Well, today is Wednesday.  Yesterday was my good buddy and fellow gentleman, Mike KAuth’s birthday.  I have to be honest when I say that I sat down at the computer a few minutes ago with nothing on my mind at all and that is still the case.  What do you guys want to read about?  … Well, I don’t really know a lot about horse-shoes so instead I will write about what’s on tv.

    Well, I will tell you one thing, I am VERY sick of all this reality tv crap.  I don’t know if I am have already written about this, but it is very obvious to everyone (and this writers strike isn’t helping any) that reality tv is taking over and we are all letting it.  Hell’s Kitchen, Bridezilla, The Girls Next Door, America’s Top Model, it’s all crap.  Yes, kudos to them for succeeding and somehow making it so that a lot of people watch it, but I really feel it is polluting the airwaves.  There is a show on tv, I don’t know what it is called, but it is the equivalent to American Idol, but it is for people that want to be marketers!  Are we serious!??  What the Hell is next, America’s Top Bellboy?  I don’t watch tv anymore.  Sure, every once in a while I will watch the Office if its new, but I haven’t watched tv on purpose in a long time.  I watch 24, Lost, and Heroes.  That’s pretty much it.  I will watch something else if my girlfriend and I are on the couch and she is not letting me molest her.  I have had this discussion with my lady a million times.  You ask anyone in the world and they will agree with you and then totally contradict themselves immediately.  And I mean everyone!  “Oh, I totally know what you mean, I hate reality tv.  It is all garbage… well, except for Survivor/ or Real World/ or Rock of Love/ or blah blah blah.”  It’s all shit.  I don’t know why I even wrote about this.  Who cares.

    Call me a hypocrite, but I have an idea for a show.  I think it’s going to be huge.  We take 6 hidden cameras, we put them in public toilets pointed up…

    Welcome to the twentieth century, everyone!!  We made it.  Alright, well, I am sitting here in my bathrobe next to my girlfriend’s cats’ litterbox.  I know I am clean, but this whole room smells like I did before I got in the shower.  Well, I shouldn’t say that;  I didn’t exactly smell like cat-shit.  Regardless, life is good.  I am still plugging away trying to make this whole stand up comedy career happen.  I am having a blast.  If there is one thing that has been on my mind in recent months, its this:  I love doing comedy and I feel very blessed that my life path has led me to the point where I am making a living doing it.  However, if there is one thing that rains on my parade, and luckily it is VERY rare in my experience, it is being complained to by the other comic.  I don’t mean to complain about complainers, but if I am headlining a gig and it doesn’t pay well (first of all, if you got into comedy for the money, you are retarded) I sure as HELL am not going to bitch about it to the feature who is making, at most, half of what I am making.  I’m just sick of it.   Okay, that was not a good note so start off on.  I apologize.

    I forgot to make a new years resolution so I will do what I do every year when I remember a week late to make a resolution and I will try to think of something that I haven’t already done in the last week…  Wow, not a lot left…. I guess 2008 will be the year I give up farming.

    I am happy to report that the Gentlemen’s Hour is still kicking ass.  This has been an exciting start of the year for us.  Just yesterday, we performed at the nation’s largest sketch festival, the Chicago Sketchfest!  It went great.  We had a blast.  It was very exciting and everyone involved was awesome.  My Second City instructor, Brian Posen, is the director of the whole thing so it was good to see him again after probably almost 6 years. 

    So we all drove out to Chicago together with our main sound and lights man, Matt Tremle.  That was fun.  Then we raced back to Milwaukee for our first of many, many shows to come at the new Alchemist Theatre in Milwaukee.  I guess it’s technically in the Bayview area or something.  That was very fun.  We did an hour of all improv and it went over pretty well.  We will be having those shows every other Sunday.  Usually, it won’t be all improv, but we were very excited to do some live improv as we haven’t done that in a long time in front of a crowd.  Those shows are going to mainly be used to workshop sketch ideas, do stand-up, show new videos, show old video favorites, and of course perform improv.

    Tomorrow I am off on a string of one-nighters for stand up.  I am excited about it.  I do miss my lady when I am out on the road, but aside from that, I really like being on the road.  Yeah, I get bored during the day, but that is sort of good, because it forces me to be productive.  For example, just last week, I was in Davenport, IA.  I was really bored, I hadn’t done anything all day, so at 3:30pm I put on some clothes and went to KFC.  I’m on my way to becoming a great comedian!

