I have two years of crap to unload. I’ll try to get more dates for fall booked soon but for now you can find them here. The Road Diary is just a holding place until I’m actual on the road this summer.

If this post goes up without a hitch I’ll be updating current events crap here. Such as;”Dick on Fire” – the death of a salesman and how my fellow co-workers ungraciously dealt with it. Hint; They’re sales people. “Anal Roaming Charges” – how one inmate just couldn’t go 14hrs without his cell phone. Life. When it’s good, it’s great. Then there’s the rest of the mother fucker.

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.

DUH.

This is probably the last Jlog from work release because it’s all routine and boring to me now.

So what if they shut down Dorm B and moved everyone over to Dorm A with only one operational toilet and now I have two habitual snoring pigs over here begging someone in that snorting secret code to have mercy upon them with a soft pillow and adequate upper body strength. No big deal.

The most annoying verbulent football fan in the house is the guy in charge.

It’s overcrowded and smellier than ever and I don’t know why I don’t care. It doesn’t interest me.

They toddle around like acromegalical  children coughing, hacking and sneezing without a bit of care as to where their spray and spittle lands.

There’s no point in pointing it out to them. They’ll sneeze into their hands and then grab the door, the sink. They touch everything. Just like kids.

There’s no hope for them or us and the rest of the world now that “brilliant” people have aersolized the next black plague.

Bad manners, bad hygiene – it’s going to do what a thousand nukes didn’t get around to.

Life sucks and yours does too. Is my employer more of an ass than the run of the mill because he knows I don’t have another viable option? Yes. But fuck it.

In a way this is like being sentenced to a bad marriage. Go to work, sleep alone. I’m a veteran at this.

Of course if something interesting happens, that’s a different story.

Unless blogging that interesting something will cause me problems, as so many of them would.

I wonder what’s on TV tonight….

-Travis Lipski

Catch Travis’ latest at: http://www.wix.com/travinatorus/apoplecticapocalyptic#%21

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.

Say what you want about Peoria, I always do.

Every morning I exit the County Jail I am accosted by a new and equally offensive odor wafting about. It’s as if I’m located in the middle of an ever evolving (devolving?) trade wind of putrification.

That’s variety.

Yes, I asked to do my sentence here but there’s a logic in it that works for me. Peoria’s the kind of town you where you don’t mind locking yourself up in an institution every night.

My mugshot is now taped to my locker,  at least I’m not just a number here. I’m staring myself down every time I walk in Dorm A. My locker is the only one that faces the door so, technically (and I’m probably over-thinking here) I’m staring down everyone that walks into Dorm A.

Shaved head, cold stare.

It’s probably the pixel-compression or something.

I don’t even look like that anymore. An alter-ego.

My locker was ‘tossed’ which, I’ve found, literally means that they toss your stuff around.

There apparently is an accreditation inspection forthwith and the officers (some) seem to be on edge and each day I come back there are maximum cleaning attempts being made by my fellow inmates who, it seems, have not been instructed as to best-methods -  e.g., Gooby is cleaning the toilet bowl with a floor mop.

“Gooby” is almost too dumb to write/make fun of.

Like the afflicted children of Agee’s Greensboro, there could be sensed a ting of exploitation as often the case when any demonstrably extreme case of poverty (food/shelter/wits/whathaveyounots) suffers the unflinching eye of literary examination or the nit-picking toils of a part-time felon.

But yesterday was his last day so, you know…

Gooby has quick tiny steps. The term, ‘scurry’, fails here in light of his height that  I’d guess is top-side of 6ft but not altogether wrong.

This is not at all an unfair depiction of Gooby. In fact a caricature artist would undoubtedly defer to the likeness,

The other night I walk over to the ’dining’ room to check the local paper to see if anyone I know has died or been arrested or if anything of any interest accidently occurred or was on its way to Pergotoria.

Gooby is seated at the television. He’s holding the remote dearly as if it’s his binky.

I turn with paper under arm and Gooby twists around and says, “ The Victoria’s Secret show is coming on.”

