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“Skinny models you can keep those, I like big corn-fed Midwestern hos” – Kid Rock

This has nothing to do with my most recent trip, but it is my second favorite rap lyric and it is relevant since I just returned from two shows in Columbus, Ohio.  (my favorite rap lyric is a Notorious B.I.G. lyric from the contemporary classic “Big Booty Hos” – “Biggie bang bitches from bar-b-ques to bar mitzvahs” … Interesting bar mitzvah, “hey what’s Estelle doing over there with the 300 pound cock-eyed hip hopper?”

Anyway I digress.

I returned today from Columbus, Ohio (the C-Bus as my law school classmate told me it was referred to) from two kick ass shows at the Columbus Funny Bone.  Having been in a long distance relationship involving C-Bus for 3 years I am very familiar with the Easton Shopping Mall (30 screen theater and a rumored target of terrorists, conveniently right before the 2004 Presidential Election – because the terrorists hate movies and jail bait teenagers) where the club is located.

Well two and a half years ago I went to the club and had a very mediocre set.  Perhaps it was because before my set I went to see Norbit as a way to kill time.  Nothing kills funny like that movie.  This year I went to see Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, a very good movie, which perhaps made the difference.  I had a very strong set on my audition and even made a few fans (including the woman I sat next to on my flight to C-Bus, who brought herself and her mother to the show).  The message: J-L’s Comedy – Fun for the Whole Family.

My set went well (in front of a 96% white crowd) and I got good news from the club manager.  Then he offered me a set on the next show – the urban show.  In comedy parlance urban is a club’s tactful way of saying Black and Latino people will find this show on average more to their liking.  Without hesitating I told the manager yes (when a comedy manager asks you if you want to do a set at his club you say yes, says Winston Zeddmore).  Then I thought through my routine and realized most of my jokes should work for most crowds.  However two of the crowds they don’t work on are conservative, low third of the IQ scale whites and Mike Epps fan blacks.  And having just performed for some of the former I was afraid my bad streak might continue with the latter.

They began the urban show with a 5 comic tribute to Michael Jackson, with five black guys doing dance moves, etc. to Jackson 5 tunes.  Then there was a montage of earnest MJ clips and I thought, great now I get to follow that.  But the crowd (96% black) gave me an even better response than the white crowd (perhaps inspired by the death of Michael Jackson they were more open to ignore whiter features in favor of whoever would have been considered black for Jim Crow purposes).  I even got away with my Stevie Wonder-is-the-next-to-go joke.  What I learned is as a half white, half black guy you cannot go wrong talking about Asian and Latin women to a crowd full of black women.  And I think some patrons had religious moments during my Obama impression.  I think if comedy doesn’t stat paying I might be able to be the first impressionist-escort.

Last night at Gotham Comedy Club I watched some younger comics struggle through sets.  No big deal.  Not one comic worth his salt can watch an early tape of him or herself without gagging at how terrible it looks, no matter how well you thought you may have done at the time of the performance.  So I don’t really hold it against anyone if they are not doing well.  In fact it yielded a very funny moment for a comic last night.  The comic was from the South and made a Walmart joke.  It did not receive a great laugh so he said sarcastically, “Guess you don’t have Walmart in New York,” which he quickly learned from the crowd’s response was in fact the case.

I also don’t mind when comics, especially newer ones clearly have the imprint of their favorite comic or comics on their material.  Last night I saw a comic who, like many males under the age of 28, probably believes that comedy begins and ends withDane Cook, which I guess is why he tore his shirt off (ripping all the buttons), while simulating sex set to death metal music.  He also coined the word “chesticles” (combination of Chest and icicles), which sounds like it came from the Dane Cook Thesaurus.  And then there was his sendoff of “You guys are my reason for living” to the crowd.  I almost puked.  I was waiting for him to flash a Su-Fi and say “by a round of applause how do you feel???”

