Yuri Kagan Comedy

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  • You should be a minister.

    May 01, 13

    As a kid my great grandma Clara didn't speak any English.  While Russian was my first language there were some things lost in translation since I grew up in the US.  She would always tell me in Russian, "Yuri, remember one thing you can be a minister here."  I would smile as she handed me a rotten apple she had stollen from the "home," give me a kiss on the cheek and walk away to clean her dentures.
    
     I would as my mother the following questions, "We're Jewish right?"
    
    Mom, "yeah."
    
    Me, "Why send me to Hebrew school if grandma wants me to be a minister?"
    
    Mom, "She means Prime-Minister."

  • My great grandma Alla

    May 01, 13

         My great Grandmother Alla was born in the late 1800s.  When I was born she was already in her mid-80s.  She never learned English really.  She grew up in a small Ukrainian village, similar to the one in Fiddler on the Roof.  Much of the village spoke Yiddish and had common Jewish names like Moishe, Reevkah and Motle.  She came to the US with my father and his parents in 1980.  Like most Russian immigrants of that time they came to the US as refugees from persecution for being Jewish. 
    
    When leaving LAX to go to their new home, grandma Alla is looking out her window and starts crying compulsively.  My dad asks what's wrong. 
    
    She says, "Every where I look I see Motle, Motle, Motle! My god! Only in America a Jewish man with so many businesses!"
    
     My dad interrupts, "No grandma M-O-T-E-L."

  • Questions about how my family got here

    Apr 22, 13

       People constantly ask me the dumbest questions.  They ask things like, "Yuri, why did your parents move to the US from the Soviet Union?"  I never know how to respond.  They really liked baseball?  They liked running water that didn't turning brown?  They got sick of the lines? Or my other favorite is, "How did you family come to the US?" Running.  Well they weren't really running.  It's hard to run while carrying all of your things....

  • Comedy Shmomedy

    Apr 22, 13

    
    

    
    

    
    

                I have been working at the Lab for some time now.  I’ve been laid off several times and the only thing that stays consistent is the bar.  It’s like a mother to me.  The blog thing has taken on a life of it’s own.  It pays me no money but makes me so happy to have this outlet.  I recently was asked to write a column for this gay-lifestyle site with hangover tips.  It’s a trip.  The editors of this site found me somehow from reading the blog and offer me $25 dollars for the article I send them.  The way I feel as a result of this must be how the Green Lantern felt when he got his power.  Before I get too excited, I head to the lab for the night shift.

                Lately, every night all I can think about is what else I could do with this blog, the love of creating.  As I am leaving work at 3 in the morning I hop into a cab as I have done thousands of times prior and give the cabbie my home intersection.  As I shut the door to the cab, I notice a newspaper on the floor of the back seat of the cab.  There is an add for comedy classes that says, “learn from professional comedians how it’s done.”  I take the paper with me as I leave the cab.  That night/morning I enroll via their fancy brick-walled website.  I then proceed to tell all my friends, and family, excluding the bar co-workers that I am trying standup comedy that way I can’t back out of it.

                The first few weeks of classes go over the structure of a joke and how everyone has a story.  I learn the different ideas of what makes a joke, how things are supposedly funnier in threes and how new standup comedians often like to talk about their genitalia.  I look as stand up as bartending without the tips.  Like at the bar, I create a persona, keep a captive audience and try to keep them wanting more.  After 6 weeks I sign up for my first open-mic.  This is where comedians try out new material.  I have to fill an entire 3 minutes.  I feel the type of nervous one feels possibly before a rollercoaster, getting wisdom teeth pulled or an interview.  For this reason I talk for 3 minutes about how when I get nervous at interviews.  I always feel like I have to pee and am constantly checking my pants for a wet spot and the people I encounter treat me like a pervert.  Surprisingly after 10 seconds I get my first laugh.  It’s like lightening running through my body.  I think I kill it in those 3 minutes because honestly all I can remember is the laugh and not even my material.

                When I tell Dr. John about the open mic he smiles and asks, “what do you think of being a comedian now?”

                “It sounds great but I have a job that pays me well.  Me becoming a professional comedian is as much of a long shot as seeing a short Jewish man in the NBA.”

                “Are you saying it’s not possible?”

                “I’m saying lets get back to reality.  I am a bartender, not sure what else I could do.”

                “Are you going to keep working at the comedy?”

                “Once I figure out my if I could have a legit act or story, I’ll go from there.  For now lets stay grounded in reality so no one is disappointed.  For now comedy is just a fun fantasy.”
  • The Night it All Happened

    Apr 15, 13

    
    

    Working at the Lab is fun but not what it looks like.  That’s what I explain in my last blog entry.  My mom reads it and instantly calls me.  She wants me to stop talking about pot in my entries because then people will think I do drugs.  I tell her, “If you call pot a drug then yes I do.  If you live in San Francisco, it’s considered fresh air.”            

                After the lovely pot argument with my mother, dad calls me.  He is clearly smoking a cigarette and starts choking on his own cough before I get the chance to say hello.  This makes me want to roll a joint but I don’t because I’m out.  Dad asks me when I’m coming to visit.  He hasn’t had a job in several years at this point.  I have no idea how he gets by.  I ask him why he can’t drive up to visit me.  He tells me it’s too far for him to drive.  I offer to pay for Amtrak and he then says he’ll get sick on there.  I get annoyed and he changes the topic and asks me if I have seen the latest Pay-Per-View fight.  I say know and even though it’s on the phone I can hear him shaking his head.

                Something that has always bothered me is that I have lived in San Francisco for around six years.  My father has never tried to come and visit me.  On occasion I have made pilgrimages to visit him by driving the six hours to Northridge and hanging out with him.  This act consists of watching a twenty-year old Tyson/Forman fight on a loop for at least an hour, stuffing our faces with enough Chinese food /MSG to bloat and awkwardness.  There are a lot of weird silences that we cover up with the sound of the television.  After the fights, we switch an old Columbo rerun for my grandmother.  She lives with dad then comes by with bowl of grapes to make sure we are fully nourished.  She makes light conversation about her daily struggles, current ailments and then my dad goes to the bathroom to suck down 1-3 cigarettes.  

                My dad makes it very clear to me that he loves me but not that he’s dependable.  I remember as a kid my father was supposed to visit San Diego, and take me to the zoo while introducing me to his girlfriend at the time.  He never came.  This was the third or fourth time this happened.  That night I found out that it was because of the Northridge earthquake.  He lived around the corner from the apartment building that fell over. 

                From fifteen year-old and on I always worked.  I would take time off of work to meet up with my dad in San Clemente, our agreed upon halfway point between his home in Northridge and mine in San Diego.  Two out of five times he would have to cancel the day of which would anger me.  After a while I stopped making those plans with him.

                I tell Dr. John about how it upsets me that dad hasn’t ever made an effort to visit me.  Dr. John asks me to measure my stress-level.  Right now I am at an 8.  This is on a scale from 1-10.  I don’t really have a reason for this.  I just know it’s there.   He then tells me to just focus on myself for a while.  Write out my feelings maybe on the blog and keep my dad at bay for a little bit while I compose myself.  I hear what he says but of course don’t listen.  That night, while working on a new blog story I purchase tickets from my dad to fly up to see me.  I call to tell him about this and he is super excited.  The tickets are for the following weekend.  It’s a Friday-Monday sort of thing.  That Thursday my dad calls to tell me that he isn’t feeling very good and can’t come.  It’s like being 14 all over again.

    
    
  • YOU DO PORN????

    Apr 14, 13

    
    

    Dr. John asks me about work.  I tell him about this week’s shit.  I get to work at the lab and there are a whole bunch of short muscle dudes there.  Nothing unusual.  Then one of the guys, a tall blonde guy that from far away looks hot and up close looks like he’s had some work done comes up to me.  I think he wants a drink so I start to fill a glass up with ice and ask him what his poison is.  He then asks if he knows me.  I say no but then get cocky thinking he may be reading the blog and saw me on there.  I ask if he read the blog, smile and talk out of my ass saying that it seems to be getting some buzz.  He says that he doesn’t read.  The guy walks away drinkless.  After about twenty minutes he comes back to me.  This time he is shirtless and has this waxed chest shining in my face.  I think he is shirtless to keep people from noticing how much Botox and fillers he’s had put into his face to fight his natural aging face.  He then leans in and ask if we had sex together.  I say no.  This guy doesn’t give up though.  He asks if we’ve filmed any scenes together and says, “You know the one with the latex, rope and honey?”  I then say unless there was someone crying in the corner of that scene I was not in any porn.  I got out of TV stuff at 19 so I don’t think so.  When he walks away I find out that he is a big porn-star.  That term is such a joke.  Why is it that everyone that does porn calls themselves a “porn star” and not a porn character actor or porn background actor?  That’s beside the point.  Only after he leaves I realize that he thinks I did porn with him because I am that slow.  How many people do you have to sleep with not to even remember if you have or have not done them?

                Dr. John says hmmm but I bet is suppressing a huge laugh.  I bet the second I leave after this story he will laugh so loud that people will hear it in space.

                I can’t believe he confused me for a porno person.  It happens a lot.  I don’t care about that.  I do though hate that people often assume that I as a bartender at the type of bar that I work am in that category.  It’s almost like they are saying, you must be too dumb for anything else.  I hate when my intelligence is underestimated.

                Dr. John says hmmm and then tells me that my time is up.  As I’m leaving the office my mom calls me asking if I am doing anything for Shabbat, which is interesting.  She is the same mother who sent me to Hebrew school but also took me to Indian Casinos on Yom Kippur and has never met a shrimp she didn’t like.  Needless to say we weren’t very religious and I liked that.  She also asks if I’m going to hang with my Jewish neighbor from across the hall that is “nice, Jewish and single!”

                My neighbor Nick he is a nice enough guy but I feel like it’s often a battle of who is a better Jew.  He won’t use electricity on Shabbat, which is a bullshit thing I can’t stand right off the bat.  This one Shabbat, Friday evening he invited me over to light candles and I was off so figured why not?  After the candles are lit he then asks me to light the bong he has on the floor for him because he can’t since its Shabbat.  I get annoyed; smoke the rest of his weed and leave.

               
  • From my lips to Dr. John’s ears.

    Apr 14, 13

    
    

    
    

                It’s interesting how Dr. John’s idea of starting a blog really is giving me a voice I didn’t know I had.  I have been blogging the past few months about different things.  In the past few weeks I’ve started to write about my experiences at the Lab.  I answer questions people ask me about bartending, the lifestyle and all that comes with it.  I’ve had a few co-workers at the day job get wind my stories posted on my blog.   By co-workers I mean one girl that loves reading romance novels and Okay magazine.  She comments on every blog post.  There are a few people from the Lab who have also been reading apparently.  Mind you, all of these stories I’m writing just as a release not really thinking anybody is reading.  Why would they?  Today Gina texts me a cryptic message, “love the blog, liked working with you.”  I don’t understand what she means and ask her what she’s getting at.  She says, “Charlie won’t like it.”  I’m thinking, Charlie isn’t spending his day browsing my blog; he has more important things to do like spy on his employees while they do their jobs and work on his alcoholism.

                I’ve put up a total of like three stories about the bartending based on my experience at the Lab in the past 3 weeks on the blog.  I don’t think much of it until I get a random comment on one post saying, “You’ve always been my favorite bartender, what are the real names of the people in these stories? “  I can’t tell if it’s a real reader or someone from the bar just trying to get into my head.

                I tell Dr. John about how people at the Lab are starting to get wind of my blog and that I am worried it may hurt me.  He frankly doesn’t seem concerned about this concept as long as he’s getting paid.  He just says, “hmmm and getting your voice isn’t priceless?”

