Jasen Fredrickson

I’m not sure how else to do it. 

London.

Tommy Campbell. 

I’ve been performing comedy in clubs for almost 13 years now.  I believe I’ve known Tommy for at least ten of those.  He’s a Calgary boy originally and has relocated to London about five years ago.  He was my guide.

www.tommycampbell.co.uk

Here’s some pictures from the trip on Flickr.

Flickr London pictures

I dunno.  What can I say?  It was awesome.  I saw Tom Stade, Sean Collins, met some new great people, went to some great places, it was awesome.

It was London.

Freddy

Controversy abounds!  The third instalment of the Great Canadian Laugh Off, Calgary Search, was rife with drama.  Fouteen people were injured, three people arrested,  and two are being sought by police for questioning.

All right, no one was arrested or sought by police, and there were no injuries other than people’s pride.  Karen O’Keefe came on top, and she also placed first in the competition last night.  Mike Tod was selected to also carry on to the finals next week, and the fact that he is seventeen years old leaves him exempt from lame, implied, “adult” jokes…and a comedy prodigy of sorts.

Manolis Zontanos was the MC – a super guy from Hamilton who I met when I was out in Toronto.  He livened things up with his unique take on his life experiences, and kept the “machine lubricated”…I think he was referring to the show.  Check out his space…and he’s on the internet on MySpace.   You can also try to win a date with him – here.  See what he has in common with a fire extinguisher!

There was some tension when there was some objectionable claims made by a comic having “worked at Yuk Yuks for the past year”.   What he had intended was to imply he had been performing on the Yuks stage over the past year.  What he did not realise was how “…working for Yuk Yuks…” was going to be interpreted.  So, this guy’s five minutes of comedy now represents Yuk Yuks.   I don’t think he thought it through when he provided his introduction to Manolis.   After Nancy’s evaluation, I’m pretty sure he is aware of the difference now.

I suppose it’s one way to meet Yuk Yuk’s Management. 

On a happyfun family note here’s pictures of my kids:

It’s been a bit since I last wrote here.  I apologise to the three or four of you that actually read this.  I now have a myspace where you too can be my friend.  

Irwin Barker and Kelly Dixon.  Last night the show rocked.  I finally have the finger on the pulse of Vancouver, maybe previously I shouldn’t have tried to take the pulse with my thumb.

Man, it’s been a trippy year.  The highlight has to be the birth of my daughter, Presley, who is growing into a little lady.   She lights up the room with her dimply smile. camden has really stepped up as a big bro and loves the sh*t out of her, I think it’s him, the sh*t is coming from somewhere, and there is a lot of it.

I was at montreal for the Just For Laughs International Comedy Festival which was a hugely wondrous, and enlightening experience.  The feedback was great and I met a lot of influential people, while they were hammered, and promised me nothing, and wouldn’t remember me if I gave them remember me pills.

Recently, I was on tour with the infamous Richard Lett, the Canadian George Carlin, with a voice like golden honey, golden honey that has been smelted with glass shards and itchy.   I do have to publicly thank the blatty crooner for taking me out of a potentially dangerous situation(s), disarming me, and loading me full of pizza.  The details are unecessary, but Saskatoon can now rest peacefully and safely soley to the diligence of Richard Lett.  I still think that the dude was Cree Indian.   That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Whatever.

I have the luxury of staying at my buddy’s home here in Vancouver, Lachlan Patterson, a fellow comedian, has provided me with the guest room at his estate.

He had his cook whip up a salmon pasta, with fresh rosmary from the garden absolutely fine cuisine.

Lachlan is working this week with Paul Provenza, the director of “The Aristocrats”, currently one of the most talked about movies of ’05.  The discussion to go boating came up, but the opportunity did not. some friends have a cigarette boat, a term new to me.  I think the potential was enough for me, it sounds like a lot of work.

Well, that’s about it.  Aren’t you glad I started writing here again?

Me neither.  ‘Til next time.

xoxo

Freddy

Presley Grace Fredrickson was born March 20th at approximately 1:40pm at the Rockyview General hospital.  She weighs 6.5lbs, which is pretty darn good for someone who wanted out of the pod a month early.  Mommy is doing great.  Camden is still trying to figure what just happened.

Daddy is in Toronto and has the London leg of his tour left.

Family is taking care of everything, and I would like to extend thanks to everyone and their support. Trinda, Camden, and Presley are in very capable hands and they all know how much I love them all.  I’ve been pretty much told to finish what I need to do here.

It’s kind of cool though, to have such a life experience embedded in a life experience.  I talked to my daughter for the fist time in Peter’s kitchen.  When I heard her crying in the background, boom, waterworks for Mr. Daddy. I got to talk to her when she was crying, the stringbean stopped as soon as she heard my voice and let out a couple of screeches in response.  What a sweetheart.

Life is awesome.

Watch “I ♥ Huckabees”, a great flick on existentialism.  Existentialism 101 by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.

