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For anyone who reads my blog because they enjoy my movie reviews here’s my top ten from this Summer.  Sorry fans of Bridesmaids – I gave it a decent review, but I liked these 10 movies better.  So get out to a theater or re-order your Netflix queue for these:

1. Rise of the Planet of The Apes – Tea Party’s idea of Evolution, which I assume is why they oppose it
2. Crazy Stupid Love – Best romantic comedy since 500 Days of Summer
3. X Men: First Class – washed away the stain from X Men 3 and X Men Origins-Wolverine
4. Warrior – a thoughtful, emotional movie about MMA, which is presumably why MMA fans did not see it
5. The Help – lesson I took away: White women are horrible racists, except for the white woman with big breasts
6. The Trip – I may be biased because I am a comedian, but I loved this road tripping movie about two comics
7. Captain America – Benefited greatly from not being Thor (which was not terrible) or having Ryan Reynolds in it
8. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 – bye bye Potter.
9. The Debt (3rd two-word “The” movie on the list) – brought a little high class to the Summer season
10. Midnight in Paris – I prefer Woody Allen being cynical and depressing, but this fairly positive movie was pleasant

The biggest loser of the Summer – Ryan Reynolds.  Had the worst movie of the Summer, Green Lantern, and received such bad reviews for The Change Up that he actually broke my streak of seeing movies with Jason Bateman.

This week’s movie of the week is another sneak preview provided by the New York Times’ Film Club.  So me and my old, liberal, hardcopy-of-newspaper reading Jewish friends sat down for the Ryan Gosling action vehicle Drive.  The movie co-starred Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, Sons of Anarchy’s Ron Perlman and Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks so not one, not two, but three television transitions to film depend on Gosling (granted Perlman has already found some success as Hellboy).  To sum up this movie, those three should not quit their day jobs (both because they are great on their television shows and because this movie is not going to make them movie stars).  Like a girl’s first period this movie is bloody, confusing and messy.

 

First off Ryan Gosling is having a tremendous year.  He has been an indie film darling, but between nailing Eva Mendes, and starring in Crazy Stupid Love this Summer and The Ides of March with George Clooney next month he is officially making the move from indie star to possible A-list Hollywood leading man in 2011.  Drive was meant to be an action vehicle for him to show some versatility I am guessing, though it looks more like it was a relaxing paycheck where he could take a break from actually acting.

Gosling plays a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway car driver.  Seems like an intriguing character.  Unfortunately none of the character is developed.  He is a mystery man in terms of his origins and what drives him (pun intended), but we simultaneously know so many other facts about him that it feels peculiar to not know why he is the man that he is.  I think they were aiming for man of mystery cool with Gosling’s character, but he ends up just seeming like someone with poor social and verbal skills.  The opening scene of the film is the highlight and raised the bar for what I expected from the movie.  However, it falls short for the next 90 minutes.

Gosling lives next door to a mom whose criminal husband (not a bad guy criminal, but more of a looking-for-a-second-chance criminal) has just been released from prison.  Of course Gosling has a whole week before the husband returns to become a surrogate father figure and a platonic husband figure to the woman, played by Carrie Mulligan.

Well, once the husband returns our hero must help him do a job in order to keep his wife and son safe.  That is when the movie, both for the characters and the audience, goes off the rails.  It becomes an incredibly violent bloodfest.  Gosling is a stone-cold killer, which is never explained how or why he became like this (not even a suggested hint), and every gun shot or stomping if offered in incredibly grotesque visuals.

If I was going to describe the music of the film, as well as the motif, I would say imagine the techno-synth atrocities that made up the songs of Scarface with Al Pacino.  Now imagine Adele were singing those songs.  Pretty interesting.  It is like poetic, terrible sounding music, which is exactly how I would describe the movie in general.  There is definite effort by the director (partly through excessive slow motion) to make an artistic action movie, but it just isn’t as good as it could have been.  Fortunately everyone in the project has other, bigger things to fall back on.

