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A marathon this weekend and the theme for the RNC

So this weekend I watched the entire first season of Mad Men (and the 2nd season pilot). If anyone wants to know why PUMAs exist (Party Unite My Ass – the Hillary supporters) just watch this show. Taking place in a male dominated ad agency in the early 1960s this show features a few things in abundance – great acting, an unconscionable amount of smoking and drinking, and sexual harassment that would make Clarence Thomas blush. It should do for men what Roots did for white people.

But now it is time for other Mad Men, namely the Republican convention. Thankfully, Hurricane Gustav did not wreak complete havoc so the Convention can go on. Tonight is Joe “The Constipated Jew” Lieberman, George W. Bush and Fred Thompson speaking. If I can stay awake I will report on it tomorrow.

Wednesday is the day I am looking forward to – when Sarah Palin, the mother of Juno (any irony that she comes from a state whose capital is Juneau and her 17 year old daughter is pregnant – a.k.a. Juno – I assume The Daily Show will be rocking this tonight, one more reason why I should write for them) speaks along with Bobby Jindal, the young Rhodes Scholar, Indian-American, Catholic conservative speaks. His speech will be for Republicans what Obama’s was in 2004. But instead of the Audacity of Hope, his speech will be entitled “You’re all going to Hell when the terrorists blow us up! of Hope.” And then there’s Rudy Giuliani. His speech will be called “9/11: Bad for America, Great For Me.”

But in a sign that America is over the Republican party, McCain will have to compete Thursday with the kickoff of the NFL season. That is what picture in picture is for I guess.

Wasn’t she in Van Halen’s Hot for Teacher video?

I think John McCain has made a brilliant pick for vice president. There are several reasons for this.

1) If he had gone with any of the more obvious choices it would not have generated as much interest. A Mormon heartthrob, a Minnesota nobody and a Florida governor rumored to be living the lifestyle of Robin Williams in The Birdcage (according to my Republican sources) would not have been the newsmaker that Sarah Palin is (unless the governor of Florida got into a scandal about his wide bathroom stance).

2) His choice took Obama off of the headlines immediately.

3) She looks like some sort of teacher from a Cinemax late night movie that takes the glasses off, lets down the hair and… I’m just saying it can’t hurt.

4) She is a strong representative for the social conservatives. Hate them or love them they are a large part of the Republican Party and I think it is a good thing to see all political views represented. Although there is her wanting to teach Creationism…

5) Her family story will slightly offset the amazingly touching story of Joe Biden. She is a mother of 5 with her oldest going to Iraq and her youngest with Down syndrome. It may not be the way for everyone and does not mean other women should have to choose as she has, but as a woman (much more valid than a pro-life man in my opinion) she has clearly lived a pro-life way and no one can call her a hypocrite.

Another thing that struck me during Bill Maher last night is how quickly he went to referring to her a MILF and other such comments. Michelle Martin quickly pointed out that she had as much gubernatorial experience as Tim Kaine, one of the 3 finalists for the Democratic VP nomination. Coming back to the Hillary complaints – this kind of talk is the sort of ingrained sexist talk that, although not necessarily driving Hillary Supporters to Palin, could remind them to stay home on Election Day. And yes, I am aware that I intimate the exact same thing above in #3. But barely anyone pays attention to what I say.

The argument the McCain campaign will make is that the McCain ticket has put experience at the top of the ticket and youth/outsider/energy in a support role, whereas the Obama campaign has reversed it.

I think all eyes will now be on Palin, especially with the Republican convention coming up, and if she delivers a strong speech and debates well she will prove to be a wise choice for John McCain to sure up the conservative base.

I missed Al Gore, but then caught a pretty good speech.

I was mad that for the second straight night I missed a speaker, but I did catch Obama.

Excellent.

Some things I liked:

1) My favorite line – “Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.” A lot of people love this argument and never realize how much they take place in life and influences in your life for granted as factors that can guide success

2) Second favorite line – “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”

3) Joe Biden smiling like a guy playing two-on-two with Michael Jordan as his teammate.

The things I did not like:

1) Country music afterwards. Was Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising not good enough? Going with country music reeked of hillbilly pandering.

2) See #1

Great stuff. I will be covering next week’s Republican convention from my flat screen at my 51st street headquarters next week. I think it is going to be awesome. My predictions:

1) Rudy is the keynote speaker and will mention 9/11 911 times.

