Alas poor Knorth!
Judge her not by her name.
A knewborn not yet in knickers,
Knighted by knapweeded locknuts.
What knackery is this?
As far as the Knorthwest is from the Ksoutheast, those knaves know no bounds in knomenclature.
(side note: when I first wrote this poem, the rumor was Kayne and Kim spelled their newest daughter’s name Knorth. I’ve since been corrected. They have simply named her North West. — oh that is much better. Good gravy.)
I could not get over how polite the men in Oklahoma are when we first moved down here. They are always tipping their hats, calling me ma’am, opening doors and carrying my groceries. I attributed their manners to good old fashioned southern up bringing. Now that I’ve been here for a few (20) years, I think I know why they are so polite.
Most of the women in Oklahoma carry, and half of them know how to castrate steer. They aren’t being polite, they’re hedging their bets.
This Monday, May 27, 2013 the Local Comedy Community will come together for a MARATHON COMEDY EVENT like you’ve never seen!
We will be taking items all night, and your donation could earn you some great tokens of our appreciation.
For anyone donating more than $100, you will be allowed to choose any comic from our lineup and they will perform a private 10-Minutes of comedy for you in our PBR room (our version of the Champagne Room).
Our comedians will also ROAST anyone in the crowd you want for your donation of $10 per minute!
There will be lots of laughs and many surprises! Come enjoy a fun night to give to those who have lost so much. We’ll see you Monday!
Last night’s interview on Slay N Savage was a blast. — If you missed it you can CLICK HERE for the archive. One of the questions they asked was how did I become a stand up comic. That’s not an easy question to answer off the top of my head. It’s been a crazy journey full of twists, turns, starts, stops, long periods of self-doubt with bursts of WOW THAT ROCKED!
It’s been a wonderful journey so far. If someone had told me back when I started that I would be playing in bars and clubs, be cast as an extra in local movies and get interviewed on Blog Talk Radio, I would not have believed you. So a quick thank you to my son Charlie, and the always affable Yakov Smirnoff who accidentally gave me my start, without even realizing it. — oh and sorry about the stalking dude.
I found this story today while I was going through my old notes looking for material. I’d forgotten I’d written it. Hope you like it.
Written: November 4, 2009 – Just four months after deciding to go pro.
The roads I travel in life are rarely smooth. Maybe it’s because I live in Oklahoma and we don’t believe in repairing concrete, or maybe it’s the wanderlust redhead in me, either way I start down one path and I inevitably wind up on some motocross race track doing loops, turns, tricks and stops, pausing from time to time to eat mud pies.
This is a mud pie kind of day. I’m editing what I used to think are funny stories into something more compatible with a stand up format. As I sit at my computer picking gravel out of my knees and my stories, I’m struck by the thought of “Who can I blame for this mess?”
Being a humor writer and loaning out stories and jokes is a smooth road. Stand up comedy? Not so much. I don’t know this road and yet here I am, forsaking one for the other. I’m taking my shot and running with the big dogs. Why? Only my therapist can answer that. It just feels right. That’s all there is to it. I have this insatiable need to make people laugh and to do it well. “Hi, I’m Deana and I’m a stand up comic.” My 12 step group meets in clubs throughout the United States.
I didn’t start my comedy career doing stand up. I’m a humorist. I write and tell funny stories. Have for years. Then it happened. My oldest son gets straight A’s in 6th grade and he wants to see Yakov Smirnoff in Branson. Simple enough really. Branson is only three hours away so off we go. I should have just bought him a car. It would have been cheaper.
Yakov has this part in his show where members of the audience are allowed to tell him jokes. The person with the funniest story gets to go on stage and interview him. Neat little piece. At least it was before my son looked up at me and said “Mom! You’re funny, why don’t you tell him one of your stories?”
” How hard can it be.” I thought to myself.
I’m convinced those words will be on my tombstone. In short, I died a horrible, humiliating, miserable death-by-choking in front of Yakov, my son, and 1,400 people. All of it on film. Nice.
I can only blame myself for what happened next. I spent the next two years striving to save my pride and convince this dear sweet long on patience man that I am indeed funny. I went to no less than six of his shows hoping for another shot. We communicated via telephone, email, snail mail and in person. I even bought roughly ten of his paintings. Hey, it’s not stalking until you see the whites of the restraining order, okay? It turns out that I cannot get within a hundred yards of Yakov without turning into a walking lobotomy. Go figure.
