Category: driving

Big Fish

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, driving, fish, funny, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, humor, Jared Stern, salmon, vote

Hey there, ‘Redheads… Welcome back from an eventful weekend. I’m waiting on some pictures so I can fully convey the spirit of adventure…and also so I can pad the blog. In the meantime, I have a quick bit of bloggage for you. Today, I spotted this bumper sticker on my way to work…


Is there a lox lobby I’m not aware of? Now, I did not check to see if the driver was a bear. I can only assume the driver was not a bear because A) bears don’t drive and B) bears do not have the right to vote…they only have the right to bear arms. Whoever they are, the driver does think their vote carries enough weight to sway any major fissue. It’s nice to see there’s a middle ground in the partisan red fish/blue fish world we live in. If you’re voting based on a candidate’s opinions on fish, then I’m curious about your position on Roe vs. Wade. If I had to bet, I’d say they have pretty strong opinions about spawning.

That’s just about all of the political fish puns I can think of.

See you Tuesday.

Like Old Times…

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, Cozzy's, driving, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Jared Stern, sports names

Hey there ‘Redheads… It appears I’ve fallen back to my familiar blogging tendencies. Two entries by mid-month? For shame. Sorry gang. I’ll try to step it up in the second half. It just occurred to me that this is pretty much the midpoint of the year. Any thoughts? Candor? Reflections? Anecdotes? Remembrances? Recollections? Thesaurus? Confessions?… None? Ok then. Thanks for pitching in. Luckily, I’ve got a couple musings of at least this past weekend that I can share.

Big thanks to my pals at Cozzy’s Comedy Club in Newport News, Va. for yet another funtastic weekend. Sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name. I’m a big fan of any club who’ll lower their property value by putting my picture on the wall. This time around, I worked with the affable James Sibley. I’m always amazed at how much some audience members want to try to “help” the show. Apparently, while I was on stage for the Friday show, a lady patron approached James and offered him a joke book for him to leaf through and pick out a couple gems for his set. He politely declined, but this miffed her something terrific. She sat, arms folded, with a frown etched on her face for the first ten minutes of his act, before she realized that everyone else was laughing at his original material, and she finally gave way. Once she heard that none of his bits started with, “Knock knock.” I know it’s tough, people, but please leave the comedy to the professionals. We get paid for a reason…a nebulous reason, but a reason nonetheless. While his portion of the show was going on, I sat at the bar and took a peek at the muted sports on the TV. I spotted two new names to add to my list of quirky favorites. Just to let you know, my birthday is fast approaching, so a perfect gift would be the jersey of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, Antonio Bastardo. Or maybe New York Mets pitcher, J.J. Putz. Fitting, any way you slice it.

A couple other things I spotted during my trip to Newport News. On Rte. 64, I saw a girl driving a car, with her foot sticking out of the driver’s side window. I guess they were holding Cirque du Soleil tryouts or something. There is nothing quite like the open road, with the radio cranked up, and the wind whistling between your toes. I also saw an ice cream truck that had a peculiar word of warning on the back of it. It read, “Don’t skid on the kids.” Which implies, don’t bother watching out for nearby children, as long as you have good traction.

On my Saturday, I found myself at a massive local area flea market. This place had just about every used chotchke you could think of. I stumbled on one vendor who specialized in old video game systems. This guy had them all, from Atari to Dreamcast to old school Nintendo. I got pounded by a wave of nostalgia. I found myself trying to figure out how much my childhood was worth. I wasn’t going to take much of a nudge to send me tumbling down the rabbit hole in my head and into that magical time when Donkey Kong and Pac-Man could quell my fledgling ADD. I ended up settling for something called an Atari Flashback, which was a simple plug and play system with about a dozen Atari games programmed into it. Fifteen bucks seemed like a bargain for the hours of entertainment that lay ahead of me. Funny thing about those ghosts of pixel past. They get obliterated by the crossed streams of today’s seizure-inducing gamery. Once the candy veneer of my memories got chipped off, the amount of suction the Atari Flashback produced damn near ripped a hole in time. How were we ever captivated by this dreck? Aside from the untouchable classics like Asteroid or Centipede, the rest of the menu was just a random flashing and beeping through the carpal tunnel of frustration with no conceivable objective to be reached other than the realization that I paid $15 to find out my childhood stunk. Thanks flea market. Next time I’ll just settle for the cursed monkey paw.

For those of you who are in a fix as to what to get your dad for Father’s Day, might I recommend the gift of laughter? On Sunday, June 21st @ Union Jack’s in Bethesda, I’m hosting a FREE comedy show. Four of DC’s funniest, Jake Young, Mike Way, Jeff Maurer, and Jon Mumma will be spreading the joy. Show starts at 7:30. Click here for more info.

To be continued…

Live Free Or Blog Hard

by jaredsterncomedy, posted in comedy, cute, DC Improv, driving, feeding, funny, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, I-95, video

Hey there ‘Redheads… Long time, no type. Sorry about that. Summertime, and the living is easy and whatnot. Luckily, the blog lag has given me a backlog of crap to spread on cracker and feed you (yummy). So far, June has been a pretty clean month for me, in that it’s been uncontaminated by comedy work. Business picks up in July and August. For your stalking convenience, feel free to print this on the back of a t-shirt…

July 13-14 @ the Funny Farm in Youngstown, OH
July 19-21 @ the Baltimore Comedy Factory
July 27 @ the Mid-Atlantic Comedy Smorgasbord in Frederick, MD
August 10-11 @ Cozzy’s in Newport News, VA
August 24-25 @ Banana’s in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ

Follow me like Phish…I’ll try to fit in a 30 minute jam session somewhere during my show.

