Open Mic: Opening Day for Season of Hope

It’s that wonderful time of year when you stop thinking of spirits past, scary dreams and even scarier realities.
But enough about George W. Bush
It’s opening day of the baseball season here in Seattle — a time when George W. Bush’s Texas legacy arrives to show local fans that, YES Virginia! There is a team with a worse history than the Mariners! While the Mariners talk of punching their way through the season to become appetizers for the ravenous Red Sox Nation in October, the Rangers face the indignity of having their name changed to the “would-be Rangers from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Arlington.”
Yes, the Mariners are following George W. Bush’s strategy and mounting a “surge” with fiscal insanity rarely seen on this side of Iraq. The team has opened the season with what owners expect to be the league’s best pitching rotation. The new squad will be motivated with big salaries, the finest in video game entertainment, and paychecks made out in Euros. Like Hillary Clinton before them, the Mariners believe. So does Seattle. Only nattering nabobs of negativism, or maybe the Los Angeles Angels from the suburb of Anaheim, California, could keep the Seattle Mariners from their Inaugural World Series. Even Arizona Diamondbacks supporter Senator John McCain says he sees a Mariner World Series just ahead — even if it takes 100 years.”
Is this a time of hope for you? Do you have the right stuff for comedy? Join Derek Sheen and a gang of comic athletes that could make the 1977 Mariners look deep every Tuesday evening at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Make comedy at 7 pm or make music at the 9 pm musician open mic.
Just don’t make war. Just don’t wake up the Texas Rangers.

Josh Wolf: Governating From Your Femine Side

If President Hillary Clinton is not in the offing, could Governor Hillary Clinton become possible? The state of New York appears to be preparing itself for a governor without a penis, after suffering through a prostitution scandal with Elliot Spitzer, and an admission by Spitzer’s successor that he has had numerous extra-marital affairs.
Although there was an immediate fear of the name “Clinton” among ravaged New York voters, DNC Chair and former Gov. Howard Dean, who once ran the scandal-free neighboring state of Vermont says New Yorkers might adapt to Mrs. Clinton as their chief executive. “Sure, the Senator has some negatives, but none of these negatives are of a sexual nature,” Gov. Dean says. “We even have a promise that Future President of the US, Barrack Obama will dedicate his primary campaign efforts in 2010 to campaigning on her behalf.
Senator Clinton would not immediately comment on the reports that she might abandon her presidential run in favor of the governorship. However, her husband noted that he believes the “fringe benefits” of being in the governor’s office in New York might make the idea worthwhile.
In Seattle, meanwhile, the city is considering replacing its 21st Century toilets with a compost alternative to serve homeless populations downtown. “In a city of dot com’s, I think we should be able to find a place for dot compost,” Mayor Greg Nickels says.

Has your sense of humor been composting for too long? It’s time to take a seat at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club where Josh Wolf will do more than howl at the moon. Let his comedy be your personal call of nature. He is joined by Seattle favorite Jeremy Greenberg both Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 pm. Join them, and be glad you’re far from Albany, New
York.

Josh Wolf: More Than A Bucket of Spit

Senator Hillary Clinton is said to be considering an invitation by presumptive GOP nominee Senator John McCain to join his ticket in the fall. The unprecedented bi-partisan ticket could be the final accomplishment in her boost of McCain throughout her protracted debate with her Democratic rival Senator Barrack Obama. “I know Sen. McCain, Senator McCain is a good friend of my husband and I, and I know that unlike my husband, Sen. McCain is the faithful type.”
Clinton would be in a good position to succeed McCain either at the end of what is likely to be a single McCain term ending in January 2013, or even earlier if the 72-old Arizona senator should go to his sunset before four years are up. McCain was reportedly once considered as a running mate for John Kerry in 2004. The former first lady has ties to the GOP in her work as a “Goldwater Girl” for another Arizona senator in 1964.
Senator Barrack Obama encouraged Clinton’s defection to the “dark side,” and immediately complimented her. “I believe she would make a far better Vice President than the incumbent,” Obama noted.
Mrs. Clinton, however, would not make an immediate comment on the VP speculation, saying her Washington, DC headquarters was currently besieged by “sniper fire,” from some of her own campaign staffers. The McCain campaign meanwhile is dispatching former Special Prosecutor Ken Starr to whisk away the Clintons on a Whitewater rafting trip during which McCain’s offer will be outlined.
When you come to Seattle’s Mainstage Comedy and Music Club you’ll never be subject to sniper fire, or raging Whitewater. Whether you’re a potential Vice President, or you consider yourself worth more than a bucket of spit, you’re guaranteed a fun evening with comic Josh Wolf this Friday or Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m. There are worse things to be than vice president of the United States. Just ask Wolf's children. Wolf will tell you all about them. You may forget Dad, but you'll never forget his kids. You don’t even have to look at the pictures in Wolf's wallet.

