SO VOTE FOR IT NOW over at the Atom.com Showdown! I'll be your best friend!

As part of the deal, if you print out this page you and every person in your party will receive $5 off admission. Additionally, college students get in for $10 since this is...ya know...fucking College Night.

All you have to do is call the reservations number at (323) 656-1336 to get your tickets, then come armed with this page printed out and/or your student ID for the discount and/or reduced price. You don't have to call ahead to get the discount on tickets for my College Night if you don't want. You can just come to the club and wait in line, but waiting in line to buy tickets is like buying porn. No one does that anymore. So come one, come all to the Bill Dawes Thursday Callidge Nyte @ The Hollywood Laugh Factory every Thursday night at 10pm.

If you is smart like I is, you be coming there much times.

"It's like you--no matter how much I blow you off, you always come back."

The burst of adrenaline her comment elicited sent a concussive wave of chemicals through my brain and pasted a look on my face that, I'm sure, was hard to disguise. If I had the ability to TiVo my life, I'd probably wear out the remote in amused Golem-esque self-loathing watching the expression develop. My eyes popped, my jaw dropped, my face reddened. On stage, I shoot hecklers down with the ease of a seasoned crowd sniper, but in my real life I'm not as nearly adept. Her sentence rendered me utterly speechless.

She - let's call her G - stared me down with her entitled smile; the same stamp of smile that has challenged and weakened my spirit throughout my life. Smiling dark eyes, full lips, at least one unique quirk. With her, it was the beguiling way the tip of her tongue nestled, wet and coquettishly, between her upper and lower set of teeth; poised to say something scandalous.

I wanted to say something quick and smart like, "Pfft! Nigga please!" but this bitch had my number and she knew it. It could not have been more obvious. I couldn't have been more submissive if I had been a Korean in a leather harness licking dried dog poo off the sole of her shoe.

My brain continued to buzz from the cocktail of adrenaline and fear. I ransacked the relationship archives of my brain and mustered quite possibly the most pathetic and feeble response of my life... and that's saying something.

"You shouldn't SAY that." I spurted back.

"Oh come on, it's true, we both know it." G laughed.

"Yes, but it's not something you should say out loud." I had a yuk-yuk-isn't-the-war-of-the-sexes-funny smile on my face, but my attempt at levity was betrayed by the fact that my normally beady eyes had enlarged to the size of saucers like some Japanese anime character. "AKIRAAAAAA!"

Silence followed, mostly. It was peppered by a one-sided argument between our Pakistani cab driver and whoever was on the other side of his blue tooth. I looked at the cabbie through his rearview mirror and could have sworn I saw a smirk on his face. Busy with driving through Manhattan traffic and arguing with the leader of his sleeper cell, even Ahmed could tell I was pitiful and pussy-whipped.

I completely believe in true love. About a month or two before I first met G, I had fallen hopelessly in love. Her name was Brooke and for a brief time I lived inside an impenetrable bubble of joy, with visions of babies and July weddings and post-coital Honeymoon pillow talk dancing in my head. It ended with distance, mistrust, and a torturous bittersweet 'goodbye-forever-maybe' goodbye. It was the type of whirlwind romance that, if I were to look at from my couch with a bag of salted Soy crisps, I'd say, 'What a couple of deluded and fucked up losers. They thought that could have been IT?!' Inside the bubble, though, it was as if I could feel all the atoms in my body vibrate with giddy and life-affirming ferocity.

Now, I was relegated to11th hour cock again and I was starting to think I wanted more. I had made the same mistake with Melissa, about a year previously. I was her booty call /shoulder to cry on after abusive nights as a cocktail waitress at the W. A slight paradigm shift and maybe it could have been more with Melissa. Of course, for her, it wasn't, and my medical condition acted up. The result? An 11th hour relationship ended, after two years, by text. A 21st century dumping. I couldn't even watch her walk away: Going...going... gorgeous... gone.