In short I made an idiot out of myself. I convinced him that I was something alright. I’m not so sure about the funny part though. Suffice to say, I have not set foot in Branson in about five years. Just driving through Missouri gives me hives.
undeterred by my egostically driven set back, I continue on as a humor writer and story-teller. Joining writing groups and comedic message boards to better hone my craft, I learn that Christian comics have their own club of sorts. They have a message board, Facebook, fan pages and conferences. Figuring that four years is enough time to hide from comics and that the stigma has to have worn off by now, I drive with a friend to their most recent conference in Nashville Tennessee.
I am at home with these funny people. No longer a slave to my comedic lust, I find other kindred spirits and I find peace. My friend talks me into participating in their Open Mic for newbies and I gladly participate.
In all fairness, I erroneously assumed that the men and women would be separated. Women would critique women and men would critique men kind of thing. I assumed incorrectly. Imagine my surprise to learn that my panel of advisors would consist of men named Bone, Nazareth and Thor. There was also Kenn and LeLand, the oddballs with normal names, but I digress. Bottom line, I’m a female humorist/story-teller about to face an entire audience of comics and male critiquers with a story about the time my husband’s doctor guilted me into being present during his vasectomy.
I’m an intelligent woman. It did not take me long to assess three things.
1.) This story was probably not appropriate for this particular venue.
2.) I don’t have the energy to stalk these five men for two years to convince them I really am funny so I better think of something quick.
3.) I had consumed so much sweet tea that evening that the stability of my bladder is now questionable.
I took three of my funniest bits and tried to turn them into stand up material on the fly. Thankfully they laughed while I tried not to hyperventilate or pee.
As for my bladder issues, I just moved around a lot hoping it would stabilize. If that failed, I’m over weight so I was just going to tell the guys that I’m pregnant and my water broke. They are men. They would have dropped me off at the nearest hospital and gone on their merry way and I would have hidden out in my hotel room until the conference was over and my room-mate was ready to drive home.
And that, my friends is how I became a stand up comic.
Oh my gosh guys and gals, I’m going to be interviewed on the radio tonight and I can’t find a thing to wear! What does a woman wear for her first radio interview? I have no idea. No wonder God tells us to go into our closets and pray, he knows that’s the one place in a woman’s life where she needs prayer.
Please let this fit!
Don’t let it be out of style.
Make it look good on me.
I know what you are thinking — CHILL OUT WOMAN, IT’S RADIO, not TV, we aren’t going to be able to SEE you anyway. And you would be right. So big deep cleansing breaths…
Much better now. Thanks.
I’m going to be on Blog Talk Radio tonight on the SLAY’N SAVAGE show. 10:00 Central Time.
Joe Slay and Joie Savage and I will be getting together to talk about life, comedy and this great city of Tulsa that I live in. I’m super excited and cannot wait to talk to everyone. Hope you can tune in.
I’ve come to the conclusion that life will make a woman out of me yet, just not today.
Today my inner-child is engaged in the dialog. She likes to show up from time to time when she wants to teach me something. Now that I am in comedy, she and I have become quite close.
At the advice of some close comic friends, I’ve started mining the fertile soil of my past and my inner psyche for material. The only way I can safely travel through those ancient fields is if I take her along. I need to see through both the detached eyes of an adult as well as hers. She keeps me honest and she keeps me from putting myself down on stage.
For instance, I once wrote a joke about being “the fat chick with self-esteem issues” and that one never made the stage. She didn’t like it at all. And she’s back, this time as my genus as we walk through some hard topics like affairs, abuse, alcoholism, marriage, and self-esteem.
Sometimes I go through dark hallways when I write, even if I’m writing comedy. I find recesses in my own spirit that are wilted and it takes a bit of a journey before I get the water and light needed to bring balance back.
Sometimes I don’t realize I’m in a tunnel until I start getting emails and questions about my Facebook sharing. My humor get’s dark in tunnels. Without thinking I have (in a week’s time) changed my cover pic to I’m with Stupid (A brain pointing to a heart) and shared memes that are along the lines of “don’t cheat, leave if it’s that bad” and “do I smother them or make pancakes?” and people are starting to ask if my husband and I are okay — oops..
My husband and are FINE, thank you for asking. I’m just focusing on a hard chapter and I’m still unsure on the direction to take. I am presently working on a comedy set about cheating and low, the topic of the week at least in my internet “world” is cheating as well. Or maybe I’m just noticing it because of where my focus is these days. It seems like so many people are talking about it. Some are doing it. Other’s are posting meme’s against it. Other’s are getting divorced because of it and I feel like a voyeur most days.
A few weeks ago I heard a radio show justifying cheating, and this week I discovered that MTV has a man show that teaches guys how to cheat without getting caught. I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a comedy show or just pure crap. Or maybe it’s both, who knows. My skull finally exploded this week and it’s taken me a while to figure out why I’m so angry.
