SlumBlog Millionaire

MY BLOG HAS MOVED

2011-11-09T16:12:00.001-08:00

You can find all past ramblings here but I'm re-starting it now and it's moved to www.paulvarghese.tumblr.comSee you there.While you're at it, add me on FaceBook (www.facebook.com/paulandoates) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/paulvarghese) for updates on when I post something new.Thanks for all your support.

(LAST NEW CLIP!!)

2010-05-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

The last clip of me in a black shirt with pearl snaps. Time to change outfits.

(ANOTHER NEW CLIP ..)

2010-05-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

Some more nuggets of joydom from my braindom.

NEW VIDEO CLIP ..

2010-05-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

A clip of stuff I spit into a microphone, which in turn got amplified out thru speakers into a sea of people.

Paul's Lament

2009-10-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

In my opinion, THE most frustrating thing to deal with as a comic besides ..

- open mikes at a bar where you compete with television noise and bar chatter
- begging people to come out to see you at shows so the club will keep having you back
- drinking in excess because after your 3 minutes on Jager, EVERYONE wants to be the one to buy you a shot
- the loneliness on the road where at times, you actually consider calling your much-hated ex-girlfriend just to kill the time
- the shows where everyone else kills with their old material, but because you need to work on your new bit about TV shows in Ethiopia, the crowd response you get is terrible, so after the show the crowd wants to hang with them but doesn’t want to even be within 500 feet of you
- the fact that you can write and write and write and not one of the bits you wrote in an entire two week span is working
- hearing other comics bitch about this club being unfair and this comic being a douche rather than channeling that energy into something more productive, like Tuaca
- getting all excited that it’s your headlining night at a club and 20 people show up, and those 20 people don’t like you either
- the lack of consistent money
- the struggle it is to keep any kind of relationship going, whether friend/romance-wise because almost every night of your life is out at some club or bar pitching new material to problem drunks
- not having any kind of medical insurance
- constructing what you think is a brilliiant bit about the perks of dying young as opposed to dying old. You’re all excited to unleash said briilliance on the Big Buck Hunter-playing masses and not one of them. Not one. Laughs. But your stupid one-liner about getting drunk at the Waffle House absolutely slays ‘em
- changing up your material to accomodate the age/racial demographic of the crowd and struggling if you don’t and, alot of times, even struggling when you do
- sleeping in awful hotel rooms where it’s 10 degrees outside and the heater is merely a box that quit being a heater, 35 degrees ago
- getting out-heckled by a heckler because he’s on top of his game and you’re not, because you’re either too inebriated or not enough and plus you just found out earlier in the day that you have $500 worth of car damage you need to bang out.
- writing a bit that you’re convinced is brilliant, only to realize that another comic already does it
- trying to explain to your friends after a show that the reason they saw a very similar show to the one they saw a month ago is because it takes a long time to write new material that kills
- trying to convince yourself that one day, all this paying of dues will eventually be worth it
- getting emails from audience members the next day saying “You suck”
- hearing advice from comics you don’t respect about what’s wrong with your act
- hearing advice from audience members who have never stepped foot onstage but “watch alot of Comedy Central” tell you what’s wrong with your act
- having someone you date tell you what’s wrong with your act
- knowing what’s wrong with your act and then once you make steps to fix it, you realize there’s even more that’s wrong with your act

I’m sorry.

I might’ve gotten a wee bit carried away.

What was I talking about originally?

Oh yeah, THE absolute worst thing about stand-up comedy for me?

- Forgetting a new bit idea that came out of conversation.

It happened to me again last night.
And I have no excuse.
Okay, I have one.
Okay, well actually I had several.
In the form of Crown Royal shots.
But that’s blurriily beside the point. I have my iPhone for such situations. I can type in bit ideas as they come to me. And the best ones for me tend to occur in conversation, and at that point I need to type it into my phone instantly.
But last night, I didn’t.
And that’s when panic sets in.
It becomes this drunken “Law & Order” where my friend and I spend the next 30 minutes trying to remember what we had said just 5 minutes ago that was so damn hilarious. So damn hilarious that we both said, outloud, right after we talked about it,

“That’ll kill onstage.”

But after letting that moment fly by without documenting it, this 30 minute recap of the last 5 minutes not only never ends with us remembering what it was but rather becomes a really pathetic shopping list of conversation, where you realize how drunk/boring the conversation really was

“It was right after you were talking about how great it would be to have a gravy-flavored vodka and right before you asked if it would be cheaper to mummify yourself or have yourself gutted and stuffed”

So,frustratingly, in the end, the bit flies off into inspirational outerspace.
Where all good ideas float away to.
Endlessly drifting into the abyss of ideas that every person has had but never ever thought to write down.
Until it finally lands.

In an IHOP in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The thought that was once yours, 15 months ago in San Jose, California, has made a cross-country trek and landed into the head of an unsuspecting comic who ,just like you, is drunk after hours and drowning his sorrow/frustrations with the craft by eating chocolate chip smiley face pancakes to shake out the buzz of 7 Jack & Cokes and a writer’s block that just won’t go away. And right as that last bite of whipcreamy fried breakfast dessert hits his lips? He spits it out and yells to his drunken open-miker buddy

“If you meet somebody through online dating, and they look nothing like their picture. Can you call tech support?”

A joke is born.

The Notebook

2009-03-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it. I came close to tears. I felt them well up. It took every little droplet of testosterone I had in my body to hold it back. I squirmed. Thought of manly things like: beards, drinking beer through your beard, and talking about your beard with other guys with beards as you all stroke your beards and drink beer through your beards.
It didn't help. Sadness turned to frustration to anger as I pounded on the glass doors of the movie theater at midnight.

I left my JOKE notebook inside.

BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER ...
All comics write their jokes down. Anyone who says they don't must have never drank, never taken any illegal substances, or never aged.
So unless you're a 5 year-old comedian, you HAVE to write stuff down.

I went to go see that movie "Gomorrah". (It's not an Italian "City of God" as the trailer would have you believe, so I don't recommend it). I had just left an open mike and went next door to the movie theater since well (insert "when in Rome ..." double entendre, since I ended up watching a movie about gangs in Italy).

I never bring my notebook with me because I'm afraid to leave it behind.
So realizing 30 minutes later that I left my notebook on the seat next to me not only made me furious but made me realize that as of now, I'm a horrible dad. Because let's be real, I've been doing standup for almost 8 years. I have 8 years worth of notebooks. The one being discussed is all my thoughts since April 2008.

Now if I had an 8 year-old son, do you think he'd remember anything I said last year? Do you think he'd remember how my Irish car bomb joke ends? Would he know all the punchlines to my George Washington Carver bit?

The answer is No.
Which proves my point.
My notebook is way more valuable to me than any infantile offspring I might have.
So for that I apologize red joke notebook. I did a horrible thing. I took you for granted. You: the only one out there who knows my thoughts, my frustrations, my McMuffin Belgrande idea. I realize that leaving you there all alone may lead to abandonment issues. It's not the first time I've shown this kind of neglect. I've been irresponsibly drunk. I've been scatter-brained.

And I understand.
I understand that you may leave me for good one day.
And three years down the road when I find you, nestled in the arms of a struggling comic, and I see him make his Comedy Central debut by opening with the line, "I met a Japanese hooker who came to the United States on a bukaki scholarship", I'll know where he got that from.

And I'll weep.
Not out of anger.
But out of my own frustration. For had I been there and never let you out of my sight, that open miker douche would've never gotten a Comedy Central applause break, 10 seconds in.

Please accept my apology.

Why I Drink ...

2009-03-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

It's only been a couple of years that I actually started enjoying drinking. Now if you scour through previous blogs, it's easy for one to assume that I perhaps "enjoy" booze "a little too much". But then that would mean that you're being judgmental and assuming that just because I enjoy something as consistently evil as alcohol that I, too, am perhaps consistently evil.

I wrote this blog to counteract such a preposterous assertion
(And to be able to type the word "preposterous". Woohoo! Did it again)

* If someone accuses you of being: a drunk, an alcoholic, a boozehound, a liquor lover, the Duke of Hurl, Sir Pukes-alot, the lost Nolte brother/sister, Beer Bong Buddha, sobriety's yang, Drunkadelic, a "danger to society", a school zone hazard, a liver quiver giver, Tipsy LongStocking, "never there for your kids", a blurred visionary, Steal-A-Tequila, Gutter Butter, a Yak-osaurus, or "in need of an intervention"

(Cut and paste what's written below to defend your lifestyle)

EXHIBIT A: I'm much more enjoyable to be around when I'm drunk.

You know this. All your friends do too. Even some of your co-workers when we went to your company Christmas party and I used some celery sticks as a microphone to sing "Don't Stop Believing". Remember the coat rack guitar solo? Leave it to hotel security to ruin what was a rockin' night for all. If you don't believe me, go to YouTube and look up "ex employee's boyfriend sings acapella karaoke".

I rest my case

EXHIBIT B: I'm pumping in money to our floundering economy.

Not only am I keeping alcohol companies in business. (Has anyone noticed that Bud Light hasn't asked for a bailout?) I make sure bartenders have enough money to maintain their meth habit, which in turn keeps Wal-Mart fully staffed. Drunks are why fast food restaurants stay open 24 hours, have dollar menus (because all you have left at the end of the night is loose change in your car) and the 2 drive-thru menu concept. The one menu that you can actually order at and the one 10 feet before where you sober up and try to practice what you're gonna say at the "real menu"

EXHIBIT C: It makes me an honest man.

When sober, I tend to bite my tongue, hold back. Those secrets? Those feelings I have for you? That hatred I have for others? Sobriety takes those emotions and locks them down in the cellar, Pulp Fiction Gimp-style. You don't want that. You can't be friends/partners/tandem bike buddies when everything is just a facade. Sobriety doesn't want you to see the real me. Sobriety's insecure. He still wants to impress you and make you think that spending time with me is like an episode of "Friends". We throw witty rhetorts at one another, sing along to 80s music on our way to Olive Garden, then cap the night by watching something you ordered off NetFlix, drinking a harmless glass of wine and enjoy suburban bliss.

When drunk, you'll see how I really feel.

Yeah, "witty rhetorts" are cute, but let's be honest: Nobody talks like that. You thought Anchorman was funny. Don't act like you know how to be hipster clever just because you have "Arrested Development" on DVD, but still don't know who Mitch Hedberg is.

Olive Garden? I know their "eggplant parmesan" is just as good as any you'll find in any high-end Italian restaurant but it's OLIVE GARDEN. Let me guess what part of town it's in ..... Ummm, next to an Applebee's, flanked by an On The Border, across from a Marble Slab?

And I do enjoy the concept of NetFlix, but really? Did you really need to see the latest Cusack romantic comedy? Wait, in this one is he ranty, mumbly, and nervous? Do tell.

Oh and I'll take that extra glass of goodnight wine just so I can tell you that another "boardgame night" with your boring friends and their even more boring insignificant others will drive me to murder. Them then you.

One more round of "Cranium" = Two more rounds of shotgun shells.

Now don't you wish you knew this about me before we started hanging out? All the more reason to be drunk at first encounter.

Now shut up, let's drink to that.

The Seven Year Bitch ...

2008-06-07T14:29:00.001-07:00

I've been racking my brain on how to do this blog.

So June 6th is officially seven years for me in the stand-up game. I thought I had this great idea where I would write about what I've done in the last 7 years and then contrast it to what I 'could have' been doing these past 7 years, in regards to going back to get my Masters degree and getting a real day job, instead of toiling around in smoky bars doing bits about Jesus freckles.

I typed it all out and it was awful.

Long Blog Short? I'm happy I'm where I'm at. My parents kinda are too but would much rather me have the "Three M's": Marriage, Mortgage, Misery

My Three M's? Moth Joke, Midget Joke, and My sanity.

Happy Anniversary to me.

Big Bitch Belgrande (1-3)

2007-09-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

This story happened at one of my favorite comedy clubs in Dallas, The Backdoor Comedy Club. To make this story all the more interesting, myself, Mark Agee, and Aaron Aryanpur, all of us comedians, wrote about this disastrous, incredibly hilarious event from our unique perspectives of the night. We were all there. We all saw it from totally different perspectives. Enjoy.

-- MY PERSPECTIVE (www.myspace.com/paul_and_oates)

[DISCLAIMER: This story occurred on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007. While many people viewed what went on that night, three of us decided to blog our memories of the night, from our own perspectives. Consider it our tribute to Tarantino. Jackie Brown meets any episode of Cops. The links to their views on the night will be listed below. Enjoy]

Anytime I go to any open mike or comedy club, I always check out the audience to see what I can expect.

Gray hair and oxygen tanks = Raucous and rowdy (fans of a good dick joke)
All Indian crowd = Love any jokes related to gravy and/or NASCAR
Three people in the crowd = Prop comedy and sing-alongs

So when I stumbled into the Backdoor Comedy Club on Saturday, June 23rd, I noticed an (the next nine words are an understatement) incredibly intoxicated, trashed, smashed, and smoking hash bachelorette party. I could go on about the age range of their group but it's best summed up if we compare them to cereals.

They went from Fruity Pebbles all the way to Cream of Wheat.

One had no teeth. One admitted to being an ex-stripper who worked in drug rehab. All were so drunk that I'm sure their collective blood alcohol levels beat my SAT score.

The bachelorette was toting around a nicely sized pink inflatable penis.

(No, I'm not going there .. yet)

She was so happy to be sporting that thing. I think it would've been much funnier to fill it with helium just so she'd have to tie it to her wrist. If drunk was New York, this lucky lady was orbiting Jupiter. She stumbled while sitting. That's shit-faced.

It was like a white trash Joy Luck Club, where instead of meeting to play MahJong, they met to smoke meth and make Toby Keith puff paint t-shirts.

That's when the comedy gods looked down upon the scene at the Backdoor Comedy Club and saw that it was not good.

With the swiftness of a Zeus lightning bolt, the bachelorette retreated to the bathroom where she remained until her friends came to rescue her. The bachelorette, a hefty girl ..

* Nothing wrong with that at all, it's just that I'm a lightweight and this would come back to haunt me later on in the night *

..anyways, this hefty girl gets dragged into the lobby of the Backdoor Comedy Club (214-328-4444; Shows on Fri-Sat; Doors open at 8; Show's at 9. www.backdoorcomedy.com) where she sits on a couch then proceeds to slump over face down onto the floor, where she begins to spit up over and over and .. that's right ..over again. It wasn't more like she was spitting up, more so than her head was hovering above the floor, and her mouth was open and dripping like a leaky faucet, except the water coming out of that tap was filled with tequila, Xanex, and countless community college classes.

Now the rest of her group is panicking. Why you ask?

Well the guest of honor is damn near passed out and whimpering in between gurgles. So now the task falls upon some some nice people (One person alone wouldn't be able to complete the impending task) to carry her and her booze-filled burden to the bachelorette party's truck.

Wait a minute .. they have a truck?
You don't say.

Keep in mind, I am not the biggest person in the world. In fact the only way for me to ever be the biggest person in any room is if that room's filled with AIDS patients and crack babies. Even then it's kinda shaky.

But the task falls upon me and Mark Agee (He's in my top friends list) to tote this poor girl (who will now be known as BBB: Big Bitch Belgrande) .. because alas, "Her Chariot Awaits!"

We each grab one hemisphere and pick her up.

Have you ever been swallowed by an armpit?

Which is when Captain Crack Whore tells us, "If you touch sumthin', don't wurr 'bout it."

Yes, she said "wurr" not "worry"

So as we're re-enacting this trailer trash version of Weekend at Bernie's, I try to break the awkwardness of the moment (since this bitch already broke my will to live, my desire to ever drink again, my attractions towards women, and my clavicle) by asking her "So do you want to be my friend on MySpace?"

I thought it was funny.
Nobody else laughed.
Of course they probably all still use phones that rest on the top of telephone poles.

Green Acres IS the place to be.

They open the doors of the truck and she sees the car seat and falls headfirst onto it, then cries. I mean sobbing. I mean like a Baptist youth group after watching Passion of the Christ. But her southern hemisphere is not in the car. It's the ugliest 90 degree angle you've ever seen. Mark gets in through the other door and tries dragging her by the arms to pull her completely in the truck. I lift a leg. I try to lift the other one then remember that "That's right. I enjoy having full use of my hips." She quits crying for a second to crawl the rest of her half into the backseat and we slam the door as if we just successfully crammed 10 extra pairs of pants into a suitcase.

Mission accomplished. Bones broken. Horrific visuals burned into memory

Sadly, the ding-a-ling balloon got left behind, thus signifying the importance of a penis to marriage. I was tempted to chase after their truck, inflatable instrument in hand, but cooler heads, and the visual of a skinny Indian kid running down Ross Avenue with a 2 foot pink penis balloon, prevailed.

After a few hours of the comics passing around the balloon to insert their own hacky dick jokes to one another, the balloon was quickly deflated by a woman who had watched the show and was now leaving and, to be honest, was not incredibly scrumptious to the eyes. (Let's just say that every date she goes on is a "blind" date because whenever anyone dates her they immediately poke their eyes out) .. Well she begins deflating the penis balloon. She joked with all the comics, "I'm taking it home!"

Which is when a comedian whispers into my ear, "That's not the only erection she's ever deflated."

ROLL CREDITS...

-- MARK AGEE'S PERSPECTIVE (www.myspace.com/markagee) --

There's a phenomena I've never grasped that involves bachelorette parties being drawn to comedy clubs. I've never understood it. They use one of the most memorable nights of their lives with their friends to come to a comedy club, where they are supposed to remain quiet and attentive. Then they come in shitfaced, talk through the show and yell nonsensical things at the comics. I think it would be less disruptive to drape the audience in balogny and release a live tiger.

Bachelor parties are almost never in comedy clubs. They go to titty bars. But bachelorette parties always show up. That right there is the difference between the sexes: Men like titties; women like ruining things for men.

Last Saturday night, we had what would have been the bachelorette party from hell if they would have survived past 9:15. They were the trashiest of white trash. I mean Marlboro Red smoking, leathery drunk bitches from like 3 generations in the same trailer park. They spent the little time they were there outside smoking. The most social one told us that she used to be a stripper and then was a drug counselor, until the stories made her sad. Now she does urinalysis.

Anyway, by 9:15 the bachelorette is passed out. I mean dead. Her ass was on one of the seats in the lobby, but her face was on the floor. Ex-stripper: "She's fiiiine. Don't worry 'bout it." What do you mean 'don't worry about it?' The bitch was upside down and her ass was wet. I still don't know if she sat in something or pissed herself. My money is on both.

Eventually, they decide to try and get the 220 lb. bachelorette into the 4-door pick-up the 6 of them were riding in. But her legs aren't functioning. Several douchebags volunteer to to help, but then wander off. That leaves me and Paul, who is the size of one of the betrothed's thighs. (BTW: When the two of us are the "nice ones" in a group, it's time for a good plague to thin the population and put things in perspective.) Aaron was laughing too hard to help, and anyway doesn't touch women unless they are covered in glitter and dollar bills. Paul maneuvered around to the ficus tree in the corner so he can get under her starboard flab and then we squat-thrusted the bitch until she got her legs under her. She wasn't much help, but just resting her cankles on the ground saved me a hernia. My favorite part was the Ex-stripper telling us: "Don't worry 'bout it if you touch sumthin'." Great. My first date-rape coupon. How many Chuck E. Cheese tickets for a titty? I'd rather have the cap-eraser.

Acting out our own little version of "Weekend at Bernice's," we get her to the backseat of the truck and shove her in face-first. I go around the other side and pull her in by her arm-jiggles while Paul tries to hip-check her ass up into the truck. From the back, it must have looked like he was doggy-styling a road-kill hippo. We were stuck for several minutes trying to figure out how to get this line-backer bitch into the seat when Anthony Perez seriously suggested tossing her in the bed of the truck like a sack of potatoes. (I think he had done this before.) Meanwhile, the rest of the gaggle of truckstop-waitress lookalikes were arguing over whether she was "too drunk" or "just fiiiine." According to one, "She couldn't be that drunk. She ain't dranken that much." I think maybe she might have had a pill or three, as the ex-drug counselor had raved about the awesomeness of Vicadin.

We finally scrunch her up like a Popple, so two other fat bitches could fit on either side of her. The last thing Paul says to the dead girl: "Are you on MySpace?" As they drove away with the pregnant one at the wheel -- being pregnant, she had only had a couple of drinks -- Aaron shouted: "He's a lucky man."

A lucky man, indeed.

-- AARON ARYANPUR'S PERSPECTIVE (www.aaronaryanpur.com or www.myspace.com/aaroncomedian) --

Saturday night was packed at the Backdoor Comedy Club, and packed with the right people...it was one of those nights where no one comic could suck. This can be a blessing as well as a curse, as it encourages some that it probably shouldn't.

In attendance were a few bachelorette parties (no strangers to the comedy show), one of which will be the focus of this post. This was the sloppiest, drunkest, white-trashiest bachelorette party in the history of drunk bitches trying to ruin a comedy show (this is based solely on their actions, however, because they seemed nice enough when talking with them)...fortunately for all comics, the party excused themselves twenty minutes into the show.

Five minutes into the show, a few of us comics are standing outside, and one of the party-goers joins us to talk while she smokes. Depending on the angle, lighting, and alcholic intake she could have been attractive at some point in her life or she could have been the Crypt Keeper. Perception's weird that way. She's wearing a medical boot, she's slurring and incoherent...she's just Dustin Ybarra's type.

She tells us that they've been drinking since one o'clock that afternoon. While we're joking with/at her, she mentions her checkered past and brings up her time as a drug/alcohol counselor. She told us how depressing it was and Waylon says, "Yeah, it could drive you to drink." She earnestly agrees.

She says she's been sober, but everything else about her is calling her a liar. She loves to laugh and her mother (a more skinny, more severe, a more 'crypt-keeper-y' version of her daughter) is at the show. They're staying at the Hyatt. Big weekend.

Comics are taking turns coming and going so that they don't have to be around her long. It's an artform, really, being able to excuse oneself and leave the other guys to suffer the drunk girl, homeless loon, or shitty comic on their own. I have yet to master it.

She returns to the show. Life goes on.

...Until fifteen minutes later when there are a bevy of chunky broads making some noise around the "ladies'" room. Next thing we know, the bachelorette is escorted to the foyer by her friend, and she collapses on two of the ottomans. She's built like a wounded T-Rex, bottom heavy and wobbly. She is out, then she's up, she sobs and then goes silent again. Her friends swear she hasn't had that much to drink. Her friend with the history of drinking and pills is
mysteriously quiet.

The plan is to carry her out to the car...meanwhile, all of the sensitive, compassionate comics are giggling and/or taking pictures with their phones. I don't participate, mostly because I have a crappy phone.

They ask if any of the comics can help walk her out...I stay outside because I refuse to get roped into this crap. I abhor that kind of reckless behavior and there's no way I'm lifting a drunk, sloppy T-Rex. I have a joke about getting suckered into lifting heavy things because of my size and apparent strength, and this resentment also keeps me away from such tasks.

Young, chubby Dustin steps forward and one of the girls says, "Not you." Funniest shit ever.

So while one of them heads out to get the Dodge Ram 1500, the two comics they get are Mark (which is understandable as he's been training for months for just such a feat) and Paul (?). The sight of stickly Paul under the limp arm of this beast was the next funniest thing ever.

They maneuver her out to the four-door truck. Paul is pushing her in one door while Agee is pulling her in through the other. And she's totally passed out, not helping for anything. From my angle, I see the door and two pairs of feet: her big ass flip-flops planted firmly into the asphalt, and Paul's struggling Sketchers inbetween.

One of the girls says, "Don't worry if you touch nothin'." Paul is pushing so hard and she won't lift for shit...Paul thrusting from behind a passed out beauty is exactly how I pictured his prom, and that image was the funniest shit ever.

-- The End --

A Solution for My Resolution

2007-09-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

This blog was originally posted on April 2, 2007 on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/paul_and_oates). Enjoy

I was thinking maybe I should quit drinking. Sounded like a good idea. Then I listed all the reasons I drink and the reasons I shouldn't.