    I don’t have a lot more to say.  I just wanted to update the old girl as I can’t really do that much on the road.  I need to use my girlfriend’s computer to update my web-site.  I can update my myspace on the road, but not this site.  Well, I hope everyone is have a great year so far and sticking to your dumb resolutions.  I’m gonna put some pants on and go farm.

    ps.  I miss my hair.

    Well, the year is almost over.  6 days til Christmas, 12 days til 2008.  I am excited for December to be over.  This year has been a great year for me, career-wise, but this month has been disastrous as far as fall-outs and horrible bookings go.  I am doing the best I can to solidify my 2008 bookings, but there is only so much I can do.  I just have to keep a positive attitude.

    My show on Saturday the 15th was one to remember!  I had a lot of friends and a TON of family in the crowd at the Comedy Cafe that show here in Milwaukee.  I had a fantastic set, doing mostly all new material (new to them), and then at the end, I pulled my mom onstage, told her it was time for me to give her her Christmas present, and handed her a pair of scissors.  It was dead silent for about 2 seconds til she realized it was for real and that I was letting her cut my pony tail off.  She had whined about it enough.  She got very excited and after much hemming and hawing, the ponytail was cut off.  She left a little rat-tail, which the crowd thoroughly enjoyed.  I went a couple days looking like a douchebag, and then had a friend clean it up.  I am once again just another short-haired run of the mill everyman.  Its exciting because I can pretend I am Jack Bauer a lot easier now, but I know that in a few days severe depression over the loss of my locks will set in, and the Johnny Beehner you all once knew will be gone for about a year and a half to two years.  Then it should have grown back.  Ha, actually we’ll see.  Is not that my hair was so beautiful, there’s no debate there, its that I was and am very lazy.  That is why I had long hair, that is why I have a beard.  It saves money and time not having to buy haircuts or shave.  Yes, I care about my appearance.  I love looking like Jesus.  Anyway,  if you would like to see a clip from the show where my mom comes up on stage, go to youtube and search for “beehner hair” and it should come up.  If you wanna laugh really hard again after you watch that do a youtube search for “Beehner fake selling tshirts.”

Just a quick note to any Milwaukee people,  I may be on Dave and Carol in the morning on WKLH this coming Friday at either 8am or 9am.  I will not know for sure until Thursday night so stay tuned.  Also, please be sure to come down to the Comedy Cafe on Brady street in downtown Milwaukee if you are around this weekend.  271joke.com  is their website.  Shows thurs-Sat.

    Well, my Thanksgiving day adventure was great.  I got to see the whole family and nobody died.  It’s midnight:01.  I did a private show for a company’s Christmas party the other night.  Usually, these are nice paying clean shows with an attentive eager to laugh audience.  Not this time.  That was a rowdier show than a lot of bar one-nighters I’ve done!  I know I was in trouble when one of the female employees got onstage to welcome everyone to the event and the BOSS yelled out, “Show us your boobies!!”  in a drunken stupor and then laughed really hard and probably pissed himself.  After starting the show out using every sexual innuendo I’ve ever heard, she brings me up.  Immediately the front row (one girl) turns around and starts talking to the second row (one girl).  I have never been personally and directly insulted so much at any show I have ever done.  The only thing preventing me from completely unleashing on their horrible behavior was the realization that this was their christmas party and they were having fun.  If they want to spend their christmas party verbally berating me, fine.  I’ll be your whore.

   I booked a bit of work today, so that was good.  Check out the schedule page and see if I’m coming to a town near you.  If you are in the Chicago aera, some good news:  The Gentlemen’s Hour made it into Sketchfest!  Check us out Jan 6 at Sketchfest in Chicago.  Our time slot is 4:00.  Details at www.chicagosketchfest.com.  Oh, also, I shot a silly little video and posted it at www.myspace.com/thegentlemenshour      See you soon hopefully.

I am a little pressed for time, but I wanted to give a quick update.  I just was informed that I made it into the Detroit International Comedy Festival.  That is very exciting.  I also am working a bunch of new ideas/ material, and that is VERY exciting.  I just got all caught up on Heroes on NBC.  Holy crap, I am so excited and happy for my buddy Nick D’Agosto!!  He has a huge role in Heroes season 2.  If you don’t watch the show, you should.  What else did I want to say.  OH, my car is a piece of crap.  Its in the shop right now and I am supposed to take it to Green Bay tonight, Omaha, tomorrow, Oklahoma City, Friday, back to Omaha, Saturday, then back to Milwaukee after that.  Say a prayer for me.  Wish I had more time, but I gotta run.  This update wasn’t very funny.

