This is Guy, he hosted a rsdio show in Vancouver about comedy. He is also a writer. he also likes the Seattle sonics. That is guy.
Copyright Pete Johansson

Kevyn Smyth, not to be confused with.. Kevin Smith.
Copyright Pete Johansson

I thought these were cool, there is this navy junkyard in the SF bay, dusty dry fields on all sides then these massive ships rusting in the harbour....
Copyright Pete Johansson

Ah... the beauty of the north west.
Copyright Pete Johansson

Some pics, this is Proudlove and Bhueler, they are a notoriously butch gay comedy duo in Vancouver. It's really an amazing act as they play out the lives of two twenty something guys in the closet and then close with a tearful man love makeout session. You gotta see it, its great.
Copyright Pete Johansson

New Bayou.

Perspective. A while ago I met a really cool girl in Houma, LA and I talk to her quite regular as well. And as I go through so many little annoyances in life she has brought a little touchstone of perspective to my own trivial issues.
She called me the other day from her car, her mom had woken her up,told her to grab only her essentials they had to evacuate. I felt the nervous fear as her home was threatened by a hurricane, and she had to escape to Texas. We kept in touch through the storm, and as regular the conversation was their was an elephant in the room. Underneath the the conversation was the stress of needing to know whats going on back home when little information was availlable. She returned home today to the relief that Houma is relatively OK, but they are now taking in refugees from New Orleans. She told me Three Thousand arrived today, their lives wrecked and theirs almost a defeated hope.

If you can help please donate money to the red cross. And let us all remember whats important.

The Downtown of the Apocalypse.

If you are like me, the afterlife is a constant question in your existence, I do not use it as simplistic Born-Again's do as a deterrent for doing bad, as I have morals and ethics for that, but more as a kinetic question as to the release of the energy I have put into this life (very little but still some). Some look at life as a battery expiring, I look at it more as a battery charging with insight accomplishment, vast huge monuments to my masculinity, like spires, peers, and skyscrapers, and huge submarines….oh wait I’m not short. (Sorry for the dig 1/3 of the world, my bad). But in all honesty I think there must be a release of the gathered knowledge of ones life, even if it is dissipation into ether. But must…soo this brings me back to the after life question, and as simplistic as it sounds I think now maybe there is a hell or at least a purgatory.
Now I know when I was thirteen I mathematically proved that purgatory could not exist through a Socratic dialogue with my father that follows;

Me- Now father, you have told of this punishment purgatory, it is a temporary place is it not?

Father- It is child. It is a place of duration before entering heaven where one is cleansed of the sins of the earth.

Me- Father again I ask, this place is only a temporary destination a finite amount of time, before one enters heaven.

Father- Child I have already stated that it is, get me a beer and change the channel (we had no remote control and this was the duty of the youngest child).

Me- Father, you have previously stated that heaven will have no end. Do you mean that once in heaven we will be there forever?

Father- Your simple questions irritate me, I wish you would go out and play basketball like your brothers and not ask so effeminate questions, these trouble me so, you do like girls do you not?

Me- Please father I am asking the questions, and girls are nice, when I grow up I will be fascinated with vaginas, but is heaven infinite?

Father- Yes.

Me- And father there is only one god, so would you say that god must agree with numerical laws, for if I said there were two gods you would say I was wrong.

Father- Have you tried baseball? For chubby boys like yourself you might find it less strenuous especially if you are a good hitter… Stop staring… Yes, god must follow numerical laws.

Me- Then father there is no such thing as purgatory.

Father- As a catholic, it is my duty to beat you to within an inch of your life to defend the laws of Jesus, but to keep with religious tradition I must be drunk like a Frenchman, get me wine, or explain your heresy.

Me- Father you clearly stated that Purgatory was a temporary duration and heaven was infinite, and that god follows numerical law, and it is a mathematical fact that any expression over infinity is zero, therefore the duration in Purgatory would be Zero if life in heaven was infinite. Father everything you believe is a fairytale told to simpletons.

