Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

A man nods at a woman over the counter and says, “Thanks love, can I get a pint of Guinness and a packet of crisps, please?”

The woman smiles. “You must be Irish.”

The man, a bit offended, says, “Oh, because I ordered a Guinness? If I asked for pasta, would you think I was Italian?”

“No, but this is McDonalds.”
——————–



Sweden. Shit. I’m still only in Sweden.

Another St Patrick’s came and went, a day that only became meaningful for me in 2006, despite my “Irish” heritage. On my mother’s side, my great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland to Newfoundland, then to the US, where my grandfather married another Irish immigrant, so pretty pure Irish until my mom married my dad. My stepfather jokingly referred to me as Heinz Ketchup- 57 varieties- and he wasn’t far off; in the late Eighties, my dad did some digging into our family tree and discovered a Scottish ancestor named Buzzle had arrived at Ellis Island and the official signing his admission papers said, “It’s Bussell now,” condemning me to a lifetime of correcting people who think my name has one s or one l or both.

Recently, my dad did one of those DNA tests and the results revealed over 60% Scandinavian, likely due to Vikings, long before they would devolve from aggressive aggression to passive aggression. That said, no one is more passive aggressive than an Irish-Catholic woman, so not only was a move, nay, a return to Sweden in my blood, my mother had prepared me for life here. Any time a Swede tries to be passive aggressive towards me, I laugh. They bring a knife to a gun fight.

Anyway, I can’t say that St Patrick’s held any special weight for me until 2006, as I’d moved to Sweden just a few days prior. My then wife made a cake with a shamrock on it, a sweet gesture, no pun intended. A few years later, around the same time, we decided to separate. A few years after that, around the same time, I stepped onto a stage and did my first three minutes as a comic.

Three huge milestones in my life, within a handful of years, all around the same holiday, makes St Patrick’s an important day for me, with no thought at all of snakes being driven out of Ireland. While I wouldn’t say my first marriage coming to an end is something to celebrate, it was a monumental life change, a start of a new chapter, full of unknowns and challenges.

It almost pains me to write about my life as having chapters, but it is how I see my history. Maybe it’s how everyone looks back at their lives, but it’s strange to me. It’s like I’m the same person throughout, but not, that my life is obviously one continuous chain of events, yet full of distinct periods somehow independent of each other.

One of the all-time greatest first lines in a novel is, “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” Vonnegut’s protagonist is living his life in his forties one moment, suddenly back in time to his twenties the next. For him it’s literal, his consciousness continuous despite the drastic changes in time and age, but it’s close to how I see memory working for me. When I think back to playing with toys when I was eight years old, or playing with other things back in college, I’m projecting my mind as it is now back into who I was then. I wasn’t the same person then, except of course I was.

I see my time in standup as a whole, but also in chapters. My first year, wide-eyed and hungry and out five nights a week. Founding and running Taboo Comedy Club with a partner. That falling apart, founding and running Crossfire Comedy Club on my own. That coming to an end and having my first burnout, taking a step back. Founding and running Cash Comedy Club, but as a silent partner. Having a good time doing that, founding and running Power Comedy Club with partners. That being great until it wasn’t, burning out again, taking a huge step back. And now, still taking tentative steps back in.

Time got…weird during covid, but it’s always been weird. Looking back, it’s strange to think how long a certain period of my life lasted. Like having amnesia and someone tells me my life story. “Wait… I ran Taboo for how long? In three different venues?!” Friends that have come and gone, relationships forming and falling apart, people who have moved away or moved… on. It’s all so abstract to me.

That goes especially for the times I felt like my life was on pause, like I was just waiting for something to happen. Those periods being generally defined by unemployment. Man, I’ve had some long droughts. Thank Goodness for a patient wife and a generous welfare system! In any case, my first, very long stretch without a job coincides, well, is responsible for my start in standup. There’s no way I could’ve juggled a full-time job and fourteen gigs a week.

I remember an interview with Dustin Hoffman where he said that age never mattered to him as long as he could double it. When he turned thirty, so what, he could picture himself at sixty. At forty, he could see himself at eighty. Fifty… he knew he was pushing it, but he could imagine himself at a hundred. When he turned sixty, though, he knew there was far less ahead than there was behind, but it gave him a sense of peace.

