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Well, ever since the end of season 4 of Breaking Bad I have been wondering if it could finish as well as it started, I enjoyed it more than any show I had ever seen, but only Six Feet Under had delivered the ending (and overall depth) that its greatness deserved.  And off the bat I would like to say that if you are thinking of your favorite all time show and it has the word Homeland or Lost or Dexter or “CBS drama” attached to the title then you may leave this discussion. This is not the kids’ table at a holiday meal.  There are, in my estimation, only five to six shows that can be in the greatest drama discussion – Six Feet Under, The Wire, The West Wing, The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

The West Wing deserves special kudos for being what I believe to be the greatest network drama of all time.  Sure it was inconsistent once Sorkin left, but people make too much of this still.  How about some respect for how well the final season, which pitted Jimmy Smits vs Alan Alda for the presidency, basically predicted the Obama-McCain election?  And the first four seasons were sheer brilliance.  The West Wing was the last network drama to feel on par with the explosion of top tier, next level, cable dramas.

Mad Men I include because of the fact that it won 4 consecutive best drama awards (also accomplished by The West Wing and Hill Street Blues).  However, that is ridiculous.  The show has been an art house favorite, giving people born in the 1970s and later a feeling of nostalgia they could never actually have.  The show is solid, but also incredibly overrated (and even ardent fans of the show admit that it feels like it has jumped the shark).  Just because nothing happens does not mean you have to say it’s great.

That leaves the Holy Trinity of HBO and Breaking Bad as the last shows standing.  At this point all the shows are great on just about every level.  Although Homicide: Life on the Street did many of the stylistic things that the Sopranos did, The Sopranos really is the founding father of the great cable drama.   It provided the anti-hero of Tony Soprano and both the exciting and mundane problems that could be expected and unexpected in the professional and personal lives of a mobster.  However, my problem with The Sopranos, besides the ending (which after having it explained really appears to be a great ending, but I prefer after one or two viewings to be able to discern the meaning of a show’s ending without scholarly interpretation) was that it was not perfect.  The first 10 episodes of Season 6 (the one fans waited 22 months for) was subpar to say the least. These were the episodes that focused on a closeted gay character who was at best a third-tier character on the show.  As if to say, as Jimmy Failla said to me recently, “I know they are murderers and awful people, but they ALSO hate gays!”  The shock value and the social value was nil and it felt like a wasted chunk of 10 episodes.  Just as network drama has a challenge of making 22 episodes a year that can compete with cable, so too do cable dramas have the challenge of removing all waste and The Sopranos has a 10 episode dump in the middle of its overall brilliance (had the show gone seasons 1-5 and ended I might have to have Sopranos sitting at #1).

The Wire – how good is it?  It became a cliché to say how good it is.  Seasons 1-4 of The Wire average out to an A.  Season 1 – A, Season 2 – A- (shut up already people who did not like season 2 – David Simon, the show’s creator, wanted to create a thorough picture of Baltimore and how do you leave off the ports?  But it was less compelling than the other seasons), season 3 – A+, season 4 – A+.  And David Simon, when thinking about a sixth season thought about centering it around the growing Latino community in Baltimore, but decided not to because he did not feel informed on the same level as other aspects of Baltimore to give it a proper authenticity.  This is a respectable artistic decision by someone concerned about maintaining quality (though Treme is hailed as authentic and the first season put me to sleep), but season 5 of The Wire, which I give a B+ to out of respect for its association with the other seasons, is a noticeable step down, partly, if not entirely because Simon had an obvious and well-documented bone to pick with the media, of which he had been a part.  This heavy-handed criticism, along with a weird, fake-serial killer plot that seemed out of place with the rest of the show, made the final season of The Wire its worst, even if the finale brilliantly showed that the cycle of poverty, crime, drugs and bad decisions remained in tact after the journey the viewers had taken.

