Here’s a table of contents for this lengthy post :

• Gearing Up
• The Daunting Task
• Something Different
• Gathering A Crowd
• The Show
• The Aftermath
• The Advertising
• The Future
• Buy My Album (the “shameless self-promotion whore” dichotomy)

Gearing Up

You’ll have to understand that, prior to this comedy special, my longest set was around 35 mins long. I’ve done three sets that broke the 30-minute mark, and none that have broken even 40 minutes. I set out to do 45 minutes for the album, and found out a week prior to recording it that I was alloted 70 minutes for my set. Naturally, I took that opportunity to write even more material. (golly, doesn’t that sound like a lot? maybe you should buy a copy to get the full effect!)

The Daunting Task

I wasn’t altogether worried about filling up 60+ minutes of time, so much as I wondered if I could fill up 60+ minutes that I would be proud to charge money for. That’s a big deal for me. I’ve done a lot of little projects for the purposes of entertaining the masses – several bands when I was younger, performance art, Aural Salvation (my hour-a-weeknight Internet TV show from 2005-2008), Mitcz The Expert (which I’m still doing on YouTube), 9 years of blog entries, every standup comedy performance — all of those things, I never personally charged for. Sure, people have paid to access them (either paying a door man, or paying for an internet connection) but I never asked for a dime. So, to break my 31-year-streak, I needed something special. That’s what I considered the challenge. (which reminds me – you should buy a copy!)

Something Different

With all that time to kill onstage, the freedom to go anywhere I wanted with it, the ability to stretch out ideas and bits to their bitter ends – that was exciting. I was finally free to tell lengthy stories, as I often do in my private life but almost never do onstage. This was a chance to do something different with my comedy. Moreover, I didn’t want wall-to-wall dick jokes. That would be “too easy”, I told myself.

My father and I talked a few months prior, and when I told him about the special and asked if he could make it out for the show – he said “is it just gonna be a bunch of cursing and sex stuff?”. Taken aback as I was, I realized… he was right. The way my set was written at the time was little more than a series of wordy dick jokes. Sure, I’ve made some socio-political commentary here and there, and I’ve done entire sets based on current events, but the gigs leading up to The Big One weren’t even rehearsed. I’d just go up onstage and rattle off the easy sex stuff, cause it always gets a laugh and I could tell those bits in my sleep.

I wanted something my dad might laugh at. And my sister. Something that ran the gamut of the weird shit I spend my lonely hours locked away in my apartment of solitude obsessing about. So, I basically picked out two or three “sex stuff” bits that I wanted to keep and wiped everything else. (doesn’t that sound neat? did you know you can buy a copy?)

Gathering A Crowd

Leading up to the performance, I must’ve bothered everyone I’ve ever known about this gig. I sent out MySpace invites, Facebook invites, email invites, Eventful announcements, Twitter updates, text messages, phonecalls… you name it. I had only a rough idea who would show up for the gig. Ultimately, fewer showed than I’d expected, but there were also a lot of surprises. I’d give “shout outs”, but I don’t want anyone to feel left out, nor do I want to fill this blog entry up with a long list of names. For those that showed – know that I’ll never forget it, and I thank you from the pit of my blackened little heart. While I’ve always felt like a cast-aside nerdy little pervert, that night made me feel better than I’ve ever felt. At the same time, and for reasons I don’t wish to reveal publicly, it also in many ways cemented a number of negative feelings I harbor about myself, my life, my career, my social status. (aww… how sappy – cheer me up and buy a copy!)

The Show

What’s there to say, really? I flubbed a couple of lines, forgot a few bits here and there, added entire rants in other places, got laughs at non-jokes that I was surprised by, and walked offstage thinking “holy shit. I did it”. For a guy with no agent, no manager, and who’s done maybe 60 shows in his life (a sad number, considering most comics do more than that in their first 6 months) – I’m proud of what I accomplished that night. (curious if I have the chops? buy a copy!)

The Aftermath

I woke up the morning after it happened feeling lonelier than I’ve felt in a very long time. Anyone close to me that I could actually see and hang out with was at the show the night before, so there was nothing new to tell them. Anyone I was close with that wasn’t at the show was out of town, and out of touch. Everyone else, I figured, was probably not the close friend I thought they were; they’d have been at the show if they were. I then shed some tears for my mother. She would’ve been so proud of her little freak. (bla bla bla buy a copy)

The Advertising

As I said earlier – I’ve never sold anything for myself before. I’ve had a shitload of projects in my life where I thought “ohman, if this takes off – I can sell (items)!”. Now, for the first time in my life, I have an actual product to sell. And, while I’ve worked in web-based advertising for most of my life, I’ve never really had to rely solely on my own traffic, my own world, my own ads, my own… everything. It’s a crazy world out there. Crazier still is that I have 1000s of people out there on the web who have expressed interest in the album, but no easy way to get ahold of them all. 6,000+ MySpace friends – how the fuck do I contact them? And would it be “spam”, enough to get my account deleted? I’ve tried putting alerts on Facebook to fans of my Rev. Mitcz page and my Mitcz The Expert page, but even actual friends of mine on there didn’t know the album was available for pre-order yet. The same goes for my hundreds of Twitter followers, my 100s of Eventful Demanders, my 100s of YouTube subscribers. I’m trying to find ways to let them all know about it – but it’s tough to actually connect and contact any of them without feeling like I might get an account deleted for “spamming”. So, basically, I’ve just been trying to think of all the myriad ways I can put the word out (ya know, like I’ve been doing all throughout this entry when I tell you to buy a copy!)

The Future

To be honest, I’ve been considering just throwing in the towel on comedy. Don’t get me wrong – I love it more than anything else in the world. But, really, I don’t know where to go from here. Building up a “local following” is near-impossible at the rate I perform. I can’t perform more often because after a bout of financial woes and deadbeat clients, I had to give up my car and I can’t exactly walk to the Improv. Not that I’d get booked there – cause I’d need to bring people out to the show, and I can’t keep asking my friends to cough up hard-earned money to hear me talk for 10 minutes at a time. Especially when I can just have them spend less money to buy a copy of me talking for an hour straight.

The future, basically, rests in how well the DVD/MP3 copies of my performance are received. If there’s a high demand – I’ll rise up to meet it. I consider it to be the Greatest Thing I Have Ever Done (emphasis on “I”, which might make it “not all that great” in the grand scheme of things I suppose) and I’m very proud of it. On the flipside, I don’t feel like relegating myself to performing once-a-month as I currently do and pretending It’s A Career. Standup Comedy deserves better from me than that, and I just can’t give it – not right now, anyway. After all, I have a number of not-ready-to-discuss-yet projects I’m doing this year (like my book for instance) as well as work that needs catching up on.

Buy My Album (the “shameless self-promotion whore” dichotomy)

I’ve never been one to push my projects onto people. I’ve always been a “here’s what I’m doing – I’ll tell you about it and then leave you alone. If you like it – cool. If you don’t, I will bother you no more” kind of person. I don’t fill my Twitter feed with endless links to my shit, I don’t spam friends’ comment fields and Facebook walls with announcements about what I’m doing, I don’t even send out invites to events I’m performing at unless I was specifically told by that person that they wanted to know (or, in the one-time case of my comedy special — if it’s a Major Fucking Event).