I don’t like to complain, but I’m good at it. I don’t know what it is about people that makes them avoid doing something easy.  I was ordering pizza recently.  We decided to go for some Pizza Hut.  I have to premise the story with the fact that we moved into a new home in a new area of town so the location isn’t always readily aparrent on older maps, BUT it exists nonetheless.  Pizza Hut was so confounded by this situation that they refused, REFUSED to deliver to my address. Not only did they refuse but they tried to justify not delivering to our house because it was basically too hard to do.  Can’t find a restaurant to deliver, the maps aren’t showing where we are, we’re f*cking retarded, etc.

Are you kidding me? Using this logic I’m surprized they get anything done at all.

“Yeah, we can’t make pizza today…’cause we’d have to get the dough stretched onto the pans, and then we’d have to put sauce on the dough, not to mention the toppings and, oh yeah, the cheeze, THEN we’d have to cook it.  Pfft, do you know how much work that is?”

Isn’t this what they do?  Aren’t they experts at cooking pizza, locating where you live, and delivering to your house?  As soon as they have anything that requires an iota of thought – can’t do it.  I think that’s their new marketing catch phrase – “Can’t do it.  Too f*cking hard.”

So I wrote a letter:

My family wanted to order pizza from Pizza Hut only to be left with the feeling that our patronage was not desired.

My initial phone call had me on hold for approximately ten minutes, only to be disconnected after being what was I can only assume a transfer attempt.

I called back, held for another ten minutes, only to find that delivery was not possible because no one was assigned to the area. I asked to speak with a manager and, again, after waiting on hold for another ten minutes, I was transferred to a customer service call representative.  The conversation basically was nothing more than an explanation of why Pizza Hut could not deliver to my house because I live in a newer neighborhood and it is not on any of the Pizza Hut maps, there isn’t a restaurant assigned to the area, therefore it is impossible to deliver. My only comfort was that I was assured that there would be delivery in the future.

Again I asked to talk to a manager, because I naively thought that perhaps there would be someone who valued myself and my family for future purchases, someone who may have tried to assuage the situation by offering to try and get directions to my house, or call a restaurant with high customer service value who would be happy to accommodate my wants and find a solution to what I thought was a simple problem. 

No such luck.

I talked with another representative who was more focused on carrying an ambivalent tone and chewing her gum while telling me about how they have this problem in Calgary and there was nothing that could be done. 

What really struck my wife and I as being odd is we had called based on a flyer that WAS DELIVERED TO OUR HOUSE.  The explanation provided by was that there is a problem with Canada Post.  This was now developing into a conspiracy against Pizza Hut preventing them from accomplishing the simplest of tasks.  

I would like to see a corporation such as Pizza Hut take accountability for their marketing.  Take charge of their customer service, and perhaps teach even a minor level of empowerment.

“Mr. Fredrickson, we are truly sorry for this temporary inconvenience and wish to extend to you a token of our gratitude for your patience regarding this matter, we would like to offer you a discount on your next order to the extent of ….”

This seems to me to be a simple remedy at a negligible cost to the company.  Instead I was fed with empty apologies and even less reasonable excuses with blame being the posturing of choice when dealing with customers. 

What would have started out as a small token request for my loyalty to Pizza Hut has now taken a turn for a request to see a revamping of your customer service policy and procedure.  I earnestly expect a brush off response from someone who has no vested interest in the company or my requests.  Perhaps this letter is an attempt to perhaps prove myself wrong and that your corporation understands that your client base is made of groups of individuals, and every individual does matter.

Really, I don’t think so.

Jasen Fredrickson
Parts Unknown

So this has been my update. No real jokie jokie. I guess all I really want to say is that Panagos pizza kicks ass, AND I got two extra dips. See how easy it is to please me?

Oh, who am I kidding, I LOVE complaining.

Ever been bored?  Stupid question, you’re here after all.  Joe cartoon can kill an hour or so with zaniness and general f*ckeduptitude.  Atomfilms is another good place to check out some online short flick craziness.

I’ve added some updates to the links section, and the bio area is coming around with some in-depth investigations and revelations of my past…and yours too.

I have some new shows through B.C. coming up, and I’ll be in Lethbridge August 24th at the Blarney Stone with Kerry Unger.  F*ckin’ give’er!

Other than that, I’m adding some new pictures to Camden’s web page.  The little rat is growing quick.  He’s been taking swim classes – Monkey’s and Minnows.  For half an hour he gets to climb around in a jungle gym, a BIG jungle gym and then its off “swimming” for half an hour.  Basically, he gets to blow bubbles, float and splash around, and pee in the water.  Sounds like when I went to the Shuswap, ‘cept the bubbles I had to blow…well, it wasn’t chlorine that burned my eyes.

Sometimes I forget my family reads this.

*DISCLAIMER – I’ve never blown Bubbles.