That’s right, I said it, life is a challenge. I’m what’s called, a “ground breaker.” I don’t mean a challenge in the, “oh it’s so hard to live, and everyone should be dark and brooding because the world is pointless, blah blah blah” way. No, I mean like literally, life is the opposite of easy.

Your life is broken up in this series of short chapters which we’ll call “days,” and in between the days you sleep. The sleeping is really the only easy part of life, but even that can be tough if you have a cat that scratches you in the face, or you camp a lot and deal with bears, or your homeless (which is kind of like camping without the nature). But for the most part, sleeping is easy, I’ll give you that. But outside of sleep, TOUGH.

Each day you are faced with a set of decisions. Do you be productive today, or do you relax? Should you eat today, or should you starve? Should you look for a marriage partner, or should you look for a job, or should you marry your job, or should you quit your job and relax? How do you know which of these is the right choice? None of these choices are easy, and if they seem easy, it’s because you haven’t thought hard enough about the potential consequences!

You start out as a baby, that’s not easy, you’re puking and you have a proportionally large head. You can’t walk or talk and you need grown ups to take care of you. You have a really low IQ, “you’re like help me I can’t walk, I shouldn’t be talking, I’m a baby, etc. etc.”

Skip to childhood, now you’d think kids would have it easy given they don’t have jobs and rent to pay, but you’d be wrong. Kids do have jobs, and the jobs are called school, and school is way worse than a job. First of all you have to ride to work in a big yellow bus. Buses are hell, kids are picking on you, the seats aren’t comfortable and they’re made out of cement, playing commercial radio over the loud speakers, and for goodness sakes, you’re riding in a yellow bus, what are you, a cartoon character? Then you gotta sit there in class, and if you chit chat or fall asleep, you’re gonna get yelled at, and if you pay attention and do all of your work you’re what’s called a “dork” and you’re gonna get thrown into the lockers, so whatever path you take, you’re screwed. You’re bad at basketball, and for some reason you decide to start playing the clarinet, your mom dresses you and she convinces you that tieing sweaters around the waste is good style. You’re fourth grade teacher commits suicide half way through the year and it comes out that he was a closet gay, and you’re like, “wow, that is gay” cuz you’re in fourth grade, and everything is gay, just like it will be gay again when you get to college.

There can’t be a much more critical time in your life than highschool, where your personality really gets defined and shaped into the rough draft personality of your adulthood. Highschool is all about fitting in, whether it’s by conforming and fitting in, or by nonconforming and fitting in with the nonconformers, or being an athlete and fitting in that way, or being a goth kid and fitting in with the goth crowd, or being a thug, and fitting in. Ultimately, the only people who don’t fit in, are the “nerds” (i.e. the people who actually come to school to do what they’re supposed to do and learn). The fact is, nerds are the only truly cool people, because they’re the only ones who truly come across as not giving a shit about conforming.

Yet there is no time in your life that you will be under greater superficial scrutiny, because colleges will be looking at a combination of your grades, your sat scores, and your extra curriculars, so you sign up to be president of the chess club and do all of this extra volunteer work ON top of school, just to be on par to get into college. If you’re LUCKY, your parents have enough money, and you have good enough grades, to go to a decent college, and then college years are supposed to be the best years of your life, but all you can do is think about one cute girl, of all the girls in the college, there is only ONE who you like, because you’re 19 and you don’t know any better, but no matter how many romantic poems you send her via aol instant messenger, or facebook, or myspace, or email, or twitter, and friendster, and constant contact, and snail mail, and candy grams, and santa grams, and fax, she DOESn’t even know who you ARE, you know, because you’re too shy to introduce yourself and you always sign off as “secret admirer” and well good for her if she’s engaged! All you want is for her to be happy, and crying is healthy right? These are the BEST years of your LIFE?!!

After that, if you’re lucky, you get a job. SO now you get to WORK, and that’s if your LUCKY!!! Well you really hit the jackpot there now didn’t you? So it’s work, work, bills, work, work, bills, work, work, bills, marriage (25 GRAND), debt, debt, work, work, bills, work, debt, bills, bickering, now you gotta share your bed with someone, which is great if you like hooking up, and but bad if you like sleeping, work, debt, bills, better remember your anniversary, babies, the babies are puking, you’re like really baby? Your head is enormous, and the dog is smarter than you.”