Josh Wolf: Scraping the Chewing Gum Off Your Pradas

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on your Prada’s overnight? Perhaps you’ve spent enough time in the multiplex hearing the snorts of the unwashed masses as they sit on the edge of their seats peeing their pants while watching the latest remake of Smokey and the Bandit?
Somehow the glitter of the latest Oscar de la Renta fashion is lost on your compatriots at the neighborhood movie theatre. These ne'er-do-wells may even feign disinterest in your latest Tiffany’s investment.
Still, sitting at home in your mansion’s audio-visual presentation room is not quite the same as achieving a peer review of your Oscar-night finest while enjoying the latest large-screen, larger-than-life theatrical epic. That’s why an Australian entrepreneur is betting that American audiences of abundance will flock to a uniquely twenty-first century,gated-community alternative to the common movie theater.
The bar at the door will be in the form of a $35 ticket price — a consideration perhaps just a little more than the average Christmas tip for your valet — but enough to make Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public reconsider their desire to spend a virtual evening with Pauli Shore.
The experiment will take place in high-income communities of fashion such as Seattle’s own suburb of Redmond where low-income populations are outlawed.
Seattle’s Mainstage Comedy and Music Club does not limit itself to the privileged few. We ask only that you love comedy, support your local hungry comedian, and tip your wait staff. In return we offer you magnificent LIVE entertainment such as Josh Wolf, your headliner Thursday, Friday and Saturday night this week. Josh is hungry enough to put a zing on that Prada-crusted chewing gum.

Open Mic: Save The Toilet Humor

As the forces of gentrification continue to ravage across what was once a sleepy little Boeing company town, another series of city landmarks appear headed for elimination. Seattle’s historic, early twenty-first century, homage to compassion invited visitors and colorful local residents in Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, Pike Place Market and other locations to “just do it.”
Now, Seattle’s once-“space age” public toilets appear to have lost their effluence. The city says it is simply doing “what comes naturally.” Public utility officials say the city has already spent more than $4 million or about $20 per flush on the organic devices. Law enforcement costs to discourage close encounters of the Elliot Spitzer kind add to the city’s concern that the program is not fit for the city’s bottom line.
Still, this is a city that saves similar natural landmarks such as the Ballard Denny’s that take up more space that deserves to be replaced by penthouses. Is Seattle really that squeezed by the Charmin folks who answer the call of nature? Perhaps city planners should put their attention on a different moving experience — like what happens to the Alaska Viaduct after the next moving experience?
Are you moved by your potential as a performer? Do you like using words like “poopyhead?” Maybe you should move yourself to a Mainstage open mic with Derek Sheen any Tuesday evening at 7 pm.
Or maybe you’re one of those who just likes to watch? At the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at least you won’t be arrested.

Open Mic: You'll Thank Us Later

Black America has been awakened by the call by Patrick Buchanan to make Senator Barrack Obama’s discussion a two-way street. “America has been the best country on earth for black folks.” Buchanan writes. “It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”
From housing projects in Chicago to stock brokers on Wall Street Black America drew collective “Hosanna” at Buchanan’s words. “It was Whitey who drove us to masochism,” one Greenwich Village black poet paraphrased Comedian WC Fields, “and we never had a chance to thank him.”
The owner of a Kansas City barbeque noted that there is no record of blacks ever tipping the wait staff on the cruise ships that transported Black Africans to ports of call ranging from Jamaica to Boston. “What can I say, most of us were cheapskates,” the restaurant owner said. “Perhaps we should collectively contribute to scholarships for privileged Ivy League students.”
Meanwhile, leadership in the Native American populations says they are grateful to the European invaders who laid the foundation for their community’s current casino-related wealth. “Perhaps we should pay reparations for the costs of all the White Man’s bullets fired into our ancestors,” a Native American said near the Dick Cheney mansion in Wyoming. In a related development the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith announced a fund raiser to build an Adolf Hitler Memorial Museum at Berchtesgaden to honor the work of the German Chancellor who did so much to feed and house Jewish people during the Great Depression in Germany in the 30s.
Whatever your ethnic background — whether you are thankful or depressed — you can say thanks to an instant audience at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club every Tuesday. Derek Sheen leads the laughs starting at 7pm. Stand up, be counted, become a slave to comedy. You’ll thank us later.

