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Pope Benedict Arrives in NYC

Just in time for shortening of skirts and plunging of necklines the Pope has arrived in New York for the weekend. The city is an oasis for Catholics – the Pope is in town and the Jews are at home for Passover. Coincidence?

(For the record if I have any paranoid friends – the title is a reference to The Producers – not to any glorification of Adolph Hitler – although it is his birthday this Sunday, along with my nephew who turns one).

So because I can never be in the same place as the Pope, lest our combined holiness overpower a city I am headed down to DC for the weekend. As mentioned, it is my nephew’s first birthday, one I am sure he will never forget.

I on the other hand am very likely to forget my birthday on April 24th. I turn 29. What a useless age. 29 is the new 19. Nothing changes except you sound a little less exciting at 29 than at 28. You sound more like an attorney at 29 than at 28. 29 sounds like you are scared of turning 30. 28 sounds like 30 is so far away. 28 sounds like wow you are on television. 29 sounds like when are you going to give that up already.

If anyone wants to join me for my 29th birthday I will be doing shots of mineral water while reviewing documents for a long time in a conference room and then going home to a home of boxed up possessions. Like I said it will be one to remember.

There are actually only a few birthdays I can remember for any reason – 28th, 26th, 25th, 21st and 7th. The rest I have no real recollection (other than vague parties, including one where my Dad scolded a friend of mine for burping). As happy as I was on some of those birthdays, the most memorable is definitely the one where after going to Barnes and Noble to buy some Beverly Clearly and Roald Dahl books I got on a NYC Subway train without my Mom and brother and got lost in the labyrinth that is the subway system, only to be found by a police officer some time later and returned to my weeping and terrified mother who thought she had lost me for good. I am not sure what was more humiliating, the fact that everyone was staring at me as I was crying on the train, or the fact that I was a 28 year old reading Roald Dahl books.

Let me put you on hold while I find out.

I believe I have found out what the new American way is. If you are paying money you will be communicated with politely and in perfect English. If you have a problem that you need resolved you will be directed to a foreign country or not have your call returned.

I am moving into my new, crane-free apartment in eight days and have been making some substantial purchases. A new computer, a new television, etc. When I purchased each of those items I was on calls that “were recorded for quality assurance” and spoke with patient people who were helpful and nice and taking several thousands of dollars from me. With those purchases I needed to make follow up calls to arrange for delivery and other such issues. The key fact here is that I had already paid my money. So now these follow up calls, which coincidentally are NOT recorded for quality assurance are directed to somewhere in Asia where women fake American accents poorly and claim their names are “Michelle” or “Sam.” The fun in these calls is that you do not know the delay is because your call is traveling 6,000 miles or if the language barrier is not being broken. In this global economy that is the new economics, money talks and it talks English, whereas concerns, complaints and issues talk softly with a delay and an accent.

But this ethic has invaded (or was always present) in the world of comedy as well. I recently broke a vow to myself to never do a bringer show again. Nearly eight months since my last bringer I have decided to do another one. I was called 6 times in two weeks by the producer of the show, promised great opportunities and a great show and I finally gave in because I have a show later that week that is of great importance so I needed the warm-up. I got a call back the same day giving me instructions of how many people I needed to bring ($$$). Well I did not know how long my set was and that is important in preparing and picking jokes. So I called back the next day and left a message wanting to know how long my set will be. And then I called back two days later and left another message. Apparently now that I had a concern my calls were not properly routed to Bangalore. See the last time I did a show at this club I was promised 10 minutes before the show, told I would get 8 at the show and then lit at 5 (meaning 6 minutes) during my set. So naturally I want to make sure I do not have another screwed up set, especially since this show will effectively be a dress rehearsal for a more important show.

That is why my new life strategy is just to carry around a wad of $20 bills and throw them at people like Sonny Corleone when I have a complaint (as opposed to breaking a camera). That way people will listen and will hopefully respond with their real name and useful information. And the theme song for my HBO series will be Money Talks by AC/DC

Can I get a do-over?

Friday night I flew out to St. Paul, Minnesota. I was going for a showcase in front of many college campus activity representatives for the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northern Michigan, the Dakotas, Iowa and Wyoming. In other words if I am to die prematurely in a Richie Valens plane crash, these states could present an ideal opportunity for this. Small towns frequented by blizzards plus obscure artist equals certain death.

I learned this because my flight out was one of the two bumpiest flights I’ve ever been on. To the point that it lasted so long that I had actually settled on the fact that Northwest Airlines would be my tomb.

Side note: I kept getting thrown off by Northwest Airlines because all their planes just say NWA. I was expecting Ice Cube to come down the aisle serving my motherfuc-ing beverage.