Now, I’ve long thought that was Taking The High Road. Being a genuine person, and not a shameless self-promotion whore. I don’t want to distance myself from people and be in marketing mode 24/7. I’ve known people like that in my life (especially here in Hollywood) and they make me fuckin’ sick. When I was doing Aural Salvation, there’s a number of people who would kiss my ass trying to get on the show and I’d brush them off because, to me, they were just walking billboards for their Product, and I wanted People on the show, not Products.

The other side of this battle is that you hear all the time about people who Made It Big On The Internet. Apparently, Justin Bieber got his start because some record exec happened across a YouTube video of his. Tila Tequila and Jeffree Star got “big on myspace” (by “friending” everyone on the site) and turned it into a career. The same goes for Hollywood Undead, Soulja Boy, Dane Cook. Hell, Jersey Shore is on the air partly because an agent at a very well-known agency that a close friend of mine works at saw my Douchebags PSA, read some of the 1000s of comments on it, and said “Wow! People HATE these guys! what a great idea for a reality show!” and went in search of people who were just as douchey.

I’ve done research on a lot of these “success stories”. Turns out, most of the time, these people are shameless self-promotion whores. What marketing shitheads call “engaging their audience” turns out to be “spamming the fuck out of anyone who shows even a passive interest”. Clearly, that works wonders. Fling enough shit, and something’s bound to stick.

To put it another way – even if you hate any of the aforementioned people, there’s still 6 billion people on this earth and if you appeal to even 5% of them – you’ve got a market cap of 300 Million People (conveniently, that’s also the population of these United States). Even the combined sum of every Beatles album ever sold is less than 300 million. That should put things in perspective.

The projects I’ve done get really positive responses from people, and I’m very proud of the reactions they elicit. It seems those who dig what I do really dig what I do. They just.. don’t have any friends. Or, they don’t tell their friends. But, more than anything, I don’t actively try to recruit people. That will be my downfall. Taking The High Road, it seems, means fuck-all.

So, uhh… here’s my being a shameless self-promotion whore : buy my album.

Related posts:

1. RE : Mitch Hedberg
2. Get your tickets now
3. A Friendly Head-Punch Suggestion

Related posts:

1. Mitcz : The Expert #9 – The Island of Fun
2. Mitcz : The Expert #8 – Black Metal!
3. Mitcz : The Expert #5 – Psychic Shitheads

Anyway, so there’s this really great Snow Patrol song Make This Go On Forever, and I became curious about who/what the situation was that he was writing about. Googling around, I found all these attempts at heart-wrenching stories from dudes who claim “ohh.. I can SO relate”. If you actually read the lyrics, though, you’ve gotta be a real asshole to go around acting like you’re the one who’s suffering.

I think we all fashion ourselves to be hopeless romantics, and artists with dirty souls, just wandering around looking for “the one who REALLY ‘gets’ me, ya know?”. This is an amusing delusion. And I come armed with an example! A translation of Make This Go On Forever..

Please don’t let this turn into something it’s not

You’re freakin’ out over nothin’ here, toots. Are you on your period?

I can only give you everything I’ve got

You’re asking for too much from me, here. What, like, you’re perfect?

I can’t be as sorry as you think I should

I can’t be as sorry as you think I should

But I still love you more than anyone else could

You better hang onto me, cause… you know that weird thing you do w/your toes when we’re fucking? Yeah, other dudes would dump your ass in a heartbeat. Just keep that in mind here.

All that I keep thinking throughout this whole flight
Is it could take my whole damn life to make this right

I mean, really, how many times do I have to apologize? I’m, like, real sorry. See?

This splintered mast I’m holding on won’t save me long
Because I know fine well that what I did was wrong

I’m an artist. Look at me! Arty and shit! Did I mention I was sorry?

The last girl and the last reason to make this last for as long as I could

Woe is me. I’ll never love again. You’re, like, the ONLY one for me!

First kiss and the first time that I felt connected to anything

Remember when we first kissed? That shit was hot. Can we drop all this and… y’know, get back to THAT?

The weight of water, the way you told me to look past everything I had ever learned

You’re so wise, baby. Teach me your ways. So I can ignore them next time I fuck up.

The final word in the final sentence you ever uttered to me was love

What did you mean by “Is THIS how you treat someone you supposedly LOVE?” – cause all I heard was “love”, and I’m still kinda confused why you walked away after that.

We have got through so much worse than this before
What’s so different this time that you can’t ignore

Remember last month, when one of those girls I was having a threesome with (while you were out of town) squirted onto that teddy bear you’ve had since you were a kid? Ohboy, were you pissed. But… hey! We got past that, right? So, this shouldn’t be that different. That’s our dynamic. I fuck up – you forgive me cause I wrote you songs about it, then we fuck.

You say it is much more than just my last mistake
And we should spend some time apart for both our sakes

You’re just sayin’ that cause you wanna fuck other dudes, right? Is that what this is about?

And I don’t know where to look
My words just break and melt
Please just save me from this darkness

I’ll just be over here… crying to myself. Being REAL sorry. Not like last time. I really mean it this time. I’m, like, in the darkness and shit. Can’t you feel my pain?!? I’m a tortured soul!

Related posts:

1. We Have Hijacked Your Baby
2. Jesus Points
3. My YouTube Channel is GONE : But there’s good news, and more videos.

What I love about stories of hypocrisy from hate-mongers, gay-bashers, cross-bearers and the general stench of their associated ilk is just how fucking obvious the whole thing is. Every time another of these scandals pops up, “thou dost protest too much” rings like a church bell through the nation. I hope it continues on. In droves. Just an overwhelming outing of every hair-brained shitcock who stands at the ready of a podium, shouting hateful jargon and belittling innocent people for their lifestyles. That’s what I want.

If this trend continues, it goes towards the most glorious of paths : simply being hateful will come to mean you secretly love it in your private life. Maybe the fight against intolerance has been building up to this all along. Instead of extolling the humanizing virtues of a repressed class, you can instead point to all the people who have stood up to proclaim an ignorant and hateful diatribe against them. After all, if you identify yourself with a person whose beliefs underline your own – only to find out that said person was lying their fucking ass off to hide their “shameful” love and belied the agenda they pushed – won’t you question your own beliefs as well?

Even on a lesser scale, maybe the paranoia that the public will undoubtedly link you with that which you’re rallying against will be such an embarrassment that you dare not say it aloud.

And that’s a beautiful fucking thing.

The Double-Edged Sword of Gay As A Choice

I’ve said this before, though maybe only onstage. If you’re arguing that one’s sexuality is a choice, and a conscious, binary decision of “gay or not gay”, then you have to face the repercussions of exactly what that means. You are saying, in essence, that the only thing differentiating one person from another is a simple flip of a switch. Taking it further – that means you, yourself, sat down in the dark recesses of your mind and thought – if only for a few fleeting moments – about hardcore gay sex that involved you. For just that fleeting moment, you were gay. We’ve all, in essence, been gay at some point in our lives.

