AndrewBrunelle.com

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, way too much in fact.  Steve Pavlina’s website has a lot of articles about monetizing your blog in order to maek a living out of it.  That would be amazing if I could do that eventually, but this blog is just in its infancy.  I’ve got to build something up before I take this into high gear.  I have a lot to learn about different web technologies, which I hope to cover in the next few weeks.  I need to learn how to use trackbacks and social bookmarking to somehow boost this blog’s traffic.  I need some way to get myself out there.  I’m not going to advertise or anything.  I just want to get this into high gear.  There are many reasons why I want to monetize this blog and I’ll go over them below.

1.  Freedom:  By freedom I mean freedom from a job, freedom from being in a time-bound job.    I feel that a job like that really limits the amount of money you can make to when you are working.  If you have a blog, every time someone visits it or clicks on an ad or whatever, they end up making a certain amount of money for you.  It could happen now, later, next wek, whatever.  All I know is that if I’m getting paid all the time, I’ll be much more independent of other people’s work schedules and I can write when I want to write and not when I don’t feel like it.

2.  An Amazing Paradigm:  Just imagine, my blog, the thing I use to write personal thoughts and articles in, could be my means of income.  That is just very motivating to me.  I write an article and it makes me money.  Not just in the here and now, but for many many months or years.  People will read it now, and others will read it later.  It’s quite amazing.  It’s not like writing an article in the newspaper because when you do that, people read it for one day and then forget about it.  Even magazines are forgotten after a month or so.  But a blog is a permanent fixture barring a massive internet crash.  So, it’s really not a bad idea in a nutshell.  I want to create content first, however.  That is my main goal.  Create valuable content and then see if people read it, and make money off of it.  Not millions, that’s not what I’m looking for.  I’m just looking for enough to cover my expenses and then a little more for security.

3. Way Better Than Having a Job:  This kind of work is way better than having a job because I can’t get fired.  There is no one who can say I have to stop blogging.  And even if one of my sources of income doesn’t work out, I still have all the others.  There’s no way that it can really fail completely, unless I don’t get the traffice.  I intend for more traffic right now.  Then I can just concentrate on this site, my stand-up comedy, and my social life.  Right now, I’m working a job, writing on this site, writing jokes in my spare time, looking for places to perform, etc, etc, etc.  And work doesn’t challenge me.  It’s too easy.  It’s like asking me to read a book.  It’s completely irrelevant.  It’s not going to make a difference.  When I die, I won’t get a broadcast to remember the cashier from BI-LO at the Beach.  So I have a distinct feeling that what I’m doing now is thirty to one hundred times more gratifying than a stupid job.

4. The Impact:  I have millions of people at my fingertips here.  Every article I write has the potential to be viewed my millions.  That is very motivating, but it also places a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.  I have to make sure what I write won’t hurt people, but will help them.  I’m going to share personal stories and how I dealt with certain things in my life.  I’m going to write humorous posts to make you laugh.  I’m going to write abstract ideas down that would be pretty funny if it happened. 

5. Expression:  My personal expression of comedy is something that I embrace to the fullest extent.  I will talk about things that may offend you, some that may leave you laughing so hard you will suffer a massive coronary.  But we will embark on this journey together.  It will be an amazing experience and I want you to stay tuned for some amazing and possibly peculiar topics on conversation.  It’s going to be amazing.

6.  Motivation:  I feel motivated to write almost every day.  And when I don’t, I just don’t.  And it’s my choice.  There’s no boss saying, “I want those reports on my desk by five.”  It’s more like, “I’ll get that done whenver I want to.”  And that’s the way it’s going to be.  Forget deadlines, forget tests, forget all those things that other people make to have you prove yourself.  Who are they to judge what you know?  And who are they to give you deadlines?  Life shouldn’t be about deadlines, they should be about expression and motivation.  That’s all I have to say today.  Have a nice weekend.

I guess you could say that I live life in the slow lane.  I’m not slow in the sense I don’t understand certain things, I’m slow in the sense that it takes me a long time to do stuff, mostly because I hate rushing.  I don’t like it.  It’s not me.  Some people love to run around all day, do errands, and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do.  I say, forget that and take a deep breath and relax.  Life isn’t about who can accompish the most in their lifetimes.  It’s about your personal views on things that make you who you are.  For example, some people would regard graduating college in three semesters a very commendable achievement, while others would say, “You didn’t really experience college the way you were meant to.”

