ELEGY for "GO BANANAS"

For year’s now, I’ve been “going bananas” trying to find the Snapple ”Go Bananas” flavor in delis who would sell it consistently and now they’re discontinuing it! :(

*SNIFF* I loved Snapple! We had something special and beautiful together. I’d pay them money and  they’d give me banana juice & Real Facts. I can;t live without that relationship.

Hey, Snapple, here’s a Real Fact for you: “One of Snapple’s best customers doesn’t know if he can go on living without “Go Bananas”!

*SOB* 

Do you even know how hard it is to find bottled banana juice in stores in the tri-state area? I have to drive an hour away to Corrado’s! Once there, I endure the sights, sounds and smells of disgusting, international, third-world goat parts, cattle genitalia and the stench of a thousand rotting cheeses! 

My investigations have led me to several deli workers that stock shelves and order the shipments who claim Snapple canceled that glorious, liquid-orgasm of a juice product  because of quickly spoiling puree and lack of popularity. Really? Diet Coke works as a spermicide but you can’t improve your puree?

Some creative marketing was all it would’ve taken to keep the love of my life on shelves. People I’ve talked to over the years have never even heard of banana Snapple!

*SIGH* If only there was some way I could go campaigning to make this a non-private sectror issue. Shit, I gotta get me a Super PAC, before those are (hopefully) discontinued as well. 

Sincerely and with all due respect,                                                                                                                                 The Rev. Sir, Dr. Kevin M. Kinnelon-Piastra, P.H.D. (Piastra Honorary Doctorate)                                          Dictated, not read.

FACEBOOK POLITICS

Hey! How y'all doing tonight? It's 3:30 in the afternoon?

Oh well. Anyway, it's been a hell of a while since I talked to you folks. I guess you could say I took a blogging hiatus, even though most people who call themselves bloggers got to be that way from taking one too many a hiatus. But I digress.

I wanted to talk to you today about a touchy subject, a topic most comedians don't like to discuss for fear that it alienates their audience members and shoos off potential fans. Controversy should usually be avoided! I speak, of course, about...FaceBook!

Hahaha, you thought I was gonna say "politics!" didn't you? Well, I'm an unpredictable guy. Hell, I might even be so wild as to not spell-check this post.

Alright, so really, I just wanted to share with you an encounter I experienced about fourteen minutes ago.
The following is a funny, true conversation I had with an old classmate (haven't seen him in years!) on FaceBook. Feel free to forward it in your E-Mails. We’ll call him Bob:

BOB: A black, a Muslim, and a communist walk into a bar. The bartender says “what can I get you to drink, Mr. President?”

KEVIN PIASTRA: half black, not Muslim, and not even almost a Socialist.

BOB: I’m entitled to my beliefs.

KP: Why would you want to believe something that’s been proven false? One plus one isn’t five, but you’re entitled to believe that too.

BOB: That’s all I ask.

KP: A racist, a bigot, and a stubborn/closed-minded guy walk into a bar, the bartender says, “What can I get ya, Bob?”

BOB: Too far, Kev, too far.

KP: Not as far as your joke.

----------E N D T R A N S C R I P T------------

NO ONE CAN MAKE YOU FEEL INFERIOR WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT

“If someone is trying to ostracize you it means you ARE different, and God bless you because there’s a great premium on originality!”
--Kevin Piastra

I totally understand insults and hitting below the belt from strangers sucks, it really does.

However, you shouldn’t let those nasty bastards get to you. There are simply TONS of people online who TRY to bully anyone they can. This is because they are the sick, dumb, depressed lowlifes.

Folks have bullied me on Twitter and my close friend was going at it with some limey, British bastards for almost 5 years on YouTube! This stuff happens all the time—okay, too often.
But after a while I learned to get over it. After a week or two I stopped trying to get back at this Twitter guy, who was calling me “an ugly faggot who isn’t funny!” Well, guess what? Since I decided to not respond, he went away! I never heard from this guy again!

On the Internet, there is a name for people who sign up for social networking accounts for the sole purpose of trying to spread misery to others. These people are called TROLLS.

