Giving a Truth Tour

I have no idea what it really takes to be a comedian. One of my short term goals is to build up the courage to write "Comedian" on my Facebook page, a change so massive that it must be put off for as long as possible.

But I'm not even trying to tackle the logistic side of making money or getting jobs off of comedy. It would be entirely derivative of what I've heard actual comedians talk about. The only thing I have is my own experience and my recent feelings. And this blog. And a Nintendo Switch.

I'm so attracted to comedy because I love being able to live inside of truth. Not only that, but I get to to control exactly how much a person knows about me, with almost no limitations or bounds besides the prerequisite of being funny. 

I'm thinking now of a persons truth being a house. When a show is put on, the audience comes by and wants to see what's going on with the property. You get to choose how that tour is going to go. Some comedians like to bring people into their house and show them all the crazy shit going on, like a sink that's been broken since childhood or a living room they can't stop peeing in. Some comedians go the other way and just show all the cool bugs hanging on the yard. Some might even build hedges so you can't even peek through the window.

It doesn't matter what you do, you just need people to leave saying "Hey, that was a really cool house."

I don't really struggle with this concept, I'm more just at a stalemate. I have done shows where I got to speak publicly on my problems and what's hurting me, and when I got off stage I felt like I really found what I needed to do. I let strangers in through the front door and they hugged me on the way out. It really was a beautiful time, even though the act was fairly bad by most people's standards.


 There's no other way for me to pursue this than finding my truth and speaking to it as much as possible. Way easier said than done. It's also easier said than understood! What does finding your truth even mean? You can show people your home, but how solid is the bedrock? How do the pipes and outlets work? Why do you have a huge forest in your backyard, and why are you just ignoring all the coyotes? It may be fun to let people in for a tour, but when they leave you still gotta stay. Is it really that great having a funny leak in the bathroom? Or is it worth the time to fix it? Is my goal to entertain or to build myself a healthy fuckin environment? Are you still following this metaphor?


Openness is an incredibly scary thing, no doubt. But it's the biggest reason I want to be a stand-up. It's also the biggest reason I write this blog, as a way to express and connect. I'm letting people into an intimate space, rooms they can judge and decorations they can hate. But if, at the end of the truth tour, somebody is smiling? That's the whole reason I do it.

My Best Tournament Performance

I'll start off by saying I know how this comes off. Obnoxious, a little arrogant. Probably unnecessary, definitely not humble. I think I would get annoyed if I saw somebody else do exactly what I'm doing. And if you feel differently about me because I'm doing a write up after one tournament, that's totally okay.

But here's the thing, I need to write this. I'm in a very unique situation after a rare alignment of the stars, and if I wait too long I won't be able to really capture how I'm feeling. I guess the best thing I can do is not post it. But I really like when people read my shit. Whatever, enough of this intro.

Last night I had the best tournament of my life, no doubt about it. I beat three players ranked top 20 in Tristate. Three amazing players with their own story to tell and great success within the community. Three players I have incredible respect for.

Here's the thing about melee that non players probably won't understand. This is a great achievement, yes, but these guys are still better than me. If you watch my matches with Kaeon and Smuckers they miss stuff that they normally don't miss. The match against 2saint was better but even he missed like every SDI on my upairs. I'm not calling these players out by any means, ask them and they would agree they played poorly, I just need to share that I had luck on my side.

I need to give myself a little credit for sure. I had some good combos and kept composed. But yesterday was the perfect storm. I won't go into specifics, but I do know that all of those players were newcomers to that venue,among other factors, while I had been there four times prior. *  That definitely plays a factor in how comfortable you are playing the game, especially when the commentators are feet away and within earshot. It takes adaptation. Yesterday wasn't a fluke, but it was definitely lucky. Very lucky.

I wanna take a step back from explaining myself and the situation. How do I feel right now? What does that change? The most obvious is a real sense of joy, I won't deny myself that. I had to eat an entire Taco Bell box at one in the morning to bring myself down a few pegs. I screamed with nonsensical bliss on the ride home and almost broke down crying. I know melee meant a lot to me, I just didn't know that results were that important. However sad it might be, it's true.

I began thinking about the possibility of achieving top 20 in Tristate and how exciting that would be. I tickled with the idea of striving for top 100 in 2018. All of these things are possible for somebody who started the same time I did (Look at Zain!) and now I actually believe that I can do it. I don't know if I really want to go for it, though.

Before yesterday I believed that I was as good at the game as I wanted to be. I told people that, perhaps as a way to protect myself from new losses or bad tournaments. I still feel the same way, but I'll edit the sentiment. I'm going to be as good as I'm going to be, working less than I did. I just can't keep up the same grind that I have for the past few years. I want to just have fun at tournaments.

But that conflicts with the ranking idea!

Ah, shit. Contradictions!

This changes way more than I thought it did coming into this post. I need to sit on it a little bit more. A big part of me wants to brag to coworkers, family, etc. to prove that I haven't been wasting my time. I'll try to refrain. After all, writing about it is way more pretentious anyway.



**Thanks for taking the time to read this. I know there are people who like my posts, but I don't know who you are! If you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to email me @ Jessegardner7@gmail.com**




*Maybe Smuckers has been there. 

I'm 22 and I Think I Know Everything

The sad part is, I'm almost never right.

It's a baseline attitude. An instinct. I've been taught humility my whole life, but something inside me wants to burst out and tell everyone how great I am. I really do try to keep it down, bury it inside and never let that part of me see the light of day. I feel like a catholic gay man.

I think it's a reaction to my teenage years. Everything between 5th grade and college was a never ending cycle of self doubt and humiliation. Every step of the way was another adult (parent, teacher or coach, the big three) to tell me what I was really trying to say. Correction followed correction for eight years straight. 

Then suddenly BLAM: College. And BOOM: Everyone is drunk or high all the time. People liked what I had to say, some were so fucked up that they could get therapy from a toaster. Professors respected questions and gave open-ended answers. I was getting advice from older students rather than the big three. A couple years of that, then I was a senior, and people came to me for advice. For the first time ever I had some sort of authority and knowledge that could be shared, I guess. In retrospect, It's just that everyone was goosed.

So can you really blame someone my age to act high and mighty, at least for a year or two? The college senior was a revered title since I was in elementary school, it was the peak of existence, the pinnacle of truth. There was a real feeling culminating of superiority. I had glimpses of feeling like I was the best in the world. How do you let go of that right away? The gay catholic spends a summer learning love from an older Jewish boy, then returns to the lie at home. (My mom is definitely gonna bring this gay thing up tonight)

Graduation. Pooped out into the real world. Student debt doesn't kick in for six months, lets go on a road trip. Great. You're back. Get a job, dumbass. Got a job. Cool. Why don't they respect me? Don't they know who I am?

No, you shithead, nobody knows who you are. But that's not what I was before! Didn't they see my Terps hosting gig? That was pretty good! Or my plays, I had a lead role or two! Nah bro. That was like training mode. None of that stuff really counts.

None of my current work is really going to withstand the course of time. I know that. When was the last time somebody got on a talkshow and went "Yea, this movie is great, but you should really check out my earlier work. When I was 22 I really had a great thing going. Man, if only I could be that brilliant again."

So if I could give a message to my age group, just chill the fuck out. Everything in your soul wants to come out and show the world your magical light, but you aren't ready for anyone to care. Just shut up, keep your head down, and keep working.

At least that's what \I keep hearing on podcasts. I don't really know.

Ramblings of a Maniacal Millennial

It's been a while since I felt the need to share what's going on with me. Not that there isn't anything to share, every week has had at least one highlight, but it's more that I just didn't feel the urge to. I've been writing consistently in my journals, I've been going to smash tournaments, I got approved for a credit card and opened up a savings account. I've had some thoughts, I guess, but nothing worth really blogging about. I don't even know what I feel like saying now!

My classes at UCB have been going really well. It's awesome to be among people that are taking 101 with me and are also better than me at sketch or improv. I know I'm improving at both, too, as well as gaining tools I can use for blah blah blah. I sound like a fuckin' mouth piece for the most successful comedy school in NYC. They don't need the publicity. Just know it's pretty damn cool.

