Chucklef*ck Guerrilla Marketing Tactics.
You know what's so great about my blog readers? They sit around thinking to themselves, "How could I help out Carrie today?" That's because they're altruists- lovely, kind, smoking hot altruists and I love and appreciate them for it.
I'll take the guesswork out of it for you altruists today. Here are a couple of ways you could help me promote Chucklef*ck, which is at 8 at Bela Dubby at 13321 Madison THIS COMING MONDAY.

1) Show up.
2) Instead of calling someone an asshole, call them a Chucklehead. When they look confused, explain, "I guess it's that Chucklef*ck, Cleveland's Leading Monday Evening Alternative Comedy Show, is on my mind."
3) Get a Chucklef*ck tattoo on your face.
4) If someone mentions they like the following things recommend they go to Chucklef*ck: beer, coffee, live comedy, uncomfortable audiences, sloppy looking girls, Glengarry Glen Ross, inner ugliness.
5) Call your lover, "My little Chucklef*ck."
6) Name your genitals Chucklef*ck. Or F*cklechuck, or Chucklef*ckle, or Chucklefunk. Funklechunk is one deviation too far.
7) Pick up one of the handbills you will see soon at various local establishments and start jumping up and down yelling, "I can't wait! I can't wait! Why is monday so far away?!"

Be creative and make up your own viral marketing tactics! Keep in mind I have no money for bail.

GRIMEY NINETY TONIGHT.
Tonight!
Bassa Vita!
In the basement of Bottoms Up!
10:30!
7 bucks!
Drink specials!
Jim Florentine!
From Crank Yankers!
Mike Farrell hosts!
Joe Howard, Bill Squire, Chad Zumock, Carrie Callahan!
So exciting I'm referring to myself in the third person!

Also, let's not forget the Insane Comedy Contest this friday at Bassa. 10:00, a bunch of comedians afflicted with mental illness (which is kind of redundant), 5 bucks, buy a Schizo Bill t-shirt for 10 bucks, it keeps him in school and off of the streets.

Jokes 4 Kidz.

So what's up with school lunches? Those personal mexican pizzas are so gross. And way too small.

My mom told me to clean my room the other day. And I said to her, "make me!" And then she made me. But I was like, "Yeah, now who's taking orders from who?"

Most kids don't like their older sisters, but I love mine. She's really good at sharing stuff with me, like tv time, or candy, or head lice.

Shows, Girls, Movie Spoiler
Exciting things are afoot in Carrie-ville/Calla-hamlet. First of all- I have a show next wednesday at the Grimey Ninety with Joe Howard and Jim Florentine! That's the 28th, and then that friday (the 2nd) I am performing at Schizo Bill's Insane Comedy Contest. I'm not in the contest, although I believe I have some undiagnosed social anxiety. I think both shows are 5 dollars.
Then on Monday, March 5th, the show I (ME. ME. OVER HERE.) organized at Bela Dubby is at 8. It's called Chucklef*ck. The format is there's 5 performers, and we each get 10 minutes to do anything that we think will be received humorously by the audience. It's at 8 p.m., which is well before your bedtime, and it's free! It's the best deal in town!
On Monday I did 5 minutes at the Improv thanks to Schizo Bill. It was the first time I've performed with another girl in the lineup (excepting the Schwensen workshop). Her name is Felicia Gillespie and she was incredibly funny. Here's a video of her. I once told some people I'd never been in the same lineup as another girl, and that I didn't know what would happen if I was, and someone said, "Maybe you would both destroy eachother." Felicia is performing at the Grimey Ninety tomorrow at Bassa Vita, so get out of your disgusting house and see her in person.
And on the personal life front, I watched "The Departed" tonight. SPOILER ALERT.



Someone dies.

In Which I Own a Car in Winter for the First Time and Said Car Gets Stuck in the Driveway.
I was long in the tooth when I learned to drive. I was 23 before I got my license. And then I was 24 before I owned a car, the lovely Grace, a 94 Honda. I bought Grace in September, when all us girls still wore tank tops and rolled the windows down to stick our hands into the airstream. What a wonderful time that was.
Cleveland in the past week has had some precipitation. Something like 3 feet of cold white precipitation that just keeps coming and coming. The sidewalks on my street are a memory. Even downtown you have to scramble over a white dune to cross the street.
Long story short, coming back from Rockstar tonight my car got stuck at the entrance of my driveway. I nudged, and shoveled, and nudged, and shoveled for 40 minutes before I got her loose. I parked her on the street finally. When I got back to my driveway there was a raised platform of snow where my car had been.
Hmm, Cleveland winter. It's funny how my goal for this winter is just to get through it, to survive until the good part of the year, the warm part. Yet even with such a low goal I'm frustrated at every turn. I want lots of things- I want excitement, and action, and craziness. But really, I just want this winter to be done.
Nothing funny to say, what can you do?

Things to do on Valentine's Day When You're Dead.
Oh, love. Love, love, love. It's just so great. If it weren't for love, what would compel me to buy so much eyeliner? If it weren't for love, what would I watch the teenagers in Laguna Beach do? If it weren't for love, what mechanism would men use to destroy the integrity of my psyche?
There's no other holiday that makes me feel so dead inside. Well, maybe Secretary's Day.
How does someone whose cowed over with the disappointment of adult life celebrate Valentine's Day? With the following fun, fresh, glamorous cocktail!

