A short story about how death saved my life.

 I started dipping my toes back into comedy a little over three years ago in mid 2022 (I had some false restarts maybe a few times before then here and there) but this past year I've just been really getting the rust off and deciding where I want things to go. 

I did open mics and tons of local shows from the time I started in 2012 until early 2019 when I was hospitalized with pneumonia and a severe lung infection. I was in the ICU for ten days and very nearly died. They had to drill holes in my back to drain the fluid off of my lungs. You'd think an experience like that would have been a wake up call but the truth is that at the time: I was lowkey disappointed that I woke up from the surgery.  

I thought (at the time) it would have been the perfect exit. No one could be mad or feel like I had given up or abandoned them. It wouldn't have been my fault after all. It would have been one of those things that just happen and I would have been done and off the hook. I had put out a comedy album the year before, had a bunch of nominations at the local awards show and everyone liked me at the time. What a tragedy. A promising comedian cut down right before things started to come together.

I spent the rest of 2019 until early 2021 in a really really bad place. I got my license suspended a few months later for driving through a southern Ohio town with a roach in my ashtray. 6 months with no license and my unemployment had ran out. I was already living in someone else's house. I didn't have time nor the inclination to pursue comedy. For my entire adult life I had only worked at jobs where I had driven company cars. With no license I was completely fucked and could only get jobs I had zero experience with and 

I burned through any good will I had with family because during  the same time I had started and was determined to stay in and “repair” the most toxic relationship I have ever had or witnessed to date. I can't explain why. I don't fully understand it myself yet. Maybe she represented something I hadn't dealt with or thought I needed to experience. Maybe she reflected something I thought I wanted to be or wanted to believe about myself. maybe it was the cocaine, booze or acid trips.  

In the interest of not getting bogged down in this  part I'll just say it was mutually bad and our individual issues did not align in a way that was conducive with happiness. 

A lot of bad shit happened during this time. I burned my entire life to the ground in a year and a half. 18 years of work all down the drain.

My oldest turned 18 and immediately left home. My youngest had other things going on I won't discuss but to say she went to live with her mom for awhile. 

I was completely alone and deservedly so. I spent the pandemic working four jobs to recover and play catch up from the hell I'd created. 

In 2021 I found a job doing body removal for funeral homes and morgues. I would be on call x days a week for 24 hour shifts and when ever they texted me I would go to someone's home that had passed away and bring them back tot he funeral home. Sometimes, they're in a nursing home, sometimes a hospital and sometimes they're at home with their loved ones. 

One night during an especially nasty and dramatic fight with that ex I got a house call. It was by the lake. The widow welcomed us into her home where her husband had just passed away. There was a hospital bed in the main living room and next to it she had put a twin bed so she could sleep next to him in his final days. 

Their walls were covered in keepsakes and memories. She told us that they had picked them all out together and together they had decided where to hang each thing. 

I said “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

She smiled. She told me, “Thirty years ago this man promised to love me and that we would have a good life together. And we have. I couldn't ask for more.”

At the time I just nodded and got to work. We wrapped him in a sheet and transferred him to the guerney. 

We offered her a final moment alone and stepped aside. 

She looked at him and giggled about how he was wrapped. “You look like a mummy sir.” 

Then she looked at him one more time. Really taking the moment in and she smiled again and said “Okay. “

I didn't know what to make of it. The look she gave him was so uniquely beautiful and the moment seemed to last forever. 

The other guy took his body to the funeral home. When I got home my ex was out at the bar with a “friend”. 

I couldn't stop thinking about the expression on the widows face. It bugged me for hours. I thought about it all night until it hit me. 

It was love. 

It was gratitude. 

It was not at all what I had been doing for a year and a half. 

I started packing my shit. I knew the next fight was only a matter of hours and that it would be one of the last. 

I moved within a few weeks and haven't looked back. It took some time but I've fixed things with my kids and friends. I've been doing comedy and killing it. 

I'm not dating but I know when I do it's going to be deliberate and it's going to be based on love and gratitude. 

Stand and Deliver With Bill Squire

Stand and Deliver with Bill Squire

Shameless plug to another thing

Hey, if you stumble across this blog and you're interested I also have a podcast over at

http://adhomattackshow.podbean.com/feed/

On The Issue of Vending Machines In Schools

I'm tired of politician's wives telling me my kids need to exercise more like they're training for the Olympics while their better half makes weird deals with soda companies to pass laws that let them put cans of sugar acid in vending machines next to the water fountain.Then people tell you to teach them better choices and let the free market do whatever it wants. I'm trying to teach them better choices but they're teenagers. I'm a little busy trying to keep them from beating off all over the house and not developing any crazy fetishes. I'm sorry I can't hold their hand all day and keep them from choosing a cold can of sweet sugary nectar over piss warm water.
 I'd need to clear the security every morning we have to  have there to keep guys from shooting up the place. Also. I'd need another source of income. Probably some socialist bullshit like Welfare or unemployment or social security. Maybe all parents should do this. Maybe they should carry guns and a good guy badge too all day and we can walk around protecting our kids from bad things at gunpoint. DOESN'T THAT SOUND GREAT?

OR this group of  partisan hacks that keep getting re-elected for decades at a time could quit making shady deals with corporations and I can keep working and they can keep learning. Leave that bullshit at the store where I do have time to go with them.
Oh and maybe let the wife run for an office instead of giving her cutesy government programs to be the pretty face of. Not cool that your woman is your fall guy for stressed out parents.

While we're here maybe cut it out with all the campaign money. You don't need all that to get a word out anymore. Have you seen youtube? A guy got millions of views on there just by repeating WHAT WHAT IN MY BUTT a bunch of times. It was weird. Cultural phenom level. Maybe try being interesting and honest with people and quit talking like an asshole all the time. 

