Alright, something a little different now.  I decided the other day that I have time enough right now to be doing this thing at least twice a week.  So, I sat down and worked out a schedule, daily shit to do each day and then a weekly regimen to organize what I’m writing each day.  With that, I’ll post here Tuesday and Thursday each week which means I’ll be writing specifically to that end each Monday and Wednesday.  Now, I just need to actually get up off my ass each morning and actually start my day before noon.  I am kind of torn to that point.  I’m so used to starting my day at midnight after so many years of that schedule at my actual job that I just recently left.  Truth be told, I have always preferred that kind of schedule, and I don’t really have anything going on that would require my changing my schedule to being “awake” during the day.  Maybe I’ll spend this next week scheduling my rhythm specifically back to what it used to be and see how productive I can be with writing instead of stocking shelves.  In any case, if I’m ever late with a post going forward, please, e-mail me and burn me to the ground for being ten minutes late to throwing up one five hundred word post.  It’s the only way I’ll learn.

     Also, feel free to e-mail me for whatever else.  I’ve got time and not as many topics to write about on here.  Otherwise, I’ll just keep writing about whatever old TV shows I happen to be watching that day.  Ooh ooh ooh, I just found out this past Sunday that The Drew Carey Show is available to watch on PlutoTV!  It’s on demand!  If you’re not familiar, The Drew Carey Show is arguably the single greatest sitcom.  At the very least, it has always among my top three favorite anythings.  It played with a lot of the common sitcom tropes and routines but did so often in ways that were not usually done in other sitcoms.  Like having a bad neighbor who’s pet comes over into Drew’s yard but that pet happens to be a four foot long monitor lizard.  And then…they raised the bar with revolutionary and fourth wall breaking episodes.  One such example is their Emmy-pandering episode where they purposefully exaggerated aspects of their characters and storytelling with the full throated attempt to win Emmys.  Oswald became a kleptomaniac, Drew was struggling with illiteracy, Kate was in a coma and dying, and Lewis was pretty much the same except that he kept taking a spotlight and talking to camera about how he’s lashing out at everyone and exploring his own experience to work through why he’s being such a jackass.  They concocted so many ground-breaking concepts and techniques for sitcom storytelling.  It was truly a revolutionary series.

     Ok, this one a much easier to write quickly.  I almost want to post it early but no!  I will wait until Tuesday because that’s how the system works!  Making the plan, then execute the plan.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  Until next time.

It’s tricky trying to write something new each week.  Especially when I don’t take the time to revisit and check what I wrote the last time.  That said, I am watching a lot more television lately, what with the lack of gainful employment currently.  I watched through Travelers the last couple days and sweet damn, is that a phenomenal show!  I’ve talked about it I think on the podcast once or twice.  It is some solid sci/fi.  Created by Brad Wright, you may recognize his name from various producer and writer credits all throughout the Stargate franchise so, he knows what he’s doing.  For those uninitiated, Travelers takes place in the early twenty-first century.  As you may have guessed, the twenty-first isn’t in such great shape.  And this show finished before the recent world-ending plague.  There are people from a dismal and most decidedly post-apocalyptic future.  These time travelers, known as Travelers, have come back to try and correct key moments in their history with the hope and intent of improving the future they left behind.  Among the most interesting aspects of this series is the method of time travel.  Through the use of some advanced technologies they essentially transfer their consciousness from their body in the future to another body in the twenty-first.  The process overwrites the consciousness of the person at the destination.  Equating to murder this process is done only with very precise calculation and strict adherence to very specific criteria for choosing hosts to these Travelers.  And the Travelers are in turn given a set of protocols to govern and mitigate any of their unsanctioned influence on the past.  A more formal outline of the more or less well known rules about time travel that we’ve all cobbled together through popular culture media over the years.  Aside from the excellent execution of some fantastic science fiction, the series is profoundly well written.  The world building in this series is impeccable.  The characters superbly designed and portrayed by some very talented performers.  Overall, this show is objectively a solid 4/5, were I one to use such scales.  It is certainly one of my most favorite shows or anything ever.