We actually did arrive in one piece in St. Paul (and was asked by a driver if I was Antoine Walker because he was there to pick up Antoine Walker and I looked about 6’9”) and I got to my hotel just in time to catch the 4th quarter of the Utah Jazz game, which was on TV. I was also the only Jazz fan in Minnesota I think.

When I went up to my hotel room I had a choice between watching Cloverfield or Hot Older Sluts on pay per view, but settled on Real Time with Bill Maher.

The next day I went to sound check at 915 and saw that where I would be performing was huge – 800 seats. I was excited, and pleased because the microphone appeared to be transmitting what I was saying, thus ensuring that I would say hilarious things in the afternoon when I performed. I was wrong.

My set began with an introduction that could have only been botched more if I had written out my full name. Nothing like having your opening line be, “That’s pronounce Cauvin.” My set went pretty well if you were the 15 people who laughed consistently and not just at my home run jokes (3). It was also a success if you consider that I was sweating heavily and felt cotton mouth setting in. But the humiliation had not yet come fully.

At 4:30 there is the market place event, which is where the college reps come and visit the booths of the performers and book them for schools. It felt like a slave market, except being inspected and bought was a good thing. Well, in my adaptation of Roots for Comedy, let me introduce Kunta Comeday, the comedian who could not get bought. If it were actually a slave market I would have been a great success being one of the blacker performers, as well as having strong shoulders and a sturdy back. Unfortunately, the criteria was laughter and for thirty minutes (before catching a cab back to the airport I met all of two students who seemed fascinated by my career as a lawyer (it occupied 15 seconds of my routine so I am guessing they were just looking for recommendations to grad school).

How far I have fallen since my 2006 Mentor of the Year award.

Yesterday I made my monthly pilgrimage to the South Bronx to meet my mentee. It is like a trip down memory lane except I kept getting hit by all the trash on the streets. As dirty as New York is I do not think I ever really appreciated how dirty the area around Yankee Stadium is. Imagine the floating bag in American Beauty multiplied by 100,000 with used condoms and chicken wings filling up the rest of the space.

Well, when I got to my mentee I could see that he was upset. He is usually barely talkative (“school’s ok, can you buy me a Play Station game?”), but on this day he was silent. He confessed to me at lunch that he was bummed because he and a friend had a falling out. Apparently my mentee was trying to “talk to this girl” who “had a man.” His friend told him that was not wrong and my mentee said that it was none of his business. End of friendship. I have to say, that despite being my mentee I am on the side of the guy who is trying to prevent cheating.

But this was just a prelude. I received an e-mail that my mentee got caught cheating on a test. Yesterday. That means that after we spoke and I imparted on him the lessons of – make sure you kick ass on your grades because junior year is most important for college applications – he cheats on a test! (I guess I did not specify how to kick ass at his classes)

All I can say is I blame the athletes, the actors and the politicians (“what about the children” in the mocking Bill Maher tone). As Chris Rock said so wisely, “How you gonna tell a kid not to do drugs, when the mayor’s getting high.” When the governors are cheating on their wives, Stallone is taking steroids and baseball players are lying to Congress how can you expect a kid not to cheat on his test or hit on another guy’s girlfriend? Which reminds me, having attempted to squire another gentleman’s woman and having cheated on a test, should I be concerned that my 5’8″ 120 lb mentee was talking about trying to put on muscle, since the only person he has not emulated on that list is Stallone?

This weekend I venture to Minnesota to impress more valuable lessons on college kids through jokes. I assume I will have something funny to write about it on Monday.

Apparently I am very popular among restaurant workers.

I went to the Capital Grille yesterday with my partner mentor at work. Capital Grille is a delicious steakhouse in midtown. And upon walking in to have a discussion about legal matters, etc. the hostess said, “Hey, you were hilarious last night!”

There are some great things that you usually want to hear, but sometimes they are in the wrong context. Examples:

1) “Hey, you never call(ed) me!” If stated by a nice looking woman, very complimentary, unless you are accompanied by your current girlfriend.

2) “That’s a positive.” A glass half-full sort of statement, unless heard while getting HIV test results.

3) “Hey, you were hilarious last night.” A great thing for a comic to hear in a city this size (it has happened only a few times), except when walking around with John Kerry eye baggage because you were out until 2 am and are now discussing your legal career with the man who helped hire you.

Turns out I was worried about nothing, but I realized that about 50% of the time I am recognized (4 times total so you do the math) it is by a restaurant worker. But the first time I actually got a free dessert out of it, whereas I only received a compliment at the Capital Grille. In any case, this probably means that I should try to book some corporate gigs for restaurant worker union events.