I say I’m going to pass and continue out of the room. I can’t imagine sitting down to watch the Victoria’s Secret Soft-core with Gooby or at all.

Like, I can’t imagine I’d ever be wanting to stop and watch it anywhere at any time with or without anyone. The models of VS are as alive and stimulating to me as plastic blow up dolls, which I have been (a blow-up doll) on at least two occasions (I thought it was a great idea at the time but later I had a lot of questions for myself).

Asshole alert; I consider pornography to be the crutch of the unimaginative or the (sadly) unfuckable (my brother was a porn-mag addict who didn’t get laid until he was 22 and in that one time he impregnated the girl and they never had sex again – crushing. He seems to be a good ‘dad’, though.) and it’s not really ever been a part of my life.

Unless you count all the hours I watched Fox News Channel.

Maybe I was missing an opportunity. I mean, just imagine the conversation I could’ve had with Gooby sitting there, closely, watching the sexual-equivalent of a billion dollars (see that’s what I mean – pornography [to me] is kind of like sex I can never ‘spend’ and therefore, worthless) seductively parading across the screen. It’s like setting a high –def TV to the Food Channel in front of a starving child. Entirely unsatisfying (granted, masturbation , while never equal to …yeah, I don’t want to write this either). … but think of this poor starving kid, he can’t finger fuck his taste buds into some level of nutritious supplementation.

I am  starving.

Anyway, this conversation; I could have led him down so many paths and recorded it all but then that wouldn’t have been right.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should and really, I’d rather just imagine it.

“Pizzas here! Hey, guys, pizza…Hey, Lipski did you order pizza?”

I shake my head. I’m disgusted. The whole thing is just… He could at least be like, “Hey, your fuckin’ pizzas here , whoever ordered this shit has got two seconds before it goes back!”

How can I write about the trials and tribulations of work release when the corrections officer is playing middle-man to the pizza delivery boy.

“Hey, hey guys…yoo hoo…”

What can I say?

“I’m in ‘pizza-solitary’ thanks to this fucking ulcer or whatever” ?

Some other idiot is playing “Deer Hunter” (not the fun suicide version with a bullet & a gun) Slingblade is explaining the ins and outs of the 9-11 conspiracy to some ragged convict I’ve not seen before.

It’s Saturday, “Pizza night”. It’s a smelly pajama sleep-over party for people who make bad choices.

I fucking give up.

But honestly, with a nights reflection writing now, It doesn’t matter if I’m in WR or Prison or in an ICU or if I signed up to be a military hero or stock shelves at Costco – it’s all a stupid fucked up comedy.

-   Travis Lipski

Catch Travis’ latest at: http://www.wix.com/travinatorus/apoplecticapocalyptic#%21

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.

We arrive at the struggling outdoor mall, The Shoppes of Grand Prairie - the pretentiousness in the use of the spelling ‘Shoppes’ is noted – Our mission (Jr. & myself) is to pick up some barrels, eight to be exact, 2 of which we’ve been informed are brimming with buttons and it’s suggested we transfer a portion of the buttons to some of the empty barrels. These are the basic instructions I receive along with a key to a storage unit located in the small God-frightened-but-football-worshipping community of Washington, IL. And that we are to gain access to the be-buttoned barrels inside the  ”Shoppes” by way of loading zone/receiving area 200. It’s here, at area 200 where we wait for some unknown person to meet us and ‘show us the way’.
Ten minutes pass (probably 5 or less) when I have the overwhelming desire for Jr. to stop talking to me. I tell him we should split up, canvas the 200 receiving area, there are 3 doors 200 north, 200 south and , for some reason, 200R. I tell Jr. to stay with the truck in case I go in one door and unknown person comes out another, to which Jr. says “Why?” I do not reply.