Life is full of experiences.  Some experiences are accomplishments, while many others are just regular stuff that nobody really puts any weight into.  But we value certain moments in our lives differently.  Like the day you spent sitting around isn’t as good as the day you want kayaking in Winnipeg, ME.  Each experience has like it’s own rating.  It’s like, “That was a good day, but this one was even better.”  And we live like this, remembering the good, trying to forget the bad, and looking into the future.  Even though we’re not sure that the future will ever come.  You can’t prove it will, can you?  The only thing you can possibly prove is that the present moment exists.  The past has already happened, so it’s irrelevent.  The future hasn’t happened yet, so it’s also irrelevent.  So what are you left with?  The present.  And what’s the ultimate state of mind that everyone wants?  Relaxation and happiness.  And that’s why I try and make my present moment always filled with those two states of being.

People who get worried about different things or are depressed often think of what might happen in the future or what happened in the past.  But they’re not relevant right now.  Right now, you have a choice of how to act, how to think.  But many people are either living in the past or looking into the future.  I think that’s why many people have fear.  They either imagine things that happened that were fearful or they project themselves into the future where they envision something bad happening.  But when you just let go of all that thinking and just concentrate on the now, the right now, you can at least relax.

I often use this technique while at work.  Like I’ll be there six or seven hours with a couple more to go, and I first think, “How am I going to last this long?”  But then I say, “No, as far as I know, I just go here and I only have two hours to go.”  And as the time goes by, I say the same sentence, but with less time to go.  When I do that, I feel like I could work a triple shift, but I would only really take it in as maybe twenty minutes of work.  If you really break down the present moment right now, and just focus on it for a couple of seconds, you’ll see how your mind goes quiet and you just take in everything around you.  This is why mediation is so effective in relaxation.  Just take the day you had and throw it aside while you concentrate on the right now.

Tomorrow is only an illusion.  It hasn’t happened yet and it will only happen if you believe it will happen.  Until it actually happens, it doesn’t exist.  And when it does happen, it’s not tomorrow, it’s now.  So there’s really no reason to rush.  I sure as hell don’t.  I just wish the world didn’t run on dates and deadlines.  That’s one problem.  Because when you’re living in the now, it doens’t matter what day it is because it’s now.  No particular now is more important than the one you’re experiencing right now.  This is because the other ones no longer exist.

We feel like the world is so stable that tomorrow is inevitable.  So far, it’s been that way, but one day, tomorrow will never come.  As a matter of fact, tomorrow never does come because tomorrow ends up being today, and there’s another tomorrow on the horizon.  So, when someone says they’re going to do something tomorrow, they’re sending the message that they’re never going to accomplish something.  But when someone says they’re going to do something now, that means there’s no delay.  It’s right now.  There is no other time.  It’s almost like all time and space exist simultaneously, but you only expeirence one present moment at a time.  We’re so conditioned that time is linear, but I have a feeling it’s a little different.  I’ll have to ponder this a little more to really explain it well, but in time I will. I’ve got the rest of my life to do it, so there’s really no rush, because when I do it, I’ll be doing it now.

Jokes have to have a certain structure. In order to ensure laughs, the audience has to believe what you’re talking about before you introduce the laugh. That is one of the most challenging parts of comedy. You’re going to want to have honest set-ups and honest but exaggerated punchlines. You see, a joke starts out so logical, with a comedian saying something that we all know, but then can turn it into something so different that it allows for a laugh. Let me go over the five parts of a joke here and explain their integral part in the whole joke schema.

The Set-Up: This is the beginning of the joke. This is where you gain the audience’s trust. You’ll start with something like, “I went to the pound and bought a dog…” or something similar. It’s just something that the punchline has to breathe off of. You couldn’t just walk onstage and say punchlines. The audience would think you were crazy. For some people, the least number of words you can get in your set-up, the better. If you can take your set-up and whittle it down by three words and still get the same or better response, you should do it. Sure, it means the joke will take up less time, but it will also allow for a quicker route to the punchline, which will set up a quicker response. The whole problem is that people, if the set-up is too long, may forget what you’re talking about before you get to the punchline. And that’s not good for comedy. However, the set-up is definitely relevant and it needs to be there for every joke.

