6-10-05 – COLUMN KICKOFF

the column thing with mother jones is working out. First one is about to be published online and it was very fun to do and it feels like a working relationship that could go somewhere.

The editor, by the way, loved the title I suggested, which was a very good sign to me. I was hesitant about even mentioning it, but am so glad that I did.

We’re going with: “Children of a Lesser Prefrontalasaurus”

I was working on the column while I was out performing in reno, and it struck me as very strange that I was up there in the hotel room, writing a piece that most of the people downstairs gambling till dawn will probably never read. at least not the woman with the tattoo on her breast that said, ‘paid for by Frank.’

5-12-05- SAN FRANCISCO – SKIRT AND STUBBLE

tonight at the ‘writers with drinks’ event at the makeout room.

ok, so charlie. i was told, when i got there, to look for charlie-girl, in a blue tight leather skirt.

i found the skirt and it was being worn by a he. and i thought i should have known, the second i heard charlie-girl. if you have to mention girl, it's because she's not one. and he was wearing ripped purple fishnets, and a blonde wig and rouge and looking about as manly as you can under the circumstances, although everyone has their own definition of girl.

so, the show, is going well. the audience is really digging my set and laughing, and i am on a roll and charlie had given me a very nice and very funny intro. so i am very relaxed and lulled into a comfort zone.

But then charlie comes by to adjust the reverb on the sound system. and i see him and casually tell the audience that we – charlie and I - had been emailing and i didn't know till tonight that he wasn't a he, and i go into -- i should have known if they have to mention 'girl...'

there was an audible, collective and unanimous gasp. and charlie was off in the corner also in a gasp seizure of some sort. and i'm on stage, getting that familiar feeling of, ‘jeez, there's no getting back is there? no way out of this one.’

totally stopped the show dead.

Now, mind you, here's the kind of literary gathering it was. when i walk in i hear from the stage: "My next poem is titled 'To My Future Rapist.' "

and the poetess proceeded to read the ode to her assailant-to-be. whoever it turns out to be, i'm sure he'll be surprised that she took the trouble to compose a few verses beforehand for the occasion. it's almost romantic. i know if i were a rapist, i'd be especially touched. i mean, at the very least, it's got to be a first.

anyway, there i am on stage, thinking, well, this certainly has been an interesting week of performances, and what a note to end on. stares. i did manage to pull off a laugh to end on as a quasi-professional redemption.

and some folks did make a point to say they enjoyed it very much and not to worry about the overly sensitive types, meaning everybody else.

i tried to say to charlie afterwards, hey no offense. and he said no problem. but i didn't look like he meant it.

April 23 2005 – red poppy art house – San Francisco – spanglish 101 workshop performance. – LITTLE WINCE IS HUGE

God it was good tonight. I mean it just clicked and I was in my element. Intimate. Very intimate. 35. but a good bunch. It was such a focused experience because they were really there to help me workshop, collaborating just by being there and being so into it and being so receptive and listening the whole time!

OH I HAD ONE GREAT MOMENT TONIGHT WHEN I DID THE PUERTO RICO BECOMING A STATE/TYPICAL U.S. REACTION – LINE.

I did a little wince, and held it, longer that I usually do, ever have and that extended wince, got such a huge laugh, and became its own beat, and it is a keeper for sure.

And there it was in the same line I’ve been doing over and over and suddenly just because I angled the delivery ever so slightly and felt the crowd wanting me to hold it, that wince, that facial expression, that thought and beat, I squeezed out a whole new moment and laugh for the show. It’s funny to me that as slow as the evolution and distillation process is, that something like that can be so exciting.

Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: rocks hearts wrong city
lorraine,

just walked in through the door and plugged in. and i am suffering from post-road-trip depression. it's come on strong and suddenly. first of all i am afraid i am in the wrong city. i should be in chicago. what am i doing here in san Francisco? my heart isn't here. She is not here. and this studio without a view, hurts my eyes, after feasting on the wide open west in new mexico and colorado - i went skiing in vail! - and utah, where i clambered up to the tops of fiery totem-like rock formations towering in the red canyon and peered into the craggy jagged carvings of bryce canyon and drove the winding path in the post-sunset darkness of zion national park – imagine, the most spectacular of all and it was just shadows and silhouhettes with a few stars blinking into place as it got darker .

i stopped at the side of the road along the way back through utah and was so drawn to the precarious glowing slabs of stone piled high, i locked the car and started climbing and pretty soon it's getting more difficult and you are starting to worry about how you are ever going to get down. when i was a kid i would climb trees so high that i would have to cry for my dad to come get me down. and i was getting that feeling again.

there was one little spot where it was iffy and if the if was not on your side, you go slidding into and flush down a funnel to nowhere. but i trodded carefully and clung fast and at the top, god, i made it all the way to the top, there were views in every direction, more red rocks across the way, snow peaks tward of bryce canyon and there wasthe flat valley that went on forever in the opposite direction and it gave you the feeling that you were looking at, standing in, the circle of all existence. that you were in the epicenter of all that was or all there ever had to be or for you to ever worry about. and the earth up there, the ground was deep red, but loose and crumbly like it had been slightly moist just a day ago.

and you feel, i felt, such a connection. as if i had been molded of that very stuff and it's so easy to see where the legends come from. they burst fully formed into your imagination from the very ground you walk on and the clouds you cycle through your lungs. and it was me there trying to be in the moment and memorize the panorama, taking it in, storing the contours and the colors and their affect on me. trying to hold on to the soaring inspiration of being up there alone and alive.

i slept in the car a few nights, which made the hotel stays that much more glorious. sleeping in the car saves a little money but it takes its toll. everything was taking its toll. i fell so many times while i was skiing that after a while i wasn't even trying to stop the fall. as along as i got down the hill, it didn't matter how. that became my new goal.

April 14th Eastern New Mexico University – SHOW ME THE ETHNIC PROFILING MONEY!

8 A.M. FEELING GOOD, rested, finally, and happy that the gig went so well.

I am back on the college mission. Also, so many gigs have fallen into place. Even though

I am out of phone range, damn Nextel!, I have been able to get some great bookings

Dartmouth came through, got a noon gig in sacramento on cinco de mayo – big day for latino comics! But who’s going to turn down the ethnic profiling money? – and I got Utah the week before Minneapolis and Jeff Cheddy of Brillstein and Grey, reviewed my package and wants to meet in LA.

It all has to do with the conditioning of the mind, the striving for alignment and faith and the re-alignment of my thinking.

It’s such a constant undertaking, to stay mentally on track and not let things throw you. There are so many moments, when some news or thought sneaks up behind me and kicks me in the back of the psychological knees and I have to be on guard so that I don’t fall.

Where to next?

I have a few days, a little money left in the bank, and it just snowed in Colorado with three days of skiing left in Vail.

April 9th – Modesto, CA. -- GOD AND SODOMY IN MODESTO

Last night in modesto – water wealth contentment and health – after the show a guy comes up to me and says he’s seen a lot of comedy and just thought I had the best material. It was a very unusually attentive crowd. And then he asked me about Puerto Rico, whether I knew the politics there. I said yes. He asked about the independence movement. And he said that Puerto Rico should absolutely be independent, that he believes in independence and in fact is a member of League of the South, a southern independence movement of states looking to secede and form a confederacy. They guy’s never gotten over the civil war. And I asked him whether there was a racial component because that was always going to be the first assumption and how did he answer that. And he said that there is no racial component. “All those issues were resolved a long time ago. This is about social issues. Like that supreme court ruling in Texas.” He was talking about the sodomy ruling. I said you want to secede over sodomy? And his wife was there, Nicole. I remember her name. She was very beautiful and reminded me of one of my brother’s ex girlfriends. Only more beautiful and she was wanting to dance with me and grinding coquettishly. And I asked him, you’ve never committed sodomy with your wife? And he looked at me and said, “God created one perfect hole.”

And I thought, I can’t believe I am having this conversation. He said it with so much conviction and it sounded like the best argument for heterosexuality I’ve ever heard. How do you counter something like that? I had no anal rebuttal. It sounded so biblical, like the name of a sermon you’ll never hear in church. “God created one perfect…” Almost like a commandment. “Thou shalt worship no other holes but the one perfect hole”

I thought only in modesto. A pro-independence, anti-anal activist. Anti sodomy but he wants to liberate the south. Wants to liberate the south geographically, not anatomically..

3-12-05 – NEW YORK CITY - BLIP LONG AND PROSPER

last night. snow flakes. biggest I recall ever seeing. all gone this morning. and i hear the melting water trickling off the roof tops and feel a very strong sun filtering through the drapes and reminding me i didn't get enough sleep.

life life life. blips really. blip expectancy. we should talk bout what our blip expectancy is, really. less deceptive than life expectancy.

you can expect to live a long blip!

ohhh i'm sorry that's a very short blip line you've got on your palm there. not good…

3-11-05 – 4 P.M. NYC – WELL, EXUUUUUUSE ME!

went out to mail something to HBO (not my cable bill) and pick up some dry cleaning.

And a pigeon crapped on my head.

3-9-05 – WILLIAM AND BILL – ONE AND THE SAME -

Just spent 45 minutes on the phone with expedia -- apparently it's a global company staffed by one guy. you would not believe how ridiculous it has been trying to register some of these miles!
then I call united and the woman says that because my name is William on the frequent flyer account but the name on the ticket is Bill, the computer won't accept it and i am going to have to send in a copy of the itinerary, plus supporting documentation, to prove that I, the william and bill that i am claiming to be, are one and the same.

i asked for a supervisor and explained to him that this is the worst phone purgatory i've been condemned to in a long time and he said that he thanked me for my patience and that he recognized that names like bob and robert and the like were common nicknames names and that he would go ahead and change the record so that i could get my miles award.

mind you that this only for one leg the trip.

2-12-05 CHOCOLATE BY THE BAY
----- Original Message -----
From: bill santiago
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 9:40 AM
Subject: chocolate chip
i'm here and it's a good feeling. when i got to the BART platform in Oakland to take the train into the city - just $5.25 from the airport to my door including bus fare! - the air was filled with the smell of chocolate chip cookies. there must be a factory some where near there or it's just my mind playing tricks on me, so happy am i to be back, that to me that's what the air in california smells like - chocolate chip cookies.

NEW YORK – 2-10-05 – LITTLE PEOPLE’S ASSOCIATON

speaking of any situation, i just did a show for the LPA, Little People's Association of America. "the only thing you can't say during the show is 'midget,' " i was told by the club manager. “that's like the word 'nigger' to them.”

i don't see how that can be, myself. i don't recall any a civil war being fought over midget slavery and i don't remember the midget plight begetting any particularly good music.

NEW YORK – 2-8-05 – REALLY ME ON CD?

Finally listened to a CD i recorded like two years ago in Minneapolis.

i hadn't heard it before – and i'm listening, thinking, "this guy's pretty damn good."

very professional recording that I did while working with Lewis Black, who was recording his new CD for Comedy Central at ACME Comedy Club. i was able to use the same equipment he did, since it was already set, and for a fraction of the cost.

there was flow, the audience was with me, i was challenging and smart and scoring some laughs with material that had a very high degree of difficulty and integrity.

and you realize that slogging though the clubs in new york trying to connect with drunks at 2 am can damage your comedic instrument!

shouldn't lose sight of what i can do and what i should be doing.

1-17-05 – NEW YORK – BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE PELLETS

Alissa was explaining that in the behavioral science, there is something called intermittent reinforcement where a rat will persistently try to get a pellet as a reward for a task if it gets that pellet every so often, but not all the time.

if it never gets a pellet, there is no reward and it will never try again.

if it gets a pellet all the time, it will grow bored and give up as well.

but if it gets a pellet unpredictably every so often, it is compelled to
continue trying and trying forever.

that's what standup comedy is like. and i got my pellet tonight.

walked to the subway in the snow and it was beautiful and I was feeling very good

JAN. 9 2005 – STANDUP NEW YORK - “HOW ABOUT A HAND FOR JOE SANTIAGO…”

It was such an easy beautifuI Sunday crowd set. The club was half empty. But the folks that were there were there to be entertained and I love watching them go from, yeah, who is this guy? to -- oh, he’s the real deal, and then having them love you and not wanting you to leave. I don’t want to leave either. I tell them, wish I had more time, but I am getting the light and have to get out of here and they go “Awwwww, no….” and it’s heartfelt and very heartening.

I have to keep reminding myself how long it’s taken – years! – to be able to do that so reliably. And what an accomplishment that is.

Afterward the MC, came up and said, “How about a hand for Joe Santiago”

I think that’s about as far as you can get from being a household name, when the guy who has the names on a list, who has introduced you, and has just heard me tell the crowd my name one more time so that they’ll keep an eye out for me in the future, and who gets paid to say my name correctly, and he screws it up.

12-10-04 – SANTA’S LITTLE HECKLERS

I heard $900 and couldn’t say no, even though the word Modesto was also mentioned.

It was a “corporate” gig at a restaurant in Santa Nella, about an hour south of modesto, on I-5, and had a huge light- bedecked windmill on the outside of it. Which at least helped me to see it from the highway through the thick fog that had settled in as night fell.

I got heckled, first off, at a Christmas party. One of the employees and guests at the party started to yell in a very hostile and incomprehensible manner and I didn’t want to take him down the way I would in a club and my more subtle tactics weren’t working.

The company boss had to go over and shut him down.

Also the sound system nearly deafened the audience when some extreme feedback blasted from the speakers as the engineer turned it on.

It was an agricultural packing company. Peaches and Tomatoes. Thank god they had packed them all or they might have thrown some.

Also, the sound engineer’s phone went off twice. And when I mentioned politics, the room went silent! And when I mentioned sex they were too inhibited to laugh. And of course the smart stuff was a bit too hard for them to follow. And the Latino stuff left half the room out of the joke.

Still a bit bruised by the conversation with TV folks yesterday.

12-9-04 – SAN FRANCISCO – BREATHALYZER BILL BUSTS A BAD SALSA MOVE

Maria called and asked me to go salsa dancing up in SF. couldn’t resist, even though I was playing down in Sunnyvale and had a room down there at the hotel.