200 south is a literal dead end minus the sign. At 200R I follow some fairly shabby corridor and arrive at a door marked ‘Justice’ with an apt door-type peep hole and a buzzer below a placard that reads: Ring buzzer. I do as instructed.
Just as I mumble aloud, “a lot of good that did” a tiny female voice cautiously says from beyond the door of ‘Justice’, “Who are you?” spoken in a way that inspires me to say very casually, “I’m here to rob you…can you open the door?”  Instead there is total silence but possibly the faint sound of adrenaline popping through the delicate-brained sales associate on the other side .

Then so, I say, “I’m here to pick up some barrels – eight barrels – some are filled with buttons.” After a minute the person says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not supposed to open this door for any one.”

“Then why does it have a button and a sign that says ring buzzer? Is it just for fun?”

No reply, I can sense she feels she’s being harassed. I retreat.

Outside in area 200, Jr. is hocking up a loogie with a kind of dumb-boy look on his face that reminds you of stories on mercy-killings and forced sterilization.

I tell Jr. what happened, ask him if he’s seen anyone and he says, “Seen who?”

I wonder aloud what kind of shoppe is ‘Justice’ . Why the paranoia ? A jewelery store? That would make sense. So I take out my phone and look it up and it’s just another American-brat accessorizing store. Probably a lot of throw pillows in pink with big juvenile fonts spelling words like “Princess” glitter galore for upper class trash.

And so then, I call.

“Thanks for calling Justice, I’m Tiffany(or some other annoying name could have been “Becca” I don’t know) how may I help you today”

Hi, this is Dexter from Bradley and were conducting a snap poll of area merchants selling youth apparel and we were wanting to ask you a few questions

“Okay…”

What’s the most expensive item you have in the store?

“Ummm, I don’t know. But I can’t tell you the price”

You can’t tell me the price because you don’t know or because “you can’t tell me the price”?

“I can’t give out our prices”

Is it a secret? Are there tags on the merchandise  or do people just not care and hand you a credit card.

[silence]

Don’t you think it’s strange? I mean, you can call any store and they’ll tell you how much something is. It just sounds really strange.

“It’s company policy”

Do you think it’s a good policy? To not even give a ballpark? I bet their website has prices. You don’t think it’s odd? This is like, the opposite of customer service. I bet you sell plastic princess tiaras in there.

“I just know it’s company policy to not give out prices over the phone and I have to get off the phone I’m with a customer.”

Are you really with a customer or just saying that to get me off the phone?

“Yes, there is a customer here”

Is there a manager there?

“I’m the manager.”

You’re the manager?

“yes”

You don’t sound managerial.

“what?”

Is there a manager that manages you like a higher-up manager or something?

“No, I’m the only one working right now”

Oh, probably shouldn’t have told me that. I bet that’s company policy to not divulge that kind of information

“For your information -”

Look, I gotta go, you got a customer that’s not there to help. Have an appropriate corporate authorized  day.

The unknown person arrives and leads us in through 200north and then to a padlocked door nearly falling out of it’s casing.

“All these barrels go”

The story on the buttons is this: on the other side of the wall in the courtyard between the “shoppes” sits a memorial to ‘The Holocaust” there are a dozen or more six-sided glass enclosures filled with buttons.

Each button represents a Jewish victim of ‘The Holocaust’ (actually I’m not sure if they’re including the non-Jew holocaust victims but seeing as those  non-Jews included Christians and we’d have to assume some non-affiliated altogether –  then being that religions are so prickly about symbols being attached and etc. I’d have to say that the 6 sided cylindrical containers are Jew-only Representative buttons)

The buttons we are in charge of are ‘extra’ victims/buttons or perhaps simply surplus.

Or stand-ins, although, I’m not sure of the purpose of, well, do buttons go bad? Given the context and the symbolism of these buttons  - what I mean is here in this cluttered storage area these are just dirty surplus buttons but literally 15ft away ‘these’ buttons are a solemn sacred you know…- well, imagine their horror if me and Jr (who happens to be of German heritage to boot) were out in the courtyard sucking the buttons/representative symbols of holocaust victims ( I mean you’d think Or I would think that out there I’d feel it necessary to gently lift one button at a time ,carefully cover it with a tiny button blanket,after performing the Taharah.You know, in case anyone was watching.