2) An Anti-gay male member of Congress will be found in a drug infused all male orgy.

3) John McCain will set the record for times uttering “My Friends” in a single speech (my friend and I plan on drinking every time he says it).

I was only able to start watching when John Kerry began speaking… did I miss anyone important?

So thanks to comedy mics last night I managed to miss all of Bill Clinton’s speech. I have seen snippets this morning and everyone seems to think it was strong (it’s Bill Clinton) so I’ll take their word for it.

I actually like John Kerry’s speech. Everyone keeps criticizing John Kerry for being a terrible candidate and running a terrible campaign, but to me apathy and fear are what cost him the 2004 election. People were fearful of terror and did not care that 2004 would be the true election of consequence (Katrina, recession and 3,000+ dead in Iraq since the 2004 re-election of George Bush). I say apathy because until people’s wallets were affected in their homes and at the gas pumps no one gave a fu-k about the direction the country was going in. Going to hell in a hand basket is fine as long as it is a nice hand basket. So Obama may say the time for change is now, but it really was 4 years ago and it should not have taken a guy who gives great speeches and text messages his supporters for us to know this.

I am a big Joe Biden fan and I thought the highlight that I saw was Beau Biden’s introduction of his father. It almost restored my faith that there may be some genuinely good people in political power. What a story.

So tonight all eyes on Barack Obama. The question will be whether we see John F. Kennedy or Dane Cook (in either case the fans go crazy, but one says something to move the country in the right direction, the other says nothing). If Barack Obama says “IN THE FACE” I’m voting for McCain.

Did anyone catch Dennis Kucinich?

So last night was the big night of the convention. I only caught three speeches throughout the night: Dennis Kucinich, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Hillary Clinton. I’m glad I saw all three.

Dennis Kucinich is a strange little man from Ohio, but every year he manages to say the things (UFO’s being the exception) and express the outrage that people should feel. I think people who are not far left Democrats like to treat him like he’s bat-sh*t crazy because if he is not then we are all apathetic and complicit in the last 8 years of corporate malfeasance, environmental degradation and corrupt foreign and domestic policy. His speech was very “red meat” as they have been saying on CNN – ironic since he’s a vegan (maybe that is why nobody listens to him).

Brian Schweitzer of Montana gave a passionate environmentally themed speech. I had to turn up the volume on my energy consuming HDTV because my air conditioning was going on full blast, but I liked what he had to say. He sort of looked more like a coach who wanted to be pacing around a room, rather than a politician at a podium. But it was good stuff.

Then came Hillary. There is only one thing I think she could have done better than she did. She should have said flat out to her supporters, “If you care about me and my causes and are a loyal supporter than the only way to really prove it is to vote for Barack Obama because if you stay home or vote for McCain then you cannot truly call yourself my supporter.” I think there are some supporters who, short of that direct a challenge personally to their Clinton loyalty, may still sit this one out or vote for McCain. People talk about the right to choose being big on women’s minds and why McCain will not get lots of Democratic women, but the group most loyal to Hillary would require the archangel Gabriel to get pregnant. Other than that I thought her speech was strong and I liked the video they played before. As James Carville (he looks like an alien, but his analysis – albeit biased – I think has been right on about the Clinton bashing) put it – Hillary has set the table, but Barack must finish the job, or some mixed metaphor like that.

Tonight it’s Bill and Biden. Can’t wait.

Theme: the Obamas are human.

Last night I watched a couple of hours of the Democratic Convention and came away under whelmed. I thought John Legend was the best performance of the night and I am not even a huge fan of the guy.

I am really tied of the Clinton bashing, especially by Democrats. They were not perfect, but eight years of peace and prosperity deserve a little more respect. Here are my main gripes with the Clinton bashing:

1) Bill Clinton may actually love his wife. That’s right – even though everyone thinks it is a partnership and not a marriage, isn’t it possible that Bill Clinton was tired of his wife being called a bitch and being disrespected? One example comes to mind – my Mother is my Father’s biggest critic, but if anyone not sharing the same last name as her offers a criticism of my father she will still get defensive. Even I cringe when someone other than me says something too harsh about an ex of mine, despite however many diatribes I may spew. Same thing for Bill, at least.

2) Stop with the “Bill Clinton is a racist” talk. Blacks abandoned the Clintons after 16 years of support because a black guy ran. If several million black people told you to fu-k off after a 16 year friendship you might get a little testy too. And the proof is in the problems that black leaders had within the black community when they supported Hillary, even after Obama’s candidacy proved it had legs. And I know that many black people nationwide did not really believe in Obama’s candidacy until after he won with white people in Iowa.

