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Zohan and Carrie

Never did I think I would be thinking, “Man, I should have seen Kung Fu Panda,” after seeing two movies this weekend, but that is exactly what I thought.

The first bowel-movement-passed-off-as-film that I saw was “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.” With the exception of one funny montage and some scenes so over the top I had to surrender some laughs this movie is horrendous (blame my mentee who wanted to see it). If the rednecks and anti-Semites ever put together a court case on how the Jews run entertainment I am pretty sure Adam Sandler’s success will be their equivalent of the bloody glove. I enjoyed Happy Gilmore and when one of his movies is on television I will sometimes watch, but this guy’s megastar status baffles me. And I am pretty sure that Adam Sandler claims Rob Schneider as a dependent on tax returns because apparently but roles in Adam Sandler movies are his only means of support.

But like an appetizer of piss, before a main course of sh*t, Zohan was merely a prelude to Sex and the City.

There were several things that annoyed me in this film besides the September 20th wedding date of Big and Carrie. First, the acting by some people in the movie (Chris Noth and the guy who plays Steve) was atrocious. Second, someone must have told the writers that for a feature length film they must stray from their successful formula of seamen references and puns and venture into more diverse dialogue. Well, that was a bad idea. Third, Jason Lewis (Smith), one of the top two attractive J-L’s in the world has apparently done a Vince Vaughn (pulling a Vince Vaughn is when a newcomer to movies finds some success and then drinks and parties 15 years onto his face in 3-4 years), which was disappointing to me, but brought me one heroin addiction away from topping that list. I am assuming that Lewis began shooting heroin shortly after viewing this film. Fourth, the movie was 2 hours and 20 minutes long. Even four women only have about 90 minutes of worthwhile things to say, but somehow the movie managed an extra 50 minutes.

I feel like due to the film’s success there is always a chance for a sequel, which means that we will all be able to look forward to Samantha Jones blowing nursing home orderlies in the future.

Next in the competition for worst movie to come out since Indian Jones 4 will be The Incredible Hulk. Hancock, Batman 2 and Tropic Thunder are all that stand in the way from this being the worst Summer of movies.

I need a lawyer to sue this plagarizing bi*ch

I have been ripped off before by more famous people (so I think). 4 months before Dave Chappelle unleashed his infamous “Niggar Family” on his show I had made a small name for myself in DC doing a sketch about Arnold Schwarzenegger at his family reunion – but shortening the name for convenience – you can guess the rest – hilarity ensued and it became an early go-to joke in my repetoire. The night Chappelle’s sketch aired I received several calls from fellow comics offering their condolences. See, once a more famous guy did a sketch seemingly similar I would be the one who looked like a copycat and joke stealer to everyone who saw me do it from that point, who had not seen me do it before.

Well, it has happened again. The number 1 e-mailed article on the New York Times is a less funny version of my blog from May 7th. Well, obviously Judith Warner is one of the dozen or so readers of this blog and I want my credit. Here it is for your consideration/scorn:

