“Deer Hunting” on YouTube

Blog Post That Led To “Global Warming”
(The following has been reproduced - with permission - from Bengt’s “Blaaagh” available on his web-site.)

Posted on: Friday, January 04, 2008
Its a Miracle! Carbon Offsets remove CO2 AND Guilt!
I am reposting this blog in honor of Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize.

If you go to this link- http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_44/b4056001. htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_oct19&link_position=link1

You can read an excellent article with some damning testimony about the validity of Renewable Energy Credits.

Hey Hummer owners, do you want to be disgustingly rich and “part of the solution” at the same time? Ever wondered if there was a way you could use your money to make yourself “part of the solution” without giving up materialism? GOOD NEWS! Now you can offset your embarrasingly huge carbon footprint by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits from Al Gore! Thats right, Al Gore, recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, a very wealthy progressive, has made guilt free wealth affordable for people who are shamefully wealthy. Its easy!

STEP ONE: Go on-line, using the computer in one of your Hummers or one of the computers in your massive house, and track down a company that offers “Renewable Energy Credits”, or carbon offsets, preferably one with Al Gore on the consulting pay-roll.

STEP TWO: Purchase the appropriate amount of Renewable Energy Credits according to a mathematical formula that calculates how much you shit on the earth and all of its inhabitants. The Renewable Energy Credit company will take your money and pay some working class loser to go out and plant a tree, or build a wind mill, and WAH-LAH! Now you can continue to feed your voracious ego and drive your Hummer guilt free, in smug contentment. If you buy enough credits you’re hummer could actually leave a wake of carbon free air clean enough to pump into a new born babies incubator!

Of course the owners of Renewable Energy Credit companies will “skim off” just enough of the money to buy their OWN massive house and Hummer. If all of this sounds too arduous you could probably hire somebody else to buy your carbon offsets for you. Its AMAZING! What an ingenous way to remove CO2 and guilt from our atmosphere! Where did our avid greenies come up with such a great idea? From religion, or I should say from some OTHER religion.

Basically, it is the old “sale of indulgences” routine. I know, some of you are thinking: Hey, Silent G, what in the heck is “the sale of indulgences?” Well, in anticipation of your question I made up* a short history of the sale of indulgences.

Some scholars theorize that the sale of indulgences evolved out of the ancient practice of live sacrifice. For this elaborate cleansing ritual, sinners would bring the best of their flocks and crops to the local priest to be offered as a “live sacrifice” to God for the forgiveness of their sins. On the day of worship the priests would wait eagerly at the doors of their temple, mouths watering in anticipation of their weekly meal. (1)

This system, known by the priests as “the pot luck system” left room for the occasional streak of bad meals. In 749 BC, after a particularly bad stretch of flax seed meal and cat, a high priest of Rah Rah, named Karmen Ghia De A’lacarte introduced the first “price list” for sins. (2) By assigning specific items to each sin, Karmen was able to insure that every meal was a winner.

In 245BC money was invented. (1) Priests quickly converted their “sacrifice” price lists to cold hard cash and the “sale of indulgences” was born. (4)

The Catholic Church practiced the “sale of indulgences” for a couple of centuries. For parishioners it was convenient. If a man got carried away with his libido, a couple of spare ha’pennys was all he needed to be right with God.

For priests the sale of indulgences was lucrative. In a matter of months a market economy of sin developed, with priests competing for parishioners with lower prices. One record tells of a priest who tripled his attendance in one month by selling sodomy for a schilling. (1)

Soon, centrally located churches began to cash in on their prime locations, selling indulgences at inflated “convenience store” prices. Some accounts describe impoverished guilt laden sinners walking for miles to pay for sins that were too expensive at the church located next door. In the cities, the old or infirm could hardly afford to sin at all. (3)

In a suspected price fixing scandal of 1437, self abuse prices simultaneously skyrocketed all over Italy. Families with teenage boys were especially hard hit. Many people lost their homes. Remarkably, the “Masturbation Inflationary Incident of 1437″, as it became known, gave new meaning to Adam Smiths Invisible Hand theory a full 286 years before his birth in 1723. (4)

In 1492 Simon Clivebald, a blind galley cook, wanted to get laid before setting sale with Christopher Columbus. The sexually frustrated sailor “put down” 5 pence for the act of fornication, normally a 40 pence sin. Simon agreed to pay the remaining 35 pence over time or suffer the penalty of death by mud. The priest took the first “down payment” in history and instructed the blind cook to “lay-away”. The sale of indulgences spawned many of the complicated pricing schemes that are still used today in the car and mattress industries. Bait and switch or the old “What do I have to do to get you into an adultery today?” approach were all developed during the sale of indulgences. (3)

The Catholic Church has long since abandoned the practice but, thankfully, people can still purchase a clean conscious in the form of Carbon Offsets or by ordering a DVD or CD from a comic who drives a Honda Civic at www.getbengt.com. (I’m saving up for a big house and Hummer).

P.S. Some of you might be tempted to give your extra cash to some fund that would provide poor people with trivial stuff like food, clothes, shelter, drinking water, medicine or maybe birth control. BE WARNED! This kind of frivolous donation does NOT OFFSET CARBON FOOTPRINT GUILT!!!

