once upon a time, pogo said......

every thing that happens does so as the result of other things happening. back in the early part of the century when gw bush and (he's a) dick cheney the regulations pertaining to the oil business were relaxed across the board. not only that members of the mms were chummy with the oil companies and often went right to work for them after leaving the government. those still our the national payroll were, according to recent press releases, using drugs and watching porn while at work. they took bribes oh, excuse me, gifts, from the oil companies such as dinners, nights at the theaters and baseball tickets.

british petroleum has been one of the major culprits when it come to safety regulations and their two refineries in the united states accounted for 97% of all the complaints regarding that industry. 97%.!!!! their refinery in houston exploded killing 30 people and they paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines but they did not fix the problems and paid hundred of millions more. they paid the highest osha fine ever levied against an oil company.

so why are we surprised when a bp well blew up in the gulf and threatens to engulf the whole region in a disaster that may take decades upon decades to recover from? who would have thunk it??? an unregulated, greedy, accident prone, foreign oil company that has a history of safety violations, drilling for oil in an area that USED TO BE off limits, right off the gulf coast where the environment is especially fragile all at a mile below the sea where apparently no-one has a clue as to what to do if something goes wrong. WHAT DID WE EXPECT TO HAPPEN? with all of that, a disaster such as the one we have had to happen eventually. it had to; what else could have happened? if not this time, the next or the one after that...but it was going to happen. and now it has. and it may take us a hundred years, if ever, to recuperate from it.

we let bush deregulate the oil companies and then to really top it off, deregulate the financial markets as well. what could wrong with that? and then to make sure that every last dime was extracted from the unsuspecting american public, the whole propaganda system went into full tilt boogie and convinced the aforementioned public that the price of homes really did go up 20% or more per year (while wages remained stagnant) and would do so, why fucking forever..don't you know. FLIP THIS HOUSE! GET A SECOND MORTGAGE! it will keep going up. hey, here's and idea, let's let people with poor credit buy homes at inflated prices and then have their payments quintuple up in a couple of years. what could go wrong with that? sure they couldn't pay their bills before (hence the bad fucking credit) but somehow, miraculously (hey this is america..don't cha know, all things are possible..lol) they would find a way to pay the huge payment coming due. and then bundle up these toxic mortages together and sell them to someone else as, are you ready for the punchline???.......(drum roll please....)..an INVESTMENT!

we are in the shape we are as a country because we as a people weren't fucking paying attention or as pogo said, "we have met the enemy and it is us."

vegas comedy school.

i haven't put anything up here for quite some time mainly because i have become addicted to face book and do most of my ranting and raving there. however, since i am starting a comedy school here in vegas, hopefully in july, i thought it would behoove me to write something about the school and why i am doing it.

the school will be a 6 week course and is modeled after les mc curdy's comedy school in sarasota. it will consist of group and individual instruction and will cover things such as writing and telling jokes, how to write material out of your life or stories out of the newspapers, how to use the mic, stagecraft, finding work as comic and how to find agents and managers.

the course is not just for people who want to get into comedy or people who have already started in comedy but want to improve all their skills but also for anyone who does public speaking or has to give seminars or presentations in their work. just knowing how to tell a joke helps anyone who has to be in front of an audience. for instance; the average attention span during a seminar or presentation is about 5-7 minutes depending on subject and speaker but if you know 5 good jokes and how to tell them you can use that knowledge and skill to break up the presentation and get the audience back.

before i became a comic i was a hot shot sales trainer which led me to high office in the publishing business (macmillan, grolier, british printing) and later as a consultant to some huge companies, (itt, aig, general electric, john hancock life, among others). in all of my training sessions i used humor to get points across. as a comic, i have performed thousands upon thousands of shows and have appeared on 38 different television shows plus one really bad movie. my reviews have been to die for and some are listed here on my website.

i am now almost 68 years old and though i have left a legacy of sorts, 5 c.d.'s and 4 dvd's so far, i would also like to help people get into what i consider to be the best job in the whole world. is it easy? of course not. can i teach someone to be funny? no, i can't but if they have "funny" in them i can show them how to bring it out. i can help them get over "stage fright" if it is holding them back in their present job. and on top of that, the course will be fun and students will have a great time.

for anyone taking the course, they also get free tickets to several comedy shows here in town and i will always be available to them for any follow-up that they feel they need.

well, that is my little sales pitch for the school. anyone who is interested can write me at hrshock@cox.net.