So I go, have a wonderful time and on the way back

I am driving through thick fog, and am having a tough time, really, and of course I got the ole flashing gumball machine in the rearview and got stopped by two cops.

Oh, I immediately turned off the salsa in the car-- ruben blades – on the stereo. And tried to sober up.

So many questions. The cops said I was weaving. I said I was tired. He said he smelled alcohol.

I said I had had one vodka tonic hours ago, heavy on the tonic.

He did the eyeball following the eraser test. I followed, boy, for my dear life. MOVE YOU

FUCKING EYEBALL!

GOD, I was so thinking I was snagged.

They were about to let me go and said that all I had to do was tell them a joke -- I had told them I was from the comedy club, etc.

But then like an idiot, I didn’t tell them a joke, saying I only do that when on stage, but they could come down to the club and check out the show, and then the cop had a change of heart and asked me to step out of the car.

They did the eraser test again, Asked me to stand on one foot and count one one-thousand, two-one-thousand (I GOT TO 24-ONE THOUSAND!!! BEFOR HE ASKED ME TO PUT MY FOOT DOWN AND I FELT SO PROUD. LIKE YEA MOTHERFUCKER. I GOT BALANCE!)

And he asked me to close my eyes. Lean my head back and count to thirty in my head to see if I could estimate the time. I did so perfectly.

They asked me a list of questions?! Where I was going? whose car? did I have any medical conditions? when I had my last drink? when was the last time I had something to eat? I said I had just finished the box of crackers in the car – true. And had had sushi for dinner – not true

I said something in Spanish, which probably sounded drunk and they pulled out the breathalyzer, asked if would take it. what could I say. I blew? but holding back. It’s weird because in your mind you are trying to blow but simultaneously suck back the alcohol in your breath!

Anyway then he said I should take my two fingers and squeeze them like a scope of a gun to frame the light of a street lamp he was pointing to in the distance. I did. Concentrating. and he said, that’s how close you are to going to jail.

I’m like -- fuck!

Then he said, they said, take the next exit, stop at denny’s, take nap in the parking lot or get some coffee.

I slept there for two hours and just got back into the hotel.

No ticket!!!! Still alive thank god.

Never make that mistake again.

All in all It was a very weird day. Also Alissa’s purse got stolen in Minneapolis and I had to cancel the checks I gave her.

12-09-04 – UNCLE MILTY DREAM

Oh had a dream this morning with Milton Berle – he had seen one of my shows, was in the audience and loved it and we met afterwards and I helped him out of the club., He was frail and when I touched him he actually shrank to the size of a little doll and almost disappeared. But I was able to help him regain normal size and walk slowly outside and he told me he loved what I
did.

12-8-04 – SAN FRANCISCO - SHAMPOO, TASTE, DON’T REPEAT EVER AGAIN

after the show at Cobb’s I went to see Maria and I went to the fridge for a little juice, saw a bottle in there that said Hibiscus Cooler. I poured, had a sip, notice the strange taste immediately and instantly realized I was drinking her home-made shampoo.

12-4-04 LA "THANKS FOR REPRESENTING YOUR PEOPLE"

not a total disaster. That’s the review from my point of view.

What worked: the bit about realizing when I move to Puerto Rico, that I’m not dysfunctional, I’m tropical, really worked superbly! And so did the line about my mom: winning the miss five bouroughs. Not burros. Burroughs. Great big easy laughs and what I loved is that it’s timeless biographical stuff that I can use forever and that helps to carve out my history and family on stage, helps define my persona and the audience hooks into my personal story, the lines advance my personal story. One hard-won line at a time.

Theater folks, though, don’t always appreciate the art of standup, as an art.

I felt like I suddenly realized I was performing at a poetry café. Only it was worse because the audience had just sat through 45 minutes of a dance piece, plus an intermission.

And then I showed that video, which seemed to take for ever and there were no laughs in the audience to it and I thought it was hilarious and I remember how much peole were laughing last time I showed it, at the extreme condescension of Lou Dobb’s toward Jorge Ramos. But here, it had no effect, except to put a painful drag on the start. Then I come on stage and take the time to spread out my notes, as I always do successfully at La Pena, and then it just, it was just practically over by the time I opened my mouth. But I didn’t know it till I did and felt the total lack of energy for what I was bringing.

It was the kind of audience where afterwards the comments range from "thanks
for representing your people" to "hey, very well composed".

Makes you yearn for a good ole, "fuckin funny, dude. almost peed in my
pants!"

It was a very good visit and stay in Little Tokyo, though. I love the people here and the feel and this part of LA and the sushi! Sushi! Sushi! And I want to learn Japanese.

I noticed on a Japanese soap opera today that all of a sudden they broke out singing happy birthday – in English – and then went right back to Japanese. And I thought that is something – I may be able to learn this after all.

11-29-04 Ha Café, NYC. UNSOLVED CASE OF THE MISSING KITTY

Second set, I bring my notes with me on stage and I can sense the big, “Uh Oh, this guy needs his crib sheet,” from them. So things are not igniting and I am trying to talk to them. The commandment joke hit home, got the laugh and I tried to ride it but then on the next bit, the waitress came in to attend to the back row of ladies, middle-aged women from Canada out for a night on the town, while their husbands are off hunting somewhere. Anyway I lost their attention and they were the core of the crowd.

So I turn to a couple at another table, asked them if they had cats and they said yes -- used to. “Had to take him for a ride and drop him off in the woods…” AND I WAS APPALLED!

And we went into it. And got some great laughs out of their animal cruelty. I spent the whole set grilling them on their inhuman kitty-ditching ways. And they said that they got rid of it after they had their baby, Mia. And I mentioned that Mia, sounds suspiciously a lot like Meow, and the audience is howling and the whole set turned into a riff on them and their pet/baby issues and I got the light and said I didn’t really know how to end it, and a lady shouts out, “Cat Killers!” and I said,”Perfect,” and got off.


11-12-04 – ha – ha – laugh lounge – 11:50 – NOTABLE NOTES

broke new ground at laugh lounge: after the set, which went very well, I pulled out some notes from my pocket, napkins, said I was going to try out some new stuff.

Told them the show’s over, by the way, this is extra, just some thoughts I’m working out.

AND THEY WERE SO INTO IT.

I was elated.

First new one was a joke that I wrote down upstairs just before going on, at the bar.

About how many different minorities there are. Midgets are a minority, a small one….
But it would be weird if midgets were the majority. Because first of all they wouldn’t be called midgets, they’d be normal, and we’d be called overgrowns.

Got a good laugh, and confirmed the comedy axiom – midgets are funny.

I wound it up by pretending that the hammock joke was a new one, faked reading it from my notes, got off on a laugh and one woman gave me a standing O.

Ready for comic strip tomorrow, Montreal audition, but need a haircut.

One-hour 15 min. swim today.

Sent: 11-4-04, 9:01 AM ELECTIONS HAPPENS

thurs. morning. election malaise is clouding my thoughts and my sense of this life. i can't believe i had enough innocence left to be upset at all by the fact this is happening. civilizations, after all, all go to hell sooner or later. and people are either rotten or stupid or both, more often than not.

10-31-04 HALLOWEEN. MADISON, WISCONSIN "CHEESE! WE WANT CHEESE!"

I felt a little iffy about it going in. Well, it was the way the organizers put it. “We want you to fold your magic into the event and collaborate with the collective
unconsious of the crowd for a peak experience."

But I asked them how much it paid. they told me and i said, that's what i do, collaborate with the collective whatever you said.

So I was in Madison, Wisconsin on Halloween to mc a concert for “the string cheese incident,” a band in the tradition of the grateful dead, playing songs indistinguishible one from the other as background music for their fans’ medicinally-induced altered state.
.
There were 5,000-plus kids there to see the string cheese band and within a minute and a half of my being on stage, all of them were booing and shouting "CHEESE! WE WANT CHEESE!"

Now I had to keep going out there all night to announce things and it just got worse, reaching a peak experience with the costume contest. Note that the producers had distributed 6,000 glow sticks to the crowd, those little rubbery tubes of light, which the collective unconscious realized would make perfect anti-comedian projectiles.

When the band took a break, I go out and announce, "here are the costume contest finalists..." and they don't come out and they don't come out and i'm waiting and nothing and that's when the glow sticks started to be hurled in my direction. so i am getting pelted by these glowsticks and finally the finalists came out and, when the finalists finally showed up on stage, i had to conduct the rest of the contest with my back to the crowd so i wouldn’t get an eye poked out.

i was being followed by a spotlight, so whenever i moved over to evade the line of fire, i was ok for a second, then the spotlight would find me and the kids would be able to adjust their aim! and there was another hail of glowsticks. you could see them coming at me like tracer bullets.

i finally escaped, ducking behind the first-place winner, who of course was dressed as a giant pot leaf. i got off stage, using a pot leaf as a human shield to save my ass.

total disaster and people back stage were saying to me, 'tough business.' and i'm like, "this is not my business!"

Oh, and the check bounced.

Now, on the flight out gloria steinem was on board, heading out to rally the swing state. she was dressed in leather pants, black. her hair was wispy and she wore dark glasses and was a woman of advanced age but regal and exuded a presence of a life accomplished and a sense of ongoing mission. i recognized her voice. she was talking to a soldier who had just returned from iraq. He was in the national guard and his duty had been extended to 12 months so far and he was going to surprise his mom who was under the impression he'd be spending his leave in germany. another soldier told her that he didn't give a crap who won the election, either way they were still going to be stuck in iraq.

i was impressed by her aura. i would love to reach that point in my life and know that i had accomplished something of some significance or had at least fullfilled some of what i had claimed as my purpose.

there's a line in TS Elliot's play, “MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL" that reads, " I have therefore only to perfect my will." The line had incredible resonance for me and i have often repeated it as a little mantra to myself, whispered before going to sleep or as I wake.

i feel almost betrayed by my love of words and writing. it only seems to alienate me from the masses, who don't read, who don't appreciate the thought process and indeed embrace a leader who embodies anti-intelectualism to the point of ignorance.

10-28-04 HA - SUNY – HA - SUNY, 7:51 AM

JELLO SHOT PIMP

Oh they would not shut up and right up front and I asked them to keep it down ten times and I was yelling at them and they kept on sucking down their jello shots, this table of drunk women, and then proceeded to make telephone calls while I was talking, on their cell phone. I could not believe how rude!

I handled them well from the stage and it’s funny because people love that kind of a show and appreciate you more than if you had had no interference to deal with and just had a great set, trouble-free. They like to see a comic mix it up, have trouble and deal with it and be clearly victorious.

I guess because it raises the stakes, it’s in the moment and spontaneous and does test your metal and wit and ability to to handle yourself. so it’s almost a sports-like anything can happen situation and you’re the home team they are rooting for.

Afterwards there were many congrats and people going, ‘great show!’

Jose seemed to think I was overreacting, but it frustrates my concentration and I am just pissed that that’s the kind of respect they have for a live performer.

But then I have to remember that it’s really not about me. I am merely there to sell jello shots. It’s really all about the jelly shots. I’m a jello pimp and don’t I forget it.

Afterwards, a woman at the bar introduced herself as a lawyer/ actress/ beginner comic.

And she was dressed in baggy clothes and sort of frumping it up. Then she hands me her postcard. Not biz card. But this postcard of herself as a knockout latina pinup girl. She’s a lawyer, taking all the prudence out of jurisprudence.

Well, it’s 7:51 am. I am going to the airport in a few minutes to fly to Madison for a little madness.

10-27-04 – university of texas, dallas – WIFE-SWAPPING-ECLIPSE-TEXAS STYLE

I ASKED THEM, “ I know this is texas, so where are my republicans?” and there were about two hundred kids in that pub. And not one person raised their hands and I was as stunned as they were. Big laugh. Big lesson. Quite the moment. Then I turned it around with the idiot joke and they loved it, actually asked me to do more. “talk some more about the republicans!” one kid shouted.

It went so well and I was so happy about it. It was such a validation, you know. I’m up there thinking, see, if the crowd is bright and the situation is set up right, professionally with a stage –and a bar - i can kill. There is a crowd for what I do.

And anyone who doubts it can go to hell.

I get so angry at being sent to do lousy noontime cafeteria community college in the mall gigs for retards and then getting told that my performance ‘was not well received.’

I’m the guy out there with the talent and the guy doing what no one in that office can do. So let’s get that straight and not talk to me like I am dirt.

I need to be playing for colleges with higher SAT admission scores, that’s all.

Really, the UT Dallas kids were so smart and it was encouraging and restored some faith to me about the country.

Meanwhile, the red sox were winning the world series, breaking the curse, during a lunar eclipse and the first episode of ‘Wife Swapping.’ And I’m in texas with hundreds of students who hate bush.

Freaky night.

Sent: 10-26-04, 2:40 AM

Subject: Re: nap please

Doing my rounds in the city that never sleeps.

yes never sleeps. but the problem is that you never do either, whether you want to or not. they make it sound so great. it's the city of sleep deprivation, but that wouldn't sound as good as a slogan. the city of zombies! city of the undead!

10-26-04 – HA CAFÉ – CELLAR - PLEASE STAY

Cellar – went great. There were only a few people left and two of them were going to bolt and I mentioned it when I saw it in their eyes and then they stayed; the guy who was itching to get out stayed with his girl who was doing her best to be polite and smile and in the end it came together. And I thanked him afterward for staying and he shook my hand when it was all over and said, nice set.

Small victory, hard won.

