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I needed a clean tape because I want to submit for a few TV things so I did a bringer last night at Gotham Comedy Club (this is what someone might say at their first meeting of Comedians Anonymous to treat their addiction to laughter-based approval from strangers).  To put that in civilian terms, imagine you are a married woman and you just found out your husband was in a gay gangbang porn film before you got married.  And all your friends have copies now.  That is the level of internal embarrassment I feel doing a bringer at this stage of my comedy career.  But more important that my sense of pride, which I abandoned sometime in 2009 with regards to my comedy career, is getting a a good clean tape.

To get on the show last night I had to scrounge together a bunch of friends, who literally represented every part of my life other than law school.  I had at least one representative from my family, family friends, high school, college, comedian friends, the Bronx DA’s office and Blank Rome (the firm I worked at).  Considering I was annoyed enough doing a bringer and the lengths I had to go to get people I said to myself that I could no longer do another bringer so I had to make last night’s set a good, nay, a great one (I also probably said this three years ago).  And as it turned out my set really did turn out great.  I have almost never been happy with a set, especially when taping it for a specific purpose, but last night was the exception.  Crowd was great and I felt like I stuck the landing.  In fact it took me longer than usual to fall into a post show funk.  Here is the set:

But it was as if Gotham knew that it would be my last bringer ever because on the lineup was Jim Gaffigan, Sherri Shepherd, Jeff Dye, Judah Friedlander and Louis C.K.  I have said and still believe plenty of terrible things about bringer shows, but last night was actually pretty damn impressive.   Oh well, thanks to everyone who came out and hopefully the tape can do some work for me.

Comics Unleashed HERE I COME!!!!

During the Cold War, the United States and the USSR battled for the future of the world, in part through a massive arms race.  In the process, many dictators and tyrants in developing and third world nations were put and kept in power, leading to the oppression of millions worldwide as both superpowers kept spending billions on weapons.  Eventually the United States emerged victorious, but billions upon billions of dollars had been wasted and countries from the Middle East to Haiti had been victimized by the global power struggle.

The reason I bring this up is because there appears to be an arms race in Hollywood with many parallels and Adam Sandler appears prepared to destroy anything he can to be the world’s worst movie maker.

I recently saw a preview for Jack and Jill, which is Adam Sandler’s newest movie.  Here is the preview:

The preview for this movie seemed like an effort to put Kevin James in his place.  For me Kevin James has been the worst star in movies since he emerged (the way Marlon Brando had a small, but powerful group of performances that made him an inspiration to younger actors, Paul Blart is Kevin James’ anti-Godfather).  But I feel like Jack and Jill is Adam Sandler’s answer, as if to say, “In case you forgot, I am the king of shitty movies so take this!”  Like a rap artist dropping an incredible comeback album full of vengeance and spite, or an athlete taking a challenge seriously and then destroying the competition on the field.  Jack and Jill is Adam Sandler’s declaration to the world that screams, “You cannot do shittier movies than me no matter how hard you try!  I will take Kevin James and Rob Schneider humor and incorporate Martin Lawrence and Tyler Perry sensibilities into my movies.  I dare you to try and beat that!”

And what is great about Jack and Jill is Sandler wanted to do more than destroy Kevin James and America’s sense of humor (the audience is the third world victim in the Sandler-Cold War scenario).  He was going to finish off a Hollywood legend.  I do not know how he got Al Pacino to agree to this, but now Al Pacino will have the ultimate blemish on his resume (apparently replacing Righteous Kill which sucked something fierce).  “Serpico, The Godfather, Dog Day Afternoon, Scent of A Woman, Heat, The Insider and… Jack and Jill.”

Now some people have said to me that Pacino is in cruise control like Robert DeNiro and I disagree.  Robert DeNiro has not touched a good movie in 11 years (Meet the Parents).  He has debts or dementia, but clearly he has decided that he is never going to make a good movie again.  However, Pacino has won an Emmy and been nominated for a Tony in the last couple of years.  He certainly has garbage on his resume in the last 10 years, but it is not near DeNiro’s legacy.  And for the record someone seriously should have killed them both before they were allowed to make Righteous Kill.  But when Sandler had the option of ruining a titan of cinema, he probably thought, “DeNiro is done, but Pacino still seems to have some passion for the craft in him.  So let’s rape that to death.”

So this Fall we will get Jack and Jill.  The shame of this is that when Sandler was new to movies they were funnier.  Then we made him rich and gave him control over his own production company.  Now, left to his own devices he has done the act opposite of successful Hollywood players.  Usually, actors who become A-listers get passion projects made that normally would be tough to get greenlit.  Sandler seems to be an example of a guy who actually benefited from more studio control.  He is like a mentally retarded kid with a 100 mph fastball.  If the coach is constantly guiding him on where to throw it he can make some decent things happen (Happy Gilmore).  However, if the coach leaves him alone he can cause tremendous damage to the fans in the stands (almost every movie he has made in the  last decade).  Heads up – Jack and Jill is headed straight for your face!