REASONS NOT TO ...
1. Swollen liver
2. Puffy booze face
3. Dry Heaving
4. Taco Bell #4 Value Meal

REASONS TO ...
1. I'm way funnier
2. It makes church go by faster
3. It also makes me less self-conscious that I'm drenched and carrying my sandals and socks in a soaked Gap bag

But you can't quit drinking .. society caters to the drunk.

1. Those circular road bumps that separate the left turn lane from the other ones exist solely to sober you up if you drive over them.
2. Wal-Mart's open 24 hours. Nobody responsible shops past 2 A.M. You might as well re-name the store: Drunk, Stoned, and Beyond
3. Every car has a key-less remote to open the door, because they know that asking a drunk at 2:30 A.M to apply hand-eye coordination when unlocking his car door with a key is just too much to ask
4. Every fast-food restaurant has two drive-thru menus. The one with the microphone where you place your order and the one fifteen feet before where you try to temporarily sober up and practice what you're gonna say.

So the booze parade continues. I've never quit anything anyway. I've been fired. I'll wait til I get fired by my liver before I move on to blander, more boring-er things ..

Like grammar.

My Black History Month

2007-09-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

This was originally posted back on February 21, 2007 on my MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/paul_and_oates). Enjoy

--

So there's loads of documentaries and commercials saluting the achievements of African-Americans in this country. The Civil Rights Movement, jazz music, the slam dunk, House Party 1-4, Wu-Tang Clan, saying "axe" instead of "ask", the list goes on...

So I'd like to celebrate the black history that went on in my life and made me into the average, low-income, underweight man that I am, today

3rd Grade:
My first ever black friend, Derrick. Now, keep in mind, I never thought about color at all, growing up. Now looking back in hindsight, I remember the 3rd grade as the earliest memory I have of having a black friend. We never hung out, but I remember him joking around with me, kicking my ass in everything recess-related, wearing loud patterned shirts and having a hi-top fade. I wished I was as popular as he was, but I had to settle for the fact that I was, and would remain, teacher's pet for the duration of my elementary school career.

6th Grade:
The first girl, I remember, to tell me that I was cute was a black girl. This was monumental for me. I gave her my New Edition tape in return for complimenting me. She doesn't remember this. I do. First off, it was the first time I ever had anyone tell me I was cute and secondly, it was New Edition's "Cool It Now". Their best record to date. It had "Mr. Telephone Man" on it and the title track. Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike.

I-Tune it people.

9th Grade:
I hear from everyone how I look like DeWayne Wayne from A Different World and Arsenio Hall. Come to find out, women didn't find either of those men sexy.

10th Grade:
I get introduced to hip-hop because my friend Mike lost the Tribe Called Quest tape he had borrowed from one of his friends. He bought another copy and had me dub one for him (back when stereos had 2 tape decks and you could speed dub it) and I did. The next day I lied to my parents and told them I was sick, laid in bed and listened to it. The following week my pants sagged, I started limping and thinking I could rap.

My parents thought I was still sick.

One month later I start having to play catch-up with my hip-hop collection and I start off positive at first: Buying De La Soul, Brand Nubian, but then I start digging into N.W.A and ScarFace. I start listening to it when my dad picks me up from school, pretending to cough everytime they cuss.

My parents start to wonder how sick I really am

My dad blames my new interest in rap music as making me angry and forbids me to listen to it. I tell him that "Ya betta recognize before I regulate. Break Yo-Self Fool!"

He laughs in my face and then bitchslaps me into a coma

11th Grade:
I go to my first ever rap concert. Tribe Called Quest with De La Soul. I smell weed for the first time. I'm the nerdiest guy there. I have a blast. I feel accepted. I feel black. I start pronouncing words and leaving off the "g" (EXAMPLE: "Hangin", "Studyin", "S.A.T Preppin")

I also meet the black guy who's "black" but not "black enough". Like he's "black enough" to hang around white people because they think he's cool and hysterical. But he's not "black enough" to hang around other black people because they think he's a nerd and trying way too hard. It's like around white people, he's like Will Smith and around black people he's like ...

Will Smith.

Freshman Year (University of North Texas):
Seven years later, another black girl tells me how cute I am and proceeds to flirt with me, even giving me her number. I'm too shy to ever call it, but I do sit in my dorm room and contemplate where I can find a New Edition "Cool It Now" tape in 1995.

2001 - Present:
I start doing stand-up comedy and numerous shows in front of black audiences. This begins the overabundance of comments from black women like...

1.You have such pretty hair.
2 You look like Tiger Woods.
3.No thank you, I no longer listen to New Edition

I also end up working with Tommy Davidson, Wanda Sykes, Som'more, Monique, Adele Givens, EarthQuake, Mark Curry, and D.L Hughley

D.L Hughley tells me I look like an Ethiopian Chris Rock

Which brings us to today..
I still listen to hip-hop. I'm still shy around all kinds of women. I just watched a 60-minute special of VH1's Behind the Music on New Edition and to top it off, last night, I got pulled over by a cop in an extremely white part of town because, according to him, my "license plate light was out"

Maybe I really am black.

Blogger let me back in ..

2007-09-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

So the last time I posted a blog here was when Blogger had finally let me back in. I thought I could post the blogs that I had written maybe a week later. Well Blogger got all schizophrenic on me and wouldn't let me back in ..

Until now

So I'm slapping the last few blogs up on here (Courtesy of my MySpace).
Oh and just to update you on my "career"

- I made my Comedy Central debut on July 13,2007 on a show called "Live at Gotham"

Here's some websites where you can find clips of me. Just type my name in the search engines

- Video.Google.com
- YouTube.com
- WFAA.com/gordonkeith
- Comedycentral.com

Oh and my website has reverted back to its form of 2006 because now I'm having issues getting it back to what it once was. Give me a week and a 2 hour conversation with some metrosexual nerd at the Apple store to return everything back to normal.

The reason for the hiatus

2007-07-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

Blogger got bought by GMail. So they made it to where you could log into your GMail account to get into Blogger, but for some reason it wouldn't let me do it. And then I wasn't even allowed to get into my Blogger account the other way. But alas, all is well with the world. Now for those of you who were smart enough, you would've known to go to my MySpace page because I've been blogging there in the meantime, but now that this is all back to being fixed, it's time I repost what was on my MySpace over here. Enjoy re-reading it or experiencing it for the first time.

I'm bringin blogging back..

In Retrospect..

2007-01-29T16:34:00.000-08:00

So as the month of Paul-uary draws to a close, let's take a look back at what happened in the month of me

1. I had a few free dinners
2. I had a few free drinks
3. I had a few people buy into the concept of a Paul-uary

Was the popularity of Paul-uary successful? Not so much, but it's a start. I'm sure even Black History Month when it first started in 1926 took some time to really get going. In fact if it weren't for TV commercials and BET comedians, most people probably wouldn't even realize that Black History Month existed. I mean does anyone here even know that we have an Asian History Month? Of course not, because there's no commercials or tributes on TV to remind you.

(by the way, it's in May)

So what I'm suggesting is that I need commercials, radio airtime, maybe even a month-long miniseries about me on PBS, chock full of black-and-white photos and other archival Paul footage. Morgan Freeman narrates. Ken Burns produces. Others talk of me, interspersed with stand-up footage and home video of me singing "Little Drummer Boy" in 2nd grade. Then and only then will Paul-uary become a household phenomenon.

So I'm trying to clean out my apartment as I move into new digs and I'm flooded with loose change. I have a penny infestation, and I can't rid myself of it because pennies are completely worthless. They don't have the same privileges that other coins have. They're not allowed in tollbooths, parking meters won't take them, vending machines won't accept them. You hand them to a homeless man and he'll flick them right back at you. The other coins know the penny's useless too. From left to right, place a quarter, dime, nickel, and penny right next to each other. The penny's the only one where the president is facing to the right. The other ones are facing to the left, almost as if they're disgusted and don't want to be associated with him ..

"Pssh. How dare he bring his cheap ass even near us. The only thing he's good for is scratching lottery tickets!"

The only reason I even have so much change is because my friend kept telling me to put all my change in a jar and six months from now I'll be surprised as to how much money I have in that jar. Yeah, I'll be lugging that jar to the bank, in a wheelbarrow.

"This is the heaviest 10 bucks ever. I wish someone would rob me."

The only time I ever defend the penny is whenever I see those 1-800-COLLECT commercials that claim "You can't get much for a buck these days"

Really? You ever taken 100 pennies and put them inside a wet tube sock and knocked somebody upside the head with it? You can get their wallet and their car keys .. and THAT'S what you can get for a buck these days.

$350, a Visa card, and a Daewoo.

I'll be christening my new apartment sometime during Black History Month. Come over and bring a cupcake.

Oh and today's my mom's birthday. Thank you for the "knickers" joke.

Paul Varghese: October 2006 (San Jose, CA)

2007-01-07T23:22:00.000-08:00


This was taped in San Jose, California at the Montgomery Theater as part of Contemporary Asian Theater Scene's annual Asian Comedy Night. Video/editing credit goes to Tony Bellon and the final cut edit credit goest to Jay Mandyam.

The month of me.

2007-01-03T20:09:00.000-08:00

It's coming. That national event known as Paul Day. I'll be a year older tomorrow. I was born premature. Act immature. And now, chronogically, am supposed to be mature. Not alot has changed though since I was 16.

I still try to amuse others
I still have no money
I still wear the same size jeans

What sucks about celebrating a birthday is different people want to celebrate on that same day. So instead of having everyone meet in one central location to celebrate, I've decided to rename the entire month of January ..

Paul-uary

Now don't judge. This really is for the better. First off, I would never want all of my friends and family to show up in a central location to celebrate Paul-uary 4th. What if there was a huge fire in this "central location". I'd escape (After all, it's my birthday, and we all know that you're always God's favorite on your birthday) That leaves all my friends and family alone at Chuck E. Cheese to perish in the flames

Now I'm all alone. I'll have to make friends with their friends and family, after meeting them at the numerous funerals I'll have to attend. That completely books my schedule for the next few weeks and, as a result, sucks all fun out of the month of Paul-uary. And what fun will those friends be, we'll spend all our time together reminiscing about our mutual "dead" friend, and, chances are, they'll resent me as is, for saving myself from the flames.

"Hey my birthday is the one day I get to be selfish! Now maybe I should've went back to lend a hand instead of standing out in the parking lot, finishing my slice of cake and opening my presents, but I was still in birthday mode! Can you blame me, you only turn 30 once!"

I do love how we celebrate being alive for another year by stuffing our faces with enough sugar to decay an elephant's tusks and drinking enough alcohol to make our own blood cells flammable.

PAUL'S RULES FOR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS..

1. When buying a shot for someone on their birthday, buy one for yourself so you can take it with them. Birthday boy taking a shot by himself is like a football player celebrating a touchdown and everyone in the stadium's on their cellphone
2. Don't get Birthday Boy schnockered off of Jager bombs and vodka tonics and then let him drive himself home. It's almost like your friends buy all this liquor for you to celebrate so that you drive home and crash into a ball of flames just so they don't have to spend all their money for your birthday ever again (Get it? Because you're DEAD.)
3. You're not allowed to get schnockered on your friend's birthday. Birthday Boy shouldn't have to babysit. It's Birthday Boy's one night to be DWI bait. Not yours. Quit trying to steal his inebriated thunder.
4. Cupcakes only. We're sticking to a theme. Everything is in shot-like form
5. No comments on how old the Birthday Boy is getting. This is a time to celebrate not mourn. Don't rag on him. Make him feel appreciated and cool. It's his night. Even if he's standing drunk in a Wal-Mart parking lot at 4 a.m, with his pants down around his ankles, puking and pissing on himself, he is still (Repeat after me) THE PIMPIEST OF PIMPS AROUND.
6. Who said you had to take Birthday Boy out for a "birthday dinner". There's lots of other meals that Birthday Boy appreciates. Breakfast, lunch, Hooters' wings, cake batter ice cream from Cold Stone, Kool-aid and Nerds candy, a 3am Whataburger taquito...
7. No "Happy Birthday" song. Only TV theme songs. Pick a good one like Laverne and Shirley, The Love Boat, or Three's Company, or you can even pick instrumental ones like The Price is Right or The A-Team and I'll gladly sing it with you, swaying back and forth with a shot of tequila and a cupcake in each hand
8. Cake BEFORE booze. You don't want alcohol on the breath before you celebrate. You'll blow out the candles and set the curtains on fire.

And most important to remember .. it is now officially Paul-uary. The month is mine. So if you can't celebrate on the actual day of the 4th, you have 27 other days to celebrate my greatness. I expanded my birthday to a birthmonth just so everyone would have a chance to squeeze their "I love Paul" love in. I do this because I care ..

about me

SHAZAAM!

2006-11-30T09:43:00.000-08:00

Travelling is such sweet sorrow.
You know how swimmers, the day before a competition, will shave their bodies to shave seconds off their times? I've also discovered that if I shave my face, the day before I fly, I shave seconds off the time I spend in airport security check.

Any liquid over three ounces has to be either thrown away or in your checked-in luggage. I had a little too much saliva in my mouth and they made me spit it out before I boarded the plane.

I try to avoid baggage claim as much as I can. I hate dragging luggage throughout the airport. Luggage annoys me like kids do. They share many of the same qualities.

1) You have to make sure they're with you at all times
2) You have to help them up and down the stairs
3) You have to make sure some strange guy doesn't put anything in them

Enough with stale airport humor..

I've been on hiatus. A fancy word that means "Procrastination Belgrande". In fact by not writing as often, I've read more. And I've become wiser (hence the bi-lingual "hiatus" translation) And now by writing this blog, I'm taking precious time away from reading. So readers of this blog, I'm actually becoming stupidder (see?) by writing while you all are getting smarter by reading ..

The things I do for you people.
I'm sacrificing my intelligence so that you can build yours. Just remember this .. when you become so mentally superior that you no longer read this blog .. that I became dumb for you .. as I sit here and write blogs that will never be read and watch my amount of MySpace friends dwindle like a pothead's short-term memory

This Thanksgiving I found out that my relatives hate my beard. One uncle (who moved here from India one year ago) kept touching it and saying I looked like a "wood-worker".

You mean like a beaver? Termite? Pinnochio's father?

He meant to say "lumberjack". Now a beard on an Indian does not mean "lumberjack". A beard on an Indian means "hijack". Plus I've never CUT a tree. Class? Most definitely. But never a tree.

My introduction to the public school system began by all my 2nd grade classmates nicknaming me "Paul Bunyan". They were calling me an over-sized white guy. Another reason it's fun to be white. The over-sized white guy comes in many different forms.

1. Paul Bunyan
2. Goliath
3. Gulliver
4. Shawn Bradley

If you see any brown guy over 6'10, he's only doing ONE thing.
Granting 3 wishes

That's why there will never be an Indian in the NBA. A genie would have such an unfair advantage over every other player. You can't outjump a magic carpet.

And why is every genie ripped? Where does he work out? He's been stuck in a lamp for centuries. Does he have a Bowflex in there? Maybe he has the ability to grant wishes for himself. If that's the case why not wish for fashion sense and a full head of hair. I remember when network TV got a hold of the genie concept and made a white woman pop out of the bottle. She's obviously way cuter than a 10 ft. tall shirtless Arab man and, honestly, who would watch that sitcom?

If there's anything us brown folk aren't known for, it's our sense of humor. I mean when do you ever see little brown kids smiling on tv, that aren't animated characters in The Jungle Book? And why would we smile? Every other culture has reason to. They have OktoberFest, pinatas, Pokemon, that yodeling mountan man game on The Price is Right.

What makes us smile? Nothing. We're cheap bastards. We're not smiling.

We're saying "FREE!"

Oh, the memories...

2006-10-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

Next weekend, my parents are moving out of the house they've lived in for the last 31 years. So I visited them and started rummaging through some stuff they had already packed. My dad's big about cleaning out stuff and one of his favorite things to clean out is the photo album. And I quote,

"I threw away the old pictures of you and replaced them with new ones. They were getting dusty and outdated."

To him photos are like clothes. The picture of me at the age of 4, wearing pink pants and a white/green speckled sweater is "so last season".

I miss that picture. I looked like casual Santa. You know like what Santa wears in November when he goes to his brother's house for Thanksgiving.

I miss the anxiety from 6th-11th grade when you would get your school pictures delivered to you during 5th period. That moment of nervous tension when you'd open the envelope and slide out the 8 x 10 glossy and be horrified.

"Oh no. Teacher, when's Re-Take Day? In fact, screw that, where does the photographer live? I'll pay extra just to have him burn the negatives."

God has a funny way of rubbing embarrassment in your face so you know never again to blink when the flash goes off. Because right behind the 8 x 10 glossy photo is the 45 wallet sizes or as I called them Ugly On The Go. I spent the next 5 years of my life, with my eyes bugged out towards the camera, making sure I never blinked again. I looked like I was about to be hit head-on by a tractor trailer in every picture, from the 7th grade on.

--

My friend Jason, in college, had an iguana for a pet. Full-grown reptile that crawled around his shitty apartment, dodging beer cans, pizza boxes, and cigarette butts. It was like watching Jurassic Trailer Park

--

There was a threat this week of dirty bombs going off at NFL stadiums. Cities like Houston, Seattle, and Oakland were targeted. Oakland? The Raiders are 0-6. Yeah that's how you scare America .. blow up their empty seats and unoccupied hot dog stands.

--

The one legacy I did leave behind in elementary school was the cover sheet. Now I know I'm not the only kid people cheated off of in school, but at my school I was basically HomeComing King when it came to test day. So many kids sat around me at test day, it looked like a football huddle

"Okay, Use Me For My Brains On Three! One, Two .."

So in order to prevent other kids from looking on my paper, my teacher Mrs. Hermann made me use a cover sheet.

COVER SHEET: A blank piece of notebook paper that you placed over your test to shield off wandering eyes.

Now I didn't mind it. I thought it was flattering, but just so she didn't look like she was singling me out, she made EVERYONE use a cover sheet. Really Mrs. Hermann? EVERYONE? We had a kid in our class with a moustache. The rest of us were 10. He had a cover sheet? Hate to break it to you, Mr. Teenage 4th Grader, but ain't NOBODY cheating off you. What do I hope to pick up from you? Lack of ambition and nicotine breath? He didn't need to USE a cover sheet. He needed to WEAR one. So nobody would even think about becoming him.

Now before you become sympathetic to him and his academic plight. Realize that this was the 4th grade. And he was 5 ft.11". He could've at least intimidated his way into a C. When you're walking with your entire 4th grade class and you look like the chaperone, it's time you moved on.

He was so big that next Halloween weekend, at the age of 29, I'm going as him. I've finally reached his size.

Fight or Flight

2006-10-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

My one childhood memory from the airport was when my uncle from Libya came to visit. We were dropping him back (this was back when you were allowed to sit with them at the gate before they boarded) and he gave me and my sister $50 to buy ice cream. According to my parents he was our one rich relative. He was such a baller, he let me sip beer for the first time.

I never saw him again.

No, he didn't die. He just never visited us again. He always asked my family to come visit him in Libya. But it's Libya. The one country that the U.S bombs every few months just to remind them ..

"Hey we still hate you."

The U.S bombs Libya with the frequency of an oil change. No reason too. Just because it's a slow day at The White House.

"Are you guys bored like me? Feel like bombing Libya?"

Have you ever met a Libyan here in the U.S? Of course not. Because they call themselves Egyptians. Because you can't hate the Egyptians. Racial slurs don't look so "slurry" when written in hieroglyphics. Egypt's the one country in the Middle East that Americans are cool with. Well .. them and Turkey. Because they're a Thanksgiving tradition.

So I'm in California for the next few days and the promoter who flew me up here for these shows arranged a rental car for me. I get to the Hertz counter and the clerk says that she doesn't have the car, in stock, that he requested for me so she was going to upgrade me to a Ford Focus.

UPGRADE? (Insert obvious punchline here)

There's even an alarm sticker on the passenger side window that reads "This car is armed with a passive security system." Because that's what I need guarding my car, an apathetic alarm. When it gets broken into, the alarm doesn't beep, it tries to negotiate with the carjacker.

Everytime I go to the airport I always get suckered into watching other people's bags. People I don't even know, while they go get food. I go from innocent bystander to CAPTAIN BAG PROTECTOR. It's a hard role to play because I'm annoyed watching my own bags, and now I have to fake an interest in theirs? I mean what am I supposed to do if someone runs off with their bags? Now I have to pick up my bags to chase the thief. I can't leave my bags alone. When you got brown skin like me and people see you running away from your bags, leaving them unattended? Folks get suspicious. I might as well be sprinting away from my luggage, counting down...

It's raining right now. Excessively. Night time rain puts me to sleep. Day time rain makes me want to be a folk singer. I would've brought an umbrella but I had no idea it was going to rain. And when it's dry and you have an umbrella, you look like you're going to break into a musical number at any minute or thwart the heroics of Batman

Drinking Revelations: Chapter 13, Verse 21

2006-09-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

I think I might have found heaven in a bottle. No no, Cocoa Pebbles did not come out with a milkshake. It's Delerium Tremens: The World's Most Delicious Beer.

Zero percent aftertaste. One hundred percent intoxicital perfection (It's so good, I'm making up words)

I knocked back 5 bottles, wonderful buzz, slept beautifully and woke up with no hangover. Compare that to Bud Light...

- Slight buzz and bloated
- Sleep at a reasonable time
- Wake up without a hangover and regret a wasted night. $20 and nothing to show for it

Compare that to 5 shots of Jager

- Drunk and mumbling
- Pass out with pants half off
- Never wake up.

And to name a beer "Delerium Tremens" (a withdrawal symptom that alcoholics experience) is damn cocky. That shows they know the power of the beer is in its taste, not its name. They could call it Dry Heave in a Whataburger Parking Lot and I'd still buy it.

My friend got mad at me because I put pepper spray in his asthma inhaler. It was either that or poke 3 holes in it so he could play Hot Cross Buns whenever he was using it. And he always seems to have an asthma attack whenever I kick him in the stomach. I think he's allergic to the leather in my shoes.

My hair is starting to reach levels of mulletness not seen on an Indian man since my dad immigrated here in June of 1970. Now I'm embracing it. After all I can't be labeled white trash. It's technically impossible. Although a few years ago, I did yell at an ex-girlfriend on her porch, while she was inside the house. And ever since then, I've never judged anyone on an episode of COPS. I see a man running around in one shoe and a Journey t-shirt, yelling at his wife in the McDonald's drive-thru and she's not even with him, but she's on the other end of the speaker system because she's working, I always go..

"We're not hearing the whole story. She probably had it coming."

Speaking of 80s music, I like Journey. Hall and Oates too. Simple Minds. If Phill Collins made a pillow case with the lyrics to Billy Don't You Lose My Number written on it? I'd drool on that bad boy every night. Which made me come to this realization..

I'm not gay.
But my CD collection is

Su-Su-Sudio.

Single File Line

2006-09-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

More and more airlines have to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from their competitors. They'll offer anything they can to entice you.

Frontier Airlines offers your own personalized tv set in the back of the headrest in front of you. For five dollars you can watch any of their 30 channels. And they offer The Food Network. Just what I need when I'm stuck eating an American Airlines tv dinner is a chef making a gourmet meal. I swear I saw Emeril point at me and laugh. If Frontier Airlines really wants to make you enjoy your flight, they should offer episodes of Fear Factor. That way when I see a contestant having to eat donkey balls .. a bag of pretzels doesn't seem so bad.

I flew AirTran on Thursday, and they offered XM Satellite Radio. Bad idea. Because XM doesn't alter their playlist for people on a plane. It's the same broadcast up there that gets played in your car or at home. So here I am and the plane is experiencing severe turbulence and Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" comes on.

Incredible bassline. Horrible timing

I had one of the worst turbulence moments in my life 2 months ago on a flight to Orlando. So bad that kids were crying, couples were holding hands. And I was writing a joke about impending death so that I would have a new 2 minutes to perform at Satan's Open Mike.

