what i've been doing all day

time to get quick!

ha

b

Mr. Sir, Your Hot Bag of Honey Has Arrived

too busy to write anything new. here's some poems i wrote when i first got to chicago. keep in mind that i hate poetry with every once of my being.

Mr. Sir

There's something deep about you
I close my eyes and I don't see you
It would be so easy for you
To make yourself known and set me straight
Why should I – why should I wait

I am making lots of plans in order to throw them away
I am convincing myself to breathe every day
Sometimes the 23rd hour gets caught in my throat
but I wheeze and I cough and I wail and emote
The daytime soap operas pay me and pay
but every day, I just throw them away.

The clock pierces and I am making soup
to come for me would be some kind of stoop?
Idle hands are the tools of the devil
and I'm a shiny new hardware store
I'll sit still today and lock out the goop
to the fabric of the cushion I am glued

There is one last thing to do
One last trick to trick you
On Jawdropper's they levitate money
I lure you to me, heart dweller
Mr. Sir, I send you a hot bag of honey


Untitled

-the i with no dot
-the oi with no doubt
-the e with no dint
-the saur with no kraut


the high window

feet, dogs, snow
grass, wheels, shoes
stand at the high window
posture to abuse

the trek was long
lifting grunts many
all for a gong
act for a penny

it starts at your neck
and goes up to your head
we're below ground
but hardly dead
the high window lets in the north
the high window lets in the north

foster is 41
clark is within reach
i'm missing someone
for once, it's not me

the wall is empty
reminds me of october
regrets, i've got plenty
at least i'm dry, sober

it starts at your neck
and goes up to your head
we're below ground
but hardly dead
the high window lets in the north
the high window lets in the north

the top is low
and the bottom is hard
no one i know
can live this part
in a f***ing cracker box


requiem to a beard

this shit's too long
wanna stop touching
NEED MORE LENGTH?
TRY THIS WHILE F***ING. (said in tv salesman voice)

any longer and i die
what? a piece of last week's pie
clean and clear
fatty chin is under here

floats away
bits on the floor
histories destroyed
the itching disappears

namesake marred
temporarily scarred
redness bereft
baby soft now left

can't play sonatas
hate my hands
job left me calloused
now my face is sand

unpacking. its cold
where'd my face go?
mirror tells lies
is the past dying

can time breath
do leavings make trees
somehow no
bloodied kuh nees

smash the tail
scoop the meat
the red is gone
"oh, isn't he cute"

the lamb thumps
the fuzz will return
where's super glue
my new image can burn


this concludes the poetry post. go back to work.
b

pretty sweet.

here's something pretty sweet although its a gravy show and not an available cupholders show.

more to come very soon. i love bill stern for knowing how to do this and for being a beautiful man.

b

comcast: yes

my old address is back online. drop me an email. sorry if one got bounced back at you over the past couple weeks.

beardedlamb AT comcast DOT net
your key to financial freedom

b

uh huh.

the funny thing about doing a show in your underwear is that eventually the crowd gets used to the fact that your almost naked and they stop thinking about it completely. wierd. but good.


YEAH

i'll be selling signed copies of this photo in the alley type space behind the Playground on an undisclosed date. It's signed by Joe Namath but whatever, IT'S SIGNED.

b
Out of Bounds Pictures

sometimes...

you think you are the greatest thing in the world, that you are unstoppable, invincible, and made of drop-forged comedy gold.

and sometimes, you do a show in lawton, OK.

i don't usually weep but when everything i hold sacred is walked out upon, i get wet in the eye. great week in austin. man, great week. lots of great things happened. stuff that was superbly good. improv was my friend and the sole survivor from a week of straight poo. everything from helping my ex-girlfriend move out of my apartment, to getting towed, to be verbally harrassed by someone employed to serve and protect. austin was a bit of a saviour or savior, depending on where your from. then pooh happened again only this time with a silent H.
i feel guilty for being paid for the pooh incident in OK we called a show before hand. looking back it was mostly pooh. we are aware of a new uphill battle, one where the audience is composed of complete strangers who are from a completely different background. sure, they're college aged and we're just barely over college aged, but it's so much more complicated than that. besides the fact that most of them were OU fans, they're just from a different place. a place where you have to enter an access code in the elevators in order to use them ( i guess an OK City bombing reaction) [understandable.] a place where the people are incredibly nice but unsure of our talents. austin is chock full of people who place us on the highest of pedestals and that only helps to make the shows a think of immense glory. without any preconcieved notion for these kids in OK, we were fighting an uphill battle. we had them for about half the show and then they were gone, literally half of them disappeared and sometimes rather loudly. strange. understandable but still perplexing.

an enigma wrapped in a crappy show boxed in a stained Uhaul. but we'll rebound and ball these people. we know how to make adjustments and it;s only a matter of time before the whole country is composed of audiences that are our friends just like in austin. or at least they'll feel like they're our firends. just like in austin.