Then there’s the midlife crisis, and the midlife crisis happens because you realize how tough life is, you’re like, “Is this it for me? Is this IT??” Furthermore, in evolutionary terms, at the age of 45, you’d be have been dead, so now your body is like, whoops, what am I doing? Is this the right job, do I really want to raise these kids? Better buy a mustang. Work, debt, work, debt, work, debt, then finally you save up for what you want in life, retirement, so you can do the things you want in life – stock market crash, SON OF A BITCH! I hate it when I lose all of my money, HATE IT! Now you gotta learn to hunt squirrels and your wife is like what’s up with the lack of food? and your kid is like, can I borrow 160 grand for college, and you’re did you say 160 dollars, or did I hear something else?

Then you’re old and your getting weaker as your testosterone levels deplete and your bones get brittle due to the lack of calcium – if you’re lucky and you made enough money in your life, you get to have people helping you out like a baby again, except your head is proportionally much smaller than a baby, and you have more memories of your past, since babies don’t have a past, and then at some point, the toughest part of all, you die, you have to let it go, say goodbye, scianara, see ya later, and I can only imagine that right before you fade out, you would think to yourself, well whatever’s next sure as hell better be easier than this SHIT!

And if you die at an old age, that’s considered lucky, that’s if you’ve lead a full life! Some people aren’t as lucky, some get eaten by pirrhanas at a younger age. Well, not a whole lot of people, maybe one person a year, and maybe that isn’t bad luck as much as it is poor decision making, probably shouldn’t have gone skinny dipping in the Amazon Basin, with pork chops tied to your leg, but boy did it seem sexy at the time, given the plump Amazonian girl you were courting. Anywho, enough about my father. Oh come on, I kid! (my father will most likely read this at some point, and I don’t want him to think that I think he was actually eaten by pirrhanas) ((Also, my mother will most likely read this at some point as well, and I don’t want her to think that I think she’s a plump Amazonian woman whose husband was eaten by pirrhanas))

So life is short, that’s what I’m trying to say, or no, life is challenging is what I was trying to say right? But life is short too, I think, depending on your perspective. There’s only one go around, so that really puts the pressure on to make the right decisions. I mean, what if you spend your entire life worshipping Vishnu, the god with eight arms or whatevs, and then it turns out that the actual god only has 4 arms, and he’s pissed that you thought he shared qualities with an octopus, and he banishes you to the far depths of Sheba, or whatever it is, I haven’t studies the Bagavadgita in too much depth.

Or say you were in the whatever cult, and you killed yourself to go up into the space ship, but no space ship came, and you were like WTF, bad choice. Worse yet, what if those 600 people were dead on, and the space ship came for them, and now the rest of us are screwed?

That’s a lot of pressure to choose the right thing to worship, given you only have once chance. Unless Buddha was right about reincarnation, but even if Buddha knows his shyte (I think this is how Shakespeare spelled it) then you’re just gonna come back as a bug or a tree or something, and it’s not like you’re gonna have a whole lot to work with there, unless you luck out and get eagle or penguin, because eagles are badass and penguins are adorable.

I just think it would be cool to go through life knowing that you were THAT adorable. It’s like who cares I’m cold and I have to walk 700 miles through subfreezing temps just to have a shot at eating a raw fish, I’m the cutest frikking flightless bird on the planet. I wish I could have a penguin as a pet, and I haven’t given up on it, but it’s going to take either moving to a colder climate, or buying a very expensive air conditioner.

But let’s face it, of all the living creatures in the world, the odds are much higher you’re gonna come back as something stupid like fungus or an ant. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against fungus, I’ve always been told I’m a fungi…(End of Chapter, Insert Disc 2).

Oh wait, we’re back, same chapter. Chapters don’t really mean anything anyway when you think about it, just random points where you get to tell yourself it’s okay to stop reading. But is it ever really okay to stop reading?

Choices, that’s where we were. Which is why I’ve always had a tough time with decisions. People say you’re indecisive – yeah, well what’s wrong with that? This is my only chance at living a life where I don’t have bark or some bullshit. Chicken Burrito or Steak burrito? Chicken or Steak? Well the chicken is 40 cents cheaper, but the steak is richer and tastes ever so slightly better – “Sir, I need to ask you to make a decision or let someone else in line past you.” What do you know about decisions Chipotle?! This could be my last Burrito, for all I know. Please, I need a moment (sobs, crying). Okay, I’ll take half chicken, half steak…extra quacamole. Because life is too short, to not get the guacamole.