     I don’t think there have been any comics or novels following the series.  It got only three seasons and a total of thirty-six episodes but in that time they managed to tell a very well thought out and cohesive story that was expertly completed.  That said, the concept and potential to expound in this world is limitless.  Maybe while I’m not currently so much distracted with a job I may sit down and work of something along these lines.  I have some ideas for stories to tell in this world.

     While I’m doing that I’m also starting a full rewatch of the Arrowverse.  I’m a huge continuity nerd.  There are a few things I’ll often watch in chronological order, for example, Buffy and Angel I’ll watch and jump back and forth once they start crossing over.  All the Arrowverse shows tend to cross reference and then for awhile they had their annual crossover events.  The biggest thing for me to this point is Star Wars.  I have once or twice so far, watched all of the Star Wars movies and series, excluding the holiday special, in chronological order.  I’d found a checklist of The Clone Wars episodes in chronological order and then I folded that into all the movies according to chronology.  It is a bit of an endeavor but when you watch all that material chronologically it really lines up the context of everything.  The prequels even hold up far better when lined up with with the rest of the saga.  Maybe I’ll write more on that subject later.  I have been thinking about doing that run again soon.  Well, I do go on.  Until next time, friends, face front.  Always.

Alright, it’s a new year.  Another banal milestone.  I wanted to sit down and do this yesterday but that day is generally not a good day for me.  I mean, it’s been twenty-eight years, I’ve worked through things.  It’s still rough, though.  I don’t think I want to talk about it here.  Not right now at least.  That said, I almost always talk about this shit on stage.  It’s dark and painful but hilarious!  Suffice to say that most of my life has been death.  And yet I can’t seem to die.  Despite my best efforts.

     I don’t really have much in mind to write about today.  I’m still not a hundred percent right now.  I’m not bad just not quite to the point of motivating myself let alone getting done anything I should be doing right now.  I’m trying to develop an actual routine in lieu of an actual job right now.  It’s a…slow process let’s say.  This is one area in which I’ve never so much excelled.  If anyone has any tips to this end, they’d be very much appreciated.  The objective here is for me to actually exercise, spend time on each of my writing projects, practice on Duolingo, and even play my mobile games.  Feel free to send any tips and advice to my e-mail here.

     On that point, I pretty much only play Marvel Snap, Pokémon Go, and Starfleet Command.  On Snap my handle is Scruffy.  I’m not sure how to communicate on there but if you play, feel free to challenge me or whatever it is on there.  Pokémon Go, I have four accounts you can connect with; 687484884236, 216931151578, 390536043728, and 316262758288.  Go ahead and send friend requests, always accepting new friends on all accounts.  Now, the Starfleet Command I’m still not super clear on a lot of things.  I believe I’m on server 34.  I just restarted an alliance on there, ComedyShedRadiocom and there’s twenty-nine slots for players to join.  And I could use help building it up.  All welcome to join.

     I think I’ll talk about this now.  I’m working on a book.  One of my projects.  A modern noir taking place in LA with other classic tropes and clichés.  I like to think it has much of my wit and dark sense of humor.  That’s the plan at least.  We’ll see.  I’m two chapters in and I think I’m just about ready to lock them in.  I read through them again last week and apart from a few spelling errors I think I can say they’re done.  I have a few specific things I’m planning to add in later on but it’s coming together.  I look forward to people reading it.  Ideally people will enjoy it.  I’m calling it on this one.  Until next week, face front, mother fuckers.

Well, here it is again.  Christmas.  It’s been a very long time since I’ve been a fan.  About twenty-eight years.  Yeah, I have baggage with Christmas.  I’ve worked through it for the most part and then I worked in retail for the last twenty-five years.  People have often given me shit for hating Christmas.  As though I’m the child clinging to fairy tales.  The thing is that Christmas tends to be fun when you’re a kid, and then when you kids.  I’m in neither circumstance, sooo, Christmas really hasn’t been fun for me a very long time.  Long story short, I haven’t much reason to enjoy Christmas so I don’t.  