From: "lorraine blasor"
To: "bill santiago"
Sent: 10-25-04, 5:45 PM
Subject: will

> william, doubt will always be there....it's part of the package; but even with
> it lurking around ready to pounce on you at the most unexpected moment, you
> must not doubt your calling, now, that is, now that you are doing this and
> living the mad life of the stand up comic....but it's ok to doubt,
> it's as natural as breathing, after all....go ahead,doubt, but
> always believe in yourself, too; i know, it's crazy, but success depends so
> much on the will so you have to constantly prod that little motor up there
> in the brain that motivates us to strive for the impossible; I WILL......
> you can do it; you are so much better than most comics around; you're smart,
> you're observant, you're thoughtful, witty and hell, your looks aren't bad
> so.....i don't mind at all your telling me about your fears and worries; i just want you to > be strong and believe in yourself,in your God-given talent and the joy you give people > when you are at your best

> much love, lorraine

10-25-04 – NYC - BEATS A CUBICLE

Saturday was unbelievable.

So needed. So reassuring and emboldening.

I was on my game. Not every show. But there were seven. Only one of which was sort of a dud.

And there was a momentum that carried throughout the night. I was a pro, racing around the city to meet the folks and entertain them. And they were in many cases loving me and apart from the money and the career and the maddening ambition that was why I got into this for, the opportunity for that kind of expression and the ability to deploy my craft at that level.

I mean I am doing what I set out to do so long ago. No, the money isn’t there yet and neither is the security in any way. But I am there at the doorstep. More than that I am making the rounds in NY, the city of standup.

I learned so much that night. Leah was with me for the rounds. She went to all the shows. I had asked her to write up a bio for me and I thought seeing me bounce around the city might give her some ideas and also it was just fun to have someone else along to actually see what you are going through on a night like that, how the same material plays in different clubs with different crowds, at different hours, in different parts of the city.

You know, I had never really mentioned a ball game before getting into my material on stage, never talked about a game in progess.

But on sat night, second show at standup ny, I mentioned that the redsox - cardinals first w series game was tied at 7-7 and there was a loud collective gasp from the crowd.

I mean it was so weird to suddenly get a reaction like that from a group, to have them all in the same high emotional state from just mentioning a sports game. It was a lesson I will not soon forget.

I really need to write these entries the night off the gig, next day doesn’t cut it but I am getting home so late. This schedule does kill you.

With the second SUNY set I waited till the end to touch the politics, and when I did the fellow republicans line the place erupted and what a great way to end. I did a little ending joke. I don’t think of bush as an idiot – more as an intellectual celibate.

It was great and when I made it off stage, there was a woman off to the side yelling, ‘gracias!’ So you know that you’ve connected and that your peeps think that you have represented well.

I felt so proud but no time to stand aroud because I had to hit the subway for another set at laugh lounge in the east village in 45 minutes. I was literally getting dizzy and a little nauseous from all the running around.

But hey – it beats the cubicle!!!!

10-22-04 – LAUGH LOUNGE 8:40, STANDUP NY 9:50, LAUGH LOUNGE 10:40, STANDUP NY 11:50

S-T-R-E-T-C-H

It felt so very good to just hear some new words coming out of my mouth on that baseball bit.

And then I went on to talk about seeing the VIAGRA sign on TV behind home plate every time the Yankees were up, mocking their impotence. GOOD laugh.

I can’t even remember the set order because I haven’t been writing them out. I know so many of the transitions that I go up and just try to hit them with everything and switch it up according to what they are going for and what pops into my head.

I had to stretch because the next comic was running late. We are all booked into this jigsaw puzzle of sets around the clubs in NY and if there is a delay, it affects all the comics in all the clubs, it’s like air traffic control.

Heckler hits upper west site, 133 jokes grounded, 140 thousand comics stranded.

10-20-04 – CELLAR, 5:00 AM – SHAKE IT OFF

Well, the Yankees had their ass kicked tonight and so did I.

I am still getting little mentions sent to me from the papers about the performances in San Francisco, mentioning me as an exemplary comic, and here I am fighting for my life against ignorant drunks expecting another def jam

I did meet with the web designer – alfredo – of funk 101 – who designed marga gomez’s site – and I am convinced he can do the job.

Also , spent a little time with mama tonight and had nice meal there. It’s very hard to believe she won’t be there someday and I do know how lucky I am to have that kind of loving friendship with my grandmother.

First thing in the morning I am going to the pool.

A little sleep would be good too and it’s 5 a.m.

10-18-04 NY – ha café – cellar – CLEAR LIQUID MORTALITY

I had three sets. After a very long day. Went to see papi at the veterans hospital. Mami picked me up and it was surprise for him to wake up and see me. he had dozed off as he was getting his chemo treatment, the clear liquid flowing throw a clear plastic tube. It’s such an aggressive and harsh treatment and it looks just like water. He was very glad to see me and we stayed till he was done and then went to the funeral home to pay last respects to Oracio, papi’s friend who had recently died, suddenly. I understand it was from aids. Although some of his family members at the home seemed to think he died from cancer. He was lying there in the casket wearing his sailors cap. Very desiccated. I always knew him as much more of a stout figure. Papi knew him for 40 years. And he was insistent on going to the funeral home to say goodbye to him, which I was very touched to see. You can’t tell with papi sometimes how much he cares about people, or how much he cares about doing the right thing by them. It was very tough for him, and esp. after a chemo treatment, to say goodbye to a friend and stare death in face like that.

10-7-04 – HOPE AT 747 10TH AVENUE

The best thing that happened to me recently, besides the Adirondack chair, was that when I went to help Asia, my little cousin (she’s 8) with her homework at Titi Norma’s House. she greeted me at the door by saying that she had finished reading the book I gave here last time I was there.

A simple children’s book. But she’s got it. She’s smart and is learning and there’s no stopping her. With just some continued attention on my part and guidance and re-enforcement and encouragement, I think she can be saved. She will not end up like her mom, and maybe we finally stop the generational sad endings with that child at least.

10-7-04 CUBAN FOR CONAN

straight thru from Vermont to new york. Left last night at midnight, just before and consuming several six-packs of red bull, and I just made it for the 7 a.m. call at the Conan Show.

The taping went very well. Out on Jones Beach. The idea was a spoof on some show “Pimp Your Ride,” where someone who is driving around a piece of crap car gets an entirely revamped (or pimped out) vehicle. So in this case a Cuban rafter/balsero was asking the reality show host (me) to pimp out his raft.

We shot it on the beach and had a blast doing it, although it was total cliché stereotypes all the way. And they didn’t tell me till the last minute that it had to be all improvised in Spanish.

I had to wear a Guayaberra, of course. And a straw hat, and some great Giorgio sandals, which unfortunately got ruined. and I would have kept them any way if they had let me.

They spent so much money on this, producing these few seconds of video. We went down in a van of about a dozen people, crew, writers, and the two actors, myself included. And we were met there by the other crew and truck which had the raft and other props in it.

It looked hilarious when they were done with it, pimping it out, little sail, boom box radio, blow up captain’s chair, rum bottles, etc.

Hopefully, it will air and I won’t be embarrassed and maybe I’ll get called to do more skits on the show.

And tomorrow I fly to San Francisco.

.
10-5-04 Rochester – GIG NOONMARE TRIFECTA

Community College. Noon Show. And the college is in a Mall!

The three most non-conducive elements for a comedy show – combined.

But it gets worse. They had told me that they wanted me specifically to do the political material.

These kids were not on board with that and I felt so duped into thinking that they were going to enjoy it because that’s what had been requested by the activities organizers.

And when I am going through it and it is just so awful, I begin to think that the reason I got the gig is because I am paying for something I did in a past life. I am paying an old Karmic debt.

Not only were they not getting it, not listening and not enjoying it. At one point someone turned on a radio, loudly, while I was on stage. Well, there was no stage. I was just standing there in the middle of a common space around which they had pushed a few couches together. And then the class bell rang and hundreds of students flooded out of their classes, and it became a mob scene around the perimeter as they shuffled by and, of course, I don’t stand a chance.

The thing is that afterwards, the people who hired you, look at you like it’s your fault!!!!

10-6-04 ADIRONDACK CHAIRVANA

Sat in my first Adirondack chair today. By the edge of a beautiful Adirondack lake.

My god. There’s something to it. That chair is so perfectly designed. Such a good sit. Really. I’ve been sitting all my life, but apparently I’ve been doing it wrong.

There was a seagull bobbing on the water and a sailboat off in the background, but because of their positioning, they both looked about the same exact size.

Later I stopped in at the Vermont Middlebury University and checked out a great Rodin exhibit.

I’d say that his sense of form and shape and understanding of human physiology is rivaled only be whoever came up with that adirodack chair!

lots of phone calls this morning

the paramount producers called –said she doesn’t want to wait for me to do a showcase in LA, wants me to come down asap.

Jose called - he wants me to do a sketch about a Cuban reality show for Conan. Tomorrow morning. Which means, right after the show tonight I have to drive to NY. Because it’s at 7 a.m., and otherwise I’ll never make it.

Simon – a cop/filmmaker from the Cellar called. he wants to know when I’ll be in town because he wants to cast me in a movie he’s making, if the schedules work.

Mimi from NPN called – she wants press materials for dec. 4th.

Crystal from GFI called, might have a corporate gig in Modesto on Dec. 18th. I’ll already be there for the Spaglish 101 thing on the 17th.

Kathleen called from America Federation of Teachers – they are develping a bilingual teaching video/course and want me to somehow be a part of it.

Sheesh, and I barely have time to go over my material for the show tonight. Need Help!

9-24-04 – ILLINOIS – ONE BAD SHINER

You know why I missed the flight? I walk by this shoe-shine stand and thought, “Hmmm. I’ve never had my shoes shined. This would be the perfect time.”

I paid, and took off in my shiny shoes for the gate and see immediately it is much much farther than what I expected and I start running and running and running and turning down corridors and cutting in between the throngs and the shine from my shoes mocking me the whole way and I get to the gate and the door is closed and the plane has pulled away and this is five mintues before the departure time!

United Airlines is cruel. That never happens on Jet Blue. But United is all about the screw you.

I begged and pleaded and nada.

I end up renting a car. Avis gives me directions and tells me it should take about three hours to get there. Great. Except they were off by about four hours. I left at 3 p.m. and got to the gig at 10 pm, seven hours later, driving between 95-100 miles per hour! Except for some traffic spots.

One hour late.

The coordinator told me that I had the distinction of being the only comic to ever be late for one his gigs in the five years he’s been putting them together.

And then the lighting was so bright. They had rented two sets of what looked like baseball stadium lighting units and erected them at either side of the stage and I had never been so blinded on stage and I could not see anyone in the audience.

Of course the next day I had to return the rental car to Chicago, but on the way I called to see if I could get on an earlier flight, and United kindly informed me that I couldn’t fly from Chicago because the itinerary had been priced as a connection from Springfield and if I missed that flight, my flight to NY from Chicago would be cancelled as well. I could fly straight from Chicago, but would have to buy another one-way ticket for $375.

So I had to turn around and drive however many hours back to Springfield, and luckily Avis allowed me to drop off the car there without extra charges.

At the Springfield airport, in another lapse of critical thinking, I left my luggage alone to go to the bathroom. I figured it was a tiny airport and there was no one around, so for a few seconds it was OK.

When I get back my things are surrounded by security officers. The guard tells me,”You know, you’ve broken a federal crime by leaving your things alone. At any other airport, they would have crushed and destroyed all of your things by now and you’d be facing a $50,000 or jail or both.”

I could just picture myself, being arrested for an act of terror and ending up in Guantanamo, and I’d the enemy combatant with the shinest shoes in the place.

9-22-04 – SAN JUAN, PR – WALKING THE STREETS OF SIGNIFICANT OTHER TIME

It has just started raining outside. Tropical rain. Old San Juan. My past. I am living my past, walked right back into it but I am a different person with only traces of my old self.

I am so very proud of everything I have done since I left the island and walking these streets again now I am aware that this city could never contain my ambitions or allow for their realization. But it was a dream well dreamt, my time here. Not always easy.

I have been living a parallel life ever since, one in which an erstwhile significant other has always been there in my imagination sharing it all day by day, the way I would have wished for.

But there is no turning back. Today I’ll meet an old love, an old friend, an enemy, a ghost, a stranger.

9-16-04 – Thursday, DC Improv – EGO-FLATION ALERT

Two for Two. What another great night! I mean it must be the best club in the country, as far as audience response and attendance and ease for the comic. I was great tonight. The MC, again, did a great job of warming them up. Kathleen is a truly wonderful comedian All very well crafted material and delivered so effortlessly. And it all has such broad appeal. I learn a lot from watching her, and hope I too will one day command that kind of audience draw to be able to fill a club for the entire week, sold out beforehand. But I want more. I want them to have to add shows and I want to perform for two hours and no opening act. How’s that??

9-15-04 – Wednesday, DC Improv – REFLECTING ON REFLEXES

It was easy. The show was so good. Sold out on a Wednesday. Kathleen Madigan is the headliner and a lot of the people who are voting for her on that ‘last comic standing’ show, showed up. That exposure is so powerful.

Part of me still feels like I’m on the A-train heading to JFK this morning. I went to bed at 5:30 a.m. and got up at 9:30a.m. And then flew into Dulles.

Kathleen seems nice. I requested to play with her because of all the good things I’ve heard about her. And she is quite good. Used to be a journalist herself, I understand.

Went for a quick run tonight, after the show, at 11 p.m. through Georgetown. And am now half comatose. Think it will be a fine week, after some sleep.

It occurs to me that what new york gives you are the reflexes. Your act gets coded into your being as a reflex. I didn’t really have to prepare tonight and it went so very well. I had it. The game. I am in shape comedically because of all those damn new york sets night after night.

I like featuring for a real strong headliner because they do bring out a great crowd and then I am a bonus to the show.

9-14-04, Tuesday ha – cellar – 1:30 AM – FOR SOMEONE SPEWING LIES

This year half a dozen nyu students have committed suicide jumping out of windows or from the library balcony and the like. They wouldn’t have made it one night as comics. As a comic, the urge to jump is often strong, but the urge to get the audience laughing is always just a wee bit stronger, and, in any case, luckily the stage isn’t all that high.

Tonight it was difficult to feel like a performer, though, in the highest sense of the word, after watching the flamenco dancer juaquin cortez at the city center for an 8 pm show.

He was a phenomenon, blessed and cocky and beautiful and he did inspire awe, for entertainment and the human body as a vehicle of expression.

