The Self-Abasement Tapes

The Fountain of Youth Has an Active Nightlife

2009-10-08T18:00:00.002-05:00

The cops raid a Ponce de Leon leather bar on its least decadent night, the secret to your late-term choice and the billowing clouds of a sex workers breath.

Stand-up from the Star Bar. Not for the eternally young.

Portraits of Children

2009-09-27T07:05:00.002-05:00

Bill Taft hosted another Evening with the Garbagemen spoken word and music night at Opal Gallery. My piece took inspiration from the space's current exhibit and opens with a dark bit I once performed at The Star Bar but wanted to think about more sincerely.

Up until a couple years ago the Little Five Points Zesto had a plaque on the wall from Atlanta Magazine naming it one of the "Best of Atlanta" for 1981. Nothing since. They've finally taken it down which is probably for the best. If you're an Atlanta restaurant that peaked during the Missing and Murdered/Wayne Williams era … you might not want to draw attention to that fact. Especially if you're an ice cream stand. That's just too creepy. "Oh yeah, the kids used to love coming in here. Back in 1981. We even sponsored a little league team up until they couldn't field enough players. But we still keep the pennant up."

In 1981 I was ten. But I was a white kid living in Wisconsin. And ugly. A tubby social outcast with limp, greasy hair that oozed out like play-do through the perforated scalp of a Hasbro action figure. I was the kind of kid a predator in a late model sedan would circle the block to avoid. Portraits of me from that time are painful to view. There's the ugliness of the subject itself compounded by the panicked self-consciousness in its eyes. It's the image of a child being tortured by attention. The camera may not steal a soul but when you hate to be noticed it can certainly crush one. Such a picture on a milk carton would have caused dairy sales to plummet destroying the economy of my native state.

I was aware of Atlanta then from television. I watched a lot of television. There were news reports of children gone missing and a city on constant alert. I remember a proud mountain of a mayor reduced to the hushed tones and stoic understatement of the bearer of bad news. Then there was the SuperStation. Of the mere dozen or so cable channels at that time Atlanta-based WTBS ran the most comedy. I was very interested in comedy. The SuperStation played old black and white sitcoms like The Andy Griffith Show and The Adams Family. And for a time it had an original sketch comedy show called Tush. It had no studio audience or laugh track and the cast were complete unknowns to me. Was it funny? I'd have to decide that for myself. I must laugh or not at my own free will. Even the star, Bill Tush, looked no more famous than a local used car dealer who did his own commercials; as if in later years the Wolfman and Donna somehow got their own show. I did laugh and thought it was funny. I also remember wondering what it must be like to do comedy in a city going through such tragedy.

Throughout the 80s Atlanta had less violent but still unflattering moments. In 1985 Coke changed its formula causing a populist revolt against a greedy, cynical corporation that holds nothing sacred. The revolt succeeded in a return of Coke Classic but helped boost the company's stock price and did nothing to reduce childhood obesity. The 1988 Democratic Convention seemed to gain more lasting cultural relevance from Rob Lowe committing statutory rape at the Hilton than from anything Michael Dukakis said at the Omni. Then in 1989 I moved here.

Isn't Atlanta always losing its innocence? From Sherman's ashes to our Olympics getting bombed to every episode of the Channel 2 Action News. What do we make of tragedy in a city that prefers a good sales pitch? Pay shocked attention to it all and then move on to the next sale? Shove a camera in the face of someone who knew the victim then go to commercial? Or make a dark joke about it all and call yourself edgy? Then look at portraits of other children and hope for the best.

Hipsters

2009-08-25T19:11:00.001-05:00

As told at the Star Bar.

An Un-Excreted Life Is Not Worth Living

2009-06-30T21:56:00.004-05:00

I recently played the Clermont Lounge.

The Karaoke DJ and comedy host at the Star Bar also works the Clermont and held his 40^th Birthday there. To celebrate, he had his own and a couple other punk bands perform with about 4 of us poorly-miked comics trying to tell a couple jokes over the raucous throngs. Nobody heard a word.

Ah well.

I still played the Clermont:

"It's a little known fact that both the Clermont Lounge and Motor Hotel were named for Josiah P. Clermont, Atlanta's earliest known syphilitic drifter.

Famous past residents of the Hotel include the punk rock singer GG Allin, Patient Zero and for six months in 1981 Jimmy Carter.

The most popular mixed drink is Absolut and Valtrex.