But that is no big deal.  There was a comic later who actually ripped off an entire persona of a comic.  And apparently me and the emcee were the only ones who noticed.  That is what sucks about comedy – it is an honor based culture, but from 4th grade mathclass to Denis Leary I have learned that thieves and cheats don’t always get theirs.  This comic, who was doing well with the crowd (especially since it was his first time at Gotham), but I noticed that his speech pattern, the way he held his hand was basically an imitation of a Canadian comic named Jeremy Hotz.  I thought maybe I was being too hard on the new comic or that it could be a coincidence so I showed some YouTube clips to my girlfriend who was at the show, but unfamiliar with Hotz’ work.  Her response, “are you kidding?  that is pretty ridiculous.”

Joke thieves are bad because it is so easy to do and so hard to catch.  But identity theft is the bigger theft because forming a voice and persona on stage is often harder than just writing new jokes.  I did not bother to learn the names of the above mentioned comics because maybe they are figuring out comedy as newcomers and should not be completely trashed, but that will only be true in the near future.

This past week I did my first shows in the real South in Destin, Florida.  A nice vacation spot on the panhandle where the temperature varied from disgustingly humid to just shoot me to put me out of my misery.  But the most sweating I did during the weekend was on stage.  Now the club is located on a resort so I thought I would end up being the comedic equivalent of Johnny in Dirty Dancing.

Not quite.

Here are the highlights:

• “I do not care for the cussing.”  One woman who was enjoying my set for the first 6 or 7 minutes then frowned at me for the next 20 because I said a few curses (about 6 in 25 minutes).  I looked at her after a joke that worked and said, what’s wrong?  And she responded with the above quote.  So I mocked her for the rest of the show whenever a natural moment for a curse would come up I would shout something like darn tootin’ or its equivalent, which delighted the nine or ten audience members who understood that I was being sarcastic.

• An innocent joke comparing myself and Obama to Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen was greeted with 2 silences and 2 rounds of boos.  So on the last show I finally snapped and asked the crowd, “what is it with you people and New Jersey rockers?  Is it because they vote Democratic?  is it because Springsteen sings about selfish things like Vietnam vets and working class struggles?  Sorry – from now I will just talk about Toby Keith putting boots in people’s asses.”  That got a big laugh.

• One of the biggest laughs I got all week was on an anal sex joke.

• On only 1 of 5 shows Obama references got booed.  They started shouting things like “I wish I could print money,”and “I don’t want to pay all my money in taxes.”  Then I realized this is what went for comedy on the Glen Beck/Fox News Comedy Tour.

It became clear to me that these shows were like some other shows I’ve done and it took me too long to realize it.  Some comedy shows (the majority, most taking place at clubs) are the type where people arrive to laugh at someone’s routine or act.  I prefer those because I actually write jokes to perform them, not for exercises in penmanship and typing.  Other shows tend to be those where the crowd wants a clown.  Someone that will take them and tweak their nose and make them verbal balloon animals.  Except for my anal sex joke and Obama impression, the biggest laughs I got were when I ripped on people because they wanted to be the show.

Oh well, next time I head down there (which may be unlikely if only because my tiny plane departing Florida Sunday was a top 3 unnerving flight of my life) I will just bring a suitcase of Don Rickles’ material.  “Look at this guy!  I tell ya…”

Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama, The Pope, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton.  This is the group of people’s whose deaths could rival or exceed Michael Jackson’s in terms of worldwide newsworthiness and cultural impact (and Jordan is very iffy).  That is really it in my opinion.  (And it happened a few hours after I was complaining that Farrah Fawcett’s death, though sad for her family and friends of course, did not warrant huge media attention.  Jackson’s did and does. )  And notice there are no music people on the list.  Sorry Justin Timberlake, Usher, Ne-Yo and any other people who they are already trying to figure out who could take the mantle.  That sounds like a bad joke.

There is no “next” Michael Jackson.  There are a few reasons for this:

The Cultural Gap

Michael Jackson had an incredible talent and an abusive parent willing to beat it out of him (I had parents willing to do the latter, but quickly persuaded them against hitting me a lot with my “I don’t have much talent” defense).   Acrucible this toxic, but which generates such prodigious, one-of-a-kind genius could never occur in today’s over-exposed culture, where every other as-hole can actually become a star.  He’d either be scooped up by a reality show or taken away from his parents (unlikely if he’s famous since we revel in the exploitation of children every day on shows like Jon and Kate plus 8).  So there’s no sense talking about a “next” MJ because it is not really possible given our cultural landscape of low standards and quick fix need for new celebs.

