Archive | May, 2009

ten years gone

23 May

Ten years ago

I was lying in my own self pity, the engine to my car had burned up
as well as my dreams of selling it and spending the money on a trip to Amsterdam where I could smoke weed legally and write in some seedy
hotel room.

Smoking weed from a foil pipe before my art classes, I’d completely mailed things in and soon enough I wasn’t even in school.

I took a job steam cleaning and laying carpets and would soon lose that job after sleeping in, nursing a killer hangover from an evening of acid, wine, and hydro at a Tom Petty concert.

So that fall found me kind of searching for that next step.
But i knew I wanted to travel, give back to my community and society, make love to different women, meet different people from different backgrounds, and eventually finish school. I knew I wanted to write but i had nothing to write about back then.

So i enrolled back in school, got my grades good enough to transfer to a university and spent a lot of time travellling, making love, meeting people, and becoming a good enough writer to be proud of my output.

So when i tell people i’m happy with who I am, I’m not saying I’m satisfied with the person I’ve become and need no more improvement upon my character and situation; I’m just saying I’ve come far.

In relation to who I once was, miserable, lost, restless and confused, I’m in a much better place now.

I’ve got my own crib, I’ve got a nice little catalog to build on, friends, family and experiences, sometimes its good to reflect and get a little perspective on how far you’ve come.

it makes you appreciate and understand the journey you’re on. i don’t have that much further to go to be the guy i imagined.

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Why I finally joined facebook

23 May

Hi I'm Bobby Mickey wanna buy a book?

Hi I'm Bobby Mickey wanna buy a book?

So I finally did it. Sold my soul to the devil. Funny what one will do for their career. You make sacrifices, you do things you don’t necessarily do under normal circumstances.

 

You move to cities you don’t really like, sleep with people you wouldn’t normally bone, join social networks you don’t necessarily delve into.

I remember when Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch and at the time I was incensed. I gave up my account and wnet on a five month hiatus, only returning when i realized that I was moving and that perhaps I’d wanna keep some superficial relationships.

That was during a weird time when i stopped having a phone and the only way to reach me was to ring my doorbell at 923 W. Oak street or email me, or call me at my office on campus………

back then I was a young man of principle. I stuck to my guns as I sat in my bath robe and got high and played Zelda for regular nintendo.

So today was a mixed bag when I finally joined the Facebook network. It was time to finally admit that Myspace was what Friendster became in 2005.

I remember it was a big deal when Myspace had hit a million users, then before long 3 million and now its a big virus……and soon facebook will be the same way, unable to keep up with the next big social network where you can track your friends, have a profile and get head directly from the profiles of the little darlings who message you about blowjobs and dirty pics.

So you ask, what’s the difference between the networks now?

I have no idea. Facebook seems to be a site where people just constantly update their status, no one really has anything to say, it only seems like another opportunity to plug something like every other huckster online.

Here is what the “Sports Guy” Bill Simmons had to say about facebook  in a recent mailbag on ESPN. com

“As for Facebook, I don’t mind getting status updates and snapshots of what my friends’ lives are like — even if “Bob the Builder” is prominently involved — as long as they aren’t posting 10 times a day or writing something uncomfortable about their spouse/boyfriend like “(Girl’s name) is … trying to remember the last time she looked at her husband without wanting to punch him in the face” or “(Girl’s name) is … just going to keep eating, it’s not like I have sex anymore.” Keep me out of your personal business, please. Other than that, the comedy of status updates can be off the charts. Like my college classmate who sends out status updates so overwhelmingly mundane and weird that my buddies and I forward them to each other, then add fake responses like, “(Guy’s name) … snapped and killed a drifter tonight” and “(Guy’s name) … would hang myself if the ceilings in my apartment weren’t too short.” It kills us. We can’t get enough of it. We have been doing it for four solid months. And really, that’s what Facebook is all about — looking at photos of your friend’s kids or any reunion or party, making fun of people you never liked and searching for old hook-ups and deciding whether you regret the hook-up or not. That’s really it. All in all, I like Facebook.”

That sums up my opinion exactly (sort of). there used to be a real divide back in the early days. Either you were a myspace geek or a facebooker. The facebook started out as something where you had to be in school in order to be a member.

It was a real pain in the ass to start an account and most of the people on there were real squares, straight edged people who really didn’t care much for music (their tastes being for Jimmy Eat World, Save Ferris, Nickelback, and Bowling For Soup), never took drugs, and usually marked Christianity as religion of choice.

