Pinatas and Pipe Wrenches

Tomorrow night, Monday, July 10th, my 29th birthday, Treat St. Bar, the corner of 24th and treat in the deep mission. There will be a pinata. I will be breaking my alcohol sabbatical. There will be stupidity. All are welcome. All women are required to wear Catholic schoolgirl uniforms or cheerleader out fits with big red "cents" signs on them. All men must be dressed as kangaroo's, cheerleader outfits optional. Louisa will be jumping out of a whole-wheat sugar-free cake and performing an interperative dance strip tease to "winds of change" by the Scorpions. Tuula will try to act as if she is above all of this nonsense, unsuccessfully. Chris Karney will call you stupid, and tell you why. What's worse, he'll probably be right. It's okay, we'll strap him to the pinata and tell the local mexican kids that he is full of chiclets. Hopefull Eric Farman will show up just to make less sense than I do.

I was serious about the cheerleader outfits. And if someone builds a dunk tank, I will gladly sit atop it and insult whoever buys a baseball. All proceeds go to last months rent. I plan on having another birthday in a week to pay for this months.

Mexicans and Larvae

I'm a heavy drinker.
I'm a heavy sleeper.
I'm a heavy dreamer.

I don't like mornings, I don't like children, I don't like jackhammers, I don't like bulldozers, and I don't like Mexicans. Well, at least not today. Not all Mexicans mind you, just the six outside slamming the scoop of the bulldozer into the concrete hard enough to make my @?!@ing house quiver like a thirteen year old girl rapt with her first climax.
At nine o'clock in the Goddamn morning.
And to think I was toasting the whole country with a six-pack of pilfered Corona last night.

I woke up at eight to a @?!@ing jackhammer right in front of my house. No big deal, I've already had my three hours of sleep. Assholes. I never even woke up all the way, I just figured World War III had finally begun, and I'd just try to sleep through the invasion. The jackhammer finally stops, or at least I manage to coerce the Sandman into taking me back for a few moments, and then, there it isBANG!with theBANG!bulldozerBANG!. I live on theBANG!fourth floor, and myBANG!wholeBANG!apartment isBANG!shaking. Of courseBANG!, I'm still dreamingBANG!, I think I'm a NavyBANG!Seal for the Czech RepublicBANG!, and I can solve this wholeBANG!thing with my laser-guidedBANG!rocket launcher with theBANG!Kung-Fu Grip?.

Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to wake up and realize that you DON'T have a @?!@ing rocket-launcher? When there is a big yellow dinosaur ripping the world apart at the seams RIGHT OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW?!?

And I can't be mad at the guys outside, they're just doing their job, they're making a living, but what I want to know is who the @?!@ signs work orders for these douchebags to break open the @?!@ing street at EIGHT IN THE GODDAMN MORNING?!? This is America for Christ's sake, and I didn't become an entertainer to wake up early. I have the right, as an American, to get hammered on the only social drug that we have deemed legal, and sleep until the sun goes down so that the light doesn't ever creep into my hangover.

FINE, I'm @?!@ing UP!
I'll go get get coffee.

Now here's another fine example of laws that don't make sense. I am not allowed to smoke in any indoor public space, including a BAR, okay fine. I'll deal with it. BUT!
Children are allowed almost anywhere. Like my coffee shop, my sanctuary, at 10am. @?!@ing toddlers, no less. Three of them, little @?!@ing princesses.
Yelling.
Screaming
Squealing.
Screeching.
Running around with their overpriced stuffed animals from Nordstrom.
While their parents just look on and smile. And laugh. While I try to figure out how to gag all three of them with two napkins and a Java Jacket?. Then the kicker. The tables in the coffee shop are cocktail tables, you know, the square kind, with one leg in the center, the kind that aren't all that stable, but most ADULTs have no problem with. One of the little yuppie larvae breaks from the pack, and heads for some treat on the table, unsupervised, but directly in front of me. I see her grab the corner of the table and start a pull-up, and the biggest, evillest shit-eating grin starts to blossom on my face. It only gets bigger and I watch the "tragedy" unfold in slow motion as the other groggy schmucks in the joint start to get up, like they're going to to do anything. She goes up and the table starts to teeter, the balance point has been reached, and little Sally just learned her first lesson in physics. The table goes over, throwing hot coffee everywhere, and smacking her right in the forehead as they both (larvae and table) hit the ground together. Sally starts screaming at the top of her lungs, Mom comes back in, hopefully embarrassed enough to rethink her decision to violate my temple/cafe with her moron spawn ever again. Everyone in the joint starts in with the "Is she OK?"s and mock, but limp, sympathy. I however, get a refill, and walk home whistling.

