One of the nice things about riding a bike is that you see more stuff along the side of the road. Not only do you see more stuff, but it's a lot easier to stop and pick it up. Last week, I picked up an XL t-shirt that will be used as an oil rag and a fairly new inner tube, with an easily-patched puncture. If I stopped to pick up every bungee cord I saw, I'd never get anywhere.
This video brought back memories of my first kiss (with a girl who wasn't related). It was in the coat room at the Catholic kindergarten that I went to. I don't remember the girl's name, but I do remember the kiss, on the mouth, with our heads moving side to side, just like in the movies. Back then, of course, all movie kisses were closed-mouthed.
Proud of my accomplishment, I went up and told the nun. Her reply? "Frank, that's not nice!"
That statement scarred me for years, if not for life.
A few years ago, at about this time of year, I was sitting at home, watching something on the teevee, when my phone rang.
It was Lillian, my neighbor from across the street. "Hey, Frank. Whatcha watchin'?"
"Huh?" I replied, in a teevee-induced haze.
"Whatcha watchin' on the teevee?"
After checking behind my couch, I asked her if she was peeking in through my windows.
"Go look out in your front yard," she said.
Carefully opening my front door, I saw nothing.
"Walk out into your front yard, then turn around and look," she said.
Ignoring the voices that said, "Don't go outside!" since they were coming from the teevee (what was I watching, anyhow?), I did as Lillian instructed.
It was then that I saw the gift that Lillian had left for me. My very own Christmas decoration:
And here's the what the decoration looks like when you use a flash:
I guess that was Lillian's way of helping to make my house look more festive, and not like it was owned by some Christmas-hating curmudgeon.
I continued to put the decoration out, every year, to do my part to help brighten the mood of the neighborhood. For a few years at least, until it became too much trouble.
This year, however, my Home Owners Association is having a Home Holiday Lights Contest, so I dug my decoration out of the back of my garage, put it up, and sent in my entry. The judging is December 15, and the announcement of the winner will be the next day. Check back here then to see what I won!
I'm too busy eating and watching football to make a substantive post today (yes, today I'm THANKFUL that I have a semi-legitimate excuse), so here are a few videos that I've recently run across.
Let's start off with a nice Thanksgiving tale:
I don't really buy this, but it's still entertaining:
I love how the music is so well-synchronized with the action in this video. I can also envision the crows just egging on the cats:
I've always enjoyed listening to stand-up comedy. It's also one of those things that, in the back of my mind, I've wanted to do. In fact, I wrote the Big Pancho post towards that end. I've been to an open mic night at the local comedy club Cap City Comedy, but just to watch.
A couple of months ago, I received a catalog for the University of Texas Informal Classes. Normally, I wouldn't have looked at it, but I noticed "Stand-up Comedy" listed on the cover. It's an eight-week course taught at the Comedy Gym, culminating in a Comedy Showcase at the Cap City Comedy Club.
The first class was pretty much an introduction-type class, and we got to go up on stage to get the feel of it, use the mic, etc. We were then to go home and write three to five minutes' worth of jokes, which we would work on in the rest of the classes, to get ready for the Showcase.
My first pass at a routine started out with talking about growing up in a house full of women, transitioning into jokes about internet dating sites, and ending with "Big Pancho." When I performed this set, and delivered the "Big Pancho" punchline, I heard an audible gasp or two from the women in the class.
When the instructor handed back the copy of my set on which he had written comments, he wrote, "Good punch, but may be a bit rough for the ladies."
For the next week, I took out "Big Pancho" and replaced it with "An Oral Contract". Interestingly enough, one of the guys in the class went to high school with the woman in that story. When I performed this set in class, it took six minutes and forty seconds, much too long.
I heard no gasp from the one remaining woman in class (for some reason, the other never returned), but I felt that the bit was too long for too little payoff, so I replaced it with a bit on buying lingerie. ("Buying lingerie for whom?" you may ask, but you'll just have to wait to see for yourself.) I also took out a few other lines to shorten it up.
As I laid in bed the morning of the final class before the Showcase, I came up with a couple of lines to get some sort of rapport with the audience before I got into my jokes; I wanted to say something other than, "How y'all doin'?" After the first line, the instructor wrote, "Very old joke." How could it be very old when I just thought of it that morning? Heh. I kept it in, because I did build on it a little bit, and it got a good response from the class.
I had practiced my routine a bit, even videoing myself once, and thought I had it down pretty well. Doing it in that last class, though, in front of only a dozen people, I still felt nervous, and tentative, but I settled down and smoothed out toward the end. That concerned me a bit, since the real thing was just the next night.
My stomach got pretty queasy that evening, and wasn't feeling any better when I woke up on Monday, the morning of the Showcase. I didn't know if it was nerves or maybe the chicken I ate for dinner was a bit too old. I felt so bad that I didn't eat breakfast or have any coffee. Lunch was toast with peanut butter and honey, and I didn't feel up to eating dinner, either.
I got cleaned up and headed toward the club. I thought about making up some note cards to take up on stage, in case I lost my place, but decided against it, as I thought I knew the material pretty well, and it was only five minutes' worth.
My sister was bringing my mother from home, two hours away, so I had asked my instructor to put me in the second hour, because I didn't think that they'd make it by 8pm, and he said that wouldn't be a problem. When I went to look at the schedule, I was the sixth person to go up.
Urgh.
Luckily, the show started about 15 minutes late, and Mom and Sis got there when the third comic was up on stage.
I was more anxious than nervous, waiting for my time to come up, even though I was having trouble remembering some of my bit. I figured it would come to me once I got started.
Gotta go, they're calling my name....
Well, now, that wasn't so bad! I wasn't as jittery as I was on Sunday. The only thing that I found a bit disconcerting was that I couldn't see the crowd, at all. I'd like to have had something to focus on while I talked. I think I did pretty well. The only flub I made was forgetting the chemistry.com joke until I had finished the eBay joke, but was able to slip it in right away, and it wasn't too far out of place. People also didn't seem to get my eBay joke. Oh, well....
BONUS: Feeling pretty good about Monday's set, I decided to do an open mic night, at the same club, on the following Sunday. I even came up with some new material. I wasn't real happy with the first two minutes, but decided to try it anyhow, since it was "just" an open mic. Here are the results:
I almost walked off the stage, until someone in the crowd yelled, "Keep going!" The awkward pause seemed to last much longer than it was. I'm just glad that I was able to start back up and keep going (finally).
When I was visiting my sister and her family a couple of weeks ago, my niece took this picture of me, sleeping at the Monterey Bay Aquarium:
