brown-green envy

The spring rain has swollen the mountain streams past their capacity. The normally calm waters are raging down so quickly that they are reshaping the contours of the valley floor. Usually these streams are as picturesque as you could ever ask for. They are crystal blue and they refract the light like a diamond. The soft sound of water passing by is so soothing that people spend hours on the sides of the streams, sleeping, reading and mediating. (other things happen, but they require another person) To give you some idea of what it's like to be next to a mountain stream and just listen to it remember this... People come to these streams and record their sounds and then sell those recordings to you. It's some good shit. (I hear that if you listen to one of the tapes, you'll even quit smoking. Some people have learned Italian... JUST LISTENING TO THESE TAPES!!!)

Driving through the spring mountains is wonderful. Spring comes slowly to the mountains and as much as you want to admit that you're happy with the coming warmer weather, you're not. Because dotting the sides of the mountains in small, weather resistant pockets, are small plots of stubborn snow. It just hangs on, refusing to melt. All winter long you have cursed the snow, especially when you have to drive in it, but now you somehow want the last reminants of winter to survive.

surrounding the small patches of snow are barren hillsides that are anxious to sprout some vegetation. Small sprouts of green that haven't quite sprawled out completely, make the mountain sides look as if they have day old green stubble on them.

As I drive through the mountains I should be filled with my own romantic notions of nature, but instead I am furious. I have comedy on the brain and it's not positive. I am headed to Boise for an audition and I should be filled with new ideas that will land me the job, instead I am stewing over the fact that a former friend and fellow comic has been given a big break and will be on the next season of Last Comic Standing. He was a comic that I used to coach and helped bring into the industry back in my Kansas City days. Back then, he was innocent, young, bright eyed and not very funny. Then there was a blow up at the club and I was forced out. He talked some shit about me and we never spoke again. Then he found weed and sex and somehow found his comedy voice and has become a popular headliner around the country. I should be happy for him, but I'm steamed. And I have no reason to be.

Instead, I am driving to Boise, Idaho.

The rain has been falling for four weeks and the normally quiet, crystal blue waters of the Forgotten Mountains have turned into an ugly brown-green color and are screaming down the valley, reclaiming what riverside real estate it can. Where was this rain last year when the fires threatened my home? Where was this rain when the farmers lost their crops to drought? And will this rain be here this year when the summer sun threatens to dry out another harvest?

My veins are filled with a brown-green blood. I am furious and I am angry and I am jealous and I am sad. I have no reason to feel this way....

I will confess to needing other comics to further my own comedy need. To reveal a nasty secret, I get my passion for this job by watching other comics. I have long contested that I am the 37th funniest comic that has ever graced a stage. I base my findings on the following criteria: Humor. Presence and Relevance. Most comics have one or maybe two of these, but rarely all three and then, not as much as I do. So when I see other, lesser comics, I get excited. It makes me want to kill them. People ask me what my preshow warm up is. If there is a "bubble" that I need to get into before I go on stage. My bubble is this: I watch the opener, get pissed at their ineptitude and that inspires me to give the audience something better. It usually works. Even when the opener is funny, I know I'm funnier or have more presence or have more relevance, so I could care less how loud the audience is laughing. I know I am doing more.

I have a lot of time in cars that I spend all alone. I guess it's this time where my emotions can float between the romantic vistas of mountain rain to the more dramatic, self-destructive imagery of career envy. Alone I am god. I am the creator of all that is beautiful and I want to share it. And alone I am god, a jealous and angry god, that will have no false idols before me. When I think of my foolishness, I am humbled and I am reminded that I am JUST a comic. And that entertainment is the domain of the audience and not it's beer-pimping stage dwellers. A fellow comic has a chance to better his life and I am truly proud of him. I do hope he makes it and wins the competition.

The more successful he is, the funnier and more necessary I become. Just like the angry, screaming brown-green water of the spring and the part it plays in the shaping of my beautiful and unforgettable, Forgotten Mountains.