The workers are done, I can go back to embracing Mexicans and construction workers everywhere, I've got a head start on my day, and someone else is more miserable than I.

It's going to be a beautiful day.

If assholes could fly.

Firsts are a beautiful thing.

Filled with trepidation (and sometimes trephination) and wonder, they draw you in with that hint of mystery, the unknown, and a touch of danger. Your first kiss. Your first love. Your first car, condom, or high-colonic. Last night was the first time I ever intentionally walked an audience member at a comedy club. It was also the first time I ever had someone try to storm the stage and kick my ass. It was glorious.

I was hosting the showcase last night, and the crowd was good, maybe a little quiet. Things were moving along fine until the 3rd comic, Doug Coover. Doug's doing his set and starts doing this joke about seeing a license plate in Texas that said L-U-V-Y-A-D-U-B-Y-A. I know Doug's act, and the joke never actually insults the President, it's pretty short and sweet, but as soon as he spells "Dubya" some alcohol soaked rag of a human being starts growling at top volume.

"PERFECT!"

"FABULOUS!"

"FANTASTIC!"

Doug tries to ignore it, but this is one asshole that WILL BE HEARD, no matter how much it stinks up the room.

"THE FINEST PRESIDENT WE'VE EVER HAD!"

(generally upset crowd murmer, Doug just rolls his eyes)

"WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME WHY HE'S BAD"

Doug is now trying to just switch to another joke, softly, gently, and comes out and tells the guy, okay you're offended, we'll talk about something else. Meanwhile, two old lesbians in the back start yelling "Why don't YOU tell us why he's good!" Now I roll my eyes.

Doug finally gets into other material, and the guy quiets down, and he finishes his set. But there's a big black @?!@ing cloud hanging over the audience now, and I'm not having it. So, I made a snap decision as I walk onstage to outro Doug and bring up the next comic. I don't want this guy here, I don't want him to get away with overshadowing the show. I decide to pick a fight.

Let me say this first. I don't care who you voted for. I voted for Leonard Peltier, and he's in prison for Chrissake. I don't mind Republicans in the crowd, I'm a comic partly because I got sick of preaching to the converted in political hardcore bands. I don't like looking like a Nazi, and that's how it seems when you make someone leave after they've shouted out their political views. I didn't attack him because he voted for an idiot. I attacked him because he IS an idiot.

I walk onstage, get a round of applause for Doug, look right at the guy and say "Wow, that was awkward." and I just stare. The crowd titters a little bit, and as soon as he starts to speak up I say "Sir, you know he doesn't need you to defend him. He's the PRESIDENT. He's got an Army. The Secret Service. George W. is not sitting on his ranch in Texas going 'Thank God, after all this Iraq and Katrina shit, that some drunk hick in a shithole comedy club in San Francisco is shouting my praise at some poor comic that works for drink tickets and day-old sandwiches.'"

Crowd roars, and he starts to pipe up again, like I'm going to let up.

"I don't care who you voted for, Sir, because the guy you voted for DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU. We're here to laugh and escape this bullshit, this isn't some alcoholic rendition of 'Crossfire', it's a comedy club."

More laughing and clapping, he mutters and his friends shut him up. The cloud is still there though. I could have just got on with the show, but I want Victory, not a stalemate. The guy's just going to spout off again, and the crowd seems to love seeing me rip him a new asshole. So I wait until it goes dead silent again, and look him right in the eye.

"Do you fuck up EVERY party that you go to?"

The crowd roars the loudest they have so far and burst into applause. Now he starts yelling.

"Oh yeah, I fuck up everything!"

"That's pretty obvious."

"It ain't easy to fuck up EVERYTHING!"

"Oh yeah it is, I'm an expert on the subject. Come on, look at who you're talking to. I fuck shit up for a living; relationships, apartments, jobs... how the hell do you think I wound up here? We're both assholes, but I'm the professional, and you're just an amateur."

The crowd's going nuts, this is where he gets up.

"Yeah, well... YOU LOSE!"

"I LOSE? Not only did we take your money at the door, but now you're leaving. Not only do I WIN, but so does everybody else IN THIS ROOM!"

Now he's coming at me, his friend is holding him back, you can't understand anything that he's saying at this point. I'm not stopping until he's gone.

