Mister Comedy

I’ve typically dismissed horror stories about social networking sites as so much Luddite paranoia, partly because, as a relatively unknown comedian and novice print humorist, it probably wouldn’t hurt my career to have someone stalking me. I need visibility. Hell, I’d give you my social security number if you told me you liked one of my shows.

But now, I understand the dark side. I get an email tonight from someone who apparently found me through classmates.com which led him to MySpace. I think I registered for MySpace two years ago, never went back because it seemed to skew a bit…adolescent for my tastes, and though I have joined Facebook, I still don’t check MySpace because I really only need one black hole of time-wasting in my life.

Here’s the thing. He was a high school classmate of mine, and I DON’T REMEMBER WHO HE IS. At all. His name did not ring even the tiniest of bells. Forget about being afraid of being tracked by some creepy, deranged,  obsessed psycho–it is FAR more frightening to realize that someone who liked me well enough to get back in touch after thirty years has dropped entirely from my memory. I mean, what else have I forgotten? Because, if I’ve forgotten it, obviously I wouldn’t know I forgot it.

The worst part of this is that I replied to him and tried to (ever so light-heartedly) get him to jog my clearly age-enfeebled memory. I wrote–”catch me up.” His email back to me was three long paragraphs about his life (and it sounds like we could really connect based on what he’s been doing) and that of another (apparently) mutual friend of ours whom I ALSO DO NOT REMEMBER. However, there were no clues as to how we knew each other when we…actually knew each other.

So I finally decided to be honest–sent him another message saying I was having trouble recollecting how we knew each other in high school. His response?

Hi Mike (guess we weren’t that tight–nobody calls me ‘Mike’),

Do you remember ‘Mutilation Maniacs’ or ‘Elysium’ (No, and you’d think I would. More help please–were they bands?) ?  Mike and I were making super-8 films after high school (Ahhh…they made super-8 films…that’s cool. Still no clue).  You had a scene in ‘Elysium’ with Ron Kostas (DING DING DING! No…don’t remember acting in a super-8 film. I do vaguely remember Ron Kostas as…a guy I went to high-school with).  Mike used to drive in a bronze-coloured Buick Skylark, and I got around in an MGB or a motorcycle (Look, if I didn’t get it from the “movie-making” clue, I’m probably not gonna get it from the car you drove–’Of Course! The bronze Skylark dude and his buddy!‘).

J.

Anyway, I have clearly developed early-onset Alzheimer’s. I would love your comments on this, although I’m pretty sure I won’t remember any of them.

I’ve never craved power,  happy to just tell my little jokes and make a few good points in print. Just trying to change the world five hundred words at a time. Granted, I ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign (for highlights, click here), but I fell just a bit short. In fact, I thought I’d retired from politics, but sometimes everything aligns in such a way that you simply have to seize an opportunity. That’s right, Illinois–I am now prepared to take over as Governer of this great state.

I realize I’m not legally governor (something of an oxymoron here), I’m just claiming the job until they elect someone new. First, a little background for the voters. I have always voted Democratic, except for the year in California when I switched my registration to the Peace and Freedom Party. Suffice to say, there was a woman involved. And some weed. On the issues, I’m opposed to crime, and in favor of education. I will save the state millions of dollars by running official business from my studio apartment,, and since I am currently unemployed, I will have the time to devote at least three hours each day to solving the state’s budget crisis.

The state’s unemployment will be addressed by the creation of several massive public works projects.  First, we build a giant insulating dome over the city of Chicago, thereby courting conventions and tourist dollars even in the middle of winter. Second, to reduce traffic congestion, we will build a vast network of laser-guided magnetic supersonic light rail lines to connect Chicago with…whatever the other cities in Illinois are.

Now here’s the most visionary part of my plan. Forget ’sin’ taxes, which clearly haven’t stopped people from smoking or drinking (every smoker I know has said things like “When cigarettes get to be more than _______ dollars a pack, I’m quitting,” and in reality, we would buy them for fifty dollars a pack out of the back of a van).  Instead, we tax healthy things. Soy milk. Broccoli. Bicycles. Especially bicycles. And everything related to bicycles–tax their goofy little blinking lights, tax their ridiculous bells and tax their helmets which apparently make them feel invincible as they cross three lanes of rush hour traffic and ignore stop lights even though the helmet will only protect your skull while the rest of your body can still get RUN OVER! Sorry. Bicyclists just seem a little full of themselves sometimes.

