Wednesday, November 09, 2011

MY BLOG HAS MOVED

You can find all past ramblings here but I'm re-starting it now and it's moved to www.paulvarghese.tumblr.com See you there. While you're at it, add me on FaceBook (www.facebook.com/paulandoates) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/paulvarghese) for updates on when I post something new. Thanks for all your support.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

(LAST NEW CLIP!!)

The last clip of me in a black shirt with pearl snaps. Time to change outfits.

Friday, May 28, 2010

(ANOTHER NEW CLIP ..)

Some more nuggets of joydom from my braindom.

NEW VIDEO CLIP ..

A clip of stuff I spit into a microphone, which in turn got amplified out thru speakers into a sea of people.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Paul's Lament

In my opinion, THE most frustrating thing to deal with as a comic besides ..

- open mikes at a bar where you compete with television noise and bar chatter
- begging people to come out to see you at shows so the club will keep having you back
- drinking in excess because after your 3 minutes on Jager, EVERYONE wants to be the one to buy you a shot
- the loneliness on the road where at times, you actually consider calling your much-hated ex-girlfriend just to kill the time
- the shows where everyone else kills with their old material, but because you need to work on your new bit about TV shows in Ethiopia, the crowd response you get is terrible, so after the show the crowd wants to hang with them but doesn’t want to even be within 500 feet of you
- the fact that you can write and write and write and not one of the bits you wrote in an entire two week span is working
- hearing other comics bitch about this club being unfair and this comic being a douche rather than channeling that energy into something more productive, like Tuaca
- getting all excited that it’s your headlining night at a club and 20 people show up, and those 20 people don’t like you either
- the lack of consistent money
- the struggle it is to keep any kind of relationship going, whether friend/romance-wise because almost every night of your life is out at some club or bar pitching new material to problem drunks
- not having any kind of medical insurance
- constructing what you think is a brilliiant bit about the perks of dying young as opposed to dying old. You’re all excited to unleash said briilliance on the Big Buck Hunter-playing masses and not one of them. Not one. Laughs. But your stupid one-liner about getting drunk at the Waffle House absolutely slays ‘em
- changing up your material to accomodate the age/racial demographic of the crowd and struggling if you don’t and, alot of times, even struggling when you do
- sleeping in awful hotel rooms where it’s 10 degrees outside and the heater is merely a box that quit being a heater, 35 degrees ago
- getting out-heckled by a heckler because he’s on top of his game and you’re not, because you’re either too inebriated or not enough and plus you just found out earlier in the day that you have $500 worth of car damage you need to bang out.
- writing a bit that you’re convinced is brilliant, only to realize that another comic already does it
- trying to explain to your friends after a show that the reason they saw a very similar show to the one they saw a month ago is because it takes a long time to write new material that kills
- trying to convince yourself that one day, all this paying of dues will eventually be worth it
- getting emails from audience members the next day saying “You suck”
- hearing advice from comics you don’t respect about what’s wrong with your act
- hearing advice from audience members who have never stepped foot onstage but “watch alot of Comedy Central” tell you what’s wrong with your act
- having someone you date tell you what’s wrong with your act
- knowing what’s wrong with your act and then once you make steps to fix it, you realize there’s even more that’s wrong with your act

I’m sorry.

I might’ve gotten a wee bit carried away.

What was I talking about originally?

Oh yeah, THE absolute worst thing about stand-up comedy for me?

- Forgetting a new bit idea that came out of conversation.


It happened to me again last night.
And I have no excuse.
Okay, I have one.
Okay, well actually I had several.
In the form of Crown Royal shots.
But that’s blurriily beside the point. I have my iPhone for such situations. I can type in bit ideas as they come to me. And the best ones for me tend to occur in conversation, and at that point I need to type it into my phone instantly.
But last night, I didn’t.
And that’s when panic sets in.
It becomes this drunken “Law & Order” where my friend and I spend the next 30 minutes trying to remember what we had said just 5 minutes ago that was so damn hilarious. So damn hilarious that we both said, outloud, right after we talked about it,

“That’ll kill onstage.”