I was taking G to a really cool Tuesday party at a place called The Box. Now, I'm no arbiter of 'cool' by even the most generous stretch of the imagination - I still rollerblade and my first car was an electric blue Miata -- so let me render my definition of a 'cool' party so we understand each other: it was weird and freaky and impossibly eclectic, with sex and drugs (allegedly) and vaudeville and burlesque and beautifully fucked-up rockers, fireflies, billionaires, millionaires, and mostly, lower east side Manhattanites too cool to venture above 14th Street. My friend Caron Bernstein throws the party and I lucked into her coterie of close friends so, if I'm in a pinch, I can come across as socially relevant and - again with the yucky word - cool.

The door at The Box is notoriously difficult but Caron is one of those women whose presence is like a magic wand. She can get anyone in anywhere. Caron whisked G and me and her two girlfriends who met us there into the club -- a cozy, old mahogany wood speakeasy. It is a club that can best be described as the set of Moulin Rouge in miniature. The second you walk in and immerse yourself in its deep amber glow, there's no reason not to expect to see a midget, the coke-tipped nostril of a near-billionaire, the hottest girl you've ever seen, and the hottest girl you've ever seen with a penis. All at the same table.

Caron knew I liked G. She knew we were on a 'date' and that I'd been miserable since my impenetrable bubble of joy with Brooke had burst. More importantly though, she knew I'd been, on balance, unhappily single for a couple of years. So, like a great friend with great tits, she parted the party waters and placed us on our own velvet couch - worn and cum-stained just enough to rock the line between downtown hip and midtown homeless shelter (ahhhhh, that elusive line). We were front and center with free bottle service and a beautiful Vargas/ Betty Paige pinup waitress with a flower in her coiffed hair to boot.

I harmlessly flirted with G's friends while I scanned the room and soaked up the ridiculous ambiance. Against a far wall, I caught the goofy grin of a tall, thin scarecrow of a man. He was pale and his body was inordinately straight up and down. He would have looked out of place if it weren't for the Cheshire grin. 'Ahh, that dude is rolling,' I thought. Welcome to The Box.

To say the Tuesday night show at The Box is just a burlesque show is like saying Bill Gates is just an IT guy. If Fellini, in his most drug-addled years, were to create a variety show with Satan and Cirque du Soleil as co-producers, he might have come up with something like this. Midget Hitlers, crucifix dildos, faux abortions, simulated anal rape, and things coming in and out of every conceivable human hole (no sacred cow or orifice was spared from, literally, getting fucked with). All of it somehow rendered safely artistic by incredible acrobatic performances, virtuoso singers, flawless naked dancers and, of course, a live band.

The bottles kept magically appearing, G and her friends got more and more drunk, and at one point, G was brought up on stage and molested by 5 hot female dancers. Our velvet couch was getting very popular. We kept meeting people and making new friends, including a chubby Mexican girl with whom G hit it off almost immediately. I had no doubt this night was going to end well.

Feeling confident, I went to speak to Caron at her table. On the way over, I passed the tall, inordinately straight scarecrow-looking fellow. He was standing in the same place with the same plastered-on grin. I took a closer look and noticed a purple faux-pony knee-length overcoat, a purple faux-pony hat - think mid-90s Jamiroquai - and couldn't shake the sense that he looked familiar. He took his hands out of his pockets as I passed and that's when I saw them.

Purple fingernails.

Oh shit, is this guy doing the whole 'Mystery' look? Is he copying the renowned PUA from VH1's 'The Pickup Artist' and Neil Strauss' 'The Game'? Why the fuck would someone copy that look? It's dorky. Unless, of course...that IS 'Mystery?'

With that possibility churning in my brain, I reached Caron's table and sat down with her, half paying attention to our conversation and half to whatever Mystery was doing. Looking around the room during lulls in our conversation, I noticed he was engaged in conversation with a girl while a gaggle of dorky, overly-styled guys observed. Wait, is he teaching a class tonight? I took a closer look and realized not only were they his students but the girl they were watching him try to pick up was G. A few vodka-infused brain cells quickly coalesced into a thought - Mystery is picking up my girl!

I continued talking to Caron but doubt began seeping into my cerebellum. He's going to leave with her. Why not? What makes YOU so fucking special, Bill? She can leave with him, blow you off, and you'll always come back...right?