     Moving on.  I’ve been watching Skeleton Crew on Disney+.  If you haven’t watched it yet, you’re missing out.  I’m not like many 80’s kids, I don’t give two shits about The Goonies but I did always fantasize about adventuring through ancient ruins and aboard pirate ships and such.  And with this all being Star Wars in the first place, it’s very much in the pocket for me.  This show is a lot of fun.  They’re doing a great job of dissociating the characters from the established universe at large, giving the viewer a more closely representing the audience.  All-in-all an interesting take on pirate adventure stories.

     I think this’ll be a short one this week.  I had my last day at my job this week and I’m getting used to not having a job while not shuddered in perpetual dread over not having any money to get by.  My last paycheck was actually substantial.  The series of dead-end no-paying jobs I had before didn’t pay so well.  My point is, I’m not in a terrible situation currently and within a month and a half I’ll be back home in LA.  Eating at In-N-Out on Van Nuys, driving Mulholland to look over the valley and clear my head, and painstakingly walking rooms at many open mics.  Home.

Alright, I’m moving back to LA.  To make this happen I had to quit my day job so that I could cash out my 401(K) to pay for the move so, it looks like I’m waiting until the end of January to execute my move.  People keep panicking over this as though I have any future for which to plan beyond January.  Here are some things to keep in mind; I’m the one who knows my finances and not everyone around me who’s mommies and daddies carried them into their twenties and thirties and then inherited their houses and estates, I’ve spent my teens, twenties, and thirties in a series of dead-end no-paying jobs just barely keeping my head not-above-water because of the various frauds my “mother” committed, and then most important, that I’m an abused child who started stand-up in my thirties.  My retirement plan has never not been a noose.  After my current financial circumstance, not making this play with my 401(K) right now would require me to execute Plan B before my next birthday.  And that was the case before I fully committed to moving back home.  For the record, the biggest component of this situation is that I was taken advantage by someone I used to call friend.  Turns out that American governments and christian churches refuse to help anyone because there’s no money in it.  I tried to help someone who pissed away all my money while they refused to get or keep a job for longer than five minutes.  I maxed out my credit cards and took out loans to keep a roof over both of our heads for a year and a half while they sat around jerking off on my couch and watching cartoons twenty-four hours a day and ultimately killing my television in the process.  For the first four years I owned that television the times it was off was when I was at work or open mics and that asshole killed it in about eight months.  I like helping people, I really do.  But I’ve never had the money to do so substantively.  I didn’t get to go to college so, when I tell people things that are in their best interest but they don’t listen because I don’t have a diploma.  A one-hundred and forty-five point IQ doesn’t mean anything to them because “it’s just a number” and they can’t comprehend that it’s a metric for a person’s capacity to take in, process, and utilize information as it applies to relative circumstances and the ability to apply that information to infinitely disparate circumstances.  My point beyond this run on paragraph is that over the course of my entire existence I can count on my two hands the rooms in which I wasn’t the smartest and one hand since my dad died twenty-eight years ago this month.  Few people around me truly understand that and fewer still that accept it.  And none of them are comfortable with it.  All this evident by the fact that everyone thinks I’m making a mistake quitting a good job to cash-out my 401(K) while I, having the pertinent information and the knowledge of my circumstance to say nothing of, well, knowledge, everyone around me having no such knowledge are not the least bit qualified to criticize anything I do.

     This may seem to be rantey but surely by now you know my style.  Here’s something to be more fun now.  Whilst packing for the move it turns out that I have about one-hundred and eight gallons of board games and card games each.  And one-hundred and sixty-two gallons of books.  I’ve always been a single, middle-aged man what’s dying alone but I can’t quite lockdown what this statement says about me.  Am I fun and free spirited or pathetically preparing for a time when I may again have friends with whom to play games?  Feel free to chime in on this point with your thoughts.  Personally, I’m hoping it makes me look fun.

     I’ll be working on my various writing projects that I’ve started over the last few years what without the regular distraction of gainful employment.  In particular I’m working out the script for my first hour.  As of right now I’m operating as though it’ll be titled My Family’s Funeral: the Eulogies I Didn’t Get to Say.  Yeah, tons of fun, for everyone!  I anticipate an increasing appreciation for dark comedy again.  Huzzahs for Tim!