Father(wiping tears from his eyes)- Son, You are a smart little son of a bitch, but you shoulda learned to play some sports, cause its cross check time for jesus…


I mean that’s kinda how I remember it, if my memory was recorded by Ibsen. Anyways so I don’t normally believe in the common views of the religious afterlife, but after seeing the downtown east end of Vancouver last night, there must be a hell.

The East end looks like every eighties movie depiction of a US post apocalyptic society. At midnight on a Sunday the stores boarded up and graphitti riddled, highlighted by affordable sodium bulb streetlights that bring out the orange in the jaundice sallow expressions of the lost, in a society built with a supposedly strong safety net.

For the longest time I would brag to my American brothers and sisters about the effectiveness of our social engineering. But that has now been quieted forever from what I saw last night. Having driven through some of the worst neighborhoods in the US, from the projects in New Orleans, to South Central Los Angeles (not very bad at all, movies lie), to the Bronx, and to Cabrini Green in Chicago. I have seen the worst the US has to offer, and Vancouver has it just as bad if not worse. At least in those places there is some shame in the drug use, not much granted, but here they don’t bat a sedated eye.

I walked passed the prematurely aged faces of “HUNDREDS” of addicts on my way to the studio. HUNDREDS, not a couple, not ten, HUNDREDS of the undead, the new zombies. They were all ethnicities, white, lots of natives, black, hell I even saw the elusive Asian homeless guy. Everyone is being hurt by the Heroin and apparently Crack or Crystal, I’m not sure which it was but I watched enough glass pipes spark up with the tell tale flames to make it look like fireflies were mating on peoples lips in spasmodic random couplings when you glimpsed down the alleys.

I am very, very progressive in my thinking. I love freedom, I hate laws that limit ones access to drugs, BUT… something radical must be done here.

This is an embarrassment to every person living in this city. Certainly addiction is a disease, but do you let people who are infected with Typhoid walk around and get others infected? NO. So lock them up! Not in jail, not somewhere that’s hellish(what could be more so than the streets they are at present) but Quarantine them as we would any other highly infectious disease. This only makes sense, cause they get other people infected… they do, they sell it to people, they want others to use to make them feel better, its natural for it to spread itself, contain the diseased, treat them, give them free drugs, I don’t care, make it humane, but get them off the streets. INFRINGE on their RIGHTS to PROTECT the REST OF SOCIETY, be POLITICALLY INCORRECT for the GOOD OF THE MANY…

I quick read of some philosophy is in order here. Utilitarianism is not the perfect philosophy but it gives great insight into a way to lead a society in a politically complex environment. And the move that produces the greatest happiness for society would be considered the morally just one. So I would venture a move to provide these guys with a confined living environment but with access to free drugs, would make them happy, and the fact that they were off the street would make the rest of us pretty damn happy, and the fact that they wouldn’t be around top spread their hellish existence would make those who would get to avoid the trap of addiction happy. SO let’s get philosophical on their asses and make this place a better one…

Wow I’m already talking like I live here(

Now I gotta go shoot up, ciao pimp daddy’s.

Catch me on the radio tonight in Vancouver on 102.7 fm or on the internet on http://www.coopradio.org/listen/ at 11pm pacific time:)
peace out bitches...

Should I or Shouldn't I.

There is a really cool apt. available in vancouver that maybe just maybe, I might rent. THAT does not mean I am going to "live" here. As it is, I travel far too much to be considered a resident of any local (which by the way is a hassle on so many legal levels, like where do I insure my car from? I live on two coasts do I choos ethe cheaper or the one I origionally lived in?) .

I am debating this desicion. I really love it here right now, the comedy scene is strong and I would be a welcome addition, but... but... something about it feels too cautious. Something in my head screams NEW YORK YOU FOOL, but my heart says vancouver. What to do. I shouldn't make a rash choice so I will probably wait until I get back from out east and chill into my choices. I mean I love Seattle to and ultimately moving inside the states is easier for me anyway. But I am dissillusioned by the US and the direction it is going in.

