But first, this commercial break . . .

Keith Lowell Jensen and Sid Garcia-Heberger present
Sacramento All Sketch
Three Days, Five Shows, Ten Troupes, mass hilarity.

Here's a nice discount for you

Your Discount Code: frenchfilm

Use the discount code above and save $5.00 on every ticket purchased. Or buy the All Sketch Pass with the discount code and you save a total of $27.50 off the regular admission prices and you get a free t-shirt (while supplies last)

And yes, you may share this discount code with your friends.

1. Visit www.AllSketch.com and go to the schedule page: www.allsketch.com/schedule.html
2. Click on the "Get Tickets" link for the shows you wish to buy tickets for.
3. You'll find yourself at the Brown Paper Tickets website, click "Begin Order"
4. You'll be taken to a page where you can enter your discount code, then hit "Show Additional Prices" and away you go.

If you have any problems drop us a line at sactosketch@gmail.com

--
Keith Lowell Jensen
Comedian, Filmmaker, Writer, Ne'er do well
www.AllSKetch.com super duper comedy festival
www.CoexistComedy.com The holy war of comedy tours
www.WhyLieINeedADrink.com A documentary film

A one year blogversary

Friday, February 2, 2007
A Regional Transit diary: Day 1

I've decided to start a second blog in order to write about my latest self-improvement project.

I've decided to leave my car at home and use RT to get around. I have a bus stop less than 50 yards from my front porch and my employer offers half-price monthly passes. The gas saved by parking one of the family cars should more than cover the monthly pass. And I'll have all that commute time to spend catching up on my reading.

Why do this?

My New Year's resolution was to walk every day, and I've been doing it every week day and most weekend days. Since there are four Starbucks within a half-hour walk from my office, I've got the entire midtown grid to wander about.

With my walking resolution success it occurred to me that I didn't need to drive. My son is now in high school, and I no longer have to drop everything and ferry him around. I also have been wanting to do more reading, but finding I'm unable to set the time aside. Since my workday runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 6:30 p.m., I don't have to compete with the morning crush of commuters.

[snip]

I'm looking forward to the challenge of focusing on the benefits of riding transit and letting go of the concept that time is money and every second that isn't productive is somehow wasted.

That was then. This is now. And while it hasn't been a perfect year, it has been workable and at times even enjoyable.

Best of all, I was able to read 39 books while riding to and from work on the bus.

George Crile's "Charlie Wilson's War" (Jan. 27)
Joseph Cummins' "Anything for a Vote" (Jan. 8)
Bill Boyarsky's "Big Daddy" (Dec. 30)
Valerie Plame Wilson's "Fair Game" (Dec. 16)
Bob Drogin's "Curveball" (Dan. 7)
Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor" (Nov. 29)
William Burg's "Sacramento's Streetcars" (Nov. 22)
David Halberstam's "Coldest Winter" (Nov. 19)
Terry Jones' "Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic" (Oct. 23)
William Burg's "Sacramento's Southside Park" (Oct. 16)
Kirsten Holmstedt's "Band of Sisters" (Oct. 12)
Paul Dickson's "Sputnik" (Sept. 28)
Seymour Hersh's "The Dark Side of Camelot" (Sept. 19)
Robert "Diesel" Kroese's "Antisocial Commentary" (Sept. 5)
Mariane Pearl's "A Mighty Heart" (Aug. 26)
Barbara W. Tuchman's "Bible and Sword" (Aug. 16)
Philip Caputo's "Means of Escape" (Aug. 3)
J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (July 26)
P.D. James' "The Children of Men" (July 19)
Genichiro Takahashi's "Sayonara, Gangsters" (July 17)
Walter Isaacson's "Einstein" (July 8)
Ethan Rarick's "California Rising" (June 21)
Richard Brautigan's "So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away" (June 10)
Richard Brautigan's "The Abortion" (June 6)
Richard Brautigan's "Revenge of the Lawn" (June 4)
R. Harris Smith, "OSS" (May 30)
Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" (May 19)
Richard Brautigan's "The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster" (May 17)
Richard Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America" (May 17)
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s "The Crisis of the Old Order" (May 13)
Ishmael Beah's "A Long Way Gone" (April 30)
Rick Newman and Don Shepperd's "Bury Us Upside Down" (April 22)
Keith Lowell Jensen's "Oh Holy Day" (April 5)
Joe Mathews' "The People's Machine" (April 5)
George Black's "No Other Choice" (March 19)
Eva Rutland's "When We Were Colored" (March 4)
John Barron's "Breaking the Ring" (Feb. 28)
Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" (Feb. 24)
John Le Carre's "The Mission Song" (Feb. 8)

If you haven't got something nice to say . . .