In an effort to save some money on electricity I contemplated spending the entire day in the movie theater and seeing Captain America, Friends With Benefits, Larry Crowne and Zookeeper.  However I realized what is the use of saving on your electricity bill and carbon footprint if you kill yourself midway through your trip to the movie theater?  So I stuck with Captain America and was entertained throughout.

As I sat down in the theater with my face on fire from the heat I was treated to an array of previews.  Taylor Lautner is in a new movie, sort of looking like a Latin Jason Bourne.  The movie is called Abduction, or Abducted or Abortion (Liam Neeson must have rejected it as part of his Taken-Unknown trilogy of angry men who are clueless but have fighting skills to help them get clues).  It actually looked pretty good, except it had Taylor Lautner.  He just doesn’t appear to have much acting talent, even in the previews.  And it is directed by John Singleton.  How far the mighty have fallen!  Despite starting his career with an Oscar nomination for Boyz N The Hood, he is now relying on spoiled and stupid teenage girls from Team Jacob to bail his career out.

Then there was a preview for The Amazing Spider Man.  I want to reject this film because it is unnecessary.  When The Hulk was rebooted (successfully in my opinion) in 2008, after only 5 years from the first attempt it was acceptable because the Ang Lee Hulk was one of the 20 worst movies of all time.  But Spider Man (at least the first two in 2001 and 2004) were excellent.  There was no need, but Hollywood now treats franchises like NBA jerseys – they keep changing them, whether they work or not, because there is a significant portion of the jersey wearing population that will immediately go get the new one to be in fashion.  I hope the new Spider Man fails on principle, but I’m sure it won’t.

Then I saw a preview for Mission Impossible 4.  I don’t care who hates on Tom Cruise and why they hate on him – the dude is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, movie star of the last 30 years.  The dude is still cool to me.  He does his own stunts, has talent (not Daniel Day Lewis level, but he is also no Paul Walker) and I still feel that, unlike Al Pacino, who will be in this Fall’s Jack and Jill – an Adam Sandler film that I will be dedicating an entire post to next week, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert DeNiro, Tom Cruise, whether he fails or succeeds, does not appear to take film roles with the desperation of a crack addict seeking a paycheck.

But then it was on to Captain America.

This Summer has been up and down with the comic book movies.  X Men First Class is I believe the best movie of the Summer so far (but my money is on Rise of the Planet of the Apes to take the crown August 5th).  Thor was OK (thanks I think to very low expectations I had) and Green Lantern should be the death knell for Ryan Reynolds’ movie career.  He is not funny, looks like a buff, but goofy Dane Cook and his movies suck badly.  Even from the commercials of his next movie, The Change-Up, it looks like Jason Bateman is going to carry Ryan Reynolds like he’s wounded on the battlefield.  But enough with the negatives – Captain America was pretty good and never really had any lulls.

Chris Evans, who will always have a spot in my heart for his portrayal of Jake Wyler in Not Another Teen Movie, plays the lead character who goes from undersized wimp to Major League Baseball player in the Bay Area circa 2003, thanks to a government experiment.  Evans gets lumped in with Reynolds way too much (e.g. Bill Simmons’ recent column on Hollywood stars) as an under-performing, over-exposed young star.  I think he has much more potential than Reynolds and this film should be the showcase for that.  He is very solid in this movie and can clearly carry this franchise (until it gets rebooted in 6 years).

There were several supporting players to admire in this movie.  Hugo Weaving is back from purgatory, probably as karma for his ridiculously good fortune of being in both The Matrix and Lord of the Rings trilogies, as the villain and Tommy Lee Jones is especially good (at least for this genre that usually either under-writes or under-employs supporting actors of quality).  He manages to deliver mostly comic relief with the same dry, go fu*k yourself delivery that won him an Oscar in The Fugitive.  I honestly think we was the least replaceable member of the cast, even though he is only in about 15% of the movie.

On this hot weekend, Captain America is a good choice for a summer movie.  It never gets too ambitious, but it manages to deliver a solid 2 hour experience.

Final Grade – B+

“It was the blackest of club, it was the whitest of clubs…”

So I just wrapped up a two week stint at the Cleveland Improv and it was a fun, eventful and unpredictable time.

The most interesting thing, as I had predicted it would be, was opening the first week for Rodney Perry, an African-American comedian who is on the Mo’Nique show on BET and recently appeared in Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family, and opening the second week for Matt Braunger, a Caucasian comedian who has an alternative vibe and appears on Chelsea Lately on E!