So that leaves my two favorite, and in my opinion, best dramas I have ever seen: Six Feet Under and Breaking Bad.  First, Six Feet Under.  The show’s structure was brilliant – each episode brings you a death, sometimes comical, sometimes heartbreakingly tragic, which leads people to Fisher and Sons, the funeral home, run by the main characters.  The cast was perfect and the writing was as well.  There was a hiccup according to most fans in season 4 involving Lisa (I will give no more info for those who will decide to take up the show), but I found the show to be pretty much perfect.  I have never felt like I had learned to know people more in a show.  It addresses sex, sexuality, life and death – major concepts to say the least, with such a personal touch and such depth that you feel like neighbors and friends have been lost when the show ends.  Whereas shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, which show how realistically great writers can portray things that might never come close to happening to you, Six Feet Under showed how monumental the events of normal life can be.  It also stands as a landmark show in the portrayal of same-sex couples.  People can hail Modern Family, Will and Grace, etc. but Six Feet Under gave a same sex couple more detail and heart than almost any relationship ever in popular entertainment.  The show was full of great comedic and dramatic devices, had character growth and development better than any show ever and the finale is nothing short of a masterpiece.  For every fan of the Sopranos, or Lost of Dexter or Seinfeld that has ever complained about a show’s ending, Six Feet Under feels like a reward for all that disappointment and confusion.  I have cried exactly once during a television finale. And that was Six Feet Under.

And in the other corner we have Breaking Bad.  To cover the finale, it is obvious that Vince Gilligan has paid attention to the failed or disappointing finales of the last decade and took notes.  The final last night delivered the goods.  It was satisfying, thorough and had heart, but never packaged the good feelings with a bow and gift wrapping.  Not everyone forgave Walter and the forgiveness that was given felt realistic.  His death was well-played and he was finally honest to his wife.  He brought death to those who were worse people than him and he freed those who were better than him.  Of course, for all the hype that Ozymandias received (the 14th episode of the 16 episode final season), my favorite episode of the final season was the second to last one.  This was the one where Walt appeared finished with his son telling him to die and having to pay his smuggler thousands of dollars just to keep him company for an hour.  But the final scene of that episode, where Walter seems to be given the (angry) strength to finish the job, both of his life and the show, after feeling disrespected and dismissed by his former business partners on a Charlie Rose interview, gave me chills. The full version of the show’s outstanding theme song building until you see Walt’s unfinished drink, indicating that he is going to give himself and fans of the show the ending they want.

Breaking Bad delivered a show, perhaps more than any other ever, that was perfect on every level. The cast was great, the writing – both dialogue and story – amazing.  And on a level where many shows don’t focus, the art direction and cinematography were on a level with great, epic cinema. Sometimes you felt as if you could watch the show silently and still marvel at it.  It delivered big moments, heart racing action, and more than a handful of OMGs each season.  In short, it is great. It never slipped (people who criticize early seasons should recognize that, in the totality this plays as a brilliant 62 episode movie where all parts are necessary and all add to the recipe of greatness.  There were no weak spots (other than the acting of the man who played Gomie, Hank Schroeder’s partner), no weak seasons and it delivered the goods at the end.

So the question is, what is the Righteous Prick’s greatest show of all time?

Tie.

Six Feet Under has the greatest ending of all time (imagine a guy hit a walkoff grand slam in Game 7 of the World Series down 3 runs – sort of impossible to ever beat) and showed life so realistically and so epically, while still just being about every day life.  But Breaking Bad, did the opposite in equally brilliant fashion – it showed how using great writing and acting could bring cinematic brilliance and epic storytelling into our mundane homes each week.  Both shows lasted five seasons, which also showed the perfect sense that both Alan Ball and Vince Gilligan had to prioritize art and story over money (Hi Dexter – how did those last 4 seasons work out for you?).  So I declare it a tie.  But since today is about Breaking Bad here is how bad my life immediately turned after Breaking Bad ended:

My door lock broke and I was locked inside my apartment for 3 hours, like Jesse Pinkman with the white supremacists, minus the torture and ice cream.  Then a locksmith showed up at 1:30 am, charging a king’s ransom, all while wearing a “Party With Sluts” t-shirt (true story). Then I read that Mad Men will be splitting up their final season into two parts the way Breaking Bad did.  To show you what is at sake among the actual and merely perceived shows – for Breaking Bad (and Six Feet Under to an extent) the question was of mortality – who and how will characters die?  For Mad Men, I assume the question will be “Will Don Draper cry in the final episode?”  To be great something has to be at stake.  Six Feet Under and Breaking Bad, the two greatest dramas of all time – put it all on the line in their own way and our reward was the best entertainment.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic, iTunes and NOW on STICHER. New Every Tuesday!

