I often talk to people about what it's like to do comedy, and I talk about how hungry I was and how so much of it was a blur to me because when I was dogging the road that hard I was keeping a 40 hour day job, and playing in a band too. Every night was something or rather, a gig, a guest spot, drinks with friends, it never stopped. What grabbed me just now was I found a file with dates on it from part of 2001. I spent 2001 on stage at all times it seems and looking back at this now I wonder what this would cost me in GAS in 2008 dollars! Mind you, this wasn't everything either! I was at the Comedy Connection EVERY Sunday, and Thursday if I wasn't gigging somewhere else.
I spent 2002 branching out even further into the Midwest, New York, Jersey, Toronto, Montreal, Michigan, and more all while keeping the breakneck regional stuff as well. I never took a night off really. Looking at this schedule is absolutely frightening but it has brought back some great memories for me. Great times.
And yes, I still do comedy, just not on a schedule like this! 03/10/01 Greely High School benefit w/George Hamm and more 9pm
03/22/01 Ryan's, Raymond, Me w/ Bob Marley and more 8:30 pm
03/25/01 The Comedy Studio, Cambridge, Mass, 8 pm
3/26/01 Comedy Connection, Fanueil Hall, Boston, Mass 8pm
3/29/01 Comedy Connection, Portland, ME SEMI FINALS FOR PORTLAND'S FUNNIEST!!!!!! 8:30 PM
3/30/01 4 seasons, Ashland, ME 9:00pm w/ Rev. Tim McIntire and Steve Caouette
I am absolutely speechless.
Current mood: Holy Shit!
Ok. This is the 3rd blog in a day. Rather unprecedented for me, but I just saw something that made me spit up the white trash food from my grocery hole all over my tired laptop.
I really am beyond honored to be recognized by the greatest drum company in the world as a member of their artist family. I am fortunate enough to have earned the same recognition from Sabian cymbals, which is equally as exciting, and seeing my name in print makes me beam with pride. I am just without words.
A change of course is a change, of course.
Current mood: pretty fucking awesome.
The juice is the mojo, the juice is the fire.The juice is the flint, the juice is the spark.The juice could be anything you make it, but without the juice, you are dehydrated of the fuel that powers the mojo that is you.
Or, you could read that sentence and ask yourself, "What the f@k is he talking about?"
I don't know really.I really don't.I know how to quantify the juice but I don't know how to harness it really.I almost wonder if there is a chemical imbalance within me brought on by chemicals or adrenaline, causing me to be like a volcano, erupting only when the Gods call upon me to do so.The times that it definitely happens are when I am faced with immediate change.As I have read, wrote, and said before, the only thing sure in life is the certainty of change, so you best take it for what it is, or your ship shall sink like a stone.
I for one love change.Am I fearful of it?Absolutely.Hard not to be really.But one thing I have noticed is that when faced with change, it has always turned out for the better for me.Granted, I'm sure there are diseased, damaged, or unemployed people that could wrestle my point to the mat, which would be unnecessary because I would easily submit; I'm just using my life as a point of reference, because after all, I am an expert on said subject.Your experience may differ, void where prohibited, tax and title excluded.Sit ubu sit, good dog.
Ok, sorry.
Change has brought me many riches, riches of information, education, culture, community, and concern.It has taught me true humility, empowerment, confidence and cognizance.I have been fortunate enough to have met thousands upon thousands of people that have enriched my life all in a positive effect.The ones that were negative were often the ones supplying me with the riches of knowledge and growth.The hardest lessons learned are the ones that seep into my marrow and create the fiber of who I am.These negative effects get turned around into a positive one in quick fashion.
As an aside, I watch this television show called I Survived.It's a show that puts people that have been near death, who obviously survived in front of a black backdrop, and they narrate the most terrifying moment of their lives.It's a pretty awesome show.A recent one I saw featured a cashier who had her throat and wrist slashed, multiple stab wounds to her back and head, nearly losing her life, so a couple of crack heads could grab $190 out of the drawer.Her life was forever changed and one of her final thoughts on the show was her talking about "not having the time to hate" or something like that.She forgave the men immediately to focus on the good that is her life, as compromised as it had become by their addled hands.Her words exemplified the true meaning of humanity and I hope that I would be able to say the same thing if I was in her shoes.
She faced immediate negative change and turned it around.I think that this change is all a test of your own humanity, your own integrity, a barometer for your own personal fiber.Do with it what you will, and best of luck.
