Peterborough Here I come!

I grew up in Peterborough. I'll be honest, when I lived there, I hated it. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. But now that I'm older, it's weird how much I really like the place. It's one of those places that I probably wouldn't hate living in again at some point in time. It's a nice little town. Probably not a bad place to raise a family. I was up there on Wednesday and driving around, it's amazing how much the place has changed, yet how much of it is still the same. All the crazy memories come flooding back - playing hockey at the tennis courts on Barnardo Ave, Thursday night movies at the zoo, , trying to steal the population sign, passing out and sleeping the night in King Edward Park (I've never been more proud!), late nights on the river in a boat, and of course my years spent working at the Beer Store on Lansdowne. Everywhere I went in town, I was "the beer guy". Even 10 years after I left, I was in a bar and some dude called me "the beer guy".

So on Saturday night, it will be fun to head "home" and do a show at Johnny Eh's on Water Street. On the show with me are two of my very good friends, Brian Hope and Andrew Evans. I'm hosting, so I'm not sure whether I'll do my regular stuff, or whether I'll tell a bunch of stories about growing up there. I guess we'll have to see how I feel when I get there. But it will be a fun show. And after, maybe we'll head on down the street to Riley's to see if I can't pull a Sebastain Bach and get tossed out of the place for being totally shitfaced and mocking the piano player and spitting wine on the manager. Or maybe I can head on down to the Red Dog and see what local celebs are passed out at the bar. Or maybe I'll just watch a bit of CHEX TV and reminisce about the olden days when they couldn't get the weather forecast right. Wednesday was such a long time ago.

Good times. See you Saturday Peterborough!

I’m fading away to nothing`

That's right kiddies, I've been on a health kick since the start of the year and I'm now down close to 20 pounds. I knew I was fat, but you don't realize how fat you are until you're not as fat as you were. Shirts seem to fit better. My gut doesn't hang over my belt the same way it did before. Although, I'm a little pissed, I bought a really nice belt from the big man's store last year, and in the next few months, if thing keep going the way they're going, I'm going to have to get a new belt. That's just bullshit!

I had lost a ton of weight before by doing Atkins. Atkins is not a bad way to do it, but it's tough to keep it off. When I did Atkins I lost 60 pounds in 9 months. Sure, cutting carbs is a great way to shed pounds, but once you break an ankle and are on crutches eating nothing but pizza and drinking beer for 12 weeks, it's amazing how quickly that weight comes back. I think I put on about 30 pounds in 12 weeks, and then slowly put about a total of 75 back on over the next couple of years. So this time around, I thought I'd try something different and radical. It's called portion control. Have you ever heard of it? Under this crazy scheme, I'm eating the total calories I would need if I weighed my ideal weight. Based on that, I apparently need about 2400 calories per day. So I'm right now trying to only eat between 2,000 and 2,250 per day, and amazingly, the weight's been coming off. Not nearly as quickly as it did before mind you, but at least by doing it this way, once the weight is off, I should theoretically be used to eating the right number of calories per day so I should be able to keep it off. We'll see.

I do need to be careful not to lose too much though. I bought a tux for my wedding in August and I'm dangerously close to not being able to wear it. I'm all for getting healthy, but I'm also cheap. I need to find the right balance.

I’m Apparently way too Dirty for Comedy

I recently had the opportunity to play some shows at a comedy club. To be honest, I've kind of had a rough time at this particular club, at least compared to the stories I hear from other comics. For whatever reason, I had been having a tough time getting the crowd to like me on a consistent basis. That had pretty much changed the last couple of times I was there, and this time around, judging by crowd response and the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me that they loved me. Apparently they liked me. I was now getting solid laughs on pretty much every joke I told. It's a nice feeling. I even had the booker/owner tell me after the Friday show that one of his regulars who had been to well over 60 shows thought our Friday night show was one of the best he had ever seen.

So imagine my surprise when I am chatting with the booker/owner after the last show and he tells me that I'm way too dirty for his club and if I want to work there again, I basically need to rewrite my entire act. In his opinion, my act is pure filth. It is apparently filled with nothing but shit jokes and vulgar, dirty sex jokes. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a squeaky clean comic. I am probably not even in the top 100 for a clean corporate show, but I am not way too dirty to work a comedy club. Yes, I have two jokes, and one line about poo. I have a joke about my dog eating shoelaces, a joke about bowel buddies and a line about my most recent physical. That is it. In total, we're looking at maybe 3 minutes of material out of my act. Maybe. And this time around, I was very cognizant to not do all of them on the same night. I did actually on the amateur night when I needed to use a lot more of my material, and I did on one of the weekend shows when I ended up having to do about 35 minutes all told. So yeah, on those shows, I had probably 3 minutes of shit jokes.

