Comedian on Call - video blog - teaching Kanye West

Sonic Boom

Hopefully, you are like me and you love those Sonic restaurant commercials. Those guys crack me up. Living in LA, you don't see too many Sonics. In fact the closest one is in Anaheim some 30 miles away from Hollywood. So when I checked into my hotel in Lexington Kentucky and saw a Sonic just up the road I decided to go see what the funny commercials are all about.

It's a drive-in but they allow foot traffic. Whew! The food was what you would expect from a fast food place. I wasn't in love with the prices. What did wow me was the girl who brought my food out on Roller Skates. She was, as the kids say, “sick with it.” She deftly whizzed my food to me on a tray without dropping a morsel. Something about a person rollerskating makes spending money a little easier. Imagine your mechanic telling you you need a new transmission. Now imagine him rollerskating backwards, spinning around, and coming to a stop just inches away from you then breaking the news to you.

YOU: A new transmission? Yeaaaaaaa! Do the spin again!...Do it again...

Okay, maybe you wouldn't be that excited but it would soften the blow. The Sonic took me back to the times depicted on the show Happy Days. As a rule black people aren't too keen on going back. Perhaps we can go back a la carte?

Wear It On Your Sleeve

I was recently in....(sarcastic drumroll please)....Starbucks.

QSN: I realize my blog is way too cool (hopefully) for The Bucks to be my headquarters. If it makes it better I have found a new hip artsy coffee shop called Swork that I will be splitting my time between with the 3 Starbucks across the street..

Back to the story. I sat next to a guy with a sleeve tattoo. Not a tattoo of a sleeve (although that would've been be awesome. Especially if he had French cuffs drawn in) His whole arm had ink in tribute to his passion, music. I know music is his passion because on his arm he had musical notes, piano keys...oh yeah and the word “Passion” in the middle of it all. How cool would it be to ask him if his passion was something else?

ME: So you live for Scrapbooking huh?

TATTED UP GUY: No, music is my thing. It's right here on my arm...

ME: So...you're saying fishing is why you even get out of bed ...that's cool.

I don't have a problem with this guy's public proclamation of his passion. It's just odd that only people in the arts go to such lengths. I would wager that this guy does not make his living off music. Yet, you would be hard pressed to find an accountant with a gaudy tattoo of a ledger on his arm. Try finding a civil engineer with a tattoo of the coliseum with a protractor and compass. Can't do it.

No, professionals leave their self expression up to vanity license plates. Can't say I approve of that either but at least LDGR-GUY doesn't have to wear long sleeves to church.

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Today marked the first full day of the 09 Football Schedule. People have been gearing up for this for the past few weeks. Fantasy Football leagues have had drafts, favorite beer mugs have been polished, flat screens have been purchased. And how did I kick off the NFL's kick off?

I watched Women's Professional Bowling.

It was on when I turned my TV on and I found it intriguing so I didn't turn the channel. I used to watch bowling and wrestling with my grandmother so both make me instantly nostalgic. I also, for the most part, find professional women bowlers attractive. I think it's their attainable, real, girl next door look. In actuality most of them are married and unattainable (Maybe that's why I like them....hmmn...). I'm also a big fan of women Pool players. I suppose that can be more easily read into. Women with sticks is always fun, as long as they aren't mutilating them.

The woman I was routing for lost the match in the last frame by missing badly and leaving a 4-6-7-10 split. Ouch! Picture a smile with all the middle teeth missing and just the sharps ones on the sides left. Not cute in any vain unless the smiler is under 5. This holds true in bowling as well.

Why do we watch sports, or anything for that matter? To be entertained. And what makes it entertaining?...Close games, Suspense, seeing the participants go through the full gamut of emotions as they fight for victory. Well my bowling match had all of that except the players weren't roided up freaks of nature with zero body fat. Quite the contrary actually. :-)

I may watch football tonight to get back in touch with my inner Tarzan.

Saturday, In The Park...

