A Year of Thanks...

Last Thursday marked the one year anniversary of my last day at INL… A goodbye show at the Idaho Falls Elks Lodge the following night and I was on my way east… Two months on the road before returning to Idaho… Happy the boys were safe and loved in Port Orchard, WA…

I spent a week in Colorado, 2 in Illinois including a weekend with my twin sister I had seen once in the previous 3yrs… It’s once in the last 4 now and that needs to be changed… Finishing with 2wks with my cousins and best friend in NY before heading west again… Driving headlong into the “2014 Polar Vortex” in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota before making “turns for home” and heading back to Idaho… Not that Idaho will ever be “home”… It proved again to be the comedy Siberia it always will be… Not enough venues/opportunity and too damn far from most of the rest…

I spent time with many friends in both directions along the way… Made many new ones and I am thankful for the laughs and hospitality shared with them all…

With my lease about to expire, the end of August, in Idaho… I sold my car, loaded the boys and myself into the RV and headed to Ventura, CA for the Ventura Comedy Festival… Spending a week in Northern Utah on the way…

Arriving in Ventura to take part in the festival… I found a part time security job 2am to 6am at a marina… It’s kind of nice being able to take the boys to work with me every night… Someone commented they don’t look like police dogs… I said… “They’re undercover”…

I am doing workshops once a week and shows once a month at the LA Connection Comedy Theatre in Sherman Oaks… Including last week’s “Industry Night” in front of bookers and agents for Commercials, TV roles and comedy… Reworking a big part of my act to fit a newly defined comedic character… I’m excited about where this can lead…

But maybe in a karmanic (is that a word) way… The marina job has reminded me…I don’t have to settle for where ever the winds of fate drive me… I can adjust the sails and steer for wherever I desire…

Which may be bringing this blog to the deep and thoughtful intent I spoke of before sitting down to actually write this…

As we all sit Thursday to say thanks… There are many things to be thankful for… If you are lucky enough to be surrounded by loved ones and family… Revel in that… I understand the choices I have made and the sacrifices that come with those choices… My closest “blood” is thousands of miles away… Possibly changing that is one of next year’s top priorities… With how, when and where yet to be determined… Las Vegas is a possibility…  

Again recognizing and acknowledging the sacrifices that come with my decision to chase this dream…To load myself and my three dogs into my RV and go… I left the second 6 figure a year job of my “civilian” career…

We live with the choices we make and I can honestly say I have never been more at peace… High stress came with those jobs… Death sentence stress… That stress is gone… I feel happier and healthier than I have in years… I’m thankful for that…

Where this adventure comes ashore is yet to be determined… But there’s only one set of hands on the sails now… We won’t be sailing in circles anymore… I am spending the holiday alone with my boys… Happy in the knowledge that it’s better than spending it with the wrong person…

I’m happy to report Riley broke into a huge grin and surprised me with a sprint across the beach at 630 this morning… Almost like he had been saving it up for me… He’s 12… But he’s still a puppy at heart… I am very thankful for that…

I’m not sure I said everything I started out intending to say…But I am going to keep this positive and end it here… Happy Thanksgiving everyone… For Thanksgivings past, present and future… Be thankful everyday… 

THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME...

So… A little background for those who don’t know… I realize most of you, my faithful readers, already know I finally escaped Idaho for good approximately two months ago… 

After spending a week in with a friend in Utah… I headed to Ventura, CA for the Ventura Comedy Competition and Festival… While here I have taken a security job at a local Marina… I’m back to working nights… But even though it’s from 2am to 6am everyday… Only 4hrs/day isn’t hard to take… The job itself is far from being mentally or physically challenging… Despite the long stretches on my feet sometimes...  

