The Kid In The Hall

I managed to get expelled from three schools in my life. Apparently that's a-lot. Throughout my school career I'd bounce from honors classes with kids whose parents made a-lot more money than mine to continuation school with kids who had criminal records and drug problems and more often than not kids whose parents made a whole lot less money than mine. My dad, after seeing my fellow students, told the principal of one of these continuation schools, "Keith doesn't belong here. These guys look like adult convicts in a prison yard and Keith's just a kid with a big mouth." Here are four of my favorite occasions when that mouth got me in trouble.


4th Grade, GATE (Gifted and Talented Education)

The substitute teacher told us there were 24 hours in a day. I raised my hand, like a good kid, and when called on I corrected her. "It's not exactly 24, actually."

She snapped back "Yes it is. Humans define words and a day is defined as 24 hours." and turned dismissively to return to her lesson.

I corrected her. "No, a day is defined as the amount of time it takes the earth to turn 360 degrees on it's axis and that is approximately but not exactly 24 hours." I then added. "Are you sure you're qualified to be teaching our class? You know this is a GATE class right?" I spent the rest of the day reading OMNI Magazine while sitting on the walkway outside of class.


7th Grade

The Science teacher told us that objects in space attracted one another and I thought, quite sincerely, that I'd come up with a perfect example. I raised my hand, like a good kid, and when called on I asked "Is that why the last Cheerios always stick together in the bowl?"

The other kids laughed hysterically and assuming that I'd been intentionally funny, which was giving me way too much credit, I was sent to stand outside.


8th Grade

The choir teacher was very disappointed in the whole class for our lackluster recital of the pledge of allegiance. He decided to inflame our patriotism with an inspiring tale. It seems he'd had the opportunity to visit West Germany. While there he dined at a restaurant where he sat on the veranda granting him a view over the wall into East Germany. We heard vivid descriptions of the stark contrasts between the bright, lively, beautiful west and the drab, gray, eerily empty and silent east. He paused to let us soak it all in.

I raised my hand, like a good kid. Mr. Horace was sure he'd reached us and looked forward to my confession of understanding and national pride! When called on I asked. "Yeah, Mr. Horace, on which side of that wall do you think they're more likely to force kids to pledge their allegiance?"

"OUT! OUT! OUT!"

I still have no idea why a story about West Germany being beautiful is supposed to make me pledge allegiance to the US. It kind of made me want to check out West Germany before making any hasty decisions.


9th Grade

For once I wasn't one of the students riding Mr. Herr. I was more distracted by the back of Andrea Posey's head. The back of her head was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, I mean other than the front of her head. She was heavy metal video kind of pretty but knew the words to Violent Femmes songs. I was sure we were destined to be together. If only I could get up the nerve to talk to her.

Then I heard Mr. Herr say those amazing words "You can't make me mad. I'm sorry but you can't. I wish you'd just quit trying so we could move on with class. I'll tell you what, let's get it out of the way. Go ahead and try to make me mad. I'll give any of you a free shot. Get it out of your system and we can get on with things. You can insult me all you want but no cursing."

Four hands shot up, one of them mine. Mr. Herr called on Sean. "Yeah, why are you called Mr. Herr when you're bald."

"Oh, am I bald? I hadn't noticed. I get up every morning and look in the mirror and shave and somehow never noticed I was bald. Oh how wounded I am. Nice try Sean."

Three more hands shot up, one of them mine. Mr. Herr called on David. "Are you gay?"

"No. And neither is my wife. Anyone else?"

Only my hand was up. I think Doug was going to ask the question David had already just asked. I was the only one with his hand raised, like a good kid, and when called on...

"Yeah, Mr. Herr, I was wondering why I got a C on the last test even though I copied all of Andrea's questions exactly and she got an A. Then I noticed that you always call on her when there's work to be done on the board and I'm pretty sure I've seen you checking out her butt."