My adrenaline began to race. There was no WAY this freak was going to come up and seduce this girl. Impossible! I started breathing through my mouth. Every single insecurity I'd ever fought against -- about my personality, my looks, my career, and my sexual prowess -- boiled up in my flustered Irish face.

I walked up calmly and said 'Hey' to G as casually as I could. That familiar Stuart Smalley refrain began playing on a loop in my head -- I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit people like me -- while I figured out what the hell to do. Why are you feeling inferior, Bill? You make fun of Mystery whenever his name comes up in conversation! It's even in your standup act! He's not THAT fucking tall! You said he only picks up vapid strippers and girls who were touched in the no-spin zone by their uncles.

The second I entered into the equation, Mystery turned his entire focus onto me; just like it's detailed in 'The Game'. He zeroed in on me like I was the most interesting person on the planet - in fact, I was the man he was trying to platonically seduce...and then get rid of. I knew what was going on. I'd read about it. I suffered through the TV show--'sarging' when another guy's there. Kill him with kindness. I knew. But he didn't know I knew. And therein laid my advantage.

When he introduced himself, I asked him to repeat his name.

'Mr. C?' I asked.

'Mystery,' he said.

'Oh, okay.'

'Can I have a cigarette?' It was G. She was watching the slippery introduction, probably a little bemused.

'Why of course.' Mystery then deftly produced a cigarette. As she reached for it, he did a sleight of hand and it disappeared. 'You like magic?' G smiled. In my drunken stupor, it took me a second to realize that Mystery was talking to me.

Are you fucking kidding me!?

He was doing PICKUP 101. He was establishing 'value' now. He had already misdirected G when she reached for the cigarette and now he had her rapt attention. She had that smile on her face, the smiling eyes, even the tip of the tongue between the teeth. He gets to see that, too?

I feigned indifference, even though I do love a good live magic show. Mystery started to do all that fancy shit with the cigarette up the sleeve: where'd it go? Oh, it's back again, in the other hand! Now look - it's behind G's ear!!! Who knew?! I was starting to get bored. Then he did another skibbiddydobap! and presto! it was lit and in G's mouth.

Motherfucker! That totally trumps the balancing fork trick I do at 24-hour diners when I'm drunk!

Mystery rarely took his eyes off me and that fucking grin never left his fucking face. G took a long drag and stared right at him. Was she impressed? Amused? Attracted? It was hard to tell because G always looked like she was on the verge of a smirk, giving her an inscrutable Mona Lisa quality. It could just be her face. Maybe she has Bell's Palsy.

Why was I freaking out? Do magicians actually hold sway over women? It's true that a goofy Jew like David Cooperfield got Claudia Schieffer and it's TRUE that David Blaine was the most notorious member of Leonardo DiCaprio's 'pussy posse' in New York during the 90's, but come on! It's gay magic!! It's stupid!!!

That's when I noticed the other guys - his students -- hovering around. One even took out a notepad. The predator was closing in. They were salivating. They were going to learn how to steal a girl. From me!

Mystery started talking a blue streak, prattling on in never-ending sentences. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice said, 'Seriously Bill, who cares? Fuck this dude. You don't want to talk to him, do you? He's the annoying guy at the party who wants attention.'

"... and here we are at a really cool place sharing a unique experience in New York City - there's a community of all these incredible people and we're doing what a community should be doing: having a fun night out watching a show, sharing a good time...."

Mystery took a drag on the cigarette and turned to G: "...Sharing a cigarette..."

Without missing a beat and with the linguistic bravado of Mae West in 'I'm No Angel,' G said, 'Oh... are we? I almost forgot.' That smile again.

It was a coquettish dig at Mystery for hogging the cancer stick but in my escalatingly jealous noodle it sounded like 'My right leg is Christmas, my left leg is Easter - why don't you come and visit me between the holidays?'

Mystery, surprisingly, shut up for a second and handed the cigarette to G, who took a luxurious drag and blew it out through pursing and impossibly cherry lips. He swallowed, seemingly gathering himself, and launched back into his weird 'communitas' speech about art and humanity and shared experiences. I stared blankly. Was my boredom killing his game?