Final Grade – C+

 

So Saturday night seemed like it would be a tough night, following a very strong Friday night of shows. LSU had their first home game of the season Saturday night, which I feared would mean that the only crowd we would get would be disgruntled LSU fans, sort of resembling.  It turned out that the 8pm crowd was fantastic.  The material killed and the incredibly high percentage of plus size women (they were so plus-sized I thought about referring to them as multiplication sized women) were very forgiving of me mocking them.

So after three shows, which I was very proud of under my belt, all I had to do was get through the 10pm show unscathed and I would have
a perfect weekend.  I think you know where this is heading.

The 10pm crowd rolled in and did not look any different from the other crowds.  Decent size and just one drunk big girl who was trying to make the emcee’s set about her.  So I got on stage and felt pretty sure it would go well.

First two jokes – barely a response (admittedly I forgot to try a new one, with local flavor, about how I cannot eat catfish because it feels weird eating something with a mustache that isn’t an Italian woman).  I think one woman laughed really hard at one of the jokes so I said, “Hey everybody, she’s right, just to let you know.  That joke is awesome.”  Then The Bitch In The Fedora started talking (sounds like a companion play to The Motherfu*ker With The Hat) and so did the table which seemed captained by the aforementioned drunk big girl.  At that point it became sort of a war.  The Bitch In The Fedora kept saying things and stepping on punchlines like I actually wanted her opinion.

I should note that women in fedoras are a particular pet peeve of mine.  All women who wear fedoras should be forced to marry all men who wear sunglasses indoors and they should be forced, with all of their offspring, to move to an island which will be called Douchebag Island where their collective delusional sense of cool cannot infect normal people.  When I worked at the Bronx DA’s office if I were receiving a domestic violence complaint I would ask the woman one question: “This is awful, but before we proceed I need to know one thing, were you wearing a fedora when your husband punched you?  Oh you weren’t?  Phew – great to hear!  We will nail that son of a bitch!”

So when you take a dumb and rude southern woman and place a fedora on her head it is as if you have just made me an awful sundae and it now has its cherry.  So the set went on and I won constant laughs from about three tables and stares like I was speaking Arabic to the rest of the crowd (actually if I was speaking Arabic I probably would have at least gotten booed which would have been a reaction of some kind).  I did get one boo from another woman when I mentioned Obama even though I specifically requested no one boo or cheer.

So after my set I went out to the bar connected to the club and watched the locals.  I have said this before, but there is a real degradation of our culture going on.  We are rotting at the core.  Hollywood exports so many ideas and cultural trends to the rest of the country, which now lacks any kind of identity.   The small towns and cities of America truly feel like testing grounds for reality show fashions and trends.  Like instead of testing makeup on monkeys, we now market test the power of The Real Housewives, the Kardashians and Jersey Shore on ignorant small town folk, who are all too eager to adopt someone else’s identity.  I was particularly disturbed by a woman who appeared to be grinding her daughter on the dance floor, apparently trying to entice her daughter’s friends to get with her.  She was very surgically enhanced and appeared physically fit so to me she was just another cougar a/k/a awful parent.  Then the emcee told me something remarkable.  This woman was not the mother.  She was a friend.  She was 31 and her younger friend was 26.  I honestly thought the woman was 50. So on one hand I was happy that she was
not the girl’s mother, but on the other hand I was looking at a 31 year old woman who had literally tanned, implanted and hair-dyed her way to looking like a mash-up of Pamela Anderson and Richard Harris.

But just as I was deep in my analysis of the Benjamin Button of southern whores I was then approached by The Bitch In The Fedora.   She offered me the following gem (while still wearing her fedora):

“Hey, I thought you were good.  But you’re from New York right?  See that’s probably it.  People probably didn’t get you so that is why
no one was laughing.”

I said, “Oh, maybe, yeah ok, well thanks I am glad you liked it.”  That took all of my energy.  90% of my trip was fun and a success (I ate IHOP, I worked with a great headliner, Rahn Ramey, and had three excellent sets), but as comedy can do, the last note was a sour, fedora-wearing one.