I hadn’t originally planned on still being here… But living and travelling in a 28ft RV with my three dogs has put a bit of a squeeze onto my travel budget…

Unfortunately, using the insurance money from the awning damaged in the Utah wind storm to correct some RV generator problems, hasn’t completely solved the generator problems and might have been better used as part of the travel to Las Vegas budget… So the originally planned follow up move to Las Vegas is currently on hold… And that’s OK…

There’s 2 good open mics in town… Monday and Tuesday nights… And I have an open invitation to another on Sunday nights in Santa Monica…

And it has given me time to think… Not always clearly, but learning to be quiet on the inside allows us to hear the answers the universe has for a lot of our questions…

Is the move to Las Vegas even the right one??? Would a move east be better??? There’s a lot of comedy work in the southeast… It would make it a lot easier to keep my calendar full… Would I be a better comic??? Of course… Regular work would facilitate that…

After finally taking my first step on stage in 2002, that I should have taken in my in my early 20’s or sooner… I wasted most of another 10yrs (the last 4 in the comedy Siberia of Southeast Idaho) in another shitty marriage to another drama addicted, shitty person who thought it was always all about her…

Complaining I was never home while trying to build a career as a road comic… I can only answer… I was gone all the time for the same reason I drank a half gallon of gin a week when I was home…

Hello… How are you at math??? Can you tell me the common denominator in the equation???

Maybe there’d have been less drama and she would have felt better about herself if she quit chewing so much food… Instead of trying to convince me her fat ass was just a Fig Newton of my imagination… OK, I’m done…

I haven’t said much about that and I won’t now… My new comedic character will though and he will endear himself to the audience at the same time… Yep… I can’t wait ‘til she sees me on HBO… The peace I feel having it over and done with is worth any price of hardship I am experiencing now…

Cesar Milan has nothing on me… I could easily be called The Bitch Whisperer… If she doesn’t like that, she should take my advice and unfollow my blog… I haven’t been able to figure out how to block that though I have managed to block the bitch from stalking me on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and several other sites…

Enough about that… Let’s talk about what the possibilities my re-found freedom is giving me…

Well, the previously stated travel budget concerns make relocation to Vegas or the Southeast US, at least currently, a point not open for discussion… I’m in southern California and maybe, just maybe the Universe is telling me… I’m in the right place at the right time… Is it time for a real shot at stardom??? Am I too old for it??? Possibly… Especially if I go around thinking I am… So I won’t…

I have begun working with Steve North http://www.funnycoach.com/ and I really feel it is going to make a world of difference in my career… Not as a comic… But as a comedian… Check out his website to understand the difference…

Working at night means long days at the beach with the boys… They love the water and it has really helped Riley rehab his arthritic knee and hip… I have a lot of time to exercise, swim, tan, write, work out new material and develop my new comedic character…

It’s also given me a chance to meet many locals who also hang out at the beach… It seems a lot of them… Especially the women, must have been hockey players* (for those for those who don’t get that… Stay tuned for the explanation at the end)…

I need 10 – 15 minutes of material ready for this Monday… 5 minutes or more on this Tuesday... Which may or may not be part of Monday’s 10-15… And 5 minutes for the first workshop with Steve North on Wednesday… I’ll be doing my first show with Steve on Thursday November 6th and performing at an “Industry Night” two weeks later on November 20^th… A lot of exciting things close on the horizon…

Is the Universe telling me, I’m in the right place at the right time??? I’m choosing to think so… 

I have long since determined to believe I don’t need to kiss anyone’s ass to get their permission to be funny… Just so you know… Yes, Mike “Drama”… I mean you… 

Those who have helped and encouraged me will get their thanks just as they have in the past, in the present and in the future… Those who want me to kiss their ass… Will be invited to kiss mine… Yes, purging some negativity there…

I have a lot of work to do… But really feeling energized with possibilities…

Stay tuned for more updates… Now I need to write more jokes about the meth heads* I am meeting at the beach… 

Underway on Nuclear Power

My newest project... A video blog of our next adventure... Struggling with finding a name for it… I finally decided aptly on "Underway on Nuclear Power"… 