There's A New Hose In Town

Cheer up gang!  There's a new water hose on the market that will revolutionize the way you think of water hoses; the top brass water hose, guys. It's a quarter inch by 50 feet, expandable water hose. It's easy to use and easy to put away. It's pretty amazing. Just when you thought the water hose couldn't be improved upon, Top Brass water hose.
            Someone, probably a guy or gal named Top Brass, looked at the old water hose (one that doesn't expand), and they thought, “fuck this shitty non-expanding water hose.I COULD DO BETTER. I'm an American, and I can't deal with this over rated water delivery system for another minute. No, from now on, I want the water from my outdoor faucet used strictly to water plants and hose down my concrete sidewalks, to get to the other side of the yard in style, and to collapse in on itself when I'm not using it.
What's more is, I want to be able to put hundreds of pounds of pressure on the nozzle without it getting crushed like some kind of weak little jerk off water hose nozzle.'
              So when you're sitting in front of your computer all sad and annoyed at the fact that the comments section of an article giving out tips for iPhone users devolved into two guys fiercely debating and calling each other names over whether Apple or Samsung had the better interface, or you see a hashtag movement to replace a comic book cover gain the support of thousands of people, and you just wish anyone gave a shit about anything real anywhere, remember; this hose expands when you're using it, and it collapses when you're not using it. It practically puts itself away when you're done

What Are You Nerds So Mad About?

The very first comic book I ever read was a Batman/Superman team up. I was five and I found a stack of comics in a basement we shared with our neighbors. Every since then I have been a huge fan of comic books and more specifically DC Comics. I have collected the books, watched the cartoons, movies, owned lunch boxes and have even written some fan fiction of my own.

 My favorite stories have always been the crossovers and my favorite aspect of that is the idea of a shared universe where all those characters live in one big amazing world and bump into each other buying milk or at the laundromat while washing their costumes.  Marvel has done a great job of bringing that the big screen and with the success of Man Of Steel DC is making moves to do the same. One would think it would be a great time to be a fan of either one but I have noticed an especially high level of anger and outrage from DC Comics fans.

I don't get DC Comics fans.The only blogs, comments, news sites I come across when I'm looking around are full of  negative remarks but someone is keeping this company afloat. I've seen very few people say anything positive about Batman V Superman and all they have to go on is a couple of color muted pictures of Ben Affleck in a pretty great looking Batman suit and one picture of Wonder Woman that looks a lot like, well, Wonder Woman.

A few years back DC wiped out their continuity and rebooted the entire line of comics. (with a few caveats tossed in for certain characters). Fans were peeved to say the least. I think what has really happened is a lot of people have been mad at DC every since the reboot, went into MOS with that in mind and then the Affleck casting pushed them over the top into full on nerd rage.

I have enjoyed the shit out of the post reboot DC continuity and liked Man Of Steel. To be fair, I might be in a place in my life where I needed my comic book characters to do some changing and slate cleansing for inspiration but that is a whole other blog post. I should mention that the Green Lantern was pretty disappointing for a lot of fans as well but if we're being optimistic about this GL could easily be dismissed as the Incredible Hulk of the DC Cinematic Universe.

 Every announcement from DC(WB films) is met with knee jerk negativity. I saw people complain how skinny WW looks. I saw one article where they were saying how bad Affleck will be based on the idea that he was seen out at a restaurant having a drink and a cigarette so he can't possibly be taking the role seriously.What do people want Affleck to be doing? Suiting up and fighting crime to prepare for the role?

DC fans make me miss the days when we didn't know shit about a movie until it came out. Especially this far in advance. I was probably eight or ten years old when the 89 Batman came out and I had no idea it was happening until I watched it.

Maybe I'm wrong and maybe Superman V Batman will be the Coyote Ugly of Superhero movies. (That means really, really bad.) In the meantime, there's a movie being made with Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and then it gets even bigger with the Justice League and sequels to all of these movies. So I'm going to go ahead and be excited about that. The worst case scenario is that we get a Superman Batman movie with great effects and not much of a story. But I have already seen Batman and Robin with George Clooney multiple times and it can't possibly be worse than that.

My Guide to the American Dream

Years 0-5 
This is not a bad time. Mostly being fed and learning basic human behaviors like walking , talking and not shitting yourself. Develop a taste for processed foods.

Years 6-10
 Things are starting to pick up. You start school and start to act more like a person. There's less crying and shitting yourself has almost completely stopped. Keep eating processed foods.

Years 11-15
These are very busy years. You go to Middle School and start High School and also spend roughly the last two years of this time masturbating. You go years at a time without shitting yourself. Your parents get you involved with sports and hobbies to counteract the processed foods.

Years 16-21
The latter half of puberty. You spend a huge chunk of this time masturbating in between getting your Driver's License, graduating High School and starting College. You think you know who you are by now but you don't. You may have shit your pants once or twice when you first start drinking legally. Add alcohol to your processed foods.

Years 22-30
Finish College and start climbing the corporate ladder.For the first half of this time you drink a lot because you have a hard time accepting that it is time to grow up and start thinking about retirement and buying a house. You get married, take out loans and start talking about having children to fill up the house you're paying off for the next 30-40 years.

Years 31-50
Work and drive kids around to their activities and hobbies. Get your butt checked by a doctor, beat some kind of cancer caused by the processed foods and continue thinking about retirement. Go on short lived diets and maybe spend one week out of the year either on a  beach or at home doing renovations on the house you're still paying off.

Years 51-65
Pay off house.Think about retirement. Start shitting pants again here and there.

Years 66-90
Mostly watch all of your friends die off and shit your pants.

Years 90 and above
If you're still alive you did it wrong.