It's been a while since I have written an entry, so here we go...

The past few weeks have been a bit challenging to say the least. Many things have happened from a skeleton, I meant Madonna performing at the super bowl half time show, to Taylor face of plastic, you could never tell how I am feeling Armstrong publishing a book about her years of abuse, and scandals. Also, people have been voting for Romney and Santorum. If there was a time for pigs to start flying, I thought this was it. For me personally, lots going on and figuring out which road to take. While I had been working diligently at my buddying comedy career, I have still been at a place where I still needed to keep another job to pay rent. I had made a concious decision not to go back to a 9-5 office-type sales or advertising job as I had worked in my previous life post college and focus on comedy. My work of choice to remain afloat has been bartending. I was laid off from the bartending job I had been working the past few months. This was also the fourth time I had been laid off in the past 5 years which just added to the dissapointment. This was also a week before my big LA Recovering Commies show in January (which I was in and produced), a week after my lovely trip to Mexico, where I learned that everything tasted better with lime/chili, and a week before I would learn it could never be too early to eat an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream with a box of cookies chaser. It was also a week before my father would tell me that he may or may not be near kidney failure. This was what a doctor had told him. He had to wait for results from a free clinic because they couldn't afford a doctor. This was something he sprinkled into casual conversation while making me watch an old George Foreman fight, that he then played 5 more times to make sure I didn't miss anything. Normally I would have found a way out of this, but I just let him have the moment and then take me to cheap MSG filled Chinese food.

My goal originally was to take the next few months and finish my plan of turning the stories on this blog into a book. I would get a copy editor to fine tune all my grammatical errors and juvenile mistakes, then look for a book agent. My plan was to spend every waking hour on making this happen when I wasn't bartending or performing. I was planning on working new bits out that I have been writing and not had the opportunity to try out yet. This, along with working on producing more Recovering Commies shows and taking that show on the road to colleges. The idea was to turn all these things into a network of businesses and become a full-time comedian/author. The idea was not to end up being one of those people who lived their life thinking what if. Instead, the idea was to be the guy that did it. Well I did. I have spent the past month eating, smoking, thinking, drinking, analyzing and trying to think of what the next step should be. I have gone through at least 10-15 gallons of ice cream, 8-12 handles of booze and countless Lifetime movies looking for an answers. I even watched some of Oprah's "Life Class" to realize that I would learn nothing from sitting there feeling sorry for myself and needed to figure out how to handle life's problems. What to do next? That was the question I kept asking myself while eating random things barely recognizable as food every night at 4 am. I was wondering if I was just an idiot with a dream but not means create and make a sustainable reality as a joke writer, comedian, standup, author. Could this idea of making it be real? What could I know? Just another Jewish guy who liked to talk, complain about his family and compulsively eat... I felt like I had all the makings of a horrible afters-school special but didn't know what to do next.

A week ago, I went to a Sketchfest event with my friend Dan and my supportive boyfriend Guy. Dan took me to a bar where we met up with his friends. It was none other than Rachel Dratch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and some other really nice people who all had known each other at different points in their lives. Some knew each other from improv, college, and some from crossing paths at different points in their lives . We hung out, drank, chatted about life and random ice breaking conversations. We investigated various conversation staple like why it was funny that Ru Paul and Ron Paul were often mixed up in conversation, along with the bloggersphere. Whenever people asked me what I did for a living I was ready for the standard smirk that people often had prepared for people like me. The "that's cute, good luck with that pal" face. It was the same look that I would give a friend that was tone deaf and said they wanted to become a singer. Ironically, in this circle the reaction was different. I said comedian with pride and they responded like it was a real job. This was one of the first times I had seen this.

We proceeded from the bar happily tipsy and ready to go to the show. We went to go watch Rachel, Jesse, Lauraine Newman, Florence Henderson, Luke Perry and some other amazing people perform "Celebrity Autobiographies." The show was amazing. It was hilarious and simple. Each person read a different actor's Autobiography, didn't change a single word and just added their own something to the way it was read. Lauraine read Cher's and did it with the best Cher voice impersonation ever. Rachel read Madonna's "Sex" and did so with a British accent which just added to her brilliance. The chosen excerpts were random and funny which added to the night. The only thing that sucked was that the theater we watched this performance had seats so small and close together, it was like sitting in a sardine can. Sorry, the Jew in me had to say it. The seating made me wish that I didn't drink 4 Stoli sodas prior to the show. About 40 minutes in, I had an honest fear that I would be that guy. The guy who peed himself at the show. Being that I have always been that guy who didn't put that much thought into my clothing choices, I had a moment where I seriously regretted wearing grey jeans. It wasn't because I I was embarassed about the little awkward tear near the crotch or the weird wrinkle my zipper made from too many washes that made it look like I hat a hard on at all times. I was afraid I would piss myself Cukoo's Next style, from that ugly laughter where it looked like I was between crying and taking a huge dump.

After the show, we hung out with Dan, Rachel and her buddies again! We ended up at the hotel where Rachel was presumably staying and there was this Sketchfest after party. On the way in to the hotel, we saw this woman getting into the elevator. She was from the original "Mash" movie. I couldn't remember her name, but she had platnum-blonde hair and a face that looked like it was made my Mattel. Then, we bump into Florence Henderson! FLORENCE Fucking HENDERSON! It was AMAZING!

Guy, Dan, Rachel and their friends ended up ordering pizza, drinks and just hanging out in the lobby of this hotel for the next few hours. While I was sitting there sipping my drink and eating 4 slices of mushroom pizza, I wiped the melted cheese off my face and was not too cool to eat the piece or cheesy-mushroom which fell into my drink in front of people. I also thought about how amazing it was to be in that moment. I grew up thinking that famous/successful people were not like us. I would never be like them, where people actually cared what I had to say. I figured that I would never be in the same room as people on that level of success because that was out of my league. I knew how dumb the thought sounded, but I realized how similar we all can be. After the this evening and the past year of meeting various successful famous comedic types in the flesh, I realized that to call the desire to work in the world of comedy a dream was a mistake. To imagine a having a house with a staff full of Israeli men waiting to take care of your every need, and then one of them asking you to leave because your perpetual staring creeped them out, that was a dream. At least it was one I had. To imagine and work hard to create a life in comedy, that will become my reality.