As I leave behind the mistake of moving to Idaho Falls, ID by loading my three National Labs… Riley, JJ and Simon into my RV to pursue my comedy dreams...  It can be followed at www.youtube.com/stevethenuclearguy 

Leaving Idaho Falls a week ago today, we’ve been visiting friends in northern Utah for a week…

Three dogs and myself in a 28ft RV… It’s a good thing I was a submariner… It’s cramped and sometimes it doesn’t smell good in here… Yes… I’m hot racking with my dogs… If anyone wants to donate a klaxon we’d put it to good use and give you a shout out here on the blog…

If I showed you the outside of the RV… You would probably say we need a collision alarm more than a klaxon…

We’ll be leaving for Ventura, CA sometime tonight… Opting to drive during the cooler temps of the desert nights… At least there won’t be fog in the bilges and we will also avoid the Salt Lake City traffic… Google maps says it’s a 12.5hr drive… Not expecting to set any speed records in a 1994 RV, partly held together by duct tape… I know it’s going to take longer…

Scheduled for a preliminary round of the Ventura Comedy Festival Competition at 7pm on Sunday August 31^st… I’d love to see you in the audience if you’re in town… Hit me up to get on my guest list…

September promises to be interesting as I have submitted to numerous casting calls for movie extras and Reality TV… While spending my nights garnering as much stage time as possible… The end of the month will hopefully find me in the Ventura Comedy Contest Semi-Finals and I’m already booked for a spot as part of the Ventura Comedy Festival in the Road Warrior show Friday September 26^th at 10pm…

Seems fitting… But with three dogs and myself in a 28ft RV… We can’t fit much more in here… Road Warriors??? Yes… I’d say we are…

October will find us back on the road to various destinations, much more adventure and maybe a semi-permanent residence… Stay tuned here for updates… I’ll try to post a video at least once each week…  We’d like to consider everyone out there as part of the “crew”…

Don't Let The Curtain Go Down On Me

http://youtu.be/Gzn2_8i26ys 

Following up last week’s blog…

http://viewsfrommyhammock.blogspot.com/2014/08/thanks-mom.html

With one more and several links to others… One written almost one year ago while camping in the Idaho desert alone with my boys…

http://viewsfrommyhammock.blogspot.com/2013/09/desert-nights.html

Sadly mentioning the death of a friend at 52yrs old in that blog… My life was also touched by the death of a good friend’s sister at 48yrs old while I was writing that blog and another close friend at 58yrs old, a brother fire fighter from my days as a volunteer in Pultneyville, NY, less than a week later…

Life has been crazy, busy and full of change since writing that blog last year… So I hadn’t given much thought to the significance of those events until this past week…

Then I read this… http://www.standupcomedyclinic.com/4779/how-robin-williams-saved-my-life/?mc_cid=2017c9b62a&mc_eid=4c41690a64 by my friend Jerry Corley... I will quote it here... 

At first I refused to believe it. Like a lot of comedians, I had worked with Robin several times. I even drove him in a limousine every day for a couple of weeks early in my career, when I was cutting down my road work to try to save my marriage.

I remember Robin said to me, “Save your marriage? F*@k your marriage. Save your life!”

Most of those who know me… Know I had moved to Idaho to take a job at the Idaho National Laboratory to try to save my marriage… 12hr rotating shift work and an hour bus ride to and from the Idaho desert… 14hrs day or night to sit and watch my life slowly and unhappily ebb away… Yeah, I was the bad guy… I’m sure she told those of you who know her…

Determined not to go out like that… My divorce from my executioner was already final when I wrote last year’s blog and I was just a few months away from walking away from the death sentence of that job…

As irony would have it… She was the one who called to tell me of the death of our friend Dan, my fellow fire fighter… Sad with the news… I asked her… “Do you finally understand now??? Do you finally understand I would have been willing to die to escape the death sentence of that job… That life… Why did it take three deaths for you to finally get it???”