It wasn’t easy getting on stage myself afterwards and trying to get a few chuckles and not feeling a little less than.

Someone handed me a copy of a review that came out about the Town Hall political show, which began: “Bill Santiago was pretty funny for someone spewing lies.”

The reviewer said I had the audience roaring, which was an example of leftist obliviousness.

She also said I was too loud. Which bothered me because that was probably true.

9-12-04 – New York – Gotham - SING YOU DAMN FRONG!

Blew the smiley audition at gotham, then had the best set ever at the cellar! Jesus!!

I mean what do I have to do to make it work when I want it to work.

I felt like that cartoon where the guy has a singing frog, but the frog won’t sing for anybody but him. Only I am my own frog. And I have seen myself sing. I know I can sing. But I can’t get myself to do it when it counts, when the right people are watching.

So tonight, again, king of anonymity.

9-10-04 – laugh lounge 8:40, 10:40 DEPORTED TO THE BRONX

Killed, both Latino sets at the Jack Daniels shows at the laugh lounge. It was very incredible and Jose was there. He had never seen me really do Latino crowd and enjoyed how they responded as if I were a preacher. The laughs were strong. The place was totally sold out, 127 people and they were turning away folks. Jose saw both shows and I tried a few new things differently in each. It’s funny to me how much they east-coast latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans, don’t have immigration issues as a reference point. They don’t relate to those issues at all. But I did get a laugh by saying that I had an uncle who got deported to the Bronx once.

The top ten list I did really worked well, esp. the second show and I got off on a huge laugh. I only wish, as always, that someone who counts and could actually do something for me, with me, based on that performance, had been there in the audience.

Jose was saying that after a while it was turning into something else beyond a comedy routine because of the way the people were responding with such fits of convulsive laughter.

9-8-04 – AUDITION – GENERIC LATINO WANTED

The only reason they called me for that audition today is because the character’s name is Hernandez and my name is Santiago and they figured close enough.

They knew nothing else about me.

Here’s an example of the script: a woman says to me (Hernandez), “I guess you secretly do have a big heart Hernandez.” And I say, “Not the only secret big thing I got.”

Not exactly Noel Coward.

Had a good swim today. Am in very good shape. Also took a salsa class, and apparently I’m not an intermediate, because I had my ass kicked in that class. And will have to go back and sign up for remedial.

9-4-04 NYC NEON GLOW OF UNOFFICIAL BROADWAY DEBUT - TOWN HALL

it feels good to get what you want. How long. God, how long, have I wanted to play on broadway, in a broadway theater. And Saturday, September 4, 2004, I can check that off my list.

It was my unofficial broadway debut, because I was an unannounced guest. But it was an absolute success and triumph. I was bnlliant. Not flawless but brilliant, and nearly flawless in front of anudience of about 1,200 at Town Hall, on 43rd @ 6th avenue, where I saw Jerry Seinfeld perform many years ago and long before he got his show.

And Jose was there and his wife Heidi. And My roommate Kathryn and Chris and cousin Quique stopped by and Titi Norma was there too up in the balcony with Mami. And they saw me blow that place open. I lucked out in the line up. And I said to myself, I mean I was only supposed to do five minutes. But I said, You know I am ready for these people and this is not one of those situations where you play by the rules; let the results justify the latitude you take with them. In other words, if I'm killing, I'm going to take my time up there and impress. And I ended up doing at least 15 and it was beautiful. There were applause breaks back to back throughout, which I have never experienced before and there was a roar of laughter, from the start.

But I mean how much more prepared could I have been? It was a political show for mother jones. I know the demographic. I've done this type of thing so many times. The theater actually seemed small to me, intimate. I was so comfortable. And I had wanted it so bad. And there I was. And it's happening and it's going. And when I got off it took me few walks around the block to come down, to gear down and power down.

It was a hell of feeling to leave the theater to applause and walk out into the neon glow of times square.

And it call came together so last-minute. I found out about the show a few days ago, called mother jones magazine, asked for the person in charge of producing the show, turns out to be an associate editor there.

I say, hi I'm bill santiago, san francisco comic. I see you are doing a
great show and I want to see about participating.

He says, well maybe we can get you free seats to see the show.

I said, no, really. I want to perform. I’ve performed with one of the comics on your bill many times and he'll vouch for me.

They said it's too late, all the publicity is out. The show's locked up, the
lineup is set. I said, I'm talking about coming on as an unannounced guest for five minutes (for free). I'll be good. Then I said I can email you a link so you can see my comedy central set, and I’ll send some press, and I'll have someone drop off a video of me doing an all-political set, at your offices in San Francisco within the hour.

He got it and called the next day to say they were all watching and laughing at the office and that I was on board.
I mean getting the thing was nearly as much of something to be proud of as having a good show the night of.

Didn't get a dime. But who cares. Good will come of this. And I would have paid to be on that stage.

Now all I can think about is getting to where I can do an actual run of my show on a stage like that to audiences like that, full houses every night! I can see it. I can do it. It's off in the future. But I taste it now.

7-27-04 TUESDAY – SF – PRIVATE LAP JOKE

Made some money out there in Minneapolis and now I will have to make some calls to creditors and have it sucked all out of my possession.

At ACME, when a woman in the audience said it was her birthday. I asked if the friend wanted to come back stage for a private lap joke. Stupid but effective and very fun line.

7-17-04, SUNDAY – MINNEAPOLIS – SANTIAGO PITCHES PERFECT GAME
MALL OF AMERICA – KNUCKLEHEADS

I connected so well and immediately realized this was a special opportunity to pull off “the perfect game”. There I was at the mall of America and getting away with some of my brightest stuff, angling it and arranging it and making it digestable without pushing it, without overselling it. With finesse! I had convinced them that I could do no wrong and that the next thing would be as funny as the last and you can sense that trust, like the kind you get from patiently waiting for a squirrel to eat from your hand day after day. They trusted me and I noticed that my voice was very comfortable I was cruising at a much lower volume and effort and it was much more intimate. I was trusting the mic and the amplification and that they were listening and that I knew what I was doing and that the material, the punchlines, the jokes, were all there and all were going to work. But with the politics I really put to use the lessons I learned at the club earlier this week. I did it by accident one time and repeated it every time afterwards including tonight. When I got to the politics, I asked the audience “where are my fellow Republicans at?” and the republicans in the audience raise their hands and cheer. And then I go, “I’m not really Republican. I just wanted to flush you guys out.” There’s a big laugh. I’ve turned the tables but I have also laid my cards on the table. I’ve let them know where I’m coming from and made a direct challenge to them but in a humorous way. We are already laughing about the fact that we are on different sides. And then I tell them, “well now this is where it’s going to get fun.” And we are kind of ready for a little mix up. And I am then duty-bound to take the republicans to task. And everybody knows where they stand and it’s fun. It really was. Now I also made it a point to dig into clinton too, as much as possible, and really get them laughing on this stuff before I did the joke about bush and religions. Win them over first on the fact that I can make them laugh at the political stuff and then jab them. Now the guy, this guy in a Mohawk, who had been laughing more than anyone in the whole crowd, the guy I considered my anchor laugher in the audience was the first to raise his hand on the republican question and he was sooo enthusiastic, like he was so happy that I was a republican too. And then I almost couldn’t look him in the eye, he looked so betrayed. But he started laughing again before long and then when I started moving out of the politics I asked him if we were cool again and how difficult it was for me to see him put his hand up. “It was like finding out I had to stab my mother. But I gotta do my job…” And we really got along well for the entire show and his name was Andrew and I bought him a beer after the show, and he said he loved it.

Plus had a nice skinny dip in the pool here at the condo tonight. I’m in a good mood.

6-15-04 – Standup NY – A SECOND I AM NOT WASTING

I show up and introduce myself to the MC. She says oh yea well sorry we’re not going to be able to get you on.

They’re cutting me and I was under the impression that I was closing the show. I have prepared. The place is packed. I invited Leah Arroyo, who is on her way, and I’m being scrapped without so much as a ‘we should have called you...’

They tell me sorry for the mixup but you still get paid. Like it’s about the $15! I came prepared to do a kickass political set. I rearranged everything in my schedule, honed the set. I called ahead of time to check reservations. I am ready to do this.

I said. This is a Political Show, right? The Organizer lady said, yes. I said, I am one of the best. If you’re doing a political show, and I’m here to do it, you lucked out.

I was calm but very assertive. I said if you don’t want to put me on fine, but it will be to the detriment of your show. And I finally the, “OK. You’re on – seven minutes.”

Now I’m thinking I better not fuck-up after that ‘you lucked out’ line, otherwise Bill “You lucked out” Santiago will never work this town again.

I hooked them in from the word go, they started paying attention, the laughs got bigger and bigger, the management came in to watch, the booker guy did at least. Leah is watching in the corner and so proud and this is an entirely different set from yesterday in the same club and I am gliding and transitioning so smoothly and then I remembered to end on the joke about the press conference and the Uniter not Divider joke and it killed, what a swell of laughter and I see the red light, and they let me go much much longer than I was supposed to and afterward a goddamn receiving line came by to thank me effusively. And for a second I felt like I am not wasting my life.

6-12-04 – NY AEROBIC NARCOLEPTIC

Puerto Rican day parade tomorrow. Must check that out. Also, I ran today. Was a good run, except that it was too early and since I went to bed at 6 a.m. all I could think about during the run was wanting to go back to sleep, it’s weird to be running and wanting to be sleeping while you’re running.

6-6-04 – comic strip – NIGHT IN DENTED ARMOR

comic strip. How unsatisfying. Maria in audience. Me on the gallows. It was that seedy sort of whorish feeling that I came away with.

6-4-04, Thursday – cellar – PROM KING

This was the prom show 3 a.m. – this one somehow went well. I did really well, brought the energy, connected, had fun, tried a few new or newer things and felt good about it, to be achieving anything at that hour.

Afterwards, Tim said that he really loved my stuff and complimented me further by saying that he learned something from me tonight by the way that I did not underestimate the crowd and gave them the benefit of the doubt and with some good results. I followed him that night. And he did well. I was happy.

6-1-04 – cellar – YEAH? HOW COME?

Did the Cellar. Again. And it went well. There were only a few people and it was tres late, but I had fun and connected and didn’t fumble the beginning and the couple up front, the guy said, out loud during my set, you’re the funniest one so far. How come they put you on at then end?

5-26-04 – cellar - SANS WALLET TO VIRGINIA

It was late and the MC said that the audience sucks but it was not the case for me. I got them on board so fast and held them and it was impressive esp. at that hour. I am getting the hang of it. Two good one’s in one week at the cellar.

Then I was going to take a 3:45 am bus to Virginia Beach for a gig memorial day weekend starting Thursday. Lots of shows. Three a night. I’m headlining, at the Ha Café down there and need the rent money.

I went and had a bit to eat, a chicken wrap. Tasty. It’s 3:30. I’m across from Port Authority. Ready to cross the street and buy my ticket. And then I go to get my wallet. Gone. I can’t find it. I’ve lost my wallet. I have lost it, can’t find it anywhere, am going to miss the bus and, I’m afraid, the entire gig. My credit cards, my atm card. I only have about five bucks cash in my pocket.

I had to take the A train bck up to my apt. 157th st., get in around 5 a.m. then got on the phone to call the credit companies, cancel. They of course pointed out that it wouldn’t have mattered, cause the cards are maxed out anyway. Found one credit card at home that was not in the wallet. Called to check the balance and it had $85 left on it and the ticket for Greyhound is $65. So I made it.

5-25-04 TAMMARA SAYS

Tammara said, she says, well, think of it as a puzzle, think of your career as a puzzle and you are still putting it together and that one particular club that I’m having a hard time with is just a piece and you still don’t know where it fits in, or maybe it doesn’t fit in and you have a piece from somebody else’s puzzle somehow.

And it helped.

6-2004
Subject: COMEDY ADVICE
here goes:
transcribe the act of any comic that you really like from a tape, word for word, and study the joke structure.
write yourself at least little every day.
find out what it is specifically about you as a comic that the audience relates to. that's your strongest voice and it becomes apparent over time.
remember how important it is to have the wait staff on your side. they often have a real voice in the club and some of them end up managing the clubs themselves eventually.
don't worry about the number of comedians. you need a pack to separate yourself from.
learn to get a laugh as soon as possible out of the gate. and remember that if the joke works at the top of your act, it will generally work anywhere else in the set. it helps to experiment alot with the set order so that you can find the best flow and not get in a rut.
get comfortable with the money issues as soon as possible. learn how much you are worth and don't be afraid to ask for it whenever there’s a paying gig.
don't worry too much about working for free either. you need any opportunity on stage to work your act.
always try out something new. one thing at least every time you up. a new line, delivery, twist, ending, a change in set order.
remember it's a conversational art and you have to create the illusion at least of a dialogue between you and the audience.
when you are ready, move to a town like san francisco, boston, NY, seattle, Austin, that has a pretty good comedy scene and get as much stage time there as possible.
learn to recover when your set is in trouble, have sure fire jokes ready to go that you can rely on in a tailspin.
one closing or opening line isn't enough ever. you need three or four if possible so that you have fail-safes.
doing shows outside of the club scene, in alternative spaces, really gives you the freedom to develop in ways you couldn't otherwise. working to club audiences only can be constricting.
have a mantra, a few words that you say to yourself right before you get on stage to put your mind in the right frame. whatever works for you. and generally only you should know what it is. that is, keep it a secret.
when you start working the road, do an internet search on comics you admire and target the clubs they are working at.
get a good tape. this is done by taping almost constantly.
remember no one club is going to make you or break you. there are plenty. so don't sweat it out too much if things don't pan out at any particular one.
above all steel yourself. learn how to deal with bad sets, nights, with rejection. it's not an easy thing to do, especially when the novelty wears off and it becomes your life and money becomes an issue. it can take a toll on your personal relationships mainly because you are away for such long periods of time.
after a bad set, always find a way to put it in perspective.
stay away from comedy classes because they really can make you sound mechanical and nothing can teach you like the trial and error of you live on stage.
try to get as many quality on-stage experiences as possible. the more good performances you have, the better feelings you'll have about it and the better you will do. So target rooms, and situations that you are comfortable in.
never ask anybody if you should be doing standup. you are the only one that can answer that question.
the business is all about building relationships. even the comics who may not be the best, will become huge stars and others will go on to write or produce or manage or own clubs and all this happens very fast so it's always favorable to you to maintain a good standing with everyone.
quick word about profanity. it's much more difficult to work clean and more of an accomplishment, i think, most times.
learn to follow anybody on stage. you have to be prepared to follow seinfeld if you have to.
and finally, please remind me of some this stuff once in a while. i often forget and could really use a word or two now and then to keep me on track.

