AndrewBrunelle.com

Comedy has a way of finding me time and again. I had gone so long just dwelling on philosophy and spirituality lately that I had almost neglected my comedy career. I’d been so busy with everything else that it kind of went on the back burner. I feel kind of sad about that, but I have gotten back into the groove as of late. Tonight, I rewatched the Comedy Central Special, When the Leaves Blow Away, featuring Steven Wright. It got me back into the mode I needed to be into and I thought of at least five or more new jokes, not to mention the rewording of three to five other jokes to make them much, much funnier. Now I can finally focus on putting together a good set, an amazing set, so that I can go out and perform. I have to scout open mike places down here, as there are very few, as far as I know. This is the South, so I am kind of worried my brand of humor may not stick well with some of these country folks, but you never know.

I guess you could call it bizarre, somewhat intellectual humor with a very concentrated delivery. I am low-key by nature, so I am not a Dane Cook or Lewis Black. I am not an angry person, so I do not express anger in my comedy act. I just have to develop my persona more, to the point that I am exactly what the audience expects. There are so many comedians out there now and there has to be a way to stand out from the rest. I do not want to be the stereotypical comedian, talking about stereotypical things. Like the gym, the bank, their wives/girlfriends. I am not that kind of person. I intend to have much deeper comedy about life itself, about all sorts of topics most others do not cover.

I guess the best thing I can possibly do is be myself. Otherwise, I may get arrested for identity fraud. If I can develop a set, which is the most challenging thing for me at this current moment, then I will be all set. I also have to work with spacing out of the jokes, timing they call it. The most important thing is getting the jokes in some sort of order that is both easy to remember and works well with the audience. I have to also realize that I am not for everyone, some people will dislike my comedy. And I can live with that. I’ve been living with it my whole life.

Even the best comedians of our time are disliked by many. Many people have said they do not like Jerry Seinfeld. Others say they cannot stand Chris Rock. And even though he is popular, I do not like Dane Cook. Just watching him sucks the energy right from my body. No offense, Dane.

One thing I should do is my spare time is create a joke shrine, where an abunance of jokes keep flowing. It will be a nice way to reinforce what I am going for. Anyway, I believe I am back to being funny at least some of the time, depending on your taste in humor. Good night.

Well, if you remember my post on taking a vow of silence, you would not believe what has happened to me. I have been forced into a vow of silence, even though I did not expect to at this time. It is not for spiritual or ethical reasons, the fact of the matter is I have completely lost my voice. Now I’ll get to experience the vow of silence in the way that someone would use a trial size of toothpaste to see if it tastes good. It will most likely last for maybe two to three days, but after I am done this trial-sized vow of silence, I can move forth to see if it is something I would ever do. Silence is golden, at least sometimes.

Well, I’ll let you know how it goes and hopefully I can get rid of this cold/flu/sore throat that has been bugging me for the last week. At least I have my books and websites to keep me occupied, and I may go for a long walk later, I just hope that I don’t see people who might want to strike up a conversation with me, because I simply will not be able to speak. Either way, I guess seeing the positive side in this situation will not hurt. I have the next two days off from any obligations, except maybe one, so this will give me the time to get over this flu and experience silence once again, listen to the birds and the wind, and not be so prone to opening up my mouth. Have a nice day.

Something as of late has provoked me to becoming more organized. I don’t know what it is, but it has reaped some enormous benefits so far and I am looking forward to the culmination of complete organization. I have thrown away quite a bit in the last month or so, things I thought I would need someday, so held onto, and never used. I am still not all the way there, but it is an ongoing process. Eventually, I would like to strip everything down to the bare minimum, with just a couple of extras, like my laptop and a couple of DVDs I actually use. The rest is all going to be either sold, given away, or tossed out, depending on if I can find ways to better dispose of them.

Here is what I have been noticing when it comes to clearing out clutter: You feel better, you are more focused, more relaxed, less agitated about clutter. Clutter can be very distracting, especially when you are trying to do something like write a blog post there is a gigantic mess staring you in the face. I believe the key to organization is giving each and every one of your items a home, a place where they belong, and be sure to keep placing them back in their home after you are done using them. This has two benefits: One is that you will always know where your things are, and two is that those things will not be all over the place, impeding your mood and well-being.