Never one to accept anything but her own sainthood… She didn’t like the question because she didn’t like the answer…

Yes… This past year has been full of changes… Some hard… Some uncomfortable… There are lots of unknowns… But I’m headed to where I’m supposed to be… I understand the mistakes of the past much better now…

http://viewsfrommyhammock.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-did-i-get-here.html

I have no intention of letting the curtain go down on me…

http://youtu.be/FI5xme5k5AQ 

Holy Mangi Ming-ya

Not a character this time, but an event featuring some characters already introduced (Stefano Ming-ya, our stories hero and Nana Ming-ya, his beloved Italian Grandmother) and of course, some new characters and anti-heros to make the story interesting.

Ascending the steps leading from her extra kitchen, in the catacombs of her basement, Nana Ming-ya is excited today. Her grandson, Stefano Ming-ya is planning a visit with some of his friends from the Catholic High School, they all attend. 

Preparing her standard massive amounts of food in anticipation of their arrival, she did not have long to wait.  Soon the car full of Catholic High School teenagers pulled in to the driveway of Nana and Papa Ming-ya's hilltop home. Music blaring and smoke billowing from the windows, the teenagers emerged from the car red eyed, laughing hysterically and hungry. Happy that they seemed to be having so much fun, Nana Ming-ya never thought of asking about the sweet smoke aroma that they were all covered with.

As they sat down to eat, Nana implored them with the standard exortation to eat, Mangi, mangi !!!!

Not needing any further encouragement, the teenagers dug right in, shoveling huge amounts of homemade pasta and meatballs, Italian bread and butter, sausage and peppers and many other delights into their mouths, attempting to quell the severe case of the 'munchies' that had beset them.

Nana Ming-ya just sat back, marveled at their exuberance and continued to encourage them with, Mangi, mangi!!!!

As bowl after bowl of homemade Italian delights was greedily devoured, Nana Ming-ya began to worry.

Do not these youngsters eat? She wondered to herself as she served up another bowl of pasta. Her exhortations were beginning to dwindle when she finally screamed, Holy Mangi Ming-ya!!!!!  I thinka you boys eata too much!!!! 

Snapped from the trance like state in which they had been eating, at the sound of Nana Ming-ya's screams, the Catholic High School boys realized that yes, their bellies were full. So after many thank you’s and compliments to Nana Ming-ya's cooking, the teenage boys left in search of further adventure, Catholic High School Girls...to be continued. 

Thanks Mom...

It’s been a few days now and many things have been written and said about the tragic passing of Robin Williams… I have provided links to several articles and quotes from each… I found them all to be very interesting, introspective and sadly relatable… 

I urge everyone to read them and not to skip ahead to something I wrote many years ago about an incident in my own life… An incident almost forgotten, but remembered with pride upon reading these articles…

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2014/the_humor_code/are_comedians_really_depressed_or_is_sadness_just_funny.html#comments

Sure enough, according to their book Pretend the World Is Funny and Forever, the analyses revealed that most of the comedians grew up in chaotic households with critical, indifferent mothers, leading them to become obsessed with notions of good and evil, angels and demons. As the Fishers note in their book, “We would propose that a major motive of comedians in conjuring up funniness is to prove that they’re not bad or repugnant. They are obsessed with defending their basic goodness.”

“I'm not saying anything science doesn't already know, by the way. Find a comedian, and you'll usually find somebody who had a shitty childhood.”

