Funny Part 1 – the Grade School Years.

I’ve always wanted to be funny. Even before I ever understood why some people were funny, I always greatly admired anyone who could make people laugh. These were people that folks gravitated towards, and demanded the best kind of attention. I longed for that kind of attention.

Robin Williams was somebody I was fascinated with when I was a youth. Here was this man who was so wonderfully odd, so manic, and so much different than other adults. I was so impressed with this guy who made a fool of himself and was allowed to be on TV because of it. It was difficult for me to translate his craft of obnoxiousness into my own life. I just came across as… well obnoxious.

I always wanted to tell a good joke. There were kids in my class who always had good jokes to tell. Many of them were just plain vile, or at least as vile as we understood them at the time. Others were just clever word plays, or punchlines. I suffered from a mix of attention deficit and just plain being dense, so I could never commit these jokes to memory. If I did manage to latch on to a joke or two, I imagine they were butchered beyond the intended humor.

A better comedic outlet for me became puppet shows that I would perform for anyone patient enough to allow me to do it. My family was a huge fan of the Muppet Show. It was one of the few shows we would sit down and equally enjoy. Not enough people really appreciate the genius that is Jim Henson, and how his show simple enough for children to love yet sophisticated enough for adults to embrace. My puppet shows weren’t as well crafted. They had no scripts, no real direction, and very little story. Just a lot of blather until one puppet hit another, and that would trigger the laughter I so desired. This really became my “thing” while in grade school, and outside of my other artistic endeavors, it was one of the few things I was recognized for.

As much as I wanted to throw out the zingers, I could never actually take them myself. I was so very sensitive to people picking on me. This is what led to one of my greatest embarrassments. Our Cub Scout Pack was going to have a Gong Show event. The group of us kids would get up there with our respective talents and be judged by a panel of notable nobodies. “You’re probably going to do a stupid puppet show aren’t you Ireland” taunted one of my fellow Weeblos. I had to of course counter back with the standard defense, “NO.” Truth be told, I really would have rather done a puppet show, but I felt I could do my own thing. I was going to get up in front of these people and do my own act. It would be hilarious. I had this great idea that I would call some notable nobody up from the audience and I would prod them with various questions. Based on their response I would make some sort of sarcastic remark and let the hilarity pour forth. I might even hold up a sign to the side with some sarcastic remark like Bugs Bunny would do when fooling with Elmer Fudd. It was a fantastic idea. So right before I am to go on, I try to explain to the Emcee this high concept that I’m about to do. “So you’re trying to be a Comedian?” he asks. Yes. Yes indeed. I like that. I was going to be a Comedian. I was announced as such, and I went out in front of an auditorium full of families. I asked the Scoutmaster to come forward as my first victim. Our dialogue over the next few minutes included the annoying back and forth Hello, Hello, Hello (always a grade school crowd-pleaser), my trying to make a joke out of the fact that he was a carpenter (Do you lay carpets? Clever), and of course my sign (probably too small for anyone to read). Needless to sang the gong rang after that. Out of 10 or 12 acts, I was the only one that got gonged.

I would say that was the first time I really understood embarrassment. I felt that since my heart was into it, that I could just be naturally funny. I remember my father dispensing wisdom on the subject. He went on about how even the best comedians like Jack Parr (Who?) would have been better prepared with material. I remember asking my Mom sincerely if I could stay home the next day. She said “no.”

Oddly enough, I didn’t let it get it to me for too many years. After getting a ventriloquist dummy one Christmas, I entered myself into a talent show. This time I prepared myself with collected material. I fashioned a darn good little act, and performed it for the whole school. The following is my best joke from the act:

Dummy: I think I see my teacher out there
Me: Really? Where is she?
Dummy: You see that really pretty woman in the back row with the blue eyes, blond hair, and beautiful smile?
Me: Yeah! Wow, is that your teacher?
Dummy: NO – it’s the ugly woman sitting next to her.

It took minutes for the crowd to calm down. Minutes. It made me feel funny… in a good way of course.

It always sounds like a good idea

A conversation reminded me a few things in the limited male mind that always sound like a good idea, but aren’t in reality. I’m not one to perpetuate clichés here, as I’m very much against this new sitcom perception that now defines the American male. We will stick with what is fact, however, and the following are unfortunate truths.