(ding)

uph, 'scuse me that's my patience. it's been stewing in the oven for a good 6 years. i'm going to eat some of it and probably misplace the rest. mmm, patience is so good. well... now.... dammit, i've lost it. it was so tasty, too.

read ye not into these letters for subtext. it does not exist. now leave the theatre and go watch reality TV or "Malcolm in the Cliche;" you know, real entertainment.

not this boring, amazing improv crap.

b

comcast: no

for the time being, maybe a few more days, my usual email will be down. please use tysheer AT hotmail DOT com until that becomes a huge target for spamming bastards.

that is all,
b

An Apology

I have made an error. I have made a lot of errors, but for this one I would like to apologize.

I can't even begin to imagine the pain and suffering that being involved in the 9-11 tragedy would have caused. I was sitting in an easy chair in my living room drinking orange juice watching it all on TV. THAT was traumatic. Just to see it all happening right before me live on TV. But to actually be there, to be anywhere near Manhattan when it happened would have exponentially magnified my pains.

I wrote this blog entry some time ago: 9-11

Currently my normal email address is out of service as I am switching lines due to a recent move. So, I get a call from a chap I used to know in high school yesterday about someone who was looking for my email address (the one they were using wasn't working out) so I told him to respond to that email with my temporary address. He told me she was from the UK and writing on behalf of someone in New York. I couldn't possibly imagine what it could be about. Did I clip a cop with my side mirror in New York when I was there in August? Did they want me to star in my own BBC series after seeing my show at the Del Close Marathon? Who knows. So then, today, I got this email at my temp address,:

"My friend,
on this of all weeks I was sent a letter from you that showed that you havea sense of humor and irony. Unfortunately you did not even know who youwere talking about or of the many sacrifices involved in my line of work.
Bear was:
First k-9 into the WTC (not important)
Only dog to make a live find
Made the most live finds
Made the most finds of victims of the World Trade Center
Found beloved Chief of FDNY Peter Ganci and Commisioner William Feehan
Fought a battle with the nations largest animal insurer to provideinsurance they promised to the Search and Rescue Dogs
Proskauer Rose one of the largest law Firms in the U.S. started aFoundation in his name www.bearsearchandrescue.org to pay for training,equiping and transportation of Search & Rescue teams throughout the U.S. andwe have begun overseas
Bear Search and Rescdue Foundation
He was buried as a New York City Firefighter
He has been honored at the United Nations as a "Hero to Humanity"

He does have hundreds of awards (the price paid was the life of what Icherished most)
He had a Bear Day in New York and another in Connectticut where he was born

I do lecture around the country on the WTC, you would probably like thelectures, they are entitled "Lessons learned and not told from the WorldTrade Center". They are things every American should know if they are tosurvive this present government and its callous disregard for the lifesafety of its citizens.

So far I have donated all the monies made to Search and RescueTeams.................
There is a best selling book I wrote that Dr Jane Goodall said was the"best animal human relationship story" she ever read. I have donated what Iget from it to Search and Rescue Teams.

If you send me your address I would like to send you a copy as then youmight understand the pain that your letter caused and you will like thebook. Your words were sent to me from a friend in England (at least we knowyou get read).

Maybe if we get you to New York I can get you to do a benefit so we can useyour talents to do some good (you were funny, if I, and the thing I lovedmost in the world was'nt what you were talking about).

I hope to hear from you soon, and that your days behave for you,
Capt Scott Shields"


So, then there's that. Well, I must say I felt like poo when reading this. I didn't realize a few things. First of all that I was being watched by the Brits (kickass), secondly that I was making stupid assumptions about a person who had been through hell regardless of his dog. I was pleased to find that all of the money he makes from the lectures and from a best selling book are donated back to search and rescue teams. I was most impressed at his demeanor to me. If I were him, I would unfortunately not be so kind to a blogging punk retard actor who feels he can just publish anything about anyone cuz its funny. I would have waged war on me.

But that's the grander point that a lot of this country and certainly the government is missing. He has learned it or maybe he's known it for a while, and hopefully I'm in the process of learning it through how kind and gentle and reasonable he was with me. The IT I speak of is peace. To not respond to violence with violence, but with the mindset that it's probably just a misunderstanding, that this person who attacked me is temporarily misguided, and that through my mellow understanding, we can reach a truce. I send my sincerest apologies to Sheilds. Sometimes the mood strikes me just right to form a comical piece and the listing that I wrote about was great comedy fodder, but I failed to realize that my words could do such harm, and that my own assumptions would be so far from the mark.

