Brady’s Blog

to those of you who continue to read this blog but refuse to congrue where facebook and twitter are concerned..

let it be known..

there are things that happen in those places that are not also scribed here..

so.. that means you are missing out on funny things i say..

for instance, this joke might very well have remained exclusive to the facebook/twitter world if i were not feeling so generous.. or had anything else to write about..

here’s the joke..

“i finally decided on my new year’s resolution: 1680 x 1050..”

see the kind of stuff you’re missing?

i’m shirking responsibility with this one..

i’m supposed to write a joke every day..

all i’m doing here is relating something funny that happened..

please complain to me about that because that would not be a waste of your time at all..

anyway, here’s what happened..

my uncle has cancer - that’s not the funny part but i need to let you know that up front so you’re not waiting for that particular shoe to drop..

anyway, when he went in the hospital we didn’t know he had cancer..

we just knew he had some kind of mass in his chest, etc..

so my sister called my other uncle to find out what was going on..

and he tells her: “well.. your mom and the other girls are at the hospital with him.. and the doctor’s there.. i think they’re getting ready to do the autopsy..”

told you it was funny..

he meant biopsy obviously..

and corrected himself after a second or two..

luckily it was my sister on the phone and not me..

so he didn’t have to hear “really? do they suspect foul play?”

or something to that effect..

and yes.. technically speaking..

that is a joke..

for most americans, the holiday season means one thing - traveling to a town smaller than the one in which one lives..

if one lives in new york, one might return to omaha or dallas..

if one lives in dallas, one might be visiting the old homestead out in lubbock..

somehow, this trip back in time is always a trip down the population density scale..

i guess if one resides in a small enough town, one would just go stand out in a field somewhere for the holidays..

in our case, we live in a pretty small town..

but for christmas, we come to one even smaller..

namely.. searcy, arkansas..

searcy is not only a small town, it is also an absolutely perfect storm of nascar/cableguy/walmart/ ridiculousness..

i mention wal-mart specifically because this is where it all seems to come together..

the wal-mart in searcy has to be one of busiest stores in the world..

you could go in there at zero three hundred hours on a tuesday and still find yourself parking a quarter of a mile away..

it is truly insane..

i went there yesterday because we forgot a present and had to do some quick shopping..

i was in the store no more than seven minutes..

long enough to see about three thousand prison tattoos, three hundred fat ladies riding the ubiquitous wal-mart fat lady cruiser carts*, seventeen hundred dirty children, and one skinhead psychopath screaming “go ahead! CALL the LAW!” at the top of his lungs at the returns desk..

yes.. “the law”..

i would write one hundred other funny things about searcy but i am currently cruising the information superhighway on a pair of 56k steel wheel roller skates that didn’t get locked real well before the key got lost..

i will write again once i return to the metropolis maximus..

on the other end of arkansas..

*that is exactly one hundred tattoos per fat lady

i assume everyone knows about and watches dirty jobs with mike rowe on the discovery channel..

it’s quite entertaining..

basically, this guy travels around the country learning about and assisting with all kinds of ridiculously foul and filthy tasks..

such as..

mushroom farming..

l.a. sewer cleaning..

goat herding..

etc..

the great thing about this show now is he’s far enough along in this endeavor all of the obvious dirty jobs are out of the way..

so now.. people are just making stuff up..

“ok mike, now you’re going to lick the zebra’s butt, put the tobacco spit in your hair, and do a headstand in that pile of monkey ears..”

“sure thing guys.. what is it we’re making here again?”

“um.. uh.. dental floss mike..
yes.. dental floss..”

here’s two jokes that were cut from the standup routine..

for obvious reasons..

i cannot promise these will never be used..

but i can promise you they probably shouldn’t be..

1. “i am completely anti-rape.. except in the first trimester or in cases where the mother’s life is in danger..”

2. “i don’t understand this whole ‘cancer survivor’ thing.. you have cancer.. and you’re a survivor? well.. sure you are.. right now..”

am i proud of those jokes?

not overly so..

too.. sick..
can’t.. write..
getting.. dark..
nose.. runny..
head.. hurty..
can’t.. breathe..
fearing the worst..*

*that I won’t be able to taste the pecan pie(s)..

i am finally going to tell you about vodka bob..

i haven’t done so to this point because there isn’t much funny about a guy who drinks so much vodka he is nicknamed “vodka bob”..

it’s rather sad..

well.. i mean..

it’s funny to me..

but it’s not supposed to be funny..

that makes it harder to write a joke about it..

and that’s why vodka bob has sat in the queue since november 9, 2005..

but he’s getting out today.. mostly just so i can stop seeing him in the queue..