Hot tubs are severely over-rated in my mind, yet there is always this Pavlovian reaction of excitement about them. They play the commercials for local establishments during sports events, and we sit and think, “That would be awesome to have in my backyard.” It is like the first step to transforming our homes into the Playboy mansion. Install this tub and your house will be busting out at the seams with buxom babes ready to boil in your hot tub brew. “That’s right ladies, swimsuits are optional.” The reality is that it a big steaming waste of money as it sits unused by you and your pasty white friends who are too uncomfortable to bathe with you.

You’re heading out for brews and food with the guys, and what better place to celebrate manhood than Hooters. We think it is OK, because it is like the gentleman’s club we allowed to go because it right across the street from Applebees. We fall time and time again for what is perhaps the greatest marketing gimmick ever created. Charge ridiculous amounts of money for watered down beer and food that rivals junk you can make in the microwave, but have it delivered to your table by girls in tight t-shirts and hot pants. Your waitress ends up being a sullen gal whose insanely overprotective boyfriend is sitting at the bar making sure nobody even glances at his woman. Your base instinct is eventually overtaken by empathy, as you think, “This poor gal is only trying to make ends meet. She might be working her way through school. Maybe she has a little one at home.” You leave with a pang of guilt in your gut… or perhaps it was just the onion rings.

Deep inside every man there is a desire to be the Captain his own vessel. Whether we envision ourselves as a Viking or Pirate, we have this desire to conquer the open water. When financial stability allows it, we think we want a boat. Fresh air, cool water, warm sun… bikinis. For the guys fortunate to actually live on the water, this isn’t such a bad thing, but us land-lovers who populate the Midwest have a bit more trouble getting to the water. It is my understanding that by the time you store the boat, maintenance the boat, clean the boat, tow the boat, launch the boat - you only have a few precious hours to really enjoy before you repeat the entire process. Money floats apparently, as you have to keep applying it in order to keep everything above water.

Now that is look at this, with each of these ideas comes the somewhat unfulfilled promise of scantly clad women. Yes, that is answer. I blame boobs.

Why society fails – Panera Bread

This is the first in a hopefully reoccurring theme that discusses the end of the world as it is happing around us. People are too heavily focused on the bigger picture things like global warming, terrorism, or cable reality shows. I challenge you to look no further than the “pick up your order” counter at your local Panera Bread.

I marvel at the complete social breakdown that happens in the short wait for fancy “not plain white” bread sandwiches and lukewarm bowls of soup. Like the caustic elements that are brought together to ignite a terrorist’s tightie whities, people are forced to huddle around and wait together as the food is prepared. This is not a new concept mind you – this happens at every corner sandwich shop all over the world. You order at end of the shop, and you have a short walk to the other side of the counter to pick up the food you ordered. Simple, right?

No. This is where we fail. Time and time again we fail as a society, because we are not able to function as one. The flaws of humanity are more exposed here than the underwear of your average coed (Foul – two undie jokes in as many paragraphs). The huddled mass, too selfish to care about the person beside them, too focused to see the ills around them.

There will always be those who are either ignorant to technology too fearful to embrace it. Many are held back without the opportunity to advance themselves and are either taken over or pushed aside. This is represented by the person who can never quite seem to make the drink machine work for them.

History has produced many a fearful tyrant. A person who takes what they want, because they feel it is rightfully theirs. Attila the Hun, Hitler, the Romans… all despicable humans who have turned a blind eye to their soul, and made miserable the unfortunates in their destructive path. I see this evil in every nudnik that walk right up to the counter and assumes that the first plate they see belongs to them. They encounter the folks too polite to confront them, and the fiercest who want to protect the food coming to them. This is where war begins, and in the end it is never a pretty site. The collateral damage is great, the tears many, and the resolution questionable. The folks at the counter lose track of orders, people get the wrong side items, and some idiot wanders off and wonders why his roast beef tastes like chicken.

And then there is sometimes not enough to go around. Whether it is the gluttony of others, or a failure of planning to provide. Inevitably there is a shortage of the bread used to make my beloved Sierra Turkey sandwich. Since this happens so often, one might imagine they make more… but that would be a solution. We know that solutions don’t come easy, and they often times come with a price. Like most people, I don’t understand politics or economics, so I choose to suffer with a lesser quality bread. I will gripe about it, but I will never take the time to write my congressman.