TROLLS are those who never grow out of 8th grade bullying, and their only purpose online is to try to get attention from people by insulting them. This is because no one cares about TROLLS in life!

What you can try to do is turn their cruelty into a positive piece of entertainment. It’s like how late-night hosts take political clips or videos of celebs out of context to poke fun at them, because they’re hard to make fun of in any other way.

Responding with anger/sadness to these haters/bullies GIVES them the power they’re after. That is not how you want to handle a bully. You shouldn’t get even; you should employ Kung-Fu philosophy on your attacker: “defend, don’t attack; and use your enemy’s attacks against them”.

Bullies have attacked THE BEST of public figures. Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, EVERY politician, Larry David. These famous people, for the most part, know how to handle the pressure of public scrutiny.

Comedians and politicians know that it’s a very good idea to make fun of their-selves before others get a chance to. This way, a bully figures, “Well, he already made fun of himself, so how hurt could he be by what I have to say?”

TROLLS are the ones who are truly suffering. They just want to spread their pain. Misery loves company right? So, by making fun of their insults, I owned it.

Acknowledging a bully in any other way would be giving them power. The best way to get back to people like Sean Hannity, for example, would be to boycott his show and dismiss his validity. NOTHING PISSES OFF A BULLY OFF MORE!

Sometimes you’re being attacked out of jealousy, and a lot of people are good at masking their jealousy with annoying cruelty.

Anyway...

DAY 4: THAT OUGHT TO KEEP YOU SATISFIED...FOR A WHILE

I almost forgot about you guys! Wouldn't that be awful? I don't want to leave all of you alone, sitting in front of your monitors staring at this blog, refreshing the page every 5 seconds in desperate anticipation of the next thing I shoot onto here. I am so (sarcastically) sorry for the delay!

Okay, today's topic will digress from my usual rantings about how behind I still am with my file system. Instead, we shall discuss...wow this iPad seems to be getting smaller--okay, never mind.

Um, err, yeah. I ain't got nothin', alright?! I lost contact with my muse!

Nah, I'm just kiddin'!

We're gonna talk about something besides myself for today. Hooray for those of you who read this stuff, but actually don't care about the author!

Skittles are amazing! I've expressed that on twitter many times, and I am gleefully filled to the jolly brim with joy that they not only direct awesomely hilarious TV ads and they taste friggin' so great it cannot be described in words but has to be experienced by yourself, but they have a Twitter! They tweet funny one-liners that I treasure and Jesus Christ I wish they'd sponsor me!

Go out and get some dam. skittles already! What are you waiting for? Come on, BEFORE Jesus gets back!!!

I'm gonna have me a bag right now :)

Love,


And of course,



Posted using BlogPress

DAY THREE: I'M EARLY!

Well, if you read my last post you'd be aware of my itinerary for today. I am dissapointed to report that, although I awoke at 6:30, I did not write in bed today. It's a good exercise for writers for many reasons, but I didn't do it this morning.
Secondly, I only walked around the block 1 lap. I was supposed to do 5 more than that.
However, I did eat a really healthy brekafast and now I'm blogging some stuff for you folks (mostly for myself though, really).

Now, the challenge I face once this thing is uploaded is...reworking my entire filing system and organizing ALL my stand-up comedy material (written, recorded, audio/video). I have been trying to get this done forever! Unfortunately, the constant generating of ideas has overwhelmed my ability to document myself. This has really proved problematic since I have been coming up with shorter bits and one-liners over the past year and a half.
Beleive me, whne you have so many jokes on so many different topics, and you've been so lazy taht you filed said jokes into a folder titled "ORGANIZE THESE", you've got your work cut out for you.

But that is my mission for this week, trying to beat the clock, getting computer files easier to navigate all while my brain contsantly comes up with more crap in the meantime. The "comedy gland" in my mind is on automatic pilot and I basically can't switch it off.
In fact, the only time I am able to come off as serious is on this blog and a few other places across "The Internets".

So, that's the update for today. I'd uopload a pic but that feature isn't working at the moment!