Here is a statistical breakdown for the two crowds per week:

Number of audience members who jumped up and testified during bits as if it was a Pentecostal Church:

Perry – 31

Braunger – 0

Number of Audience Members Entering at least 25 minutes late for the show:

Perry – 77

Braunger – 10

Number of times I had to say fu*k or b*itch to save my set:

Perry – 11

Braunger – 2

Black/White Audience percentage:

Perry – 95/5

Braunger 15/85

The trip was fun throughout and both Rodney and Matt were awesome to work with.  But the trip’s two milestones can be summarized through two bits I told.  One was a bit I came up with a few hours before one of the shows because I needed something light and easy to get the crowd to laugh at during the first week.  I only had one set that really displeased me so as a response to that I resorted to a bit of recent news that forced me to dust off an impression that I had hoped to bury forever (even though it is good).  Well, of course they liked it and I hated myself a little bit more for telling it:

The other bit, which I told the last day of the trip (and is completely true) concerned my experiences walking around Cleveland during my two weeks there:

So even though I had to dig up an impression like a bad horror film, in between Dicks Gone Wild! in Cleveland, I still had a great time in Cleveland.

When it comes to television I hold something that some may call an opinion, but is, in actuality, a stone cold fact: Breaking Bad is the best show on television.  By far.  After only three seasons it has already jumped into elite company.  Here are my favorite shows of all time in order (minimum 3 seasons, so although I love Game of Thrones and Eastbound & Down, to name a couple, it would be unfair to put them up yet – it is called the True Blood rule – do not judge a show on one great season because it may become a campy, soft-core porn for women and gay men in the next two to three seasons):

1) Six Feet Under – The best finale of any show I have ever seen and the best show ever at making you feel like you knew the characters as people and not characters.  Also a show whose greatness, with the exception of certain episodes, can only really be appreciated cumulatively, similar to life in general.  When I see Peter Krause on Parenthood, or even Michael C. Hall on Dexter, I sometimes feel like I am watching Michael Jordan play for the Washington Wizards.

2) The Wire – possibly the most important show of all time.  Other than a so-so final season (by Wire Standards that means an A-/B+) it was an incredibly real and entertaining portrayal of the desperate plight of urban America.  Of course its ratings sucked and it never got nominated for a Best Drama Emmy.  I am sure creator David Simon wears that as a badge of honor.  As he should.

3) Breaking Bad*

4) Arrested Development – the funniest show I have ever seen.  So good that it’s diet coke knock off (but admittedly very good) Modern Family is in line for its second Best Comedy Emmy

5) The West Wing – Was always mad that The Sopranos would lose best drama to the West Wing.  Then I actually watched the West Wing.  Given Aaron Sorkin’s hand, it is the dramatic screenwriting equivalent of Arrested Development.  As Rick James might have said regarding Sorkin’s writing, “Cocaine is a hell of a drug.”

6) The Sopranos – Some might have this higher and the fact that it is arguably the first of the new cinematic-style dramas (but check out #9 on this list) means that it should be higher simply out of respect.  But there was too much of a downward trajectory to the show (and the 2 year wait for the season that revolved around a closeted gay mobster remains one of the most disappointing seasons in TV history) for it to maintain a loftier place.

7) All In The Family – Archie Bunker – maybe the greatest single television character of all time.  I still wonder how this show from the 1970s seemed more willing to tackle, mock and explore racism than most shows do in 2011.  A show that I would call ahead of its time if I knew when we would actually catch up to it.

8) Seinfeld – Brilliant and the most quoted show of all time.  This is another show that it would be tough to say “changed the sitcom,” mainly because no one had either the skill and/or balls to make a show about nothing.  And having just watched the entire series this Summer, I forgive Kramer.  Him and Jason Alexander are brilliant.

9) Homicide: Life On The Streets – I must give credit to my older brother, who I still think sometimes wishes he followed his boyhood dream of becoming a police officer, for his obsession with good police dramas (I am not talking to you any shows on CBS).  Homicide, which was partly the work of the creators of The Wire (and arguably was doing the Sopranos shtick several years before The Sopranos).  The show, like #10 on this list, represented a rare network television departure – meaning even though ratings suck, we will keep this going because it is a high quality show.  Homicide featured several things that other later shows, higher on this list, have received credit for.  One character spent several seasons exploring his bisexuality, it depicted crime and police work in a much more realistic manner than had really been done and it featured a rich array of black characters that weren’t Huxtables.  And this was all on Network television.

10) Friday Night Lights – This show’s lack of general success says so much about American culture.  The pitch was probably easy – “how about a show featuring attractive people playing America’s favorite sport, football?”  Sounds great, right?  Except it is going to be a sometimes heroic, but other times sad look at small town American life and all of its good and bad parts.   The result?  Well, with The Wire,  America showed that they generally did not want to watch a show critical of urban blight (isn’t there a CSI on right now?), but surprisingly, America did not tune in in huge numbers to see their small town American fantasy depicted in a realistic light either.  Season 4 of FNL was not very good, but seasons 1, 3 and the 5th (and final season) were top notch television.