The Innovation Gap

There is nobody with his talent for innovation in the music business.  His closest musical counterpart is Madonna and she’s not really close.  Today there is more imitation than anything else.  Not to draw a comparison, but that is one of the reasons Adam Lambert was so good on American Idol – he seemed to be somewhat original, but still he lived in the shadow of men like Steven Tyler and Freddie Mercury.  The best analogy I can come up with is sports related. The shadow Michael Jordan cast on basketball is so great that players like Kobe and LeBron are trying to be free of it today and cast their own legacy.  Now imagine Michael Jordan were put in a time machine and played in the 1960s instead of the 1980s and 90s.  Now imagine how much more incredible and awe-inspiring he would have been if he was in that era.  That is what Michael Jackson did for music.  And his breaking of major racial barriers goes without saying.

The Class Gap

As ironic as it may sound Michael Jackson is lucky to have lived until 50 with the media pressure and voyeuristic celebrity hunting that now goes on.  He was fortunate enough to be a fully grown man by the time people were really going psycho for him.  Nowadays with this exponentially growing blood lust we have for celebrities wouldn’t he be more likely to suffer a fate like Britney Spears?  Breaking down right before or after Thriller, thus denying the public of several years of quality music afterwards?  I even like You Rock My World, which he released 19 years after Thriller.

The child molestation charges and odd behavior of Michael Jackson will forever be linked to his legacy.  I have a friend who believes child molesters should be castrated.  I am one of those people that hopes that Michael was just strange and never did anything sexual to the children, but that feels unlikely.  But I look at a guy who was abused by his father, and lived a public life for 40 years that no one besides Obama over the last 2 years can even relate to I think.  I feel bad for him.  People feel bad for victims of abuse when it occurs, but when they turn into monsters themselves, no one cares anymore.  This is not a defense for his actions, if he did abuse children, but just maybe a moment of compassion is warranted, even if you do find him despicable.  When you look at pictures of this cute talented kid and then at the recluse alien he became you have to know this was a deeply troubled person not in full control of what he became – his family exploited him and society smothered him.

So I am happy to own a bunch of Michael Jackson records and in a show of class I only told one Michael Jackson joke (it was the entertainment elephant in the room) last night (at one of the most difficult shows of my career – nothing compared to the massacre at Medgar Evers College a few years ago, but bad):

With Ray Charles, James Brown and Michael Jackson dead I’d be scared sh-tless if I was Stevie Wonder.  If diabetes doesn’t get his chubby ass, then apparently the ghost from Final Destination will.

I will write some funnier stuff on Sunday or Monday about my Florida trip (let’s hope the worst is behind me), but I wanted to write something about the biggest entertainer in the world.   And at least “kids these days” can see that there was something just a tad bigger than The Jonas Brothers and Lady Gaga.  After all, even I had a Michael Jackson figure – I believe it was the Billie Jean one (modeled on the 1983 Motown Special).  Music didn’t just lose a giant.  It lost THE giant.

Pardon me if I am a little sensitive on racial issues today.  I picked up my New York Times an hour ago and on the front page is an article about Richard Nixon’s ambivalence on abortion.  Newly released tapes showed that he feared giving Constitutional protection to abortion would foster permissiveness, but that he also felt that it might be necessary in cases of rape or when the baby was half-black and half-white!   Well, at least it’s good to know that on Nixon’s watch, even if it was illegal there would have been some sensible exceptions.

