Mid-west hello Seattle!
How are you? No, no, no, tell me in detail. Never mind the line.
Get that highly complicated coffee order in hand (I got my Mickey Dee's 'Too hot for TV mouth) on mine and eight hours ahead of me behind a desk.
Oh wait no, no. That's Traffic.
Dear Mr. Fantasy,
Play me a tune. Play me a this is how you put your foot on the gas Samuel L Jackson Pulp Fiction Jules Winfield lecture Brett!
I digress.
It's almost 2017!?
It's time for the annual year in review **cough**embellishments****cough**.
I've never been happier in my life with my beautiful wife and beautiful baby daughter who is 16 months. I'm like a Talking Heads song and 'this must be the place.'
Now I've never been good at math, but I started my first year of sobriety this year on February 8, 2016. Today, December 22nd 2016 that's 318 days.
Although it's been almost three years since my last drink, I feel that this time around it's been the easiest decision I've made in my young adult romance novel phase of life.
When Peyton Manning won Super bowl 50 and told the camera he was going to have a Bud after trotting off the field, this bud retired from football as well. The football had become hackneyed, a weekend ritual saving grace to remind me (a 33 year old husband, father and Dad, and life coach) that there's a reason Jesus wanted to accomplish everything between that 32-33 age gap.
Jesus: "Guys, hey guys. These sandals don't bode well with the mission ok? I need to like now, right now get a move on. You there! How would you like to be a 'fisher of men' and also make some quality shoe ware for me?!"
So I retired it. Best decision I made next to driving cross country to start my life, and making the prediction that America would pick reality TV asshole Donald Trump as our next president of the Uni-- yeaaaaaaah.
What a year for reflections huh?
Everyone, and I mean everyone has a selfie-stick this year am I right?
Heckler: "That was five years ago asshole!
As millennials see no end in sight with the possibility of the Walking Dead becoming a real life documentary, millions of young Americans are opening up their own Thai restaurant called Phuck It, and having one last Hoor-ah!
You might be thinking at this point, "Hey, why does Jesus and Heckler have the same bold faced font and lingo?"
To me, my Jesus was a heckler, heckling out the BS that was people's doubts and trappings of saying this is just how things, 'have to be.'
Me? No, no, I'm not Jesus. I'm a John the Baptist kind of guy. Locusts, honey, warning people of the pending apocalypse of more Fuller House.
(secretly love it.)
Take 2016. Look who died?
Farewell my dear Prince in April ?! No!
Did the greatest boxer to even live die this year too?!
Astronauts from Ohio?
'Mean Gene' Wilder?
This list is sad to look at but also reminds us of their life work!
Rest in Peace
I saw a FEMME comedy show this year mid year that changed me. Our nation was going through its 5,0000 mass shooting and I needed to see a show. My wife said, 'go', and so not to argue with my beautiful wife I did. I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did because I learned a lot about myself through this show. Mainly how I can annoy the local comedy scene with my Midwest mannered awkwardness.
Also, I gained a good friend who told me about this AMAZING STORY!
I got to meet Dylan. I got to thank him and tell him my story. I even got to try stand up comedy with my good friend on September 12 of this year WHILE Dylan was in attendance at the 907.
I think I made him laugh?
I'll never forget that.
I bought a house a la Canned Heat as 'I'm going down in the country.' But also my wife and I bought a house. There's a reason we are told as students in grade school to put the other person before you in a sentence.
In short exists a 'h' and an 'o 'but also I followed the lead of my wife this year.
This was the year of "EVERYONE FOLLOW BEHIND THE SMART PEOPLE. HOLD! HOLD!"
"THEY MAKE TAKE OUR LIVES BUT THEY"LL NEVER TAKE OUR COFFEEEEEEEEE!"
(Seattle charges the hill, running out of breathe from the 'smoke'. The smoke confuses the opposition and all of a sudden they just want to relax and 'yeah, we should like treat people as people like our man JC did?')
I hope this is the outcome in 2017 as my Midwest bred eyes looked at the city I lived near in go up (like many) in anger over police brutality, hate, and other forms of intolerance.
For me the only life event on the horizon to unlock my last adult achievement before my 'This is 40' cover band (with Paul Rudd on lead) is to finish school, which I will do this quarter. I decided to go a more traditional route and actually be in the class as I take two at Seattle Central Community College in two weeks.
