I'm from Missouri. The show-me state. Not to be confused with Shoney's. I wouldn't recommend showing anything at a Shoney's in Missouri unless you want more than you payed for. I am one of five boys so when I was nine I was hog tied with electrical tape and locked in a dark cold shower for seven hours until my dad rescued me like Liam Neeson in "Taken". When I was 11, I was quadruple bagged in Hefties and tossed against a garage door for an afternoon until my dad rescued me like Mel Gibson in "Ransom". When I was 14, I was duck taped to a tree for an entire night and beaten with pool noodles until my dad rescued me like Bruce Willis in "Live Free or Die Hard". All the while I was a national champion on the little league wrestling circuit, tearing up rat tails left & right but like an east Texas beauty pageant girl, my talent fizzled out with puberty. >Fastforward seven years> My first job out of college was dressing as a giant lobster, flagging down cars for a costume shop but Halloween only comes once a year and seafood isn't very fresh in Chicago especially if it's available on the street. So, I moved to Argentina and then eventually Peru for a little more edu-macation. That's a book on it's own but I did learn to speak Spanish which I use so much now. After all that monkey business I worked in politics for a time, managing campaigns and learning important life lessons such as, how to answer the question you wished someone had asked you without ever giving an honest answer, the powerlessness of a power suit without an American flag on the breast, and that a filibuster is not a small handheld vacuum made in Pennsylvania. On the Upside, When I was working for Senator Claire McCaskill, James Carvell told me I was "a smart fella". I still don't know if the Ragin' Cajun was being sarcastic but we'll count it and move on. I love stand up comedy and do it as much as humanly possible because I'm not an animal. Having epilepsy or what I call "the unconscious dinosaur hula" is also a huge part of my life. I've been hula-free for almost three years now. high fives . . . or low (if you like a weaker slap or just prefer paying cash.) Anyway, As a symbolic high five I stopped throwing away empty pill bottles and started using them to build a sculpture for my dance partners across the globe. Right now I'm about a year away from my goal. I dislike white tube socks and couples who put their dogs in their Christmas cards or just like their dogs with antlers on a North Pole background. Grrrr! But I do love advertising and creating anything that makes people feel something. Thank you very much for reading.
Conor O'Neill Barry