Which brings me to my closing statement on Chapter 1, and that is, that in these tough economic times, if you really want to make it, you need to shave expenses, by doing the little things, like not ordering guacamole on your burrito. Think about it, extra guacamole costs $1.40 at Chipotle, and despite how good guacamole is, clearly a rip off, even after the price of Avocados has skyrocketed due to a frosty harvest. If you are like a normal human being like me, and you eat an average of 10 Chipotle burritos per day, and like me you order two servings of guacamole on each burrito, that’s 1.40 times 20 + tax which comes out to $29.96 per day of guacamole. Now think about, if you ordered those same 10 burritos, WITHOUT the two servings of guacamole, and saved that same $29.96, over the course of a week, that’s $209.72 per week you just saved, which comes out to a yearly savings of $10,905.44. That’s money that might be able to go toward that foreclosure. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to long term savings, because let’s look at those savings over 20 years, and now you’ve saved 218,108.80. That’s right people, I know how to use a calculator. Sounds decent right? But think about if you invested that same 29.96 daily savings, into the stock market, and had the average stock market return of 8% per year, due to compound interest over 20 years, you’re now looking at $675,000 in savings over 20 years, JUST from not eating guacamole! Just think how much you could save if you stopped eating food all together!! But now, let’s get really serious. Let’s say your half intelligent, and you invested all of your extra guacamole money, into just one stock (forget the mediocre %8 return of the general stock index) like say Microsoft when it IPO’d in March of 1986 (IPO is an acronym), and continued to put all of your eggs into that one basket over the next 20 years, and then sold it all right near it’s peak in March of 2006, after the average 20% annual returns, your guacamole money would be worth $1.2 Billion. Can you believe it?!? NORMAL people like you and me CAN be billionaires, SIMPLY by NOT eating guacamole! It’s as easy as that!

Admittedly, guacamole is so good, that one could make an argument, that 10 servings of guac per day over the course of 10 years is worth the opportunity/cost of 1.2 billion dollars, but that’s an argument for a different chapter, since THIS chapter is about MAKING YOU MONEY! Or nevermind, this chapter is about how life is challenging, my bad. I think the next chapter might be about money though.

By me (i.e. Joe Zimmerman)

That’s right, this is the introduction of my awesome best selling book. Well, it’s really just a draft of the introduction of my awesome best selling book, which I haven’t written. I’ve always wanted to write a book, for no particular reason other than to just be like “What’s up ladies, so I’ve done something with my time…and yes, it may or may not involve a Barnes & Noble.” Well, the problem for me on writing a book always comes down to the overwhelmingness (yes, I will be inventing words in my book, much like the literary greats have done in the past, such as Shakespeare, Dickens, and Moby Dick)…to the overwhelmingness of stringing so many pages together into cohesive thoughts, and then you get through page 1, and you’re like, NOPE! Better think of something else to do, other than writing a damn book, who likes to read anyway? NO ONE! The world is moving to digital, we don’t even read blogs any more, it’s just one line status updates. That’s the most I read on any given day from one particular author, the 70 characters that twitter allows. Really, Andy is eating a burrito? Well, that’s it for me.

So I will be the first to admit that this book is for me, and me only. In other words, I have no plans of anyone coming up to me and being like, “Wow Joe! You really did it? You really wrote a book? Thank you so much for contributing another book to the world! Lord knows we just don’t seem to have enough books in existence.” I’m not expecting or even hoping for glory, I am merely doing it so I can be like, “Yep, I did it.” That way, if I ever get up the patience to write a second book, I’m thinking it might be decent. 1st one is always a shitter though right? I had a teacher in college (that’s right people, college – Division 1 athlete FYI, golf – BAM!) who said write your first book, and burn it, and then write your second book. Well, I don’t want to burn this, because I’m writing this on my computer, and I don’t want to have to buy a new computer, not to mention lose all of my files and pictures that are saved on this computer.

So back to the point, I have tried and failed to write a book, numerous times, often sputtering out in the page 2 to page 3 range. So my theory is this, I’m pretty good for one page. So my plan is to write a series of 1 page “essays” (and by essays I mean a page filled with words), and then string them together in an incoherent set of chapters, ending in a brilliant (legible) work of hilarious (confusing) essays (completed sentences). So this is the introduction, or not so much the introduction as a draft of the introduction. I’m thinking about callling my book, “The Most awesome book ever book,” or “The Greatest Book ever Book,” or just “Joe Zimmerman’s New York Times Best Selling Book, 104 weeks running.” So sit back and enjoy the flight. (Chapters to come)

I tend to have bad luck getting pulled over. Most people who drive with me say things like, “Jeez, you drive really low.” Yet, I’ve been pulled over a dozen times in the past dozen months. This is partly because I drive so much, and also partly because I drive late at night when cops are suspicious of drunk driving.