I've found myself going to about one melee tournament a week, and they've been fairly successful. I honestly just love it so much as a hobby, and I've spent so much time on it over the years that I think I can plateau a bit without feeling like a failure. I don't know if I lost the competitive drive, really, just that I stopped having the necessity to practice like I did in the past.  If there's a big event though, I'll try to start making moves to get in some games.

And that's really all I have to report. Work is going fine too, I guess I can slip that in there. It's interesting to think about all the things I want to say but I'll ultimately regret. Plans and aspirations and projects and the future. I want to talk about the path I'm on and place good judgement on it. But that's the future and it's impossible to predict. But everybody always talks about it as if it can be conjured into reality. I think for some people that works, like you envision what you want to become and through that positive thinking you take the right steps to achieve it. But more often than not a person will miss the mark, or change their mind on what they wanted to do from their twenties, or have opportunities that come up that change their life forever, or they have a kid. And I know I'm just a 22 year old making these broad assumptions on human behavior, but that's what I've been surrounded by since I was a kid. Things change.

So even though I might not be the best person to figure out our obsession with the future, I think people my age are the most important people to ask the question. What's the best way to envision our future? How do we maintain forward thinking while still being flexible to the ephemeral chaos of the world?

I suggest we take apart the value of "Past, present, and future" as a blueprint for decisions. We should replace the future with "Ideal." Perfection. Ultimate truth. Socrates says that the concept of truth is elusive and impossible, yet we must always move towards it. I think that is much more valuable than envisioning a specific job or house. What is the truth that you need to move towards?

It's a strange thought, and honestly I don't even know what it means. To stop looking towards the future is to forego simple things like laundry or painting your room. Our entire society's existence is contingent on the idea of preservation and self-awareness of death. I think what I'm getting at is when people have goals they often craft up a perfect version of themselves at the end of the tunnel, five or ten years down the line living in a sweet house with a fulfilled life and all that shit.

 All I'm saying is that there's no such thing as the "Perfect self." That's an oxymoron by definition, the self is implicitly imperfect. But that doesn't mean you should strive for imperfection. Just understand the ultimate goal, the surreal understanding of what you want to be. There is no such thing as a "Perfect Comedian" at all, but Socrates would say it still exists. And you know what I always say about Socrates.

That motherfucker smart as shit!

Laziness is a Salesman

And a really good one at that.

He's not too pushy, but stubborn. Motivated but not intense. In fact, many of his college friends were surprised he became a salesman at all. It wasn't really like him.

But he fits into the role well, and now he's at the door. He's always at the door. He won't ring the doorbell, he'll just quietly knock. All day. Every day. He doesn't care how long he waits. He knows you will come by eventually.

When you're busy it's easy to ignore him. But as soon as you stop, even for a second, you can hear his omnipotent percussion. Some people get annoyed by his presence. Others look forward to seeing him, looking over what he has to offer.

A lot of people panic. I panic sometimes, too. The second my ass hits the couch, laziness comes in. I didn't let him in, did I? How does he always know?

Half of his job is easy, he'll hand me the remote or minimize my writing software. Then he starts talking.

"Great job today." He says with a grin. "You deserve some time off."

He's so genuine, it's hard to disagree. And why would I? To tell him he's wrong is to say I'm flawed. To turn away is to admit failure. Why would I want to do that?

"This show is great. This is practically studying comedy, no?"

Shit, is he right? I've learned not to trust him, but I've heard the greats say the same thing. Is he talking to them too?

"You're not getting fat. Well, you are, but the funniest people are fat"

He's getting personal. It's okay, I tell him everything. He's my right hand man. My go-to guy. I'd hang with him all day if I could.

That's when I feel a sharp sting in my neck. Shit!

A bee zips in front of me. It screams "You're wasting time!"

It then circles around in the air until falling into my hands. It dies. I only have so many more of those guys.

My fear of death shoots me up, and I usher the salesman out the front door. "The mortalibee is right. You gotta go." I close the door behind him.

I walk upstairs and start the shower. All the while, I hear knocking.

Whatever will be, will be.

It's been a great week.

I don't mean in terms of accomplishment or productivity. I was lazy as hell. I had the week off from work, so Ashley and I spent our time together and generally did nothing. I enjoyed that time very much.

This marks a shift in my priorities. Probably not a good shift by my own standards, but it has it's merits. For one, I wasn't pacing around like a manic baboon thinking about the time I was wasting and what I could be accomplishing. I was generally present and relaxed, next to my girlfriend on the couch for hours at a time.

I repeated one thing to myself over and over. If I want to do it, I will do it. A pretty reasonable approach to a week off, no? But I was thinking a little more long term. If I'm really to be a comedy writer, then I will be itching to follow that path sooner or later. I will be imbued with the NEED to create comedy. That did eventually happen, but after nearly five days. Not exactly a record.

It's a shift. College was a hectic time. It's built that way. You barely have time between priorities, everyone drinks like the grand canyon is filling up with blood, and everything I wrote had some sort of purpose. Now, in this limbo state of my early 20's, the world around me is less pressing, and I can just sort of relax for a second.

In reality, that's true. There is no rush. There's no reason to force myself too hard in any direction if I'm not interested in doing it. That sounds like that laziest thing I could say, but I need to say it so I don't jump off a bridge. I think I'm on the right track. A couple weeks ago, when I attempted to have a "Perfect Week", I was going crazy from unemployment and wanted some sort of job. I gave myself the job and teetered off the path. Now, I have other plans.

Before I talk about the future, I need to address the point of sharing. Sharing your plans and goals with everyone on the internet. I've read some articles that say, in a nutshell, it doesn't work. There's no extra motivation to accomplish something after you write a Facebook post about it. In fact, the same reward centers in your brain that fire off after a big accomplishment will activate when you simply tell someone about your plans. It's just a free win. Then, after we lose sight of the goal or move on to something else, our minds will make us feel better about it. Our brain comes up with excuses, little pivots and turns in our thinking that trick our conscious into believing we didn't back peddle.

So I'm hesitant to present my plans, but I'll keep them away from accomplishment and more into concrete agendas. First off, I have a job. I've had it for about a month, and recently my boss has agreed to essentially give me a promotion. Without the title, I would have more responsibilities and a higher paycheck. That's worth sharing, I think.

Also, as of yesterday, I am officially an enrolled student in the Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC. I will be taking a sketch writing course starting next Tuesday and I could not be more excited.

Along with that development, I've found a really cool group of people doing comedy in Suffern, NY called Rhino Comedy. I tried out their drop in improv class on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I definitely see myself going there more in the future.

As with everything else that's going on, well, it's for another time. My priorities shift and change, but from now on I will not dictate them with my words. After all, I've been wrong before.

Top 10 Wholesome Jackass Stunts

Jackass has been a part of our daily lives since we were kids, and for good reason. Nowhere else on television or film were the most brilliant minds of our generation congregated to explore the human condition in such easily consumable, 2-3 minute sessions. In these stunts we learned about courage, love and loss. Most of all, we just felt good watching them. Our researchers have crafted a secret algorithm that found the top 10 most wholesome Jackass stunts. Warning, reading this list will fill you with a sense of nostalgia and just might make you shed some tears!

10. The 50-Egg challenge
Season 1, Episode 4



Nothing more American than a good ol' fashioned hard boiled egg eating challenge, and Jackass was the first show to realize it. Preston, Chris, and Stephanie sat in front of 50 delicious, wholesome hard boiled eggs. These contestants tried the best they could, but sadly were unable to finish the wonderful amount of 50 hard boiled eggs. Me and my family cherish the splendid memory of the contestants projectile vomiting over each other after 21, 8, and 3 eggs respectively.

9. Fisherman's Wharf
Season 2, Episode 7

How often have we wondered what it would be like to be put into a vat of freezing cold sardines? When nobody else seemed willing to take up the fun little challenge, Ryan Dunn was there. Now, I know that many of us would have jumped with joy into a cramped container filled with 32 degree water and smelly fish, but only Jackass could provide closure with their resources and limitless imagination. Luckily for Mr. Dunn, he smelled like fish for hours after the stunt, giving him a constant reminder of a pleasant afternoon.

8. Cow Insemination
Season 2, Episode 2


Babies. Nature. The circle of life. Just a couple of the educational topics touched on by the inspiring staff at Jackass. In this segment Johnny Knoxville goes hand deep into the beauty of animal husbandry, showing us that there's nothing disgusting at all about being a farmer. Some television shows out there rely on shock factor and dirty words, but what makes Jackass so special is it's ability to turn all that away and focus on good old fashioned segments about impregnating a cow by hand. Truly remarkable.