I went back to the hotel after that because I had to be awake at 400 AM for my shuttle to the New Orleans train station to take The Crescent – the 30 hour train from New Orleans to New York City.  So after 2 ½ hours of great sleep I made my way to New Orleans for the longest continuous trip in my life.  But unlike my other long train rides, this one I prepared accordingly.  I reserved a roomette, which is basically a closet with two seats that convert to a small twin-width bed and a tiny toilet located in the space where a full size-width bed would end.  It may actually have been possible to take a shit and still be lying down on a majority of the bed.

Just as I thought I would be the world’s most comfortably buried alive person fate intervened.  The door to my roomette was missing a large pane of glass, which means that even with the curtain pulled over people would be able to hear me speaking to myself in different celebrity voices as well as the sound of my sh*t hitting a steel toilet.  Naturally, this was unacceptable so I asked for a different roomette.  None were available, but fortunately a room (no ette) was available.  The rooms are literally double the size and include a separate bathroom as well.  I felt like such a lucky baller that once all my stuff was in my room I immediately went to the peasants in coach and began offering women the other bed in my room (“that’s right I got a bed to spare motherfu*kers” was what I was yelling in the snack car) in exchange for favors of the flesh.  It did not pan out, but I think they at least respected me even if they didn’t outright love me.

For some of you the idea of being in a small room on a train for 30 straight hours may sound like torture, but to a comedian living in a studio apartment it just sounds like another 1.25 days.  So perhaps if comedy doesn’t work out (it’s getting there) I could have a future as a CIA operative in withstanding torture tactics.

So thank you very much to Rahn Ramey, the Baton Rouge Funny Bone, the first three crowds and small pockets of the fourth crowd, and the
people of Amtrak.  And everyone else I spoke of well in the first two parts of this Baton Rouge Journal.  God help the rest of you.

The Comedy Club

Last night were the first two of four Baton Rouge shows and to my surprise they were both great.  I felt like the crowds, which were not much bigger than the small crowds last year, were so much better.  And perhaps I am a slightly better comedian as well.  Either way, fun times on stage.  I received some kind words after the show, but my favorite compliment was after my second set (which was an A- versus an A+ for the first set):

“Hey man – this is the second time I’ve seen you here. They may not have been laughing a lot, but that is cause your wit is so dry.  But I was dying.”  Of course I then drank three gin and tonics and briefly pondered whether I was imagining laughter, like some comedic version of A Beautiful Mind.

Another exchange I enjoyed:

“Oh man – that was hilarious, but I was holding in some of my laughs, you know, cause I’m white.”  Apparently my half blackness is not enough of a validation for my racial jokes about my Dad.  Oh well – nothing like insecure, silent laughter to make a comedian feel good.

So after the show I had a pass to the strip club across the street because I have decided to pursue a WWPSD philosophy for my comedy career: What Would Pauly Shore Do?  So I went to the strip club and gave limp handshakes to people.

The Strip Club

The name of the club is the Gold Club, but apparently they are not affiliated with the closed and indicted club in Atlanta because no one seemed to know what I meant when I kept asking for “the Patrick Ewing treatment.”

I sat at the bar drinking beers watching the women dance.  One of the amazing things about drinking at a strip club in a small city or town is that the drinks are still cheaper than a regular NYC bar or lounge on a Saturday night.  But let’s discuss the main event:

• These were the least aggressive strippers I have seen.  Granted I have only been to a strip club now three times, but in NYC and especially in Atlantic City you get bum rushed by women.  These women seemed very indifferent.  Then again it may have been my New Balance sneakers that were acting like garlic to bare-breasted vampires.
• I had the third biggest chest in the club.  There was one stripper on stage whose breasts were so small I think they could have been shown on network television without black bars.  Perhaps the Gold Club could have been called “Great Personalities” – what a great idea for a 377-view J-L Cauvin YouTube sketch!
• The club played “How You Like Me Now,” officially making that song inescapable –  movie trailers, video games, my iPod and strip clubs.
• I had one conversation with a stripper (Russian ancestry, of course) who told me she was in grad school for biochemistry.  And I actually believed her (I mean she has to know that education is a turn off for men in her club, though she might have thought I was gay when I quoted and impersonated the views on education of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast to her), probably because I like the idea of being a lawyer and a comedian and still inferior to a woman who shakes her tits for a living.  And like any conversation in a strip club I then walked away and asked “What’s open for eats right now?”  She said “IHOP should be open.”  And that was the first erection I got all night.

