2010 – Countdown

Address: 27th & Buxton

A joke I told all the time: “I’m Native American. If you don’t believe me you should check out my grandma’s collection of kitschy wolves. Awful lot of dreamcatchers in the house where I grew up. Not a lot of dreams.”

I – What They’re Feeding Me: The Blog

I missed being serious. I think that was why I decided to start up a blog, with the same name as this zine. What They’re Feeding Me (the first issue of which was 8 pages long and published in 2001). I was listening to a lot of progressive talk radio, it made me think things and feel things, and I was expressing some of that stuff in my comedy, but not all of it. Only the stuff that was laughable. The really serious stuff – the economics I’d been studying since the recession started, the policy details being debated in the Obama Administration – was something I wanted to talk about more.

Having been knocked out of college because of medical bills, I was pretty fucked up by the national conversation about health care reform. It was honestly the first time I’d ever looked outside of myself to see the systemic reasons why I was where I was in life. Up to this point, I had essentially defined my politics as anarchist-socialism: I believed in a type of lifestyle-ism where personal spending habits were the hallmarks of a person’s character, and politics. I was judgmental about others’ behaviors, and sometimes my own. This wasn’t a good political analysis. As evidence I submit that while calling myself an anarchist, I followed liberal politics closely and would shame anyone for voting for or agreeing with Republicans on any issue.

II Tiny Klansman

The first year of Obama has seen the rise of the Tea Party, and living in a liberal enclave I was convinced I needed to take the fight to these people. So, when the Tea Party planned rallies all across the country on Tax Day 2010, shortly before my birthday, I decided to show up in vicious parody of them.

I went with comedians and friends. We made signs that said things like “less taxis, more buses” – Josh McGuirk, a former Christian who moved here from Pennsylvania with his former-lesbian wife came to the protest dressed as Jesus holding a sign that said “what would I do?”

Glenn Beck had a style of making wild accusations about people in government – all connecting Barack Obama to a vast left wing conspiracy. He would always refer to his accusations as “bold questions.” So I made a huge sign that said “Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990” – when a protestor asked me “do you have a source for that claim?” I said “it’s a bold question: did Glenn Beck rape and murder a girl in 1990? I don’t know! Why doesn’t he address it?” Despite being a conservative the guy who asked me for a source chuckled and said “that’s pretty good.” Because when it comes down to it, these libertarian conservative types are just trolling reality with their cockamamie bullshit, and trolls can always appreciate each other.

I also made a tiny Klansman outfit for my teddy bear, Mister Bear, and brought him with me to the march. On the back of the klan wardrobe I wrote “my parents taught me to hate.” I would yell “I taught my child to be hateful” and wave my klan teddy bear at passersby yelling “we’re all racists!” and “Everyone here is a huge racist!”

The libertarians weren’t impressed by the end of the day. They did offer us bottles of water. We took them. Then I had a birthday party.

III Cracks Appear

Taylor had this aggressive way of being worried about my wandering eye. If we sat, facing one another, at a sidewalk cafe, she’d be hypervigilant for women nearby who threatened her. If one approached behind my back, she’d make diligent eye contact with me to keep me from looking away. It was uncomfortable but I got used to it. I figured that’s what marriage was: a lot of uncomfortable, controlling stares with your partner.

Taylor and I experimented with video production by making a show we called “Politicute.” The basic idea was to amplify the things we knew about ourselves – that I was very political and Taylor was very cute. Those are both over-simplifications, of course. The idea sprung from a conversation we had about how I was consuming news. I would read a ton of things regarding politics that would make me mad – I was early on the curve of Facebook controlling my thoughts. I once, years ago, posted “DICK CHENEY SHUT THE FUCK UP” on MySpace every day for a month, as Dick Cheney was on TV talking about what a bad President Barack Obama was and I was irritated for it. But then I would look at cute animal pictures to get my blood cortisol levels back to functional . In PolitiCute, after each politically-relevant story, which I would read to the camera, Taylor would read something really cute to the camera, such as a description of a video clip of a dog playing with a turtle. It was funny, given the contrast. It was also more than clear that Taylor was new to performing and something about it irritated me. I should have been more generous, but I didn’t like it.