Friday night I was looking forward to a quiet, uneventful transit experience to match my quiet, uneventful morning commute. I figured that after all the bad vibes I've been spreading, the least I could do was show that most commutes are just quiet and uneventful. Ride transit; save the world.

At 6:35 p.m. I was ready to start home. My ideal train connections are on the hour and the half-hour, which leaves me enough time to walk to the station. So it wasn't a good time for catching the train, but there's a bus that stops in front of my office building at 6:46 and goes all the way to 65th Street station. The hitch: It takes the same length of time as if I waited at my desk until 7 p.m. and then walked to the train. Friday night, I was tired and I didn't want to sit at my desk for another 15 minutes. I decided to take the bus and use the extra time to read.

I was standing in front of my building at 6:41 p.m.

I was standing in front of my building at 6:46 p.m.

I was standing in front of my building at 6:55 p.m.

And then I walked around the block to the 23rd Street light-rail station and caught the train to 65th Street.

I have no idea what happened to the No. 38 bus that was supposed to arrive at 21st and Q streets at 6:46 p.m. But when I got to 65th Street, there was a No. 38 parked off where drivers leave their buses when they are on a break.

And since the No. 82 driver had locked up the bus and left on break, I had the opportunity to stand around in the cold for 10 minutes thinking about Sacramento Regional Transit customer service. Yes, the bus driver was following the rules. That makes me feel sooooo much better.

Tonight, I figured if I couldn't say something nice about commuting by bus, I'd say something nice about panhandling.

Local comedian Keith Lowell Jensen has made something of a career out of answering the question: Can you make a real living panhandling? Now, he has finished a movie about his experience. It is called "Why Lie I Need A Drink."



The world premier will be March 7th at the Crest Theater. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; the film starts at 8:30 p.m. You can purchase tickets online here. Or buy advance from the Crest and pay no service fee. Call 44-CREST. Tickets are $2 more if purchased the day of the premier.

Why lie, it's a free ad for the guy...

Visit www.WhyLieINeedADrink.com

Take this book, please

OK, let's put the important stuff upfront: Buy this book!

On a dark desert highway Keith Lowell Jensen panhandles, which is what he does when his sketchy life isn't trouping around with "I Can't Believe It's Not Comedy." All of this I learned from the back of his self-published collection of short stories, Oh Holy Day.

Cool wind in my hair I started reading this book on my way to work. It's only 50 pages, which turns out to be the absolutely ideal length for my commute.

The warm smell of colitas doesn't have anything to do with this review of Keith's collection of seven short stories. But a puff or two might help the appreciation.

Up ahead in the distance when I finished the book I realized that Keith put it together backward. Hence, you should start with the back cover and work story by story to the front.

I saw a shimmering light in Keith's "Footprints in the Sand," but as a fat guy I won't go into that. Read this inspirational poem and understand.

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim reading "Yuppie Birth Scene." This takes a while to get going but it's a real scream by the end. Not recommended for compulsive shoppers or women of child-bearing age.

I had to stop for the night when I read "She." This is one of the shortest, but also one of the best written stories. Evil it is.

There she stood in the doorway, I imagined, as I read "The Video Tape." Since this is a family-safe blog, I won't discuss the nature of this story. Suffice it to quote the absolutely best lines from any of the stories:

"NO MEANS NO!" I felt like screaming. It wasn't easy being a porn-loving feminist teenager watching his friend's parents not respecting sexual boundaries.

I heard the mission bell while reading "Gin With Jenny." As with the evil "She," Keith shows that when he focuses and writes tightly his work sparkles like painted toenails.

And I was thinking to myself, "Jesus Loves Me, Pretty Girl Does Not" doesn't bode well for Keith's next book, "The Atheists Survival Guide." Keith might consider exploring how Mark Twain approached this topic.