7. Butt Piercing
Season 2, Episode 3

Life is about taking risks. To move forward without hesitation. Jackass embodies these values more than anything else in the world ever made ever. Steve-O shows us his inspiring bravery in the third episode of season 2, when he makes the powerful decision to piece his butt cheeks together. Now, not everybody thinks this is possible, and several of his friends tell him so. Steve-O takes a stand for what he believes in and gets them pierced anyway, showing the world that if you truly want something then you should never back down or let others get in your way. After proving that the impossible was, in fact, possible, he got the piercing removed only minutes after it was put in. He's not crazy, after all!

6.Woodchipper
Season 3, Episode 1

Often times I find myself struggling through life. Sometimes it's just hard, I feel overwhelmed and just shut down completely, unable to continue. It's times like these that I think back to the most inspiring Jackass skit ever made: Woodchipper. The late, great Ryan Dunn stands in front of an industrial woodchipper as the rest of the crew feeds it with a myriad of food, clothes, paint, etc. Whenever my life is crashing around me and I can't go on, I think back to the tenacity shown by one of Jackass's greatest talents, and everything seems okay. When I stay in bed until the late afternoon, I think back to Ryan getting back on his feet after a rotten squid knocked him to the ground, and I get enough motivation to make myself breakfast at 3pm.

5. Electric Avenue
Jackass 3D

Theres nothing I love more than when the entire Jackass crew comes together and takes on a stunt as a team. In Jackass 3D the boys make their way down a hallway with active tazers and cattle prods hanging from the ceiling, tires on the floor, and love in their hearts. The quad seems to hesitate for a few seconds after the skit begins, presumably to silently pray in the hopes that their friends will pass through safely. Just then Bam and Ehren take the lead and charge through the electrified obstacle course. The leadership shown by these brave men, and the outstanding teamwork of the men to follow, are an inspiring lesson in facing your fears and working together with the people you trust. Next time I'm in a team building exercise I will make sure to show this clip and teach the lessons Jackass has immortalized through film.

4. Beehive Tetherball
Jackass 3D


Steve-O and Dave England take a little break from their stunts and shenanigans to play a game of tetherball! Of course, this is Jackass, so they need to make it slightly more educational than a simple schoolyard pastime. They added bees into a hive-sized ball and hit that around the pole, teaching us the invaluable lesson that bees are dying at an increasing and alarming rate. As Dave runs away in fear, the concept of Colony Collapse Disorder resonates through his retreat and permeates in our brains, convincing us that we must find a solution soon or the whole world will suffer. As Steve-O sticks around to finish the tetherball game, he shows us that there is hope and we must hang in there to figure all this madness out. A truly inspired piece.


3. Poo Cocktail
Season 1, Episode 1



Poo Cocktail is most elegantly described on the unofficial Jackass Wikipedia page:
"Over the course of a day, various crew members and members of the public take a dump in the portaloo. Johnny phones up his doctor to find out if he needs any immunization or protection during the stunt. To top it off, one of the crew members brings a bag full of dog shit from his two Pit Bull Terriers and empties it into the toilet."

This stunt is the epitome of class. Johnny is diligent in showing his safety precautions. Cute dogs come into the story. What I love most of all is the how the actors and crew alike come together and make a stunt more than a spectacle. They make it personal.

2.Poo Cocktail Supreme

Jackass 3D

In a revamp of a stunt from their original episode, Steve-O gets flung 150 feet into the air inside a porta-potty. Following his journey's apex, the poo-pod comes back to earth and bounces a few times with the bungie cord, spilling some sort of brown liquid on Steve. Mr. -O doesn't seem to agree with this concoction, and immediately vomits on himself. I will say, this section of the show is a tad difficult to watch, and isn't exactly appropriate for some bitch ass kids. However, the show has one of it's most touching moments when Steve-O, reeling from a near death experience, goes to hug a cameraman. The two run off into the horizon to lead a beautiful life together, and just that moment makes this stunt number 2 on our most wholesome Jackass stunts.

1.Steve-O becomes a drug addict and almost loses his life.

True Life: Jackass

The most wholesome story in the Jackass narrative has got to be Steve-O's transition from a fun loving, durable clown to a withering shell filled with booze and hard drugs. In the early years of Jackass, when they were still getting their footing, I always had a suspicion that Steve-O's character had some evolving to do. He had spirit, but there was something missing. What was missing, apparently, was whippets. After diving into a several-month long bender of nitrous, PCP, and Ketamine, Steve-O was finally a complete character with a real arc we could get behind. The great actor that he was, Steve-O fully immersed himself into the character of a man withing inches of death. Strangely enough, the show runners decided not to air any footage of Steve-O abusing drugs off camera. Most of this information actually came years later, when Mr. -O made a documentary of his time in the show and pits of addiction. Regardless of how we came to know this story, it goes without saying that it delivered endless positive, fluttery, wholesome emotions that Jackass is known for.

Perfect week? No such thing.

Not exactly a perfect week. But I'll go easy on myself.

It started off well. I accomplished nearly all my goals for the first few days, except for the time editing the documentary (scheduling time for this is somewhat complicated, since I don't have the means to edit at my home.) It feels good to exercise and write daily, but soon I fell into enjoying the 'afterglow' too much and neglecting the work that put me there. No real issue, though, as I'm back to writing after a two day break.

In the past it would have been an issue for me. If you care enough to look through the earlier entries of this blog, I spend a lot of time writing about writing and getting back on track. Those were always my least favorite days, and the idea of doing yet another post talking in circles put me on edge and led to me procrastinating. God, I'm doing it again. I feel like I'm just a snake eating itself.

I'm stuck wondering why I couldn't finish a perfect week. This is a great opportunity to condemn myself, to fall into despair or self loathing. I think a less fortunate person, somebody in a less supportive environment, or with true financial problems, health problems, etc. would have a tougher time climbing out of this mindset. It's times of failure and reflection that leaves me grateful for how many safety nets I have that I didn't earn myself. I would say this is my privilege, but that word has been so heavily politicized that I now expect immediate backlash from my more right leaning family members. Fuck it, I have privilege. #feelthebern2016

Changing the topic, this Saturday brought me to a Melee tournament in NYC. I went in with almost no expectations for myself, or real plans for the day. I was sponsored last minute by my mother who felt like I deserved a tournament, which gave me a different mindset than most tournaments I enter.
I got 9th out of 63 entrants, a modest placing but better than my seeding. I made an upset in winners before losing twice in a row. In pools, I took the eventual 2nd place player to game 3. Overall, I'm just about where I want to be, but I wouldn't call it a breakout performance by any means.

After losing, I was settled but not satisfied. I got wobbled in winners (0-3 to sunn, great player) and lost a tight game 5 set to Lumble, a luigi player. I feel confident that on any day I have the capacity to beat both of these players, but yesterday was not that day. I'm happy with my continuous improvement with the game, and will continue to work towards improving my results.

I like how this melee thing works, honestly. It seems like a similar path for comedians coming up, in terms of finding success. Every day, you put your best foot forward and show people what you have been working towards. If you stand out enough, you make some money in the long run. If not, there's the capacity to embarrass yourself and question why you came out at all. Afterwards, friends get together to talk about their performances and things they need to work on. Respect is given to those on top. The best players get together outside of tournaments to play and work on stuff together. Its a brilliant combination of community and meritocracy. I'm not quite in a stand up community, but if it's half as accommodating as the melee scene, then I can't wait to join them.

Well, my dog is barking at me now, so I'll wrap this up and take her out. I want to thank everyone who reads these and takes the time to send me feedback or praise, it really makes the whole idea of these things worth it. Not sure when I'll be back, but if something important comes up I know where I'll be writing.

P.S I have officially changed my tag from Poonslayer7 to JD Gardner. I don't need your approval.

 

The Perfect Week, Day 1

Labor day is behind us at last, and the academic year has started at my Alma mater. I've heard from grad friends that the months after college are the strangest ones, but now that I'm living it I gotta say, I'm not a fan. This summer I was able to distract myself from the grinding agony of job searches with two vacations and television, but now my road stretches long into the horizon and I have nothing to reach for.