When I say back luck though, I really mean bad luck. Two months ago in Tennessee I was on cruise control at 73 in a 70 (which is faster than my typical 65 in a 70 for fuel economy) and I was pulled over by a trooper who said he had me in his radar at 85 (my Garmin got me off the hook on this one, thank goodness for Carmen my Garmin).

Two weeks later I was pulled over three miles from my house for going “suspiciously slow” at 2 in the morning, and given a breathalyzer test. Not surprisingly, I passed the test, given I hadn’t been drinking, but merely driving 20 in a 25.

So this week, when I tossed a banana peel out the window on the highway, it was business as usual when I heard a siren go off. A cop car coming from the other direction, flashed his lights and made that that “bwoop bwoop” noise. First off, I never litter. Secondly, I don’t eat many bananas. I’m guessing I eat 5 or 6 bananas per annum, and most of those are not eaten in my car. On average, I probably throw a banana peel out of my car window, once…ever.

But here I am, digging around for my proof of insurance and car registration in the glove compartment, because one time in my life, I composted in public.
“Do you know why I pulled you over.”
“Welp, I’m guessing cuz I threw a banana peel out the window.”
“Do you know what the Virginia fine is for littering?”
“Sir, I just didn’t realize a banana peel was litter, because of how quickly it decomposes.”
“An object was thrown from your vehicle was it not?”
“Yes…a banana peel.”
“By Virginia state law, anything thrown from a vehicle is constituted as litter, which is a misdemeanor, blah, bla, blah, up to 12 months in jail, blah blah, blah, a fine of up to $2500, blah, blah, blah.”

I include the ‘blah blah’s” because the only words I remember were the ones involving misdemeanors, jail time, and my entire life’s savings.

Furthermore, Jail is one of my top three phobias, and I think it’s a healthy phobia to have. My other two are torture, and anything involving injury to the eyeball. So when he said “jail,” my mind raced ahead to getting tortured IN jail, with a method that involed pokes to the eye with a prison shank.

So Officer McLitter is going through the scare tactics, and they were working, because I was about to faint.

Very pathetically I said, “Sir, I just thought it would biodegrade quickly, and would be good for the environment, not bad.”

You THOUGHT it would DO good??! Tossing ANY object from your car is not only litter, but it also constitutes a danger to the vehicles around you.”

A danger to the vehicles around me? There were no vehicles around me, and…it was a banana peel. Does he think this is like Mario Cart, and the oncoming traffic is going to hit a banana and go spinning off in a serious of 360’s over a cliff and into a Sea? I wondered if I should tell him that I did not have any turtle shells or lightning bolts waiting in my bonus.

He seemed content to lecture on, “fruit remains ARE bad, because they attract insects, which attract rodents, and the rodents attract predators like hawks and owls, which will then get hit by cars, and cause roadkill incidents.”

Hmm, well now I really do feel like a prick – I had never thought that far ahead in the food chain. Who would have thought that a banana peel would kill an owl?

He ended up letting me go with a warning – probably because my beard makes me look like I love nature.

But he taught me a lesson, because I will never discard any fruit remains out of my window, 1) because I’m convinced that cops follow me everywhere I go, 2) because of my jail/torture/eye phobia, and 3) because owls are the most adorable predators in the world. The last thing I want to do is start a string of events that would result in the unfortunate death of such a huggable, imaginary creature.

Well, I set my new personal record on Friday, for worst gig I’ve ever performed at. I was asked to perform in an “auditorium” for “500 students” at American University. It was a Relay for Life benefit for the American Cancer Society, and they offered me $150. Okay, so good cause, good university, auditorium with 500 students, and I’m open that night, sounds good!

When I arrived, the “auditorium” was Bender Arena, which is a gym, not an auditorium. Critical difference between the two – the primary difference being, auditorium’s have stages, while gym’s have basketball courts. The event organizer was really nice and cheery, and didn’t look a day out of high school. I knew that the Relay for Life was a walk, but it never occurred to me that the majority of the “audience” would be walking, while I performed. I just assumed that no one would hire a comedian to perform for people who are walking. It’s never good to assume though – I learned this in grade school.

