Happy new year! For me.

I had a birthday on July 27th.  I had my usual existential crisis of being psyched to have a birthday but unpsyched to be aging yet again.  Can’t have both, it seems.

My mother took me to a fancy-ass lunch at the exclusive members only dining room at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Those who know me well know that I pretty much live at The Met.  It is my favorite place in the world.  And yet, I refuse to shell out the $60 it would take to be a member to eat in the fancy-ass special dining room.  That’s why I keep my fancy-ass mother around.  She’s good like that.

On my way home from lunch with my mother, my father called.  I’m omitting the boring details but here was pretty much the conversation:

Me: Hi, Dad!
Dad: Hi, Care!  How are you?
Me: Good.
Dad: Just wanted to let you know that [family news].
Me: Okay, have a safe flight.
Dad: And something else… oh, I wanted to let you know that [family health news].
Me: Okay, good to know.  Keep me posted.
Dad: Something else… something else…
Me: … [keeps from laughing]
Dad: Well, I guess that’s it.
Me: Okay, bye.
Dad: Bye.

Did you see that?  He totally forgot to wish me a happy birthday!  How cool is that?!  I don’t think my father has ever seen the classic Molly Ringwald movie Sixteen Candles wherein the main character’s entire family forgets her sixteenth birthday but I was thrilled to be a part of this inadvertent tribute.

The best part about my conversation with Dad is that I could tell he knew he forgot something — he just couldn’t remember what.  He had a lot he wanted to tell me and got sidetracked and just forgot the main purpose of the call.  And I was no help.  It was too glorious and funny.  Later, I went out to allow my friends to get me completely drunk and feed me cupcakes (see photo) — as that’s what “adults” do for birthdays.  I was happily recounting the story of Dad forgetting when he called to officially wish me a happy birthday.  So all was set right again.

And now I’m slightly hungover and year older and there are 364 days until the madness begins again.  My birthday goal is to write more because, y’know, I’m a special sacred gift to the world and this is one way for me to share my awesomeness.

24 Hours in ONE DAY?

I’m shopping for a new bank. I really don’t think that “24-hour ATMs” are quite the selling point they once were. In this modern age, I expect an ATM to be available 24 hours a day. It shouldn’t be the first bullet point in your short list of reasons why I should do my business with your bank. It’s like the hotel that still advertises “Color TV” in its ads. Really? ALL the colors? On one TV? Wow.  Sign me up.  Welcome to the future.

With friends like this, who needs frenemies?

Recently, I was hanging out with three “friends” and the topic of cosmetic surgery came up.  Here is how the conversation went.  This conversation was rapid-fire after the first sentence.

Carrie: A friend of mine got a minor procedure done and I never thought I would say it, but the results are amazing and I might want it done, too.  She just looks so good.
Friend #1: What is it?  Botox for the lines on your forehead?
Friend #2: Teeth whitening for your discolored and yellow teeth?
Friend #3: Or Invisalign to correct the crookedness?
Carrie: No.
F1: An arm tuck for the flapping sagging skin on your upper arms?
Carrie: No.  What the fuck, you guys.
F2: Liposuction for the jiggle around your tummy, ass and thighs?
F3: Skin bleaching for your disgusting freckles?
Carrie: No.  Alright, I get it guys. Come on.
F1: Nose slimming for the chunky end of your nose?
F2: Crescent breast lift for your sagging boobs?
Carrie: What? Really? No.
F3: Filler for the lines around your mouth?
F2: Eyelid fat reduction for those drooping eyelids?
Carrie: Is that even a thing?  No.

And so on.

Oh, how they laughed and laughed at my plummeting self-esteem.  Good stuff.

As if being on vacation isn’t enough…

Ya gotta play some cruise ship bingo!

I like to keep myself entertained.  Sometimes, a fun thing to do is to make a list of things one might expect to see at a place or event and then lay them out in the form of a bingo game and try to “win.”  For example, when going to an Autumn craft fair in New Hampshire, my brother, boyfriend and I played a round of “Autumn Craft Fair in New Hampshire Bingo” that included spotting things like: a crying baby, an ugly dish with a likeness of Santa on it, overpriced handmade soap, and something made out of a corn husk.  We had great success and it made a boring ol’ craft fair seem like a fun little scavenger hunt.  Keeps it interesting, dig?

