Bizarro is brought to you today by Ageless Heroism.I'm busy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs this week as I try to get ahead on deadlines for my big trip next week to the land of milk and honey, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Next week, on Thursday and Friday, I'm doing a couple of events in my hometown as well as speaking to a few classes of art students at my old high school, visiting family and old friends, and breaking into pharmacies in the middle of the night. I've found it's even cheaper than ordering drugs from Canada.
It's a fun visit, but can be emotionally taxing. My family is great, no problems there (except for my brother's wife who drinks constantly and inevitably pulls me into a closet at my parent's house and tries to make out with me) but seeing how the old stomping grounds and its inhabitants have changed is a challenge."Oh look, that's where the Pagoda Palace used to be, where I took my prom date for an exotic Chinese dinner. Now it's 1/85 of a parking lot for Walmart."
"Oh, look, there is a girl I dated in high school, now she's a greeter at Walmart, a born-again Christian and has 16 children and counting."
"And who's that guy sitting in the front row of my talk at the museum? He looks a little like the father of Kurt, a kid I rode bikes with in junior high school. Oh, that's actually him – do I look that much like my dad did in 1971? I remember Kurt cheating off my paper in math class because he wasn't very smart. Right after college, he came up with some Internet thing, sold it for millions and hasn't worked in 29 years. Will you help me kill him?"
But the good outweighs the bad and I'm really looking forward to it. The breaking news this week is that my Dad, Fred Piraro, is going to be opening for me at the Elk's Lodge show. He'll be warming up the crowd with a few of his comedy stylings, then introducing me. He's done this kind of thing for me before and he's very good at it. He doesn't have any formal experience as a stand-up comic, but if you get a couple drinks into most old Sicilian guys, they pretty much become the life of any party. Or strangle someone with a piano wire. (We're keeping him away from the piano that night.)
Hope to see you there.
.
6 comments:
This is one of the few times I'll write this: "I wish I lived near Tulsa" so that I could attend your events.
I would love to attend one or both of these shows as well but this would result in my spending the whole week with my parents in Tulsa and then OKC for Thanksgiving. I know your shows will be epic but not worth the resulting family massacre. Forgive me!
Do you ever come to the Boston area? Prolly not, I think this place is way to liberal for you
"Oh, look, there is a girl I dated in high school, now she's a greeter at Walmart, a born-again Christian and has 16 children and counting."
Spot on. This past weekend at Reasor's, I bumped into a woman that has a plot at our community garden--she's pregnant with her 7th kid.
--Eric
Sometimes even dead links are funny, like the Pagoda Palace one:
"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /goof/images1/Forbidden-City.jpg on this server."
I liked the Truth and Ruth cartoon, which I understood this way: The old guy has an apparently universal reputation for providing The Truth, something Ruth has been trying to get out of him for years. Of course he tells her, "Never Mind", and, by the way, no, you don't look fat in that dress. Anyway, both my wife and sister were befuddled by the cartoon.
Post a Comment