Hangin' like Jesus on the cross.

Working the job, working(ever so slowly) on the house, and just general living got put aside for a bit as I took a little overnight trip to Vegas. It was sorely, sorely needed and super fun. I was a little upset that the movie theater I often go to closed, but overall, the trip was a success, as I gambled for about eight hours, and made a profit of 182 dollars, after I deducted the cost of my room, cab fare, and meals. I used to take the bus in Vegas, as it's cheap and reliable, but since I take the bus all the time at home, I figured splurging on a cab ride or three would be worth it, and boy oh boy, was it ever! So much easier than the Deuce bus, even if you don't have anyone to split the cost with.

It is ever so rare these days to see a band with some decent lyrics and a semi-unique sound. Shitty name though. The Airborne Toxic Event. So shitty.


There is an Adam Sandler/Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow movie about comedians coming out. I saw the preview when I saw Bruno with a fellow comic and friend. This movie is going to launch waves of dumb, overconfident people into comedy. People who don't understand and don't care to learn the subtle nuances of comedy. People who don't want to put in the time it takes to become "good" and mind you, motherfucker, there is a HUGE difference between "funny" and "good." A lot of famous and local comics, obviously, are "funny" but so few, so very, very few, are "good." Well, at least in my "comedy hipster" eyes.

The carpeting in my house was actually really easy to remove, but the padding underneath is another story entirely. I conservatively estimate it to be about 30 years old, and it was compressed over that time to something that breaks apart and leaves dust/residue that looks like the powder from mac and cheese. It clogs my vacuum cleaner, and doesn't come up via broom and dust pan too easily either. But I put in a half hour a day on it or so, and I make progress, however slow. I have a three day weekend coming up, and I hope to get it all up, wash the walls, and maybe throw down a layer of paint or two.

I think I've found my pizza place, as the wait is always at least an hour, but the pie is always hot and totally worth it when it finally gets to my crib. I plan on ordering pizza most of the weekend, as I loathe preparing/cooking food when I'm being all handy about the house and shit.

I've never heard of an Asian guy named Oscar before this, but that's not why you should watch it. It's fantastic!


A Mormon missionary said hello to me at the bus stop this morning. I just said "No!"-BK

Somewhere deep inside.

Trish, this is a million, billion times better than the Jonas Brothers.


Trish and I were discussing the lack of depth in modern pop music over mac and cheese. She persuaded me to come over and meet her dog, Cooper, with an offering of food. It worked. I'm most likely going to adopt him, but I need to see him again, and make sure he isn't high on Advantix. I've been wanting a dog of my own since the day I drove away from my parents' house towards Colorado in 2006, and now it's(probably) happening. I rule.

A dog is such a great companion, and until you live without one, and worse, mourn the death of one, you don't realize how much of your heart you give to them. I got a lot of heart to give as of late too.

Live performance of Abba. Even more impressive.


We didn't even specifically discuss Abba, I just fucking love Abba.

By the way, if you don't like pop music, you're a faggot. I know that doesn't make sense to you, but I live in my own world, and it makes sense to me. Perfect sense.

Making more progress on the removal of random stuff from the house. Expect another picture of a big pile of garbage sometime this week. Pulled out all of the carpet anchoring strip stuff too. Might start that project tomorrow, as it was hot all weekend and I hate profuse sweating on my days off.

Will probably rent a car next Sunday to pick up flooring and paint from Lowe's. Unless, of course, one of the six or seven loyal readers wants to ferry my ass around. Pizza, gas, and gratitude if you're down. You don't even need a big car or anything! No heavy lifting either! Email me right the fuck now at kennbenny667@gmail.com.

This is just brutally funny. I've watched this about ten times. I used to play this game for hours upon hours upon hours.


Off Tuesday, which means I'm venturing out to see Bruno, and then actually dragging my ass back onto a stage to tell some jokes. It has been far too long, and I am far too funny to allow for the far too longness of things.

Also have a court-mandated class/interview to determine how much of a drinking problem I have. I'm hoping for "Irish Chicago cop, circa 1972" but I'll settle for "Bret Michaels on a Tuesday." Hope that doesn't mean I have to inject myself with herpes.

Caught Manhunter on TV the other day at work. Although it sounds as if it would be homosexual pornography, or worse, a reality television program, it is actually one of the lost gems of Eighties cinema. It was directed by Michael Mann and stars Tom Noonan, Brian Cox, Dennis Farina, Joan Allen, and William Petersen. Everything about this movie works well with the other aspects of the movie. The set design, music, cinematography, acting, and direction are perfect. See it. My favorite thing about Mann films is the way he lights and uses cityscapes and horizon, and his outstanding soundtracks.