Eric Blake: A Moving Experience

H
A moving economy apparently will not take the time to treasure one last resting place — even if it is a 24-carat monument to regularity. But Hang Fu Jewelers in Hong Kong now threatens to flush away its holdings in an infamous toilet within its flagship store, one ball cock at a time. The jewelry giant seeks to stand and deliver its toilet wealth to massive expansion across the Chinese mainland. Spokesmen for the company say the once-unfathomable thought that a solid-gold toilet is a royal waste has now moved to the thinkable as gold prices approach £500 ($1000 US) an ounce.
Preservationists are likely to poo-poo yet another loss for mankind’s basic needs. The crapper intimidation is now listed as the #2 threat among the world’s historic monuments. Our own Ballard Denny’s is right up there with the royal crapper as evidence that world developers will stop at nothing to wipe out evidence of our natural essence. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Eric Blake’s funny is more than 24-carat gold. His stories will move you, his head is flush with stories that you’ll want to digest and gently process. Best of all, you don’t even have to go all the way to Hong Kong to reflect on his glimmer. You can see him all weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Shows begin at 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. Sorry, the Mainstage Comedy thrones are all made of porcelain.

Eric Blake: Birds gotta Swim, Fish gotta fly...

The city of Seattle has joined the city of San Francisco in banning the distribution of bottled water at City Hall or at city-sponsored events. The environmentally conscious move comes just weeks after an Associated Press study found contaminants in the tap water of major cities across the country — including sex hormones in San Francisco.
Some scientists have discovered female fish undergoing a radical change in sexual characteristics because of the hormone deposits. This has set off a number of instant E-bay enterprises offering San Francisco tap water to transsexual persons attempting to avoid sometimes dangerous and often pricey surgery. Seattle water did not include large amounts of sex hormones, but was apparently heavy in caffeine.
Reports say Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton may be shipping large supplies of San Francisco water to her campaign office to maintain her increasingly visible cajones.
Should you want to see true diversity in Seattle, you need look no further than the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club this weekend. Eric Blake the star of BET’s Comedy View and Galavision’s Que Loco is on stage for shows beginning at 8 pm this evening, and continuing Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 pm. See Eric and his special flavor of comedy, and pretty soon you’ll start singing to yourself: “Birds gotta swim, and fish gotta fly, why is that cow up in the sky?”

Eric Blake: Love Your Mother

Just a day after Illinois Senator Barrack Obama gave a major address on race, Arizona Senator John McCain quickly fired back with an address on aging. The remarks came just hours after McCain was found wandering around a Dubai shopping mall and reflecting on the great improvements that have been made on the Iraq marketplace he and Senator Joe Liebermann visited in Iraq last fall. “Look, they’ve got air conditioning now,” McCain said as he was found licking a raspberry fudge cone from a Coldstone Creamery store in the Dubai center.
He noted that as he prepares for his final days, he needs to reverse his maverick image before God. In order to do that, he needs to surround himself with an entirely new group of spiritual advisors such as John Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley. The two controversial pastors have made “divisive” statements regarding Catholics, gays and Islamic Muslims. “Even if I denounce their controversial statements, I could no longer separate myself from them than I could separate myself from George W. Bush who I love dearly even though he once accused me of fathering a bastard, non-white child during the 2000 primary season. “
McCain says his own aging 95-year-old mother washes out his mouth with a soap product that made me cringe” regularly and sometimes can’t remember to vote for him for the US Senate. Even with all that, he says, he still loves his mother.
Eric Blake not only loves his mother, he loves comedy audiences who see his diverse act of improvisational comedy. Eric will have five shows this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club, at 8 pm Thursday, 8 and 10:30 pm Friday, and Saturday. The graduate of BET’s Comedy View and Galavision’s Que Loco will delight even your aging senators lost in the Middle East. Come and be healed.

