Self-Proclamation

If you're reading this, I'm guessing you were able to hunker down in your fort made of bread and toilet paper and weather the Blizzard of 2016. I think it's a little early in the year to be handing out titles like that, but it is accurate. It is, so far, the one blizzard of 2016. I'm finally dug out from the wall of crusty brown blech that my car was plowed behind. It's a good thing too because I have places to be. I got a call out of the blue from my friends at the Arlington Drafthouse and I'll be featuring for one of my comedy heroes this weekend, Emo Philips. His sing-songy absurdism spoke to me in the formative years of my sense of humor. His voice, harmonized with the monotone of Steven Wright, made beautiful comedy music. I'm really looking forward to sharing a stage with him. And you can experience it live and in person, simply by clicking the link on your right. Speaking of convenient link clickage, please to click on the big pink button and cast a vote for me (@FunnyJared) as DC's Best Twitter Personality. Validate my ego's parking.

You may think this blog is just an exercise in self-importance, and you pretty much hit the nail on the head. Good job. Here's a cookie. However, I am not nearly as self-important as the guy I encountered yesterday, while walking down Connecticut Ave. I had my earbuds in, so I could pretend to be listening to music, while actually listening in on out-of-context snippets of the conversations of passers-by. You should try it sometime...

"I'm just not warming up to Lisa like I thought I would."

"Have you thought of getting it lanced?"

"We need to motivate the team. Go buy chocolate."

It's just a wonderful tableau of the extra ordinary (note the space). So, I'm getting some juicy non-sequiturs, when suddenly, I hear a piano playing behind me. It was on a street corner, so it could've been an enterprising busker. I turned to see a guy, maybe in his twenties, with a JBL speaker around his neck, pumping out the stirring classical jams. It wasn't music that anyone could rightly complain about but it was loud enough to cause people to take notice. He figured a charge of disturbing the peace wouldn't stick because the disturbance was so darn peaceful. It was simultaneously inspirational and obnoxious, motivational and rude, tasteful tastelessness. This guy was forcefully providing the soundtrack to my stroll. Listen, buddy, I've got the chorus of voices in my head for that sort of thing. Take your joyous jangle elsewhere.

And if I am self-important, at least I'm not self-proclaimed. I was talking to a buddy of mine who deals with booking guests on a radio show. He was telling me that one upcoming guest was billed as a "self-proclaimed sexpert". He said, "She gives blowjob classes." To which I replied, "Is there a recital?"

Think of the power of self-proclamation, though. Just because she says she is, she's now a sexpert, whatever that is. She was probably sexhausted of sexplaining herself without sexaggerating, so she made a sexecutive decision to sexceed everyone's sexpectations. Steve Miller says that some people call him a space cowboy and no one really believes him, but if he was a Self-Proclaimed Space Cowboy, then get this guy some spurs and a space helmet. On my taxes I'm going to list myself as a self-proclaimed religious institution. Let me make one thing clear. Any claims made about me should be made by someone else on an amateur level.