As far as the vulgar dirty sex jokes, I think that I might use the term vagina once in my act. I have even recently been using the term Hoo-Ha just to take the edge off of it. Yeah, I do have some sexual references, but none of them are vulgar or explicit. I would say that maybe half of my jokes (and that's probably over estimating), have some reference to sex in them. Most of the jokes are about how I'm an idiot when it comes to those things. They are not sexist or homophobic in any way. Also, I should point out that while I do occasionally swear in my act, it is not excessive, and in fact on a lot of shows, I only swear on two jokes I tell, and depending on the venue, I may not even swear then. So I really don't understand where this perception of me being a dirty filthy comic is coming from.

And here's an even more interesting fact about my latest visit. I brought in maybe 5 to 7 minutes of new material that I didn't do my last time around at the club, and they were clean with no sexual overtones or shit references. Yet this time around, I'm way too dirty. I don't get it.

But probably the most frustrating part in all of this is that I really didn't get a good chance to talk to the booker / owner after the fact. I never got a chance to really defend myself. I really don't know what to do. So, I guess I'll just start writing nothing but jokes about Tim Horton's, the difference between men and women, and of course the old staple, airline food.

Things I’ve learned

This past weekend, my fiancé and I spent the weekend in Niagara Falls. It was so nice to get away for the weekend. But more importantly, I learned a few very valuable life lessons. They are:

1. Leaving my house to drive to Niagara Falls at 4 PM on the Friday before March break is not a good idea. But the upside, we were able to turn a drive that normally takes an hour and a half into a 3 hour drive. You can't do that every day.
   
2. When playing video blackjack, it is important, nope, make that critical, that you actually pay attention to how much you're betting. I was doing well, making some money. Hell, I'm a high roller (coincidentally the name of my Thursday night hockey team too – The High Rollers). I was playing $20 – CANADIAN. That's like $20.60 American. Anyway, I had turned my $20 into about $42. I got cocky thinking this game was going to pay for our whole trip, and then all of the sudden, over the course of 4 hands I was down to $2. WTF? Well apparently, if you're not careful, your bet keeps getting pushed higher so instead of betting $1 or $2 per hand, you're betting $10. It's good if you win, but if you suck at the game like me, it kind of hurts.
   
3. When filling up the Jacuzzi tub, it is important that you wait until you wait until the water level is over the jets before you turn it on, otherwise you will need a mop and a squeegee, and the towels hanging 10 feet across the room that were previously dry will need to be wrung out over the tub.
   
4. Apparently bubble bath in a Jacuzzi tub is also a no no. Lesson learned.
   
5. Everybody in Niagara Falls wants a tip. People there must be the lowest paid people in the world because everybody had their hand out for a tip. Hey, if you're a server and do a good job, I will tip you handsomely. If you're a bus driver, sorry pal, no tip for you. But the absolute best was in the bathroom at the old casino. There was a "Tip Jar" in the bathroom. There were no bathroom attendants, or other staff anywhere to be found, yet there was a tip jar. And here's the worst part, there was money in it. Real live folding money - $5 Bills, $10 Bills and even a $20 Bill. How big of a mess did a dude make that he felt obligated to leave a $20 tip to nobody?
   
6. The Outback Steakhouse is overpriced and shitty when compared to the Keg. $11 for a Cesar? Really? And that is without naked ladies dancing around a pole! Unbelievable!
   
7. Cheesy haunted houses scare me. Always have. Always will. I remember one time I was about 11 and was in the falls with my family. My sister who was about 6 at the time wanted to go into a haunted house. So, my dad pays the admission and we walk down the stairs. When the door opened and I saw that it was dark, I totally freaked out. While my 6 year old sister enjoyed the haunted house, I sat in the ticket booth with the lady until my family was done. Incidentally, that's some pretty good parenting when my parents would leave me with a complete stranger in a ticket booth rather than miss out on a haunted house. No wonder I'm messed up.
   

That is all.

Shameless Begging for a good cause!