This is only the second most disturbing racist thing I have experienced in the last 12 hours.  Last night I saw a midnight IMAX showing of Transformers (not a good movie) and now the makers of Birth of a Nation and the crows from Dumbo can welcome new members to the pantheon of overtly racist cinematic characters.  The twins in Transformers, two cars/robots come fully equipped with:

1. ebonics
2. charcaturish “black voices” as if they were from a bad early 1980s or late 1970s film
3. lisps – somewhere between Tim Meadows’ The Ladies’ Man and how members of Don Imus’ morning show have made black people sound in impersonations in the past
4. an actual line of dialogue where they admit not being able to read

I was expecting their names to be Samboand Stepinfetchit as I watched the film; it was that stupid and overt.  The first Transformers film had an overtly “black” Transformer (Jazz), but he didn’t sound like a heroin addict or pimp from Serpico.

But that might have been the most disturbing caricature of black people of the night if not for the guy sitting next to me.  He spoke during approximately 75 minutes of a 150 minute movie.  Here is a sample of his dialogue and actions throughout the movie (names have been removed so as not to spoil the film):

Why are they doing all this talking – damn!  – Ironic quote of the night – said about the excessive two minutes of dialogue giving plot  background before returning to incoherent confusing fight scenes.

Oh NO! –said approximately 45 times

DAMN WHERE _____’s backup!!!!!!  HOW THEY GONNA LEAVE HIM!!! – shouted several times during a pivotal fight scene

FU-K HIM UP!!!! YEAH _____!!! FU_K HIM UP – same scene and a later scene

HOW THEY GONNA HAVE ME PAY MONEY TO SEE ______ DIE!!! – during major fight scene

(grunts with lost of hopping in his seat and punching motions during a fight scene) – during climactic fight scene

DON’T STAND UP THE MOVIE AIN’T OVER!!! – more irony – taking a stand against people walking during the closing credits because there were some clips playing over the ending credits.

I don’t even think this guy knew he was a stereotype in action because of a few reasons: there were a lot of black people talking and shouting during the movie and he did not seem to mind or pick up  on the racist Transformers so I guess he wouldn’t pick up on his own stupidity.  I chose not to stop him because I sensed a great blog topic.

Question of the day: why are black people so much more likely to be talking during a movie than other races?  See I am half black, but my father is not from America and he raised me white, meaning my Mom and Dad both agreed that people would not talk during movies for the most part.  When I went to see Taking of Pelham 123 a few nights ago an argument broke out between a white couple, who wished permanent hearing loss on their antagonists, and a group of three talkative black people (older black woman in the latter group responded with – “if you don’t like it watch the movie at home” – which would be great if that worked when you did something wrong that annoyed someone else.  “Oh you don’t like me urinating on you – perhaps you should stay home then.”).

So go to Transformers for the racist caricature robots, but stay for the possibility that there will be raciallycaricatured audience members.

But seriously the movie is sort of bad.  Not Wolverine bad, but not good either.

Tonight on Bravo, one of the many channels quickly destroying art, taste and the soiled remnants of American culture will debut a show called NYC Prep.  The show is supposed to be the “real” compliment to the popular show Gossip Girl, which shows what a bunch of horny and spoiled teenagers attend New York City private schools, or at least lets high school kids know that if they aren’t spoiled or having sex they are probably doing something wrong.  As Oscar Wilde said (and I often quote): Life imitates art.

I have a theory on the degredation of pop culture over the last 10 years.  Much like how Thomas Friedman has written that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of the Internet were two of the main factors in creating a “flat world”, I proposethat the rise of Britney Spears and the cancellation of Sex and the City have created an irreversible and negative trend in television.  Sort of like the force that keeps getting Kal Penn work in Hollywood.

Britney Spears may idolize Madonna, but I think it was her pimp parents who allowed her to have the far more influential role on pop culture and be a sex object for men worldwide at 16 years old.   I may risk sounding like the Christian Right here, but teenagers are the most susceptible group to peer pressure and cultural influence, from smoking to violence to sex.  The question of whether shows are reflecting current behavior or influencing it is not so important when speaking of soda choices , but is important when it comes to other matters like drug use and sexual activity.  The problem is that these shows create an irreversible trend.  Just like guys of my generation could not go back to watching Charles in Charge once they saw Nicole Eggert get railed by the Coreys in Full Blown, you cannot expect young teens to go back to to the days of Happy Days once the kids on WB are getting happy endings.   Parents still have the big responsibility for sure, but I think that experiment has failed. Parenthood, I mean.  Parenthood is like the Robin to Home Ownership’s Batman in the American delusion that has been propagated.  If you can’t afford a home you should not be brainwashed into trying to buy one; if you don’t have the time or desire to raise kids you should try not to have them.