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robin-williams-why-funny-people-kill-themselves/#ixzz3AUrCKBDg

https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonas-barnes/why-the-death-of-robin-williams-is-devastating-and-should-set-off-alarms/10152398985417880

“Comedy is a strange beast in that sense. Our job is joy. We make people laugh. For a brief time, we allow the audience to escape from their lives through laughter. We are jesters to the kingdom of life. Yet, so many times, that joy that we provide is masked in tragedy and comes with a price. The stereotype is that comics are fucked up in the head. We're crazy. We're nuts. We're full of tragedy. Our lives must have been fucked up. And I'll be damned if that stereotype doesn't ring true a lot of the time. We're the sad clowns of the world. All of the greats that you have seen come and go were fucked up. Drug addictions, alcoholism, destructive behavior...why? Because we are destructive. We thrive on adrenaline rushes and chaos. And we do it because we have something inside us that needs it. Was it a shitty upbringing? Did we get our asses kicked as kids? Did we get bullied? Have we been fucked by the world around us? Whatever the tragedy is, we find it and make all of you laugh at it. We bottle it down and turn it into humor. It is a coping mechanism that affectively bottles the emotions away at the same time. It is a vicious cycle that, often times, ends in an ultimate tragedy.”

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152560531007649&set=a.10151611049592649.1073741824.742412648&type=1

“Comics are fucked up people. That's just a fact. We ball up our "mess," write jokes about it, and we get on stage with it seeking love, acceptance, and connection from total strangers. There is nothing normal or sane about who we are or what we do. We comics, just like everyone else, deal with our lives and our shit in different ways, as best we can...”

Ming-ya!!! Were You Sleepin’??? 

https://www.facebook.com/notes/10150106213343225/

It’s been many years now since we’ve spoken… And though that isn’t going to change… I’d like to say here… Thanks, mom…

I don’t wish you dead… Every day you’re alive is another day you suffer the inglorious truth that your now adult children don’t speak to you and honestly hate you… Death doesn’t scare those who have lived a good life… The fact that’ll you will die someday scares the hell out of you…

The fact that you die without six friends to carry your box means they’ll have to bounce it down the church steps… You’re in for a bumpy ride to hell…   

I’ve got a bottle of laxative just waiting for the day I shit on your grave… I want it really liquid, so it soaks right down to your box…

The harm you meant to cause is going to make me famous… Didn’t plan on that did you???

How Did I Get Here???

“When we change the way we look at things… The things we look at change… “
Dr. Wayne Dyer

Stress… It had become the suit I woke up in, wore all day and slept in at night… A boring and unattractive outfit… I had almost given up any hope of wearing anything else…

“Would you be willing to go talk to someone???” Asked my attorney a little over a year ago during a meeting in his office…

An ungrateful and unreasonable soon to be ex-wife on the speaker phone… Unaware someone else was listening and totally unaware of how unattractive her own outfit of candy, potato chips and drama had become… She clung to the belief that she really was the joy to live with that she wanted everyone else to believe she was…

Sensing I had had enough as the phone conversation came to an end… He asked again… “Would you be willing to go talk to someone???” While handing me a piece of paper he had written a name and number on…

Texting the number upon my return home… I had nothing to lose, but the stress which was slowly killing me… An appointment made… With no clue as to what to expect… I met a wonderful woman Margo Plum www.angel-wing-wellness.com who has become a counselor and friend… The weight slowly began to be lifted from my shoulders… The stress I had been wearing slowly changing to a belief my world could be anything I wanted it to be… And filled with whatever I wanted to fill it with…

Slowly learning the Law of Attraction… Taking responsibility for not only creating the life I truly want… But also responsibility for filling my life with the things and stress I didn’t want… Never having truly understood (“knowing”) how our thoughts and words create our reality… I had attracted many things and the stress that came with them that I never wanted…

Discussing here the how’s and whys of attracting a lifetime of poor decisions, bad dating choices and the failed relationships they led to, self-sabotage following good decisions and negative energy would rapidly turn this blog in a direction it needs not to go…

This needs to be a positive discussion of the good things finally manifesting in my life now… Things that I am only now realizing I had no idea I was speaking into life many, many years before… Yes, I’m old…