                I don’t really understand what Dr. John is getting at but I do have this unusual sense of urgency with the blog.  These are stories I feel I must write because I don’t know who will.  The questions I ask myself every moment of my life at the Lab is, what am I doing here?  I just got a job at the Lab to pay rent literally with no plans of becoming a lifetime bartender but can understand why one wouldn’t leave.  Right now I am making $2,000 a week in cash and another grand or 2 a week from various contract day jobs, why should I leave the bar?  The next question is what will these experiences add up to?  Will I just end up another lifetime bartender as my youth fades into the sunset? 

                My mom is upset with me because she too apparently reads the blog.  She says she read that I smoked pot and doesn’t like me joking about that in a public forum because then people will think I smoke, which I do.  She says, “stop with the jokes!  I’m going to create a Jdate profile for you, how tall are you?  Are you more the man in the relationship?”

                “Mom, we’re both men, that’s why we’re gay.  I don’t like dating Jewish guys generally, it’s not my jam!”

                “That’s what you think.  That will change.”

                Dr. John is concerned because he says my mother and I are too much of friends and don’t have a healthy mother-son relationship.  When I was a kid we told each other everything.  It was hard to hide stuff from her or rebel because I liked her.  At one point we shared a room.  In high school there was a point where I helped pay our mortgage because I could even though she had never asked.  Dr. John seemed to make that sound like burden.  He says I need to create boundaries.  This is how I know he’s a gentile because he thinks that’s possible.

                Dr. John then asks me about my dad whom I rarely mention.  I tell him how most of my friends have never met my father.  He is a bit of a loner.  As a child there were a lot of times where he wasn’t there.  It’s a story that I’m sure a lot of other kids raised by single-mothers have.  Often he would say he was coming to visit me in San Diego from LA and at the last minute not come.  Even as an adult, I take time off of work to meet him at a halfway point in San Clemente and he would have an “emergency.”  In the 5 years I have lived in San Francisco he has not once come to visit.  Don’t get it twisted; I talk to him every day.  I know my father loves the older and me I get, the more I understand he is a grown teenager who did what he could.  I still hold a grudge for certain things that can’t be changed.  From a young age I learned of my father’s drinking problem mostly by his voice when he calls me.  He starts to apologize for stuff which tells me that he doesn’t get me he gets the situation.   You can learn a lot about a man by the way they handle their booze.  I have never had a problem saying no to drinks, drugs or anything else.  My dad goes for months and years sober and then will fall off the wagon just for a weekend and call me nearly in tears.  There is nothing worse than hearing your father cry.  There is one thing worse seeing yourself in the mirror when you’ve been crying.  My main issue is I don’t know how to handle my dad.  I simply don’t engage sometimes because I don’t want to deal with him.

                Dr. John listens to this and jots notes rapidly.  He asks me what my father has taught me.  It takes me a long time to answer.  I can’t figure out what he has showed me.  I learned to shave from my the only grandfather I’ve ever known who showed me love but then started to yell mid-way through the shave because I took too long putting the foam on my face.  He is a Holocaust survivor, after 6 concentration camps you’d be ape-shit crazy too.  My dad taught me that if anyone tries to hit me, I should hit him or her back fifty times harder.  He always would ask if I was in any fights.  I would always say no.  I had never seen him happier then the one time I told him I was in a fight.  I was eleven.  A counselor at camp asked me to tell another kid, D.J. that it was time to take his riddalen.  He got angry stabbed me in the leg with a pen.  I responded by pushing him onto the cement and running away and crying behind a bush because of the pain.  In the version I told my dad, I punched him in the face and walked away unscathed.

                Dr. John asks why I care what my father thinks of me? The truth is I don’t think I do.  I do though have compassion for him but knew from a young age I wanted to do more, be responsible and come through on my responsibilities.  This is probably why most people call me intense.  I just have always thought I could do better than what people expected of me.

                Dr. John asks if I could imagine having kids now.  I tell him that babies don’t come out of there.  I then realized that I am the age my mom was when she had me and that if I had kids now I don’t know I could handle it.

                I have these weird dreams sometimes that my dad will call me really drunk the way he has in the past and I’ll just be out of compassion for him and he’ll do something drastic.  I’ll never forgive myself.  In the dream I am serving a regular who is so drunk I have to cut them off and eventually kick them out.  Because I am the only bartender working, I have to kick the guy out.  As I am moving the guy out of the bar he takes a swing at me.  He misses.  Then I take a swing at him and he falls to the ground.  He stays down for a few seconds and as he gets up, brushes himself off he smiles.  As the light hits his face he looks an awful lot like my dad and says, “that’s my boy.  Hitting like a fucking man.”  Then the guy walks outside to fall on is ass.  Those dreams always happen on the few nights (once ever few months) that I get drunken phone calls.  I always wake up to his drunken call after these dreams.  What could that mean though?

    
    

                Dr. John asks me why I would hit someone like my dad?  I tell him about how my dad would make me spar with him.  Most kids dads played catch.  Mine would have a cigarette in one hand and the other hand out and yell “spar.”  He would always tell me to work on that left-hook.  We then would complete that quality time with ice cream or a burger.  I don’t know the answer to Dr. John’s question. 

    
    
  • Day Job

    Apr 14, 13

    
    

    
    

                I am writing this story because I feel that it’s important for one to get the full picture that is my life.  While working at the Lab the past few years I have also had other things going on.  If it wasn’t college, I was at an internship doing publicity for random clients.  After that I was working as a sales man selling online ad space.  I was laid off from that job.  More recently my current day job working as a paper pusher, I mean Account Coordinator for a Search Engine Management company.  If you fell asleep reading that or don’t know what that is, it’s easy.  I write ads for various online Search Campaigns.  Say you go on to your favorite search site and search “India” and “Vacation” I create the ad that pops up and reads “India come check us out for just $60.”  Then you get confused and click.  While writing ads sounded great in college, in the office it’s something else. 

                At night I sling drinks in a hot gay bar and in the day I write ads all day.  One-line advertisements.  Even though I always thought I would quit the Lab once I finished college, now I am not sure.  That would be like leaving family that pays you for hanging out which is way better than any actual family.

                My daily schedule is as follows, get to work at 8 or 9am after fighting every asshole in San Francisco to get on a packed subway that smell like urine and pot.  I read my George Carlin book while on there just to avoid eye-contact with co-subway-riders.  Once at the office, I check out what’s happening on various gossip blogs, “news” sites and pretend to be reading stats on my campaigns.  Once noon rolls around I sit at my desk eating salad watching old Joan Rivers' clips followed by updating my blog with the day’s new joke or story I make up.  Then I go back to sort of working by sipping on my third coffee of the day and typing really loud on my computer so my bosses think I’m being productive.  Then I spend the last hour of the day updating all my campaigns writing over 250 search ads that are similar but with one word difference like these:

    “Like travel for cheap? Get a flight here for just $10.”

    Or

    “Like traveling for cheap? Get a flight here for just $10.”

    or

    “Like traveling for cheap? Get a flight now for only $10.”

    I am always tempted to make one of the ads funny  like, “Fly your mistress over for cheap. Get a flight now just $10.”

    
    

    After updating all my ads I get back on the subway reading my book, head straight to the Lab to work until 11pm or sometimes 2am and repeat all week long.  I took this job because at least I get to be sort of creative-ish.
  • A Few Months Into Therapy

    Apr 12, 13

    
    

    A few months into Therapy

                My sessions with Dr. John soon became my favorite time of the week.  He seems to have a genuine interest in my well-being.  He doesn’t need much from me besides my $65 dollars I hand him for each session and conversation.

                “Yuri tell me about your childhood.  You make reference to it but don’t talk about it much.”

                “What’s there to talk about?”

                “Where did you grow up?  Tell me about the house.”

                “It’s kind of a boring story but first off I have never lived in a house.  I lived in an apartment with my mom and dad in Los Angeles.  Once they divorced, my mother and I moved into a tiny 1-bedroom apartment where we shared a room until I was 8 years old.  I took care of myself pretty much from that point on.  My mom worked sometimes seven days a week and I watched a lot of cooking shows.  As a result I would often cook dinner.  I am not saying my mom wasn’t there; she just worked because she had to take care of herself and a child.  She didn’t get alimony at all and never made a legal fight for it because she didn’t want to kill my relationship with my dad.  While my dad sent child support, there were times where that would disappear for months too because he had his own problems.  I would do what I could to help mom out by making us dinner and stuff in second grade.  That should have been the first homo clue. 

    Our house was always messy but never dirty.  It was never a hoarders-status home.  It was just piles of old bills shoved in corners, jackets and stuff strewn about a bit.  I never had friends over mostly because I didn’t have any.  The few friends I did have I wouldn’t invite over because our place was messy and small.  At 9 or so we moved into a 2-bedroom condo.  For some reason we rarely had visitors.  Our home was always messy but never dirty.  Even our family, my grandma and mom’s sister rarely visited.  When my grandma did visit she would often remind my mother that she had helped my mother in purchasing the condo.  Even though my mother had paid off the money by doing my grandma’s hair every Sunday for 12 years (she used to be a hair stylist), and with money my grandma always would remind us that we owed her for this.  He visits would often end in loud arguments about grudges past. My mom was their version of Aunt Jackie from Roseanne.  They always treated her as a failure, which wasn’t fair.  I think that’s why my mom kept the mess sometimes so she wouldn’t have to deal with them.  They seemed to care but keep us at an arms length in that way.  Maybe that’s why my apartment is nearly spotless now that I live on my own?”

    “Yuri, do you have friends over now?”

    “Actually these days I love to be the host.  Now that I live alone, in my own studio, I love having people over.”

    “What type of people?”

    “Friends from work, college girl friends.”

    “What about men?”

    “What about them?”

                “So what about dating?  Why don’t you talk about it much?”

                “In my late teens I was pretty much a-sexual.  In the past 2 and half years since I came out, I have dated some but not much.  After the Elijah thing I have found it hard to trust guys.  I always assume they are lying or looking past me for someone they really want.  I had a year where I assumed that all gay men had HIV which I now know is not true but that fear is often in the back of my head”

                “Hmmm.”

                “I have this guy I’m kind of seeing.  If by seeing you mean sleeping with occasionally because he is an amazing hair stylist.”

                “Hmmm. So you admire his job choice?”

                “No.  I like getting free haircuts.”

                “What are you looking for in a man?”

                “I can barely focus on what I want for lunch let alone that.  I want a man with a job who isn’t jealous.  Every guy I meet at the bar can’t handle it.  I was seeing this Latin guy for a few months on and off and he kept on asking which of my co-workers I was hooking up with which drove me crazy.  I didn’t hook up with any of my co-workers ever.  Okay I did once, during the first month at the Lab but that’s no one’s business and it was months before Latin dude.”

                “Why are you still single?”

                “I fucking hate that question.  When someone asks you that on a date.  Because I have standards are either way too high or too low?  I don’t know.  I just lost a good 30 pounds.  No one gave me the time of day before.  The guys who interested me looked right past me.  Like this once guy, Giovanni.  Italian name, but he’s Guatemalan.  This guy was super hot, pre-med and very fit.  His abs looked so good they looked airbrushed at all times.  He had everything that would make my Jew-senses go ape shit.  He never gave me the time of day when I met him in my clubbier state.  It was during the first few days I worked at the bar that I met him.   I thought he was a dick but he was solo hot that I didn’t care.”

                “Tell me about it.”