That's bullshit, of course. I'm looking for jobs, although I just started and need to send out 100 more before I join the "looking for jobs sucks" club. I can write anything I want now, which is both exciting and terrifying. I have all day to exercise, practice melee, write a one man show, look for a career, etc. but all that stuff is intimidating when there's nothing pushing me to do it.

I guess I just gotta push myself. So I came up with the idea of a "Perfect Week"

Have you ever sat in the shower after waking up at 3pm and thought out the most productive way you could lead your life? I'm sure I'm not alone, I think about it all the time. Wake up super early, go for a run and lift weights at home, eat a healthy breakfast while I write brilliant comedy and ease into lunch by practicing smash bros. Finish multiple projects, get a phone call from the mayor, save my neighbor's children from a burning building and make love to the moon. That life sounds pretty sweet, no?

Well, to make it realistic, I gotta cut back on some stuff. But even after you take away the moon affair and saving the kids (after a few fires the neighbors probably suspect me anyway) you still have a crazy productive day. My goal this week is to make it perfect, and this is how I'm gonna do it.

Daily Goals:

1. Never sleep more than 8.5 hours. Oversleeping been the biggest killer this summer for me, and weirdly enough I actually think I'm a morning person. Everything else will fall into place as long as I can make this a habit. Well, that and...

2. Exercise. I always think about getting back into shape, but I never make a good enough habit of it. Honestly, the biggest obstacle for this has been the laundry aspect. If I can work out for a week, maybe I can get enough energy to, you know, just do the goddamn laundry.

3. Write for 1.5 hours a day. And set a timer so I know it's legit. Forcing creativity is a challenging goal, and there are a ton of distractions out there that have been keeping me from my daily dose of comedy, but for one week I need to give it a shot.

4. Practice Melee for 1.5 hours. I went on a trip for a month, came back, and took a much needed break. Now it's time to take a fresh look at the game with everything I've learned and apply it. Don't know when my next tournament will be, but I'm looking to kick ass no matter where it is.

5. Edit documentary for 2 hours. We haven't started the editing process yet, but today is the day. For one week Alex and I will be getting together for 2 hours to start chipping away at this behemoth of a project. We have given ourselves a generous deadline of 4 months, but realistically there's not a ton of pressure to finish it. We just need to put our feet on the pavement and hammer it out.

Goals for end of the week

The way I see it, there are two types of goals. Tangible, and Intangible. I'm sure there's some self help book out there that has a similar theory but is worded way better.  haven't read any self help books, though so this is what I got.

Tangible Goals
20 Minutes of One man show material, typed.
14 hours of footage sifted through, organized.
Basement (My future living space) Painted
All laundry done

Intangible Goals
Develop better sleeping habits
Have more energy
Become a better Melee player
Be less attached to phone/social media/mobile games
General self pride and accomplishement


Now that I've listed it all out, I gotta make sure I pull this off. I already woke up today and did my first bit of writing, but now's time for the hardest part, the run.

Wish me luck. Also, if you have any ideas of stuff to add to the list please feel free. Thanks for reading!

Smash Trip 2017, A Recap

What a long, strange trip it's been.

After about 30 days on the road I'm finally home. Obviously a lot has happened, and there's a lot to process. I don't really know how I feel about the entire experience, so writing this will probably help me discover that.

First off, a huge thank you to Alex Kanter AKA Che$$ on his companionship and support throughout this whole trip. There wasn't anyone else as fitting a partner than you, and I think we did well by each other for that month. It was a hell of a trip, brother.

I'm sure at least one person is reading this without knowing what I'm talking about, so I guess I'll have to explain myself. This past month, Alex and myself were travelling down and up the east coast competing in Super Smash Bros Melee Tournaments. To save money, we crashed on futons, floors, and couches in the homes of other smash players. Most of these people we had never met before, but they trusted us nonetheless and made our trip possible. We could not afford 30 days of hotels, so this aspect of the trip was essential above all else.

Also important was a constant stream of tournaments, after all, that's the point of us travelling. Che$$ and I went to 16 tournaments, making some sort of money back at every single one. That in itself was a feat we were surprised to achieve, but I guess we had it in us all along. We also picked up wins over Power Ranked players from each region. If memory serves, we had over 10 PR'd wins each, but that number changes based on the age of each ranking and other factors. Regardless, we proved ourselves to 11 different states that we are pretty good at this smash thing.

So taking all those things into consideration, it was a pretty damn successful trip.

We got a whole bunch of interviews with local talent and TO's, daily vlog posts, and other assorted footage that will go into a documentary coming out sometime... soon. I will be taking the lead role in editing, and hopefully will keep constant updates on how that is going. It's a ton of footage to go through, though, so don't expect anything soon!

The goal of the trip was, well, complicated. A primary reason we decided to go through with all the planning this trip required was that we didn't want to regret not doing it. We had no idea what would really come of it, and we knew we were taking a big risk putting ourselves out there the way we did, but once we had the idea in our heads we knew that backing off would be the biggest mistake of all.

Once we committed, our goal became self improvement. We've heard it time and time again that the best way to become an expert at this game is to travel and discover how other players approach the game. That was certainly true for us, as we felt like stronger players after just a few weeks of travel and competition. At this pace, we thought, we will reach top 100 in no time!

Well, not exactly.

Shine 2017 was our final test. It was a way to apply everything we've learned and show the world what we became over a month of grinding and travel. It was, in my head, an opportunity to prove myself, make the name "Poonslayer7" more than a silly tag, and to walk away triumphant from a difficult and strenuous journey. Sadly, I under performed both my seeding any my own expectations.

I was actually seeded to get 65th at the tournament, but instead got 129th. That's two placings below. Truly disappointing, yes, but an important lesson in ego. If I'm going to continue this smash career I need to learn how to handle high expectations. Let's be honest, the top 100 players at the tournament had way more stress than I could even imagine, so I really can't complain.

The question I need to answer now is why did I not perform as intended? I think two factors lead to this. One, I was pretty burnt out. I remember last year at Super Smash Con 2016 I was dying to play every second I was there. There was nothing stopping me from hopping on any open setup and playing for hours at a time. At Shine, I felt something closer to apathy and boredom. At times I was sleepy, hungry, or thinking about other things. I think that my wack ass diet, low quality bedding, and extensive traveling schedule just got the best of me after a month. Whatever the reason was, I just was not there to compete. I was unhappy.

The second reason was that I didn't truly apply what I learned on the trip, and that's because I just retrieved so much information so quickly. It's like being at college, going to all my classes, but not studying for the final. I was given all of this different information, learned so many mistakes, and never really having the time to work them out before competing at the hardest tournament of my life. I need some more time to really sit down and get to a place I want to be. And that leads me to my final and most important question..

What do I really want out of this? I guess the goal is to be a top player, right? We see those players walking into the VIP section, the players getting flown out to tournaments on another's dime, the people traveling the world to play a video game and making a decent living at it. Those players put in more time than I, and the only solution to that is to catch up. But I have other goals, too. I want to have a successful stream and entertain people on a constant and strict schedule. I want to implement my numerous video ideas into a successful YouTube channel. There's nothing stopping me with that except money, and a job is, well, pretty important in getting money. I'll get there I think. But for now I can only keep grinding.

I have this overwhelming need to achieve and make strides towards my end-goal, but the possibilities are so broad that I can't decide what needs to come first. This trip raised more questions than answers, opened up opportunities while revealing the impossibility of others. There's a slab of marble in front of me right now, and I need to stop wasting time picking a tool and just start chipping away. In a sense I've already started. Maybe I'm being too hard on myself.

And here I am again, reaching the same conclusion as every other time I write. Work harder. Who would've thought that would be the answer, besides every single adult I've ever spoken to. I hope this gets to somebody and actually makes a difference to them. If not, well, at least it helped me get the ball rolling.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully soon you'll hear how I got a job and can start saving towards those tools I need. I'm still young, still hungry, and this trip is just beginning. Take care.

What do I need to do to succeed?

So Im back from my vacation. It's been a couple of days, actually. The first day I got back I did absolutely nothing, then the day after I kinda did nothing again. Yesterday was the first day that I tried working out and writing the last blog post so it was somewhat productive. Now that I'm all settled and just about anti-jetlagged I can start working towards...well, I guess that's the confusing part.

