Comedy behind the scenes is about the story. It’s about making your point. Figuring out what you’re trying to say and how you’re going to say it. It’s about connecting with whoever will listen to you. At the beginning, which can last anywhere from ten to a hundred years, or at least that’s what it feels like, at the beginning that is usually other comedians.

JokeStar at this point in its life as a comedy show, is about comedians connecting to comedians. Today I had about 13 sign ups.

I always rush my opening set. I feel like it’s my duty to present my material to the room but to go through it as if to say hey this is the material I am working on right now and I am developing these bits and ideas. I would never present a completely developed finished routine at JokeStar. That would set a tone as if to say this is polished show, you are my audience, we aren’t comedians working on this together figuring it out as we go. I always use my notes, my phone. It’s part of the ritual. This is writing as performance.

Jimmy Peoples always makes himself known in the room. His quips and grunts from the back of the room before his set actually shape the tone of the show. Notice I keep referring to it as a show even though it’s almost always one hundred percent comedians and civilians rarely ever show up. That doesn’t mean that everyone is not welcome. If you are a human being you can come.

Pasha Rubin always works hard at offending the other comedians but only on the stage in a smooth and thoughtful tone. I appreciate when Dane Rothenberg shows up and points out things that no one would ever notice, like light sources should not cast shadows. He yells for no reason when approaching the stage.

Maddy Smith always kills even if there’s only three people left in the room. I haven’t figured out her secret yet but I think it’s talk loudly into the microphone and insult random people quickly with a smile and then move on to your next joke before they can think of a reply. I’m just happy to have a female comedian come out on the regular. Her rhythm is amazing.

If you make it to the end I always announce the joke of the day based on what surprised me or made me laugh the most. I try to give comedians an extra minute or two based on how much time we have available.

Come out, tell a joke, be a star. Hell tell 5 minutes of jokes see if I care. I do. It’s a show. And everyone who shows up is the audience. Especially me. I’m the designated laugher in case no one else does.

Fridays at The Lantern NYC at 4pm. Hell show up at 5, I’ll probably get you on.

Aaron Jokemaster

10/7/2016

 

 

The power of the mind the power of the mind the power of the mind. Some scientists, like Dean Radin, from what I can tell, use rigorous statistical methods and are proving the validity of Psi phenomena. I guess this shouldn’t be surprising in this day. But there are many scientists, the majority I would assume who still hold to the dogma that this is impossible or silly wishful thinking.

Texting is almost like extended electronic telepathy. You have a thought, you send that thought to another person they read it in their mind and know your thought. They are at a distance and no words are spoken, it’s all in the minds.

You can use autosuggestion like Émile Coué and Napoleon Hill to at least change your thought patterns. If you reinforce them enough possibly they could change real world outcomes in your life.

You can also ask yourself a question, such as, how can it get even better than this? I learned this from Amy Jo Berman. She likes the idea of using a question to open up possibilities rather than using a suggestion which might put limits on your thoughts and outcomes.

Win Wenger also writes about asking the right question to solve your most pressing problems, and engages in a Socratic method of deeper and deeper questioning to achieve great inventions.

Sorry guys no jokes in tonight’s post, just mind power tidbits.

Aaron the Mage

10/06/2016

KillerBroccoli was my Myspace name. I have no idea what it means or how I thought of it. I always liked drawing really ridiculous things. Whenever the teacher asked us to do an art project mine was always bent out of shape. Whenever the teacher asked us to hand in an assignment mine was always covered in mutants and cretins and weirdos and strange animals.

There was a local wildlife artist Named Edgar T. Jones who lived in a shack in the woods by the ravine. I used to go to the mall with my mom and buy his paintings and sketches. He had a drawing of an owl which I copied and changed to my own style. It was quite naturalistic, not cartoonic or ridiculous. I went to his house and presented it to him and he was impressed. He is definitely one of my early influences in visual style.

Then I had the book Skywriting By Word of Mouth by John Lennon with these ludicrous illustrations. It was filled with meaningless people with distorted heads and a series of lunatics and dipsnots.