Now that I have a TiVo that can record four shows at once (thank you RCN for also being $66 cheaper a month than Time Warner) I figured it was time to sample several of the new shows that are debuting starting this month.  Among the pleasant surprises so far have been Fox’s Sleepy Hollow (which feels like a wittier and better Grimm, an NBC show that I am a fan of) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.  Having called Andy Samberg “the less talented Adam Sandler” (and having called Adam Sandler the worst movie maker not named Tyler Perry) allow me to eat a healthy plate of crow (I assume crow is paleo diet allowed).  Samberg is funny and the rest of the cast is excellent, with Andre Braugher showing great range as the primary source of deadpan humor on the show.  Now there are several shows still to come (and I am not watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – why would I watch a spinoff of an overrated movie focusing on the non-super heroes? Nor will I watch The Goldbergs, which I believe was secretly financed and produced by Hezbollah to make people hate, or reinforce prejudices against, Jews), but I think, as is the tradition of the Righteous Prick, I should focus on a few of the abortions that somehow survived to become fully viable shows on television.

(at this point I would also like to point out that Breaking Bad is poised squarely ahead of The Wire and behind Six Feet Under as the greatest drama of all time in the RP’s opinion.  This Sunday’s finale may be the show to finally bump 6FU from my all time greatest perch.  But seriously, if you don’t believe me – watch 6FU all the way through and then tell me if any finale has ever left as big a hole in your soul as that (unless Breaking Bad delivers, which it may).

So, the two shows so far that have me concerned are Dads on Fox and Mom on CBS.  Dads is not really worth discussing, except in the context of wondering whether Seth MacFarlane got lucky with Family Guy.  Admittedly the film Ted was fun (thought I don’t think brilliant), but as far as television hasn’t MacFarlane been behind American Dad and The Cleveland Show (Adam Carolla once said of his friend MacFarlane that MacFarlane was almost on one of the 9/11 planes, which would have deprived the world of Family Guy, but silver lining, no Cleveland Show)?  And now add Dads to the pile of excrement.  People were complaining and protesting about it being offensive, but the only thing offensive was that it was trying to pass itself off as a comedy.  I expect the show to be an early casualty, but then again we live in a country where Jeff Dunham makes $15 million a year.

But Dads is merely the undercard on this month’s Octagon match aimed at putting good comedy in a chokehold.  Mom, on CBS received better reviews than Dads (though mostly in comparison), but it is horrific.  It has Anna Faris and Allison Janney, so my expectations were high, even if it did come from the mind that made Two and a Half Men a monster hit.  Both women are experienced and talented, but the show is poop.  Faris plays a single mom of two (she was a teen mom, begat from a teen mom, played now by Allison Janney), but yet she lives in a nice house on a waitress salary.  The show is a great whitewash of working class life and bad choices.  The fact that a struggling waitress, single mom can live in a cozy three bedroom house (assuming at least three bedrooms since each of her children has their own room) is absurd.  This is sort of the tradition now of America – showcase working class people on sitcoms or reality shows presenting their lives as whimsical adventures, while denying the increasing difficulty of actual working class people.

The worst part of Mom, was that at the end of the episode it is revealed that Faris’ teen daughter is pregnant.  So three generations of teen moms is now hilarious?   I remember vaguely the Dan Quayle complaints about Murphy Brown, celebrating the single mother lifestyle.  Although my left leaning politics sees the absurdity of Quayle’s complaint it seems, like with a lot of things, the liberal pendulum may have swung too far.  My real question is where are the Republicans denouncing the show Mom?  This is what happens when Republican politicians are too busy trying to argue against everything a black President does.  Being against a black president always trumps lecturing women, real or fictional, on their lives, even when a valid complaint might actually be made.  So allow me to denounce Mom on comedic grounds and hopefully Ted Cruz will speak out against the moral absurdity of Mom soon.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic, iTunes and NOW on STICHER. New Every Tuesday!