When is it enough?

I’m old enough to remember when our TV had 5 channels that we could crank the old knob around to find: 3 major networks, an independent station, and PBS. I knew them well as the first 7 or 8 years of my life, I was actually the remote control. I remember the landmark day that the Ireland household got cable. We were that one family who always got everything after everyone else had it for years. Our line-up increased to an unimaginable 20+ channels. Even at that age, there was just too much television to watch, and yet nothing was on. Flash forward 30 years and I have something in the neighborhood of 500+ channels. Yeah, you know where I’m going – all this TV and yet nothing is on. Let me arrive at my point.

I’m happy to say that we don’t watch a lot of TV in the Ireland household. We have a few programs we watch, and there are only a handful of channels we frequent. Fact is, we DVR most of the television we watch. Yet with this somewhat limited exposure, we are somehow bombarded over and over with the same garbage messaging.

Commercials have always been the zits of television. They pop up at all the wrong times, they are annoying, and all we can do is ignore them until they go away. That fact has never changed. The problem I have now is that there seem to be only 10 commercials playing at every break on all 500 channels and 7 of them are for Geico. My beef is how can any company afford that much commercial time in this bad economy? I do not have Geico, and I’m proud to say I never will. If I did, I would only wonder how much of my insurance premiums were going into the latest wacky adventure of the computer animated lizard and his doofus boss. Is there such a thing as reverse messaging? Can too much exposure begin to be a bad thing? In this case I’m going to say yes.

The other issue is up to the minute news crawls and updates. This just happened with the Tiger Woods scandal and now over the weekend with the Mike Leach/Texas Tech debacle. BREAKING NEWS…! The news media has been overdoing it for years, so that is nothing new. The big problem now is the little black news crawl across the bottom of some channels. In the span of one football game we were reminded of the Mike Leach situation once every couple of seconds, despite the fact it happened 3 days ago, and that they had nothing new to report. After the crawl ticked by 20 times, they would break in with a live studio update of the situation, which was just reading the same text crawl, and showing the same piece of stock Mike Leach footage… again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

We get it. I promise you we get it. Those that don’t have had their brains turned to mush from overexposure and are too far-gone to get it. Enough!

Father Fears

In no particular order, here is a running list of fears that I have in regards to fathering my first child.

She is a girl (well 90% chance). I have no clue how to raise a girl.
Tea Parties.
She'll look like my brother Dave.
I'll bring the wrong girl home from the hospital.
That first greasy looking goofy bastard who comes over for her first date.
Pink.
Hannah Montana... though I'm sure Miley will have made her first sex tape by then.
I'm going to be a push over.
I'm going to become an embarrassment even faster than most Dads.
What if she is an emotional basketcase? she'll get that from her Father.
She might be smarter than me by second grade.
Questions about male anatomy.
What if is she thinks that Kermit the Frog is stupid?
She'll want a pony.
She'll want her own phone by 7.
She'll go to Mommy to fix things. She should.
She'll tell her friends that Daddy is in charge of the vacuum cleaner. He is.
The cost of college in 20 years.
The cost of a wedding in 20 years.
I might be better at painting toenails than Mommy.
She'll take up smoking at some point.
That she'll have her heart broken some day.
That she'll only want to eat chicken nuggets all the time.
Fruit candy will be her favorite.
That she won't be able to relate to Daddy at all.
She might be kinda dull.
She'll get a tattoo.
When will it be appropriate to allow her to wear eye shadow?
Girlie pop music.
The terrible twos.
The terrible threes.
The terrible teens.
She might like Barney.
Will she ever cry on Christmas morning?
Will she ever cry at Disney World?
Will she prefer Reality TV?
The cat might bite her.
She might bite the cats.
She'll resent me for her bushy eyebrows.
She will only eat cheese pizza.
She might be scared of a lot of things, but she won't fear Sasquatch.
She won't laugh enough.
She might forget to mention me when she wins an Oscar.
She might not smell what the Rock is cookin.
Boys.
That my kisses won't fix all boo-boos
She'll be more Disney Princess than Princess Leia.
She might be obnoxious.
I'll have to wear pants around the house more.
She won't like school.
Bullies.
She makes the right decisions.
She has the patience to truly wait for love to find her.
That she won't like being tickled.
Trust is never broken.
That I won't have the patience.
That I won't fill her memories with enough love and joy.
That she'll be brave enough to tackle the world.

