If less is more I'm going to have to get a bigger empty apartment.

Back to survival boys and girls...everyone's favorite topic.

I won't bore you with trite details, although therein lies the Devil.

Or so they say.

I'm up to my chin in a pond of debt. Oh great...a wave. Just what I needed.

And here I thought it was a winning quick pick or an agent in the audience with a sweetheart deal.

While I wouldn't say no to either one...holding my breath is just going to make me winded.

Life's too short to wheeze around the ugly.

If I was driving with my windows down, and had a male inflatable doll...would it look like I was driving a surprised Michael J. Fox to the Doctor?

I used that the last time I did my act. It went over really well.

I went through one of the hardest, bullshit weeks I've had in a while. I was going to cancel the show. Was not feeling it.

But apparently I have friends who believe in what I'm doing. They wouldn't let me cancel.

They inspired me to book a spot at Hyena's at 75 and Mockingbird on the Sunday after Easter.

Back Door Comedy on the Thursday after Easter and Hyena's on Sunday.

I'm not at all used to people believing in me...who are making me realize my potential, or at least trying to.

Friends...hmmm.

Third time up...

I performed for the third time last night. Strong material, good set, but the crowd was laughing at really simple stuff.

This set was new and the material I used required a little thought.

Maybe next time I'll just do knock knock jokes.

Odd crowd...I swear I heard cud chewing and the occasional moo.

Cows are great for hamburger and suede jackets but they like their comedy a little too straightforward.

Screw it. Next time I'll set up a grill and scare the shit out of them...

Comedy...it's not always funny.

Crickets...boy, are they loud.

I knew my first set worked...so I tried all new stuff for the second. The material I had was good, however, three jokes in and I went blindingly blank. Nothing. All I could hear were crickets. But I recovered and went on and finished.

The gap was probably about 15 seconds but seemed like six weeks. Wow. Not good. But next time I'm planning a strong set. Come out blazing.

Rehearsal is the key.

I book my sets every other Thursday. So the next time I'm up is March 19, again at 8:30.

This last time I went on before the amputee. Nice.

Hee Hee. Things are looking up?

Who knows...still working two jobs I loathe, but I am starting to live for three minutes every two weeks.

At least I have a goal.

I killed...

At least I'd like to think so. The show went better than I could have hoped and am expecting comments and pics from some folks who attended.

I was 37 out of 40 comics. I followed an amputee who actually removed his leg during his set. How did I follow that?

I'll let them tell the story...

It's a real indicator of my makeup that I am uncomfortable writing in public but I can get up in front of 60 people and try to make them laugh.

I have troubles...

I'm doing it again, but with a new set, March 5-8:30.

Standing on the edge...with one foot in space.

Writing in public, (I am using the library computer) is hard. Difficult to write in my robe and scratch myself while "Story time" unfolds across the room. But no matter...this is just an update.

I pulled the trigger and booked my first three minutes of time doing stand up. If you are in the Dallas area and read this blog, I would love to see you at the event. February 19, next Thursday at Back Door Comedy at the Doubletree in Dallas. I75 and Northwest Highway. The show starts at eight-thirty.

If you can make it leave me a comment on the blog.

Further update...I made my appointment at The VA and have to go back Friday for lab work. When I saw the Doctor last week he disturbed me. He told me I had to stop masturbating. Apparently it bothered the other Veterans.

I'm actually using that in my set. I have no shame...

And on...

I don't feel funny today. Or cute, or particularly clever. Guess you can't have it all.

Struggling mightily to get rent paid in time...it's not looking good. I worked a wine dinner tonight. Easy. But it's still a struggle. But I know it's a struggle for almost everyone, right now. I know I am not the only father behind in child support, and there are those who have even less than I do.

Poor bastards. Gratitude is my way out, and that, my friends, is a bitch. Always has been. Bumps up against this damned sense of entitlement I have always wrestled. At least it can be a goal. Short term.

I made that appointment with the VA, check on my meds. Need to. I am out of whack. Someone told me I might have a thyroid problem. Explain the largess and the lack of desire to do anything constructive. Worth a shot.

The weather is not helping. It has been colder than a blue fuck the past few days, and I'm heartily tired of it. Ice almost cost me a bad slip outside the apartment. Ice on the top step about resulted in the back of my skull rapping smartly against the sharp edge of the top step.