(To the comics..) Lucifer's giving 2 free drinks to each comic. Sign up before 8. Karaoke afterwards

But ever since that moment .. every time I've flown, I make sure to see who's seated in the emergency exit row. So last Thursday when I'm flying I see a 60 year old lady seated there. She's going to be our hero? Our savior? I saw her before she sat down! She had trouble opening up the overhead compartment! And then one hour later I saw her take 4 minutes to open a bag of peanuts. The last thing I want to hear while the plane is on flames is her at the emergency exit..

"Is it Left and Pull or Right and Push?"

"Lady if you don't hurry up, we're all gonna have to borrow your diaper"

We're taught at a young age to be calm in an emergency. Every fire drill I ever had in elementary school had the teacher tell all of us to get into a single file line. Alphabetically. My last name's Varghese. Great for me. The school's on fire and all the Baxters, Barnes, and Carpenters get to escape .. meanwhile me and all the Chinese kids with the last names Wong and Wang are aflame.

And if the school's on fire do I have time to go to everybody in line to find out where I fit alphabetically?

"What are you? "R"? How about you? Still "R"? I'm looking for the letter "U". Why does it matter, we're all "F"-ed."

That's why I loved my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Herman. Because when fire drills happened we still had to line up in single file, but it was Shortest to Tallest. So had there been a 4-alarm blaze, the Asian kids and I would have all escaped.

But the black kids would have been screwed.

MEMO TO ALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS:
Teach the kids to run. It makes the fire drill that much more realistic and that much more fun. Just tell them it's recess set to warning sirens. Plus it'll encourage the out-of-shape kids to drop the twinkies .. because come Inferno time, it's survival of the fittest.

"Last one out is a rotten egg! .. I mean .. burnt toast!

The CEOs of Funk

2006-08-24T09:43:00.000-07:00

Let me paint the picture. It's 1 a.m. I'm at Wal-Mart buying Gatorade and toothpaste, when the foulest odor just kamikazed out of nowhere.

Now foul odors can be one of many things..Rotten food, Backed-up sewage. But body odor is ten times more foul. Why? Because tuna fish doesn't choose to spoil. Bathroom pipes aren't purposely clogging themselves up. But when someone stinks, it is a deliberate attempt to not wash.

My insecurity took centerstage and I began to think.."Did my Gillette Power Stripe forget to turn itself on?"

I look behind me. Four guys buying bikes. Four INDIAN guys.

Now anyone who knows me, knows that hacky, played-out stereotypes are not high on my Jokes-To-Do list. Especially ones that bring down my people. But to those reeking Indian guys in line (who, for the duration of this blog, we will call The Funk-Tastic 4) you just set us back 5 years! Everything I've been striving for in my act, to knock down the stereotypes that we have, you just pasted back on because of your lack of self-awareness. That night you were the smelly immigrants! Why not just float up to the line on a magic carpet?

I then realized that because I'm in the proximity of stink, I am now one of them. Forget the fact that I didn't smell before them. I didn't smell at all. But because their stench was thicker than a peanut-butter filled Now N Later, I had no choice but to be considered stinky too. We were now The Funk-Tastic 5. And I know the cashier was just eating up the blatant stereotype that was now in front of her. Before they showed up, I was just a normal guy .. to her, I was racially ambiguous. Is he mixed? Is he Dominican? The Pungent Parade shows up and now she has an epiphany.. He's Indian!

So after all the racial setbacks my people endured in the span of 10 seconds, my mind then went into concern. Stank people don't realize they're stank. Because the stank is so overwhelming. They just assume everyone else smells like them. Because "clean" doesn't smell. No odor doesn't have an odor. How would you know what funk is if all you smell is funk? It's like a deaf person yelling everywhere they went. They wouldn't know they were being loud because they'd have no barometer. How does a deaf person know they're yelling if they don't even know what yelling or whispering is? The funky can not smell the funkless. So I began to pity them

--
Let's update you on my senses at that particular moment
Mind: Flustered
Nose: On Lock
Eyes: Tearing
Skin: Itchy
--

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog..

And the guys were buying bikes! What dyslexic Priority Wheel of Fortune were they spinning? Perhaps if they swapped in their Huffys for Right Guard they would have friends willing to drive them around. But now they were forced to bike themselves around town .. oblivious as to why.

I don't fully understand women. But I do know that they're not drawn to B.O. But I also know that a woman would rather be with a stinky guy who drives a Porsche than a clean guy who pedals to work. Because nothing screams "Don't Fuck Me" better than a 25 year old man with a bike basket.

Now if you'll excuse me I've got to get back to disproving my people's horrible stereotypes by inventing new ones.

Did you hear the one about Indian guys being able to carry 45 times their body weight? Or how about the one about how us Indian guys can spit flame? Bet you didn't know that the average Indian man can name all 50 United States in alphabetical order, backwards.

That's right ladies. Hop on board. Tickets are going fast...

Ignorance is Bliss

2006-08-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

I had a physical a few weeks ago. Doc told me that I potentially had high blood sugar. That right there is the reason I didn't want to go to the doctor. I don't have health insurance so telling me that I should watch my diet so that I don't get super sick but then I have to go back to you in 6 months to make sure that I'm not getting sicker when just not knowing that I had high blood sugar and to continue having Thomas Kemper's Grape Soda (that's a brand, not a friend of mine whose soda I enjoy stealing) and be happy, ignorant to my demise, is really the way to live. Like let's say I end up in a diabetic coma. I have no health insurance. My folks don't have money so I could remain on life support for ...

Let's put it this way. The life support machine might as well be coin-operated. Like a parking meter. That way my cheap friends wouldn't have to buy roses or balloons. If I passed away, I'd never appreciate them, and let's be honest.. If I was awake to see them I wouldn't appreciate them either. Watching roses and balloons wither, the longer my hospital stay is, has to be the most symbolic display of impending doom. I'd be more flattered by my cousin stopping in to say hi and deposit 25 cents so he can tell me about the hot redhead he met at Sherlock's the night before. So search your couch cushions. The "Keep Paul Alive: One Quarter At a Time Campaign" begins ...

now.

R.I.P Beardo

2006-07-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

So I posted my first ever stand-up performance on YouTube. Type in "Paul Varghese" and you'll have two options. My set from 5 years ago and some 10 year old Indian kid lip syncing to Nelly's "Grillz". He and his friends made fake grills with aluminum foil.

Any kid who studies is not gangsta. Thugs don't know what a hypothesis is, let alone posterboard. No drug dealer's ever read The Iliad. Now I could continue with easy juxtapositions regarding Preppies vs. Gangstas but that's not why we're here today.

So I've been beardless for a week now. Moustacheless too. Pork chop sideburnless. The only facial hair on my face is above my eyes and even that could leave too with a perfectly placed lollipop or tumor.

Without the beard I look less authoritative, but I can eat nachos with out cheese residue on my face. I can sneeze and not have to wipe my face down. I used to look incredibly intelligent with a simple stroking of the chin hairs. I always looked like I was about to utter something profound when really all I was thinking about was the pros and cons of FrankenBerry vs. Count Chocula

I'm a week away from scruffy Paul. Scruffy Paul looks outdoorsy

* You can tell I'm not the adventurous type when I refer to it as "outdoorsy. *

But Scruffy Paul looks like he has an edge. Like he's cussed out a kid or two. He's smoked in church. Scruffy Paul's beaten a mall cop with a tire iron. He's been through some shit. Yet he has that sweet sensitive side that only his girlfriend sees. So what that he punched a homeless man so hard that it collapsed the bum's lung? Scruffy Paul reads to blind 6 year olds every other Sunday.

You know your place is dirty when a dog walks in and sneezes. Because Benji smells other Benji butts every day and doesn't even sniffle afterwards. But one whiff of my apartment and the dog's allergies kick in?

Ever tried to figure out what you're allergic to? You become your own personal episode of Law and Order: Itchy Back. My mom's allergic to tomatoes, wheat, and perfume. Her Axis of Evil. She had two kids through C-sections but now can't tolerate ketchup? She also can't stand the smell of lilies. She'll sneeze at her own funeral.

And, beard aside, I'm just like her. I will end up getting her allergies. I will end up telling stories that fizzle into jibberish. I will end up wearing a nightgown at all times of the day. What I do lack is her compassion and humility, which I make up for in moodiness and disinterest.

So come see me in 12 years when I'll be experiencing menopause and making the world's best ever fish curry

Late is a four letter word

2006-07-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm always late. Constantly. It goes hand in hand with my procrastination. Case in point, I wanted to write this blog one month ago.

That's why I'm really hoping this comedy thing of mine works itself out because there's certain jobs that you just cannot be late for.

Like for instance...ALL OF THEM

But say for example, suicide bombers. Tardiness is the one bad habit they can't have. They can have anger, resentment, sheep mentality, hatred for their fellow man, religious fanaticism, no desire to shave. These are all bad habits they can have. But being late? Absolute No-No. Because a suicide bomber running late?.. is a car bomb

"I'm hitting all the red lights! Come on come on! Oh no, bumper to bumper traffic!"

KABLOOM!

Being early is creepy. On a first date, a girl's going to be more freaked out by the guy who's at her house 30 minutes before than the guy who's 30 minutes late. Because late guy's just an insensitive prick. Early guy's already thinking marriage, has a Lord of the Rings screen name, and talks to Cadbury bunnies in his grandma's basement.

The guy who gets fired for being late would never come back to shoot up the place because that would require getting up early. He just lost his job which means .. SLEEP TIL NOON! He'd show up to work, AK-47 in hand, and everyone would be out to lunch.

Early guy isn't getting fired for a bad habit like tardiness. He's always on time. He's prompt. By definition, he's a responsible worker. So if he gets fired he had had to have done some sick shit.

DAY ONE: "Lance, all the female co-workers are claiming that their lipsticks have come up missing. Would you know anything about that?
DAY TWO: "Lance, all the female co-workers are now claiming that their seat cushions have come up missing as well. Are you sure you don't know anything about that?
DAY THREE: "Lance, all the female co-workers have come up missing....."

According to Dr. Phil, tardiness is a sign of conceit. It's a power trip. The party doesn't start until I show up. The eggs don't hatch until my ass sits on them.

Now of course I don't agree with Dr. Phil. I'll tell you why I'm late. Every single time that I've been early I've forgotten something. Like my cellphone .. or my pants. I'd rather be late and fully dressed .. than on time, sitting in my Aquaman Underroos.

I'm such a professional at being late that I have irresponsibility down to a science. Not only do I have outstanding snooze reflexes but I get up BEFORE the alarm rings just to turn it off so that it doesn't do its job of waking me up when it's supposed to.

Perhaps I get a rush from being late. Like some folks shoot heroin or snort coke to get high. I press Snooze 5 times to get my adrenaline pumping. I'm not irresponsible. I'm an extreme athlete. Now if you will excuse me I gotta go grab my blanket and work out.

Straight Laced

2006-06-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

I need a vice. An addiction. In order for me to be considered truly famous, I need a bad habit. Procrastination, or not washing dishes that I just finished eating off of, is not enough to get me on E!'s True Hollywood Story. I just feel that the experimental stage of my life is gone. I didn't even experiment alot when I was younger. To explain to you how goody-two sandals I was, I never even cheated on a test. That might explain why I never got a scholarship anywhere, and why I tell jokes for a living, but I never even had the inkling to do such. I was so dumb in college that I actually got accused of cheating because the professor said I had the RIGHT answer but then crossed it out and put the WRONG one. Who cheats like that? In reverse? Did he think I was a cheater with a conscience? Like after I stole the right answer, I had a moment of clarity and thought..

"No. That's not the right thing to do. I'll go with my initial answer that I know is wrong. The main export of Mexico is Mexicans."

The closest behavioral trait I have to being destructive is drinking. And I don't even do that well. I'm not professional. I'm more entry-level when it comes to boozing. Two shots and I'm done. Head's spinning. Legs quivering. I'm like a newborn llama. I'm even chewing grass

I do think that if you have an addiction like smoking/drinking that you should just own up to it. Quit justifying it.

"I only smoke when I drink." -- "How often do you drink?"

"I'm an alcoholic."

"I'm a social smoker. Meaning, I don't like to keep the second-hand smoke to myself. I like to share it with others."

Smokers just smoke away. I don't care. But own up to the habit. All the way up until the age of 11, my dad smoked one cigarette every day, after dinner, in the bathroom. Keep in mind, our bathroom was small. It was basically a Port-A-Potty with a tub. If you flushed the toilet, the shower turned on. And every night, my dad would come out of there, followed by a cloud of smoke, as if my sister and I didn't know what it was, and I would ask him

"Where'd all that smoke come from?" -- "Umm..I was barbecuing."

"What were you cooking? Cancer?"

That's why I love white trash. They know they have a bad habit and they could care less. They'll let their son smoke crystal meth, at the kiddie table,during Thanksgiving. Birthday time? They'll use their Marlboro Red to light the candles on the cake

"Kids make sure to eat around the ashes"

And their bad habits don't even have to involve drugs of any kind. They'll proudly flash their laziness, as well, by driving their trailer to the Taco Bell Drive Thru

"I'll take 2 chalupas and a Pepsi. Hey kids, roll down your bedroom window and tell the man what you want!"

They Got It All Wrong

2006-06-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

So I saw a bunch of hardcore fundamentalist Christians protesting homosexuality today. They were pretty passionate about it. Signs were made (with pink and light green, very "soft" colors might I add) Police protection. People were driving by and yelling at them. Me? I chose to blog about it.

So many angles to touch on..where does one start?

First off, let's just get it out the way. Being gay is something you're born with. Nobody would ever choose it .. unless

1) Their husband beat them, left them, and they're desperate for "comfort" and "affection"
2) They want free drinks at a bar
3) They're just horny and can't get enough
4) They want their own TV show and/or movie (Because in Hollywood, being "out" is so "in")

But, seriously, it's something you're born with. True gay people have no control over their feelings. If I got protested for something I was born with, how depressed would I be?

"You are going to go to hell .. for your long,delicate fingers and toothy grin!"

Their big shining star of hate stems from the fact that they feel homosexuality is outlawed in The Bible. I don't know scripture well enough to debate that merit, but what I can wonder out loud about is .. then how can you give Jesus lee-way that if your own son behaved the same way.. you would disown him?

If your son walked around in a robe, with 12 of his guy friends who are also in their robes, all day, sitting around in gardens chit chatting and going out on "fishing trips"? Oh and by the way, none of these guys have ever been on a date nor do they even seem to be interested in females? You'd disown your son quicker than MySpace Tom adds friends.

There's no way these religious fanatics can debate that fact. If their own offspring acted like that, they'd have their doubts too. I mean how could you defend that opinion then. Jesus wasn't interested in females? Fine. I'll let you ride with that one. Although I must argue that any guy with the ability to turn water into wine definitely used it, at some point, for seduction purposes.

By the way, the ability to turn water into wine doesn't sound like a very Christian thing to do. It sounds like one of the evil powers of a Mormon super villian

So back to these guys not having women. Are we just going to chalk up 13 guys walking around by themselves, for years on end, as just not having any game at all? That should be the bumper sticker

My God has No Luck With the Ladies

You can't say all of them were so into Jesus's teachings that they had no desire to get with women. Judas was the least disciple-ish of all of them, so he must've deviated at some point. How do 13 guys stay calm and level headed when they're only around each other for years on end?

But fundamentalist Christians this is where Paul helps you out. I've got your argument right here as to why they all hung together. One word.

ENTOURAGE.

Yes. It was Jesus and the 12 moochers. Guys just hanging out, waiting to see what he does next. In a David Blaine sort of way. You know one of them, every other day, would bug Jesus

"Hey, when you get a chance, could you show me how you do that whole "raising the dead" trick?"

And to think .. HBO had the right idea. Just the wrong characters

This (like all of them) was written out of boredom

2006-06-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

So it's damn hot down here right now which means everyone's scantily clad. Scantily's definitely a word that's not used enough.

So because of the heat, I'm laying out by the pool (Because this tan doesn't stick year-round) and notice that every guy has a hairless body. Baby skin bodies yet they have goatees. Which means they're shaving their chests clean. Now if you asked them, they'd vehemently deny it .

So they're clean shaven on their bodies (and vehemently deny that they shave) .. yet they have goatees? Meaning puberty only hit them from the neck up. So your voice dropped but your balls didn't?

...

It's weird that once family and friends find out that you're a comedian, how everyone starts asking about why you're not on TV. As if being on TV is the only sign of success. My folks are so obsessed with me being on TV at some point that I think they'd brag if they even got on there. I mean their house could be hit by a hurricane and they'd call me the next day

"Did you see our roof on NBC? It flew by so quick that you might've missed it. But your mother was on TV for a long time as she screamed for her life, clutching onto the bathtub. Looks like you're not the only celebrity in the family now!"

...

My friend Libby has one of those emergency whistles, on her keychain, that she can blow in case she get attacked. But it's not like one of those high-pitched dog whistles. It sounds more like something that you'd hear in a hillbilly jug band. If I heard it, I wouldn't think beatdown .. I'd think hoedown. Someone's not getting mugged, they're do-si-do-ing. I'd follow the whistle, only to find her laying in a dark alley, blood pouring from her gut, and all I'd want to know is..

"Hey Libby, I know you're a little preoccupied right now, but did you happen to hear that whistle? Because I think someone might be making tea. And I am yet to see a Starbucks anywhere."

...

The more I think of getting married the more I dread the actual process of getting married. I just don't want to go through the meaningless, annoying fights in regards to the wedding ceremony. You know, like what flavor will the wedding cake be? And what ethnicity will the stripper be, that jumps out of it

Take a Sip...

2006-06-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

So as the last few minutes wind down on the opening game for the USA at the World Cup, I begin to ponder..

Why are they even there?

They've never won a game in Europe. And today they lost to the Czech Republic. And the World Cup is in Germany

And need I remind you .. They have never won a game in Europe! Talk about not playing good on the road. When you can't win a game on an ENTIRE CONTINENT? Time to re-evaluate your skill set. Now granted, they're also winless in Antarctica ...

Because with all the pro-USA advertising and quotes from their athletes, it makes me think that the U.S is clueless as to where they rank in international play. It's not the athletes' faults. It's just another example of American arrogance. If The Price of Right's Showcase Showdown was a metaphor to international compeition, the United States is constantly overbidding. They're yelling out $25,000 when they should've just stuck to "one dollar!"

We care so little about soccer that we re-named the sport in this country. We even added our own national pre-fix to differentiate just because we didn't "invent" it. Every other country has football. We have "American" football. Are other countries cocky enough to re-define sports that we invented and named here?

"In this counry, we play Indian Basketball. It involves alot of kicking. No baskets. And the ball is optional!"

No amount of press releases, advertisements, or superstar athletes will ever make soccer popular here. For the same reason hockey has never really caught on in the U.S. The scores are too low. Now you could make one goal equal 45 points but then that would look even worse when the U.S loses to Trinidad 135 - 0.

Hockey's major selling point here in the U.S is the fights. That's where soccer has it backwards. The brawls and riots happen in the stands, not on the field. In fact just show me 90 minutes of people yelling, swearing, shoving, and kicking each other's asses and you have...

The NFL.

Stubble-licious

2006-06-09T01:40:00.000-07:00

When does too much facial hair become TOO MUCH facial hair?

- when it starts to catch crumbs?
- when it gets you detained at the airport for 8 hours?
- when it inspires you to go to karaoke and sing "Sharp Dressed Man"?
- when you get the urge to train reindeer to pull a sleigh?
- when you can't tell where the beard ends and chest hair begins?
- when Jesus offers you his Gillette Sensor Mach 3?
- when the homeless give YOU a dollar?
- when shaving it would require taking a day off of work?
- when people think it's fake?
- when you stroke it, not to contemplate, but to itch?
- when you waste an entire blog writing about it?

My beard's been growing for over a month now. It's not long like Bin Laden but thick like Bluto.

I'm hoping the beard becomes the latest fashion trend. But thanks to recent global threats by people sporting beards, I can't see that happening anytime soon. And to think that if the terrorists had been sporting seashell necklaces, sunglasses indoors, flip flops, and strategically designed bedhead .. then almost every guy's "going out" wardrobe would be screwed.

I guess facial hair will never be the "in" thing ever again. At least not in my lifetime.

There's a reason BEARD rhymes with WEIRD

and MOUSTACHE rhymes with BUS PASS

Knock 6 times .. on the ceiling

2006-06-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

My mom's a nurse in Labor and Delivery. She told me that alot of couples are either inducing labor or trying to delay their child's birth so it doesn't fall on today (6-6-06). It's bad luck. Let's discuss..shall we?

1. These couples think that the 666 birthdate would then mean that the child was the spawn of Satan. Now birthdates aside wouldn't that mean that the male counterpart of that couple was Satan himself? I also have a hard time believing that Satan picked some hillbilly couple in Macon, Georgia to carry on his legacy.

"And from the fiery depths of hellfire and eternal damnation I bring you the new Prince of Darkness, Elroy Cletus Hossfoot III!"

2. The date of 6-6-06 is bad luck? Didn't the bad luck start when the test came back positive? You weren't freaking out then? I always thought childbirth was considered a "miracle of God" but if it falls on today then well ..

"Damn, Lucifer done dipped his fingers in the destiny stew and jumbled it all up"

The fact is, the baby is supposed to be born on this date. If it scares you that much then abort it. Because if the baby is indeed the spawn of Satan, having him born a day later or earlier isn't going to change his DNA. The Devil's already thought of that. Do you really think he didn't mark this date on his calendar 100 years ago? This is about as big as it gets for this guy. Halloweens don't do it for him anymore. Ever since his reputation was tarnished and forever softened by 21 year old girls dressing up as "Sexy Satans"? I'm sure he could care less about the 31st.

So delaying or rushing the inevitable's not gonna alter the course of time. I mean even if the kid is born the day before or after you're still going to tell everyone who will listen about how he/she was supposed to be born on 6-6-06 anyway and how you "saved his soul" by inducing labor. Kudos squared. They should name a book of the Bible after you.

"Congregation, please turn to the book of Pretentious Trophy Wife Soccer Mom Chapter 4. Verse 8."

Just don't overanalyze their every move as possibly being inspired from below. I mean if you catch them coloring on the refrigerator or peeing on the carpet, don't immediately call up an exorcist .. unless your husband tries to discipline them and they immediately yell back

"Shut up! You're not my real father!"

Then pack up. Send me an email. I'll print out this blog and dip it in maple syrup just so that I can, literally, eat my words. Then we'll all meet up in NYC where my sister the priest will have us soak in a bathtub filled with Holy Water

Today also marks the 5 year anniversary of my first ever time performing stand-up. I know what you'll ask next and I'll gladly tell you..

Yes. I am Satan. Now go watch The DaVinci Code

Suspense-a-Fully

2006-05-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

So tonight Last Comic Standing will air on NBC. Why do you the Blogalisa reader even care? Well two years ago, that was my 2 minutes of fame. It's what spawned the website .. which in turned spawned Blogalisa

Well this time around yours truly did not make it past the local round, but did make it to the night show, which is the one that's taped for broadcast. Now the question lies: If they do show me, how will I be portrayed?

Now in a perfect world, they won't even show me. I can't stand looking at myself in the mirror, let alone on a televsion set. Plus now I run the risk of something I said or some little facial tic I happened to have on when the cameras are filming me, being taken out of context

However when I was in Austin for the show, the NBC cameras were all upon me. The judges made a big stink-a-ma-doo that I showed up again .. asking me questions about what my life has been like since the exposure a couple of years back. A big old fuss was made. So much so, that if I didn't make it past the night show, I would either come across as a horrible comic or robbed by the NBC system.

Chances are, the former will occur. I had a good set that night but editing can be a sun-uvva-biatch. Now maybe they'll just edit me right out the show. But this is Paul's life. Nothing ever goes as it seems.

Stay tuned for the fallout.

Possible blog entry titles for tomorrow..

1. Phew! I dodged a bullet
2. Seriously people, that joke does get laughs. It is funny
3. Of all the jokes they could have showed .. they showed that one?
4. Contrary to how I looked, I wasn't that upset
5. Contrary to what I said, I'm not that much of a prick
6. Anyone have some Xanex?
7. I'm done with stand-up. Monkhood here I come!