What the fuck, let's do four videos today! You only live once. Just as good, if not way better, than Norton and Hopkins.


(That little reality TV joke I threw in was cute, don't ya think? I liked it. Patted myself on the back. Got fingernail caught in tuft of back hair. Somewhat painful.)

I've taken to washing my clothes with cold water in an attempt to save some money. Unfortunately, I take forty minute showers, so I think I'm just gonna break even on this one.

Watched somebody stall out a late model Ferrari downtown today. Pointed and laughed as loudly as I could, which is quite loud. Called them a douche, too. If you can't listen to an engine, what good is a three hundred thousand dollar car?

Do I look like I play basketball?-BK

Nothing but violence all day.

I think all the speculation and whatnot about Michael Jackson's death is growing rather tiresome. They did blood work. It will come back. It will most likely tell us all what we all already know. He was a physically tortured man who played a dangerous game and lost, big time. He should be remembered as more than a tragic figure, and I fear he won't be.

Working six days a week, saving what I can, surviving. Hope to accomplish a lot on Sunday with the house. Have to cut the grass soon, too. That's a sure sign of adulthood, cutting grass, your own fucking grass. The little things about home ownership hit you in the oddest ways.

GM looks to be coming out of bankruptcy protection after only thirty-nine days. Kind of amazing what the government can accomplish when it sets it's mind to it. Unfortunately for a lot of Americans, GM did not have AIDS or live in poverty. If only...

Lots of interesting shit left in the house that I will either be putting up on Ebay or giving away for free. Stay tuned.

Been eating a lot of cheese lately. Way more than usually. Inside of batter, inside of pretzels, sliced, upon sandwiches, in cube form, shredded, on bean burritos, and liquid, on nachos. Conclusion: Cheese is fucking good! I would never be able to go fully vegan. Never. My vegan wallet and clothing choices will just have to do, I suppose.

I have been out of aluminum foil for a month now. I have been to the grocery store at least four times in that space of time. I need to make a prison tattoo gun, like in Memento, and get my shit in line.

My Facebook friends count is fast approaching, and, I suspect, will ultimately eclipse and surpass my MySpace friends count. What does this mean for you, dearest reader? Not much. But you should follow me on Twitter, as my Twitter friends count is far lower, and it feels lonely sometime. Plus, I'm a fucking genius, and my Tweets will rock your socks.

That's a dumb expression, "rock your socks." What does it even mean, really?

Makes me laugh.


My sister has a Boxer. She is a traitor to the Lab.

Jimmy Fallon has a billion times the budget of Craig Ferguson, but about 1% of the talent.-BK

Do you know what it is to feel the light of love inside of you?

The titles of my blog entries are sometimes random song lyrics that bounce around in my head from time to time.

The title of today's blog is, no bullshit, a Dave Matthews Band lyric. I've always had a lukewarm(at best) view of their music, but as a live entity, they are impressive to watch. It's not all dark prose and witty banter in Ben Kenny's head all of the time. Thought you might need/like to know that. If I could pick one venue to start a stampede in though... I mean, not that I'd want to, but the amount of "bro," khaki, and bad weed I could eliminate from the planet... I might get a medal or something...

Lots of shady ellipsis action above. Sorry...

(Did you catch the intentional written joke? Goddamn I'm witty.)

They need to tour again.


Watched a chef argue with a young tweaker couple on the bus today. I sided with the chef, silently, in my head, as I tend to "go to eleven" in conflicts. It's not a good thing for anyone involved. Anyways, meth addict women shouldn't really talk about how much they love dick when there are a bunch of children on the bus. Meth addict women shouldn't really talk, period, I guess. I know she represented Mt. Oliver though, which is more than I ever really wanted to know to begin with.

Daily bus/bus stop conversation:

Random fellow- You work at Southwest? Are they hiring?

Ben Kenny- No. Please pull your pants up.

There were furries on the bus yesterday too. Good people, those furries. Salt of the earth type of folks. Let your freak flag fly, this is fuckin' America!

Holy shit!


Watched a bunch of luminaries, icons, and legends eulogize Michael today. The most touching, poignant, and accurate eulogy came from his eleven year-old daughter. One sentence said it all. I teared up a little. Had to leave the break room.

Oh man, you scared the shit out of me!-BK

Songs of Faith and Devotion.

Downtown was a madhouse yesterday. I knew I would spend money on overpriced food, but had no idea I'd wait an accumulated hour and a half in line to buy three items. I will say this though, all three were very good, and two were nice and hot, the third(actually, first) being ice cream. It's weird though. I cannot honestly remember the last time I've eaten ice cream that did not have some incarnation of peanut butter in it. I'm not upset by that, I'm just saying.