Maybe I’m getting more likely to look back with less to look forward to. And by that, I mean the number of years. I’ve never been a nostalgic person, because that isn’t just looking back at the past fondly, it’s longing for it. It’s inevitable, but I never want to feel like my best days are behind me, like people who peaked in high school. I remember the good times and the bad, and they led me to where I am right now. I like where I am right now. It’s not perfect, of course, and I’ll keep pushing for more, but I’m at point where I’m fully employed, I go to the gym every day (with rare exception), I’m performing more often. Whether this is a continuation of a chapter or the start of a new one remains to be seen.

I even put a beef behind me. So, Sláinte! Here’s to all the beefs, past, present, and future.

My wife said she wanted me to take her someplace she’s never been.

So I said, “How about the kitchen, you fucking whore?!”
– Henny Youngman Kinison (National Lampoon Magazine joke)

——————

Ah, the corporate gig.  An opportunity for a comic to get paid to say the same dick jokes we tell for free multiple times a week.  An opportunity to bomb, since you were booked by the one person interested in comedy, to perform for a large group of people who couldn’t care less.  But, you know, money.

I was once offered a wedding gig through a fellow comic, a Swede.  A friend of his was getting married and their guests were international, so they wanted a comic who could perform in English.  Said Swedish comic didn’t feel confident enough in his own English ability to handle it himself, so he asked me if I was interested.  Certainly I was interested in money I mean an artistic performance.

Mind you, I didn’t know the happy couple at all.  We bounced a few messages back and forth online, they gave me a general idea of what they were looking for, and we made plans to meet up for coffee.  Not surprisingly, this kept getting bumped and rescheduled and never actually happened, as they were far too busy with wedding planning to bother with me.

When the day came, I arrived at the venue- a lovely locale near a lake in Stockholm- and waited outside until it was my turn.  The groom was Swedish, the bride was Eastern European, and I listened as letters were read in Swedish and then again in English so that everyone could understand.

Finally, it was my turn.  I stood along one side of the horseshoe-arranged tables, the wedding pair sitting well off to my right.  It was my first time seeing them at all and they looked nice and happy.  I don’t remember my set, just that I kept it family friendly and ended with a corny line I stole from the speech my best man gave at my first wedding.

Afterwards, I went back outside and was quickly caught up to by a member of the wedding party, who happily asked me to stick around until the couple could come out to thank me.  It wasn’t long before they did so, smiling ear to ear.  The groom was a skinny giant; standing close to me while we talked, I had to bend my neck nearly ninety degrees backward to keep eye contact.

I didn’t have that problem talking with the bride.  If anything, I had the opposite problem.  I didn’t notice anything when I first saw them for the first time, seated at the table; perhaps she’d been sitting on a booster seat.  She was a little person, the top of her head barely reaching her new husband’s waist.  Sweet, though, and happy with my set, so I was happy as well.

As I left the venue, I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t met them before the wedding, because I knew that all I would’ve been able to come up with would be inappropriate jokes at their (her) expense.  In fact, I then proceeded to do just that.  I can’t remember them now, only that one was vicious and one was something about them saving money on the honeymoon flight since he could stuff her in the overhead compartment.  Of course I would go on and tell these jokes several times over the coming weeks, as part of my set at various clubs.  

A few months later, it was time for the Fall season premiere of my club, Crossfire.  It looked to be a good night, we actually had a crowd, which was far from the norm.  I hosted, as usual, and I got as far as, “This summer, I was asked to perform at wedding…” before locking eyes with the bride, sitting at a table across the room, her legs dangling off the floor.

Now, being the professional that I am, I quickly recovered.  “… and I’m not gonna talk about that tonight.”

Julius Caesar walks into a bar and orders a martinus.
“Don’t you mean martini?”
“If I wanted a double I would’ve said so.”
————–


The people who founded Rome looked no different than hundreds of other wandering tribes in Europe at the time, nomadic hunter-gatherers led by a chieftain. The area in which they’d decided to settle, however, was fertile, easily defensible, and strategically located for trade. The people thrived, the camp grew into a village, then into a city. The chieftain became a king, the population grew to the point a senate had to be established to represent the will of the people, and to handle administration.

