Comics Life

There was a time if you wanted to be a writer you lead the Jack Kerouac lifestyle, hitchhiking and hopping freight trains across country. At least that’s what I did for years. A comic has a different path to success. If you’re going to follow in the footsteps of Bill Cosby, Lenny Bruce, Robin Williams, Jim Carey or Dave Chappelle you work open mic nights at the clubs. The problem I have with most comics is that they’re onstage 24/7. Comics are worse than actors and that’s saying a lot.In my standup comedy days I was working open mic nights at the Comedy Store, The Improv on Melrose, the Ice House in Pasadena and a few nights at the Holy City Zoo in San Francisco where Robin Williams got his start. You want the best time slot. Before everyone is too drunk but late enough so you’re working a full house. My gimmick was arriving in my ambulance and telling the MC I had just gotten a Code 3 and needed to go up next. I'd do my routine and race out of the parking lot with lights and siren blaring.
The big disadvantage of open mic night is you don't know when you're going onstage. It could be in four minutes or four hours. All the time I would be pacing, my guts wrenching. You hoped the comic ahead of you would bomb so you looked good in comparison. I once had to follow Freddie Prinze high on cocaine. I've never seen anyone funnier. Every comic’s nightmare. Following a star. After his act Freddie sat down by the bar, surrounded by people but not one of them talking to him. I thought I knew all about loneliness until I saw Freddie Prinze in a crowd.I do miss being young and naive enough to dream of fame. When you're young you've got eternity to become famous. Then as you approach 40 you keep reminding yourself that Rodney Dangerfield was a paint salesman until he was 42. Once you're past 50 the doors are all closed. If fame hasn't knocked on your door by 50 it's not even in your neighborhood.To this day I still have problems watch comics perform. Most of them aren’t funny. Even though they try so hard. Too hard. As they bomb my guts are in knots, memories freshened with that sinking feeling. If my first couple of jokes went over I would be fine. But if there was silence in the beginning of my act it would throw my timing off. Panic sets in. You feel like you’re naked at a high school reunion and can’t wait to run out of the room.
I mentioned my improv act, "Fortune Man" before but I’ll say a bit more about it now just in case you didn’t catch me at Chatelech Theatre in Sechelt last year. Fortune Man is a parody of the psychic hotlines. One of our props is a speakerphone to the After World so anyone in the audience could talk to a dead uncle or JFK. Anyone deceased. Comic backstage would play those roles. While improv is working without a net I find it’s so much more fun than standup.
A comic's brain works differently. I was over at my son’s recently waiting for the cable guy to show up. While doing dishes I spilled water on my groin. Immediately I could picture a young cable installer trying not to look at the wet spot but not able to take his eyes off it. All the time thinking, “That poor old man. He doesn’t even know he’s wet his pants.” Comics are funny because we're not good at anything else.If you or anyone you know dreams of fame as a comic I would make the following suggestions:

1) Don't think you're funny just because your parents always laughed at your jokes. They’re your parents. They’d laugh if you were shaving a yam.

2) Don't think fame as a comic will score big with the ladies. A Zomboni driver gets laids more.

3) Don't use your real name. A stage name make it’s easier denying everything later.

4) Don't write your standup routine with your clothes on. Everyone is funnier naked. At least that’s what my ex-wife always told me.

For more comical info on the writer of this blog go to: WorldHumour.bravehost.com

Tom Neuhoff

World Humour

"Funnier Than You"

Hollywood Daze/Blogstream

Hollywood Daze/Yahoo 360

Lost Love

I had just completed my freshman year at UW-Oshkosh in 1971 and was eager to get back on the road hitchhiking. I didn’t care where. Anywhere. Just being on the road was all I wanted. My friend Don and I set out for a trek west to California but never got any further than Denver. Although many other students said they wanted to join me in my cross-country hitchhiking trips, Don was the first friend who actually showed up.The second friend accompanied me on a hitchhiking trip into Canada years later. We ended up hopping a "hotshot" (Nonstop freight train) from Toronto to Montreal. I've never seen more beautiful scenery. The only problem with freight trains is that, because of the load, there is a constant forward and backward jerking movement which makes sleeping in an empty boxcar difficult. The next time you're near a moving freight train, listen closely and you'll hear that distinctive sound of the cars banging against each other. No passenger train makes that noise.I learned the hard way you don’t want to pick an open car close to the locomotive. As the train goes through tunnels soot from the engine makes you look like a member of a minstrel troupe. With our legs dangling out of the open doors of the boxcar, we watched racoons playing in a stream, deer foraging in a clearing and people riding their horse drawn racing buggies. If you really want to enjoy the country side I highly recommend trains over driving or flying.

