Brady’s Blog

ninety percent of comedy is making fun of people.. the other half is math jokes..

i don’t know how good of a joke this is..

but we can’t let twitter and facebook get all the one-liners..

“i just joined a new church.. it’s lowest common denominational..”

is that funny?

is it even original?

it’s probably one or the other..

possibly both..

probably not both..

don’t be disappointed when you see this bit in my next standup set..

stealing from myself is still legal i believe..

tivo..

tivo.. or dvr.. or pvr.. or whatever you want to call it..

for our purposes here, we’ll call it tivo..

tivo is great..

it’s so great.. i have to ask..

what in the world took so long?

how was this not invented twelve seconds after tv was invented?

how did someone see moving pictures coming from a box and not immediately think “that is great! now what am i going to do in the event i am watching this when my wife wants to talk?”

right?

wouldn’t a pause button have seemed like the next logical step?

even before color?

it’s like inventing the light bulb and then sixty years later developing the light switch..

but thankfully someone finally did invent it..

that is a good thing..

now we can pause tv and record shows or even whole seasons of shows very easily..

however..

not all of the changes tivo has created are for the better..

for instance, remember when you could call a buddy during a game and give him crap because his team was losing by thirty points to dirmingharborville state?

this was such a fun thing to do..

because if you turned on the tv.. and saw your buddy’s team playing..

you KNEW he was watching it RIGHT THEN..

and if they were getting drilled, you KNEW for a fact he was in agony at that exact moment..

and so you knew you could call him and say something like “wow.. your team really stinks, huh?”

and that was so much fun..

but not anymore..

nowadays, if you see his team on tv, you have no idea if your friend is actually watching that game..

for all you know he’s out having the time of his life.. he’s skydiving or mountain climbing..

or worse.. he’s thirty minutes behind you in the game and his team is still winning..

and as we all know, you can be as mean as you want in real time..

but if you go spoiling the outcome of a sporting event for someone.. that is just wrong..

there’s nothing worse, right?

because we’ve all been on the other side of that..

the big game is on at noon..

but you’ve got some yard work to do..

so you tivo it..

and you go do your yard work..

and you go to great lengths to avoid any human or electronic contact which might reveal to you the results of said game..

and then you finish your chores..

grab a nice slice of pizza and a beverage..

and sit down..

the game’s all cued up..

with the kicker’s foot frozen an inch behind the ball..

or the tipoff waiting in midair..

ready to go..

the big game..

then you get a text on your phone..

and before you can catch yourself, you’ve read it..

“too bad about that game, huh?”

NOOOOOOOOO!

the other thing they didn’t consider when inventing tivo is this..

there is not actually anything on tv that anyone really needs to see..

before tivo, if you went eight weeks without seeing your favorite show..

well..

you missed it..

oh well.. no big deal..

but now..

now you have eight episodes of that show on your tivo..

and you can’t just not watch them.. oh my goodness no..

they are there.. you’re GOING to watch them..

if you have to stay up until three a.m. wearing a coffee snorkel and freebasing nodoze..

you’re not about to miss it..

so now you have a new set of chores..

work..

in fact, at our house, we pay the kids to watch LOST and write reports about it..

of course, they tivo pokemon while they’re doing their LOST chores..

but then some other kid will always text them right at the start of that pokemon episode..

and ruin the ending for them..

sometimes i write about something here just so i can throw away a scribbled note in my wallet..

this is one of those cases..

here’s the note..

how’s that for some sweet handwriting?

here’s the idea..

a sketch..

a tv crew doing a personal interest story about a camp for parents of children who have been abused by their parents..

the joke is in the premise of course..

and then they would interview the parents and find out many of them didn’t abuse their children until they found out about the camp..

there would be a joke about how one couple had been neglecting their children for years.. but when they heard about this great camp they went ahead and knocked them around a little bit..

that kind of thing..

offensive and stupid..

just like i like ‘em..

i have no idea why i wanted it to be a “ski” camp..

i’ve never even heard of a ski camp..

i guess i just thought it needed to be something that would be fun for parents..

or maybe i just secretly want to beat my kids and go skiing..

ok..

not so secretly..

health care professional in the front..

methamphetamine in the back..

also..

methamphetamine on the sides..

and..

actually..

methamphetamine in the front too..

bud walton arena..

last saturday..

kentucky..

me, my dad, and my two boys..

behind us, a kentucky fan..

an obnoxious kentucky fan..

i would make a joke here about how that last line is redundant, but that’s not really true..

kentucky basketball fans are normally pretty tolerable from what i’ve seen..

not this guy..

i should stop here to point out the razorbacks stink..

i few weeks ago they looked real good..

they’re not..

they stink..

so this guy was rubbing our faces in it, as he had the right to do..

it started getting pretty old after about ten minutes..

so i made up my mind..

and what i made up in my mind is the funny part.. at least to me..

i made up my mind to do two things..

i decided i was going to let him go until he cursed..