Is it a coincidence that the bubbling idiocy of “Sex and the City,” the movie, exploded upon the cultural scene at the exact same time that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy imploded? Literally, of course, it is. Figuratively, I’m not so sure. And before I set off an avalanche of e-mails explaining why Hillary deserved to lose, I want to make one point clear: I am talking here not about the outcome of her candidacy – mistakes were made, and she faced a formidable opponent in Barack Obama – but rather about the climate in which her campaign was conducted. The zeitgeist in which Hillary floundered and “Sex” is now flourishing. It’s a cultural moment that Andrew Stephen, writing with an outsider’s eye for the British magazine the New Statesman last month, characterized as a time of “gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind.” A moment in which things like the formation of a Hillary-bashing political action group, “Citizens United Not Timid,” a “South Park” episode featuring a nuclear weapon hidden in Clinton’s vagina, and Internet sales of a Hillary Clinton nutcracker with shark-like teeth between her legs, passed largely without mainstream media notice, largely, perhaps, because some of the key gatekeepers of mainstream opinion were so busy coming up with various iterations of the nutcracker theme themselves. (Tucker Carlson on Hillary: “When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs.” For a good cry, watch this incredible montage from the Women’s Media Center.) Stephen is not the first commentator to note that if similarly hateful racial remarks had been made about Obama, our nation would have turned itself inside out in a paroxysm of soul-searching and shame. Had mainstream commentators in 2000 speculated, say, that Joe Lieberman had a nose for dough, or made funny Shylock references, heads would have rolled – and rightfully so. But 16 months of sustained misogyny? Hey — she asked for it. With that voice, (“When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, ‘Take out the garbage’ ” Fox News regular Marc Rudov, author of “Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables,” said in January). With that ambition, and that dogged determination (“like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court,” according to MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle) and, of course, that husband (Chris Matthews: “The reason she’s a U.S. Senator, the reason she’s a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around.”). Clearly, in an age when the dangers and indignities of Driving While Black are well-acknowledged, and properly condemned, Striving While Female – if it goes too far and looks too real — is still held to be a crime. In a culture that’s reached such a level of ostensible enlightenment as ours, calling a powerful woman “castrating” – however you choose to put it – ought to be seen as just as offensive as rubbing your fingers together to convey a love of gold coinage when you talk about a Jew. It’s nothing other than an expression of woman-hate — and the degree to which such expressions have flourished, in the mainstream media and in the loonier reaches of cyberspace this year, has added up to be a real national shame. Which brings me back to “Sex and the City.” How antithetical Hillary’s earnest, electric blue pants-suited whole being is to the frothy cheer of that film, which has women now turning out in droves, a song in their hearts, unified in popcorn-clutching sisterhood to a degree I haven’t seen since the ugly, angry days of Anita Hill and … the first incarnation of Hillary Clinton. How times have changed. How yucky, how baby boomerish, how frowningly pre-Botox were the early 1990s. How brilliantly does “Sex” – however atrocious it may be – surf our current zeitgeist, sugar-coating it all in Blahniks and Westwood, and yummy men and yummier real estate, and squeakingly desperate girl cheer. Take Miranda: a working mother archetype for an anti-woman age. She’s so callous now that she won’t let her nanny eat a decent meal, and so defiantly sexless that she’s let her pubic hair grow in. Take Charlotte: the Good Mommy, with an angel’s face and no employment, a seemingly limitless credit line and an adoring troglodyte of a husband (so short, so bald, and yet so good with the gelt). And then – please – take Samantha. At 50, she’s the one girlfriend aged enough to bear the baggage of old-time, Clinton-era feminist sentiment. She’s a self-centered heart-breaker, a real man-eater — you should see how she rejects a drooping roll of sushi — her corruption made manifest by the fact that, at film’s end, she develops (gasp!) a gut. Yes, a gut, girls, like yours and mine and that of virtually any real woman who’s over 35, or has had children, or has something more important to do than full-time Pilates. “Sex and the City” is the perfect movie for our allegedly ever-so-promising post-feminist era, when “angry” is out and Restalyne is in, and virtually all our country’s most powerful women look younger now than they did 20 years ago. Oh, lighten up, I can hear you say. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. Earnestness is so unattractive (in a woman).

What if Vince McMahon were the DNC Chairman?

Now that the Democratic Party has chosen J-L Cauvin with a tan and anorexia over an older Rebecca DeMornay I would like to see some things happen.

First, Obama must bring Hillary’s supporters over and not lose them to the Crypt Keeper, John “My Friends” McCain. Looking at John McCain reminds me of Quint in Jaws, when he is describing looking into a shark’s eyes. “He had doll’s eyes-” meaning no white in them – very scary. John McCain has these same eyes to me.

One way for Obama to NOT bring Hillary’s supporters is the following:

ME : Hey Mom, are you finally ready for CHANGE?

Mom: Yes – I am seriously changing all my policies and pension to your brother. Keep it up.

So Obama – change may come slowly over the next few months for Hillary supporters.

As an aside I already know that if Obama wins in November, his re-election theme in 2012 will be: “Once you go Barack, you don’t go back.”

I am really looking forward to the Democratic Convention in Denver this August, mainly because I want it to turn into a WWE melee.