It was in that very basement bar, then known as the Anchorage Club, that in 1949 cab driver Hugh Gravitt got liquored up before hitting Margaret Mitchell.

Bar regulars like to call the men's room trough the General Sherman. Not out of Southern defiance, but because it usually burns when they pee."

In planning for the show, I rented the documentary Hated about GG Allin who actually did live in the hotel for a time. Allin's aesthetic was one of provocation, demanding a reaction from his audience. Shock and disgust were as welcome as cheers and applause. His performances grew increasingly animalistic with infamous incidents of defecation and feces hurling. He was also fond of lying mouth-agape below a hooker with a shower of gold.

Was Allin an honest artist? A fearless practitioner of aggressive, unflinching nihilism? We mere tourists at the Clermont only wink and nod at decadence, but GG booked a room. New Wave pussies like Godard could turn fictionalized existential gestures into lyric cinema, but Allin actually went feral and threw his shit around.

Perhaps. Or perhaps he just wasn't quite right in the head. There's a thin line between appreciating outsider art and pointing at retards.

If life is meaningless, what's wrong with fleeting attempts at beauty? At least you can watch Breathless again and again; it's a little hard to throw the same piece of shit twice.

I've only been to the Clermont twice now. I guess I prefer my erections un-ironic. Still, it has its charms.

I might try the karaoke some time and maybe sing "Stardust" or "Misty" or "Lush Life." I'll bring two dollar bills for the strippers and wear my best fedora.

But I'll be sure to crap at home before I go.

Idiot-Free Zone

2009-05-25T13:47:00.002-05:00

The bit I wrote for the new Laughing Skull Comedy Lounge in Atlanta's Midtown Vortex.

An idiot-free zone and contemporary comedy may not always be compatible.

"He's Shared the Stage With Everyone from TBA to TBA"

2009-04-19T09:03:00.004-05:00

That first Don Rickles place holder act is good, but the other two seem kinda hack afterwards.

There's Got To Be A Morning After

2009-04-05T20:33:00.002-05:00

Sadly, the most bitingly relevant satire is also the quickest to age.

Watch Those Store Brands

2009-03-22T21:00:00.005-05:00

You know times are tough when even the girl on my salt canister has a goiter.

Makeshift Signage

2009-03-12T21:54:00.002-05:00

I need some new running shoes.

There's a shoe store in The Old Fourth Ward near where I live, but their sign is kind of faded and has a lot of graffiti on it. It's hard to tell it's a shoe store from the street. So what they do is throw a bag of marijuana over their power line. That way everyone in the neighborhood knows it's a place you can get shoes.

They sell a lot of those basketball shoes with springs in 'em that are supposed to help your jump shot.

And stilettos.

"I'll Even Do Corporate Gigs"

2009-03-02T08:17:00.001-05:00

A successful exposure exercise gains me a new fan.

Maybe I should have stayed at home.

Cleveland's Rocks

2009-02-18T23:10:00.004-05:00

A belated President’s Day tribute to both our nation’s 22^nd and 24^th President, Grover Cleveland. After beginning his career in Buffalo in 1859, Cleveland avoided service in the Civil War by paying a Polish immigrant to serve in his place. While Cleveland’s reputation as a lawyer grew, his substitute joined a New York battalion of Polish cavalrymen famous for always dropping their horses.

As Sheriff of Eerie County, the future president had to oversee the execution of two convicted murderers. He could have paid a deputy to act as hangman but performed the task himself apparently preferring to kill only in peacetime when the other guy couldn’t shoot back.

As President, the man from Buffalo once visited Piedmont Park.

Notice where his hands are.

One As The Hand

2009-02-15T23:31:00.002-05:00

Booker T. Washington once spoke in Piedmont Park. Has he been there lately?

Why'd They Even Get a First Edition?

2009-02-11T22:34:00.011-05:00

Thursday is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday.

Did you know Darwin married his cousin? The discoverer of Natural Selection limited his gene pool. I guess when you discover that all life has a common ancestry, incest is all relative.

Ever the gourmand, Darwin would often cook and eat some of the strange birds and animals he collected. In fact, his sequel to the Origin of Species was an exotic cook book titled Tastes Like Chicken. And to this day the Cobb County library is forced to put a disclaimer on saying "Why not just east chicken?!"

Also, Darwin died kinda stupid.

Denial Ain’t Just a Virulent Strain in Traditional Catholicism

2009-02-01T08:40:00.001-05:00

The Pope has de-excommunicated a bishop who denies the Holocaust. Apparently all women are still unfit for the priesthood but a virulent anti-Semite deserves a second chance.