Jr is manning the shop vac attached barrel with the discharge air blasting his face. He says, after a half hour of button vacuuming, “Man, I got dry throat” I say, “You got Jew throat.” and he laughs in a way that made me wish I hadn’t said it.

The horror of the button-holocaust-in-reverse continues as we load ‘them’ on to a truck to transport the buttons to their internment quarters which will be behind an orange roll-up door.

We’ve also been instructed to remove and “destroy”(actual term used by note writer , Sue, from the Jewish Federation) tens of paint cans and some kind of props to make room for the barrels to be stored.

I cannot help myself -

Jr. willingly poses

-Travis Lipski

Catch Travis’ latest at: http://www.wix.com/travinatorus/apoplecticapocalyptic#%21

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read.

So toss the dirty diaper out of the car and go in and see your “man” via video visitation and fuck it.

Inside it smells like a tanker of semen overturned in the dorms. Must be a new Maxim issue being passed around.
“The Bleacher” is absent I notice because I haven’t heard any ranting about the smell.
Maybe he’s protesting.
The “Bleacher” is a fairly restrained moniker for this particular convict.
The bathroom, the odor in particular, is his focus of rage more oft than not.
The last time he had at it with bleach, my eyes burned for three hours.
He’s a maniac.
In the mornings he strolls through with a bottle of Gold Bond medicated powder and locks himself in the stall. I really don’t want to think about it, the issue, the GB ritual. It’s everyday. Chaffing, no, forget it…

He’s bent at the waist 90 degrees when he brushes his teeth. He seems to force his teeth against the brush back and forth instead of using the sane, rational approach most people employ.

He’s also a habitual/borderline-obsessive snorter and hocker  upper of  loogies.

If a cup of bleach will do, he’s fine with a half gallon.
I think he’s working with a 1:1 ratio.

Rule of thumb is a 1/4 cup to a gallon but you know, not for bad asses who pierce their nasal septum and put a shiny horseshoe shaped whatever fucking thing through it. Like a bull nose-ring but on a really skinny anorexic 5′ 7″ ‘bull’.

“I know it smells strong but it needed it.”

Of course.
You’ve done all the appropriate clinical/safety trials.
It’s a clean that leaves your membranes bleeding, really thorough.
He even wears gloves.

He’s also, as it only recently occurred to me, right now, been trying to manipulate the guards into getting rid of the fan. Here’s how -

Not too long ago I come in from work and he’s hanging around the guard’s pod and saying that the fat man and the Mexican (his terms)are fighting over the direction and/or placement of the fan that sits on the floor(I enjoy it for the steady humming noise of the blades) he says he can’t take it, doesn’t know what he’s gonna do, it’s driving him crazy.

The guards are amused.
Next day, Adidas says to me, “Hey Lipski, you know what happened to the fan?”

“No, what happened?”

“It’s broke”

“Huh.”

The plug had been sabotaged by breaking off one of the prongs. This was no accident, I looked at it, it wasn’t a wear and tear thing. It didn’t occur to me earlier because why should it – usually distracted with anything else.
I’m fairly sure there never was an argument between the fat man and the Mexican over the fan. I think the Bleacher doesn’t like the fan because he gets hit with it after it sheers over Adidas and the fan is pulling from the bathroom that Bleacher has been chemically trying to take down since I got here.
So he figures if he breaks it, that’s it. There’s no budget for new fans, the tiles falling off the walls.

Fat man was persistent and maintenance replaced the plug.
Fat man 2 – Bleacher 0

There’s more but you know…

Also, Bleacher is deeply suspicious of my writing. I’d say he’s paranoid that I’m writing about him.

“So, what are you – writing about all the happenings in Peoria County Jail.”
I give him a dismissive laugh and say, “It’s not that interesting.”

