She: I love you so much.
He: I love you too.
She: Promise me, you'll never leave me.
He: I promise.
She: No matter what.
He: No matter what.
She: What if I cheated on you?
He: What if I had sex with your bestfriend?
She: Did you?
He: Of course not.
She: Well, I did.

(they embrace. he looks to the sky and thanks god.)

Love.

Okay, so, last week's show was pretty insane -- who'd a thought watching two guys have sex with a cooler could be so natural and so moving. "Love is a many splendored thing" ... thanks Ben Johnson!

Big shout out to that hot lady who bought me a beer -- that was really nice ... told you you'd love the show.

Love.

See y'all this Saturday. Now it's time to put on my funny bone -- it's a strap on. It has the letters WTJHAND embroidered on it.

Love,

kendra

I got up to go to the bathroom, it was still dark. As I climbed over my girlfriend, she lay sleeping to my right, I heard the sound of the morning birds in the air, the peeping of something small coming from the room that her daughter was sleeping in, then it stopped. The wood floor was cold, and I could feel the remnants of days paston the soles of my feet. I closed the door, a black cat ran through the bathroom and out the window, through a hole in the screen that many of the screens in the house had; this is something she quite often did, as cats as a whole often behave.

There was a knock at the door. One I hadn't heard before. Or was it my mind playing tricks on me? Still no birds. I hadn't yet begun to pee. What should I do next?

Well, it's been a crazy week -- I had to get that out. Now maybe I can be funny ... last week was an amazing show. This week looks just as good, just as amazing. Hope to see you at the show, let's grab a beer and talk about 'stuff and things.'

Hope this finds you well and in good spirits!

kendra

Here's a funny bit from a recent SNL. For me the thing that really makes it work is how Shai Leboeuf plays it.

So, I'm back on the staff and I couldn't be happier. It feels like home you know? I remember thinking I had run out of ideas, but now that I'm back, they seem to be coming fast and furiously, thank God!

The show this past weekend was incredible. I was lucky enough to have two sketches get into the show(with great help from Shane, Dennis and Jeff on one and Shane on the other), and they both performed well. There's no other feeling like being in an audience that is laughing their asses off at your material.

I had rewritten both sketches so much, I had actually written them off and prepared for having nothing in the show.

Thanks to Fries for allowing me back, it's been amazing so far and I'm sure there's only more great stuff to come this season!

Well, wow, um, wow ... this past Saturday, was, what happened?

We had half the time to prepare the show, the weather was really HOT, and you could cut the stress with ... well, you couldn't cut the stress with anything. Everyone pulled together like a great team should and through all the 'heated craziness,' the show not only went on, but kicked some major ass! The host Adam Devine, a really cool guy, kept his cool and made everyone laugh their asses off with his sketch, "We Made IT!" and Joyce Lee, well, we couldn't get enough of her, everyone wanted her to sing more songs including all of us backstage. All of us looked at each other and knodded our heads, "Hell yeah." And she was really cool to hang out with afterwards.

Finally, after all these years of being a part of Fries, I was able to get up on stage, I've been trying to ever since I've became involved with Fries 3 years ago; everytime I was about to, something would come up and I'd end up filling a hole, whether in the booth, front of house, backstage -- I've done everything at Fries, except act and I gotta tell ya this Saturday I was rewarded handsomely -- I played a yellow latex gloved bored guy in Colin Wilkie's sketch, "Rape Party," and a dead body with a huge erection in Dan Yate's sketch, "A Stiff One." Thanks to both you gentlemen for your brilliant casting choices. I hope I met your expectations. (HAH!)

I want to thank Jeff Huit & Dennis Hemphill with their help on, "Shirtless Dave." From backstage, it sounded like it went off really well, the laughter was deafening.

We've got another great show coming up with Brett Walkow, a hilarious guy who I've had the pleasure of knowing for the past year or so, he spun the music at our season opener on top of the Music Box Theatre and this guy can find the funny side of everything. Manda is our musical guest, who's a wonderful combination of everything good in music.

Thanks to our wonderful and ever expanding fans who beat the heat and were rewarded with tons of laughs in an air-conditioned theatre and a cold beverage in hand. Tragedy and comedy are what we all have in common. I'm blessed to be part of an amazing group who choose to represent the latter, comedy, really well!

That's all for now -- back to the job that enables me to do this ...

kendra

"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things."
-- George Carlin

I just saw that GC passed away of a heart attack over the weekend. 71 years old. He was going strong right up until the end -- he just performed a live one-hour special on HBO back in March. I'm really going to miss the guy, too.

I was weaned on comedy albums during my formative years. My parents had a fleet of LPs -- from back when comedy albums were popular to listen to at adult parties -- that included Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, Vaughn Meader and Carlin. It was such a steady diet that it is, no doubt, what subtly led me into an ongoing career in comedy, from booking shows to performing improv and writing sketch comedy to this day.

Carlin's career in the 60's and 70's mirrored a shift in consciousness that was happening in America. He went from being a buttoned-down, necktie-wearing, straight-laced funnyman to a long-haired, blue-jeans-and-t-shirt hilarious counter-culture dude in the course of a decade. The comedic voice for an angry generation, Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV" was the most popular tip of an devastating comic iceberg that wasn't afraid to sail full-tilt into whatever social conventions stood in its way.

