The Jeremy Show Interviews: Kara Buller

Kara Buller has agreed to open up her life and her purse for The Jeremy Show. Kara Buller is a stand up comedian who has been tearing up the boards on the Chicago Stand-Up circuit for years.





From Kara's bio- "During her six years in Chicago, Kara Buller has done just about all you can do to a stage. She has been a theater critic, writer, actor, improviser, stand-up comic, story-teller, and instructor. She has written and performed three shows in Chicago: A Fag & His Hag, Work (both with Jeremy Wells) and Cowboy Crushes, Prank Calls & The Biblette. In response to her two-person show A Fag & His Hag, The Chicago Reader claimed Buller showed "great comic promise, with a self-deprecating edge to her carefully enunciated phrasing."






You've been doing stand up comedy for awhile now in many of the greater venues around chicago, you've even traveled the greater midwest spreading love and laughter...have you ever gotten busy in in a comedy club, how far have you gone, with who and how was it?

Yes, some business has been taken care of in the comedy clubs. It has always been
very tasteful and tender business, oddly enough. I think it's important to have feelings for the people you are with, and to then get overly attached and act inappropriate towards them.


What is your stripper name (first childhood pet, and
name of the first street you lived on)?

Brandy Unknown

You're planning a trip to southeast Asia. First, what
is Southeast Asia and second, why are you going there
and what will you do when you are there? What will you
buy me?

Southeast Asia is China's sexy little sister. She teeters around on clear plastic heels and drinks way too much. She is constantly making out with European and Scandinavian backpackers, entertaining pedophiles and making really good meals. Southeast Asia includes Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Phillipines, the Krati Peninsula, the Galapagos, Puerto Rico and all Sandals Resorts.

I am going for the only reason I do anything: DRAMA! Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the world's largest religious structure. It was the crown jewel of the great Khmer empire--and is the only building visible from outer space! Then things started to go not so well for the Khmer: the Thai army came, the French came and in the 1970s the Khmer Rouge took over and ended up killing 2 million of their own people. It's a huge failure you can see from outer space. This moves me. The things that humans can do--and undo. I want to see it with my own two eyes (pointing two fingers to my eyes). Also, I have a friend over there in Cambodia who is very dear to me and I would like to see him.

You lived with me for 3 years, what was the grossest
thing about living with me?

There was a period there when it smelled like Jeremy was bowel-movementing iron ore. I don't know what was going on with him gastrointestinally, but it was not good. It was this weird metallicy-sweet smell that really worried all of us. It was strongest at our middle place: "2324" and subsided towards the end, at "1761." For a while I thought it was how our bathrooms smelled, but there were three of us and it wasn't happening with Geoffrey and me. Of course, now, I miss that smell.

You've told me you've had your purse stolen repeatedly
over the last year. What do you have in your purse?
Take your time and list all of the contents.

First off, I purchased a Le SportSac bag in NY. It was very expensive and, I thought, very French. I've only seen LeSportsac stores in Waikiki and NYC. I thought that meant "class." Then I started noticing that the only people who had LeSportsacs were overweight 50 year old women at museums.

Inside..there is
Ipod
palm pilot
FACE Stockholm pale pink lipstick
Black Honey Clinique lipgloss
Clinique powder
protective goggles for when I go tanning
a black Uni-Ball pen (micro of course)
a cool looking yellow mod notebook from Target
Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Aleve gelcaps
SuperGroom nail and cuticle groomer from Blisslabs NY
and
Eclipse gum.

Oh, and my wallet, which I received in the mail in April after having it stolen from me in November. People are good at heart! (Except for me--I just disparaged overweight 50 year old women. But it's not like I won't be one someday.)

Have you ever had an STD? I have. If you haven't which
STD would you choose?

I have not had an STD. I did at one point have an STP bumper sticker on the back of my car, which is, yes, very very regrettable. I would chose to have crabs. I think it's the cutest one to have. It's almost like having a musical in your pants. What STD did you have? Wasn't it crabs?

What is love?

Love is an endless, aching need. It is for me anyways. Did I quote Bette Midler correctly there? There are many types of love: mad, crazy in love love; brotherly, sisterly love; you work in the cubicle next to me and yell "oh momma!" and "whatta knucklehead!" and make me laugh love, i didn't want to be with you at first but now it's quite comfortable and great love....many types. They all make us feel connected to another and help to remove cinderblock by cinderblock the cylindrical wall that surrounds us. Maybe? I personally love love. I can't wait to love again. There is a sticker pasted around Wicker Park that says "Love Again." Please. Give me a break....(teary eyed) Thank you.

I need to go buy cigarettes but I'm not sure what time
Walgreens opens but I'm gonna go ahead and assume that
they are open. While I'm gone, please tell me who
you'd rather french kiss Katie Couric, Kathie Lee
Gifford or Condi Rice..set the scene.

