Tag: Dakota Mick

Oh, to be Young

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Dakota here…

When you’re 19. You think you know everything, but what do you know?

At 19, I was working for Clair Weiss, a rancher in Northwest South Dakota. The year was 1991. I was young, and at that stage, well Clair had been around a few times. He had fought in World War II, he had punched more cattle then I had ever seen and lived more life then I could imagine. A quiet man, but when he talked, worth listening too.

As a ranch hand, you spend a lot of time with the boss on a small operation. The work is hard and the hours can be long. So you get to know each other well and conversations can go any where.

This day that I am thinking back of, Clair and I was working on a tractor that had blow a hydraulic hose. Turning wrenches, we were talking about life. Few days earlier we had attended the funeral of a neighbour from a few ranches over. Thinking back, I wonder how could I have been so brazen to ask, but I did. “Clair, at your age, how can you sleep knowing that you do not have that long left in this world?” Clair laughed then said to me “Son, You are young, so you won’t understand, but eventually life wears on you and death just isn’t that scary anymore.” I didn’t understand.

I remember spending a good part of that night thinking about that statement. All these years it has stuck with me.

Eventually I left that ranch to see the world. Clair passed on. The ranch was sold off and the world took me down roads I never imagined. But how often that thought comes to my head. I ask myself “Do I understand, yet?”

So Why the Muslim and the Redneck?

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Well you know, sometimes you just need to do something different.

It all started when I first met Mustafa at the final of the 2019 Show Me the Funny competition up in Galway. It was a great night for a competition. Full house, and the crowd was up for it. I was second up on the night. I crushed my set. If I do say so myself. And that is all you can do in a competition. But it was a great night. The comedians had all brought their A game. Mark O’Keeffe was up after me and he tore the place apart, ended up winning the whole damn thing. Well deserved too. Mustafa was up later in the night and yet again another great set, which earned him a second place spot. But besides that Mustafa and I got to chatting a bit and figured we kind of liked each others comedy. The start of it.

2019

So over the course of the year, we ended up gigging together at a few venues around Ireland. Each time having a great laugh at each others comedy and then having a good laugh messing with each other after the gigs. Slagging can be hell you know.

Then after a gig in Cork, Mustafa suggested that maybe we should team up and produce a comedy show. “The Muslim and the Redneck” That was his idea. So you know who to blame. First thought, this could end up get us into some trouble…so ya, let’s do it.

So that is where we are at. Working on producing a show. We know we can be funny on our own. But trying to combine. Tough work. But we are getting there. Mostly we spend our time trying to think of stereotypes of each others back rounds. And then wondering how can we turn that on it’s head. We call it research, but mostly we are still just slagging each other. So who knows… As long as I can avoid pissing off the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. We might just do something funny as hell.

Dakota Mick’s first blog

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Dakota here…April 14th 2020 at around 2:00 in the morning. What the hell am I doing awake? And why the hell am I trying to write? Good questions, I have no idea.

Well here I is, knee deep in the middle of this quarantine. Oh joy. I am bored out of my mind and my sleep schedule is all over the place.

So Mustafa and I, the two forces of nature, behind the Muslim and the Redneck. Have been working away at trying to develop a comedy duo, comedy show, comedy extravaganza, a hurricane of chuckles in order to escape the mundane of everyday life. So how did this come to be.

Let’s do a flash back montage.

A few years back, I was working away, cutting up a load of materials to make a kitchen. For years I have been working as a cabinet maker to pay the bills and help raise a family. While listening to the radio as I worked, I heard a comedian chatting with the DJ’s, basically talking smack and promoting the show that he was touring around the country.

I have always wanted to be a comedian ever since I was a kid listening to Richard Pryor albums with my Dad. My Dad was a huge fan, with no qualms about letting his kids listen, no matter what Mom said. But growing up in South Dakota in the 70’s and 80’s, not to many opportunities to get into comedy.

But then life gets busy. You graduate high school, realise white trash can’t afford to go to college, so you join the Marine Corps. Hey, it got me out of a small town that was getting to small for me. You meet a girl from Ireland, marry a girl from Ireland and before you know it, a kid, then another kid. Then life… work… more work… and more life. Until one day you are 43 years old working at cutting up a kitchen, listening to a comedian promote his show and thinking. I always wanted to be a comedian.

I always wanted to be a comedian.