i hate it | Erin Jackson | Stand-Up Comedian

Someone stole my car. But they took so much more.

This is all that’s left of my car.

Someone stole it early yesterday morning. There were 7 car break-ins on my block, but mine appears to be the only one that was taken. As y’all know I need my car to do my job. Travel is a huge part of being a comic and if I can’t get from one gig to the next… well you understand.

The insurance company tried to comfort me by telling me that 65% of all stolen cars are recovered. But that means very little when I have to be in Jersey tomorrow nite and had to pay to rent a car on my own. And the 35% chance of having to get a new car (not new, new though. I’ll never do that again) when I have exactly no money is so frightening.

The thing I will never understand (and I’m aware that this is going to sound awful) is why people who don’t have much and live in the hood steal from other people in the hood… It’s like if you have to take sh!t, go to the high-rent districts where people have cars to spare. We’re over here trying to make it just like them. They stole my 10-year old Corolla which has been awesome and hella reliable but also had just 3 hubcaps, lots of scratches and a big dent on the right side. It’s pretty obvious that that’s all I have. The GPS I was gifted that helps me out when I’m working on the road, my video camera, tripod… all of that was in there. I have no idea how I’m gonna recoup that considering the Blue Book of the car is less than $2,000 and well, I’m a comedian who’s had a very slow summer. It was worth so much more.

They gotta find it. That’s it.

Marie Claire chose me and I didn’t even know it

Well, this brightened up my day… I can’t even lie.

I decided to Google to see what “Bad Date Stories” made it onto the Marie Claire website. You remember that post I did a few weeks back… Well I checked it and as I was scrolling thru the 27 Worst Date Stories article, I saw mine! They didn’t let me know but they posted it. So HOORAY!

And they did a great editing job! You can click the photo for a larger image or click the link below to view it online. I’m No. 4 of 28:

http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/relationship-issues/articles/bad-date-stories

David Letterman’s ‘apology’ and my first real hate mail

I was quoted in this article in the Style section of Saturday’s Washington Post about the David Letterman/Sarah Palin ‘feud’. If you don’t feel like reading the entire article, here’s what was attributed to me:

Letterman shouldn’t apologize, if only to preserve the comedian’s prerogative to satirize the powerful and to be offensive on occasion, says Erin Jackson, a rising local stand-up comic. “People read things into jokes that you never meant and never intended,” she says. “If [Letterman] got into a cycle of apologizing for a joke or comment, you don’t know where it would stop, or how far back you’d have to go to satisfy everyone. I don’t think he can be who he is if he started doing that.”

Adds Jackson: “When you give it to everyone equally, as Letterman does, as all the late-night people do, you kind of have to take it. It’s like demanding an apology from the National Enquirer — it’s better to just get over it.”

The writer made it clear to me that he didn’t want to examine the political angle of the story — he just wanted the opinion of a comedian on whether or not it was a good idea professionally for Letterman to offer an apology. I’ve offered quotes for articles before, but this weekend was the first time I’ve ever gotten negative e-mails about my comments. Sure I’ve gotten random, anonymous comments on YouTube, etc. But this was full-blown “I’m gonna give you a piece of my mind AND my first and last name and e-mail address.” You know, grown and sexy hate mail.Â The first message came at like 1 in the morning. I was out with friends and heard the Berry go off. I was crossing my fingers hard for an unexpected booty call …

Nope, just hate mail.

Continue reading →

Replacement players

So I was watching my daily hour of “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” this morning and each of the two episodes they showed had a different “Aunt Viv.” Now I LOVED this show. I actually cried during the final episode. Yeah, I know… But I was never really comfortable with Daphne Reid replacing the uber fabulous Janet Hubert — who left the show over contract/salary issues. Don’t get me wrong — I like Daphne Reid, it’s just that in my opinion she didn’t ooze bougie-Black-fab quite like the first Aunt Viv.

And that got me to thinking about other shows I liked who swapped out actors in the same role. And I thought about Lionel Jefferson from “The Jeffersons” and “All in the Family.” If like myself, you are a student of these shows (pats self of back ;) you’ll remember that the first Lionel left and was replaced by the second Lionel, and then returned a few seasons later. Crazy. I was always partial to the middle Lionel. I thought he was handsome ;) My mom went to high school with one of them, but I can never remember which one…

And how could I do a post like this without mentioning the two Becky’s on “Roseanne.” Becky 1.0 left the show to go to college — which of course you can’t hate on. But as much as I loved her on Scrubs, I never liked Sarah Chalke as Becky 2.0. Maybe it’s because I really loved that show and I’m averse to change. Maybe it’s because the second Becky was a little too pretty and polished for the Connor family… Who can say for sure? But I never quite bought it.

There’s really no point to this post other than to say that if you’re having contract disputes or actors have to leave your show because of personal issues, instead of replacing them, you should do what they did on “Family Matters” and write that character out of the script with no explanation.

Remember Judy Winslow?

When she left the show, they didn’t replace her. They didn’t create a storyline to explain why she vanished. They just acted like she never existed and made the rest of America wonder, “Are we crazy, or wasn’t there another kid on this show?” That’s the way you do it, Hollywood. Like when a character got whacked on “The Sopranos”…That’s just the end of that. Sure that dismissal probably had a lot to do with her turning to a career in adult films, but what are you gonna do?

