woensdag 21 juli 2010

woensdag 21 juli 2010 Up just before the alarm. Turn on France 24. Report - Divers discover 230-year-old champagne on Baltic seabed. They say its drinkable. A wine expert described it - Veuve Clicquot - as tasting "fabulous." Coconut rice with Cholay chicken for breakfast. Turn on Stephanie Miller. Hal Sparks joins the show from the Cincinnati Bureau at for all three hours of Humpdays With Hal.

The gang discuss the case of Shirley Sherrod. Videos included in the HuffPo link. The nefarious Andrew Breitbart is usually giving his right-wing biased point of view. His editing of the tapes is totally biased against Ms. Sherrod. Mr. Breitbart should be sued. How about a defamation lawsuit? Oh, no! He can't say he's sorry now! He is a criminal.

Also... The Rude Pundit calls in from Lafayette, LA. to report the goings-on at the Rally for Economic Survival at the Cajundome. He sounds a little scared being with the many red necks. Shower. Walk up to Whole Foods just to get some toilet paper. My clerk - Troy - seemed amused by my simple purchase. There's the guy - the same guy - that I see almost every day waiting for the #17. He's like the opposite of me... and I love him for it. He's black, tall, fit, handsome, young, wearing tight clothes showing off his fine physique, and a smoker. Me? I don't smoke. That's bad for you. I wear baggy clothes to hide my frumpiness. I'm old, short and white and I ride the streetcar... but we both wear converse all stars.

10 to 11:30 - Kitchen help. Wash dishes and pack raisins into little paper sacks. 11:30 to 12:30 - Charmaine's lunch. The Seahorses are reading books with Patty while some hang out with me at the play-doh table. At lunch time, I eat my little lunch with the kids. 12:30 - Jenny's 15-minute break then I take my own. 1 - Cristin's lunch. The 7 Starfish sleep. Jack wakes up early. I just rest with him until Velvet wakes up crying... Then more Starfish wake up. I set up a book table. 2 - Tanja is subbing for Renee. It's her lunch. Cristin and I manage the toddlers wandering around doing this and that while it's still nap time. Walk up to Capitol Hill. It's getting warm. Catch a #60 to First Hill.

Nice walk along the tree-lined streets of First Hill. At my place, I plug into Hal Spark's website. He is streaming live before he goes on stage at the Dayton Funny Bone.

They must like the guy. They provide time to Hal to do a bio of Hal.

There are two ways to put together a bio. One is to write one yourself, which makes you seem like a jackass. The other is to actually pay someone to write a bio about you, which (when put anywhere other than the inside of a book flap), also makes you look like a jackass. So, trapped between those two particular choices, I’d rather be the self-sufficient jackass.

I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, raised in Kentucky – a little town called Peaks Mill. Don’t strain your brain, you’ve never heard of it. I lived in the sticks, I was a boy Scout, started taking karate there when I was 8 years old, saw The Shining when I was 7, didn’t have a TV so I spent most of my life listening to comedy records – when I wasn’t at the movies.

I’ve always been a bit of a video game nut, and back then, that meant that you actually had to stand at a video machine for hours (you kids today!). When I was 14, I decided I’d had enough of “country livin’” and moved to Chicago to live with my Dad, where I went to New Trier High School, a huge school with a great theater department that, quite frankly, should have expelled me. But, much to their credit, they didn’t, and I was able to start doing standup at 15 years old. (P.s., Thanks Mrs. Adams. You saved my ass and gave me a career.)

I won the Funniest Teenager in Chicago contest when I was 17 years old, the same year I starred in Frog, starring Elliott Gould, Shelley Duval and Scott Grimes. I also hosted a game show called “Treasure Mall”– we won’t talk about that.

I graduated from high school and, sixteen days later, I packed all my shit in my car and I drove to LA. The next ten years I call “the Sisyphus years” – career-wise, every day I would roll the rock up the hill, and every night it would roll back down. But I kept plugging away, watching people I had moved to LA with or worked with pack up and go home, year after year.

In 1997, I felt I’d strayed too far from standup comedy and decided to go at it 100% again. For the next two years, I did standup every single night. Yes, Christmas and holidays. On June 26, 1999, I got Talk Soup. I was on the air the following Tuesday after the July 4th weekend.

And the rest, you can Google… I mean, there’s obviously a lot more. But quite frankly, it’s none of your business.

Until I decide to sell a book.

Turn on MSNBC. They have a 15-minute interview with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack apologizing for the firing of Sherley Sherrod. Whew! Roast chicken and mash potatoes for dinner. Watch Lost In Space - Forbidden World.