And all of this happening this weekend, as if the three year anniversary of the damn thing was enough for this guy to handle, here comes my dumbass saying whatever pops out of my head cuz its funny.

What a friggin world, eh?

b

watching the houston texans game. the power just went out at Reliant Stadium. Check out Reliant's motto: RELIANT

i love it.
b

If one more cliche pops out of your face...

i'm going to end you. now eat your food.

well, it's been a while and more things have happened than i could possibly talk about. i'll pick some highlights.

- drove down to austin with the cupholders in the cupholder mobile (yet to be officially named) without incident.

- did the solo show thursday for the out of bounds festival. whoo. felt real good. maybe one of the best i've ever done. the interview was outstanding and probably had the biggest laugh in the whole show where the girl i interviewed upstaged me big time. the highlight of the show involved a stick with a coat hanger on the end of it. i also had a conversation with my extremeties ending with my willie and how he's lonely now. self-indulgent but funny and cathartic. i think i have recovered whatever i was missing from my solo show an i'm leaning toward the idea that i need to care less about the outcome of the show. in new york and in tornonto i was way too concerned with how my colleagues would see me afterwards. the last two times i've done the show, i've just gone into it not giving a muck what the audience would think at the end of the show.

- did a no shame improv thing with mikey d. that was really funny. good to be on stage with mike again by ourselves. he has great patience and he knows how to pay things off. i usually set things up and he knocks em down.

- friday did the final gravy show of all time, the closing of a very small yet significant chapter in our improv careers. we decided to do the format that we developed specifically for the first out of bounds festival, the elevator. in which we don't take a suggestion and all get trapped in an elevator. then we go into scenes about each other's stories coming back to the elevator to reset. so, it was appropriate that our last show would be the same format as our first. it was amazing. everyone was leaving a lot of space, not stepping on anybody's toes. it was the best teamwork i had ever been a part of with eight people on stage. it was beautiful. the crowd was feeling it. we got a standing ovation. it was hot stuff. really fun and great mid form improv.

- saturday did the golf thing, had a good time. did a whole lot of sweating. saturday night did the improv jam for the festival. now... here's where things get messy. our suggestion was butter. lights went out and the lights came up on one of my fellow jamsters with his pants open, boxers akimbo. nothing happened for a few seconds, no one made any moves. i figured hey, the suggestion is butter, his pants are open, things are getting more and more awkward as time passes. i have an idea of something. i don't like it. and by the time i was done with all those thoughts, my hand was forced (literally) to make a move. i went out established that i had some butter in my left hand. rubbed my right hand on the butter and went to town. someone quickly edited the scene and it was down. i regretted doing it although i did feel it was necessary and it didn't last a gratuitous amount of time. but as is typical in jams, the callbacks began almost instantly and everyone was going scatalogical. blue jokes everywhere, mysogeny, genital, bigoted, you name it. it was happening. and i kept thinking, nice work jeremy, you kicked this jam in the butt at the top of an icy hill and now we were all sliding into the depths of i've-never-improvised-with-you-before-ever hell. i tried to fix things but it was no use. the mob group mind was already out of control and i was letting it show on my face. i was stupid several times over, making my fellow players look bad. feel that sting. that's pride. i felt it and i couldn't swallow it. the jam ended and we all went to our respective holes. sighing deeply. of course, it wasn't that dramatic but i tend to beat myself up about bad improv. what would i have done differently at the beginning of that set? could i have edited my brain and worked in something else that involved butter and his open jeans? the correct answer is yes. but its also the incorrect answer. if i remember this incident and it occurs to me at a later date during improv that i should edit myself and halt an impulse, i will be stuck in a stupid ineffective brain loop. its something i have to forget. easier said than done, obviously, but if i let it haunt me as it has walking around the past few hours, i will be uined. or even worse, RUINED.