The Punchline: This is a very critical aspect of the joke. It’s what initially makes the audience laugh. If it wasn’t for this, there would be no comedians. There are specific proven ways to get to the punchline, and the ones I personally use go something like this: Try and put the punch-word as far to the back of your joke as possible without adding more words. I’ll give you an example from Jim Gaffigan: “Isn’t it funny that when you’re single, all you see are couples, and then when you’re part of a couple, all you see are hookers?” Notice how the last word in the joke was the punchline. Every other word in the joke is a setup for a surprise at the end. Notice how after the punchline, there were no words. There is a reason for this. If you have the audience laughing and you begin to talk again, they’ll stop laughing to hear what you have to say. It’s called stepping on your laughs. It’s something you should never do because it will condition the audience not to laugh. Sure, they may still be enjoying your show, but you really won’t be able to tell. It also leaves the surprise to the very end so that you have the audience anticipating the jokes, waiting for it, tension is building up, and the one to three words really turns it into a laughfest. And this is something that is definitely useful to know if considering stand-up comedy.

Act-Outs: Act outs are when a comedian will say what he said, use the voice of someone he knows to act out what they said, do some physical stuff onstage, or any ohter miscellaneous actions. It’s when the comedian lets loose from the confines of the joke. It’s the more physical aspect of comedy. Hand gestures, reinactments, it’s all in this category. It takes a lot of mastery to get the act-outs perfect. But it’s your choice how you want to do them. People like Robin Williams and less notably Dane Cook are famous for their antics onstage where they jump around and do crazy stuff. That’s what an act-out is all about.

The Mix: The mix is something in comedy that has to do with “what if?” Like Pablo Francisco did this whole thing about the movie theater previews guy. The guy with the raspy voice? And he was like, “Imagine this guy having sex. ‘Oh, the desire, oh yes, coming to a theatre near you.’” It’s all about putting people in different situations that wouldn’t be normal for them. And it makes it another punchline. Act-outs can be punchlines in their own respect, and a mix can not only make another one, it can have the whole audience in stitches. Just think what if?

Callbacks: Callbacks are one of the best things to watch if you’ve ever seen them. A comedian will tell a joke with a specific punchline and then, later in the show, tell a different joke with the same punchline. This is usually a great hit. This is because it creates this intimacy with the audience that many comedians really need. The only rule of this is the first joke you tell with the punchline has to be amazing. The second joke can be of lower quality, mostly because the attention will be drawn to the punchline again. I really don’t have any jokes off the top of my head for this as an example, but if you understand what I’m talking about, you’ve probably seen it before. I’ve never done it personally, but believe me, I’ve tried to. It just isn’t as easy as it looks. But it’s definitely possible. So don’t let it get away from you.

Honorable Mention-Storytelling: Storytelling can work only if it is done in the following fashion. The story has to have jokes in it. I know many of you Blue Collar Comedy fans have seen Ron White’s Tater Salad story that won the hearts of many. But it wasn’t just a story, it had setup-punch, setup-punch, setup-punch. It wasn’t just a story, it was a barrage of jokes put into a story. Many people don’t realize that when they see the comedian perform, but it’s so well-disguised.

I love to analyze comedians. It’s one of the most rewarding things to do. Just to see how they word their jokes in accordance with other comedians really lets me into their minds and allows me to figure out how to make audiences laugh. There are some political comedians, like Lewis Black, who once went on the Conan O’Brien show after the Dick Cheney shooting incident and opened with two words, “Dick Cheney. That’s all I have to say. Everyone gets the joke. I don’t have to say, ‘Dick Cheney, the vice president who shot his best friend while going quail hunting.’” So there are other ways to go about writing jokes. For beginners, however, I recommend you start by doing it the way I suggested. Just make sure the joke also has attitude. Attitude is also key. Put some emotion into your jokes. Visualize what you’re talking about. Okay, well, I’ve got some jokes to write, later.

Here is a list of the things I really don’t like about Christianity:

• Believers will often try and force their beliefs on non-believers to “save them.”
• They believe there’s some authority figure up in the sky that will judge them when they die and either send them to the most wonderful place in the world, or the worst place int he world.
• They believe that their religion is the only one that’s actually true.
• They have a history of killing people who don’t believe in what they do.
• I like to sleep in on Sundays. 
• They always want more money.  They might as well go ahead and start charging admission.
• Christians will assume if you’re nice that you are Christian. 
• People will come up to me and tell me that I have a great Bible name when I’ve never even read it.
• The Bible is constantlly being misinterpereted. 
• Jesus is overrated.  Although a very enlightened person, he was just a guy with an idea that everyone seemed to say, “That makes sense…sort of.”
• Free food at a Christian meeting means you’re getting converted.
• They have their own genre of music devoted to brining Christ into the lives of every human being, especially those terrorist Muslims. (their words, not mine)
• Most of them don’t question any of it.  They just follow it blindly and no matter how ridiculous it sounds, it’s in the Bible.
• I don’t even think Jesus wanted all this attention.
• Christian Bumper Stickers…ugh.  Not to mention that “Jesus fish.”
• “one nation under God”
• Televangelists trying to make me buy a DVD about the Apocalypse.
• Most Christians don’t even follow their faith completely.
• The Ten Commandments are all negative, “Thou shalt NOT…”  Well, how about some commandments that say what you can do?  Hmm?
• Mary had a kid and never had sex.  Yeah, okay.  That’s like being a surgeon and never going to medical school. 
• I like watching football. 