Last week I travelled to Minnesota for an old-fashioned fun week of road work (I call it old-fashioned because road work has become something of ancient lore for my calendar and bank account).  I was going back to the club that was first to give me a headlining weekend, the Joke Joint in St Paul, Minnesota.  It is a great little club with a friendly owner/manager.  In fact, unlike many comedy condos, the comedy condo at the Joke Joint is a welcome sight.  It is the second floor of the club owner’s house and is stocked with lots of homey amenities like a DVD player, bowls of candies and snacks and very clean (it is on his property so there is a major incentive to have it be more than just adequate).  But as it turned out, the owner had family in town so I ended up staying at the downtown St Paul Embassy Suites.  But I am racing ahead of myself.  This was days 2-4 of the trip. The first part was getting to Minnesota and going to the Black Bear Casino.

Part One: Cauvin’s 11

The first gig of the week was at the Black Bear Casino in Carlton, MN. I have done the casino before and it was solid the first time.  Rather than write out how the flight went, I will just provide you a few minutes form one of my sets at the Joke Joint to recap the flight.

When I arrived early afternoon I was picked up at the airport by Wayne, a local comedian who sort of resembles Drew Carey, if Drew Carey had served in the military and had some ink.  We drove north to Carlton and the Black Bear Casino made the mistake of giving me a $10 comp card to play on their machines.  I stuck it into a slot machine like a woman who had no idea she was about to be shamed.  I turned that $10 into just over $50 in winnings.  I kept looking over my shoulder for casino security to escort me out for taking them for all they could handle, but perhaps because I was “the talent” they let it pass.

I then went to the buffet (which was comp’d, once again, “the talent”) which was an incredible display of Middle America gluttony.  I saw so many obese people with 3 and 4 plates of food (and kept wanting to say “do you often bring 4 plates for yourself at home?  Then why are you doing it now? Have some shame!”) that it forced me to only have one dessert.  Then I went to entertain.  The show went great and I managed to sell a few CDs.  In summary – the house does not always win.

Days Two and Three – St Paul Laughs at an “Oaf”

The people of Minnesota have a well-earned reputation as being nice.  And after the first three shows the manager/owner of the Joke Joint only received one complaining e-mail where I was referred to as an unfunny “oaf.”  As someone who has a wealth of YouTube comments wishing death, AIDS and death cause by AIDS, I must say that being called an oaf is practically a compliment.  The shows did go really well all week, I sold almost all of my albums that I brought (Guns N Roses CDs were particularly popular) and was well-rested and relaxed.  So here are some random complaints I have about the area surrounding my Embassy Suites:

• Jimmy Johns – I have seen many, never ate at one until now, out of necessity.  Great cookies.  Bad sandwiches – they sort of pretend to be a real deli, but that is just a front to pile on extras and condiments on to sandwiches which contain less and almost as slimy deli meats as Subway.
• Dear Nice deli/diner/restaurant near the hotel (and the rest of America) – some people like Russian dressing for sandwiches.  Ranch Dressing is not a cure-all condiment and it is one of the many reasons we are a fat nation.

(See, not that many complaints)

Day Four: Gary Matter

If you are not a Breaking Bad fan, this is a play on Grey Matter – the company Walter White helped found and has regrets about because it took off after he left. In season one he is subjected to seeing their happiness and almost unlimited wealth as a reminder of what he felt close to achieving and is now very far from.  Similarly, on this day of my trip I ventured to the Mall of America where one of my favorite comedians (currently the #1 ranked tall comedian in America) Gary Gulman was headlining the House of Comedy.  We decided to meet up for lunch, and were instantly on par with Supreme Court Justices Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun as one of the most powerful partnerships ever forged in Minnesota (sorry Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer).

