Where feminine hygiene is no laughing matter ...Rick's Cafe Americain

I didn’t send out many updates last Fall. The next interesting thing I wrote was right before the election

11/1/06

Today was Hallowe’en! Oooooo! Scary! It was particularly scary to see Kerry rise from the dead at the very peak of the Democrats’ popularity, only to say stupid things in public on the eve his party’s anticipated recapture of at least one house of Congress. Yes, John, we know that you didn’t mean to call the troops stupid.

Still, since everyone thinks that it was a Freudian slip, rather than merely a malaprop, maybe shutting the hell up would be good for your party and your country. Agreed? Agreed. Thanks John. And no, I am not going to vote for you in the primary, so as soon as the election is over, please touch a chatty page in a secret place.

That was pretty short, so here is another one.

11/30/06

I thought that I might have something to say, but I have nothing to say. No news, good or bad, has graced me over the last few weeks.

Except that the video camera that Steven and Wendy got me (er, us?) for our wedding is friggin’ amazing. So far I have only taped shows for me to review so that I can control my tics (current tic: my hand flops around like a bass tossed onto the dock) and make myself more appealing for televison but I will soon be taping shows for transfer to audition DVDs, etc. Neat-o, as the kids say. Or would if they were more neat-o.

Step 1: Body control.
Step 2: Liposuction and a case of Whitestrips.
Step 3: Meet somebody that can get me on television.

It is OK if Step 3 happens first, if anyone reading knows someone.

The Ramble project continues. This was one of the most popular essays I sent out.

7/17/06

I keep rewriting the intro to The Ramble and each attempt is worse than the one before it. Stops and starts about moving to a new neighborhood; gentrification; the local vibe. All of it read like a gruesome cross between faux romanticism and fake intellectualism. Here’s the deal: I’ve got cornrows.

Coming home last Sunday night I saw a guy in front of the apartment building next to my house getting his massive Ben Wallace ‘fro twisted into braids. I turned to Carrie, hair flopping in my eyes, and said. “I’m going to do that.” She laughed. When I floated the idea to Elon from the Brooklyn Comedy Company, he said “If you do
that I will punch you in the stomach. Please don’t make me punch you.” He reconsidered when I told him that I would be wearing the braids to work.

Last night, on my stoop, in front of a crowd of varying degrees of drunkenness who were engaging in varying degrees of sexual harrassment and eating a lot of delicious smelling barbecue, Tisha twisted my hair into some tight goddamn braids. It took two hours, but there were a lot of delays - rubber bands to keep my silky hair
from unspooling; crying children; sexual harrassment. It was worth it to feel the breeze on my scalp.

So for two days only, Charles will be rockin’ the braids at a few shows and during the workday.

Needless to say, I wasn’t joking.

For more cornrows pics, go here.

The Ramble Project continues.

6/8/06

In the immortal words of Biggie Smalls, Mo’ money, mo’ problems. Oh, the perils of homeownership! Because I am now the sort of person who says domestic things like “My fiancee and I bought some flowerpots at Home Depot for our front stoop,” Carrie and I bought some flowerpots at Home Depot for our front stoop. They were squarish and funky looking and we placed (but did not actually pot) plants in them and set them on our stoop.

And then two days later they were gone, along with a less funky mate.

When Carrie noticed that they were missing, she immediately claimed that she was going to jog around the neighborhood, find them on someone else’s stoop and swipe them back. Fearing that I would have to ID her in the morgue with shards of broken flowerpot in her head, I told her that would be a bad idea. And then, the very next day, when walking home from the subway Carrie noticed the flowerpots - our flowerpots - in the front window of a health food store AROUND THE CORNER FROM OUR HOUSE.

When I confronted the store owner the next morning, he said (in a Jamaican accent, that you are free to do as you are reading becuase it is accurate (or not, if you fear that it will sound racist)) “Someone left them in front of my store and I thought they were so beautiful that I put them in the window.” I took the flowerpots back without incident.

I am amazed at his story, though. Those pots were heavy. Apparently three separate people stole our flowerpots and got tired of carrying them after walking the exact same distance. Very suspicious. From now on I am going somewhere else for my spirulina needs.

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I pick up today with what was the introduction of the term “RAMBLE” for my meanderings. It was for Mother’s Day, last year. So here are the first two Rambles.

