Quirkee.com

You know when you're at a party and you strike up a conversation with someone who starts telling you some sob story about a terrible thing that once happened to them? When they've finished you feel compelled to fire back with an even more tragic tale of woe from your own life to try and top their story and do what you can to curry some sympathy for your hapless existence.

I think that a comedian is the guy at the party with the story of grief that tops all the others.

I also believe that we are due a certain amount of good Karma because a lot of what comedians are able to do is to allow audiences a brief period of respite from their occasionally miserable lives. A lot of people endure lives of desperation and sadness and at the end of the week they go to a club and listen to a comic for an hour and then say to themselves, "Wow. I thought I had problems. At least I'm not THAT guy!"

After a few days in the Great White North, I started to acclimate and even settle into a routine. It began to remind me of the movie Groundhog Day. I would wake in the morning and bundle up to go outside and have a cigarette, go find a place to eat, kill time watching T.V. and then go to the show. After the show I would go drinking with the comics and then take a cab back to the condo and sleep.

The first week there I got a roommate at the condo. He was a comedian from Calgary and we hit it off pretty well. He was a lot younger than me. Half my age to be exact. It was funny to talk with him because he was eighteen years old and had the perspective of a person with eighteen years behind him.

Everything was new and exciting to him. Things that had long ago lost luster for me were fresh and wonderful to him.

When I got to Canada, I slowly began to realize that I had forgotten a lot of things about how to existing comfortably in sub-zero temperatures. I arrived safely and on time, (and a little buzzed) at the Edmonton airport. I cleared immigration without incident, collected my luggage and stepped out front for a cigarette.

I'm back home and I'm really happy about it.

They say that comedy isn't pretty and it's not. They also say that if it's really good it should hurt and I do. I'm ugly and bruised up, so I must be doing something right.

Last week I was in Wichita, Kansas. The other two comedians are good friends of mine and we were excited to be spending the week of Thanksgiving drinking, carousing and (if there was any time left) performing some quality comedy.

Last weekend I appeared at a club that is about 200 miles from where I live. Normally I would drive the three hours and spend a hundred dollars on gas. But the club I was to play was located downtown and the hotel I was staying in was only a two-block walk from the club. I wouldn't be needing a car while I was there so I began to look at other options.

I decided to take a train.

Trains have always been my favorite way to travel. There are no security lines, there are no middle seats, and there's no way for them to lose your luggage. Plus there's really no way to hijack a train. You can't put a gun to the conductor's head and demand to be taken to Cuba. The train is going where it's going. Period.

I've made mention before but it bears repeating that I am a man in only the most basic definition of the word. By that I mean that I proudly possess a Y chromosome, a penis and the occasional bits of stubble on my face. Beyond that, I would be hard pressed to identify with the societal expectation of what knowledge and skill sets should be at my disposal.

Sports

This is a subject that dudes are supposed to know about. Not only know about, but follow closely, talk at length about and sound like they know what they're saying when they scream at a television. I enjoy baseball, but when it comes to the others like Football, basketball or hockey, I've found that I've developed a certain survival skill when these subjects come up in conversation- I fake it.

Through a very painful system of trial and error, the wife and I have achieved a codified system of rules. These rules have been established in order to perform a more perfect union, to keep the general peace in our abode and prevent anyone from doing anything before "turning the gun on themselves."

One of the Systems for Equality that was established early on concerns our respective birthdays. Birthdays can be a difficult and resentment-inspiring time of year for couples. What with, "Hey, I spent more on you than you did on me!" and "I most certainly did NOT mention that a threesome might be fun!" and the other various arguments that can occur.