I imagine Hillary and Bill speaking, giving ringing endorsements of Obama that bring their supporters fully into Obama’s camp. Then (especially if Hillary is VP), on the final night after Obama’s acceptance speech, while the two Clintons and Obamas are on stage together, the lights suddenly go dark. The score from An Inconvenient Truth starts playing and Al Gore walks onto the stage. The announcer is going crazy, “My Gawd it’s Al Gore!” And then Gore goes to shake Obama’s hand, but at the last second hits him with a haymaker and hits Michelle with a chair. The Clintons look at each other seemingly shocked, but then start kicking the Obamas while they are gone. As the screen fades to black you hear the announcer screaming, “My Gawd, it’s Gore-Clinton in ’08”

Not good politics, but would be entertaining.

But seriously, if John McCain wins the election I will probably have to leave the country, the way Peter Venkman slowly creeps out of the Ghostbusters firehouse when Walter Peck shuts down the containment unit. I do not want to be here for the end of the world.

Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria.

It has been a slow go recently for funny personal stories, so I have been finding humor in the news lately.

Among my favorite tidbits was that NY Governor David Patterson was battling glaucoma. I am not a medical doctor, nor am I an expert of the human eye, but hearing a blind guy complain about glaucoma makes me think that next week Magic Johnson will be complaining about a case of herpes.

Then Scott McClellan, former Bush propaganda director, releases a book where he – GASP acknowledges that Bush convinced himself that things were true that weren’t and that the War in Iraq was based on bullsh-t, etc. We all know that. Maybe it would have meant something if you had said it WHILE you were working for the guy and it actually could have made a small difference, instead of now just to help book sales. I feel like if Kato Kaelin came out today and said that OJ did it and he witnessed it, it would be sort of the same reaction, “Man, I wish there was a time where you could have told us that when it would have mattered. Oh well.”

And then, in today’s NY Times there was an article about women who love Sex and the City, but who are not necessarily like the women featured on the show, i.e. City, Urbane, New york TypeS). That is a strange phenomenon, women who not those types (I’ll save the acronym) who watch the show and still find these women to be role models. Sort of like Reagan Republicans who did not realize that sharing Reagan’s arcane views on race, gender, sexuality, etc. would still not make money and fairy tales come true for blue collar workers waiting for trickle down economics.

And that ends the analogy portion of today’s blog. I got nothing else. There may be a movie review coming this Monday…

It has gotten so bad that I am considering buying a PS3

Today I saw the new Indiana Jones film. As my friend and fellow comic Jim Dodge said, “In this one, Indy digs up his own bones.” This film was really stupid. It makes Iron Man, a mediocre flick with Robert Downey Jr channeling Vince Vaughn, look like Oscar material. The problem with Indiana Jones is that watching the film I actually thought – wow – they stole that from the Mummy. I’m sure Harrison Ford is happy to see that his career is now taking cues from Brendan Fraser’s.

But this is all but a prelude to Black Friday – May 30, 2008. Sex and the City arrives and apparently so do hundreds or thousands of women to the city who will be watching the movie in the city. Now I never dressed up for a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings film, but I imagine this is the female equivalent. “Oh my God, we so have to be in New York City to watch this film. Theaters in DC, Philly, Connecticut and New Jersey are going to be so lame compared to theaters in NYC.”

Perhaps if these two groups got together, the geeks that dress up for Harry Potter and the women that come to this city to get the real “SATC” experience, they could have children so confused that they do not turn films into bigger events than they are. Sadly these groups are pop culture’s answer to Palestine and Israel: they will never settle their differences. Can’t they see that they are both losers?

What is a movie addict to do? I already have The Departed and Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny committed to memory so it would be nice for Hollywood to stop the flow of crap. Oh wait – Kung Fu Panda and The Hulk are opening in the next two weeks. Phew!

Spanish for “R.Kelly’s play pen”

I was in Baltimore for a two day work-related conference. One of my co-workers had his birthday last night and his girlfriend came down to meet him so we went out for drinks. Looking for a place that would have the NBA playoffs on we stumbled on to a place called Iguana Cantina. Now because of it I may never have daughters.

First we go in and it is $8 cover for open bar (well drinks) for the whole night. How is that legal? Seriously, I drank enough gin to kill a family of four for only eight dollars.