I imagined laying in the freezing ice storm, slowly bleeding to death. No one was out. I would not have been found in time. That would so suck.

I'm being told the best is yet to come and cannot imagine how this will all end up. But if we did know, would we still follow the course we set?


I can't imagine asking for this...

If you're afraid of being lonely, don't try to be right.

I know it all too well. Yet I am not lonely.

I do, at one time or another, sometimes all at once, piss off most everyone I know.

I do not do it on purpose. I simply have no more room for any more bullshit. My life is full, the tank is slopping...please stop.

The cable goes this weekend. I can't afford it. This frightens me. Time home alone will mean...silence. The only noise what my head can drum up. That is never a good idea.

I need a DVD player, at least.

But I will catch up on my reading, studying comedy, getting to know where it came from, and who paved the way for sick bastards like me...looking for an open mic. Writing material. Trying it out on an empty room. This could get really bizarre.

The good news. Comedy is filled with very disturbed people.

I should fit nicely.

Comedy Samurai. That works.

There is no lifeguard in this end of the gene pool.

I was thinking about my family. Show business and all.

My Mom the stripper. What? They can have kids...not a particularly good idea, but it happens.

She ran the VIP booth at the school carnival, and was a riot at PTA. Yes, she wore fur. She would have had at the big eyed baby seals with her teeth and hands, if it meant she would wear fur.

I was six and strolled through the house draped in it. I drew the line at jewelry.

It swallowed me. I was a midget pimp. There is something inherently wrong in a young boy wearing expensive fur. Just ask the Vatican.

Of course I was never allowed a birthday at a firehouse, either, for obvious reasons. "Mom, get off the pole, for Christ's sake."

Breakfast, according to Mom and Dad and their strange jumble of entertainment friends, and kids too, was after work. We all had breakfast at 2 a.m. Didn't you?

Agents; acts, musicians, characters and criminals.

My people.

Never hit a man with glasses; hit him with your fist.

The motherless bastards are closing in. The disconnect notices are gospel.

Catch up? I'm grabbing at branches just to slow the fall.

Soon I will be forced to 'borrow' the signal it takes for me to continue this.

I don't do well with silence.

The strange gets thick.

Every one is on the change bandwagon. How about getting a foot up off my neck, how about changing that?

It's odd, the idea about stand up. I ran 'from' a show business family only to come back full circle.

I did everything I could to behave and look like a normal productive yada, yada. I did not fare well in that regard.

So take your head off in public a few times a week, practicing in front of strangers, three minutes at a time.

It won't be for everybody. Most people aren't ready for 'filter free' commentary.

Oh well...

If you truly go crazy, it's best to get paid for it.-HST

As my impending 50th birthday looms larger than life in October, I have been thinking of ways to mark the milestone.

The fact that someone like me lived that long should be enough, but I feel it should be memorable. And no, I have no desire to completely cliche my lifestyle by skydiving. It is not a rule. I cannot see myself hurling me from a perfectly good aircraft-not on my best day.

So I thought of something. That little nigglin' thought, in the back of my mind for years, and I think it stands for something, a change in my life.

Finally doing what I've wanted my whole life, letting the outcome be what it may.

I'm finding an open mike night. I'm performing standup.

I have nothing left to lose.

If you board the wrong train, it is no use to run along the corridor in the opposite direction.

It's not for nothing that reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it.

My grasp, at the moment, is tenuous. But it beats the alternatives.

The V.A. Hospital is not high on my list of places I want to go. This would be a third trip and that's way too much evidence saying I'm nuts.

The last time I stayed in the same ward my Dad had been in when I was five. PTSD. I had it too. From childhood they said. You don't have to be in combat to be involved in a war.

Perhaps a brief checkup from the neck-up might be in order. A tune up, as it were.

Not any time soon I'm afraid. Too busy playing catch up. Screw wreckage of my past, I've got wreckage from right now. And no one to blame.

Good. Not a victim.

Not anymore. Trying to be stand up, and do the next right thing.

Looking for a day job...again. And we all know how much bloody fun that is. Desperation leaking from my pineal gland.

I swear they can smell it.