life at comedy store is like box of

Life at the Comedy Store is like a box of chocolates...

stuffed with a rusty, broken glass center.

Since I quit smoking five months ago this is the only thing keeping me

from burning the building to the ground most mornings. I won't lie to

you, I don't enjoy my job answering phones at the Comedy Store all

that much. I'm supposed to be there every Monday through Friday at 10

am. Most mornings I roll in at least 10 or 15 minutes late. And even

if I leave my house late I still stop at the Starbucks down the street

for coffee and a fruit cup if they have it. Punctuality and a good

performance review are not among my top priorities at my workplace.

If Barton worn this then it would smell like urine, too. Last week I

wrote a blog and made a short movie of Ding Dong Show cast member

Barton Nemer standing in front of my desk in my office and screaming

into the telephone at an imaginary ex-wife. When I came in to work

this morning at 10:20, Juan Carlos, the Comedy Store's building

manager, warned me that there was a homeless guy waiting for me

upstairs. And sure enough when I came up the stairs there was Barton

wearing a dirty and tattered black sport coat, a neon t-shirt and

filthy, urine-stained white painter pants. He was screaming into the

telephone, as is his way. And when I asked him to please leave he told

me to go fuck myself.

Hopefully prosecutors will be able to use my iBook and a couple of

.aiff files on my desktop to put Barton away for good after he stabs

me to death. So, I sat down at my desk, fired up my iBook and recorded

the last couple of minutes of his belligerent tirade. Halfway through

my boss called on the other extension and I explained the situation to

him. Here's a movie clip of what I got to listen to less than 2

minutes after coming into the door at my job.