However, the king still held absolute power. Like any other monarchy in history, there were good kings and there were bad kings, but there really is no such thing as a good king. A benevolent tyrant is still a tyrant, and a bad king is even worse.

During the reign of a particularly bad king, a group of senators formed a conspiracy. There should be no more kings, Rome should be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Sounds noble, but since the Senate allegedly represented the people, what they were really saying was, a king shouldn’t be in charge, the Senate should rule. They hatched a plan to assassinate the king. One of the conspirators was a senator named Brutus.

Their plan succeeded. The corpse of the king still warm, they swore a sacred oath: from that point on, there would never be another king in Rome. If anyone ever threatened to become one, it was the duty of the Senate to murder that person just as coldly as the last king.

The Republic would continue to be stable for over four hundred years from that point. Then came a true crisis: Julius Caesar. He was immensely popular with the people, the Senate was not. The common man viewed the Senate as corrupt and bogged down with bureaucracy. Caesar used his popularity and strength to chip away at the system of checks and balances long established by the Senate to prevent anyone from achieving absolute power, until he had become king in all but name only.

A group of senators, having reached their breaking point, formed a conspiracy. They remembered their oath, their responsibility. Caesar had to die, and in a spectacular fashion, to send a message to any other would-be tyrants. One of these conspirators was a senator named Brutus, a direct descendant of the man of the same name who had killed the last king of Rome, because history is fucking cool.

Their plan succeeded and on a day in March, Caesar died alone in a pool of his own blood on the Senate floor, having suffered dozens of stab wounds. Ironically, by trying to save the Republic, the conspirators had doomed it. Caesar’s murder would lead to two civil wars. Caesar would not become king, but his adopted son Octavian would become Emperor, and Emperors would continue to rule for the next and final four hundred years of the empire.

Anyway, no idea why Rome is so much on my mind lately. Perhaps it’s because we’re approaching the Ides of March.

A Roman walks into a clothing store and asks, “Do you have XL togas?”

The clerk replies, “Sure, but why do you need so many?”
————————-



Rome was an interesting place back in the day. An absolute powerhouse, you would’ve found people in the city from all corners of the empire, with different languages, cultures, and religions, yet religious conflict was rare. A Greek would’ve said that Zeus was the king of all gods, while a Roman would say it was Jupiter, but since they spoke different languages, they figured they may actually be worshipping the same deity.

Well, the Jews weren’t going for that. They made a point to tell everyone there weren’t many gods, there was one God, and He was theirs. Romans may have been in control, but what did Earth matter when the Jews would enjoy riches in Heaven? All the things that Romans felt were blessing from the gods- money and sex being huge perks- those things were sins. God wanted everyone to be meek and powerless and poor. By an amazing coincidence, those were the exact things the Jews felt under Roman control.

Jews were quick to add that it didn’t matter if anyone agreed with them or not, because it wasn’t possible to become Jewish, it was their birthright. Romans would’ve rolled their eyes. Jews gonna Jew.

Just before the birth of Christ, the Republic fell. Caesar had been assassinated before he could name himself king, which led to a civil war and the rise of Octavian as Augustus, first Emperor of Rome. They were at the peak of their power and the empire would continue to expand significantly, but in many ways, it was the beginning of the fall of Rome.

Right as things began to go to shit, Jesus was born, preached, and was killed. His followers were Jews, but their religion was Christianity, Jewish 2.0. All the same tenets, but now anyone could join. Not only that, it was your duty as a Christian to get as many to convert as possible, and to constantly go against the mainstream. If you sneezed and someone said, “Jupiter bless you,” you had to correct them. “Actually, it’s ‘God bless you’.” (I didn’t make that up, that literally happened often. Can you imagine anything more fucking annoying?)

So, when things were falling apart, the Romans began to wonder why. Had their gods forsaken them? Or was something else to blame? Hmm… everywhere they looked, there were poor Brown people who didn’t speak the language, refused to assimilate to Roman ways, to even respect the culture. Not like us…

It’s said that Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. That probably didn’t happen, is likely just anti-Nero propaganda spread by Christians. What did happen is, needing someone to blame for the Great Fire, he accused Christians, leading to one of many pogroms against them and many deaths.

