The Powerpoint presentation at the "department restructuring and floor plan meeting" takes on an oddly surreal glow when your director yells:

"In Bangladesh we got rid of 367 posts and started from scratch with 150 brand new ones. I could just abolish all the posts here and do that! Would you like that, huh? Who here would like that?"

Is there anyone who works at a company for more than 6 months anymore?

Didn't people used to work at "the phone company" for 96 years and then retire into a linen closet in the basement?

Is this all to save money on Cross pen engravings?

10:00PM JUNE 17 AND 24

Also, Man Who Ate 10-Speed Bicycle Gets A Flat

Join Kyria Abrahams and Erik Seims for several peculiar vignettes and sketches, several of which were written naked.

In "ˇYo Quiero Pancakes!" you'll learn:

*how premeditated murder can drum up business at your local restaurant
*all about several words which don't have a "G" in them
*what the tastiest, finger-lickin' food is ever!

Sprinkled with stand-up comedy, this show is kind of like coconut rice pudding. And pudding is delicious.

If you must see one show at Juvie Hall at 10:00pm Friday, June 17 and 24, see "ˇYo Quiero Pancakes!"

Admission is $6.00 at the door.

I can't believe you're missing this show. And to think, I trusted you. If you think I'll ever trust you again, you know what - I'll never trust you again!

So, you might as well read the story I'm telling tonight.

I can't believe I trusted you!!

ENJOY!!!!! :)

Performance Anxiety, Slam Style

Our poetry slam team was very important. We came in 4th out of 40 teams at the 1997 National Poetry Slam in Middletown, CT, perhaps you recall. Now, we, the 4th place victors, were returning home to claim our ticker-tape parade in a final performance at the Boston Public Library hosted by pulitzer prize nominated columnist, Patricia Smith.

I've invited coworkers.

A poetry slam team is made up of 4 people, who take turns competing in tournament poetry bouts. Our team was made up of myself, Dawn, Sou, and Sean.

Sean was a "full time poet", from Grand Rapids, Michigan who wrote like William Burroughs would have, if he had been a kid from Grand Rapids Michigan trying to write like William Burroughs.

He was a raver, although it was just a little too late to be raving. He did a lot of drugs, like "I'm gonna drop acid and go hang out in the bus tunnel" and then complain that the pigs came and broke up the party (they're so corrupt!). He had a criminal record but it was very suburban, in a "we drank Boones Farm and broke into a shed" way. His parents were doctors but he thought he was Charles Bukowski because he didn't want to get a job.

Sean had a poem and he wanted to perform it as a "team piece". A team piece, in slam terminology, is a single poem which is performed by multiple voices - which is an interesting concept in that it allows a pretentious piece of shit to become even louder.

His poem is about his dead friend, Brian. His friend Brian who died in a fiery car crash because car crashed are fiery.

Sean has a vision for his poem, he wants to set it to an capella beat box of a Kraftwerk song none of us have heard.

It goes: Boing. Boom. Chacka Chacka Chack.

Dawn says Boing, Sou says, Boom, I say, Chacka Chacka Chack, like so:

We sing: "Boing, boom, chacka chacka chack" and then Sou belts out, "I wanna take you higher" and Sean comes in with his poem,

"Never bought a dime when half an eighth would do/I've always been attracted to the freaks of this world/and that includes you... Brian."

Boing, boom, chacka chacka chack.

I wanna take you higherrrrr!

And Sean mimics, "Do you wanna go higher, Brian? Do you really wanna go higher?"

Then Sean starts - RAVING. He's dancing. Only, he's not so much dancing as he is walking in place and waving his arms back and forth like he's swimming. He's wearing a billowy Fabio-type pirate shirt with a silky tie-died vest over it, but he's... fat, so he looks sort of like Meatloaf with his gut is jiggling and the chest hair hanging out and the audience is truly filled with disdain. They're nauseated. Women are taking pocket knives and cutting out their vaginas, they're so horrified. Every time I look at him, I dry heave a little in my throat. They hate him, and they hate us, and we're growing quieter, boinging and booming under our breath, embarrased,

and the poem is

escalating

and Sean is dramatically throwing his arms in the air,

and Brian is driving and Brian is high and Brian is getting ready to crash in a fiery ball of flame,

Brian, you were the dime-bag Jesus, the friend I never had when I never needed a friend who never had a friend like you, Brian.

And Sean is getting

higher

getting ready for the crescendo, the cymbal crash, the finale of the piece when he lifts his arms to the heavens and screams: "BRIAAAAAAN!!!" and the three of us simultaneously yell:

"FIRE!!"

Only, we... don't. We just don't say it. We just are filled with hatred and embarassement and incompetence and we say nothing.

Sean has his arms up in the air. He looks over at us and we just stand there, and he thrusts his arms in the air several more times and glares at us, as if to say, "FIRE! COME ON! SAY IT! FIRE!"

His Briaaaan just hangs there.

And Sou mumbles, Boing, uh, boom, and I say, "I - I'm sorry", "Oh. Shit." and Dawn leans in to the microphone and asks, "Fire?"

The audience is horrified. Sean BOLTS off stage.

I've invited coworkers.

We shrug our shoulders and slink off stage, because we think this hysterical. Except for Sean. Who doesn't find it quite as funny. He has run downstairs to the Boston Public Library green room and proceeeds to lock himself in the bathroom and scream, YOU WERE MAKING FUN OF MY DEAD FRIEND!!

Patricia Smith just shakes her head, because white boys are assholes.

Come see this show and answer the question: why did my boyfriend book only females? Is it because he's a faggot? YES!! Maybe. Well... you'll see!!