Many of my faithful readers and others have heard how I always felt standup was something I could do… How as an 18yr old and above, I had frequented comedy clubs and thought what an awesome thing it would be to do it for a living (I didn’t know then the pay pretty much sucks)… But despite those thoughts and feelings I had never taken the steps to act on them except to routinely be the “life of the party guy”… More on this later…

They’ve also heard how then “life got in the way”… Enlisting and spending 9yrs in the Navy followed by what eventually would be more than 20yrs in the commercial nuclear power industry… During which I endured several failed marriages and numerous shitty relationships, the result of previous mentioned bad dating choices…

Through it all, though I had yet to be on stage, comedy was my relief… “Venting” to my buddies at work became my therapy… Their laughter medicine to my soul… Then one day in 2002 seeing an article in the Rochester, NY newspaper about an open mic, I decided to go… It was a wild night and the start of what’s been an even wilder ride… There’s been some stops and starts… The comedy train may have even jumped the tracks more than once… But that first night had me hooked…

I’ve told jokes all over the country… 40 states and if you count my time in the Navy… Several countries… I think those countries hate America now… 

But in a moment of clarity just the other evening during some quiet time sitting outside with my boys… Maybe it was the universe reassuring me as the boys and I prepare for our next big adventure… Those times as the “life of the party guy” came to mind… Times I had not thought about for many, many years… Yes, I’m old…

As we sat facing west and watching the sunset… While the “life of the party guy” video played in my mind… The Law of Attraction became real in an astonishing way…

Things I said many, many times as a “joke” then many, many years before began to echo in my ears… Bouncing off the walls of the deep recesses of my empty head… Things I had said aided by youth’s ability to drink excessively and recreational drug use…

The times I had met some groans from my “party” audience with… “Hey, lots of people pay good money in Vegas to see the entertainment you’re getting for free…”

Or “I don’t care how far I have to go to tell a joke… I love to hear people laugh.”

And “Someday you’ll be sitting at home in bed watching Johnny Carson (I told you I was old) and I’ll be guest hosting The Late Show…”

I haven’t locked down that guest host gig yet… But in a “How did I get here???” moment… The universe told me… I manifested it… I didn’t know I was doing it then and all the misfortunes during the almost 30yrs when “life got in the way”… Weren’t really misfortunes… They were the universe getting that life out of the way…

Out of the way for the manifestation of things I unknowingly put in motion during my late teens and 20s… Yes, I’ll say it again… Aided by youth’s ability to drink excessively and recreational drug use…

It has been an eye opening realization that couldn’t have come at a better time… As the boys and I are less than 3 weeks away from leaving Idaho… We will be loading up the RV and heading to California for the Ventura Comedy Festival the end of August and September… We’ll be in California for a month before heading to Lake Havasu City, AZ… Laughlin, NV (Laughlin Laugh Fest) and another return engagement in Pinetop, AZ (My 4^th time there) the first week of October…

I have been submitting to casting calls and auditions to make the best possible use of my time while in California… Who knows maybe I’ll be headed right back there by the end of October… If I’m not headed back there then… Well, we will just have to see what the universe has in store for us… Lots of doors are starting to open and there are a host of possible destinations…

I mentioned in a status update a few days ago I had submitted to be an extra in “Fast and Furious 7” because “lots of people would pay good money” to see me blown up… Well, maybe not lots… But at least my ex’s…

The boys and I will be living in our RV during this leg of our adventure… I’ll be using public transportation as often as possible in California… And also posting a video blog to document as much of it as possible… I hope all of you will follow along and tell your friends and family to as well…

I’m trying to find a name for this leg of the adventure… But right now I can’t even think of a name for this blog… Any suggestions???

How did I get here??? Many years ago… Long before ever hearing anything about the Law of Attraction… Aided by youth’s ability to drink excessively and recreational drug use… I Manifested My Destiny… I’m right where I was always supposed to be… What a mind blowing and reassuring realization…