                “Well I met him a few times when I was the wallflower, chubby boy of the past and frankly he was rude to me.  Then about 6 months ago I saw him again.  He couldn’t stop staring at me.  It’s like I lost the weight and gained a vindictive side.  Prior to this instance I felt invisible most of the time.  Now that I had lost weight it was like I gained some new super power and people began listening to me kind of.  I noticed his eyes burning a hole on me.  It’s kind of hot.  I asked him to get some drinks after my shift.  I told my mom about it right before and was like, mom he’s PRE-MED and Guatemalan.  She said that was nice but to call her when he’s Jewish and an actual doctor, then hung up on me.  I ignored her, went out with Giovanni.  As it turned out he was also a goo dancer at a bar in the gayborhood and used that to pay for school.  It was the story I should have expected.  He was 6 foot, abs of steel, biceps and a chiseled jaw that could make anyone want to try men.  I figured that since he was also working at the bars that he would get it and there wouldn’t be jealousy.  Drinks were fun.  He was out of a long relationship, so he said.  I ignored that because I was too into the physical to care about red flags like that.  I just worked on enticing him because I could.  After a few days of texting we hung out at my studio apartment.  I made him dinner and we watch 300.  Which may well have been porn.  A bottle of wine, and 20 minutes of the movie later we were boning like rabbits.  Between the fake abs on the screen, his and the wine I was in for it.  After he left I figured I would drop him because of the way he ignored me in my previous state.  I tried to do that.  I then got really into him.  I decided he was really into me.  A few weeks went by and he asked me to come out to a club with him.  I assumed it was as his date.  We held hands, kissed a little and I really knew he was into me.  I felt bad for judging him and creating his pervious view of me in my head.  A few drinks in, I had to pee like a racehorse.  When I get back from the urine-trough gay bars call the bathroom, Giovanni had his tongue down some strangers throat.  I walked right up to him and his new concubine.  They barely came up for air, let alone noticed me being dramatic.  I left hoping that he would run after me in the rain.  The way it happens in the movies.  Instead it just started to rain.  I walked home drunk, alone and confused.  It would be hours before Giovanni would text asking where I went.”

                “How did you feel after that?”

                “I didn’t.  I moved on because what other choices could I have?”

    
    

    
    
  • Therapy Chance number 2.5

    Apr 11, 13

    
    

    
    

                Now it’s my second stab at therapy.  I’m meeting with Dr. John cause in San Francisco they all seem to use their first name after the word doctor.  This time I am paying for the visits because now that I work at the bar I can afford it.  I also have a day job right now working for an online startup as a publicist.  Between that jobs, the bar and my drinking schedule I’m working 80 hours a week.  In terms of money I am making it rain.  In terms of life I am more lost than ever.  Overwhelmed is the correct description.  I didn’t have time really to date or socialize outside of the occasional cocktail after, at work and the random fling.  I say fling because I was too busy to focus on any one man.  I had trust issues with the world since I was born.  Maybe it was all the stories my family told me about the old country and relatives disappearing because friends turned them in for stupid things or abandonment crap from my dad moving out when I was 6.  Who knows?  The point is that at this point I was overwhelmed with life, felt like I had no voice in the world, no control of my life and didn’t trust anyone completely as a result.  I figured that if I trusted anyone to lean on emotionally I would get hurt and more so disappointed.  On the upside I somehow became everyone’s confidant.  The guy people just spilled their guts to for some reason because I would just listen.  My whole life I was everyone’s buddy who they loved to talk to but no romantic feelings for.  For this reason, on the outside I looked very “together.”  I felt that with therapy I could become a real person.

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    Dr. John asks me to explain why I’ve decided to see him?  Why now?  I told him I didn’t know.  Then he said “Hamm,” for like 30 seconds and I told him.  A few days before this appointment I lost it.  I went full on loony.  Walking home with a pile of groceries.  I have one bag in each hand.  I slept a mere few hours.  I get a text message asking me to go to the bar because someone called in sick.  This all happens one block before I get home.  I all of a sudden loose control and drop both of my bags.  Eggs are all over the sidewalk; I have tears running down my face because it’s just too much.  I have to go to work in the morning at 8am; don’t really feel like working tonight until 3am.  I’m physically so exhausted from everything that I am energetic.  I need a break.  I start having that flop-sweat where my pit-stains look like I’ve just come from a wet T-shirt contest.  In the middle full-on break down, a homeless person walks up and asks me for a dollar.  I politely tell him to go fuck himself.  As I am telling Dr. John this story he just jots notes on his pad and says “hmmm.”

    
    

                He asks, “Have you thought of cutting the stress in your life?”

                “Yeah but then I couldn’t do what I do.  I strive on stress and anxiety.  It makes me get things done.”

                “What is that?”

                “I take care.”

                “How?”

                “I grew up on food stamps and self-loathing.  I can’t go back there.”

                “Hmmm.  Why is that?”

                “I grew up knowing how much everything in our apartment cost.  My mom told me everything and spoke to me as an adult.  As a result I was like a 45-year old in a 5-year old’s body.  For the most part it was just my mom and me.  Both my parents had awful financial problems which changed the tone of their personal lives as well.  My dad once bought me a stuffed dog I called my $12 doggie.  I grew up mostly with my mom in San Diego.  As a result of a shitty situation, divorce and stuff I learned not to answer the phone when bill collectors rang.  I have it different.  At 21 I made more money than my mother did in the past 2 years and in cash!  I like being able to do nice things when I visit my mom because frankly she deserves it and no one else will.  Like when we’re in public places I’ll give her a roll of a few hundred-dollar bills when her husband isn’t looking.  Then she grumbles at me in Russian to take it back.  Then I ask her if she wants to make a scene and embarrass her husband?  Her eyes tear up and we move on.”

                “So she’s married?”

                “I’m 22 now.  She got married when I was 20.  Very quickly after I moved out to a nice guy she met on JDate.com after at least 10 years of being single.”

                “Why do you take on so much?  You seem to be addicted to stress.”

                “I guess.  It’s not like I’m freebasing stress.   I just don’t want to be stuck.  I want to be a success and have meaning in this life.  I want to do something bigger with my life but don’t know how or what.  I want to be remembered.”

                “Remembered?  Are you easily forgotten?”

                “For most of my life, I’ve just been that guy a lot of people had seen around but couldn’t remember much about.”

                “In an ideal world what do you see yourself doing?”

                “Traveling the world on someone else’s dime with an endless supply of reefer and a handsome man in every town.”

                “Hmmm… Let me rephrase that.  What career choice would you pick?”

                “I don’t know.  I like writing.  I like stand up comedy.  I always got great reviews for my writing in school.  I used to want to be a famous writer but I could never have that career cause the odds are not in my favor.  With comedy, well, I don’t have a shtick and am not funny.”

                “Have you ever thought of a blog?”

                “No, my life is as interesting as watching paint dry.  Why would I subject others to my boring life?  Besides, I always got horrible marks for my grammar because I’m dyslexic.  No one will read that shit.”

                “Hamm.  You never know.  I think it will be a great exercise for you, your anxiety and wanting to make a mark on the world.  Every time you feel overwhelmed, just write without a goal other than to clear your head.”

                Right after the appointment I called my mom and told her about Dr. John.  She is shocked I am seeing a therapist.  “Did he ask you about me?”

                “No but I promise when he does I will describe you as 50 pounds lighter.”

                She then tells me that the blog idea is great.  I could be a famous Jewish writer like Shell Silverstein, Dr. Seuss or one of the 10 other people she rattles off.  My mom likes to give what I call her weekly Jew Report conversations.  This is where she lists famous Jews in given topics.  “Did you know Robin Williams isn’t Jewish?”

                “Yes. I got to go.”

                The following day I am laid off from that day job.  It’s nine-months since the day I started that job.  I should be upset.  I start crying as I am leaving the office with my “Mr. T” Chiai Pet and box of pen I have stolen from my desk.  It’s the type of crying that looks painful but feels relieving, like that pee after 4 beers soothing.  I get home with this sense of urgency; it’s my night off from the Lab.  I look up how blogs work and words just flow out of me.  I type of a story about how my dad thinks he’s black, then an entry a night for the next week until I see Dr. John.  I write random stories about my daily life like how coffee is my favorite drug.  I post comments for pop-culture articles I read and lots of random stuff.

                I get to my next appointment with Dr. John to tell him that I had blogged all week and while writing feels great but no one read my blog.  I’m a nobody.  He tells me to keep up the work for the next month and just let out my energy in a healthy way by writing.  I tell him that I should focus on getting another job that leads somewhere.  He tells me that my time is up.  That’s therapy.  Every time you get to a point where you’re making progress, your session is over.  It’s like watching a soap opera.  Every time you think something is going to happen, little does.  As I leave Dr. John’s office I get coffee from the shop on his block.  The barista then offers me a free drink.  I have never met him before.  He then says, “I loved the part when you talk about how your father was the only 5’7’’ Jew that was in the middle of the LA-riots for no reason! It cracked my shit up!”  I almost spilled my coffee
  • Therapy

    Apr 11, 13

    
    

    Get some therapy!

                As a kid I always wanted to do two things go to a therapist and confession.  Both sounded equally fun.  On TV, kids at the therapist’s office always got cool toys and if you were lucky they would give you this silly doll with fur in strange places.  All the rich kids I knew went to therapy and made it sound like having a good friend (in my head similar to an older sibling) to talk to.  As an only child, that sounded amazing.  Besides therapy, I was always memorized by the idea of confession.  Therapy interested me because I have always been fascinated with how the it works and confession because as a Jew it always interested me.   Go into a booth tell a man all of your problems, say a couple hail marries and call it a day.  I love that idea!  Jews, our guilt is a different kind.  We carry a sack of problems or guilt until it gets so heavy that we explode on someone cause it’s the Jewish way.  It’s an art really.  My grandmother once yelled at our server for making the food too spicy at the buffet even though the item he was referring to was “Cajun shrimp.”  There was a label above the shrimp with three little red chilies but that didn’t matter to grandma.  While server took the time to explain that Cajun meant spicy to my Russian grandmother she proceeded to lose her shit.  My grandfather joined in on the shouting and instantly turned the Sizzlerinto World War II.  He made the server, her manager and busses all cry for doing him wrong and then sold them copies of his book about his life as a Holocaust survivor.

    
    

                The one time I was in therapy as a kid was a free one at my public school in the 2^ndgrade.  My parents had officially divorced and I was seven.  For an hour a day, twice a week for a few months kids from newly divorced families would meet with the public school therapist-lady and talk about divorce.  The therapist had frizzy-dyed blonde hair and would constantly remind us that our parents divorces weren’t our faults.  Some of the kids would cry.  She would make us draw pictures of our families and say our parents loved us.  Most of the kids drew their mom, dad, sister, dog and other boring stuff.  I would draw my TV.  I would just stare at the kids waiting for these sessions to end.  After a few months of it, I asked my mom to pull me out of the school therapy.  I didn’t understand why anyone could think their parent’s divorce had anything to do with them.  At the time I thought of my parent’s divorce as, I’m glad my parents handled their shit cause their arguing was getting in the way of my Golden Girls watching.  My main worry as a child was being unnoticed, ignored or blending into the wall.