Okay fine it was Sunday but I don't know any songs about being in the Park on Sunday. I was gigging at the legendary Punchline in San Francisco this weekend. My hotel was just a few blocks from China Town. Time for a Dim Sum Run Run....A Dim Sum Run.

On my way to wolf down some tasty “Bit Of Heart”* I came upon a park filled with kids playing on a Jungle Gym, groups of men and women playing cards and a band playing Chinese music with Chinese instruments. As I had just trekked up a hill that seemed perpendicular to the street below with my laptop on my back, a relaxing music break was in order. Other than my bum shoulder and bulky laptop, everything else was near perfect: Vibe, temperature, music, air quality, birds chirping...

As I sat there letting my quads recover from my mountain climb, enjoying the music of the Guzheng, the band was joined by some singers. A man and a woman took turns singing in Chinese. It seemed to be a call and response going on between the two. I could have asked someone what they were saying but that would have taken away the fun of me making up what they were singing.

In my head they were singing, in Chinese:

WOMAN: I gotta man!
MAN: What your man got to do wit' me?...

Mind you, they were both well over 50. (I bet that small detail makes your visualization a tad bit funnier...I hope it does at least.)

This wasn't a girl watching mission. It seemed like everyone in this park was under 6 or over 60. I got some looks but I think it was more, “why is this guy, not in the dawn or twilight of his life, in this park...and why is he black.”

I don't get to sit in the park and chill too often. I highly recommend it.

*Direct Translation of Dim Sum, various small Chinese dishes.

A Ride For Your Ride

I love the fact that Los Angeles buses have a bike rack in the front of them. For no additional cost you can plop your bike unto the front of the bus and you, and your ride, can ride to your location. Great for bike riders needing to go long distances. Bad for the integrity of bike races. I'm sitting in a Bucks in San Francisco writing this blog and I just noticed a bike rack on a San Francisco bus.

Is this bike rack thing common?

New York doesn't offer this service. NYC figures you got a bike...bike. (please note first bike was a noun, second bike a verb.)

Most LA buses can accommodate two bikes. Not sure how they handle it if there are three bikes waiting at the bus stop. Perhaps the most healthy looking one should have to get on their bike and pedal to his or her destination. Look on the bright side Ripped Guy With a Mesh Tank Top on...here's a wonderful calorie burning opportunity for you. Today, Hollywood to Santa Monica. Tomorrow, Tour de France.

I'm not sure what the policy is on those bikes with the big silly handle bars and I think it's safe to assume that if most buses can carry 2 bikes at a time then the unicycle capacity must be 4. Then again, if you ride a unicycle wouldn't the circus send a shuttle for you? Or maybe you spin for a low budget circus. Don't get down on yourself Unicycler things will pick up.

LA Metro Bike Info

Missing On A Star

It’s official. I think we need to add a missing girl segment to the news. People seem to need updates on missing girls as much as they need to know if they need to bring a sweater to work or what the score was last night. Our lost girl appetite is insatiable. We’re here already. Let’s call it what it is.

I’m not talking about merely covering the latest missing or rescued girl. I’m talking about a daily segment, like the weather or sports.

WEATHER MAN: Look for things to cool down by the end of the week but today will be a scorcher.

ANCHORMAN: Thanks Cole and now with the missing girl segment, here’s Patricia.

QSN: In the states (and let’s be honest by readership is international…I mean, a guy in Toronto counts right?) Anyhoo, here, weather men have to have names that sound like weather conditions. My previous scene is no different. My imaginary weather man’s last name is Front.

Don’t get me wrong people being abducted and taken from their family is very sad. But what makes the tears roll down my face is that the general populace doesn’t really care. We’re just gobbling up the sensationalism of it all. Also sad, 4 out of ten times the very family that’s on TV crying and pleading for help is responsible for their own little girl’s disappearance.

I’m just waiting for the missing little girl drinking games to start popping up.

QSN = Quick Side Note