For some reason, I'm like a bouncy ball.I always (well, knock on wood here) have managed to walk out of experiences and into something more personally rewarding, and this is all from the juice.And I'm not talking about scotch, wine, or lager here, I'm talking about the motivating individuality, the person I am.I hit my creative peak when faced with changes, because my eyes open and I'm more sensitive to my surroundings.I have a tendency to grow complacent which puts filters over my eyes, not allowing all this potential music, prose, or jokes inside to be processed and spit out.Now that there are no filters, I can only hope I remain this way long enough to produce a satisfactory output in all three categories I have chosen to use to provide me with a library; documenting the change I have been faced with. This output is the lava I speak of.
And when my filters are on, I isolate.I mentally hibernate, blocking outside stimulus a bit to create this 'normalcy' that just doesn't work for me.I indulge in relationships that have yet to work; I become lazy and just unhappy because I turn down the free shot of juice offered to me in the happy hour of my life.The person I blame for this is me.It's my fault I choose the wrong relationships which don't create the best atmosphere for me to be me, and in no way am I blaming any past girlfriends for that, it's really my fault.I should be writing all the time.Not exactly all the time, but often enough to keep my mental muscles fit.I find audiences in people which creatively satisfy me enough to not capitalize on these earned skills, resulting in complacency and dormancy, two equally disgusting words.My mind is constantly running all the time and I entertain the person(s) I am with, because it's fun.I really need to write more jokes, more music, more prose, because all it is to me is my diary, and I have never had a problem with sharing my diary, my life, it's happenings with anyone.All this is is me giving MYSELF a personal update for the world to read, but will be something I will be able to reflect upon when the next change comes around, be it positive or negative.A good excuse for this is that I post it on the web so it's in cyberspace, for when the inevitable happens, a hard drive crashing due to virus infected porn, I will be able to retrieve it.Yeah, that sounds better.
Another change upcoming is that I will write something that is actually funny instead of this introspective, self indulgent shit that personifies the analytical that I have been of late.Christ I need to lighten up.
Ok, beer time.
Currently
listening
:
Even If It Kills Me
By
Motion City Soundtrack
Release date: 2007-09-18
The Champagne of Columns-This one is for you Erin
Current mood: nostalgic
Whenever my friend Erin and I decide to break bottles as opposed to bread, after a while, she mumbles about this piece I wrote eons ago and how much she loved it. I've actually incorporated pieces of it into my act over the years but not the whole thing. She actually remembered the piece better than I did so I decided to unearth it, along with the original artwork for it by Simon Adams.
And for the record, I have since moved on to actually drinking this stuff, I drink Coors Light now. Some things come full circle I guess. Anyhoo....enjoy!
..
There are a few things in life that I really can't stand, and one of them has to be cheap beer. I have traveled through Milwaukee and the surrounding areas where they brew the swill that keeps America's dysfunction running at fever pitch, but I don't understand how that region became the hotbed for consumable piss.
The town I live in loves its beer. There are several microbrews flourishing throughout the area, and not one of them brews anything remotely close to the crap that bloated podunks revere as the greatest brew on earth.
Not that I've never thrown back a few cans of stale water from Lake Milwaukee—I've been at a few after hours parties where the company was so awful that I slunk off to the corner to drink this free crap and judge people. The company had to be bad, if one opts for some time alone with a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
I love the name Past Blue Ribbon. Does the Blue Ribbon mean that they actually won an award for that crap? If so, I would have loved to be at that contest. Maybe it was just really bad weather out. Nobody else could make it.
"And the winner of the blue ribbon by forfeit is Pabst!"
And isn't a blue ribbon something that you give to a cow or a pig at a fair? Maybe what they're suggesting is that if you drink enough of them, you may just take home a blue ribbon of your own. Draw your own conclusions.
And then there's Miller. "The champagne of beers." How many Millers did those clowns have in their blood stream when they coined that phrase? Obviously the blood alcohol content was still relatively low; they were able to formulate a sentence. (Albeit, not a very good one, though mine aren't any better, so who am I to judge?)
Why can't they just be honest with their marketing? Why snow Joe Public into believing he or she is drinking the finest alcoholic beverage available? Joe Public knows better. Joe knows where it came from, and what it prefers in its choice for alcoholic beverages.
I'd like to see an ad like: "Meister Brau. Yeah, we know it sucks, but you're broke and addicted, so what are you going to do about it."
Or how about Natural Light: ".05 percent more alcohol than O'Douls. It tastes like piss, but it won't smell like it when it passes through your system and onto your sheets."
And the almighty Budweiser: "Looking for a divorce? Come hither."
