Tomorrow evening I’m going to participate in a reunion show with my old Sketch Comedy group, “The Other White Meat.”  It will be the first time we’ve performed together in seven years, which is a whole lot of water under the bridge.  For the most part, it’s a greatest hits type show.  This is out of necessity as folks are coming in from all over and we only had two days to rehearse, as opposed to the month we used to take getting a show on it’s feet in the old days.  We did want to include some new material, though, and what we agreed on was a sort of essay by each of us on what we’d been up to for since 1994.  I’m publishing mine here because A.) my deadline is on me B.) I’ve been very busy memorizing lines and reviewing scripts for direction and C.) hard work is pretty much anathema to me.  So without further ado, whatever the hell ado is, the actual text I will be reading from.

Got married to a woman way better than I had coming, had a  kid, Theodora, lovely, severe sleep disorder, bought a house, had this other kid, I think it’s a girl named... something from Shakespeare was the idea but now I’m thinking “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and just really crossing my fingers it wasn’t some name from “Dawsons Creek” because it’s cruel and the wife and I don’t watch that show so we’d probably have gotten it wrong.  Anyway, she was born when Theo was five and just starting to sleep through and this one, the new one?  Had colic which if you’ve never been around it is the only thing besides the Holocaust that’s actually like the Holocaust.  Wrote a Novella, sold it for over six hundred bucks.  Wrote another novella, sold it to the same magazine, which had stopped printing and was now on line, $400.00 bucks, wrote another novella, sold it to the same magazine and a few months later it was returned without payment, the e-zine version had gone under.  Wrote a book, two more novella, a dozen short stories, collected to date 314 rejection slips 14 of which contain adult language.  This last year I’ve been publishing in five different comedy e-zines, and my various pieces have received in the neighborhood of 50,000 hits.  I have made a total of $38.00.

I have not published a book or appeared in a movie, television show, television or radio commercial.  I have not hobnobbed with anyone famous.  I have not been able to quit my day job.  I have not purchased a new car.  I have not had anyone say ‘wow, you’re so young to have done that.’  I have not read ‘Ulysses.’  I have not seen a live action movie in a movie theater.  I have not committed adultery with a super model or anyone under the age of sixteen.  I have not been consulted by the Pope, Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.N. Chairperson Butros Butros Galli or Canadian singer/songwriter Helen Reddy on any matters of signifigance.  I have not earned my first million, my first quarter million, my first 32 of a million or ever on any occasion dry humped golf legend Jack Nicclaus.  I did not make the film “Pearl Harbor,” I do not know how those kids got in my crawl space or why the key in my pocket fits a Mexican bus station locker containing what appears to be a human pancreas atop a plate of movie theater nachos, I have never spanked my kids, lots of kids have bruises like that and do NOT listen to a word that damn sheep says, he’s a pathological liar.  I never said I was perfect, never died for your sins and whatever you may think am still morally opposed to the paid endorsement of products containing Olestra, not that anyone’s been waving a check in my face and why would they because honestly who am I?  I am not bitter, I have no questions about ‘the path not taken’ I do not regret my choices, I do not look at my children and hear a voice in my head describing the many, many ways they have ruined my life, I do not need to wear a faraday cage over my head to scramble the instructions I receive daily from Warren Christopher commanding me to seek out and destroy Canadian singer song writer Helen Reddy, the Faraday cage is simply a fashion statement, and I never once had “improper thoughts” about the Olsen twins, and if I did I certainly waited ‘till the wife was out of town to have those thoughts or at least had the decency to lock myself in the bathroom before in any way acting upon those thoughts and can certainly say I did not in any way make a digital archive of the event or post it on the internet and I will not give you the URL if you meet me out back after the show with a $50.00 bill. Okay $20.00. $5.00 and the rest of that soda your drinking.  And if I did do all that, well I’m sure I’m sorry but what do you want from me anyway, blood?  Is this your business, is satisfying your prying voyeuristic needs what I was born for, is there no tiny corner of my life I’m allowed to keep private from you people?!  OK, OK, my life didn’t turn out the way I imagined it would OK, but you know what.  My guess is neither did yours.

THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT, YOU’VE BEEN A WONDERFUL AUDIENCE!!

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