Three years ago I put out a collection of 93 poems called Perfect Sleeping Weather.
As of tonight it’s available on Kindle, here, for $3, or free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
If you like words about loneliness, cities, neighbors, dead friends, losing your mind at a job you hate, returning to your hometown for something as strange as the 4th of July, etc. … Merry Christmas.
Prior to becoming a stand-up comic, I was a drummer for a bunch of rock and country-ish bands, traveling quite a bit, playing a variety of venues, everything from big clubs and festivals to wine bars, art spaces, and backyards. I spent four straight months bumming around America one time, coast to coast, top to bottom. None of it prepared me for the landmine landscape of stand-up comedy clubs (and “clubs”) and what stand-up comedians were/are expected to put up with.
I saw Graham Coxon (Blur) play a live solo set last night and had some thoughts. First, bit of backstory.
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I’ve been performing, either drums or stand-up comedy, fairly nonstop since 2001. I haven’t made a “living” at either, always tethered to a “real job” to make ends meet and, in fact, fuel keeping the show on the road, so to speak, paying for rehearsal spaces, drum sticks, drum heads, actual, literal fuel, more alcohol than probably necessary.
It’s been an irregular ride, with dry spells of nearly no performing punctuated by multiple days, weeks, months on the road. But I’ve been out frequently enough to have sometimes been out when tragedy strikes and forced to deal with it however necessary to get through the day, and then get through a show.
Quick backstory: I was born and raised in Florida. I spent the first seven or so years in or around Kenansville, the next maybe fifteen years in St. Cloud and the next thirteen years in Orlando. I started doing stand-up in Orlando in 2011.
Comedian, actor, writer Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) posted something on Twitter that I saw in the midst of the usual stuff I see on Twitter — Trump’s having a meltdown, Trump’s having another meltdown, Trump’s having another meltdown — and it was a nice break from, well, the usual.
Welp, now that I have a website, I should probably do something with it.
I’m going to do my best to make at least one post here a week, not only in the hopes that it will keep you checking in, but to force myself to write something other than comedy, tweets and sociopolitical essays. To write normal person diary entry type stuff to keep you updated and me, I dunno, motivated?
I awoke to Paris on fire, at gunpoint, held hostage,
from a mid-afternoon sleepwalking slumber of menial tasks
as a wage war zombie soldier on the other side of the world. Continue reading
