Common People

Seems it's Shatner week on Bill's blog. And he'll probably be pissed he missed this appearance on Conan O'Brien. Funny thing is I saw this on a plane to Seattle on my way to visit Bill.

Minimates minisite

Remember the X-Men box I wrote a few months ago? Art Asylum has created a site for it. My copy is up there too. Take a look.

Skels trailer

Here's the trailer for a pilot Thaddeus did. Nobody gets any lines in this but Thad-Rock gets a close-up.

Fair and Balanced

Bush's new press secretary is an anchor for Fox News.

I shit you not.

My favorite part? The anchor refused to talk to reporters. I guess he won't acknowledge them until they say "back to you."

It looks like his first job will be to explain this diabolical scheme. Yes, the government wants to give us a check. Again. Why? Because oil prices are just too high, consarnit. Oh, and they want to drill in Alaska. I wonder if he'll say that second part coughing.

My television debut tonight!

Will you be up very late?
Do you live in Manhattan?

Me neither, but if you did you could see me doing stand-up at 1 a.m. tonight on "Manny Manhattan News". Manny's a comic who hosts a show on public access once a week. He taped a few of our sets last week and just told me he's using mine in his show tonight. Apparantly you can also see it online here but you have to click on ch. 57. Oh, and be up at 1 a.m. But log on and you can see my long-awaited television debut!

(Actually, my television debut was in 1992 standing behind Jane Pratt on her ill fated talk show making some rather concerned faces. But even I don't think that counts.)

UPDATE: Oh yeah. That was one of my 'let's experiment with really weird material that may or may not fit me' nights. Most of that has been dropped or reworked. Didn't think Manny was going to use it all. If you managed to see it, please scroll down and watch my Youtube performance. It'll wash that memory nice and clean.

Billy Joel again

I'm freelancing for the next two weeks so posting may become a little lighter as I get used to a new office and a new client.

Renee and I went to Billy Joel's final concert at Madison Square Garden last night and in many ways he topped the previous show in Las Vegas. First of all, he changed the set list around considerably. His opening and closing were the same but the middle of set seemed almost random. He still played obscure songs but this time they were completely different obscure songs; "Honesty" instead of "Billy the Kid", "All for Leyna" instead of "The Stranger". And he still never played "Pressure".

Also, he was a little less jokey. Mainly because here he was a hometown boy; a conquering hero. He broke the record for Madison Square Garden; 12 consecutive shows. As a token of esteem, the venue awarded him with a banner that will remain in the rafters and they let him play until 11:30 (overtime for the staff).

And yes Bill, he let his roadie Chainsaw sing "Highway to Hell" again. But this time Billy gave him a motorcycle. Gotta go to work now.

UPDATE: Here's the set list.

2 Years

Two years ago today, this happened.


That was a good day.

Happy anniversary, Renee.

And it never stopped raining

Last night was eventful. First I went to see Hector Luis over at the Improv Comedy cafe, which looked remarkably like this:



As you can see, he killed. After a performance like that, he deserved to celebrate. So I dragged him down to the Bowery to see Walker perform. That turned out to be a great idea.



I've been watching Walker for about twenty years now. I've been there as he's gone from backyard barbecues to a rock singer with a record contract to a singer-songwriter phase. And last night was Walker at his peak. He had the strongest band behind him he's ever had, with old friends like Ed Klinger and Eddy Joe pounding the rhythm section. The set was filled with covers but somehow they made them their own.

It's great to see people doing what they love not for money or recognition but for the experience of doing it as well as they can. That's a spirit that I don't see enough but last night it was in abundance.

On the Bridge of the Enterprise

You may have noticed a nerdy turn as of late. Specifically, there's a hell of a lot of Star Trek going on here. And it's not because there's a marathon on G4 this weekend. And it's not because J.J. Abrams may be restarting the franchise. It's more personal than that.

As you also may have noticed, my life is a little crazy at the moment. I've been out of work six weeks now. It hasn't been too bad. Unemployment is coming in and I've been interviewing. More importantly, I get up late, write jokes and perform stand-up regularly. If I was making any money at this, I'd never go back to a cubicle.

Yet my days are chock full of uncertainty. I don't like uncertainty. I don't like being afraid of the future. So subconsciously I look for some kind of comfort. And I keep finding it in the Federation of Planets. There's a future that won't make you afraid.