5-2004 – NEW MEXICO CRASH SITE - ALIENS A LA PLANCHA

I slept outside the town of Roswell the night before and the sky through my car window, when i woke every once in a while to turn on the car for some heat, looked so much like i was cruising through the stars in my own spaceship that i could see how an alien might feel at home in a place like this. The town itself is completely dedicated to hyping the alien-ness of its cultural history with an entire main street dedicated to selling alien souvenirs, generic as they were appealing. even the hot dog girl had a huge blow-up alien strapped to her vending cart. i visited the museum and saw the highlight, which as three-dimensional wax figure display of the ‘alien on the gurney’ scene from a Roswell movie. Sounded to me like a menu item, gambas a la plancha, alien on a gurney.
Fell in love with all there is to New Mexico, aliens, the spiritual beauty of taos, shi shi santa fe, los alamos -- birthplace of atomic energy, billy the kid's old stomping grounds. Also i stayed one night in a town called truth or consequences, named after a game show back in the 50s. Judging from the residents, the town is more consequences than truth.

5-7-04 – Albuquerque – Headlining – ROADSIDE MEDITATION UP AHEAD

It’s been an excellent trip so far. The drive. Oh the drive, from LA, was trancelike and I did stop in the desert at one point and drove up into some red-rock area and clambered up a small hill and sat up there on the rock enjoying the wide wide expanse of the vista.

4-4-04 – Comic Strip – UNZIPPED KUDOS

So I’m in the bathroom and Lucien walks in and unzips at the urinal next to me and starts talking and I have to act natural and converse. And then he says to me that the show tomorrow is a black/Hispanic show. “But I don’t really think of you as a Hispanic comic,” he says. Which I know he means as a compliment, in the sense that I am not limited by the definition of the ethnicity.

But what’s weird is that when people say that, there’s the corollary implication that being thought of as Hispanic is a negative thing.

3-16-04 – LA – Sí TV taping, Wilshire Radisson – FUNNY FEELING ABOUT THIS

I am going to try and make the best of this but I have the overwhelming feeling that I have been duped into a mediocre situation, however willingly.

I heard some comics in the limo on the way over grumbling about how it’s a “paid” studio audience. That is, the audience is actually made of actors who are paid to be there and act like they get the jokes and act like they are laughing. and then the show is sweetened with fake laughter for the fake laughers later on.

3-14-04 – San Antonio – SUNDAY TRIUMPH BLUES

I was expecting a sleepy quirky tough little show. A fizzle. A dud. To go through the motions almost. But the Sunday show may have been the best of the week, possibly the whole two weeks here in Texas. It was smooth. I was confident. I was so in control. I milked the jokes, took my time, held them captive. It was raining today and so that brought in more folks and also Spring Break was in effect, so that brought in the younger crowd as well. and it was a sheer joy.

Must admit I’m a little lonely tonight, though.

3-12-04 –San Antonio – Riverwalk – PASSION OF CHRIST IN TEXAS

Guy says to me:“You next?” I said yes. “Is that your friend up there on stage? I hope you’re better than him.”

But anyway I go on and was having a great set, until a woman yells at me to stop talking politics, that I was funny up until this point.

So I start talking to her, I didn’t dig in right away. I asked her what she liked about the president, that I really wanted to know. And she said that he was a good and moral man, etc. And then she said that she loved him. And I said something about how if I had I retarded child I am sure that I would love him, but I still wouldn’t want him to be the pilot of the plane I was flying in.

And then we started talking about god, etc. We talked about The Passion of Christ, very funny -- she hadn’t seen it, all sorts of things. but she was really religious. And I said that I really liked her and that I was attracted to her, that I like conflict in a relationship, and that’s what I look for in a woman, incompatibility, etc.

And then the audience was totally enjoying it and then I said, wow, who would have thought this show would kick up like that at the end? Everyone’s laughing. And there was a whole barrage of back and forth comments between us. But the best line was when she said something that caught me off guard and I did an uncontrolled spit-take on the couple in the front row, on this one girl, specifically, and it was awkward and she flinched and was wiping it off. And the woman in the back I’ve been sparring with, Lisa, she shouts out, “he spit on you!”

And I said I didn’t spit on her. And then I paused for a second and thought, and said, “I baptized her.”

And I ended the show by saying to everyone: “don’t forget to say your prayers, go to church and vote for Bush.” I got off to great applause and there was a bit of a hero triumph in it. I had risen to an unforeseen challenge.


3-6-04 – Austin – Cap City, HEADLINING

RICH MILLER IN THE AUDIENCE

It was a miraculous night. I didn't fuck it up. It was a great opportunity and I seized it. It could not have worked out better. First show Sat. night, and so Rich Miller, who's one of the owners in the club and the booker who booked the gig here in Austin and San Antonio and has a whole mess of clubs, he's flown in to check on bizness and he's at the show tonight. Told me he would be when he bumped me up to headliner. So I know this and I am trying like crazy to be ready and basically am just staying holed up here in the hotel room going over my sets on audio tape and video and my notes and re-working my set and it paid off. It really couldn't have gone better, cause it was a pretty full house. Rich Miller picked me up himself at the hotel. I'd never met him. And he greeted me warmly (and he's so elusive and a hard nut to crack, not easily impressed) and said that he'd heard great things from the other managers, etc., about my work. And I'm thinking, well I better not fuck this all up tonight, please be a good crowd. And they were superb. There were some more sorority girls, but not 100 like last night and the crowd had a great mix of ages and a nice gender balance and they were in a great mood. there was a critical mass and a positive energy and I was still trying to figure out which way I should go with the opening. I was tempted to start in Spanish and decided not to because I know what Rich has heard that the writing was good and that it was bold material and smart and I didn't want his first impression to be, “oh, another ethnic act.” I did do Latino material, but threw it in later on after establishing myself. I actually opened up with religion then went into politics then women, love, gay marriage and I was off to an incredible start. Great great laughs from the very beginning and I settled in the groove and thought yes, yes, this is going well, enjoy it. You've caught that super wave during the competition. It's your night. I saw Rich in the back of the room. I felt him. I was doing it for him. Not being psyched out by the pressure but using it as an adrenaline rush and performing better than ever when it counts most. If I fuck up now. It's bad. Bad for so many reasons. Word gets around. And other people had spoken to him about me and I didn't want to disappoint or embarrass the people who had spoken to him well of me. But I think I exceed the buzz in every way. The act was great, the material was there, I did the whole time with lots of momentum behind me. Never flagged and had lots of very clever and brilliant in the moment comebacks and interactions with the audience. There was a guy in the front row and when I was talking about divorce, I asked him what he did for a living and he said divorce lawyer and I went to town. He was sitting there with his fiancé and was divorced himself and had met his new wife-to-be in his office, she used to work for him, and this all came out in a few hilarious seconds and it was beautiful. I played and played with it and every one is laughing and it led me into material about more divorce and my dad, who's a lawyer, and it was like suddenly an entirely new show for me, as if there were divine intervention. And I mean, I know it's Texas, but still I was hitting Bush pretty hard and angling it so they were loving it and then I found out later that Rich hates Bush and the whole conservative us against everybody else in the world mentality of the country so much, he's thinking about leaving the country! And brother Dennis is a notorious conservative these days. So I really wasn't expecting that from Rich. But that's what he was telling me after the show, and he was so complimentary. Loved it. Scott told me later that he was watching Rich and that he was cracking up! I'm cracking up the jaded booker! It was as it always should be and never is and it gets better. While Rich is telling me how much he liked the show, another guy comes up to me and asks me if I'm Bill Santiago. I say yes. He says that he heard I was going to be playing here and came down and he gave me his card and said that he has a production company and is interested in having me work on a project, sort of an election convention coverage type of comedy thing. That they know my work. I asked him if he had just seen the show and he said no he'd just gotten there. And I said, too bad you missed the best one of the week. And Rich, who's sitting there and listening, chimes in and says, he was great, absolutely terrific, etc. I mean and I'm thinking, noooooooooooooo, is this really going down like this???

So I'm doing pretty well right now. It means lots more work, and not as a feature. Headliner now. Imagine how good a headliner I'm going to be after a couple of years. I mean if this is what it's like the first time around.

2-15-04 – Sunnyvale, CA – Rooster T. Feather’s - THEY HEART ME

The two Sat. Night Valentines day shows at Roosters went well, very well. Love the after show comments, people coming up to tell me: “You are going places!” “You were the best one” “I’m from NY too and I’ve seen a lot of comics and oh my god you are the best comic I’ve ever seen.”

It is still such an accomplishment, really, I mean after moving back from PR, to even be on stage at all, much less at the level I’m at with the opportunities at hand.

2-13-04 – NEW LITTLE TRICK

comedy note to self:

one thing that i have just really learned is the power of a soft spoken overlay.

that is once the audience is laughing at a joke at a line,

as the laughter plays out, before it ends, but after the crest of the laugh wave, you can then and right then add a soft spoken secondary line on the same topic, almost under your breath, almost to yourself, that will hit the audience just when their defenses are down to that particular idea, notion, concept, when their mouths are already open, just when they are catching their breath, and it adds, it builds the thing.

it has to be done with lots of nuance and finesse and almost offhandedly.

for instance i did the line about “i don’t think of bush is an idiot, i think of him more as an intellectual celibate”.

so then while they are laughing, after the crest, i add, he’s just praticising good practicing mental abstinence…

and if executed just right, it really really extends the laugh.

2-6-04 – LA PENA – SPANGLISH 101 – SOLD OUT

sold out.. and the people were so happy with the show and i was flying, all that work really paying off.

I mentioned way up front how much I loved the fact that the room was packed wall to wall with latinos during black history month.

And we got some incredible laughter traction up front.

I really was very confessional tonight too, even talked about mami saying, “Hasta los perros aqui son patos!”

My favorite moment though was when I was improvising and got the audience to imitate the coqui whistles and it actually sounded like there were a hundred cocqui frogs whistling there in the dark. And I said that’s exactly what Puerto Rico sounds like at night!

it was such a connective, bonding, interactive inspired moment!!! made the night for me.

boy and afterward there were so many people lined up to talk to me and ask me to perform for their group/ school/ graduation!!!

i mean I was there I thinking of it as a work in progress, but to them, it was entertainment, bottom line.

1-20-04 – Sausalito, LUNA MIA

I took the ferry over from SF and landed on the other side in Sausalito just after dark and San Francisco was all lit up and coming from the cold in NY and having this luxury cruise in the relatively balmy air of the bay was something else.

The crowd at the party in this beautiful boutique hotel was so smart and all on board with my act and I was able to tailor the show a bit for the occasion working with a little biographical info I got when I interviewed Wendy's husband about her to prep for the gig and these people laughed and laughed and afterward it was like a wedding receiving line forming to greet me and compliment me and they were effusive in their praise.

The moon was shining in the fog across the water and I was watching it out in the open air from the balcony savoring the moment and the wine.

12-31-03 – Mississippi, Gold Strike (OUT) Casino

I had a bad feeling when I got in the elevator with the security guard who was taking me over to the stage and he says, “Santiago. There’s a name you don’t here a lot round these parts…”

12-30-03, Tuesday – NYC – BY GEORGE!

Got a call yesterday from George Wallace and he’s flying me out to Vegas today to play there with him on New Year’s Eve. Fantastic opportunity. The guy is truly an angel. Still under the weather, but hope to be OK for tomorrow. I’m washing clothes now and waiting for my super shuttle pick up.

12-28-03, Sunday – BUT MY NOSE

I am amazed at the amount of the stuff that I am blowing out of my nose. I can barely breathe. The medication dries out my throat and makes me so drowsy. I sleep and sleep and sleep and then shower and try to revive for one more night on stage. And then have some coffee and more Contac pills and blow again and try and remember a few lines a few bits and try not to think it’s going to be a disaster. I shouldn’t complain, in light of say, the Iran earthquake, which just killed 25,000 people. But I guess it’s just part of the human nature, that a whole city of fellow humans can be lying dead under fresh rubble and we are still self-centered enough, to go, yeah, but I have a stuffy nose.

12-27-03 – SIBLING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Hey Bill,

Thanks for the gift certificate.

I must say I was really blown away by your appearance in that show. You were great! Of course, now that you've been on television I'm more likely to go and
actually see you live, so you'll have to let me know.

Anyway, it was nice to see you the other day. I'm curious to see your place; and
you're certainly welcome to pop by here sometime. Maybe we'll do a Sugar Hill
tour one day.

Tony


12-25-03 – NEVER TALK ABOUT SEX ON CHISTMAS, ESP. ON CHRISTMAS

You know, you’d think that on Christmas Day the crowds would be less of a bunch of animals than they are normally, and you would be wrong. I’m here to tell you. The Comic Strip, 9:40 wasn’t that bad. I dug myself a bit of a hole and then was able to get out of it and redeem myself but never felt the love, so to speak.

Anyway, I think I made some mistakes, alienating the audience by talking about having sex on Christmas and how ironic it was considering there would be no Christmas if not for Immaculate conception. There was a woman in the crowd going, that is not funny. But very rudely and matter of factly. That just isn’t funny, rudely, matter of factly and audibly.

Also, tonight I played the tape for the family at Titi Norma’s, of the premium blend show and they all watched: Mami, Papi, Norma, Abuelito, Asia, Amar, Mama, Tony, Tierney, Larry, Pilar, Erin.