Decade of Michael

“It is so strange to hear someone call you Mike,” my wife says to me the other day. She is in fact correct – I find it jarring now as well. That is so ten years ago! Wait a minute… has it been that long? I’m finding it difficult to wrap my head around the beginning of a new decade, as I really don’t feel like Y2K was that long ago. In reflection I have discovered that this was a defining decade for me. It started out a little rough, but it has ended on such an emotional high.

A few ticks past midnight on 1/1/2000, I was embraced by a woman whose name I barely remember at a stranger’s house with people who I will never cross paths with again. How I got there was all part of the plan to get my life on track. I had only recently uprooted my (lack of) life and moved to Cincinnati from Cleveland to start anew. There is no bigger way to change one’s life than to pick up everything and move. The biggest change, however, happened with just one common question asked by every new person I met: “Do you prefer Mike or Michael?” The first time this was asked of me, my knee jerk reaction was Michael. Why not? It was something different. Mike had his chance for nearly 30 years, it was Michael’s turn to take the reins. The new me had a lot of pieces to put together, and dating continued to be a struggle. So to circle back to where I started this paragraph, I had met this woman on an Internet dating site. So there I stood at a party filled with mostly P&G employees, trying (too) hard to make a good impression. Let’s just say Michael still had some work to do, as this dating situation didn’t last many days longer.

2000 continued along with many growing pains, many that can fill other posts someday. The best thing that happened came through another woman whose name I barely remember that I had met on an Internet dating site (get used to this, it will indeed come up again). I followed some gal to an audition for Community Theater. It was on this night, that I introduced myself again as Michael, and it was cemented indefinitely as so with this vast group of creative folks. I now have ten years of success and personal fulfillment as an actor. I marvel at large my world has become, and I cherish the relationships I have formed. The new Michael had a solid foundation from which to build upon.

The decade’s biggest regret was a 4-year long learning process that was unfortunate but necessary. I had it in my head that I was lonely, and I was still clinging to the Internet dating as a crutch. Then 9/11 happened, and I don’t need to tell anyone how the world changed. Anxiety over my future or lack thereof was clouding my understanding of what it truly meant to be in a relationship. Out of frustration, I decided to take one last date on-line, and that would have to work. So I met this woman. There was nothing wrong with her. She was nice. She was stable. She had a really great cat. All perfect reasons to keep dating… right? Let us make a long story short and leave it at that. Our relationship began on a lie (She was too ashamed to admit to anyone that we met on-line), and ended on a lie (She had moved on to someone else). The important lesson I learned from this is that you can work on a relationship all you want, but working hard is not working smart. I was blind to the fact that this other person was just going along with everything because she was too polite to have her own opinion. I wasn’t being honest with myself, which blinded me to what my situation was. I wasn’t being embraced as the Michael I wanted to be. Sure, I’m bitter about the whole thing, but in the end it was a valuable experience that led my to the most important chapter of my life.

Anne-Marie wasn’t supposed to happen. After my 1-year old marriage fell apart, I was ready for a dramatic and pathetic personal downward spiral. I was miserable in the dating pool for so long, and I dreaded having to enter it again. I prepared myself for the worst. Then Anne-Marie happened. How could she have faith in a man whose every red flag was flying. It was a blessing that she had to trust me immediately, and that I was ready to listen to my soul. All these years I was searching for her, and all I had to do was let her find me. She has shared and improved every aspect of my life. Her delight with this character Michael has made it easier for me to be who I’ve wanted to be. I can’t really say she completed the transformation to Michael, she just unearthed what was always there.

The new decade will bring about another change immediately. My name won’t be affected this time – I’ll just be awarded a new title: Daddy. What a ride this will be. I can’t even begin to imagine what message I will have in 2020. It will probably be a very outdated Hugh Downs joke.

Happy Teens.