Christians won out eventually, since nothing could stop the fall of the empire. As the divide between the haves and the have-nots grew into a chasm, it was much easier to find converts. Hey, you’ve got nothing anyway, might as well follow a god who says that’s a virtue.

What I love most about history is that it stubbornly refuses to repeat itself. No one would ever blame the “other” ever again.

Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor.
Goddamn if that isn’t the best joke I’ve heard in a long time.
————————————


I am aware that what the rest of the world calls American football, we, as Americans, call football. What the rest of the world calls football, we call soccer. I will do the same because I’m American. Not in the fuck-you-I’m-American sense, but that this is the language I speak. Yes, the British call soccer football, but I also would never ring my solicitor or put u’s in words where they don’t beloung.

Of all the things Swedes could be critical of, the only thing about America that they consistently give me shit over is soccer and football. “You should call it hand-egg!” they say with glee, thinking no one ever thought of that before. Another chesnut is, “There’s only eighteen minutes of action in a three-hour long NFL game!” True, but you know what the key word is there? Action. My Lord, I’ll take that over watching a ninety minute soccer match any time.

To be fair, I’ll take that over watching baseball, too. And basketball. And tennis. And any other sport, because I am not a sports guy. I could not give less of a shit about sports, which makes expecting me to be a big defender of football even more ridiculous. Sports bore the living fuck out of me. However, I have seen many sports live and had a great, fun time, every time. Except one time, when I had amazing seats at a soccer match and I was equally bored to tears. I guess what I’m trying to say is, fuck soccer.

And fuck everyone who says, “Oh, they’re such pussies, wearing all that armor!” The quarterback is built like a muscular stick and there are eleven guys on the opposing team, each built like a dumptruck, hoping to slam into him so hard the ball flies out of his hands and his teeth from his head. I think we can excuse the padding, especially considering the average soccer player will fall to the ground and writhe with pain if the wind changes direction.

The only reason I developed even a passing (no pun intended) interest in football is Tom Brady. I was living outside Boston when he took over as QB for the Patriots midseason. I remember him being asked in his first press conference if he thought the Pats had any chance at all of making the playoffs and he said, “We’ll have to win every game left on the schedule for that to happen,” and then they won every game. This was so unexpected, their stadium had been scheduled for demolition before the season was over, and had to be postponed. I watched them defeat the LA Raiders in a home game, at night, in the snow, and it remains the greatest game I’ve ever seen.

Turns out, cheating and taking advantage of every possible loophole had a lot to do with their success, but why would I care about that?

Well, you’d never catch me watching any football game other than the Super Bowl, but I’ve made an effort to see that every year. Not so easy, considering the fact that I live six hours ahead of the East US Coast. After Brady left the Pats, what little interest I had in football waned, and last year, four days into a new job, I made the executive decision to not stay up until the wee hours watching TV. This year, securely employed, I figured, why not?

My interest was piqued this time thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles. Growing up in South Jersey, the Eagles should’ve been my team, but I wanted them to lose because Philadelphia fans are the fucking worst. I knew they’d riot if the Eagles lost and riot if the Eagles won, and guess what happened this year? Fun facts about Philly fans (and people in general):
– Santa made a special appearance during an Eagles game one year. Fans threw ice balls at him.
– Fans have thrown C and D batteries at opposing teams and referees.
– The Beastie Boys participated in Lollapalooza one year and MCA brought a gaggle of Tibetan monks to bless the stage at the start of the day. Attendees were given free bottles of water because it was so hot. I think you can guess the rest here.
– Also, the Beastie Boys put a basketball hoop on stage and made shots now and then during their performance. This basketball hoop was stolen by the end of the night.
– HitchBot, the hitchhiking robot that successfully navigated across several countries, did not get past an alley in Philadelphia.

Boston Red Sox fans are a close second to Philly as far as horrible people are concerned, and I was always torn about the prospects of that team. Again, these are fans who riot no matter the outcome. Ultimately, I was happy when the Sox finally won a World Series, because a major aspect of their identity – that they were cursed and could never win – was taken from them. Now they were just yet another team.

While I went into this Super Bowl hoping the Eagles would lose, that feeling was destroyed in minutes. The last Super Bowl I’d watched, a lot of people criticized it as boring, because each team’s defense was so strong. Kansas City just got humiliated by the Eagles, over and over again.