The Pancake Club

IHOP was bumping when I walked in.  Packed with fat people of all colors and levels of sobriety.  It felt like a Millionaire Matchmaker mixer for men and women who shop at large size clothing stores.  I sat down and ordered pancakes, bacon and a milkshake.  Apparently my waitress (Michele if I recall correctly) thought I also ordered bottle service for two in a private room because her tone was the most flirtatious I had encountered all night.  She wasn’t a bad looking woman, but there is something wrong when the level of flirtation from your waitress at IHOP is much stronger than that of the women across the street who get paid to get you to put your face between their breasts.  I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!!!  A place I used to love, where your IHOP waitress was a kindly old lady, like a nice nun in a Church of pancakes, and strippers were aggressive, STD-riddled whores with C section scars and drug addictions.  I blame Obama’s policies which are ruining and confusing these wonderful small business entrepreneurs.

I then went back to my room at the Hampton Inn and fell asleep smelling like pancakes and comedy.  Disgusting.

The third part of my journey will not be posted until September 12th because I will be on a 30 hour train ride from New Orleans to NYC with no wifi.  Yes I let the terrorists win.  And the train was cheaper because it was free with my Amtrak points.  So I guess me and the terrorists win.

Yesterday I arrived in Baton Rouge for a second tour of duty at the Baton Rouge Funny Bone – if you missed my first visit last year here is the link to a song inspired by my visit:

https://jlcauvin.com/?p=1950

Naturally, because they agreed to have me back and pay me money I decided to come back down here.  And I am excited to report that I left an impression on a few people, which is pretty cool considering I fit 80% of the profile of a lone wolf terrorist.

Yesterday after I watched Barack Obama channel some of the great speakers of our time (I kept thinking of Denzel Washington in Malcolm X and The Rock c.1999 to name two) I was disturbed to see a breaking news announcement on CNN that there is a credible, but unconfirmed plot for September 11th attacks on Washington DC and NYC.  First Mayor Bloomberg told everyone to go about their business, which felt awkward because I, knowing that I would be travelling on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, opted for a roomette on a 30 hour Amtrak trip from New Orleans to NYC, rather than a 2.5 hour flight back.  I am willing to concede one to the terrorists,  So with a few months of obsessive usage of bottled water immediately after 9/11 and this trip my career record post 9/11 versus the terrorists is approximately 3,565-100.  So sure, I have let them win a little, despite the fact that well-guarded presidents and mayors have explicitly told me not to do that, but all in all, not a bad record. (side note: all other long train rides that I have taken and will take because I have fear and discomfort in tiny 50 seat planes do not count towards Al Qaeda’s total, but rather towards my general lack of courage).

But one of the things they were specifically warning against was the threat of a lone-wolf terrorist, which made me nervous.  Mainly because I think I fit the profile of a lone wolf terrorist.

• Beige
• Foreign name
• Distrust of women – though unlike terrorists this does not come from some lack of contact with them or some religious doctrine.  However, if you listen to my 2nd CD you will see that alot of it stems from relations with a Jew.  So sort of a wash here.
• Underemployed in my field of choice
• Relatively young male
• Just a handful of friends
• Sitting alone in a Hampton Inn in a small town in America planning on travelling on 9-11
• Thick, angry eyebrows

I think you get the picture.  However, separating me (and as Comedian Jimmy Shubert indicated should be part of the screening process for TSA) I am funny.  At this point if someone reads a file on me – my comedy reels would be what save me from suspicion (even though I drop videos like Bin Laden did, but with far fewer hits).  I do always have this fear on the road that I will get caught like Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile.  I’ll be holding some dead body after having tried to provide assistance when I came upon it during a journey in the middle of nowhere looking for a movie theater. However, I will be suspected of foul play immediately when they see the size of me and realize that my claim to be a comedian cannot be substantiated because no one has heard of me.  In other words I will be in deep sh*t unless I can heal urinary infections with my bare hands.