Where do I begin… Well, let me start off by saying to anyone who was on I-95S between Delaware and Baltimore on Sunday night, FUCK YOU, YOU BRAKE TAPPING WINDOW LICKERS. Allow me to elaborate. I was on my way home from an extended visit with my impossibly cute nephew, Mo (pictures soon to follow) up in Philly. I was caught in the expected snarl of traffic that bottle necks at the toll right as you get out of Delaware. I was passing the time by doing shadow puppetry on the tailgate of the truck in front of me (that’s what YouTube was when I was a kid…damn whippersnappers). Y’ know that feeling of liberation as you get out of that kind of traffic? You pay the toll and there’s nothing but open road in front of you….BOOOOOOOOOORNNNN FREEEEEEEE…you hit the gas and you feel like Chewie just made the jump to lightspeed as the lane lines blur past you. Cruise control is set, you’re ready to make up some lost time, and then you SLAM ON THE GODDAMN BRAKES because some doddering shmuck is doing 65 in the left lane. Hey, putz in the Chevy Impediment, move over or I’ll find a way through you. If you’re going the speed limit in the left lane of a major thru-way, you’re a hazard. And what’s worse, is these puttering malignancies don’t look in their rear-view mirror, because objects are larger than they appear and they’ll just look like a bigger twit, so they can’t see me closing in. Now, I’m pretty mild when it comes to highway driving…my rule of thumb is 10mph over whatever is posted…not life-threatening. I’m happy to abdicate my patch of pavement if someone is coming up behind me at a faster clip…it’s the courteous thing to do. You move over, the flow of traffic keeps flowing, and everyone’s happy. Instead you get these rolling blockades that tap their brakes like Savion Glover on meth with nothing in front of them but their own bleak futures.
Aaaah…catharsis. Here’s a double dose of cute to take the edge off of that bit of road rage…



Seriously, you can’t dispute the cute of this particular patootie. Much peek-a-boo was played. I got so good at it, that even I didn’t know where I was. For a little while, my parents and I were left with the task of feeding the little guy while mom and dad ran a couple of errands. A sumptuous meal of strained sweet potatoes and vitamin-enriched yogurt was on the menu. We put on his bib and put him in his baby butler and proceeded to make a complete mess trying to guide the nummy nummy airplane into the hangar. We thought we were doing pretty well…until Mo decided it was time to get cranky. Wow, did he pitch a fit…contorting his little face into something out of an Edvard Munch rough draft. So, off with the bib and I picked him up to calm him down…as soon as he was up, he started smiling. The little faker was playing us like a fiddle…or a rattle anyway. So it went. We’d put the bib back on, get a few more spoonfuls in, then he’d wig out and I’d pick him up again. I like the kid’s policy…eat ’til you cry. Try it sometime…it takes longer as an adult.

Before I forget, I’d like to extend a big thanks to the fine folks at the DC Improv for including me in their first ever Variety Showcase. It featured stand-up, improv, sketch, and multi-media comedic endeavors. They showcased two of the videos that I did with comic compadre, Chris White. It was very cool to see Never Can Say Goodbye and Good Directions (both conveniently linked to your right) played in front of a nearly packed house and hearing them laugh loudly. Warmed my cockels. The evening was hosted by international raconteurs, Larry Poon and Jim Marsdale. Good guys. Larry had a bra thrown at him. It was that kind of night.

Also, please join me in wishing a bon voyage to the man of 1000 voices (and at least 5 kinds of facial hair), Danny Rouhier, who’s heading off to seek his fortune in the Big Apple. Fear not, though, he’ll be popping back up in the area…like funny herpes. The DC area will get flare ups over the coming months, but shouldn’t stop us from canoeing or hot-air ballooning or biking. Although, we should be more careful, seeing as how we just gave him to NY. We’re a dirty dirty comedy community. Supportive, but dirty…we should get checked out. I had the pleasure of seeing Danny off at a little not-quite-surprise get together over the weekend. Jay Hastings, Kojo Mante, Larry Poon, and myself represented the comedy circle of Danny’s massive Venn diagram of friends. One of the larger circles in there was of chicas mas caliente. In a sea of hot ladies, we were an island of awkwardness. It was like a study in social dysfunction. We just found a patch of floor and huddled around it while we drank and talked shit. Somebody intervene.

By the way, if you’re not busy this Thursday night, go check out the debut of a brand new comedy showcase in Adams Morgan, cleverly titled The Bomb Shelter. It’s at 18th & Red. It’ll feature 4 or 5 of the area’s best doing solid 15 minute sets. I’m not sure what time it starts, but 8 is a safe bet. Best of all, it’s FREE. So, your good time is guaranteed or…your…time back. I’ll get to work on the flux capacitor, you just go have a good time.

That’s all for now. I’ll try not to keep you waiting for the next one. If we don’t talk before the holiday, may the 4th be with you.

To be continued…