But I couldn’t tell you who I felt worse for, Kansas City, or the Hollywood celebrities who showed up to be part of the pregame and introduce the teams. It reeked of desperation, actors begging to stay relevant in a country where populism has swung so hard to the right (indeed, King Trump was even in attendance, the first sitting US president to do so). I likely feel worst for Drake, that poor Canadian. Bad enough that the crowd at the Grammys sang along to Not Like Us, this time an entire arena roared the A-Minor line.

What’s the difference between a JAP (Jewish American Princess) and a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Princess)?

A WASP’s boobs are real and the jewelry fake.
——————

It’s said that, if you could travel from and back to Earth at the speed of light for a matter of minutes, you’d find that days, weeks, months, possibly years had passed since you left. I thought of this after gigging at Maffia Comedy for the first time since November. Hardly an eternity, yet the regulars spoke to me as if I was returning after a long retirement.

Things move fast and not at all in standup. Faces change, material doesn’t. I’ve often said that going to an open mic for the first time in months reminds me of going to my gym in January. Suddenly, I see lots of new faces, most of whom I’ll see a few more times before never again.

I’ve never really taken a break. Well, I suppose I did during the early days of covid. Well well, not even in the early days. I still performed until it felt wrong to be in a club completely shirking the rules while restrictions (well, again, recommendations) got tougher and the crowds dwindled. There have been summer trips to the US when I didn’t perform for a month or more, but that was more due to lack of opportunity and/or lack of ambition to seek opportunities.

There hasn’t been a time that I made a conscious decision to take an extended break. I know others who have, and the anecdotal evidence seems to point to this being only positive, but it’s not me. While the Grind may be firmly behind me, I still have ambition enough to want to get out there as often as I can.

I thought I’d be rusty after so much time away from the stage, but I didn’t feel particularly out of practice. I’m not sure why that is; I can only guess it’s due to performing regularly in the meantime. Not on stage, but in my head, alone in my apartment, in the shower, in a car. I still get ideas and there’s lots I want to work out, but not many opportunities to do so.

On the bright side, performing for an imaginary audience means the material always kills. It can’t compare, though, to the feeling of it working in real life. I’m not sure what I enjoy more, when a new joke works right out of the gate, or when it works after testing multiple versions. I don’t even mind having to accept that a new joke will never be as funny to an audience as it is for me. Sometimes, you have to kill your darlings.

Maybe it isn’t something new and I’m just more aware of it now, but I feel like my set has become more me-centered. I’ve always been very, likely too, concerned about focusing on Sweden, partly out of a desire to be more universal, mostly because I don’t want my Swedish peers to dismiss me as just another boring expat comic (which they’ll do anyway, so I really shouldn’t bother worrying about them). My latest sets have been: I’ve lived in Sweden for 19 years, I perform in English, I’m a dad, I’m 50, I hurt my back recently, I work at the airport, Trump. Me me me me me politics.

I feel like I’m discovering a new path through the woods, a new shortcut along a route I’ve traveled for years. Joking about my dad, about getting older, I feel the crowd laughing more because they relate, instead of laughing at me making fun of them for being Swedes. I’m being more universal by focusing on me.

The punchline being, the crowd laughing because they know exactly how I feel, this means I’m not special.

I didn’t know Princess Diana had dandruff….

…. until they found her head and shoulders on the dashboard.

————————————–


A highlight of last year that I failed to mention was being invited to take part on a debate podcast. Invitations like those have always been rare, and I always appreciate them. However, for me, this would be more of a “debate” as I had no intention, nor desire, to actually debate my opponent.

A Swedish podcast, I was faced against a Trump supporter. Well, Trump fan is more accurate as, being Swedish, there was little in the way of actual support he could provide, not even a vote, so even there a debate felt pointless. As if being a Swedish Trump fan wasn’t rare enough, he is also a Christian Evangelical, a true unicorn on these shores. Being someone who believes in an omnipotent being who loves us unconditionally, who gave us free will to accept that love, who will send us to burn in Hell for eternity should we decide to not accept that unconditional love… what was I going to do, appeal to his reason? As long as Trump is anti-abortion and pushes for Israel to have full ownership of the Promised Land, leading to Armageddon and the Second Coming, Evangelicals will overlook everything else about him.