COMEDIANS, MUSICIANS, PRODUCERS REVISIT ONSTAGE HORROR STORIES IN "PERFORMANCE ANXIETY,"
10:00PM JUNE 3 AT JUVIE HALL

Also, Man Eats 10-Speed Bicycle


Here's what the critics are saying about "Performance Anxiety"!

"You haven't done the show yet. I can't review it." -- Richard Roeper

"'Performance Anxiety' might be good. It might not be. I don't know, because a permanent record of it won't exist until June 3rd." -- Neil Rosen

"Must ... destroy ... raspberries!" -- former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, while being attacked by raspberries

Join Kyria Abrahams, Jennifer DeMeritt, Becky Donohue, Liza Garelik, Jennifer Glick, Diane and Tanya O'Debra, and host Erik Seims as they revisit moments in their performing and producing lives when things went horribly, horribly wrong. From unexpected and not-entirely-welcome audience participation to technical nightmares to megalomaniacal promoters to strange venues to who-knows-what else, this unusual combination of comedians, musicians and performers have all been there when the wheels came off. How did they deal with these crises? Come by and find out.

Part comedy, part tragedy and part exorcism, "Performance Anxiety" will take place at 10:00pm on Friday June 3rd, at Juvie Hall, 24 Bond Street (B,D,F,V or 6 to Broadway-Lafayette/Bleecker Street) Admission is $6.00 at the door.

I don't own a television, yet I just joined Netflix.

Thanks.

It is my sincere hope that I will produce more work of this caliber in the near future.

The first movie I intend on renting is The Mumpets Take MANPADS.

Have you checked in on "the cardeologist", aka: bizcards, lately?

He's still everything a blog should be.

Oh yea a cool movie is coming on tonight. The Mumpets are doing a movie on OZ and it will be on tonight, Friday, May 20, 2005 at 8 p.m. on ABC. Tune in to it and watch it. The previews appear to be great so far. I know I will prob. enjoy it.

Everyone has to have a favourite acronym. Make this one yours:

MANPADS: man-portable air defense systems

As in,

"Prevention of the illicit transfer and unauthorized access to and use of man-portable air defense systems"

(From: The UN Chronicle)

If you were bored or horrified by that last post, tell the retarded to get funnier - ASAP!

Maybe the reason you can physically tell when someone is retarded is because if the features weren't noticably different, we'd all be using it as an excuse. Like ADD.

"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to give you a refill on your coffee. I guess it's just because I'M MENTALLY RETARDED!!"

Then you would honestly have to apologize, "I'm so sorry - I had no idea that you were retarded!"

And they would say, "Well, I haven't officially been diagnosed, but a friend of mine lent me a book on it, and I have all the same symptoms."

Dave the gardener has a new dog. The new dog is not Spot. Spot got hit by a car. The new dog is Spot 2.

When daddy Dave throws the Dogobee dog frisbee to Spot 2, it bounces gracefully off his nose and into the dirt-space against the slatted fence. Mr. Michyko, the neighbor, peers through his favorite slat and says, "He's not Spot."

"No, he's not Spot," Dave sighs, as he always does, "He's a completely different dog."

The new dog jumps higher but slower, and his paws are a different color. His paws are bright brown with huge white spots. Spot had no spots, which was the irony of his name.

"Spot 2 has great big spots," says Mr. Michyko, the garden hose hanging like a limp erection into the Bleeding Hearts and Portulaca, "But he's not Spot!"

Then, laughing, "He's getting fat, though. Real big."

Then, "How's Ellen?"

Dave curls his arms around the thick puppy neck, gets licked all over and thinks of nothing.

"She's just fine," he says, patting Spot 2 playfully on the ass, "Such a beautiful doggie, aren't you? Yes you are! Aren't you good?"

They didn't buy a new good doggie right away, of course. They waited three weeks, respectfully, then several more days for the pound to "get their act together". All the flowers around the mound in the back yard had wilted when Spot 2 came home on that first day and trampled through them.

"No Spot 2! You can't dig THERE!" said Sally and Billy simultaneously, "Ohhh nooo! Spot 2!"

Dave repainted the garage in Sears Kid-Tough flat white wall enamel, but Spot 2 scuffed it up real quick. Dogs are not really children.

"Do you miss Spot?" asked Mr. Michyko through a splintered fence slat.

"Silly! He's right there!" answered Sally.

"No, I meant the first Spot." Mr. Michyko explained.

"Oh. I dunno!" she said, pulling her yellow dress up and swinging from side to side.

Spot 2 throws himself against the fence for seemingly no reason, saliva cobwebbing from his jowls to the forsythia bush. On the ground beneath him, a hackee sack in turquoise and orange and maroon is rotting into the wet dirt where it was lost last summer. If Ellen were a gardener, she would have found it weeks ago, on the first temperate day, as she shifted handfuls of moldy leaves from the flower bed to an industrial trash bag. Instead, the new landscaper will accidentally toss it into the mulcher and one speck of earth will be inexplicably turquoise.

The new dog is not Spot. Spot got hit by a car. So did Dave's wife. Now he has a new wife, whom he loves very much. She eats oatmeal for breakfast, doesn't garden, and subscribes to Country Living Magazine. Her long blonde hair is soothing and beautiful. Sometimes he curls around her in their bed and thinks of flat white paint.

I have Inflamed Sesamoids.

I can't wear high heels, which, sadly, I expected. Also, I apparently have to give $30.00 to every girl I see walking down the street in a pair of UGGs! :(

Here's a picture of me modeling for Downcast Overbite Monthly:

(metaphorically and physically and jelly donut mitten computer)