That trip to Denver was life-changing because I met Jessie on a cool night in Denver that summer. St. Andrew's church allowed the homeless to sleep on the church floor but the doors closed at 9:00 PM sharp. If you came in late you had only the abandoned VW van in the backyard. It still beat sleeping in the park. The Denver cops had a habit of waking anyone sleeping in the park by rapping the soles of your shoes with their nightstick. Don didn't have a sleeping bag so he brought this tattered, brown bear suit to wear at night. They never hit Don's feet. It probably had something to do with the bear suit.
I'll never forget the first time I set eyes on Jessie. Don and I were hungry and hanging out downtown when three teenagers approached us. As soon as they started pitching their Jesus schtick I turned away. I was too hungry to think about eternal damnation. Don was more receptive. My mood changed dramatically when they invited us back to their Teen Challenge headquarters for free cake and coffee. Praise the Lord Jesus! I was ready to be saved.Now I'll bet all of you can probably look back at the moment you met the love of your life and recall the chemistry that percolated immediately. Jessie and I talked exclusively with each other at Teen Challenge that night and I was impressed by her intelligence, effervescent personality and that smile. After a few hours Jessie said she had to leave if she was going to catch the last bus home.

Although she was only 17 she had already spent a year at Grand Canyon University, a Christian college in Phoenix. She was spending the summer with her parents in Englewood, about four miles up Broadway from downtown. Her father, an ex-boxer and carpenter, had built a small house in the backyard for Jessie to live in. It was beautiful. The next summer we would spend our last summer together in that toy home.It wasn't more than ten minutes before Jessie returned. She had missed the last bus and asked if I would walk her home. Of course I didn't realize how far Englewood was at the time but looking back it wouldn't have mattered. I wanted to be with Jessie from the moment I met her and would have jumped at the chance to spend time with her. I suspect Jessie missed that bus on purpose. Sometimes it's a bit embarrassing to look back at what you did as a kid. Don and I were doing our laundry at a downtown hotel when an actual resident there walked in to do his laundry. I whispered to Don that we should stage a mock fistfight right in front of this guy just to see his reaction. As Don threw me back against a white wooden door my hand flew back and to our surprise we discovered that it was painted glass. The upper half of the door shattered and Don took off running.

I had to gather our clothes out of the dryer. On my way up the stairs I ran into the hotel manager. He asked me if I had seen anything and I told him two guys were still fighting in the laundromat. When he hurried down there I ran out of the hotel and for the rest of the night whenever I heard a police siren I was certain they were coming for me.I didn't see Don for a couple of days. The next day I was crossing the street and asked a complete stranger in the middle of the crosswalk if he knew where I could get a job. He said they were hiring topographical mapmakers at the Federal Center. I took a bus out to U.S. Geological Survey and lied, telling them I had three years of Geology when, in fact, I had only one semester and topographical mapmaking was my weakness. So I crammed at the library for a few hours and barely passed the test a few days later. Within four days I was driving a pickup truck in the back hills of Buffalo, Wyoming.It wasn't easy telling Jessie I was leaving Denver. She knew I needed a job but leaving someone that just ignited your life is never easy. She cried and I regretted ever asking about a job in the crosswalk. That night I met up with Don in the VW van at St. Andrews. He told me he had met a married couple in the park after running out of the hotel. They invited him home for dinner. They told him he could bring a friend back anytime. Imagine my surprise when the front door opened to their apartment and it was the same hotel manager that I had lied to after running from his laundromat. What are the odds of that happening?Buffalo, Wyoming in 1971 was a cowboy's paradise. Maybe it still is. Many of the residents owned horses and it wasn’t unusual for people to ride their horses downtown. I was a hippie with long hair and never felt like I belonged there.