Hmm. No answers right now. But I will figure this out. Really nothing funny lately on Nothings Funny. I will need to adjust that with a rant about dating soon.
Cya mia

Two thousand more miles on the Passat and I am back... Home?

Vancouver, feels like a home. Although I wonder sometimes if I ever really knew what one felt like. Maybe that's why I travel so much.

Its the end of summer. And my brother said something interesting the other day, "You can feel the season is about to change."
I guess that seems unremarkable enough to most, but I haven't felt it in a very long time. You see I swore off seasons about eight years ago when I decided to move to LA. I felt they were bad, and that endless summer would be bliss...
So years streaked on with nary a season but one, and time was indistinct in its passing, and whenever I try to think it's like eight years blended into three, and I realize that seasons are chapters to our life. They are prizes, and an endless summer makes you take that season for granted, and forget what kind of joy lies in all the others.
I feel the cool in the air, even though the sun is high, and the day is beautiful. August is closing its wings, and the brisk is like a trail left by the future which just darted past me and is setting up fall around the corner. And it brings me back, to what I love in the season, the idea of cold noses excites me. The thought of hands fumbling through gloves and mittens to warm a loved ones fingers. Coffee on a cold morning has a power defeated in the sunny hot morns. I made a mistake in youth to swear off the winter, chill brings us closer to one another initially for heat, and then in spirit.
Their is a great distance in heat, and a caution in seeking out what we perceive to be safe.

OK, all done with the flowery talk.
Got a few days to relax before I'm off doing shows again. Got a couple of gigs in Washington next week then I am off to Philadelphia to the Helium Club. Really looking forward to it, my first show in the city of brotherly love and I plan to explore constitution hall and the all the various myths of the formation of America.
I wrote a kickass new piece for my set about Paradoxes, and am quite happy, am working on three more cool bits about measuring fun, My ex, and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as applied to something funny from afar, but indistinguishably humorous when up close....
ciao y'all... Oh ps I have a ton of my travel pics that I will post either today or tomorrow depending on my chronic fatigue...

The East Bay of San Francisco.

I have never seen so many gang tattoos and people that look like they love Crack in my life. Inter-mixed with a booming tech economy.

Concord is caught in a gang war between those who have, and those who also have but have guns and no fear of jail. A prosperous underclass as best as I can tell. They drive 80K dollar cars, blinged out, and throw cash around like their advisaries in their newly leased Lexus's and pressed white shirts.

It's a unique america in the walls of this breezy valley. A programmer will catch his reflection in a set of gold teeth at least once a day. 24" dubs will grace curbs in front of a clean room. Tattoos, the harsh kind, not the suburban girl variety. These ones tell stories of death, and memorialize fallen friends and foes, not a love for happy pentagrams. The gaunt cheeks of the alternative economy hold ground everywhere and resist the gentrification of necessity that the land values in CA have created. They check each new visitor, and they are always watching as the oblivious yuppie treads heavy and loud, only noticing them when its just in time for a threatening glance. They walk a razors edge of tolerance for cheaper housing. And I wonder how this will play out.
If the economy slows as I think it must, this will be a failed economic infiltration, and in ten years the rusted doors of Coldstones, and The Bombay Trading company will be long closed, and the thin Meth faces that grace the street will be different but the same, and perhaps populated by some of the techie optimists who over extended, overbelieved and over trusted this ficticious economy that burned the artificially low interest crack, and the addictive off shore job trading crystal in its furnace pipe, only to become so addicted to wealth that it kept consuming until there was nothing left to sell. And we sit watching as wealth flows upward, the same as the streets, to the corporate pimps pockets. And we watch as lives are just as disposable to Chevron, or Wal Mart, that we're their bitches. And we best not step out of line and ask for no health care, or no job security or we'll get the powdered slap. Just keep workin to make them rich, keep slavin and buying into that dream that they love us, until we are to old, to unskilled, to expensive to keep, and they'll up and move on to their new bitches, their new sweet virgins who believe the lie in China, or in South America, and us used up old whores will wonder and pass which lie began it all, which was the one that made us buy into the mistake of our life. And even when their gone we still need more. More of something.