This could be heaven or this could be hell, but in the end when Keith explores religion preachy is preachy and not very funny.

Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way in "Special Ed's Rocket To The Moon." Well, Keith's big brother did that in the story. Someday when Keith has a child of his own, he will appreciate why his mom was proud of him and didn't punish him. You have to experience the importance of poop in the first months of parenthood to really understand.

There were voices down the corridor, or at least a lot of rough spots in the title story "Oh Holy Day." This is by far the longest story at 18 pages, but all that number proves is that size doesn't matter.

I thought I heard them say that parts of this were two flimsy
as I plowed through the first pages, but parts work very well.

Welcome to the Hotel California, Keith. How can you not love the Eagles, man?!

Such a lovely place. Buy Keith's book. It's only $10. (But $90 for the Canadians. Go figure.)

Such a lovely face. If you are too cheap for the book, give a buck to the next panhandler you see along the freeway. It might be Keith.

Plenty of room at the Hotel California even if "I Can't Believe It's Not Comedy."

Any time of year, you can find it here. Or there in the book. And none of this will make any sense to you until you buy this book and read it.

Books on the bus

Alan Friedman, "Spider's Web" (July 9)
Michael Yon's "Moment of Truth in Iraq" (June 21)
Ahmed Rashid's "Descent into Chaos" (June 12)
Benjamin O. Davis Jr.'s, "Benjamin O. Davis Jr.: American" (May 26)
Willie Brown's, "Basic Brown" (May 8)
Tim Pritchard's, "Ambush Alley" (April 27)
Eric Lichtblau's, "Bush's Law" (April 19)
Douglas E. Schoen's "The Power of the Vote" (April 5)
Amy B. Zegart's "Spying Blind" (March 19)
Steven Gillon's "The Pact" (March 9)
Harrison Salisbury's "Heroes of My Time" (March 2)
Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father" (Feb. 21)
Daniel Weintraub's "Party of One" (Feb. 5)
George Crile's "Charlie Wilson's War" (Jan. 27)
Joseph Cummins' "Anything for a Vote" (Jan. 8)
Bill Boyarsky's "Big Daddy" (Dec. 30)
Valerie Plame Wilson's "Fair Game" (Dec. 16)
Bob Drogin's "Curveball" (Dan. 7)
Marcus Luttrell's "Lone Survivor" (Nov. 29)
William Burg's "Sacramento's Streetcars" (Nov. 22)
David Halberstam's "Coldest Winter" (Nov. 19)
Terry Jones' "Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic" (Oct. 23)
William Burg's "Sacramento's Southside Park" (Oct. 16)
Kirsten Holmstedt's "Band of Sisters" (Oct. 12)
Paul Dickson's "Sputnik" (Sept. 28)
Seymour Hersh's "The Dark Side of Camelot" (Sept. 19)
Robert "Diesel" Kroese's "Antisocial Commentary" (Sept. 5)
Mariane Pearl's "A Mighty Heart" (Aug. 26)
Barbara W. Tuchman's "Bible and Sword" (Aug. 16)
Philip Caputo's "Means of Escape" (Aug. 3)
J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (July 26)
P.D. James' "The Children of Men" (July 19)
Genichiro Takahashi's "Sayonara, Gangsters" (July 17)
Walter Isaacson's "Einstein" (July 8)
Ethan Rarick's "California Rising" (June 21)
Richard Brautigan's "So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away" (June 10)
Richard Brautigan's "The Abortion" (June 6)
Richard Brautigan's "Revenge of the Lawn" (June 4)
R. Harris Smith, "OSS" (May 30)
Richard Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" (May 19)
Richard Brautigan's "The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster" (May 17)
Richard Brautigan's "Trout Fishing in America" (May 17)
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.'s "The Crisis of the Old Order" (May 13)
Ishmael Beah's "A Long Way Gone" (April 30)
Rick Newman and Don Shepperd's "Bury Us Upside Down" (April 22)
Keith Lowell Jensen's "Oh Holy Day" (April 5)
Joe Mathews' "The People's Machine" (April 5)
George Black's "No Other Choice" (March 19)
Eva Rutland's "When We Were Colored" (March 4)
John Barron's "Breaking the Ring" (Feb. 28)
Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" (Feb. 24)
John Le Carre's "The Mission Song" (Feb. 8)