So of course when I visit a place like Baton Rouge I always have mixed feelings.  They have a governor of color, but who is radically conservative.  They know how to pronounce my last name, but do not understand half of my jokes.  Its a complicated place.  But I made some friends already so I, as well as the city, can’t be all that bad.

The Old Lady on The Plane

On my Southwest flight down to New Orleans yesterday I got a middle seat, which, given my bulk, is really a scenario where all three of us lose.  I was in Boarding Group C, which in historical terms is like being the guy sitting at the back of the bus that has to get off so that pre-protest Rosa Parks can have a seat.  It’s that bad.

Fortunately I was sitting next to a very nice older lady from Baton Rouge.  Of course I mentioned that my father was Haitian in the first ten minutes of conversation just to avoid any possibility of racial slurs being slipped into casual conversation.  Fortunately she kept speaking to me so I think she was down with the brown (ish).  We had a pleasant conversation and it sort of eased my general terror of flying (if I use the words fear, terror, flying and 9/11 enough in this post I am hoping the government tags my website and boosts hits – even if for a possible investigation. At least my google analytics numbers will go up).

One of her lessons for me, since she recently lost her youngest brother to random cartel violence in Mexico and she and her husband were having medical issues was to live life and not pass up any opportunities.  I then explained to her that I am taking a 30 hour train ride on Sunday out of abject fear, so don’t expect me to go sky diving or sharing needles with Magic Johnson any time soon.

Brad The Van Driver

The next leg of my trip was a 75 minute van ride from New Orleans to my hotel in Baton Rouge.  Trust me – the shuttle cost and Southwest flight to New Orleans is far cheaper than direct flights to Baton Rouge.  It turns out it was my driver from a year ago and he remembered me.  We had a great conversation on football and tennis (which in the macho south is a rare combo I suppose since tennis is mostly for queers and Europeans – hey ain’t they the same thang!!! haahahahahah).  So after that he decided to open up to me on his interracial dating problems (I also mentioned my black Dad in the first ten minutes of conversation).  He is white and the woman he is pursuing is black.  He told me a great story of how they met (at IHOP – the Interracial House of Pancakes) and how he wants to be with her, but she seems uncomfortable with being in a relationship with a white guy (it seemed to be a cultural gap, not a penis issue).  I told him he needs to lay down the law and let her know what he feels and that he cannot be shoved into that friend role that women love to have (because many women are parasitic scumbags) – the guy that gives a woman his love, which validates them, but they return vague, line-crossing friendship and pretend to not be quite sure how the guy feels about her.  I told him he needs to go for broke with her. If it works he has the woman he cares about.  If not, he has his dignity.  And if all this goes horribly wrong and violent I don’t want to say anything further without my lawyer present.

I then met up with Brad and a couple of his buddies to watch the Saints game last night at Chilis.  It really is easy to make friends in this world as long as you get out of the comedy world, which is full of ass-kissing former losers looking to socially ostracize the closest thing to a normal person they can find.  And then of course, getting involved in comedy is a great way to lose your normal friends.  What a business!

My IHOP Waiter

Even though many American towns are starting to blur into the same image for me (strip mall, gas station, fat people, teenage girls looking like strippers, rinse, repeat), I did remember correctly that there was an IHOP across the street from the Hampton Inn in Baton Rouge.  I went once, a year ago, to this establishment, but when I walked in I recognized one of the waiters.  He then recognized me while I was sitting and said, “You’ve been here, right?” “I replied “yep,” to which he replied, “You were reading, right?”  And I had been reading a book last time I was there.  So I was impressed with his memory, but also the fact that in the last year there realistically may not have been one other customer with reading material in their possession.  Amurrrrrica!!!!

But it felt good to be remembered.  So to my two friends and one person who remembered me in Baton Rouge – I dedicate the four shows this weekend to your kindness and friendliness.  Of course I don’t expect the shows to go that well (especially since Saturdays shows directly conflict with LSU’s home opener).  But at least you will be able to tell the authorities that there is no way I could be a terrorist.

