My all-time most bizarre comedy experience…

My all-time most bizarre comedy experience…

In general, I have a rule when I am performing comedy: Do not blame the audience if things are not going well. Too often, I have found comedians who have not done well get mad at a crowd and believe it is the fault of the audience when, in reality, they should be shouldering a lot of that responsibility themselves. If a crowd doesn’t laugh at a joke, I’m usually not one to blame the crowd. Maybe it’s not a great joke. Maybe I delivered it poorly that night. Maybe something happened earlier in my set that I failed to pick up on and now I’m seeing the repercussions of that. I find having this mindset (hopefully) makes me a better comedian and performer because it is always making me look at ways to improve my comedy.

There are, of course, notable and obvious exceptions to this rule. Sometimes an audience member has decided they are going to help the show by heckling. Sometimes an audience member is blind drunk. And sometimes a former co-worker tries to get your show cancelled before it even begins.

This story is about that last kind of example.

Continue reading “My all-time most bizarre comedy experience…”

Slavery Is Still Legal – written by Jordan Holmes

Slavery Is Still Legal – written by Jordan Holmes

You do not sound reasonable, you sound ridiculous. What is your concept of the present where a “solution” can require decades? Do you not hear the bells of climate change? 1.5 Celsius has come and gone already. Reality says we are out of time. 

And what do you propose? The possibility of slowly pushing and pushing for modest, incremental improvement? And how, in our present, is that any more possible than rewriting the Constitution? What improvements are possible to keep in our current system? For what did decades of women fighting for abortion rights achieve? Decades of people dying to preserve abortion rights, wiped away because of a stolen supreme court judge, a judge stolen because the President backed down in the face of a stupid fucking turtle. 

Or was it wiped away because those in power, those elected by the dying, used it? Because abortion is far more useful as a tool than a right, that’s an undeniable fact. For how many elections has abortion rights been a rallying cry? Why actually legalize abortion? It was technically legal. 

But any change that can be undone is not change. Roe V. Wade wasn’t the legalization of abortion, it was nothing more than a pendulum swing. Abortion, all abortion, whatever the fuck trimester you’re in, should be legal, available, and free. To paraphrase Sian Norris in Bodies Under Siege, women will not be free until abortion is free. 

Regardless of your idea of how the next 30 years will play out if Biden wins, or Trump wins, there is a force in opposition to you that has greater strength. 

Do you believe that by electing Democrats, a group of people elected many times with varying degrees of ability to already have done the thing you want them to do, that we will be able to adapt to climate change, despite the Democrats already having the power to do so? 

Why have they not done this already? If you would prefer not to blame them for squandering whatever power they were given, then you must blame the force in opposition to them. That force is not going away. That force owns the Supreme Court. That force owns at least half of the politicians in Congress. That force owns District Attorneys in Georgia, desperately destroying the forest, a forest. During the current climate crisis. While the Democrats are in power and can stop it.

Do you think, even if you could somehow convince the Democrats to do something they don’t want to do, then convince them to do it – a task they are terrible at achieving even when they want to do it – then what? You think it will be allowed?

Until the force in opposition to your goals is no longer in your way, you will never achieve your goals

Alex Jones will not be held accountable for what he’s done to, shit, the world, despite going through the system that you hold up to me as being real. The man is not guilty of just pain, he’s guilty of any number of crimes. What is being done to stop them? Nothing. And the justice system is dragging its feet for years, because to hold him accountable would be to hold a rich person accountable. Even one so odious as him, that could potentially spiral out of control, what next, holding other rich people accountable? Imagine the thought! Imagine if the executives at Boeing were to go to fucking jail for murdering people!

That’s unreasonable. That’s impossible. But it is no more impossible than the Democrats writing abortion rights into law. There is no hierarchy of impossible; anything impossible is equally impossible. 

When potential solutions are floated – packing the courts (ha!), half-assed carbon taxes, fucking wind farms – they cannot be divorced from the inevitabilities of trying to enact them. There are individuals, with more money and power than you, who do not want these things. We are not all in this together. 

How do you propose to deal with them? Do you have a solution to remove their obstruction? Do you think the cops will use civil asset forfeiture to nationalize Boeing? Fuck it, why not! Do you believe that the system currently licking the boot of every billionaire on the globe can, despite all available evidence, change itself, when there are no real consequences for not doing so, and, in fact, massive rewards for not changing?