    
    

    It was during the beginning of my senior years of college, around the time that I was still just friends with Elijah but not with him that I started therapy.  I found out that there was a therapist I could see for free for up to 6 sessions on campus.  Being the poor college student I was sold at FREE.  There was a period of time for about five months where I Elijah confided in me about his HIV status mostly because I was once of his only friends in San Francisco.  This was also because I was there when he got really sick with flu-like symptoms while no one else was.  He made me keep his situation a secret.  At first it seemed easy.  He also mentioned that since we have fooled around a few times over the year, that I should also get tested.  While I had already found out I was HIV negative within 2 days of his diagnoses (I took a blood test fast than you could say “make it a double”), he swore me to secrecy about his status.  Friends would ask me why Elijah was out of school.  I would say it was because he found a sugar daddy that forbade him to complete college.  Truthfully Elijah was learning how to become a walking medical lab with as many prescriptions drugs he could get his big hands on.  After my test, the nurse said that even though I was negative that it could take months to show in my system if I in fact had contracted HIV.  While I knew deep down in the place where my soul should be that I was negative it was still a hard thing to carry silently.  I would have to leave the coffee shop early to take Elijah to the hospital for his appointments.  I would sometimes choose to leave class early to drive him to the doctor’s.  It was the secrecy of the whole thing that really got to me.   I remember my mom calling me around this time, asking how things were and I told her that Elijah was great and that I was okay.  Being the Jewish mother she is, her spidey senses went up and she told me to tell her what was wrong.  I lied and kept lying about the situation for months because that’s what Elijah asked me to do.  It got to the point where I didn’t know what to do with my angst a keeping all my emotions on the HIV front quiet so I figured therapy may be a good thing to try.  Once I started my therapy session it soon came apparent why they were free.

    
    

                I got to her cubicle and she asked me to call her Dr. Lailani.  She was wearing a Phish t-shirt, had long black hair and smelled of patchouli.  She also had a touch of black armpit hair that I could see leaking out of her short sleeves.  This aspect put me on edge.  That should have been the first red flag.  She seemed nice enough.  Very much the San Francisco person we have all seen on TV.  I think it weird that she went by her first name.  Anyone that goes by doctor and then their first name is too hippy dippy for my taste but may be therapy will change that. I’m too cynical to take her seriously. My first issue is that she seems very happy and chipper.  I don’t trust anyone who is happy all the time because as my LA has-been actress teacher once said, I could “smell the acting.”  First thing she asks me is if I was named after Dr. Zhevago.  I quickly get defensive and explain that Yuri is a very common Russian name and was not invented by that movie.  If I could get a penny for every time get asked that question, I’d be rich enough not to need free therapy.  Then she asks me about coming out.  She kept asking about how my parent’s divorce sculpted my coming out process when I couldn’t understand the relevance.  For the next 4 sessions she focuses on the topic of coming out even though I didn’t feel the need.  I got annoyed because for me coming out wasn’t that big of a deal.  I told my mom I was gay at twenty years old.  She cried onto my shoulder, dried her tears and then asked me if I was seeing anyone Jewish.  She then asked me to fix her hair a bit and we went to dinner.  That’s it.  I live in San Francisco.  My family did not disown me or anything like that.  It would take my parents years to understand my gayness but they tried to be supportive with the tools they had.  I told Lailani this and she stuck to the topic way longer than needed.  It was like watching the movie Titanic, at least two-hours too long (our sessions were 45 minutes).  Since it was November, at this point, she asked me if I was sad not going home for the holidays for “CHHHHannukaaaah.”  She spent like 30 seconds doing the hmmmm noise.  I told her that it wasn’t a major Jewish holiday and I didn’t really care.  She looked at me as though I had single-handedly killed baby Jesus or something.  It was the same look many teen girls must have had when they realized George Michael was as gay as the day is something.  I then explained to her that while Chanukah is a Jewish holiday, it is a minor one that does not have the importance that Christmas does to Christians and those who have a tree just because it’s pretty.  She then asked me about the 8 days of gifts.  I then told her that I didn’t get that; it was an exaggerated thing to compete with Christmas.  She then asked me why I couldn’t have the holiday spirit and always have to be a bummer.  I then asked her realize that natural deodorant has never worked, to purchase anti-perspiring, to stop talking and left.

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    
  • Stories: Therapy

    Mar 19, 13

    
    

                Get some therapy!

    
    

    
    

                As a kid I always wanted to go to a therapist.  It sounded fun.  On TV the kids ones who saw kids always had cool toys and if you were lucky they would give you this silly doll with fur in strange places.  I also wanted to go to confession.  Not because I really felt a need but because the two always interested me.  Therapy because I have always been fascinated with how the mind works and confession because as a Jew it always interested me.   Go into a booth tell a man all of your problems, say a couple hail marries and call it a day.  I love that idea!  Jews, our guilt is a different kind.  We carry a sack of problems or guilt until it gets so heavy that we explode on someone cause it’s the Jewish way.  My grandmother once yelled at our server for making the food too spicy at the buffet even though the item he was referring to was “Cajun shrimp.”  While the server took the time to explain that Cajun meant spicy my grandfather joined in on the shouting and instantly turned the Sizzler into World War II.  He made the server, her manager and bussers all cry for doing him wrong and then sold them copies of his book about his life as a Holocaust survivor.

    
    

                It was around the time that I was still friends with Elijah but not with him that I started therapy.  I found out that there was a therapist I could see for free for up to 6 sessions on campus.  I was sold at FREE.  There was a period of time for about five months where I Elijah confided in me about his HIV status mostly because I was once of his only friends in San Francisco.  This was also because I was there when he got really sick with flu-like symptoms while no one else was.  He made me keep his situation a secret.  At first it seemed easy.  He also mentioned that since we have fooled around a few times over the year, that I should also get tested.  While I had already found out I was HIV negative within 2 days of his diagnoses (I took a blood test fast than you could say “make it a double”), he swore me to secrecy about his status.  Friends would ask me why Elijah was out of school.  I would say it was because he found a sugar daddy that forbade him to complete college.  Truthfully Elijah was learning how to become a walking medical lab with as many prescriptions drugs he could get his big hands on.  After my test, the nurse said that even though I was negative that it could take months to show in my system if I in fact had contracted HIV.  While I knew deep down in the place where my soul should be that I was negative it was still a hard thing to carry silently.  I would have to leave the coffee shop early to take Elijah to the hospital for his appointments.  I would sometimes choose to leave class early to drive him to the doctor’s.  It was the secrecy of the whole thing that really got to me.   I remember my mom calling me around this time, asking how things were and I told her that Elijah was great and that I was okay.  Being the Jewish mother she is, her spidey senses went up and she told me to tell her what was wrong.  I lied and kept lying about the situation for months because that’s what Elijah asked me to do.  It got to the point where I didn’t know what to do with my angst a keeping all my emotions on the HIV front quiet so I figured therapy may be a good thing to try.  Once I started my therapy session it soon came apparent why they were free.

    
    

                I get to her cubicle and she asks me to call her Dr. Malian.  She is wearing a Phish t-shirt, had long black hair and smelled of patchouli.  She also had a touch of black armpit, hair that I could see leaking out of her short sleeves that put me on edge.  That should have been the first red flag.  She seemed nice enough.  Very much the San Francisco person we have all seen on TV.  I thought it weird that she went by her first name.  Anyone that goes by doctor and then their first name is too hippy dippy for my taste but may be therapy will change that.  My first issue is that she seems very happy and chipper.  I don’t trust anyone who is happy all the time because as my LA has-been actress teacher once said, I could “smell the acting.”  First thing she asks me is if I was named after Dr. Zhevago.  I quickly get defensive and explain that Yuri is a very common Russian name and was not invented by that movie.  If I could get a penny for every time get asked that question, I’d be rich enough not to need free therapy.  Then she asks me about coming out.  She kept asking about how my parent’s divorce sculpted my coming out process when I couldn’t understand the relevance.  For the next 4 sessions she focuses on the topic of coming out even though I didn’t feel the need.  I get annoyed because for me coming out wasn’t that big of a deal.  I told my mom I was gay at twenty years old.  She cried onto my shoulder, dried her tears and then asked me if I was seeing anyone Jewish.  She then asked me to fix her hair a bit and we went to dinner.  That’s it.  I live in San Francisco.  My family did not disown me or anything like that.  It would take my parents years to understand my gayness but they tried to be supportive with the tools they had.  I told Lailani this and she stuck to the topic way longer than needed.  It was like watching the movie Titanic, at least two-hours too long (our sessions were 45 minutes).  Since it was November, at this point, she asked me if I was sad not going home for the holidays for “CHHHHannukaaaah.”  She spent like 30 seconds doing the ch noise.  I told her that it wasn’t a major Jewish holiday and I didn’t really care.  She looked at me as though I had single-handedly killed baby Jesus or something.  I then explained to her that while Channukah is a Jewish holiday it is a minor one that does not have the importance  Christmas does to Christians.  She then asked me about the 8 days of gifts.  I then told her that I didn’t get that, it was an exaggerated thing to compete with Christmas.  She then asked me why I couldn’t have the holiday spirit and always have to be a bummer.  I then asked her realize that natural deodorant has never worked, to purchase anti-perspiring, to stop talking and left.

    
    

                Now it’s my second stab at therapy.  I’m meeting with Dr. John cause in San Francisco they all seem to use their first name after the word doctor.  This time I am paying for the visits because now that I work at the bar I can afford it.  I also have a day job right now working for an online startup as a publicist.  Between that job, the bar and my drinking schedule I’m working 80 hours a week.  I didn’t have time really to date or socialize outside of the occasional cocktail after, at work.  On the plus side I am making great money.  I paid for 4 months of rent a few days before just because I could.  Mind you that living in San Francisco at this time is at an all time high in terms of price.  I’ve had several friends leave because they couldn’t take the heat.  For a guy that grew up on food stamps and hope this was a huge change.  Dr. John asks me to explain why I’ve decided to see him?  Why now?  A few days before this appointment I lost it.  I went full on loony.  Walking home with a pile of groceries.  I have one bag in each hand.  I’ve slept hours.  I get a text message asking me to go to the bar because someone called in sick.  This all happens one block before I get home.  I all of a sudden loose control and drop both of my bags.  Eggs are all over the sidewalk, I have tears running down my face because it’s just too much.  I need a break.  In the middle of this a homeless person walks up and ask me for a dollar.  I politely tell him to go fuck himself.  As I am telling him this story he just jots notes on his pad and says “hmmm.”

    
    

                He asks, “Have you thought of cutting the stress in your life?”

                “Yeah but then I couldn’t do what I do.  I strive on stress and anxiety.  It makes me get things done.”

                “What is that?”

                “I take care.”

                “I grew up on food stamps and self-loathing.  I can’t go back there.”

                “hmmm.  Why is that?”

                “I grew up knowing how much everything in our apartment cost.  My dad once bought me a stuffed dog I called my $12 doggie.  I grew up mostly with my mom in San Diego.  As a result of a shitty situation, divorce and stuff I learned not to answer the phone when bill collectors rang.  I have it different.  At 21 I made more money than my mother did in the past 2 years and in cash!  I like being able to do nice things when I visit my mom because frankly she deserves it and no one else will.  Like when we’re in public places I’ll give her a roll of a few hundred-dollar bills when her husband isn’t looking.  Then she grumbles at me in Russian to take it back.  Then I ask her if she wants to make a scene and embarrass her husband?  Her eyes tear up and we move on.”

                “So she’s married?”

                “I’m 22 now.  She got married when I was 20.  Very quickly after I moved out to a nice guy she met on JDate.com after at least 10 years of being single.”

                “Why do you take on so much?  You seem to be addicted to stress.”

                “I guess I am but I just don’t want to be stuck.  I want to be a success and have meaning in this life.  I want to do something bigger with my life but don’t know how or what.”

                “In an ideal world what do you see yourself doing?”

                “Traveling the world on someone else’s dime with an endless supply of reefer and a handsome man in every town.”

                “Hmmm… Let me rephrase that.  What career choice would you pick?”

                “I don’t know.  I like writing.  I always got great reviews for my writing in school.  I used to want to be a famous writer but I could never have that career cause the odds are not in my favor.”

                “Have you ever thought of a blog?”

