Last night was the Monday Night Comedy ShowAwards and the Young family walked home with a bucket full of trophies!

Every trophy ever.

The wife (Jen) won “best spoken word/poetry”, the stepson (Jared) won “best audience member” and I took home “best improv act”, “best energy drink” and “Lifetime achievement” for performing 50 times in the 175 show run.  I feel like Charlie Sheen except I actually won something.

While I didn’t get a trophy for “best energy drink”, they let me keep the envelope

I'll cherish it forever.

The crowning achievement, however, is the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The only ship as what can outrun The Flying Dutchman

I was told it doesn’t float but I’m going to waterproof it and take it in the bath with me anyway.  This thing is sleeping at the foot of my bed like a faithful dog.  It is truly the pinnacle of gold spray painted balsa wood.

Though I’m honored to be recognize by the best weekly show in town (Mondays at 8PM.  Beat Coffee House on 28th and Hennepin), where do I go from here?  Not many people win a lifetime achievement award before they’re 30 and while I’m sure to win many, many awards before I die, none of them can be used to play with my action figures like this one (damn you for not being pose-able, Daytime Emmy!).

While I mud-wrestle with my existential angst, you can go see the comedy that won the coveted “Best Energy Drink” envelope this weekend at The Comedy Corner Underground! Maybe they’ll give me an award (I expect them for everything now)!

There’s a group of people out there (there=the internet) that wants humanity to die out. It’s true. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement has made it their mission to educate people that they’re killing the world and to not have babies anymore. While they have a convincing argument full of poignant comic strips, population statistics and a seriously condescending chart on why people have babies (click the link and scroll down a bit), they may have a problem getting people to join their cause for 3 reasons.

1. Without new babies, there’s no new Laughing Baby videos. I don’t want to live in that world.

2. It’s a stupid idea.

3. With no human beings around to keep animals in place by stuffing them in each other then eating them, some stupid animal will just evolve to become the dominant species and fuck the earth up even worse.

Science and SNL has taught us that the most likely candidate will be the Bear. They already know how to sit, stand and ride bikes. Once they can work a doorknob and say something other than a bad Chewbacca impression they’ll pretty much be on par with homo sapiens. This would be disastrous for mother earth. Why, you ask? Let me lay it out for you with bullet points.

*Bears can’t drive little hybrid cars. They can only fit comfortably in SUVs.

*Polar Bears will clog the skies with smoke from their overworked Coca Cola factories.

*Sewage treatment plants will be overtaxed from oversized bear poops. I’m only assuming bears poop huge. I tried googling “How big does a bear poop?” and only got a bunch of links to youtube videos of bears shitting in the woods with titles like “Does a bear shit in the woods? Here’s your answer!”.

*Bear war will be three times more horrific than any human war. Bear arms races will escalate quickly, causing competing countries to create bigger and bigger Bear traps. Eventually, a bear trap will be made that, if stepped on, will cut the world in half.

*The Panda population will explode, furthering the use of natural resources and bringing bamboo to extinction. People don’t realize that Pandas are actually fuck machines and the Chinese government goes to great lengths to keep the Pandopulation (Panda population. Shortened for brevity’s sake) low for the sake of the environment. They keep this from the rest of the world because Pandas are just so adorable!

In conclusion, don’t join the VHEMT and thank you, Chinese government, for the over 3 million Panortions (Panda Abortions. Shortened, once again, for brevity’s sake) you perform every year.

Today’s a pretty slow news day. Osama Bin Laden’s still dead, no earthquakes or tsunamis and Michelle Bachman has yet to propose legislation to make it legal to hunt gay people. Being a ho-hum Friday, Kare 11 lobbed this softball to parents of the twin cities entitled “Four Conversations Every Parent Should Have With Their Children”. In the article, a youth pastor in Eden Prairie states that you should sit your child down and tell them –

1. Choices Have Consequences: True. If you don’t let your child know this, they will certainly grow up to be a crazed sociopath with no concept of cause and effect.

2. Sex Was Created To Be Wonderful and Enjoyed: Again, true. We don’t want our children growing up to think sex is a laborious task only used for procreation. If you don’t tell your kids sex is fun, who will? The media? Unlikely.

3. I am not perfect: This one is very important in case your child invites his friends over and then stabs you with a steak knife to prove to them that you’re invulnerable or have a mutant healing factor. My stepson had to learn the hard way that bullets don’t bounce off me by shooting me in the leg. On the way to the hospital we had a heart-to-heart about how I’m only human before I passed out from blood loss.

4. You Are Uniquely and Wonderfully Made: While it may be fun to tell your child that they were purchased at Wal-Mart on clearance or that everybody’s special except them, turns out it will hurt their “self esteem” in the long run.