The chubby girl from Mexico City waddled up and cut through the tension with subliminal neon arrow signs pointing to her soul as she loudly proclaimed "how much fun" she was having. She even danced a little chimichanga merengue thing as she insinuated herself into the situation. She grabbed G, pulled her into her little chalupa fupa and said to Mystery, 'Oh my God, have you met G? Isn't she gorgeous?!'

Mystery instantly looked at me. He was trying to discern the nature of my relationship with G. If he knew that she had become my eternal elusive, that my throat constricted at the thought of her, that I've deleted her number from my cell phone on numerous occasions with the hope that she would cease to exist in my life, then maybe he would have relented. Or maybe he would have insisted on bedding her.

It was at that moment I realized I was not cool, not a stud, not even remotely a player in the game. I was a scared little boy who craved the affection and attention of women because of a terrible, dank well of insecurity that probably reached back to the time I reached for my mommy's breasts and got a bottle of SIMILAC instead. Maybe he saw a flash in my eyes; perhaps he saw the fear that, when mixed with alcohol, can catalyze a fireball of directionless violence. He spends his nights in bars. Of course he sees these things.

"Yes she is gorgeous. Honestly, I've been checking you out all night... but I don't want to step on any toes here." He gave me a pointed look. Was he asking for permission?

The lonely Mexican broke the looming tension around my pending response by leaning in and giving G a hug; the hug of old friends...or new friends with bottle service. Mystery saw his opening.

"Wow, look at this love! This is great. How about I get a hug, too?"

I saw it coming from a mile away: he would hug Senorita Lonely Corazon, cursorily, and then casually turn to G and give a lingering hug, with maybe a slight touch to indicate intention. Sure enough, he held out his arms wide...really wide. I was way ahead.

Mystery was going to try to pick up my eternal elusive. I kind of smiled at the serendipity: on a night where I'm feeling the most insecure about myself and my feelings for a woman, a world-renowned pickup artist decides MY woman is HIS 'target.'

I sat there watching, my mind drifting to my Brazilian jiu-jitsu training as my eyes trained in on Mystery's velvet and velour Willy Wonka overcoat. I focused on the lapels, basically forming a rope around his skinny neck. Slide the fingers towards the nape, thumb outside, lift the elbow up, and I would only have to pull down slight on the opposite lapel...

He quit hugging Tamale and, like clockwork, turned to G with his arms out.

.... If he resisted, I could just straight grip one lapel, reverse grip the other, for leverage I need to get his hips below mine, on the floor possibly..

He took the cigarette out of her mouth and went in for a hug.

... or do an arm drag and get behind him for a rear naked choke. 5 seconds til unconsciousness. He was long, it would be easy to get my hooks in...

His hands reached down slightly and the hug did, in fact, loiter...inappropriately so. He smelled her, made an invisible comment, and gave her a peck on the cheek.

By the time he pulled away, I had successfully, albeit hypothetically, choked out Mystery five or six different ways - a respectable number for a two year Brazilian jiujitsu blue belt. A small part of my brain locked onto this idea like pitbull jaws: fighting solves everything.

What's the worst that could happen? You choke the fucker out and G doesn't leave with you because she's mad? Well she's not leaving with his unconscious ass either.

Luckily, violent thoughts slowed my heart rate as I settled into my back-up plan. He was talking to G about the performers and the magic of the night or some shit, so I insinuated myself back into the conversation.

"You're a magician, right? You should get on a show like this?"

"Dude, lemme tell you, I used to do magic shows. Hundreds of them."

"What happened?" I asked immediately. I had forgotten that his failed magic career was the thing that kept him drunk and unglued during much of 'The Game.' Even I couldn't tell if I was being disingenuous with the question.

For a flicker, Mystery seemed a little flustered. He switched his attention between me a G a little too energetically.

"Well, I'm doing something else now and it's working out prrrrretty well for me."