So, without further ado, here is my bingo card for the cruise upon which I am about to embark.  Some are easier than others but this should keep me entertained.  If I have a camera, I will try to take photo-proof.  Otherwise, you’ll just have to trust me.  Wish me luck!

My cruise ship bingo card:

What a busy December I’m having.

So, here’s a tip: If you ever host a party and invite a lot of really awesome, funny and creative, yet lewd and perverted friends over and get them drunk, hide the dry erase marker from the calendar on your fridge.

See if you can guess the events that were there before the party and the events that mysteriously appeared on the calendar after the party:

12/1 – TV Day
12/4 – Carrie Hosts Gotham
12/5 – Housewarming
12/6 – Buy Tiff a gift day
12/8 – Put more sexy baby pictures on fridge
12/10 – Reduce anal leakage!
12/12 – Give Edith $1,000 day. 2pm
12/16 – Penile Enlargement
12/17 – High Colonic
12/18 – Low Colonic
12/19 – Laundry
12/23 – Penile Enlargement
12/24 – Snow is like coke!!
12/25 – JC’s B-day party BYOB
12/26 – ♥ Your Gaga
12/28 – Anus flush/Neti pot
12/29 – Vagina filthification day
12/30 – Vagina cleanse/Penile Enlargement
12/31 – Hyman reconstruction
1/1 – Beginning of your white history month

Any guesses?

The Punch of the Line.

As many of you know, doing stand-up comedy and being funny have sadly not a lot to do with each other.  If only being a successful stand-up were only about being a funny person — although being funny certainly helps.  Lawdy knows I’m still learning but I’ve come to understand that stand-up comedy is so much about presence, attitude and timing.  Think of all the funniest stand-ups and how you can’t always explain why what they’re saying is funny but it just is: that’s presence. Sometimes, when I’m telling a funny story to my friends at a social gathering, I think to myself, “Wow, Carrie, everyone is laughing, perhaps this would make a good bit.” — but this is a trap, because when you’re telling a funny story to friends there are things at work that aren’t at work when you’re on stage.  Generally speaking:  1) On stage, you aren’t bouncing off the funny things your friends say or ask.  2) The pressure is off to get a laugh; you’re just telling a story.  3) There is no expectation of a punchline.

Ah, the punchline, my best friend and my mortal enemy.  Turning a funny story into a concise joke is an art form and often the hardest part of the being-on-stage element.  You have to say the joke out loud to hear where the funny parts are.  And sometimes the punchlines are formed through a conversation with a funny friend.

An example of a funny story with no punchline:

I love my stupid cheap watch — had it for years.  When the battery died, I went to get it replaced at the watch/shoe repair place.  The guy said it would be 10 minutes and $7 which seemed reasonable.  When he returned the watch, I could see that the second wasn’t moving, so I said, “Um, it’s still not working,” and the guy didn’t act surprised and took it back and “fixed” it again and handed it back to me a few minutes later.  This time, the second hand was painfully jerking in one spot. “Um… it’s still not fixed” I said, confused.  On the watch face, the ONLY thing that moves wasn’t moving.  Did he think I wouldn’t notice that the ONLY thing that illustrates a working watch wasn’t working?  That’s all a watch does and he tried to Jedi mind trick me into seeing it work? What the hell?

Now, that’s a [sort of] funny thing that happened. But it’s not a joke.  It’s a passing story about bad/weird customer service.  So, can I appeal to my friends to help me with the punchline? Possible ways to go:

1) Imagine if airline pilots tried this technique: “Here we are in sunny Hawaii.  Everybody off the plane.”  Like you wouldn’t notice you were still in Newark.
2) It’s like, “Is my watch fixed?” [Jedi hand gesture] “You don’t need a wrist watch.”
3) It’s like a waiter trying to convince you a glass of water is a steak dinner.  [Same basic joke as example 1]

I could potentially use all three of these.  Can any of you think of a better punchline?  Is story not worthy of the stage?  Does it take too long to get to the point?  More than a couple of sentences for a set-up is pretty dicey.  What do you guys think?

