I’m here to tell you that chickens, like monkeys, go from cute to despicable in about half an hour. They’re vile, magnificently brainless creatures that defecate the way that cats shed – casually, constantly, and in occasionally impressive clumps.

It comes as no surprise to me that Werner Herzog feels the same way. Here’s a little clip on Vimeo (shared by my former human bandmate Tim Gordon)

Werner Herzog on Chickens from Tom Streithorst on Vimeo.

Here’s a video of Chris doing part of his act:

AS always, the show is the first Tuesday of each month at Union Hall in Brooklyn, 8PM.

Tickets are ten bucks, available here.

Visit the larger announcement for more information – hope you can make it.

psychedelic stand‐up show … a visceral experience from the downtown comedy underground. Accomplished thinkers, authors, poets, and artists join Barris and his band to become one seamless, improvised comedy freak show.”

I caught the sold-out show at Union Hall last Saturday. What I could see of it was really, really awesome, when I could see around a pillar. Everything sounded great, though.

Reggie Watts dropped in at the last minute and did a hilarious set, improvising all kinds of hilarious music and completely surreal standup that made perfect sense and told right-on truths as long as you didn’t listen too closely. If you did, you’d realize he was riffing on the kind of played-out onstage cliches you hear from most hip-hop and rock ‘n roll stage banter.

Here’s a pretty sweet clip. In it, Reggie Watts covers Maroon 5′s “Moves Like Jagger,” freestyles and improvises, and raps like the lead singer of a Cookie Monster death metal band:

Reggie Watts – Touching Songs Improv – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

In this clip, Reggie, Greg Barris and the Forgiveness improve a long jam about slack friends, vampires, teen smoking and more:

Reggie Watts & The Forgiveness – Improv Jam – Heart Of Darkness – 1.7.12 from Karmalize Productions on Vimeo.

Both clips were shot and edited by Alex Gaylon of Karmalize Productions.

Brother, did they ever deliver:

The saxplayer handed me a pretty sweet business card right afterwards, though none of the URLs on it are coming up right now. As near as I can tell, they’re called the Funky Nassau Band, and you can catch them in the subway underneath the Financial District, more or less. They’ve got a ton of stuff on YouTube, too. I especially love this slow jam in a Miami Vice suit.

You know, there’s an awful lot of cancer going around. I’m not sure that it’s not catching.

Or, you know how people used to smoke cigarettes with asbestos filters and X-ray their feet at the shoe store to see if they had a good fit? I think we’re doing something like that right now, something our grandkids are going to find so shocking and appalling when we tell them about it. They’re going to say “well of COURSE you all had cancer.”

Maybe it’s plastics.

A friend of mine got diagnosed with breast cancer last week. And before that, other friends and other friends. The words that follow are for anyone that’s been diagnosed with cancer and is really, really freaking out about it. That should cover pretty much anyone that’s been diagnosed with cancer, period.

I’ve just found myself emailing versions of what follows out to a number of people recently, and I thought maybe I’d put it out here so strangers could read this and share it.

Here it goes:

_______________

Welcome to the club.

There is this really surreal, beautiful thing that is about to happen to you now: you are going to discover how incredibly caring, patient, and understanding the people in your life really are. It’s nothing short of incredible.

People at the periphery of your life will move towards the center and you are about to just be rocked by the kindness of the universe itself, expressed through strangers and friends alike. You will be stunned that so much benevolent energy has been thrumming around you the entire time that you’ve been here, just kind of grumping your way to work and back home again.

You are about to feel very small, in a very good way. You will be dwarfed by the accidental unconditional love that is everywhere, all the time.

You are also about to hear a lot of INCREDIBLY stupid shit from strangers and well-meaning friends. Some people may tell you that you should have been getting kale enemas, others that yoga will reverse everything all the way back to the Holocaust.

These people don’t mean to blame you for enjoying the odd sausage with a whiskey chaser. They’re just people who have spent very, very little time expressing the deep and profound emotions that your illness will stir up in them. Consequently, they are going to do a bad job of it when it’s time to say something meaningful.

Some people, people that you might think are good friends may not be able to handle this at all, and may totally flake out. It’s not about you, though. It’s their ability to handle frailty, illness, and mortality.

I was so, so touched by all the love and support that I got from family and friends — but especially by people I only knew at the surface. The people that couldn’t handle eventually came back. Or they didn’t, and I still don’t miss them.

