Material tacked onto the front of my sets at Cafe Diem, McCormack’s Irish Pub and 9:55 Comedy Club open mics

I’m always nervous when I do stand-up comedy. How nervous? More nervous than the Iraqi ambassador bobbing for apples at Dick Cheney’s Halloween Party. [Disclosure: It turns out Stephen Colbert did a version of this joke last year but NewsMax did it even earlier, in 2008.] Good news: registered sex offenders in an Alabama county rounded up on Halloween and shown a movie. The bad news: the movie was “Lolita.” More nervous than German Chancellor Angela Merkel approached by a Greek panhandler. Greek protesters in front of the Greek parliament chanting “burn this brothel,” thereby insulting prostitutes everywhere. Unemployment in Spain reaches 21 percent. It’s so bad that Puss in Boots has to buy his boots at Payless. I used to have wet dreams about Thailand. Now with all the flooding I’ve had to sandbag my Bangkok. 

It’s hard to say who should be more ashamed: Linday Lohan’s probation officer, Kim Kardashian’s marriage counselor or Justin Bieber’s condom supplier. A group of Georgia militia members met at the local Waffle House to plot assassinations and bombing. Apparently they couldn’t get reservations at the International House of Terror. The first clue something was wrong: when they stopped blowing on the soup and started blowing up their soup. The second clue: when they showed up at 5:30 pm at the Southern States Cooperative for the early bird special on ammonium nitrate.

Late October 2011 set performed at Cafe Diem, McCormack’s Irish Pub and 9:55 Comedy Club open mics in Richmond, VA.

Last month was World Alzheimer’s Month. I wanted to observe it but I forgot. I just installed Linux on an old computer. Trying to find a good Twitter client in Linux is like trying to find an experienced hooker in Amish Country. An Amish clan in Ohio got arrested for the forced shaving of beards. The final straw was when they gave Kelly McGillis a landing strip. Wikipedia that joke.

The Million Moms group is pressuring grocery stores not to stock Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls ice cream. So far, they haven’t taken  a position on Brett Favre’s Schweddy Balls. I’m looking forward to Rosie O’Donnell’s Chunky Lesbian myself. I wonder what that tastes like? Chicken. Spoiler alert for “Jersey Shore”: in the dramatic finale, the Situation gets herpes on his Genoa salami. Ratings are down for ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ That’s understandable. It’s hard to say whose wardrobe malfunction the audience is more worried about: Nancy Grace or Chaz Bono.

The Mentalist is so perceptive, he can actually tell the difference between Erin Burdett and Erica Hill. Christina Applegate is the star of “Up All Night,” a sitcom about a couple with a new baby. If Christina breastfeeds the baby, that will be some real acting. Proof there is a God: “Charlie’s Angels” canceled. Proof there isn’t a God: “Hawaii Five-O” is still on. George Lopez lost his job as a late night talk show host on TNT. Things are so bad he’s trying to smuggle himself into Mexico.

Credit: Vanity Fair

Another horrible accident involving Dick Cheney. The former vice president mistook House Speaker John Boehner for a pumpkin and carved up his face. Texas Governor Rick Perry likes to talk about seceding from the United States. It got so bad the other day his hairpiece seceded from his head. Another Baptist pastor who supports Perry called the Mormons a cult. The difference between the Mormons and Scientology: about a hundred years. The Iraq War is winding down. However, we’re still fighting in Afghan valleys deeper than the crevasses in Christiane Amanpour’s face. A German satellite fell to earth over the weekend. In a fit of nostalgia, it tried to crash into Poland for old time’s sake and kill a few more Jews.

Google employees have an expression, eat your own dog food, when they talk about using their own product. The only problem with that: it tastes like Eric Schmidt. I realize the Apple iPhone 4S announcement was a big disappointment. I still feel Steve Jobs overreacted. Steve Jobs is not dead. He’s just extensively product testing the iCoffin. A photo of Michael Jackson in the nude was shown during the trial of his doctor. It’s the most people who have seen Jackson naked since the Baptist Choir of Harlem visited Neverland Ranch.

