet new and interesting people. I hope to one day meet the love of my life or at least make a new friend. Most of the friends that I have made within the past year of living in San Francisco, from on campus life, all seem to lead such different lives from my own. If it isn’t dropping out for rehab (no one likes quitters), or taking too heavy of a school load, having a significant other or being stuck in their own quest to put together the pieces of their own lives, it is something else. I am never really free to hang out with them because I work every weekend and evening that “normal” people are free. I call their schedules the schedule of the living. My current one at the bar schedule is that of the dead, vampires, and those stupid infomercials with Tony Little, and “Girls Gone Wild” commercials. Maybe it is the fact that my friends don’t have the same intrigue with figuring out the gay world that I do. Being straight, and used to it, many of them understandably don’t have an interest in breaking the codes that San Francisco’s gay-world behold.

Finishing work at my prior service industry jobs, the shifts are often followed with a meal, hanging out, a drink, a cigarette, and then eventually sleep. The bar quickly has become a family member, much like a television becomes an only child’s close friend. It’s my family member who doesn’t have to give you the weekly Jew update that my mother has to give me weekly, “I know he’s a killer, but he’s Jewish, single and has some money.”

My coworkers in some ways are becoming the siblings I never had. Being an only child, I don’t know what it’s like to have brothers and sisters. I always dreamed of being a part of a large family much like that of “Family Ties.” Once I had a dream that I was on “Growing Pains” and lived in Mike’s apartment above the house. That dream had the makings of a good porn or D-rated horror movie. I digress back to the bar. Here everyone is that family that I never had growing up. Those behind the bar with me, just seem to get it. At the end of every shift, it’s always the same thing. I clock out and always wonder what will be next. It’s that same feeling I get when flipping channels hoping something cool will pop on but eventually settle on an infomercial for a food slicer. I clock out and realize that most my friends now are the people working. I then feel obliged to hangout with my family and have a drink because one mustn’t be rude. I end up staying the night and drinking enough to embarrass myself but not so much that I do things that make me look like a complete idiot. It’s that fine line between happy drunk and turning into Courtney Love.

My new bothers and sister, educate me on how to drink smart to the best of their abilities, while at the same time getting me blasted drunk. They also teach me that “well” drinks, are now to be drinks of the past, only to drink in emergencies. I chat with them, while the served me drinks and I sail down on a burning boat to oblivion. I am told that other gays can smell my “minty-new gay scent,” as James puts it. I am fresh meat and have no clue how to cover it up. No matter what I do, they all seem to know, all the gay men I encounter. As I stay lingering at the bar stirring my straw in a glass filled with melted ice and remnants of a vodka soda, I chat about local gossip with a bartender friend, I would also observe the crowd. Being here, I feel like prey in the wild. I feel that there are predators watching me, yet I can’t really tell who, it’s just a feeling. I always stand there hoping that someone will come up to me or that someone worth my time approaches me. I wait for someone to strike up a conversation with me. All who come up to me seem to have something off about them, but I find it good social practice. I study them, watch their “moves” and then digest. I have never really even been on a date, let alone do I have any idea of how to talk to another guy or really how to flirt with them. To make a long story short, reading between the lines in this regard, is not my forte.

One night, I am alone chatting with my friend Michael at his bar station, also known as a well. We are just chewing the fat about random bar gossip, then his being, starts walking up to me out of the shadows. Michael being the married man that he is decided it only fitting to whisper a bit of advice into my ear: “go get it for the team, be a slut for all of us, what I wouldn’t give to be single for one day”… Then, as this guy comes closer, Michael changed his tune to. “Hey you can at least put a bag over his head and stare at his hot body.” I still don’t really know what Michael was talking about since I am oblivious and in my own world. Then, he tapped my shoulder.