   Hello comedy fans.  Thought I would give you an update on how your friend, Johnny Beehner, is doing.  Im fine, thanks.  Also, I uploaded some videos to some sites.  Please vote for my poop tour video on funnyordie.com.  Also, I added some sketch videos to crackle.com.  I just headlined Club Indigo at the Olympia Resort in Oconomowoc, WI and had great shows.  It was a blast.  I dont think I have done (or have ever had to do) so much crowd work in my life.  They were drunk, but fun.

    I have decided to test my self and do a little writing exercise.  I find myself always thinking of jokes that have to do with body parts or farts so I am going to force myself to write about a random topic.  What I have done is written down a bunch of different random words on little pieces of paper and I put them in a little bowl.  Now without looking, I am going to reach in, grab one of them and write about it.  Here we go…. Okay, the word was “penis.”  I dont think that is going to accomplish what I am trying to do here.  Hang on, let me pick another one… Okay, this one says, “Diarrhea.”  I’m just gonna put that one back in the bowl cause that’s not gonna work either.  Okay, doing it again…  And this on is, “ballsack.”  Ok, I am gonna try this one more time and if it doesn’t work, we’ll have to think of some other exercise for another time.  Here we go….  Great, I got “diarrhea” again.  I don’t know why I put that one back in the bowl.  Talk to you guys next time.

    Happy Halloween, everyone.  I dont have any hilarious halloween stories for today.  Well, none other than the one I have been telling onstage for the past 5 years of when I dressed up as a “wiener” for halloween in 5th grade on the wrong day.  Anyway, my main reason for writing is just to say that the wonderful world of unemployment is scary, but do-able.  Comedy is going quite alright.  If you take a look at my schedule or shows page, you will see that I have recently landed a lot of work.  A lot of that is due to the word of mouth of some great comics I have worked with, I think.  So thank you to everyone that has helped me along the way.  Well, as far as sinking or swimming, I think I will be swimming for a while now.

    It is weird, when you are unemployed and do nothing all day, you eventually start to feel like a turd.  It’s important to trick yourself into doing things that you can convince yourself are considered worthwhile things.  Before I got laid off, I could relax in the evening telling myself that I helped 25-30 borrowers refinance or purchase their homes that day.  That’s a feeling of accomplishment.  As a comedian, I only feel like I have accomplished something after a show.  Well, those are only at night ususally Thurs- Saturdays.  So in order to not feel like garbage during the week, you tell yourself that other things are important and “hard work.”  Like the other day, I was able to relax without feeling guilty for being a piece of crap all day because I had checked my email, went to the grocery store, and put 2 Netflix movies in the mailbox (both of which I had watched that day).    Well, just writing this update on my website is enough to relax guilt free for I’d say 3 days now.  Thanks, everyone.

Today is a special day for everyone.

This past Wednesday, October 10, 2007, a very good friend of mine died.  Tony Miller.  This is a horribly sad time for everyone that knew him.  I have read a lot of comments from comics and friends on his myspace page and on their own.  Its very clear that Tony was a very special guy.  He really was the concrete that held the Milwaukee comics community together.  He ran the SafeHouse open mic for years after Tom Clark moved to LA.  He was so supportive of new comics.  I remember my first time going on stage at the SafeHouse.  I was so proud of myself because I thought it went pretty well.  Tony came up to me after the show and made me feel like Seinfeld.  He was so impressed and just showered me with so much praise and support.  Granted, I ate it more times on that stage after that night than I care to keep track of, but Tony always saw past what the audience saw.  He knew when you were working out a new bit and it didn’t work quite yet, but he saw the premise and supported you.  For the longest time I had only known Tony through the SafeHouse.  Then one night he called me up, and took me out on the road for some real gigs.  That was when I got to see Tony perform a full hour headlining set in front of a crowd of fresh new people that we didn’t know and didn’t know us.  And he killed.  Tony always did great at the SafeHouse, but on the road, at paid gigs he really gave audiences a show worth paying for.  Tony gave me more stage time than anyone else ever has.  I am the comic I am today thanks to Tony Miller.  He will definitely be missed.