Of these shows, there is obviously a recency bias, but I think that makes sense.  As far as television is concerned we live in simultaneously the best and worst time.  The proliferation of reality television has made us dumber.  And made stars out of some of our dumbest citizens.  I feel like there was a brief time where if you were on reality television you were a loser and then, when our culture realized any fame was good fame, we started to turn these people into bona fide celebrities.  I still think if Al Qaeda simply adjusted their mission statement to be, “We will only wage jihad on those who call themselves ‘Real Housewives of anything’” we might be able to find some common ground.  But the growth of reality shows also forced new avenues for actual writers of good television.  It feels almost like if a major sports league contracted one-third of its teams.  if you eliminate the worst 10 NBA teams, the remaining 20 will just get stronger because there will be greater competition for fewer spots.  Similarly, good writers have either been forced to consolidate on other shows or to be more creative in pitching things to places like HBO and AMC.  And the top of this New Television Order is Breaking Bad.

Some people may be saying what about Mad Men?  Mad Men is good.  That is all I have to say about it.  I have repeatedly called it The Emperor’s New Television Show.  It has won three straight best drama Emmys (the same body that never once nominated The Wire, but saw fit to hook Boston Legal up with multiple DRAMA nominations) and has young people feeling a hip nostalgia for an era that they never experienced.  Other than the confusing feelings I get admiring the handsomeness of Jon Hamm and the incredible Jessica Rabbit come to life that is Christina Hendricks, I don’t think the show is any better than good, which stands in contrast to Breaking Bad.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Nick Cobb and Ross Stephenson, two friends who told me after the first season of Breaking Bad had aired that I needed to watch it.  No show on this list has had the trajectory of Breaking Bad.  The first season was excellent.  Then season two was beyond excellent.  And then last year season three aired and was even better.  More specifically, episodes 7-13 of season 3 is the greatest six episode stretch of any show I have ever seen.  There are a few reasons why I think Breaking Bad has been so good:

1. The cast.  Bryan Cranston has won three straight best actor Emmys for a reason.  What he has done with Walter White has been superb – taking him gradually and believably from mild mannered cancer-stricken high school teacher, to alpha male quasi-villain.  But the rest of the cast is also perfect.  That is what is so great – there is not a weak spot in the cast.  Everyone is bringing their A game.  It reminds me of watching a Christopher Nolan movie, where even the guy with two lines seems to know what is at stake and knows that those two lines must be delivered perfectly.
2. It reminds me of The Fugitive (the movie).  Let me explain.  I have a friend from college, Mike, who often waxed on how it seemed in the early 1990s there were movies that were both wildly entertaining, but also had real substantive cinematic quality (unlike today where it sometimes feels more bifurcated – you are either seeing The King’s Speech or Transformers).  Movies like In The Line of Fire and The Fugitive came to mind – where you could actually have a legitimate Summer movie, which also had serious Oscar quality.  That is what Breaking Bad is for television.  It packs great dramatic moments, with action packed scenes and incredible tension.  It is so good that you get both the feeling of watching a guilty pleasure and fine art at the same time.
3. As several newspaper and magazine articles have indicated – Breaking Bad follows a different route than other dramas in its class.  It is following the moral destruction of its main character.  And yet we still root for him.  Other shows like The Sopranos or The Shield (which was hit and miss, but the second to last episode of The Shield is one of my five favorite episodes in TV history) had characters who had paths that were downward, but they were already villains to start.  Walter White, on the other hand is the good guy who you root for who forces you to rationalize still rooting for him as the episodes go on.

So tonight is the season 4 premiere and the question I have is how much better can the show actually get.  But I put an asterisk next to Breaking Bad on my list because it has the potential to be the best of them all.  It doesn’t have the emotional depth of Six Feet Under or the societal importance of The Wire.  That is what makes it so special – it is simply great for being the most entertaining thing on television.

Harry Potter was a no-brainer for the movie of the week.  The other semi-notable film opening was a Winnie The Pooh movie, providing a ton of things that children DON’T want.  First off, did anyone think Winnie The Pooh was good, even when you were a child?  Incredibly boring and stupid characters (if marketing to kids and not British adults in their 50s) – a soft spoken bear, a manic depressive donkey, a flamboyantly gay tiger, a rabbit, a kangaroo, a piglet and I think a British owl (because when I was a kid I know I was a big fan of late 1970s Brit-coms).  Take that Looney Tunes!  These guys could not even do research like Pixar so that at least the animals in the forest could conceivably co-exist in the same ecosystem (a blue whale living in a nearby lake was nixed last minute).  So we are simultaneously boring children and making them dumber as well.  And reaching back for Winnie The Pooh represents a new low (see upcoming Space Invaders and this Summer’s crop of third tier comic book-based movies) in Hollywood’s inability or refusal to come up with new ideas.  Now they are simply banking on, “Hey I heard of that.  Did I like it?  Of course not, but I heard of it, so I will see it!” level apathy among movie goers.  Next Summer – Pet Rock: The Movie.