And they loved it. Even Tony really really laughed. I think they must have been happy for me and impressed and I mean it was right there, so professional and on TV! Everybody watched on a little thirteen-inch TV, the whole audience packed into a little bedroom, and they all happened to be related to me.

> From: "Betty Pazmino"
> To: "Bill Santiago"
> Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 1:42 PM
> Subject: saludos
>
> Hola Bill,
> I wanted to let you know that I am the newly elected president of the Bill
> Santiago Fan Club - San Francisco Chapter. The three of us in the club
> watched your performance on Comedy Central this past Friday night and
> decided we needed to unite ourselves in order to promote you and enlighten
> our gente with you as our leader!!
>
> Then, last Saturday night, I went to see my friend Jacqueline Rago perform
> at La Peña in Berkeley, and walking out I picked-up a calendar of events
> for Jan/Feb 2004. Noting that you will be there on 2/6, I immediately
> informed the other club members and we will be bringing in many more future
> fan club members in February. We're even talking about making buttons.
>
> I hope you don't think me to be a metiche, but I'm sending you some info on
> Spanglish from an academic point of view, as first and second language
> acquisition is one of my research areas in my quest for a doctoral degree
> from UC Berkeley. Ana Celia Zentella is a professor in the Ethnic Studies
> Dept. at UC San Diego and a anthro-political linguist. I only have an
> abstract of a paper I heard her give at a conference, but you can look her
> up for more info. Ilan Stavans' book "Spanglish: The making of a new
> American language" has a 'lexicon' of terms he and his students have come
> up with from their researching Latinos primarily based on the East
> Coast. I've attached an interview he gave re: spanglish. Maybe you
> already know about these scholars, but I just thought I'd send this info
> your way...
>
> On behalf of myself and the club, te deseamos unas fiestas felices y muchas
> bendiciones en 2004.

12-22-03 – Cellar - THANKS MOM! BUT YOU TAPED THE WRONG SHOW.

I called my mom to tape premium blend and she taped the wrong show on twoTV sets.
That's two tapes of the wrong show. She taped BET Comic View and told me there was nothing but vulgar comics on and she waited and waited but I never came on.

Mind you she was at the live taping back in August and still didn't know she was watching the wrong show.
Thanksgiving was lots of fun. my crazy aunt came over in her leather miniskirt and my father almost went home with her.
I need management, a personal assistant, a few angels, a sugar momma and throw in a couple interns and sherpa.

12-18-03 – Thursday, 12:40 AM – AFTER ATTEL, I TELL YOU. I SWEAR.

The Impossible. I did it. I went on after Dave Attel. And I had a great set. They really liked me and I held my own.

Laurie Kilmartin says to me after the show. Great. Very smart stuff. I said I’m just fighting up there to stay alive. She says, you’re winning.

It was very nice of her.

My Comedy Central spot runs Dec. 19th. I almost don’t want to see it, almost don’t want it to run. I’m a little anxious about how it came out and kinda hope that it never airs.

12-10-03 – laugh lounge – cellar – RACIAL FOOT IN THE MOUTH

I started with my new joke – “I’ve been thinking about it all day and I still don’t know whether to think of Michael Jackson as a criminal or an honorary Catholic Priest.” And it got a very good laugh and I was so psyched because it was new and I then segued into a lot of religious material and they were laughing with me and I did a little audience work, it was so great, but then I was finished and I did my closing joke – and a young woman says, audibily, “That was stupid.” I mean it was so audible, I actually heard it being amplified through my microphone and then another woman says, “No, it was funny.”

All I want is to get off stage, but I felt compelled to address this development and I said there seems to be a demographic rift here, the black woman says it was stupid and the latina says she likes it.

And the black woman took offense and shouts, oh why did you have to bring up the black thing!?

And I tried to explain I was merely pointing out there may be some correlation between opinion and ethnicity on this particular joke on this particular evening.

But basically I had to walk off stage while she was arguing with me, because, I mean, I was getting the light and there you go, end of set one.

12-9-03 – NY - HE DIED TO ABSOLVE US OF OUR CREDIT CARD DEBT

Personally, i enjoy christmas songs, just about all of them, but I love to hear and play them so much more in august. everything about the herd mentality usually grates on me and christmas shopping is no different, esp. the whole conversion of the high holy holiday becoming a holy capitalist day, virtually erasing the line between christianity and consumerism. they've got to come up with a new symbol of martyrdom, instead of a cross - christ being trampled at Wall Mart.


11-30-03 – Harlem, 935 St. Nick and 157th Apt 5 E, 7:45 PM

READY TO DEPLOY JOKES WITHIN 30 MINTES ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

Just got a call to fill a 9:45 spot, there was a cancellation, at the Comic Strip. Lucien called, left a message and I got up from my nap just in time to get back to him. So there you go. Feels good just to be on that emergency cancellation list

I’ve always wanted to be this ready to perform like belonging to a humor minuteman militia.

11-25-03 – Comic Strip – OVARIES IN THE OVAL OFFICE, BALLS ON STAGE

Oh – Tues at the strip. Someone shouted how about a woman pres. And I said sure I’d love to see a woman prez. And I don’t care who it is… Daschle…

And they caught it and burst into a huge laugh. Biggest of the set I think.

Which surprised me that they would be so on the ball with a political reference.

After that set, two of the local comics waiting in the back room stopped and said, You Are Funny. You are funny.

Feels good to be acknowledged.

11-23-03 – SF – DIFFERENT BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS

I was telling Maria about the shows and how good the first and how bad the second was. And she says, “But weren’t you telling the same Joke?” And I said, “Yeah, but it’s like soldiers who win the first battle and lose the second. ‘Weren’t you using the same bullets?’ ‘Yes, but the battlefield conditions were very different.’”

11-23-03, Part II – MINI ME MAKE ME PROUD

George Wallace was doing a joke about how if he had been elected gov. of California, he'd make Gary Coleman his Lieutenant Gov.

And then I gave him this line: I'd be the first governor with a mini me. Saw him do it on Jay Leno and get a good laugh on it and I got a little rush of pride.

11-22-03 – UC Santa Cruz – SPANGLISH FEEDBACK FEST

i get there expecting a few students in a classroom and there were about 200 in an auditorium in the student dormitory quad dining hall.

the best part though was after the show, after i got off stage, in the back of the auditorium.

the students, about a dozen or so, gathered round and started offering me their favorite spanglish words, telling me their most memorable experiencs of growing up latino, or what it was like to date a latino, or how hilarious it was for their grandmother to try and teach them spanish, or the way americans sound with they go to mexico and try to talk spanish, about life between the latino tribes in the LA hood.

They were so grateful i was sticking around, going, "we're not keeping you, are we?" if they only knew! how thankful and elated i was for the experience.

And I got paid, cheap for them. godsend for moi. just enough to cover the phone bill and get me an odwalla protein smoothie.

11-1-03 – El Paso, Comic Strip - FLY EGO AIR – BEFORE IT DEFLATES

Nailed it!!!!! Ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally. Made the adjustments, took some chances and delivered a near flawless customized performance, to roars, and I was closing and it’s a blueprint for the exact set that I can do in San Antonio when I headline in March. So instead of having five months to prepare, I’m five months ahead of schedule on that now.

Wow, there I was. on the mound at Yankee stadium again. I had the comfort, composure, control. I was dominant. All the jokes were in the strike zone baby. From the first words.

By the end they were so on my side I could have gotten away with anything. I got the light and said so to the crowd and said I gotta go, what do you think about that, and they were going, “noooooooooooo!” and I ate it up and did some more and ended in a huge little victory, finally nailing the one set I needed to justify my existence for another few days, in El Paso!!!

Then I went outside, out back, and coughed up my guts in a dry heave, from the stress/relief, I was sooo worked up. But elated.

I called tammara and she asked what I was going to do next, and I said, cancel the plane tickets and fly my ego home!!

Ego Air baby! Catch it before it crashes, cause Ego crashes like no other.

It was a breakthrough. It felt like I had done it, you know, broken the genetic code of that audience, decoded their comedic DNA.

10-31-03 – El Paso, Comic Strip – HALLOWEEN SCARED EVERYONE AWAY

Show Cancelled. Only 8 people showed up. Everyone else out celebrating Halloween elsewhere.

10-20-03 – Cellar, 12:20 AM Spot - LAW SCHOOL – THANK GOD NO

Funny, on the way there I passed by the NYU Law School, where I considered attending. And I end up playing in a basement around the corner.


10-18-03 – CAT JOKE IN THE MAKING

Siegfried and Roy. Siegfried and Roy. Siegfried..... and Roy. You don't
suppose the attack finally came after 20 years of not getting any
billing?

a thought.

10-17-03 FROM W. DURST:

hey santiago

no, man
the pleasure was mine
you get exponentially better every time i see you
hope someday in the future
you will consider me to grace the same stage as you
only this time
i go on first
and yeah, a great space
see you round the green room

as you might imagine
the giants loss has caused
it to be a bit ugly here in durst household
debi's not going to put her orange and black away till after halloween

will durst
wing commander
durstco
"you want the best, so do we"
willdurst.com

Sent: Monday, 9-29-03, 9:02 AM
Subject: Some notes

1) The Arnold Schwarzenegger joke is brilliant! I injected but I did not absorb. The word "absorb" is perfect. That joke is an example of what we were talking about in the pizza shop--how topical lines have such a short shelf life. Yes, they they have a brief shelf life but I think they're worth doing. A club crowd will appreciate the freshness of them, and so will your monthly radio audience.
2) Salsa dancing/One word: rum. Very funny bit, espeically when you started to stagger-dance, I heard the audience building a laugh, and the women especially were getting more animated. And then you stopped! Waaaay too soon. Is there more to that bit? Can you milk that stagger-dance just a few seconds longer?

JA

9-15-03 – PALO ALTO – STANFORD HUMMER LOVERS

All new material tonight at the rose and crown.
And I forgot my notes so I had to wing it from some bullet points I jotted
last minute.

And the best was ending on a line I had written a while back but had never tried
And that is tricky to memorize

I was talking about the Hummer:Quintessential schizoid American symbol – a military vehicle for civilians named after an impeachable offense .

And then I did one joke, off theme, that killed: Let me tell you something about
Techno music. Technically, it’s not music if you can’t tell the CD’s skipping.

Place blew up with laughs. Those Stanford kids.

8-14-03 – Comedy Day at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco - GOLDEN

I didn’t have a good feeling going in. It was a daytime gig, which I don’t do well at. It was outdoors. I always have a hard time outdoors. I was hosting/mc’ing and that is always
a bad situation for me. And people were spread out far and wide, again, bad element.

I expected there was no way it could work. But I was wrong and had a superb set.

And when I felt the people up on the hill, with me, laughing, I felt like more than a comic, a speaker, a mover of people, of multitudes, with words of truth and defiance (only all punchlines).

After I got off, Don Novello, Father Guido Sarducci of Saturday Night Live fame, and who was also performing, came up to me and told me how much he loved it.

He was there with Davia from Lost and Found Sound, who works at the Coppola Bldg. Where I temped!

8-17-03 – STANDUP NY – PLAGIARIST REPENT!

Afterwards a guy comes up to me from the audience and says, “loved your stuff. It was the first time I ever wrote down anybody’s jokes.” So he’s telling me to my face he’s stealing my material.

8-15-03 – Comedy Cellar, 3 AM - Estee!

It was a relatively small and tame crowd for a Friday because of the blackout yesterday and the fact that the subway was still not operational. And that was perfect for me.
They were less unruly because of the smaller size.

I caught Estee watching my set, shortly after I started and I was delighted that it was going well when she walked in. I had gotten them laughing from the get go. And they were laughing throughout at some of the smarter stuff.

And it was the first time I got the ‘george bush speaks Spanish a little better than he speaks English’ line to work in that room. They laughed at the God stuff. I had energy!
I had presence. The crowd applauded and cheered when I got off. There were soft spots in the set. But I recovered well and I ended with the ‘statistically’ bit, which I hadn’t ever done in NY before and they really liked it. And I could see Estee smiling and laughing.

When I got off, she walked up to me. Said hello. Said, “Very funny,” which is golden
To hear from the woman who runs the hottest room in the city. And then she paid me $75 bucks. I told her I couldn’t thank her enough.

I feel like it’s really coming together.

I’ve got SF down, NY going, bookings across the country, management closer than ever, the website is ready to be built, the radio appearances at KPFA are set to go, Spanglish 101 is moving along. I’ve got the CD stuff recorded and in the can, and I just taped my first Premium blend .

But really I have to get writing some new material!!!!!!!

Night of 8-12-03, 4 AM – 8-13-03, Cellar – EXCUSE ME

Yesterday, after the cellar set, I’m sitting at an outdoor pizza joint around the corner from the club and some guy comes up and says, “Excuse me, did you perform at the DC Improv recently?”

Is said yes. He says, “I loved your stuff and I wanted to know if you had a CD or a book out or something.”

I said, no, but put him on my mailing list.

7-14-03 – AMTRAK – SLEEP WATCHING

One of the things that I love the best about the train is watching the people sleep. Just walking through the cars from car to car and taking note of all the variations.

Parents with their children. Two sisters in matching pajamas spooning each other with a stuffed elephant between them. A young couple holding hands. People reclining and others scrunched into tight little fetal positions so they fit into the two chairs they’re lucky enough to be able to lie down across. And there is such a variety of facial expressions. Serene, cozy, anguished, dead, stoic, comatose, drooling, one guy looks like he’s about to sing. I saw one little kid, clearly asleep and dreaming and waving a victory fist in the air like he’d just scored a little league run.

Everyone’s head and toes are at different angles. Some people have pillows. Others are trying to make do resting their heads on the plastic arm-rests like the guy across the isle from me on the right who’s tossing around.

Every one has a different blanket strategy, full coverage, just the feet, total body including the head, mummy style, and then there’s the double couple two-for-one coverage. People have their foot rests all up and down at different inclines and their seat backs also and everyone is struggling and jostling for a little smidgen more of comfort, driven by this same need to get some shut eye. The same gravity is tugging at everyone’s eyelids.