Being as it was a debate I had no interest in winning, I’m sure I lost it. The guy came with notes. His gotcha question for me was, could I name something from Harris’s record I support? I had nothing, since I openly had no passion for her. In a debate against a Flat Earther I’d lose as well, because they have passionate beliefs, and I know what’s right.

At some point (ironically, it would turn out) I was asked about free speech rights on social media, and I said I agreed that everyone should be able to say whatever they want, but free speech isn’t consequence-free speech. The latter, though, is what people are usually whining that they don’t have, saying cancel culture comes for you when you speak your mind. The point is, you can speak your mind. That’s your right. I have the right to walk the streets of Harlem, screaming the N-word. And when I get punched in the face, that’s the consequence.

Anyway, at some point on the podcast, I referred to myself as a blatte. Blatte is not a nice word, but it’s one I have a particular interest in. That word refers to an immigrant, skin a shade of brown, or “non-European.” Okay, technically I’m not a blatte, but Swedes don’t even think of me as an immigrant, or invandrare in Swedish. An incident forever burned into my psyche was talking to my then wife’s well-to-do cousin a few months after moving here, telling him I was taking the government-provided Swedish courses, or Swedish for Invandrare, only for him to reply, “Oh, don’t ever call yourself invandrare. You are not invandrare.”

I knew immediately what he meant. I’m white. English is my first language. I’m not one of them immigrants. I’m an ex-pat.

One of co-workers is an Afghan who spent a few years living in Greece before moving to Sweden. We talked about the difference between immigrant and ex-pat. He is brown, living in a predominately white country, he is an immigrant. I am white, I am an ex-pat. Okay, he asked, what if I moved to Dubai, to be a white person in a predominately brown country? Oh, I replied, then I would… still be an ex-pat, because I am white. Look, I don’t make the rules, I just enjoy the benefits.

I’ve always been hyperaware of the gulf between Swedes and immigrants, long before I ever started performing, and it’s always been a burning topic for me, on stage and off. I call myself a blatte because no one in Sweden would ever look at me and think that, they wouldn’t even look at me and think the word immigrant. I am, though, and my wife is a blattelover.

As it would turn out, YouTube demonetized the video of the podcast, thanks, at least in part, to me saying blatte. One of the guys who runs the pod was very annoyed by this, because, when you’re an artist, your chief motivation behind creating content is so that commercials can be attached. Ahem. Nah, in all seriousness, I get it. Making a living by creating content certainly seems a more attractive way to make a living than, say, being fifty and renting out cars.

That said, I can’t say I’m shedding much of a tear over it, at least not as an advocate of free speech. Social media give us platforms to reach hundreds, thousands, potentially millions of people, and it costs us no money at all. We do pay, of course, but with our personal information. I heard Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan’s podcast (or at least maybe forty-five minutes before I turned it off out of boredom, which is more often the case than not these days), and several times Rogan, a champion of free speech, said that social media should give people the ability to post anonymously, only for Zuckerberg to not respond at all. Why would they do that? The whole point is to get all our data, to then sell to advertisers.

Rogan thinks these social media companies should provide their services for free. Rogan, who said recently that the McCarthy Era wasn’t so bad, since there actually were Communists in Hollywood. Seems to me that Comrade Rogan is a fucking pinko commie himself.

YouTube lets us post anything we want and doesn’t charge for it. There are rules, though, and breaking the rules has consequences. Imagine you invite me over to your house for dinner and you expect nothing from me for it but my company. Imagine that I walk inside and pull my dick out. You tell me to put that thing back in my pants, I scream, “Fuck you, you woke fascist! It’s a free country!” Imagine punching me in the face.

As a guest in your house, I would follow your rules. I wouldn’t complain about the quality of the food you’ve provided at no cost. I would offer to help clean up, hoping you’ll insist that I don’t need to lift a finger.

“I need eight hours of a sleep a day…. and about twelve at night.”
– Bill Hicks
————————–

For a look back at the year that was, I can’t help but begin with a comparison to the year before that. 2023 was peak coming-back-into-the-world for me, standup-wise. I wasn’t grinding, the variety of clubs I performed at could hardly be called a variety, yet I still earned a substantial amount of money doing it. Certainly not as much as a professional comic and not enough to live on, just by itself, but as a professional hobby for someone living off a part-time gig as a game show host and also as a Swedish welfare moocher? It really helped to keep my head above water.