"OUT!" he yelled as he turned crimson.

"WHAT?! No! You can't kick me out!"

"OUT!"

"You said we had a free shot!"

"OUT!"

"I DIDN'T CURSE!"

"OUT!"I sat in my seat defiantly, incensed. Mr. Herr pulled out a referral slip and started pressing a pen hard to it. I approached his desk. "This is bullshit!"

He kept writing. I pulled the slip away and tore it up. He pulled out another and wrote "2nd copy, student tore up 1st."

I pulled it away and tore it up. I was hoping I could get him to hit me at this point.

He started a third slip. "3rd copy..." I grabbed it.

"I can keep doing this all day Mr. Jensen."

"Me too, Mr. Herr!"

He stopped writing. "Get out."

I walked outside the class, holding in tears and wondered how the hell I'd win this one. I knew I was right but I knew the advantage was his. Another student came out carrying my fourth referral slip. I saw "4th copy..." written on it.

"Hey Juanita, let me have that slip."

"Okay, but you have to tell him you took it or I'll get in trouble."

I agreed, Juanita handed me the referral. I noticed for the first time that she was kind of cute and then I ran back into class, tore up the referral and yelled "Fuck yourself Herr!"

Goddammit, that wasn't gonna help me win the battle. It sure made the class laugh though. I looked at Andrea Posey. She wasn't laughing. Shit!

I ditched Herr's class for the next week while keeping a low profile in my other classes until finally I was called out of PE to the office. I was expelled which is the furthest out of class you can be kicked. I hope Mr. Herr's still alive out there somewhere. I hope this story circulates. I hope, against the odds that it gets back to him. In his defense, I was looking at Andrea Posey's butt too.

Best of 2010 News Stories Which Spawned Shtick

1. Billionaires and Millionaires get tax breaks. It's great to have one headline that can be recycled year after year. Looking forward to copy and pasting this on my 2011 list.

2. NASA finds new form of life in Mono Lake! Keith Richards said to be excited that there is something left on the planet that he hasn't smoked, snorted or shared an std with.

3. Wikileaks – Even atheist comedians drop to their knees and thank the universe for a top news story with the word leaks in it AND the word wiki. Unfortunately the leaks reveal no information about Obama's forged birth certificate, Muslim Faith or Socialist agenda. Maybe they're saving the best for last! Keep the faith.

4. Tea Party – Makes a-lot of noise, waves some of the worse signs ever to be held by someone NOT asking for spare change on a freeway offramp, costs the GOP a few seats, declares itself the winners and then gets sold out as the GOP compromises on every single promise they made in exchange for tax breaks for the wealthy.

5. Fall of Obama – Passes health care reform, wall st. reform, calls off the Feds in states with medicinal marijuana, sees Don't As Don't Tell rescinded but we're still pissed because he promised personal jet packs for everyone by 2010, or something like that. When he said he was a reach across the aisle moderate, we on the left were pretty sure he said it with a wink in our direction but it turns out he actually meant it. Must've had something in his eye.

6.German Chancellor Merkel announces that multiculturalism has failed in Germany. Perhaps she was just tired of hearing Americans calling each other Nazi. “Nazi? No, no, no. I show you Nazi!”
Germany, do you understand, the words heritage and Christian make us very nervous when coming from your mouths?

7. Sun Chips brand snack chips come out with an amazing bag that is 100% biodegradable and made from renewable resources, looks promising to revolutionize packaging industry in a great, green kind of way. Bag is retired when consumers complain that it is too noisy. “Sure, I want to save the planet, but not if it means noisy snacks.”

8. Birthers – Momentum keeps birthers clammering for Obama's birth certificate long after Republican governor of Hawaii verifies it's existence and authenticity. Other Obama slurs which failed to grab hold: Leaves the seat up, wrote that annoying Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer song, in High school he claimed to have done it with a girl in Canada when he hadn't actually done it at all, claims to be black but likes The Beach Boys, is an intellectual.