Local comedians were my best friends, a large and growing scene of 40 to 50. I was encouraged to enter an amateur standup comedy competition by Kevin Michael-Moore, who liked my comedy and saw my consistently-stellar performances at the Boiler Room as a sign I would do well in the heats. The competition, put on by Lonnie Bruhn at some of the diviest dive bars in Gresham and across Portland, was a gauntlet. I wanted to be able to compete across the many consecutive nights of the competition, but I worked nights, effectively preventing my being able to compete.

My usual tips went down even more – the recession was dragging even as Obama was able to pass a stimulus package. In an attempt at being competitive in the comedy world, I decided to switch to working days so I could be available for the contest’s late nights. Instead of working from 6pm to 4am, I’d work 6am to 2pm.

This was a huge mistake.

Working nights at a karaoke bar where I’d at least pull in $40 after a shift, I had some pocket money to spare. Working days at a bar below a hotel, we essentially only served alcohol to alcoholics, or breakfast to the recently drunk, or those avoiding their walk of shame by eating eggs in the same place that had hours prior made them horny. Suki’s also catered to quite a few veterans in the daytime, as the hotel had a deal in place with the Veteran’s Administration hospital nearby which saved the vets a bit of money, and made the owner of Suki’s a bit more. I have known many veterans in my life from many stripes, and loved many of them like family, but the vets who were staying at the upstairs Travelodge were uniformly stingy, being that they required the medical care of the VA versus a hospital that wasn’t doomed for scandal just a few years on. Tips evaporated in the daytime.

I had been making more money than I had ever made in my life, and then in switching to day shifts I was hardly making enough to cover costs. Between housing, transportation, bills, smoking about a pack of cigarettes per day, drinking, eating out once or twice a day, every day, and general necessities, I was basically broke. What was formerly not a consideration – spending money freely, as I’d gotten used to in the last few years prior – had become a serious thorn in the side of my wife. She made a lot more money than me, still working at the clinic. We had merged our bank accounts. She saw, and was aware of, every cent I spent – and was insistent that this arrangement remain, in a way that freaked me out a little bit. How was I supposed to buy presents? Did I have any privacy? This was about 18 months into my marriage. It caused strife. I was young, and I didn’t want to give up the boom-time lifestyle to which I’d grown accustomed.

The most serious issue to date presented itself to my relationship with Taylor. A local comedian spent a lot more of his time than he should have sending her lewd text messages. Out of frustration, I began transcribing these messages into Facebook posts, to hopefully shame him into stopping. He got angry with me about it, but really had no right to be. The comedian in question, Jimmy, was a funny local guy. He also happened to be a competitor in the contest.

Work was stressful. I’d get out of work around 2pm, then prepare for a show at some dive bar I’d never frequent. My boss was not helpful. He was hiring really cute girls to work the bar, and really subservient men to work in the kitchen I ran. But when one of my employees was selling cocaine, and I wanted to fire him, I found out my boss was one of his customers. So I couldn’t fire him. Taylor was pretty bothered by my being at Suki’s – the hot bartenders and I were all friends, and she felt more of that lingering insecurity about me. It never really went away, even after we’d been married for a year or more. It didn’t help that some of those hot bartenders did give me some “hitting on you” vibes. Not to mention all the customers. Every time Taylor came to see me at work (which was less and less) we’d have a moment of “who are all these people?”

It came to be that Taylor and I would fight publicly. Seams were starting to appear in our relationship. Sticking points. She worked 9 to 5, had a good job, provided health insurance for both of us, helped me get my wisdom teeth out because nobody from my income bracket had health insurance before Obamacare. I was on the clock from 6 to 3 or 4am. I would have a drink after work most nights, she was drinking less and less. I would come home smelling like fryer grease, cigarettes and booze. We had sex less and less often.  