I’m fine with that, personally. Cause I’ve got nothin’ to hide. If I firmly believed sexually were a simple matter of binary, conscious choices, I’d just as easily flick the “gay” switch and start swallowing dicks like bratwurst during Oktoberfest.

But, I’m just.. not. This isn’t to give me some inflated sense of pride in how gosh-darned manly I am. Far from it. I have a lot of feminine tendencies and you may have noticed I’m not exactly “ripped”. Whatever part of my brain regulates my arousal is responsible for a general “nahhh… just not into it” feeling towards dicks, body hair, and masculine partners. I’d love to tap into that raw feed and ask it “so, what else will I find out I’m exceedingly turned on by in 10 years?”.

Maybe….

Maybe it’s simpler, though. Maybe these evangelicals have it right. Maybe our sexuality is a series of conscious, binary choices. Maybe, it’ll turn out, hot sweaty man-on-man love is just where it’s at and once you’ve had some, it’s like heroin! Maybe these evangelicals have some secret tome handed down from the ancients that said “seriously, guys? the gay sex is SO fuckin’ sweet. If people get wind of that, we’re doomed. They’ll just wanna fuck each other endlessly instead of praying to zombie jesus and paying stipends to our church. Let them never find out” – and maybe every once in awhile, a preacher gets high up in the ranks and says “really? that sounds ridiculous” and gives it a shot.

And, maybe, he finds out the ancients were right. Assfucking a dude is transcendental.

(and we just can’t have that, can we?)

Related posts:

1. It Doesn’t Fucking Matter
2. Maybe Love Is A Comfort Lie
3. Do People Change?

Cargo Pants are only excusable at age 12 when no one else cared that you look like a little prick with too many pockets.

WHAT? Oh no you DI-INT.. that shit ain’t gonna fly here in the Mitczosphere. Cargo pants are the greatest item of clothing ever made. Allow me to present my case.

1. Functionality

I’m more of a function-over-form guy, myself. This might sound at odds with my being an avid user of many Apple products, but that’s another rant for another day (and frankly, I could give a shit what OS you use) – so I’m not altogether concerned with the fashion sense of cargo pants. However, functionally? Oh shit, man. These fuckers have function in spades.

To wit, here’s what Mix Master Mitcz rocks on the daily in the cargos…

Yeah, that’s right bitches. I carry a digital video camera, a digital still camera, 2 packs of smokes, 2 condoms, my iPhone, my gate opener, a stack of business cards, my wallet, zippo, mints, a pen and (not shown) little scraps of paper for making notes. Occasionally, I’ll even find it necessary to toss in things like a USB cord or iPhone charger in case I plan to be away all night.

You gonna toss all that shit in your skin-tight chinos? Psh. Good luck, pussy.

2. They’re Flexible

I don’t mean literally flexible – although they’re definitely roomy in that sense – but I mean you can work a pair cargos for just about any occasion. Need to toss on a quick pair of pants to run to the store? Done! Need something that goes with a button-up shirt but doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard? Done! Wanna rock the punk look for a night? Voila! Going camping? Fuck yeah, cargos are your buddy.

Hell, I even rock cargos with a 3-piece suit. And I’ll bet no one even noticed…

3. They’re Ambiguous

Are you all about military wear? Cargos, baby. A camping-bound hippy? Cargos. Punk? Cargos. Goth? Fuckin’ cargos. Regular dude just lookin’ for some extra space for all your shit, but you don’t wanna carry around a man-purse? Sing it with me in your best baritone… “Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgos!”. Whereas so many styles are adopted by fringe groups or stereotypes – cargos don’t actually say anything about a person. I like that. It’s why I drive 4-door sedans – it says nothing about me other than “I have a car with room for 4″. With all my crazy ways, I’d hate to have yet another incidental affectation.

Because cargos aren’t particularly “hip”, and have never been the “it” fashion, they’re not susceptible to fads or over-usage. They’re timeless like that. I’ve been wearing cargos for about 17 years now and, outside of the occasional pair of dress slacks for weddings and funerals, I have no need for any other lower-half apparel. Why would I?

4. They’re Rugged

When I was in middle school, the “cool” thing to wear on your lower-half were those Z. Cavaricci pants. I think those became the reason I not only still shy away from brand-name clothing, but what probably made my mom swear off ever buying anything brand-name for me. I had ONE pair of Z Cavariccis and I ripped them in half at the end of the first day I wore them. How? I ran across the street. That’s it. I ran, they ripped. And just kept on ripping. That’s some pretty lousy shit for pants that cost $75 (in 1992 dollars). Many years later, I saw a pair of Z’s in a used clothing shop in Seattle and picked them up for like $5. Sure enough, they lasted 2 days before they ripped to shreds. Fuck that.

On the other hand, I buy my cargos at the surplus store across the street (Hollywood Blvd has a lot of fringe shops like that) and these fuckers can take an axe before they even scuff. Not too shabby for $35/pair, I say.

5. They’re Erection-proof

That’s right fellas – pretend all you want that you don’t even think about this shit when you’re buying pants, but I do. I pitch tents if the wind is right. When I wear dress pants, I’m tempted to keep a suspender strap on my leg in case I need to tie that sucker down. Erection + Dress Slacks = NAGL. But in cargos? Shit, I could be within titty-groping distance from a 5-girl orgy and stand up straight, tall and proud with no one the wiser.

For all you know, I’m hard the entire time I’m onstage (and don’t think I didn’t catch you scrolling up to double-check).

Fuck yeah, cargo pants.

You can have your cutting-edge fashions and your skin-tight girly pants (I’m looking at you, ironic male hipsters). Meanwhile, I’ll be rockin’ my cargos. Like nature intended.

UPDATE : As a special gift to you, I present Bud Light’s “Real American Heroes” commercial for Mr. Cargo Pants Designer – I sure as fuck salute that guy.

Related posts:

1. I’m Gonna Be Naked in Playboy!
2. A Jog Well Done (notes to self about Jogging)
3. How To : Spot (and avoid) A Douchebag

However, as I actually have quite a shitload of things on my plate this year, I thought it might be a good idea to make them public so people can hold me to it. A brief rant about stand-up comedy follows.

What I’m Doing This Year (hopefully)

• Finish Grab Your Crotch and Roar
• Record my debut comedy album (more info below)
• Launch setl.it
• Change the Mitcz : The Expert format a little bit and do it more often
• Release the iPhone game I’ve been working on

Why is that shit not done already?

I have a whole piece prepared about the difficulties of writing and ultimately finishing the book. The long-and-short of it is threefold : 1. There’s SO much information for me to process; being a verbose guy – if I don’t find a way to compress that information, the book will be 700 pages long before I know it, 2. Writing the book is so important to me that I feel obligated to stew on every word to make it the best it can be (despite being pretty sure I’ll never live up to my own expectations), 3. It’s tough to find 3-4 hours in a day to just sit and write.