I think if you take those two sources and blend them together with my sense of stupidity and form that could be the foundation for the development of KillerBroccoli.

I have several hundred ridiculous forms that I could shape into designs. But what’s the point. What’s my style. What’s the lifestyle. Most people want to be cool they don’t want to be crazy. But there are crazy people out there who will want to buy my shirts. I want to appeal to people who like novelty. I don’t want to appeal to burnouts or weirdos. I guess I will appeal to whoever wants them. I don’t want people to think they are cute. I always run that risk.

I see the brand developing into something original and awesome. I see the designs evolving and the shapes improving. Maybe I will move away from the purposely amateur style eventually. I am inventing it and I will reinvent it until it is great.

Sales are hard to get. The psychology of sales is very hard to comprehend. It’s like before it’s socially ok to buy your stuff no one will, but once it’s acceptable then they will. I now have to cross that line. I will cross it. I thought I would open the store and the next day I would get an email from Macy’s humbly and hopefully requesting me to appear with Kanye and Kim at Herald Square for a grand opening of my new line. I would rather appeal to an urban crowd than a white bread crowd. But again I’ll appeal to whomever wants to be appealed to.

Killerbroccoli is my clothing line. I add it to my lifestyle of comedian, actor and recording artist.

Creative Aaron

10/05/2016

 

 

Sometimes it’s just heavy winds and rough sailing. Sometimes you’re just building and building and it’s all rubble and dust. And you’re like what am I building and why is it sitting in the same place.

Sometimes everything is apparently stuck like a 2-wheel drive truck. And those are the times when you slap yourself in the face take your meditation cocaine and stay focused and dig on.

I always get metaphorical for no reason. I do everything for no reason. It’s hard to find a reason for anything. It’s hard to find friends, it’s hard to find money. It’s easy to find songs, easy to find ideas, easy to find jokes. Well jokes aren’t quite as easy to find.

The main problem in life seems to be connections. If you find connections you find money and you find relationships which both facilitate serotonin.

This is all I will talk about today.

I’m Aaron

10/04/2016

This analogy is no good. Mushrooms are a fungus, fungi? But they’re delicious. There are lots of kinds. And they blow up at the top and they have a big head. And they hog resources from a host or what? No those are just fungi in general. I’m not a scientist, I’m not a journalist, I’m an opinionist. Actually I take that back I’m just a nice guy. I have too many mushrooms. So what should I do? Episode 1 of the podcast is recorded. I have to post it. I’m in the same category of diffusion there as here in this blog. What’s the topic, what’s the point? And the point is me. I am the point. I am Aaron Peta. I am a topic. This seems egotistical and self-centered, but hey… internet.

I have a lot of weird voices and made up accents I could do, so I want to do cartoon voice-overs. I have this blog, I have my t-shirt line and I have another t-shirt line I want to start. I have ideas for fermented beverages and cacao based edibles. I want to try a mini-podcast called a blogcast, which is me audio blogging for 3 minutes and 33 seconds each episode. Like a micro podcast. I have a YouTube type cooking show I recorded all these episodes for and have not posted. I have a bunch of vines I haven’t released, 300 or more songs, actually way way more songs than that. I have ideas for at least ten more full length albums. I have reams of run on comedy monologs and joke structures going on for hours, and the skeleton for a one man show as well as pilot concepts for about four different television shows, and hundreds of sketches for a comedy web series I abandoned called ThePetaFiles. This name seems controversial but only the homonyms that it creates, not if you actually read the title and discern the meaning. The as in definite, Peta, as in me, and files, as in all my ideas, concepts and flights of fancy. Thepetafiles.com is now my abstract poetic multimedia, I hate the word dadaist, and I hate the word hipster even more, blog. And speaking of poems, I have dozens of notebooks of those that I want to publish in a series of books. Do you care? No, you have your own list of ambitions that you want to execute to propel you to fame and fortune.

I have too many mushrooms. Time to eat them all at once and have the biggest head of all. Fungus brain.

