Well, I was really hoping the screenshot would allow you to read it, but alas. I’ll copy and paste it for you:

Can someone objectively explain to me how we can repeal DADT but still have a policy against adultery? Last I checked, any sex outside of marriage was adultery. Not being political here, just wondering if this repeal will lead to the military telling married men, “Well, do whatever you want now too!” Feel free to share your thoughts, as I’m sure some of you will.

At this years DeadCenter Film Festival, a short that was directed by my friend Joe Cappa was accepted into the Comedy Shorts category. I’m proud of this because when I went to the screening it got the best reaction from the crowd. The other “comedy” shorts were done by real film makers and were focused more on the craft and cinematography than the jokes. Our film was the opposite. It was me and talented super-actor Matt Brown (an amazing person that is a better actor than anyone in Hollywood today. It blows my mind that he is not a millionaire. He is very good. And he has a real movie which he wrote and stars called, Rainbow around the Sun, check it out). Aside from being very talented, Matt is wickedly funny and played my opposite in this short. Joe Cappa took care of making it look good, while Matt and I made it funny. I’m proud of this little piece, which if you want to, you can watch here.

Later this year I was asked to play an asshole comedian in Roark Comptons: The Motion Picture. It was written and shot by the fine gentleman from Single Tree Productions. Who are now spread out across the country. I’m excited for them to break into the industry so I don’t have to do shit. I’m just going to ride their coat-tails! Anywho, this film is going to be screening at the 51st Street Speakeasy the first Thursday in September, 2011 and I’m excited to see how it turned out.

Now, about the Chris Kattan joint; my friend Lance McDaniel co-wrote and directed this movie which is called, “Just Crazy Enough”. It’s a family friendly comedy and I had the honor of playing “Laundry Truck Driver”. I was given one line and two great sight gags. It was amazing seeing how real movies are made (by “real” I mean a movie with a budget, paid actors, crew… tons of professionals). I made lots of new friends and Lance was amazing at juggling all the tasks he had to deal with as the director. I’m very excited for this movie to come out. While I’m not going to pack my bags and move to Hollywood, I will happily act in anything you have around the OKC metro area.

Here is a picture of my friend Greg Elwell. Carri and I had dinner with him and his lovely wife last night. They are great people and Greg is one of the funniest people I know. It both saddens me and elates me that he is not a stand-up comic (I’m sad because he is hilarious, elates me because I don’t need the competition). Also, I apologize that it is sideways, I’m not very good with WordPress.

I’m going to try to update my blog on a regular basis, I know I’ve neglected it for some time. Anywho, if you like jokes in 140 characters or less, you can follow me on Twitter. I post pretty often there (but most of the jokes are dirty, so be warned). I love you all.

It’s a Living

Rob tweeted that he had two dates open and that he was looking to book them, I tweeted at him (if anyone had said this phrase 10 years ago I would have assumed they were retarded) that he should come to Oklahoma. And to my surprise, Rob tweeted me back!

This is why I’m falling in love with Twitter (Facebook, you were good to me, but I think we’ve grown apart). Twitter is mostly one sided, you just toss your inane thoughts out there and let the interwebs gobble them up. But at times, it can be this amazing thing where it brings two people together that would have had no other way of contacting each other. Perhaps that last sentence seemed a little creepy, but not to worry, I’m not going to use my Damien-esque powers to make a nanny hang herself at my birthday party.

I followed Rob on Twitter for quite awhile, just enjoying his brand of comedy. I never would have expected him to want to come to Oklahoma. His show will be at The Greens Country Club, just off the Kilpatrick Turnpike, June 4th at 8pm. I’m hoping that this show is successful. Oklahoma has been very supportive of the local comedy scene and I fully expect this show to continue that momentum.

I realize you’re probably thinking, “Comedy at a country club?” Yes, I can read your mind. And yes, comedy at a country club! The amazing David Box and Jim Cowan of the Greens are two guys that want to set The Greens apart from your stuffy, upper-crust, boring country club. And you wanna know what, this is a great way to shake that stereotype.