But this illustrates the difficulty of having a double life. See e.g., Superman, Jim McGreevy. It is like comedy is my superhero alter ego and every so often my cover almost gets blown. As one comic jokingly said to me, “It’s like your co-workers are going, ‘How come J-L is always gone when there’s comedy going on?’” Which actually might mean that I am not funny, but the line made me laugh anyway.

At my old job, they knew a lot about my comedy and if my work performance ever suffered they blamed comedy.

“J-L you look tired.”

“My whole family was hatcheted by a madman and my house was set on fire, so I did not sleep well last night.”

“Bullsh-t, you were doing comedy last night!”

So I was determined not to let the same thing happen at my new job, but if I keep going to restaurants m cover is going to get blown. Maybe I will start wearing my glasses to work and parting my hair differently. It worked for Clark Kent.

At this rate I will win it all in 2011

Last night, I was bounced from Caroline’s March Comedy Madness in the Elite 8. I made it to the Sweet 16 last year so this year was an improvement. However, in the Elite 8 I lost to a 5’3″ woman, which is becoming a recurring theme for me.

If there is one lesson about comedy that I can take away from last night it is this: comedy is a solitary business. Or at least it is for some. My opponent seemed to have garnered strong support from the crowd both because of her quality material and the number of people that came to see her. I could not generate the same support. I am sort of at that cross road in my career where I do not have a real fan base to speak of (beyond the 20-25 people that added me on MySpace after Ferguson), but I have lost support from friends/never actually had it. In other words, I may vaguely resemble Barack Obama, but my comedy career looks like Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And for both me and Hillary we are down to women over 50 as the main source of our support.

The problem with being a struggling comic in this city is that you often need help in achieving that dream, which sucks. Stage time at big clubs is either years away or ten friends away. Many comics will have a dozen people telling them to “fu-k it and follow their dream,” but that is because those people’s asses are not on the line and most likely do not have a real dream. Sort of like Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens eagerly agreeing that someone else should go outside where it is not safe.

The bittersweet part of the show was that I was actually killing at the bar after the show better than I did during the last round. Tonight I try to replicate that magic in the basement of a taco restaurant.

And other things unlucky people say.

One thing people often say is that good or bad things always happen in threes?

For example – October 2007 – National Television Debut, Proposal Accepted, Job Offer Tripling Salary. Good, Good, Good.

Another Example: Feb/March 2008 – Counteroffer to Proposal, Crane Falls on My Building, Ipod Stolen. Bad, Bad, Bad.

So I guess now I am due for a good streak again. But last night someone put my bullsh-t in perspective. I was waiting for my friend at a bar after work and I was talking to the bouncer for a few minutes. And he said to me, “Wow man! You are lucky.” And I asked him, “How do you figure?” And he, in his shot glass half-full perspective said, “You could have been in the building or at least have moved all your stuff in.”

(Side note – the man was a big black man, so clearly in the Hollywood version of my story we would cast a spiritually enlightened Michael Clark Duncan in the role).

As I sat down to dinner I continued to bitch about my life to my friend. When leaving the bar, the bouncer reminded me how luck I was and I said “yeah, maybe.” And then he told me the following story:

He served two years in Iraq in the current war. He was on the phone arguing with his wife because she wanted to take a trip to Puerto Rico with her “girlfriends” and he was thinking financially and emotionally, “No you can’t – I am over hearing dodging bullets and you want to take a vacation.” Right or wrong I understand the man’s feelings. Well, as it turns out because of his argument he missed his convoy and another man took his place. Well later that day, the convoy he was supposed to be on was bombed and the man taking his place died. The bouncer came home shortly thereafter and found out his wife did go to Puerto Rico, but with another man. He got a divorce and while sitting at a diner after the divorce he met the woman that he is now happily married to (I assume since he was wearing a wedding ring). So he said without that fight he would have been dead and never found out that his marriage was a hoax.

After his story I told him thanks for his service (because deep down I still think I want to be a politician and politicians always thank people for their military service). Maybe he could be in a new line of Army ads: “Want to feel grateful about life? Want to see if your marriage can survive real tests? Feel lucky? Then be all you can be…” It certainly put my situation in perspective.

Over the last two days the news has been overwhelmingly bad, but the perspective seems to be a bit skewed.

A few days after the Spitzer-Swallows scandal, it turns out the BBG (Blind Black Governor) also was having an affair, but so was his wife. This is what marriage has come to? We cut some slack because they were both fu-king around? That makes me think, perhaps blindness is much more plausible than sex addiction. “Really honey, I did not know she was white. She just looked fuzzy and very enthusiastic.”

Then there’s the news about Jim McGreevy. Apparently the GAG (Gay American Governor, pun intended) was jealous of the attention given to Spitzer so his former driver decided to announce that he had threesomes with the governor and his wife. If this is true, then I guess Mrs. McGreevy was given fair notice once she saw her husband get drilled and should not really get any sympathy, but if it’s not true I feel terrible for Mrs. McGreevy. Especially because they would start as threeway dates at T.G.I. Fridays. That may be the worst part of the story.