Back to work Mr. Olafsson.

(that’s from one of my favorite movies, and you probably won’t even find it on Google, but the star is a major movie star).

I just realized I never blog about the actual things I go out and do, like comedy shows. Remind me and I will do that. Also I listened to a travel podcast about Vermont and I would just like to go there and drink cider and eat ice cream for 3 days and wander around exploring.

Aaron, not a European Gentleman, yet.

10/03/2016

I guess a blog is about letting your actual thoughts play out until you figure out what you are talking about. To what degree do you censor yourself? I like to censor myself through cryptic non-sequiturs and abstract ideas. But not here. Blogs are about anything you want them to be. I see all these, who has the best paleo blog or the best marketing slash life improvement blog. I don’t have a blog about “something.” I don’t sell something to make your life better. Let me try to articulate that more clearly. It seems that most people on the internet are in it these days for themselves. People are like if I listen to this guys podcast or read this guys blog or buy this guys audiobook will I be more famous/rich/successful/popular and so on? I don’t sell that kind of product. I’ve thought about it many times. And maybe one day I will. (sentence fragment, consider revising). No.

What do I sell. I sell t-shirts. The t-shirt business is interesting. I am just starting. And I realize I know nothing about the psychology of sales. Like literally everyone who looks at my shirts on killerbroccoli.com thinks they’re really cool really funny and says they’re great designs. And I’m pretty sure they’re not saying it to butter me up just because they’re my friends. Some of them have been strangers on the internet. But I have no idea how to turn those likers of my product into buyers of my product. To have them say yes, and click buy, and then own a shirt. Or a hundred shirts. It’s much better for me if you buy a hundred. So I sell entertainment I guess. If I’m not entertaining you then I am failing. Also in that category I sell live standup comedy, and on-camera acting. And I sell songs but since the advent of Spotify, monetizing songs has become stormy sailing for even the saltiest seadog. So I sell products and services.

Napoleon Hill says something to the effect of if you don’t weed the garden of your mind daily then weeds will grow in and take over the good plants. It’s paraphrased. But I have to do that. I have to say affirmations and intentions daily or I get grumpy. I’m not lifehacking or going to try to cleverly show you how to improve your life. I wanted to talk about ranting and complaining. I don’t want to rant and complain or be seen as a Negative Norman, or whoever, but I was saying in the beginning a blog is about letting your thoughts interplay until you figure it out. And if you’re convoluted and creative enough with your rants like Bob Lefsetz or the nematodes over at Vice then it becomes humor and the ranting and raving is appreciated as fanciful fermentation for merriment and the betterment of the of the bitter human soul. I’m allowed to call them nematodes because they awarded me Worst Album of The Month in June of 2010 in their magazine, an award that I treasure to this today. Never won an award before, never won one since.

I got interrupted. I was running in the park and I had all the ideas I wanted to write in the blog today and then I came in and someone was talking to me. This post would have been way better if I had grabbed it from the swirling ether of my mental circus when it was fresh and all the ideas were cumulonimbus-ing into word storms. Interruptions, as Tim Ferriss will tell you, are the worst.

From now on this blog will only be about underline fill in the blank.

Aaron still of Peta

10/02/2016

 

I’m too verbose and unfocused. I want to send Angry Orchard a thoughtful contemplative hate letter. Cider is not supposed to be carbonated sunny delight. Cider is not supposed to have 69 grams of carbs per ounce. And I don’t care if you make the mistake of drinking a bottle of diabetic urine just don’t make me drink it. Alcohol serving establishments should be required by law to provide one cider choice for those who cannot tolerate grain based fermentations (beer), and Angry Orchard does not qualify. Shame on you Angry Orchard for morally and materially debasing cider in America.

I haven’t been thinking about Swiss watches very much lately. My musical tastes are in a clusterfish. Daily I listen to Beethoven, Charli XCX, random hip hop, Shakira, 80s hair rock.

I need $200000 to release my next album of 100 songs. $2000 per song. I could break it down into 10 albums I supppse. I guess I will do a Patreon sooon. I have a lot of great songs for the world to hear.