I didn't say anything. The veneer of his super-secure, cooler-than-the-other-side-of-the-pillow aloofness was beginning to crack. I gestured to the cigarette that he had been sharing with G. I wanted it. He looked slightly confused, so I just snatched it out from his hand. I put in my mouth and inhaled my thoughts. The grin, magically, disappeared. The veneer was crumbling. I was sinking my hooks in. He was about to tap out.

"I'm doing Season 2 of the PICKUP ARTIST on VH1 right now." There it was. The clueless braggadocio that comes out when insecure douchebaggery is exposed. Tap out now, I thought.

"That a tv show?" I asked. This time I knew I was being disingenuous.

He turned and stared at G dramatically.

"Yes it is! And I am... THE PICKUP ARTIST." And, he's out.

If he had a cape, he would have swooshed it with a flourish. If he was Dracula, he would have swooshed the cape and turned into a bat. If he was a real magician, a cloud of smoke. Instead, he was just another formula-fed insecure man-boy, so he turned with a semi-triumphant semi-huff and went back to his booth.

I racked focus to see the guys observing the event suddenly turn away and pretend not to care. I saw him speak to a Latin-looking dude - who I later realized was 'Matador' or 'El Matador' - maybe explaining the reason he bailed on his sarge.

I wasn't sure either.

"Who the hell was that guy?" G smirked, as she exhaled and absently flicked the fading butt to the floor.

Several minutes later, I noticed Mystery at the booth with my friend Caron. At same point, the Mexican girl sat down next to him. And at some point they started making out. I couldn't help but think.... Hmmm, I guess like many of us, even the greatest pickup artist in the world, sometimes, has to settle for a 3am Taco Bell run.

I turned to G and put my hand on her ass.

'Let's get out of here.' Timeless. Classic.

She smiled at me with her singular smile, and I knew that, tonight at least, we would be lovers.

When we leave The Box, there is still more show left. But it's after 3am. She has work at 10am. And I, once more, have a case to make.

As the cab bounces uptown from the hurly-burly of hip south of Houston, our hands shyly find each other and interlace in silent communion.

Tomorrow, she will forget me. I know this. There will be cocktail parties and dates. There will be setups and more doctors and lawyers and other men her age entirely more suitable for her than a poor comic in his thirties.

There will be, for her, time and world enough.

A few hours earlier, I was on stage at the Laugh Factory in front of 200-plus USC fraternity brothers. They were rich, young, handsome trust fundish kids with Greek lettered t-shirts and the type of tooth whiteness that, until ten years ago, was only available to people with meth addictions and a bottle of 409 tile cleaner. Tan, young, fucking bastards. They probably still smelled each other's fingers.

Driving home at the peak of DUI hours, I found myself in the familiar and unenviable position of rolling logic algorithms around in my mind in an attempt to systematically break down the 'what the fuck?'-edness of yet another sentence set forth from a woman's mouth. The exercise was par for the course with women in Los Angeles.

I stopped myself short - both physically and emotionally. Deep breath, Bill. Use the tried and true Scientific Method. You have a theory about what's happening, so experiment and find evidence to prove your thesis. Drill down on the problem.

"What... are... you.. talking... about?" Right to the heart of the matter. I suppressed the urge to hurl every curse word I knew at her.

"The joker joke. It's just rude," she snorted back.

What a downer. While I'd adapted well to single life in Manhattan, the isolation and general sense of disconnect I've experienced in LA - my new home - has begun subtly rewiring my brain to want, and need, a companion. Sure, we'd only been seeing each other for a short time, but I liked Alison. I was looking forward to dating her.

Alison was beautiful and sexy with soft yogi skin and vocal tones. She was a booze hound, which juxtaposed nicely with her daily Buddhist chanting. Ironies in female behavior more and more seem to be what gets me out of bed in the morning. Plus, I took some comfort in the fact that it made it easier to get her naked. That being said, sex wasn't the point. It was more about having a new best friend who just happened to be gorgeous. We'd just had lunch that afternoon and spent two solid hours talking about books, movies, philosophy... and of course, spirituality.

I had to remind myself that it was 'okay'. It was okay that I found myself, once again, attracted to an archetypical 'spiritual actress.' I reminded myself that I am, at times, a spiritual actor. Come to think of it, at times I'm a spiritual actress.