What to make of a Holocaust-denying priest? He doubts the Holocaust happened … but he's really sure about Jesus. You can trust him on that.

There's more physical, archival and eye-witness evidence of the Shoah. You can even go to Auschwitz and see the gas chambers. I'm pretty sure if you try going to Golgotha they've taken the cross down by now. There might be a cardboard one up for people to pose behind for pictures and stuff, but it's not the original.

But hey, who ya gonna believe: Ellie Wiesel or a vague 1^st Century author known only as "Mark" who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who swears he was there?

About the only way to cast further doubt on the Gospels would be to make them an Oprah's Book Club selection. Granted, Ellie Wiesel's book was once an Oprah's Book Club Selection, but that just shows how even Oprah's fallibility is not an infallible standard.

And even a Pope can F up.

The Phases of the Moon

2009-01-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

It's Chinese New Year. Be sure to eat your black-eyed bamboo shoots.

Chinese New Year is based on the Lunar Calendar. The most populous nation on earth can't help but keep track of irregular monthly cycles.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was written during a Waxing Gibbous moon. Mrs. Gibbous later moved to Brazil where her scandalous grooming procedures slanted the other way.

Atlanta: Land of Contrasts

2009-01-21T23:33:00.005-05:00

My annual King Day set at the Star Bar. I guess the idea is to remind the most self-consciously jaded audience in town that an idealist was born a mere 2 miles to the west.

It's my ongoing attempt to give my comedy a sense of place. That place may be a city built by the railroad and sustained by an airport, a metro-wide convention center everyone's just passing through, but there was one person of note actually born here.

Cognitive Dissonance

2009-01-14T22:29:00.003-05:00

The Minimum Wages of Sin

2009-01-11T12:07:00.001-05:00

A professionally flirtatious woman on the corner of Ponce and Myrtle offered certain services for my Department of Commerce Digital Convertor Box Coupon.

I politely declined.

Now to adjust my rabbit ears.

Practicing Word 2007

2009-01-11T11:32:00.003-05:00

My Phlebotomist had the Fidgets

2009-01-04T20:19:00.003-05:00

For the third time, and the 2nd in a row, my bloodletter missed a vein. This meant her twisting the needle around a couple times hoping to catch it again, then giving up and moving to a second vein nearby.

In platelet donation they draw from one arm and send the platelet-less blood back through the other. This meant a triptych of needle marks and the cool-looking bruises from the one that came up dry. Walking through Little Five Points this weekend one of the smack addicts actually warned me to try to kick soon.

Apparently, my veins are a lot like me: they look approachable but if you try to get too close they sometimes turn away. But this is a new year, and they did get their pints. Plus, I think it balances out my phlegm and black bile.

This'll Fix Everything

2009-01-01T10:42:00.003-05:00

Greens for money and black-eyed peas for good luck. I still don't see how the only legume that's a regular victim of domestic abuse is lucky, but when in Southern Rome....

I'm looking forward to the New Year. Heck, I've been writing 2009 on my checks since Nov. 4th.

Now to dance a Strauss waltz with a peg-legged drifter.

Recession or Depression?

2008-12-20T16:24:00.001-05:00

A hobo just stole a pie I had cooling on the window.

Chicago Manual of Style Accepted Kickbacks from Hyphen Manufacturers

2008-12-13T16:58:00.004-05:00

That's the Chicago Way.

Corrections: Apparently the headline for this post should read "Kick-backs." Also, "Chicago-Way" is now the preferred usage.

Punk Rockers Are Getting Old

2008-12-11T07:22:00.001-05:00

About the Authors

2008-12-07T00:10:00.012-05:00

Matthew was a former tax collector and apostle who divided his time between proselytizing the new faith and seasonal work at H&R Block. “Give to Caesar what isn’t deductible” he liked to quip. He wrote the first draft of his Gospel on columnar paper.

Mark was the pen name of Shemu'el a one-time riverboat captain on the Jordan. While his Gospel was quite popular, his sequel about the sacrificial death of Jesus’ sidekick was less so.

Luke, the most literary of the authors, experimented with writing his version in the 2nd person. Then tried giving Jesus limited omniscience. Finally, he just cribbed it all off one of the Gnostics.

John was the most morbidly obese biblical author weighing in at 316. As his revealing dream journal tells, he was fond of spicy late night snacks before bed.