Camping anyone?

I used to go camping a lot before college. It was the thing to do when I was little. We camped all the way from Phoenix to Seattle once when I was 8 years old. Our old Mitzubishi panel van pulling its maximum weight in camping gear. Man that thing was so severely underpowered, but did I can, of course not. I had a coloring book mo-fo! Plastic windows? Who cares as long as my sister can't touch me from her own captain's chair. Behind us was a Coleman popup trailer with 2 queen beds. That thing was awesome. It was like a little portable cabin that you could level out and crank up when you got to the campground. I only forgot to lock the crank in place once, but it was funny in hindsight watching my dad freak out as the roof started to come down on him.

Fast forward almost 15 years. I went camping once last year, ONCE! This is not enough. I'm a white guy and I need to go out and "rough it" soon or I'm going to get all cranky and stuff. But I can't just go out there, I need stuff. Lots of fancy equipment. Fancy like a tent. So I'm going to go look at tents on Friday at REI and I might actually become a member of their co-op so they will stop freaking asking me everytime I'm in their god-damned store. "Hi do you know about our co-op program?" How can I not at this point. And you make me feel so bad for being on the outside of your stupid club. Really? Is it that important to you that I save 10%.

I also probably need a lantern and a stove. I would like to see things at night and cook my food. Oh and a cooler, to keep things cold and stuff. Ok so tent, cooler, lantern, stove. That's all I need. And a flashlight. And probably a table cloth? Maybe a good camping chair? Some rope. Definitely need some wood. Oh and a box to put all this crap in and some extra space in my closet to store all my new junk. Sweet, I'll be ready for camping in no time!

So this is me writing about something I haven't done in an effort to keep this blog active. Good stuff no? I'm serious about the camping thing though. It's going to happen (please)!

Away Gig in Richland, also, I'm going to start talking about breakfast more...

I'm in a "comedy gantlet" this week as I like to call it. I've had a gig every night, Sunday to Sunday. Tonight is the last one. In the life of a professional comedian, not that big of a deal, I know. But for me, it has been a crazy week. The results though have been good; had one of my best sets at the Owl & Thistle bar in downtown, and really getting comfortable delivering both old and new material.

Friday night's gig was at a country club in Richland, WA, about a 3 hour drive from Seattle. The headliner was Brad Upton, great guy to work with and amazingly funny. I didn't get a chance to eat dinner that night, so three gin and tonics later (which were bought by members of the country club) I kindly asked Brad to drive me back to the hotel so I could pass out. Nine hours later I'm back in the car for Seattle, but stopped on the way back to do some wine tasting.

Before the wine tasting though, I had breakfast. I really love breakfast. Have I told you that? Well I do. More than a lot of things, I love breakfast. Its the most important meal of the day! You can have anything from any food-group and breakfast covers it. Fats, got it. Fruits and vegies, total possibility. Grains, proteins, dairy, holy crap its awesome. As I've started traveling more and more for comedy, I find myself eating breakfast at new and interesting places. Every town has their "favorite breakfast place". If you were in Seattle, I would say "Pete's Eggsnest" in Wallingford or "The Hurricane" in Belltown. I don't care if you agree with me, it's my blog. So from now on, expect some posts dedicated to my love for breakfast, with a comedic spin, as I over-analyze one of my favorite things. That's what I do if you're my favorite.

While in Richland, I went to "Sterlings Famous Steaks and Seafood" for breakfast. Originally, I was a little skeptical, as this doesn't sound like breakfast off the bat. Then again, neither does "The Hurricane". Anyways, I ordered the New York Omelet. There wasn't anything really New York about the omelet, but the omelet is one of those things where the name is mostly cute. Oh, the California omelet has avocados and Monterrey jack cheese, how freaking novel?!? Call it whatever you want. Even if you called it the "Clint Eastwood" and put avocado in it, people would still go, oh, its a California omelet. This is extra ironic because Clint Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel which is a city in California. Ooooooh. Just eat your eggs with stuff in them, ok? The French are laughing at us once again...


I realized I wanted to start blogging about breakfast when I was almost done, hence the mostly eaten plates and the $20 bill sitting there. I've already covered the omelet. It was ok. As you can see, I didn't finish it; this was how it ended. The biscuit, well, I've been ruined by the monster amazingness of a biscuit I got at the "West Site Cafe" in Bend, Oregon. Man, seriously. Best biscuits ever! Totally kicked this biscuit's ass, hands own. Overall, the meal tried to make itself up with the fruit plate, which was, by far, the crowning achievement for the meal. The only other thing that was better than the food was the pattern all all the dinnerware. Its kind of Pacific Northwestern Native American as captured by JC Penny's. I kind of liked it though, if only because I know that this place is the only one I will ever go with that dinnerware design. Overall, good breakfast, I may have just ordered the wrong thing. Try the blueberry muffin instead of the biscuit. I hear they are better there.

Also, I need to figure out whether I'm pro or against salad bars...

Polar Bears Eating Stupid People

So here is yet another news story about stupid people getting way too close to wild animals in the zoo. Background: It's at the Berlin zoo, large white woman, its feeding time for the polar bears, no joke.



So ya, she climbed over the fence and fell into the polar bear pool during feeding time. So now you have a bunch of polar bears going, "Hey look! An albino sea lion. Those are delicious, like white chocolate." Watch that life ring snap in two when they are trying to pull her up, priceless. She was taken to the hospital and cited with trespassing.