If you don't know WHAT a spiritual actress is, let me explain it as succinctly as possible:

A 'spiritual actress' is an actress who doesn't work as an actress.

Because this 'actress' doesn't really work, period, she has hundreds upon thousands of hours to read 'The Secret' and Eckhart Tolle and every other self-help/new age/personal development book in the clearance bin at Borders. While I think self-improvement is a valid and worthwhile goal, I find it odd that NONE of the spiritual actresses I've dated (I'm drawn like moths to a flame) have ever found hilarious irony in the fact that they continually justify their needy, selfish, actress insecurities with the eternal, selfless, gentle platitudes of generosity and worth.

The image of two actresses in a casting office trying to out-Secret each other for a role before either has even auditioned would be funny if it weren't 100 percent accurate and observable on a daily basis. 'Spiritual actresses' have become one of those Hollywood clichés where the truth is always stranger than fiction. Go to any yoga class in LA and watch how many women immediately check their iphone to see if they got that call from their agent. No? Okay, I'll hang out at Coffee Bean and set up a small business for 4 hours.

But I digress.

As the show got into full swing, I got Alison a couple drinks from the bar, touched her and flirted with her, all while fulfilling my duties as a host. I was sure I was going home with her. This was the beginning of an awesome relationship. Maybe I'd have a girlfriend in LA my first week here..

Because life is all about the opposite of expectations, I destroyed with the fratboys. They listened politely during the set ups and went nuts during the punchlines. When I accused individual audience members of being gay, nerdy, or Asian, they took it as... well, as a joke. They loved it. It was one of those rare audiences that was the perfect amalgam of rowdy and polite; the type of audience that you always want but rarely get. I was loathe to leave the stage when the red light came on, but I relinquished control of the mic with the knowledge that, as host, I made this crowd come alive.

At some point in the second half of the show, while hanging out with Alison at the bar in the back of the room, I noticed that this particular crowd wasn't just hot. They were mantle-of-the-earth, molten magma-hot and it struck me that maybe it was time to get a hair dirtier. I got up onstage, brought the previous comic off-stage, and looked around. Young kids. Boys. They were eager for laughter, yes. But they were eager for something else, as well. They were eager for knowledge. Like most of my good sets, the right joke just popped out of a little box in my head and said, 'Yeah, do me! Fucking doo me, daddy! ' I smiled for a brief second and launched into it:

"Okay, I think it's time for a little Sex Ed. You're young, you're impressionable, and clearly most of you aren't getting laid, so let me give you some advice: you need to face the place. Eat at the "Y". Take the beef curtain call. That's right, fellas, you've GOTTA go down on your girls! You guys go down to the Chinatown fish market, right?"

There was a burst of errant rowdy clapping somewhere and some awkward appreciation for the erudition of my statement, but in general the kids had saucer eyes. A big creepy door just got opened and they were collectively peeking around the corner to see what the fuck was coming.

"Do it, guys, get in there. As a matter of fact, I think the same thing applies when Aunt Flo is in town.... I'm saying go down on your girls during their PERIOD! That's right, faggots! I don't care if it's a heavy flow day and her vagina looks like the elevator scene in The Shining. Be like Mike and JUST DO IT!"

This is the exciting part of the bit. People get uncomfortable; some, although I've made them laugh for 20 minutes already, are starting to distrust me and fold their arms Some groan and cover their ears while the hint of a heckle starts to bounce around the room. It's a delicate moment. I have to proceed cautiously now, like a surgeon.

'FUCK YOU, YOU PUSSIES!'

Okay, not like a surgeon. I have to corral them like a calf-roper. The calves are getting spooked. Time to bring them in, relaxed, and ready for the punchline.

"Hear me out, okay? Just hear me out first... Here's why: women are hornier on their periods! Right, two women here? They're hornier on their periods. But best of all guys, YOU can make it fun for yourselves. Here's what you do: get down there.... Really dig in... go for it (the miming gets people uncomfortable)... and then right when she gets that intense, I don't quite have control of myself, pre-orgasm face, come up abruptly, look her in the eyes and say...