So, I’m available, people. Oh, and to avoid any possibility of getting caught up in some pay-for-play, graft-fueled corruption scandal, I will sever all ties with any professional politicians. I will only talk to my closest friends. Just my buds. Who will also be my advisors. And who will serve in various positions in my administration. In the meantime, I need to get fitted for my toupe.

The other night, I’m listening to talk radio and one of the local Chicago hosts says “we’ll be right back with Joe the Plumber.” At first I thought it was just a rebroadcast from when, you know, Joe was in the news. But no, this was January, and it was live. I think the biggest difference between now and twenty years ago is that back in the day, quasi-celebrities understood when their fifteen minutes of fame had elapsed. Tawny Kitaen rolled around on the hood of a Jaguar in 1985, and then she mercifully disappeared. And it’s not like Whistle Pops made a comeback. They had their moment.

But not Joe. Or I should say Samuel. Mr. Wurtzbacher went from unknown to symbol to icon to punch line in the span about a month, and one would think that after the election, he would have qualified for a big decorative asterisk and gone away. But no. There he was on the radio, complaining about how he felt used by both campaigns and had his privacy invaded. As he’s talking on the radio. About being on the national campaign trail with McCain. And about his website. And about his book deal. I’m not sure you’re clear on the whole ‘private citizen’ deal, Joe Sam, but when you talk to the media, you become BY FREAKING DEFINITION a public figure! We, the public, get to look into your life, because…duh, you DECIDED to be famous!

This guy apparently isn’t satisfied with fifteen minutes of fame…he’s looking for twenty, thirty minutes, maybe an hour. The latest is that intends to be a ‘reporter’ (and if their were bigger quotation marks, I’d have used them), going to the Middle East to interview ‘average Joes’ (Yusufs?) in the conflict there. I’m no purist, but I think there’s a pretty big drop-off from Edward R. Murrow to Samuel Wurtzbacher, journalism-wise.

Speaking of journalism (sort of), I have to give mad props to Paul Harvey, specifically because I’m pretty sure Paul Harvey wouldn’t know what mad props are. I know he’s a big ol’ right-wing flag-waving shill, but you can’t not like Paul Harvey. First of all, he just turned 90 years old, and you have to admire anyone who does anything for 75 years. I can’t imagine doing standup for 75 years, but I will say that if I’m still doing one-nighters in crappy bars in the year 2056 someone needs to put a bullet in my head. You know the drill with Paul–”and now–the rest of the story.” I would love it if one night Paul Harvey messed with everyone by giving his introduction and then saying “There is no…rest of the story. That’s all I got.”

The other night, I was pretty sure Paul had lost his mind, because he gave his usual setup that was all positivity and patriotism, and then the ‘rest of the story’ went on to describe how some of the first settlers of the Mayflower colony…were cannibals. WHAT? You can’t do that! That’s like your grandpa telling one of his boring war stories and all of a sudden mentioning in an avuncular voice that “well, you know, we were in a foxhole and ran out of provisions, so we had to eat Private Jones.”

Anyway, if Joe the Plumber eats somebody, let me know–unless that happens, I say we ignore him so he can enjoy all the privacy he supposedly wanted.

Sometimes when I’m creatively blocked I just start randomly typing things into Google. This time I wasn’t as random. Being a spiritual seeker, I searched for ‘God.’ Turns out, that search yielded 497,000,000 results, which I think explains why we can’t get along. Then, just to balance things out, I searched for the ‘Devil.’ Great news–only 160,000,000 results–clearly the Creator has a better handle on Search Engine Optimization. Now I’m figuring that the reason I’m not finding anything definitive is that I’m tied to archaic mythology, so I widened my search. For ‘evil,’ Google gave me 213,000,000 results, which means that there are at least 53,000,000 instances of evil for which the Devil is not responsible. This theology stuff is easy! But I wanted, at the very least, to have incontrovertible proof that is more good than evil in the world, and–voila! ‘ Good’ yields 2,060,000,000 hits! Good defeats evil! I’m a philosopher genius!

All that philosophizing took my mind off my piddling worries, but not for long. I’m just not sure where I fit in the grand scheme of things, and I’m just not feeling I’ve accomplished as much as I should. Granted I have nearly TEN regular readers of my blog, and as a standup comic, I am HUGE in Berwyn, Illinois. And Crest Hill. But I needed some perspective, so it was time to consult the Great Wireless Oracle once again.