Knowing that I was very sexual, Taylor took it very personally. This was a major stress – I don’t perform well (or at all) when I feel pressured, and something in our relationship dynamic had become more of an obligation than a desire. It was a sign of things to come. She’d get mad at me if she found out I had masturbated – and she would try to find out if I had by looking through my browsing history. She would shame me for whatever porn I’d been watching. This was in the days prior to “Incognito Browsing,” and Taylor violating my digital privacy. As someone who has had computers since I was a wee lad, and who has always been sexual, it was a serious concern that I wasn’t allowed to be on my own schedule, with regard to my own sexuality. I imagine many partners in the modern era struggle with these same questions.

IV – When I Be On Tha Mic

The Portland Amateur Comedy Competition was grueling. Over the course of several weeks, we had to get out to dive bars in Gresham and across Oregon, plus nights downtown. The top five finalists were a mix of old and new – Cody McCullar (at the time known as Cody Smith), Tim Hammer, Kyle Harbert, Anthony Lopez… and Ian Karmel appeared out of nowhere to sweep the series, surprising nobody. I tied with Jimmy for last place out of ten finalists. The final night of the semifinal competition was on the same night as the series finale of LOST, which was probably the most difficult part about losing, was not getting to enjoy the disappointment of my favorite TV show ending in an unremarkable way. Taylor didn’t bother to come to the competition that night.

I tied for tenth place with Jimmy. This bothered him a lot, particularly because I intentionally threw my last set. Had I not, I probably would have beaten him and had ninth place. But I can’t say that for sure. I used my 5 minutes on stage to stand on top of table, remove a dildo from my pants, and faux-masturbate for at least half of my set.

Something in the course of this year compelled me to finish up some instrumental tracks I had been sitting on since moving to Portland, and put out a new album called Smoke and Word. I sold about eight copies, burning them to CDs and tucking them into old Wired magazines to give them to my friends. It was easily my most failed musical project but it was fun. I was barely a rapper anymore, as I’d been a comic for three years at this point. New medium, new audience, new message. Less gloating, more guffaws.

I convinced my boss to get a bathroom upgrade, as Suki’s had an infamously disgusting loo and the clientele would treat it terribly. The smell from the men’s room was atrocious. Once, comedian Don Frost yelled at the audience at Suki’s, “have you no respect for the man who shits?” It turned out that once the men’s room was ripped up, a terrible secret was revealed. What we all thought was a drain in the floor used to be a toilet – there was raw sewer smell coming up out of the floor at Suki’s for the first two years I worked there. The owner was mad he had to make a larger investment in his bathroom upgrade once he found this out. Everyone else after the fact was relieved never to smell that stench again – not just the stench of the bar’s patrons using the bathroom but of everyone soliciting sex in the hotel above. The disgust subsided, but I grew more tired of working there.

We visited San Francisco to see Taylor’s family. Things were getting worse between us, and we fought during much of the trip. Taylor’s family was grating on me, because they’d take hours to make a decision about what they intended to do. We’d wake up and start talking about breakfast, and by the time we’d made a decision it would be lunch time, and we wouldn’t leave until an hour after lunch time. I’m not a person who should be trifled with when it comes to food. I wanted to enjoy meals in San Francisco and I had exceedingly little time to do that. This was certainly my being selfish, as I should have been enjoying the company of my in-laws. But I didn’t.

What I did enjoy was meeting new people at the hostel where we stayed. We met up with a fun couple from England, Nick and Emma. They were adorable, accented, and beautiful. We had a nice time wandering the city with them, ending up back in their room eating snacks at 3:00AM. It was the only time we ever hung out, but they were a welcome break from the lacking energy from Taylor’s aged, conservative family. During our wandering around San Francisco, Nick and Emma, Taylor and I ran into a couple from Portland. This was endlessly entertaining to me, but it also marked a serious moment of reflection that was captured on camera. This couple from Portland seemed really friendly and familiar (we were all drunk). They were a man and a woman both about my age, both attractive and kind. I remember sitting close to both of them, across from Taylor, Nick and Emma, and staring off into space for a moment, imagining what my life would be like if I were travelling with these two strangers (who I think were just friends), instead of my wife. Emma took a photo at that moment.