This week presents several movie of the week options.  One option is Warrior – the Rocky (or possibly jumping right to the Rocky V) of MMA films, whose preview bears the hallmark of a bad movie – 98% of the plot is given away in the preview (all I know is that the two main characters enter a competition and the two of them face off in the finals of that competition – but who wins, besides MMA, which gets a free advertisement for its product, I do not know).  Another option is Bucky Larson, which stars Nick Swardson and is produced by Happy Madison, the production studio of Adam Sandler, that specializes in brain cell-destroying excrement.  However, I am confident that Bucky Larson, which appears to track the adventures of a buck-toothed, borderline special needs young man who inexplicably becomes a small-membered adult film star, will definitely “buck” the Sandler trend and be a classic.

So I settled on Steven Soderbergh’s new film Contagion.  I had a free ticket thanks to the New York Times’ Film Club.  Part of the membership is that I get tickets to several early screenings of films.  But, as you may guess, any film club based on membership in a print-media based organization with liberal leanings means that it is usually me and a few hundred elderly Jewish people.  In other words when I want to hang out with elderly Catholics I go to Church and then when I need to get some elderly Jewish company I go to NYT film club screenings.

The movie is about a fictional world-wide outbreak of a bat/swine based virus that kills quickly and with minimal contact.  The movie boasts an all star cast, with Lawrence Fishburne and Matt Damon earning the most screen time.   Jude Law is the standout to me as the conspiracy theorist blogging superstar in the movie, but everyone is good.

The movie makes the undoubtedly true point that within a few weeks of an outbreak like the one depicted in the film, humans would revert to becoming animals whose survival instinct trumps all sense of decency.  Unless you are a named star above the title of the film, in which case you will still have your humanity.

The movie is well made and moves briskly, but I still never felt like any of the main characters were in danger and if you want an audience to care about the main characters they need to seem as vulnerable as the cast of extras that are filling up the mass graves.  I haven’t seen it in a while, but I still think I’d take Outbreak over Contagion.

Final Grade – B/B-

Thanks to the constant reminders I have received from comedian/actor/Disney music enthusiast Chris Lamberth (@ChrisLamberth) I have learned that I have officially been replaced in comedy before I had even reached the level of replaceable.  I always believed that I would carve out a unique niche in comedy, at least demographically – a 6’7″ (241 lbs playing, 270 lbs doing comedy), bi-racial comedian seemed like a pretty safe calling card.  Unfortunately, my reign of obscurity was short lived because Blake Griffin (a 6’10”, 250 pound bi-racial dude), the Los Angeles Clippers power forward, has also proven himself quite adept at humor.  And thanks to the NBA lockout he is now working at Funny or Die, probably hanging out with Will Ferrell, workshopping new ideas, perhaps getting himself a role in Step Brothers 2, etc.  Even though Evolution usually takes a long time, much like this Summer’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I am seeing myself improved upon right before my eyes.

The Evolution of the Multi-Racial Humorist

I was born in 1979, 9 years and 11 months before Blake Griffin so I had a good head start on comedy.  However I started performing stand up shortly after my 24th birthday, whereas Blake Griffin made it on to comedy central shortly after his 22nd birthday.  Fairly impressive since he was also spending time being the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.

We have similar backgrounds.  We both have black fathers and white mothers.  We both played basketball in high school and college (I averaged 15 points a game senior year in a terrible private school league.  He slightly one-upped me by being a McDonald’s High School All-American).  He was Division I’s college player of the year, I was a 9th man on a Division III team.

After reading his NBA draft workout summaries the only thing I think I was his equal to was bench press, but he complemented that with a tremendous vertical leap, each inch of which represented every one of my collegiate points scored.

It was as if God had created me and then said, we can do better.  A lot better.

Before we get into comedy here are the top dunks of our basketball careers.  Both were on people.  Mine was not filmed by NBA TV.  And I only had one in my career.

Now for pure drama I would argue that mine was better.  The dunk took place with about two minutes left in my entire college career.  I had scored about fifty career points and none had come from dunks.  It was sort of like the ending of Rudy, when Rudy gets a sack, except I actually was big and strong and fairly athletic so it was a little more expected from me.  And no one was chanting my name.  But Blake Griffin’s dunk was slightly better.  So much so that I featured it in my dunk workshop spoof video.

