AMBROSE PIERSON & JESSICA DELFINO IN:

http://www.jonnygoldstein.com/2005/05/29/finger_fun.php

I did a show the other night called "Ask The Robot" on the Frying Pan boat/club. Ambrose of Happy Hour Clowns and I got comfy on a couch in the bow of the boat and for some reason, our fingers started frolicking. Johnny Goldstein happened to have his camera handy to capture what he calls "Finger Fun".

It sounds much hornier than it actually was. But it was pretty horny, none-the-less.

MY PLANS FOR THE EVENING:
VOX ILLUMINATI PERFORMS TONIGHT

Hey everyone - wanna see something weird? Tonight, I'll be playing BASS GUITAR in my friend's band called "The Illuminati". The band concept is a simple pop hits kind of thing with a side order of political/romantic enlightenment and exploration. Vox's songs are actually pretty nice, and some even really rock. I'm only filling in for one night, so come see me jam poetic on his sexy red bass.

The show is at LUNA LOUNGE on Ludlow Street, across from The Pink Pony at 7:30 PM TONIGHT. The show is FREE. And there will be free pizza.

And believe it or not, I fuckin' crank on the bass.

ECNY AWARDS LINK

Hey everyone. There's this award thing that is produced by comedians for comedians called the ECNY Awards. I've been nominated for BEST MUSICAL COMEDY ACT, or something like that.

If you are a comedian or enjoy seeing comedy shows, you will be sure to see names of comedians and shows that you like. It's much easier than voting for the president - you don't have to get out of your pajamas if you don't want to. You don't have to be registered with any party. Just click on the link below, god dammit, and vote for people who made you laugh, or vote for your friends if you're a sycophant.

www.baldalienpimp.com/ECNY

DAVID CROSS SAW ME SUCK IT

I performed the other night at Saturday Night Rewritten, which, by the way, was a pretty neat show. The concept is simple - they take the sketches from the night before's Saturday Night Live, rewrite them, and put the show together for Sunday night. I salute them for taking it to task - Saturday Night Live is regularly pretty lame. That confuses me, because I know several writers on the show and they are funny! So something goes wrong somewhere between a funny idea in a funny person's brain and a lame ass sketch on Saturday Night Live - but alas; je nais cest quai.

I performed this past Sunday as the musical guest, and the show was better than the previous night's SNL, but not perfect. It is a big job to rewrite a whole show and learn it all in such a short time. But I take my hair off to them, because I don't wear a hat.

Interestingly, Mr. David Cross was sitting in the audience. The turn-out was fairly sparse - maybe about 15-20 people showed up. But one of them was David Cross, oddly. What was David Cross doing there on a Sunday night? Watching the show, I would suppose. But why? Why wasn't he hanging out with Jay Z or Sarah Silverman, or someone else famous? Why wasn't he performing at some fundraiser somewhere or making love to his girlfriend? What the hell was going on that Mr. Cross should turn up in a basement theater on Bond Street?

Mr. Cross, why? Why, Mr. Cross?

I don't know. I can't even honestly say that he was there for sure. I didn't see him with mine own two eyes. Other people saw him, and reported loudly upon his sleek exit aft closing credits, fore lights arose. Maybe they just thought it was David Cross. What do THEY know? Maybe it was Todd Barry, pretending to be David Cross. They said, "He sat in the back! HE was here!" As if Jesus himself had graced us with his presence.

I have some theories as to why he was there. But I won't share them with you.

As I heard the news of his attendance, my stomach curled up into a dead bird and shat. Why? I thought aloud. Why had he come to that show of all nights, and seen me suck my ass through a straw? Why? I wouldn't say it was the worst set I've ever had. But the atmosphere alone was enough to take the spirit out of even the most ego-laden performer. The theater is musty and kind of drab, a la UCB's old days - which gives it a nice, old-timey feel, but still - it's only as good as the show going on inside of it. SNR is a very low-budget show. The comedians on the show were impressive in some aspects and lack-luster in others. And I didn't help matters by choosing to play my older, less charming, dirtiest material. I was feeling wierd that night - I didn't know if I could or should tell jokes or not, so I didn't - I just sang a few songs - it was not one of my better sets. From a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate it a 17 degrees celcius.