9. Ground Zero Mosque – Another case of momentum run amok. Protestor's found out it wasn't actually at ground zero but rather at an old Burlington Coat Factory several blocks away. Unfortunately it was too late to call off protests as they'd already made signs, many of them quite creative.

10. U2's Bono reaches a milestone this year. He is an accomplished musician, humanitarian and philanthropist but now that he's also 50 he may want to consider retiring the leather pants.

11. Don't Ask Don't Tell struck down. The one consolation for conservatives is that the wars were unwinnable anyway, at least now they can blame the gays.

12. The BP spill was the worst thing to ever happen, ever in the history of the world and sure to bring about the end of the world as we know it until suddenly, one day, it was all cleaned up. Class action suit for the bad news/good news whiplash still pending.

13. The good news; Christine O'Donnell is not a witch. The better news; She's also not a senator.

14. The Haitian earthquake brings fires, collapsing buildings, lack of clean water and worst of all scores of well intentioned UN Peacekeepers, some with cholera.

15. Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, allowing police to ask any hispanic to prove they're "legal" stirs up much controversy. Arizona wisely back-burners planned bill requiring all Arabs to prove they're not terrorists.
Boycott of Arizona limited since most people avoided going there to begin with.

16. Tiger Woods Infidelities – Did I mention there were really terrible floods in Pakistan? I didn't? Oh, well nobody else did either but hey, I hear Tiger Woods got a little action on the side!

Seattle and Portland, here I come

Heading up to The Laff Hole in Seattle this week where I'm headlining and then down to Portland to perform on Saturday with Will Durst at the beautiful Bagdad Theater. This is my third time at The Bagdad and I'm oh so excited to be back.
My good friend, the hilarious Michael O'Connel is doing both gigs with me.
Come on out and be sure to say hello.

KLJ or KLJ?

Comedy makes me feel like I have split personality.

There's the me that goes on stage to entertain whatever audience got lured to the club with free passes or because they're having a bachelorette party and a comedy show seemed to fill the bill or just because it's Saturday.

Then there's the me the goes on stage when it's MY audience there to see me and I can relax and do my thing. This side of me also comes out when the audience is there to See the headliner and it's someone I'm well matched to.

Watching videos of me on stage, the two are really quite different, surprisingly so. Looking forward to more of the later and less of the prior.

God is a Chevy?

Posted to my youtube page: "hears one joke you may want to add to your gig , if i drive a Chevy and i don't believe in the Chevy manufacturer due to the fact that i have never seen him does that make me a double atheist . god bless you ! my prayers are with you ! the creator forgives in Jesus name , 2010 AD"


My answer: If you were to tell me the Chevy was made by a perfect being who was invisible and has always existed I would not believe you without solid evidence. Especially if some other folks told me it was a whole set of different invisible creatures that made the Chevy and countless other groups had still more claims about who made the Chevy. And if you all further told me the Chevy was, by design, perfect and the poor gas mileage and smog making qualities were intentional put there to test our faith in the Chevy designer, wouldn't I be justified in thinking you all a bit cracked? Have fun with your fantasies while we continue to figure out the reality of the universe around us.

Give me Convenience or Give Me Death

Convenience stores, for your convenience, offer the things you need most in one small location on a corner close to your home. It says a lot about a culture what items they appreciate having handy, what items it's convenient to get in a hurry.

What are our top shopping priorities?

1. Sugar - Candy and Soda
2. Alcohol
3. Cigarettes
4. Pornography
5. Condoms
6. Lottery Tickets
7. Beef Jerky

If  you're going to have a store that sells just 7 items, that's them there. Be sure you sell lots of energy too. People need energy to handle all that porno. Energy is really just sugar but it says the word energy on it.
Also, be sure to have one small section where you cram together some canned peas, cat food, diapers and feminine hygiene products. These practical items help justify all the other stuff and when people consume enough of that other stuff they may settle for your decades old maxi pads and a can of peas rather than drag their ass all the way to the big store, even after slamming a couple of cans of "energy."