I'm currently enrolled in one and on the waiting list for the second but the wait is a public speaking class and so yeah,
**flips trendy umbrella**
I got this.
What I don't have, with less then thirty days to go, is a clear understanding of what the actual what is going on in our current country? (you know as opposed to a country I might not notice soon?)
I read the news a lot and that grows tiresome. Watching the Cleveland Browns doesn't help.
In fact if I can parallel park these ideas I liken the current political atmospheric uncertainty we face ourselves in as if we, America, gave the Cleveland Browns the number one pick in the draft and we just keep allowing them to Phuck It up.
(I still like this Thai restaurant in my head. **Writes 'Shark Tank Thoughts'**
In 2016 anything happened and it did. <-----------(The kind of statement everyone has always said about any year.)
I guess this means 2017 we are finally going to unpack our shit as a country and collective consciousness to see what white elephant we got this year?
::unwrapping a gift:: ::laughter::cries:::slow cries::mad laughter::
Truth be told I am optimistic. Call me Jack, but I do believe our best days are somewhere over the rainbow, it's just been clouded as of late and I'm wishing for it to come back and rear its magical head to include all.
In the meantime I know we will continue to stay 'in tune' but not 'buy in' to the ever trending puppy dog picture that has become the new form of every bad phobia and 'ist' there is.
Me?
I turn to first my wife and daughter and THEN to comedy and in particular local writers, comedians, various improv troupes and the cast of Seattle Rent (hikes) to make sense of this mad mad world.
A song I used to sing to my very tiny daughter when she was first born (A dad original):
"Everything's ok, Everything's ok.
There's no need to be saddy,
You're right here with your daddy.
Everything's ok, Everything's ok."
(Song is kind of a big deal.)
Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, and Neil Young need not be called. I don't want to make em' feel nervous, even if I am.
Moving on from my suburb spelling and lyrical intellagence.
Moving on from my suburb spelling and lyrical intellagence.
Top (fill in number) lists are trite and terrible but let's try it anyway! Here is a list of my top 5 songs of 2016.
Top 5 songs of 2016
1.) Bleachbear-Boy
Seattle is loaded with more comedic talent then it has raindrops. Here is just a sample of local comics you need to see like you would the EMP, Pike's Place, The Great Wheel, and that mysterious Bertha. This is just a short list. Google Seattle comedy and your mind will be blown. Think first time you heard Zep, the Cure, or Tears for Fears! These comics will have you spilling tears of laughter! (do you see what I, ha, did, ha there with the...........)................................
Just some of the many funny Seattle Area Comics to check out in 2017.
2.) Brett Hamil
3.) Liz Donehue
4.)Levi Manis
5.)Monica Nevi
6.) Andy Iwancio
7.) Luke Severeid
8.) Amani Taylor
9.) Hope Linden
10.) Rachel Walls
11) Todd Kirkwood
12.) Narin Vann
13.) Mary Lou Gamba
All these comics and so many more are amazing in my humble new beginning.
8.) Amani Taylor
9.) Hope Linden
10.) Rachel Walls
11) Todd Kirkwood
12.) Narin Vann
13.) Mary Lou Gamba
All these comics and so many more are amazing in my humble new beginning.
So there you go. I gave up drinking, took up 'my comedy' I'll call it. I write a lot more. I love my job and my wife and small child. Oh, oh I just survived a car crash three days ago!
It's been a great year in review. And as I finish this drivel I just watched a good friend from Ohio take the mic for his first time attempting stand up. Funny as he is, I hope and know, it won't be his last.
I take that spirit into 2017.
I take that spirit into 2017.
To 2017 we go!
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Your UFC fighter: Uniformed, Fragile, Comic?
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
Action Jackson.
"It's not my job to worry or to think
Not me
I'm more like:
"Everyday I'm here I'm grateful"
and that's the gist of it
Now you may call that a bogus, bullshit, new-age point of view,
But check out my tattoo
Says: "Wall-to-wall fun"
Does everyone know everyone,
Mr. Wall-to-wall fun?"- Paul Simon 'Cool Papa Bell'
"It's not my job to worry or to think
Not me
I'm more like:
"Everyday I'm here I'm grateful"
and that's the gist of it
Now you may call that a bogus, bullshit, new-age point of view,
But check out my tattoo
Says: "Wall-to-wall fun"
Does everyone know everyone,
Mr. Wall-to-wall fun?"- Paul Simon 'Cool Papa Bell'
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