So don’t go to church this weekend.  Take a week off.  See what all the other people say about you in a negative way.  Is that really the way of Christ?  To put people down for not “believing” as much as you do?  Why don’t you tithe your money to another organization that does good in the community, like a charity?  Maybe some sort of Make A Wish foundaiton.  I meanl, why waste hours of your day, listening to some guy talk about the Bible?  The Bible is outdated.  It’s over 2000 years old.  The New Testament isn’t new.  They should call it the Most Recent Testament. 

There are supposedly A and B personality types.  Type A is the motivationally driven, Type B is relaxed, creative and imaginative, patient, and more likely to be a self-analyst.  Being relaxed and patient definitely has its benefits.  And the creativity really shines through, especially because just sitting back in a relaxed manner and letting your mind wander is key to being a creative person.  While the type A personality can be very motivated and rush to finish many activities, they often need recognition for everything they do.  Maybe they feel like they’re always being judged, I don’t know.  I personally equate myself with a type B personality.  Which, to some extent, means I’m normal.  Would you believe that?

I sure don’t.  I will tell you, though, that I could never really stand the people with a Type A personality “disorder.”  They were so motivated and always had their work done weeks in advance in my school days.  They were just rushing, rushing, rushing, until the day they died.  Then there’s my type.  Type A personality people are not fond of my type.  It’s personalityism I say!  Hating people based on their personality is wrong.  The A’s would say something to B’s like, “You still haven’t finished your paper on ethological empiricism?  I finished mine a month ago.  And I got all this extra credit handing it in early.”  And the B would be like, “Oh yeah?  Well I had a relaxing day yesterday where I painted a beautiful picture of a sunset while watching my favorite TV show.”

I guess the difference between the Type A and the Type B is that Type A personalities are more concerned with external success, while Type B personalities are more concerned with inner peace and improving your mind, body, and spirit.  Type A’s are up at the crack of dawn exercising on their Bowflex, while Type B’s are sleeping in or meditating on a grassy knoll.  These are the differences between the two types. 

But who wants to be constrained by these rigid guidelines for what human behavior should be like?  There’s six billion people in the world, and they’re trying to say that out of all those people, there are only two distinct personalities in which every human being falls under?  I sincerely doubt that.  I’m sure there are a multitude of people who fall in between the two types, and then there’s people who have nothing to do with them.  It’s this constant labeling that I really don’t like.  Other people who are not you are trying to tell you who you are when you know damn well that you are who you know you are and nothing else.  Don’t let someone call you “a hard worker” just because you go to work every day.  And don’t let someone label you as an “early bird” just because every now and then you get up early.  It’s almost like everyone has to be part of some category with comparison to others, when none of us are exactly the same.  People often ask “What are you?” in relation to religion, employment, or personal beliefs.  But many people never ask, “Who are you?”  That’s why the whole system is messed up.  “What are you?” is like saying, “This person isn’t even conscious.  He’s an inanimate object.  He’s just someone who fits into certain categories of life and will never change, so let’s define him as this.”  It’s complete and utter insanity. 

Whenever people would ask you what you want to be when you grow up, they should have said “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”  That statement rings truer to me.  And in most cases, the latter question will yield a more unique response.  We have to stop pretending to be like everyone else and just be ourselves.  It may not be easy, but not always following the crowd may be in your future if you choose to be yourself.  Don’t let other people define who you are.  It’s not their call.  Imagine of some guy walked into your life and said, “You’re a doctor.”  And you had to be a doctor.  Not because you wanted to, but because he told you that’s what you are.  It’s stupid.

You ever meet those religious fanatics.  It’s always, “I’m a Christian, I’m a Buddhist, I’m a Jew.”  Is that all you are?  Or is that the only thing you equate yourself with?  And this is where stereotypes start.  All the stuff about how Jewish people do this, black people do that, white people do this, Asians don’t know how to drive.  It’s because we equate their nationality with certain characteristics and we don’t realize that each person is his or her own individual snowflake.  And this is why we can’t have nice things.