Other people are going to tell you that you’re so brave and strong, that you’re holding up so well. They will tell you this even if you are literally spitting your teeth out on to the sidewalk in front of them. It’s going to feel very, very surreal. Most things will for while.

And you might resent people for commenting on your braveness when inside it feels like you are falling apart.

Like it or not, you have been shoved into the circle of strength.

Here’s the secret: all you do is all you can do. You’re totally allowed to fall on the floor, cry, be scared, whatever. But eventually you run out of that, too. Eventually you take a little nap and the tears dry up. Then you just go to your doctor’s appointments.

Bravery isn’t being fearless. Fearlessness is idiocy. It’s why they recruit Marines so young.

Being brave means being scared as hell and doing what you’ve got to do anyway.

It’s going to the doctor and doing what they tell you. Maggie (my girlfriend, a cancer survivor as well) always said this, from the day I met her: “Everyone’s going to die somehow. Cancer patients just have more reliable information.”

Don’t beat yourself up for being scared, don’t be afraid to be afraid. Just make sure you do everything anyway.

I got a lot of credit from other people for being all strong, but really, I wasn’t. I was a fucking WRECK for about a year. I’m sitting in my office with my door shut and just bawling as I write this. I cry a lot more now, in general. Not necessarily because I’m sad. Mostly I am trying to just let myself feel my feelings, and sometimes they get really, really intense.

If you want my advice, don’t even try not to be a wreck. Just do whatever, let the waves rock your tiny boat. It’s when people use their oars to fight the ocean that they really embarrass themselves.

I don’t pretend to actually know what it really means to live. Anyone who tells you that with confidence is selling a subscription to a natural food magazine where everyone on the cover smiles smugly. What I do know is this: I feel more connected with my own feelings and the people around me than I ever did before.

Given the choice, I can’t say that I’d be willing to trade that back.

People keep asking me, “so, what’s this show about? What’s your hook?” And man, I have no idea. I used to think it was a live version of this blog. But now this blog is turning to a blog version of the live show. All I can say is that it reflects a huge lesson I learned sometime in college:

Never let your IQ get in the way of a good time.

Basically, we’re cock-rocking the NPR crowd with burlesque, storytelling, comedy and sideshow acts. Sound fun? It better. If that’s not high-quality Saturday night entertainment for you, I don’t want to know what is.

I’d strongly recommend getting advance tickets, which you can do right here: And I Am Not Lying Live at Union Hall on 12/10/2011 — $10

If you’re really into the Facebook thing, you can click here to see the invite and RSVP. That doesn’t actually help anything, but it massages my starving ego.

Here’s a poster, lineup published for Google SEO trickery after the jump:

The show features …

Storytelling from

Jeff Simmermon (storyteller featured on The Moth Podcast and This American Life)
Cyndi Freeman (Wonder Woman: A How-To Guide for Little Jewish Girls)
Brad Lawrence (The Moth GrandSLAM champ)

Comedy by
Michael Che

Burlesque by

Fem Appeal,
RunAround Sue & Cyndi Freeman

and a VERY special appearance by
Mat Fraser & Julie Atlas Muz

Hope you can make it out.

He told this story about the first and last pool party he’ll ever attend at Union Hall on October 5th, 2011.

All I know is that we’re bringing the And I Am Not Lying experience out to Philadelphia and Washington, DC next week and I’m both thrilled and terrified. What I’m terrified of, exactly, I have no idea. Maybe that nobody will come, or that EVERYBODY will come and my brain will restart onstage. It’s happened before.

But honestly, I don’t think it’s going to happen again. I’m so excited to be doing a mini-tour (or at least two out-of-town gigs) that it’s going to go fine as long as I only have two drinks ahead of time. Three drinks and my accent comes out so hard that grits fly out of my mouth while I immolate in a blinding white flame of AWESOME.

The show in Philadelphia is at L’etage on Sunday, November the 6th. Doors are at 7:30, show’s at 8. It’s $12 at the door.

Here’s a pretty cool trailer for the Philadelphia show:

I wrote about the DC show earlier this week. Follow the link in the previous sentence for more info, but essentially it’s:

At the Black Cat on Wednesday, November 2nd. Doors at 8, show at 9. Tickets are $12, available here.

If you’re new here, the show is this: storytelling by Brad Lawrence, Jeff Simmermon, Cyndi Freeman and in Philadelphia, the tiny legend that is ******. We’ll also have a few burlesque acts by Cyndi Freeman and Runaround Sue — and a comedy set by Philadelphia’s own Doogie Horner.