3) Hillary Clinton went to Yale law school. That is a pretty good law school too, so I have heard (although it is not a law center). If I had to hear one more CNN correspondent talk about what an amazing woman she is and how Michelle Obama went to Harvard Law I was going to gag. When was the last time these announcers gave credit to Hillary for her accomplishments? The lady was her own guest commencement speaker in college. I had Robert Rubin, former treasury secretary. Williams 2001 will regret not giving me the spotlight.

4) Hillary supporters have a right to be pissed about Obama. He lumped her in with George W. Bush for the entire primary, which is as insulting as can be to a Democrat, but then seized a good chunk of her platform once she was out of the race.

5. I did not think Michelle Obama’s speech was anything special. It was fine.

My brother thinks the first female president will be Michelle Obama. I agree with him more broadly that the first female president will most likely be a woman of color. That is because, as tough and sneer-y as Michelle Obama can appear at times, no one will call her a bitch. Not because they are afraid of appearing sexist, but because they fear calling a black woman any name could be greeted with accusations of racism. Hillary Clinton has no such buffer, which is why I think white woman feel strongly about her candidacy, because her womanhood is 100% of her identity. I think she is a poll driven political machine, but that does not mean that she is not smart and well-intentioned. I feel the same way about Obama, but somehow that gets greeted with much more hostility. I hope Obama wins, but then I hope people will give the Clintons a break. They cast a big shadow on the convention because they should. They are one of the top 3 political families in this country and should be given the respect they are due.

I did very little and it felt terrific.

The most exhausting thing I think I did on vacation was watch Usain Bolt run. Watching that guy run is like observing evolution’s next development. What Michael Phelps did was incredible for the endurance and versatility and pressure he dealt with, but what Bolt did was more like watching a superhero.

So I watched the Olympics on vacation, managed to squeeze in another viewing of The Dark Knight (bringing me up to 6,034 viewings), and felt a heavy amount of stress lifted.

When I used to be at the DA’s office, stress could pop up every once in a while, but when you left the office you could leave knowing that no one was going to try to bother you until the next day. But now, in the private sector, and with the worst invention since the nuclear bomb and breast reduction, AKA the blackberry, I am now in a culture of 24-7 stress. I thought about putting my blackberry on vibrate, but that is too stark a reminder of work. The vibrate jolts you out of your comfort zone, like ripping off a band aid. I prefer, in a masochistic sort of way, the chilling silence of the blinking red light that alerts me of a message. It is sort of like my own personal Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a frightening machine that controls my life.

So for one week I was able to feel stress free and it felt terrific. So I went down to DC to see my nephews and their parents.

The highlight of my time there was definitely seeing my older nephew give a big hug to my younger nephew. Gabriel, the older has needed some time to adjust to having a brother so seeing him give him a hug was great, but not for sentimental reasons. It was great because he hugged him and then tripped, taking both of them down like some sort of diaper clad version of the ending of Rocky II.

All in all vacation was great, but it came to a grinding halt Sunday night. Doing a show in Hoboken for 6 comics and 5 audience members seemed like it would suck, and it did. But funny how that seems like Heaven once your blackberry starts blinking at you.

I’m not the only Cauvin on the the thing!

After watching MySpace lose ground to Facebook like Roger Federer to Rafael Nadal I have now seen Facebook’s true dominance. Not only has my sister-in-law joined in the party on Facebook, but my brother has as well.

Less than 48 hours after I told a co-worker that my brother would never join because he probably viewed social networking sites as akin to the video games he proudly shunned during his exceedingly mature existence. However, I got a friend request from my brother this afternoon.

To put it in perspective it would shock me less if my 77 year old father asked to be my friend on Facebook. He’s so old his idea of social networking is meeting people face to face.

I guess it is only a time before my brother ends up sending an update like “Henri is feeling the Olympics” or “Henri is taking a dump while his two sons are sleeping.” Seeing innane updates from him will be like finding out Shoeless Joe Jackson threw the World Series. Say it Ain’t So Henri.

OK – it’s 3:30 am on a school night – time for bed.

John Edwards… you are NOT the father!!!