Open Mic: Opponents Race After Obama

Sen. John McCain said it was a “senior moment” that had caused him to accidentally endorse his potential opponent in the fall’s race for President of the United States. He told Fox News reporters that his eyes were actually filled with sand pebbles from the Iraq desert when he was photographed “in tears” during Senator Barrack Obama’s Tuesday morning speech in Philadelphia on race. McCain said he shared some of Obama’s hopes for better race relations in the future, “I think it’s about time that we give colored men the right to vote, “he said. “I just hope they don’t waste it on some Democrat.”
Obama’s opponent in the Democratic primary notes that black folks simply don’t know how to answer the phone at 3 AM, since many of them are not near a telephone booth at that time. “I’ve had my own Princess telephone since I was a little girl,” Clinton said, “and I will be able to answer the phone from someone who is white, black, or Martian purple, right from Day One.”
Meanwhile, the incumbent president says he has been on the forefront of racial relations in this country throughout his career. “When I ran the Texas Rangers baseball team, I was always fair to the negroes that I bought and sold within Major League baseball.”
Comedians are at the forefront of racial progress in America. Since comedians are rarely fed or paid, they share a lot of the pain and anger that can be heard from kitchen tables to halls of worship across America. Sometimes that anger can be painful enough to make folks break out in laughter at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club every Tuesday night. Seattle is ready to feel your pain. Step up to the microphone any Tuesday evening at 7 pm and tell your story — just try and make it funny. Or, wait a couple of hours and you can sing it out loud at the singer/songwriter open mic at 9 pm. Isn’t it time we all had a more perfect voice?

Athol/Media Debate: An Open Mic for Surrogates

After a full two weeks without any debates between the presidential candidates, the campaigns have authorized a new Media/Athol debate between campaign surrogates of the Clinton/Obama/McCain camps. Already, cable providers are lining up to get “pay-per-view” rights to broadcast of what should be a firestorm of unprecedented verbiage in US political history. The debate is scheduled at high noon on April 1, at the auditoriums of Athol Senior High in Athol, Massachusetts and Media Senior High, in Media, Pennsylvania.
Surrogates participating in the debate include Clinton dropout Geraldine Ferraro, (D-Black Privilege) Obama athletic supporter, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (D-Cajones) of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and McCain hatemonger, the Rev. John Hagee (R-Texas Tease).
Each of the campaign insiders will be focused on the issues that stand on the precipice of the American future. Should God “damn America?” Should the Catholic Church get out of the escort business or should Elliot Spitzer be appointed its new Pope? Are black Americans spoiled too much in America?
The mayor of the Northern Massachusetts host city of Athol, says this is the biggest moment in the history of that community since it became the third city in the state to name itself after then-incumbent Gov. Edmund Peabody — following Peabody and Marblehead. The mayor of Media was unavailable for comment.
If you find yourself particular inspired by the Athol/Media debate, remember that April 1 is a Tuesday this year. You might want to be a surrogate for the candidate of your dreams on that very night. Bring your friends, or bring your enemies and put yourself up front and personal at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club open mic. Break into a song at 9 pm or break into a deep political message at 7 pm. It doesn’t matter, it’s Open Mic night. It’s your opportunity for your five minutes of fame. If your message doesn’t come across, yell out “April Fools,” get yourself a drink from the bar and consider moving on up to Athol.