Frankly, reason #3 explains much of why I’ve not yet finished any of the things I mentioned above. I’m overwhelmed with work, after a long dry-spell of not having work to such a degree that I was falling behind on bills and I was in danger of losing everything. To overcompensate for that, I’ve taken on more work than I can handle. It’s tough to balance all the shit I don’t want to do but pays me well versus things I really want to do but don’t pay at all until months after they’re finished (if at all).

Hopefully, you see my dilemma.

A Brief Rant on Comedy

I know I don’t perform often enough. I’m fully aware of that and while I’ve sat made bullshit excuses for why that is – it’s no one’s fault more than my own. The only defense I’ve really got left is that “working the comedy scene” tends to be a game of repetition, the time to constantly perform, having a large enough group of friends willing to see you, and keeping yourself on-track despite those 3 hurdles.

I hate repetition. For a time, I tried to write a whole new set from scratch every time I went onstage. As time went on and I realized I actually do belong on a comedy stage, I got more comfortable reusing old material. The last few months, I haven’t even bothered to prepare for a set ahead of time. Any new material or new ways of performing old material was written either on-the-spot while I was onstage, or just a few minutes prior to going onstage. That doesn’t feel like a fun challenge. While I love to make people laugh, I feel cheap if I don’t bring something new & unique to each performance.

I don’t have the time to constantly perform. And, being without a vehicle anymore, I’ve even less ability to go out as often as possible to perform. It’s a fucked situation, and one I’m trying to find ways to remedy.

The friends I have who would come to a comedy gig even semi-regularly either don’t want to be dragged out weekly just to see me or have already seen me enough times that it’s probably starting to get old. That’s fair, and I certainly don’t fault any of them for it. That’s just how these things go. I don’t really hang with a partying bunch of Hollywood folks that go out on weeknights and drop $50 at whatever bar we end up at. That’s no one’s fault – it’s just the proverbial lay of the land.

In spite of all of that, I still manage to perform pretty regularly and I’ve got quite a few gigs lined up. Having been around for awhile, it’s not difficult for me to get booked just to work the stage and hurl hot joke-love in the face of a crowd.

But, I’ve been getting a little bored. I see the same comics and hear the same jokes out of them week after week. I try to go up and do some new shit, but since the audiences tend to be the result of someone just inviting their friends, they’re often not an audience of comedy-lovers so much as they’re just “out to have a good time”. And, unless your act is well-polished and well-rehearsed, they’re not going to notice that you’re trying some new angles and trying to connect with a willing audience. The places where you’ll find crowds like that are, for instance, The Hollywood Improv. Wanna know how to get to the Hollywood Improv? You bring a bunch of friends to enough smaller gigs that shows you have a “pull” and can bring a crowd, and you’re asked to bring that crowd to The Improv.

If you’re not bringing crowds to the smaller clubs, you won’t be asked to perform at the bigger clubs. Fun little catch-22, because it’s tough to promote an unknown club, despite the fact that I bring pretty good crowds of friends every time I’ve performed at The Improv.

My Comedy Solution (and my debut album)

I wanna do a few more smaller gigs that don’t require bringing anyone out (I have several of those lined-up, thankfully) and I’ll use the time to try some new shit and further polish some old shit. Then, I’ll be setting up a huge gig somewhere to do a full 45-minute set that I’ll record and put onto an album.

After that, I’ll probably bow out of the comedy scene for awhile and work on all that other shit I wanna do, and let the album work its way around. I’m not sure what will happen with it, but I hope everyone who’s ever wanted to see me will come out for the recording and we can make it into the best night of comedy I’ve ever given to a crowd. Maybe I’ll even do discounted pre-orders for anyone in that crowd, and I’ll send them physical CDs of it when it’s pressed.

Anyway, that’s my plan. Feel free to hold me to it.

Related posts:

1. Hardcore Comedy + Hardcore BDSM = Fun?
2. RE : Mitch Hedberg
3. Comedy Store gig recap – WITH FULL AUDIO of performance

Anyway, the point of this post is to look over China’s response to Google. The wording is.. a little murky. So, I’m providing a translaton.

BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) — From groundlessly accusing the Chinese government of supporting hacker attacks against it

Google figured out we were trying to keep them from skirting our intense censorship laws.

..to pushing China abandon the legal regulations on the Internet by threatening to withdraw from the Chinese market, many facts have shown that Google is politicalizing itself.

We’d really prefer Google didn’t discuss China’s policies out in the open like that. We’re trying to run a strictly-controlled society under a totalitarian government system here, thankyouverymuch.

Google, as the world’s largest search engine, should understand an internationally accepted rule as well as other enterprises, if not better, that no matter in which country you conduct business, you have to obey the laws and regulations there.

Our playground, our rules. You can take your ball and go home.

In fact, no country allows unrestricted flow on the Internet of pornographic, violent, gambling or superstitious content, or content on government subversion, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racialism, terrorism and anti-foreign feelings.

We’re no different from anyone else! Every government censors any and all information that freely passes through the citizens’ computers! If we tell flat-out lies like this, no one will notice they’re being raped of their freedom!

China has been implementing the reform and opening-up policies for more than three decades and its stance for keeping the door open remains unchanged. Having conducted business in China for four years, Google has benefited from China’s opening-up policies and its vast market.

C’mon, guys. It’s not like we’re evil and censoring everything. We even let Google come in and only serve about 0.05% of the information on the internet! Look at us go. If you’re nice, maybe in 20 years, we’ll let you read about the history of ouija boards.

Google is currently at a crossroad. Whether it eventually leaves the Chinese market or not, one thing is certain — China’s Internet market, which has already been the world’s biggest with nearly 400 million netizens, will continue to prosper.

HA! Google thinks we care if they leave. Psh. There’s 400 million people here who’d gladly tell you they don’t give a shit about Google, either! (because if they don’t say that, we kill their family and lock up their children to make some Nikes).

Whether it leaves or not, the Chinese government will keep its Internet regulation principles unchanged. One company’s ambition to change China’s Internet rules and legal system will only prove to be ridiculous.

Eat our dicks, Google. This censorship thing is working out great for us as a government, cause no matter what we do to these people – no one’s allowed to say shit! In fact, they’re not even allowed to know the shit we did! HA!

And whether leaving or not, Google should not continue to politicalize itself, as linking its withdrawal to political issues will lose Google’s credibility among Chinese netizens. That, will make Google end up to be the biggest loser.

Just in case you’ve considered spreading dissent and free-thought with your big ol’ web servers – we’re just gonna let you know : no one’s even paying attention. So, don’t even try it. Seriously. It’s not worth it. No one’s gonna care and… ya know, it’s just a big waste of your time. Hey look! Something shiny! Yeahh…. stare at the shiny thing… *runs away*

Serious Thoughts

Wouldn’t it be great if Google had just pretended to go along with it and then one day – BAM! They turned off the filter? Wouldn’t that be amazing? I wonder what would happen. I mean, obviously China would sooner have all the wires in the country severed in half than let free speech run rampant – but that would take awhile. For at least a few hours, all of China would be completely free to explore any information they wished. If I were running Google, I’d strongly consider that course of action. I mean that sincerely.

