TANcast

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 23

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a regular contributor to Kougarmagazine.com It’s a site by and for sexy, sophisticated, self-reliant women and the men who love them. I really like the idea of championing the notion that age is just a number and if you’re motivated, you can do whatever you want. SO in addition to my comedy bits, there are all sorts of helpful articles on fashion, health, business, etc.

Well for the fall issue, I was asked to come up with the top 10 worst ideas for a Halloween costume. I decided to do it in de-motivational poster form. Most of them turned out pretty well except for one… Read the rest of this entry »

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 22

Look I’d like to write something entertaining for you good folks, I really would. But it’s fucking hot in this back room and I’ve been here all day. I was working on several PhotoShop projects as well as trying to edit a new Kingdom Comedy. (It’s coming along…slowly but surely) But there’s no air back here. I have the window open, but wind stubbornly refuses to blow in. But the sun beats down and heats this place to molten temperatures that force me to take a shower then walk around naked and wet all day…and I’m STILL too hot!

Oh wait…I lied I haven’t been in this room all day. I met a friend for lunch today and while the company was good, the food was another matter all together. Somewhere along the line, pizza has betrayed me. We were good friends for so many years, but now whenever I eat it, my butt turns into a volcano spewing ass magma. It’s so disappointing. I so rarely go out to eat because I am super cheap. So when I finally do go out to eat, it pains me (both literally and figuratively) to see it all go down the drain so soon. Ah well, I guess shit happens…messy, watery shit.

All this to say, this blog is not very entertaining and I’m sorry for that. How many of these 22 blogs have been me apologizing for the lack of good content? I wonder if that still counts as a blog…fuck it!

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 21

So if you’ve heard the latest TANcast, then you know that the San Francisco Comedy Competition is over…at least for me. I didn’t score high enough to move on. Or to put it another way, I failed.

The time to ask why is behind me. I made bad choices, things beyond my control happened, etc. The question is, where do I go from here? I was really hoping this contest would open doors for my comedy career. Now those doors are probably slammed shut.

I could sit around and moan that fact, but the fact is I really just want to move on and find new ways of opening those doors (or find new doors). But not knowing how to do that is a frightening thing. It’s like being lost in the woods…no..wait…I wouldn’t know what that’s like. It’s like being in the LAX parking lot and not knowing where your car is (that I know about first hand). You don’t know where to start. You feel like every time you go one direction, you may actually moving further from your goal. As the hours go by, you begin to wonder if in fact you’re just going around in circles.

In LAX I eventually found my car and got to where I wanted to go. Will I be that lucky with comedy? Only time and will can tell.

Noah doesn’t find Kanye West’s douchey behavior funny, Andy and Noah love Project Runway, Noah outsmarts the water company, the boys review “9” and “Extract,” Andy gets fired up about politics (and stupidity), Noah discovers a new kind of SPAM, Andy’s baby is to be feared by all, Tim talks a little about stand-up comedy, Andy’s mom gets schooled on Mexican Food in Missouri, the show can’t end with out some Glee and Star Trek, Tim reports on the D23 Expo, the boys hate on Joe Wilson, Andy sucks off Michael Ian Black, and Noah and Andy talk Snow Leopard, and Tim puts Universal Studios on notice.

Here is a link to the I *Heart* TANcast picture for you to put on your social networking site to win out Talking Joke Box contest: http://tancast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/I-heart-TANcast-flyer.jpg (Contest Ends October 3, 2009)

This week’s TANlaugh was submitted by Brian.
Send your jokes and/or e-mails to all of us at:
fucktards(at)TANcast.com or YourMom(at)TANcast.com

Vote for TANcast at Podcast Alley:
http://podcastalley.com/one_vote2.php?pod_id=67598

[CONTENT WARNING] TANcast features mature language and immature hosts but is NOT a representation of the stand up act of Tim Babb. Listener discretion is advised.