One day I was going for a walk when I noticed four or five kids standing around a white horse in their huge front yard. They asked me if I wanted to ride their horse. I jumped at the chance even though it didn't have a saddle or reins to hold onto. The kids said when I wanted the horse to stop to just squeeze my legs. Now you horse-smart people know that squeezing your legs only makes the horse run faster. That was the joke on me. It's a shame cars can't stop as fast as horses. As the horse ran faster I squeezed harder with my legs. When we hit the end of the yard the horse planted its front hooves and I flew over its head and into the fence. I never thought those kids would stop laughing.

One day I returned from the rolling hills of Buffalo to find Jessie waiting for me in the rooming house I lived in. She had hitchhiked in the middle of the night from Denver to Buffalo! Jessie was fearless. Three days later I quit the best job I had and hitchhiked back to Denver with her. That's what true love is all about, isn't it? I wish now I had stayed in Buffalo because it could have meant a career with U.S. Geological Survey. Jessie transferred to my school in Wisconsin. Four months later we were married in Green Bay.

Our first summer break I made the mistake of living with the in-laws in Denver. Jessie and I argued about where we were going to spend the summer. I wanted to go to California while she insisted on living with her parents. When I got home from finals she was gone. I jumped in the car and headed towards Denver, finally coming across her hitchhiking on Interstate 80 near Omaha, Nebraska. We spent that summer in the toy house her father built in his backyard. Less than a year later we were divorced.

In 1994 I was traveling from Wisconsin back to Los Angeles when I stopped by Denver to see how the old neighborhood looked. That entire section of Englewood was filled with boarded up houses. It looked like a ghost town. I didn't recognize any of the homes and after walking up and down the street I had to guess which one was once Jessie's. I knocked on the front door not really expecting anyone to answer. Slowly my head turned to the house on the left and I could see what was once a beautiful toy home in the back yard. Seeing something from your past in such rotting condition makes you feel a thousand years old. I wished I had never stopped.

Two years ago I received an email from Jessie. I hadn’t heard from her in over 30 years but now she’s emailing me to say she had found my high school class ring. God bless the Internet. Of course I had lost my class ring long before meeting her but she had to have an excuse for writing after all those years. She had read some of my blogs and decided she would write a blog about us as well. Only after reading her blog did I learn that her father was dying of leukemia the entire time we dated and throughout our marriage. No one said a word to me. I learned she had flunked out of college in Arizona but she never said a word about that to me. What kind of relationship did we really have? What kind of marriage? Life is full of surprises.

For more comical info on the writer of this blog go to: WorldHumour.bravehost.com

Tom Neuhoff
World Humour
"Funnier Than You"

Hollywood Daze/Blogstream

Hollywood Daze/Yahoo 360

Fort St. John

Most of you on the Sunshine Coast have probably heard of Fort St. John. You know it’s an oil boomtown located over a thousand miles north of the Canadian border. Fort St. John was the only town I ever lived in that could legitimately boast of having more moose than drunks. Barely. In 1980 I would learn it was right out of a John Wayne western. Disputes settled in large bar fights every night and grudges were never held for long. Broken tables were leveled off with an ashtray.

I was a cabaret DJ trying to earn enough money to attend the MFA program in Creative Writing at UBC. The University of Iowa turned me down. UBC and the University of Oregon in Eugene accepted me into their creative writing programs. UBC offered writing workshops in a wide diversity of genres while Iowa was interested only in novels, poetry and short stories. Kurt Vonnegut taught at Iowa and that would have been so cool but Canada was the adventurous option and in the long run a much better move for me.

Shortly after arriving in Vancouver I discovered that to get a student visa I would need $3500 in the bank which I didn’t have. After talking with Dr. Jake Zilber, Chairman of the Creative Writing Department, it was decided that I would attend the MFA program the following year. While going through the classified section of the Vancouver Sun in the student union I found an opening for a cabaret D.J. in Fort St. John. When I asked a nearby student where Fort St. John was all they could say was, “Pretty damned far!” It was worlds away from Vancouver. A universe from L.A.