DAY 2: I'M LATE!

So, they passed the Gay Marriage bill in New York! Awesome, good for them. It's been long awaited.

Anyway, I'm late once again with the blog post as I was hoping to get this done early in the morning today.
But I don't really have a specific topic this afternoon, I'm just spacing out, thinking idle thoughts. For example: this picture of my mom on a trip in LA last Summer. I think it's funny, but you'd have to know her.




By the way, just because I promised you folks a post a day for 4 days in a row, this does not mean I have to make each entry a specific length.
Keep in mind, I am quite tired lately and I have tons of work to catch up on before I get back on track with the whole "open-mic" thing. But when I have a date and a location ready for my next set I will let all of you know. It should be sometime this month. If not, then I'll be playing plenty of places all next month and August as well.

I would've had a wonderful chance to get some stuff done if I had waken up at 6:30 this morning to follow an itinerary I wrote up for myself last evening. Looks like THAT schedule has been pushed to tomorrow.

Here's what that schedule looks like:


•6:30AM-- As soon as I wake up, reach over to night stand, grab pen and notebook. Free write for 15 minutes.

•6:45AM-- Walk around the block six laps.

•7:50AM-- Eat a healthy breakfast.

•8:01AM-- Do today's blog post.

•8:22AM-- Work for at least 2 hours filing and organizing all my files of my written work (including stand-up comedy material)

•10:22AM-- Take a break from the computer. Talk to some actual human beings!

•11:00AM-- Continue reading that good book I like.

•12:00PM-- Healthy lunch

•12:32PM-- Back to work! Another 2 hours of reworking the filing system.

•2:32PM-- Go out to a bunch of places with family.

•7:15PM-- Healthy Dinner

THE REST IS FREE TIME.


- Posted using something on my iPad

DAY 1: AS PROMISED

It is 3:36PM as I am write this. I had originally intended to post this entry around 8:00AM, but I've had issues waking up lately.

So, I figured I'd share with you something that is a bit more on the serious side. I hope you do not get upset by opinion essays, but that is the genre I am delving into today. I mean, we're not exactly The Huffington Post over here. Sorry, that's the way it is, but its MY blog, I'll do it MY way!

Anyway, allow me to introduce the topic: My opposition to ban books in a school library.

Banning books is a violation of our First Amendment rights. If someone is offended by a particular book, they have the choice to not read it--maybe even t not let their kid read it. However, trying to control other people's intake of media content is just plain wrong. A parent has no right to force an entire school to restrict its whole student body, faculty and staff from reading a book.

I find the act of book-banning to be deplorable and that school's moves to ban books will severely result in the degradation of this country's intellectual standing in the world. Parents these days should consider themselves lucky to have their child reading at all! Fewer and fewer children in this country are opening books these days. (Hell, my high school didn't even assign Summer reading for next years Seniors this year!) Ban a book? I thought banning video games was bad, but this is ridiculous!

Sheltering a high-school student from various content is hurting his or her coping, reasoning and perceptions of the real world. A parent's primary job is to prepare their young ones to mature and develop into happy and successful adults, however, censorship only diminishes their experience and holds back a teen's ability to deal with reality.

I say we should get rid of the atrocious abomination "Banned Book Week", seeing that all it really does is inadvertently teach kids that pretending something isn't there or ignoring it, fixes the problem. Denial is not an effective coping strategy, and trying to restrain people's intake is negligent and disrespectful of their rights and choices.

Let me ask a question: If other people, heaven forbid, do somehow manage to become morally and mentally corrupted in their thoughts and actions, simply through the reading of a book, how does that effect your life or your child? Who made you a hero? Stop trying to be a crusader. You may be allowed to tell your kids what they can't read, but how do you know that these books will affect others in the same way?

Tell you what, if people you know become corrupted from what they read, then you can just cut yourself off from those people. After all, it is not what's in the book, it is how our minds process the information. All you have to do is teach your children right from wrong, and to not believe everything what they read. This way, they can (AND SHOULD!) decide for themselves what is questionable.