Booze and Rice and Everything Nice

2006-05-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

Does drinking wine all the time make you an alcoholic? or a wino? or neither

Because winos have a far worse reputation than alcoholics do. But the term "winos" has now become synonymous with homeless. And alot of homeless people have never even sipped from a carafe.

I have experienced folks who consider alot of wine drinking alot more acceptable than alot of beer/liquor drinking. To me, drinking alot of alcohol in any situation on a regular basis makes you prone to alcoholism anyway, regardless of whether it came from barley or grapes. I think it's the atmosphere and aura that wine brings as opposed to the one that beer does that keeps these people in denial.

I'll admit that wine isn't as commonplace as beer. Chardonnay on tap doesn't sound appealing. Not too many fans at a Cowboys game are partaking in a nice Sauvignon Blanc. But let's not make excuses for wine drinkers either. Let's hold them to the same set of standards.

Because binge drinking wine on the street? Totally socially unacceptable. But binge drinking wine in a wine bar with candles and jazz music? You're chic, high-class. You're sophistimacated. I'm sure if you could smoke crack in a crack bar, then it would become the "it" thing too

Now I'm not bashing wine drinkers at all. Just saying that a boozer is a boozer regardless. I could be tossing back a 40-ounce of Nyquil and I shouldn't be allowed to drive. So if I see you polishing off 4 glasses of wine then don't I have the right to deny you your car keys? Or should I take into consideration the quality of alcoholic beverage you just ingested?

"I'm fine! It's not like I just drank an' 04 Merlot!"

**

How come Chinese restaurants never have original names? They're generic. Best Wok. Lucky Egg Roll. Super Buffet.

I want to open up a Chinese restaurant right next to all these and suck out their business .. with names like Even Luckier Egg Roll. Super Duper Buffet .. or They Might Be Called Best Wok But We Started That Shit

**

I have a pink shirt. I wear it occasionally and when I do, people always say something like

"That looks so good on you. See, Paul's wearing pink. That means he's secure in his sexuality."

It also means that I'm behind in my laundry. I'm one day away from wearing my graduation robe

I'm watching Colors...

2006-05-26T12:56:00.001-07:00

It's that movie from the 80s with Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, about street gangs in L.A. One of the members of the Mexican gang is that red-headed guy from Children of the Corn, who played Malachi. Now that's gangsta. From being a Satan worshipper in Iowa to running the streets with Latino gangbangers. Speaking of gangsta .. Isn't Chewbacca the ultimate one? He walks around with an ammo belt sash across his chest like he just won Mr. America NRA, toting a gun, and he's BUTT NAKED. Bare ass and strapped. It's almost like he's daring you to laugh

"Say something! I'll download a beatdown by uploading my foot in your ass"

So I went back to visit my folks' last week and they told me that they're putting their house up for sale. Lots of memories in that place. It'll be sad to never be able to come back and visit it. Well I can .. but I'm pretty sure the new residents won't be fond of me eating Oreos in their living room or coloring on their fridge. I wish the house was haunted by spirits. But the only things that ever died in there were 3 goldfish, a bunch of roaches, and my parents' dreams of me being a doctor.

I will remember all the holidays spent. Thanksgiving Day with the processed turkey loaf. Valentine's Day when I had no date and watched I Love Lucy with my mom. Kwanzaa

Christmas never involved a memory worth memorizing. My parents didn't cram into department stores fighting off other parents looking for the best gift possible. They went to my aunt's house. Before my parents arrived, she'd ask my cousin Michael..

"Paul's parents are coming over so put out all the toys you don't use any more. They need a gift for him"

Not really a factor when you're under the age of 3. Kids that age don't care what they get for Christmas. They can easily be entertained by a keychain and nickels. But there comes an age where the charade is over. When you get a present in a box that has nothing to do with the present inside .. that's a pretty clear sign that your present isn't brand new

Paul: "You got me a set of steak knives?"
Dad: "No no, open the box. See? It's a football!"
Paul: "Why does it say Michael?"
Dad: "Umm .. errr .. because that's a Michael .... Jordan football. Hey come on, throw me a slam dunk!"

I love religious programming. Comedy Central has nothing on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Benny Hinn is way more entertaining than Dane Cook. You know Benny Hinn. The televangelist with the white hair and even whiter suit. He goes all over the country preaching in arenas and healing people by placing his hands on their foreheads. They immediately pass out after having "received the Holy Spirit". And that would scare me. Growing up with 4 year old Benny Hinn .. Playing Freeze Tag

Well on one episode there's a guy talking about heaven. Here was his analogy as to what living in heaven is like

"Heaven is a place where you can go skydiving without a parachute"

"Hmm. Isn't that how people get to heaven?"

I want to go to heaven, but I want to be able to pick my roommate. Those televangelists are fun to watch but would be hell to live with. Cosby's going to heaven isn't he? I've always wanted to be the Theo to his Dr. Huxtable

Tangents 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - and 5

2006-05-25T16:36:00.001-07:00

Wanna know what it's like to be homeless? Take 6 shots of Jager in a row

You'll find yourself walking into oncoming traffic with a shopping cart full of cat food.

Alcohol here in the U.S is so weak compared to other countries. If you don't believe me, look at the names of our shots. Other countries put us to shame

Germans have JagerMeister
Mexicans have Tequila
We have..

Buttery Nipples?

"Don't judge me, Dirk and Carlos. That's how we do it here. In fact, excuse me bartender .. But I have high cholesterol. Could I have three Buttery Nipples and one I Can't Believe It's Not Buttery Nipples"

Ever seen an alcoholic so cheap they refuse to puke?

"I paid good money. I ain't wasting it."

---

When did Indian people lose tact? I realize my shows aren't appreciated by everyone, but Indian people aren't ones to mince words.

"I saw you 2 months ago and you performed the same material."

"Sir, if I could write a brand new hour of material every 2 months I wouldn't be performing at The Devry Indian Students' Association's Samosa Bake Sale. I'd be in Los Angeles .. performing at UCLA's Indian Students' Association's Samosa Bake Sale"

---

I lost my ability to change the color of text. It was my favorite perk of blogspot.com. It differentiated who was saying what in these carefully scripted dialogues I compose on a bi-weekly basis. So now all text coloring must be done internally. I'm leaving it up to you, the reader, to figure it out.

---

The Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee's next week. Probably the most exciting 3 days of the year if you're Indian. Our one time to be on TV without being victims of a natural disaster.

I love this time of year. It's the equivalent of Latinos watching World Cup Soccer. It's the equivalent of black people watching any sporting event and watching a black guy tackle/dunk/hit a home run against a white guy. It's the equivalent of white people watching any Presidential election.

i just wish that the ability to spell would be an attractive quality. Women are intrigued by athletes, musicians, actors .. not Rakesh Pekkumootithackatill. Or "Ricky" as it says on his Best Buy nametag. Most of these Indian kids who end up in these spelling bees end up being engineers. They're working with numbers when they've won trophies and scholarship money for working with letters. They should get by as real-life Spell Checks. Just following people around in everyday situations to help them out

"Bill it's I-L-L-I-T-E-R-A-T-E"

---

I have one trophy at my folks' house. I got it in kindergarten. It has this Winged Greek God on a pedestal. And I got it for?

Ten dollars.

No seriously, I got it for memorizing the most Bible verses. I'm glad they gave me the Greek God trophy rather than one that I really should've gotten for my feat.

A trophy of me looking outside my window on a Saturday morning, watching other kids playing

Oh and I forgot to mention..

2006-05-09T23:08:00.000-07:00

So I had a show in Kerrville, Texas this past Saturday. A city known for its folk festival. I myself enjoy a good folk tune at times but on CD only. Because a bunch of white people in a small Texas town playing banjos doesn't seem like much of a Welcome Wagon for me and mine.

Well on the way there, driving down I-10 on exit 533, there's an exit for a city called Welfare. Yes. Spelled just like that. The creepiest thing was there were road signs leading up to the exit. It was like I was having a nightmare. Where the highway was my life and the exit signs were foretelling my future and what options lay ahead.

Welfare
2 Miles

Regret/Loop 244
Next Exit

Do you think the richest guy in Welfare brags about it?

I want to get pulled over by the Welfare Police Department. They give me a ticket. I pay it off in food stamps.

Who moves to Welfare?

"Hi there, me and my wife just moved here to Welfare. We used to live in Poverty. No, I wasn't born there. I'm originally from Broke as Shit."

Doldrumsticks

2006-05-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

Wow. My time away is no longer considered "hiatus" worthy. Hibernation's the better word. Both mentally and typographically. Every now and again you hit a writer's block. Head-first. No airbags. I hit it. Bare knuckles. Didn't bust through it like Ralph Macchio and the icy slats in Karate Kid 2. Nor did I knock it out like Deebo did Red in Friday. In fact I'm still in the rut. Let's just say Paul's been around...the writer's block..and I-I-I..I can't find my baby (Lisa Stansfield anyone?)

Blocks have never had a good reputation.
- Slapping away a shot in basketball
- Duplo (cheap Lego knockoffs)
- New Kids on the Block

My disdain for the material I'm doing now is starting to become evident. Another review has flown in regarding the tour. My friend/fellow comedian Raj Sharma gets well-deserved praise for our show in San Jose. The show which went down 2 weeks ago wasn't one of Paul's better shows, as my burnout was on full display. The reporter mentioned about how my performance that night was disjointed and seemed un-inspired. And wow, she nailed it on the head. You know how sometimes you're at work and you're playing Solitaire, or making a paper clip fortress, or going through the break room fridge and switching people's bread slices? That's been my attitude onstage for the last week or so.

Now normally if I have a creative funk, I'll take some time off to re-energize the battery within. But being on this tour, I don't have time to do all that. So then it manifests itself when I perform. I'm just glad we don't perform outdoors. God forbid a butterfly grace my field of vision, 10 minutes into my set. I'd be no more useful than a 6 year old in that situation. The audience would have to waggle a rattle just to get me back in focus.

And I don't apologize for my scattered-braindedness. How I feel when I'm up there or right before I go up is the attitude that accompanies throughout my performance. And 88 percent of the time, it's good, fun, creative spirits. But if that 12 percent tickles my soul then so be it. Amen. For me to not have to turn on a phony smile and enthusiasm is exactly the reason I love doing standup now. There's no need for emotional censorship. Not that I'm at a bitter Bill Hicks stage in my career. But if I feel disinterested halfway through a joke about bobsled races, then apathetic is what I be. I just hope that the next time it happens, nobody's in the audience writing a critical review that will permanently thicken my insecurity blanket for the next 12 years.

By the way, the title track off Stadium Arcadium is one of the best songs this boy has ever heard.

Let me 'Splain Something...

2006-04-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

So I'm stuck in North Carolina right now. Time to reflect..

Wednesday was the official start of a tour that I've been fortunate enough to be asked to headline

www.gurusofcomedy.com

We started off in NYC on Wednesday and over 4 weeks will hit up different regions of the U.S. There's a performance schedule available on that website. Fun times so far. Great crowds. Great responses. The neatest thing for me is that sometimes folks will blog a review about the show. It's always intriguing to hear an outsider's response or views on the show. So here's what one audience member thought about my part of the show

[ Paul Varghese was the headliner. Very southern and very laid back he had good delivery and of course he was the crowd favorite from being on Last Comic Standing. He definitely got the Malyalee crowd riled up becaues they could relate. Some of the stuff went over my head. I can only imagine the white crowd. ]
www.janeofalltrades.verveblogs.com

None of it really strikes me as critical. She mentioned later on in her blog that she wished the show had more "universal" material .. meaning mainstream stuff .. which is a good chunk of my act .. but when you have a room of mostly Indian folks, you play to the crowd. As much as I'd like to think a South Asian crowd would truly enjoy a good Superman joke, the odds are better if I just spit out a joke about traffic jams in India. Dave Chappelle had a great quote when he was being interviewed by Oprah.

"About 20 percent of my fans really get what I'm doing. The other 80 percent just like saying "I'm Rick James, bitch!"

He goes on about being socially responsible with his racial material and those thoughts hit a chord with me. I've always felt that the majority of folks who see my act might enjoy it (or not) but there's a small chunk who really get what I do. Just because I may talk about being Indian and my experiences with it, it's all stories and views that are completely unique to me. I'm not conveying stereotypes..

(steps off soapbox)

Hmmm...

(steps back on soapbox)

She's Indian and some of the references went over her head? I'm one of the most Americanized Indians you will ever meet...

1) I never got a scholarship
2) A white guy built my website

So if my references went over her head.. I think her Indian card should be revoked immediately. When Paul Varghese gets out-whited by another Indian .. well then my bloggees, it's the end of the world (as we know it). Apocalypse right here right Now. Brace for the 7 plagues

Why 7? Because they're each named after the Brady kids.

Bobby = Locusts
Jan = Hailstorm
Cousin Oliver = Rising Gas Prices

The references confused her and so she couldn't even imagine how the white people must've felt. Why do we even care how 10 white folks, amongst an audience of 200 Indian folks, felt? You don't see people concerned with what Indian people feel about what Chris Rock says. Besides, the white people knew what they were coming into. And trust me, they'll be able to figure out through context what I'm trying to say. .It's SAT-ish, but they'll be fine. I mean, my dad moved here in 1970 and his favorite show was Hee-Haw. An immigrant who barely spoke English, watching a sketch comedy show about hillbillies? Comedy's universal, regardless of ethnic origin or content. Funny's funny

She also mentioned that I am "very laidback and very Southern". Southern? Do I have a twang? I wasn't wearing overalls. What is a "Southern" Indian exactly?

1. He raises cows, not for meat purposes, but to save them from slaughter
2. He charms snakes out of baskets, only to skin them and wear them as boots
3. He lights incense to eliminate the crystal meth smell
4. He makes Barbecue Chicken Curry
5. He has a job working for Coors Light Tech Support

Wild Life

2006-04-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

So I visited the Fort Worth Zoo yesterday. Eye-opening experience really.

1. There's no huge walls or barricades to prevent the elephants and rhinos from stampeding. No zoo snipers perched in the treetops to nullify their charge. So I made sure I didn't stare at them a little too long or say anything condescending within earshot. One of the elephants spent 5 minutes snouting the other's ass and I said nothing. I saw a toddler laughing and I immediately pointed him out to the snouter and snoutee. I ain't about to be powderized for a giggle.

2. I saw a girl wearing camoflauge pants. Smart move. Just in case, some cheetahs break loose, you want to blend in. While me in my turqoise/sienna striped Gap shirt gets eaten alive because I look like a piece of Fruit Stripes chewing gum. I might as well wear sirloin-laced Underroos.

3. The more I see how miserable these hippos and orangutans are in their cage, the more it looks like they're in cubicle space. No lunch break. No insurance. No vacation time. On the plus side, they get to walk around naked all the time. It's like Casual Friday every day.

4. I went to a zoo in India and saw a monkey sitting in a cage. But it's India! There were monkeys running around the street as we walked in. There were even some perched on the wall of the zoo, running around and playing and occasionally looking at the one in the cage. And he looked miserable. It was like seeing someone stuck in a horrible marriage, watching single people frolic and mingle and have fun all around him.

So what have we learned today? Well, the disgruntled cubicle employee, who comes in one morning and guns down all of his co-workers, is the equivalent of the zoo animal who attacks the groundskeeper. With no room for career advancement, elephants can only take so much. It's not like they can post their resume on Monster.com

EXPERIENCE:
5/1942 - 8/1972 ..... Bombay, India .... Rajesh's House
Wedding Party Transport
Cud Chewer
Lumberjack

9/1972 - Present .... Fort Worth, Texas .... Fort Worth Zoo
Gawkee

EDUCATION:
8/1937 - 4/1942 .... Mahoot Training .... UI (New Delhi)

SKILLS:
Hauling, Memory, Taking a whooping from an undersized Indian man

Come to think of it.. my grandma has those exact same job skills.

In a Nutshell..

2006-03-30T02:44:00.000-08:00

If my life of the past few weeks were to fit on the inside flap of a book cover a.k.a the synopsis

1. I got a laptop
2. I was the Best Man at my friend's wedding which resulted in me and the rest of the bachelor party attendees being detained in Mexico
3. I worked my first ever weekend at the D.C Improv (unbelievably great time)
4. I'm about to embark on a tour that'll have me hitting 16 cities
5. The look to my website is slightly changed as I try to figure out how I want it to look. There's still editing that needs to be done with it, but I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it all (Big Kudos out to Tim for the tutorial)

Now numbers 1, 4, and 5 are boring "to be expected" blog topics. But we here at Blogalisa don't want to bore you with daily semantics. Who cares that I have an absolutely deplorably horrific cellphone bill. Who cares that the heat from my laptop singed the hairs on my leg? Does anyone want to see pictures of my travels?

If you do, you're lame. We don't want you here to read this. We are here to serve the delusionally self-centered quasi psychotic mentally challenged folks much like myself...so let's divulge into madness yet again

SPLOOSH

Number 3: D.C blah blah blah. I'm sure it was historic. Nothing historic in my hotel room..or the Subway that I had lunch at a few times. That weekend was my first with my laptop (I call him Gargamel). The hotel I stayed at had free wi-fi but that was only available on the lower level, in the "business center". Apparently they were trying to save money on engraving. Because the room placard should've read "business center that has a gas leak". It's the only time in my life I was contracting carpal tunnel and brain damage at the same time. But that's how happy I was to get free broadband internet access. I risked overdosing on propane fumes just so I could find out how many points Dirk Nowitzki scored against the Pistons. My vision was blurry. I hobbled out of there like someone removed my kneecaps, but man... was it worth it

Number 2: The story of my Mexico experience. It's 2:41 a.m and I don't feel like typing too much, but I will leave it at this. If you're not a citizen of the United States and you're a friend of the groom and you want to hang at the bachelor party for just a little longer, please I REPEAT please don't come across the border with us and think you can sneak back by sitting in the backseat...especially when you have someone of my melanin content driving you through. I'm going to get profiled for other reasons as is. We will get pulled over regardless.. and now all of sudden they'll think I'm some kind of immigrant smuggler?

Let the cavity search begin!

You know even to this day I still get recognized for my 2 minutes of fame on Last Comic Standing. It's still flattering whenever someone makes a fuss. I've been recognized in the weirdest places: grocery store, airport security, even at a strip club by strippers. But when the Texas/Mexico border patrol recognizes you, that's just an entirely different realm of awkwardness

Because how do you keep your sanity when they're asking you to repeat the "Boogeyman" joke and spread your ass cheeks at the same time?

Gap-athy

2006-03-15T09:32:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been over 2 weeks since thoughts have fallen onto blogger paper from the braincloud up above. I could say that today is the start of something new. Blogs every day every which way. I know I know. I made a resolution. Which I can still fulfill and sustain by over-blogging. I mean come on, last week I got my own laptop. I'm I-Booking it now. I can whip it out on a daily, anytime basis, much like my sarcasm and general disdain for anything Tyra Banks-related. I have an Ipod. Not only can I scribble down musings, but when creatively lulled, I can re-inspire the fire within by jamming out to Hall and Oates.

"I wanna be the drummer for an acapella group"

I also have a video camera now, which means one of two things

1) I"m giving up comedy to start my "own private business"

2) There'll be random video clips of my standup and whatever I feel needs to be videotaped. Wouldn't you like to know what's in my fridge?

"Isn't Sleeping Beauty really a Beauty whose Sleeping? Because I can't imagine anyone being beautiful while they sleep. Unless you consider drooling and random acts of twitching a sign of gorgeousnessessess. If that's the case, epilepsy would be considered "hot""

So this week won't be the start of anything new. I'm in a wedding. Not my own, but the own of one of my best friend's. And I'm the best man.

By the way if you'd like to drop an application off to be my best man, you can start by joining my MySpace page or my Friendster page. I need atleast 2 references and yes, sometimes, the best man can be a woman (if butch enough)

It's going to be a really interesting wedding. My friend Charles is marrying a Hispanic girl. So the Indian cultures and Mexican cultures will collide this Saturday. Of course both cultures have a lot in common

1) We're both immigrants
2) We both have the best food
3) We're both under-represented on TV
4) We both are mistaken for the other
5) We both never need to tan

I definitely have more respect for her culture because of the arduous journey her family probably endured to get here. They had to deal with Border Patrol. Immigration vans. Racist Texas state troopers.

My parents? Flew Air India. My dad landed in Los Angeles. His brother picked him up. The only thing they endured to get here was flying in coach.

That being said, I know the struggle for any immigrant is always mental. You're leaving everything you've known your whole life to uproot to a country where everything is reversed. Speaking just for Indian immigrants, you've now transformed from being the majority in your country to being a minority. That's an incredible culture shock. It's like any of us here in the U.S moving to India (and yes, even if I go to India they view me as American. It might have something to do with my Gap Jeans and Kenneth Cole shoes and lack of accent). It'd be like if we were to move to India and instead of being able to have the same job we had back in the U.S, we had to work in a factory assembly line building welding equipment.

My uncles moved here over a year ago and just the traffic (well the lack of) blew them away. Because if you've never been to India, let me tell ya.. they share the road with everything. People. Bicycles. Cows. Rickshaws. Dogs. Things that if they ran onto a major highway here would shut down traffic for 2 hours. No, over in India there's no such thing as a traffic report. It's always trafficky. They have reports when there is no traffic.

"Good morning, this is Akshay Rajakumar in Chopper 8. Looks like you're gonna have a clean commute coming into New Delhi. There's absolutely no signs of life, human or bovine. Either one of two things has happened. The Christian rapture is upon us and apparently Jesus took about 2 billion Hindus with him as well. Or our traffic jams have just been outsourced to Los Angeles. Now I'm heading back to the studio and turning in my ID badge, because without anything to report up here in Chopper 8, it looks like I'm gonna have to get another job. Back to you Prakash"

Both of my uncles now have their drivers' licenses. Both have their own cars. One of them asked where all the cows were and I told him.

"In America, we don't have cows. We have pigs. And they drive cop cars."

Boom Bap

2006-02-27T15:52:00.000-08:00

You're at a stoplight. The car next to you, rolls up .. windows rolled down .. music blasting. You're forced to listen to what they're listening to. You don't even know them and now they've become your IPod.

I used to be that guy 10 years ago and I'll tell you why people do that. Because deep down, we hope that when another car pulls up next to us at the stoplight, they'll roll down their window and say

"Excuse me young man. I couldn't help but overhear the rambunctious rap song emanating from your speaker system. I chalk our meeting up to destiny because it just so happens that earlier today my radio broke and I had nothing to listen to. What is the name of that song that makes you and all the surrounding vehicles bounce like so? Perhaps after you share that knowledge with me, you can then tell me how to get my car seat to recline as far back as yours. I would love to experience what it's like to drive on the road while facing upwards."

I had the whole get-up in high school. I blasted music. I sagged my pants. Not because I was gangsta .. but because I had no ass to hold them up. I laughed my ass off when I was 8 after listening to a Bill Cosby record and ..

It never grew back.

Ever seen someone whose car window is missing, so they replace it with plastic wrap? I guess that's to prevent the driver from getting freezer burn. Sometimes you'll see someone who has a trash bag taped on instead .. and you know what that is

Tinted windows.

Hair and Now

2006-02-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

I'm about to embark on a 3 hour road trip with 4 friends in tow. Notice I said "Tow" as if I'm hauling down 4 broken-down cars. I'm lugging.

I kid.

But as of now, for the most part, we 5 have never managed to grate on each other's nerve endings. Oh might I add, the 3 hour road trip is step A. We're staying in a hotel together which is step B. Step C we'll be hanging together for the reason we're going for the road trip (I know..ambiguous, but I'm secretly secretive like that) and rounding it out is Step D, the tension-filled road trip back

I'd like to think that this trek won't make me re-consider said friendships, but I'd be deceitful to say it won't. Now this is no knock on them. They're normal great individuals with lives and stability and happiness.