Now I should mention here that as an undergraduate student in Radio-TV-Film at the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh I had been fired as a nightclub D.J. Prior to that job my only experience had been in radio. Suddenly I’m in a club surrounded by people watching my every move. I was trying to learn more about the equipment the first night and the second night I found another excuse not to speak. I was stuck right in the middle of a mental block. After not talking for four days they fired me. So going to Fort St. John for a job I had already been fired for seemed a bit insane. It’s not as if I had many options. Fort St. John didn’t care about work visas and everyone else in Vancouver did.

The drive from Vancouver to Fort St. John is one of the most scenic trips you’re ever going to take, especially as you near Jasper Park. If you drive into the city of Jasper late at night you’ll find stray elk roaming the side streets and alleys looking for a free meal. It is both surreal and exciting. The people of Jasper think nothing of seeing an elk stroll down one of their streets. In L.A. we’re pulling out camcorders if we just see a coyote eating a squirrel.

The Northland Inn in 1980 was a cabaret, bar, lounge, and hotel all in one. Let me just say it wasn’t exactly the Hilton but it was a job. As soon as I arrived I went straight to the elevated D.J. booth and talked on the microphone. It broke the ice and I went on to become the most profitable D.J. in the 75-year history of the Northland Inn. At least that’s what my boss, Hector, told me when he wanted me to stay instead of attending UBC.

A different stripper would arrive every Monday from Vancouver on their dancer circuit through B.C. and Alberta. I would play their music while they danced in the bar during the afternoon. Those strippers taught me how to play backgammon. Most of them couldn’t dance. A few were creative. One stripper used hand puppets in her act. To this day I can’t watch Kermit without thinking of her. It was a fascinating place to work. The cook and I made the radio commercials for the cabaret in the DJ booth and for a brief period of time we were Fort St. John celebrities.

The guys working on the oil rigs would come into town every two weeks with a wad of cash and little time to spend it. There were only a handful of hookers in town but they made out like bandits. I knew all of them because they hung out in my cabaret. I never did any business with them because I was saving for graduate school. Tweety offerred me a discount rate of $99.95 one night but I never took her up on the offer. You can’t even rent a scooter for that much. How dumb was I?

Back in 1980 hockey wasn’t that popular in The States. Canadians, on the other hand, loves hockey more than sex. Even good sex. If you had a game show that combined both sex and hockey it would be a ratings gangbuster in Canada. I was standing around a small group of locals one night when the conversation turned to Wayne Gretsky, who was playing for Edmonton at the time. I asked who Wayne Gretsky was and you would have thought I had asked who Jesus Christ was! If you want Canadians to know you’re an American ask a dumb question about hockey.

All the apartment buildings in Fort St. John have electric outlets mounted on small posts in the parking lots. With temperatures dipping far below freezing every night you would not be able to get your car started in the morning unless you had a heater installed in your engine block. I’ve never seen that anywhere else. Not even in Wisconsin where the temperatures could get to 70 below zero.

The cabaret played hard rock until I arrived at which time the manager felt disco would be more profitable. The roughnecks, in town for only a few days, continually threatened me if I didn’t play rock. Who dances to the Doors? I even had to be escorted to parties by bouncers because it wasn’t safe outside the cabaret. Although those guys off the oil rigs complained, most of them loved to dance to disco although they would rather die than admit it.
The TV show, “Northern Exposure” reminds me so much of my life in Fort St. John. Located right off the Alaska Highway, Fort St. John had much in common with the fictional Cicely, Alaska. The people were genuine and sincere. Unique and fascinating. It was a time and a world I’ll never see again. To this day I wonder what ever happened to all those people. Maybe it’s better I never know.

For more comical info on the writer of this blog go to: WorldHumour.bravehost.com

Tom Neuhoff
World Humour
"Funnier Than You"

Hollywood Daze/Blogstream

Hollywood Daze/Yahoo 360

Fort St. John, B.C.

The Sunshine Coast

The Sunshine Coast

If you're like me and don't think you're ever going to see The Pearly Gates you have to check out The Sunshine Coast of British Columbia because it's the closest you'll ever get to Heaven. Those of you living there should wake up every morning and thank God you're not in Calgary. Or L.A.