Heneghen: A Dream Ticket

The Democratic race for President took on a new twist today, as Hillary Clinton announced the formation of her bi-partisan “dream ticket.” The junior senator from New York says she will pick the senior center from Arizona, John McCain, to be her running mate in the fall election. “I want to thank my friend and fellow Senator, Joe Lieberman,” Clinton said in making her announcement. “He worked hard in the background to make this dream ticket possible.”
The announcement came just outside the US Senate cloakroom, as all three major presidential candidates gathered back in Washington, DC for what was described as an “otherwise mundane session.” McCain was not immediately available for comment after Clinton’s announcement, but was seen in the Senate Men’s room, washing off a large amount of lipstick. If McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for President, agrees to run on a proposed Clinton ticket, it could set back the Republican campaign to retain the White House.
Clinton said the proposed ticket would make her a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination in the eyes of the super delegates that will ultimately decide the ticket at the party convention in Denver this summer. “When that red telephone in the White House rings at 3AM, the only qualified people in the entire country will be there to answer it — myself, Senator McCain, and my husband.” Clinton noted. “Imagine those terrorists quaking in their boots knowing that there are three well-equipped leaders lying next to that bedside phone.”
Sen. Barrack Obama also had no immediate comment on Clinton’s selection. Aides say the Illinois senator has not yet selected a potential running mate, but he is considering an older white executive type who has a warm relationship with members of the opposite sex. Although former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer is currently available, the aide declined to speculate on a name.
James Heneghen is on everyone’s short list for a comic relief ticket. While Heneghen has not been publically committed to a candidate, there are some who speculate that he should be committed. What’s your position on Heneghen? Be there, at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at 8 and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday night and make up your mind. This show is everyone’s dream ticket.

Heneghen: Rising Above Government Crap

Florida, the home of drive-by beaches, ignored Democratic delegates, and butterfly ballots, has a problem. The state faces a wipe-out!
Fortunately, the state never sits on an urgent problem. A Republican legislator has come to the two-ply relief of all Florida restaurant patrons by demanding ample toilet paper in the state’s commercial rest rooms. In a typically troubled year in Tallahassee, the legislature has at the very least demanded that when “everything comes out OK,” relieved Floridians can squeeze the Charmin.
The bill may soon get bipartisan support as Democrats in Florida search for a means of setting up a low-cost election to replace the disgraced January Florida presidential primary. “Floridians have an intimate relationship with voting and their nether regions,” an elections official noted, “what better way to express their presidential sentiment and their intestinal fortitude at the same time.”
While some call the pending bill a “piece of crap,” others expect the state Legislature to move quickly on the legislation.
Meanwhile, here on the other end of the continent, King County diners on their way to being wiped out by that second piece of white chocolate peanut butter truffle cheesecake will soon be able to determine whether or not they need to order a Diet Coke or a reduced-calorie hot buttered rum chaser when the Weight Watcher drums are restless. The County Council has ordered local iterations of chain restaurants to post the “nutritional information” of food selections on menu inserts or wall-mounted boards. Since the state of Washington remains without its own toilet paper regulation, some King County restaurant customers could become irritated by this development.
Jim Heneghen is guaranteed to irritate your sensibilities when he headlines the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club for five shows this weekend beginning tonight. If you are regular around the Seattle comedy world, you may have initially dismissed Heneghen as a victim of irritable vowel syndrome. But as you listened more closely, you were amazed at how Heneghen could cleanse the seriousness from your most sensitive plumbing. Join him tonight at 8 pm or Friday and Saturday nights at 8 and 10:30 pm. We promise we’ll stock enough toilet paper for all the cheesecake consumers in King County.

Heneghen: Oppressed and Laughing At It

A former candidate for vice president, Geraldine Ferraro (D-Bucket of Spit), has finally revealed the existence of a Black Illuminati that controls the power structure of the United States. “If Barrack Obama was not black, he would not be in the position he is in today,” Ferraro told a California newspaper.
In the un-redacted version of her interview with the Torrance, Calif., Daily Breeze, Ferraro notes that a “jive version” of Yale University’s noted Skull & Bones exists offshore on the Cayman Islands. This group controls history books, government regulators and cocktail party conversations to make sure that America gets a distorted view of so-called “black oppression.” The group began at the first Constitutional Convention in the 18th Century where dyslexics were responsible for incorrectly counting blacks as “3/5th humans.” Rather than correct the error to “5/3 human” the founding fathers figured this would be a good way to keep hidden the natural advantage black Americans are given. “White Americans might get upset if they knew how far down the food chain they were,” a founding father noted.
Black American males especially were known for their sexual prowess, and Southern women would literally bid for their attention. “White women would bid thousands of 19th Century dollars for the services of a black man, and sometimes black men in return would demand that the white women pay room and board for their entire families,” one historian recalled.
Sleeping with homely white women seemed like slavery to the powerful black men. They formed an underground railroad, that would give them breaks with prettier women in LA, before going back to collect their wages of sins. Ultimately, black men could no longer live with white women, so they fought a civil war for emancipation. For a century afterwards, the otherwise unoccupied tongues of white women were forced into denigration of their black lovers on an increasingly popular Web site known only as JimCrow.com.
This weekend, enjoy revisionist history at its finest as the one and only Heneghen takes the microphone stand for a weekend of hilarity at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Jim Heneghen will beguile you with his stories about growing up as an oppressed white man in a world run by the unshaven Illuminati. Be there at 8 pm Thursday, and 8 and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday.

