On the Road: Nicci Tina!

Folks, Nicci Tina is many things, she's a drag queen, an activist, an author, a speaker, but mainly she's a 6-FOOT TALL TALKING CIGARETTE! She is also the alter-ego of Joanna Cummings, someone I was fortunate to meet on the road and now consider a friend.

And she's funny too! Check out our video together in the link below. And DON'T EFFING SMOKE!

COMEDIANS!

This post is for the comedians in the Bay Area:

A lot of the newer comedians in the Bay Area probably don't know me as I've been away for a couple of years but I used to run a club in SF, which formerly housed the "Walk the Plank" comedy competition you may have seen me post about. 

A little history: 
I started the club as a means to increase stage time for local comics, and we did the first "Walk the Plank" in 2009, mainly to help keep the club alive during winter season, but it was amazingly successful and rewarding. Performers and audiences alike loved it, had a great time, and we felt as if we really helped contribute to the bay area comedy community. Two more years and 2 more contests followed, both just as magically as the first. We produced 2 CDs out of it, filmed multiple documentaries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLbIELnCjL0), helped a few comedians increase their booking visibility and to this day it remains something I am really proud of. 

I don't live in SF anymore, don't have a club there, but I'd like to see Walk the Plank, as an instrument in community building continue. I've partnered with some great folks that run venues all around the bay and hopefully, if things go well it can continue as a tradition that is not dependent on a particular venue or promoter.

That depends on you, please consider signing up. thanks! The information is located at: www.drbrianking.blogspot.com/p/walk-plank.html

Walk The Plank!

Folks, after a year of hiatus, my Bay Area comedy competition IS BACK!

For info, check out: www.drbrianking.blogspot.com/p/walk-plank.html

Your Boobs

Your boobs are the highlight of my day.
Better than a Vegas buffet,
Or a fine Cabernet, with a fruity bouquet,
They remind me that I'm not gay.

On the Road: Great White North

On tour earlier this year I spent some time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a land of yoopers, pasties, and lots and lots of snow in April. Also, it's pretty much Canada up there.

Enjoy!

On the Road: San Diego Mardi Gras!

With my tour schedule this year, unfortunately I was unable to make it to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras celebration, so I had to make due with a west coast alternate. I've always heard that San Diego has the largest celebration out here, and now that I live down in southern California, I grabbed my friend comedian Dave DeLuca and headed down to join in the festivities.

Let's just say it's no New Orleans. I knew that going down, but San Diego has an area downtown similar to the French Quarter called the Gaslamp District. It's a few city streets lined with old buildings housing bars and restaurants, and this night a block party in the streets. Plus there's a shit-ton of Mexicans down there, and where there are Catholics, there is lent. I figured we'd still have a good time. 

San Diego's Mardi Gras is NOTHING LIKE NEW ORLEANS. The only similarity is that there are lots of beads being worn, but the beads aren't being thrown from parade floats or balconies, they are being passed around by marketing teams and included corporate logos or sold by street vendors. A lot of people, myself included, recycled beads from Mardi Gras past, but just walking around wearing beads does not make a party. Flashing boobs for those beads helps, and I saw maybe one pair of boobs (well, barely - there was an attempted flash that exposed a little bit of nipple).

The bulk of the block party was an expensive street rave that most people seemed uninterested in. It cost about $40 to enter and looking through the fence it seemed that very few people in San Diego had forty bucks to spare. Mardi Gras techno party, yeah that's a tradition right?

Dave and I got duped into eventually shelling out some cash for a so-called VIP ticket to all the area bars, which included free drinks (1 shitty drink per bar) and VIP access to get in. The problem was it seemed as if EVERYONE who did not pay for the rave bought the VIP package to the bars so the line to get in was just as long as the regular P line. AND the free drinks had to be purchased before some stupid hour, I think eleven, so basically we wasted money trying hard to not waste money. 

Fuck San Diego Mardi Gras. Next time it's New Orleans or nothing. 

I did manage to get some horrible video of the night, enjoy!

The Del Valle Chronicles Part 1: You Can Never Go Home Again

Apparently there's a reunion of sorts coming up for my old High School, which reminded me of this old piece of an unfinished project:

YOU CAN NEVER GO HOME AGAIN

2/20/2002

Last week I was flying out of the new Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, which was built on top of my old neighborhood the closed-due-to-military-budget-cuts Bergstrom Air Force Base. That fact in itself is still hard to get used to. I mean, it is a fairly common experience to have a house torn down to make way for new development; it is quite unusual to have an entire community removed to make way for an airport. Anyway, I had some time to kill so I decided to turn the corner over to Del Valle High School (ah, the sweet memories) because I heard it has been renovated.

Driving there from the new airport, while still trying to figure out exactly what stretch of runway used to be my house, the first thing I noticed was a large fence surrounding the school grounds, behind the fence was a recently demolished vacant lot full of construction vehicles removing the remaining debris. Del Valle High, at least the one I spent four years of my life skipping classes from, no longer exists. Actually the only remaining structures were the dilapidated football field and the entrance sign, which now read “East Highland HS.” Apparently Del Valle High as an entity was gone even before the building was leveled.

I'm no nostalgia buff, and I definitely don't look back on my time at Del Valle with any degree of fondness, actually it was quite horrible, but this was just weird; totally unexpected. For those of us who spent our formative years on Bergstrom and attended Del Valle, all remnants of our entire community have been wiped clean. Too bad the same can’t be said of our memories.