The second problem was this was an 18 to enter, 21 to drink place, which means it’s actually 18 to enter, 17 to drink, 15 to get in.

I spent my last two blogs decrying the effects of Sex and the City on women’s values and Karl Malone’s statutory rape past. Somehow Iguana Cantina provided me with a sort of hybrid opportunity. I think in the last ten years the two most profound pop culture influences on women are Sex and the City (at least in places like NYC) and Britney Spears. Spears may be a sad joke now, but when she burst onto the scene in the late 90s she officailly made adult sexuality ok for 14 year olds on a mass scale. Or maybe she just made it public for everyone to see.

Either way I observed girls ranging from 16-20 dressed in a way that might make Larry Flynt blush. Although I was in a legally uncomfortable position of ackowledging that some of these girls looked insanely hot, which marked a transition for me in my position on the R. Kelly case. Hopefully it was only the legal ones that I thought this of, but to paraphrase Jack Nicholson in the Departed: “They told us you could be two things, you can be 19 or you can be 17, but what I’m saying to you is this: when you are staring down a pair of breast implants, what’s the difference?”

Ok, now that that creepy part is done with the night’s highlight, was meeting the apparent mayor of this aspiring rape den, Andrew. Andrew stood and spoke with me and my co-worker for a large part of the night. Andrew is a travelling salesman for Roto-Rooter. He looks like a slightly more handsome version of Jake Busey (Gary’s son). He was orange in color (a self proclaimed tanorexic), his teeth were exceedingly white (he had gotten them whitened at a booth at the airport) and he is from Maryland, but currently living in LA when not travelling. Every third person in the bar seemed to know this guy (and there were about 700). He informed me that that night he was in the mood for a “brunette or a light skinned black chick,” but that “legs were the most important.” Fortunately for him, legs, ass and the occaisonally vagagay were on display (I said these girls were scantily clad). If a girl met his approval he simply said, “Healthy, very healthy.” When I write him into my show – that will be his catch phrase. He also informed me that he won a date two weeks ago at the Iguana Cantina with a Rock of Love with Brett Michaels contestant. He said that he drew an arrow on his stomach down to his crotch and that that won her over. However, before he could “bag it” her bouncer told him no. Andrew was 26, which based on his familiarity with much of the crowd, means he is a repeat felon.

I have come to realize that even at 29 my values are already outdated. I just think when a pretty high school girl already has breast implants, parents have abdicated their responsibility. I think when a bar has an $8 all you can drink and allows teenagers in they are asking for trouble. And I think when a 17 year old has a tounge ring that’s terrific. My favorite quotes from the night:

“He could hit it.” – girl speaking to my co-worker about me. She was no older than 18. I politely declined.

“No titties and a gut makes bare midrift unacceptable.” – anonymous male looking at a 16 year old wearing the outfit that was deemed unacceptable.

“Healthy, very healthy.” – Mayor Andrew

Or is he just the NBA’s R. Kelly?

I am one of the biggest Utah Jazz fans out there. They are my favorite sports team and for 21 years I have been mostly alone in NY as a fan. There are many reasons to love the Jazz. Here are a few:

1) Their starting center carries a man purse.

2) Their backup shooting guard may get the most women in the entire NBA – Ashton Kutcher + pro athlete = Kyle Korver.

3) They have the best point guard in the NBA – enough out of the Chris Paul fans.

4) Their small forward has the best nickname in professional sports – AK-47 (Andrei Kirilenko, wears the number 47).

But my main reason for being a Jazz fan started with Malone and Stockton. One defined the position power forward; the other defined the term short shorts. They played and executed the game with such precision and if it was not for a degenerate gambler named Michael Jordan and a push off of Bryon Russell, the Jazz would have at least one championship. Being a big guy I always favored Malone of the two. I was such a big Malone fan that I may have fallen in love when my ex knew that Malone’s nickname was The Mailman.

Throughout my youth all the way into college I am still remembered by many as a Jazz fan, mainly because of the offensively bright purple jackets I wore, which made me either a Jazz fan or a member of an incredibly gay street gang.

But in my room at my parents’ apartment still hang a Malone poster and a Stockton poster. But I have been disturbed by some recent news I have heard about Karl Malone.