Then WTP movie is hand drawn.  Because what kids want nowadays is boring cartoons drawn in an old fashioned-style.  Could they not make it black and white also?  Then there is the preview for Winnie The Pooh, which apparently takes itself too seriously as nostalgia.  Winnie The Pooh sucked!  Playing Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” does not make a piece of sh*t nostalgia just because you are slamming me in the face with a nostalgia hammer.  Then you open it the weekend of Harry Potter?  I don’t believe Harry Potter to be as great as some, but it is certainly solid and very popular, so who exactly is Winnie trying to court this weekend – evangelical Christians who protest movies abut wizardry?  Good luck with those 580 people nationwide. Your other demographic is people who are disappointed by sold out shows of Harry Potter, but cannot wait 8 minutes until the next showtime.  “Hey kids, Harry Potter is sold out, but there is a huge piece of sh*t playing right now – how’s that sound?”  I hope Winnie The Pooh is a colossal failure and that a hunter kills Winnie and molests Christopher Robbins.  That ought to end that franchise once and for all.  Just be happy Winnie – you can get married in NY, why do you need a movie as well.

If you want to vomit here is the preview for Winnie The Pooh stain:

As for Harry Potter 7.2 or as the woman purchasing tickets ahead of me said to avoid any confusion, “1 ticket for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” (you know, to make sure there was no confusion about which Harry Potter film she was seeing), it was very good.  Now, of course, I was offended that they broke the final book (which is becoming the trend) into two parts, which yielded an exceedingly boring 7.1 last year, but this finale was action packed (and allowed Harry Potter to pass Police Academy on the all-time list of “Did we really need that many movies?” which of course is still topped by the Bill Russell/Yogi Berra of prolific shi*ty film franchises – Friday the 13th).  No one who likes this series will be disappointed, unless you were hoping Hermione would have sprouted a bigger rack by now.  My only complaint is the same complaint I have with every other film in this series, and most films in general – not enough Alan Rickman.  The dude is an acting beast.  Few people can do with an entire script what he can do with a silent stare of disdain.

But since I have read the books and seen all of the movies I will now go back to hoping that we return to the days where timeless classics required a long duration of time before we declared them “historic” or “timeless.”  I feel like Harry Potter was getting “beloved classic” thrown about halfway between the printing of the 4th of 7 books.  In our time we have no patience for the time needed to marinate a work of art into a classic because we want what we like to have more cultural relevance (ironic, given that outside of television drama I feel like most art is in a downward spiral – I am talking to you poetry slammers!).  Harry Potter will have more staying power than “sagas” (another word overused to described for modern drivel) like Twilight for sure, but we should not diminish Harry Potter or the word classic by joining the two in the same sentence.  Harry Potter was a pleasant literary and cinematic journey, but let’s not pretend it will have the staying power of other amazing works of fiction.  Like Winnie The Pooh.

Grade – B+

I am currently on the third of three days off in Cleveland.  At this point I am now beginning to over-analyze everything I see.  Fortunately the shows resume tomorrow night, which should prevent me from turning into Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

First off, I am getting a great tan in Cleveland, but it is more a wandering nomad, homeless-guy-in-LA tans, rather than a beach vacation tan.  That means my face, forearms and calves are a dark brown and everything else is relatively pale.  Because the bridge that shortens my walk to Starbucks and the Mall each day (and is a short cut to two strip clubs) is out of commission (for a year now – it was supposed to be fixed using Stimulus money – how ironic the stimulus money is preventing stimulation at the strip clubs – wakka wakka) I have to take the longer walk over the Veterans Memorial Bridge (VMB) every time I want to do anything besides meditate or avoid sneaky spider webs in the comedian condo.

Yesterday, for example, at 6:20pm (plenty of daylight), I observed a party of 5 to 6 raccoons cross the street on my way to the VMB (good sign of rabies).  A day earlier I saw a creature that I did not recognize, despite watching all 11 episodes of Planet Earth, running in a nearby dirt patch.

Of course once I pass the Land of the Lost nature preserve I apparently am living in, I am quickly welcomed onto the set of Breaking Bad.  There is some sort of rehab clinic or shelter midway between the condo and the bridge.  There has never been any trouble and I am sure there is good work going on there, but it is still unnerving to see people walking like they are zombies nearby.  Except, unlike The Walking Dead, the white-black ratio is more 1:1 than a television acceptable 10:1.