I think that if I ever write a book, it will be on a train. It’s the only place I would have the patience because, well you are moving and on the go while you are sitting and pecking away. It makes it seem less isolated of an endeavor and less of a sacrifice.

7-14-03 – AMTRAK – UNION STATION – Then all of a sudden – SKYLINE!!!!!!

Oooooo, the train I’m on right now is pulling into Chicago, Union Station! I just caught a glimpse of the Sears Tower and really it was quite shocking because it seems like I had just been staring and miles and miles if corn fields and barns and silos and combines and I had been. Then all of a sudden – SKYLINE!!!!!!

And the nice thing about the train travel is that the station is right in town. You get deposited directly where the action is versus at an airport on the outskirts somewhere. So the impact is immediate, once you actually get off the train.

It’s a beautiful day and the people were bustling and I took out my guitar and hacked away at a few new chords I’m trying to learn and loved it. I’m hoping after enough years of travel I’ll have become proficient enough to actually play a few songs in public, and I fantasize about getting a gig in an Old San Juan bar as one of those old balladeers who strums out some of the classics – jibaro stuff.

7-13-03 – AMTRAK – CHICAGO BOUND

It’s the 13th and I’m not flying. I’m on Amtrak heading to Chicago and then New York – from Peoria. Peoria. Peoria. It sounds like the specific kind of euphoria you get from finally pulling over during a long car ride to relieve yourself. “Ahhhhh Peoria.”

I took the train there from SF because it was cheaper. Last minute fares on Cheap Tickets were running $900 dollars to fly to Peoria. Can you imagine? I can see paying $900 to get out of Peoria. They can charge whatever they want to get out of Peoria. And it’s worth it. But you’ve got to be nuts to pay that to get there.

In fact, there’s an argument to be made against your sanity if you agree to go there for free.

Which is about what I did. No, I lost money on the Peoria gig which was only paying $300 for three performances. Oh wait, they added one performance in Burlington, Iowa. That was actually the first night, a Thursday. I thought the booker was kidding (well, not really. I knew he couldn’t be making it up. I was wishing he were kidding.) when he told me the name of the venue, a billiards hall called “Whitey’s.”

“Whitey’s.” How can you not love an establishment that flaunts its ethnic diversity policy so unapologetically.

The sign outside did a pretty good job of warding off any non-whities. The clientele was remarkably lacking in pigmentation.

So I was supposed to be a feature act, a middle act, the second guy, the guy after the first guy and before the headliner. That’s what I was told. I was told wrong. I was the first guy, the opener, the MC. And I had to not just crack the room, but crack a room of crackers.

“Everybody finish up your pool game, we’re gonna start the show.” That was the announcement that was made by management to signal it was almost time for the several hundred people gathered to sit and stare at the first comedian – which would be moi.

So here was my intro: “OK, we got two comedians here to uh….. to uhhhhh. Sorry I had five beers before coming over tonight. First guy is a new comedian from New York. Bill San Diego…”

Pool tables as far as the eye could see, and then at the back on a second level there was a throng of people noisily hanging out at the bar. The group that was paying most attention, was situated behind a giant speaker, which was horribly distorting my voice into a nearly unintelligible fuzz. I might as well have been announcing train delays.

They loved the headliner… who sang audience participation parodies that involved a lot of clapping on the part of the crowd.

7-12-03 – PEORIA – SHE PROPSED IN A HULA

I caught just the tail end of the game, at aminor league park a few blocks from the club, and the Peoria Chiefs lost to Wisconsin. But then something out of the ordinary happened.

The announcer says everybody please don’t leave just yet. There’s a woman here who wants to make a very special announcement and he hands over the microphone to a woman wearing a hula skirt, a grass hula skirt, and she’s not un-attractive, but not un-fat either.

She takes the mic and says, “Well, I read in Cosmo…”

Right away, I’m thinking, uh-oh, this can’t be good. And the Cosmo and hula combination, absolutely no good can come of this.

She continues: “…that 86 percent of the men who are proposed to by women say yes. So, Eric, I wanted to ask you here, tonight, in front of all these people, if you would marry me.”

Now there’s a pause. I can see, even from the back of Eric’s head, which is sinking low down onto his neck, that he’s not happy about being asked. And she’s waiting for an answer looking at him like he’s not doing it they way they rehearsed (in her fantasy), and the silence from Eric continues. The crowd is like, Well……. we’d like to go home. Will you make up your mind, Eric?

The announcer takes the microphone and sticks it in Eric’s face. There are TV cameras focusing in. And he says, “……I’ll think about it.” And Miss Hula is stunned and humiliated and the crowd starts moaning cause they can’t believe this. Who’s ever seen a public proposal, a stadium proposal, be rejected?

And then all the women in the crowd start shouting, “What an asshole!” “Just say yes!” “Tell her you didn’t mean it later!” “But don’t reject her in front of a whole stadium!” “Oh, and look at her, I can’t believe she’s going to sit back down next to him!”

7-03 San Francisco Magic Theater – Spanglish 101 workshop- Kaliedoscopic

OK. It was a productive. I got some new bits out of it and some lines gelled.

Some good ones too. My favorite was the one about how Castro has a private herd of Buffalo. And how good could that embargo be if you are shipping Buffalo in?

But there were only six people in the audience and it was a little too vulnerable, for me. I mean working off notes and throwing stuff out there randomly, with all the lulls you would want to avoid in a regular performance, and it was so not as impressive as the Brava experience.

I envision tying it all together eventually into a semi-thematic-narrative flow. But I prefer Kaliedoscopic: Here’s everything I think about everything I think about when I think about this:

7-8-03 – Minneapolis, ACME -- THROW MAMMA OUT OF THE COMEDY CLUB

I’m riding Amtrak past the Donner Lake area at the moment, heading towards my Peoria gig. But let me just recap what went down in Minneapolis. If I thought DC was a thrill, Minneapolis was even better.

And in the words of Louis Lee (Acme owner): “You killed every night.”

Lewis Black was taping his next CD and brought the right crowd. I tried different angles and material and approaches every night. And they loved me, even got away with the religion material here in the bible belt.

I asked if I could take advantage of the fact that the recording equipment was there. The guys who were doing it, said they’d record me as well for $400.

Amazing, that during one week how much you feel your performance improving.You’re getting looser, quicker, more poised, more relaxed, more in the moment, more responsive, you’re taking more risks.

I did some material on the supreme court decision on sodomy and on the death of Strom Thurmond, the night it made news. And the people loved it!

I said something like: Can we have a moment of silence for Strom Thurmond, please? I said, “Silence, for our dearly departed segregationist. You know he hung on for 100 years. Soon as he heard the Supreme Court had given a thumbs up to sodomy, he’s like, ‘Alright, I’m outta here. Check Please.’”

“And I wasn’t surprised at all that the supreme court decided in favor of sodomy, after what they did to us that last election.”

The last night, I had a heckler. I was talking about average Americans, and a guy from the back, in the dark, yells out, “Are you an average American?”

I said, “Well, I don’t think so. I seem to be the only one here with a microphone.”

He goes on and on and mumbling and grumbling and I can’t see who it is; it’s coming from way in the back. I said, “Alright, come on up here, you got something to say. I don’t like my snipers in the dark.”

So he steps out of the darkness and onto the stage, twice as tall and as wide as I am. And kind of drunk and stupid. But I’m laughing, don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with him. But he’s being uncooperative and won’t even talk to me.

So the audience starts chanting, “Get’m out! Throw him out of here!” Not as an angry mob. But as people who don’t want their entertainment spoiled. It’s a Sunday too. Well the staff escorts him from the stage and the owner, Louis, who is half my size, throws him out. Not only him, his brother. And his mom!

They threw out his mom, and she was so pissed at her son. Chewed him out, outside. And he came back in and apologized to Louis and said his mom had nothing to do with and begged Louis to please let her come back in and watch the rest of the show.

One woman in the front row who was so embarrassed for her hometown, leans in over the stage and says to me, “He’s not from Minneapolis.”

I laughed and was able to get right back into my material. I got into the crop duster bit and when I got to the line about somebody suspicious, I just pointed out the door to where the heckler had been thrown out and it just added a whole new dimension to the bit.

And I got off the stage to great applause and raves and afterward a booking agency for colleges approached me and said they wanted to work with me

Ohhhhh and I had the steak every night at the club. Dream week.

One guy comes up to me, and this is after my worst performance of the week, that first Friday show, and he says: “You are my new favorite comedian. And I haven’t been that impressed since I said that about Seinfeld.”

4-14-03 – El Paso, Comic Strip – HUMOR CHANNELING

I am learning so much you know from being out on the road. – like how to regulate your audience’s breathing with the cadence of your voice, so that the laughs come and flow in a more fluid and natural rhythm. and you are doing this all with your voice and body language, literally taking them with you, regulating this living organism.

It's very shamanistic and it's kind of like discovering a new super power.

Had a heckler, though. I do this one little line: “I've never been desperate enough to pay for sex -- ” And tonight, before I get to the punchline, in really husky voice: "BULLSHIT!!" I paused, took a sip of water and said, "Do I owe you money?"

And the release of tension in the room was explosive. The laughs were so strong, and that's the point at which I felt the audience surrender to me.

You know when you are kissing a woman, especially for the first time, there comes a point, when you have your hand on the small of her back and you can feel her back give, her spine go limp, and there is the surrender to the kiss.

And I felt that in the audience. it's rare, but it's a feeling I have to learn to recreate, because it's at that moment that the magic happens and you can try the material you have your heart set on, new stuff, improvised stuff, less developed ideas, whatever you want, because there is no resistance and if it's from the heart, it will fly.

I'm staying in a "comedy condo," an apartment kept by the comedy club for its acts. The mattress, well, I sleep on the floor, because it's a little like quicksand. In fact there's a pool at the condo and I actually get more support for my back lying out in the water than I do on the bed in here.

6-13-03

KIM’S TOURISM ADVISORY FOR TURLOCK

Things you must do when you visit Turlock, Ca.

Cow tipping
fruit stands
keg stands
feed the mutant ducks
pet the mutant pigs
tour the meth labs
crop dust
dance on the ampitheatre stage at the university, after midnight
witness the 'girls night out' at the Fat Cat
catch tadpoles
eat tacos from the taco truck (ones that don't serve cat)

6-4-03 – Sunnyvale, CA – Rooster T Feather’s – THE BETTER THE COMIC

Quick thoughts on last weeks shows at Rooster T’s in Sunnyvale with headliner Elvira Kurt.

It was a dream week and she was so complimentary. Really she just loved my stuff, said I made her improve her game and she said that I was so funny, I was actually as funny as a girl (she’s a lesbian comic and that was a huge compliment, at least I took it as one).

Really, the better the comic, I’ve noticed, the comics I admire most for the quality of their work, the more they admire my work.

George Wallace and Elvira were both so kind in their praise, so encouraging and saw me not only as a good comic but as a talent worthy of acknowledgment by other true talent.

Usually, the more talented and secure a comic, the better we get along and the more genuine mutual admiration there is between us.

5-26-03 – Tampa Improv – REAL RESPECT

So anyway there's a second show at 9 PM. Usually there's only one sunday show
and it's not usually well attended. But there's two tonight. The second show is called
the Apollo show and is pretty much a black comedians affair, def jam type feel
(George is going to close it, but he is a very clean act).

The club owner tells me that I don't have to do that one. I tell him I would like to
(because I wanted to take on the challenge of playing for an all black crowd, and be
the only non-black act, and have George see that. I've done it before in Oakland, so
I have a game plan for tweaking the order of the set to suit the situation.)

The owner says, sorry, he can't get me on. I sort of mention that to george, and he
makes sure that I do get on. The management isn't going to deny him.

It went very very well. I get off stage and George says, "Boy, you kicked ass out
there." And I did. I had. I had them. I so had them.

And it was squeaky clean.

And afterwards, George we went out to grab a bite and hit it off. Feels good to get respect from such a seasoned pro. He had just put on a week of some of the best shows I'd seen in a long time. And to have his respect, was such a huge deal to me.

Mon, 26 May 2003 00:44:51 -0700

Bill,

Some more George Carlin wisdom for you: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

Kim

5-2-03 – Pittsburgh Funny Bone – NOT MY MOB SCENE

Featuring for Artie Lang from the Howard Stern Show.

Well, whole different ball game.

I mean they were so clearly there to see him, and when he came on he unleashed them into a base animal mob. To the point where it was unbelievable to me that I made any connection with them at all.

However, people made a point to say they really liked my show and, one couple made a point of saying I was awesome and a few at both shows said I was the best.

But one woman, a Puerto Rican, says to me, “I really liked your jokes, but the other guy was funnier.”

That stung a bit. Well, just made me shake my head.

Oh, get this, at the end of the show Artie says to them, the audience, “I just want to give it up for the troops who did a hell of job kicking ass in Iraq,” then he starts chanting, “USA USA!” and they join in, the crowd, fists in the air, yelling at the top of their lungs.

5-1-03 – Pittsburgh Funny Bone, Headlining – FEELING FROGGY

I was so comfortable and so intent on taking a risk that I lunged into my Oregon Story about the guy who had a gun safe at home next to his alligator tank. “Feeling Froggy. Then Jump.”

Oh, and I was talking about women and how much they love shoes, and I was improvising it, and ended up saying, “If I could invent a vibrator in the shape a shoe, I wouldn’t have to do this for a living.”

And it was just so liberating to be fearless and talk to them as if I were in a living room.

Tonight, afterwards, a guy was saying “Oh you should be on Star Search.” And his wife was saying, “Oh, he’s beyond that.”

I’m out there impressing people including myself.

Last night a woman comes up to me after the show, and says you are so good, no really, so talented and so good. Do you have managent?

I said, no, I’m trying.

I gave her my card, and she said that she’s got a friend in NY in PR who maybe can help me.

Who knows? But I’ll tell you, that’s the kind of question I want to hear after a show.