People came up to me afterwards and said "You were great! You were terrific!" But I knew it was not so. I knew in the spectrum of terrific to shit hag, I was closer to dumpy slutbag, which is on the lower end of the spectrum. For people who'd never seen me before, it might have been an okay set, but if you're David Cross - well - let's just put it this way - he was not one of the people to come up to me and say, "Great set."

But why should I sit here and second guess myself on what David Cross thinks of me? I've got stuff going on. I'm making upwards of $300 per week. I just got a new fancy haircut - I cut it myself in my bathroom. Things are looking up. I got new shoes at a yard sale for $2.

But still, I can't help but beat myself up over it. I like to bleed internally, quietly, fakely.

Mr. Cross, if you're reading this - I apologize for letting comedy down. This reminds me of an anecdote:

I was talking with an important man one day, one who probably could have really helped my career if he'd wanted to. I told him I was a comedian. We spoke for awhile about me, my career, and any advice he might have for me. Finally, at the end of the conversation, he said, "Oh, by the way - you didn't say anything funny."

So, in closing, I'd like to offer a piece of advice to comedians, which I hope to apply in the very near future - don't suck in front of important people.

SWANS THROATS SLASHED IN PARK

I heard this disturbing news story on 1010WINS yesterday and it sucked every positive particle of energy I've collected over the past week right out of my body.

We live in a place where people SLASH THROATS of birds? You might argue, well, KFC kills birds. But at least they are eaten, not that I agree with that, either. But these particular birds were killed for sport and left bleeding in the park for passers by to see.

Why aren't people slashing swan throats in Maine? Why aren't people breaking into people's apartments and raping women in Vermont? What are we doing wrong in NYC and how can we fix it?

Why aren't we rioting in the streets over this stuff? Why hasn't someone burned this city to the ground?

I can't answer any of those questions. And you know who else can't? Bloomberg. C. Virginia Fields. Gifford Miller. Anthony Weiner. Freddy Ferrar. Rudolph Giuliani. George Bush. No one who is in charge can answer any of those questions or fix any of our problems.

Incidentally...

Tomorrow at 2 pm on the steps of City Hall, Christopher X. Brodeur will be announcing the beginning of his campaign. Christopher is the only person I've ever met who is interested in politics for the right reasons. He's the only person I've ever met who is running for a political office with actual ideas that are not only better than any of his predecessor's ideas, but brilliant alone.

If you are sick of all of the shit that is wrong with this city, Christopher is the only person running for office who will change the status quo. He is fearless, he is clever and he wants to do it. He's the only politician who is LOWERING his salary if he gets elected (from 120,000 to 60,000 per year) to save the city money. That's a great idea. He's got a million more of them.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP NYC:

- Come to City Hall at 2 pm tomorrow, whether you like Christopher or not. If you come to City Hall, you are sending this message: "I don't want to contribute to a bogus government franchise anymore." Simply by just SHOWING UP, you tell other politicians that their ideas are bad (which they are) and that you want to hear some good ones. You tell journalists that you want to fix what is wrong with this broken city. You tell your neighbors that you care about them and share hope for a better future - a future that includes clean air and water, no fear of locking doors at night, no fear of being raped, robbed or murdered in your own home. These are not only our rights as humans, but the way life is lived elsewhere. Why not here, too?

- Bring friends to the steps of City Hall, Monday at 2 pm.

- Visit www.mayorbrodeur.org. His website is new, updated just yesterday for the 2005 campaign, and is wonderful. Read his 100 Innovations for NYC and realize that life CAN be improved - easily - if someone with brains was in charge. Once you are through reading it, send the link to EVERY SINGLE PERSON in your address book. Encourage friends to read it. Change begins with each of us, individually. You can save a Nicole DuFresne, a Rudy Fleming, a swan.