The tickets will go on sale May 17th, 2011 (later today) and will be $15 bucks. A fair price if you ask me, considering we are bringing Rob in from California. So please, continue to support the local arts by coming to this show. As a bonus, you’ll get to see me perform (no extra charge!).

I love all of you.

The idea came from one of the jokes I use on-stage. I used OKC’s best actor, Matthew Brown, to play “Jeff”. I think it turned out really well.

Joe Cappa did a great job.

It’s a valid question. I have an amazing job, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants his social life replaced by work. But how a person would go about getting a job like mine is tricky. In all honesty, getting my job in the governor’s office is the reason I began believing in God again.

After four years of attending Oklahoma Baptist University in my hometown of Shawnee, Oklahoma, I started to doubt my faith. It wasn’t really anything God did that made me question His existence; it was the way so-called “Christians” behaved. College students, who were just like me, would judge and belittle anything I did. I would be reprimanded by my peers for making stupid jokes, but then would have to listen to their stories about how they got super drunk, or how they did some other immoral deed. It was this hypocrisy that made me realize I didn’t want to have anything to do with these people.

After OBU I worked part-time at the Shawnee News-Star, Shawnee’s local newspaper. I helped layout the pages and wrote short stories about the smaller towns’ sports teams. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t pay the bills. So I took a full-time job working at Shawnee’s ExxonMobil polypropylene factory. Polypropylene is plastic. That’s right, I made plastic wrap. It was terrible, and I will probably die from cancer caused by inhaling melting plastic 12-hours a day, four days a week, for a year.

Realizing I was not suited for factory work, I applied to graduate school at the University of Oklahoma. I was admitted into the landscape architecture program and loved designing landscapes, but I hated everything else (why do I need to know the shear strength of different kinds of concrete?). I was still living in Shawnee, driving back and forth to Norman every day while still working part-time at the News-Star.

After a semester of being told I wasn’t very good at landscape architecture, I decided to drop out. This was easily the worst part of my life. I didn’t have a full-time job. Instead I worked two part-time jobs. One at the News-Star and the other at Abercrombie & Fitch (which is the worst place on this planet, but I won’t get into that here). After a few months of hating life and knowing that I was capable of more, I quit A&F. I just walked out – the first time I had ever quit a job without giving two weeks notice.

That warm, spring afternoon, I drove around Norman. I went to a Barnes & Noble (That place always make me happy), and grabbed a coffee and sat staring out the window, thinking about what went wrong in my life. I was a college graduate, a failed grad student, and I had no direction in my life. The only thing I enjoyed in life was performing stand-up comedy at open mikes. But Oklahoma is not the place to make a living doing comedy, and I didn’t have the means to move to a city that would facilitate a career in comedy (or the guts to actually move).

The same day I quit A&F (easily the most depressing day of my life), I got a call from a friend I hadn’t talked to since graduating college two years prior. She told me about an opening in the governor’s office. It would be for an administrative assistant position. She heard I dropped out of grad school and might be looking for something.

“Send me your resume, and I’ll pass it along to the chief of staff,” she told me.

As I drove to Shawnee from Norman, I prayed. It was the first time I had talked to God in a long time. I simply asked if this call was for a reason.

The next day I sent my resume to Leslie, and a week later I interviewed for the administrative assistant job in the governor’s office. I couldn’t gauge how I did. I had never had a job interview where I had to wear a suit (the only suit I had was the one I had worn my junior year in high school for a dance – the stupid thing still fit).

I waited a week before hearing anything. Nelda, the governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, called me back to have another interview; this time with her and Gerald Adams, the gov’s Chief of Staff. I donned the exact same suit I had worn a week ago and went back in. In a twist of fate, I learned that the house where I had grown up, in Shawnee was the same house where Gerald had lived while he was a student at OBU.

It seemed like too much of a coincidence for all these things to be happening. It was the first time that I’ve been aware of a power bigger than me at work. I can’t explain it, but it was something I can only attribute to God.

Two days later, Nelda called and offered me the position as an administrative assistant.