We’ve all been to the movie theaters in the last five years, haven’t we?  If not, here’s what you’re missing.  Now they have advertisements before the previews.  Proucts like Coca-Cola,Pepsi, Bengay, Lays, and many others.  And they’re not normal commercials. They’re these long, drawn out, ridiculous commercials that just make you think why these companies even bother advertising anymore.  Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi.  We’re all aware that they exist and they haven’t really brought out too many new products lately.  But they continue to advertise everywhere I look, shoving this drink down our thoats, showing people drinking soda, jumping around, having a good time.  I mean, sure, if those people drink soda, fine, but why do you have to make it seem like if I drink your soda, my life will become some fantasy playground?  It’s not really something that I would expect anyway.  I havnen’t drank soda since February 10.  So it really doesn’t affect me too much now.  And McDonald’s counting how many hamburgers they’ve sold.  So what, you sold billions of hamburers.  What do you want, a freaking medal?  I don’t watch many kids’ shows anymore, so I see less McDonald’s commercials, but still, shouldn’t they stop pouring so much of their revenue into advertising?  If we already know that they’re there and we know what htey sell, then why do they have to keep telling us about it?

I guess you could say it has to do with persistent advertising.  This is a technique I just made up. They’ll drill these images into your head of soda and fast food and potato chips, and they’ll have them spinning across the screen with a spotlight on them to make them actually look appealing.  I’ve never been inside a fast food shack and seen the same hamburger I saw on the television.  They give you a false sense of what you’re getting, but they still sell so much.  One person actually sued McDonald’s because they said that their food is addicitive.  Let me give you some thoughts on this.

McDonald’s reminds me of the tobacco companies.  They try to get you while you’re young with Ronald McDonald and Happy Meals.  Then, as you get older, they give you regular combo meals, and they have meals for all walks of life.  I suppose they even have a vegan chicken sandwich.  But they make it a habit.  The Happy Meal comes with a toy.  It’s not that the children really like the food, they have an emotional attachment to the toy.  They look back on their previous trips to McDonald’s with great joy.  They try to collect every toy in the series.  But it’s all in the advertising.

How many commercials do you see for fruits and vegetables?  I haven’t seen one in a long time.  They’re not cramming eating those things into our heads, so maybe we forget about them all-together.  It’s not our faults.  Fruits get nothing, vegetables get nothing.  They’re looked down upon as the food that just isn’t as good.  But they’re wrong.  THey taste so much more amazing than anyone could possibly think, and yet we’re drawn to this food that isn’t exactly appealing, makes you feel terrible afterwards, and eventually causes a heart attack.

Now, on the Internet, there’s even more advertisements.  Everything has to be advertised.  And most of it is pure garbage.  But whatever. What can I do to stop this?  Nothing.  Except take a stand against advertising.  How could I not?  Just don’t watch TV for awhile, or if I do, tape the shows in advance and fast forward through the commercials.  Forget BeepBeep.com’s newest jingle.  I don’t have time for that shit.  I say I don’t, but I find myself watching all these shows I don’t even care about.  Law and Order:  SVU and CI.  I find myself watching these shows because they’re well-done, but it’s not reality, so why do I care?  I don’t know.  But it’s just something I’ll have to deal with.  If I just want to sit around and watch TV, why don’t I go to bed, so I can get up earlier and do more shit in the morning?  I’ve got to start exercising again anyway.  If I decide to start doing that instead of watching TV, maybe it will make a big difference in my life.  Every time I want to watch TV, I’ll exercise.  And everytime I want to exercise, I’ll destroy a TV. 

I’m sick of the news scaring you into watching it.  Those little  teasers they put on before the news.  They’ll say something like, “Are you going to die tonight?  Find out at eleven.”  That’s extreme, but it’s pretty much what they do, but if you don’t succumb to that fear and decide to not watch the news, you’ll be okay.  But you still may die that night, but not because of them.  Next, I’ll explore the the Zen of Laziness.  I’m really looking forward to slacking off writing that article.

Kill them.  Just kidding.  Every now and then, as all comics know, they’ll come across an audience that just doesn’t laugh.  At all.  Maybe they’re enjoying the show, or maybe they’re not.  Who knows but the minds of the audience?  There are ways that comedians can condition the audience not to laugh.  Here are a few things I’ve done and a few things I’ve read about that can force an audience to feel like laughing would be an inconvenience both to you and to them.