I think there is something about Katie Couric. I hear she is evil--and she has no lips. There's something there. I want to explore it. It would have to involve a city, a big black car and too many glasses of chardonnay at a "gala."

I'm back. What is the biggest misconception about Kara
Buller?

Unfortunately, there are no misconceptions. Everyone is dead-on. One co-worker did tell me I always look very pulled-together, very stylish. I fear she was very wrong.

Well, we've all been reading about how you're going to
uproot and move to the Big Apple and take it by storm.
On March 25, 1911 the Triangle Factory Fire in
Greenwich Village took the lives of 145 female garment
workers, which would eventually lead to great
advancements in the city's fire department, building
codes, and workplace regulations. So, what are you
wearing today?

Oh, it's terrible. Red dress pants that hit just above the ankle, black strappy high heeled sandals that smell bad, a black sweater with a gold neckband and an orange and green scarf wrapped around my head. I woke up late and didn't have time to wash my hair. I smell very animally too. I kind of like it though.

Where were you born? Now, rearrange the letters of the
town you were born in and then try to make a word out
of them. Put that word into a sentence. Quickly..we
don't have all day.

Ithaca, New York. Chaita. I chaita do it but I couldn't.

Thank you for your time today, Kara Buller. Is there
anything you'd like to say to The Jeremy Show viewers?

Yeah, I took Jeremy's security deposit and went to Asia with it. It wasn't right. It wasn't polite. But we're going to work through this. I'm sorry if this in anyway hurt the show. We'll talk about it off camera.

Maybe you could buy me an Ipod and not one of those little pansy ones either. I want a big honker.

Where can our viewers come to see you live? What's
your schedule?

I am hosting at Gunther Murphys Aug 2. I do open mics at Bad Dog and Crush. That's it. When I get to New York, you'll be seeing me at all the big-name clubs. New York cannot resist a smelly girl in a scarf. I know it.

5 celebrities I wish to sleep with

sex would be optional

1. Robert Downey Jr. (movie star)



2. Paul Giamatti (movie star)



3. Damon Dogg (naughty movie star)


4. Robbie Williams (creamy smooth pop star)



5. Anderson Cooper (news star)

you'd every cause to doubt me, mein herr

Well, my goodness. I have not been feeling good lately. My, my, my. Especially bad mood for the last 5 days or so.

I think it started when I took a pain pill for my root canal. I think it triggered my depression switch. That might sound ridiculous but I think that is what happened. Ever since I have had all the classic blah blah symptoms- hopeless, self loathing, trouble sleeping. There are many things in my life to be especially thankful for, but when I am in "one of my moods" it is almost impossible to see them. Everything is pathetic.

I look back at my blog entries from this time last year and there are only two- it seems I was doing okay (I have had suspicion that its the summer that does it to me). But I was working. That is a huge factor in the arrival of depressive states for me. If I have no structure, I am doomed. Everything warps- my self esteem, my perception of others, time. I can stand outside myself and see this, but I feel that I can't stop it.

I would like to write more but I'm already getting annoyed with what I've written, ha! It did help to write this much out, though. So, for now, baby steps. I will work on my assignment for school tomorrow. Writing a paper on a clip from "Cabaret" we watched.

"Isn't this dress great? It makes her look like a dessert!"

Wouldn't it be cool if we were married and I was leaving you this note next to your coffee cup before I ran out to work. But I'm not and we're not.

Anyway, today I have a temp job putting binders together. I worked for this company before doing the same thing. It's a real hoot, nothing i like better.

I had a dream that I was helping this girl get ready for her play that she was in at my old high school. She didn't really need my help and seemed a little annoyed. Just before I woke up she showed me these wonderful Barbies she had designed as gifts for the cast. They were really cute.

I think part of the reason I had this dream was because I feel like I am in a fight with one of my friends AND because I was looking at The Rupaul Doll last night! I have a love/hate relationship with Barbies. I love them a lot, but I just can't find a place to display them. I actually gave away a lot of my Barbies (Vitametavegamin Lucy Barbie, Rosie O'Donnell Barbie, 1950's Barbie). I sort of regret doing it but they were missing stuff- Rosie was missing a shoe and 1950's Barbie was missing her microphone. (If I were to buy a Rupaul doll, the one pictured is the one I want)

Perhaps now that I have my own place I will start collecting them again. Speaking of dolls, I watched Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen on HBO. It's about the whole kids beauty pageant thing, very creepy but you get over that in ten minutes and turn into a stage mom wanting the girl to win at all costs. I loved it. (The title of this post came from that movie.)