This has not been a good political season for me. First Barack Obama turns into Harvey “Two Face” Dent, where his message of hope is more important and more meaningful that the man himself. Then, the man who I would have voted for had he still been on the NY primary ballot when I voted, John Edwards, turns out to have had an affair. Granted, it was while his wife was in remission for cancer, so it could have been worse – you know like if he was banging his wife’s oncologist while she was giving her the diagnosis – that would have been worse.

It just further brings me down in thinking that all politicians share the same arrogant scumbag gene. Don’t get me wrong I think people are inherently selfish and that politicians who think they are untouchable or athletes who juice up are actually just more courageous narcissists compared with average selfish prick who obeys mores and rules only because he is afraid to get caught. I know and have met a lot of bad people who love it when they see a priest accused of abuse or a politician caught with a prostitute despite prosecuting prostitutes or an athlete using banned substances, not because it is what the person deserves, but because deep down, in places they don’t talk about at birthday parties, they feel better about themselves because their choices and selfishness seem more reasonable and ok. If role models or moral guideposts fail then why do I need to do any better? If the messenger has a morally good, but inconvenient message, it seems like lots of people can’t wait to see the messenger fail and thereby destroy the message with him or her. If a priest abuses a kid, does it mean that Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness is any less useful or good? If Eliot Spitzer rides a 22 year old JAP from Jersey bareback does that mean that prostitution is no longer a social ill? Because Lance Armstrong probably had more drugs than blood coursing through his veins does that make his message to Cancer survivors any less important?

But I liked John Edwards, and I guess still do, but I suppose he’s just another seemingly good guy who turns out to be full of sh-t to some degree.

I would just like to see John Edwards on the Maury Povich show debating paternity:

John E: Maury, before the results come out I would just like to say that I have learned from my mistakes and believe that we still live in a divided America, two Americas if you will, and that I will resume my work of fighting poverty, no matter what the result of the test.

Maury: Ok – thank you. Are you ready?

John (thoughtfully squinting and pursing his lips): yes Maury

Maury: John Edwards, you are NOT the father.

John: Yes!! Yes!! That’s right bitch!! I am not the father – there are two Americas… and you are not getting child support in either one!!!! I told you I told you!!!!

That would make for some great television.

I present 4 tests to determine the answer.

The Dark Knight has entered the J-L Top Movies of all Time Discussion (a sad place in the corner of my mind where even the rest of my brain does not give a sh-t what I am talking about). I decided after many requests (actually, only one, by a Russian comic named Slava) to see what my top movies of all time are and if The Dark Knight makes it to the top of the list. I will evaluate movies on several categories and see where TDK stands.

TEST #1: Is it one of your classic top films (meaning would your choices seem respectable to people who like “film” instead of “movies”)?:

A top 10 of these would be Amadeus, Lord of the Rings – 3 parts of one whole – kind of like the Holy Trinity of films, The Godfather, Saving Private Ryan, The Departed, United 93, The Insider, Malcolm X and… The Dark Knight.

So it passes the first test.

TEST #2: Do I enjoy it the film, possibly more or equal to the films in test #1, even if it is not technically on the level of those films (or something some people call “shit-y”)?:

A top 10 here would be:

Hoosiers, Old School, There’s Something About Mary, School of Rock, A Knight’s Tale, Arlington Road, Contact, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Music and Lyrics and… The Dark Knight

Test 2 – check.

TEST #3: How many times have you seen it in the theater?:

Two times: Ghostbusters, Batman (1989),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990, not 2007), A Knight’s Tale, The Borune Identity, Terminator 2, Forrest Gump, Dreamgirls, The Fellowship of the Ring (once on re-release), Superbad

Three times: The Two Towers (once on re-release), The Return of the King, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko (obviously if Michael Moore stars as Bilbo in The Hobbit we may have to re-evaluate all of this)

Four times (pending – Imax tickets in hand): The Dark Knight (test 3 check)

Test #4: Would you forgo sex to see this movie?

Well this blog I think answers that question, especially if you a woman reading it. Only one movie probably cost me relations and that was the collective Lord of the Rings, not because I chose it over sex, but because the mere mention of the film can cause some women to dry up like the Sahara. Batman may be cooler, but seeing a movie 4 times will basically act as repellant to most women.

So after all these tests I think it is clear that the Dark Knight is now crowned www.jlcauvin.com’s best movie of all time. Just the fact that it killed Heath Ledger, almost killed Morgan Freeman and got Christian Bale’s mother and sister punched speaks to its power.