Stepping on your Laughs:  Stepping on your laughs is something a lot of new comedians do.  They’ll tell a joke, the audience will laugh, and while the audience is still laughing, they’ll start another joke or try and continue the same joke, which will in turn stop the audience from laughing because they want to hear what you’re saying.  It’s all about what they call comic timing.  Many people don’t master it for years, while to others, it comes natural.  But, as a start, my advice is to never talk while the audience is still laughing.  Leave a pause.  And even if they don’t laugh at first, maybe they’re still processing the joke.  I tell a few jokes that are a bit cerebral to some extent, and it takes like six to eight seconds to start getting a laugh.  I know jus standing there is hard, but if you add some sort of body language that reinforces the punchline or the overall attitude of the joke, then you’re definitely adding fuel to the laugh fire.  You could shake your head or slump your shoulders, mumble to yourself, but don’t start a new joke too soon.

Speaking Clearly and Loudly:  Now, I know that many comedians I’ve seen speak clearly and in a loud enough tone so that anyone can hear them.  The only notable exception is Steven Wright.  But he at least made himself audiable.  What some people don’t realize is that no matter how funny the joke is, the if the audience can’t properly grasp the concept, then they’re not going to even let out a ha.  You have to paint a “verbal cartoon” in their minds.  You can use physical comedy as well.  Most audience members, if they see you make a joke both physical and verbal, will often laugh at the idea of you doing that.  I did a joke once about getting off a treadmill and how surprised I was that walking actually gets you somewhere.  I just walked really fast across the stage.  This brings me to my next topic.

Body Language:  Body language is the key to success.  You have to exude confidence and convey your jokes in a way that the audience can both see you and hear you.  You have to have some kind of stage prsence.  Don’t go up there all shaky.  Go up there calm, or pissed off if that’s your persona.  It’s all about your feelings.  But let your body do some of the talking.  Your body might not be able to do a joke by itself, but you can use it to enhance the joke experience.  Like if you say you were watching Larry King Live, you could do an impression of him.  You know, the shoulders hunched over and everything.  It adds more to the proverbial pot of laughs. 

Crickets:  If you tell a joke and you hear nothing, or the famous, “You suck!” then your only option is to go on with your next joke.  Maybe the joke took some time to sink in, or maybe they just didn’t get it.  So, move on.  It’s the worst feeling in the world to tell something you think is funny, and the whole audience telling you, “It’s not.”  I remember telling a joke about homeless children getting homeschooled or something and I got gasps from the audicne, then one of the audience members said, “That’s awful!”  And I said, “Yeah, I know it’s awful, but it’s the truth.”  That got a big laugh.  I turned a bad situation into a good one.

Hecklers:  Like Newton’s Third Law of Motion, comedy has the Law of Hecklers.  Wherever you go, whenever you perform, there will be a potential heckler.  This heckler may not have the ability, but a bad joke will give him momentum to start lashing out at you.  You should have a few lines prepared to deal with hecklers.  But nothing too mean.  Just something that will shut him up.  One of my favorite lines was, “Shh, I’ll kill you.”  But you want to make it seem natural.  Don’t rehearse it like robocomic.  But don’t be too loose either.  Find a happy medium when considering dealing with hecklers.

Have Confidence:  Don’t get flustered if they don’t laugh.  Maybe it’s something about your delievery, or maybe it’s the audience that night.  Who knows?  All I know is that even when they don’t laugh, you can still go on with your act.  Make a comment about how it didn’t work, if you want, but don’t dwell on the fact that it wasn’t right for that audience.  But always exude confidence onstage. 

Leaving you now because I have to take a shower before work, I just want to say that comedy is not for the timid, unless that’s who you really are.  It’s so hard to make an audience laugh, so when you are finally able to do it, you should keep doing whatever you did to make that happen.  Edit, rearrange, and cut certain jokes from time to time.  Try out new material, knock off old clunkers.  It’s all about editing and putting things in a line so that it will knock the audience on their backside.  Peace everyone.