I was going to write a conclusion sentence or two to this entry, but I’m drained and I’m sleepy so I’m just gonna take a nap instead. Because I can.

Get Fine ’09 – Pt. 1

There is nothing more discouraging than deciding to get in shape and realizing you can’t fit any of your old gym clothes. Literally y’all, I am working out so that I can fit into my sports bra.

My jogging/walking outfits are embarrassing. Today I just threw on a top and a bottom that looked relatively absorbent, topped it off with a GAP baseball cap and hit the road. I don’t have a fannypack (because well, for the same reason you don’t) so my blackberry was bulging from my capri sweatpants pocket. And the tennis shoes I was wearing — let’s just say there may be some photos of me wearing these same tennis shoes in college. During my cool down I passed another jogger – a very fit woman wearing a very cute jogging suit, and I was envious. Not of her figure, but of her color coordination. Yet I refuse to go out and buy cute workout clothes when I have perfectly good ones collecting dust at home.

Exhale… I’m gonna keep my head up though because in the words of the great philosopher Justin Timberlake, I gotta “get my sexy ONNNNN!” Operation Get Fine in ’09 is going well so far. Wish me luck!

Buy a belt

I absolutely hate saggy pants. I thought this trend was fading out a few years back, but I’m realizing that was probably because the men I saw and dealt with on a regular basis had more sense than to leave the house and show their ‘literal’ asses. I remember a few years ago there was this movement to criminalize sagging in a lot of states… Not sure how many actually adopted it. But I found this chart online. It’s from the PD in Flint, MI where sagging has been outlawed.

I love how the option for the penalty is a $500 fine or 93 days to a year in lockup. I bet after just one day in jail these fools would have their jeans belted up around their necks. I wonder how this is working out. Being relatively familiar with the population in Flint, I imagine they would quickly run out of room in the jails if they were diligently enforcing this. Plus there’s a lot more work the PD there could be doing instead. Tu sabes? I dunno. I just thought this was funny.

Good Times: Aren’t we lucky we have them?

Yeah so I’m cold.

Why don’t you turn on the heat, Erin?

Good question.

The answer: Because I can’t. My condo was refurbished from an old apartment building, so while it’s super cute and all the appliances were new when I moved in, I don’t have central air/heat. We have window units and radiators…

So just open the radiator, Erin.

Again, good suggestion.

My response: I could do that, but no heat would come out. A few weeks ago after a brief warm spell our property management company turned off the heat for the spring. And we can’t turn it on again because we were robbed by our previous property management company and as of right now are working on suing them and replenishing the reserve money they stole from us. In short, we cannot currently afford to turn the heat back on.

Yes, that is very project-ish — especially considering I pay a mortgage and association fees… I should not have to sit in my house with my oven open…

But I’m doing it. And don’t you dare judge me… I’ll clean my oven when I thaw out.

Sure the hat and scarf may be a little overly dramatic — but that’s what I do.

There are other factors contributing to my freezing my butt off and this cold I can’t get rid of. Reasons I won’t get into here. But I have a neighbors who are sick and many of us are wearing full-on winter outfits around the house and to bed (don’t worry about how I know ;). I have to go into the studio tonight and shoot 3 radio segments — I can’t breathe through my nose and I sound like crap. I know I sound like I’m whining, and I don’t mean it to come off that way. I was going more for PISSED OFF!!! Thank goodness for my Snuggies –Â and the fact that my place isn’t very big. When I cook in the summer I often complain about how hot the place gets. Today there are no complaints.

My upstairs neighbor Rafeal laughed at me last week when I told him about my oven warming. He said he hadn’t heard about anyone doing that in years. Sure, I feel like I climbed right out of an episode of Good Times…

(Just looking outta the window…)

But it gets the job done.

Pissed, cold and congested,

What do you mean you don’t have any more washcloths a.k.a. The worst hotel ever

I knew it was going to be bad when the key to the room was a key…

with the room number engraved right on it.

Convenient if you happen to forget which room you’re in, but not so convenient, as the hilarious Matt Kirshen pointed out, should you forget your key at the bar…

I was at an event where the host hotel billed itself as a “resort.” I beg to differ. $178 a nite for a hotel right out of 1960 and a room with no window, no thermostat, and no bath linens.

Where should I start?… How about the 4:15 check in time. Yes, you read right. I got there a little after 1 p.m. and figured at most I’d have to wait until 2 to check in. Nope 4 p.m. There were tons of other people waiting in the lobby too. I went back to my car and waited.

Then when I finally did get into the [tiny ass] room, it was FREEZING. I immediately started looking for the thermostat, but when I couldn’t find it after a few minutes I called down to the front desk for some help.”Are you in the big room or the small room?” the lady asked me. To which I replied, “I can’t imagine this is the big room, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the small one. It’s freezing in here.” She then went on to explain that the thermostat was controlled by the guests in the larger room attached to mine.

“So we have to agree on whether we’re hot or cold?”

“Well, yes ma’am. But there should be an extra blanket in the armoire.” Continue reading →