Gulman selected a restaurant called Firelake Grill House, which appeared to be a restaurant from the future.  I felt like a person in a futuristic movie like Elysium, seeing how the privileged class lives.  Outside the restaurant was a series of oddly shaped pieces of furntiture that no one could sit on. That is how you know it was fancy.  I met Gulman and a local comedian he was buddies with and we have a fun lunch.  It was full of television talk and some words on comedy.   I never got to pitch my idea to Gulman for an HBO-sponsored tour called PremaTour Ejaculation (which would be a prequel sort of tour to Tourgasm), where Gulman would headline with a series of less accomplished comedians on the bill.  It was good to hear Gulman’s thoughts on comedy and simultaneously inspiring and disheartening to know that ten years in Gulman was struggling too.  Sadly I may not have Gulman’s Gus Fring-like patience to build an empire over decades.  My Walter White bank account (meaning it has stage 3 Cancer, not piles of money from overseas drug dealing) necessitates me finding sources of hope and revenue sooner, rather than later.  Gulman then picked up the check, which was the Grey Matter-picking-up-the-health-costs-for-Walter moment.  Very generous of him, but also I now expect to see Gulman completely disavowing me on a Charlie Rose interview in to the future.

The shows went really great that night. Made some new fans, sold a bunch of CDs and got a whole 3 1/2 hours sleep before my “You can’t afford conveniently timed flights” 645 am flight out of Minneapolis.

Epilogue – Silent White People

So I arrived back in NYC exhausted, but with no time to waste.  I had a guest set at Gotham Comedy Club Sunday night that I was hoping would make a clean tape to submit to a few things.  Of course I was nervous – I assume people out for a show during the final two episodes of Breaking Bad do not share my values or sensibilities and I may have been right.  I went on stage and the first joke did well, second joke was OK, but a reference to the movie Mask fell flat (even if you have not seen the movie I thought Eric Stoltz’ face was pretty much a cultural reference point for ugliness). Mind you it did not fall flat for sympathy (like a series of “awwwww”s or some other reaction, but just did not register.  The third joke was the one that really bothered me.  In it I reference the proliferation of movies about rich, white superheroes. If comic books are supposed to be fantasies, why are half the dudes rich white guys?  That is how the world works anyway.  So the punch line is as follows (the bit is on my 2nd album Diamond Maker):

So why doesn’t DC Comics just go all the way and have their next superhero be Todd The Hedge Fund Douchebag. (silence).  He gets his superpowers from high fives and bottle service at clubs (a couple of awww’s and “hey!”s in mild disapproval).  Instead of a bat signal, when you need him you just flash a signal in the sky of a high priced escort being choked to death – “Hey bro, the city needs me!” (a few scattered laughs).

The final bit got several laughs with a call back to an earlier bit, but I could not shake the anger I felt to the crowd’s reaction (or lack thereof) to a joke that consistently does well for me.  And then I realized – the vast majority of the crowd, which was pretty sizeable for a Sunday night, was white (like 96% +).  It felt like a tony Connecticut crowd. And this is one of those things I have realized in my comedy travel. On the road you see a lot of white suburban crowds – including my shows in Minnesota.  And I have seen mediocre black comics get what I call the “soul bounce” – which is many all-white crowds tendency to give mediocre black emcees a sort of bonus for being unfamiliar and so “gosh darn entertaining,” solely(soully) because they are black.  But at the same time, lack of exposure does not always mean you harbor prejudices or ignorance and I felt that from many of the crowds in St Paul.  The flipside is just because you live in a diverse melting pot like NYC does not mean you get a pass on being a sheltered, ignorant ass.  And to me, living in Lilydale, MN (the actual location of the Joke Joint and the whitest name of a town in America) and not having a diverse show or group of friends is a lot less weird than living in NYC and self-selecting a group of like-minded, like-looking, like-everything group of friends, because implied in the latter scenario is not a lack off opportunity for diversity in your life, but more likely an outright rejection of diversity in your life.  And that is what went through my mind as the crowd offered more sympathy for the poor hedge fund workers I was poking fun at.  Half of the bros in the audience probably work in finance and half the women probably are or want to be married into finance so I guess I was reverse soul bounced – when a white looking guy bashes bastions of white privilege in front of a Wonder Bread audience it gets silence. Of course this might be over analysis by me, but I doubt it.