She initially asked me to perform at a podium, which was directly in the path of the walkers. Not wanting to be high maintenance, I asked, “Do you think that’s the best spot? Given that people will have to walk around me?” She then reconsidered, and asked me to perform center court, in the middle of the walking circle. Mmkay.

I was to follow a dance team, also not good, but I hadn’t given up. My plan was to find a way to make it work. My introduction didn’t help matters. I had been asked to email my intro a week in advance, so given all of that lead time, I thought they were really gonna nail it. The DJ cut off the Beyonce and introduced me (without pointing out to the students that this next portion of the event would be comedy).
“Alright, this next guy is on tour with (long pause) the Beards of Comedy? He’s just coming from (long pause) the Detroit Comedy Festival? Whatever that means…Joel (long pause) Zimmer.”

Mmkay, thanks DJ. Preciate you taking the time to memorize the ten word intro. Also, “whatever that means”? Really DJ? It means that I just came from the Detroit Comedy Festival, like it says.

Anywho, the problem with the intro wasn’t so much the poor delivery, but the fact that no one heard it, and thus no one was aware that comedy was about to happen. But happen it did! Unfortunately, as I walked on to the “stage” a game of beach volleyball had drifted on to center court. So I walked through a line of walkers, and into a game of volleyball.

Unfazed by the volleyball game, I said, “What’s up American!?”
There were some smattered cheers of recognition that American was indeed their University, but no one was looking at me. They were all walking and talking, understandably. I still hadn’t given up on the situation, because I have a bit about the “walk it out” song by DJ Unk, that would clearly fit this situation perfectly. But as I went into my bit about “walking it out”, a beach volleyball hit me, and a young man said, “Oh, sorry man!” Meanwhile, a game of pick up basketball had formed at the far end of the court. I never thought I would have to perform on a basketball court, while basketball was being played. I looked around for the event organizer, to see if she was going to ask the athletes to cut back, or if she might call an audible on the whole comedy thing, but she was nowhere to be found.

Now, if you ever do a “hell gig,” the main objective for the comic, is to get through the allotted time you were contracted to do – that way, no matter how bad it goes, at least you did everything in your power to do your job, and contractually get paid. Unfortunately, I had agreed in the email to 30 minutes. Thirty minutes posed a problem, given that after 45 seconds, I was out of material that might work. So I did color commentary on the volleyball (not because I thought it would dig me out of any hole, but because it was the only thing I could think to talk about, given it was what was happening, in my space). The game wasn’t so much “beach volleyball,” as a game then involved keeping a beach volleyball in the air, for as long as possible, that they were calling “keep it up.” I refrained from making the obvious joke about “keeping it up” with a bunch of dudes, given I had also signed up to do a clean show. I then I walked around with the students interviewing them as they walked. The students talked about facebook, and what major their parents wanted them to take, and the American loss to Villanova the day before, and the fact remained that none of the students knew why I was walking around the middle of the basketball court with a microphone.

Twelve minutes into my “set”, the DJ said, “hey you wanna just play some more music?” I was like, “Sounds good to me!” So I spent the last eighteen minutes of my set, taking pictures from my cell phone.

(below)Here I am, while people walk by me, not noticing me. In the back, you will see the volleyball game center “stage” that involves keeping a beach volleyball in the air for as long as possible.

(below)Here I am on the far side of the stage, where a pick up game of basketball had formed.

(below) Here is the podium where I was asked to perform, before they agreed maybe it wouldn’t be a great idea to perform where the line was passing…though in retrospect, given the volleyball, this spot would in fact have been better.

(below)This picture was taken shortly after my set, when the DJ played “Backstreet’s Back.” Two nice young gentlemen came up to me and asked if they could borrow my microphone, to sing along. This is a picture of them, singing along to Backstreet Boys.

(below)Here is me with two of my “fans” immediately following my “set.” By fans, I mean two girls who had no idea who I was, or why they were taking a picture with me.

(below) Here is me, 20 minutes after my set, right before they turned out the lights for Sarah Mclachlan’s “I will remember you.” I am sad here, partly because the song is sad, and partly because I couldn’t find the event organizer to see if I was going to get paid. This song had special significance to everyone in the room who had lost a loved one, and special significance to me because I knew that I would remember American, but they would not remember me.

Okay, if this ping works from my cell phone, to seven different sites, the future has truly arrived, and the future is…unnecessary

Mmmkay, just learned about ping site that syncs facebook, muhspace, twitter, linked in, wordpress, and everything else…this is ridiculous.