As you may know, I'm playing in the upcoming Baycrest Pro/Am hockey tournament which helps raise money for Alzheimer's research. It is a great tournament where you get to play with and against former NHL players, with all proceeds going to the Baycrest Foundation. If you'd be at all interested in sponsoring me in this worthy cause, please make your donation at http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=2879907&Lang=en-CA

I also have raffle tickets available for sale. There are a few prizes including premium raptors tickets as well as dugout seats for the Blue Jays home opener. Tickets are $25 each or 4 for $100. If you're interested in purchasing a ticket, email me at dave@davepaterson.ca.

Thanks!

It was in Bobcaygeon

This past weekend, I had a show up in Bobcaygeon, which was a fundraiser for the Sturgeon Falls Thunder hockey team. I was hosting the show with the hilarious Nile Seguin headlining with Tyler Morrison doing the middle spot. We tried unsuccessfully to get Bobcaygeon fan favourite Angry Andrew Evans to do a spot, but he wasn't up for it. That's fine though, we didn't need him anyway. The crowd was fun. Hell, anytime you can get 150 drunken hockey parents in a lounge at the local arena, you know you're in for a treat! Sadly, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I wasn't propositioned for a 3-some.

The only downside of the night was the drive home. During the show a snowstorm had rolled through and made driving a bit of a challenge. I hate to sound like a pussy, whining about driving in Canada in the winter, but let's face it, I am a pussy about driving in winter in Canada. I'm not sure what the worst part of the drive was, the country roads that hadn't seen a plow yet or the 401 where it was a free for all with the lane choices. I think we must have seen about half a dozen cars that had driven into the median. But, we made it home okay and nobody got hurt. I did end up missing last call though, so I really wasn't too happy about that.

I also did a fun little show last night at a place called the Charlotte Room. It is a monthly show organized by Robin Crossman and Chris MacLean. It runs on the last Monday of the month. It was a very solid lineup with funny comics like Andrew Evans, Todd Van Allen, and Brendan McKeigan. It was fun. Drinks were too expensive, but the show was good. Fortunately, I was still a little "tender" from Sunday when I ended up going out for a "couple of beers" to send Dave Tsonos off, who has decided to leave the beach and become homeless in his quest for comedy fame. I'm likely buying a new TV in the next few days, so I'll be sure to keep the box for him so he'll have someplace to play when he gets back from his western tour. I should have known it was going to be a troublesome night when I uttered those words, "I don't think it'll be a late night." WRONG. Oh well, what can you do?

This coming weekend I'm doing a couple of shows. I'm hosting Balmy Comedy at the Fill Station in the beaches. It's a mix of standup and sketch. Show starts at 8, so you know "it won't be a late night" (wink, wink). Saturday, I'm doing Club 54. Still not sure if I'm headlining or middling, but I'm doing a spot anyway. Should be fun.

I’ve discovered these things called books

Have you heard of these things? They're like movies that haven't been filmed yet. But in all seriousness, I would like to kick my Grade 10 English teacher, Mr. Passmore, right in the balls. In school, I was always more of a math, business, accounting type of a student. I had no interest in literature or poetry or any of that shit. So I would really struggle to read any of the books in English class. They were boring, lame, and just seemed like a waste of time. And then when I did read the book, I was made to feel like I was an idiot because I didn't understand the symbolism. Well excuse me for not knowing that a red sky at night symbolized the end of an era or some bullshit like that. Who the hell cares? To me, the red sky at night symbolized the sun was going down. Apparently you can't take things literally in literature and if you do, you're a tool. So because of that, I vowed never to read a book again. That bastard had taken all of the fun out of it for me.

So since then, I've read, but it has always been as research for jobs, or projects, or jokes and stuff. To me, reading was not fun because I "didn't get it". In fact, from the time I was in Grade 10 until January 3 of this past year, I had not read a complete book, and I had never picked up a book as recreation. I read the newspaper, magazines and gossip websites, but never a book. Hell, if the book was that good, they'd make it into a movie and all would be right in the world. However, thanks to the whole Conan / Jay Leno fiasco and a book entitled "The Battle for Late Night" by Bill Carter, all of that changed. I was thoroughly engrossed in that book. It was interesting. It was very cool. I enjoyed reading that book so much that I even downloaded a Kobo Reader App for my netbook and my Blackberry and I've been reading tons for the past few weeks. Hell, I've finished about 4 books so far this year. In a month and a half, I've read more than I had in my entire life up until the end of last year. Most of what I've been reading have been bios from Comedians and Musicians. I guess I'm very interested in the subject matter, so it helps. I've found that it's actually not a bad way to unwind before bed. I wish I'd have known that before.

Anyway, if you know any good books I should read, let me know. I may just actually read them.