I was explaining my situation to somebody recently and said that I know what I want to be, I know what it takes to get there, now it's just up to me to put the work in. I can't be sure about the first two things, though. Like, do I really know what I want to be? Not really. I know what I want to be involved in. I know what I like doing and what I'm good at compared to other things. But I couldn't tell you right now what my life is going to be like in another 5 years or so. Even if I did know, I couldn't tell you what I needed to do to get to that point. I could work at it every day for a month and still fall short of my goals. I dont know how hard I need to push to get there, honestly. Maybe it's 2 hours a day, but maybe that's not enough. 4 hours would be better, but maybe it would stress me out and I would fall off the wagon. Maybe all it would take is 30 minutes of solid writing mixed with performances and videos. All in all, I serisouly don't know how to go about doing this.

That's okay, though. Nobody in the history of the world has known for certain their own future and I'm no different. I guess I just have to trust that I'm at least close to the truth with my plan, that working every day towards something is better than what a lot of people out there are doing, that being introspective this morning may or may not help me but at least it's something. So now, like many many other posts on this dumb personal blog, I will make a concious effort to break off and see what I can actually work on as opposed to just rambling and meta-writing.

I would lke to make another smash skit soon. It would be good to have a collection of them or something. The one I saw the other day about the dad finding out you play smash was so fucking terrible and it honestly made me angry. It was bad acting, slow, and had that obvious click-bait title. But they're out there, man. They're making stuff. I can't be angry if other content creators are successful just because I am not. I guess I just need to be working on my own stuff too.

I think the top 20 diss rap is the next thing on my agenda. Let me get some coffee and knock this shit out.

Writing Opportunities for 12 hours.

Lets take today to get as much writing done as possible before I go have fun for two weeks. I assume that I will have more opportunities to write while I'm in the sunbathed islands of Hawaii, but I will have more alcohol at that point, so it's safer to get a good start now. I'll start with a list.

In no particular order of priority:

1. Work on screenplay. If I can get the ball rolling with 10 pages or so then I can keep it back in the forefront of my mind for the rest of the summer. I'd like to finish the movie at some point, and it has a good start, but pure apathy has kept me away.

2. Work on skit and video ideas. I can set an arbitrary goal of 5 or 7, but I just want to come up with as many as possible before my vacation is done. The month before I go on the trip would be a good time to try out my 1 - 30 seconds 30 day challenge, and that would take a TON of back planning. It would also take 30 ideas, which is a challenge in itself. I can start with a brainstorming session or a facebook post asking for ideas. I'll keep a running list as soon as this blog is over.

3. Stand up comedy. Freewriting and developing opinions for stand up is always productive and fun. I think this will come more from my experiences on the trip and can be a focus when I'm on the way back, although I will assume that part of trip will leave me fatigued and unwilling to write.

4. Jesse Gardner Has Ideas. The Onion-esque blog I started has been ignored after three posts. My bad. Not a huge deal, of course, but it would still be good to get another article out. I set the goal for 20 before the school year ended, pretty pathetic that I never even started an article after that. A post or two there would be good to add to my article-writing resume. Maybe I can get a freelance writing job for some stupid satire website in the future. Practice is all I need now, though.

5. Smash Trip ideas, planning, documentary script. I think it would be cool to write some vlog scripts related to the smash trip. Getting some pre-trip footage to add to the documentary archives could never hurt, and it could help get a lead into some sort of narrative regarding passion, improvement, competition, etc. Maybe I should save that for the end of June. Maybe not.

Between those five subjects I'm sure that I'll have plenty of writing opportunities on this trip. If I land 12 hours from now with pages of material and writing done I'll feel like I deserve the next couple of days to relax and keep my mind off things. This writing and work isn't ruining my vacation, it's letting me have one.

Follow my travels at jesseontheroad.blogspot.com

Actually writing some shit

Alright, third day in a row. Instead of doing the usual nonsense meta-writing I always do on this blog, I'm gonna try to actually write some shit. Let's get it started

Yesterday I realized the first time I could ever use sign language without deaf people. I was in a dorm, right by the side entrance where there's a big glass wall with a big glass door. My buddy went outside to smoke a cigarette, but because of this bullshit May weather we're having it was too cold to go outside. There he was, only five feet away, but there was no way we could communicate. Unless we had sign language, of course. Then we could have been keeping the conversation going from two completely different auditory spaces. We would have been legends to anybody who passed, two mysterious young men who spent countless hours learning ASL just to talk while one was smoking a cigarette and the other was being a pussy.

Meme songs are one of my favorite things now. A meme song is a ridiculous, repetitive, annoying, or otherwise hilarious song that can be busted out in most situations for the sake of a joke. The first of these songs was "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men. This song is so timeless and transcendent and will always be a good option if you're trying to piss somebody off. I would recommend learning the words in order to add another layer of silliness to the mix. The lyrics might seem stupid as hell, but it really is brilliant insight into the undertones of patriarchal dominance in the music industry.

The next song I stumbled upon was actually recommended by my girlfriend, "I like to move it move it." I think she was trying to get me to leave her house. The Madagascar version is the one you want to shoot for here, but make sure it's not the Madagascar cover but the Madagascar version. It gets slightly ruined with a non-professional singer trying to move it move it. Play this one at your own risk, as it is about 6 minutes long and sounds like it's going to end about seven times.

Another song that is perfect for any occasion is "Cotton Eye Joe" for obvious reasons. There is nothing more powerful than hooking up your Samsung s6 to the party's speakers and blasting some 5th grade dance music. If there's a large enough gathering, sometimes you get to see every different reaction at the same time. Some "cooler" people might hold their ears and screech like banshees, protecting their ears from the only song that can possibly kill their vibe. Those more willing to try new things will attempt to recall the dance moves from when they were younger. These people will look up and to the right, as that part of the brain is where dance memories are held. Be careful, though, as if they look to the left they are trying to figure how to best murder the DJ with an ice pick. The brain works in mysterious ways, huh?

Right now there is one king of meme songs. I Got Bitches by A2M. I don't know anything about the artist other than he has created one of the best pieces of art ever conceived in this mortal realm. Once you listen to I Got Bitches, your heart craves for similar masterpieces by the same artists, but alas, there are none. Look up A2M on Spotify and you find one song. It seems as though this song is all our species deserves right now.

I could go at length about the mysteries of "I Got Bitches" but I think you should just listen to it yourself. It has the sustainability of Cotton Eye Joe, the catchiness of I Like to Move it Move it, and most importantly, the misogyny and objectification of women previously exclusive to "Who Let the Dogs out." This song is brilliant. Listen to that right now, damn you.

Upcoming developments, stream, smash skits

Today I wrote two more smash related skits. Writing them is fun, but producing them is difficult. Yesterday I had the chance to make my first smash skit and I think it was a success. It got some attention on my Instagram and on Melee Hell. It was a short scene, and didn't take too long to make, but we are definitely just getting started.

It does feel good to create some kind of content, even though it wasn't too long. It's an important first step, and now I wanna make another skit more than anything else. Lucky for me it got a lot of attention and a solid amount of praise, so now I'm craving it more. This alongside my 10 minutes of paid stage time i was offered in less than three weeks makes me very excited for the future. I just need to make sure I'm putting in my fair share of work every day. I need to keep writing.

But what do I care about right now? I'm at work, finishing my second to last shift at my summer job, and I feel completely uninspired to write anything for stand up. I wrote two more skits for smash that I just want to start working on. What else is there to do? I guess I need to finalize housing for the last remaining days of the trip, but I don't want to be pushy. That really is a necessity, though, so I guess it's my next move.

Another thing coming up is a 8 hour (or something like that) stream with me and Chess. We don't have a set agenda yet, but some ideas to make the stream actually entertaining and memorable is important. Nobody gives a shit about 2 unknown players playing melee, but if there are fun activities involved then we could definitely get some interest. Maybe we both take half an hour to write diss raps about the other. Maybe we do physical challenges or get chess really drunk. Either way, it should be a fun weekend and an exciting start to our adventure. Let's just hope that we get a good amount of donations coming in!