While I applaud the pastor for trying to strengthen relationships between parents and children, I think that such conversation tips should come from somebody like me who still thinks like a child (plays video games, reads comics, still a virgin). So here are Four Conversations You Should Actually Have With Your Children.

1. Zombies Are Coming. Be Prepared: This means not only educating your child by watching everything George Romero’s ever made (even Land of the Dead) and reading books like The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z and The Five Zombies You Decapitate in Heaven (that last one might have just been a dream I had). It also means making sure that your child understands if you go zombie, they have to take you out. It’s important to know that you are their parent and will always love them unless you turn into a zombie.

2. Some Drugs Are Worse Than Others: Growing up I was always told that drugs are bad. Never was I told that smoking crack was way worse than smoking weed. One time in high school a kid asked me if I wanted to smoke a bunch of PCP in the boys’ room. It took four tranquilizer darts and a taser to get me off the flagpole that day. Had I just smoked a joint, I would’ve just been suspended and grounded for a month.

3. Playing “Magic: The Gathering” is a Good Way to Stay a Virgin Until You’re 20: Same goes for D&D, Pokemon or any card game that doesn’t involve regular playing cards. I’m currently working on a time machine to go and tell my younger self this one.

4. Seriously. I Want You to Shoot Me If I Become a Zombie: I cannot stress this enough. Nobody wants their children to be the sad cliche shaking so hard they can’t hold the gun straight and blubbering through tears “Don’t you recognize me, dad? It’s me! I love you!”. Over 30% of zombie infections are passed from parent to child during futile rationalization attempts (source: The Five Zombies You Decapitate in Heaven). Don’t be another statistic.

Harold Camping, a 89 year old Radio Broadcaster has predicted that Jesus will return sometime next Saturday to take all the believers (Some Evangelical Christians) to heaven and leave the rest of us to be sodomized by demons or whatever until October when the earth explodes.

Now as reasonable as this all sounds, let’s all take a minute before we max out our credit cards and yell “fuck you!” to our landlords or mortgage companies. We should take a few things into consideration –

*He’s not the first, second, third or 500th person to predict the end times and be, sadly, incorrect.

*This isn’t the first time he’s predicted the rapture. Seriously. He wrote an entire book about how the world was going to end in 1994.

*HIS WEBSITE IS STILL TAKING DONATIONS. When you open up Family Radio’s page a pop up states “Family Radio’s donation server is currently undergoing security maintenance. The donation page should be back up later today, however, if you would like to make a donation via credit or debit (ATM) card now, please call 1-800-543-1495 (Ext. 376) and a representative will help to process your donation. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
If I were expecting to be sucked up to heaven, I wouldn’t worry about paying off my student loans but perhaps Mr. Camping is worried that Jesus is gonna ask for a few bucks for the ride up. Gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free to the kingdom of the father.

Now while I know it’s hard arguing with some some seriously confusing math using dates in the bible, somebody once told me about some guy named Matt that wrote a book and said “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” but what does that jackass know, right?

While this debate may rage on for eternity (or until next Saturday), I can predict with certainty that I’ll be telling stand up comedy jokes at the Comedy Corner Underground on May 21st with one of my bestest and funniest friends Phoebe Bottoms! If Jesus does decide to return that day, I’ll let him in for free. You still have to pay $7.

(p.s. I first stumbled upon the info about Millerism and Hal Lindsey reading Everything Dies by Box Brown. Check it out while you still can!)

Minnesota is currently working on a bill to ban gay marriage which is a bit odd since The Daily Show recently called Minneapolis America’s gayest city. Opponents of gay marriage call it a “slippery slope” but what exactly lies at the bottom of this slippery slope, you ask? Global nuclear destruction.

It starts off innocent enough. The government will eventually cave and gay marriage will be written into the constitution. For the first six months or so humanity will breathe a sigh of relief when no biblical apocalypse arrives when society allows two people of the same sex who love each other to marry. That’s when they come.

Thousands of mountain men from the Appalachians and Ozarks will come streaming down from their shanties demanding their god given right to marry their only true companions in their lonely mountain life. Their pets. The stench of moonshine will envelop Washington D.C. as thousands of grizzled, suspender clad men march in protest. Congress will ironically shout “get off our land!” but their cries shall fall upon deaf ears. Public opinion will sway in favor of the animal betrothed rednecks when networks begin airing hip, cosmopolitan mountain bestiality friendly sitcoms like “Oakie and Whiskers”. Celebratory musket fire will be heard all around the country as Congress amends the Constituion to allow the union.

Seeing the trend and deciding to save time, Congress stipulates in the bill that animals can also marry each other. Dogs begin marrying cats. Cats begin marrying mice. Police stations all around the nation are flooded with domestic dispute reports as hunting instincts are proven stronger than marriage vows. With the police occupied, over 100,000 registered necrophiliacs (source: 2010 U.S. Census) take to the graveyards with shovels and engagement rings.