It’s called ‘ego-surfing,’ and it involves simply typing your own name (in quotation marks) into your favorite search engine. According to the magical Google, 9,700 pages on the internet have at least one reference to ‘Michael Dane.’ So to boost my self-esteem, I decided to see how my life’s work stacks up against that of some the other Michael Danes. Instead of comparing myself to everyone on the planet, or even everyone in show business, let’s just see if I’m one of the most successful people named ‘Michael Dane.’

The first result I found was for a karaoke singer in Spokane, Washington. You can see a video here. Pleasant enough fellow, but I’m way funnier. Next I found a guy in Mooresville, North Carolina. Now he does own his own company, Dane Construction, but federal campaign records show he donated $1000 to both Kay Hagen AND Elizabeth Dole in their senate race, so that tells me he’s wishy-washy and not to be trusted. Take a stand, pal! Then, rounding out the first fifty, I get worried, because there’s a Michael Dane who’s listed as a ‘voice talent.’  But I went to his website, and first of all, he’s based in Athens, Texas, which is isn’t even the hippest Athens in the U.S. And his bio says that he was a DJ at a club called ‘Toppless,’ so I actually feel o.k. about doing comedy at Bada Brew in Crest Hill. At least I was the headliner.

The next result led me to one of the most fun time-wasting sites I’ve found in ages. Iit gives you statistical information on how your name (first, last or both as a combination) ranks in popularity, and it tells you where people with your name live. Indescribable nerd fun. There are 33 ‘Michael Dane’ listings in the entire country (making it the 613,590th most popular name), and I/we can be found in 20 states (with five of me/us in Massachusettes!).

Back to the search for my doppleganger. There’s a link to the MySpace page of a twenty-one year old girl in Lorain, Ohio, but I didn’t like the looks of her friends. She could do better. Then I think I might have real competition–an actor, and he’s actually listed on IMDB. But here’s his entire resume: in the 1985 film ‘A Certain Sacrifice,’ he played ‘Transvestite Steve,’ and in the 1987 movie ‘Hangman’ he is credited as…’Bad Guy.’ I feel much better. No disrespect, Mike, but neither of your characters had last names.

Still in the field of entertainment, Canadian singer Michael Dane apparently had a minor hit with the 12″ disco single “Let’s Make Love” (the flip side, as we all remember, was “The Dead Are Making Love), but that was in 1981, and I’ve seen no evidence of a comeback. Or a resurgence of Canadian disco.

The next contender was fun to read about. An English professor at two colleges in Hawaii, he’s listed on ratemyprofessors.com . Here’s a few quotes about Professor Dane (overall rating–4.6 out of 10):

Sometimes he seems like he’s weird but he’s very helpful.

We don’t seem to do much in class at all. He is entertaining to listen to, but jokes can be repetitive.

First impression make Dane seem intimidating. He has a strange sense of humor.

Finishing the top 100 ‘Michael Dane’ results, there’s:

a goth kid who takes pictures of himself

a lawyer in Kirtland, Ohio who in 37 years of practice has never had an instance of professional misconduct (and has apparently never left Kirtland Ohio),

a guy who owns an ‘architectural products’ company in Phoenix with a sharp-looking website where twelve of the sixteen links say ‘Coming Soon.’

a guy credited on the album “A Victorian Christmas For Brass” who didn’t play any brass–he’s listed as ‘bellringer’

So, all in all, I think I represent the Michael Danes of the world quite well.  In fact, two results of the first hundred actually quote a joke of mine, and my calendar from my website is result #104. But my favorite result actually referred to a character named ‘Michael Dane.’ In the 1923 John Ford silent film “North of Hudson Bay,”  legendary cowboy Tom Mix played a rancher named Michael Dane, and check out this synopsis from the book  “John Ford” by Tag Gallagher:

Rancher Michael Dane falls in love with Estelle while en route to Northern California where his brother Peter had struck gold. But there he finds his brother dead and his partner MacKenzie sentenced to walk the ‘death trail’…Dane tries to help MacKenzie, earns the same sentence but both excape, battling wolves, and meet Estelle, pursued by her uncle, the real murderer, who dies after a canoe chase over a waterfall.

Now that would beat the hell out of telling jokes in bars. But I am having trouble imagining the pitch meeting for that movie–it’s not exactly what you’d call ‘high concept.’ Sadly, according to the book, ‘only portions’ of the film survive, ‘with titles in Czech.’ I really don’t know why. But I do know I really need to get a job.