Keep in touch!

Within a week we had performed in Louisville, Huntington, and Greenville. It was great to get that much stage time but the best part was meeting awesome comedians along the way.

We often hear “You meet so many people - isn’t it hard keeping in touch?”. Not really. Between Facebook and email we’ve managed to stay well connected with friends both new and old. The real challenge is dealing with ‘new and helpful’ tools in email.

Gmail’s A.I. is getting too smart. The autocomplete feature is like having a smarmy know-it-all talk over you and finish your sentences. Most irritating is the fact that it’s super accurate. I’ll write to an old friend, typing “long time” and it’ll complete ‘no see’. I’ll type “what have you” and it’ll interrupt ‘been up to?’. I’ll type “let’s meet” and it’ll suggest ‘for lunch’.

I don’t like it. Even if the autocomplete suggestions are correct, no one’s gonna tell me how to finish my sentences. Now when gmail suggests endings, I deliberately insert non-sequiturs. My friends and family think I've gone completely insane.

My emails read like a schizophrenics mad lib. Here’s a typical message.

Greetings Tom,

Long time no anal bleach. Let’s meet for pube strudel. Shall we cure dragon meat at 6? Let me know if plutonium time portal.

Huzzah,

Daniel Longarmed Ape

I feel like I'm doing my part for the next generation. Some people are recycling, others are developing renewable energy, I’m fucking up machine learning so we can identify cyborgs in the future.

Tech revolution

Speaking of technology we don’t understand, we overheard two programmer types at a cafe talking about computer use for blind people. It blew our minds - we had never even considered  how difficult it must be for blind people to find and click search bars. The guys mentioned adding audio to help guide blind users, and we imagined some sort of Marco Polo situation.

It turned out that’s not how it works. Users tab over an item and it’s read aloud. Either way it’s still not that useful. “Hey, now it’s easier to get to the next page that you still can’t see”. It’s like using a color to describe another color. “Oh you’ve never seen green? It’s like blue mixed with yellow”.

I made that joke recently and someone said “You shouldn’t brag about being able to see and hear, that’s Ableist!” I hadn’t heard that term but now that I know it exists, I’m going to be the biggest offender. I’m gonna rub my ability in everyone's face. If I meet a mute person, I’m gonna rattle off any and all words that enter my mind.

Better yet, i’ll keep a dictionary with me at all times and read from the beginning

If I meet a deaf person I’m gonna dance around wildly as if I’m really taken with rhythm. I’ll really get after it like those old Ipod commercials.

I’m not being ableist just for kicks; I’m doing it to even the score with folks who are emotionalist. That’s right, emotionalist. Most people with audio/visual/verbal impairment are beacons of positivity and happiness despite their physical condition. I, on the other hand, despite good physical condition am a ceaseless pit of despair. I can’t just be happy - much the same way blind people can’t just see. But no one seems to get mad when these fucks rub joy in everyone's face.

Showtime

We stretched our muscles at a weekly open mic at Shoefly Public House. The upstairs was beautiful but in true open mic/fight club fashion, we were guided underground to the semi-finished basement to do our dirty deeds under dimly lit string bulbs.

We could immediately tell the scene was tight based on how welcoming everyone was. There were a few new faces in the room and when regulars spotted them, they went over and introduced themselves. It was nice they took the time to make everyone feel welcome - especially first timers, as the first mic is incredibly stressful.

The show went great. After connecting with a few more comics we began preparing our drive to Cincinnati (Cincy for   cool people). We had met several Cincinnati comics through our travels who had plenty of positive things to say about the culture. We were pumped to experience it firsthand and actually spend a few nights out of the van -- Dan had a cousin we could crash with.