I find getting rid of excess items to be a rewarding process as well. This is especially true if you give those items to others. I remember a saying that goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” I agree with that statement to the degree it has worked for me. I am going to start giving away some of the things I do not use regularly because getting rid of them will free up more space for either other things or more oxygen in my room. Oxygen is probably the most precious item for me to have around, so having more room for it is a definite must. The key for me is to figure out which items I will probably never use again, and which ones I will definitely use again. But what is the difference anyway? None of the things I own, besides my laptop, is worth over $100. Every other individual item is worth less than that. So, if I ever need another one of something I have thrown away, I can always get another one, for a nominal fee.

One of my plans is to probably sell some of my DVDs on eBay or sell them to used movie stores. A lot of the movies I have bought seemed like a good idea at the time, but I feel like every time I feel like watching one of them, I say, “Well, it is going to take two hours. Could you possibly put those two hours to better use?” And the answer is usually yes, so I feel like these movies are not really satisfying their space on my desk. The same goes with my bookshelf. Probably more than half the books on there I will never, ever read again, so maybe it is time to make a trip to the library and donate them. I don’t even know why I own books that aren’t something I would use at least once a month, as having them just sit there is a colossal waste of space. All in good time I will bring myself to get rid of the ones that no longer serve me, and if for some reason they do after I get rid of them, I just have to go down to the library and take it out.

It is all a matter of what you need, what you want, and what is just not worth keeping. Then there is a way to systematically organize the things you own into those three categories, trashing the latter and keeping the two first ones, then working on different methods of organizing the things that remain. I think it is a good idea. I have heard that in office buildings, often a person with a messy desk will not get a promotion. The whole thought on that is messy desk, messy life. Your clutter is a representation of who you are, and by clearing it out, you clear out a part of yourself to invite better things to come in its place.

Now where are my keys?

Open forum here. Nothing specific to talk about tonight, and yet I felt like making a blog post, possibly to create the illusion I’m being productive. It’s okay, though. I’ve got all night to pound out another blog entry and I guess my fingers are just along for the ride. I’ll never forget the day I was born. What a mess. I like to freestyle every once in awhile because it may lead to a mental breakthrough that could send me over the edge and into another dimension, and I would love to do that, just for the experience of blogging about it. It would give me some new topics to talk about. I have some dreams that seem so real that when I wake up, I’m kind of disappointed because it is amazing to me that the places in my dreams are all fabrications of my imagination. Every little detail is the inner workings of my brain, of my mind. There is so much data in there, and it’s so hard to quantify it, so most of the things in my head are a mystery “waiting to be unraveled.” Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night and this is making me sound strange, but I feel a bit loopy tonight, and I’m just going to run with it.

I grew up knowing that the only way a man can skin a cat is with his grandmother’s razor blades. I came to find out in my later years that this was a misguided assumption. There is definitely more than one way to skin a cat, although I wouldn’t recommend doing so under any circumstances. I can say one thing, though. One of my fondest childhood memories was playimg Monopoly and becoming so bored, I started laughing and laughing and laughing and eventually we just stopped playing, because of all the laughter. The game was no longer important. But I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. And I’ll never forget Stratego, the game I never won at, ever. Boy, what a miserable game that was, for me, but I made the best of it. I did the best I could with what I had. I’m just glad it wasn’t my dream to become general of the U.S. Army because I’m quite sure it would not turn out the way I wanted it to.

But I am not a man of war anyway. I am a man of peace. It is easier to have peace than war, yet people seem to lean the way of the sword. You can be a pacifist and pass-a-fist, or you can be a warmonger and kill a bunch of people. You always have a choice. Your destiny is your own, not someone else’s. If you’ve made it this far, I encourage you to keep reading. One of my favorite things to do is stop mid-paragraph and just go off on another tangent. There are no rules when it comes to writing, unless you’re writing in one of those countries that doesn’t have freedom of expression. There is an upside and a downside to this freedom of expression. Sure, all the great ones can spread their message, but so can the cult leaders and the hate-mongers. And you can’t tell one group of people not to express themselves without censoring everyone. As South Park says, “It’s either all okay, or none of it’s okay.” I’m just glad to be in a world where I can write whatever I want and publish it and allow other people to read it as well. There are no boundaries and that makes me happy inside.