Then I went to the Moose. No Eighties music on account of the holiday, but some pretty decent bands were playing for free, and my bartender bought me a drink, so no complaints.

By the way, I'm drinking again. Since I'm no longer driving, fuck it, you know?

Plans for the rehab are coming into focus, and I am making much better progress than I thought I would. Whether or not I get much, if anything, done during my work week remains to be seen. Next Saturday is carpet tearing up day, which shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm sure something will pop up and fuck me in the ass.

Here's 20% of what needs to be thrown out.


It's mostly light and manageable, but it's so very, very dirty and the work is tedious. But I found a radio, and it helps to pass the time.

So there's been a lot of shitty, low-brow Michael Jackson stuff as of late. Not this though. Although in relative bad taste, this has to be the funniest thing I've seen about his death. The "It's Tito!" kills me!


Work tomorrow after my glorious days off. Blughr.

I think I may buy an iPhone, for real this time, finally. Although I have few friends I call, the mobile abilities and sheer radness of the device make it something I can no longer turn my selectively elitist nose up at. Yes, I think it will happen. There might even be a corporate discount on the rate plan. Gotta check on that.

This guy is just an outstanding, amazing talent. Unfortunately for his career, he happens to be gay, which means he's somehow unmarketable to a lot of the mainstream. Such a unique and original voice.


No, you fucking cut the line, and me and more twenty-five friends don't take kindly to it, bitch.-BK

The broken light.

Negotiated some deals at work and found myself with five days off.

Hold on a minute. Ice cream man coming down block.

(Hero/Author Ben Kenny goes to get ice cream. He assures his third person narrator, who, sadly, cannot enjoy the taste of said ice cream, that it is fucking delicious.)

Where were we... oh yes, five days off of work.

I'm using the time to help the person I bought my home(a duplex) from move his 70 years' worth of possessions out. Everything he wanted to take with him is pretty much gone, leaving me with an empty first floor and a basement filled to the brim with odds and ends that I'm either carrying to the curb, putting into the "maybe" pile, or saving for personal use.

I hope to have the upstairs apartment, where I currently reside, on the market by September 1st, giving me about two months to do "light rehab" work on the first floor apartment, which I intend to make my permanent abode. I need to paint things to my liking, and will attempt to replace or refinish the floors, as the carpeting is ancient, and needs to come up and out. Should be fun, David Carradine style.

Homeownership is a real motherfucker, that I know for sure. The "worth it" part is a few decades down the line, I guess.

Used my first day off to take in Public Enemies, which is a really fantastically made and acted film. The camera work and editing still stick out in my head. See that shit, yo.

That apartment by the way? I'm renting it out for 420 bucks, plus utilities. Maybe less if you're a friend and/or associate of mine. Two bedrooms, new appliances, semi-pet friendly, in a quiet, residential neighborhood. Get the word out on that shit, yo.

Oh milky-white-skinned emo girls, how I pine for thee. Until I have a conversation with you. Great band. Rainer Maria.


I am tearing through pizza places in an attempt to find my "home" parlor. There have to be at least a dozen independently owned pizza places within five miles of my place. My stomach is having it's own personal Summer of Love.

More to come when it warranted. Even equal or maybe better, if it's got a warrantee.

Later, paralyzed crazy lady.-BK

Champagne from a paper cup.

So I've been riding the bus for a while now. Although I can (barely)afford to buy another car, I think I'm going to stick to public transport for the next month or six.

In actuality, "the bus" is generally not all that bad. I am saving money, both on transportation and eating out, and am so much more organized than I ever was before. I know EXACTLY what time I need to be at the stop, and my life revolves around that time, no matter where I may be going to or coming from. I carry much less shit with me. No more lugging my laptop around, or a plethora of notebooks, etc.. It's just my food for the day, a single notebook, a simple house key, maybe a rain jacket, etc.. I am also losing weight, as I walk almost three miles home from the busway nightly, as the buses don't run towards my neighborhood that late. I get to do a lot of thinking on those walks, as my iPod shit the bed, and I've got more pressing ways to spend dollars.

Lately, I've been going back and forth about the status of my life, i.e. direction or lack thereof. The thing is, I've never, as long as I've been alive, really felt the need to move my life in any sort of direction. I am content to take things a day at a time, and to make the most of most everyday I can. I define "the most" as anything from catching up on sleep and watching South Park on DVD, to cleaning my place from head to toe and riding my bike twenty miles.

Well, not really. I never clean my place.

Anyways, something that's been fucking killing me lately is comedy, and my relation to it. You see, comedy is the only thing in my life that I feel "home" doing. This kills me, because I have been in a severe creative rut lately. I am not writing as much or as well as I was in years past, and I do not want to bring shit to the stage. I never, ever, force myself to write. I let it come to me, and it just hasn't been coming like I want it to, and it's so confusing.