I was thinking of maybe writing a little play about it, in which I could star as the child beauty pageant contestant. I also have another idea about hot guys and supermarkets. I will need some help with that, though.

P.S. (conspiracy theory) I think the Bush gang is waiting for the space shuttle to blow up and take over all news so they wont have to deal with the Karl Rove thing (that I don't really understand anyway). I don't know nothing about nothing. But come on! THE WINDOW FELL OFF!! and it was TAPED ON!

reading my book

For my class on The Holocaust, we have been assigned to read Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz.

I have been avoiding reading it for awhile. I've been carrying it around, thinking perhaps, that i will start reading it on a boring bus ride or while waiting for something. It's not one of those books, though. You don't just casually pull it out and start reading. It has been haunting me, even before I opened it.

When I finally started it, I felt myself trying to disconnect from it. My brain kind of going into denial- as if it was just a Stephen King story.

I didn't think I would get scared by it. I've read a few books on The Holocaust. It is so crazy how numb you get to it.

Up until now, we've been learning about how The Holocaust happened, Hitler, what the political climate was in Germany, etc. That is all much more palatable. To read the day to day experience of someone who was there is different. Don't like it.

I also became aware of how I have a personal concentration camp in my head. When I read about it, things are always set up the same. The bunks, the camp, what it looks like and sounds like at night when the inmates are sleeping- always the same.

One of the buildings or a building always looks similar to this factory (or some sort of industrial building) in Crystal Lake off of Rte. 31 near Rte. 14. That has always fascinated me- how we (or I) asimmilate things in stories to things we know- the "sets" we construct for stories that we are reading to take place in. Often stories take place a lot in my childhood or (strangely) in my friend Heather's house.

Forgive me if I quote Bette Midler again:

"The truth is scarrier by far
than anything that Stephen King could write."

Cities and Movies

Netflix has a new feature where you can see what movies are popular in specific cities. Just for fun I compared West Hollywood, California to Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Members in and around West Hollywood, are currently renting these titles much more than other Netflix members.

1. Tarnation*
2. Straight-Jacket*
3. Latter Days
4. DiG!
5. Locked Up
6. Bad Education
7. Rebel Without a Cause: Special Edition*
8. Vera Drake*
9. Kinsey*
10. The Graduate*
11. Being Julia
12. What the #$*! Do We Know!? *
13. The Assassination of Richard Nixon
14. Six Feet Under: Season 3
15. The Sea Inside
16. A Dirty Shame
17. Team America: World Police*
18. The Jacket
19. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
20. Hotel Rwanda
21. The Five People You Meet in Heaven
22. In the Realms of the Unreal
23. The Sopranos: Season 5
24. Primer
25. Garden State

So, no suprises. Pretty much what you would expect in West Hollywood. Colorado Springs has some really interesting choices.

Members in and around Colorado Springs, Colorado are currently renting these titles much more than other Netflix members.


1. True Lies*
2. Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
3. Down With Love*
4. Star Trek: Voyager: Season 1 (5-Disc Series)
5. Africa: The Serengeti: IMAX
6. Contact*
7. Hoosiers
8. Herbie Rides Again
9. The Secret Garden*
10. Old Yeller
11. High Crimes
12. The Perfect Storm
13. Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again
14. NASCAR: The IMAX Experience
15. XXX: Special Edition
16. A Murder of Crows
17. Control
18. Blue Collar Comedy Tour
20. Tears of the Sun
21. Band of Brothers (6-Disc Series)
22. Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
23. Sleepover
24. The Professional
25. Resident Evil: Apocalypse

I understand all the kids movies. I assume they are being rented for kids, but what is up with the IMAX movies! Why would you rent IMAX movies if you don't have an IMAX screen in your house? Maybe they do, I've never been to Colorado Springs. Anyway, it's really interesting to see where other parts of the country are as far as renting movies.

OCD meditation mantra

Sometimes when I'm walking and I'm bored I play a little OCD game where I pick an object or word that I see on my journey, example "Green Grass" and I keep repeating that "Green Grass, Green Grass" until I see another object or word written on a sign that starts with the same letter of the first object/word. That word is added to my mantra "Green Grass, Growing. Green Grass, Growing" and on and on until I have collected a bunch of words to my mantra. My focus stays on collecting words and repeating them in order. It's sort of a walking meditation because it totally gets your mind off of whatever negative thoughts or internal gossip or emotional spiraling you are immersed in. Feel free to give it a try.

This is what I ended up with when I got home:

Green Grass Growing GE Gorgeous GAIA Gorilla General God



Green Grass (self explanatory)

Growing (I saw ivy growing)

GE (I saw a pothole with this on it)

Gorgeous (A house I saw on Wilson was gorgeous)

GAIA (saw a GAIA clothes collection box)

Gorilla (not sure what this was, it was on a sign)

General (again, on a sign, General Contracting I think)

God (on a church)

on the way to the dentist

Sit like you're a man when you're at the Western train stop. When there are men with missing teeth saying they "...didn't get out of jail till two o'clock this morning," sit with your leg resting on your knee, not crossed like a faggot.

