It is almost impossible to achieve any suspension of disbelief or any sense of theatrical continuity what with all the interruptions.
Let's cover some ground rules for the newcomers.
[Spoilers follow. Beware.]
If you have been in my audience for less than four years, just sit there and shut up. It has taken me years to smoke out my audience, people who simply refuse to acknowledge that they are here. I call them my closet case audience, a characterization that is so delightfully appropriate in so many ways. Some audience members have been with me for seven years. They remain hidden. If you just breeze into my theater from off the street, it will take your eyes several years to adjust to the dark. At that time, you will start to perceive my audience. Until that time, don't open your mouth and betray your stupefying ignorance by laughing at me for speaking to people whose presence you cannot detect.
This is not a blog. This is a theater. How many times do I have to say that? I do not have the money to rent a room with chandeliers and red-flocked wallpaper and a balcony. Until my delightful audience starts paying me for my efforts, this is as good as it gets.
Comedians speak upside down and backwards. Few of their words may be taken at face value. I don't mean to be deceptive. You can't take the comedy out of the comedian. Even when he's speaking on a serious topic, humor is going to leak into the discussion. Comedians aren't just joke tellers like your Uncle Joe at the family barbecue. True comedians exist in some alternate universe where everything is funny. Even when they're not trying to be funny, they run the risk of being funny. It's because they live in a funny world where every last thing is a joke waiting to be told, including themselves.
Psychologists ideally would exit my theater as I have repeatedly demanded. Just ask the FBI; they worked who knows how long on a psychological profile that ultimately had to be thrown in the trash once I informed them that it was based on no fewer than eight stage personas. How many guys do you see up here? One. Me. Is it okay with you if I have different characters? Again, if my delightful audience would buy their tickets I could hire camera guys and writers and comic actors. Would your droolingly stupid mind accuse me of having multiple personalities if I had other actors speaking lines that I had written for them?
I have it on good authority (of the hidden audience members that you can't see because you've only now just breezed in off the street and you somehow think that you have the slightest idea what's been going on for seven years) that I am (or at least was) in some degree of physical danger. I will say things and do things to minimize that threat. Not everything is as it appears to be. Let us consider the following line: "I figure I'll either go to prison (where there's free food) or I'll get whacked (which solves the retirement planning problem.) What's not to like?"
Your average psychologist will interpret that as a secret death wish or perhaps engaging in what is known as "para-suicidal behavior." And they'll include that in their completely useless profile. Well, in egghead school that may be so. But we're in a stand-up comedy show (where you can't count on a thing having its face value meaning) and we're dealing with a comedian who has been explicitly informed that he is (or was) in some degree of physical danger.
If it is okay with the egghead crowd, I'd like your permission to make a joke, one whose construction and delivery actually reduces the likelihood that I'll get whacked. See, if I spend a great deal of time joking about getting whacked, it makes it less likely that I'll get whacked because then everyone can celebrate what a genius I was for predicting getting whacked. And I'll be a big hero because I obviously knew I could get whacked and still yet did I carry on. It makes me a martyr, which makes it less likely that I'll get whacked. See? In politics, no one wants to convert their opponent into a martyr. It's pretty basic stuff. So in summation, is it okay with everyone if I take steps to reduce the likelihood of getting whacked, even if your egghead brain can't see the upside-down nature of the joke?
And is it okay with everyone if I have an origin story? Which of these two stories sounds more entertaining to you (which is a consideration in my line of work, considering that I am, as I said, an entertainer:)
"God spoke to me and told me to go into stand-up comedy. I am, after all, Christopher, Son of Hollis and King. I speak for God Himself. Presumably, that would make me the Second Coming of Christ."
"I decided to do stand-up one day because it was open mic night on Tuesdays, which also happened to be two-for-one PBR night."
Hmm? Which one would sound better on a lobby card or a poster?
In short, is it okay with everyone if I do my show?
And thanks for ruining it for everyone by forcing me to divulge spoilers. Just sit there and shut up next time.
Live it, love it, learn it.
I will never stop my show again.
I am Christopher King. I am America's Senior Comedian and One-Man Weapons System for Truth.
My Video Intro
What follow are to be considered transcriptions of spoken word pieces that I would have delivered in a physical theater. You will also find video and audio pieces here.
This show has been roughed out years in advance, and material delivered as its time approached. There is an arc to this show. For that reason, posts --that is, pieces-- should be read in order, from older to newer. So if you've been absent for a bit, scroll all the way down and read upward.
Please remember that this is not a free show. This is the professional undertaking of a professional comedian who bet the farm on making this a going concern. Just because it is possible to steal my property does not mean that you may. If you go to the farmer's market and the man is away from his table, you are nonetheless obligated to put your money into the shoebox labeled "Put money here." My personal friends are exempted from buying their tickets, as well as those who may not be able to afford to buy a ticket. Everyone else is morally and legally obligated to buy a ticket if they partake of even, say, a dozen pieces of mine per year. Duck outside my theater for a cigarette as often as you like, but you didn't get in here in the first place without buying your ticket at the box office. The cost is $100 per person, per year. There is no law enforcement discount. There is no news media discount. No one gets a discount, unless you honestly don't have the money. (And to my law enforcement patrons: Even in Lenny Bruce's day, cops had to buy their tickets before they could get into his theater to jot their notes. Jot away, but if you are not here to arrest me or to shut the place down, then you are here covertly. If that is the case, then you are passing as ordinary patrons. If that is the case --and it is-- then you buy your tickets just like regular customers.)
Thank you for coming.
--Chris
Bitcoin Address: 1KtMQ32BoHqBAx4GFjLR1gLrBBp1BSnQs6
Or mail $100 to Chris King, Grafton, Vermont 05146
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This is the product safety sticker that accompanies all my speech:
There was a Pratt and Whitney JT9D 7-series compressor recovered from Murray Street in New York on 9-11, the precise identification of which is detailed in the Capta Brightstick Document. That incompatible engine hardware precludes Flight 175's presence at the scene of the crime and indicts the jurisdiction known as United States as criminal. If you are a member of a grand jury or jury, or if you are a judge, and if this product safety sticker has been removed from whatever speech of mine may have been presented to you, it is because the prosecutor is pulling a fast one on you and doesn't want you to know that the federal government auto-executed itself in a grand ceremony for all to see. Please have a nice day.
Updated legalese, added 11/1/2012 on the occasion of realizing that every time I go to court, Madame Prosecutor is forever waving around my intellectual property contained herein, content to use my words against me without having the decency to buy her ticket to my show. Well, here's something you can wave around: "I, Christopher King, do hereby plead guilty to whatever it is that Madame Prosecutor may allege. I'm rotten to the core and I secretly make fun of the judge all the time. As a result, I --and here these are my words, the words of the prosecutor and not of Mister King-- I have luscious melon breasts and I think the judge is the worst thing ever to happen to the court. You hear me, judge? That's right. I, Madame Prosecutor, secretly hate you and I think your rulings blow. I would like the record to reflect that Mister King is well hung and I ache for his tender ministrations. I suck, the prosecutor's office sucks, the judge sucks, and Mister King is a national treasure despite his plainly stating that he is guilty of all allegations that may ever be made. He plainly confirms that he is a dangerous terrorist. There. Let the record try to sort out who is who in this statement."
"Ta da! Behold Assclown Jurisdiction United States!"
End of product safety sticker.
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Buy your ticket to my show!
Bitcoin Address: 1KtMQ32BoHqBAx4GFjLR1gLrBBp1BSnQs6
Or mail $100 to Chris King, Grafton, Vermont 05146.