And it’s not, (interesting I mean) my whole life is a not very interesting story (heroic struggles? Everest? World Record? TV credit?) but I’ve always been compelled to narrate or document or compile or whatever-extrapolate meaning from the damn thing.

Call it free-lance. (Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who have ‘issues’ do neither and call it free-lance.)

I’ve found that certain behaviors in here can be curtailed simply by picking up a pen and notepad and writing with, what I assume, is a very stern expression on my face (or very amused depending on certain behavior observed).

The pen is sometimes mightier than the bored.

-Travis Lipski

Catch Travis’ latest at: http://www.wix.com/travinatorus/apoplecticapocalyptic#%21

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

Sling Blade checked in Friday with a one-off impression of the character that made BBT famous. This one’s sporting a mohawk that’s mostly grown out. Mid 50′s? fuck I don’t know, could be a severely weathered 40′s.

I’m on my bunk finishing up last weeks NYT
Sling Blade lurches over and asks me , “Cans you have plastic hangers, here?”
I tilt the paper forward-down and look up at him “I don’t know.”
He retreats but is still looking for answers(it’s all in the handbook).

This guy was not going to stop at one question. I’m not much for questions.

SB is already complaining – “…in a place like this you’d expect them guards to wake you up for work, mm hmm.”

“You gotta pay to do the laundries?”

“How much?”

The voice in your head that’s talking like Sling Blade is pretty much dead on. He doesn’t do the “mm hmm” but I added it for our enjoyment.
I’ve got SB for 120 days -

Also last night Adidas , who is a nosy walrus, is scarfing food and says to me , “Lipski, did you have any of this?”

“No”

“What did you eat today?”

“Do you seriously want a list of what I had to eat today?”

“You never eat”

“The question is, why do you eat this shit? You’re out for twelve hours a day and then you come in here and shovel this shit down your throat.”

“It’s free food”

“It’s shit. I don’t eat shit.”

“You better get used to it.”

(this makes no sense I don’t have to get used to it I’m in work-release)

“Why would I have to get used to it?”

Now he’s out of things to say.

He also takes interest in my writing at least enough to ask me the same questions – “So, Lipski, what are you writing like a book or a journal or something? Have you ever written a script? Me and my brother have always wanted to write a script but neither one of us can write for shit or you know, have any ideas.”

Then why in the fuck would you ‘always’ feel compelled to write a script? And I don’t think there’s any question as to what type of script he’d want to write the only question is if Stallone  is up for another Rambo (probably).
He and his assumed moronic brother probably always wanted to got to Mars after watching Total Recall  or wanted to fly jets after watching ….

This I promise:
The next time I am asked about ‘my writin’, I will say, “I write about people who bother the shit out of me and I post it on the internet and a few people read about you.”

Young guy wants to know what I’m drawing. I say I’m sketching out a plan for a small trailer I’m converting into a camper, he says, “Oh, so your drawing something real, then?”

Yes, it’s really real, really, like you, terribly real.

Cedric The Oxygen Tank Inhaler pulls out a chair right behind me with the box of dominoes in his other hand. He’s entirely too loud and also supplementary-annoying for a guy that needs oxygen assistance.

This, however, can not stand. Not right fucking behind me.

“You’re not going to sit behind me, right? You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What habee tah fooh payta (? – also really hard to understand despite volume/forced oxygen [which, I should mention is used 'as needed', not like it's a permanent appliance, yet])

“You’re loud”

“Wha?”

“YOU’RE TOO FUCKING LOUD I CAN’T STAND YOU WHEN YOU’RE IN THE OTHER ROOM YOU CAN NOT POSSIBLY BE CONSIDERING SITTING RIGHT BEHIND ME.”

(What? He’s hard of hearing)

Anyway, he sits at the far side of the table behind me and I think, I just think, he tried to work on his inside voice.
Then he offered me a Jolly Rancher. I passed.

