Happy Birthday, Peanut Butter!

Here's a project birthday girl and fellow Fredonia Alum Sarah Jackson is working on. I thought I'd blog about it in case George Soros is reading this and is looking for a place to spread his funds. (Spread? Peanut butter joke! I'm on fire at 9 am!) From Sarah:

Project Peanut Butter produces and distributes a therapeutic food called Plumpy'nut which saves a gazillion lives in the poorest African countries. I've set up a ChipIn on my blog, a totally safe and secure PayPal account, where you can donate anywhere from 1 dollar to one million dollars. (If you're going for the latter, I have to assume you are my friend Richie Rich who is so rich he named his dog Dollar!) 100% of the proceeds go to Project Peanut Butter. Read all about it here...

http://www.sarahcentric.com/a-birthday-of-service

Times are tough right now, so I'm counting on word of mouth to reach my goal of $1,125. That's enough to save all the children in three African villages. (If that's not enough, how about the number 125. You know, 1/25, like my birthday.)

Inauguration Day

Congratulations, America! We did it. Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States!


I took this last week. On a billboard outside the Broadway stop on the N in Astoria, Queens.


I spotted this New Year's Eve in the window of Big Fun toy store in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

Related: Here are all my posts about Barack Obama. If you get to the end of the page, click older posts for more. He and I go way b(l)ack.

New York, NY, a helluva town...

There I was, bouncing like the silver sphere in a pinball machine, between the suddenly scalding hot water coming out of the showerhead and the steaming hot heating pipe at the end of the tub. I burnt my left ass cheek, left elbow and stomach - all after having scraped my right upper thigh on the doorway to the kitchen. Why are New York apartments so small? And when did I stop being able to function in one?

I remember when I lived on 116th Street, every time I'd shave my legs, the shower door would pop open in rhythm with me bending down for a hairy swipe of the razor, resulting in a clown's version of a Fosse dance. "Bend down, swipe up, head pops, door opens, arm out, tuck it in, bend down..."

I realize now that New York women stay thin not just out of vanity, or a desire to appeal to the opposite sex, but for practical reasons, too. It's okay to have a welt on your ass and a cut on your upper thigh once-in-a-while, but if it happens too frequently, people are gonna start to wonder what's going on.

Consider This Your Invitation

Couple Things

1.) The extreme cold in New York makes it difficult to tell the difference between crazy bag ladies and women who are just overly bundled shopoholics. Especially if they're mumbling to themselves. (Both are equally likely to do so, which kind of levels the playing field.)

2) Just finished David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed in Flames. LOL'd throughout.

3) This is what Times Square looks like right now:



Is it your time to quit? See the last chapter ("The Smoking Section") of the aforementioned book for more inspiration.



LovETC. I second that emoticon.



War Is Over/In the Heights. Yoko and Lin as next door nabes.



Comedian Success = Trash. I wonder if I'll ever have my own can...

50 First Jokes

Happy New Year! I can't think of a better way to start the year in blogging than with a photo recap of 50 First Jokes, courtesy of Maryanne Ventrice.



Congrats to Jiwon and Claudia for getting the show listed in the Times (see below)! Wahoo! Later I'll upload my picture of the line curving around the block. What?! And it was for us! Take that, Dave Ralph! How's that for feelin' like a rockstar, huh?



If you weren't there, this slideshow will make you wish you had been. Or feel like you were - cuz it's that good!



Here's that still of me again, cuz this is my blog and I like to be reminded that '09 should be the year I kick that triple chin:



Also, I look terrible in this photo, but this proves I met Jackie Kashian, who seems super-cool and nice and is of course (as everyone knows) very funny:



The crowd:



I'm honored to have been part of the show for all three years now, as one of the 50 best - if not 50th best - comic in New York without a paying gig that conflicts. The first year (2007), we all told the first joke we'd ever written. I talked about how when I first started, I didn't really write jokes so much as re-purpose my Dad's one-liners, thinly veiled in mock disdain.

My Dad is so crazy! Imagine going out to dinner with a guy who says things like, "Get me a rubber band sandwich, and make it snappy!" It's so annoying! "I like my coffee the same way I like my women - hot and black."

My father was always a comedic source of inspiration for me, so when I found out last new year's eve that he had cancer, it was only fitting I talk about it on stage:


Carolyn Castiglia at 2008's Fifty First Jokes from CarolynCastiglia on Vimeo.

Footage courtesy of Adam Newman.

That said, here it is... my first joke of 2009:

50 First Jokes has been sort of a rite of passage for me. Last year I stood up here and announced that I just found out my father had lung cancer, and he died a few days later. So this year, I'm announcing that I'm getting divorced. We'll see what happens to my husband! A girl can dream... a girl can dream. No, I'm just kidding! He has to pay child support - I'm a comic. It's too bad my husband and I are getting divorced, because I like fucking him, I just don't fucking like him... And that little turn of phrase reminds me of our three-year-old daughter. I was at my friend Laura's wedding, and my daughter was dancing with another little boy who was there. And Laura, when she saw them, shouted, "Oh my God, that is so fucking cute!" The boy's mother was standing right there, and she's pretty religious, so she shot Laura a disapproving look, and I said, "Well, don't feel bad. At least you didn't say 'Oh my God! It's so cute that they're fucking!'"