The man at my shoulder side is one who was trying to defy gravity, physics and deceive my intelligence. He is wearing a low cut, tight V-neck with a low hanging chain weighed down by a heavy diesel pendant. His eyes have no wrinkles around them, in-fact his face is completely absent of expression. His chest/pectoral “muscles” are nearly as big as Gina’s, but obvious implants matching his horrendous ass implants. His dark fake tan and absence of any body or facial hair only make me more uncomfortable. He opens his mouth, which is the only part of him covered in wrinkles, although he tries to cover it in shinny lip shit. Now, the noise came out of him. It’s one that pierces the my ears over all the music playing in the background. It is so high-pitched that I can’t understand any of it. It’s like the sirens from Greek mythological tales. His subtle lisp and use of the word “honey” is the only way I can tell that he is presumably of some sort of Latin descent. Then he reaches down and pinches my butt cheek…. Catching me by of surprise, I accidentally spill the drink in my hand on his 7 jeans that are so tight that his ass was leaking out of them trying to get air. Quickly his high-pitched siren goes off once more, I assume to curse me out. Then out of now where, he unexpectedly slaps me on the right cheek, snaps and says something in his high-pitched, Portuguese that I assume was an insult and then the man vanishes back to the shadows. I am so stunned an utterly confused by tonight’s events and the fact that a grown man slapped me, I drink more.

A few drinks later I am still at Michael’s bar station. I am sipping the concoction that he has made me. It seems to be made out of gasoline, not that it matters by now. Then I noticed this guy a few feet away from me leaning against the other side of Michael’s station. He has that look like the weight of the world is leaning on his back. He sees me staring and begins to edge towards me. He looked about my age, a foot taller, with hair much like that of Kurt Cobain in 1990. He is a stranger in a bar full of people who all while different, have are all lonesome strangers. He asks me if I will like to drink with him. Being the show off Leo that I am, I signaled to Michael to come over. Michael hands us two shots, which appear to materialize out of nowhere. I smile at this boy point at the shots. I then tell him that it looks like he would have to get the next round. Michael, being a good bartender, plays his favorite role, as cupid. We don’t connect for the reason of love exactly, it is more so through connection of needing someone who will listen.

This boy, I won’t lie, his name escapes me. I can’t seem to remember his actual name after chatting with him for a few hours. All that I do know is that he has a heavy southern accent and mentions that he was from Atlanta. Since I have don’t feel comfortable to ask his name yet again he will be known in my memories as “Atlanta” forever. Atlanta is tall, slender, white, average-looking, with long big curls, all complimented with manners, something that seems to be rare. He is to the point in conversation, unlike passive aggressive San Francisco, who can’t speak up for themselves until their lives depend on it. The fact that he gives me the time of day and cares is all that matters at this point.

Soon Atlanta and I have been chatting for about 8 hours or so, time is an alcohol induced blur by now. He is looking cuter, but so do most of the people in the bar that I normally think are repulsive, the drink is an evil friend. We keep on buying each other drink after shot, after drink. He then brushes the long hair off my forehead and tells me that he thinks I am beautiful. Rewind, what he actually does, is peel a long frizzy curl stuck to my face off of my now sweaty forehead, wipe his hand and then tell me he thinks I’m beautiful. This is the first time that I have heard this. I almost start laughing, being the cynic that I am. I am the type of person that always laughs at the wrong moments. I’m like Mary Tyler Moore in that episode where they are at a clown’s funeral and can’t stop laughing. I know, the references can’t get gayer can they? I don’t know what to do or say, so I punched him lightly on the arm and start giggling with a smirk of confusion on my face. He then leans in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. By this point I am intrigued and still unsure of how to react, I can’t help but still hyperventilate/giggle. I had never seen someone look into my eyes the way he did then and be intrigued the way he seemed to be. He then asked if we could get some food.