Now, I realize you want to know how I became the governor’s personal assistant. I’m getting there. I thought you might like to know how I got my foot in the door first.

Working as an administrative assistant is a thankless job. When people call, wanting the governor to solve all their problems, or to blame him for something, they are first greeted by an administrative assistant (me). I got yelled at a lot by angry citizens and it was a very stressful job for the $25,000 salary that came with it. But it’s not to say a lot of good didn’t come out of it; I also got to meet a lot of really nice, grateful people. Around my one-year anniversary of this job, I started volunteering for the governor’s re-election campaign. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. I worked at the office. Nights I would spend my time helping with the campaign. I used a week of vacation to tour western Oklahoma on the campaign. Over that first year in his office I started to see how the decisions of our leaders affect the lives of citizens, and I believed in Brad and his vision of Oklahoma. It was the main reason I campaigned as hard as I did for him (well, that and I wanted to have a job for the next four years).

Governor Henry ran a clean race and beat former Congressman Ernest Istook by one of the largest margin in our states history.

After securing my job as an administrative assistant for the next four years, I settled back into the swing of things at the front desk of the office, working during the day and going to classes at Oklahoma City University at night. One of my class projects was to interview someone I respect. I decided to ask the governor if he could spare a few minutes for this interview. I received an email almost instantly from the governor asking if I could stay after work for the interview.

When I went into his office, Gerald was already seated on the sofa in the back of the governor’s office. The gov told me, “Have a seat. Can you save the interview for later? There’s something Gerald and I need to discuss with you.”

I went from being nervous about the interview, to being terrified that I was in trouble. The gov and Gerald told me that Luke Martin, the gov’s personal assistant for the first four years, was leaving, and they wanted to know if I would be interested in the position. I didn’t hesitate.

“I’m honored that you would consider me for this position! Of course I’ll do it.”

The governor smiled and said, “I want you to start shadowing Luke and I tomorrow.”

Growing up, my father and I would watch Monty Python films, Mel Brooks comedies and Johnny Carson. Looking back, I can say I didn’t appreciate the genius in these comedies like I do now. But it showed me what made people laugh, I knew what made my parents laugh and that getting them to laugh filled me with joy. Comedy is a strange thing, you do something you enjoy, that joy spreads to the people around you, and then you feel even better, it is the gift that is returned to you better than when you gave it (plus, it’s better than a George Foreman Grill).

Now, I’m not sure what caused me to start writing jokes when I was 14. I had always been the “goofy” kid at school. Terrible with girls, but could make my buddies laugh. I wasn’t good at sports, never really excelled in academics. I had carved out my niche in the dog eat dog world of public education.

In high school, I started reading books about stand-up. If a friend had cable, I would watch Comedy Central in hopes of there being some sort of stand-up comic airing his special. I researched comedy clubs in Oklahoma. When I turned 18 I went to watch open mics, dreaming of the day I had the moxie to get on stage. Then the club made it so a person had to be 21 to enter a comedy club. So,  no more comedy clubs for me.

Spencer in college! I was still a loser. Terrible with girls, not good at sports and still a mediocre student, but I could still make people laugh. I started going to the Loony Bin, watching the open mic’ers, telling myself, “I’ll sign up next week,” and never doing it.

It wasn’t until after I had graduated college, was working a manual labor job at Exxon Mobil and writing part-time for the Shawnee News-Star that I reached the tipping point. I had been watching open mics for years; I was often depressed at my plight, never going after things I wanted, (comedy, girls, ect.) thinking how much bad comedy I had seen over the years (and with some prompting from friends), I finally told myself, “I can be just as terrible as these other open mic’ers.”

So, with nothing to lose, (except a dream and my dignity) I signed up for my first open mic. It was at the Loony Bin in OKC, I was 24. I was on stage for less than 3 minutes, (you were given 5 minutes of stage time in those days) and wanna know what? It wasn’t bad. I didn’t kill. I was scared shitless. But I got some laughs. I took a month off, (because I was still scared of the stage) and then did it again. I got more laughs this time. Now I was hooked. I swear to God, there isn’t a better feeling than making a room full of people laugh (there is also nothing as bad as having a room full of stangers stare at you, not laughing, but I feel you have to have some bad nights to make the good nights worth it).