Comedy Origins

After college I went to Georgetown Law Center, the #14 law school in the country (turning down Michigan, the #7 school at the time, in sort of a Kobe Bryant-draft style move).  After college Blake Griffin was the #1 pick in the NBA draft.  And during both experiences our professional comedy careers began.  Deeply depressed I began doing comedy in Washington D.C. as an escape from law school and the pressures of a long-distance relationship.  Blake began doing comedy sketches and making late night television appearances to escape from the pressures of having beautiful women in Los Angeles throw themselves at him.

Once again God watched my comedy career struggles and said, “I made him funny, but he is not accomplishing what I thought he would.  I can do better and easier.”  Here are our comedy debuts on television:

I wrote all my own material, but Griffin proved to have some good natural talent.  And he got on Comedy Central within his first year, and without having to grow a beard or tits.  I have yet to be on that station.

Where To Go When You Find Out Evolution Has Passed You By

Blake Griffin has now raised the bar very high for basketball playing-comedians. In fact this whole post may actually be an endorsement for Intelligent Design and not Evolution.  Either way I have been rendered completely irrelevant  (versus fairly irrelevant which was the status in comedy that I had grown comfortable with).  So perhaps I will just wait for Blake Griffin to really blow up as a comedy presence and then present myself as the “Alt Blake Griffin.”  While you ponder that, here are two pictures of us looking cool in our element for one final comparison:

Inspired by the thought-provoking, inspirational and fairly one-sided documentary Waiting For Superman, I wrote and directed (and have a quick and violent cameo) a theatrical trailer for a sequel.  For your viewing pleasure I give you Waiting For Superman 2:

I hope you enjoy it.  Please pass it on to friends (especially friends who work in education).

Thanks and please continue to check out the videos on www.YouTube.com/JLCauvin

The insanity over Hurricane Irene (just downgraded to Tropical Storm in NYC moments ago) is another reminder of how selfish and short-sighted we are as a people in America.  Weathermen have been sounding the alarms for the last few days and most people have heeded those warnings without much second-guessing.  Sure there are those old people or angry people who are held up as silly for not heeding the warnings.  While watching Fox News to see if they could find a way to bash Obama based on weather patterns, I observed Shep Smith basically go Drago on residents who would not leave Long Island or Queens; “if they die their funeral will not be free” and “they are stupid” were two of my favorite soundbites.

The basic lesson is that we will respond if we believe there is an immediate threat to our safety and/or material possessions.  We will trust weathermen, who are to science what def poetry slammers are to art, because the risk is scary and immediate.  No one wants to engage in a substantive debate or conduct more study to determine if they should stock up on water (or toilet paper for some reason to the people of midtown) and yet, climate change, which will cause more frequent and more ferocious weather-related catastrophes is something we cannot get people to mobilize behind.

• 4 out of 5 dentists recommend a gum – good enough
• weathermen tell you to abandon your home because of a bad storm – absolutely
• 98% of the scientific community tells us that we are headed towards dire and irreversible environmental consequences – fu*k off

This is a dangerous trend in our society that seems to be experiencing an ever-growing lack of scientific curiosity and attention span.  Our society is too paralyzed to become a leader in green technologies, the sure to be big industry of the 21st century.  The election process in this country discourages long term developments because all elected branches of government are concerned with re-election (even the Senate which was supposed to be the branch with longer vision and fewer concerns with re-election pressures according to the Founding Fathers).  Obama has attempted some ambitious long term developments and we all see how his half-measures approach worked for him.

But weather is the greatest example of what cave men we really are.  Al Roker can get us to respond more definitively and with more urgency than a dozen Harvard PhDs.  Because long term sacrifice, vision and change are not things we want to do in America anymore.  This storm is proof.  If a doctor tells you you need heart surgery you will seek a second or third opinion at most before deciding to have the surgery.  But if an overwhelming consensus of experts in their field of science tell us things must be done 50% of Americans say, “no thanks.”