I'm not the world's biggest Trekkie. Superheroes have long taken precedence in my nerdy mind. The Twilight Zone and the X Files (most of it anyway) were better written genre shows. I don't believe in warp drive or transporters. To this day, I do not own a Starfleet uniform. But every now and then, I find myself drawn into this series. Every time my life is a mess.

1979- 7 years old. No one in the 4th grade liked me.
1986- 13 years old. Starting high school on the other side of town.
1991- 19 years old. Bad first relationship.
1994- 22 years old. Bad second relationship.
1999- 27 years old. Starting a freelance career in poverty.
2005- 32 years old. Hating my job.
2006- 33 years old. Losing my job.

It doesn't matter if it's Captain Kirk, Picard, Sisko or Archer (not Janeway though. Screw Voyager). As soon as I watch an episode, I feel protected. It doesn't matter how bad things get out there, in forty minutes (two hours if it's a movie) everything's gonna be just fine. I don't feel that way after the Twilight Zone or X Files. And I certainly don't feel that way when I leave the house.

Play Cole Movie of the Week

The Stevens File. You know the drill.

Gilbert Gottfried: Unsexiest Man Alive

A starnge thing has been happening with the blog lately. Traffic has shot up but it's mainly people looking for a picture of Gilbert Gottfried. I don't know why google is sending these people to me (Gilbert does have his own site) but I appreciate the extra foot traffic.

Why the sudden interest in Gilbert? It may have to do with this article naming him 'the World's Unsexiest Man'. He beat out both Osama Bin Ladin and George Steinbrenner for the title. That only proves that women aren't really looking for a man with a sense of humor, no matter what they say. My wife found me more attractive as a guitar player too.

Show tonight!

And the other comics? Actually, really good.

Jon Clarke
Andrew Torres
Lara Yazz
Max Calloway
Tim Warner
and more


NY Comedy Club
241 E. 24th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue
New York, NY
Tonight
9 p.m.

MySpace

I caved in.

I had a page on myspace for about a year which I prudently ignored. But lately everyone has been telling me to go back. Comics. Musicians. Cousins. And now I know why. There are currently 71 million people on myspace. And they all check their myspace pages hourly. Makes the 10,000 here look like a living room.

There's a strong part of me that hates the mainstream. If everyone likes it, there can't be anything innovative in there. But there is another part of me that is overjoyed Elvis Costello is my friend.

Be my friend!

USA geography

Dad showed us all this over Easter. It's a great interactive game that lets you place all the states into a map of the U.S. It's harder than it sounds.

Leonard Nimoy and Tolkien

If you haven't seen this before, prepare to be freaked out.

Happy Easter.

He is Tim Warner

One of my favorite comics is a guy I've performed with a few times now; Tim Warner. While I'm still struggling with who I am on stage, Tim lets you know before he says one word. His commitment is staggering. Every time I watch him perform and discuss comedy with him, I have one thought; I am not working hard enough.

I didn't know about his blog though. It was kinda hard to find through his website, his Myspace page or his Comedy Soapbox page. But it's now easy to find here.

Next stand-up gig

It's happening next Wednesday. For those of you that have never seen me, it looks something like this. But way better.



NY Comedy Club
241 E. 24th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue
New York, NY
Wednesday 4/19/06
9 p.m.

10,000 people!

Last night, I received my 10,000th visitor!

Not to mention 21,000 hits. Wow. Only took eight months.

Thanks to everyone who's stopped by, especially those of you that made it part of your daily schedule. With myspace gobbling up everyone's lives, it's nice to see that old fashioned blogs are still alive and well.

10 Best Jobs

According to MONEY magazine, the 10 best jobs are:

1. Software Engineer
2. College professor
3. Financial adviser
4. Human Resources Manager
5. Physician assistant
6. Market research analyst
7. Computer IT analyst
8. Real Estate Appraiser
9. Pharmacist
10. Psychologist

I have none of these jobs. The sad thing is I'm not applying for anything in the top 25. No matter where I end up next, it will be infinitely more stressful than what these bastards do.

Back from Vegas

It was a long flight home but the weekend was obviously worth it. As soon as I got back I got a show for tonight. You can see it here:

Jimmy's No 46
7th Street b/w 2nd and 3rd
NY NY

8pm Sharp. Doors open @7:30

No Cover. No Drink Minimum. Just Comedy.