I started a full-time job in February 2024 and I felt like I all but stopped performing at that point, so I was surprised to find that, while my comedy income (in both senses of that term) did fall off dramatically over the year, my total wasn’t a big drop from 2023, mostly due to a lucrative first few months. I imagine, though, that 2025 will be significantly less.

Why am I starting with a talk about money, when I am someone who openly hates money matters? (Looking at my 2024 invoices this morning, I was embarrassed but not surprised by my sloppy bookkeeping.) Two reasons. One, to get it out of the way. Two, because, like the job as a game show host, which I continue to do, now that I have a full-time job and could easily live without the money from other sources, I enjoy them more.

It’s a reason I’ve never particularly wanted to pursue a life as a professional comic. Don’t get me wrong, if people would be willing to pay me a substantial and consistent amount of money to hear me talk about my penis, that would be pretty sweet. Even starting as a comic in my thirties, though, and with a family, that was no time to live month to month, gig to gig, and certainly not now when I’m fifty. I also don’t think standup should be a job. Jobs are jobs, fun is fun.

I think the biggest highlight of the year was being invited for two gigs I hadn’t asked for. GASTA up in Gävle is a fun, popular place for comics to chase, and opportunities are limited. I’d been a number of times, but the well dried up at some point, and eventually I quit chasing them. It was a nice surprise, then, to suddenly get asked to host a show there, which I hadn’t done there before, and also get paid for it, which was also a first. It was nice to be back after many, many years, and hopefully it won’t be as long again for the next offer.

The other was also a hosting gig, this time for an all-English show at the Västerås Comedy Festival, up and running for the first time after a hiatus. I performed at the debut festival there years ago and a few others as well. I’ve never had a bad time in that city and I’m always happy to go back. I attribute the gig offer to the club owner knowing me for many years, knowing that I am a very good host, and possibly (probably) because Jonathan Rollins wasn’t available, but I never look a gift horse in the mouth!

Towards the end of the year, I reflected here on my frustration about feeling a bit in limbo as far as performing goes. Not only was the list of venues available to me limited, I was going less and less. It was just as hard to see myself resuming the grind as it was quitting altogether. At this point, however, just as I’ve come to peace with being an angry old coot, I’m a peace with my current status.

Which is not to say that I want to keep things as they are. While I have been glad to focus on my job and crawling out of debt, I don’t want to make money my one and only priority. I’ve said for years that all I really wanted was a steady job I don’t have to care about. When I worked for Nintendo, my professional and personal life merged, making that a dream gig. Now, though, I’m far beyond the likelihood of finding a job that ignites my passion. I’m passionate about standup, I just need a boring 9-5 to live on.

Well, I finally got that job! To say I don’t care at all about it wouldn’t be accurate; I mean, I’m still trying to do my absolute best and I can’t help but voice my opinion about possible ways to improve the office, but I don’t have grand ambitions of advancement. In fact, I change to a shirt and tie at work, because I don’t want to bring anything home, not even clothes. At work I’m at work, when I’m off the clock I’m checked out in every way.

However, while this job is supposed to give me the opportunity to perform more often, to pursue my supposed passion for standup, it’s instead put a chokehold on me. Nights I have off I’m too happy to be home, rather than schlepp my way into Stockholm for a spot I may or may not get. I love being on stage, it’s just all the bullshit around it that makes it even less attractive to chase after.

I do intend to get out there more. I’d thought of taking all of January off, especially since observing Dry January makes it even less fun to be in a club, but I got myself a spot next weekend. Just have to find a balance between working and performing. Oh, and seeing my family.

Working at an airport, watching all the travelers come and go, I can’t help but see it as a metaphor of my life as a comic. Being mean to myself, I see that I stay right where I am and watch others leave me behind, soaring to heights I’ll never reach. To be fair, though, and to really stretch this metaphor beyond the breaking point, most of my fellow travelers never get off the ground, just wait for flights that are perpetually delayed or outright cancelled, until they eventually quit in frustration and never come back. Those few that do take off, most of them do a quick loop and end up right back at the same airport as me, to resume waiting for the next flight. And yes, there are those who crash and burn.