Me? I drive the speed limit (I can't afford a speeding ticket) I get unbelievably grouchy when I'm tired. I have the tolerance level of Daffy Duck. Yet I am the driver, so everyone must zip lips and bite tongues so they're guaranteed a ride back. Hold on ..

"Do you think Ku Klux Klan members get that much more upset because their shadow's black?"

Okay .. I'm back. See all of us are friends with folks because we see them, or they see us, in limited time. We're on our best behavior. We all have miserable traits. Reasons that nobody would ever want to be with us, but those never go on display when just hanging out with friends. Now with extended time together, it's Real World-esque. Peeves will now become pet-like. My prediction? Well let's look into the future. Here's a transcript of the very first Real World confessional that will take place after spending one full day with yours truly

"Paul, I don't what his deal is. He forced us to listen to his CDs and his CDs only. In fact, when the car started running out of gas, he immediately turned the radio down and told all of us to shut up as if our conversation was wasting valuable fuel. He let 42 cars pass him on the highway yet stayed in the left lane as if he "thought he" was going faster than right lane traffic. Oh did I mention that in order for him to find certain street names, he again yelled at all of us to "Shut Up" so he could concentrate. As if our conversation blurs his vision. If it weren't for the fact that he pays for gas as well because he's too passive to ask us all to chip in for gas money, I would've stabbed him in his 5 O'clock shadow"

I'm full on bearded on right now too. Not lumberjack thick, but enough to make me look suspicious. It's a thick beard, Teen Wolf-style, not long and Osama stringy. ZZ Top beard is serial-killer-ish and creepy. Thick beard is inquisitive. Introspective. Poetic really.

Now can I rhyme? Not really.
Do I over analyze my place in this world? Hardly ever
Do I question everything around me? Like a 4 year old

So I'm qualified to have this. I look older. My face looks filled out. However, it comes off tomorrow. And with it, my supposed intellect, maturity, and clean sink

Lazy Shade of Winter

2006-02-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

My favorite new drink? The Screwdriver. Vodka with Orange Juice .. because I still want liver damage, but I don't want the sniffles.

Jagermeister's probably the most entertaining of all the thicker liquors. Because drinking Jager is unlike any other type of alcohol ever invented. It's Satan in liquid form. And anyone who's never had Jager, doesn't understand that, so they think they can fathom what it's like

"I've never had Jager. But I have had tequila"

that's like saying ..

"You know I've never been attacked by a grizzly bear, but I have been tickled by a really hairy guy. You know I've never shopped at Nordstrom's, but one time, I did buy a $400 shirt at Wal-Mart"

--

I'm not allowed to be sick. I can't second-guess my body. I have no insurance. All my friends have insurance and much more .. Dental insurance, medical insurance, 401K, or as I like to call them ..

Friends with " Benefits "

They have Blue Cross. I have Finger Cross .. with a 'knock-on-wood' deductible

This is the only time in my life that procrastination is beneficial. Because if the doctor gave me 2 weeks to live .. I'd take a month. My friends would be so confused

"I thought Paul was supposed to be dead?"

"You know Paul. He's supposed to die on Monday. He won't actually start DYING dying until Tuesday. In fact, 50 bucks says he won't even start losing vision until Wednesday"

I'm not a decisive person but I'm definitely Pro-Crastination. My parents raised me to be Anti-Crastination. But crastinating is so much easier on the soul. Why type up daily blogs when I can crastinate and type one once a week?

KajaGooGoo Gah Gah

2006-02-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

I know so much useless 80's / 90's music. One-hit wonders. I know them all. I never knew that such esoteric knowledge would ever come in handy

Until ..

I'm on a flight back from Chicago. The captain announces that the plane's about to make its final descent into Dallas. I get up to go to the bathroom, and the flight attendant stops me

"I'm going to need you to take your seat"

"But I need to go the bathroom"

"Sir, you had your chance"

Wow. Wasn't expecting that. He threw me a condescending curveball. High and tight. Now I'm confused .. befuddled .. that same feeling I had when I found out that Santa was really my dad.

"So that explains whey he was Indian. And all this time, I thought he'd just been outsourced"

So now I'm standing there. Everybody on the plane looking at me, as if I started something. That's the disadvantage to people who come in half-way on an obvious conflict. They don't care to find out about the backstory. They just instantly sympathize with whoever's lighter. I'm guilty of it too. If I see my dad arguing with a white man, I immediately take the white man's side. Because obviously my dad must be at fault, and even if he's not, he needs to apologize because we all know .. white people sue

But I'm there, face-to-face with Bob the Belittler and I have not a comeback in my pocket at all. Nothing. A couple of dimes. My cellphone. But not one ounce of sarcasm. Not even amongst the lint.

Then it hits me. I look into his eyes .. with all the seriousness of a lumberjack reading Field and Stream .. and say

"All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom-and-a-boom-boom. Su-Su-Sudio"

I win.

Insection

2006-02-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

Life is full of muddled priorities..

I know a vegetarian who has peacock feather earrings.

"I don't want to kill the animals, but I do want to make them shiver."

Even my mom's guilty. When I was six, she'd try to scare me by telling me to keep my mouth shut when I sleep, so bugs wouldn't crawl in

"Why don't you just clean the house?"

That is one of the few manly traits that I absolutely do possess. I can kill bugs. I wasn't always that masculine. When I was 10, I'd have alot of different ways to kill the bug without having to get too close.

1) I'd spray Raid. Which never kills a bug instantly (like in the commercials) It just sends them into epileptic seizures, normally heading in your direction. Time to scamper

2) I'd wake up my dad. His groggy, pajama-encased self using his slipper to chase down La Cucaracha. Whack him into a crunchy gooey mess and then, without missing a beat, slip the slipper right back on, leaving a trail of cockroach crumbs back to his bedroom. If you put your ear up to my parents' bedroom door, you could hear him say ..

"Paul is a complete wuss. We've raised a boy who's scared of a 2-inch monster. Maybe it's not too late to put him up for adoption"

3) I'd throw phonebooks. Like some people play Horseshoes. The Yellow Pages is the horseshoe. The clueless roach is that thing sticking out of the ground. And much like horseshoes, it takes 3 to 4 tries to nail it. THUD Damn it THUD Crap THUD Yes!

"It's 4 in the morning and that Indian Urkel is throwing phone books. You know he takes after your family. I'm surprised he doesn't jump at the sight of his own shadow. I'm calling the foster home tomorrow and UPS-ing him there"

I Let You Down ..

2006-02-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

So Silly Paul doesn't realize the silly promises I make. I was supposed to have new video clips posted by now on my site to swap out the old ones. And I was also supposed to be well on my way to figuring out if I had a performance that was cd-worthy.

So let's update the status. There is a small smidgen of a set. Seven minutes to be exact. Available on www.desivision.tv But I'm also super selective in what I feel I should put up there. After all, alot of the work that I get come off people's perception of the clips on my site. So it's not only gotta be damn hilarious, it's also gotta be family friendly and able to appeal to older folks (because they're the ones that end up paying me) So in other words, Cosby-esque material's gotta be posted. Hmmm, what's a brother to do

CD-wise. I have sets taped that I could use. But I'm waiting to perform at a certain venue here in town to record it that way to see how the audio quality in that set turns out. So once I get that date booked and cemented then I'll know what's going on. I apologize to anyone who was looking forward to the new video clips and/or cd. I let you down. But welcome to my life. A world full of disappointed friends and broken get-togethers.

All serious blogginess aside, I feel sorry for the owner of a restaurant whose regular customers are ambulance drivers on their lunch break. It can't be good for business to have all those EMT vans parked outside.

If you filled out an application to join the Ku Klux Klan, do you think there's a box to check ethnicity?

A Maple Minute

2006-01-18T10:30:00.000-08:00

Ever been sifting through your change and find that one Canadian coin? It has a maple leaf on it. But thing is .. you never went to Canada. None of your friends went. You don't even own ginger ale.

I had a clerk refuse my Canadian coin. Really? You're going to wait for me to find a legitimate American one-cent piece? How about you grab one from the Take a Penny Leave a Penny ashtray by your register. You Take a Penny, I'll Leave a Maple Leaf

So how did that Canadian coin make it this far? He's on the run I tell you. He's crossing borders for job security. He's on his way to Mexico, where he'd actually have value.

The Supreme Court nomination hearings are officially over. Samuel Alito went through 18 hours of intense testimony.. and people make such a big deal about it. Why? I go through that every single time I visit my parents

"Are you eating? Are you brushing your teeth? What's your stance on gay marriage?"

I'm not impressed by the power of the Supreme Court. I want to be a judge on the Belgrande Court . I'll pay my dues at the 7-Layer Court and then work my way up through the Double Decker ranks.

Court fees? 99 cents

I watched a little bit of American Idol last night. Heavily disappointed. I love watching horrible singers. Because I identify.

Let's televise stonings. Rock-hurling punishment. Throw Osama Bin Laden in the middle of Texas Stadium. $50 to get in. Available on Pay-Per-View. Have Brett Favre come out and throw the first stone. Maybe also have a pebble undercard. You know, someone who doesn't deserve a complete stoning .. like Tom Cruise. Just enough pebbles thrown at him, to get all up in his shoes and be annoying. And for those of you who think watching a few episodes of people being pelted to death would get old after awhile, I propose to you..

Season 2: Celebrity rock-tossers a.k.a Stoning with the Stars

Phone Home

2006-01-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

What's the difference between a telemarketer and a stalker?

$10.75 an hour

After numerous unanswered calls, you'd think a telemarketer would get the hint. It's not like 10 calls in, I'm going to answer the phone.

"Oh hey Sprint. No, I've just been busy, I'm not ducking you. No, I swear there's nobody else. What. You don't trust me? I've just been busy with this whole standup and blogging thing. I promise, we'll hang out, just wait until my schedule loosens up."

Sometimes the telemarketers will try to get slick and change their number to "Out of Area". Yeah, because that would make me want to answer now .. out of sheer mystery. If an ex-girlfriend called me as often as a telemarketer does, I'd have enough evidence to file a restraining order. I'm just waiting for that one telemarketer to write me a love letter out of magazine fonts or sit outside my bedroom window .. and I'm on the 3rd floor, so that would require scaffolding (the true sign of a determined stalker)

And I can handle all that, just please please please Sprint don't pull a Say Anything and stand in that scaffolding, boombox held over your head, Destiny's Child's "Bills Bills Bills" streaming out the speakers.

Does telemarketing even work any more? Has anybody ever bought anything or paid a bill immediately because of a phone call? Life was easy for the telemarketer before Caller ID. But now because of Caller ID, telemarketers have become the Jehovah's Witnesses of the telecommunication world .. and Caller ID's the peephole

Black Monday

2006-01-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

It's 1:48 p.m and I just took a shot of Jager. Black liquorish. The taste and the effect. Now I know you ask, why a shot in the middle of the day? And to you, I say WHY NOT ? I also say, WHAT WAS I THINKING ?

To understand someone, you must walk a mile in their shoes. To understand an alcoholic, you must stagger a quarter-mile in their bare feet.

I made it to the kitchen.

Anyone have any good JagerMeister stories? Please share. It's the most brutal shot. For those who don't know, it has the taste of black licorice with ten thousand times the kick. The most I can take is two. One time I took three. And coincidentally I also took half a bottle of Advil 20 minutes afterwards. You know something is completely disgustable (that shot's kicking in) when you can't even smell it, let alone watch other people drink it. I hate mushrooms, but I have no problem watching folks down a Portobella.

I think the common denominator is never drink or eat anything black. Licorice: Jager: Peppercorns: Jellybeans: Lexington Steele

Presi-Dental

2006-01-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

You ever drink so much, you get a voicemail from your liver?

"Paul, I know you don't pick up calls from "Out of Area" but the fact of the matter is, I'm "Inside your Area". It's me. Your liver. Your kidneys and I have been talking and we really feel that an intervention is necessary. We're both working overtime without pay. I'd hate to go on strike because I know you have no health insurance, which is why I'd rather voice my concerns now, then surprise you later."

It was a 1-800 number so I called it back.

"The number you have reached has been disconnected"

And immediately after that, I passed out

I should've called back immediately, but I waited a few hours too long, fainted, and woke up with a Dear John letter scotch taped to my stomach. So anyone with an extra internal organ laying around, FedEx it my way. I've got an hour until I'm gonna have to start drinking a 40-ounce of NyQuil: The NightTime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, so you can function throughout your day without your liver ,medicine

Truth is, I don't drink very often. In fact, drunk Paul's as rare as Sasquatch. Meaning when I do get boozed to the hilt, I run through the woods and scare early morning hunters. There's also a home video out there of me in my inebriated glory, but it's blurry and you can't really tell it's me.

I do eat alot of Cheetos and Twix. And there's not a whole lot of alcohol in either of those. There is plenty of sugar. But unlike alcohol, you never regret eating too much sugar the next day. The only time you regret it is when your dentist gives you a guilt trip on your visit. I feel guilty for that moment, but the second I leave the dentist's office, I'm downing candy with my newly clean teeth. It's like getting a new car every six months. When they clean your teeth, it's like a brand new odometer. Pixie Sticks, Nerd Rope, Inside-Out Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the equivalent of driving to Oklahoma and back just for the hell of it

I get paranoid during the x-ray process because the dental assistant throws the lead vest on you then leaves the room to press the button? That's assuring. I'm gonna douse you in radiation from afar, ENJOY! It's for that reason that I think it should've been so much easier to know if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Just look for the guy with 12 fingers and a 2nd face growing out of his ass. Then follow him to his house. Chances are, he lives somewhere close to where Saddam and friends are cooking up nuclear concoctions.

I should be President. I just need to find a First Lady first. You can't be a single President. Well you could. Because then ABC would probably have their best version of "The Bachelor" ever. But how un-professional would it be to have meetings with the Israeli Prime Minister and then, later on that night, go out clubbing?

"Is that President Varghese with his arm around Jessica Alba? Play on playa President! That guy gets all da' hoes!"

6th Scents

2006-01-06T10:08:00.000-08:00

I was watching one of those late-night infomercials where the selling point is they'll offer you a free 30-day trial.

You're paying for my court fees? Complimentary legal representation? Because there's a speeding ticket I'd love to fight. Wait, let me ask you this .. Will the jury be sequestered?

So not only will I receive my Ronco Rotisserie Oven for three easy payments of $34.99, I'll also be featured on Court TV. Thank you Ron Popeil

Congratulations go out to UT for winning the national championship. I graduated from UNT (University of North Texas) A party school. We were never known for our athletics. Our rivals were the cops. I know guys who graduated just so they could use their diploma paper to roll the biggest joint in the world.

"I'm going for my Bachelor's Degree and the Guiness world record"

UT has the Longhorns. Florida State has the Seminoles. We're the Mean Green. You tell me our founding fathers didn't love to smoke out too.

I get to perform at UNT this Monday. My triumphant return to my alma mater. Well as triumphant as you can get, driving a Honda Accord. Going back to your college stomping grounds doesn't ever come across as creepy as going back to your high school to pick up your yearbook.

I don't know if I'm such a glowing endorsement for going to UNT. Here I am, back at the school. I graduated with a degree and ended up being a comedian. Now let's just hope that UNT doesn't look at me with disappointment like my parents did.

The Day After

2006-01-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

I have cupcakes and alcohol in my bloodstream
And someone actually bought a gift for ME

I love the lines people give when YOU get them a gift

"I can't believe you spent that much money on me?"

"I didn't. I stole it. So make sure you don't break it because I didn't steal a receipt"

Sometimes you'll get this line when they give you a present

"Hey before I give you this, just know that I'm not into wrapping gifts."

I'm not into wrapping gifts either, especially when I bought them 10 minutes before the party.

"Hey before I give you this, just know that I'm not into wrapping gifts. I'm also not into taking the price tag off or removing it from this Best Buy bag"

How did Santa Claus just happen to use the same wrapping paper that my mom had in her closet? It's like he wanted to throw me off by having me think that my parents were the ones buying the gifts. He even took the time to learn how to sign his name with my dad's handwriting. Sometimes Santa would give me clothes for Christmas, but I think that was my parents just trying to compete with St. Nick. I aint falling for that. My love for the jolly red-suited man will never falter no matter how many lime green sweaters with matching tube socks you buy me.

Birthday Suit

2006-01-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Dyan Cannon
Tom Thumb
Louis Braille

All were born today.

- Dyan Cannon's not really known for a whole lot, much like myself. Most people know her as a fixture at Lakers games. Not that I wouldn't want to be known as that kind of celebrity either.

"Hey did you check out that new Dyan Cannon movie? Yeah, neither did I."

- Tom Thumb's a grocery store icon now, but he had nothing to do with that. He was a sideshow midget for Ringling Bros. circus for oodles of years. I'm sure he, nor his family, get a royalty check from the Tom Thumb grocery store chain for using his name. They probably don't even get a Rewards card. Hey can we atleast hook the Thumbseses with a coupon? Hook a mini-brotha up!

I once read that Don Shula had the same birthday as me. He's the all-time winningest coach in NFL history. Not that I had anything to do with that, but I'd like to think that if I were to roam an NFL sideline, I'd have a cosmic, predestined advantage that other coaches didn't, because we share the same birthdate. Either that or the advantage may not be NFL related. Instead I'm better off mooching for floor tickets for the Mavs games or in a circus cage getting hit on by the Bearded Lady.

- But Louis Braille? Now that's impressive. Not that he was conceived on the same date, because folks, I was born premature. 2 weeks to be exact. In fact, as my mom likes to say

"That was the only time you were ever early"

Braille invented a reading system for the blind. If you lose your fingers in a woodchipper, they don't have footballs or baseballs specially designed for you to throw. No, if you want to be on a sports team, with no fingers, then your job is relegated to hi-fives and pats on the ass

Who has the insight to think ..

"I know they can't see. But who are we to deny them the right to Where the Sidewalk Ends? They deserve to know what happens when Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout does not take the garbage out"

I can only hope that when my life becomes a memory that I leave some sort of legacy. Some contribution to humanity besides a joke about Wheres' Waldo.

I propose contributing my facial hair. I've seen a rash of Hispanic males and middle-aged Vietnamese men who can't seem to grow full on moustaches. They have 20 hairs all trying to band together to look like one. Yet these guys insist on making it work. I'll fill in their blanks with the grizzle that the Teen Wolf God up above cursed me with.

I shave at 10. My 5 o'clock shadow shows up at 10:15. So when I hear a woman go

"I don't like men with facial hair."

I think..

"Wow, we have so much in common, because I don't like women with facial hair either"

So as I embark into the last year of my 20s, it's time to brace for the 3-0. I've heard life begins at 30 and then gets better at 40.

Life beginning at 30 would be a creepy conception. To have moms giving birth to 30 year old adults. Coming out of the womb with the right to vote, drink, and rent a car? It'd make life in an incubator fly by if I could chug down a few vodka tonics.

"Mom, does Similac cure a hangover? Oh and don't worry about pushing me in a stroller, I'll just go for a spin in the Escalade."

Bessie Wants Out

2006-01-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

Last week I was in Poland and my sneakers got dirty. So I had to buy shoe polish. In Poland. I bought Polish shoe polish. I said that ten times fast, and my dictionary melted

....

29 years ago this day, my mom's contractions were getting closer and closer. My dad was working overtime at Kroger to stash up more money. And my sister was counting down the days to where she would no longer be the baby of the family and have to fend for herself.

Me? I was chilling in the Womb O' Varghese. Nice climate. Steady, although redundant, meals. But in the end? Lonely. Very lonely. And I had stuff I wanted to do. Friends I wanted to make. Jokes I wanted to tell.

So three weeks before I was scheduled to make my entrance into society, I started kicking. And kicking. And I think that's the most energy I've exerted, even to this day.

...

If you're reading this and you're in Dallas, like me, then you're absolutely loving the weather we're having right now. We had two cold days so far, way back in November, and right now it's 75 degrees. In January. Maybe this is the beginning of the whole global warming phenomenon. And maybe because of that, weather all around the world is being permanently altered.

And I, for one, am so happy.

I knew there was a reason that Texas women used 40 oz. cans of hair spray to hold up their bee-hive bouffant Lady Bird Johnson hairdos. Others called it pollution. They looked at their aerosolic abuse as a long-term investment for our happiness. And because of their insensitivity towards anything environmental, I salute them.

Now let's all celebrate by refusing to carpool and chopping down a Peruvian rainforest.

Deuces Gone Wild

2006-01-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

So I hope everyone's still hungover and happy (from the New Year). The two don't normally go hand in hand except on rare occasions like while watching Titanic, or anytime you have to listen to a story from Grandpa. I have many resolutions for the New Years (2 of which involve some form of rehab) but one, in particular, I will share with you.

I have re-committed to blogging on a regular basis. I've become so slack in updating this and in doing so, have performed a terrible disservice.

How so Paul?

Well, I'm glad you asked, Mr. Question that I Posed to Myself in Text Form

Look what happens when I leave my blog unattended for more than 2 weeks. I get 7 comments in a row from the same guy. While I applaud his interest in my blog, his comments' lack of humor or any form of insightful drivel deserve nary a handclap at all. It's like this blog is my home and I let all of my kids (you readers out there) in charge of watching it while daddy goes to work. All of you behave and feed yourself and don't act up at all. But one of you, upset at the lack of attention being paid to you, pees on the carpet and hides the Playstation. Shame on you. One bad apple spoiled the bunch so that's the last time I leave you all at home by yourself. Until you can prove me otherwise.

The second reason I've re-committed myself is because I was approached by a random guy at a gig in San Antonio who told me that he kills his time at work reading my blog. Now who am I to deny that man the right to slack off at his job? All this time I've been gone he's had to turn to Solitaire or building paper clip fortresses. I can't let those endless games of trashcan football continue. I must blog again. If not for you kids out there.. but for all of the disgruntled, apathetic cubicle-ites out there

On this day 29 years ago, my mother was having contractions. My father was still flipping through the book of names trying to find something that would go with Varghese. My sister was bugging both of them, desperate to name the kid herself. And thank god, my parents were still in charge, because Ernie Varghese would just cement me into a life of eternal wedgies and Friday night discussions with my two friends about why Harry Potter could beat Gandalf in a head-to-head duel

Whenever you're bored, ask your father what he planned on naming you, had you been born the opposite gender. It'll make you want to castrate him with an ice cream scoop, so that he never has that power again.

My name would've been Bessie. Yes. As in "moo moo". I don't know if my dad had plans to move us all into an Amish community or have me sent into a slaughterhouse and processed into burger form. But Bessie Varghese? I can hear the potential dates line up now. Actually I wish I had that name now because then I could pawn off my awkwardness on the fact that I was destined to be this peculiar, with a name like that

So let's all raise our mouses to..
1) More blogs in 2006
2) Slacking off at work
3) And a swift kick to the pants to all fathers out there

Cheers.

Chill Pill

2005-12-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

This time of year is not nice to me. I hate the cold. I could really do without it. But if you talk to someone who lives where it's cold, they swear by it.

"You can always put on more clothes"

But that's the beauty of hot weather. People take off their clothes. There's an entire calendar industry based on that ideal. You wouldn't want to be flipping thru a calendar, going..

"Whoa come check out Miss April. All she's wearing is a ... parka, a scarf, mittens, wool socks, a ski mask, galoshes, a turtleneck, and earmuffs. You can almost see her eyebrows! It looks so hot!"

I'm from Texas. The South. We're proud of our hot temperatures. The hole in the ozone layer doesn't scare us.

"Global warming? Down here we call that July."

I visited India a few years ago and it was 120 degrees there. The heat didn't bother me so I used the free time to explore the country side. I saw a guy with one of those pedal-generated grindstones to sharpen knives. He was outside a restaurant just pedaling/sharpening away. No goggles. His idea of safety involved turning his face away to avoid the flying sparks. One normal brown eye. One googly over-sized green eye. Green as in Go Find Another Job. He looked like how I'd imagine a pirate to look like, if he removed his eye patch.

There's something about watching someone sharpen a knife that always come across as creepy. Especially someone who spends more than 2 seconds sharpening it. Are we cutting cucumbers or ankles?

You always see infomercials on tv advertising a set of knives. They have every size blade imaginable from tiny pearing knives to the ones you can cut a slab of meat with. But never do they have a sword.