I love the world we live in with endless possibilities and how any of them can be true for you or me or whoever else exists. It’s good to be here now, in this time period, where the world is becoming a better place every day, with our help and the help of others, we are becoming more peaceful and less quarrelsome, although we are not as peaceful as we could be. There just needs to be a shift in the collective consciousness of us all to surrender from the emotions of greed, hatred and disgust, in all aspects of our lives, and start to love and cherish every moment we have on this Earth, because we all know it could very well be our last. Life is unpredictable. I forget who said, “Live as if you’d die tomorrow, but dream as if you’ll live forever.” But it’s an interesting quote I have come to love.

I wish we all knew what a wonderful world this is, but with all the negative news and constant reaffirmation of negativity in the media and the social conditioning, we all feel like the world is getting worse, or at least most people do. Optimistic people are looked at as ignorant, with comments said to them like, “How can you be so happy with all the suffering in the world?” It is because I choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice. Peace is a choice. Every emotion and feeling you have is a choice on one level or another. We’re conditioned on how to feel in certain situations, but you don’t need to follow that path. You don’t have to be miserable if you don’t want to. There is always a choice for your emotions, I guess, would be the bullet point of this paragraph. God, I love Family Guy. (To those of you who don’t get that reference, don’t worry about it.)

I’ve had a tremendous time writing on this blog. I don’t even know if that last sentence makes sense, but I’m leaving it in there anyway. I have enjoyed this experience and my previious experiences blogging thoroughly. I am going to continue this blog with further posts, obviously, and I encourage you to keep reading, if you are so inclined. The choice is up to you. Take or leave my ideas, or ideas in general, as I usually do not like to claim ownership of my ideas, except for that one patent I bought beck in 1997 (caffeinated water). Anyway, I think this has gone on far enough. Have a fulfilling day. Good night, and good luck.

I have always had a sense of humor that people could appreciate. Witty, sharp, logical, smart. And it was only after I had suffered brain cancer that I had the courage to display this great sense of humor publicly with more than just close friends and family. I would often look at my situation, whatever it may be, no matter how bad it made me feel, and think something funny about it. This is a string of personal stories that will show you how humor can be used at anytime, and make yourself happier.

I was getting an MRI, for the twelfth time after going inside this machine so many times I could tell you every possible noise that took place in the machine. I started wondering if they offer any benefits to repeat customers. So I went into the MRI room and told the technician, “I only have to go in one more time before I get a free examination.” I pulled out a card with twelve hole punches in it, reminiscent of somesort of Subway Club card, where if you buy a certain amount of subs, you would get a free sub.

I was going through my radiation treatment for thirty days, as was persecribed and the first fifteen days was a general radiation, but the second fifteen days was this very precise radition table, where the table moved and the laser beam moved in all directions. My body went up, down, around in circles. I got off for the first time and said, “Boy, I thought this was a treatment, not a ride. It’s kind of like the Scrambler, isn’t it?”

At one point, and this was relatively soon into the radiation, I got an eyepatch from my aunt. My eyes were not following each other, probably because of the swelling, and she bought me an eyepatch to help me see things clearer without double vision. I was in a lot of pain, but I still managed to say, “Arrr!” I had a good laugh about it, and it got me through the day.

I am not sure if someone thought of this quote or if it is my own creation of pure magic but here it goes, “Life is rought, so you had better develop a sense of humor. If not, you might now get out alive.” Although none of us get out alive anyway. We all end up dead at the end. I have heard comedians joke about suicide pretty well, and it was hilarious. Joking about cancer is something I do on a regular basis, but more on a personal me basis…”I don’t know if I’ve told you before, but I suffer from short term memory loss after my operation. I don’t know if I’ve told you before, but I suffer from…” “I can’t look up at all. I guess I can never date a woman taller than me.”

So I guess all I have left to say is that no matter how bad things get, no matter how awful your life seems, you can always take the time to joke about it, add some humor to the situation, and you will most likely feel better about it. Even when I get really frustrated, like if I am filling out the dreaded FAFSA, and the questions are so confusing they drive me insane, I can still take a time to laugh about how absurd it is we have to fill this nonsense out in the first place. Let’s not forget doing my taxes, got to fill out my 10-40, W-2, and my WD-40. Have a nice day.