"What are you going to do? Storm the stage and kick my ass? I say go for it. That's going to prove exactly how smart you are, beating the shit out of a 95-pound comic. Come on Tex, I've had my ass kicked by cooler people than you. It's your foot in my ass or the door in yours."

His friend and wife are dragging him out now, on top of it, these two BIG lesbians (different ones from the aforementioned) get up to help him on his way. The crowd hasn't stopped laughing this whole time, and as the door closes softly behind him, applause spreads like wildfire.

I introduce the next comic, Charlie Ballard. Charlie is a gay American Indian, and as much cheering had already happened, I don't think anyone was more thankful than Charlie.

First time's don't get any better. I'm not sure if that was a first for Tex, in fact, I kind of doubt it. But I'm pretty sure there was the distinct sound of a psychological hymen ripping as he left the room.

I cuss like Yosemite Sam.

Bugs Bunny is Satan.

I have this theory. It may sound a bit odd, but follow me on this one. I have a theory that Warner Bros. cartoons are not cartoons at all. They are a direct window into hell. Visions for our amusement, but also to serve as a warning. Each and every character in those shows is either inflincting incredible amounts of physical and psychological torture, or is on the recieving end, for all of eternity. Even if that character dies, he's back the next week to face the same trauma, over and over again, as millions of young people the world over cackle madly in their pajamas, snorting whole milk and marshmallow cereals out of their nasal passages.

Bugs Bunny is the Devil and the Road Runner is his right hand man. Wile E. Coyote was a proud philanderer during his days on Earth, and is now condemned to wander the desert forever starving, smacking into walls painted to look like tunnels, and beset upon by faulty Acme products. Daffy Duck was quite obviously an embezzler, also with a touch of pride, but his greed is what cost him his eternal soul, and is what now taunts him infinitely as he stumbles blindly through the Ninth Level of Hades. I can only think that in his Earthly life, Porky Pig wore robes each and every day, the robes of the priesthood. With that stutter, his lack of pants, and the shit that Bugs puts him through, you know he must have @?!@ed more than his fair share of little boys. However Yosemite Sam still remains a mystery to me. I know not what his sins may be, yet every time I witness his trials and tribulations, I can't help but feel this nagging sensation in the base of my spine that someday I might have to strap on those guns, and fill those tiny little boots.



It's just a theory.

A Walk In The Park...

If you've never taken a nice stroll throught the Tenderloin at 3am (actually, 3pm is just as good), get off of your ass. It's like a people zoo. It's better than Sea World, and it's free. Not just on the second Tuesday of the month, but EVERY @?!@ING DAY. Go. Now.

I was cruising the 'Loin the other day, just taunting the crackheads with broken pieces of soap and safety glass from shattered windshields, and I realized that those Partnership for a Drug-Free America commercials could be a lot funnier (by the way, have you noticed their new logo? It's an interrabang, you know, the symbol that is a question mark and an exclamation point combined together? The personal symbol that I, Eric Cash, have used for years? The one that's tattooed on my @?!@ing BACK? Heh, oh well, if my face doesn't say "Parents, Don't Use Drugs" then I don't know whose does...).

Anyway, what about this commercial, a parody of the old tootsie roll clip we all loved as kids...

"Mr. Owl. How much PCP and crystal methamphetamine does it take to walk down the middle of the street like an epileptic rooster with a broken leg?"

"Well, let's... Find Out!"

"1"

"2"

"3"

"3 kilos, and a sherm cigarette, but don't light it with an open flame, or it will EXPLODE!"

Anytime you feel bad about yourself as a person, you've had a shitty day, or you just can't make rent, take a walk in the Tenderloin. It ain't that bad.

cracks in the egg...

When I was a little boy, I caught I locust. At least now I'm pretty sure that that's what it was. At the the time I thought it was the biggest goddamn grasshopper I've ever seen. It was 5 inches long, and this pale sickly light green that made your stomach turn and your vision wobble. I kept it in a Country-Crock margarine tub, and I told all of my friends about the radioactive mutant grasshopper that flew into my yard. No one believed me, but I remained steadfast. I got all of my friends together and brought them back to my grandmothers shed. I held aloft my margarine tub, glinting in the diffused sunlight streaming through the corrugated green plastic that served as the shed's roof. But I knew as soon as I picked up the tub, I could see where the lid had been pushed up. The monster had escaped. Maybe it never existed in the first place. My friends and I dejectedly stomped off to destroy a hornet's nest to quell our frustration.