For now that's all I have to say. I'm very excited to keep working on producing content and (hopefully) build a following. The next video we make will definitely need water marks or something with our instagram handles so people can follow us. There is more work to be done in finding housing but I feel like that will come in time as well. The wheels keep turning, graduation crawls near, and every day brings me one step closer to my dream. Lets do this.

I think this is when I step it up

These last few weeks of college have been... strange, to say the least. Nostalgia is everywhere, there's sadness mixed with excitement with a dash of regret. Stranger than all the emotions is the sheer speed of the days, each one melding into the next with accelerated speed. This morning, for the first time since high school, I looked at myself in the mirror in an almost meditative way. I didn't let myself stop looking until I promised that I would work harder and make the most of the opportunities I have. I saw myself, and I was scared. I was jittery and lacking confidence. I wanted to look away and distract myself immediately. I can't allow myself to do that. I need to stay the course.

Whenever I go more than a week without considerable writing or hard work I tend to go into one of two schools of thought. The first and most frequent mindset I develop is that of guilt. "I need to be working harder" or "At this pace I'll never make it". Thoughts like this fuck me up, my confidence and self esteem suffer somewhat, but they're pretty good short term motivators in getting me to work harder.

The second mindset is forgiveness. I let myself take a second to breath and pull myself together, then bank on the fact that eventually I'll make my way back to productivity and on the path to success. This mindset is easier and more fun, but overall I think it's way more dangerous. It's like being hard on myself is putting lead into gasoline and going easy is just having a big carbon footprint. It's easy to understand why harsh self-criticism can be harmful, but letting yourself off the hook and being okay with mediocrity is failing to see the problems in the future. I need to work harder, and I need to consistently remind myself that. But I can't put lead in the air, either. It's all just confusing and hard to handle.

This is the problem with a lot of artists, I think. What will motivate me to work? Love of the craft is no question, I never feel more alive than when my own ideas come to life and succeed in making people laugh. But more often than not i will occupy my time with idle games or other distractions. I choose instant gratification over a long effort to be happy. Not a unique problem by any means, but it is definitely a big deal.

But here I am now, trying again to be productive. With this road trip coming up and some strings to be tightened there is still a lot to do. This week I have no real excuse to slack off. I have an opportunity here to set myself up for success. The path i make is completely up to me. This shit is really exciting omggg

What I want to do today is write a couple of short (super short) film ideas that are smash/comedy related. Something just to get my feet wet with instagram videos. I need to start somewhere with smash skits, and a 20 second thing is way more digestible and easily produced. I can make 5 before I go back home, and release them every couple of days. The editing is the hardest part.

So let's get started. Hopefully soon there will be more fun content coming out from ya boy and we can get a foundation for this trip to thrive. Only time will tell.

How important is Social Media, really?

So this week has been going by fast, but I am pretty happy overall with how I've been handling things.

Terps is, by far, the most stressful part of the week. It's a 3 hour obligation every day from today (Wednesday) until Saturday. The stage time is important, and the writing/rehearsal process is great experience, so I'm not upset at all about missing out on some other stuff. It's just a lot along with a presentation and memorizing a shakespeare monologue for my acting class. It's called hell week for a reason!

In the melee world, I have been kinda slacking in collecting clips for me and Justin's combo video. There's a ton of content out there, but clipping and saving it is a bitch. That's not even including the time we need to download the gif's, put it in final cut, edit it with songs, and make sure it's good. Once things slow down i'll be itching for stuff to do, but for now it needs to stay on the back burner.

My social media has slowed down, too, but that's to be expected. I'm not doing anything interesting, so what do I really have to share with the world? This blog is probably the most truthful and productive way to put myself out there, so this should be enough. It's not terribly good, mostly just freewrites and rambling, so It's not really worth advertising when I make a post. Closer to our trip, though, I'll try to make a more quality blog post that's worth sharing and see if it takes off.

It's very strange being in my position right now. My end goal is, really, to make a living off of some combination of comedy and gaming. I want to make a career out of this. I see people on twitch making a living off of streaming, and I genuinely believe that I have what it takes to  make that my career. This trip is a huge part of that plan, so I want to put everything I got into it. The difficulty comes in finding a balance between showing off what I can do and letting people just see for themselves.

On social media, there is nothing that bothers me more than people who think they're hot shit. Over advertising yourself is, I think, a big way that people lose their voice and identity and become obsessed with their image. That isn't what I want to become, obviously. On the other hand, I have been in the dark on social media for a long time when I could have been showing off some cool shit that I've done. I don't want to act humble anymore, I have developed some good skills. I am a good melee player, and I have the capability to reach top 100 in a year. I need to believe that. I am a good comedian, and have the ability to start getting paid for gigs before I turn 25. I need to believe in that, too. I think I have a lot of good to spread to the world, I think that I can entertain people if they give me a chance. There is a fine line that I need to navigate if I'm going to be successful. Sell myself, but don't sell something I'm not.

So where does that leave me, now? I guess all I can do is continue to develop my skills. I just need to keep putting myself out there and try to get some sort of following with what I can do. Traveling and playing melee is going to be the best experience I've had to date, but I can turn that trip into so much more with proper use of a powerful tool: Social media.

Exciting news and making progress

Today I FINALLY finished my first draft of the Rick and Morty spec! I'm so relieved, it's taken about 9 months but it finally has an ending that I am proud of. Man, that took forever. But I think it's pretty good.

This week I have Terps coming up, my fifth and final time hosting the show. It's always a great opportunity to make new material, and this time I took it upon myself to essentially write every scene, or at least the structure of it, myself. Today the hosts and I went over all the scenes and made changes when necessary, and right now it seems that we are in a really good place to start rehearsing. It made me feel better to finalize scenes today rather than need to write them, and I think everyone is happy with how it turned out.

So I guess this weekend was a successful weekend in terms of writing. A tweet of mine hit 15 likes so I went public with this blog, and I'm gonna keep it pinned up for a couple of weeks to see what happens. Next time I edit the Flipschits episode I'm probably gonna pin that version for a while, too.

In the melee world, me and Syko have been picking out clips from our play sessions to put into a combo video. We have about 2 minutes of material right now, so I guess I can start putting together clips into some sort of video soon. I also want to get back into a practicing grind as soon as I graduate. There's a lot of tech I want to polish before the big trip, including some swaggy OOS options that would make a sweet clip.

Speaking of the TRIP! Tomorrow is a big day! That's the day when we go on Facebook and really start looking for places to house ourselves. It's the first time we are truly going public with the trip, but it's nothing that is going to build a ton of hype or anything. If this next week goes well, and we have confirmed housing for the trip, then we can actually hype up the trip and get people interested in it. I've been talking to people about it all week, so I'm crazy excited to actually get it some traction and interest.


**Note. This was supposed to be published on sunday, I guess I never did. Oh well!**

Short post want burrito

So Bill O'Reilly is a sex offender. Not entirely sure of what, but idk how much it matters. It probably does, but i'm still super happy that he got fired. Hopefully the court case fucks him hard and he doesn't get off easy.

I wonder how quickly I can deter people from a public blog post more either. Politics are divisive as fuck right now I should probably chill

How will I get distracted again. Probably from melee. It would be at least on par with my goals

Reddit took my mind again! This is hard as hell to focus on.

I'm having a good time. Everything's chillin. I wish I had my burrito.

Definitely gonna go over some clips. Word

Quick update

A quick update on what's going on with me.


Yesterday was an open mic where I got to try out some more material. It's cool to finally have that semi consistent opportunity to get stage time and gauge where I stand as a comedian. Right now, I'm still towards the bottom. But, I know what it takes to be good, I think, and it mostly comes down to hard work. I will be tickling with stand up for a while, and will fully dive in when the time is right. I've written a ton of material "Most of which is not great!" and feel like there's been a general increase in potential for what I've been writing. I've also been writing about more stuff that's relevant and funny to me, so it's satisfying to perform whether or not I have a great night.

Laugh Club is having elections for Eboard today, and there is exactly 1 person for each job. I am confident that the new eboard coming in are going to take things a bit more seriously than I did and pull this club into a better place. It's going to be very strange taking a back seat to everything, but I think the club has a few more good years in it and it'll turn into something I'm proud of. Hell, I'm already proud of it. I started that shit, yo. That is 100% an accomplishment.