I’m not arguing, I’m telling

And that force has proven again and again to be willing to kill to maintain power, and knows that consequences are as unlikely as a lightning strike. 

The Civil War was fought over slavery, over labor, but it was fought by labor. The war was fought for slave owner’s benefit (like every war) and at the end, when the war was “won”, those slave owners – I mean, John Wilkes Booth of the know-nothing party, what amounted to the John Birch Society of its time – assassinated the President, Lincoln was replaced with Johnson, and they got to keep all of their stuff – sometimes including their slaves (although they didn’t call them that anymore)! 

Despite the fact that every slave owner is by definition a rapist, a murderer, and an actual monster. Those slave owners never faced consequences for their actions. Now here we are. Those people have come and gone, but their money has stayed in America, always for the cause of the slave owners. 

Until that money is gone, until the money is taken from them and given to the slaves, it will be in opposition to you, it will be stronger than you, and it will win. 

I don’t know who the executives at Boeing are and I don’t care, it is money that they abuse. If they do not have money, they cannot abuse it. If you replace that executive with another, and pay them the same, they will abuse that money. That is how money works. We know it from all of those sayings about how that is how many works. 

Whatever solution you may present, whatever reasonable ideas you have, as opposed to my insane nonsense, they are not possible until the slave owner’s money is no longer in our way. What is your solution? 

In the current system, we could just take it, you know. That’s legal. What Billionaire hasn’t committed a crime? 

Fuck me, in this system, guess what… if we sent those billionaires to prison… it’s legal to make them slaves!


Jordan Holmes is an author and podcaster. You can listen to him two times a week on the Knowledge Fight podcast, and read his book and other musings here. This essay was reprinted from his site by request of the author.

Han Shan – written by Jordan Holmes

Han Shan – written by Jordan Holmes

I realize that this will be a difficult concept to understand, it is foreign, but I am intractable. I am uninterested in whatever you have found in these that you don’t like. It is what it is. We are at an impasse. 

You may call me names, you may find me disgusting, you may find my nature annoying or brash or hypocritical; whatever you may desire I give to you as your personal genie. But I will not change my mind. I will not alter my course. I will not take steps I don’t want to take. 

You may blame me! Blame me!  I accept! I am at fault for Biden’s loss! And I raise you, we are at fault for Biden’s loss! How about that? Whatever blame you may cast upon me, you owe yourself as well! Except when I take that blame, I will take it knowing I tried it your way first, you failed, and I gave you the option to change. I accept full responsibility for my actions. 

Continue reading “Han Shan – written by Jordan Holmes”

So You Don’t Have To: The Taco Bell Big Cheez-It

So You Don’t Have To: The Taco Bell Big Cheez-It

Mashups were really popular in 2009. They faded in popularity, and now are only used by the type of out-of-touch brand execs that are trying to shoehorn competing ideas into one godawful idea. Taco Bell has used this concept to success in the past. The Doritos Locos Taco was a hit that continues to be a mainstay on their menu. If you look at the spectrum of successful fast food amalgamations, the Doritos dust laced taco has to be at the most successful side of the spectrum. Could Taco Bell pull off another food of the summer with their latest Frankenstein monster of a project, the Big Cheez-It? I found out, so you don’t have to.

Business: Taco Bell
Item: Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme and Big Cheez-It Tostada
Calories: 570 for the Supreme, 230 for the Tostada

Continue reading “So You Don’t Have To: The Taco Bell Big Cheez-It”

Bop it! Twist it! Steal it! – written by Jordan Holmes

Bop it! Twist it! Steal it! – written by Jordan Holmes

A boundary is not a boundary if you can cross it. A principle is not a principle if it can be tossed aside. Once argument reaches the boundary, argument is over and conflict begins. We are in opposition. There is no argument to be had. If you disagree with my principles, you are wrong, incorrect, someone to be ignored and not listened to.

That is the definition of a principle.

Continue reading “Bop it! Twist it! Steal it! – written by Jordan Holmes”

Jack Baker’s Best Moments on the WGN Morning Show, Ranked

Jack Baker’s Best Moments on the WGN Morning Show, Ranked

Jack Baker is, by all accounts, a very successful local comedian. He is the main editor on this very site, has a Youtube special, and this weekend, he will be headlining the Comedy Vault in Batavia on July 6th at 7 pm. Buy Your Tickets Here. To help drum up interest in his set, he was tasked with going on WGN Morning News on Wednesday to talk about his special, his life, and ostensibly, his lifelong war against milk.