Once I get passed the rehab center I can go straight, which leads to the supermarket and what appears, based on a proliferation of newish-looking beer gardens, to be a future yuppie, hipster neighborhood.  But first I have to walk through what feels like a four-to-five block hood.  As in I expect Cuba Gooding Jr. to scream RICKKYYYYYYYYYYY!” as I walk through it.  I have gone this way once to get groceries.  Perhaps I will go that way again today and work on my 40 yr dash time.

The other way, which has been my two to three times per day walk, is over the VMB which leads to food, Starbucks, Mass and the gym.  Of course crossing the bridge has been an adventure.  Usually there are lots of bike riders, but only about 1 in 5 are 10 speed-looking bike riders.  The rest are riding tiny bikes.  I never understood why grown men rode bikes that looked like they belonged to their younger siblings or children, but they immediate convey low level narcotics trafficking to me.  Then of course there are those special moments, like on Saturday, when I was jogging across the bridge and I observed a man without a shirt (hardly uncommon at the cross roads of Jurassic Park nature preserve, hood, and rehab clinic).  However, as I got closer it, became clearer that he had his penis out and was pissing into the wind while walking.   If he was headed to the rehab clinic I am guessing that he is going to need to give back that “two days sober” chip.

My daily ritual has been to read and write in Starbucks for several hours (since I just buy a one green tea I am basically renting the table for fifty cents an hour) before going to the gym.  Naturally this involves a lot of people watching.  Just the same way our economy and capitalism are helping to destroy what was once known as the middle class, the more I travel the country, observing “real Americans” the more I realize that Oscar Wilde was right – life is imitating art.  It seems the smaller the town or city, the more women are either dressing and inked up like porn stars, or just waiting on a 9th piece of chocolate cake.  I guess women have adopted the ,”If I cannot make a sex tape I might as well get on The Biggest Loser.”

When I was doing clubs in the South, before they realized that book-learning and sarcasm did not always translate well to the “free ticket” crowds, I noticed the extremes of women.  They either looked and acted like Vivid video spokeswomen or like cheerleaders for Type II diabetes.   Obviously I am not examining men with the same eye to to detail, but the tattoo craze seems to have afflicted us as well, and I am sure we exhibit the same fitness extremes.   I don’t know if there is a crisis of confidence in America, only because we may be too shallow to actually examine how we feel.  We don’t just export our entertainment abroad -we also export it to the middle of this country, that used to be called upon to produce for us.  The Midwest had the identity of being the muscles of our industries – now they seem like an exaggerated testing ground for Internet and Reality Show trends.   The way a man without a job can turn to crime, it seems that when whole regions of the country have their jobs or identity stripped, a cultural race to the bottom seems to happen.  There are plenty of frauds and fools roaming New York City, but the uniformity of Middle America is starting to make think that the tattooed moron and the obese sad sack are becoming as American as the strip malls and apple pie that they consume.

So if you thought those last couple of paragraphs were funny, I will be at the Cleveland Improv Thursday through Sunday.

I am currently embedded in Starbucks because of a muggy downpour outside, which is a terrible way to begin a three day break in Cleveland.  It is the baseball all star game so there are no sports to watch, I have already been to the Rock N Roll Museum (sorry, your new exhibit on “Women Who Rock!” is not enough to get me back so soon after my initial visit last year) and I am trying hard not to see Zookeeper or Larry Crowne, which means I am out of things to do.  I am in Cleveland because I have been booked for back to back weeks.  I just opened for Rodney Perry, best known for his work on The Mo’nique Show and in a recent Tyler Perry movie.  After three days off to self-hate I will be opening for Matt Braunger, who is quite a different performer.  Of course, when comparing clips I think you will see that the booker for the Cleveland Improv is stretching my diversity a bit thin.  I think the manager knowing that I am mixed race has doubled the work I get here, but also doubles the work.

It has been a big week for half-black people.  Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit this weekend and President Obama made it another week without getting killed by the Tea Party.  Meanwhile I was introduced on stage to Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” (not kidding).

Here is Rodney Perry:

Had a fun time working with him this weekend and he is a super nice guy.

Now here is Matt Braunger, who I will open for this weekend:

Now guess who the only person will be that attending both of these shows?  Most likely me.  Between the two crowds, I will end up performing something akin to Jim Carrey’s split personality in Me, Myself & Irene.  So if you are in Cleveland – get your tickets to Matt Braunger this week and see me defeat the attempt by Cleveland Improv General Manager Lee Herlands to make my life difficult.

