Comedy Tour Journal #1

Trying to change my attitude even while refusing to let it go

Comedy Tour Journal #1 - One week til first show

It goes against my best instincts but I want to look for the good in people this summer. I’ll be travelling across much of the United States for a comedy tour under the looming spectre of WWIII, while the stain of the Palestinian genocide enabled by our complicit government worsens, and ICE raids rip family members out of their jobs, homes, our communities. Damn, I’m already talking myself out of this idea of finding the good in people.

But I want to remember that encountering the good in people is more common if we escape the bullet points of media always trending toward destruction. I can’t pretend a lot of it isn’t happening though. I can’t unsee it, no matter the shrinking island of privilege. Ok, don’t look away then. Sit in the stew of all that is wrong and seek chunks of the good despite the awful stench.

My challenge will be to allow notice of the good as I struggle to make a buck across these territories. I’ll do my best expressing some thoughts I think others might find valuable and bounce up in their chairs while they do. All while menacing myself with the knowlege of how we exist so arrogantly in the United States upon this stolen land, fenced and paved after so many broken treaties with its original inhabitants. Every “American” is illegal or none of us are. Which is it? How do we account for each other if some here are targeted by a political stunt to appease racists without materially improving anyone’s odds of survival? How do we ask for better when the beginning was always a lie?

I’ll vent and fume, looking for the good while the complicit media class overlooks how the immigrants who come here “illegally” are usually from countries the United States has destabilized and stripped of its own resource wealth. I heard someone say that no country is poor, they are made poor by greedier ones. These penalized humans are often from land that is of the same geology as this one with a bloody line drawn across it, walls built up, surveilled and militarized. But they defy their circumstances in all kinds of miracles by overtaking it.

There is an incredible seafood truck here in Tucson. The crab tostadas taste like if the ocean breeze were a gentle meat. Crisp corn tortilla underneath acidic diced cucumbers and tomatoes that intermingle with the crab, I can’t tell you the rest because I’m transported somewhere more peaceful while eating them. What I heard is the guy who operates the truck meets his brother, a fisherman in the Sea of Cortes, down at the border to get the day’s catch. The Sonoran desert’s sea is on the other side of this artificial border. The border is preventative and any life that makes it back and forth is on a hero’s quest more noble. It’s not just about what we eat. It’s about two brothers exchanging greetings, stories, and the bounties of nature. Our sustenance together begins in greeting, not in what we consume.

I first thought about the good in people talking with my friend Cheron who owns Desierto Books, my favorite bookstore in Tucson. As I grumbled my despair about participating in things falling apart, she reminded me that on this upcoming tour I’ll be encountering the good in people at a scale most don’t get to witness. Face to face, good. It’s so easy to get lost in the ideas of the bad. The material bad too. A fake money exchanger who ripped me off in Prague. A cop who gave me a ticket in Alabama. The dude who threatened to beat me up with his skateboard by Hollywood High. The guy who jumped off his apartment balcony and tackled me on his front lawn after I drunkenly peed in some bushes when I was much younger. Bosses who treated me like shit who then followed me on Instagram when my videos got popular. A middle aged man soliciting me at a bus stop on PCH out front of the hardwar store when I was twelve years old. Teachers who … All right hang on. The good in people. Where did that anxiety spurt from? Don’t keep spiraling down to the worse memories.

Cheron said I’d be reminded of the good in people as she and I finished a conversation that could have gone forever. I left with a couple old Bukowski books to see if its right that people hate him now and a Simon and Garfunkel album with the song “America” on it. “I’ve gone to looking for Amer-i-ca.” Two people standing in a bookstore aware of our flaws and imperfections bonding over southwestern writer Charles Bowden, our fears of airplane turbulence, love of animals, pets and wild, the rabbits that overtake the Mercado at night after all the shop owners and customers leave.

My Summer of Discontent Tour starts one week from tonight in New York City. I’ll try to overcome the discontent part but no guarantees. Follow my bandsintown even if you don’t see your city, it’ll notify when I do have a show near you.

New York - June 21
Chicago - June 24
Philly - June 27
Dallas - June 29
San Diego - July 11
LA - July 16
SF - July 18, 19
Eureka - July 20
Seattle - July 25
Portland - Aug 15
Boise - Aug 21-23
Tulsa - Aug 27
Kansas City - Aug 28
New Orleans - Aug 29
Tucson - Sep 6
Tampa - Sep 18

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