Then Heather Mills is crying to the media that she only got $48 million dollars of Paul McCartney’s money. First of all, for a chick with one leg she is getting off pretty nicely. Secondly, what exactly did you do for this money? You are not a Beatle. You are a Beatle groupie who found a Beatle at the right time, when he looked like a cross of an old British woman and an owl. So be happy with your $48 million.

So this may seem like bad news for marriage in America (contrary to Republicans, only 1 of these three marriages was brought down by homosexuality), but to make it worse, if you are single, the NYC singles scene just took a huge hit with the fire sale of Bear Stearns. Everybody is sorry for these Masters of the Universe, but what about the plunge in the suspenders, hair gel, escort and cocaine services that also took a huge hit. No one is crying for these people.

You have to be fu-king kidding me!

This afternoon, the building I was set to move into on Thursday had a crane come crashing down near it causing loss of life and substantial damage to a nearby building as well as forcing the evacuation of my future residence due to some damage to a couple of the floors. In what has been a three scoop hot fudge sundae of sh-t for the last several weeks, this is the cherry on top.

The last month has been a rough one, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And that light was being produced by my Sony flat screen and blue ray dvd player that were going to be delivered Thursday. Not anymore. I feel like when I show up at my parents’ house tonight I might as well pull the Al Pacino from Godfather III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

Since moving back in with the folks it is as if their parenting has been on HGH. This morning was fantastic with my father waking me up from my awful hangover with, “what time do you have to be at work?” Whenever the fu-k I want – it’s Saturday. Actually he re-woke me up, because my Mom woke me up first with the “if you had to go to work why are you staying out late?” talk. But rest assured, in what is becoming a quasi-Groundhog Day experience for me I will get to re-live all these moments again when I get questioned about writing this stuff by my family. But for the 12-14 dedicated readers of this blog I will endure it.

So now I am going to assume that my bus to the Jazz-Nets game tonight will flip over so let me take this time to say goodbye. This occasion calls for a quote of Jack Black’s from School of Rock:

Give up, just quit, because in this life, you can’t win. Yeah, you can try, but in the end you’re just gonna lose, big time, because the world is run by the Man. The Man, oh, you don’t know the Man. He’s everywhere. In the White House… down the hall… Ms. Mullins, she’s the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, he’s burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! And there used to be a way to stick it to the Man. It was called rock ‘n roll, but guess what, oh no, the Man ruined that, too, with a little thing called MTV! So don’t waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome ’cause the Man is just gonna call you a fat washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!

Just replace rock n roll with comedy and replace MTV with bringers.

(but in all seriousness – this was terrible for a lot of people, so no disrespect to them with my ranting)

And other things Eliot Spitzer is thinking right now.

When my friend e-mailed me a link to the story about Eliot Spitzer I actually thought it was big joke. Unreal.

How interesting that as one wire ends (last night the greatest show ever made, The Wire, ended in classic, bittersweet fashion) a new wire captures America (as with most forms of pop culture, this one features a white cast so its ratings will be much higher).

Doesn’t Eliot Sptizer know that he is not a hateful Evangelical Christian? Only they get caught in hypocritical crap like this.

I am already certain that my father, who is an ardent Spitzer supporter and imaginitive conspiracy theorist (Bush is behind 9/11 and winning lottery numbers can be predicted) is already saying that the Republican establishment set him up to deter a 2012 or 2016 run at the White House. But clearly the Republicans are not involed because there was no mention of homosexuality or interacial sex.

And could Spitzer have picked a worse time to do this? People are getting bored with the Presidential race because the next big primary is in 6 weeks, 10,000 BC was #1 a the Box Office and troops keep dying in Iraq. In other words, nothing is holding America’s attention right now except for Mr. Spitzer’s booty call. So Spitzer has only one potential ally at this point: Osama Bin Laden, the deus ex machina for scandal ridden politicians

Gary Condit benefitted from this. If you remember, Gary Condit was the representative from California who may have gotten away with murdering his intern Chandra Levy. Well, no one seemed to care much about Gary Condit after 9/11. So in these dark times the only way Eliot Spitzer does not eat a big bag of crap is if times get even darker. Fortunately Osama Bin Laden and his cousin Barack HUSEIN Obama are still on the loose. Unfortunately for Spitzer, George Walker Texas Ranger Bush has kept us safe all this time so it looks like it’s going to be a rough go for Spitzer. As Arnold Schwarzenegger proved – you act like a sexual deviant and pervert before you get elected governor, not after.