The heir apparent to Lenny Bruce, he helped to push the door open wider for comedian-philosophers to step out of the darkness and onto the comedy club stages. Performers who had a message but, like Carlin, wanted to wrap it up in a way that would make it not only palatable but in a form that would be passed along at the water cooler, or on the way to work.

In his later years, his anger seemed to turn more inward but his observations were no less relevant. Less political perhaps but still biting, sarcastic and razor-sharp as he held his sardonic mirror up to society's foibles and screw-ups. He slowly evaporated from the mainstream comedy flow as younger performers, now able to more freely access the Seven Words that Carlin had helped to liberate, used them more and more gratuitously. Robbed of their shock value, those words became more or less the punctuation in a comedic language that's become more formula than content.

Carlin, having countered the culture he opposed, stayed funny lampooning the political correctness and other inane social structures that our culture had morphed into. His anger and commentary had, in the past 10 or so years, become a draw in the casinos around the country -- an ironic counterpoint between his message and the excesses going on in the very places he was performing.

Like most performers in comedy, Carlin was never one to take himself very seriously. The few times I'd had the pleasure to meet him, he was always gracious and friendly. I think he should have been celebrated more but today's media wants to only make room for what they perceive as young and hip -- when they consider someone older they only think hip replacement.

I believe that as time wears on, George Carlin's quotes and observations will continue to surface as timelessly funny, sardonic and wise commentary on the human condition. A generation -- or two -- has lost their spokesman.

As I sit in my old BMW waiting for the light to change, on the side of the road, in a wheelchair, I see a homeless man proudly peeling skin and at times tissue off of his disease ridden leg, as if showcasing his condition to the world. I immediately roll up my window.

As I make my left onto Western, two things baffle me ... why did I roll up my window and secondly, could a dollar bill save his leg?

What are his dreams about when he sleeps? ... Does he sleep? ... Did he want his leg saved or was this his way of taking pride in something that he otherwise didn't have? And is now the pinnacle of his existence, the peeling of layers, of old and new -- is this his opening gifts at Christmas time -- ripping through the wrapping and the ribbon, tossing aside the tissue paper to get to what's inside ... the gift? ... Who are his parents? ... Did he ever have a family? ... Did he ever in a million years think he would ever end up like this?

Why now am I so concerned? Or is it intrigue? I guess if it mattered that much to me, I would've stopped and asked him -- but if I did, wouldn't that be 'exploiting' him? Plus, I didn't have any cash with me ... I wonder what I'll see in my sleep ...

And now, I must write something funny ...

Dana Carvey's new HBO special, Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies, premieres this Saturday night (June 14) on the cable channel. The show's hilarious and, if you get a chance to tune in, there's a tiny bit of footage of the audience coming in shot with a handheld camera right at the top of the show that I shot. And I also shot this bit of web promo that HBO put up on YouTube to promote the special:

Got this letter from my friend Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Bruce Gordon. He hosted the show last night, I couldn't attend due to illness. He left it on my doorstep, anchored with a can of chicken soup, and I typed it after deciphering his shaky scrawl.

Alex,

Never in all my 108 years have I had as much fun as I had last night. I've never hosted a comedy show, but I hope this one is not my last. All those wonderful kids running around like a bunch of Italians with no heads. I tell you, if I were 89 years younger, you would have a new cast member. As it stands I don't have the energy to keep up with the likes of "Fries on the Side". Let me tell you, getting to reach out to the younger generation was such a thrill. I only wish my first wife, Esther, had been there to see it. She was a pistol, and really loved the theater. She could also put her ankle behind her head, but that's never here nor there. Margaret, the current Misses, is not a fan of attention, or laughter for that matter. So she was not the best companion. The biggest thrill for me was getting to watch some of the scenes from in the back of the audience. Wow! What a spectacle. Some of those "sketches" would probably shock the average person my age (there are only 19 of us in the world) but not me. When you've killed as many people as I have, and made love to as many women as I have, not much shocks you, and the things that amuse you to the point of laughter only increase.

And so many beautiful women! Good lord, I got a tongue lashing from Margaret when we got home. She saw the lusty eye I turned toward each and every female cast member (and that darling musical guest, ha-cha!). Again, if only I were about 89 years younger...

I don't know if you know this about hosting, but it's pure fat-city my young friend. I haven't been treated that well since I freed Poland, single handed. They sent a chauffered limousine to pick me and Margaret up, and the thing was full of booze. Margaret ain't allowed on account of her pills and her angry blood, but that just meant more for me. And boy did I partake. A bevy of nubile and virginal attendants catered to my every whim (later they told me one of them was a eunuch, but I never figured out which one). There's even a separate host's green room that the riff raff aren't allowed into. I came prepared for anything, and then that nice boy Sean came and told me he would be interviewing me for the host monolog. Boy did I feel the fool! I had already written a silly and ribald little note about an Italian and a fish wife, but, as the French say, such is the life.

Alex, I was so sorry you couldn't make the show. But nobody else seemed to mind, so I didn't either. I even got to be in a "sketch". It was about some Asian girl and dragons I think. When it gets that late, I can't follow things so good.

What a feast for the senses. A delight for the mind. Democracy at it's finest. A free exchange of ideas, and artistic endeavor. These brilliant minds are truly at the forefront of a comedic renaissance. Might have had something to do with you not being there you sack of guts!

Regards,

Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Bruce Gordon