                “No, my life is as interesting as watching paint dry.  Why would I subject others to my boring life.  Besides, I always got horrible marks for my grammar because I’m dyslexic.  No one will read that shit.”

                “Hmmmm.  You never know.”

                Right after the appointment I called my mom and told her about Dr. John.  She is shocked I am seeing a therapist.  “Did he ask you about me?”

                “No but I promise when he does I will describe you as 50 pounds lighter.”

                She then tells me that the blog idea is great.  I could be a famous Jewish writer like Shell Silverstein, Dr. Seuss or one of the 10 other people she rattles off.  My mom likes to give what I call her weekly Jew Report conversations.  This is where she lists famous Jews in given topics.  “Did you know Robin Williams isn’t Jewish?”

                “Yes. I got to go.”

                The following day I am laid off from that day job.  It’s nine-months since the day I started that job.  I should be upset.  I start crying as I am leaving the office with my Mr. T Chia Pet and box of pen I have stolen from my desk.  It’s the type of crying that looks painful but feels relieving.  Like a huge expulsion of gas after a burrito, just soothing.  I get home with this sense of urgency, it’s my night off from the Lab.  I look up how blogs work and words just flow out of me.  I type of a story about how my dad thinks he’s black.  Then an entry a night for the next week until I see Dr. John.

                I get to my next appointment with Dr. John to tell him that I had blogged all week and while writing feels great but no one reads my blog.  I’m a nobody.  He tells me to keep up the work for the next month and just let out my energy in a healthy way by writing.  I tell him that I should focus on getting another job that leads somewhere.  He tells me that my time is up.  That’s therapy.  Every time you get to a point where you’re making progress, your session is over.  It’s like watching a soap opera.  Every time you think something is going to happen, little does.  As I leave Dr. John’s office I get coffee from the shop on his block.  The barista then offers me a free drink.  I have never met him before.  He then says, “I loved the part when you talk about how your father was the only 5’7’’ Jew that was in the middle of the LA-riots for no reason! It cracked my shit up!”  I almost spilled my coffee.

    
    

    
    

    
    

    A few months into Therapy

    
    

                My sessions with Dr. John soon became my favorite time of the week.  He seems to have a genuine interest in my well-being.  He doesn’t need much from me besides my $65 dollars I hand him for each session and conversation.

                “So what about dating?  Why don’t you talk about it much?”

                “In my late teens I was pretty much a-sexual.  In the past 2 years since I came out, I have dated some. But not much.”

                “Hmmm.”

                “I have this guy I’m kind of seeing.  If by seeing you mean sleeping with occasionally because he is an amazing hair stylist.”

                “Hmmm. So you admire his job choice?”

                “No.  I like getting free haircuts.”

                “What are you looking for in a man?”

                “I can barely focus on what I want for lunch let alone that.  I want a man with a job who isn’t jealous.  Every guy I meet at the bar can’t handle it.  I was seeing this latin guy for a few months on and off and he kept on asking which of my co-workers I was hooking up with which drove me crazy.  I didn’t hook up with any of my co-workers ever.  Okay I did once, during the first month at the Lab but that’s no one’s business and it was months before Latin dude.”

                “Why are you still single?”

                “I fucking hate that question.  When someone asks you that on a date.  Because I have standards are either way too high or too low?  I don’t know.  I just lost a good 30 pounds.  No one gave me the time of day before.  The guys who interested me looked right past me.  Like this once guy, Giovanni.  Italian name, but he’s Guatemalan.  A guy who was hot, pre-med and very fit.  Everything that would make my Jew-senses go ape shit.  He never gave me the time of day when I met him in my clubbier state.  I thought he was a dick but he was sooooo hot I didn’t care.”

                “Tell me about it.”

                “Well I met him a few times when I was the wallflower, chubby boy of the past and frankly he was rude to me.  Then about 6 months ago I saw him again.  He couldn’t stop staring at me.  It’s like I lost the weight and gained a vindictive side.  I noticed his eyes burning a hole on me.  It’s kind of hot.  I asked him to get some drinks after my shift.  I told my mom about it right before and was like, mom he’s PRE-MED and Guatemalan.  She said that was nice but to call her when he’s Jewish and hung up on me.  I ignored her, went out with Giovanni.  As it turned out he was also a goo dancer at a bar in the gayborhood and used that to pay for school.  He was 6 foot, abs of steel, biceps and a chiseled jaw that could make anyone want to try men.  I figured that since he was also working at the bars that he would get it and there wouldn’t be jealousy.  Drinks were fun.  He was out of a long relationship, so he said.  I ignored that and just worked on enticing him because I could.  The following hang out was at my studio apartment.  I made him dinner and we watch 300.  Which may well have been porn.  A bottle of wine, and 20 minutes of the movie later we were boning like rabbits.  After he left I figured I would drop him because of the way he ignored me in my previous state.  I tried to do that.  I then got really into him.  I decided he was really into me.  A few weeks went by and he asked me to come out to a club with him.  I assumed it was as his date.  We held hands, kissed a little and I really knew he was into me.  I felt bad for judging him and creating his pervious view of me in my head.  A few drinks in, I have to pee like a racehorse.  When I get back from the urine-trough gay bars call the bathroom, Giovanni had his tongue down some strangers throat.  I walked right up to him and his new concubine and was not noticed.  I left dramatically hoping that he would run after me in the rain.  The way it happens in the movies.  Instead it just started to rain.  I walked home drunk, alone and confused.  It would be hours before Giovanni would text asking where I went.”

                “How did you feel after that?”

                “I didn’t.  I moved on because what other choices could I have?”

    
    

    
    

    
    

    From my lips to Dr. John’s ears.

    
    

    
    

                It’s interesting how Dr. John’s idea of starting a blog really is giving me a voice I didn’t know I had.  I have been blogging the past few months about different things.  In the past few weeks I’ve started to write about my experiences at the Lab.  I answer questions people ask me about bartending, the lifestyle and all that comes with it.  I’ve had a few co-workers get wind my stories posted on my blog.   Mind you, all of these stories I’m writing just as a release not really thinking anybody is reading.  That is until Gina texts me with a cryptic message, “love the blog, liked working with you.”  I don’t understand what she means and ask her what she’s getting at.  She says, “Charlie won’t like it.”  I’m thinking, Charlie isn’t spending his day browsing my blog, he has more important things to do like spy on his employees while they work and work on his alcoholism.

                I’ve put up a total of like three stories about the bar in the past 3 weeks on the blog.  I don’t think much of it until I get a random comment on one post saying, “You’ve always been my favorite bartender, what are the real names of the people in these stories? “  I can’t tell if it’s a real reader or someone from the bar just trying to get into my head.

                I tell Dr. John about how people at the Lab are starting to get wind of my blog and that I am worried it may hurt me.  He frankly doesn’t seemed concerned about this concept as long as he’s getting paid.  He just says, “hmmm and getting your voice isn’t priceless?”

                I don’t really understand what Dr. John is getting at but I do have this unusual sense of urgency with the blog.  These are stories I feel I must write because I don’t know who will.  The questions I ask myself every moment of my life at the Lab is, what am I doing here?  I just got a job at the Lab to pay rent literally with no plans of becoming a lifetime bartender but can understand why one wouldn’t leave.  Right now I am making $2,000 a week in cash and another grand or 2 a week from various contract day jobs, why should I leave the bar?  The next question is what will these experiences add up to?  Will I just end up another lifetime bartender as my youth fades into the sunset? 

                My mom is upset with me because she too apparently reads the blog.  She says she read that I smoked pot and doesn’t like me joking about that in a public forum because then people will think I smoke, which I do.  She says, “stop with the jokes!  I’m going to create a Jdate profile for you, how tall are you?  Are you more the man in the relationship?”

    
    

                “Mom, we’re both men, that’s why we’re gay.  I don’t like dating Jewish guys generally, it’s not my jam!”

    
    

                “That’s what you think.  That will change.”

    
    

                Dr. John is concerned because he says my mother and I are too much of friends and don’t have a healthy mother-son relationship.  When I was a kid we told each other everything.  It was hard to hide stuff from her or rebel because I liked her.  At one point we shared a room.  In high school there was a point where I helped pay our mortgage because I could even though she had never asked.  Dr. John seemed to make that sound like burden.  He says I need to create boundaries.  This is how I know he’s a gentile because he thinks that’s possible.

    
    

                Dr. John then asks me about my dad whom I rarely mention.  I tell him how most of my friends have never met my father.  He is a bit of a loner.  As a child there were a lot of times where he wasn’t there.  It’s a story that I’m sure a lot of other kids raised by single-mothers have.  Often he would say he was coming to visit me in San Diego from LA and at the last minute not come.  Even as an adult, I take time off of work to meet him at a halfway point in San Clemente and he would have an “emergency.”  In the 5 years I have lived in San Francisco he has not once come to visit.  Don’t get it twisted, I talk to him every day.  I know my father loves the older and me I get, the more I understand he is a grown teenager who did what he could.  I still hold a grudge for certain things that can’t be changed.  From a young age I learned of my father’s drinking problem mostly by his voice when he calls me.  He starts to apologize for stuff which tells me that he doesn’t get me he gets the situation.   You can learn a lot about a man by the way they handle their booze.  I have never had a problem saying no to drinks, drugs or anything else.  My dad goes for months and years sober and then will fall off the wagon just for a weekend and call me nearly in tears.  There is nothing worse than hearing your father cry.  There is one thing worse seeing yourself in the mirror when you’ve been crying.  My main issue is I don’t know how to handle my dad.  I simply don’t engage sometimes because I don’t want to deal with him.

                Dr. John listens to this and jots notes rapidly.  He asks me what my father has taught me.  It takes me a long time to answer.  I can’t figure out what he has showed me.  I learned to shave from my the only grandfather I’ve ever known who showed me love but then started to yell mid-way through the shave because I took too long putting the foam on my face.  He is a Holocaust survivor, after 6 concentration camps you’d be ape-shit crazy too.  My dad taught me that if anyone tries to hit me, I should hit him or her back fifty times harder.  He always would ask if I was in any fights.  I would always say no.  I had never seen him happier then the one time I told him I was in a fight.  I was eleven.  A counselor at camp asked me to tell another kid, D.J. that it was time to take his riddalen.  He got angry stabbed me in the leg with a pen.  I responded by pushing him onto the cement and running away and crying behind a bush because of the pain.  In the version I told my dad, I punched him in the face and walked away unscathed.

                Dr. John asks why I care what my father thinks of me? The truth is I don’t think I do.  I do though have compassion for him but knew from a young age I wanted to do more, be responsible and come through on my responsibilities.  This is probably why most people call me intense.  I just have always thought I could do better. 

    
    

                Dr. John asks if I could imagine having kids now.  I tell him that babies don’t come out of there.  I then realized that I am the age my mom was when she had me and that if I had kids now I don’t know I could handle that.

    
    

                I have these weird dreams sometimes that my dad will call me really drunk the way he has in the past and I’ll just be out of compassion for him and he’ll do something drastic.  I’ll never forgive myself.  In the dream I am serving a regular who is so drunk I have to cut them off and eventually kick them out.  Because I am the only bartender working, I have to kick the guy out.  As I am moving the guy out of the bar he takes a swing at me.  He misses.  Then I take a swing at him and he falls to the ground.  He stays down for a few seconds and as he gets up, brushes himself off he smiles.  As the light hits his face he looks an awful lot like my dad and says “that’s my boy.  Hitting like a fucking man.”  Then the guy walks outside to fall on is ass.  Those dreams always happen on the few nights (once ever few months) that I get drunken phone calls.  I always wake up to his drunken call after these dreams.  What could that mean though?