This whole thing reminds me of a story a friend of mine (and former business associate) told me. You see, his father helped American companies outsource their manufacturing to China, and eventually my friend got in on that with him. He even had a separate apartment in China for all the time he spent there. Because almost everything is paid for by the gov’t, people were paid the equivalent of about $50/month. Meaning, for my friend, that he could go to a club and get full VIP service, bottle service, private dancers, etc. and walk outta there having only spent about $60.

Anyway, the most fascinating thing he told me was that while walking down the street w/some of his clients, he jumped up on a little wall. One of those 2-3 foot walls they have near sidewalks. He jumped up and balanced-while-walking. Nothing major, the kinda harmless weird thing you just do for kicks. I don’t think any of us would’ve even batted an eye. But, his clients and associates just… stopped. Dead in their tracks. They looked at him like he decided to shit on the sidewalk and wipe his ass with dollar bills. One of them finally spoke up – “what…. doing?”. He said “I dunno… just felt like it”. They stared at him, confused. One of them asked something along the lines of “were you told to jump up there?”, and he said “Nope. Just… freedom”. The translator looked at him and said “I can’t tell them what you said”. Now, he’s all confused – “Why not?”. The translator’s answer to him was…

“They wouldn’t understand the word, there’s no translation for it, and no way for me to explain the concept”

Imagine that. Being a grown adult – having literally no idea what freedom was, and no way to even learn about it.

So, he just smiled at them to smooth it over and they kept on walking.

Related posts:

1. For The People, By the 29% of People?
2. Come Together. (right now)
3. Constantly Nerding Out

It would be great if…

…the leaders of the Republican party would just drop the shit and say “Okay, okay.. that whole ‘God and Jesus’ thing is just a ploy to retain an emotional stranglehold on the masses so they don’t notice when we financially rape them”

…the U.S. legal system would consider a rape victim’s sexual history, proclivities, social activities and social circle “inadmissable as evidence” and instead focus on the only thing that matters : did the girl get raped? (sidenote : although only 2-8% of rape cases turn out to be lies, only 5.7% of rape cases actually result in a conviction. so, why does everyone focus on the extremely fringe possibility that a girl might be lying?) – sources here and here

…I could be having a fun and interesting conversation with a woman at a bar and could just say “look, you’re attractive and fun to talk to. I’m painfully curious to see your boobs, though. Can we make that happen so I can focus on the rest of our conversation?” without being told that’s “creepy”, “sexist”, “misogynistic” or “promoting rape culture by objectifying woman”. Truly, can’t I love your brain AND your body? Is that so wrong?

…I was on tour right now. Man, that’d be SO great.

…I hadn’t gone through so many financial and employment woes in the last year to the extent that I lost my car. I could aimlessly drive somewhere right now. I miss doing that.

…I was in Vegas. I miss you, sweet Vegas.

…I was going down on a strange woman right now.

…some strange woman was going down on me.

…I knew what the hell I was going to do with my set on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll figure it out 10 minutes before I get onstage.

…that straight razor I bought the other day had arrived. Don’t know what’s taking so long on that.

…any of the 3 checks I’m waiting on from clients had arrived this week. I’ve got “going out” money, but not enough “pay off all the bills and do some shopping” money until they come in.

…I knew whether or not I got that gig with Playboy TV. Cross your fingers for me, will ya? (even if it means my penis on your TV, just cross ‘em damnit)

…short guys would just try and get a personality instead of pumping iron at the gym and then walking around angry and picking fights with everyone. It’s not my fault that genetics dealt you the Short Guy card. (kudos to you if you’re a short guy reading this, that means you’re reading… and not at the gym, or picking fights. keep that up)

…women would get over the height thing. For all the claims I hear made about men being superficial about looks, feel free to ask any woman you know if they’d date a guy 3-4″ shorter than them. (this also would cut down on the angry-short-guy thing)

…I could find the damned site (for, I think, some brand of tequila) that had women answering common questions about men. The height one didn’t have a single “yes” response to the question “would you date a guy shorter than you?”. If you find the site (it’s black, built in Flash, has green accent lines, and I think it’s part of a viral tequila brand) then please let me know.

…I could stop blogging now so I can head out for the evening.

Oh, wait. I can. Take care.

Related posts:

1. All Energy Flows According to the Whim of the Great Magnet
2. Oh, You Creep
3. Time For a Moral Conundrum…

Yesterday (March 6th, 2010 for those reading this later), I went with my friend Justin Dabuet to try out for Last Comic Standing (season 7) here in sunny Hollywood, CA. It was an insane, grueling 15+ hour affair. Friends of mine asked me “did you audition? how did it go?” and my answer has just been “wait for my blog post about it”. Sorry to make you read all this shit (I’m organizing it by topic and keeping it as brief as possible), but you can skip to the answer to that question written below.

(if you have ADD and need a quick visual tour, here’s a video…)

The Setup

Justin came over around 1:45am (saturday morning). His plan was to meet up with another comedian named Jordan around 3am. So, he hung out and played Wii while I finished up some work, shaved, showered, and got ready.

We headed out to Melrose & Kilkea (the corner where you’ll find the world-famous Hollywood Improv) and arrived at around 3am, with our soda, red bull and cigarettes. I’ve never stood in a line for more than maybe an hour, so the prospect of spending at least 7+ hours in a line was a bit daunting. Surprisingly, however, I was rarely bored.

Good Morning

As the sun rose around 5am, I could see the lay of the land better than before. The tents I’d seen and walked past earlier in the day looked even more abundant than what I’d first seen. I wasn’t yet tired, but it was a strange experience to be standing on a familiar Melrose street at five in the morning with a line of comics (a lot of them which I’ve performed with), all hoping for the same thing : a chance at 2 minutes in front of a panel of judges that with one word can literally change your entire career.

Tents Removed

At around 9am, the camera crews for LCS came around and asked us to line up properly, take down the tents, and make a lot of noise for the cameras that would walk the line and gauge the excitement in the air. We complied, because we are (almost by definition) camera whores — I have no shame in admitting I’m definitely a camera whore. Occasionally, the crew would stop to focus on one of the comedians for a moment, have a little interview, and move on. While I was hoping they might randomly pick me, it appeared they picked people who went out of their way to bug the camera people. So, I wasn’t interviewed (that time around..)

Getting Closer

At around 10am, we were at least in the adjacent parking lot from The Improv. I needed to use the bathroom, but since the port-o-johns were out of order (hardly surprising with two johns, one of which was half-broken to begin with, for the 350+ people in line), they had me walk into the sideroom of The Improv. That’s where things got a little suspicious..