- monday and tuesday, available cupholders make their debut and it's nice to be able to do it in our true hometown of austin. i'm really looking forward to making this ac thing being brilliant, and i think we can get there with a little hard work.

boy, my life has done a complete 180 from a month ago. everything is so different. dat bebe is gone, the cupholders are in chicago, i'm on tour with my best friends, show sales for the cupholders are picking up, and i just met my new nephew which was cool. i've been surrounded by people who respect my work all week long (my ego is enormous) yet i feel incredibly lonely. classic sob story right. well, i'm not falling for it. i'm not falling for my own b.s. cliches. i WILL strike a balance. i WILL be successful and companionated. now is just not the time for a lady. i just hope i don't get a whole mess of success and look around to find nobody there. it wasn't going to happen that way but it looks like it might. waaah, wahhh. cry me a river, there are plenty fish in the sea.

if one more cliche pops out of your face...

b

the 5th amendment

i can't say anything about the events of this past weekend beyond allowing you to read this:

http://www.findgreatlawyers.com/Areas/Traffic/10Crosswalks.htm

an explanation will be forthcoming. for now, we'll just call this a suspenseful cliffhanger.

if you see me in person, i will tell you all about it. then we will cry together about what is wrong with the world.

tomorrow i look for a lawyer. yes, it's that bad.
but not as bad as you're thinking right now.

vague and tired,
b

well, i'm feeling much better, thank you.

"This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy."

i conquered some demons tonight. i did a bigly huge show that i felt was a solid piece of something worthwhile. it was probably one of the toughest audiences i have ever performed for. the first two rows were made up of about 10 slick north avenue dwellers, unwinding from a week of 9-5s no doubt. they all had their beers and their dates and their best "Friday" clothes on. I pulled one of them out to interview. She was super cool didn't have too much to say which was great because i didn't lose control of the interview.
so, it was the ten drunks, and a buddy of mine from back in the day, a fellow improviser who had helped prepare me for my show with great words of support. that was it.
i knew i would have to acjust things a bit. they weren't going to be into the metaphysical pseudo-intellectual crap i usually drop to keep the nerds into it. they would need something else. i started by pouring on heavy references to the interview, just to let them know exactly what was going on. i think they dug it. there were points where they were chatting it up with each other or telling each other what i was doing on stage. like, "he's making drinks." "yes, i am making drinks," i said trying to shut them up. but later it actually played into my hands as i called a couple of them out and we all had a good laugh. they were cool, ya know. some people just never learned the ethics of being an audience member and it gets them into trouble when i'm on stage because i WILL call you out for talking while i'm talking. they don't understand that it's different from a movie. i can actualy hear what you're saying. shut up, i'm trying to think so that you can laugh and get your 8 bucks worth.
anyway, i liked the way the show came out. i conquered the fact that there were around 13 people in the audience,having a mere 20 minutes, no air conditioning, going first, not having a crowd that was properly warmed up, and my own personal little stupid demons. i think the thing that did and maybe the thing that i've lost recently in my one man shows is that i didn't give a shit if things worked out. this audience meant nothing to me. i didn't feel i had to impress my friend who was there because he had seen me do good stuff before and i didn't care that this audience wasn't going to be chock full of bearded lamb recruits and new faithful blogateers. didn't care. had a great show. looking forward to the last scheduled bigly show which is the single file festival. i won't be knocking down anybody's door to let me perform this for a while. it's hiatus time.

other notes: DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW YOUR ACCENT HAS CHANGED DURING A SCENE. Are you committed to the scene? Are you lying to everyone by talking about how you're talking? Do you expect this hack joke to work everytime you say it? WRONG. Stop stepping out of the scene and commenting on your accent. ONLY DO ACCENTS YOU ARE COMFORTABLE DOING. Keep the self-doubting, scene-stepping-out-of crap in your head. and then stop thinking. and then stop improvising.

Jensen Count: chalk another one up for the Jensen count. A group that went after me tonight had a Jensen in one of their sketches. I'm telling you, if this world is straying from Jenkins in favor of Jensen, I will have to end my own life.

Had a great chat with my old buddy out on the porch about what is wrong with this city. why so many groups are struggling, and the mentality that is creeping its way into our artform. the group work is dissipating so that jagovs can tell one liners in "scenes." people are standing around and thinking up funny things to say. not even in character. don't care about character. just addicted to the drug that is the audience's laughter. what every comedian/actor/improviser needs. your approval. that's why we're on stage. so you will validate our existence as no one would back in school. we will act out and do crazy things so that you will smile and make us think eveything is fine. "good talk, son." "good talk, dad."

i'm beat. i move upstairs tomorrow and say good bye to my first chicago apartment. i will miss the ridiculously low ceilings, the random dripping water, and the occasional flood threats. i will also miss the history that is seeped into the walls. all the laughs, the philosophy, the sex. it's all staying down here. i'm not going far enough to forget what the walls look like, but i'm going far enough that the new walls will look different.

Today's crappy, sappy metaphor brought to you by Chevrolet. Chevrolet, like a rock.

sleep,
b