“What anger’s us in another person is more often than not, an unhealed aspect in ourselves. If we had already resolved that particular issue, we would not be irritated by it’s reflection back at us.” — Simon Fuller
Like it or not, there are victims in this equation. I know what cheating does to people. I’ve spent a lifetime cleaning up that wreckage and there’s some healing left to do. I have kinda strange boundary issues because of it as well. I can find the funny, if I allow myself the healing I need. No healing, no funny. That’s just how it works.
I don’t know of many things that can confuse a person more than growing up with a revolving door of parental partners. I’ve honestly lost count at the number of men and women who entered and left my life. It started long before my parent’s divorce and never really ended until recently.
Potential partners trying to win me over in order to win over the parent they want to have sex with is confusing as well as frustrating to a child. I always saw right through it and I learned how to play the game. I figured out pretty quickly that men and women alike were willing to drop big bucks on me if needed. I hate to admit this, but I’ve racked up trips to California, Disney World, Detroit Tiger’s ball games, designer clothes, college books, shoes, and many other things. I knew what they were doing, and I played along to my profit as well as their gain.
Of course, I always had questions.
Will I get a new Dad?
Is this my new Mom?
How attached do I get?
How long are they here for?
Will they stay?
None of them ever stayed and so it’s just a matter of time before the questions became “When will they leave?” and “Is it my fault they are gone?” No wonder I have trust issues.
Mining comedy doesn’t always start in shallow waters. Good comedy goes beyond knock knock jokes and puns and searches for that diamond in the rough — that redeemable moment of vulnerability and truth. Depths and layers are explored. It’s a painful process at times. Writing comedy allows me to explore the layers of my life and of society, allowing me to be vulnerable and not only face myself and my past, but to embrace the future as well.
Good comedy has an obligation to take you past the comfortable and expand your mind, but first it sometimes breaks a writer’s heart. All in a day’s work.
I’ve had a fabulous week so far. Through an incredible set of circumstances, I played my very first bar on Sunday night with a bunch of local comics and had a blast. I’ll admit I was nervous when I arrived. Bars can be a tough crowd, or so I’m told. There are pool tables, poker tables, dart boards and all kinds of other activity going on. Getting people to listen to comics in that kind of setting is not always easy. But we pulled it off. We had a great lineup, people listened and the comics, well, everyone brought their A-Game and they killed! I loved every minute of it.
As a comic, you cannot show fear on stage, and even though I was nervous when I first walked in wondering if they’d like me, laying that down, getting up on stage and just having fun is empowering.
Both of my husband’s bands came out, as well as a few other friends and we kicked back and had a great time. Most of my shows have been at least two or more hours away, playing local and being able to have them there meant the world to me. I’ve gone and watched them perform for several years now and being able to give back something to them – my comedy – is very cool indeed.
So keep your eyes open local peeps, there is no telling where I’ll show up.
Before I do that however, I’m heading out to the woods for some quiet time. I need that as well. If I don’t make time for that, I become needy in a not so good kind of way. I have things my music teacher wants me to do, like learn how to play up the neck, listen to songs and try to copy what I hear, and practice chords. It’s hard to do that with a house full of people and dogs. I can’t even remember the last time I peed alone, you know? So off to the woods I go. I’ll read, play, write, and just be me for a few days. It’ll be glorious.
Once I refill my cup, I’ll be available to pour it back out again.
How do you unplug?
What fills your cup?
I’d love to hear from you.
It would appear that some lucky bug has come to roost at my house this month. It arrived just before Valentines Day and like a bad guest refuses to clean up after itself and leave already. I have learned from past experience that blogging while under the influence of cold and/or pain medication just causes the potential for restraining orders as well as evidence in mental health hearings. Granted I’ve written some of my best work while under the influence with my no holds barred, Can I Keep My Doctor if I said he followed me home bit being the best of them all– and of all 700 something blog stories I’ve written, THAT would be the one to go viral before I came to enough to remove it from the blogosphere.
I promise to be back at the joke writing, and whining about my lack of weight loss and having to explain to docs who use the word “moderation” in regards to my diet that I believe 1,300 calories a day is about as moderate as I want to get thank you very much so quit yer yapping at me..soon enough.
And if by some chance really bad poetry makes it way here before I am well, just know that I blame the NyQuil and hope to delete it once I come to.
Thank you for understanding.
I just found out that my gynecologist is hard of hearing.
All these years and I never knew that.
It’s okay though.
Turns out, he can read lips.
Deana O'Hara - Speaker, Comedian, Writer 