Also, I've sort of reached a breaking point with the Pittsburgh scene. As a creative person, I draw inspiration from the people, as well as the things, around me, and quite frankly, the majority of Pittsburgh comics don't really... uh, just "ugh" I guess. I'm not going to insult people I've come to respect.

If you don't like them, you deserve to die a horrible death and an IRS audit.


Unions aren't Socialist at all.-BK

The Glove will never fit another.

I cannot believe Michael Jackson is dead. I was born in 1984, and he was the first person I ever idolized. When I was six or seven, I had a black leather jacket with zippers all over it, just like the one he wore in the Bad video. As simply as it can be put, his work wasn't merely part of pop culture, it was pop culture.

It's an easy time to take shots at the man, but, for the most part, I'm not doing it. His life was extraordinary in every aspect, both good and bad. He was a flawed person, probably a tortured soul, denied his youth and ostracized for attempting to reclaim a part of it. He helped tens of millions of people through his music, charity work, and simple presence.

Find me one album with the production level and general start-to-finish awesomeness of Thriller, I fucking dare you to.

Thanks for the music Michael, you gave more of yourself than you could handle, and I will cherish your memory always.

I guarantee you Weird Al sees a rise in sales.-BK

You can't catch the 21F today.

Where the fuck have I been?

Well, I decided to take a bit of time away from blogging in order to dedicate more of myself to Tweeting.

Christ, that might be the most depressing sentence I've ever written, and yes, I'm including my early comedy material in that conclusion.

Twitter, though addictive, is pretty fucking dumb. Stike that. Twitter isn't dumb, it's users, however, seem to be, by and large, very stupid. I'm no Steven Wright, but I'm far and away better in short form than the majority of "Tweeters" comedians, both famous and non, included.

The thing is, just because something is short does not mean it's okay to be thoughtless! Stop, stand back from your thought, and make it interesting! Twitter is just proving that we're a dull, television obsessed, lazy society.

Ugh.

My life has pretty much been almost total shit this last month or so. Yes, I have my house, but in acquiring it, and dealing, in my own "barely-functioning alcoholic" way, with the stress(es) involved, I've pushed away, seemingly permanently, a few people who I value and respect much more than I let on. It's not fair to them, and if they happen to read this, maybe the previous words can say more than my mumbled phone voice could. Sorry, but it's best for both of us. Well, I really only care about me, ok? It's best for fucking me.

This sentence's purpose is to let you know that Sammy Hagar is/was the best singer of Van Halen.

I stopped drinking. The hard way. For the time being. Hopefully for an entire year, but time, stress, and my addiction to fun will tell. When you wake up behind the steering wheel of a crashed car, you're forced to face the hard truth about your lifestyle, and your lack of self control. Luckily, I did not injure or kill anyone, but I very easily could've, and I know for a fact I would not have been able to go on living if that had happened, so, logically, I can't let that happen. Because I aspire to get into idealized Christian heaven, and suicide is wrong, yo.

Look for me to be "stepping my blog game up" in the future. Maybe not to my former daily posting self, but a few times a week.


"And all I remember, was how hard we tried, only to surrender."-BK

Little Jesus are you watching me?

Saw a hipster kid on my way out of the bank. Plunging v-neck shirt revealing some retarded phrase tattooed across his breastbone, cardigan, ridiculous sunglasses, expensive haircut, tight jeans, etc. I have never felt the need/desire to commit a random act of violence before this morning. I wanted to turn around and just hit him until I got tired, or arrested, but I didn't, as I needed to get to Taco Bell before the lunch rush hit.

I had a cheese roll-up, triple layer nachos, and a bean burrito. It was spectacular. Haven't even been farting more than I normally fart, which is more than enough already.

I'm now a homeowner. Closing on a house is pretty much the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done. Well, that, and watching the body to make sure it was going to sink. Think I'll stick with acquiring property, as the scheming is so much more intense and adrenalizing, Fret not, I'll still kill people, but I'll keep to the forest(s) of PA for disposal-related matters.

There is a huge pile of clothing that I am either too fat, too skinny, or too tasteful to wear in the center of my living room. Some lucky hipster's going to hit it big at the Red, White, and Blue Thrift Store sometime next week. To those midwestern folks reading this, the RWB blows both Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores out of the water. It's like a regular store, but full of awesomeness and groovy, groovy deals.

That's right. I'm bringin' "groovy" back, both as a word, and a vibe.

I know I've been away from long form life status updating for a bit. Just imagine how awesome you think it was, and then add Slayer, and you might have a close approximation.

The made-up is way funnier than actually subtitling it.-BK