    
    

                Dr. John asks me why I would hit someone like my dad?  I tell him about how my dad would make me spar with him.  Most kids dads played catch.  Mine would have a cigarette in one hand and the other hand out and yell “spar.”  He would always tell me to work on that left-hook.  We then would complete that quality time with ice cream or a burger.  I don’t know the answer to Dr. John’s question. 

    
    

    
    

    PORN

    
    

                Dr. John asks me about work.  I tell him about this week’s shit.  I get to work and there are a whole bunch of short muscle dudes there.  Nothing unusual.  Then one of the guys, a tall blonde guy that from far away looks hot and up close looks like he’s had some work done comes up to me.  I think he wants a drink so I start to fill a glass up with ice and ask him what his poison is.  He then asks if he knows me.  I say no but then get cocky thinking he may be reading the blog and saw me on there.  I ask if he read the blog.  He says the doesn’t read.  The guy walks away drinkless.  After about twenty minutes he comes back to me.  This time he is shirtless and has this waxed chest shining in my face.  He then leans in and ask if we had sex together.  I said no.  I don’t want to mention that I have slept with a small number of people at this point.  This guy doesn’t give up though.  He asks if we’ve filmed any scenes together.  I then say, I got out of TV stuff at 19 so I don’t think so.  When he walks away I find out that he is a big porn-star.  That term is such a joke but that’s beside the point.  Only after he leaves I realize that he thinks I did a porn with him.  How many people do you have to sleep with not to even remember if you have or have not done them?

                Dr. John says hmmm but I bet is suppressing a huge laugh.  I bet the second I leave after this story he will laugh so loud that people will hear it in space.

                “I can’t believe he confused me for a porno person.  It happens a lot.  I don’t care about that.  I do though hate that people often assume that I as a bartender at the type of bar that I work am in that category.  It’s almost like they are saying, you must be too dumb for anything else.  I hate when my intelligence is underestimated.”

    
    

                Dr. John says hmmm and then tells me that my time is up.  As I’m leaving the office my mom calls me asking if I am doing anything for Shabbat, which is interesting.  She is the same mother who sent me to Hebrew school but also took me to Indian Casinos on Yom Kippur.  Needless to say we weren’t very religious and I liked that.  She also asks if I’m going to hang with my Jewish neighbor from across the hall that is “nice and Jewish.”

    
    

                My neighbor Nico he is a nice enough guy but I feel like it’s often a battle of who is a better jew.  He wont use electricity on Shabbat which is a bullshit thing I can’t stand right off the bat.  This one Shabbat, Friday evening he invited me over to light candles and I was off so figured why not?  After the candles are lit he then asks me to light the bong he has on the floor for him because he can’t since it’s Shabbat.  I get annoyed, smoke the rest of his weed and leave.

               
  • My Dad thinks he's black

    Mar 19, 13

    
    
  • GRANDMA

    Feb 21, 13

    More standup material I'm working on...  Hit me up with tags....
    
    It was very difficult growing up with an entire family straight from the Soviet Union.  A lot of people don't understand what that was like.  I could never complain about lines!  Whatever shit I had going on in my life, they had worse.  When I told my grandmother I had my own apartment but it was really small, she would say, "own basthroom?  Mister Bigshot! In Russia we share basthroom vith everyone!"
    
    when i was little my grandma would tell me about how cute I was, I dont mean to brag… she'd be like, "You ugly, ugly baby."  This, coming from a woman who's gotten more work done than the entire NYC subway system.  Her face lifted so many times her forehead starts at her kneckline!
    
    She is the same woman who came to my 20th birthday and told one of my friends, "I hope you live to see day you look good as me!"  Cause apparently everyone looks good with shrimp hanging from their mouth!  She's the type of woman, to paint the picture, who would often die her hair to match her dress.
    
    She also taught me that no one is ever too cool to wear a vest.  She has a different color vest for every day of the week.  I would ask her to tell me stories about the old country so she did.  I would ask her to tell me scary stories with monsters.  She would say, "You vant monsters, in Russia we have no monsters, only people who take away people vee love in middle of night, for 20 years you sthink alive in jail.  Die Zthat day, never see papa again."

  • Yuri Kagan - JDate, Family, intervention and being Russian

    Feb 20, 13
  • bartender

    Feb 18, 13

    I have worked as a bartender for over 8 years.  Whenever I tell people this who haven't worked in the service industry, they inevitably say, "Wow, I've always wanted to do that!"  It's like really?  You want to be a bartender?  It's always someone with a high-paying corporate job.  What I end up hearing is, "doushebag, doushebag, doushebag."  It's one thing to enjoy a great cocktail, maybe make your friends a nice manhatton.  Whatever works for you. This is an actual job, a profession of sorts.  What' worse are the jerks who say, "Oh, bartender?  I did that in college, for a summer, between semesters of college that my parents paid for."  It's like fuck you.

    
    

    Sorry for sounding so jaded.  Looking for a joke premise i this.  See any?
  • Revisit VACATION

    Feb 18, 13

    
    

    I'm revisiting an older joke and working on adding more, maybe fleshing it out more.... What do we think so far?  Any tags????

    
    

    _____________________________________________

    I’ve been in a relationship so long that we call quality time separate vacations.  We have been together so long that we call nice dinner conversation silence.  We have been together so long that it changes the meaning of the word VACATION.

    
    

    When you first start dating.  Those first few trips.  You know that the second the key hits the door of your hotel room some shit is going down. 

    
    

    Wait a few years.  Go somewhere like Puerte Vallarta.

    
    

     Then it’s like, “You again?..”

    “ They have a buffet…”

    “Bloated?”

    “Yeah, me too… Good night!”

    
    

    
    

    Or Oh my god, it’s embarrassing no! There is nothing worse than the maid judging your sex life..  “Oh, they left their bed nice and tidy. He must have money.”  Or in our case, you wake up with bibles under the pillows.
  • Yelp meets dating...

    Feb 13, 13

    
    

    Getting fixed up on a blind date, is always one of those times where you reach true clarity.  when you get there, it’s like, that’s what you thought I’ld settle for? Someone that looks like Jabba the Hut with T-Rex arms? Who doesn’t drink?  It’s not that I want to date an alcoholic, but I don’t like quitters! Know what I’m sayin?  And they are a virgin? Cause seriously it’s too much prepwork.  I want someone who’s been around the block and knows what not to expect at this point.

    
    

    Dating is horrible enough.  Dating sites make it worse cause they tell you nothing really.  What?! They like long walks on the beach?!?  So do I!  They like dogs?  So do I! It’s ridiculous. 

    
    

    Don’t you wish you could treat dating like YELP?  If you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, Yelp is a review -site where people go to complain about things cause they are too passive-aggressive to speak up for themselves in the first place.   “I went to a restaurant and the server was so mean, they wouldn’t cut the crust off of my bread like my mommy would.”

    
    

    There should be a Yelp dating site where you can see other people’s reviews of dates with a given person.  You wouldn’t buy a car without reading reviews!  Ads would be like “Yelp Dating for people who’d rather complain about it… The name could be Illsettlefor5outof10.com”

    
    

    Could you imagine the reviews? “He doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex?”  Fuck that…  “oh allergic to latex… compulsive lier”
  • Dad piece continued

    Feb 06, 13

    
    

    
    

    Performance piece I am working on:

    
    

    I am not a political comic.   I try not get into it on stage.  It intices others to spout out their opinion and I don’t really give a shit about your opinion.  Just being honest.  My dad calls me right after this last inauguration and is like, “Guess “Wvhat?”

    
    

    What?”

    
    

    “Wve made it!”

    
    

    “Made what?”

    
    

    Wve got elected!”

    
    

    “Dad, what are you talking about? You don’t even vote.”

    
    

    “They finally let someone like us in vwhite house!”

    
    

    “Someone like us?  Obama’s nether neither Russian nor Jewish.  What the hell are you talking about?”

    
    

    “They finally let someone like us, of color, into the vwhite house!”

    
    

    “Dad we are pale, Russian-Jews.  If anything, we are the opposite of being people of color; we are the people of no color.  Some people tan, we ignite.”

    
    

    What I should explain.  What a lot of people don’t know about me is my father is black.  At least he thinks he is.  He is like Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk.  Where Steve Martin is raised by a black family and constantly gets defensive over his blackness.  He is the only person who watched the movie Airplane and thought it was a documentary. 

    
    

    He dresses like a white, bald-Sinbad circa 1991 at all times.  He is best known for his neon squiggle MCHammer-pants, random mid-90s hardcore gangster rap quotes and the fact that he has worked out at the Broadway boxing gym in South Central for nearly 30 years.  LLCool J never sounded better than when sang by my dad with a Russian accent, “DZOing it and Dzooing and Dzooing it vell.”  I know, it makes me want to vomit too.

    
    

    My father is the only white, 5’7 and ¼ inch tall Jew that was in the middle of the LA riots for no actual reason.  My father is at some random liquor store in the middle of South Central purchasing his cigarette of choice, (the following must be said with a Russian accent, focus on the R) Benson Ultra-Lights.  There is a some black dude working the counter who thoughtfully tells him, “Honkey, you need to get the fuck out of here, it’s not safe for you.”

    
    

                Good old dad doesn’t miss a beat and says “Honkey? Where?”

    
    

                My dad would make me go with him to the boxing gym in South Central often as a kid.  On the way there here would chain smoke during the car ride with the windows closed cause that’s what people did then.  When I would cough or complain he would say, “Wvee don’t like pussies.”

    
    

                We apparently don’t like our lungs either.

               

                At the gym I would not be allowed to workout with my father.  Mainly cause he didn’t want to have to pay for me.  No Jew jokes needed here.  I would spend the next 3 hours watching him as a non-black person use the N-word and hiphop terminology incorrectly to other men over compensating for their short comings.  Essentially I thought we would get shot there which never happened.  I think he thought he was the Notorious BIG, more like the Notorious BALD.

    
    

    My father grew up in the former Soviet Union.  Like most immigrant parents he would try to use American expressions but would mess them up.  As a kid I got picked on a lot.  I was fat then.  I was so fat that I was eating Gilbert Grape.  I was one of those kids.  I would told my dad about the girl in line at recess who would constantly tease me, yelling ,“Yuri ever thought of Buns of Steel?”

    
    

    My dad would pat me on the back, look me straight in the eyes and say, “Yura Move your head I’m vatching Tyson… “

    From 1989-97 to my father Mike Tyson was his idol.

    
    

    “Hand me my Benson Ultra-Lights! (Cough) Zthey aRRn’t laughing vith you, zhtey are laughing at you.” He would then light his cigarette and make me watch boxing with him.

    
    

    My father would make me watch boxing all the time.  He still does.  As a kid I hated it.  This was his way of ensuring I wouldn’t come out gay.  He figured I would learn everything necessary to be a man from watching muscled, sweaty guys duke it out, round after round.   That’s like making a fat person watch the food network and then asking them how their diet is going.  Point is, at around 14 I realized that boxing was something both of us could enjoy but for very different reasons, if you get what I’m saying…  I spent a lot of time at that age pretending to have diarrhea as a result.

    
    

    After I had been doing standup for a few months, my father decided to come to one of my comedy shows.  My father’s only references for comedy were black comics from the 70s and 80s.  When I told him I this was the career for me he was like, “You sthink you funnier then J.J. Walker, you know Dynomite?”

    
    

    I’m in a long line up of comics and because I am amazing, I am number 20 of 30.  The host of the show is this nice black comic.  Every time he gets off the stage my father can’t help himself and mumbles, “he no Pryor.”

    
    

    He does this 20 some odd times. 

    
    

    “Brother, no Pryor.”