But after letting that moment fly by without documenting it, this 30 minute recap of the last 5 minutes not only never ends with us remembering what it was but rather becomes a really pathetic shopping list of conversation, where you realize how drunk/boring the conversation really was

“It was right after you were talking about how great it would be to have a gravy-flavored vodka and right before you asked if it would be cheaper to mummify yourself or have yourself gutted and stuffed”


So,frustratingly, in the end, the bit flies off into inspirational outerspace.
Where all good ideas float away to.
Endlessly drifting into the abyss of ideas that every person has had but never ever thought to write down.
Until it finally lands.

In an IHOP in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The thought that was once yours, 15 months ago in San Jose, California, has made a cross-country trek and landed into the head of an unsuspecting comic who ,just like you, is drunk after hours and drowning his sorrow/frustrations with the craft by eating chocolate chip smiley face pancakes to shake out the buzz of 7 Jack & Cokes and a writer’s block that just won’t go away. And right as that last bite of whipcreamy fried breakfast dessert hits his lips? He spits it out and yells to his drunken open-miker buddy

“If you meet somebody through online dating, and they look nothing like their picture. Can you call tech support?”


A joke is born.

Monday, March 09, 2009

The Notebook

I'll admit it. I came close to tears. I felt them well up. It took every little droplet of testosterone I had in my body to hold it back. I squirmed. Thought of manly things like: beards, drinking beer through your beard, and talking about your beard with other guys with beards as you all stroke your beards and drink beer through your beards.
It didn't help. Sadness turned to frustration to anger as I pounded on the glass doors of the movie theater at midnight.

I left my JOKE notebook inside.

BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER ...
All comics write their jokes down. Anyone who says they don't must have never drank, never taken any illegal substances, or never aged.
So unless you're a 5 year-old comedian, you HAVE to write stuff down.

I went to go see that movie "Gomorrah". (It's not an Italian "City of God" as the trailer would have you believe, so I don't recommend it). I had just left an open mike and went next door to the movie theater since well (insert "when in Rome ..." double entendre, since I ended up watching a movie about gangs in Italy).

I never bring my notebook with me because I'm afraid to leave it behind.
So realizing 30 minutes later that I left my notebook on the seat next to me not only made me furious but made me realize that as of now, I'm a horrible dad. Because let's be real, I've been doing standup for almost 8 years. I have 8 years worth of notebooks. The one being discussed is all my thoughts since April 2008.

Now if I had an 8 year-old son, do you think he'd remember anything I said last year? Do you think he'd remember how my Irish car bomb joke ends? Would he know all the punchlines to my George Washington Carver bit?

The answer is No.
Which proves my point.
My notebook is way more valuable to me than any infantile offspring I might have.
So for that I apologize red joke notebook. I did a horrible thing. I took you for granted. You: the only one out there who knows my thoughts, my frustrations, my McMuffin Belgrande idea. I realize that leaving you there all alone may lead to abandonment issues. It's not the first time I've shown this kind of neglect. I've been irresponsibly drunk. I've been scatter-brained.

And I understand.
I understand that you may leave me for good one day.
And three years down the road when I find you, nestled in the arms of a struggling comic, and I see him make his Comedy Central debut by opening with the line, "I met a Japanese hooker who came to the United States on a bukaki scholarship", I'll know where he got that from.

And I'll weep.
Not out of anger.
But out of my own frustration. For had I been there and never let you out of my sight, that open miker douche would've never gotten a Comedy Central applause break, 10 seconds in.

Please accept my apology.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Why I Drink ...

It's only been a couple of years that I actually started enjoying drinking. Now if you scour through previous blogs, it's easy for one to assume that I perhaps "enjoy" booze "a little too much". But then that would mean that you're being judgmental and assuming that just because I enjoy something as consistently evil as alcohol that I, too, am perhaps consistently evil.