He had father twins in high school, with whom he has developed a relationship (one is an All Star power forward in the WNBA – nice genes). But he also fathered a boy when he was a sophomore in college… with a 13 year old girl! Now I dated a girl who dated college guys in high school because it was “cool,” but I think as lame as it is for a college guy to delve into algebra class for a date it is unfathomable for a college student to actually have sex with a girl who still takes a class entitled “social studies.” I think as a rule, even if engaging in statutory rape, the girl must at least be taking classes with the word “History” in them, not social studies or map skills. That child has developed into an NFL player (recently drafted – nice genes), but Malone has refused a relationship with the guy, presumably because he is not obligated to pay support.

So what is a devout Karl Malone fan to do? I recently went on the news programs and denounced his behavior without denouncing the man. I can no more denounce Karl Malone than I can my own basketball career. But then Karl Malone recently appeared on NBA TV and declared that I was just being a lawyer and that I was still a big fan of the Mailman.

So today I must separate myself from Karl Malone and declare Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer my new favorite Jazz tandem (sorry John Stockton). Besides, how can you not root for the duo that is trying to defeat a rapist, not become one?

In both only one black guy was ever a relevant factor in the plot.

Well, after a well fought campaign it is almost time for Hillary Clinton to concede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. It makes me a little sad, even though I voted for Obama because no matter what negatives you can say about Hillary she represents a woman of substance and intelligence who represents a lot to a lot of women.

Many people mock the fact that the strongest support for Hillary is amongst white women over the age of 60. But a Hillary candidacy means as much to them as an Obama candidacy means to black people. Women in their 60s have seen a lot of changes in their times, but overall the change they have not seen is equality. Statistics still show that women make less than their male counterparts and often have to choose between career and family. Hillary is a woman who has done both (albeit – a tough family) and her being elected president would represent the highest level of equality with men. It almost definitely won’t happen this time around and I think it will be another generation before a woman even has a chance. But to those women who would not vote for Barack Obama I think you are targeting the wrong person. He is intelligent and represents a monumental change that has been necessitated by the awful presidency of George W. Bush. No, if women in the Hillary camp, both younger and older, want a villain that has really fu-ked up your striving for equality look no further than May 30, 2008, when Carrie Bradshaw hits theaters in the Sex and the City movie.

Chris Rock has a famous comedic sketch in which he discusses “niggas vs. black people.” Well to borrow from him: “There’s a war going on and there’s two sides. There’s Hillary and Carrie. Now I love Hillary, but the Carries have got to go.”

The series Sex and the City proves the old Oscar Wilde statement that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. Now I enjoyed the series, but since I have Y chromosome I cannot actually mold my life into the show and believe that it represents reality. It seems so many women are looking for their Mr. Big, as they like to put it. Old, wealthy, unfaithful – a true catch indeed. But he is suave, but who isn’t in an expensive suit and a Rolls Royce, except maybe for Flavor Flav. In the show the heroines are Carrie, who must be bankrolled by some trust fund because she writes a column, but somehow can afford every expensive fashion item and Samantha, who somehow has fooled women into thinking “depraved whore” is now “empowered.” These two women are rewarded respectively with Mr. Big (the man she always wanted – awwwww) and Smith, who makes Brad Pitt look like a leper.

But the other two women in the show – we cannot forget them. Charlotte, the most objectively attractive of the four, wants a family so she is rewarded with an impotent WASP and a bald Jew. And then the smartest of the four, Miranda, gets to be the least attractive of the four and married to a guy with one testicle, who from the film’s preview appears to cheat on her.