vodka bob was a baseball player..

a pitcher..

supposedly a pretty good one.. but aren’t they all?

he hurt his arm at some point in the minors and started tending bar..

that’s when i met him..

he was a bartender..

his girlfriend was a cocktail waitress who made a ton of money by having people fill out credit card vouchers with erasable ink pens and then going back and changing the tip amounts..

did her scheme last forever?

no.. oddly enough it did not..

you would think something as ingenious as that would just go on forever and ever but it didn’t work out that way..

she got caught..

and got fired..

i don’t think she was prosecuted for theft because the manager at the time probably didn’t want any more attention being paid to the books there than absolutely necessary..

vodka bob was just about as shady as his girlfriend and i always figured he was snaking as much money out of the joint as he possibly could - not ringing up drinks, over-pouring for regulars, and of course cha-chinging whenever he could just like the rest of us..

in fact, he was shifty enough, we probably would have called him “shifty bob” if he hadn’t consumed such a steady, high volume stream of vodka..

bob would come to our house to play poker and he would bring a bottle of smirnoff..

and then he would drink the bottle of smirnoff..

quickly..

we loved having him of course - no one is ever made more welcome by fellow gamblers than the guy whose focus is on intoxication instead of the cards..

oh.. also..

i think i remember maybe he got violent with that girlfriend one time and we all got called over to her house to hold him outside until the cops showed up..

told you he was a barrel of laughs..

at least we’re done with him..

as you were..

i’m going to talk about this because so far i’m the only person i know personally who has even heard of it..

it’s a show on animal planet called “whale wars”

i heard about it on never not funny..

it airs fridays at 9 pm eastern on animal planet..

i don’t subscribe to the animal planet channel, but i was able to download all the episodes from itunes for $1.99 each..*

in order to provide my characteristically brief, insipid, and less than descriptive description of this show i will say it is a docu-series about the world’s most passive aggressive ship captain on a mission to save the whales..

this man, captain paul watson, was somehow too radical for the greenpeace organization which he founded, and has since started a more confrontational “enforcement” branch of the whale movement known as the sea shepherds..

and boy are they some crazy hippies..

essentially, you would have the same show if you threw a net over the front five rows of a red hot chili peppers concert and put those people in charge of the national guard..

just craziness..

first, they almost killed themselves trying to launch one of their attack vessels..

then they lost a boat at night while the captain was asleep..

i won’t give away any more other than to say if this is whom the whales are counting on to save them, they are in some seriously deep crapola..

basically, if you’re like me, you’ll come away from this show hating japanese whalers, feeling about the same about greenpeace, exactly the same about the sea shepherds, and even slightly annoyed at the whales..**

but you’ll love whale wars..

* i was able to.. i didn’t say that’s what i did..

** seriously - if you’re brain is so big, couldn’t you learn to swim a little deeper or something?

the problem with twitter is i don’t really give a crap what anyone else has to say - i just want everyone to listen to me..

(also.. you can replace the word “twitter” in that sentence with the word “life” and i will still stand by it..)

which is why all i’ve really done is sign up for twitter, login, post a few things, tell everyone how i think twitter is pretty and special, and then stop using it..

but i’m going to give twitter another try..

and this is where you people are going to earn your keep..

i needs me some followers on twitter - and you’re going to be them..

http://twitter.com/bradydoty ..

sign up..

follow me..

now keep in mind, when you sign up and start using twitter you’re going to think “this is just facebook without snowballs”..

but it’s not..

it’s different..

and i will be saying funny things there which are drastically different from the funny things i say on facebook and also different from the funny things i say here on this blog..

man..

by the time i say so many funny things in real life..

and then i say a bunch of hilarious stuff on facebook..

and now twitter..

wow..

i am just a walking comedy machine..

in fact, i believe technically speaking this very post contains upwards of 2.5 jokes..

just amazing..

so here’s what we have learned from my first standup experience..

firstly, some things i think are pure comedy gold are not at all funny to people in tulsa on a wednesday night (glass half empty/half full material)..

and then there are things that i think are throwaway material or transitional lines - and those don’t make people laugh either!

ha! gotcha!

see what i did there?

i haven’t lost it!

seriously though - i feel like i learned a lot from just this single four minute set..

most importantly, i learned i am facing a pretty large mathematical problem..

i wrote for almost three years..

and was able to pull four minutes of material from that..

and about two of those minutes were stage-worthy..

so.. i wouldn’t say i’m quite ready to headline..

but i am hungry to go up again and improve and test myself again..

as a result, i’ll be scrounging for mic time wherever i can find it..

so stay tuned and get your giggler ready..