As we left the bar, Michael yells something obscene to us, as any healthy gay man would. It’s something along the lines of, “I want photos, details and maybe the video!” I have never at this point ever left a bar with a boy. I usually leave alone, walk to Walgreens, purchase a pint of ice cream and proceed to eat it while waiting for the bus because I have no patients to wait and eat my feelings. I’m not sure of what’s next really. It’s more that I am not sure of what I am, feeling now. I am excited, almost as much as I was when I finally got a ninja turtle of my own, way after they where cool. As we reach one block from the place where we had met, I am in a drunken snooper and embarrassed over the fact that I full on walked into a bush 5 seconds ago. He then suggests that we skip food and go to my house. Very direct Atlanta. Shockingly direct. That is a huge difference with gay and straight men. Gay men are more specific because our attention spans are much shorter than other’s I think. I suggest his. He then tells me that he has nowhere to stay and truly enjoys my company. He then says that he doesn’t want to take advantage of me apparently, but thinks that I am a nice guy and wants to have all the cards on the table. When people say that they want to have “all the cards on the table,” it’s refreshing, but one of those things that are hard to really believe.
It’s not like a crazy fucker is going to be like, “oh and here is the card that tells you just how nuts I am, here is the infidelity card, and oh yeah when I introduce you to people I will refer to you as my friend and make you feel like an idiot.” No one does that.

All I can think about in my drunken-slushy heard while he says this, is “lets get ready for a load of bull shit.” He then goes on and says that I don’t have to take him with me. There is a long pause that seems to last forever. Now we are near the bus stop at 18th and Castro where all the taxis are lined up waiting for passengers. He then kisses me again, his way of sprinkling fairy dust to put me in a trance, which is pretty easy now since even my sweat is pure vodka at this point. He then says that he isn’t expecting sex, just a cuddle and company. Luckily, the cynic in me is playing King’s Cup and not paying attention. Being alone really in the city at this point, for some reason is a bizarre concept, yet good excuse to take him. It’s will sound even better retelling the story.

In the cab, all the cards where being strewn on the metaphorical table, he tells me something else that takes the night for another turn. He says that I should know that he may or may not be positive. I don’t understand what that means. I can’t seem to connect the dots whether he is talking about his mood or HIV status. If it is HIV status, how could he not know? I then, stupidly ask him what he means. He then says that he has just found out that his ex, who he had moved out to Cali with, a much older LA/WeeHo guy has been cheating on him left and right. He has had no idea that the guy was fucking around on him, so the story goes. His man had just yesterday, texted him to deal Atlanta the card that every gay men fears. He tells Atlanta that he tested HIV positive and that he should know. At this moment, it dawns on me how young this kid is. It’s like one minute I am walking around empty handed and now carrying a bag of bricks right next to me. Atlanta is only 6 months older than myself. This thought soon turns me into a 3-year old boy. He out of nowhere begins to cry, this time I can’t laugh my way out of this awkward conversation. I can’t pretend to be naive or simply leave this guy at this moment. I begin to hug him and cry myself. Atlanta, then goes on to explain that he has moved to LA with the guy who was is enough to be his father, yet has treated him better than any relative ever has. His family back home of course disowned him for being a “nasty, fudge-packing, immoral” member of the gays who is on the way to hell. He’s been on his own since 17. He has so much to figure out. He is alone. Why would his parents think that anyone chooses this? Atlanta has a stuffy nose now and says that he fled to San Fran because he had always wanted to see the “gayborhood.” He needs to get out of LA to get over his only friend/lover, father figure has ever loved and now thrown him out like garbage for someone younger. Atlanta’s southern drawl makes it hard to decode the entirety of the story, but that is the gist, or so he claims. By now I have stopped crying, looking down at the little boy in my arms and channeled my mother. I tell him what my mother had told my aunt when she explained about divorcing my father. I explain what women have known for centuries, men are men, no matter how much we wanted to love them, they still have the potential to be pigs and sleep with anything that has a pulse.

Atlanta does end up staying over. Nothing happens though. I wake up in the morning with my mouth tasting the way Lysol smells. The hangover is set to kick in soon. He is in my arms. Nothing else matters though. Why me? Why him? What to make of our meeting? These questions now seem irrelevant and unnecessary to answer. Atlanta is asleep and soon would be gone. He says that he will soon be on the next train back to Atlanta with just the cloths on his back. We can exchange email addresses, numbers or something. For some reason that doesn’t cross either of our minds. He kisses me passionately while holding me tight. He then thanks me for listening and giving him a good time and not in the “hooker way,” he says. He is off to Atlanta to put his life together, never to be heard from again.

blah.