Speaking of missing teeth. Remember to brush and floss your teeth everyday and night. Be obsessive about it, so you won't have to be sitting at the Western Metra station on your way to your sister's dentist in Franklin Park. You won't have to borrow fifty dollars from your sister for a consultation to see just how bad the damage is.

I don't ever want to go to jail. I don't ever want to end up with people like this. Now they're talking about the military. I don't want to go into the military either. Tossing around words like Taliban and Saudis. They don't know what the hell they're talking about, no one does. No teeth man says to his African American friend, "You ever seen the movie, uh, uh, Black Hawk Down?" No I haven't, and I don't want to -- thank you. I am not included in the conversation, thankfully. Escaping into candy coated Gwen Stefani.

The lighter I am using has the telltale signs of a pot smoker. I don't know why it gets all black on the bottom- is it for "packing bowls?" All I know is that means that someone has been using it for pot smoking. I wonder from which friend I stole this. Which of my friends has been smoking pot with a white lighter. Sounds like bad luck if you ask me.

Now I sit more faggoty. It's too hot to pretend I'm straight. Too hot to sit like a man.

A bee floats from bench to bench and lands on my coffee cup briefly.

workin the lateshift, listening to music

I haven't written anything in awhile. Just can't seem to translate my thoughts into words.

During one of the eighteen naps I took today, I had a dream that involved me serving mugs of some liquid but they all had mustaches in them. Really weird. Someone (that I was serving) complained that the mustache they had in their mug was too big and hairy.

I went to Rob and Andy's to watch "Can't Stop The Music" the wonderful Village People movie. Because I slept all day everything, including the movie, seemed half dreamy.

So, I'm going to try to stay up all night and then all day to get my sleeping on schedule. You might think that is stupid and maybe it is. But I didn't really ask you.

I am listening to "Hell Song" by Sum 41. I heard that it was about one of the band member's friends who got HIV. But who knows.

Now the song playing is "Paninaro 95" by the Pet Shop Boys. It is from "Popart: The Hits," their second greatest hits album. I like that the songs are not chronological. There will be an old song and then a new song. So that's cool. Part of the lyrics are:

"Now you've gone, I'm all alone
My heart is broken and I don't wanna go home
You know it's all over, you're out of luck
You feel so low you wanna self-destruct
I needed you and you loved me too
but now I don't know what I'm gonna do
But life moves on, I'm talking history
and now I've got to find someone who'll dance with me"

I enjoy this song. It is sung/rapped by Chris Lowe the "cute" member of The Pet Shop Boys. The (double) cd is great. I insist that you download it illegally right now.

Now I am listening to a song called "The Real Thing" from Gwen Stefani's album. I've been kind of addicted to this song since I reintrouduced myself to this album. I made copies of cds for my friend Hillary (American Life by Madonna, the aforementioned Pet Shop Boys cds, and the Gwen Stefani album). Here are my favorite lyrics to this song.

"You're a salty water ocean wave
You knock me down, you kiss my face
I know the storms will always come
But I still love to have you around"

I don't think she is referring to actually being knocked down (by her boyfriend). I think she means it metaphorically. I also like the idea of remembering that there will always be storms and that they will always come. It's good to remember that things aren't going to be perfect and that there are going to be huge emotional trainwrecks. Now, I don't really have anyone to apply this song to but I like to pretend I have a boyfriend when I'm listening to songs. Sometimes it's about a friend or sometimes I even apply them to myself. It's a fun game.

On top of sleeping and feeling generally crappy the last couple of days I have also been feeling creatively challenged. When I don't have a creative outlet or I don't feel like my voice is being heard I don't like it. Everything I write or do is shit. shit. shit.

I am feeling a little better now that I'm getting this out. Now I am listening to "Electric Youth" by Debbie (now Deborah) Gibson. I remember when they sold "Electric Youth" perfume at Walgreens. I wanted to be a girl sooo bad so I could buy it. Madonna is going to have a perfume coming out but I don't want to get into that right now.

Now I am listening to "It's Raining Men" by Rupaul and Martha Wash. I saw Rupaul at Pridefest last weekend. I enjoyed it very much. I am so happy that it wasn't all lip synched and shit. The bitch can sing, she can work it.

I wonder if my music is too loud. I imagine the hispanic woman next door with her son is trying to sleep and all she can hear is Rupaul. I don't think it's that loud but I have no idea. I haven't really heard anyone else.

"God bless mother nature, she's a single woman too."