So now, at least in Manhattan and places like it (after all there is a Sex and the City tour for all the out-of-towners who want to be just like Carrie), women seem to be looking for their Mr. Big and they say things like “I want it all.” Women who look at Hillary Clinton and say I want it all I have admiration for. If Hillary Clinton said that old adage” I need a man like a fish needs a bicycle” I’d believe it. She actually has it all (except the presidency I guess). When the Sex and the City crowd says that it means I don’t need THAT man. But the Sex and the City characters (“they are so realistic, that is totally us” – how many times have you heard that line of sh-t in this city) lives consist around drinks, brunch, lunch and dick. If Hillary Clinton had lived that existence women would be a lot worse off. Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not dedicate a life fighting for gender equality so that deciding which martini to order could be the most important decision a woman makes in her day. No more than MLK Jr.’s dream had no room for rappers to pour champagne on women, even if those women were of a different race. And sadly, if the role models continue to proliferate like Carrie Bradshaw, Hillary Clinton will go from role model to folklore. “Long ago there was a woman who ran for president…”

So all those who lament the apparent loss of Hillary Clinton’s nomination, I urge you not to take it out on Barack Obama. He has energized people the same way Hillary has and he does not represent nuclear Armageddon the way John McCain does. No, if you want to avenge Hillary Clinton just don’t go see Sex and the City. Or at least don’t let your daughters. I can give you the review anyway. I will be the one straight guy in the theater rolling his eyes.

Not together.

Last night I saw Chris Rock at MSG. Tremendous show, so good and insightful that I wish I had seen it two years ago. He is there for three more nights and if you have a chance see him (although it may be all sold out).

I went to see the show with a 6’7″ friend of mine which was uncomfortable enough in the WaMu theater’s 6’2″ and under to be comfortable seats. But I was sitting next to some leaning d-bag and my friend was sandwiched in between me and a plus size woman. And that is how good the show was. Once CR got rolling it was just laughs all the way through – for two hours. Other than a Guns N Roses reunion tour ticket and a Utah Jazz Finals ticket, there is no one I would I would pay more money to see perform their work. Awesome.

Well, if you cannot go see Chris Rock Saturday night then you are in luck because you can see his heir not very apparent – me. I have a final audition for the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival on Saturday. It is a great opportunity and should be a really good show. For me it could be the culmination and vindication of the time I have spent over the last five years getting laughed at, booed, spending nights in the back rooms of bars in front of no one and being told to keep it in the land of fun hobbies. Sort of like Vince Papale in Invincible when he scores a touchdown at the end of the game (spoiler), or when Daniel kicks Johnny in the face with a crane kick at the end of Karate Kid, or when it is clear that Hannibal Lecter is about to eat the FBI agent at the end of The Silence of the Lambs. In other words, this is a real chance for hard work to pay off. Of course that is one side of the coin. On the other side of the coin is “Sorry, you just aren’t ready.” Only if you are there Saturday night can you see how this drama will unfold. I will be playing myself. (Check my schedule)

Best birth control not named abstinence

So it was a fun-filled weekend in Washington D.C. hanging out with my two nephews. We watched Sesame Street, which apparently features androids because some of the same adults from the show when I was a kid still look the same age over 20 years later. Then we went to the park. While at the park my sister-in-law and I noticed a man (white male alone with glasses and a slight paunch) videotaping the playground with a smile on his face. What is the appropriate action to take with this? He did not appear to have a child at the park and it was especially weird when he asked eight year old girls to lift up their shirts because he was making a video called “Third grad girls gone wild.” I am sure it as just harmless fun.

As a break I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was the story of a tall man pursuing a career in entertainment who gets dumped by his adorable and petite blonde girlfriend. Very funny, but not at all relatable.

Then I watched the Utah Jazz game out with my friend Ross, while simultaneously trying to avoid contact with a bunch of army guys. The drunkest guy had a huge welt under his eye so obviously someone had already had enough of his dumb ass. They could have made this guy a poster child for the benefits of stop loss – “Support our stop loss program, so he can fight over there instead of fighting you here.”

But Sunday was the big day – the 1st birthday party of my nephew. He did not have a clue what was going on. My older nephew was excited because I think he thought the party was for him. As I watched the 10 parents and 10 or so children I saw a terrifying future of asking kids questions like, “What do we say when someone does that?” or “Is that how we ask for something?” or “Do you have to go potty?” or “How do we ask for pizza?” or “How do we ask for more juice?” If organizations like the Catholic Church want to promote child rearing and large families they should put all their lobbying energy into stopping children’s birthday parties. But not one peep from Pope Benedict on this. One or two little kids seem tough, but manageable. Ten or eleven kids together seems like cake smeared anarchy.