Much to the chagrin of readers I opted not to make Zookeeper the movie of the week.  I have already said all that I can say about Kevin James when I called him the worst movie maker in Hollywood.  So this week I saw Horrible Bosses.  I left feeling like I did when I saw Tropic Thunder.  There were many funny lines and moments, but at the end I just felt like I hadn’t seen a very good movie, but rather a collection of funny lines (so I guess the screen writers still get solid credit).  Moreover, the film feels like a movie made in an alternative universe: a universe where Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudekis went back in a time machine to about 5 years ago and murdered Luke Wilson, Zach Galifianakis and Dane Cook, respectively, and took their places in a movie they were destined to make.

The movie’s plot is fairly simple.  The three main characters have awful bosses who range from evil (Kevin Spacey) to sleazy (Colin Farrell – very funny in limited time) and the excessively hot and manipulative (Jennifer Aniston).  They agree to murder their bosses for each other, while being “coached” along by murder consultant Motherfu*ker Jones (Jamie Foxx) – they got more laughs out of me from that name then I am proud to admit.  Goofiness ensues and it is wrapped up neatly in the end (which is becoming the trend in comedies now – rather than allow a plot to develop naturally and have to write an additional 15 minutes, recent comedies seem to just have something extremely convenient occur with five minutes left so the movie can end.  Bad Teacher felt the same way).  But what I really found fascinating is how the stars of this movie, especially Bateman and Sudekis have rendered their immediate predecessors in Hollywood (Luke Wilson and Dane Cook) wholly irrelevant by being better versions of those guys.

Jason Bateman a/k/a/ R.I.P Luke Wilson

Ever since his comeback in Arrested Development, a/k/a greatest television comedy of all time, Jason Bateman has proven how funny the straight man can actually be.  While being the foil for wackier characters in both the show and subsequent movies, he has proven that the straight man can sometimes be the funniest guy in a scene, not just the victim of funnier people.  Which is why he is a huge improvement over Owen Wilson, who, most famously in Old School, played the funny straight man, simply because he was the straight man.  He had to do no heavy lifting with Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell doing all the crazy work.  But Bateman has changed the straight man role – rather than be a QB that just manages the comedy game, like Wilson, Bateman is both a game manager and a playmaker.  Sorry Luke.

Jason Sudekis a/k/a a Midwestern Dane Cook with more range

A friend of mine had recently sent me a text making some comparison between Dane Cook and Jason Sudekis.  It was not very complimentary and I did not understand the association.  But while watching Horrible Bosses I realized that Sudekis is literally a bigger Dane Cook.  Sudekis, who I believe is from Kansas, literally comes off as the larger, Midwestern cousin of Dane Cook.  And sadly, for Dane Cook – he is having a lot more success.  The thing is Sudekis can play the guy who is sort of a goober (Hall Pass) or a semi-ladies man (Horrible Bosses).  Cook came in like gangbusters with roles as the “cool guy” because Hollywood forgot to tell him that handsome and cool in comedy is a lot different than handsome and cool in Hollywood.  And bonus –  Sudekis probably has someone advising him to not to make five shitty movies in a row if he wants to have longevity.

I think the only hope for Wilson and Cook is that they can become the Josh Lucases to Bateman and Sudekis’ Matthew McConaughey.

So the movie is solid because of the decent number of laughs, but by no means spectacular.  If you catch a matinee you’ll get your money’s worth.

Final Grade – B

So after a few weeks of dominating Call of Duty: Black Ops while stationed in my man-cave, AKA  studio apartment, I headed back out onto the road Wednesday for a two week comedy trip.  The first gig was a spot at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY, which is somewhere near the north pole.

The Casino

Wednesday I drove up (well, rode shotgun) with comedian Joe Pontillo to perform at the Turning Stone Casino.  It is my third time performing at the casino and I am glad to say that the gig keeps improving with each trip.  The first time I went there was a crowd of 25 in a room that sat 400.  Then the casino re-configured their night club into a comedy room that was much smaller and more conducive to comedy.  The last show I did there probably had 50 audience members and Wednesday night we had about 80!  At this rate I will be a world renowned comedian sometime after my 147th birthday!

But the show actually went really well.  Fortunately Joe and I did not perish in what has become a traditional, Act-of-God weather phenomenon on the drive up to Verona.  Last winter we drove up and encountered three separate snowstorms.  However, none scared me as much as the thunderstorm we passed through on the way up Wednesday.  I actually thought we were witnessing the end of the world.  But I’m sure everyone upstate would attribute increasingly severe weather to it’s obvious cause: the onerous tax burdens on wealthy Americans and businesses.

After my set a young man bought me a drink at the bar and told me he thought my jokes were awesome.  Then after the show he came up to me with his girlfriend and said, “Awesome stuff man – I didn’t buy you a drink like as in ‘I’ll suck your dick,’ but (gesturing to his girlfriend) she might suck your dick – hahaha.”  I told him, “Yeah that was so weird and awkward until you clarified it.  Now no one feels strange.”