"Single and Okay With It Goddamnit Stop Asking Me Just Leave Me in This Dark Corner With My Tears" Flirtini
vanilla vodka
pomegranate juice
lime
cherry nyquil
soak 3 nuva-rings in the liquid overnight

*for an extra sexy, flirty time, use in your bong!*

Nice Celebrities Visit Cleveland.
Ah, the glamorous life of a 24 year old, living in the mid-size city! Your imagination must be crackling with the parties, the intrigue, the beautiful people my weekends are populated with! Usually I prefer to be discreet about my activities, but I'll do you a favor just this once and let you in on the shenanigans.
My roommate and I went to Jim Gaffigan's 5 o'clock at the Lakewood Civic Auditorium. It was very funny. Afterwards we went through the autograph line with the intention of trying to convince him to hang out with us after the show. The audience was mostly old folks and families, who have to run to their cars to beat the rush, so the autograph line was actually manageable. This is what I said to Gaffigan:
"Hi I'm a comedian and we were wondering if you two were going out after the shows cause we would like to buy you drinks and we know this grilled cheese restaurant where they serve mojitos."
To which Gaffigan responded, "What's the name of the restaurant?" while gently herding me into pose formation so they could take the picture quicker.
But it's a pretty good picture.
I gave him my card with my phone number, like a goofball. He was super funny and nice to us afterwards, and so I forgive him for not calling us to hang out. Also, we probably seemed a little off.
So then I went with a friend to see The Apples in Stereo at the Grog Shop. And they were really good, and the lead singer was super super super friendly and complementary to the crowd.
So there you go- famous people treating Cleveland right. We have friends in high places. Friends we have to pay to see, which is the truest form of friendship.

Karma Chameleon.
Here's the deal: The Senate is moving to extend federal minimum wage laws to the Northern Mariana Islands, which has been our territory since 1975. Here's a good story about how awful it is to be a worker in the Northern Mariana Islands. Downsides to living there: no enforcement of labor law, lots of guest workers who can be summarily deported, bosses who can hold your paycheck indefinitely because the FLSA doesn't apply to you. Upsides to living there: the opportunities for character building!
You can send an email to your representative here about applying the labor and immigration protections the rest of us enjoy to the Northern Mariana Islands. If you do, leave a comment for this post, and for every 5 people who leave a comment I'll write a joke about the conditions there. Is it awful to joke about people who are suffering? Yes. Is it good to do something to alleviate suffering in your own country? Yes. So karmically we' re all gonna be even!

Also, the show at Rockstar last night went well, although it was freezing cold. Tonight I have a show in Mogadore Ohio, near Akron. It's at Sam's Tavern, 70 S. Cleveland Ave. at 9:30. Come on out and tell me which topics you'd rather hear about: abortions, rape, or my period?
Yay comedy!

Ways to Make Cleveland the Best City Ever. In Increasing Ridiculousness.
1) We need a drunk bus. We need a bus that will take you from Rocky River down Detroit to Clifton, then downtown to West Sixth, running every half hour from 10-3 on at least friday and saturdays. It needs to be free. The whole point of the bus would be that you can get to the Lakewood bars and the downtown bars without getting in your car.
2) We need to move the Beachland, the Grog Shop, Parish Hall, all the cool music places etc., to within 20 minutes of one another. Because sometimes a show sucks, but you don't want to drive 40 minutes to see another potentially sucky band.
3) We need a sex district. I mean, not where I live, but maybe in your neighborhood? That way when the bars let out and people don't know what to do with themselves, they could head to the sex district. Spending the big bucks! We can tax that shit!
4) We need a 24 hour beignet shop. Yeah, we would be ripping off New Orleans. It would be worth it. A beignet at 4 in the morning lets you know that God loves you, and has a plan for you, and life has meaning. Sweet powdery meaning.
5) We need a dangerous wild animal that is rarely sighted. Like maybe a tiger in edgewater park? Or a shark in lake erie? Or a pack of wild dogs around the Rock Hall?
6) We need less concerned activists and more total nutjobs. Instead of worrying about green space and sustainable housing, could someone please worry about organizing an open air orgy to protest the war? Especially now that it's 2 degrees out. IF YOU REALLY HATED WAR YOU WOULD HAVE SEX OUTSIDE IN THE SNOW. I would do it, but I want to withhold my judgment on the war until it's been over for 50 years. I think the president deserves that kind of respect.
7) We need a memorial to those we lost in the great river fire of 1969. The rest of the country would believe that people died, so let's just put the number at 1700. Let's say the victims were irish immigrants who lived on that hill right by St. Malachi's, and the St. Malachi's neon cross actually used to be just a regular cross until the fumes from the river on that fateful day made it into a neon one. Every St. Patrick's day let's have a candle light vigil, and then at the end of the vigil everyone jumps naked into the river. We had something like this at Ohio State for Michigan weekend.
8) We need crazy slang. I suggest we all pronounce "creperie" "crap-perie." People would recognize clevelanders all over the world!

To sum up: Sex+ drinking+ death+ foul language= best city in the country.

Advance Warning for Thursday.
So I have a show on thursday, starting at 10:30, at Rockstar which is right above Peabody's. It's free, your poor jerks.
This is the show to come out to. I can feel it deep in my bones. You know the feeling you get when you're about to be the most awesome thing the world has ever seen? Oh, you don't? That makes sense- well it's kind of like when you sleep on your hand and you have to shake it for 10 minutes before you can brush your teeth. That's what the expectation of phenomenal success feels like. But in your brain.
I'll be honing my instrument all week, so you won't see me wandering aimlessly as often. Also, I wrote new jokes, and they're the kind of jokes that not only make you laugh uproariously, but then they linger in your subconscious mind and the next day they teach you an important life lesson.
I'm motherfucking kokopelli.