Then there was the elimination of Sex and the City.  The most popular show not named The Sopranos in cable television history is a landmark.  Regardless of whether you like it or not it is a defining show for modern women.  But then it was off the air and has been followed by Desperate Housewives, Real Housewives, Kardashians, etc.  It is as if Sex and the City was the Saddam Hussein of television – a necessary evil (that I watched) that kept ridiculous show concepts that focused on four to six women, with “really different personalities” on the shelf or in the level of hell they were stored in because there was no market for them.  Now, with Sex and the City leaving a huge void it has been filled by a cornucopia of loud-mouth failed actresses.  Not to mention the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker had to go back to fronting for Twisted Sister.

And somehow born of this perfect storm of voyeuristically-exposed, unrestrained teenage libido and talentless skanks is NYC Prep.  Now I went to a New York City private school and attended the school with many wealthy kids (the kind of school where your friend with a Park Avenue apartment marvels at how rich the other kids are), but I don’t think I had an experience akin to NYC Prep.   For one I think my parents had me because they wanted me, not because they needed an accessory to complete their social profile.  As exhibited by one girl on NYC Prep, she and her brother have free reign of their Manhattan apartment because their parents live in the Hamptons and only come into the city one day a week.  Wow – that is the metaphorical equivalent of having your kid at the prom, but leaving the baby in a Gucci bag instead of a trash bag.

But we can’t sterilize people, poor or rich, no matter how terrible they will be as parents, but do we have to put these kids on television?  If my future/possible sons want to act as kids I will let them do school plays, right after I ask them if they are gay.  But they will not be on shows as kids.  End of story.  I mean when is there going to be legislation criminalizing putting your minor kids on reality television?  (Or the death penalty for all of those kids who were on My Super Sweet 16?)  It’s per se bad parenting.  Like a parent who buys their daughter breast implants because her self esteem is low – how can her self esteem improve if her Dad is buying them?

“What’s wrong honey?”

“Well, Dad, with my small boobs guys just don’t want to fu-k me…”

“Well let’s turn that frown upside down sugar tits!”

But I think my main question is why are we watching this stuff?  Are we really that stupid and shallow as a people?  Or have we just lost our sense of shame?  Greg Giraldo has a great bit about people on shows like Jerry Springer having no sense of shame, in fact being proud of having made objectively terrible decisions in life.  But we are predisposed to laugh when the people are white or black trash, but not when they come from the upper crust of society.  Oh well,  I guess I do not have an answers to theses question, so I will leave them open to comment.  But hopefully this trend stops before we get to Bravo’s eventual reality show: My First Period.  And no, it’s not about early classes at school.

So I have been a “full time comedian” for a little over 4 months.  I have booked some feature spots,dropped 18 lbs (through diet and exercise – cocaine weight loss will be when I become a famous comedian and can’t make as much time for the gym) and was pleased with the one television audition I had (though every day I get increasingly nervous about getting the spot).  I’ve begun acting classes and writing beyond stand up.  The question now is, after e-mails, writing, working out, sleeping and performing, what do I do with the other 14 hours of my day?

One option is reading.  I recently finished The Bonfire of the Vanities, which basically set the bar so high that writing reality-based fiction seems to be too lofty a goal for a comedian and blogger.

Next option is more writing.  As I begin trying to write a script I am also using a lot of my time to watch The West Wing – I have banged out 5 1/2 seasons in approximately 4 weeks, which is the best streak of my career since I did 4 seasons of the Wire (a nerdy pre-Season 5 recap) in two weeks.  This show, more so than The Sopranos and even The Wire, has raised the bar on writing a serious show and has made me think that I should probably stick to shows with the depth of Two and a Half Men.

I have also found moments during this four month stretch where I have had e-mail and Facebook exchanges stretching into two hours in length, and not one was an in depth Twitter exchange on Iranian politics.