Happy thoughts on a sunny day, downwind from shut refineries artificially inflating the price of gas in California.

We's all bitches. Ciao.

Ok couple of updates...

First off I saw a comic the other day that I loved, his name is Auggie Smith. Very funny, and poignient(sp?), kinda called it straight for an hour. It was nice to watch a fairly cerebral comic with some funny insight.

Second, back in Vancouver for a few days and this lack of exchange rate is killin me... used to be a trip north was like a trip to mexico, but now as our currency is equalling out, its becoming more expensive than the US for a bunch of stuff, espescially prostitution and getting somebody whacked. Before if you didn't like somebody a big green benny franklin could get him knocked up the head and an infeild of em would keep him from singin a lifetime. But now you gotta roll up a war protests worth of Kite flyers just to get a stern talkin to a guy...

Third headin to the bay area for a last minute fill in by Oakland. If anyones around Tommy T's come down and support my honkey ass. Lookin forward to the gas prices, I've always heard that their really low around San Fran...

I just saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, i love any movie where an adult is mean to kids. It makes me laugh my ass off, be it Major Payne, anything with WC Feilds, The origional Bad News Bears, Annie, whatever as long as their mean to kids I will laugh nonstop... Check it out, I swear that mr depp chose Mr Jackson as a role model for the character form, but I hear he denies it....

Love the van comedy scene, very strong, and all the comics are f'd up on booze and drugs. It's like goin back in time. Peace my angels...

The List.

I am soo irritated with corporate america. They constantly screw things up, yet then make the consumer be responsible for fixing the problems. Banks, Cell phone companies, cable, Credit Cards... all mistakes are on you, and if you want them fixed its the telephone maze of discouragement, hold and hold until you give up. So I think I will start handing out a list of the biggest offenders at all my shows and try in my own little way to discourage people from using them. My quick hate list for customer insensitivity;

Corporate Pricks to there own Customers

• Exxon/Mobil- Over twenty phone calls, the majority of which were handled in india by a girl named Sue. The card was stolen, and reported stolen and they never turned it off and continued to bill me for it, months of arguing no record keeping on their part and they clain its all fixed yet I still get bills for thousands of dollars from them. ASSHOLES.
• Cingular- They absorb my cell phone company (AT&T) offer none of the same billing options, worse covergae less features and bully me into signing ridiculous contracts with no big benefit. But what really sucks is there customer service, back when it was AT&T you made one call and almost everything was fixed, now I am transfered a minimum of three times every call, and they always tell me they don't, can't or won't do what used to be simple like rate changes, roaming in Canada, or just being fair with pricing packages. This company charges 79cents a minute to roam in CANADA that alone makes them collosal Assholes in my book.
• Bank of AMERICA- Long time hated bank pioneered the return check loop, in which they figure out which funds to put through your account in order to bounce the most checks and charge the most fees. Have boycotted them for 7 years and will until I die, very few companies loathe their Customers like Bank of America, which gives them Asshole status.
  
• First National Credit- They are not the only company to prey on the credit rebuilding portion in america (about 30% of all credit users), but they are the ones I delt with when I did. Their fees where akin to Usery at it's worst, changing payment due dates monthly in order to recoup late fees and charging monthly yearly and random fees whenever they just got thirsty for my cash. It was a short affair but it taught me all easy credit companies are ASSHOLES.
• US AIRWAYS- They least organized most retarded airline on earth. Three for three, losing my bags, thats 100% bag loss, thats an amazing feat. And because I hate wearing dirty underwear, they are ASSHOLES.

I would like to give Kudos to a couple companies just to round out that I do not just simply hate, and say;

• Washington Mutual- They tend to rock. Almost no fees, they correct issues, and they are almost always very helpfull and nice. Would reccomend them to anyone looking to open an account.

And thats it. Wow, not alot in the good column, well corporate america maybe try workin a little harder for the money I pay you.

Peace out, shows are rockin in Tacoma, couldn't tape last night as the mic's battery was dead, but will try again ce soir.
Out bitches.