Freaks & …. more freaks

When I walked past the line of people who were prepped for actual time in front of actual judges, I noticed something : I’d seen exactly none of them in line up to that point. I’m not suggesting I looked at every single person who ever stood in line, but I saw 2 drag queens, a guy in a skin tight devil costume, a guy in a purple suit, another guy with balloons made into the shape of vegetables and (my personal fave) Alien Warrior Comedian. I’m actually a fan of AWC – I told him as much, and shook his hand, saying it was nice to finally meet the Gwar of Comics. He was surprised I knew who he was, but I told him I keep my ear to the ground for things like that. Honestly, his comedy is more than schtick so I dig what he’s doing. But the rest of the people mentioned? Fuckin’ hacks.

A Word on Shticks and Hacks

It’s pretty basic : audiences will put up with hack-comics for a time, cause it’s an easy laugh. But hack rarely lasts. Moreover, schtick crap like dressing up and putting on some cliché persona almost never works. But, hey, it’ll work for 30 seconds in a blurb on Last Comic Standing (or American Idol, for that matter) because viewers love to laugh at the dumb fuck. Do you really want to relegate your whole career to being that dumbfuck everyone laughed at and quickly forgot? Hey.. go for it. (again, none of this applies to AWC but he’s another topic for another time)

The Plot Thickens

One thing that sucked greatly was the weather. It rained several times throughout the day, and while I was able to shield myself with my hoodie, I ended up freezing cold and dripping wet. On top of being really tired, and hungry. By the time Justin and I left, we felt like we just went into battle.

Enter Craig Robinson

This year’s LCS host is Craig Robinson, who you might not think you know but I just about guarantee you do. Here’s a photo of him (with a half-asleep Mitcz, after 10 hours of waiting in line…)

He walked the line, cameras in-tow, building up the crowd and reading cue cards welcoming TV audiences to LCS season 7. He was a cool guy, I just felt bad for him having to brave not only an angry, cold, wet, tired and hungry amass of comics – but clearly being lied to (more on this in a moment) and being ordered around by the director.

One of the things that the interviewers throughout the day (and Craig Robinson) had said to comics they interviewed was “tell me something funny”, or “give me a good one-liner”. Having heard about this early on, I thought “I don’t do one-liners”, but I’ve written a few for sprinkling into sets even though I never get around to using them. I needed something I could remember on the spot that showed enough about my act to maybe get me a leg up on the competition.

When Craig walked up to me for an interview, I had been standing in line for about 12 hours. Here’s how our interview went ..

Craig : yo, man.. what’s your name?
Me : Mitcz
Craig : Mitcz, Nice to meet you. I’m Craig
Me : Well.. nice to meet you, Craig
Craig : So… you funny?
Me : I sure try to be
Craig : C’mon man.. you can’t try. You gotta KNOW it. Gotta know it in your head
(I point to my cranium, and smile, saying “that’s like some Yoda stuff” under my breath)
Craig : So, gimme somethin’ funny, man. Make it quick
Me : Beyonce says if you love it, you should put a ring on it. So… I pierced my dick.
(Craig looks a little disturbed, and says nothing. no laugh.. no reaction.. nothin’)
Me : ….. should I have said penis instead?
Craig : Nah, man. They’ll bleep it out. It’s cool. You take care, and good luck!

…I’m still not sure if that was considered a good interview. But, hey, I did what I could in my half-asleep state.

Mixed Signals

One of the producers told someone near me (I was fading in and out of sleep, so I can’t remember if it was part of the “crew” I was hanging out with all day or not) that “everyone in line will be seen by someone today. Either inside, or out here in the line, everyone will get a chance to make an impression on one of the scouts or the judges”. At around 3pm, I was a mere hundred feet from the entrance, and we hadn’t moved more than about 20 feet in the past 3 hours. The rain was drizzling in and out, but one of our crew (big shoutout to Robert B Forsyth) bought some pizzas, so I wasn’t as hungry.

Around 4pm, one of the film crew members came out and said “basically, there’s no chance any of you are going to get a chance to audition today. we’re understaffed and overloaded, and.. I’m sorry. Even the people who are in the courtyard..” (quick explanation : the courtyard was just beyond a gate that was maybe 10 feet in front of us) “….might not get a chance, either”. At that point, most of the line started to clear out and go home. Justin and I agreed – we’d come this far, and if everyone turned around and went home, we could probably get into the courtyard and give it a shot. What had we to lose?

So, we stayed. And we got into the courtyard.

The Angry Masses

There in the courtyard, under some hastily-constructed blue tents, amongst about 50 comics… was a surreal moment. There were comics jumping up and down, literally screaming at the top of their lungs for a chance to get in and audition. One guy just kept giving these loud, impassioned speeches about how “we’re all being treated like animals” and much of the crowd of comics cheered him on. I don’t think he was entirely out of line — to say the event was handled “very poorly” would be giving them too much credit — but I don’t see how yelling at any part of the crew that walked by would entice anyone in charge to think “hey! we should totally bring this guy in to our studio!”. So, I did no such yelling, or cheering him on. I’ll explain why at the end of this post.

The biggest point of contention for the line of comics is that they were holding pre-filtered, agent-booked auditions on the same day as this open call. That’s a bit fucked. So, while 300 comics stood in line, about 100 comics were ushered in by their agents before the doors were even opened. Combine the 2-minutes of stage time with however many minutes of pre and/or post interviews, and you’ll find that basic math tells you 9 hours is nowhere near enough time to get through 400+ comedians – all things being equal.

It’s a fair point to make, and I really don’t see why they didn’t just hold the auditions separately – or not having open casting calls in the first place (which, frankly, I would prefer).

My “Audition”

After 15+ hours of standing, sitting, getting 10 minute naps in fold-up chairs, bearing the cold, the rain, the fatigue, and finally being told “sorry, Mitcz.. none for you!”, that angry huddled mass of comics broke through (not physically, but verbally) and the producer decided to bring a camera out, set it on a tripod and give to each comic who wanted it the chance to do one minute of comedy, out there in the rain with no microphone and only a disgruntled production staff and a seething mass of angry comics as an audience.

They said “who’s willing to do that?” – and I just raised my hand and smiled. They said “you’re up!”

Whether or not being the first one (and showing genuine excitement about it) helps my chances, I have no idea. Hell, I don’t even know if they planned on giving those tapes to the judges. All I know is that I’d come that far, and the Mitcz doesn’t falter easily. So, I stood in front of the comics and did the cleanest version of “Women are the Devil” I could. And, frankly, I think I did it well, It was tight, words were chosen carefully, I didn’t stutter, and I didn’t pause for longer than needed. I even got quite a few laughs from both the staff and the angry masses. I call that one point for Team Mitcz.

So, there. That was my “kinda” audition.

Afterthoughts – a brief rant about entitlement and whining

You will see no greater, concentrated group of whiny fucks with an inflated sense of entitlement and self-worth than what you’ll find in the entertainment industry. I saw it all day long, too. A guy (who will forever remain unnamed lest he think he’s important cause my blog comes up when he’s ego-searching himself) even said this around 11am..