Tomorrow I may talk about my frustration with social media and ask you how you use it for enjoyment.

Aaron Continuous

10/01/2016

I’m obsessed with Red Balloon. From time to time I get fixated on a specific track or song or movement. This song sounds like it could be on The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. The chromatic sliding synths and the psychedelic oscillations in the background and the brass section, plus that weird twirling chord progression in the post chorus are a mind trip. It’s sound candy that fills my mind with colors. I love the fast 32nd tom or kick pumps in the verses they kick me butt goodly. Yes, I said kick me butt. The lyrics are bubblegum but they fit in with the themes of late Beatles more like Paul less like John, less subversion. I have no idea who wrote this song or produced it. It’s really really really excellent. Charli XCX has got a good thing going. And she’s so hotdamn beautiful, we’d have the best musical wonderbabies. They’d be the coolest cutest superstars.

I don’t have a problem with my weight, because I educated myself about carbohydrate metabolism and fat burning and storage mechanisms. From my simple understanding, it’s not that difficult to regulate. It’s not genetics. There are individual differences of course and there are various health disorders and derangements especially if you’ve been screwing yourself for way too long, but for the vast majority of us I don’t think those are major factors. Yes, there are toxic obesogens that screw with the endocrine system, I hear that, but I think metabolism and can be mostly regulated pretty simply by dialing up fat and dailing down carb intake. And there’s no willpower involved. Oh my god I love my pasta I gotta have my cookie, I can’t start the day without oatmeal. When then shutup and enjoy being a fatso. I love massive bowls of coconut cream with chocolate and berries (and because I’m fat adapted, with a nice sexy carby banana, ONCE a day), huge chunks of greasy pernil, bacon by the pound, chicken wings by the 15 count, and I don’t have these problems. I used to be a fat pig. I had back fat. It’s not genetics. But I’m not a teacher. I am not going to diet coach people. I just wanted to say that.

I keep listening to Red Balloon, I’m hooked like a fish on a bowl of crackworms.

09/30/2016

 

 

I tried this thing called a walkitation. It’s like a meditation but walking. I don’t know if I just made that word up or if someone did before. I just walked around the block for 10 minutes without looking at my phone or letting my attention wander to the things around me: cars, people, houses, trees. I just walked straight down the road, enjoyed the feel of the air and sound of the birds, and let my periphery blur. It was really cool, though people probably thought I was a wackjob. But hey, I am, so that’s fine.

Always trying to find new ways to experience the world.

Killerbroccoli.com is live, you can buy shirts there now, right now, go check it out.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll talk about standup comedy or different types of alcohol or simple paleo meals that are easy to cook. I don’t know.

Thanks
Aaron Broccoli.

09/29/2016

Beethoven’s 7th would hands down be my favorite Beethoven symphony if it weren’t for 3, 5, 6, and 9. The thing with 7 is that it’s practical. It’s good for a sunny day, it’s good for a rainy day. It’s good for a good mood, it’s good for a bad mood. Works in car, works in a livingroom. You can use it when you’re coming home drunk from the city at 430am or when you’re waking up and drinking tea at 8am. Day in and day out it’s a workhorse symphony.

My life is a workhorse cacophony. Killerbroccoli is having admin problems but I will right them momentarily and launch the site tomorrow. I got nice feedback on Facebook. I posted my site in the user group for t-shirt entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs! I spelled it correctly without spell check! Anyway I blog there so if you go to KillerBroccoli.com and click on the blog I will post some of them as testimonials. Everyone seems to like the shirt “Horrse.” It was the easiest one to design.

Well I would add a third paragraph to this post but since I’m tired all you get is those two paragraphs and this extra sentence. And I guess a couple more sentences. Tell me what you’d like from me: songs, standup comedy, Vines, Youtube videos, pilot scripts, cooking shows (paleo), podcast, or me in a TV show? I can’t do them all at once, but I will do them all soon. My goal is to make your life better through entertainment and information.

Good stuff.

09/28/2016