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30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 20

7 hours from now I’ll be performing in Santa Cruz with my future in the San Francisco Comedy Competition on the line. Until then I’m just waiting. I don’t want to particularly sit here and stress about it for the next 7 hours…because that’s really not going to help anything. But I feel like if I sit here not thinking about it, I’m not accomplishing anything. It’s one of those limbo times. I can’t do anything to effect the outcome of my day for the next 7 hours…but I can’t really move on with my day until then. It’s like a Christmas morning of stress. I can’t wait to open my presents, but if I open them wrong, they might blow up in my face.

What to do? I guess I’ll edit TANcast…

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 19

Why do I do this? Why am I comedian? I don’t ask this because I don’t think I’m funny, I ask this because the job of stand-up comedian involves a lot of rejection…and I apparently can’t deal well with rejection. It’s almost the end of the preliminary round of the San Francisco Comedy Competition. The first 2 nights I placed in the top 5, which is good. I felt happy about it, but was determined that I still needed to do better. The second two nights I did NOT place in the top 5…the anger that welled within me was enough to make me turn to the dark side and force choke Padame. I don’t know why. There are 14 other comics and they’re all good…some of them are REALLY good. I realize every competition has to have a loser. But when that loser is me, I just see red. It’s kind of like my hatred of gambling. I know there’s risk going in but I get so emotionally invested that when I lose, I also lose my mind!

Let me be clear, I don’t think that I am the most awesome comedian who ever lived (or even in the top 150). Thusly, I don’t believe I should win every contest I enter. But something about NOT winning spikes the gamma rays in my bloodstream and makes me want to SMASH!!!

Thankfully, I’ve gotten good at not shooting my mouth off. ‘Cause in my mind I’m blaming everyone from the crowd to the judges to the people who made the line up to the other comedians. It’s only as I cool off in the car ride on the way home that I really start to step back and point the blame inward. I’m the one who has to step my game up, not anyone else. I can’t keep second guessing my material, I have to go with what works and believe in it to the end. I know these jokes can rock a house, because I’ve been the one telling them when they have. (I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve been listening to the Rocky soundtrack for the last hour)

So tomorrow is the final show of this round in Santa Cruz. It’s make or break time. If I don’t place in the top 5, I am effectively done in this competition. So I am going to bring it with everything I’ve got. I’ve played the Crow’s Nest before, I usually do well there. It’s a rowdy crowd but they like to laugh if you can hold their attention. Tomorrow, I will hold their attention! I will have the set of my life tomorrow! I will make people laugh until they pee (or fart). I’m “leaving it all on the ice tomorrow,” as Kevin Smith would say! I may be beaten and bruised, but I can hear the crowd chanting “Roc-ky! Roc-ky! Roc-ky!” And I know I have to get up and get back in there…because it’s not about how hard you hit…it’s about how hard you can GET hit and keep moving forward. It’s about how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!!!

I think I have whipped myself into a frenzy with enough cliches and sports metaphors…now let’s go tell some dick jokes!!! (Note: I do not actually have any “dick jokes” in my act)

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 18

I don’t think I’m going to listen to anymore San Francisco based comedians who come to Los Angeles and complain about the traffic. I was driving to Sonoma State University yesterday and I took a wrong turn and had to cross both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge…yipes! Just yipes!!! Give me the 405 any day over that mess. It was stopped still, people were douches who didn’t know how to merge, and to top it off I had to pay a toll just for the privilege of sitting in all this shitty traffic.

On a side note: why are there no happy toll booth operators? I have never seen a tool booth operator smile. What happens in that booth all day? Are other drivers just screaming insults as they go by?

“Here’s your $4…ROT IN HELL!!!”