Derek Sheen: Laughs in a New York Minute!

In his second news conference on the subject in two days, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer announced “I am not gay, I have proven I’m not gay, and I think my wife now knows I am not gay… I love my wife, and just about anyone else who has a vagina.”
Spitzer says he decided to take a wide stance on the prostitution issues that confronts his political future in order to maintain his credibility from Albany to Boise. He blames his sudden plunge into extra-marital sex on his continuing slumming through the New York State sewer system as attorney general and governor. “I was forced to plunge deep into every cavity I saw before me,” the governor explained. “When I investigate a new opening, I throw myself into my work. “
Asked if he might resign, Spitzer answered, “I’ll have to sleep on that.”
Meanwhile, a group of billionaires tempting the governor and this state’s entire state Legislature says it will hold its breath and perhaps spend its available billions on high-priced prostitutes in Oklahoma City unless it gets money for a fancier rec room by April 10. The group of billionaires led by Microsoft Chair Steve Ballmer says it is ready to save a group of underprivileged homeless orphan athletes by pumping in hot and cold running bourbon in the Key Arena training rooms. However, the state must offer to pay $75 million to enable the regular shipment of executive-level, high-priced prostitutes from Albany, New York, into the same facility. The City of Seattle, meanwhile, will pay another $75 million for regular testing of the athletes for sexually transmitted diseases.
If you are wondering where you will get the money for your own high-priced prostitutes, or hot and cold-running bourbon, perhaps you might consider a career in comedy. Open Mic before a friendly crowd at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club can make you into a star within a New York-minute or a 100 dog years — whichever comes last. Ask Derek Sheen — he's back from Albany and he keeps a smile planted firmly on his face. See him tonight at 7 pm and stick around for some orphaned, low-priced musicians. Support them now, while they're just a governor or two away from a career engagement. Even if you’re just looking for something to get away from the pressures of busting crooked Wall Street types, take a break for a laugh — before you break entirely.

Open Mic with Derek Sheen: Treatment for Your Tricks

Seattle’s Better Business Bureau has come down heavily on a local escort who cheated a male customer in search of “fun.” The BBB will fine the escort $50 for failing to live up to her contract, and will enter the complaint on the escort’s “permanent record” at the bureau. "There are mitigating circumstances in the public record, " a BBB spokesman says," the escort expressed open concern for the practice of safe sex prior to fleeing the premises in search of a condom."
The traditionally quiet transaction became part of the public record when it was reported in a local daily newspaper.
The man reportedly paid the escort $170 for services prior to the delivery of said services, according to the BBB. The customer discovered an advertisement for the services in the Stranger, a reputable newspaper that takes pride in its services to Seattle readers in search of “fun.” The Stranger’s publishers say the newspaper is immensely distressed by the failure of harmonic convergence between the escort and her awaiting client. “We at the Stranger are particularly invested in the accuracy of our advertisements,” a spokesman says. “We have yet to publish an imprecise telephone number or for that matter any indication that an escort service might engage in phony ‘tricks.’ ”
The BBB says the escort service in question will have to publish a public warning notice that "not all transactions may be consumated."
Meanwhile, Illinois Senator Barrack Obama is reportedly seriously considering Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King as his running mate in the general election. The extreme right-wing King might balance the Democratic ticket against Sen. John McCain, Senator Obama’s advisors say. While there is some thought that King might decline Obama’s invitation — especially after noting that “Islamic extremists might dance in the streets upon Senator Obama’s election — political insiders say the jackbooted fearmonger might be flattered into accepting. Some observers, however, prescribe another motive to the rumors. Floating the possibility of a three-term supporter of waterboarding, unhealthy children, and cockfighting as his running mate, might turn some voters in Iowa’s Fifth District to reconsider the Congressman’s sanity. It might work better than locating the number of Mr. King’s personal escort service.
If you’ve experienced setbacks in your life — perhaps something more than being ripped off by an escort service — you can turn those negatives into positives on the comedy stage. Audiences love finding out that there are people living more miserable lives than their own. Take a chance any Tuesday at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. The fabulous Derek Sheen will guide you through those initial scary moments. Go ahead and laugh. There are worse things than being ripped off by an escort service. You might find yourself being Vice President of the United States.