    
    

    Keep in mind that since he thinks he’s black, he likes to hold true to the stereotype so EVERYONE, including the host can hear him.  As I walk on stage to do my 7-minutes, I am constantly looking his direction.  It’s like watching a child hoping he won’t act up.  Everything is good.  He is quiet.  I get my first laugh.  I forget my father is there.  I tell my big closer joke which gets an okay reception.  All is well.  As I put the mic back into it’s stand, I hear what sounds like a dog.  I quickly realize it’s my dad.  He has one arm flailing in the air.  He seems to think he’s on the Arsenic hall show.  Mind you, that show has been off the air for at least 16 years by this point.  He stands up takes his disposable camera winds it, snaps a photo and starts clapping.  He is the only person standing so it’s awkward.

    
    

    I walk off the stage, straight to my dad who already has his cigarette and lighter ready to get out of the building.  He gives me a hug, leans in and whispers, “You good, but no JJ Walker.”

    
    
  • Performance piece I am working on

    Jan 31, 13

    
    

    
    

    I am not a political comic.   I try not to get into it on stage cause really I don’t give a shit about your opinion.  My dad calls me on the night right after this last inauguration and is like, “Guess what?”

    
    

    Me, “What?”

    
    

    Him, “We made it!”

    
    

    Me, “Made what?”

    
    

    Him, “We got elected!”

    
    

    Me, “What are you talking about? You don’t even vote.”

    
    

    Him, “They finally let someone like us into the white house!”

    
    

    Me, “Someone like us?  Obama’s nether Russian nor Jewish, what the fuck are you talking about?”

    
    

    Him, “They finally let someone like us, of color into the white house!”

    
    

    Me, “Dad we are Russian Jews.  If anything, we are the opposite of being people of color; we are the people of no color.  While some people tan, we ignite.”

    
    

    What I should explain about this conversation is that my father, like most Russian men thinks he’s black.  He dresses like a white, bald Sinbad at all times.  He is best known for his neon squiggle pants and random mid-90s hardcore gangster rap quotes.  He is the only white, 5’7 and ¼ inch tall Jew that was in the middle of the LA riots for no fucking reason. 

    
    

                My father is at some random liquor store in the middle of south central purchasing his cigarette of choice, (the following must be said with a Russian accent) Benson Ultra-Lights.  There is a some black dude working the counter who tells him, “Honkey, you need to get the fuck out of here, it’s not safe for you.”

    
    

                Good old dad doesn’t miss a beat and says “Honkey? Where?”

    My father grew up in the former Soviet Union.  Like most immigrant parents he would try to use American expressions but would fuck them up.   I would come home from school and be upset that my head was too big for my body and that I was fat.  As a kid, I was so fat, I was what was eating Gilbert Grape.  I had to shop in the Husky section, which they may as well have called, “the you wont be able to find your penis until you turn 25 section.” 

    
    

    My dad would pat me on the back, look me straight in the eyes and say, “Yuri, hand me my Benson Ultra-Lights! (Cough) Zthey aRRn’t laughing vith you, zhtey are laughing at you.” Light his cigarette and make me watch boxing.

    
    

    My father would make me watch boxing all the time.  He still does.  As a kid I hated it.  This was his way of ensuring I wouldn’t come out gay.  He figured I would learn everything necessary to be a man from watching muscled, sweaty guys duke it out, round after round.   That’s like making a fat person watch the food network and then asking them how their diet is going.  Point is, at around 14 I realized that boxing was something both of us could enjoy but for very different reasons, if you get what I’m saying…  I spent a lot of time at that age pretending to have diarrhea as a result.
  • Update....

    Jan 30, 13

         What's going on?  It's been a while since entries.  I've been decompessing, writing and trying to get shit done.  I am currently working out the final kinks of my book with a talented friend/copyeditor.  There will be more information on that soon.  
          I have been working with a talented comic Awet Teame on our "INS Comedy" shows.  We most recently had a show at the San Francisco Punchline which was a success with headliner Ali Mafi.  Martin Short ended up being in the audience which made me shit myself right before my set.  In the end it was a great show and we are looking forward to the next.  More about INS' future shows will be coming shortly.  We are settling venues, lineups and dates, which is like catching lightening so that may be a while.
         I've started entertaining every Tuesday night at a bar in San Francisco called "Soda Popski" at Larkin and California Street.  If you are in the area and looking for fun drinking game please stop by.

  • New bits

    Jan 08, 13

    Here are some new bits I'm working on/ a free-write:
    
    So, recently I ran into the person I lost my virginity to.  It was awkward.  I never know what to say in that situation, like say hi or pretend they are a homeless person and ignore them.  What do I say?
    
    "Excuse me. You may not remember me. I was the one who asked if the condom made me look fat... You said kinda.'
    
    It's weird.  A part of me wants to invite them over. It's not because I really want to sleep with them but because I want to show that I've learned some things since then.  Shit had changed! Things come in 3D now and I now know what you meant by that and no I'm not into that.
    
    Other punchline options (I want to try using 2-3 of them in a row):
    
    -I now know that it's not okay to ask you partner to move their head so you could I could see who's on Conan
    
    - I now know what you meant by wrong hole, this isn't golf!
    
    - I now know it's not appropriate to ask about the mole on my shoulder during sex
    
    - I now know that it's not appropriate to call it a weenie
    
    -I now know that's normal and some of them DO look like that.
    
    - I now know not sing the star spangled banner when climaxing...
    
    __________________________________________________________
    
    I'm not really one to talk about politics but my dad calls me on the night of the election.  He was like, "We made it!"
    "Made what?"
    "We are in the whitehouse!"
    " Dad you don't vote and Obama's neither Russian nor Jewish."
    "They finally let a person like us of color in the whitehouse!"
    "Dad, if anything, while others tan, we ignite.  We are the direct opposite of people of that.  We are the people of no color."
    
    What I should explain is that my dad like most Russian men think he's black.
    He was the only Russian Jew in the middle of the LA Riots for no real reason. During the riots he goes to a liquor store to get his Benson Ultra-Lights.
    
    The clerk says, "Honkey you need to get the fuck out of here.  It's not safe."
    My dad says, "Honey?!? Where?"
    .....

  • INS Comedy Presents: "Coming to America"

    Jan 08, 13

    Come to our next show!
    
    I am producing a show with Awet Teame called: I.N.S. Comedy Presents, Coming to America on January 23 at 8pm.
    
    Featuring  headliner Ali Mafi from several LOGO specials
    Guy Branum from Chelsea Lately
    Yayne Abeba from Last Comic Standing
     Noel Elgrably from The Sultans of Satire
    Awet Teame from Total Blackout
    
    Call the San Francisco Punchline comedy club directly to get tickets without fees: (415) 397-7573.
    
    
  • LAID OFF but determined

    Dec 31, 12

    
    

    About three years ago, during my last year at the bar, I started to go through a crisis.  It was similar to that of a middle-aged man who buys the red convertible, get a young girlfriend and skinny jeans but I was in my mid-twenties.  I was at this point where I didn’t know what I was doing with my life.  While my true passion was watching crap-TV, smoking pot, and eating enough to feed a small family in one sitting.  I never could never find a job utilizing those skills, I’ve looked.  After I graduated college I had several career jobs where I used my degree doing advertising, PR, marketing and was pretty successful at it.  I did this while keeping the bar job on the side.  Ironically, at the bar I made more money than at any of these career jobs.  About three years ago I was also laid off from my last day job, which was relevant to my college education with the 401K and the stuff you’re told you’re supposed to want.  This would be the second day job since graduating college, which I was laid off from.  Near the end of that job, on a daily basis, I wanted to stab myself in the eye working there (metaphorically and not literally).  I would spend half my workday watching Tracy Ulman, Joan River’s, cat videos, and porn when I wasn’t staring at spreadsheets.  Let me explain.  I worked as an Account Manager for a company that specialized in SEM (Search Engine Management) for various companies and their products (many of which were porn).  Lets say you went onto Yahoo and searched “big boobs and daddy issues,” the ad that would pop up on the search page saying stuff like “3 girls with big boobs and daddies all just for $1 click here.” While glamorous, the job got old fast.  I was hoping they would add the shotgun or knife to my stock options.  That never happened, which was good because while I love a good suicide joke, that was not what I wanted.  I was feeling numb to working there and not sure how other people did this and found happiness.  I would come home while financially successful, buying stuff, helping my mother, father and anyone who needed it when I could, I would cry almost every night and not know why.  I was making enough money to be happy.  I grew up poor so anything above the poverty line was rich to me.  It was at this moment I learned that the more you have, the more you need, the more people expect from you.

    After a year at a good company, working 40 hours a week for good people, daily pushing papers I was laid off.  The day I was laid off, it happened in the middle of the day.  It was after lunch oddly, 2:30pm Pacific Standard time to be exact.  I skipped lunch and had a martini at a bar around the corner.  When I was asked to clean up my things and not come back I was sad but not lost like I should have been.  I went to a happy hour that day and drank more.  It was a relief similar to the feeling of a good shit.  After an evening of drinking sorrows away, I went home drunk, alone, a bit teary, but not sad and wrote.  I wrote about my life.  I wrote about the awkward experiences my early twenties brought me.  I realized that all the books I had read about San Francisco talked about an idealistic world that may or may not have existed in the 60s or 70s but nothing like what I had seen there.  I wrote until I couldn’t write anymore.  This was about a 4-day period.  I didn’t really shower much during that time.  I just wrote, went to work at the bar and back home to write (and eat lots of ice cream).  I ate 2 gallons of ice cream during this 4-day period along with at least 4 boxes of cookies, 20 bagels and 4 cans of whip cream and some strawberries cause I was feeling health conscious.

    I went back to the bar full-time, which was nice but felt like a vacation.  Being in a shitty economy and liking the cash I was making again I was on auto-mode there.  After a few months at the bar and entered crisis mode again.  I don’t know what I am doing and wonder if my life is in dead-end mode or what it was that I was lacking.  I go through one of these every 3 or 4 years depending on the economy of course.  I decided to go see a therapist after having a moderately unsuccessful time with one on campus during my last semester of school; I decided to give it a go.

    This time around the question I focused on with my therapist was “what now?”  

    He asked me one of those hippy, therapist, granola, I shop at Whole Foods and sold out years ago questions.  “Yuri, in an ideal world, what would you be doing with your life?”

    My first response was, “I would like to sit on my couch smoking pot all day and have hot Israeli men cleaning my mansion while I get rich on some online biz.”

    He then asked me for a real answer.  I told him that I want write, but there is no money in that so how would I live?  He pried more.  I then told him I would like to be a comedian, but wasn’t funny.

    He suggested I start a blog and post some stories.  This way I could see people’s reaction to my writing and see if anyone even likes it.  I asked him if he thought that would get me in trouble at the bar.  He didn’t think it would, maybe he thought no one would read it.  The following week I enrolled in a comedy class.  The same place a friend of mine had gone years earlier and now he’s touring and actually making a successful living as a professional standup!

    That week I started a blog where I posted stories about my life in San Francisco and the bar I had known as home for 5 years.  The stories, while based on truth were what I created blending different experiences together to create a good story.  It was my story through my big eyes.  I instantly got good traffic to the blog and people were emailing me all the time trying to figure out what was real from the stories and what wasn’t.  If my grammar were better I would have figured out a way to finish a book from the stories right then.

    The first open mic was like the first time having sex.  I got lots more laughs than expected and after kind of wanted to do it again but waited.  After the first laugh I had the courage to keep going.  It was the first time I felt at home.  It was like the way the junkies on Intervention made heroin sound, but without the track marks.