I also started a bunch of social media accounts on Sunday. Redownloaded Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram. I am forcing myself to post on all three fairly consistently to keep up a presence online and brand myself. I'm diving full fledged into "Poonslayer7" I think It will go well.

This upcoming Monday is huge for the Oneyboys. We will be making facebook posts to all the different regions and groups announcing our arrivals and asking for housing if we don't already have it. This is like 40% of going public, and with the Oneyboys social media accounts coming soon after, we might really take off and get something good going. Only time will tell, but that time is coming up quick!

I'm also going to be going public with this blog soon, which is a little nerve wracking and exciting. I think it's not that big of a deal because I seriously doubt people will read it unless I'm constantly sharing to the page, which I'm not because it's more of a journal than anything else. It's more just scary, I guess, to have all these personal thoughts available for anyone to read at any point. Maybe I should just keep it private...

Oh well, who cares. Let's see what happens.



Words I learned to spell: Gauge

The Summer of Smash is everything

All I can think about is this road trip coming up. It's on my mind constantly. It's so close, but still there's so much more that can be done. So much to prepare, to attend to, to fix and tinker. Then there's the actual trip itself and the fact that we're putting ourselves out there to be watched and judged and critiqued. We are going to compete every day in an effort to validate ourselves and make ourselves known within the community. This is like a senior project, a culmination of four years in college and time before. This is so freaking important to me right now.

The possibilities are endless. I will be utilizing so much social media to get people to give a shit about us, but the wrong move will make us look like hacks or amateurs. it's a tightrope, honestly.

I'm ready though, I think. I will face a lot of hate at some point no doubt, but it's important that I persevere through it all. I just hope that the initial posts telling everyone what we're trying to do isn't met with bullshit opposition and stuff. I hope people root for us from the beginning.

I just want to have an amazing summer and say that I gave this potential career a good go. It's all I can think about. I just gotta keep being honest and keep doing hard work. That'll be tough, but if it were easy then everyone would do it.

Law and order SVU

Law and order SVU, everyone loves that show. I recently got into it and really enjoyed it. I don't really know why I like it so much, maybe it's the pacing of it, it never seems slow. Maybe the actors, specifically Ice T, do a bang up job. I don't know.

 One day I sit on the couch and look through the channels and see law and order on, hell yea, turn it on, its the beginning of the episode where you see the crime, perfect. So a man sneaks into this home, steals a knife, walks up to a woman and stabs her 3 times. Then he jumbles with the dresser and leaves.

Im standing there like.... That's it. Not gonna fuck with the kids? take a finger to go? Then the intro screen comes up, fucking criminal intent! I turned it off immediately i felt bamboozled!

Then i realized why i like SVU. It's not the direction or the justice. It's the creative ways people turn out to be completely fucked up. I don't want to see murder, I want to see a man steal locks of colored hair for 20 years until his entire bedroom makes a rainbow. I want to see a guy cut off people's kneecaps and glue them together to make a shield which he uses to protect himself from the cop's gunfire. I want to see a man steal children's clothes, put them on so they rip, paint himself green, then masturbate in the mirror pretending he's the hulk.

That's good television right there

The Risque jokes

Definitely distracted. It's important that i look into some other bits for this Tuesday.

I wanna talk about sex. I think that's important for me to talk about sex on stage because it's so important to me. And everyone.


Sex is the bomb, but I understand why it's weird to talk about. probably because it's icky. It smells and is gross, *IF* you do it right. If you have sex and it's still nice and fresh in the bedroom... You either have sex problems or great air circulation. Good sex smells, man. And not great either. It's a strange smell that isn't pleasant but I do weirdly like it, sorta like how I like the smell of gasoline.

Maybe sex isn't that taboo anymore, but butt stuff totally is. I feel like the general vibe out there is that a finger goes up her ass and *Bam* she's a whore, just like that. Its like,  Nice gal *shove* untrustworthy. Good girl *shove* terrible credit, it's a horrible stigma.


 Worse for guys tho, a finger up a guy's ass makes him... automatically gay. I'll say it right now... having a finger up your butt... is not the worst thing on the planet. It's not that bad! Pretty fun, if done correctly. And I know this is important to a lot of people who are hesitant to try it, It doesn't smell like poopie after.

At least with as far as I've gone, I'm sure that more experienced folks occasionally strike oil. Have an oil spill, per se.

I think what I'm getting at is that sex should be a more open topic. You hear about political correctness but there's nothing that gets people more uncomfortable than asking how their butt progress is going. Granted I should stop asking my waitresses that question, but it's still important.

Crowd work, people will want to talk about literally anything else.







Watch Shameless, one of the main characters is sodomized and he bounces right back, and guess what, he isnt gay





It seems that I can talk very delicately about ass play and already people don't know how to feel.


 I know too many people uncomfortable with ass play, talking about it, I wouldn't assume to try it on them

Getting my girlfriend to make out with her friend

I like to think i don't fill the male stereotype in a lot of negative ways but i definitely do. I think being a guy comes with these things we do that we have no control over. 

Kinda like morning wood, but conscious thought.

 For example, when I pee at my girlfriend's place, a house with all women, I leave the toilet seat up 100% of the time, without fail. I don't mean to. I get punished for it every time. But  I still just black out every time I use the toilet and end up pissing off my girlfriend. That is such a typical guy thing.


 Another thing I cant stop doing is bother my girlfriend into  making out with her friends, as often as possible.

 It's not that i'm being super weird about it, I think they're pretty close to doing it already, without my meddling,
and I just jump on the opportunities to help out immediately.


It's a thought that every guy with a girlfriend ever has had. One of your gal pal's's gal pal's comes running up to her. *Running* they hug and they talk this close to each other. Their chests touch, and you just stare straight ahead because you're not sure if you're allowed to look. *Peek*.

 This is when I step in, and try to make things happen. At first I would just flat out tell them, and they could sense how desperate I was. "Please, kiss!" *homeless*. That didn't work at all, you can't be that obvious. You gotta play it like inception, otherwise, even if they do listen to you, it's just a peck and it's over and what's the point then, right? I know it sounds totally slimy but like, come on, I want this.

Anyway, subliminal messages are the way to go. Lately whenever I'm at a bar or something, I'm with my girl and we're dancing, I'll try to just get the point across without her even noticing.

*Music bumping* x9 *Shouting, away from mic* "LGBT"  "Orange is the new black"  "You get used to the taste"

I'm kidding, I don't do that shit.


I still definitely just yell at them to hook up. I'm like "Hey babe, Is that Cynthia, you know what time it is!!! Kiss her!! Kiss Kiss Kiss! Scissoring looks fun! I Love Lesbians!!!

I think I'm making progress.








 you gotta be play it like the game of thrones.


 Be sneaky about it, plant some seeds.

A real, actual stand up bit! Good for me!

What's important to me? What do I want to talk about when I go on stage with a mic in my hand and 5 less dollars in my pocket?

I need to discover how to unlock this part of my brain that will allow me to be a good stand up comedian. I want to create material that is relevant, honest, intricate, and fun. Let's start with smash.

I'm not sure if anybody cares or knows this, but I am a competitive video game player. I travel around the country competing in a video game for money. The game I play is the ever popular, best seller, Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube. I'm pretty good at it too. I am not exaggerating when I say that Smash is one of the top 3 most important things in my life, the other two being my immediate family and eating pussy... everything else is pennies. Smash is not just a hobby it is a lifestyle and some of my best friends are fellow smash brothers players. Look me up on youtube if you want, Poonslayer7 is what I go by. My gamertag.

If you don't know exactly how ridiculous that is, synonyms include "Vaginakiller" and "Boxdestroyer."

I like the tag, but "The Poonslayer" sounds like a creepy super villain. I feel like I need a counterpart. My arch nemesis, the "G-spot Guardian" . I try to slay, he Deflects away. I try to slay, he saves the day.


Why did I pick that name, well, Poonslayer is because I'm an irresistible man of many sexual talents and 7 because it's lucky. It may seem Ironic that a man who travels around to smelly card shops playing a video game claims such an illustrious title as "Slayer of Poon." But I truly identify with that name. I whisper it to myself on many occasions just as a little ego boost. like -

"Ah man, failed a test? Keep your head up, you're the god damn poonslayer7."



And I feel way better!