Funnily enough, I met this hottie from Calgary who told me I should get on there and I tried and couldn’t get on it and gave up in frustration. But that was the only time I ever attempted to be on facebook other than now.

Although I was opposed to Fox owning myspace, the more weirder kinkier, artsy kids ended up on myspace, my buddy Craig even met girls and boned them from setting up his account.

So it came to pass, every comedian, and artist I knew were saying comeon over to facebook, its easy to set up and everyone is on there now, myspace is a wasteland.

I considered the time i swallowed my pride and said Murdoch be damned and once again put my info out there for all the CIA to see,
and decided to do it one more time.

Hell they already knew everything about me anyway huh? Who cares that they sponsored the debates last year. and so i logged my email address in and they immediately knew who I could be friends with just from my contacts list on my email.

Too spooky.

Anyway, I’ll be pushing my book, and comedy info there as well. And adding my name to every other huckster, square, hipster, douchebag and lemming on the social network website.

I reckon I might as well join Okcupid again and sequester my whole existence to cyberspace eh? How in the hell did this happen?

ten years ago I didn’t even have an email account.

No Flush/ Retraction

17 May

You don't wanna know what I did for that ice cream cone, there is a reason they say don't take candy from strangers.

You don't wanna know what I did for that ice cream cone, there is a reason they say don't take candy from strangers.

I’m always one who can admit when i was wrong or looking at something the wrong way.

I had a great time this week in Kansas. I sold a lot of books, and made a lot of people laugh. The people in Wichita treated me like a star and made me love them even more.

Lawrence was nice, charming town for sure, great places to eat, a bit too homogenous for me to ever consider living there, it’s like a half gallon of vitamin D milk.

I did meet some nice people while there, most notably a beautifully sweet libriaran, Diane Hauser who helped me get a guest pass as well as looked into whether the library would carry a copy of “S and M”

All in all it was a great trip and my hope is to help sew up some of these common threads in the midwest and help bring more artists together.

My main focus is to get the rough mix of the new book out of the way before I leave for the east coast. Wichita is happening for sure, it aint the prettiest, the bars are smoky as hell, but the people there are some real gems, and the truth is you’ll find whatever you’re looking for anywhere. James Gates is my hero!!!!

Squares and hip people are everywhere, and happiness, much like a good time; is something you create.

Stitches

14 May

There's more to Bobby Mickey than a big penis and wonderful smile.

There's more to Bobby Mickey than a big penis and wonderful smile.

I suppose growing up watching Groucho Marx and JerryLewis films will have a weird effect on you.

You start thinking about the road you’ve taken and you realize just how much the little things can afffect you in a big way.

When people aske me why or how I got started in comedy, the easiest and most direct answer is that I met a girl in San Francisco who worked as a Cocktail waittress at a comedy club.

I fell in love with her and wanted to impress her so I started going to the place she worked. Realizing I was just as funny if not funnier than the guys I was paying to watch, I decided to get on stage myself.

But that’s not the whole story.

I grew up reading comic strips Dagwood, Dilbert, Pearls for Swine, Calvin and Hobbes, Boondocks, and Foxtrot are some of my all-time faves.

As for cartoons, there was Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Loony Tunes, Pink Panther, Rocky and Bullwinkle (obviously if you’ve seen my stand up), Dudley Do Right, George of the Jungle, Yogi Bear, Boondocks, Aqua Teen, Family Guy, Simpsons, The Venture Brothers, Frisky Dingo, Stroker and Hoop…I was and still am a serious cartoon junky (hell Bobby Hill was one of my first inspirations to become a stand up), especially when i realized how much they are really for big kid/adult types.

then of course there was Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiam. These shows helped me get in touch with my inner, dark, cynical, asshole self. Quite freeing.

When I was 13 I started watching Def Comedy Jam as a kid, Shucky Ducky, Hamburger, Dave Chappelle, Martin, Joe Torry, Bernie Mac, Chris Tucker, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Rock

were some of my first comedic influneces.

I preferred In Living Color to Saturday Night Live, and the Kids in the Hall were a weekly Sunday night treat for me.

I lvoed comic sitcoms also, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, My Favorite Martian, Get Smart, Gomer Pyle, My Three Sons, Mr. Ed, the Munsters, The Addams Family..the list goes on and on.