I hate when someone gives you a ride home and you have to pretend to be going home until they drive away… You stand there pretending to fiddle with the key to get in, cause they are watching you and you don’t want them to see you walking to the closest liquor store for as much ice cream as you can handle. Just me?

Constructive Criticism?

I am trying to force myself to write a little every day especially when I don't feel like I have anything to write about. At the moment I really have no idea what to write about though. It's like an exercise so to speak. Writing is the the only exercise where you can eat an entire pint of ice cream while doing it. That's what I'm doing, eating my way to happiness while exercising...

The older I get, the more I realize that I am not like everyone else. I'm not talking about the fact that I was born without a soul, rhythm or the floppy hair that seemed so cool in the early 90s, that I've always dreamed of. I'm not talking about the fact that I laugh at funerals, uncomfortable situations and while I can't tell dead baby jokes, I laugh at well choreographed ones. It's the fact that I don't look at obstacles the same way. If something or someone gets in the way of me obtaining something I want I will go right around them, unless there is a bar or frozen Yogurt shop near them. That's when I make a pit-stop. I don't get offended by constructive criticism. I actually prefer it.

Constructive criticism and why do we care? I don't get it. We shouldn't care. I should make it clear though that there is a difference between criticism and constructive criticism. As a comic, when I get off a stage and bombed so bar that you can still smell the remnants of my set for the next two comics, if I don't know you or ask your opinion, shut the fuck up. I don't come into your work, tree house or office, perch myself behind your neck and tell you to get off Facebook and get back to that spreadsheet. Lay off. If though I am about to go up on stage and ask a fellow comic or buddy to give me some notes or suggestions on my new bit about balls or necrophilia, then please once I get off stage and the time is right tell me what you think. Do not hold back. Be like the gay man so to speak in this situation. Gay men in this respect often make straight men jealous cause we will tell your girlfriend what she really looks like in her jeans and not care. It's the same idea.

I hate when people start their critique with "you were really good, but"... "You are very personable and have presence"... or simply point out the obvious. You do not have to pad a critique with a compliment. If I am asking for notes, or suggestions, I am not asking to get smoke blown up my ass, that's for another time and saved for behind closed rubber doors. The last part of that last sentence was a shitty joke and I'm sorry. Seriously though, tell the truth. What do you think? Give me your point of view and not a magic mirror that tells me what I want to hear. No one learns from that. I often hear that this is just a West Coast thing. Since I have lived on this coast my whole life, I don't know different (even though people look at me and because I look Jewish always assume I'm from NYC...). If this is true, West Coast people or anyone that does this. Regardless of the case, WAKE UP!

This is just what's in my head right now. Off to deal with my brain freeze now.

Story 4, We all know THOSE Girls

Chapter 4.
Night in and night out I watch this ridiculous display play out over and over again. Unfortunately it’s while I’m working and not happily sitting in those comfortable sweatpants we all wear when at home watching Lifetime and eating popcorn (everyone watches Lifetime at some point, don’t act like you’re too cool), but I digress. I am a few months into working at the Labyrinth. Little by little I am growing more sarcastic about this place and life as a whole, which apparently is the gay man’s way. I have made many observations of scenarios that tend to replay themselves like day-ja-vu with booze and Kylie Minogue/Madonna soundtrack playing in the background. Anyone can watch this stupid display acted out at gay bars across America. It’s just one of the elements of this place that annoys me to no end.

Often the participants of this annoyingness fit the following description: participants are usually a pair out of bars: the gay guy is usually so flaming that when they talk it’s like they are rhetorically shooting sequins the second they open their mouths. Usually, this gay man-person is accompanied by a slutty, bimbo, straight-girl friend. We all know the type.