(i knew he would curse.. and he did..)

and i decided i was going to go way over the top with the confrontation..

just blow up on the guy..

the thought process went like this..

i didn’t want to go back and forth..

i didn’t want to say something.. and have him say something.. and then i’d have to say something..

i wanted it to either be the guy shuts up, or we’re in the aisle..

i wanted to shut him down from the start..

and boy did i..

the curse word hadn’t even finished crossing his lips before i was in his face.. absolutely booming at him..

“YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTH!! YOU CAN TALK IT UP!! BUT YOU WATCH YOUR MOUTH! YOU CAN BE CUTE ALL YOU WANT, BUT YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH YOUR MOUTH!!”

not sure where the “cute” thing came from, but it was perfect..

i was loud enough and psycho enough to entertain most of the people within about a fifty foot radius and make one of the guys near us think he needed to gently restrain me..

my plan worked..

the guy was extremely apologetic and didn’t say much the rest of the game..

i think stewart was pretty embarrassed..

davis was somehow oblivious to the whole thing..

not sure what my dad thought..

i haven’t talked to him about it..

we still lost of course..

but at least we didn’t have to hear about it the whole time..

whenever i do stuff like this i like to imagine the other guy’s blog and how he describes the events..

the title of his entry is probably something like “rabid hog fan thinks i’m cute”..

did i mention the hogs stink?

boy..

they stink..

i was all set to tell you about how i shouted down an obnoxious kentucky fan at the basketball game on saturday..

but our oldest boy stewart had a nice line tonight and i want to make sure it makes it to print before i forget about it..

we were on the way home from church..

stewart’s friend was riding with us and we heard this conversation from the back seat..

jarret: “my dad punched a guy one time..”

stewart: “really?”

jarret: “and then the cops came and cuffed him..”

stewart: “wow.. did he go to jail?”

jarret: “no..”

stewart: “juvey?”

jarret: “no..”

stewart: “alcatraz?”

we laughed for about five minutes on that one..

it was one of those timing things..

and the fact that he was doing it on purpose..

he purposely went jail.. then down to juvey..

them ramped it right back up to alcatraz..

it was funny..

anyway..

i’ll tell you about screaming at the kentucky fan in tomorrow’s post..

i did, said, and heard so many funny things today..

seriously..

i’m getting way too funny..

for instance..

on facebook today, someone said he was “dropping off his little prodigies”..

and i asked simply “at the pool?”..

how funny is that?

right?

that’s super funny..

but the funniest thing i heard today wasn’t mine..

it was a reprise of something one of the ladies at work said a few months ago..

someone was talking about two dogs fighting..

and she said, “you know how to get a dog to stop fighting don’t you?”

we all said no..

to which she replied, “you stick your thumb in his butt..”

we all agreed that would probably work..

and yet questioned the practice on multiple points..

so it just goes to show you..

as funny as i am..

and i am terribly funny..

crazy ladies at work are even funnier..

it’s official..

i’ve been robbed..

i have had intellectual property stolen from me..

it was a line from an email i sent to someone..

i am not here to make a huge deal out of it or demand credit or anything ridiculous like that.. mostly because it wasn’t all that funny and it did not get much of a laugh when he used it..

and i’m not here to offer proof of the infraction.. although i can - a couple of you already know this because i sent you the email and the audio..

but i’m not going to do that here..

that doesn’t do anyone any good..

i don’t want to be known as the guy who wrote that crummy line that so-and-so stole and then busted so-and-so for it on the internet..

no thanks..

and i really don’t feel like it was some really egregious move the guy pulled, etc.. it was just something he heard somewhere and so he said it..

the only thing he really could have done any differently was say “i read that in an email someone sent me..” - it’s not like he would know my name out of the thousands of people with whom he corresponds..

and for all i know he would have done so if the line had killed..

so..

having established this - that i am not bitter.. not angry.. not insulted by this at all..

i would like to say..

that is a really weird feeling..

to hear your own words come back to you.. knowing full well they are in fact your own and no one else’s..

it was pretty jaw-dropping..

the bottom line is it was affirming and flattering for me..

i now know.. after writing for three years.. that i can generate at least one line that at least one professional comedian thinks is worthy of saying out loud..

i only wish he would have sold it a little bit..

he didn’t deliver it at all the way i would have - and it was much funnier my way..

he just threw it out there..

no punch..

easy come, easy go i guess..

do not fear!

i am not a one and done comic..

i am, however, the only comic in the world who is currently unable to perform because of the commitment he made to teach bible study..

it’s true..

the only two places within two hours of me that have open mic night are both on wednesday night..

and i have bible study on wednesday night..

but it will not be forever..

i will be returning to the stage soon..

meanwhile..

i hone..

i craft..

i distill..

i reduce..

i simmer..

are we getting these?

i baste..

i feed and water..

i prune..

what else?

i artificially inseminate..

wait.. not that one..

you get the idea..

all i’m saying is..

it ain’t over yet..