So I am pretty sure I can keep this up for another 6-12 months (and financially for 18 months), but the question is what to do with my time before I start hatcheting up a hotel?  And that is scary considering my bench and squat numbers are back to my college level (idle time is apparently the Devil’s creatine as well).

I guess at some point a job may be needed just to keep my sanity.  But I think I should pick a job that would at least enhance some episodes of my show if based on my life.

• One option is working at a Starbucks across the street from my old firm.  A few priceless moments of awkwardness.
• Or I could work at the oddly placed porn shop near my apartment – never thought of Turtle Bay as a mecca for seediness.  Those scenes would show my putting down my notepad or a Pulitzer Prize winning biography to ring up Anal Sluts 4.  Seems a little too gimmicky.
• Try to make money the easy way, by frequenting the OTB across the street from my apartment building – making me the only person there under the age of 50 and not smelling of tobacco.
• Get cast in a few commercials as “tall, racially ambiguous male #1”.

Whatever – time to go to the gym.

Before I start what I wanted to be the subject of this post I have received some e-mails of a most disturbing nature.  Some fringe element out there (I group this element just below radical islamists, white supremacist militia groups) is claiming that Kobe Bryant is the better player than Michael Jordan.  Here very quickly (or not so quickly) is why he is not:

Kobe Bryant

2009 Finals MVP – 30 pts per game, 43% shooting, 7.4 assists, 5 rebounds per game, great numbers, slightly less impressive than Dwayne Wade’s stats in 2006 when he played with Shaq at his low point in his career

3 Titles early in his career when he was playing with Shaq at his peak.  Kobe was Scottie Pippen-esque at this point in his career – already a great player, but not capable of winning any of those titles if not paired with the game’s most dominant big man at his peak.  Shaq on the other hand could have one those 3 titles with any of the top 30 players in the league as the Robin to his Batman.

My parents conversation about Kobe:

My Dad: That Kobe is amazing

My Mom: I don’t like him.

Michael Jordan

1991 Finals – 55% from the field, 31.2 pts per game, 11.4 assists, 6.6 rebounds per game

1992 Finals – 52.8% from the field, 35.8 pts per game, 6.5 assists per game

1993 Finals – 50.8% from the field, 41.0 pts per game, 8.5 rebounds per game, 6.3 assists per game

And then we won 3 more titles after retiring for two and a half years in his prime.

If he had played with a Shaq caliber player during his most explosive time (mid 1980s) and had not retired he would have 8-12 titles.

He scored 50 pts at the age of 39 and is the only 40 year old to ever score 40+ points in an NBA game (after his second retirement).

My parents conversation about MJ:

My Dad: Wow Michael Shordan (that is how pops pronounces it) is amazing!

My Mom: Shut the fu-k up!

I think the evidence is clear that based on stats, facts, our collective gut instinct and my Mom’s visceral reaction to the Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Karl Malone killer that he is the superior player and actually appears likable compared to Kobe.  There is only one player on the horizon who may supplant MJ and that is LeBron James, simply because LeBron’s physicality is the the first to transcend NBA generational evolution since… Michael Jordan.

But I will give Kobe and the Lakers credit – they gave me something to watch.  Like Armand Assante said in the terrible HBO film Gotti, “They’ll miss John Gotti when I’m gone.”  That is how I feel about Kobe right now – I watched him hoping he’d lose, sort of like my own reality show, that was actual real, instead of manufactured for the consumption of dumb people.  I even caught some of the Stanley Cup Finals Game 7, which is right up there with Big Foot with regard to the frequency with which I have seen it.

But now we are in the Summer of 2009 – no Olympics, no World Cup, no more basketball, a month until Wimbledon, no more hockey.  So what are we left with – America’s corporate pastime, baseball, Major League Soccer and the WNBA.  I am even afraid to watch one of my favorite shows, Pardon The Interruption, because I feel like sports have nothing right now.   So if you have any sports ideas for the Summer let me know.  Although my entire Summer of road gigs will probably revolve around doing comedy in minor league baseball team towns so maybe I can learn to appreciate the feature acts of sports as I feature at clubs.