"Even after slicing through human bone, it never loses its sharpness. Our patented Ronco Miracle Blade Excalibur will not only sever the limbs of any late-night intruder, it also glides through this tomato"

It's the 1st of the Month

2005-12-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

Great song

Since it's officially the season of giving, let's talk about receiving

My cousin not only receives gifts under the Christmas tree but gifts in his stocking as well. Stocking stuffers is what his parents call them. Last year he got a $55 video game in his stocking alone. Really? When I was 12, I got a video game as my gift. You know what I got in the stocking?

The receipt

Buying gifts is impossible anyway. I think everyone should be registered at the store of their choice, much like married couples do, so it's easy to know what they want. Surprises are so overrated anyway. They're expected now. Ever been dating someone who always drops hints as to "what they could use" and "what they wish they had". I don't think I've ever heard the word IPOD dropped so many times in the span of 3 months.

My birthday's a month away and I'm so low-key/low-maintenance/low-budget/low-down that all I want is a drink bought and dinner. Feed the skinny boy. Get him some liquor. Pay him a phony compliment and tell him he's funny.

Happy Birthday for Paul

Heading out to Detroit tomorrow. Not for a show. Eminem asked me to bring it. So I am.

Leave a worthwhile comment.

80/20 on the Funny

2005-11-18T09:52:00.000-08:00

Why is there even a debate on Creationism vs. Evolution? Who cares how we got here? Why debate that? Look, I love Big Macs. That secret sauce. Incredible. But if you told me the recipe, I'd for sure be disappointed. We're never gonna know how everything in life got here so let's just give up the argument. I mean what if we finally did find out that God created the world by cheating off the Asian god sitting in the desk next to him. Buddha concocted all this:

Sushi
Coleco Vision (what was he thinking?)
Every show on VH1 (again, what was he thinking?)
Marriage (again, what was ..)

I read somewhere that the government can actually monitor your Internet habits. Creepy huh? So now whenever I Google I feel the need to clarify my purpose.

GOOGLE SEARCH BAR [Counterfeit money .. but I swear it's not for me, it's for a joke that I'm writing because I would never think about performing such illegal activities because I've got a career to worry about, plus why make fake money when I'm aware of the legal repercussions because my friends don't have any money and they'd probably have to make fake money just to get me out and that would be self-defeating so don't jump the gun and pile everyone in the FBI truck just yet because I'm so law-abiding that I feel guilty playing with Monopoly money]

I'm flying out to Denver tomorrow. Sometimes I luck out and fly on Frontier Airlines to get there. Coolest airline because every passenger gets their own personal TV set.

.. On a side note, why do we capitalize TV when talking about television sets, but not when we're talking about transvestites. If I was sporting panties and high heels, I'd feel a bit slighted that they get capitalization privileges when they provide mediocre entertainment, while me in my lemon chiffon gown am always FABULOUS

So for 5 bucks you can watch whatever you want on these sets. Alot of channels too: ESPN, CNN, Food Network.

Food Network? Really? Isn't that such a cruel culinary tease? You're watching them make bourbon mashed sweet potatoes and you're stuck with your 50 cent TV dinner

.. On another side note, if a transvestite cooks you an evening meal, isn't it always gonna be a tv dinner?

If Frontier Airlines really cared about their passengers, they'd show episodes of Fear Factor. That way when I see those contestants trying to chow down on kangaroo colon .. a bag of pretzels doesn't seem that bad

See you all on Monday.

Party Planning

2005-11-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

So if you scroll down one blog entry, you'll find out that my friend asked me to be the Best Man at his wedding next year. Turns out, I'm the only guy amongst all the groomsmen who's not married, which not only makes me the Best Man but the Smartest Man too. The only tuxedo-ed up guy in the wedding party who can make his own decisions and can stay out as long as he wants.

And also, being the newly crowned Best Man, it's my responsibility to organize the bachelor party.. so here we go..

Bachelor Party Itinerary Draft Number One

2:00 - Play a round of golf with the guys. Hit a few balls. Toss back some Bud Lights
5:30 - Head back to the bungalow and wash up. Get all clean, ironed and decked out for dinner
6:30 - Go to Chili's (cus hey, it's his special night) Pretend to go to the bathroom and use that opportunity to sneak away and tell the waitress that we have a "husband-to-be" at our table. She brings the complimentary brownie, makes him wear a sombrero, and dance to the waitstaff's hymns
8:00 - Head back to the bungalow because I've rented The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He's a huge fan and never had the chance to watch all 3 movies: back-to-back-to-back. It's something he's always wanted to do and what better time than his bachelor party? Cus after all, his fiancee doesn't appreciate fantasy movies
11:30 - The hookers come over
11:32 - Dispose of their bodies
11:40 - Drink some hot cocoa and have group prayer then continue watching Lord of the Rings.

Whenever you're on a plane and the flight attendant walks down your aisle with her cart and asks you,

"Would you like something to eat?"

Immediately grab your barf bag and say

"No thank you, I packed my own lunch"

I can't Do .. yet

2005-11-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

I got asked to be the Best Man in my friend's wedding. Seriously, I was taken aback. It's an incredible honor. So my mom, never one to be the stereotypical Indian mom (I mean, she makes casserole and has a gym membership), now has initiated the zone defense when it comes to me finding my "soulmate".

Notice I said "zone defense" and not "full-court press". She briefly mentioned an offer to go soulmate searching for me. She hasn't sent out the bloodhounds or created a membership profile at "GrandkidsBefore-I-Die.com"

Will she? Of course. That telephone conversation the day after the wedding will be a laborious one. Let's look into the crystal ball

Paul's Mom: So I know you live in an apartment now, but wouldn't you like to someday live in a house?
Paul: Sure, but I can't afford a house
Paul's Mom: But we'll find you a girl that can.

The idea of a move from an apartment to a house is so dramatic. From single guy to nagging roommate. From empty fridge to full pantry. From futon nightlife to blanket battles. From a 6 month lease to a lifetime mortgage. Maybe it'd be easier to make the transition if I could pack up and bring with me, not only my silverware (heh, who am I kidding, my ketchup/hot sauce packets), but maybe if the apartment complex could let me pack up the maintenance men..

I don't do home repairs. To me, a house should come fixed already. No handiwork should be done. My job as a husband would be to kill bugs and to grill meat (or a combination of the two) After that, I'm done. Call someone else to sand the shelves or visit your mother.

Texas just banned gay marriage. It ruins the sanctity of marriage, they say. If you're worried about the sanctity of marriage being ruined, then ban divorce. Nobody would have whirlwind, spontaneous marriages if they knew that there was no way out when it all teeters down the gutter.

People would be flying to Hawaii, just to fill out paperwork. Putting on grass skirts just so they can divy up the kids.

"Paul put down that ukulele and sign this alimony check!"

What if the cops catch you moving stuff out of your house and dividing up your furniture?

"Are you two getting divorced?"

"No sir, it's just that she's allergic to my couch and my Taco Bell hot sauce packets and my VCR. Apparently the VCR gives her a rash, but my widescreen TV and DVD player and Gorillaz CD don't make her itch at all"

Yolk Folk

2005-11-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

Anyone get anything good for Halloween?

Did you check your apples for razorblades? That was a legitimate danger when I was 6. How someone could accomplish that is a Food Network episode all in itself. It's also a reason to never eat fruit. Candy bars don't cause internal bleeding.

You gotta love Doritos because the new slogan on their bags is "Now Better Tasting" That's the one that made the cut? I could've come up with something better than "Remember how we were awful..well we're not that way anymore" maybe something like..

Doritos: Considered "Mexican food" by white people for 30 years
Doritos: At least we're not FunYuns

And I miss velcro. Because I keep stepping on my shoelaces. I want velcro shoes. I just hate the sound .. of people laughing at me

This Halloween, my car got egged. Now Paul 10 years ago, would've never been egged. Not because I was tough and intimidating but I just didn't have a car. Now Paul 5 years ago? Would've been angry, looking down the street left and right, as if the eggers are hiding in the bushes waiting to see the reaction to their handywork. But Paul now? Stares at the egg. Lets out a sigh. And now has a hankering for some IHOP

When did I lose my edge?
Did I ever have an edge?
In the band U2, what's The Edge's real name?

My car was the only one that got egged too. All the other cars, unscathed. Who sees me and hates me that much but not so much that they want me killed, they just want me annoyed .. and out in the sun with a soap sponge?

"We don't want to rob you Paul, we'd rather just follow you everywhere you go and step on your back heels"

Damn Baptist gangs.

I Blog to Rant

2005-10-28T14:18:00.000-07:00

I like sports like the next man..who likes sports. But the fact that NBA players are complaining about a league-enforced dress code boggles the noggin

Now every NBA player must wear a suit before/after games and even while sitting on the bench, when not active for a game. NBA players' biggest complaint is that it stifles their expression and it's not comfortable.

Tell that to the millions of folks out there who are caged up in cubicle space in their suit and tie. Do you think they wear it because it's cozy? There's Casual Friday for a reason. With NBA players, every day is Casual Friday. Even on the court. In fact NBA Commissioner David Stern, if your players keep bitching, force them to wear the suits while playing.

You can't complain about not feeling comfortable when you live comfortable. Hard to garner support from the masses about comfort, when you drive a Lexus.. and have finger massagers for your PlayStation controllers. I'm guessing that gold-plated pool with your name engraved on the diving board is quite comfortable, not to mention the 34 groupies and entourage that accompany you everywhere you go.

Once you get paid 6 figures, you're no longer allowed to complain. Outfits should be the least of your problem, you should be putting that money towards the surgery to remove your head out of your ass. The boss dictated a dress code. Everyone else does it where they work, why not you? You can go home, get naked, and roll around in your millions, while I toil around in 6 year old shoes, with the soles peeling off. I'm not comfortable, but does anyone write headlines about that? Of course not, because B-Ball Bocephus with the 36-inch vertical can't wear his bling-bling. Boo Hoo. Trust me when I say this, the masses admire your athletic ability. But we don't look up to you. We just wish we could get paid to play a game and go to parties.

If that was the case, I'd be HopScotching my way to the bank

My Money My Problem

2005-10-19T13:51:00.000-07:00

So this new apartment complex I'm moving into next weekend just called me to ask for income verification. You know.. check stubs, bank balances. I'm a comic. We gets no check stubs. Bank balance? Ha. But, basically, she needs to know that I'm not running drugs through her fortress.

Me a drug dealer? I'd be so horrible at it. I have no business insight. I once had a door-to-door Strip-O-Gram service that failed because I had all my dancers dress up as serial killers and Jehovah's Witnesses. Plus I can't even do drugs successfully. Just yesterday, I burned my thumb, just messing around with a lighter and there were no drugs involved. I was just playing with fire. I'm 6 in that sense. Keep me away from stoves and unmarked vans

I smoked weed one time back in November 1997, and I didn't even smoke enough to get high. It was around Thanksgiving too. (Which if you're gonna get the munchies, what better holiday to do it on than the one with all that grub at your fingertips)

Thanksgiving's the only holiday that everybody dreads the leftovers. New Year's Eve doesn't have that problem. Nobody ever wakes up on January 1st and stares, disgustingly, into the fridge..

"Whoa. How are we gonna get rid of all this booze? We're gonna be having booze for the next two to three weeks. Booze for breakfast. Booze for lunch. Booze sandwiches. We should've sent some booze home with Grandma. Kids, I'm gonna have to pack some booze in your lunch for tomorrow."

"But Dad, I'm so sick of booze!"

"Shut up and eat your booze casserole!"

I've noticed that the apartment lady has now assumed the role of my mother. She's now just as concerned as to how I make money and how much I make. What's next. She's gonna start calling me every day at 6pm to make sure I had dinner? She's gonna argue with my dad? She's gonna keep asking me when I'm gonna get married?

Hey, maybe the apartment lady will be like my mom and make a mean meatloaf. That'd be dope.

When did "mean" mean delicious? I like that we associate a synonym for evil to describe food that tastes yummy. Reverse the logic

Saddam Hussein? Did you see what he did to those refugees? He is so scrum-diddly-umptious!

Mr. October

2005-10-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is the month that Texas has it's "State Fair" here in Dallas. I don't know if it's as big an event in your state as it is here, but lemme blog you. It makes all the local news. They have concerts full of "VH1 Where are They Now?" artists. So many newspaper features on the origin of funnel cakes and corny dogs. A huge like 52 foot tall statue called Big Tex that greets you. The State Fair is such a big deal that elementary school kids have a holiday around it.

Fair Day. The state gave them a day off to go to the fair.

"We don't think our cafeteria food is greasy enough, here take these Fair tickets and buy a batter-dipped Oreo"

I went to the Fair one time when I was little. Seven years old to be exact. Or as my dad referred to the day..

"There's nothing Fair about these prices"

I look back on it now and I was too scared to get on any of the rides. My sister told me that Big Tex talked so I sat there and stared at him for 30 minutes. My dad went to see the car show but I think he just went to look at the car show models. The car show was so big on showing the "Cars of the Future" and since my dad was so cheap I was running around just looking at the regular cars thinking they were something special..

"Look Dad! This Buick has air conditioning and a tape player! Wow, this probably cost like a gazillion dollars!"

My mom's forced to ride with my sister on the ferris wheel. Two Varghese women sitting side by side going in a circle for 20 minutes. Awkward silences galore. If that image doesn't remind you of every opening scene to a Massengill commercial, you obviously haven't watched enough television.

I recently got a MySpace account. I haven't bothered to update it or add any nuggets of joy or information. So feel free to come on over. It's simple and basic. But so is my website. I'm simple and basic. You know what I eat for dinner? Bread and water. Blue slacks, gray polo shirt. Hair parted down the middle, black penny loafers. My dog Prilosec by my feet, watching Everybody Loves Raymond.

Have a great week blogaroos.

Family Fun

2005-10-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

My grandma can read tarot cards. She's so good, it's spooky. She predicted that two of her friends would die within a year and they both did.

She killed them.

But still how did she know that she'd have the urge to do such a heinous thing?

And both were on December 30th. The last day of the year. How creepy. One more day and her psychic powers would have been put in serious question. The timing was uncanny.

Never second guess the elderly. They're that wrinkled for a reason

How did palm reading even begin? Who decided that this line right here would tell you about your love life and this one right here would determine how many children you'll have? I have creases on the bottom of my foot, anyone want to read those?

"Let's see you wear alot of shoes. The toejam also indicates heavy sock usage. This nail fungus tells me you're single. And these callouses and corns mean you will stay that way for years to come."

Truth be told, I have angelic feet. Christ-like. Meaning they're so clean and pristene, it'd make you want to drive a nail through them

And I can make that joke, people. Lest you forget, my sister's a priest. So I'm not worried about getting into heaven, I know she'll hook me up.

I'm still holding her Corey Hart poster hostage

Sweet Toof

2005-09-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

This month is over today. Yeah yeah, Take Your Blog to Work Day was supposed to happen, but for some odd reason my blog was down for 2 days. I didn't know who to blame it on: A hacker, a hurricane. Republished it and boom it's up again

T'will happen soon, but discipline has always been shaky ground to me. Plus this month is where offiically the creative lull for me was in full effect y'all

---

Someone told me I had incredibly selfish tendencies. I wanted to "have my cake and eat it too".

But isn't it my cake? If I have a cake why would I not eat it? I like cake. Who doesn't? But now that I have it, I can't partake in cake? What do I do, share it? I should have my cake but give it to others? Who does that? Take away a 6 year old's cake and he'll take out your left kneecap

I think selfish would better be described as "You want to have your cake and then have someone else's and then someone else's until people start complaining about how much cake you've eaten but you still don't care because you got more cake on the way. The cake train is a-coming. Choo Choo!"

And why put such a negative character trait as selfishness and associate it with cake? Cake never did anything wrong. Cake is either directly or indirectly always involved with celebration.

DIRECTLY
Birthday party

INDIRECTLY
It's only $8.99 at Kroger and even though there "technically" isn't anything to celebrate, you can always celebrate the fact that no one else knows about this cake and you have it all to yourself

Have you ever had no reason cake? Like your friends went to a birthday party and brought some home and you get a piece? It's the best feeling. You have no connection to the person. If not for them celebrating, you'd never have cake but really you could care less about what it was they were celebrating. No emotional investment at all in that person's life. It's free cake without having to give a gift or any of your personal time. You win

I hate when people turn down cake. Like at a wedding or birthday. I used to think "Do they not realize that you don't get offered cake every day? Water, yes. But no one has a cake faucet at home." And then I realized that maybe they're one of those $8.99 Kroger Cake Kids who are gonna leave the reception, go home and munch down on some random kid's birthday cake that his Xanex-ed up soccer mom forgot to pick up

Hard to be mad at any function when there's cake. Cake could clear up tension in the Middle East. Hard to be mad at the Palestinians when you have carrot cake frosting on your lip. Of course I'm sure both the Israelis and Palestinians would fight over who got the icing, or the bigger slice, or they'd claim one side of the cake, leaving a sort of Gaza Strip of cake in the middle for no one to get

Who knew cake could be so controversial

I have a note..

2005-09-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

To: Mr. Blogspot
1200 Lackuv Drive
Dallas, Texas 75040

I am writing to explain the events of Tuesday, September 27th, that prompted me to miss the 2nd Blogger.com Take Your Blog to Work Day. I hope that you appreciate my honesty in this matter.

I could easily concoct a story detailing an overturned big-rig and my near fatal miss while tailgating him in my Daewoo.

But I won't.

I can insist that nobody told me of this event, and as a result, I went to go test out mattresses at Bed, Bath, and Beyond by bellyflopping on them from the dresser drawer section.

But that would be false.

I would tell you that it's a racial thing. Blogger.com doesn't appreciate the contribution of South Asians to this part of the Internet. Where else can you find humor, Bollywood gossip, and fish curry recipes all at the left-click of a mouse? But does blogger promote that? Of course not, they'd rather you be concerned with Demetrius in Helsinki's take on The Real World: Austin. Racist? Possibly. The truth?

Definitely not.

I had a heavy night of booze and biscuits. I drank 5 Newcastles and 2 shots of Tuaca. Then capped off my drunken stupor with a dessert of Whataburger's attempt at the McMuffin. This does happen. But we call that Friday

It's Tuesday.

Grandma called. She's sick. Her last wish was to see me. As much as I love to blog, I love my heritage too. And I'd hate to think that I missed her last few days on Earth because I wanted to rant about breakfast cereal. This is a situation I hope never happens.

And so far it hasn't

My dog ate my blog

I don't have a dog.

I was nestled underneath the covers. Warm, toasty. You know you're sound asleep when you have dreams of yourself sleeping. Spooning with Mr. Sandman. The Boogeyman sang me a lullaby. Who knew he had such a soothing tenor?

That's the truth.

I'll come into work tomorrow. Bright and early. 8am, I'm bringing Krispy Kreme. Early, I'll be. Bright? I can't guarantee that. See you Wednesday

Paul

The Sequel

2005-09-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

So this has been the most unproductive month of blogging yet. The entries have slowly been dissipating. If you made a line graph to chart the amount of blogs I've put in per month as the months have gone by, it'd look very similar to the line graph that charts President Bush's approval rating.

So drastic shortage of blog entries has led me to drastic measures. So when I get back into town next week? Tuesday will be PaulVarghese.blogspot.com's Take your Blog to Work Day 2: The Revenge. Seventeen blogs in eight hours. Four bouts of insanity. Two blogs about how insane this endeavor is. And a crack pipe in a pear tree

When We Last Left Paul..

2005-09-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

It was August. My cellphone billing cycle had just been replenished. I had come back from D.C. I was rambling about redneck love and was headed to my high school reunion

Flash forward to Labor Day

It's September. I'm waiting for my cellphone billing cycle to replenish. I'm headed to Austin this week. I've personally witnessed redneck love in the form of Exhibit A mugging down at a Denny's over the Moons Over My Hammy platter and the reunion was non-eventful.

The next three weeks look to be somewhat eventful for me. I'm entertaining the orangey folks of UT Austin this week, then off to L.A for an NBC showcase of some sorts then to Laredo, Texas to share some border love to the borderistas over there then off to Vancouver to be in a comedy festival up there. Slightly hectic but travel makes the world go round .. I think

So it turned out at the reunion that I ended up not talking to people I didn't talk to anyway in high school. The people I did talk to came up to me. And even ten years later, dirty looks still exist. So my advice to anyone out there who doesn't want to go to their high school reunion? Go. You couldn't be any lamer than me in high school and the reunion experience wasn't as disgusting or down-trodden as I enivisioned it to be. In fact just to get revenge, I walked by all the guys who were jocks in high school and knocked their beers out of their hands.

It's Labor Day and nobody's working. What? Today's the day where the homeless feel like part of the crowd. Where all the struggling musicians, who mooch off their Hooters' waitress girlfriends, wonder why the mail didn't come in today. Where comedians like me use the lack of working bank employees as an opportunity to blog and try to come up with jokes about Labor Day.

Labor Night would be even more interesting. Just one night out of the year where nobody would have to worry about getting mugged or shot. Criminals are forced to take a night off, it's a federal thing baby! T'would suck for bars though. It'd force families to have to make their own dinner. It'd force my friends and I to bond over Yahtzee and chocolate milk.. I hate Labor Night

I have a lamp that won't turn off. I keep pulling its chain - nothing. Like it refuses to clock out. It's gonna show me that I made the right decision in buying him and not end up like the rest of them that end up in my aunt's garage. He's trying to earn a spot in my heart when he's really just being annoying. It's like someone coming to mow your lawn and they keep mowing. Grass has been mowed. Mowing has been established. He keeps mowing, thinking his mowing will make you love him all the more. No. You've done your job. Go home. I'll write you a hot check later.

Mr. Lamp. Know your role. It's 2 p.m. Your work is done here. Clap off

Gather 'Round

2005-08-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Someone told me a story of irony that I thought I should elaborate on. Come on, it's a fun little game and it starts .. right .. now

She saw a truck hauling a load full of tires. Then, lo and behold, the truck got a flat.

"How convenient" , she thought.

To which I responded,

"It could've only gotten more convenient had the truck swerved off the road and into a hospital."

" .. And then maybe the bricks of the hospital collapsed onto the engine, breaking it so as not to overheat. As the nurses pull the driver out of his car, his driver's license and medical insurance card have fallen out of his wallet. The driver's so panicked by the accident that he goes into a state of shock, and, therefore, doesn't need anesthesia to pass out. Also the fact that he's passed out prevents him from remembering that he's gonna get fired and laughed at when he gets back to work

Back at the tire-hauling factory, Ring-A-Ding-Bring-Bring, they just took out insurance on that truck, after years of scraping by the law. They were also looking to fire the driver, Bocephus, and this just gives them every reason. Not for being careless, but the guy who drove the truck before had left a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels in the glove compartment and you can always pin the accident on that

Meanwhile outside the hospital, the tires have fallen off the truck, and a few select ones rolled themselves onto a nearby playground, where sandbox activities have now become cumbersome. No swings because someone tore them .. until one kid sees the tires and improvises. Another kid stacks the tires and jumps in, peeking his head out.

"I'm the Michelin Man", he proclaims.

One girl, Sue Shooby Doo, loves a man with a sense of humor, but doesn't know it just yet, because she's only 6. Twelve years from now when the "Michelin Man" asks her to prom, Sue Shooby Doo accepts. Cupid has shot his bow and arrow of love into their collective asses. Babies are made

Flash back just a few days prior and peek into Bocephus the bad truck driver's home, and you see his disgruntled wife, Glendalyn. She's told him time and time again that he needs to get corrective lenses and quit squinting at the damn tv.

"You can't tell which one's Bob Barker and which one's Larry the Cable Guy!", she hollered from the kitchen.

At that time he muttered under his breath, "That lady's turning into her mother", not aware that she was correct in her assessment.