I mean you sit in a booth all day. It’s not like you have to run around and do a lot. Someone hands you a 5 dollar bill you hand them back a 1 dollar bill…someone hands you a 20 dollar bill you hand them back a 1, a 5, and a 10! Is this really THAT miserable that you can’t smile at me when I say “hello?” The kids who work at the Disneyland parking lot seem to have it down and they have to deal with way more questions. No one ever asks the guy on the Bay Bridge what time California Adventure closes or when the fireworks are. Buck up toll boothers!

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 17

On the way to the competition last night, I discovered that the air conditioner in my car no longer works. I turn it on…nothing.

This does not strike me as a problem that will be a cheap one to fix (A quick Google search showed me someone with $1,100 is A/C repair bills. Oy!)

Why can’t my car just work right? I just want to drive it from place to place, I don’t want to line the pockets of every single auto mechanic up and down the California coast!

This is a short blog, filled with anger because I’m literally hot and bothered. Now I have to go sit in my scorching sweat box for a few hours to get to my gig tonight.

I hope I don’t sweat my funny off on the way there.

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 16

Uh oh…it’s 11:53pm as I start this blog. Fortunately, I have decided that the blog doesn’t have to be published by midnight, just started. (It’s my blog so it’s my rules)

I just unofficially came in 4th place in my first night of the San Francisco Comedy Competition. (Side note: if it weren’t for Spell-Check, I would never be able to spell “competition.” Every time I think I have it right, I get the little red squiggly line under it.)

4th place may not sound like the best thing ever (won’t even get you a medal in the Olympics), but I felt pretty darn good about it. The top 5 from this round move on to the next round, 4th place is kinda like the D+ that I got in my plant biology class in college, it isn’t the best grade ever, but it got me my degree.

It’s also just great to be in this competition. SO many others have been in this thing before me: Robin Williams, Dane Cook, Ellen DeGeneres, Dana Carvey, etc. So often in LA I’m on the same stages that so many legends have performed on but I feel so removed from their time. Yes, Richard Pryor performed here on his way up, but the scene and the circumstances were completely different.

This feels so much more similar. 5 nights, 5 minutes, 5 top finishers…it’s the same pressure and stakes that everyone in this contest before me has faced.

…now it’s time to see if I have it in me…or if that drunk lady in Temecula was right…and I suck.

30 Days and 30 Blogs: Day 15

“Really, Tim? You couldn’t wait 24 hours? You bastard!”

Tragically, Patrick Swayze passed away yesterday. I learned about this about 40 minutes before my first of 3 performances that night. I decided to mention it on stage all 3 times I performed. (“Too soon” has almost no meaning to a comedian)

The first two times the joke went over pretty well. The third time, however, it drew a very passionate complaint. Here’s the joke:

“So tragically Patrick Swayze passed away a few hours ago. But fortunately you can still talk to him when he possesses Whoopi Goldberg and makes Demi Moore cry.

I wish Patrick had died a while ago…not because I dislike him…I actually DO like him. That’s why I’m sad he lived long enough to see Michael Jackson’s memorial. Because you know he went to his grave thinking ‘Man, I’m not getting anything like this!’ I mean, c’mon I liked “To Wong Foo…” but no one is renting out the Staples Center for this guy. Nelson Mandela is not writing a letter to the family of the co-star of “Point Break.”

So, after my set, I heard I had drawn a complaint. I figured maybe it was a little too soon to make jokes at the expense of Mr. Swayze. I could see why someone might get rubbed the wrong way by that…but that wasn’t the complaint. This lady was fired up not because I made light of the death of Patrick Swayze, but because I compared him to Michael Jackson. “You can’t compare Patrick Swayze to Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson was a genius…that’s just not funny! I know funny! (clearly not) I want to talk to a manager. This looks bad on your establishment!”

Wow. First of all, I wasn’t even really comparing the two. Secondly, you’re an idiot who probably became a Michael Jackson supporter on June 25th…all my MJ songs were in regular rotation on my iPod on June 24th…so eat a bag of crap and die.

…and when you do die, you won’t get a service at the Staples Center either.