Oddly enough a lot of the climate change skeptic community appears to coincide with the “Christianity is under attack in America” crowd (the other part being the “don’t tax me for anything and I am willing to believe whatever scientist’s opinion will lead to fewer taxes, regardless of how compromised that particular scientist is” crowd).  Ironic that a people who base their lives on a future promise of a better life to come can be visionaries when it comes to telling people how to act in their homes and schools, but lack vision or passion for the planet when it comes to scientific predictions for what will happen.  Perhaps a nice mix of Christ-like caring and scientific know-how is what we need, but that sounds like two things that are no longer cool in America: compromise and smart.

Last night at about 11 pm I went to Food Emporium across the street from my apartment to buy some bread.  I find Food Emporium a soothing place at that hour.  They have air conditioning going full blast, a selection of rock ballads playing on their sound system and almost no one there.  Even if I only need to buy one item I will take my time to soak up the cool, calm emptiness (possible title for my CD in November).

But last night was not an ordinary night.  When I got to the register there was only one woman in front of me in line, but nothing was happening.  She had bought only what appeared to be four items, but the cashier did not know the code for the particular vegetable she was attempting to purchase.  I looked at the woman and noticed (in order) that she had the large perky breasts of a 20 year old and the old, stretched face of Joan Rivers, but more masculine.  I had strange feelings happening because the breasts looked fantastic, but the face looked like that famous woman who looked like a cat for getting to much surgery.

She had a voice that was also ambiguous – is it a man with lots of hormone therapy or is it her lip injections and skin tightenings just manipulating her speaking style?  Fortunately confusion, revulsion and erection were all suppressed by my most reliable emotion: anger.  As my bread slid down the conveyor belt, she began to give my bread the Heisman.  Even though her items were already registered except for the vegetable, which the cashier was holding.  She must have stiff-armed my bread three times in five seconds before I could get the plastic divider down, which wasn’t even necessary because her items were done.  Of course I was slightly less combative because her rack had just enough power to stop my anger from becoming verbal and confrontational.  But right on cue to back me up, another person got on line behind me.  And it was apparent from his bloodshot eyes, his all organic purchases and his fierce gaze that he was a gay.

And after about ten seconds of waiting he was none too pleased.  Here is how the rest of the Food Emporium trip went down:

Cashier: What is the code for this? (holding up odd vegetable)

Cashier with more experience coming back from her break: 6563 (or something like that)

Cashier types in code with vegetables in bag.  Nothing happens.  Gay guy is steaming.  Seriously.  Puffs of white smoke are coming from both ears and his asshole.

Experienced Cashier: Oh that is because the bag is affecting the scale.

Experienced cashier removes vegetables from the bag and weighs them with the code.  All seems well.

Titsface: That is what I was trying to avoid.  Now they’re dirty.  I am not sure I want them.

Guy Fierce: Are you serious???  They’re perfectly fine.  Just buy them.  They have been a million disgusting places – just wash them.  God!!!

J-L inner monologue: Oh good lord.  This is what happens when you mix Glee and alcohol.  Calm down and save your voice for singing along at your next Britney Spears commercial.

Titsface:  Oh you can wash these?  You can wash them with soap?

(I assumed Titsface was being sarcastic)

Guy Fierce: Yessss!

Titsface: You can wash vegetables with soap?

Guy Fierce: Yessss, my nutritionist told me that that is the way I should prepare my food and it is perfectly ok.

J-L inner monologue: Dammit Glee!  I was on your side against this Tit monster, but you bring your nutritionist into an argument?!  Do your private yoga instructor and anal bleacher want to weigh in as well?

Titsface: You wash all of your vegetables with soap and water? (I suppose trying to catch him in some sort of lie or inconsistency about vegetable preparation)

Guy Fierce: Yeah!  (“gotcha bitch” voice)

Titsface: Even lettuce?

Guy Fierce: No

Titsface: So not all vegetables! (I rest my stupid case!)

During these last few lines the cashier cashed me out and I left to the sounds of bickering.  I had a smile on my face as I left Food Emporium, but that quickly went away as I realized that old women with too much surgery and shrill gay men with substance abuse problems are who I will need to impress if I am ever going to make it in this business.