Wanderlust.

I have the itch to travel. And from what I can tell I have the air miles to make it happen. But the question is where to go?
I don't know what I am looking for, a place to write? A place to contemplate existence? A place to find answers? Or just a place to have fun?
I don't know, but I want to go.

My first show in Tacoma was not the inspiration for this call to flight. It was an uneventful affair with 14 people who had a hell of a good time. It looked like it would suck but as it turned out, they were great, and the show was both fun, loose and good. Although there is a little, wee bit of weirdness in the comic community, but hell where isn't there?

I hope I get a good crowd tonight as I'm gonna tape my sets for a long awaited CD or DVD depending on the quality.

If you are around TACOMA, come down and have a laugh and fill out the crowd. If you have friends there that like me, tell them to come down and have a laugh on me:)

OK, back to travel. I think either Buenos Aries, Phuket Thailand, or Stolkholm Sweden are the leaders for my escape, with Katmandu, Nepal; Barcelona, Spain; and Marakesh Morocco being the other possibles.

I want to spend a minimum of three weeks there, and I want to not lose my shirt with costs or I want it to be ridiculously cheap, so that almost for sure knocks out Sweden, but I could do comedy in Sweden, which could supplement it's cost... Need more info there. Thailand is cheap, and beautiful, but although it is rich in culture it also has a little too over-discovered feel to it. Now Buenos Aries is appealing, the people are cool, the culture is rich in history, it is not a Hot Spot yet for travelers, and the women seem to be smokin sexy! But I can't dance. But it's super cheap. Hmm. Ok, now there is my dream of following the Ganges to it's source in Nepal, that is cheap, but as I have heard a celibate journey for the most part, and lots of shots, and stomach issues. I know little about Morocco, but it's literary roots in the beat generation appeals to my literature gene. And finally Barcelona sounds cool on alot of levels, but it seems that the window of affordability may very well have closed on its fun vista.

If anyone has any suggestions or advice about these places please email me, I would like to commit to the trip in the next couple of weeks and start working towards making it happen....

Ok peaches talk to ya soon.

A week of Travel in review...

I logged 3200 miles in 4 days last week. Two days of 1000 + miles driving.
This worked out to roughly 100 dollars a day in gas. This is whats making the man to the right smile so much. And every one keeps asking why I didn't fly. Well sure it's cheaper to fly, but then I don't have a car when I get there, and I don't have all my stuff, it's like portable security, it's my safe place when I'm out of home, it's got my entertainment, sat radio, dvd player, cd player etc, my comfort, and my sense of mine. Hotel rooms are transient the car is a durable location of security...

I got to Sequim last week for my first show in one of the casinos, it was fun, I really rocked out the joint. I even got a couple emails from people at the show afterwards and i never even plugged my website! So they must have googled my ass. Really fun, and I won 55 bucks at poker afterward, saw two fatal car crashes in two days though. Freaky, one killed three the other killed six, that's some bad odds for a sense highway in the olympic peninsula.

Next i went to Pasco wash. It was ok. Ok. hmm, yeah.
I didn't feel comfortable there, an air of quite exclusion from mainstream and a distaste for the foreign waft in the atmosphere around this highly class divided tri cities. Each of the cities was a specific demographic, two rather poor, and one somewhat white upperclass but only upperclass in a small town trying to seem sophisticated kinda way.
There was a real Mormon feel to the pasty white faces of it's collared youth. And I was actually asked to take my hat off in a Starbucks coffee, to which I said no.

This was the mark of conservatism, as I had worn my TWAT hat into hundreds of coffee shops coast to coast, even in the bible belt and not gotten flack from anyone, but here the bible blind youth felt empowered enough to dictate my life and freedoms to me as they saw fit. Rather pompous and delusional I felt. I did not agree and challenged them to call the police and have me removed and a stand off ensued. I am sad to say the outlasted me in irritation but I only left after I had finished my coffee and done all my emails. Bitches.