The girl often fits close to the following description give or take a detail or two. She is blonde with bleached teeth. The teeth are so white that they have that blue hue that one can only stare at for a few seconds because the brightness burns the cornea of your eye. It’s a similar shade to Anna Nicole’s in the Trimspa commercials. May she happily rest in peace somewhere enjoying some fried chicken. This lady-person almost always has big tits, sometimes real, often they are real-fake. Most of these girls have what can only be described as Tori Spelling Syndrome. This is where the fake tits look like they are floating up and away, just like Tori Spelling’s with the huge space between. If they don’t have the tits they have thickly padded bras that hike their poor, defenseless, little ladies further up than they ever thought they can and should be. These girls often resembles one of those “girl next door” sluts. She is the type of girl who has been bleaching their hair so long that it is obvious she has developed some sort of brain damage. This is the type of bitch who has or would probably appear in a “girls gone wild” ads, under the right circumstances, ½ a King Cobra and a dollar. This bimbo is the type of slut that will make out with another chick at the party not because they likes it, but because she is greedy. I say, if she is doing it for the shear love of wanting sex from another woman, then, by all means, bump those Brazilian-waxed clams. We know though, that she is just doing it to get douche frat guys to take them home. Is it really worth all this subterfuge to get a little ass? She is not quite a “faghag,” but a girl who uses her “Gay” as her self-esteem booster when need be. She is possibly a good Christian girl. The type that “loves the gays” but when asked about her views of gay marriage, she smiles and talks about being a good Christian but just regularly gets gangbanged sideways on camera.

The slut/girl’s friend is often a little mousy Gay. They are not they gym bunny type, but usually more on the awkward side of life. They are really queeny type who usually has great style advice for others, but when it comes to their own look its very abstract. They are quiet in most moments until someone asks their opinion. Then, it’s like opening Pandora’s box, these lispy queen acts like fireworks are going on inside of them won’t shut up. They are particular in the way they order their drinks, three iced cubes, vodka, never well and ALWAYS, ALWAYS a twist, like a twist makes or breaks a drink. To me, the only way my bartender can mess up my drinks is if they forget to put booze in it, the garnish is just unnecessary crap to begin with, but we digress. Often these guys love to spend every waking moment being divas because they see themselves as. Their hair is always perfectly styled and dyed if need be. Their tan is often just a shade too orange to be natural, complimented by eye brows shaped too perfect to not have been plucked. They are so orange, that their skin could double for Carrot Top’s head. These guys are usually every entertaining to watch in their natural habitat, be it Barney’s, a runway show or the local gay pop bar stomping ground. They are often what make these places so interesting.

After a drink or two, the queen always utters this sentence, “if I were straight, I would soooo do you!”

At this point I am usually rolling my eyes to myself while watching them. I want to yell at the two, “Really lady? You would sooo do her? How would that go down exactly?”

She then keeps up with this charade, asking the guy “really?”

This barrage of compliments about doing each other lasts for usually at least 10 minutes, at which point I feel like vomiting. Do these bitches have that low of self esteem that they have to play this stupid game? How vain can a woman be? She doesn’t want him to do her anyway because she knows that she wants to be penetrated right. The gay one, probably doubles over, ready to vomit at the sight of a lady’s little hairless beaver. He wouldn’t know what to do, let alone kill the mood with his high-pitched squealing. The only way that those two are going to get down is with the intervention adult toys and we know that isn’t happening so stop it already! It is a well-known fact that women come to gay bars for the attention and the compliments, but this is going too far! Stop it already! Gay men, stop enabling this act already.

Tonight I come to work to watch the described act play out. Queeny Mc Queeny and his BFF who looks like a Tiffany or Kelly, with tits big enough to make Hugh Heffner uncomfortable. They hang at my well for a while, from the first drink to the fifth drink, these two are arguing back and forth.

“If I was-ss-s sstraiiight, I would ss-s-sssso fuck yyyou.”

“Shut up. You’re so sweet!”

She then jumps up to bounce her knockers and being that she is in a room of gay men, no one even give her the time of day. Honestly, this tickles me because I hate when people think they can get everything from their looks or strictly from being a bimbo.

By drink-five, “Sss-ss-sweetie, I love your haiir. It’s ssss blonde, whats shades is that? Itssss SOOoo pretty. I would SOOOOO fuck you.”

He then spills his drink a little.

As she is about to open her huge lips, which are lined perfectly with what looks like eyeliner, I loose it and interrupt them.
“You two really need to get over yourselves! You don’t want to fuck each other. You both want a man who can push you down the stairs and keep you wanting more! Furthermore, SHUT UP!”