These stores are often run by immigrants and I often hear lazy, sloth like white people complain about said immigrants "taking our jobs." This amuses me to no end, which is why I tolerate the company of lazy, sloth like white people; I need the material. I certainly won't fight any immigrant for the right to work 6am to 2am manning the counter at my very own convenience store. When do they sleep? Sometimes while they're helping us admittedly but I don't mind nor do I envy them.

I went into the convenience store by my house and the Middle Eastern gentleman who runs the store was busy dusting the porno racks. Being a comedian, seeing a Middle Eastern man dusting porn makes my head explode. Too... Many... Punch Lines... BOOM! I managed to get out "Hey man, you can clean 'em all day, they'll still be dirty."

He answers "Excuse me? I clean every day."

"Yeah, yeah, but they're still filthy... those magazines there, they're so dirty."

"No, my whole store is very clean. Always I clean."

"Uh... yeah, sorry. Can you hand me the latest Swank please."

I felt the need to make him laugh. I needed to be friends with this guy. What is that compulsion called? Where you want to make sure people like you? Oh yeah, white guilt. So, I go in again and I see he has Karma Sutra incense with a picture on the box of a Hindu Temple with lots of gymnasts having an orgy in a gravity free environment. I feel the need to treat my friend to free comedy show number two...

"Hey, I see you got Karma Sutra incense." Silent stare. I continue, "Uh, yeah. Heh, heh, you see the thing is, looking at this picture is pleasant to me, you know visually. Pretty sexy stuff. I like it. And I can imagine what this little scene on the front would sound like. That's alright. I'd put that in my iPod. But this is incense and I have to tell you the last thing I want my living room to smell like." More silence, but do I give up? Of course not. "Indian gymnast orgy is not really what I'm going for you know what I mean?"

"Eighty nine cents please. Unless you want the incense too." I didn't want the incense.

The next time I stop in to the shop I just need a Coke to give me some of that energy you hear so much about so I can drive to a show. I grab a cold can and it's $0.89. You pay for convenience. My friend at the counter is talking on the telephone, probably dialed as soon as he saw me come in so he could avoid talking to me. I slap down my iconic red and white can and hand him a ten dollar bill. As he hands back my change he says the first and only words he's said to me since I got there.

"Nine Eleven."

I might have resisted if he hadn't looked up at me, as if he was waiting, waiting to see if I could resist, waiting to see if I was that obvious and so what could I do but prove that I was and am in fact. "Ahhh man, why'd you have to bring that up?"

I smiled. His look turned to one of disappointment. Apparently he'd had some hope that I might be better than that. I took my coke and left.

When I walked in a few days later with a hearty "Hi Buddy!" the keeper of convenience suggested I might want to go the extra block to shop at Safeway. I was flabbergasted. He didn't want my business? "Yeah, well, that's fine. I don't need your overpriced Cokes anyway."

"Then it works out for us both." he countered from behind the counter.

"Yeah. Well, I'm a stand up comedian and I talk about you in my act." I was determined to win now. He'd bruised my ego so, like a wounded animal, I struck back. Well, like a wounded, nerdy, animal.

"What do you say about me in your act?" he asked, putting an emphasis on "act" as if to imply quotes.

Ha! He was taking the bait. I told him every story I just related here. He did not seem taken back in the way I'd hoped and then he responded, calmly, "But... you are the asshole in every story." with the emphasis now on "asshole". I think he even through in a bit more accent than he normally has so to make his insult cute. The two cute college students who were patiently waiting to buy their "Go Girls" giggled.