Other than that the set went well and I was greeted by the very funny Mike Vecchione off stage who said “Nice set and really funny shit on-line.”  That made me feel good and like a comic’s comic, which Richard Belzer once said meant “that comics like me and I have no money.”  I then went home and watched Walter White’s second to last episode and realized that there are worse things than having a so-so set, but then got jealous because those worse things have been made into the best drama on television.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic, iTunes and NOW on STICHER. New Every Tuesday! This week’s episode is a discussion of Breaking Bad, Mariano Rivera and my new album.

Well folks, I was going to write a hilarious write up about my night at the Black Bear Casino in Carlton, MN.  But that will have to wait until a Monday Mega Minnesota (MMM) recap because TODAY MY NEW STAND UP ALBUM IS OUT!  Reviews should start to come in soon, but take my word for it – it is excellent.  Buy it here.

The Dave Chappelle incident in Hartford has brought heckling and its place in stand up comedy into the spotlight again.  Well to help improve, if not settle the debate, there is now a video on the Internet that promises to help people become better hecklers to improve the comedy club experience.  Watch it and share:

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday! This week’s episode – a debate/discussion about paying college athletes.

I know 9/11 is the date we are supposed to Never Forget, but I would like to add four dates (they all take place in September so it should be easy) that you should put in your calendar:

September 17th – The debut of Tim and Aaron.  The pilot for CBS I shot this weekend, which takes place in a fictional world where accused murderer/tight end Aaron Hernandez is left under house arrest with unemployed Quarterback/2nd Coming Tim Tebow.  It is outstanding and will definitely be a big hit.  Here is the promotional shot for it:

September 23rd – this is when Dumb in the First Degree is supposed to finally launch on InvestigationDiscovery.com.  This is the web series where I co-host offering legal knowledge wrapped in humorous attitude. It was a lot of fun to make so hopefully they did not make me look like a (bigger) a-hole in post-production.

September 24th – Keep My Enemies Closer comes out on iTunes and other digital distributors.  This is the big one folks.  Buy it for yourself, for friends, leave nice reviews and spread the word.

September 30th – Heckler Seminar, my second September sketch comes out.  This is a great compliment to my well-received (within the comedy world) video Scared Straight.  It is an infomercial showing hecklers how to become better and dominate the comedy club experience.

So for two weeks I hope you can spare some attention, some shares/retweets/likes and a little bit of money.  Also – I guess I should have included September 29th – Breaking Bad finale as one of the dates.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday! This week’s episode – a debate/discussion about paying college athletes.

It is September and there is already bad news on my distraction front; the Yankees are tanking down the stretch (I don’t know how a horrible bullpen can be blamed on Alex Rodriguez, but I am sure the front-running masses of Yankee nation are trying to develop a theory); the Pittsburgh Steelers scored only 2 more points than me this Sunday to kick off what will probably be their worst season since the 1980s; and I finished Orange is the New Black on Netflix, a surprisingly enjoyable series that I found much more watchable than House of Cards, probably because of the lack of a syrupy Kevin Spacey southern accent (though I am going to give it another shot).  However, the 2013 plan of mine that started in April with the launch of my Louis CK parody video is now reaching its crescendo.  Here are some things I hope you will support, stay tuned for, etc. in the next couple of weeks:

• Keep My Enemies Closer – my new album, officially coming out September 24th, but it may be out as early as 9-11 (Never Forget).  I have already been booked for interviews and reviews with some major comedy outlets and am hoping bigger things are still in the works.  Also will be appearing on various Sirius XM shows and Comedy 24-7 to promote it as well.
• Dumb in the First Degree – My Discovery web series will finally go up this month.  The check already cleared so my mind is at ease, but this should be a nice boost for me as well (it is a 6 episode web series with me providing humorous legal analysis of criminals caught on camera).  Unlike a lot of hidden camera shows I actually drop some legal knowledge with my humor, rather than just wit.
• 2 New Sketches – My two sketches (filming this week) are Heckler Seminar – an infomercial offering a class on helping stand up comedy audience members become better hecklers and Tim and Aaron – a mock-pilot of a CBS series about Tim Tebow and Aaron Hernandez.  I am confident Heckler will get several thousand views, but I have hopes that T & A could get into 6 or 7 digits of views.  Fingers crossed.
• Weekly podcast and movie reviews and blogs will continue as usual.
• Headlining the Joke Joint in St Paul, MN next week. Consult my calendar and tell any friends in the Twin Cities to go see me.