You ever not and say you did?  Isn’t that just an amazing feeling.  For some reason, laziness isn’t looked upon in a favorable fashion today.  People don’t give credit where credit is due.  A man who spends a year sitting on his ass, pondering the inner workings of reality is a bum, but the guy who works 60-hour weeks at the toy factory is some sort of contributor.  Sure, you could argue that sitting around on your ass doesn’t bring you any money, but making toys surely doesn’t get you any closer to understanding yourself.  Some people work hard for their money and others don’t.  Sometimes I do.  Sometimes I don’t.  It all depends what I feel like doing.  And that’s the way it should be.  I’m tired of quotes like, “He’s a real go-getter,” or “He works harder than everyone else combined.”  So what?  All that says is that person will put up with more crap than the rest of us will withstand.  Should someone really be praised for working overtime or pulled aside, talked to, and told that the way to live your life isn’t working all the time. 

It’s not easy to understand the facets at work here.  Some people do have a family that they have to support, so therefore they have to put up with the shit every day that they go into work.  Because if they don’t, their family will go hungry and broke to the point that they have to go on welfare, and no one wants to see their family on welfare because the husband wouldn’t put up with shit.  Life is full of bullshit.  It’s immersed in bullshit.  Everywhere you look, there’s bullshit.  And you have to deal with it.  But you shouldn’t have to put up with it.

I’m trying to eloquently describe the way some people see the world.  Some people say, “I have a bad job, but that’s life.”  Other people say, “I have a bad job.  Fuck that,” and they get a new one.  And then there’s the select few that say, “I don’t have a job, so there’s no possibility that I have a bad job.”  And they wander the streets, from soup kitchen to soup kitchen, looking for their next meal. 

What some people don’t understand is that laziness is not a choice.  it’s a way of life.  Some people praise it, while others loathe it.  But we all have to admit, it’s there.  Everyone is lazy at some point in their lives.  That time you slept in an extra hour?  When you tried to shoot paper into the trashcan?  The time you spent six hours looking for the remote when you could have just turned the damn TV on manually?  These are the days of our lives.  What about when butter went out on the market?  No more butter churns.  People got lazy.  They didn’t want to churn butter anymore.  They said, “It’s too hard.  Have someone or something else do it.”  And now butter is churned by a machine, I think. 

Laziness knows no race, no color, and no creed.  It befalls every human being at some point, and yet, most people shy away from it.  Why?  Because laziness has such negative connotations.  Phrases like, “you lazy bastard” and “sloth-ass mother fucker” are peppered throughout the history books when describing the less motivated.  But did any of that change those people’s ways?  Most likely, the person being insulted was too lazy to listen.  So those negative connotations really did nothing except fuel the fire.  Now people who hear about the benefits of being lazy are joining the masses for an apathetic strike.  One that can be done from everyone’s living room while watching their favorite episode of Sanford and Son. 

Sometimes I think, “Wow, there’s so much to do out in that world that I can’t possibly justify just sitting here.”  Sometimes I don’t.  That’s why I love America.  It’s my life choice to be lazy.  Call it an alternative lifestyle if you will, but don’t you dare try and censor me.  I will do everything I can to get this word out.  And all of you will read this, because I know no one can be so lazy they can’t read 1000 words.  In other words, I’ll have the Cliff Notes version of this post in on Friday.  Peace.

I was working today for about nine hours at my current place of employment.  It’s called BI-Lo at the Beach and it’s quite a crazy place.  It’s this supermarket located in Myrtle Beach, SC.  I’m cashiering there right now.  It could be better and it could be worse, but most notably, it could be better.  It’s just I wonder about the older people working there.  They’ve worked at jobs like this their whole lives, always having to succumb to the demands of a domineering overseer just so they can afford the rent on their trailer and make it another month without declaring bankruptcy.  I just feel bad for them.  How come they live like that and accept that this is the way life has to be?  Because, most likely, their parents did the same thing, and their parents before them, and on through all the generations.  It’s sad, really.  It’s what they refer to in psychology as generational poverty. 

And they work, sometimes two, three jobs just to pay for their children to have food and inadequate shelter, never knowing when their income could be turned off by a minor mental mistake at the office.  Maybe “office” isn’t the right word.  I think I have a better one.  Plantation.  A group of people doing mindless, tedious, repetitive labor for inadequate shelter and low quality food.  Does that not sound like slavery to you?  Sure, you could argue that they could choose not to work, but where would that leave them?  Jobless, homeless, and possibly hairless (if they can’t afford their Hair Club for Men membership).  It’s just something that they have to do.  And it’s so hard to get out.  How many times do you hear of some poor kid getting into Harvard with a 1600 on his SATs?  Maybe once, twice a decade, if that.  But you hear so many stories about the poor people who remain poor and live poor for the rest of their natural lives, like they’re not good enough to experience lavish decorations, chandeleers, or winter skiing trips in Aspen. 