- Call / write to newspapers and TV stations and ask them:
Why can't you debate in the political forums unless you've raised a certain amount of money?
Why is all the news about either murder or a celebrity's hot date?
Why are our children so fat and stupid?
Why did domestic shelters have to turn away over 2000 battered women last year?
Why are there people sleeping on the streets at all? Ever???
Why can't we appropriate 40 billion dollars properly among the needs of the city?
(That's a fucking lot of money!!!)
Why are violent criminals allowed back into society after serving time in bogus rehab (jail)?
Why are judges immune to the law?
Why are our police and court systems mad with power?
Why isn't Bloomberg in jail for breaking the law?
Why is it legal for politicians to spend tax dollars wastefully? Shouldn't there be a repercussion for wasting billions of our dollars?
...and any other questions you might have.

- Make sure you are registered to vote democrat. Make sure your address is updated with the Board of Elections.

- Write to CXB's campaign manager at mayorbrodeur@yahoo.com if you can help volunteer to collect the 14,000+ signatures we'll need to put him on the ballot.

- Vote for Christopher X. Brodeur, and tell your friends to do the same.

This post isn't very funny, but I am sick of the propagation of fear. I want to write jokes about the bleakness of life, but not actually experience it.

This show sounds fun. I wish I was in it. I have some funny things to say to some VH1 and MTV executives.

Lloyd Floyd writes:

Tuesday, May 10th, Makor Theater, 67th St off Central Park West. 8 PM.
See Lloyd Floyd be funny. Also being funny are Carson Daly, Sean Lynch, 
Damien Fayhe, PJ Morris, Jesse Klein, Nick Kroll, Nick Stevens, Diana O'Debra,
and Gowie from The Jimmie Kimmel Show. We're roasting all the suits from VH1 and
MTV in a show called "Cheap Shot". I think they should offer $2.00 shots of
generic tequila, but it's a benefit and they didn"t spring for the booze. Go. 

DELFINO'S DIATRIBE

I have a new e-mail newsletter I've been sending out to my mailing list. I call it Delfino's Diatribe. It's reminiscent of the old e-mail newsletter I used to write called the Believe Chicken e-mail, which was basically a promotional tool for my old comedy show, Believe Chicken.

That letter was a lot of fun to make. I'd usually write a long, strange story kind of thing, and then end it by inviting everyone to come to Believe Chicken, a free show at Nightingale, near Union Square, which I co-ran with comedian pal Liz Laufer for 8 months.

With that, I pissed off a lot of people. I sent out one e-mail preaching the "Believe Chicken promise" which was that I would never remove anyone from the mailing list, no matter how much they hated the letter, but if they really wanted to, they could send a snail-mail letter asking to be removed, and we'd read the letter. I sent out another letter where I talked about how a young kid of 17 had gotten in trouble for raping an 80 year old woman. In it I discussed why this was wrong, for a multitude reasons, including the fact that the eldery were unfuckable. I also made up a slogan for my disgust; "Don't rape the elderly -- when they were young, bread was a nickel!" (The second slogan was "My body is not a shuffleboard court!") The letter was deemed ungood by many peers and industry dorks, (two comedians on the show that week actually cancelled their spots!) and was hailed by comedians I admire, like Jim Norton, Leo Allen and Kurt Metzger. Unfortunately, it probably doesn't help my case too much that they're all dudes. You show me a guy who doesn't hold a torch for rape and I'll show you a rapist.

SO, I've sent out two issues of DD (Delfino's Diatribe!) which goes out every Thursday for now. The result has been a well-received comedy-flavored newsletter. So far, only five people have asked to be removed. I call that success. I hope I don't give up on it after six weeks.

And here's a nice bow-tie tie-up -- the editor of NY Press wrote to me today and asked me if I'd like to put Delfino's Diatribe on the NY Press website, weekly. I wrote him back and told him I'd do it, but only if he paid me a million dollars an hour. He said yes.

E-mail me to be added to the Delfino's Diatribe mailing list - jessdelfino@yahoo.com -- you can also e-mail me to say hi, or make expressions and points using various punctuation marks.