Last night was a night dedicated to basketball for me. My corporate league team (I am know as corporate emeritus on the team) had a game at 7 pm and the Magic-Lakers game at 9.

In the corporate league game I was playing like crap (which considering my pregame meal of a Crumbs cupcake is a huge shock).

We we were losing by double digits with 14 minute left, but then two things happened that have always helped me compete: I got into an argument with my teammate and then got into two scuffles with the other team.  After that, despite not liking Kobe Bryant I turned into an out-of-shape, back to the basket version of Bryant, complete withscowl.  We ended up winning by one point, but the end of the game was the best.  With 3 seconds left a player on the other team drove the lane and missed a layup.  The other team believed he was fouled, which was true if you believe a foul occurs automatically when you miss a layup (also known as NYC playground rules where every missed shot requires a debate that begins with “YOU FOULD ME!  I DIDN’T FOUL YOU” and ends with “FU-K YOU NIG-A!”).  Well, this one was no different, except for one player on the other team.  He was built like Mike Tyson in The Hangover, muscled, but also fat and ugly.  He took special offense at the non-call (he was not the one who actually took the shot – the guy who missed was not very upset) and said to the ref in what a nursery school teacher might call his “felon voice”:

YO! CALL THE FU-KING FOUL MOTHER FU-KER!  YOU BITCH ASS NIG-A!  YOU BEEN A BITCH ASS CHEATIN’ NIG-A ALL GAME!  FU-K YOU YOU AIN’T A REF NO MORE!!  YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE GYM!!

The first thought I had was, what corporation are you guys from?  I am pretty sure whatever it is would not be ok with misdemeanor menacing charges.  Secondly I thought, this is the first time since watching a black cop harass Cuba Gooding Jr. in Boyz In The Hood that the N word sounded just as racist coming from a black guy as a white guy.   My third thought was let’s get the fu-k out of here.

Well, after that it was time to watch the Lakers versus Magic game 3.  I was very happy to see Kobe and his band of underachievers and Eurotrash lose to the Magic.  The game was a little too close for my comfort, but it was still a win for the good guys.  Although there was a foul late in the game called on Dwight Howard, the 18th bailout call for Kobe Bryant in 3 games (Kobe is like a large financial institution – unlikeable, full of douchebagginess and getting bailed out by the establishment) that upset me greatly.  I think my exact words were:

YO! CALL THE FU-KING FOUL MOTHER FU-KER!  YOU BITCH ASS NIG-A!  YOU BEEN A BITCH ASS CHEATIN’ NIG-A ALL GAME!  FU-K YOU YOU AIN’T A REF NO MORE!!  YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE GYM!!

Yesterday was my first day of acting class.  I only heard the phrase “in the moment” twice and “craft” once so in three and a half hours I think I can accept that rate of occurrence.   Today I already found myself studying the actors on The West Wing in a different way (for those not following my “tweets”I have mowed down 4 seasons of The West Wing on DVD in the last 3 weeks).  Most of those actors have honed their craft and are constantly in the moment so I guess I will continue to study them as I hone my craft and try to get in the moment, preferably while being courageous and bold in my acting.

In this repetition/improv drill we were doing yesterday I was told my observational skills were very good, but that my responses were too stiff and unemotional) anybody casting bodyguards and large robots – I am available).  I then had to tell my teacher that I studied under Keanu Reeves for three years so she will have to undo that training.  To help me loosen up my teacher had me do the repetition drill, with a female partner, but with our noses touching throughout the exercise.   I had a few thoughts during this exercise:

1. I am glad I did not drink a muscle milk before class and am glad that I no longer have a cold so that my breath wouldn’t kill my partner.
2. Just having my nose touching the nose of a woman during an acting exercise made me realize how awkward sex scenes must be in movies.  I would say porn would be even more awkward except a lot of those people stopped having feelings midway through the gang rape/molestation/abandonment-issue-repression that drove them to their current career so it may not be that awkward for them.
3. I am a better comedian than actor.

Well, that is all I have for today.  If James Lipton is reading this my favorite curse word is cu_t.

Go Magic.