Let’s hope October is a celebration of a good September.

Taking a much needed break from not getting booking e-mails replied to, I have ventured an hour north of the city to accompany my father on a three day mini-vacation to Bear Mountain, NY.  Being that he is 82 years old and not getting around very well the trip represents a feasible way for him to escape the apartment and get a bit of nature.  It also gives my Mom a three day break, or at least time to workshop some material before my parents’ next argument.  But with my Dad’s memory resembling the guy in Memento, his gait to the bathroom resembling Beyoncé’s single ladies dance in 1/10000th the speed and his countenance resembling a near-bald, older Morgan Freeman (and me looking like me) I think this trip would make for a great movie comedy script.  However, with the two stars of the movie being 75% black I am not sure I should call Judd Apatow just yet.  That said, I think I can get Tyler Perry interested.

There would be no shortage of older black actors he could cast as my Dad, though I am guessing I would also be replaced also, probably by a darker, more muscular man since Tyler Perry loves cross dressing and casting extremely muscular black men in his movies.  But in no way should his intense embrace of Christian values, love of cross-dressing and admiration of extremely muscular black men indicate anything other than a healthy heterosexuality in accordance with the Lord’s wishes.  So I am out of the movie and I am thinking a desperate Louis Gossett Jr. and an available Boris Kodjoe will play my father and me, respectively, in Tyler Perry’s 3 Day Trip with Dad.  Here are the potential sources of humor that actually have happened combined with things that Tyler Perry could then add to the story and punch up with his trademark humor:

• Arrive at Bear Mountain Inn, driven by older brother (played by Shemar Moore) who leaves me with words of wisdom and encouragement for my stay with Dad, demonstrating that he is the responsible and mature brother.
• I act annoyed with my Dad, until I see that the front desk woman at the Inn is a striking 5’11” blonde (only the latter part of this is true, but for humor’s sake the first part would happen in the Perry script and for some unexplainable reason the woman at the front desk would be an evil character who would try and drive an emotional wedge between my father and I during a 50 hour trip)
• The cleaning lady has not cleaned the room yet when we arrive (true). But instead of an apologetic Latin woman coming to clean the room, it would be a light-skinned attractive black woman coming to clean the room who would give me sass that I would find off-putting, but intriguing at the same time.
• On a walk with my Dad, he continues to ask me questions of unbelieveable vagueness – “who is the man from the movie who sang the song?” or this one which occurred yesterday during a conversation about MSNBC political pundits, “Who is the quarterback for the Knicks who had knee surgery?” (Answer after many “what the hell could you be talking about”‘s – Derek Jeter)
• A running joke throughout the trip would be my character (with a French name – my father calls me Jean-Louis, unless he mockingly calls me J-L) being confused as a young stud (because I am not readily apparent as my father’s son) accompanying an old man that people believe is a South American (think Pele Brazilian) millionaire on vacation in America keeping his side proclivities hidden.  That leads to many hilarious awkward, mistaken gay encounters.
• My character and my Dad would then have a big argument which would lead to the devilish blonde sleeping with me. I would realize she never liked me (all within a 50 hour trip) and would then make amends with my father.  I would also pledge to be a good man to the pretty maid and all would seem good and morally right, even if a tad rushed.
• Right before the closing credits I will go to the doctor and get diagnosed as HIV positive.  The lesson – don’t sleep with mean white women and don’t get into too many accidental gay encounters.  No advance screenings of the film will be available to critics.

Well there it is, so I will continue to take notes in the final day and half of the trip and someone get me Tyler Perry’s contact info.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!  THIS WEEK’S EPISODE WAS A GREAT ONE ABOUT DAVE CHAPPELLE.