That same year, I was walking in the forest near my grandmother's house, and I found something I still can't explain. I walked back farther than I've ever been before, and I came across a chain-link cage. It was 10'x10'x6', I think, although I was much smaller then, and my perception of size was a bit wonkers. Inside the cage, which was padlocked shut, were four Laborador puppies, along with some newspaper. I guess whoever locked those puppies there didn't want them shitting on the forest floor. I went back and saw them every couple of days, petted them through the bars, and just let my imagination run wild. I wondered if I had just stumbled on to one of God's storage units. Maybe those four puppies just didn't have a place in the world, and S/He just filed them there for later use, or just to be forgotten. I came back one day and they were gone, no cage, nothing. Maybe they were never there either.

Stick with me, this is all just masturbatory reminiscing in order to build up to the whole story. This is going somewhere, I promise.

Athlete's foot caused my first psychedelic experience. I was 6 years old, and every morning at 6 am I walked about a mile from my house, to the Daycare that I stayed at until 5:30 when my Mom got off work. I wore high top tennies then, and I got athletes foot from all the walking and tying my shoes too tight. I didn't know what athlete's foot was, really, much less did I think I, a 6 year old kid, would have it, all I knew was my foot itched worse than the nagging sensation that the boogeyman had followed me out of my dream state. Halfway to the daycare, on top of a hill in Seattle, I took off my shoe, and one of the bumps on my foot had broken open. What was inside looked like a cross-section of a nautilus' shell. I fell about 9 million miles into that @!?@ing thing, until it filled my whole world. I felt my mind blow apart as I saw the simple correlation between fractals and life; cells divide, split, stick together, and divide again. That was a pretty heavy moment for a 6 year old. I thought I was crazy.

When I was a 15 year old runaway, I would stay up all night with my friend Benji, and we would flip over all the newspaper machines in town; if you turn them upside-down and shake them around in a circle, they'll spit out all the coin inside, until we had about $16 in change. Enough money for smokes and a 7-11 chili dog before we went back to the abondoned crack house that we were squatting in. One night I was sitting in a bus-stop as Benji went up to the store to buy smokes, he had a fake ID, and this creepy transient guy walked up to me in a dirty wool trenchcoat. That's a pretty sketchy outfit in Central Coast California in August. He handed me a very large book and said "Here, you need this more than I do" and walked off. It was the Book of the Church of the Subgenius. How Ironic that 13 years later I've become friends and comrades with so many reverends of said church (Ask Dr. Hal is playing every Wednesday in October at Cafe du Nord, speaking of which).

Whatever, screw it, we'll get to the real story, I've screwed around enough here. These stories, and the following, are not meant to be pure ego, I told them thinking that some of you have some of the same stories. Just little cracks in the egg. Reality seems so strong, but it's strong like a blue-collar Dad is strong, it's ready to come apart at any moment, for all of us, probably some more than others. Here's the meat of it.

My grandmother had Alzheimer's, except she didn't really have Alzheimer's. The doctors called it "Alcohol-Induced Alzheimer's." She drank so much her mind just came apart, slowly but surely. She wasn't so bad in the beginning, her conversation would just start to loop after about 15 minutes, you'd tell her, she'd laugh, you'd move on. Eventually, my Stepdad and his brothers and sisters moved her out of her house and into "Adult Apartments." They were basically an apartment complex with nursing care and a cafeteria, pretty nice joint for an old folks home. I went to stay with her for the day, Gram and me were pretty close, I was 12 then. She met me in the foyer, we hugged, and headed back to her room. On the way we ran into someone I assumed was one of her new friends. She was a nice old lady, my Gram's age, I think her name was Beth. We were introduced, they talked for a minute, we parted ways. As soon as she was out of earshot, my gram leaned in close and said, "Eric, I don't know about that lady..."

"What do you mean, Gram?"

"Well, the other day, I came back from lunch, and the door to my room was wide open."

"Uh-huh."

"I walk in and there's this Beth woman, she had my china cabinet opened up, and she was holding one of my teacups, just staring at it. I said 'What are you doing in here?' and she said 'This isn't my room?' I sad 'No! Your room is across the hall, get out of here!'"

"Jeez, Gram, that's really wierd..."

We headed back, hung out, we talked a bit. I noticed that her conversation was now looping after about 5 minutes, she told me that same story about four times, but she was fun. At about one, we went to lunch. We went to the cafeteria, got some food and sat down. Beth appeared and asked to sit with us, and my Gram greeted her very amicably, which struck me as a bit weird, but the conversation was nice. I finished up, and my Gram complained about how small the portions were, and asked me if I'd like seconds, which I gladly accepted, the portions were microscopic. As soon as my Gram got up and was out of earshot, Beth leaned in close.