I had the $5 three-piece chicken special at Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House. Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House is where the people of Walmart go when they want to make fun of people. “Ooh, he’s too fat.” The chicken wasn’t free range. It was sit on a couch, smoke a bowl and watch tiddlywinks on ESPN 2 chicken. This chicken wasn’t organic. It had more antibiotics in it than a 60-year-old San Francisco AIDS patient.

My name is Chris Martin. Thank you. Don’t forget to tip your bartender.

Image via Wikipedia

Queen Elizabeth once referred to a particularly bad year as “annus horribilis.” Lately, it’s just been anus. Even then, it’s always helpful to remember that things could be worse. You could be Blake Midgette, for example. Blake is a former Richmond, VA comedian who was Gone to Texas — Austin, specifically, last year. There he managed to contract a staph infection and run up a considerable hospital bill with no insurance.

I passed the hat at Brian Mann’s New York Deli comedy show, where Blake used to run a show called Super Friends Camp. Just about every comedian at Brian’s show had also performed at Blake’s. I raised $21. I passed the hat at the 9:55 Comedy Club open mic the following night and raised $13. Passed the hat at the McCormack’s Irish Pub open mic and it came up empty. Technically, it came up worse than empty because Silver Persinger, who shoots a lot of video at RVA comedy events, put money in the hat and it got stolen. I have to wonder what kind of rat bastard would do that? Next, Silver put out a jar at Cafe Diem Comedy Night and raised $8.43, for a total of $42.43, which should buy Blake an aspirin or a bandage at current hospital rates.

I’ve been procrastinating sending Blake the money via PayPay because I knew they would have me jumping through hoops. Sure enough, I couldn’t use my checking account to pay him because that was linked to an earlier PayPal account. I couldn’t access that account because PayPal wouldn’t send me the password to the email account it was linked to. Then several attempts to use my ATM card. Finally, I was able to start the process. Now understand, I could go on Amazon and buy anything I could afford as long as I had the correct card info. PayPal charges you $1.95 and then you have to go look up the code attached in your bank account and then enter it in your PayPal account for verification. Banksters steal billions without any consequences and I have to go through this just to get money to a impoverished comedian. 

Doing my set at Comedy @ McCormack’s Irish Pub Wednesday, improv wankster Josh Blubaugh strolls up to the stage and past me to to talk to his bud, MC Steve Howse, sitting nearby at the bar. Did Blubaugh have any compelling reason except for acting like a jerk? He needs to sit down and Shut the Fuck Up. Even though the camcorder was in plain sight on the table next to me next to a large mic, he still managed to knock it to the floor. It occurs to me that depending on where people were sitting, it may not have been visible what was going on. I just spent $175 for a dental exam and x-rays. I can’t afford to replace that camcorder, the best low-cost gadget for videotaping stand-up - which Kodak has discontinued, of course. 

I asked Howse to read an index card intro mentioning my stand-up comedy site. Howse proceded to say, “I really hope there aren’t any pictures of dicks on it or I’ll be excited.” If he’s Louis C.K., by all means, ad lib. If he’s an improv wanker who dabbles in stand-up, he needs to read the index card and Shut the Fuck Up. I’ve spent a year working on the site and I don’t want him reducing (enlarging?) it to dicks. 

9:55 Comedy Club open mic July 11, 2011 in Richmond, Virginia featuring Andrew Pauley, Leo Mairena, and Chris Martin by Silver Persinger.

“Charlie Sheen has a nationwide tour called ‘The Violent Torpedo of Truth.’ Curiously, that was also my porn name.” Stand-up comedian Chris Martin reveals a sordid secret April 4, 2011 at the 9:55 Comedy Club open mic in Richmond, VA. Ray Bullock is the MC.