This is a big deal for any comic. But as any comic worth his weight in cheap liquor knows, we are also a very vindictive bunch who doesn’t want to see anyone else succeed! With that in mind, let’s take a look at Jack Baker’s WGN Morning News appearance and go over every bit, then rank them at the end!

Read more: Jack Baker’s Best Moments on the WGN Morning Show, Ranked Continue reading “Jack Baker’s Best Moments on the WGN Morning Show, Ranked”

Were You Lying? – written by Jordan Holmes

Were You Lying? – written by Jordan Holmes

I’ve been struggling deeply for the past week, I’ve been struggling with the same feeling I had during Alex Jones’ trial in Texas. I am bipolar, I am prone to mania, I’m prone to delusions of grandeur, so, in general, any time I think I can see something that the rest of the world cannot, I assume I am in the wrong. 

Sometimes, I am suspicious that the rest of the world can, in fact, see what I see, and they are gaslighting me. I’m sure I’m right sometimes. But seeing the world through that lens will make you crazy, so no matter what the circumstances, it’s wiser to let it go.

But now, as in the trial, I know the rest of the world sees what I see and I know that the world is gaslighting me. 

What’s more, what’s worse for my psyche, is that I know that when I talk to the TV, so to speak, the TV can hear me. I am fucking loud. I am not insane. I am not manic. I am not delusional. 

All of you are out of your fucking minds.

Democracy is on the ballot

Continue reading “Were You Lying? – written by Jordan Holmes”

An Article on Watching the Presidential Debate (because there’s no wrestling on TV on Thursday Nights)

An Article on Watching the Presidential Debate (because there’s no wrestling on TV on Thursday Nights)

On the evening of Thursday June 27th, I found myself in a terrible situation.  Most nights of the week I can watch wrestling-

To start the week, there’s WWE’s Monday Night Raw.

NXT is the WWE “minor league feeder show” on Tuesday nights.

Wednesdays bring AEW Dynamite.

Friday has WWE Smackdown, WWE’s NXT’s Level Up which is the feeder for the feeder show, as well as AEW Rampage. 

On Saturdays one can watch AEW Collision, plus Saturdays and Sundays on any given month offer no shortage of Pay Per Views or Premium Live Events depending on one’s branding.

But Thursday nights… Thursdays are barren of wrestling.  (We don’t acknowledge NWA in this house, sorry to my friends who work there)

And that’s how I found myself watching the presidential debate.

Continue reading “An Article on Watching the Presidential Debate (because there’s no wrestling on TV on Thursday Nights)”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Path To The White House

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Path To The White House

We are in a perilous time in our nation, and the upcoming November election is not going to make things any better. Between the two viable candidates, neither exactly presents hope for the next four years. What America needs right now, perhaps more than ever, is a candidate who is willing to not only disregard the partisan media, bloodythirsty lobbyists, and the greater demons of their own party and bring our country together in a spirit of compassion, compromise and unity. Neither President Biden nor former President Donald Trump come close to checking those boxes, and it’s gonna be rough living here for the considerable future.

“But Matt,” you might be saying, “you said there were only TWO viable candidates. What about this Robert Kennedy Jr. I’ve been hearing about on social media and some of my weirder friends? I’m sure you just forgot about him and now you are going to go back in real time and change your column because it’s only fair to include everyone with a realistic chance of becoming the next President of these great United States.” If this is you, I have a simple response: Shut up. You are wrong. RFK Jr. has no chance of becoming the next leader of the free world.

Well, that’s not exactly true. There is one path…

Continue reading “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Path To The White House”

Ren Faire Is Deliriously Stupid

They say that sometimes truth is weirder than fiction. Sometimes the truth is also dumb, brutally horny, and filled with wayyyyy too many Willie Wonka references. In the three part HBO Documentary, you get all of these things, along with a litany of other mind boggling, ostensibly true things.

The three part series follows aging pervert George, who owns the Texas Renaissance Festival. He knows exactly when he is going to die (according to him) and just wants to find love. He goes on several dates over the course of the show. Both women are 24 years old. George is 86. After the first date, the Festival owner muses that there is no point dating younger girls because they don’t read poetry and they don’t know how to bone. Then he goes on a date with another 24 year old. This, ostensibly, has nothing to do with the show. They just insisted on including it like a side quest in the show.

Continue reading “Ren Faire Is Deliriously Stupid”