The Daily Derenger

5/08/2003

I'm slightly buzzed and just got rained on while running back to this safe haven. Therefore, this will simply be a short and sweet I hope.

I got off the train and made my way to the comedy club tonight. I wasn't working but it was a night off so I figured why not head down to the show. This guy asked me if I knew where the towed cars were kept.

"Are you for real? This is Chicago. Cars are towed all the time," I said.

"I parked in a bus lane and my car got towed," said the distraught man. "I live all the way in Glenview and need to get back there."

"They told me to take some read train to Skokie," the man then said to me.

"You mean the Red Line? It's a train that goes all over Chicago land practically, but mostly in the city," I said.

"Well whatever. I need to get to Glenview to the bank to get some money for the towing fee," he said in an obviously defeated voice.

At this point I thought 'why in the hell would he have to head all the way to Glenview to a bank? There are ATMs all over the city. Suck it up and pay the fee for using a non-Glenview bank.'

He still seemed lost. I didn't know what to tell him.

"Well hey, do you have some money I can borrow until tomorrow?" he asked me.

This caught me off guard. A white, well-groomed male asking another male of similar stature and look for some cash along a busy street in Chicago. This was unprecedented. Never before had there been a normal looking caucasian chap asking me for money. I would certainly have to get home and post this on ShaveYourHead.com

I told him I was a comic with no money. And that wasn't entirely wrong either. I hope he found others more helpful than me, though.

So while I was at the show, I was talking to another comic. She was hosting the show. Our conversation took place during the feature act's set.

I guess we were talking beyond a whisper. A man seated near us turned and shushed us. Then he opened his wallet. His velcro wallet. You cannot gesture to anyone to be quiet in 2003 when you have a velcro wallet. It's not a law but it definitely should be. Let's get on that, President Bush. I mean come on, the noise made from the opening of the velcro wallet was much more disturbing than the two of us. Get with the times, my friend. I bet he was a bit awestruck when he saw the bill. Welcome to downtown Chicago you cheap fuck!

-end

5/08/2003

So the last few hours have been somewhat interesting and slightly comical. I stopped by Cyndi's to take a leak and a few minutes later she arrived home. That wasn't the interesting part. Within 30 minutes of my being there, I was in her laundry room throwing a load into the washer. A load of clothes that is, although simply throwing a load into the washer unwarranted would've been very comical.

When I got back upstairs, Star Search was on and we watched a comic whom I worked with back in February. Now again, that wasn't all that interesting but it was noteworthy at least. He lost 36-28. I guess it was comical in that I was stuck in Chicago doing a friend's laundry while he was on national television trying to win 100 grand making people laugh. Surely if he won, he would let me use some quarters for the dryer.

I got to Erin's place around 9 p.m. and she had on some goofy looking bonnet. It was part of a hair-coloring kit that most chicks and some fags are into. You've seen my head, I think hair is highly overrated. Shave it off and spend your time doing better things.

As I made my feelings felt, Erin asked me to help her with highlighting project.

"Well I just did some chicks laundry. Why not assist in highlighting another's hair?" I said to myself while I sincerely questioned my place in the world.

So much for spending time doing better things.

One thing was made certain while I was pulling Erin's hair through the little bull's-eyes in the bonnet: I'm not gay. Wanna know why? 'Cause I hated every minute of that job. There was nothing appealing, stimulating or career-oriented about whole thing. It's well known that most, if not every single male hair dresser is gay. I had my chance to have a go at it and opted against the limp wrist and Cher VIP club membership.

While Erin was putting the coloring shit in her hair, I flipped through the TV channels. And there they were, big and bright as day: Halle Berry's tits. It was the scene from "Swordfish" where she was sitting topless bearing her soul food that was chocolate breasts. As impressed as I was with the lucky timing fo my channel surfing, I wasn't as impressed with the breast as whole. Now if I would've seen her soul-hole, impressed I definitely would've been. But nonetheless, I saw Halle Berry's tits for the first time.

My night was complete and I was off to bed shortly afterwards. I tossed and turned while in bed so I awoke to tell you about all my trials and tribulations. I hope you're happy. This is how one deals with perversion-induced insomnia.

5/07/2003

My friend and I went out drinking heavily the other night. In the morning when we awoke, I told him how drunk he really was.