"I don't know about your Grandmother, Eric."

"What do you mean, Beth?"

"Well, the other day, I came back from lunch, and the door to my room was wide open."

"Uh-huh."

"I walk in and there's your Grandmother, she had my china cabinet opened up, and she was holding one of my teacups, just staring at it. I said 'What are you doing in here?' and she said 'This isn't my room?' I sad 'No! Your room is across the hall, get out of here!'"

"Huh, that's weird."

That was my first real look into what insanity can really be. My first realization that it may not just be one brain malfunctioning. To this day, I still have no idea which one of them was crazy.

Sometimes, I wonder if both of them may very well have been completely and utterly sane.

The blind shall walk and the deaf shall see...

A month ago a blind woman attacked me with her cane. It was incredible.

I'm doing a street show the other night, and the crowd was good, but a little dead, tiny tiny laughter. As I was building a crowd I saw my saviors, a group of four 30-something black women, who had obviously left the husbands at home. That particular demographic, in my opinion, equals great audience members. Man, no one can enjoy themself like mature black ladies out for a night on the town. Anyway, back to the story... I noticed that one of them was blind, but only subconciously really, you're keeping track of a lot of different things when you are doing circle shows. I did however take it as a huge compliment that a blind woman would "watch" and enjoy my show. So the show keeps going, and these ladies are laughing it up and having a great time, and about halfway through the show, one of those big doubledecker tour busses goes by. I tell a joke every time they go by that goes like this:

"Check this out, it's a sightseeing tour bus for the blind, that's why they tint all the windows.
'To your left we have the Presidio, it's beautiful... I wish you could see it.'"

I look over and see the blind lady laughing hysterically (which warms the cockles of my heart, whatever the !@?@ they are), and just then, her friends give her a push and say "You don't have to take that, GET IN THERE GIRL!" and in she comes, walking a little slow because she's swinging her cane in my general direction for all she's worth. The crowd explodes, it's got to be the funniest moment I've ever been a part of, and it get's better. You've got to understand, she can't see, and my voice, which is all she has to go on, is coming out of an amplifier all the way across the circle from me. She's heading towards it, but from where she's standing, my glass is between her and the amp, and she's making a beeline for it. She's about to go face-first into 15 pounds of broken bottles.

So I leap off of my box to rescue her, and take her back to her friends, who I then scold for trying to kill their buddy. I couldn't stop laughing for about ten minutes, and she made my whole month. I gave her a big hug after the show and thanked her for having such an exceptional sense of humor, but I never got her name. So blind lady, wherever you are, I've made my blog compatible with screen readers, and if you're out there somewhere, come "see" me again sometime. You restored my faith in the human race.

Evolution, Technology, and Humiliation...

Have you ever accidentally dropped your cell phone in the toilet?

And pissed on it?

It's really a snowball of stupidity. One minute you're marvelling at how far we've come as a race, emptying your bladder, pinching the phone with your shoulder, riding high on your free PCS to PCS minutes, all at the same time, the next your entire world shatters around your feet. The phone squirts from between your shoulder and your ear, right in the middle of an extremely profound statement about the nature of Zen Buddhism and home espresso machines, and you stare down in abject terror at your previously-precious-now-rendered-completely-defunct little tech toy gazing blankly back at you beneath three inches of toilet water and a steady stream of vitamin-rich urine. You panic, every phone number for every booker, booty call, and burrito joint in your arsenal is in that !@?@ing thing! Before you have a chance to think, you pinch off your discharge and dive in headfirst as if the phone were baby Jessica, and you an ambitious Fireman looking for a promotion and 45 seconds of fame on CNN. Just as your fingers curl against the porcelain and the grip the thing, you suddenly remember what happens when you pinch off mid-stream. That's right, that pain kicks in, the one starts at the tip of your urethra and stretches all the way back to your cro-magnon ancestors. Seven future generations of your family will be cross-eyed, your !@?@ing-A sure of it. And as you lay in agony, soaked in your own piss, leaning against the toilet, you realize it was a complete waste of time. The phone is over, you stink, and you're pretty sure that those aren't tears dripping from your eyes, even though they are warm. That's when the most horrifying piece of reality kicks in, when you suddenly remember that you're not even at home, you're in your friends bathroom, and you've got to walk out there and explain yourself...