Many guilt ridden rich Americans are VERY excited about Carbon Offsets. One exclaimed, “Now I dont’ have to feel guilty when I use money and resources to make myself feel special and superior! In fact now I can use my money to make myself feel even more morally superior than ever! I’m rich AND I’m saving the planet! I was afraid I was going to have to cut down on my outrageous consumption in order to sleep at night but thanks to Carbon Offsets I can now wrap my mind around my hypocrisy!” Big YES with three excalamation points!!! Isn’t American Innovation great!? Now even the richest among us can live a lifestyle of outrageous consumption GUILT FREE! Bitchin’! Thank you Renewable Energy Credit companies for enabling the ego-driven selfish behavior of our richest “environmentally aware” citizens!

*pulled out of my butt.

Footnotes: (1) My butt (2) Top of my head (3) Out of thin air (4) Stuff my mom told me

Click Here to Visit Bengt’s Web-Site

Click Here for Bengt’s Facebook Group
(you’ll need a Facebook account to view this)

History of Magically Delicious: This magic and comedy “group” was founded when magician/comedians Tyler Wilson, Ryan Pilling, and Donovan Deschner, joined forces to create a brand-new show using each of their talents. Their premiere show was on October 6, 2008 to an almost sold-out comedy club audience and this set list was from only their second appearance as a group.

The Creation of this MC Set List: This set list (and show) was created to MC the Magic West event “Jawdroppers”, and needed to fill about 30 minutes of stage time.  The group met the Monday before the Saturday show to decide on effects and material (nothing like planning ahead by almost a week!).  After it was created a two-page summary of all the gags and tricks was created and boiled down to it’s bare minimum on this list as a memory jogger.  When performing material in a new sequence for the first time there is a LOT of checking what you have to do next while the other person is on stage.

Some Notes on this Set List…

• I created this list before a week of performing in a comedy club.  I keep the list around so long as it produced some good shows.  When the shows aren’t any good: it’s not me, it’s the napkins.
• I normally produce a new list for every week/venue of clubs.

A Suggestion to New Comics…

Donovan asked me what my one piece of advice to new comics would be, so here it is: “Don’t get bitter.”

Click here to visit Mike’s web-site.

Click Here To Submit Your Set List with the Online Form

“I have a feeling my set list is going to be one of the more anal ones on this site. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I have another set list of improv bits and also one of all my discarded bits. Also, I have about 300 hundred rejected Comedy Inc. sketches I wrote if anyone is buying.”

Roman Danylo’s Homepage

For those of you that do a lot of internet surfing you have likely seen a “tag cloud” before - this is a list of words taken from a source and displayed in a jumble at various sizes based on how often the word appears in the list.  Well, I’ve created the same thing with all the words that appear on all the set lists on this site.  Think of it as an overview of what all comics are talking about.

You can access this very unqiue list by clicking here, or at any time by clicking on “What Comics Are Talking About” along the top of every page on this site.

Here’s some facts about the cloud of keywords…

• The more often a word appears on a comedians’ set lists, the larger the word will be displayed in the cloud.
• If you click on one of the keywords it will take you to a list of all the comedians that have that word on their set list.
• It looks pretty plain and simple right now, but as more set lists are submitted the more interesting that page will become.

I’ve always wanted to add something that ties all the set lists together and this could be it.  (Unless I think of something else later.)  This is a little earlier than I wanted to showcase this idea - but I do think it is going to be cool to watch that page grow and evolve.

Set List Details

Note: It is on the back of an American Express bill because not only am I a comedian, I recycle. Role model. Right there.

This is an actual set list. I didn’t recreate it. It was used for a festival showcase. You might even notice the hair that was stuck to the sticky part of the Post-It note because it was slung around in my comedy backpack for a few days. Personal touch. DNA. You’re welcome.

The tattoo and motto!

Joke From the Set: “Recently returned from the Grand Canyon.  It was spectacular - if you have never been, it’s like the Rocky Mountains only an innie.  That was also a survey to see who had belly-buttons.  Those of you that didn’t laugh - see a doctor.” (Keyword: Grand Canyon)

Bio: Donovan began performing stand-up comedy after a decade spent as a magician. It was a personal challenge to be funny without the use of a magic trick. After only three amateur nights at a local comedy club Donovan was asked to host a whole summer’s worth of shows. Working for free for those two months propelled him quickly through the ranks of stand-up comedy. Competing in the Corner Gas Comic Genius contest saw him place in the top 16 in the Canada-wide event, and he made his first TV appearance on local cable in mid-2007. While reading over the shoulder of another comedian during one of his first trips to Montreal the idea for Inside Jokes was sparked and he is honored to be the first set list featured. (But that’s mostly because no one else knows about the project yet.)

Click here for Donovan’s homepage.
Find Donovan on Facebook.

Many comedians, writers, and performers, have tried to define “comedy”.  Despite valiant and continued efforts they have still come up short.  If I had to choose a favourite definition it would have to be: “a unique point of view”.  That’s really all there is to it - when you watch a stand-up comic they are sharing their own perspective on certain issues and their life.  If it’s unique, different, and surprising - it’s funny.

Inside Jokes was created to look inside the minds of comedians and at their unique worldview.  By taking their set lists (which become almost mini-autobiographies) and looking at why certain words or material happen to be there, you can start to understand how they think.

The goal isn’t to take a comedian’s material.  It’s to share their worldview in a unique way, and hopefully promote stand-up comedy as a performing art.

With the first post done (and typos looking fairly minimal), let’s start looking inside jokes…