.... WHY SOOOO SERIOUSSSS!?"

If my impersonation is on that night and the audience is following me, the reaction it gets is pretty remarkable. In my mind, it's the best laugh you can get - it's a laugh launched from bottled-up tension, from nervous energy, from fear that galvanizes into a roar straight from the collective gut of 200 people.

This was one of those nights. The joke tapped into a weird, aggressive energy locked inside those 19 year old libidos and the room exploded. So much so that I was unable to get out my tag: "Heath Ledger wasn't wearing make-up in that movie, he'd just gone down on an Olson twin! You're right - they have way too many eating disorders to have periods." Nope, the eruption started right as I licked my lips and stretched out the WHHYYYYYYYYY.

I brought up the next comic, hopped off stage and sat next to Alison to bask in the afterglow of the moment. About 30 minutes later, as the show wound to a close, Alison told me she had to 'get up early' and she promptly left.

Befuddled, I sat there drinking until it was time to go home. I got in my car, pulled away from the club and began calling her (perhaps a little too incessantly???) until she finally picked up the phone.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I can't believe you would tell personal things about us while you're onstage. People see me there with you - it's embarrassing."

"What... are... you... talking... about?"

"The joker joke."

"What? I wrote that bit like 3 days after the movie came out, long before I met you."

It's just a joke about going down on a woman during her period, I thought to myself.

"And besides.... I never went down on you during...."

I went down on you during your period!? Really!?

I don't know what was more disturbing: that I didn't remember going down on her during her period or that she didn't tell me when my tongue put in just south of the belly button ring and began its run through the Red River Valley.

The silence on the phone was deafening. Finally, I mustered a response.

"That joke had nothing to do with you. Trust me. And even if it did... you saw me do ONE of my stand-up jokes. ONE. And you fled the scene and avoided my calls because it offended your sensibilities?"

"Don't judge me! -- I'm just expressing my opinion."

"Don't judge you?" I felt an aneurysm forming in my left temple.

"Yes, it's not very enlightened to judge!"

I took a breath.

"Look: It doesn't matter, this clearly isn't going to work. I can't, for a second, worry about what I say onstage. Ever."

There was silence again. And like that, I knew it was over. Like every other spiritual actress on the planet, she couldn't and would NEVER realize the shortcomings in her logic... and neither would or could I.

We managed a terse but cordial goodnight. I deleted her number from my phone. Not out of some malevolent, impetuous need for comeuppance, but because I knew I would never, ever need it. It made me sad. I'd been intimate with this sweet girl and now I would probably never see her again. It made me a little heartbroken and lonely.

I looked in the rearview mirror, saw a tragic expression, and got a little spiritual with myself.

"Hey Bill.... WHY SOOOO SERIOUSSSSSS!?"

It made me laugh.

Hahaha. Fuck her.

I guess the point is that sometimes I felt like young Kobe when less-than-old Shaq was still with the Lakers. I just want to do MY thing.

This weekend, I get to do MY thing. I'm headlining at The Comedy Palace in San Diego for Valentine's Day Weekend. Although I have headlined some colleges before, it's really my first legitimate headlining gig at a club. I'm on the website and everything. So I think it's time I stretch my legs and push some boundaries.

Since Rudius has been good to me, ANYONE who goes to the show and says they are with RUDIUS MEDIA gets in absolutely FREE and anyone who orders tickets online and makes their reservation as "Rudius Family" gets in free as well.

There's a buffet and free champagne, but you really should buy lots of booze. I'm not worried though, I told the owner that's what Rudius readers do. As a further enticement, there will be ONE room at a nearby hotel for any derelicts to stay if they traveled and need a crash pad that night.

-- --- --

Who: ME, you sonuvabitch!
Where: The Comedy Palace , 8878 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, 92123
When: Friday, February 13th, 8pm and 10pm
Saturday, February 14th, 8pm and 10pm

Also, if anyone has a quality video camera who is willing to film it... I'll get you free booze all night and a cash prize to be disclosed to the interested party....

Thanks for the support over the years and maybe I'll see you a couple of you in San Diego!