I was desperate. I went from wounded nerdy animal to snake under tire lashing out, pointlessly as it dies a slow and certain death. Parked in front of the shop I saw the Hummer which frequently transported flats of my beloved cola cans from Costco to this very convenience store. "Hey, Nice Hummer!" I yelled from where I now stood on the sidewalk just outside the store. "How do you explain to the folks back home what you're driving? 'Hello Mom. Do You Remember The Car That Ran Over Our Village?'"

I saw the baseball bat coming out and I took my leave, oddly and temporarily satisfied. I shop at Safeway now. And I quit drinking Coke.

Why Lie I Need A Drink at Amazon.com
I am excited to announce that the little film that could has at last made it to a DVD release and can be preordered on Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and more.
There are some cool special features including an interview with the director (that's me) missing scenes, official trailer and nude picks of a former First Lady.*






*I may be full of shit.

Why Lie I Need A Drink on DVD at Last!

CLICK HERE to visit Amazon.com pre-sale page for Why Lie I Need A Drink.
As you may know, I made a movie, a documentary to be precise, called Why Lie I Need A Drink. I had heard many times, while handing a homeless person a dollar, "Don't give them money. They probably make more than you."
Well, for many reasons I just had to know if this was true. So, I got some cardboard and some makers and I went out to see how much money I could make on a freeway offramp!
The experiment landed me on CBS Radio, Spike TV and got me a ridiculous amount of attention on the internet. The film played at theatres in New York, San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton. Now at long last we're bringing it to DVD. You can pre-order it, and I'll sure appreciate it if you do. And tell a friend because that is who indy films get noticed. THANKS

Lumpia Farts

I am done with comedy competitions. I hate them.
I know this sounds like sour grapes but so be it, I feel like it's detrimental to me to keep banging my head against this particular wall. I've been in exactly one competition that I enjoyed. There were judges rather than the audience voting and the three people who moved on all had really good sets. One of the judges wrote me later to let me know that it was a really close call between me and the guy who came in third and he reviewed my cd on his comedy website. Cool.
That's not how it usually works.
People I've lost to:

The old tall lady
All her jokes were about being old except for the jokes about being tall and the jokes about being tall and old. There were saggy booby jokes and cougar jokes and when it was almost but unfortunately not entirely over she did her whole set again, as a rap, because nothing is funnier than an old white lady rapping right?

The fat guy
I'm not hating on fat comics. Some of my favorite's are packing a bit of extra warmth and nutrition for the coming apocalypse. This particular fat guy did the "I can't see my penis." joke and that was one of his better ones.

Lumpia Farts
"I like to eat Lumpia but that gives you the farts eh. I get the mmmm farts. Mexican lady thinks I'm talking about her son. 'Why you keep saying Umberto?'"

Yeah, for real, I lost to Lumpia Farts! What the fuck!

A friend of mine was backstage at a competition with a guy who does a good solid road set. The kind of comic who can always deliver but has nothing unique to offer so he will never escape the one nighter bar circuit. He says it's been years since his last competition, the won where he took 1st place. 2nd place was Lois CK. I didn't check to see if his story was true but I can believe it.

Fuck competitions. These grapes are sour and I aint eating them anymore.

Sexual Healing

Sexual addiction is a real problem it's just hard to take it as such if you don't suffer from it. It's hard to imagine suffering from it. When I try to picture it at it's worse... it's kind of hot.

What's the worst case scenario? Anyone ever end up sucking dick for pussy? I'm sure people have had to suck dick for dick but that's win/win.

If you suffer sexual addiction you go to meeting just like alcoholics but by necessity everyone at these meeting brings their genitalia with them to the meeting. It's like alcoholics meeting at a bar, where all the drinks are free.

I wonder how many people at any given meeting are just there to catch anyone falling off the wagon. How do they keep it from being a singles bar without booze and with less flattering lighting?

When I was a kid nymphomaniac was what you called a slut before she rebuffed you. "I'm asking Jenny out. Word has it she's a total nympho. Tania? No, turns out she's a complete slut."