5/13/06:

It has been so long since I’ve sent one of these schedule notices. It is like we have become strangers. I so very much do not want us to become strangers. And who is the very opposite of a stranger? Mom! So let us celebrate Mom together. What a relief that tomorrow is Mother’s Day, salvaging the relevance of this homage. (Schedule follows the ramble.)

THE RAMBLE
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Unfortunately this is the worst possible forum for me to celebrate my mother. It is supposed to be funny, so heartfelt praise would be out of place. On the other hand, an e-roast wouldn’t be a kind surprise to lay on her either. She reads this silly thing - and even posts it on her office door because her coworkers like to feign interest in my career.

Instead I will talk about a “trend” piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. In it, the author claims that there is a wave of young men who, in lieu of a Mother’s Day gift, undertake a bit of self-improvement that they “know” will make their mother happy. Examples in the article including lasering off a now-regretted tattoo, removal of a hideous back sweater or signing up with a dating website so that they won’t forever be alone. In other words, they are assholes.

Thinking only of themselves, they do something that they want for themselves, jot that idea down on a card and imply that their selfishness is, in fact, the ultimate sacrifice. I suppose the furthest extension of this idea - and just the sort of thing these louts would do - would be to say “Whenever I talk to my mother I get upset. And she says that she just wants me to be happy. So I am not going to call my mother this year. It is exactly what she would want.” Jerks.

That is why, Mom, for Mother’s Day, I am telling these jerks off in this email on your behalf. I know it is what you would want. You can thank me tomorrow by picking up the check at brunch.

5/29/06

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. I know that my Memorial Day will be filled with holiday goodness because I was recently informed that the building is technically closed, so I will be working sans A/C. If you look at your computer screen, you will note that I am sweating enough to cloud your monitor. You might want to get that looked at.

THE (short) RAMBLE
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As it happens, there is only one thing worth talking about. I have joined 2004 with a bullet and finally signed up on MySpace. If it is anything like Friendster (it isn’t! it is so totally better!), I will check it for a couple of weeks and then never, ever look at it again.

But that won’t happen because MySpace is great! I have over 100 friends already (popular!) and you can use it to lure and murder teenage girls! (or boys; no sex discrimination around here!) Not that I want to but it is so awesome that I totally could!

What I am saying is that MySpace makes me want to use exclamation points and I’ve never felt this way before! Please kill me!

But add me first.

Please?

As I go through my the mailings from the last three years, the first thing that I am realizing is that the long free-form writing didn’t come until later. Instead, I’ve got a lot of short one liners, so I’m just going to give you some Pre-Ramble highlights. It is also fun to read my enthusiasm for shows that I wouldn’t really want to do anymore (notably, bringer shows on weeknights).

To the highlights:

2/15/05:

I have just been doing the same old things: performing at open mics, lazing around my apartment and trying to prove to myself that the fact that I have a a girlfriend isn’t a delusion or an elaborate prank. I’ve almost convinced myself, but I have to say that Occam’s razor - combined with 33 years of contrary evidence - points to the “delusion” or “prank” theory. Needless to say I don’t expect that posing the question here will bring me any closer to an answer.

9/8/05:

First, the real news: Carrie and I are engaged.

Many of you know this. Others of you do not. To the latter group I say “Man we really should talk more often! It really has been a while.” And then awkward silence may follow as we realize that we no longer have very much in common but remain friends because of shared history or inertia or something. But hopefully we will instead realize that not talking is the result of our busy lives, not emotional distance, and we will make a concerted effort to reconnect and all will be well.

1/7/06:

Bush’s new Medicare prescription plan may bring promised savings, though. Since a lot of old folks are being refused their meds, this could considerably cut down on the cost of long term care.

3/10/06:

Carrie and I moved in together on February 21 and so far, so good. If you picked two weeks in the “How long before she realizes what she’s done Pool,” you lost. However, if you picked two weeks in the “How long before they realize that the renovations are way more expensive than they realized Pool,” congratulations. Unfortunately I can no longer afford a prize for you.

4/6/06

It is freezing again! Hooray! At least it isn’t snowing today; yesterday felt a little apocalyptic around lunchtime. I hadn’t found time to repent or find Jesus in my heart, so when the wind starting blowing and the skies opened up I was worried that a reckoning was coming. It wasn’t. And with that knowledge any temporary worries about repentance went away. Good thing; Mom would have been furious if I backed out of our seder plans.