-Travis Lipski

Catch Travis’ latest at: http://www.wix.com/travinatorus/apoplecticapocalyptic#%21

On December 16 2010 I made the wrong choice. The resulting sentence is 365 days in a work release program. It’s an education equal to or greater than all the years I spent in school and all the books I’ve read

A day: Work

These are the two warehouse guys,

actually the one on the left is gone now, decided he wanted to work a lot harder for a little more.

He had it made in the warehouse,  he’d cook up an omelet on a hot plate every morning in his makeshift kitchen complete with mini-fridge. He’d blast music like Tool, death metal,  a little country, whatever. Before he quit smoking pot and chain smoking menthols he did that back in the warehouse too.
He also moonlighted as a College cheer leading coach. Yeah, he was one of the guys who showed the other guys how to hold a 100lb girl in a mini skirt in the palm of your hand up over your head. Said he wasn’t into pornography.
A couple of years back I had stopped in to pick up something and he was brooding.

“Man, my cat, Fish, died.”

That’s the way I heard it – My cat Fish – I thought he’d done it (named his cat “Fish”) to be funny.
As he continued I realized he meant Catfish and then I thought it was kind of ridiculous, to be that upset over a fish.
I don’t think I have to explain to you the limitations of a Mans-Best-Fish relationship.

But okay so this is the guy who was almost giddy because he’d scored tickets to a Dave Mathews concert in Wisconsin a couple of months back, he’s got a soft side (and a high-tolerance for nauseating ‘entertainment’ in my opinion, a DM song here and there, uh…but a whole concert of that shit? ).

Then he says he’s so distraught and teetering on rage at the death of mortal-beloved-aquatic that he felt like, quote- “I want to smash the next niggers head that comes digging in our dumpster for scraps”- unquote. And not in a jokey way like some folks would.

He’s gone now as I mentioned earlier but before he’d left and after I was hired on as an employee he pulled me aside and said, “Hey, is it okay if we give you the nickname K2, you know, just between us in the warehouse?”
I said, Haven’t you already? , and then he laughed that huge guttural laugh he always did – you know, the kind of guy who almost always follows up a comment with a huge wind-blowing guttural stink laugh in your face -

So after a week of incessant call outs of “K2!” – (to give you an idea of the sheer volume of call outs, I started avoiding the warehouse or at least the main entry doors in fact I would walk out the front door walk along the grass between the building and the highway to the regular emergency exit door which was always open, for ventilation purposes I guess, located at the very back in opposite to the very front I’d originated from just to get something I needed off a shelf that was just the other side of one of the showroom walls towards the back, where I had been when I realized I needed this something and could have just made two-three steps through the double swinging doors to the warehouse but because I was overloading on “K2!”‘s and really needed to not get fired I would avoid being detected in this way.

AA:
Suzanne, crazy, volume-control-gone-haywire, Suzanne.

Now she’s chairing the Friday 6 o’clock, now she’s in control.

Suzanne does her reading and then she ‘asks’ if she can go first knowing (and that’s what I hate is when someone says, “Does anybody mind if…?” when they know no one is going to say they mind.

 
Maybe, to be fair, no one will actually mind but they don’t give a fuck – it’s passive aggressive line cutting. It’s bullshit.  Also; “Can I ask a rhetorical question?” they’re rhetorically asking to ask a rhetorical question, they [rhetorical question askers et al] do not expect nor will there be an real chance of an interjection denying them their rhetorical question opportunity. And, to point out the obvious: “Can I ask two rhetorical questions?” would be accur – no wait, that makes it three) that she’ll be allowed to drag us through her Burlington story one more time.

One guy is staring at the inside of his hat.

Another is staring at red-piercing hate. I can just sense it.

Several exchanges of the usual and then over to me.

“I don’t have anything sad or depressing to report and I’m feeling pretty good for the moment so, I’m going to pass.”

- Long Silence

Suzanne, unsteady, is bobble-heading at me.

“So, back to you, Suzanne.” – in a not too shabby local news anchor impression.
Not really any discernable appreciation for my efforts.

Home 

(Peoria County Jail)

In the common room.
Was probably going to be obvious but…
black guy says, “Somebody, gonna be trouble. Yes, sir.”