The following blog was obviously written for those who have never visited the Sunshine Coast. For those of you living there I'd like to give a Shout Out to Tanya at the Upper Deck hostel in Sechelt. I had so much fun staying there last year. You meet the coolest people in a hostel. Some of the college kids staying at the Upper Deck were almost as cool as me. Tanya is great and I highly recommend her hostel to anyone visiting Sechelt.

The Sunshine Coast is a 45 minute B.C. ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver to Langdale. You won't see a single piece of ugly scenery the entire trip. I first visited Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast while a graduate student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, which, incidentally, boasts the biggest nude beach in North America. I’ll devote a blog to Wreck Beach another time. Wreck Beach isn’t why I applied to UBC’s Creative Writing program but it didn't hurt.

The family of my girlfriend (M.R. Paine) at the time owned a beach front home on Redrooffs Road between Sechelt and Halfmoon Bay. Dr. Joe Paine, M.R.'s father, died a couple of years ago. Maybe some of you in Sechelt knew him. If you did consider yourself very lucky. That man could tell a story better than a drunken sailor. I couldn't have loved him more if he were my own father. Doc represented the finest qualities of the Canadian spirit.

The locals on the Sunshine Coast find it entertaining to pick out the tourists as they first set foot off the ferry at Langdale. It’s an easy game. The tourists are the only ones staring at the eagles flying overhead. I've been vacationing there for over 20 years and still can't help looking up at those majestic birds. Locals don’t give them a second glance.

While I was attending UBC the Creative Writing Department invited all of their students to submit scripts for a popular TV show on CBC at the time, “The Beachcombers”, which was taped at Molly’s Reach, a restaurant in Gibsons; the first town after leaving the ferry in Langdale. I’m usually in a hurry to Sechelt or rushing back to catch the ferry on time so I have to confess I’ve only visited Gibsons a couple of times but I highly recommend spending more time there. They’ve got a thriving artist community with some of the more fascinating people you’ll meet on the Sunshine Coast. There's always the Yuks Yuks comedy tour returning to Gibsons Cinema in June of 2009, often MC'd by the talented Norm Blair of Sechelt. The Heritage Theatre hosts many activities and performances.

In Roberts Creek you can study improv in the scenic surrounding on Earth. Viviane Houle teaches workshops near Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, and is available to lead workshops around the globe. For more information, contact Viviane at info@vivianehoule.ca

Sometimes even Heaven has a few reality checks. Whenever I vacationed up there I always enjoyed tossing back a few pints at The Wakefield, which unfortunately, no longer exists. I met a young man there who asked me if I wanted to meet any local women. My enthusiastic answer probably had something to do with the four pints of ale but I would have been eager even if I was sober.

I drove my van a couple of kilometers south towards Roberts Creek and stopped outside this house sitting atop a hill. The kid suggested I wait in the van until he could talk with the women first. I pulled over to the shoulder and turned my engine off. I waited. And waited. Suddenly the ale was having its effects and I wished I hadn't left the pub. It was probably no longer than 30 minutes but feeling more like hours when I decided to drive back home. My back tire started to spin in the muddy shoulder and it was obvious I was going nowhere soon.

As I stepped out of the van the R.C.M.P.'s cruiser's flashing lights lit up and I knew the jig was up. Startled, I fell against my van. The officer asked me if I had been drinking and I wasn’t about to lie to him. He asked me why I was parked there and so I told him about the kid who was going to introduce me to some local women. He laughed and asked me if I knew what that house on the hill was. He told me it was a Crack House. In Sechelt? It's like finding out there's a brothel at Disneyland.

I try to keep in touch with the few people I still know from Sechelt. I email Laurie McConnell, the webmaster of BigPacific.com. There’s Tanya at the Upper Deck hostel. Norm Blair who invited my improve act up to Sechelt last year. Bree Carlin is the hottest professional diver in the world. I continue to look for creative work up there but being an American without a work visa makes it's doubtful I'm going to be living up there anytime soon. I guess that’s what dreaming is for.

For more comical info on the writer of this blog go to: WorldHumour.bravehost.com

Tom Neuhoff
World Humour
"Funnier Than You"

Hollywood Daze/Blogstream

Hollywood Daze/Yahoo 360

Big Pacific