In other news, my house is more expensive than an addiction to snorting cocaine through straws made from original Picasso sketches. We have now replaced the bathroom fixtures, floor, paint and some plumbing in the tenants apartment; de-cancered the basement (adios, asbestos); lined the boiler chimney; removed a fence that was destroyed by three years of ivy growth and decades of rot; replaced a refrigerator apperently housing the dessicated - but still stinky - remains of Jimmy Hoffa or D.B. Cooper (time has made it tough to tell); and just found out that the shower tile in the master bath is porous and the drywall behind it is probably shot.

Did I mention that I love this house? I say that because my mortgage actually requires that I make clear that I love the house. It does this with 402 pages of legalese that makes clear that (a) it is mine, no-backsies and (b) the no-backsies rule is unilateral; they can take it if they feel like it. Also, there is the matter of Carrie who loves the house unconditionally and can do far more damage to me than the bank could ever aspire to. So, I repeat “I
love this house.”

Please, come to a show. I’ll let you buy me a drink so I can save money for when the blood starts seeping from the walls. Exorcisms are more expensive than you think.

OK, that’s enough for now. More tomorrow. If you like this sort of thing and would like to get on the mailing list, go HERE.

First things first: yes, I know how to spell “inaugural.” I’ll get back to the title in a second.

As the few of you who still check in from time to time know, this blog is mostly dead. The remnants of the blog serve as a comedy schedule and a place for once-in-a-blue-moon posts that don’t feel appropriate for Stay Free! I’ve been doing most of my writing there or as a contributor to Onion News Network. Unfortunately, neither of those fora are particularly good venues for the writing most like my stage comedy which tends to be very personal stuff. For that, my writing goes only to my mailing list. UNTIL NOW!

With some prompting from Dawn, I’ve decided to start posting the free-form writing exercises that I send to my mailing list here on this mostly dead blog. Which brings me back to the title.

My first mailing to the list didn’t have any content aside from the schedule, just excitement about actually having a mailing list and a euphoria induced typo. Which resulted, almost immediately, in my second email to the list. The first email had no writing content, and so it shall be with the first reposting.

Over the next few weeks I’ll start adding the essays - named, at some point, The Ramble. So I guess we both have that to look forward to.

I love a team with pluck and determination as much as the next guy but… doesn’t being talented matter at all? Not if you are Kieran Darcy of ESPN.com. Her (?) treacly feature about the Newbury College baseball team - probably the worst college baseball team in the country - is hard to read (in fact I started skimming pretty quickly. Some gems:

One after another, the Becker players continue to take turns in the batting cage—without wearing batting helmets, some without uniforms on—while the players in the field whoop it up and joke around with each other as they retrieve the hit baseballs. Newbury head coach Greg Sullivan decides to take action. He disappears into the dugout and emerges moments later with a package of golf ball-sized Wiffle balls, then a milk crate full of larger, orange and yellow hardballs.

Am I supposed to admire the fact that, instead of telling the opposing coach to get his team out of the fucking cage, The Newbury coach decided to have his team play wiffle-pepper? I can understand why he wouldn’t be assertive, though - the dude is 23. That’s pretty admirable, actually, and I respect that he had the balls to take the reins of a sure-to-be-awful team in the hopes of building a program. Still…

The entire article makes the Newbury players sound like a bunch of adorable urchins with a can-do spirit and zero ability to play baseball whatsoever. They don’t lose, they lose often and by a lot. This, too, is forgivable, as they are a team made up mostly of players not good enough to play high school baseball. If I had the opportunity, I also would have played on my college baseball team, despite being horribly unqualified to do so. But do they have to sound like refugees from Gil Thorp? Whenever they go anywhere, they “sprint”; whenever they score a run (not often) they hoot and holler like they just won the World Series; when they lose, they beam like Hare Krishnas. But of all of the embarrassing things in the article, the undisputed king goes to Darcy’s closing paragraphs:

The banquet ended. The season was over. Time to party, or start focusing on next week’s finals, right?

Except, no. The Nighthawks wanted to keep playing. They wanted one more game. And they got one.

MIT agreed to play them. On Friday at 3 p.m. So these Nighthawks would be buttoning up their jerseys one more time this season. And taking batting practice, and infield/outfield. And they’d hear coach Sullivan’s chirping. And they’d cheer like crazy for Fishsticks and the rest. And they’d play like bulldogs.

Do you really need to know the final score?

You already know who won.

Congratulations on your trip to the Special Olympics, Newbury Nighthawks. You win the gold medal!