And Busch: "Head for the mountains. You should be embarrassed to be seen drinking this crap in public."
I firmly believe that honesty is the best policy. Those kinds of ads would make this world of suds a hell of a lot more fun. Establish their place at the very bottom of the beer barrel, and watch their numbers fly. Joe Public knows that the beer they're drinking sucks, so why can't the brewers admit it themselves?
I'm not using this piece as a forum to slam people for their taste in beer, I'm trying to make light of the advertising efforts these companies put forth in an effort to increase awareness of the crap they produce. Drink what you want. I'll be in the corner with a Corona.
Currently
listening
:
Southern Weather
By
The Almost
Release date: 2007-04-03
I'm going to see Iron Maiden in New Yawk Shitty tomorrow baby!While I'm there, enjoy the kids dig on "The Trooper. These kids ROCK!:)
Or better yet, watch this loser hand fart his way to metal greatness:
How about this, witness this guy not get laid by playing it on the harp:
Or here is my personal fave Maiden fan: Anton Maiden. Anton did a Maiden cover album featuring himself laboring awful nintendo sounding MIDI tracks. Sadly, Anton killed himself. But his legend lives on in music that wasn't his in the first place.
If I had of applied myself as a lad I would have actually tried to pull off something like this, only to realize I was a bigger failure than when I started said project.
A
nd if you are still reading this bulletin, you will most likely laugh your tits off like me.
It all catches up to you, right? The inevitable, that is. Well, it finally happened. After 4 years of always having to be on, living off of a diet of second hand smoke, bad music, and pornography, my computer went off in the sunset to the great hard drive in the sky. There was no farewell, not a chance to thank it for allowing me to procrastinate in style for as long as it did. There is one problem though, this computer opted against registering as an organ donor, so getting the guts out to use in a new life is next to impossible. I am speaking with a technological midwife of sorts to assist me in getting them. All of my writing, photos, financial records, gone. Yeah. That's what I said.
Every joke, every song, every column I have written is skipping rope on a clicking C drive. All the bills I am supposed to pay are hiding like a college roommate. All of my movies, my financial information, gone. It's as if I simply don't even exist anymore. There is a void in the heart of my 'puter, and I only wish I wanted to fill it with something other than explosives.
I'm looking at it now. It's just sitting there like a psycho ex girlfriend, holding my life hostage until it gets what it wants. Love, a clean life, a little attention is all it wanted. Instead, I treated it as a conduit for perversions, money, and my own creative whims. It was all about me. I didn't even offer the courtesy of letting it sleep most nights. I left it on simply because I could, it didn't seem to complain. Now, I'm paying the price. It's holding all the cards and all the files. I must tiptoe through the tulips as precariously as I can, which is sure to fail, as I will inevitably stub my toe on something and disturb the peace. I could stub my toe floating in space, for gods sake, but that's another column in itself.
I tried to hug it. No luck. I tried to tell it that I would be different from here on out. No luck. I told it that this was the dawn of a brand new day, that I will be a new man, but it's heard all that before from me. Sooner than later, I will again use it as the little trash whore that it is, negating it's innermost needs, and it will shut down in protest. There is an inherent dysfunction in our relationship that I don't think even counseling will help. I'm willing to try, but it's back is turned to me, exposing it's yellow, jaundiced backside, with a grill full of lint. I'm screwed.
The midwife is twenty minutes away. Perhaps I can step aside while she assists me in retrieving my stuff. If I had only did a back up as some sort of pre-nup, then I wouldn't be this screwed up. But, I chose not to, and now we're through, and gone are the movies in which people screw. K. Next paragraph. Sorry.
Putting this back together is not going to happen, so I visited the best little whore house in Portland, Circuit City, and picked up a brand new one. And its sleek, contoured, with many open ports and a great set of drives. If the midwife can assist me in said retrieval, then I'll take the best of the old and amalgamate it with the new. Then, I'll do a back up pre nup, and bliss will be all mine. Have I ever told you that I love you?
Spare me the gutter talk.
Current mood: victorious
A true purpose in life is a revelation.A gift.Many people scour the earth during their darkened days searching for a reason, while others lacking depth choose to punch holes in walls, or cut themselves with used scratch tickets, watching the silvery matter trickle into their bloodstream, heading upstream like a salmon, only to die the death it was supposed to as a means to satiate the gods, or the evolution, whatever your deity may be.
I like to consider myself above all that, far more important than any of these ditch digging miscreants, for I have marched upon the path of enlightenment, and I have skated my way to the end, to a higher purpose, an elevated sense of being, an existential supremacy that only the most truly empowered spirits have the luxury to call a hangout.