He sporks away at his Swanson tv dinner and wishes he was "anywhere but here". That horrible Natalie Portman movie comes on TNT. He chokes on a brownie bone

Flash forward 5 months later. Glendalyn walks into a courtroom to testify in the case of "Ring-A-Ding-Bring-Bring versus Bocephus Twitty" On the witness stand, she re-iterates the numerous incompetent things Bocephus had done in their last 8 months of marriage, from using the babys' diaper money to add a chimney onto their trailer to bringing home extra tires, from work, to burn so he could get high off the rubber fumes. Ring-A-Ding-Bring-Bring's boss testifies as well and their common thread of hatred towards Bocephus brings them together. They meet up for Burger King after the trial. Cupid bucks off some shots into their butt cheeks. More babies are born"

This entire conversational rant lasted two rounds of drinks

So I guess what I'm trying to say folks is .. Check your car before you ever take it driving. Because when you don't, stories like this become a reality. Thank you very much. I'm so glad I just wasted your time.

Insecurity Blanket

2005-08-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

I'm three days away from my high school reunion. Should I go? Should I stay? It's the same dilemma I faced 10 years ago when prom rolled around. I had no date so I didn't go. I don't regret it, but the fact that I didn't go was like a microcosm of my entire high school experience. I just don't want to get laughed at. Am I living in the past? Not at all. That being said, I do need to make sure before I drive up there, to wash off the remaining shoe polish off my back window and take off the Seniors'95 tassel hanging from my rearview.

Grosse Pointe Blank's one of my favorite films. I'd like to think I'm a little Cusackian with how I view this whole thing. I can actually only hope that my reunion is just as eventful. Not by people recognizing me, but I'm hoping to go to my old locker and kill a guy in the hallway.

Back to my inner turmoil: You can't enjoy your future without recognizing your past. I recognize my past. Doesn't mean I think it's attractive or charming. Funny in a depraved way. But if my past were a woman? I'd never date it. It knows too much about me. It has pictures.

The main worry is that going back there will bring back feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that I haven't experienced since ... Thursday

And I've always been told that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. It builds character. I've got so much character built, I could write my own Star Wars Trilogy. I've got Jabbas and Chewbaccas full of character. This whole experience will be an exercise in futility. And the last time I checked my futilitic muscles were doing just fine. I didn't need to tone up my futes. In fact I get the most compliments on what a nice futeous maximus I have.

I got it from my mama

I thought about bringing my yearbook to the reunion. You know, to get all the signatures I didn't have the nerve to ask for. I got confidence now. I can walk up to the hot girl from my 1994 English Lit Class and ask her to sign my annual. I can do that. I've grown. Remember me? I got confidence and character now .... and more importantly, a blog.

Whenever I get into a relationship, I like to give the girl a cute nickname ... like NBC or HBO. That way whenever she calls me and I have to take the call ..

A) I don't look whipped
B) I look like I'm an important somebody

"Hey NBC! Pardon me guys, it's NBC, I have to take this call"

"Wow, Paul's always talking to NBC. They want him so bad they call him at 2 in the morning. It must be important"

Sir Nap-A-Lot

2005-08-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

So if you haven't been to the homepage of my website then you're really missing out. Scroll down and look towards the southwest side of it. Those were sent to me by a friend of mine, so if you have pictures of your co-workers behaving the same way, feel free to e-mail me through my website, and each month I'll post them on my site. Then we can all laugh at their incompetence and narcolepsy together.

I shouldn't pass judgement because I myself have visited slumberland at the assorted jobs I've held. In fact I once got fired from a temp job because I dozed off at my cubicle. Do you understand? Fired from a temp job

"Yeah Paul, you weren't supposed to be here a long time and now we don't even want you here that long"

It's that cubicular boredom that prompted me to try stand-up comedy. I mean how bored do I have to be to just fall asleep onstage? The chances are slim. I didn't get into stand-up comedy to express myself creatively, to entertain the masses, or to destroy the South Asian stereotypes that pervade society. I'm telling jokes because it's the one thing I know I won't fall asleep doing

From now on if you want to leave comments you have to register with blogspot.com. You don't have to create a blog but just register a screenname (Don't worry Indian people, it's free to sign up). I had to go back to only letting registered users leave comments because in the last few days my blog was being swamped with spam advertisements.

"I enjoyed your blog. Come check out mine. I have a great rundown on the perks of Sears aluminum siding"

No thank you. Spam mail is annoying and pestering. They're like the internet homeless.

"Hey..Excuse me sir..Would you like to reunite with your high school classmates?
Hey..Pardon me..Have you ever tried Cialis?"

The closest thing we have to getting in our car and leaving or pepper spraying those bastards is to block them by only allowing registered users. So here's to hoping that I never have to experience their spamhandling every again.

I'll blog to that.

In Memory of VH1's Pop-Up Video

2005-08-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Cue "Flashlight" music

So when we last left Paul.. he was on his way to D.C and then New York. Let's find out what happened

(Bloop) George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic also had a song called "Chocolate City", the nickname for Washington D.C (Bloop)

D.C involved a missed flight (because of oversleptedness), some really bad orange chicken from Manchu Wok, a great crowd and an afterparty that included a shot of Grand Marnier (never ever do that) and me being asked to get off of a sofa.

(Bloop) When Paul gets slightly inebriated, he stands on furniture: tables, chairs, hammocks. Nothing is sacred (Bloop)

I never got to see anything D.C is known for. No presidents, no monuments. If D.C stood for Deranged Crackheads, I saw plenty of those. They were in abundance. Like body odor at the DMV. The whole weekend was put together by the guys over at www.desivision.tv. They're just starting out and could use the support a.k.a viewership. They taped the show and will be showing a few clips in months to come.

(Bloop) Another internet tv show came out to film a show Paul did down in Texas, www.asianlivetv.com, and that footage will come out in a few months (Bloop)

So we truck it (actually Honda Civic) it out to New York the next day. It's at this moment that I fall asleep in the car. I'm an ugly sleeper. The kind of sleeper where people take pictures and point and giggle and tell anyone within earshot of my putrid display of nighty-night time. I don't really have the mouth open thing as much, moreso than the eye open thing going on. I know. Creepy. In this case, the eyes were half open, pupils rolled up, so all you see is the whites of my eyes, ala Method Man in Bring the Pain, or any zombie movie ever made. I have no control over that. I don't choose it. According to the internet, it can be caused by intoxication or heredity or scarring of the eyelid. Intoxication might be it. It ain't heredity. But I do have scarring on my eyelid.

(Bloop) Paul had surgery to fix his eyelid when he was 6. When he awoke from it, he cried like a little bitch (Bloop)

When I was in college, I found out how to doze off while listening to a Physics 1080 lecture by staring at the chalkboard. I've had some of my best naps when in lecture halls. In fact I want to be so rich one day that I can afford a tenured professor to stand at the foot of my bed every night and explain to me inertia and Schroedinger's equation.

I tried to defend myself to the fellow car passengers

(Bloop) They vowed amongst themselves that the next time it happened, they'd Kodak the moment (Bloop)

I told them it was my way of keeping my eyes on them while still catching some well-deserved sleepy time. They weren't buying it. I even referenced Metallica's "Enter Sandman". Still didn't buy it. I hung my head in shame..and to sleep again without them giggling at me.

Cue "Funkytown"

I make it to New York successfully, meaning no photographic evidence of my sleep habits.

(Bloop) The song "Funkytown" was written about New York City. It was also featured in Shrek 2 (Bloop)

I get to hang with folks I haven't seen in awhile, including my friend Tara. I met her at my friend's wedding a few months ago.. and since I'm throwing so many links into this blog I might as well plug his site as well, www.anilv.com

(Bloop) If you scroll through his archives, you'll find a link of Paul's performance on Last Comic Standing, doing the Boogeyman joke. Check out the french blue sweater (Bloop)

So Tara and I have a weird connection. She was also on reality tv and maybe I shouldn't mention it, but she never said I couldn't, so Bloop away

As you wish Paul..
(Bloop) If you keep scouring through www.anilv.com you'll also see previously mentioned Tara on MTV's Boiling Points (Bloop)
Back to you Paul

Thank you Bloop Boy. So New York was great. Crowds were incredible and laughs were had. Final count: Two satisfied audiences, One drag queen dj, two men making out, two Ketel One's and 7, and some chicken and rice, courtesy of an NYC street vendor

Time to go watch The Aristocrats. A movie that only comics would enjoy. For another one of those kinds of movies, rent Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld

(Bloop) It'll show you the background of what a comedian is all about. I like this movie alot. Wait, as Bloop Boy, I'm just supposed to lay down facts, not opinions. Gotta go (Bloop)

Synapse Crackle Pop

2005-08-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

Just when I begin to lose hope in all mankind, people amaze me. I never realized how thoughtful we've become as a nation and how caring and considerate we are until I got robbed this weekend, and right after the criminal took all my money, he handed me a comment card

WHEN I POINTED THE GUN AT YOUR CHEST, HOW WOULD YOU RATE YOUR FEAR?

1) Not scared at all
2) Fairly scared
3) Somewhat scared
4) Wet myself

Cool thing was, the survey was anonymous. All I had to do was call a 1-800 number and they entered me into a drawing to win my money back.

I'm headed to D.C and New York this weekend for a couple of shows. Never been to D.C. They call D.C "Chocolate City" because there's so many black people there. But you put a bunch of Indian people in one place in America it's called "FBI Alert"

Let's be honest, Indians/Pakistanis/Sri Lankans/Bangladeshis a.k.a South Asians, we're the real meaning of chocolate. We're lighter skinned than most black people. I'm not called black, I'm called brown and when you think of chocolate you think of Nestle Crunch, Milky Way, not Hershey's Dark Special. I'm just saying let's put the label where it belongs.

See this skin of mine? Milk Chocolate:Yoo-Hoo:Eskimo Pie
Wesley Snipes? Licorice: Yager: Beef Jerky

I was talking to a fellow blogger, and we got on the topic of why we blog. I do it to whet my creative appetite and to conjure up material for my act. He blogs.. and I quote, "For shits and giggles"

Shits and giggles? Do those even go together? Because I've never done both at the same time

Did you hear that?
A joke was born.
And it's all mine, so don't touch it. Hands off. Get your own.

Sappy Paul is No More

2005-08-02T08:12:00.000-07:00

The more I read that last post about my parents' anniversary, the more my blood sugar rises. I've gone soft. I'm doughy. Chock full of nougat and kittens

BANG! BANG!

Good.. There. That won't happen again.

Have you ever stared into the barrel of a shotgun and second-guessed your decision to run naked through a Ku Klux Klan meeting?

Some blame it on their racist views, I think it's just cus it was Monday. Those are never fun for any organization, regardless of location or racial bias

I've become addicted to Cookies 'N' Cream. Why the "N" instead of "And"? That's the only time that that country ass abbreviation is ever used. Did a farmer concoct it?

"I made a new dessert by combining cookies 'N' cream! Quick Merle, go tell your brother 'N' sister!"

The best example of product denial is the fact that all ice cream companies refuse to acknowledge the type of cookie in Cookies 'N' Cream. We all know. Everyone's eating it, knowing what they're eating. Just quit being so stubborn and embrace the cookie that's in the cream. Oreo and/or Hydrox would be so happy.

I'm glad we get the brilliance that is Oreos 'N' Cream (Call it this from now on people. The revolution begins today) I'd hate to be the taste test guinea pig when they were still in deliberations on which cookie to dunk in cream.

Gingerbread? Sugar? Those pink ones with the dots on them? Those nasty butter cookies my mom always bought and ended up using the empty tin can to store her Indian cookies? (By the way, there's no such thing as an Indian cookie. They either call them sugar biscuits, or they make them so brittle and crunchy, they'll cut your gums upon entry)

Indians make chips out of fruit. Jackfruit chips, banana chips. I love the United States, we make chips out of potatoes and fat. In fact if that isn't disgusting enough, we're still trying to invent new flavors to further tempt you. Salt and vinegar is a flavor. That's what the Romans put on a stick and fed to Jesus while he was on the cross. I'm guessing he ain't picking up that bag of Lay's anytime soon. He strikes me as a sour cream and onion kind of savior.

Doritos has 9 different flavors. Why? No other chip company has successfully copied their nacho cheese recipe. I would've shut down the product development department of Doritos 20 years ago and lived off that one recipe alone. I'd use the money saved to advertise on bags of weed all across the country. Coupons on nickelbags equals me on the Forbes Top 100 list.

I'm a hustla baby.

Let's Slow Things Down for a Bit..

2005-08-01T10:50:00.000-07:00

So after a lackluster month of blog updating for July, I've recommitted myself to the cause. Someone told me I should do updates on the shows I perform at, kinda like a road journal of sorts.

Nah. Don't think so. Who wants to hear about penthouse suites, hot tubs, and champagne flutes? Who wants to know that the life of a comedian on the road is very similar to that of a rap video? Who wants to know that the status of a comedian in any town across America is the equivalent to Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers strolling thru your villa?

I do. I wish. T'will never be

It's Holiday Inn. Remote bolted to the nightstand. 75 cent Dr. Peppers from a vending machine. The equivalent of Snow passing through your abode. Snow from "Informer" fame.

My parents celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary yesterday. Thirty five years is a long long time. I've been around for 28 and I'm sick of myself. If I had to guess how they made it work, I'd say it's because they're complete opposites

My mom's the talker: My dad listens
My mom's the laugher: My dad's the one that makes her laugh
My mom cooks: My dad eats
My mom's a woman: My dad isn't

But they're similar in the one area that they need to be. They're both stubborn when it comes to decisions. There's no flakiness or wishywashyness between them. They either like you or they don't.

One of the many things I adore them for is the fact that they've never felt the need to be the most popular people in the Indian community. That's what our community is known for. People wanting to feel like they're famous or everyone knows them or that they have the most friends. The perfect example is the size of weddings that Indians have. It's a yearly competition to see which couple can have the most people at their wedding or even anniversary. And to be fair, alot of times it's not the couple's decision to overload the church with six degrees of separation, it's the parents'. But my parents have never been that way. They never felt validated by the number of people around them. They knew that there was no way that that many people really gave a damn about you. They rested easy in the fact that they could have a handful of sincere, close friends and family around them. They know life is not about how many friends you have but who those friends are.

Life isn't high school. My parents aren't running for Homecoming King and Queen. My dad has no aspirations to be Senior Class President, and my mom isn't about to start making cupcakes and buttons to aid in his campaign.

My sister and I have subconsciously adopted that same mindstate. Both of us are in the public eye, so we have alot of acquaintances, but there's only a small group of people that we actually allow to be a part of our lives. To me, it's the way to go. I have friends who love the idea of being popular. Popular is not all it's cracked up to be. Popular's only fun when you have the unpopular to make fun of. At least that was the motto at my high school.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad Varghese.

Miss Her, Kiss Her, Love Her

2005-07-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

I once was whole. Solid. Pristene. Noble, strong. Elegance glistened from my countenance like glitter on a stripper. If I was a rock formation, I'd be Gibraltar.

But all that has changed. I am transformed. What once was considered unscathed and unaltered has now been tinkered, contaminated, and altogether deteriorated. My soul has regressed from a Gibraltar-like status to that of the Grand Canyon. From world-wide natural wonder to a tourist attraction. From a shining example of God's power to the place where Bobby and Cindy Brady once got lost.

I was happy, sincere, full of dreams and other positive hallucinations. But then SHE came into my life... Like the Colorado River. Emotionally eroding everything that I thought was real. She altered my perception with one twist and turn of her rapidly moving waters.

Her name? That's not important. What is important is that I'll never get what I once had, back. She's taken that away. She's made her mark.. And I have the postcard to prove it

Her name? Still not important. That's not why I wrote this blog. I wrote to express. I wrote to confess. I wrote to digress from all the ridiculous monotony that this blog has crumbled itself into.

Her name? Will you quit asking me? What? Do you wanna hook up with her? Back off. Quit being so nosy. I told you it's not important. Look, I shouldn't have even said anything. Next time I'll just keep it to my own brain blog. The one that never gets uploaded for public consumption. Thanks alot. I'm trying to make a point and this whole time you're just trying to get into her panties. Look, I thought you'd listen and instead you're hung up on her name. Fine. I'll give it to you

Stand-up Comedy

Don't ever get involved with her. She's poison. Poison. Poison. Poison. P-P-P-P-P Poison.

Buy or Cell

2005-07-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Why are these being advertised online? It's like getting a call on your cellphone from a pager company trying to sell you on a year-long service plan

My friend got an advertisement texted to his cellphone. That's annoying as is: the fact that spam has broken thru to a whole new medium. What was even more ridiculous was that the ad read "If you'd like to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send back a text message saying UNSUBSCRIBE "

How do you invade privacy then put the onus on the invadee to say something about it? You don't break into someone's house just because they never told you not to.

Hey, if you're gonna advertise on my cellphone then atleast sell relatable products

DRUNKGUARD (Much like a breathalyzer, you have to blow in the receiver and it decides if you're too drunk to dial. Prevents calls to the ex or any of their friends you've had a crush on)

AN "I'M NOT SCHIZOPHRENIC" FOREHEAD STICKER (To be worn when using one of those earpieces to talk through. Prevents you from being mistaken for a random babbling crack junkie)

MOOD RINGS (Ringtones that will give you different sounds according to the mood of the person calling from the other end. So like if your girlfriend/boyfriend is calling and they're pissed it plays like Prodigy's Smack My Bitch up or any Nine Inch Nails song, then you know not to answer it. If Jay-Z's Big Pimpin pops up, you know a night of random loving awaits)

VIDEO OPTIONS (So you can see what your friends are really doing when they're talking to you. Cellphones have given people the option to talk while doing anything, and by knowing what your friend is doing while he/she is talking to you can let you know where you stand on the buddy buddy totem pole. If she's talking to you while lying in bed naked [SCORE] If she's talking to you while lying in bed naked.. with someone else [YOU'VE BEEN PLAYED]

GEIGER COUNTER (I know that radiation is slowly leaking into my skull with every conversation. Just let me know how much. Not specifically in scientific increments that I wouldn't understand. Just give me an approximate countdown in years, days, and hours as to when exactly I will begin to slur my speech and grow a blowhole)

Finally I'd like to save as much money on my next cellphone bill as I did switching to Geico. So little lizard get to work.

Gets to Typin

2005-07-20T18:48:00.000-07:00

Only 11 days left in the month and let's see the blog count for July?..Hmm..okay...carry the one..

ONE

Yeah, I've been slacking. You can blame it on many things. More travel for stand-up than I've ever had before. Still reeling from the 1st ever Take Your Blog to Work Day. Senior-itis

That's what they used to call in high school, the apathy that set in with high school seniors when there was only a few months left before graduation. I suffer from procrastination and a lack of discipline all the time. This blog is a testament to that.

I'd be the worst superhero. Putting off saving people from petty crimes like carjackings and pursesnatching and just waiting for The Penguin to go for his big score. After all, villians ain't just villians on Mondays. It's a lifelong commitment. In fact those guys are more committed and disciplined than their heroic counterparts. They've always got more elaborate costumes, some have riddles, others practice a demonic laugh, and yet others must learn how to cope with their brand new monstrous disfiguration and how to use it to their advantage

Why do we never get to hear about the villians' rehabilitation back into society? You know, when they finally get out on parole and have to assimilate themselves back into everyday normal humdrum...

I wanna see The Penguin sacking groceries. Dr. Octopus driving an ice cream truck through the ghetto. I need to re-route this blog now. Superhero babble never gets the chicks.

So I care. I'm sensitive. I'm a great listener. Since when did listening become an attractive personality trait? It's what everybody does. If someone's not listening it's because the person volleying conversation on the other end is boring. It has nothing to do with the self-centered, disinterested, egotistical man on the other end. It's not our fault. Football has instant replay, that's what conversation with your significant other needs. Because it's always that moment where your concentration drifts off for a second that you miss a vital piece of information..

"So she told me that.."
- get sidetracked when someone walks by with a vanilla cupcake -
"What do you think she meant by it?

Let's go to the replay! Just remember that even in the NFL where millions of dollars are at stake, instant replay can only be used twice a game. So ration out your zoning-outedness fellas. Remember, you'll need to save atleast one for when she reminds you of y'all's anniversary.

Home is Where the Blog is

2005-07-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

So I finally am situated for the next few days or so to pool some thoughts together. I didn't realize how long it's been since I last blogged. Last month to be exact and that was a complete mind bender. So to recap where I've been the last 2 weeks let's go to the map, shall we?

Dallas to Miami to the Bahamas back to Miami to Dallas to Chicago to L.A to back home

My suitcase even had the stickers with the names of each destination on it just like you see in cartoons, not for souvenir purposes, but because the airlines lost my baggage. They were always one city behind.

Miami to the Bahamas was a cruiseship. First time ever on a cruise and I didn't realize how trashy cruise patrons can be. How come the people that shouldn't be in swimsuits always just wanna be? It's not called a two-piece because that's your favorite dinner at KFC. Just like guys, it's not called swim "trunks" because your body resembles that of an elephant.

Look, I'm not a ripped guy by any means. I'm lean cut. Grade A. I'm aware of my flaws. Many are not. Granted, maybe I'm bitter because these cretins were taking up valuable poolspace and I was afraid of diving in and getting stuck. It was like a house party in the hot tub (By the way if you saw the people sitting in the "hot tub", you'd realize that there was nothing "hot" about that tub). Because I was expecting a Jay-Z video, when instead I got Richard Simmons

No clocks. No shuffleboard. No Julie the Cruise Director. Lots of sun. Lots of flesh. Gobs and gobs of it. Even lost my cellphone signal for 3 days while we were out there. Freaked me out because it's like being dead. No one knows where you are, you have no contact with them. Creepy. Especially if people knew that where I was was more similar to Hell than Heaven

Despite the visuals, the cruise was great. The people were so nice. The shows I performed at were incredible. The most diverse group I've ever performed to with ages ranging from 5 to 75, and one-fourth of them not even speaking English. A little kid heckled me throughout the first show but I had security escort him out. They put him in a sleeperhold then threw him overboard. Don't worry though, I put a luggage tag around his wrist so when the island natives find him washed ashore they know where to send him back

Illinois was this past weekend and was my very first ever headlining gig in a theater. We went to a local bar the night before and that marked my very first time singing karaoke (in Skokie) and because of the response I got from the drunken crowd, I've now decided that when I'm in a situation where karaoke breaks out it's time for me to make my mark. The song I sang? You guessed it

Special thanks out to Yav, Sireen and his whole family for showing us the greatest time out there. I wish all promoters treated us the way you did. It meant so much. If you want to know how to treat performers, email those guys and ask how it's done.

L.A was how L.A always is. No parking and expensive. I love the crowds there. We flew in on Saturday morning at 11 a.m, had no sleep, had come straight from a bar in Illinois to the airport and walked around the festival in L.A on Saturday, smelling like Friday. Stankonia. No sleep and no soap make Paul a bad bitter boy. I finally de-funked an hour before the show and then all was right with the world. That night the vodka poured like raindrops in Brazil, it was really poetic..and intoxicating..and queasy

I'm back for a little spat and then a corporate gig and then Houston on Wednesday, July 20th at the Improv. So if you're around Houston, come support. If not, tell folks who live down there. I need love. We need love. That's really what the world's missing..

Well that and pre-made Tang in a jug

End of Blogarithm

2005-06-29T16:41:00.000-07:00

Time to pack my things and just sit at my cubicle for the next 20 minutes. I'm envisioning Happy Hour. Not a place where alcohol flows like Rapunzel's hair but a place where blogging is a thing of the past. Where creativity gets renewed refreshed. A place where there are no more late fees.

I've had a late fee at Blockbuster for over a year now on the movie Latin Kings of Comedy. I'm so adamant about not paying it because it's my friend's fault for keeping it out 2 days overdue, that I haven't been back to Blockbuster since. It's not that I don't appreciate movies. The Coen Brothers are my favorite filmmakers. In fact maybe if I didn't have this late fee, I wouldn't have this kind of time to blog. I'd be watching Big Momma's House and...

Wait, I'd rather blog

For those of you who don't know what went on all day today, since I do stand-up fulltime I decided to live a day in the life of the normal working person. I blogged from 8 to 5, twice an hour, taking a lunch break, so that it gave me some semblance of a workday. Scroll all the way down or look up the blog entry Eight O'Clock ish to start at the beginning.