    After a few months of both the standup and the writing, there was a buzz around the bar apparently about my blog.  People would ask me, “Does Charlie know?  He won’t like it”

    I didn’t see the big deal.  What was Charlie-Big Brother?  It was like they thought he was a part of the mafia.  I have been raised with that mindset so wasn’t phased by it.  I was raised by Russian people and a father who wished he was a part of the mob.  Second, I never really talked negatively about the bar.  The stories while based in truth were about my life, my experiences that happened at a bar I happen to work at.  It was and is my story and no one else’s.

    Ironically I was “let go” from the bar that I worked at five years to the day I was hired.  I was sat down by Charlie himself and told that while I was “an amazing bartender” that they were making changes and my services wouldn’t be needed anymore.  I was laid off with a severance from the Labyrinth.  It would take six months before I heard a rumor that my blog had to do with my dismissal.  I didn’t think it did, couldn’t care less, but would like to entertain that idea.   In my mind it would just add another layer to the story. 

    
    
  • I met "Jabba"

    Dec 23, 12

    
    

    Why is it that drunk people always think that they can do things that any “normal,” sober person wouldn’t even think of doing?  After having essentially lived right there, at that bar for years I have developed a kind of routine so to speak.  I start every day with the following assumptions: the sun will rise and eventually set, Europeans rarely tip, a homeless person will approach me asking for change at least 3 times through-out the day, and that I will witness a drunk person doing something plainly stupid.  This act of stupidity will happen at any point throughout the day.  It may happen the second that I leave my apartment building, across the street, 5 feet away, or 5 hours into the night’s shift.  Regardless, drunks make the city and world that I live in go round, so I deal.

    
    

      For some reason, in a room full of drunks, there is always the guy that has to pee.  By pee, I mean that they must pee on something, anyone, anything, anywhere, but not in a toilet or urinal because that would make logical sense.  These gentlemen are often of a certain kind of breed.  It is often the ex-frat bro-douches that do this, but this act is not just limited to them.  About a year back, I see this guy, who looks like a regular guy, even slightly more attractive than the average Joe, not that this is relevant, but one must get a fully painted picture to visualize the event.  He is tall and a bit white trashy, with shaved blonde hair.  This is the type of guy who probably has a tribal tattoo on his forearm and probably a pack of menthols in his back pocket.  He looks similar to Matt Damon with a crew cut, with Eminem’s thug-wanna be style, complimented with a tattoo of a rose on his neck, next to a tattoo of what I assume to be his area code in Gangsta-font, incase he gets lost.  In the middle of a busy bar, right next to the bartending station, he just whips out his penis and just starts pissing right there.  Like a dog he just pees all over the floor.  He does it like it’s normal for a grown man to pee on the floor in the middle of a crowded bar.  What is even more astonishing, is the fact that in a room full of drunks, not a single person says or notices this guy treating the floor near the bar station like a fire hydrant.  No one even glances his way, to give him a sneer of disgust, as I would expect.  They are all too absorbed in their own lame conversations.  This is until one queen with frosted tips screams as they notice their Diesel shoes getting wet and blows this guy’s cover.  By scream, I mean a pitch barely audible to humans and so high that most dogs would be on alert.  The ironic part is that while this is not an isolated event, but goes on to happen every Friday for 3 months, all different dudes.  

    
    

    There is another drunken fool who comes in during our busy Friday two-for-one happy hours.  In San Francisco, where the gays are alcoholics and they are cheaper than a Jew in a 99cent store at the day after Christmas clearance rack, this drink special works as a gold mine for bars and is the best time to work.  This is the easiest and hardest time to make fast money to pay your rent, if you can survive the craziness that ensues.  Anyway, there is this guy who comes in every weekend since the bar opened 8-years ago.  This man is a rather rotund slob who resembles Jabba-the-Hut, so we shall call him “Jabba” since I don’t know or care to know his real name.  Jabba works his way around the bar in his wheelchair.  He is an average looking guy surrounded by his own fat that is probably around forty-five-ish at the oldest.  Normally I am not one to talk poorly about the physically challenged but in this guy’s case, he is a flat out perv./asshole.  He always whirls around the bar trashed regardless of how busy it is and makes his way to the dance floor.  Normally I am one to applaud those who defy the odds life has handed them, but really, I mean, who dances with a wheel chair in a crowded bar?  If this isn’t enough, not only does he dance on the floor in his wheelchair, which normally I have no issue with, but he uses it as a lethal weapon.  It’s like his way of getting back at those who have two working legs.  He get’s right in the middle and whirls around, knocking everyone around him in the shins, this in turn also clears the dance floor.  Many people end up walking off the floor with burst, cut up shins, limping off to get some medication (a drink) and complain about the whole fiasco to me, like I can do anything about it.  To make things worse, dancing Jabba also slowly pushes the joystick on his chair as he is cruising his way through, in the same fashion that Vattos cruise down streets to “holler at bitches.”  He pinches every ass-cheek, cock and tits that get in his way.  To make things worse, you can smell him coming from a few feet away.  His odor is very distinct, like raw meat that has spoiled, covered in that rotten egg-sulfur smell that only induces the gagging feeling more when he passes by.  This just adds to my disgust for Jabba.  Then after a few pints he leaves a restroom even more vomitalicious than it is prior to his visit.  He does the unexpected.  He leaves pint glasses all over the various restrooms and bar, filled with the piss that he empties out from his catheter.  It makes no sense.  Again, a sane, maybe less drunken person would empty that crap into a toilet or near-by lawn (if outside), but not this guy.

    
    

    I come into work knowing that I should always be ready for the worst, having experienced all sorts of drunken crazies in their natural habitat.  I generally assume that I personally have the ammo needed to survive these for various situations both mentally and physically, without ruining my day or my tips for the day.  Anything that will get in the way of me making my rent/bad habit money will get me angry.  I keep the Eminem wannabe and Jabba in the back of my mind as awareness of what may happen and stay prepared and remember that I am the one who has carried these people out often and kept my cool.  Generally, I take some time to myself before work to do my own version of meditation for this reason alone, the maintenance of sanity or at least the closest thing I know to it.  Depending on the day, year, week and what’s going on in my life this may include a cigarette, maybe a piece of chocolate.  Always, always, always there is a cup of coffee or shot of espresso during this meditation period.  I just sit, sip and watch passerby heading to bars, or walking from them as they trip over their own feet upon exit.  I sit for 15-20 minutes before every shift to help keep sanity and prepare for battle.

    
    

    Today I am walking to work already in a good mood.  I had a good date the night before and although I didn’t get laid as planned, I did have a wonderful time.  I am still sipping the coffee from the meditation moment of the day and walking into work.  One block before I get to the bar, I notice a little pebble of what looks like human shit.  While disgusted, I am not that astonished and keep walking.  Once at the bar, everything seems as it always is.  I am ready for a good day.  I keep telling myself that it can only get better.  I go to the restroom before I clock in.  Once in the there, while waiting for a free urinal, I watch a drunken man trying to aim into the large urinal only to hit his feet and the feet of two other men near him who don’t notice. This, I don’t blame him for, because I too have the same issue sometimes even when sober.  Once done, he hiccups, burps and starts the difficult mission of trying zip his fly.  This fly zipping takes the drunken sap another 4 minutes because while he is trying to zip, he actually is wearing a button-up fly.  I finish my business only to leave the guy still trying to close his fly.  Finally I get to my bar station, near the dance floor, happily situated, waiting for customers.  I reorganize the liquor bottles to my preference and wait for the customers to start coming my way.  I am only three margaritas into this shift when it happens (margaritas for customers, not me).  Two middle-ages guys come up to order drinks.  One is lean, dressed in a Versace button-up dark blue shirt, dark navy slacks and pointy brown shoes.  His thin, long, stringy hair is slicked back to its grey self as to add to what should be a distinguished look.  The other is slightly taller, thicker, but still lean enough to see that this man probably drinks his meals rather than eats them, or so I assume.  He is wearing a white Marc Jacobs suit with light violet button-up within the jacket.  I assume the two to be the male version of Patsy and Edie minus the English accents.  They both have a pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and the Marc Jacobs suit asks me for a “Johnny Red on the ro...”  As he is trying to get the word “rocks” out of his mouth, other things start to come out of his mouth.  The vomit starts flowing, spewing from him and getting all over my bar station.  While this guy continues to vomit for a solid three minutes I am standing there horrified and send for the doorman.  His friend looks horrified as he watches what is happening and somehow continues to sip the remains of his drink.  Oddly the customers of the bar just stand there, sipping their drinks, watching in silence.  I notice that this gentleman who is spewing chunks is still holding on to his last drink while painting the bar.  Once he stops, the doorman asks him to put the drink down since he has obviously had too much and should leave.  Any sane, sober person would have realized their party foul and probably left on their own out of embarrassment.  This idiot tells the doorman to F-off and goes back to sipping his drink as though nothing happened.  The doorman ends up prying the drink from this drunk’s hand.  His friend starts yelling at me saying that I caused the vomiting due to making the drinks so cheap.  This causes him to squeal like a little girl, which creates a chain-reaction where then the barback who has to clean the reddish mess, who also squeals, a patron in the far corner of the bar sees the vomit on the bar and runs to the closest bathroom presumably to puke.  The friend, who calls me darling, asks if he could still have his drink while he takes out a color assorted handful of random pills and puts them on the only clean part of the counter in front of my station.  This is all as his friend; the vomit-monster is being carried out.  I cut him off and he leaves.  The rest of my shift of horrors is followed with customers trying to figure out if that smell is they or the person next to them.

    
    

    The part that confuses me the most is this.  I have done many dumb things without the influence of alcohol in my day.  I will not lie; I like a good stiff drink, now and now.  I have had moments in my life where I drank enough vodka to kill a large animal and done several stupid things.  I have taken the wrong bus home sometimes.  I forget my phone in cabs from time to time; I often accidentally leave my fly open due to the fact that I simply can’t be bothered with the buttons.  I have on occasion have been known to make out with random gentlemen when inebriated as well.  But I don’t ever have the need when drunk to pee in the middle of a bar, puke anywhere other than a lawn, toilet or alleyway, nor do I ever get kicked out of an establishment.  I have my standards.

    
    
• See Yuri Kagan Live!

  See Yuri Kagan Live!
  • Stand Up dates:

    May 2 - The Bodega at Esta Noche  (SF)
    
    May 4 - Comedy Oakland
    
    May 9 - Santa Barbara Comedy Hideaway (7:30 &10pm)
    
    May 13 - Cafe Royale (SF)
    
    May 27th - SF Punchline
    
    June 13 - Bodega at Esta Noche (SF)
    
    August 7 - Cafe Royale
    
    August 8 - MILK bar
    
    More dates to come.
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  • I'm performing at @punchlinesf this Tuesday night! Show starts at 8. Did you get tix yet?

    May 19, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • @jaymohr37 great set tonight at @CobbsComedyClub ! Inspiring for baby comics like me. :)

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  • my girl @LoniLove will be at @CobbsComedyClub next week. She puts on an AMAZING show! Go buy tix now!

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  • Why is it that nearly every time they showed a black person in Gatsby they played hip hop?

    May 16, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • Tuesday 5/21 come out to @sfpunchline for a great night of comedy! Get tix while you can!

    May 16, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • The Great Gasby more like the Great Nap.

    May 16, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • Had a great set at @CobbsComedyClub ! Thanks for having me!

    May 16, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • RT @wkamaubell: Hey West Coast! Presale tickets are now available for the @TotallyBiasedFX Stand Up Tour! http://t.co/nQXDpEod97

    May 15, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
  • Do you want to be on my guest list for tomorrow night at @CobbsComedyClub message me! It will be a great show!

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  • Dr. Joyce Brothers Dies At The Age Of 85 http://t.co/fDN5TN6s5F

    May 14, 13 from Tweet Button Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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    May 14, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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    May 12, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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