Money:  the necessary evil.  Money can turn people into animals.  It can force people to go against everything they feel is right and justified.  But when a man is offered one million dollars a year to work as a CEO in the tobacco companies, how could he possibly say no?  Because everyone wants money.  And when they get money, they want more.  They use it to feel secure.  But no matter how much money they get, no matter how secure they feel, they want more of both.  And it becomes an obsession. 

One of the big perks of having a lot of money is FREEDOM.  The freedom to do whatever you want, with no one holding you down.  Not even the man.  Just imagine waking up, going to anywhere you want to go, buying anything you want to buy, having anything you want to have.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  But how can someone who makes minimum wage, working his or her entire life, ever expect to do that?  It’s not possible.  A job is the devil.  You trade your time for money.  It’s not logical.  You only have so much time.  But you can make millions of dollars.  Look at all the millionaires.  Do you think any of them have an hourly salary?  I doubt it.  It’s all about finding opportunities outside the realm of a job, where you are employed under some company with some guy telling you how to live your life wihout your opinion ever being considered seriously.  Now, I’m not saying quit your job or anything, but use the time you have, the extra five or six hours a day you’re not working, and do what you love, what you’re passionate about.  Don’t waste your time watching TV, or zoning out drinking alcohol or doing drugs.  It’s just stupid.  Develop your passionate skills into a competency and use them eventually to make lots of money not as an employee, but as an entrepreneur.  That is a strategy that has made hundreds of people millions of dollars.  And it can work for you too.

 I’m tired of looking at people who work these insanely boring jobs, like the one I’m doing now, and ask them, “What did you want to be before “this” happened?”  It’s just so demoralizing. And these stories about how they can never make ends meet.  It’s depressing and that’s all they ever think about.  So they attract those sort of things into their life.  You are what you think.  I know I’m not the first to say that, but it’s true.  I’ll close with a story about the working poor I experienced today:

I was at my register and these two very rugged-looking women approached my cash register.  They had a bunch of groceries and I knew, without them saying a word, that they were using food stamps to pay.  Of course, when I finished scanning the order, they paid with their EBT card.  Then one of the women says to the other, “Hey, can you get me a carton of cigarettes over at customer service?”  That thirty dollars spent on the wastefulness of cigarettes could have been spent on something that made them both happy.  Instead, they chose to sink down into an addictive habit that consumes most of the poverty-stricken population.  Until next time, dream your life, then live your dreams.

What would you do if you had one month to live?  One month.  That’s it.  How much time would you spend doing certain things?  It’s a question that not many people can answer intelligently.  However, it can provide some unique motivation.  Let’s say you knew for a fact that in thirty days you were going to die.  That was the definite.  What would YOU do? 

There would be plenty of things I would do.  I would conquer all my greatest ambitions.  I would go places, travel the world, and lead a campaign against whatever I was dying from.  I would get the recognition I deserved because people would know that in a month, I would no longer be available.  I would lose all fear in anything I did, knowing that anything I did is less fearful than the fate I would meet in one month.  And this got me thinking:  If living in this manner makes you a more proactive person, then why not base your whole life philosophy on this?  Just live your life as if you only have a short amount of time left.  For the most part, it’s true.  Life is short.  You only live for so long, right?  So if you harness your life now and do what it takes to be who you really want to be, as fast as possible, then you will be closer to being who you really are.  You will no longer be afraid to be yourself.

So I guess the moral of this whole post is to live your life in conjunction with the theory that we only have a fixed amount of time on this planet, so you might as well get everything you can out of it.  Don’t wallow in what might have been.  Think about the immediate future, in terms of who you are now and who you want to be in the next month.  It’s a hell of a lot better than remaining complacent in your position.  I know it’s late, and I have to be getting to bed, but I just realized how much time I wasted watching three hours of Law and Order/ HOmicide life on the streets.  I really have to start not doing things like that and becoming the person I need to be. 

The most amazing story ever told was of the magic genie.  You get three wishes, but be careful what you wish for, it will come true.  So if you have goals that you want to come true, make them so.  And if you really do want them enough, they will come true.  I know because I’ve read so many stories about this sort of thing.  It’s just so great to still be here and knowing that no matter how bad situations get, I can pull out a joke I’ve written or listen to some comedy albums, and my mood cheers right up.  I do need to just live.  Just breathe.  It’s all a part of the cycle.  We’re just star dust any way you look at it.  So might as well do something before we become plant food again.  Peace out.