"You were a mess," I said while also re-enacting some of his drunken moves.

"How did we get home?" he asked me.

"A cab. You paid and I tipped the guy from your money," I informed him. "But maybe I should've kept the change and made some money on the deal now that I know you haven't a clue about it."

"As we were walking up the stairs, you decided to piss off the porch," I told him.

"Man, I'm sorry. Is it still made at me?" he asked.

"No dumbass. You didn't upset it, you just urinated from it."

With that we made our way to breakfast and then parted ways.

5/05/2003

My days in Detroit are over. In all actuality, I only spent a few hours in Detroit. To be quite frank, Detroit is a horrible looking city. It was dirty and run-down. Some of the buildings were barren while others were boarded up and still others had been burnt. If it wasn't for the newly built sporting facilities, the city would have no allure at all. Now mind you, this comes from someone who has seen most of this country's major cities. San Francisco, Portland, Atlanta and Texas' main cities I haven't seen much of.

The only reason I visited downtown Detroit was to see where their pro sports teams played. I attended a football game at the Pontiac Silverdome in 2001 when the Bears beat the hapless Lions. Now the Lions call Ford Field home and what a monstrosity of an abode it is. It sits right across the street from Comerica Park which is where the Tigers play baseball. Or at least they try to anyway. I was lucky enough to witness their efforts.

The Tigers suck and their fans know it. Everyone knows it. Leno and Letterman have been doing jokes about them throughout the first month of the season.

To make matters worse, they were playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a team that is as bad but doesn't get the same rap because they are an expansion team playing in a non-baseball city in a non-baseball park. Needless to say, there weren't many fans at the game. I had seen more people at church.

I wasn't planning on spending much money on seeing the game. I knew it was going to be a laugher simply because I went in there knowing more about the teams' managers than I did about any of the players. Death row inmates shouldn't have had to see such an event. But I did.

"What's available?" I asked the attendant in the ticket booth outside the stadium.

"Have you played baseball before?" he asked me.

"Well yes I have. For about 10 years," I replied. "Why?"

With that he gave me a seat in the Tigers' dugout. I guess these days in Detroit you never know.

In reality, it went more like this:

"What's the cheapest ticket you got?" I asked.

"How many people in your party?" he asked me.

"Just me," I said."

"Here's one for $5. You look like a resourceful guy," he said. "I'm sure you'll know what to do once you get in."

Upon experiencing this, I had a good laugh. Even the ticket-booth guy knew he couldn't, in good faith, charge full price to see the Tigers. I took my $5 ticket and sat in the $25 seats. What was security going to say other than," Boy are we glad to see you. They've been really bad this year. Last week we were the only ones here to cheer and we couldn't even muster up enough strength to do so. Of course they didn't provide anything to cheer for. It was something else. And we were getting paid even."

I bought a hot dog and it came wrapped in a ticket for tomorrow's game.

They tried doing the wave but too many fans got tired too soon. Since there were only about 86 people there, it was their turn to do the wave virtually every 3 seconds.

The game was actually much more competitive than I thought it would be. The Tigers hit 3 homeruns and the D'Rays hit 2. The Tigers were trailing most of the game. In the 8th inning, they tied it up on a 3-run homer. Prior to that, the loudest cheer in the game was when they did the "guess which hat the baseball is under" on the jumbo scoreboard screen. Or maybe when a fan caught a foul ball on the fly. When that happened, the general manager sent someone down to offer the fan a contract.

It was tied 6-6 going into the 10th inning. Former Tiger Damien Easley came up to bat and hit a ball deep down and into the right field corner. Bobby Higginson of the Tigers went for the ball up against the wall and it hit off his glove as he bounced off the wall. Easley got a triple that drove in the winning run and the Tigers went on the lose 8-6.

It's wasn't a total loss. I had another professional stadium to add to my list and even a souvenir cup. There were also the jokes that worked pretty well that night at the club. I went to see where the hockey team, the Red Wings, played. It's called the Joe Louis Arena and is the mecca of NHL hockey. There was also a drive-by of old Tiger Stadium, formerly the home of the Tigers. It was just down from the new Comerica Park and in a really shitty part of town. I wouldn't have parked my ex-girlfriend's car there. Even with her in it.

Now I know why Eminem is so bitter in his songs - he calls Detroit home.