Why?

“Sign right there say ‘Do not close blinds’.” (blinds are closed but the sign clearly reads, Do not open blinds. I can’t figure how he went wrong there. I just walk back out of the room.)

Dinner: 

I call him Adidas, Because, not very interestingly,  he wears an Adidas sport shirt, jacket, shorts and when he’s not wearing his Adidas shoes he’s wearing his obvious-brand sandals.

Adidas guy, better than “New Fat Guy” or NFG as I had been referring to him in my notes.
He sits before a ‘dinner’ tray hunched over the thing , legs bouncing up and down giving the impression he’s about to tackle the tray – looks like that football player warm up thing they do when they run in place furiously – nkind of hunched over with their hands out in front of them air-tickling like  hulking pedophiles outside a boy-whore* house in Tapei at the fore-start of a ‘backdoor buster sale’ The passion runs high.

He goes through the local rag, eyebrows gesticulating wildly as his eyes jump from picture to picture. Then he hits the bunk after a trip to the bathroom and probably a self-burping.

Baby go poop and take nappy now.

Walking by guy with earbuds listening to music he says, not sings, “…Somethings gotta turn out right.” and it’s that thing where the faint ‘noise’ suddenly reveals itself by additional clue that it’s a familiar tune you happen to like and so I say to him, “Alice in Chains” and he says, “I don’t have any change.” and I repeat louder and he pulls out one ear bud and says, “I’m listening to Alice in Chains.”

No shit. Disengage.
*credit to Sean Rouse

-Travis Lipski

http://workreleaseshallsetyoufree.blogspot.com/2011/09/aporia-in-peoria.html

Every week in NYC’s West Village a small coffee shop is jammed with comics both dastardly and diverse:  Young comics, old, fat, black, white, Jew, Gentile, Asian, Indian, gay, bi, tranny, straight, lonely guys and, always, outspoken gals like me who never hesitate to explain why they’re seein’ red.   The host is a gorgeous, blond she-comic who boldly keeps things rolling and draws a name for a free bottle of wine at the show’s end.

It isn’t “clean comedy” (see previous post) and The Unbookables Movie comics would thrive here.  One comedian even threatened to fart on the next-up who was crouching behind him on the tiny stage. (I’d say that, save the “Terrence and Philip” cartoon characters of the infamous South Park series, blatantly farting on the next performer is probably an unbookable act.)  Because the space has only enough room for the comics, actual customers tend to hover outside.  They peer in the window panels behind the stage, which reinforces the “us” and “them” fishbowl effect.

But things got strange one night after the room had quickly divided itself into two groups:   Comics who have kids and those who don’t.  It’s one topic that kicks people at their core:  Although parents will pretend how hilarious it is to raise a kid, they always seem to wistfully slip in how they’ve had to calm down and quit partying on behalf of their offspring miniatures. Singles don’t want to hear this. Some are secretly jealous yet rub their absolutely unadulterated freedom in their counterparts’ faces.

After the ritualistic, one-minute “lightning round” of jokes comes five minutes’ stage time, for which everyone pays five dollars—“5 for 5” is the standard NYC comedy open mic deal.  The majority of comics who perform here are consistently funny.  You can count on getting at least one laugh from each bit.

When it was my turn to take the stage, I leapt up to the platform, grabbed the mic, and sneered,

“Well, I don’t have kids.  I’m still single.  So I do the things single people do.  Like, I crashed my hard drive while downloading porn.  It was the Trojan virus, of course, named after the condom.  I can’t even have Safe Sex by myself!”

From what I could tell from onstage, one or two comics in the audience laughed and there was a smattering of snickers. The faces of the parent-comics had turned purple, though. It was too late—I’d opened fire on the proverbial elephant in the room.  I’d flung the “having kids” issue directly at everybody and it wasn’t funny anymore.  My own angst had likely bled through, besides. Even for comedians, some jokes are just too raw.

-Susan Hawke