After deciding I was a comic, my life became great. I landed a job at the governor’s office, I had money for food, I wasn’t as scared of women (not true, I’m still scared of girls). Truth be told, I had actually been keeping the fact that I wanted to be a comic hidden from all but my most trusted friends. Being able to tell people I was a comedian made me feel good. I imagine it is how gay people feel when they come out of the closet and are accepted (and don’t have the crap kicked out of them).

After doing open mic at the Loony Bin for between 6-8 months I was promoted to emcee. I had a lot of help from the veterans of the Loony Bin: Kyle Kubiak, Paul Curtis and Joel Decker. I was much worse at being an emcee than I was at being an open mic’er. The crowd doesn’t expect much from the open mic’ers, if you can exceed their low expectations, they will give you a laugh. But being an emcee, this was paid comedy. The crowds weren’t as forgiving of a person that wasn’t confident when they took the stage. The first week as an emcee made me question everything I had done. The club owner was amazing. She helped me with my confidence and told me after handing me my cash, “We are going to have you back. But don’t feel bad, it’s always terrible your first week of emceeing.” It was nice to have the support, but it also justified my own paranoia (I really was doing as terrible as I thought).

I have now been doing comedy for six years. I’m confident in the fact that I can make a room full of people laugh. The highs of making that room full of people laugh, and forget their problems, still comes when I say a punchline.

I have competed in many comedy competitions and won none of them. My senior year in high school, I was voted, “Best Sense of Humor” by the entire school. But in the senior superlatives, I lost “Wittiest” to the yearbook editor’s boyfriend (I have a conspiracy theory that one of them rigged the votes, I mean, how does the entire school vote you “best sense of humor” and your class, the kids you grew up with, are like, “eh”). The reason I bring this up, is because I was recently came in second in the Oklahoma City Gazette’s “Best Of” issue in the category of “Best Local Comedian or Comedy Troupe”.

I received a text from Cameron Buchholtz last night, telling me that a “comedy” troupe on cable access had won. I wasn’t expecting to win, in fact, I was almost sure my friend and fellow comedian Leah Kayajanian would win… I also expected Twinprov to make a good run at it. The reason I was so broken-hearted at the news is because I’ve seen the “comedy” the winners produce. It’s atrocious.

So last night, I began questioning everything I’ve done in the past six years. Has it been a waste of my time? Am I chasing a dream that is in fact a mirage, disappearing when I think I’m getting close? To answer my rhetorical questions: yes and no.

Yes, because it seems I don’t have much of a future in comedy. I’m looking at this realistically; I’m about to get married. I suspect this will put a damper on my comedy career. Plus, you always hear about bitter road comics and their multiple ex-wives. I don’t want that life. Oklahoma isn’t really a comedy mecca, I’d have to move if I wanted to give it a real shot, my fiancé has a job she loves and I don’t want to drag her away from something she loves.

No, because I can’t get away from my love of comedy. I assume if I don’t have the outlet of comedy, I will regress into the days of depression before comedy. Either way I can’t imagine life without comedy. But I don’t want to strive for a dream, when I’m tethered to a community that doesn’t appreciate it.

So, in my six years of comedy I have learned that you aren’t given anything. You have to go out there and take it. But I still don’t know how you become a success. And by “success” I’m not talking about having my own show or being in movies (although, that would be nice) but just being able to make a living doing something I’m passionate about.

I’ve been reflecting about my life recently. I’m about to leave the greatest job I’ve ever had (and fear the greatest I will ever have) and wonder if I have peaked. I can see my life turning to shit. I could wind up in a job I resent because I’m not doing comedy and have that resentment spread to all other aspects of my life, dreaming of what could have been (“What could have been” is the punchline to one of Leah Kayajanian’s best jokes, I literally chuckled when I found myself writing it).