Also: can someone tell me if “punch line” is one word or two?  Even Wikipedia switches back and forth in the same article.

Happy New Year!

Travels, travels, travels. When a friend calls up and says, “I have to move from New York to Denver,” I don’t even wait to be asked. I immediately offer, “Do you need help driving your stuff?” What motivates me is the lure of the all American roadtrip. I love it. I love the open road and the scenery and the feeling of accomplishment. I love the road food and the truckers and the truck stops and the pumping gas and the music and laughter. And, of course, I have a feeling there is a country worth of material out there, waiting for me to find it, develop it and spew it from the stage.

The trip was great fun. Driving is not without it’s stresses, of course. There were bugs in the first hotel. There was a tire blow out going 75 mph in Arkansas. This was after my confident assurances to my nervous friend that “Tires are designed to NOT blow out on the highway. That’s all they are designed to do.” Duh. I was pretty much asking for it with that statement.

Flew the red eye back from Denver on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Recovered until Monday. And then Thursday, I flew out to get to a wedding in St. Thomas. Or, at least attempted to. New York’s LaGuardia airport has amongst the worst record in the world for being on time. I had less than an hour to make my connection in Atlanta and I missed it. Delta said I would be delayed a whole day. Fuckers didn’t even want to consider getting me on another flight with another airline. So, a night in the Comfort Inn at the Atlanta airport. Don’t recommend it.

St. Thomas is lovely – warm sunny beaches, great food, plenty of rum punch. But man, is it expensive. And now I’m back. Back in the cold. Back to buckling down and making an effort to fulfill my new year’s resolutions and make a go at this comedy thing. No one succeeds doing comedy half-assedly. So, with that in mind, come see me in Danny Leary and Becky Donohue’s new brain-child. This is going to be good, seriously.

Friday, January 30th
Don’t Tell Mama
The Cocktail Show
343 W. 46th St. (Between 8th and 9th Aves)
Free drink just for walking in the door!
8:45pm doors open, 9:15pm show
$15 cover without a reservation
$10 cover with a reservation
2 drink minimum
Cash only
Reservations: http://www.donttellmamanyc.com
or 212-757-0788 after 4pm daily

See you there!

You want a new desktop background image?

Some of my “friends” from around the world have claimed that I have never actually performed stand up ever.  Well, now I have proof.  And to those who claim I have just photoshopped myself onto the Gotham stage, I say, yes, I might have done that but wouldn’t I have made an effort to make myself less pixelled?  And I’ll remind them that even though it remains a sad bullet point on my resume, I haven’t actually opened photoshop in years.

Here’s me:

My set was on Bastille Day, July 14th.  Oh, how I slaved for months to write hilarious Bastille Day jokes and incorporate French references into my set.  Apparently, people are humorless about the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison that was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern French nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.  It was 219 years ago, people.  It’s funny now.  Jeez.

Come see me at Caroline’s on August 13th.  It’s my first Caroline’s gig and I’m more excited than a French person in 1789.

Guess where I am.

I’m in Chelsea, Michigan. Home of Jiffy Mix. THE Jiffy Mix. You don’t have a reason to be too jealous because it’s not open for tours on Saturdays so I can’t even get inside to sample the sweet sweet mix fresh off the line.

Chelsea is like an hour west of Detroit. I will see Detroit later today. I’m hoping that every stand up comedian’s take on Detroit is accurate. If they aren’t exaggerating the horror, I will have comic material for months to come. Poor Detroit is the butt of so many jokes: it’s dangerous, it’s dirty, it’s ugly, the sports teams are terrible and the politicians are corrupt.

Many moons ago, I was upset that my then-recent-ex had found a new girlfriend before I’d found a new boyfriend. A good friend of mine was comforting me. I whined, “Ugh, I can’t believe he’s dating someone. She’s from Detroit of all places!” And my friend laughed and said, “Detroit? Oh, don’t worry! The murder rate is so high there, she’ll be dead any minute now!” It was enormously comforting.

Wish me luck!