V – Here’s what I was thinking.

I had this thought, that I had basically fallen into circumstances like the comedy scene and marriage, almost immediately upon arriving in Portland. Before I could blink, I got conned, and then married, and then was a kitchen manager at a karaoke dive bar. These were good things – I loved Taylor, I loved jokes, I loved Suki’s. I loved the things that had come about as a consequence of all this. But I also had this sense for the first time like I had been missing something. Like maybe I could be working for more than tips. Like maybe my jokes weren’t all that important. Like my dissatisfaction with Taylor wasn’t just a passing grudge from a few bad fights or struggles with money or differences with her family. Maybe these were actual rifts.

Despite that growing, lingering feeling, we returned to Portland and returned to our lives. But I grew increasingly frustrated with mine. Particularly, as I’d been getting more acclaim for my thinking thoughts and acting out on stage, I grew more and more disenchanted with my job, which was at least in part due to also being disenchanted with my home life. I didn’t feel acknowledged as the intelligent human being I increasingly realized I was, at least not in my profession.

I felt stifled. Taylor recognized it in me, and she made me an offer. She told me that if I wanted to, I could quit my job. Given that my tips had dried up, and I didn’t make very much to begin with, she was confident that if we were able to save money we would be fine. The arrangement was that if I stayed home, cooked all the food, did the shopping, and cleaned the house, she’d handle the bills. The only way this arrangement would work was if Taylor and I both stopped smoking and drinking and eating out. This arrangement was doomed to fail for a few dozen reasons, not the least of which was that I wanted to continue doing stand-up comedy, a scene essentially predicated on eating, drinking, and smoking at bars. But I also loved smoking and drinking independently, wanted to be a smoker and a drinker. But I really didn’t want to continue at the fry-and-grill lifestyle, I wanted to live a life outside of burns and knife wounds and mopping.

I quit Suki’s on Christmas Eve. I gave a letter to my boss a few weeks prior describing the many problems I had with how the place was run, which bothered him enough to tell me it was “none of your business.” I cried and told him, “yeah, it’s my business. This was the best job I’ve ever had and I can’t continue it because of how things are going.” Later on, I heard second hand stories about crying as I left. I cried because I was sad. The boss told me he’d be okay with me collecting unemployment, which in part seemed like a way of keeping me from getting any louder about my complaints, which could have jeopardized the business.

On my last night, just as I punched out and the cook after my shift came on the clock, some weird old veteran who was staying upstairs smeared his own feces all over the bathroom. There was baseless speculation that I was the one who had done it – but it was just another reminder of why I was so glad to be done there. I will never understand why the cook at a dive bar is the person who you want to clean up bodily fluids that make a mess. But that’s how things are. I promised myself I’d never work in a place with so many problems. The politics in dive bars are worse than in any – any – office building. It’s do or die.

Taylor and I took a Christmas Card photo in a free photo shoot offered to us by a guy I met on twitter. Sean Scott, @mitdasein on twitter. A fine man – odd, but humble. The internet is strange, man. That was my first experience meeting a stranger from the internet for a reason other than dating.

That New Year’s Eve, I was top billed on the Baghdad Theater New Years Eve comedy show – which had about 25 comedians. If you bought a paper ticket, the ticket just said “Shawn Fleek.” I’m pretty sure it was a mistake but hey, why not? Fifteen minutes before the end of 2010, I got on stage and immediately yelled, “TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! ZERO! NEGATIVE ONE! NEGATIVE TWO! NEGATIVE THREE! COME ON EVERYONE WE’RE COUNTING TO NEGATIVE NINE HUNDRED!”

It was a fun evening. I wasn’t the best comic by a long shot.