I wrote this blog to counteract such a preposterous assertion
(And to be able to type the word "preposterous". Woohoo! Did it again)

* If someone accuses you of being: a drunk, an alcoholic, a boozehound, a liquor lover, the Duke of Hurl, Sir Pukes-alot, the lost Nolte brother/sister, Beer Bong Buddha, sobriety's yang, Drunkadelic, a "danger to society", a school zone hazard, a liver quiver giver, Tipsy LongStocking, "never there for your kids", a blurred visionary, Steal-A-Tequila, Gutter Butter, a Yak-osaurus, or "in need of an intervention"

(Cut and paste what's written below to defend your lifestyle)

EXHIBIT A: I'm much more enjoyable to be around when I'm drunk.

You know this. All your friends do too. Even some of your co-workers when we went to your company Christmas party and I used some celery sticks as a microphone to sing "Don't Stop Believing". Remember the coat rack guitar solo? Leave it to hotel security to ruin what was a rockin' night for all. If you don't believe me, go to YouTube and look up "ex employee's boyfriend sings acapella karaoke".

I rest my case

EXHIBIT B: I'm pumping in money to our floundering economy.

Not only am I keeping alcohol companies in business. (Has anyone noticed that Bud Light hasn't asked for a bailout?) I make sure bartenders have enough money to maintain their meth habit, which in turn keeps Wal-Mart fully staffed. Drunks are why fast food restaurants stay open 24 hours, have dollar menus (because all you have left at the end of the night is loose change in your car) and the 2 drive-thru menu concept. The one menu that you can actually order at and the one 10 feet before where you sober up and try to practice what you're gonna say at the "real menu"

EXHIBIT C: It makes me an honest man.

When sober, I tend to bite my tongue, hold back. Those secrets? Those feelings I have for you? That hatred I have for others? Sobriety takes those emotions and locks them down in the cellar, Pulp Fiction Gimp-style. You don't want that. You can't be friends/partners/tandem bike buddies when everything is just a facade. Sobriety doesn't want you to see the real me. Sobriety's insecure. He still wants to impress you and make you think that spending time with me is like an episode of "Friends". We throw witty rhetorts at one another, sing along to 80s music on our way to Olive Garden, then cap the night by watching something you ordered off NetFlix, drinking a harmless glass of wine and enjoy suburban bliss.

When drunk, you'll see how I really feel.

Yeah, "witty rhetorts" are cute, but let's be honest: Nobody talks like that. You thought Anchorman was funny. Don't act like you know how to be hipster clever just because you have "Arrested Development" on DVD, but still don't know who Mitch Hedberg is.

Olive Garden? I know their "eggplant parmesan" is just as good as any you'll find in any high-end Italian restaurant but it's OLIVE GARDEN. Let me guess what part of town it's in ..... Ummm, next to an Applebee's, flanked by an On The Border, across from a Marble Slab?

And I do enjoy the concept of NetFlix, but really? Did you really need to see the latest Cusack romantic comedy? Wait, in this one is he ranty, mumbly, and nervous? Do tell.

Oh and I'll take that extra glass of goodnight wine just so I can tell you that another "boardgame night" with your boring friends and their even more boring insignificant others will drive me to murder. Them then you.

One more round of "Cranium" = Two more rounds of shotgun shells.

Now don't you wish you knew this about me before we started hanging out? All the more reason to be drunk at first encounter.

Now shut up, let's drink to that.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

The Seven Year Bitch ...

I've been racking my brain on how to do this blog.

So June 6th is officially seven years for me in the stand-up game. I thought I had this great idea where I would write about what I've done in the last 7 years and then contrast it to what I 'could have' been doing these past 7 years, in regards to going back to get my Masters degree and getting a real day job, instead of toiling around in smoky bars doing bits about Jesus freckles.

I typed it all out and it was awful.

Long Blog Short? I'm happy I'm where I'm at. My parents kinda are too but would much rather me have the "Three M's": Marriage, Mortgage, Misery

My Three M's? Moth Joke, Midget Joke, and My sanity.

Happy Anniversary to me.