Martial law is declared as Anarchy rules the streets. High ranking military officers, stressed and frustrated by the lack of support from their wives, petition to marry their nuclear arsenal. Six months later another amendment is passed and every honeymoon hotspot in the world is decimated by accidental triggering of nuclear missles.
This, my friends, is why we must never allow two monogamous men that love each other to get a piece of paper that says they’re married.

For a list of my sources, please read the Bible.

There’s been a rash of violent crime in Uptown recently and as a resident of Uptown, I’m genuinely scared for my safety and the safety of my friends. Uptown is supposed to be a place where we can be free to drink shitty beer, enjoy organic produce at one of our 17 co-op stores (I belong to 15 of them) and bring our children to the park to play non competitive games like Chomskyball (every child is given a ball and is encouraged to discuss why referees are unnecessary).

It’s quite obvious that the police can’t be trusted to solve this so uptown residents should take care to travel in large groups. I suggest not going outside unless you’re part of a grown up scavenger hunt or bar crawl. To avoid confrontation, always have a longboard with you for a speedy yet hip getaway. Should you have to fight, there are some Uptown friendly self defense tips available to you.

-Knitting a roll of pennies into the end of your scarf can turn it into a stylish weapon that can be used in any weather!

– Fair trade, shade grown coffee heated to 190 degrees can be thrown into the face of an attacker giving you a moment to escape and peace of mind knowing that you’re helping sustainable farming.

– Organic chili peppers ground to a paste and put into an eco friendly spray bottle makes for a great homemade pepper spray.

In all seriousness, there’s been four attacks in the last week. Three guys, they have a gun and brass knuckles (where do you even get brass knuckles? Old timey weapons store?). Please be careful when traveling in uptown and don’t actually try the pennies-in-scarf thing unless you’re proficient in knit-fu.

So, you may have seen me do story telling/sketch/things at The Monday Night Comedy Show. You may have seen Bill do stand up/improv/things at the same show. You may have seen my son, Jared, in the audience, playing on the computer.

The Monday Night Comedy Show is having its first award show, and all three of us are on the ballot

You can only vote once. You must have been to the Monday Night Comedy Show. If you haven’t been, you can qualify by going tomorrow. Then, you can vote for us. Or other people. I mean, I’m up against some killer spoken word and story tellers. I would not be ashamed to lose to anyone else nominated.

But, I’d also not be ashamed to win, either.

The Monday Night Comedy Show
Every Monday at 8pm.
$4 for 2 acts.

The Beat Coffeeshop
1414 W 28th St
Uptown, Minneapolis, MN
Right around the corner from Kihn-do

Bill’s at a gig. Plans cancelled on me. Others busy. Not feeling the need for out. So I put on some sweats, ate chocolate ice cream, and worked on this site. Nerd therapy.

On the plus side, I got a lot done that I’ve been working on for a bit. Bill and I each have our own accounts, so you can see who posted what. I mean, yes, we are of one mind on everything, except not at all, because we’re two individuals, and this was never intended to be one of those cute “we do everything together omg matching jumpsuits let’s get up at 3 am and jog together” couple websites. 1) I hate those couples. 2) Neither of us jog. I coaxed Bill into a 5k once, and he vowed never to forgive me. It’s okay- I haven’t forgiven myself for that one yet. 3) I am NOT a morning person. At all. The first 5 minute of my morning is spent as a daemon from the pits of 7th level hell. Face and everything. Bill is so much braver than you all give him credit for. You think I’m kidding.

I’m still working on getting a calendaring system to post here. I think the auto feed into other calendars that post well on WordPress isn’t going to happen. I tried some domain based stuff, and no good. I think I’m just going to have to set up a feed for each of us. Which is probably for the best, as we are not the same person. See above about matching jumpsuits.

I’m also trying to find a way to push and email list. Hoping to find a way to do that within this CMS.

On to performance stuffs.

I had a really good couple of Vil shows last weekend. Like, two in a row. I was ridiculously pleased with my cast, and less critical of my own performance than I normally am.

I have a couple of projects heating in the crockpot, but nothing to show yet. Still, sometimes slow cooked projects end up with the better return.

And CONvergence is right around the corner. Bill and I will both be doing nerd comedies there. Me doing the VilTen, and Bill doing stand ups. It’s sweet when nerdy comic couples can do the same CON. Like making out on a pile of  Magic: the Gathering card while wearing clown wigs.

I’m of course kidding. Those cards are far to valuable to possibly ruin for a make out session. Even one involving clown wigs.

But I guess CON is maybe our version of matching jumpsuits. Ah, Cosplay.