Brad, Cyndi, ****** and I all met through regular Moth appearances up here in New York. Brad’s won a few Grand Slams and appeared on the Moth Podcast. He’s got this bleak Midwestern absurdity to him and he tells stories with both feet on the gas pedal.

Cyndi’s a story coach with the Moth and fresh off her one-woman show, “Wonder Woman: A How-To Guide for Little Jewish Girls.” She’s got a lot of geeky feminist goofing and well-founded shock at the health care system — and she’s also doing burlesque as her alter ego Cherry Pitz.

Runaround Sue reminds me of a throwback to a Russ Meyer movie with a Pollyanna smile. Her burlesque will put a boot on your throat right there in the middle of a racetrack, but you’ll want to grin about it. You’ll smile and think up brand new cusswords to express your delight at the top of your lungs.

****** stories all wear a dingy satin boxer’s robe embroidered with the phrase “South Philly Hurricane.” She’s appeared on the Moth podcast as well as the Moth Radio Hour and she always wrecks it whenever she’s onstage up here. She makes her bad decisions and worse luck into stories that roll and loop like a Mexican roller-coaster: exhilarating, terrifying, and absolutely not subject to any kind of American safety standards.

Doogie Horner’s comedy is dry, wry, and cerebral. He appeared on America’s Got Talent, but don’t hold that against him – he’s actually really funny.

As for me: I’ve been in more Moth storyslams than I can remember, appeared on their podcast and also on This American Life. I had a small piece in a book called The Post-It Note Diaries that came out back in October, and I’m working (loosely) on a highly fictionalized memoir. It’s based on a bunch of stuff that’s true enough, anyway. As for my style – watch a few of my videos and then you tell me.

I just want this thing to be fun, for real. It’s easy to trigger your brain to squirt junk food chemicals by hunching in front of a computer screen and half-interacting with a bunch of strangers. But we’re all shooting for the real stuff, man – we want to get a lot of great people and excited strangers in a room together and then really go through some stuff: laugh, cry, get scared, yell and throw things. It makes your heart grow, for real. Hope you can make it.

At least you’re allowed to punch a bully right in the face.

When my family lived in the DC suburbs in the early ’80s, it was pretty bad. I got beat up a lot and I was pretty scared to leave my house. My family was tremendously loving, and I had a dog that was my best friend in the world. But once I left the yard it was like a movie about Vietnam directed by Todd Solondz.

Nobody ever talks about this, though: a lot of times, the kids that are getting bullied get pretty mean, too. Being and underdog and a good guy are not the same thing.

I told this story at the And I Am Not Lying live show at Union Hall back on October 5th. It goes long, but I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I tried to compress it to a tight 5 minutes for a Moth Grand Slam last week and it was a stunning failure. I got more nervous than I’ve ever been in my life, skipped parts and just blacked out completely on my feet. It wasn’t booze-related, just flop-terror. I came to a few seconds later, literally standing in front of several hundred people who were looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something intelligible into a microphone.

A lot of people have that experience as a nightmare.

I hope you guys enjoy my telling of this story more than I did teliing it the other night, anyway.

I’m also obliged to mention that I’m coming to DC on November 2nd and Philadelphia on November 6th with Brad Lawrence, Cyndi Freeman, and Runaround Sue. You can get tickets for the DC show here: And I Am Not Lying: A Night of Storytelling, Comedy, & Burlesque.

That’s where I keep running into her.

When she performed at our show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, she brought a terrifying heat. She grunted and yelped and when she beat the floor with her breakaway dress and the kind of bra that can NEVER come off fast enough, she did it with an intensity that you just kinda recognize after a while. It’s one part Cramps and one part playground and one hundred percent the spirit of ROCK.

She’s going to be performing with us in Philadelphia and Washington, DC in the very beginning of November. Which is, sweet JESUS, next week!

To learn more about the DC show, go here.
To buy tickets to the DC show, visit this link: And I Am Not Lying: A Night of Storytelling, Comedy, and Burlesque

And to get a taste of what kind of an act Runaround Sue has, watch the video below. Tassels and their contents do fly freely here, so it may not be safe for work:

Wasn’t that just wonderful? My family’s minister reads this blog. He’s pretty great that way, to be honest, and I’m glad to consider him a friend. I’m also glad that maybe Sue and I made him sweat a little much.