“I’ve been doing comedy for 11 years now. Still…. EVEN NOW… I get no respect. I’ve been in this line since 2:30 in the fuckin’ morning. I even had (actor’s name removed) call on my behalf. You know (actor name) ? Yeah, apparently that’s not good enough! You gotta get GOD HIMSELF to call. Fuckin’ assholes. I gotta stand in line in the fucking rain for 9 hours!”

Give me a fucking break. If you’ve been doing comedy for 11 years and you’re hoping your “big break” comes from auditioning for a reality show? Write some better fucking jokes.

This world isn’t free, and anything entertainment-related is gonna be a bitch to get into, and take a lot of fucking work. Sure, anyone who gets onto Last Comic Standing will increase their audience and their booking fees by orders of magnitude in short time – but…. really? Waiting in line for a day or two ain’t shit compared to YEARS AND YEARS of hard work. Every one of those comics knows this. Some of them I knew personally, and I know about the hard work they put into it all. Hell, my friend Justin Dabuet has only been doing comedy for a few months and the dude does more shows in a week than I’ll do this month. And, ya know what? He deserves the benefits of better gigs than I’m getting. Cause he’s putting in the hard work.

Sure, whoever was in charge of the LCS auditions was running that ship at minimal efficiency. They definitely could’ve handled it better. Hell, a one-armed chimp with a drinking problem may have handled it better. And, yes, it was a grueling experience, and my heart goes out to every comic that didn’t get a chance to audition. But, let’s think about this – when else in life do you have a chance to completely change your life by doing nothing more than standing in a line and then talking for 2 minutes? Literally anyone could stand in that line. ANYONE. Don’t give me this shit about “years of hard work to get those 2 minutes”.

It was an experience, I had a lot of fun in the line, I met a lot of great people, and I got a fleeting chance to make a dream happen. Fuck it. I call that an even score.

(and, yes, I have been nervously making sure my phone is charged and in good range of cell towers all day just in case……)

UPDATE! (March 9th, 2010)

I said earlier that I thought Craig Robinson was “lied to”, but never explained why I thought that. What I meant was, all day long he was interviewing people and I heard him ask on more than one occasion “what’s it like to know you’ll be getting a chance at $250,000 and to be on national TV doing comedy? Just beyond those doors is a chance to make your dream come true!”. That’s not a statement you make to someone who WON’T, in fact, have that chance. The people he asked that to were behind me, and this was about 30 mins before they told everyone beyond the gate to go home. So, I think he was being told we’d all get that chance. Or, more likely, that the staff really thought they’d get through everyone. Who knows.

Official Word From Last Comic Standing

The people running the LCS profile on Facebook have sent me a few messages, stating (very kindly, I’ll add) that they never guaranteed everyone would be seen. They wanted me to mention that to everyone who reads this. So, I have. And, I told them I didn’t hold anger towards them as I didn’t figure we’d even get a chance to begin with but that it was worth a shot.

What’s fascinating to me is that they actually read my blog :

We had a neat little convo back-and-forth and while they made it clear to me that the people in charge of the FB account had no part in the casting, I’m still flattered to have been given the extra attention. So, thanx Last Comic Standing Facebook Admins :)

Related posts:

1. Procrastination Is a Lazy Comic’s Pillow
2. Back on top.
3. Goodbye, 20s.

My Old Provider

I’ve been with my former hosting company for about 10 years now (name withheld to not only prevent inadvertent advertising for them, but also because if you’re happy with their service – by all means, have a ball). I can’t remember exactly when I switched, but I’m pretty sure I was either living in Seattle (making it 11 years), or shortly after I moved to CA (making it almost 10 years).

In that time, the original company was bought out and switched names, then bought out again and switched names. With the name switching and server upgrades, I was relegated to obscurity. My hosting plan stayed the same, despite the fact that they never upgraded my plan. In fact, my plan didn’t even exist anymore. My only option was to upgrade. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me just swap to a newer solution, saying instead that my nearest upgrade path was around $120/month. Fuck that.

Here’s the problems I’ve had in the last 10 years, which I complained about numerous times and were never resolved :

1. No burst capabilities. If I got any type of traffic surge, my server would just up and die on me (ya know, lest they charge me out the ass for overages)
2. Ridiculously low timeouts. If I connected to my server, changed a file and saved it back to the server, I’d be waiting up to a minute for the server to respond. Even connecting via FTP took me close to a minute each time.
3. My SMTP server had mismatched rDNS (I explain this below) – this was a giant pain in my ass
4. No support for IMAP email
5. Every new domain, new DB, new subdomain, or anything outside of very basic server administration meant submitting a support ticket and waiting hours (sometimes days) for someone to get around to it
6. Did I mention they wouldn’t let me migrate to a newer plan to match their new owners’ service plans?

rDNS Issues

I don’t know too much about the specifics, but apparently my SMTP server didn’t match the DNS records for the domain. Because of this, almost every email service in the world would toss email from RevMitcz.com into the Junk folder and never look back. Having mismatched rDNS is the realm of spammers, and the very first line of defense against spam is to just reject those emails outright — even though spammers haven’t bothered with mismatched rDNS in over a decade. Craigslist responses would immediately be returned to me, stating basically “your rDNS is fucked”. Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, all of them – they’d just toss my emails into a junk folder and call it a day. For the past year or two, I’ve used GMail for all outgoing mail to get around this limitation.

Now, About MediaTemple

For me, the number one thing that got me turned onto MediaTemple were all the great designers that willingly put “hosted by (mt)” banners on their sites. I’ve never in my life put a banner on my site for my previous provider, and frankly I was always pretty reluctant to answer the question I got from clients “which host do YOU use?”. Being a freelance designer/developer, it makes sense that I should know a good provider and be using the very best. I’m an expert – I’ve been doing this shit for 14 years now. But, no, I would shrug and say “I dunno.. my host sucks, but I can find you a good one… I think”. Now, I’ll just say “MediaTemple – without a doubt”.

Their site is gorgeous, and standards-compliant. They keep it updated, too (WebAir, who I was with for all of about an hour once, still uses their design from 1999). They’ve got an iPhone-optimized control panel. They use Twitter (and they even reply if you mention them). They keep a regularly-updated blog. But, most important? They have the best service and support I’ve ever seen. Not only do they have a fully-searchable Knowledge Base that answers just about every question you could have – but they run a 24/7 phone support system (with real, live people who speak real, live English).

For the past year or so, I’d eye their site and think about switching to them, but groan to myself about the difficulties of server migration (I tend to have between 4 and 10 domains hosted on separate IPs at any given time). For fun, I’d call their support line at 4am and ask random questions. I never once waited for more than 2 minutes. When I called for actual support reasons on Saturday, my wait time was 3 minutes and the tech immediately solved my (admittedly very basic) problem, and didn’t try to shove me off the phone once I said “ahh.. that worked!”. I even got an email a few minutes later that described in detail the problem I had, and how it was solved. That’s some serious attention to detail.