I guess, what I’m getting at is this: I don’t know what the future holds and it scares the hell out of me. I want to thank everyone that has been there with me on this journey. And I wouldn’t give up the friends I’ve made for anything. The problems and worries I face are small and meaningless in comparison to the problems of other people, but they are my problems nonetheless.

If you made it this far in the blog, I love you. I say that because only a true friend would care about anything I have said here.

Kisses.

Seriously, be nice to people. It’s the easiest thing in the world to be good at; once they give you a reason to stop being nice, you can stop being nice, but until then try being nice.

On my way to work this morning I remembered when I was a “receptionist” in Governor Henry’s office. I put the word receptionist in quotation marks because while I did constituent services work, I was seated at the receptionist desk. So most people thought I was, in fact, a male receptionist (which has a stigma of its own).

During the governor’s re-election campaign, I took a week of vacation to join him on the campaign trail in western Oklahoma. I clearly remember the lack of respect and snide remarks I got from the college kids that were working as campaign staff for the summer. It didn’t bother me at the time, I was 26 and had put up with that kind of crap my entire life (I’m nerdy and was never one of the ‘cool’ kids). A few months after the governor was re-elected I received a promotion in the office. I was moved from “receptionist” to personal assistant to the governor. It is without a doubt the greatest job in the world. I get to travel with the governor to various events and meet interesting and nice people.

Occasionally, I will run into the campaign staff that treated me like crap; of course they are nice to me now, because of my position, but they still make backhanded comments. I accept the comments, and don’t tell them that they suck and have done nothing with their lives. One of these douche bags even went so far as to tell my fiancé, “You know he used to be a secretary” (This a-hole used to have a thing for her, so I’m assuming he was doing this to make me seem less appealing, but he is now a substitute teacher, so I win)

Being nice to everyone does nothing but give people a favorable impression of you. So be nice. Even behind peoples back.

If you are a fan of hilarity, than you are aware of the “Tompkins 300″; if you can get 300 people to say they will come to his show, he will come to your city. Our group got the 300 people and Paul kept his word.

I was honored by getting to open for PFT. I have opened for many comedians in the six years I’ve been doing comedy, but I have more respect for Mr. Tompkins than any comedian that comes to mind (no offense to any of the comedians I’ve worked with). I was first introduced to his style of comedy in Mr. Show, and his CD “Impersonal” is my absolute favorite comedy album. If you haven’t heard it, listen to it!

Paul F. Tompkins is the nicest guy on the planet, yeah, nicer than Ghandi. He volunteered his talent to introduce me (he did his spot on impression of rapper Ice-T). Getting on-stage with the crowd in a great mood was fantastic. I did 10 minutes of material and then brought PFT out. It was an honor to be a part of his show. (I recorded my set and will post it here when I get it)

I actually went to see him when he was in Dallas (they had less than 100 people show up, and that is a much bigger market than OKC… so take that Dallas, OKC like PFT more!).  Paul’s set in OKC was a completely new hour and a half of comedy than he did in Dallas or any of his albums.

I just wanted to write this blog to thank everyone that helped in making this show a success (that’s you comedy fans!).

Also, check out Paul’s new podcast on iTunes: The Pod F. Tomkast.

kisses,

Spence

$400 for sunglasses! Are you kidding me capitalism? You told me that competition brings prices down. I know it doesn’t cost $400 dollars to make these pieces of crap. But should I have to pay for the luxury of this label making glasses that make me look presentable?

Plus, about this “competition” you speak so highly of; am I to take my business to one of the other 8 Sunglass Huts in the mall? That doesn’t seem competitive. I doubt this fine business is going to undercut itself, that’s not good business.

I’m sorry to be so hard on you capitalism. I know you’re not perfect, in fact, you’re better than any economic system out there. We all have our flaws, and I don’t mean to point yours out like this, but seriously… $400 for something I’m going to lose at the lake or leave in someone else’s car?

I’ll just check eBay. And yes I realize that I’m basically paying someone to steal them for me, but hey, it’s a dog eat dog world out there. You understand.

Kisses,

Spence