Todd Sawyer: Sweeping You Off Your Feet

Men, does your sex life at home suck?
It’s time you learned how to use a vacuum cleaner.
This does not mean you should use Mr. Hoover’s invention in the traditional kinky manner, but in the new post-feminist awareness sense. It seems that by simply powering up the vacuum, dusting a few spots, or even mopping the kitchen floor, you can sweep your partner into the bedroom. If you get the kids asleep in the nursery first, your chances are even better.
A new report by the Council on Contemporary Families concludes that as more women work full-time jobs, more men are beginning to realize that 15 minutes of dusting is cheaper than 15 minutes with a divorce attorney. In the most startling finding since another study found that beautiful people are more successful at job interviews, the study determined that men are frequently rewarded for their increased domestic duties by a happier sex life.
If by now you are reading four-letter, mono-syllabic words into the report that are not in the original transcript, it is my hope that you are not in Pasadena, California. That Los Angeles suburb has declared itself a “cuss-free zone” as the result of a campaign by a 14-year-old leader of a junior high “no-cussing” club. Perhaps the $%#@$ little pervert needs to redirect his #$% time to more important issues. Is that dust I see on that proclamation?
Of course this blog never judges anyone. We leave that to folks like Todd Sawyer who brings his issues to the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club for two shows Friday and Saturday evening at 8 pm and 10:30 pm. Todd will sweep you off your feet, dust the seriousness from your frown lines and then tell you to make your bed and lie in it. Go, see him. Especially when he is performing this far from the Pasadena city limits.

Todd Sawyer: Your Laughs Count!

Barrack Obama says he will allow Clinton delegates in Florida and Michigan to be seated, if the New York Senator approves a do-over election in California and New York. Obama, riding a national momentum of delegate strength that led to 12 straight victories prior to Clinton’s wins in Ohio and Texas, says he could turn around his losses in the two big states on Super Tuesday, more than making up for any Clinton delegates seated from Michigan and Florida. Obama added that he will consider other ways of adjusting the credentials of Michigan and Florida delegates. Among those are:

Counting votes in Michigan and Florida by early 20th-Century standards — meaning only male property owners would count.

Counting only the votes in Michigan of those who received a free car during a taping of the “Oprah” show..

Counting only the Florida votes of those who can figure out a butterfly ballot.
Meanwhile, in the state of Washington, initiative guru Tim Eyman is reportedly considering a measure that would bar the counting of any ballots cast by Democrats on a Tuesday. Asked if that was constitutional, Eyman responded “of course, especially under the post-Bush constitution.”
Do you have a regular weekend constitutional? Are Friday and Saturday nights a time to break out of the workday prison that surrounds you? You have the right to remain silent — except for bursts of laughter, and anything you emote or yell out at a Mainstage Comedy and Music Club show may be broadcast live on the Internet through synclive.com. This weekend, it’s time for a Todd Sawyer do-over at the Mainstage — five shows over Thursday, Friday and Saturday — that will delegate your work thoughts to a parallel universe far, far away. Remember, your laughter counts here — even if your votes do not.

Todd Sawyer: Lobbying for More Stories

A day after winning all the delegates needed to assume the Republican nomination for President, Arizona Senator John McCain went to the White House to receive the official endorsement of the incumbent President George W. Bush. McCain’s campaign says Thursday, the septuagenarian candidate will begin looking for an assisted living facility near the White House. Friday, McCain will admit his love affair with Vicki Eiseman, a Washington lobbyist, and the pair will be seen together in his Las Vegas casino suite, where he is vacationing with the help of millions of under-the-table dollars taken from other lobbyists. “We hope what happens in Vegas will stay in Las Vegas,” the Senator remarked with two fingers raised directly behind the head of the incumbent President.
Campaign aide say McCain’s moves are designed to prove just how far the Senator can become “ a Comeback Kid.” Since the GOP campaign began more than a year ago, Arizona’s senior senator has come from being left for dead in financial bankruptcy to the achievement of winning more than 1,100 delegates to the GOP Convention in Minneapolis late this summer. Some observers, however, believe that McCain is attempting to become history's last GOP presidential candidate as a form of payback to his one-time rival, George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, Boeing has announced that it will change its corporate lobbyist in Washington, DC , after its failure to get a controversial government aerospace contract. “We believe Ms. Eiseman is at the top of her game right now,” Boeing executives say in a press release.