4-30-03 – LANCASTER, PA UNIVERSAL HUMOR

The trick, the greatest trick for me would be able to get over with an audience like these non-metroplitian conservative middle class rural provincial (and slightly retarded) people I've been playing for without doing any relationship material, without using any vulgarity and without getting political and without props and without setting myself on fire or ending with a rap song.

That pretty much limits my range.

But I think it's a worthwhile ambition. And actually doable.

Of course in the same amount of time it takes to achieve, I could have built a cult following that likes what comes out of my mouth as is.

I had know idea but there was a tremendous Puerto Rican community out
in Amish country, in downtown Lancaster, where there is a kickass PRican restaurant and where they have not one but two Puerto Rican Day parades!!!

I don't think a presidential candidate stumping through town for
votes ever gets as close a feel for the pulse of a place as I do coming in to find out what makes them laugh.

4-28-03 – Lacaster, PA - AMISH PAY DAY

My favorite gigs, almost always are for little money, or totally free, and you are treated afterwards by the audience like you should have just gotten a $10,000 check, or an HBO contract.

Now on this Lancaster gig for instance. When I'm done, the owner, Dave, a real Italian heavy, type, a big boxing fan and big fan of jewelry, he hands me $1,000
cash. That's a good feeling. I'm thinking, "Hey, this keeps up, I can make a go of this, and this could be just the beginning." Beats what I get at the Brainwash laudromat open mic in SF. And I did well, given the Amish factor

But Dave doesn't say one word about nice job. or fun having you. or we'll have to have you back. Not that I'm itching to play that cigarette-smoke-soaked lounge again. But you want to be asked. You want to know someone who's paying you liked it. But there was such indifference. I mean I suppose he could have not paid me at all, so I have to see it in that way as a positive. And the staff made a point to say they liked what I did. But from Dave - a big Italian nada.

And there is sort of a whorish feeling about it. But I just sort of have faith that it'll all add up to something and march on.

Right?

4-11-03 – San Francisco – JUST TOOO DAMN DOGGY

The best thing that happened to me today –a haircut. Great. But 65 dollars. Most important things haircuts, shoes, women, world peace, money, m&ms, sex, the ocean, sex in the ocean and having m & ms afterwards.

Ride down to show with another comic. Car smells of dog. Lots of dog. Turns out she’s a dog walker. So now I’m a dog smeller for the one hour trip down there and back.

So the guy who booked the gig, a Benjamin Wheeler, is missing. The organizers who contracted him to get the comics, promote and sell tickets, tell us that he’s missing and has taken the money with him and that we’re not getting paid tonight and they don’t know anything else about it, etc. Nightmare.

4-9-03 – NEW IRAQ -

Last show at Kimball’s on Saturday, not as good as last week’s. But I worked out one line. Time sensitive though, talking about how - - we are now the proud owners of Iraq. A beautiful city. Bit of a fixer upper right now. But a beautiful city.

Subject: KRON
Date: 4-5-03 15:11:36 -0800
From: Lisa Geduldig
To: “Bill Santiago”, “Will Durst”

This just in from Henry Tenenbaum:

The show was wonderful ... Durst and Santiago had me laughing my ass off.
I'm going to try to use some on Sunday morning, then include it in my
"Comedy/War" piece during May. Do you have the next one planned?

Subject: Make Laugh
Date: 4-4-03 12:06:58 -0800
From: Lisa Geduldig
To: “Bill Santiago”

Hi Bill,

Thanks so much for performing. You were brilliant, politically astute, funny
as all hell... I don't know how much political comedy you generally do, but
I'd say it's your calling.

Thanks again for donating your time.

It was great "working" with you.

Lisa

Subject: El Rio – AM I?
Date: 4-4-03 01:35:38 -0800
From: Bill Santiago
To: "Jose”

Jose,

Two lesbians stopped in mid-kiss at the bar on my way out to tell me how
much they loved it. Mid-kiss! Now if that's isn't an accolade, I don't know what is.

Just got back from a show at a bar called El Rio, in the Mission district. It was a last- minute political show, "Make Laugh Not War." I was ready, didn't know what to expect. Hadn't really done straight political stuff in a while, have been resisting the temptation to go topical, you know, and spend all that time honing the short shelf life stuff. but I do love it.

So I got out my notes and worked out some stuff and tested alot of it out in Oakland last night. All political in a black club and scored big. Well, that's just such a personal accomplishment on so many levels, I can't describe the joy.

And this morning, I did a radio spot in studio on KPFA, which has been
very good to me in the past, and tonight everyone at the show had heard
the radio deal and many came out because of it

Tonight, I learned that if you know your stuff and have enough to draw from, you don't have to do everything and you don't have to stick to a certain order and can just hit the notes you have to and can let them see you thinking and reaching for the heart of it and being in the moment, exposed, but making your point and getting laughs where you might not have expected them. And it's not just about being a comic, suddenly. What's happening is that you are connecting and giving them voice. And you are giving them a spontaneous communal catharsis. Not a big production show, but a genuine experience. And when you get off, you sense the wow.

This other guy comes up to me and says, hey I saw you Friday at Brava and this was entirely new material, you didn't repeat anything. And it felt so good to have that acknowledged!

One woman says to me, you were the best. “You have it. Stage presence. Star power. Charisma. How come you're not famous yet. Are you famous yet?”

Anyway forgive me for going on, but it's nice to share some of the high points every once in a while.

Bill

4-2-03 – Kimball’s, Oakland – NEXT STOP APOLLO

So I opened with the thing about 43 black presidents in a row, and it was great because it buys me into the crowd, which was all black, but it’s a smart and animated political bit so it opens the door for me to go into all the war stuff and I tried out a number of entirely new bits, and they went over great..

I did something on French/ Freedom Fries being the ultimate symbol of America, McDonalds and the Golden Arches and then the way we dip them into ketchup to symbolize the blood we’re willing to spill to get our way, etc.

And how Bush is a cowboy , but verbally he’s like a gun slinger, who can’t quite get out of his holster, and I mimed it very well.

And then I talked about Bush resembling Reagan in the way there’s trouble in the brain area of the presidential anatomy, but with Reagan it was degenerative, and with Bush it’s developmental.

Then I did Holy War, Cropduster and ended on Primates who almost made it, and it was beautiful.

The crowd loved it. They loved the def jam guys too. But the fact that they really dug what I was saying and that it was new and fresh for me was such a high. I’m up there thinking, I could do the Apollo with this material!

You know that they will always embrace their own first, as do gay audiences for example, but the fact that I truly connected and related and impressed, was a big accomplishment for me and totally unexpected.

I mean I couldn’t have done it without some real experience, some real talent and some real galvanized balls!

3-8-03 – SAN JOSE, CA – MEXICO LINDO! VERSUS 8:08

I was at that Mexican Restaurant tonight, Mexico Lindo, working through material that I'M developing for the one man show. And it went so unbelievably well! First off, I did nearly an hour and none of my old material -- it was all new, Latino and family oriented and the crowd sooooo connected with me. You could feel the love and the casual ease of the way everyone was relating to the truth of what I was saying about my mom and dad and brothers and childhood and I was attempting to work through a core of personal material to anchor the social/political commentary and they ate it up. I was doing material I'd never done before and material I'd never done that way before. I was in a new zone and gliding with such ease. I came off stage knowing I've got a shot at that Broadway show, that the material and my abilities have legs and momentum.

A fellow comic who has seen me a zillion times could not believe how magical it went tonight, how much material she had never heard before, how much was new,
how it all flowed and how the audience opened their hearts to me as if I were merely holding court at a family get together.

She said that she had never seen me so remove the mask on stage before. And I wasn't thinking about it, but she's right.

By they way, you know I got fired yesterday from a temp job for coming in at 8:08 a.m.

I walk in and the manager says, Bill I'm going to have to send you home for coming in late. I looked at my cell phone which has a satellite synchronized clock on it
and i said, "It's 8:08." He said, "We need you on the phones." And that was it, I walked out, thrilled, mind you, but still still befuddled at the way the world works and
how you can be so unvalued in one lowly office and get on stage that night and get applause, APPLAUSE AND adulation, for actually making people happy with an
ability so few people have and so many need, in a way that brings harm to no one, and get paid at the end of the night, and free drinks.

But as a temp, I am considered nothing more than so much refuse. It's that kind of indifference that has the world in the mess it's in. So many of us mean absolutely nothing to the rest of us. Nothing. If I can't be in my seat by 8 a.m. on the dot to try and foist some telemarketing bullshit on people who hate you for calling in the first place, so that the telemarketing company can charge for making the calls that generate no business anyway but do generate lots of restment, hang ups and indigestion, than I am of no use. I am the problem that must be weeded out and dismissed.

I'll never get over the way that works, the way that people who are gifted with creativity are squeezed out of society (in certain realms) as cancers, as people who aren't a good fit with the rest of the capitulating bovine wasting their lives away willingly in their cubicles.

Anyway, I am feeling tonight that I am on the right track, that all my decisions, about coming here to SF and working in my individual direction, and sticking to it, and
sacrificing whatever is necessary to make it work and keep at it has all been instinctually correct.

That thing Marvin said about, "If you're in the game, you're ahead of the game," really rings true tonight.

I'm in and ahead.

3-3-03 – Modesto – Chico, CA – STUFFED COMEDIAN

I've had some crazy shows in some cowtowns recently. Was playing out in that
Town called Modesto, where Chandra Levy and that other recently missing woman
is from. It's the kind of place that makes you appreciate people who are only half
stupid.

Then there was a place in Chico, California, called "Buck's Crazy Horse Saloon."
Swear to God. Get there and the guy goes, "You the comedian? Howdy."

And he was not only wearing a Joe Slocum western outfit, boots, vest, hat. But
also... a badge. A badge, as if the sheriff had deputized him to tend bar. There was
a stuffed horse, a mechanical bull, and a chewing tobacco concession, where they
also sold cowboy hats in case you had forgotten yours.

Out front, as you walk in, there was a stuffed comedian, beautifully preserved. The taxidermy did a wonderful job of capturing his naive fearless expression just before he was taken down by a swift and deadly heckle. The caption read, "Not funny. May 8, 1996."

2-12-03, Wednesday – Pasadena - NO MORE LOCOS

This set was so bad I was missing Chico.

I was off, but the crowd was dumb and made dumber by the preceeding acts. And it was televised for the Loco Comedy Jam.

Never do any shows with the word Loco in them.

I left thinking that if this is what it means to be Latino, I want no part of it.

Although, the one good thing I got out of the set was nailing the Salsa-rum joke, a physical punchline that I think I finally got just right.

2-8-03, Saturday – PROPS FROM ARNO ARE NO JOKE

From Sam Arno:

Brilliant stuff. Just brilliant. I'm still laughing about the President
without a brain and vice-President without a heart -- Wizard of Oz
reference, the "Panic" in Hispanic, and Bush - the poster child for
affirmative action.

2-5-03, Wednesday – Cobb’s – NEW MATERIAL MIXER

Started with a joke I’ve never done up front before, the “Women don’t realize how sensitive we men are, to the sound of the female voice. Nothing triggers an ejaculation faster than the words, ‘No no, not yet.’”

Then I got off the one about my aunt Minerva – clairvoyant and has alzhiemers, constantly forgetting what happens in the future…

They really went for that one, have had the idea on the back burner for a long time.

Also went into a bit I had never done before about how, for once, I’d like to see a hero, being interviewed on the news, actually admit that, yes, he’s a hero, and not just say he was just doing his job.

Oh, and I spoke about the dubious honor of Latinos becoming the biggest minority.

I have to listen to the tape. But it worked very well.

2-1-03 – Cobb’s, SF – CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH EMO

So I get off stage, and this guy comes up to me and tells me that he really liked the
set. I thank him politely. Then he starts giving me ideas for a joke. I still listen politely
but at that point I'm thinking, "Oh, a wannabe who wants to pass along some
advice...jeez." So I humor him with a few uh hums, and then shake his hand and ask
his name. He says, Emo Phillips.

I was laughing so hard to myself, couldn't believe it. I told him, hey, I didn't recognize
you. He looks very different these days. And I had seen the new look, but still
pitcure him the old way, you know.

He's actually a very very nice guy, and he's playing at Cobb's this week. So I'll have to drop by and check it out. He wasn't performing that night, but just hanging out in the club and watched the whole showcase as a fan of standup.


12-5-02 – SF – HAND TO VIDEO

But I spent nearly my whole $95 unemployment check to transfer a mini DV video tape of a show I wanted to see, to VHS. Awful. Waste of money!!!!!

And then I spend all day on the phone talking to VC firms for my NYT story I’m writing, and it’s all about the millions and millions that are passing through their hands, creating wealth, real wealth!!!!!

Life, the life I lead in this studio is so bizarre.

12-10-02, Tuesday – SF – BRILLIANT MASONRY

No show tonight. But I went to see Jackie Mason and as always I loved loved loved him.

I think he’s one of the best ever, and the amount of material he cranks out is amazing!

Now, this was not the way I’m used to seeing him. In NY on Broadway, where the theatres are sold out, packed with thrilled crowds, that give him ovations when he walks on!

The Curran Theater tonight was practially empty, no body in the balconies, except yours truly, and it was because he got a bad revue, apparently from the Chronicle – Fuck the Chronicle.

You could tell that he was affected by the situation, very low key and not as jovial as the other times I’ve seen him. But I learned, learned so much.

I took great note of how he kept it going at a lower energy level, and never tried to play it like the theater was packed.

I am trying very hard lately to experiment with soft sell delivery to expand my range.

He did it beautifully, I thought. And I think, though, that SF may just be too politically correct, and that self-righteous liberalism was a problem for the arts critic and the SF crowds. They don’t feel good about themselves when they laugh at certain things. So they don’t.

Tomorrow I’m going to see that movie, Seinfeld’s “Comedian.”

12-1-02 – COME A LONG WAY AND COUNTING

But remember, back in PR, all you wanted to do was perform. I mean that was whole goal, just to get back on stage, period. This year I’ve done 187 shows so far.