It's times like these when I really wish Jurassic Park was a real thing. Because you do something stupid like this, and you don't survive to pass on your stupid genes to the next generation. You're dead. There is no surviving a mauling from a dinosaur. I tell you one thing, the news stories.... way better.

This is Brian Boshes reporting live from Jurassic Park. Tragedy strikes again today as yet another person, killed here this afternoon. People on the scene witness the woman trying to get into the Triceratops paddock when she was ruthlessly ripped to shreds by a pack of roaming Velocaraptors. The owners of Jurassic Park sent out yet another press release urging people "not to try to enter the dinosaurs' habitat. The 10,000 volt fences are there, for a reason". This brings the death toll at Jurassic park up to 1452 for 2009. In light of these recent events though, the park still reports that it is sold out for the 2009 season as people still think dinosaurs are really, really cool. This is Brian Boshes, reporting live, Jurassic Park.

De-Wolverinification

I decided that I needed a change this weekend. A large part of this change involves removing a massive amount of hair from my head. My poor barber; we had some fun though. Here is a nice before shot:

The sides are a bit matted down from wearing my bike helmet (which is the other part of the change, more on this in a second). After about an hour of hard work and a couple jokes from me this is what we ended up with:

If I look a little strung out with its because I'm not used to having such little hair, and the picture was taken after $35 of sushi and saki, plus two more beers. I only got charged for one of the two, so chalk one up to the Bri-myster.

Ok so hair, GONE! I know. It was getting too much though. I was being brought on stage as Wolverine every time in the last couple of weeks, which, I know, I brought on myself, but it was becoming a little creatively stifling. Now I'm free from the bonds of facial hair (body hair is another story) and can write jokes that aren't about my likeness to a bad ass comic book character. That, and I'll just revert back to my old intro likeness, hobbit. For those that miss it, fear not, for I documented some comedy with the chops (and in character) that will be posted on the interwebs as soon as its edited.

Part two of my spring self-cleaning is that I've been biking to work again. I don't have fenders on my bike, so I can't ride when its raining, which in Seattle is severely limiting, but it doesn't really "rain" here much as just miserably precipitate all over everyone. That being said, I ride in the rain. Unless its pouring (ie, actually raining), and then I drive, because I have a car and that's why we invented them. In addition, I downloaded all the P-90X series of workout tapes and have gone through a couple of them. I wuss out at the halfway point, when the guy says its time to do all the exercises again, so I'm currently operating at around a J-45L workout level. This is fine for me now, as I'm still sore in places I didn't know I could be sore.

Off to do some writing for the day. I've got lots of gigs coming up around Washington. Have a sold out show in Richland with Brad Upton on the 24th (which you probably won't be going to), and I'll be hosting the Dating Game again at Laughs Comedy Spot on the 22nd (which you probably should go to). Check my MySpace for more details.

BJ

God spoke to me yesterday

He said, "Brian, you probably don't need a hot link with your pulled pork BBQ sandwich."

I ignored the voice of God.

God now speaks through my colon. He is angry...

Two in one night

Because you've been so patient with me, I wanted to put up another little something. Remember my friend Glenn, the soon to be famous voice-over artist? Well he just released his second of two demos (my post in March covered the first one). This one features his "narrative abilities", like what you would hear over TV and movie previews. It's really well done with actual clips from real shows mixed in.

Listen to it here!

So, my favorite one is the Sunday ticket preview at the end, what do you think?

Back from Bend

The Bend (International) Comedy Competition was awesome. I was knocked out in the first round! Wait Brian, how do those two go together? Well about the set. I thought I was going to connect a bit better with the crowd in Bend as I was told they were "smart" comedy audiences. They (being the judges and most of the audience) did not know who Wolverine was. It was a reference that the entire first joke hinged on. Not good. My new joke about doing drugs with a ninja turtle, ERROR, wrong again. The good news is, the people that did get it, LOVED it. My favorite was one waitress coming up to me the next night and feeling so happy because she went by the park that morning to see some guys LARPing, and because of my set the night before, she finally new what they were doing. :-) So, coming off of my Bend experience, I really feel jazzed at the path I'm plowing. Now though, I feel pressured more and more to write to this voice as the audience reacts and relates much better to this new character, but this, my friends is a good thing. The bad thing is that I haven't had that much time to write, that's another story.

Other highlights from the weekend:

• Matching wits with the tour guide at the Deschutes Brewery (aka. my beer mecca in Bend)
• Eating amazing breakfast biscuits the size of hamburger buns
• Staying up until 3:30am doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions with my hotel roommate
• Drinking amazing beer at one in the afternoon until about 3:30am (same night as above)
• Beautiful drive leaving Bend for Salem. Ridiculous drive from Portland to Bend but reassurance in knowing I had chains and a full tank of gas.

Here is a picture of me in front of said brewery. If you squint you can see the amazing chops I have right now, but this picture really doesn't do them justice and I don't have a good picture yet where I don't look like Wolverine's dad.


In my new quest to visit places I would never get to visit without comedy as an excuse, I'll be off to Richland and Port Angeles, Washington in April. The former is part of Central Washington's Tri Cities area, the latter in on the peninsula. I will be visiting farms in both places most likely. Two more opportunities to see if my humor translates to what I've found is the safe harbor of Seattle and Portland. It only gets better from here my friends...

I owe you a blog post

And this isn't it. Give me until tomorrow. I blame the sun...