I was off on a roll for a while, but for the last couple of hours it's been a chore to get any kind of blogwork done. Doing the math, it's 17 blogs in a day. My creativity well is dry. Spit in it all you want. This puppy needs a week to refresh.

I love to write. It's what keeps me somewhat sane. This whole experience though tested my creative limits. I recommend it for those who have the time because, especially being a comic, you must write. Not only when things are funny to you or when you're feeling funny, but when things aren't funny (make them funny) and especially when you're not feeling funny. It's not about being funny rather than thinking funny. Write and the think funny will come

So let's recap what we learned in the first ever Take Your Blog to Work Day.
- The President always looks like he's about to start laughing
- Plan B for me: Vegas lounge singer
- Drunk equals Sleepy
- I temped a temp job
- Donuts over bagels any day
- Don't hold back a hero
- Fetuses don't need stimulation
- I've got jury duty
- Don't follow in Lint's footsteps
- High school sucked
- The audience is the boss

Take these. These truths which I have given to you and store them keep them cherish them Superfly them into something sweet, life-affirming, and altogether downright funky.

See you next week

Point of Authority

2005-06-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

The next couple of weeks are the busiest travel-wise since I started doing stand-up 4 years ago. It's the Bahamas for the weekend, then off to Illinois next Thursday and L.A that Saturday. All are in front of completely different crowds, demographic-wise. The trickiest thing with stand-up is learning how to adjust your act according to the audience. The audience is the boss and it's your job as a comedian to make sure the boss is happy.

The boss decides what's funny. It's up to you to appease the boss yet maintain your artistic integrity at the same time. Sometimes the boss just stares at you. You wanna kick him. But you can't because he's the reason you're getting paid. Sometimes the boss is eating and you still have to compete for his attention. Never works. When the boss is eating, the boss is focused on eating. I could be naked riding a pogo stick on ice and he wouldn't even lift his head. Bosses come in different ages, races, religions. Especially Indian bosses. If you talk about Hinduism to a Muslim boss, they don't wanna hear it and vice versa. Christian bosses don't like hearing about any kind of religion at all.

The best time to schmooze to your boss? When he's drunk. That's when the boss is generous, having a great time. Sometimes you can call the boss whatever you want because he's so wasted he doesn't realize what you're saying. Different comedians have different bosses. The key is to one day have your very own boss. That loves what you do every time out. He loves you even when you blog. I want a boss. My very own boss. To love me to hold me to pat me on the head.

But I need a promotion first.

Positive Regression

2005-06-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

It's two months until my high school reunion, and I'm still unsure whether to go. I'd like to think I could handle it, but the memories are so annoyingly irritating, why would I wanna relive it? There's two schools of thought when it comes to how to approach your reunion. Some people tell me to go because you'll have a great time. Some say that I shouldn't go and that it's a miserable time. The first group I call "the popular kids" the second group were "nerds like me"

I've never shaken the nerd status. I just assume no one can tell I'm a nerd because I stay well hidden behind my Gandalf beard. I'd like to think I'm much more confident now than I was then. But I think seeing all the girls now that never dug me back then would just make me revert back to adolescent Paul who sat with the Asian immigrant kids at lunch because the hot girls didn't want me at their table.

I did learn to speak Vietnamese though. I learned "loser", "let me borrow your homework" and "pizza day". Thank you Truong Nguyen. If you had never told me such things, I'd never have been so cultured.

I'm O.B ing today (over-blogging) just to see if I can do it and it is the biggest mental collapse I've felt in a while. I've never stretched my creativity to the point to where it looks like it'll never snap back but I think I've reached that point. I didn't want to talk about the struggle of blogging 17 times in one day, but my brain's goo. Soupy. I don't feel funny. And I still have a couple of more blogs to go. Shhh. If you close your eyes, you can hear my blog trainer barking at me to keep going

"Two More Varghese! Feel the Burn!"

Tree: Twelve P.M

2005-06-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend in L.A the dj told me that he also rents out animals for people's weddings. For a Korean wedding, the bride's father wanted a giraffe.

So there it was, a giraffe munching on leaves while the ceremony went on. Each step the giraffe made, the entire wedding party flinched. He wanted a giraffe because he said his daughter liked giraffes. If I was divorcing that woman I'd bring a picture of the giraffe to court

"Your honor, the defendant says she's not high-maintenance. I know we had the wedding in our backyard, but look at what's eating the leaves. The dogs were so scared they wouldn't go outside for weeks."

I like monkeys, but I don't want them dressed in tuxes, posing as my groomsmen. I do like cereal though, so if instead of bouquets I could have each bridesmaid holding a box of Cocoa Pebbles, I'd be a happy hubby.

Fading Fast

2005-06-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I'll be in Miami to jump on a cruise ship to head to the Bahamas. I have no idea what to expect. I know that I will end up much darker than I did boarding the ship.

That's a big deal among the Indian community. Many Indian people still consider light-skinned people to be more attractive. Some actually think it's a sign of intelligence. To each their own as to what they consider more attractive but to think I'm dumber because of my skin color? That's implying that all of us Indians started off light-skinned and the second we did something wrong we dropped a shade. With this logic and this skin tone, I must've toiletpapered Mount Rushmore.

It's bad enough that racism still exists, but to have your own people judge you based on how dark you are is pathetic. As light-skinned an Indian as you think you are, there's always someone more light-skinned than you. I'd love to meet an Albino Indian just so I could come crawling to him in search of supreme knowledge and understanding of the universe. Every race has that sort of inner racism. Even in the Ku Klux Klan I bet there's one member who resents another because he has a freckle

That's a weird pigmentation. The freckle. Makes you wonder if a leopard's just a tiger who didn't put on sunblock. The fact that freckle rhymes with heckle makes sense. Because what's the 2 characters associated with freckles (Howdy Doody and Wendy's) Not exactly the manliest of personas. Black rhymes with smack for a reason (Bobby Brown and Ike Turner)

I've Lost It

2005-06-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

As my brain slowly begins to dissolve, I begin to grasp into the air for inspiration. Grasp Grasp. Oh what's this? A floating piece of lint. Lint why are you floating? Are you lost in life? Have you no focus? I told you Lint, you should've stayed in school, paid attention in Algebra class, gone to college and done something with your life. But you insisted that you'd work right out of high school and take a semester off. Now here we meet again Lint, let me guess..you're still at community college, working on your basics? Do you really even know what those are or is that what the lady who enrolled you into community college told you to tell people if they ever ask where you go to school? Lint, I know you thought the band would make it. I know you thought the short film you made on your cousin's camcorder would make you a star. I know your entire financial independence rested on your girlfriend's uncle hooking you up with that job at Sears. But Lint, you can chase potential or make something of your life. Maybe school's just not for you. It's not for everybody. But quit fooling me with your dreams of being big and famous and how you're not able to achieve it yet because you have too much stuff to take care of right now but if you could you would be famous. Let me guess, the world ain't ready for ya Lint? Lint I know everyone else sucks and they're all holding you back but at some point, buck up and do the right thing or else you'll end up floating on and on not realizing that you live such a sad existence. Ending up in that lint trap of life. Waiting for someone to open up the dryer, remove you, only to start all back over again. Don't go down that route Lint. I believe in you

And so does my sweater. Hug me

One:Fifty-Six

2005-06-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

The King Kong trailer is online. I'll watch it just because you have to. I just remember when monster movies weren't supposed to be scary. Some Japanese guy in a lizard suit jumping up and down, knocking down planes attached to fishing line. Monster movies shouldn't be scary. Movies, in general, shouldn't be scary. Life is scary as is. I don't want a movie that makes me scared to whisper Candyman into a mirror. You know what we used to call that? A fun Friday night. Just ruin everything I love to do Hollywood. I eagerly await Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rose McGowan in

The Blog: No Entry Allowed

I just got a jury summons. That's right, America needs me. I'd love to stay and blog but I need to start preparing for what could be a grueling 2 weeks of testimony. I'm ready this time. I know what I need to say to get on a jury.

"I know nothing. I'm married, so I have no opinion of my own. Exploit my ignorance."

Most don't want to be on a jury, but people, I got blog entries to blog, jokes to jot, comedy to construct, ideas to ideologize. The only time I ever went to jury duty we were all stuck there for an hour because one of the people in the jury pool insisted that she knew the defendant from somewhere. It was like watching someone at their high school reunion, except this lady would not let it go. It was a murder case and after an hour of hearing her try to place his face, I just stood up

"Look lady, do you want him to murder you too?"

Well I would've said that but I was too busy eating the paint off the wall. It's strange what boredom will do to even the most normal of human beings. I don't condone any crime but if she had rambled on any longer, that whole jury pool would've bludgeoned her with our summons cards.

Coming this Fall
Jury Duty: Death Sentence

Embryonical Advice

2005-06-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

I went to lunch with Herman from Human Resources. Great guy. Said that he and his wife are expecting a baby in December. Expecting a baby? Expecting, meaning you expect it to be human, but you won't be too surprised if it's like half-aardvark? Just give all pregnancy accomplishments to the wife. She's having a baby. You're just a bystander

It's been said that if you read to the baby while it's in the womb that it'll make the baby smarter. But isn't that assuming that whatever parent is reading is a good reader? I think it's really just one vicious cycle. Parent A stutters while they read to Fetus B. Fetus B becomes Parent B who's been stuttering their whole life. They try to read to Fetus C and so on and so on..

Don't read to your unborn baby. Because what if the baby doesn't like the book you're reading. Maybe Fetus C isn't a science-fiction fan, he's more about presidential biographies. It's like being stuck watching a TV channel cus there's no remote, everyone in the house is dead, and your pants were superglued to the La-Z-Boy

The book reading and the classical music can wait. You don't need to rush your kid into rich snob training. I think all these philosophies are the brainwashing brainstorms of the demons at Barnes and Noble corporate. So let me guess, don't feed your babies milk, just soy milk caramel macchiatos? What else oh mighty Barnes and Noble? No baby food, just cranberry crumb cake and biscotti?

My parents made me drink grape juice and watch Hee Haw. I came out just fine. Now time to write another self-indulgent blog.

Munchables.

2005-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

I'm out to lunch. I'm thinking Taco Bueno. Who knows where my leased Honda will take me

See you back at one. Would you like me to bring you anything?

I Know People

2005-06-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

Used to love the sack lunch. It's weird how innocent a brown paper sack is when you're 8. When you're 18? It's associated with dirty magazines and a 40 ounce.

I flew in from L.A on Sunday and halfway through there was so much turbulence. People were screaming and flipping out. I put them all at ease by frantically pulling out the In Case of Emergency card and cramming. I even called the flight attendant over to remind me again where the nearest exits were. I told the guy sitting next to the escape hatch that this ain't no dress rehearsal. It's showtime Passenger 57. At one point it was so shaky in the plane that the pilot got on the speaker and told us that that it was too dangerous for the flight attendants to walk through the aisles and check to see if our safety belts were on and our seats in the upright position. He said that he'd have us work under the "honor system" and we have to check our neighbors to see if they're in full compliance. That was the most unassuring thing a pilot could say. They pay those flight attendants to give everyone in coach a bad attitude. So they can come down that aisle as well, crawling if they have to. I'm not in charge of the security of this plane. I lost all chances of saving this aircraft when you confiscated my nail clipper at security check. You thought I was planning on giving myself a manicure? I keep it with me at all times incase a wire needs to be cut and re-routed. Yeah I got some pretty fingernails. But I'm Macgyver. Do you think this shaving cream is really shaving cream? It's potassium bicarbonate, otherwise known as fire extinguisher material. Some may think this is a normal cellphone, but who do I have on speed dial? That's right.

Wonder Woman

Nanoo Nanoo

2005-06-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

Where are you going for lunch?

Lunch at a day job always reminded me of recess. The teacher would bring out the box of toys to pick from. That's like the choice of restaurants you have at 12pm. The difference is, never at recess did you have to play with the football because the other kid, who decided whether you passed the first grade or not, wanted to play with it first.

If promotions are given at a lunch or dinner meeting, what happens when you get demoted?

"Paul, I didn't bring you to the vending machine for a Snickers.."

War of the Worlds comes out today. The aliens are trying to rid the world of Tom Cruise. He's so annoying and overexposed that other planets are flying in just to nuke him. Thank you Zorbot the Mighty!

Aliens should take over this world. Then they could look out for all the rest of us aliens. Make my uncles who are illegal, legal. Or maybe we immigrants, who everyone calls aliens, are the real aliens. That's why Indians run all these internet servers and computer companies. Chinese people run all the restaurants. The rest of the Asians are doctors or lawyers. Hispanics do everything else. That's how we're taking over. Not by laser beams but by the American Dream

Mu-ha-ha-ha!

Soon puny earthlings, we will be taking over your comedy clubs as well. Come watch the revolution begin next Friday July 8th in Skokie, Illinois. Click here for tickets.

Indubitably? Indubitably. Delicious

2005-06-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Did you know they have jelly donuts in the break room?

I never really understood the bagel. It always came off to me as a very pretentious donut

"I don't need sugar or glaze to make me scrumptious. I'm fine being me. In fact if YOU want me to taste better how about YOU put something on me. Toast me. Cream cheese me. I'm fine just being me. But if you have trouble accepting that then that's on you. Cut me in half if you must, but what you're really cutting in half is your own integrity"

Plus bagels are all about the seeds. Why make an already dry food even drier? That's like putting breadcrumbs on a Frito. It's the bland, dry nature of a bagel that made someone invent the donut.

"You know what this bagel's missing? Taste."

Taste is important to food. If it wasn't God wouldn't've put taste buds in the mouth. There's sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. None of which are on an ordinary bagel. If a starving kid had the choice of a bagel or a donut which one would he pick? The donut. Guaranteed. Because afterwards he could lick his sugary-submerged fingers. You lick your fingers after a bagel? You're tasting skin.

I don't like breakfast where I have to make it taste better. Salt and pepper's one thing. But cutting you in half and spreading a topping on you? Who am I, Emeril? Toast may need jam or peanut butter, but I don't need to put scalpel to bread to make it toast. Mrs. Baird's saved me the trouble of such surgery. She even removed the crust. Now if she could just find a way to rid the world of those God-awful end pieces, I just might marry the bitch.

Temporaneous Thoughts

2005-06-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

I was once fired from a temp job. Yeah, I was only supposed to be there for 2 weeks. One week in, they didn't like what they saw. I tried to explain that I was doing them a favor by putting away their files. They explained that they were doing me a favor by paying me. I agreed. They closed the door in my face. I stole their Post-It notes

The one week I was there, everyone in the office was so excited about Casual Friday. Whose company every saw such a dramatic increase in employee morale based off Casual Friday?

"Bill's become so much more efficient ever since we told him he didn't have to wear underwear on Fridays"

Casual Friday reminded me of junior high when we had shorts day. Everyone else in school was so excited because they got to wear shorts but my skinny legs were happy being hidden for so long. Now shorts day comes around and I'm once again Loser King because I'm the only kid who wasn't wearing shorts. You can tightroll your jeans as high as you want, it's not the same thing.

Not to say that I wouldn't enjoy wearing jeans or not having to wear a tie to work. But dress code was never my issue at a job. Cubicles, co-workers, and the daily delerium and dementia experienced were the bigger problemos.

Plus I don't like bosses. Love Boss Hogg. But who wouldn't love working for a bloated marshmallow with a southern accent? It'd make any job bearable

"Paul, ya got dat memo? I done need yer to get me dum der reports on muh desk or I'll have dem fellers down in payroll tan yer backside, now git! Yeehaw!"

I'm addicted to writing out all quotes in colored font. I really need to change up my style on this blog. This many blogs in, I'm Skittling out.

Anyone else check out the new redhead in Marketing?

I Don't Even Smoke

2005-06-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Ever fall asleep on the phone?

I did last night. No reason, just put on hold for way too long plus laid up on the couch equals Sleepy Slumber Time

Being drunk and being sleepy are so similar that I'd rather take the latter just because it's cheaper. I mean when I'm groggy I'm at a level of honesty only parallelled by 3 shots of Tuaca. Both conditions slur my speech. Both conditions when done in public cause other people to be concerned. Both conditions involve hallucinations, whether it's seeing double or dreaming. Both have substances that'll help you achieve said-so condition that much faster. One's trying to help you get laid - The other's a byproduct of getting laid. One involves passing out face up - The other face down. One is the Sandman - One is a reminder of why you're still single. Both will get you yelled at for doing it too much. The homeless need one before the other. Mix the conditions together and you have how I felt every Friday morning, in college, when I went to class

Blogging out ideas every 30 minutes is alot harder than I thought. I'm only 4 in and the well's running dry. Let this be a lesson to all you blogaroos out there. Writing out ideas this often can suck out a soul. Maybe I should just post pictures of my trip to L.A. or talk about my friends instead.

Nah. I'll stick to what I know. Maybe I'll feel rejuvenated after this smoke break.

Nine:Twelve Ay.Emm

2005-06-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

I performed in a bar last night. Typical bar patrons. The drunk guy playing pool. The coked-up guy in the wifebeater. And amongst all that madness

A 2 year old

I normally have problems with people bringing their kids to any adult venue. We've done shows at comedy clubs where they'll bring their kids. There's certain places that kids just don't need to be. I'm not a dirty comedian but I don't agree with kids showing up to a place where adults frequent. Adults are at Chuck E. Cheese, but that's just because the kids can't drive themselves. If it was legal for a toddler to get behind the wheel, it'd be a Lord of the Flies atmosphere in there. Plus, the parking situation would be completely screwed. Infants can't stay inside the lines, whether it's coloring or parking

Maybe if the 2 year old was hideous, you could understand why they brought them.

"Yeah I brought my kid to a smoky bar, but look at this genetic concoction. Can you blame me? I'll buy a beer for you just cus you had to look at him"

But this 2 year old was adorable. She reminded me and all the other people in that bar what we once had

Hope

The NBA Draft was last night. I love watching it and realized last night that I'm watching other people get hired. We're watching people start careers. How come nobody televised my decision to be a comedian? I'd love to have cameras pointed at my parents when I announced my intentions to spread gigglicious cheer to the drunken masses. They're speechless. They grab a framed picture of my sister, silently thinking to themselves that 1 out of 2 ain't bad.

My sister's a priest. There's no profession that I could ever get that would top that. I know that when I finally do make it as a comedian. I've got 4 HBO specials under my belt. A highly successful sitcom. I'm a mover. I'm a shaker. My sister'll become Pope

Back to Plan B: Vegas Lounge Singer

I've Thought it Through

2005-06-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Brain juices are starting to flow, and I only sent out 2 personal emails on work time.

I'm heading out on a cruise tomorrow. Bahamas. I don't know what to expect because I've never done it. I have to do an hour of stand-up for two different crowds on Friday night. I'm looking forward to that, but I've been told that if you have a horrible set on a cruise, you're stuck with this audience that hates you for the next 2 days. So let's hope they dig me or else I'll have to jump ship or talk to the dolphins or hang with Isaac the bartender

If standup fails me, I'm gonna be a Vegas lounge singer. I'd sing this song.

Unbutton my shirt halfway through the first verse. Grab a lady's hand in the front row, brush my fingers along her left cheek and then move on to work the crowd. Lots of pointing my fingers at the elderly Jewish women, firing off fake gunshots. Hey it may be degrading but it's honest work. No one's getting hurt unless you count my self-esteem

My wife with the bleach blond hair would sit at the bar sipping her Kahlua Mudslide, smoking a Marlboro Light, playing a nickel slot machine, chatting up with Rex the bartender, clapping for me whenever she hears the song end, waiting for my show to be over so we can go hit up the crab leg buffet. She hears me about to start the big finale where we sing a duet. She adjusts her hair, puts out her cigarette, downs what's left of her Kahlua, and pitter-patters her high-heeled ass up there with me, grabs a microphone and we sing a ballad version of this song. Staring into each others' eyes, faking goo-goo-gah-gah faces at each other that were oh so sincere 28 years ago but have now just become stage fodder. Grab hands, a thank you bow to the crowd.

"We'll be back in 30!"

Now I must pray to God to make sure that all that never becomes a reality

The printer's out of toner.

Eight O'Clock ish

2005-06-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

I'm up. 2 alarms made me do it.

So as stated before, this is the 1st ever Take your Blog to Work Day. This is where I (the full-time comic) wake up and blog away as if I was a member of the Responsible Real Job Community. Visions of 401K dancing in my head. It's blog entries every 30 minutes so it almost kinda feels like work minus the annoying co-workers and micromanaging

In order to feel like I'm trapped in a dead end-job I constructed my own cubicle out of posterboard from my old science fair projects. I'm also having my cousin walk in every 10 minutes and lean over my cubicle to bore me to death with his stories about last night. I don't drink coffee and drinking Dr. Pepper at this early in the morning just feels creepy.

The president had a speech last night. Now I'm not gonna get political on you, but he always has this weird lip quiver whenever he talks. Like he's about to laugh. I say Let it Out George. America could use a president who doesn't take his job, or himself, seriously. It'd be very Jimmy Fallon of him if every 3 minutes during his speeches he'd go

"And we will continue to spread the idea of democracy to nations that...I'm sorry..Anyone see that episode of Family Guy where he lies to get a welfare check?..He builds a moat around his house and..oh you just had to see it..that show kills me"

Well it's past 8:00 now and I was supposed to have this blog in by 8. My team leader a.k.a my Chia Pet will be very upset.

Oh by the way..Can I borrow your stapler?

A Blogspot.com First

2005-06-28T12:15:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I will have my first edition of Paulvarghese.com's Take Your Blog to Work Day. This will be a monthly event where I put myself in the shoes of you (people with legitimate jobs and insurance) and blog as if I was having a normal workday (8 to 5). Blogs every 30 minutes so you know I'm not sleeping at my cubicle. That's 17 blogs in a 9 hour span. Now considering that I've written 10 blogs in June up to this point, it's gonna be quite the feat.

Where my brain will take me three blogs in, I have no idea.

Thirteen? God help us all.

So see you tomorrow bright and early. I think I'm gonna call it a night...now

Drip Drip Drop

2005-06-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Why do I blog? Am I vain, arrogant, self-absorbed? Do I like to read what I wrote and do I think that everyone else is just as interested in what I consider insightful and funny?

Of course.

But I really do it because it's a mental exercise for me. I gotta keep the brain train chugging or I get lazy. The brain's like any other muscle. You have to work it out. Bloggercize people. Especially to the comics, it's the downfall of every comedian when they don't write. It's what keeps you fresh, original, and ahead of the game. A comedian who doesn't write? A clown

Yet another shark attack. Granted, this kid was fishing when he got caught, but how ironic is that? He's dangling bait not realizing, that to the shark, he's considered "dangling bait". Did the shark brag to his shark buddies

"I caught one this big! He got away but hey Frankie, flip over to CNN. It made headlines!"

Why do people even bother tempting fate in the ocean? The ocean's the most dangerous body of water. Lakes don't have sharks. Just drunken boaters. I'd rather take my chances with an inebriated jet-skier than a sharp-toothed mammal with a hankering for human flesh.

A puddle's even safer. Ever drown in a puddle? If you did, you're not reading this blog anyway. You're too busy rebuilding your anthill or sitting on Peter Pan's shoulder.

What the ocean does have is a beach. And with beaches come babes and babes are attracted to biceps, with which I have none. So no babes for me. I'll stick to the lake. And if I'm feeling extra lonely I may hit up the pond. Because ducks love crackers and I'm like Jay-Z to them when it comes to Saltines. I'm flinging them like dollar bills in a rap video.

I miss the days of playing in a sprinkler. Screw a pool party, turn on the hose. And where does hose water come from? Because it always tastes so much cleaner than any other water I've ever had. I'm not impressed that this bottled water's from France or this one is from a natural spring in Tibet. Let me read a label that says

"We've captured the clean, crisp taste of backyard plumbing and brought it to you. No lids. Just pinch it in half when you're done. From the people who brought you Easter grass and potpourri. We bring what's outside your backdoor, indoors. Hose-arka."