Are you tired of listening to politicians who tell you stories? Maybe it’s time to listen to Todd Sawyer tell you some of his time-tested stories from two decades of comedy. You’ve seen him all over the comedy dial, from Comedy Central to You Tube. This weekend you can see him Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. He’s younger than John McCain and a whole lot prettier. You don’t even have to be a lobbyist for him to talk to you.

Open Mic Welcomes Rough Riders

Sources in Oklahoma City say a ballot issue being voted on today — designed to bring the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma — may not generate enough funds to get the Sonics all the way to Oklahoma City. Sonics owner Clay Bennett says he will attempt to bring the franchise somewhere in between Oklahoma City and Seattle — perhaps Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “We think that might be the best of both worlds, “Bennett says,” since real NBA fans are quite prepared to pay more for parking and a cup of beer than what it takes to commute to Jackson Hole for 81 games.”
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickles says the Sonics must stay in Seattle “even if we have to expand the Seattle city limits into Wyoming.” Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says even though Oklahoma City has cheaper gasoline than Seattle, the city’s roughnecks are likely to object to traveling to Wyoming unless they can be assured of making the trip without worrying about a DUI.
Meanwhile, Senator John McCain, assured of enough delegates to become the presumptive GOP nominee says he welcomes the endorsement of the current President of the United States — even though the latter’s poll numbers are among the lowest for an incumbent in history. McCain says he shares a lot with the current holder of the office, “not the least of these is Teddy Roosevelt’s successful environmental record, and his military precision as a Rough Rider.”
Do you think an open mic night is pretty rough riding? Perhaps you’ve thought about giving it a try in front of the majestic warmth of the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Whether you “Remember the Maine” or don’t remember what you had for breakfast this morning, the evening’s host Derek Sheen will guide you through the bells and whistles of an open mic any Tuesday on which you show. If you’re obviously from Oklahoma City, however, you might want to be careful crossing the street to Key Arena.

Open Mic: Try Your Hand at Fear

In a 60 Minutes interview, New York Senator Hillary Clinton tells correspondent Steve Kroft that Barrack Obama is NOT the illegitimate love child of George W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher… as far as she knows. She says she feels for the Illinois Senator because she has experienced the effects of vicious rumors herself, like those reporting that she dreams of waking up at 3 AM seeking to resolve a terrorist crisis. “Even though I have read reports on the Internet that Dubya had unhealthy three-way sex with world leaders when he was teenager snorting cocaine, I don’t believe them for a moment, “ Clinton said, “Seconds — perhaps — but not a moment.”

Meanwhile, the sunny Seattle real estate market continues to be blazing hot, as the remainder of the country settles into a dampened, cloudy future for home sales. Just hours after the ashes of a number of Street of Dreams model homes near Woodinville cooled from the effects of a fiery arson blaze, hopeful buyers flocked to the sales office to sweep up the remains at a slightly discounted price. While the homes once might have sold for $10 million each, buyers could procure ashes for a mere $2 million to $3 million. An agent in the sales office remarked buyers were looking at the ashes like “moon rocks,” and lining up to get a trace of their own private dream. Public relations people were busy cataloguing and labeling the ashes to give them a measure of authenticity. “I never thought I could buy a piece of a “Street of Dreams” home,” one satisfied buyer said as he left the office. “Now, I can tell my kids that I own a piece of Woodinville history!”

Sometimes the comedy at an open mic can be blazing hot — especially if you’re watching the greats like Derek Sheen who hosts the regular Tuesday night open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at 7 pm. Sometimes comics will make an “ash” of themselves” in preparation for greatness. But you, the audience provides the combustion and the chemistry for a night of quantum leaps into humor and delightful retreats into still life. Warmed with laughs, and chased by the percussion of a musical open mic that follows, you might feel ready to move forward in the world. At 3AM the next morning — when the phone rings at the White House — you’ll be ready to solve that crisis, or at least roll over and snort.