Taking off Until September 3rd. Until then check out my podcast (links below) or my movie review channel J-L’s Movie Life, which will have a Summer Recap this Friday. Enjoy the weekend!

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

It is no secret to readers of this blog that I am a huge fan of Breaking Bad.  It is one of the few shows I watch live and I consider it one of televisions three best dramas ever (assuming they stick the landing with the remaining 5 episodes).  But this morning was a 1-2 punch of disconcerting news for me on the Breaking Bad front.  First off, Breaking Bad is well behind… Rizzoli and Isles of TNT, in most watched shows on cable television.  Huh?  I have never heard of anyone liking this show, let alone hearing or knowing anyone who watches it.  I mean a co-star of the show just killed himself, so that seems like a big thumbs down.  Angie Harmon was the attractive, but overrated, one-note-of-complete-intensity actress who is married to the NFL’s Last of the Mohicans – Jason Sehorn (he was a white starting cornerback in the NFL).  Welcome to the Two Americas people – one where some watch Breaking Bad, some watch Rizzoli and Isles and way more people watch the MTV Video Music Awards.

That’s right, after reading the Cable TV results in the NY Times I tuned in to Facebook and saw that many more of my friends were offering more commentary about the VMAs (shouldn’t YouTube be hosting these awards now?) than about Breaking Bad.  And the big story was about Miley Cyrus performance (John Malkovich’s Cyrus the Virus from Con Air is now passing the title on to Miley).  As embarrassed as I am that lots of people I know in their thirties were watching it instead of Breaking Bad, I was even more disturbed by her performance.  People are condemning it, but haven’t we reached a critical point in youth and sexuality (sorry to sound like an old fart – I know Miley is an adult legally, but her and MTV’s market is more youthful).  There is a flood of sexual content on television on exponentially more on-line.  Cell phones have also cut out parents as middlemen in the relationships of teenagers, while also giving teens and younger the capability of sending sexual images to each other.  As I said on my third album Too Big To Fail, teens have been horny forever, but a half a generation ago you had to buy pornography from another human being (shaming) and often speak and meet a parent or parents to become close to a high school girl or guy you were interested in (awkward and uncomfortable).  Now the sexual urges have never been stronger, but none of the gatekeepers are as firmly in place so kids can act upon their urges with not as much need to develop the requisite maturity that used to go hand in hand with it (or at least more so). Just like your 5 year old’s ability to play video games on your smart phone does not necessarily mean the child is actually smart, so it goes with teens’ increased exposure to sexuality and the actual maturity to deal with sexuality.

I know we no longer judge people, especially women, quite as harshly for sexual practices, but at some point shouldn’t we retain a little bit of judgment?  Sexuality, like technology, is not inherently evil, but in the wrong hands or in the hands of someone not mature to deal with it can still be harmful, both physically and mentally.  Here is what I posted on Facebook this morning that seemed to get a good response and sort of sums up my thoughts.

Can some people at least admit that our culture of hedonism masquerading as sexual empowerment, without any judgment or restraint, is partly what gives us monsters like Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardashian.  Exposing and teaching young people, especially girls, to embrace sexuality before they are mentally mature enough to understand it is what leads to chicks like Cyrus and Kardashian thinking they are “brave” or “bold” or “empowered” when they are just sort of shameful and disgusting.  I understand the backlash that emerged from substandard treatment to women and the sexual double standard that still persists to an extent today, but the pendulum seems to have swung too far.  We need fewer hypocrites on the right talking about family values and more free spirit liberals to start citing the values of decency once in a while.  This is not about condoms in high schools or birth control. It’s about common decency.  Perhaps when the next Miley Cyrus blows the next Robin Thicke on stage in 2025 we might pause and say “hey maybe we aren’t evangelical hypocrites or puritans burning witches just because we draw a line in the sand for what our kids are exposed to.”

Odd that today is the anniversary of women getting the right to vote.  I am sure if Susan B. Anthony were alive today she would have harsh words for Miley Cyrus and there would be many empowered women telling her to shut her judgmental ass up.  And then Ms. Anthony would watch Breaking Bad. #Hero

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!