I've got another coming next week if you need to clear your schedule first. I'll post the details about that later but in the meantime here's both the coolest and nerdiest moment of my Vegas trip in one image:

Steven Wright

If you want to see anyone in NY, you have to reserve two months in advance. In Vegas, you can just show up.

Bill and I didn't have anything planned for our last night in Vegas so we ended up seeing Steven Wright in one of the casinos. He did a ninety-minute set and seeing as it was full of one-liners, that's no mean feat. After twenty-five years he's still the ultimate surrealist craftsman. If there was no Steven Wright, there'd have been no Mitch Hedberg. Go see him.

10 Reasons Billy Joel still rules

1. He lets his roadie do AC/DC covers. During the set.
2. He looks like my dad. I'm not sure when that happened.
3. He makes Las Vegas feel like Queens.
4. The MGM Grand has the most inefficient method of evacuating 12,000 people I've ever seen. No reflection on Billy, it just needed to be said.
5. He played 45 minutes longer than he should have. Pissed off the venue but made the audience happy.
6. He can't drive.
7. When he's not playing piano, he plays an awesome PRS.
8. When he's not playing guitar, he throws the mike stand around a lot.
9. "Pressure".
10.He banged Christie Brinkley.

UPDATE: Here's the set list from the show.

Star Trek: the Experience

When we were planning this trip, there was only one place to stay; the Las Vegas Hilton. Reba and Manilow are performing here but we could care less. For us, it was all about Star Trek: the Experience.



Paramount spent 85 million to build the attraction in 1995, when the franchise was at its peak. The staff tells me the attendance hasn't dropped at all though now there's no show on the air.



The whole place is set up like a ride at Universal, with a museum built along both sides of the line. To say they have authentic props and costumes would be a criminal understatement. Only the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle has a comparable collection.


They didn't allow pictures on the rides themselves (but I got one before I realized that ;) ). Borg Invasion is a strong 3D ride with the added attraction of Borg attacking Starfleet officers as you walk into the theater. It's based heavily on Voyager and stars Robert Picardo and Kate Mulgrew.


But the Klingon Encounter is the real attraction for fans. Besides having footage of Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton and the voice of Patrick Stewart, they built an (almost) working transporter room, corridors, turbolifts and the bridge of the Next Generation Enterprise in exacting detail. Every computer screen is accurate. I could care less about the ride once I got on the bridge. I just wanted to be left there. Luckily, Bill and I signed up for everything they had. So between the souvenir photos and the backstage tour, we got about a half-hour on the set.



By the time we had done everything there was to do we had spent ten hours. That includes several trips to the gift shop and Quark's Bar for Romulan Ale and Blood Wine, Neither one of us could think of another person who would have put up with this behavior.

Vegas

The other week Bill called and asked if I wanted to meet him in Vegas to see Billy Joel. He had so many miles and hotel points the entire trip would be comped. Since I have no job, I had no reason to turn him down.

Most cities are built around a specific need, usually a body of water for shipping. Not Vegas. Looking at the skyline, it’s obvious this city didn’t grow. It just decided to happen. Or rather, Bugsy Seagal decided it would happen. I admire that.

Tom Morello on Star Trek

Oh My God. Tom Morello just became twice my hero. If only he had done DS9 instead of Voyager.

Tom DeLay

I now know how the Bush administration gets away with six years of blatant corruption and incompetance. It’s all thanks to short term memory. I’m a perfect example; a product of my generation. I want to be more political. I want to like Rage Against the Machine more than Audioslave. I just can’t keep these facts in my head.

I was so fucking glad when Tom DeLay resigned and I have no idea why. I just hear the words Tom DeLay and I go, “Oh. Fucking bastard.” I know it was connected to something once but it just can’t find any room in my brain between the Fantastic Four and Star Trek Deep Space Nine. That’s my problem and I know I have to live with it.

New Play Cole Film Online!

Prepare yourself for the Lazeris. Then go to the page and ask youtube to feature it.

Joke of the Week

It's back! Briefly.

I just applied for a position that demanded jokes based on that day's headlines. Thanks to Alan's class, I was able to do it and this was one of them:

A new study shows that 60% of men don't like swear words. In related news, those guys are pussies.

Hey, Guy at Wrestlemania 21 with the different oak tag message for every wrestler

You're ruining it for the rest of us.

Ozzy & the Midgets

One of the reasons I love Ozzy Osbourne so much is that you can get him to do just about anything.