 

I just always liked to laugh.

When Nixon died in 1993, I wrote a skit about him parodying the Jim Rome show.

When I was a junior in college, I started writing my own blog called Raving and Drooling. It was sophomoric and bratty, but occasionally I had nuggets of insight.

Most of the time I just took potshots at my ex-girlfriend and wrote crazy things like “Dear Machiavelli” or “You’re a good man Charlie Murphy.”

Around this time I started watching lots of stand up, Pryor, Rock, Redd Foxx (I was raised on Sanford and Son) and Chris Rock.

Last Comic Standing was just getting on television and I felt like I had a legitimate shot at being just as funny as any of those yahoos.

So I got up at an open mic and did jokes about shaving my pubes, ex- girlfirends and other silly mundane things….I sucked…(and almost swallowed a condom) but it was like the first time I went surfing, I realized it was something i wanted to do the rest of my life.

5 years later I’ve finally disgarded the soggy biscuit jokes and I”ve had my share of groupies (can’t turn them into girlfriends I’ve learned)

and I’ve learned a lot from touring, and performing all over

and there still isn’t a better feeling than making someone barrell over in laughter. It brings me more pleasure than giving a girl an organism err– orgasm.

But if you really want to know what got me into comedy, it was this article in playboy

20 Q’s with Jamie Foxx. He said in it “that being funny is an awesome gift to have because women love funny dudes. Even you’re not sleeping with them, they will always want to be around you because they love dudes who can make them laugh.”

I took this to heart and realized that I wanted to be funnier and to be funnier I needed to be smarter.

So I enrolled back into university and took classes, and the rest of course, is history.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

14 May
Local Texas boy Keith Langford smashing on fools. A damn shame they didn't win it all in '03

Local Texas boy Keith Langford smashing on fools. A damn shame they didn't win it all in '03

KU.

I’m in Lawrence, Kansas right now at the  public library.

I’m in town on my day off from a nice little road trip. Did stand up in Wichita on Monday and I have a poetry reading in Wichita on Friday at the Blank Page Gallery on Douglas street.

With two days off I decided to hit up the town where Burroughs holed up before he died, to see what all this talk is about.

Now I’ve always had an affinity for Jayhawks basketball ever since I started watching college hoops.

I loved the uniforms and my first ever tourney was watching Adonis Jordan and Rex Walters play in the same backcourt in ’93. That was the year of the C-Webb timeout against UNC. J-Kidd and Steve Nash both made a little noise that year as well.

Some of my favorite moments of watching Jayhawks hoops involved Nick Collison’s 20-24 agaisnt UT in Allen Fieldhouse in 2003, Collison putting up a 30-20 against Duke in the tournament, Drew Gooden beasting it up against UT in Austin in 2002, and the Mario Chalmers shot to send it into overtime against Memphis in 2008 (I was in San Antonio during that game and the city was flooded with Jayhawks fans, it was pretty surreal. I met Larry Brown and Michael Lee– even ran into Patrick Ewing, he looked fat.)

I’ve visited up here on a couple of occasions but this was the first time I really got to kick it.

I’m staying with this cat Marcel, who I met on couchsurfing.com and he is a super cool cat. a recent transplant from Seattle, he likes hoops, jazz, women, and traveling. I think I’d call that a kindred spirit wouldn’t you?

He showed me around a little bit then I checked out the jazzhaus on Mass street. It was cool, reminded me a bit of Berkeley as far as vibes go, a very nuetral energy.

it’s kind of squaresville out here. Lots of fratty/ sorostitute types. Lots of hot chicks, but none I’d be innarested in. I’m a country boy at heart and these girls just wouldn’t be picking up what I’m putting down.

I prefer the ladies in Wichita. A bit more twisted, and if you can put up with all the cigarrette smoke, you’re guaranteed some anal…..they don’t play around in that town. They could give Okie women a run for their money.

As it is, I’m here one more day and then I head back down towards home. Good times for sure. Excited about the poetry reading. I read some stuff at the open mic and I got a mixed response. The best one was from the guy who runs sound:

” WHen I found out there’d be poetry I was thinking it’d be boring and pretensious, but it was nothing at all like that. It was funny, honest, dirty and best of all real. You gotta come back Bobby.”

I most definitely will. Especially if I can score some basketball tickets in the winter. I’ll paint the town Jayhawk blue. But as for right now, it just can’t get weird enough for me here.