I hate it the new PC attitude that one offended person can dictate the tastes for all the people. FUCK THEM. Seriously it would make everything work infinitely more efficiently if we ignored people until they were the majority, then changed. Rather than try to protect individuals with weak stomachs who feel most of pop culture offensive(which it is, but not for the reasons they think).

As these pispoor interpreters of their favorite philosopher Jesus have somehow found in the texts of an incredibly vague testament to love and harsh doctrine of intolerance for issues never discussed by their deity. Where did Jesus say to tell your neighbors how to live, or how to speak or what to wear? He didn't he was too busy feeding the poor, which by the way I never see these mutherfuckers doing. Or being friends with a prostitute, again they do that a little more than feed the poor, but they aren't honest about it. Somehow they turned the first socialist(jesus) into a neo-con with zero tolerance who preached stuffy white upper class ideals which 99% of these hypocritical MOFo's don't follow themselves. Damn these bitches(and by bitches I mean SOB's as well) need to clean up there own backyard and stop yellin at others over their fences.

Hmm, ok. Done. Just breathe, just believe.
Spokane gig sucked. I did well, but I had some flew or something and it made my head all stuffy and I couldn't hit on any of the hot girls, and they had such bad sound on the sides half the crowd couldn't hear me. The accommodations just bit, so I got my own hotel, that sucks, and that shouldn't be allowed. I shouldn't have to share a room with some freak after driving 200 miles to a gig for shitty money! Thats just respect! Would you make a trucker share a room? Or a salesman or any job? No. Why is what i do completely inconsequential? There were over two hundred people at that show laughing having a great time. They spent a ton on drinks, a ton. They were there for comedy. But you can't get a fuckin hotel room for they acts?

This has got me somewhat depressed. I keep doing better and better as a comic, and the gigs keep getting worse and worse? This has got to be the only profession in the world that that can happen in. Everyshow I finish people flock to me and tell me how funny I was, and relay their Joy which I am experienced and old enough to realize is real and not your typical after show placation. Yet, I cannot get any type of step forward in the perception of my abilities to bookers? I still get screwed around every corner.

What sucks about that is, when people tell me "you are such a natural, you need to stick with this cause you are gonna be famous." Which I know is so not true! I could kill every show, every day until the day I die and nobody would give a flying fuck! There are many reasons for this both industry based and crowd based, but it's kinda devastating that you could get forced out of performing not by your skill, which is fantastic but by the lack of ability to capitalize on it.
I have never been a better comic than I am today. And I would say that I can tear apart a room like few other people when doing a long set(40min +), yet I am completely unable to book work consistently and I'm not even getting rejected by bookers... they don't even talk to me in the first place! They won't watch your stuff in order to be turned off by it.
So I don't feel worthless I feel invisible.
Aaarghhhhhh! Why do I do it? It makes me poor, and depressed, and hopeless. But like last night, when I finished my set at The Well in Vancouver, I knew, they knew I killed. I owned them while I was up there, and it was intoxicating and thrilling. But what does it mean? There is simple no other reward for it than the feel. No money, no real respect. People want me to do it, they would probably pay me to continue, so what's getting in the way of that? What stands in the way of the general public paying me to make them laugh? -other peoples agendas? Greed? Politics? I don't have a fucking clue. It just hurts alot sometimes, to do something well, and for everyone to kinda know you do something well, but still have nothing to show for it.

Smiles. See you in Tacoma:)

I'm posting from outside a closed Panera Bread place in Souix City Iowa or South Dakota...

There is no damn Starbucks here! Hello, about 200K pop, could support at least 15 stores lets get on it, snap snap.

I am so road hypnotized, put 900 miles on the odometer today and I'm gonna put on another 300 before I sleep. So I thought I'd say hey, and I'm slowly going crazy with the voices in my head calling out to me that I'm too old to be driving accross the country this many times in one year...

I keep trying to write comedy based on Philisophical truths that were discovered 2500 years ago that are forgotten today, like how ethics and morals transend gods divinity, but really nothing is grabbin me as chuckle worthy.

Prob should sleep soon. Ciao bitches.