What This Means Now

I’m pretty fuckin’ pumped that I’m finally on a nice, fast host. I can finally send email from my own domain to any service in the world. I’ve got IMAP email (!!!!!). I’m future-ready should I do some crazy shit that gets me a huge traffic burst. I can add my own domains without having to submit a support ticket and wait for some lazy bastard to “get around to it” days later. Ditto for setting up new DBs, or subdomains.

I’m in a position where I’m not scared to give the server a little workout. I can work on my own sites faster and in realtime (in Coda) without having to make 100s of edits and then commit the changes to a server and wait for a minute or two for my server to respond, only to find out I misplaced a semicolon and wait even longer.

The long and short of it is – I’m motivated to do more cool shit with my online presence and I have a forward-thinking host that can support such ventures.

Support Me (and MediaTemple)

If you need hosting, get it through MediaTemple and tell ‘em revmitcz.com sent ya :)

(I did not write this whole entry just to plug their shit, I wrote it cause I’m a geek and I’m excited about the new server)

Related posts:

1. IE6 “access is denied” Javascript error – FIXED
2. WebSpeak – A Primer.
3. Mitcz.com, Redesigned and Reworked

(if you’re offended by this : you’re hyper-sensitive, probably an idiot, and you’re reading the wrong blog)

Related posts:

1. Jogging Mitcz : Take Two
2. We Have Hijacked Your Baby
3. The Perfect Message to Online Daters

Related posts:

1. Mitcz : The Expert #10 – Casual Sex
2. Mitcz : The Expert #4 – It’s personal.
3. Mitcz : The Expert #7 – Changes in 2010

In front of me was a particularly loud (probably drunk) guy. No one minds a loud laugh – so that’s not what I’m saying. He was a loud talker. Not talking to the comics, per se, mostly just talking to his friends. VERY LOUDLY. That’s rude. But, he never got so out of hand that anyone felt like saying anything, myself included. He was pretty well-behaved for the most part. I was just thinking “I hope he understands he’s very loud when he talks to his friends” – however intermittent those talks may have been.

So, the hot waitress (I’m calling her that to protect her identity, damnit) swings by my table and asks if I need anything else. I told her she’d already made my night w/the remark from earlier and she smiled and walked off. A few minutes later, she was standing near my table and noticed I finished my drink, asking if I wanted another one. I said “no, but there is something you could do for me — punch this guy in the back of the head”.

Understand : I said this jokingly. She understood that. She laughed about it. But, then.. she walked up to him. I saw her talking to him, and then he turned around to look at me, and I saw them both point at me, and she said “yeah, Mitcz” and he said “That’s Mitcz? He said he wants to punch me in the head?”

Oops.

You see, she thought he was a friend of mine. And that I was joking with him through her. It’s a reasonable assumption. If he was a friend of mine, I’d probably have said the same thing, save for one important difference : I would’ve said “hey, tell that guy that Mitcz said…” but in leaving that out, I hadn’t realized she would take it upon herself to tell him anyway.

So, he walks up …

Guy : You wanna donkey-punch me?
Me : Donkey-punch you? No, sir
Guy : The waitress says you wanted to donkey-punch me in the back of the head
Me : Ohhh… yeah. Yeah. I told her to punch you in the back of the head, cause you’re being too loud
Guy : I’m being loud?
Me : Yeah.. like, when you talk. It’s okay. Just go sit and enjoy the show and try to keep your voice down
Guy : (grabs my chin, like in the mob movies) “Ahh…. THIS guy! HA! You were fuckin’ funny tonight, man”
Me : Well, thank you. I hope you enjoy the show.
Guy : Of course!

Later, I had to explain to the waitress her little faux pas. She was embarrassed and apologetic. I said it was fine, as the guy clearly didn’t know he was being loud and didn’t seem altogether offended by it. Thankfully, she didn’t pick a loud, wanna-fight-everything asshole to tell that to.

Oh, and I got her number out of the deal. A winner = me.

I really should call her soon…

Related posts:

1. With Apologies to Your Mother & Fiance
2. Storytelling : Gay Porn
3. Mission Accomplished (buy my album)

I was told to host the show, introduce the bands, and fill time between bands with comedy. Easy enough, and should be great fun. And it was fun. But, not so easy. Bands like to soundcheck their equipment, which makes telling jokes over a snare drum exceedingly difficult (unless you’re doing vaudeville with rimshots, I s’pose).

Starting off the gig, I had some loud heckler in the front asking me to “come closer, I have a secret for you!”. Psh. Like I’m falling for THAT one. Here’s me responding “just say it out loud, no one cares” :

Later on in the show, my friend Ron Underwood waltzed up on the stage. You might recognize him from his former band Opiate for the Masses. While I’ve known him for about 10 years now, I wouldn’t say we were “close” – mostly just casual acquaintances. This isn’t to say I have anything against him – far from it, he’s a great guy – just that we haven’t hung out that much.

He gave me carte blanche to “just do my thing”, but then he followed me up onstage. I don’t think he realizes I meant to do comedy and then introduce his band (Beezlewood) but my rule is : if you’re on my stage, you’re in my act. Like I said before, I’ve barely ever hung out w/Ron, but.. I like to get reactions so I thought I’d just start making shit up and see if he’d go with it.

Me : Ahh.. if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been naked in a hot tub with this guy
Ron : Haha! YES!
Me : Hey.. you remember that time we double-teamed the girl with the harelip?
Ron : Uhh…
Me : I know, I know… “WHICH ONE?” Oh, Ron. I lost count of how many times we’ve been inside the same woman at the same time
Ron : You know.. my mother’s here
Me : Your mother’s here?
Ron : Yeah. And my fiancé
Me : ……

So, I thought “Oh! I’ll just defuse the situation by making an even more off-color remark that embarrasses me”, and I pulled out the keepsake necklace I made (that contains my mother’s ashes) and said “Well.. don’t feel too bad… my mom’s here too!”

His reaction wasn’t exactly what I’d hoped for

Me : “Well, Ron, I guess it’s time for you to rock these motherfuckers’ faces off, eh?”
Ron : “Fuck yeah!”
(Mitcz exits stage left)

photo credits : MistrsEvilKitten

Related posts:

1. Mothers Rally Where Fathers Cannot
2. A Friendly Head-Punch Suggestion
3. RE : Mitch Hedberg

Anyway, so I constantly get these coupons for things like Zicam and NyQuil. I assumed this is because I’m a smoker and it’s winter. Two great tastes that taste great together give people the sniffles for months on end. I had the following conversation w/the clerk :

Me : “I keep getting these coupons for Zicam. Do you think it’s cause I buy smokes all the time and they figure I’ve gotta be getting sick?
Clerk : “I don’t think so. I used to get coupons for Nicorette and I’ve never smoked”
Me : “Oh. Well, I guess it’s not based on shopping history when you use your CVS card then”
Clerk : “It might be. I get offers for lots of things smokers don’t use”
Me : “Oh? Like jogging shoes or something?” (laughing at my own joke)
Clerk : “No.. things like.. soap and shampoo”

Thanks, clerk lady. Now I’m all self-conscious and shit.

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