And that is my local bowling alley.
My snobbery has manifested itself in several ways over several vocations that I chosen to pursue, and this is no exception.I was looking for a sport that allowed me to eat cheap prefabricated pizza and drink lukewarm piss lager out of cheap plastic cups at the same time.Since there is no adult track and field in my neck of the woods, I opted for the next most excruciating and demanding sport I could find.I also was looking for a way to celebrate my inner asshole, and all the meter maid jobs had been swallowed up.I was searching for this purpose, and I found it, only to come to the realization that I am probably one of the simplest, normal, and incredibly un-complex people on this earth.I am a product of the environment I am surrounded with, and the more I am surrounded with the sounds of pins hitting hardwood, the happier I am.I am Shane Kinney, and I love to fucking bowl.
One of my first dates with my girlfriend was at the bowling alley.This was entirely her idea, and nary did I object.I was aloof and played along.Mid string, I sat down to see where the score was at, to see if I stood a fighting chance to defeat this beautiful woman.I carelessly plunged down onto the edge of the chair, causing a quick slide, then a rocket of a seating device, while the gunpowder that was I collapsed to the floor.Typically, that's no more than a day of a life of me, but mind you, this was one of our first dates, and I think that may have been a catalyst in her affection for me.She saw how ridiculously harmless and clumsy I was.Needless to say, she won that game, and it was quite a while before I opted to rent shoes again.
She would casually drop hints during our courtship that we needed to go again, and after a while I relented.A few more spread apart trips were taken, all nothing more than a vehicle to pass time.Then, one day, it clicked.I really enjoyed myself.I awoke the next morning to the sound of pins being bitch slapped.I was completely and hopelessly hooked.That day, we went again.The four yellow exposed teeth of the shoe renting beer bitch at the alley was thrilled to see us again, just a few hours later.She enjoyed watching my girlfriend completely own my ass string after string.I didn't realize that a woman as gorgeous as mine would have the ability to completely embarrass me game after game without as much as a peep from me.And like my prior revelation, one day, it clicked.I got pretty good.And now, we try to go at least two times a week.
The casual bowler looks at us as if we are like them, just a couple that are looking to pass some quality time together.Once they see what this dream team can accomplish, they look for the telltale signs: a Marlboro miles jacket, a Stone cold Steve Austin tee shirt, or a black eye.Spotting none of the stereotypical giveaways, this befuddles the reluctant patrons, for my gal and I represent a new generation of athletes: the completely normal bowlers.We aren't trash per se; we are more of the recycle bin type.We put ourselves out on the metaphorical sidewalk, but unlike the garbage, we go in the clean metaphorical truck, and enter back into society as clean, employed people. We are a tad different and we don't care.We are two lovers in love, and we love to fucking bowl.
I must admit that I am beyond joyous at this discovery.I have always been a bit jealous of people who had recreations that gave them so much happiness.Since I got my big screen TV, the Red Sox and the Patriots again consume my life, and the off time belongs to my beloved bowling alley.Being able to share all of this with my girlfriend makes all the more fun.
I don't see myself playing bingo anytime soon, but that may not be too far off.The farther I fall into domesticity, the more I surprise myself.I couldn't care less about what is cool or un cool anymore, there is only one mantra that I live by now, one guiding phrase that transports me in my time of need, one credo that sits higher than all others, and that is I am Shane Kinney, and I love to fucking bowl.
Currently
listening
:
Chase This Light
By
Jimmy Eat World
Release date: 16 October, 2007
Hey kids, I have had the distinct pleasure of working with Billy Winn on this action packed, all star CD over the course of a few years. I couldn't be happier for him now that it is released. If you dig that good 'ol American rock sound I think you will LOVE this record. The band he assembled over these sessions was truly a drummers dream and I think the enormous talent I was surrounded by brought the best out in my playing. You can get the cd at www.cdbaby.com/cd/billywinn, or if you are local it is at bull moose. All 9 tracks can be previewed and purchased at this site. He also has a myspace page at myspace.com/billywinnmusic. Go check out the tunes and leave feedback!
Currently
listening
:
Born into This
By
The Cult
Release date: 02 October, 2007
enlightened
There are a few things in life that I really can't stand, and one of them has to be cheap beer. I have traveled through Milwaukee and the surrounding areas where they brew the swill that keeps America's dysfunction running at fever pitch, but I don't understand how that region became the hotbed for consumable piss. 
electric
amorous