The name has caught on, which I admit is pretty uncomfortable. Some of my Girlfriend's sorority sisters call me "Daddy Poon" which is... A dream come true, honestly. Within the smash community there are probably 50 people who know me by no other name than Poonslayer. I hope that never bites me in the ass, you know? I have this feeling that I'm gonna be applying to a promotion in 10 years. I'm one of 7 people for this 1 spot in the company. It's the spot of my dreams, one might call it a G-spot. I have my suit and tie on, I'm sweating, this is the most important moment of my life. I open the doors into the conference room in front of a whole panel of executives when I see one man's eyes brighten. Beaverknight10. He stands up and loudly proclaims to the room of people with complete control over my professional career and yells "POONSLAYER!!"

"The G-Spot Guardian"

Ok, that's definitely a solid bit right there. Now is just the issue of memorizing it, which has always been a problem with me in the past. I can memorize this in two weeks no problem, perform it at the open mic, and see where it goes from there. It's something I care about, so I can definitely see myself working with this until it works.

My sister called me that once, I'm like "Relax Cersei." 

When something's missing and you don't know what

I had a bit of an epiphany over the last couple of days. It's going to sound completely redundant with just about everything else I've written in this blog when I go a long time between entries, but this time it didn't let me sleep.

Maybe it started with this weekend. St Oney's day I had the time of my life at this kid's house that I know. It started off like any other party, except for maybe the fact that a band was playing. The basement was completely packed so I didn't try to see them so I just hung outside with a few friends and drank casually, Alex being one of those friends. When I hang with Alex it's always a good time, and about half an hour into I busted out into a freestyle that was actually pretty freaking good. I think,"I'm going to incorporate as much freestyle rap as possible when I'm in front of people or a camera. This is fun!" Or something along those lines that's less coherent.

Around that point the band stopped playing, but in their dust was a drummer and a bassist. Alex pushes his way to the mic and starts busting out in some song he made up on the spot. I came on after and free styled for a little bit. We alternated, went outside, got bored, then went inside again for round two. This time Alex got on the bass and I was spitting for about 20 more minutes. It was pretty sick, and a crapload of fun. Entertaining like that fills this void in me that constantly refreshes itself and seeks more attention. Lately this yearning has been satiated by the show, and once that ended I allowed myself the spring break (and consequent snow days) to relax and drink and have fun with Ashley. Then this weekend was another party weekend, and then Monday and Tuesday presented some work I needed to do. Tuesday had an open mic (my first time performing stand up in months) and I was unprepared so I had to bust out my poem from sophomore year. When I got home that night I felt strange. I tried to sleep but couldn't and all I remember was plenty of joke ideas entering my head that I was dying to sit down and write about but I didn't and I laid there and wrote nothing, not even a premise or a simple idea. It bothered me. I really need to write again and make sure that my opportunities are not wasted.

I think the weirdest thing about this weekend was my willingness to get a tarot card reading from a girl I knew from the theater department. I was definitely in a hazy head space so maybe my participation was based mostly on that but I want to think that I had a breakthrough away from cynicism long enough to indulge in printed spirituality. Apparently I had an amazing reading, and it gave me some insights to things I already knew. I'm not sitting here advocating for mediums or any voodoo stuff like that, but I definitely liked getting the card reading. It requires cognitive dissonance for sure, but when you believe that the cards will tell you something it's allowing for an outside perspective into your own thoughts and ambitions. That's incredibly valuable, I think, and even more so that the girl giving me the reading stressed the point that I want to travel and that I need to write more. I agree on that front, I seriously need to get back on track and work on some goals.

And that, also, is the scary thing about improv. I love that I have a crew of people that will do improv comedy with me twice a week for a few hours and I think that it's helping me build valuable skills as a comedian and actor, BUT, it's satiating that void with little or no results. I'm having fun, fostering relationships and gaining experience but I have no piece of work that can be shared week after week. That's my big problem right now. Writing material for stand up.

But I've been trying for years now, I should be able to do it. I have been surrounding myself with writers and performers and actors throughout my college career and have made my comedy somewhat of a priority for a long time and I seriously think that I can come up with good material if I stop being such a lazy asshole and really sit down to write. I mean, look at this post right now. I have had a lot of this saved up for a while. My creative stomach has been making noises for months now.

So when I was tossing and turning last night I had to really think about why I couldn't fall asleep. I tried eating and brushing my teeth, that didn't work. Maybe I need to exercise more or drink more water. Maybe I was just uncomfortable or wanted sex. There's a good chance, though, that I just needed to get some of these thoughts on to paper and begin really talking to people when I go on stage. That's what I noticed with Jared, he really wants to tell people his perspective. You really gotta admire that in him. I hope to learn a lesson from him when it comes to telling an honest story and writing as often as possible.

Today is as good a day as any to get back on track. I think I'll continue in this blog today and try to figure out exactly what I'm dying to talk about. Be back soon.



Words I learned to spell: Cynicism

First day back has me feel a certain way

The first days of my last semester of College. It's already different that what I was expecting.

Actually, I don't even remember what I expected. I knew that the play was going to be a whirlwind of an experience, and that my classes were going to be easy. I had a very open day, granted Wednesday is my lightest day, but all of a sudden I'm looking forward to the rest of my college experience. I had a night with my fraternity that went well and it was actually a blast talking to all the brothers I saw. The most pressure on me right now is this show, but this show is going to be an absolute blast and I can't fricken wait.

What I'm still struggling with, though, is how I spend my free time. I always write about this, and I always get anxious about it, but slacking off and playing games has always been my biggest vice. If I'm not working hard towards finishing a project or paper then I have no excuse for not writing and getting to the point of my career that I need to be at. I got myself this far, I found a group of people that are looking to be better comedians and come with me on a journey and I can't waste this opportunity.

So how do I fight that urge? Well, I guess being less stressed from school will open me up to resist the resistance, to push forward and start a writing session when all I want to do is play smash or a game on the computer. I can keep myself in the present and continue to push forward every day, I know I can. The alternative is a long life of regret, and at that point the only thing I'll be working toward is accepting my failures as a young comic in my last college days.

I had flaws in my older lines of thinking. I use old in the sense of "not now", as this flawed reasoning I'm trying to escape dates as recently as this blog has been around. I've always tried to sit myself down and sternly say "this is what I need to accomplish" I would list out goals and for a split second I would believe that I could achieve them in a timely and proficient fashion, like a robot or a super soldier. All I would write about is the value of writing...

And that Is what I'm trying to do now. I believe that was an example "meta-meta-writing" I'll stop myself at two metas so as to keep myself sane and on topic.

So I understand I had a flaw, as I'm sure I will understand about myself again in a few short months, but I'm older now than I was before and this sentence is as meaningful as it is a run-on. I am doing okay. I will be a success in only a few short years and I firmly believe that. It's time to go after what I want.

Arbitrary anxiety

Ohhhh baby we're back.

I felt another wave of anxiety today and i couldn't pin down why.  I think a lot of people feel that way sometimes, like something is wrong but there's nothing to even think about. I guess maybe that's the problem, right? That there's nothing driving me. I'm not thinking of anything. There's nothing coming up, no deadlines, no problems that need addressing. This was a break that I needed, but I still want to work towards a goal. I think the problem now might be that I have too many goals to work towards.

I gotta figure out what I want. Not just who I want to be, because there's too many answers to that question. I guess the real issue is more philosophical than that, It's a question of purpose. It's the everlasting question of happyiness and meaning. What is the path that will lead me to as many happy moments and as few unhappy moments as possible.

I can't continue to answer that right now, because I have no idea. Maybe the only correct option is to go upstairs and work out, shower, and practice melee until tonight. I don't want to see people or hang out with friends... maybe I have social anxiety. Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me too much.

Whenever I get into the mindset of productivity, hard work, training and frequent writing etc. I get annoyed at the prospect of seeing other people and having them take that efficiency away from me. Once I start socializing for a while, i lost my steam and start down the slow path of complacency, stagnation, and finally where I am now, which is confusing and arbitrary anxiety. Is that a good way to live, though? Are my constant efforts to become productive the things that actually make me anxiious? Would giving up on the prospect of success be the right move?

Right now, I don't think so. The most obvious solution might be the right one, which is to work harder, exercise more often and try my best to make it as a comedian/writer. To keep melee in my life for as long as possible.