But speaking of sucking dick I observed something even more bizarre towards the end of the show.  Three women, who on average were a 9.3/10 (and not in that stupid way where most women assume they are already a 7 or an 8 when they are 4s and 5s – these chicks were Hollywood 9.3s).  They were accompanied by a few men all of whom appeared to be 2-3 times their age.  This brought up several thoughts/questions for me:

1. Attractive women can be found anywhere where there is the possibility of money, except for candy stores selling lottery tickets.
2. The Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY has prostitutes?  And hot ones?
3. Why are comedians not offered prostitutes in lieu of cash and/or hotel room?
4. Is it possible these women are not whores?  Or even if they are, has living in Verona, NY made them unaware that being a 9.3 (or a flat out 10 in the case of the woman wearing the white dress – if you are reading this blog) carries a much higher exchange rate in major cities?  Old men in Verona can offer you what?  Applebees’ gift cards and discounted hunting permits?  In the city you are looking at a 1 bedroom apartment on Central Park West and a purse dog.

Well the gig ended – I got a good night’s sleep and then made my way to the Syracuse Greyhound Station for a 7 hour ride from Syracuse to Cleveland, Ohio while the haunting opening chimes of AC/DC’s Hells Bells played in my iPod.

The Bloody Toilet Seat

It should be no secret to the readers of this blog that like Republicans in Congress I am waging a war to cut benefits on the neediest citizen I know: me.  That is why I seek to end up in the black on every trip I make.  That means the cheaper the gig, the longer and cheaper the transportation.  I have taken 18 hour Greyhound trips and this fall I will add a 20 hour Greyhound trip and a 30 hour Amtrak trip to my Joey Chestnut/Kobayashi of self-destruction through transportation.  But Syracuse to Cleveland was only a 7 hour bus ride.  I can do that in my sleep.  But shortly into the trip I was yelling “This was supposed to be an exhibition!” like Apollo Creed’s trainer right before Apollo is killed by Drago.

One of the great things about America is its diversity, especially in cities like Washington, DC and New York City.  It means people of different backgrounds, hot women of all varieties, etc.  But these are the positives of diversity.  Taking a Greyhound bus for any significant distance (more than 100 miles) demonstrates how awful diversity can be.  Here is what one would learn from the diversity on my Greyhound yesterday:

1. Amish people travel in large packs and not one of them has a stick of deodorant.  There is also no such thing as a handsome or attractive Amish person (sorry Kelly McGillis).  And even if one were accidentally handsome or pretty, lack of sunlight and grooming products would nurture what nature tried to fight.
2. People of all races who appear to have felony records prefer Greyhound.
3. Black woman having a conversation asked the following questions: a) “Her son is dead?  They was playing with guns?” b) “Them black vitamins was omega threes?”  I enjoyed this because as a heavy set black woman she endorsed two negative stereotypes (poor grammar and gun violence) but also showed that she does care about her heart and joint health.
4. Only angry tall people read on Greyhound.  Everyone else maintains hour long phone conversations or listens to their iPod so loud that I can actually understand lyrics from three seats away (oddly a dude that looked like he was an extra on Sons of Anarchy was listening to No Scrubs by TLC).

But sometimes you learn something on a Greyhound bus that you already knew, but the magnitude of it shocks you to the core.  It should not come as a shock that bus bathrooms are gross.  For me they pose an additional challenge.  First, I have to duck in most (they seem to be about 6’5″ at best and I am 6’7″).  Second, the bus drivers prefer the stop and start motion as if they are in bumper to bumper traffic, and third, I try not to hold on to anything in a bus bathroom.  So under ideal circumstances a simple piss turns into a p90X level core strengthening and balance workout.  But the bathroom on this Greyhound had a special surprise for me:

Blood on the toilet seat.

Let’s do some soul searching.  I am not always the best bus and train bathroom person.  9 out of 10 times I will take a wad of toilet paper to lift up the seat, but sometimes the damage is so severe that some J-L urine may actually sterilize whatever the hell has gone on previous to my visit.  But those are all within what the reasonable person would expect.  But blood on a toilet seat?  Personally I think it was the Amish, but who knows?  One of my fellow passengers might have been fleeing a shoot out with law enforcement.  But in any case it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen.  And then I felt the most disgusting thing I’d ever felt.  As I was leaning and twisting to keep balance in the bathroom my back (which was only covered by a t shirt) made contact with a gooey, gel-like substance which quickly seeped through to my skin.  The next three seconds seemed to last an eternity as I believed that the blood was just a diversion to get me to inadvertently slap some ejaculate on my upper back.  Fortunately it was just some gel soap from the soap dispenser that someone had smeared on the mirror (hell soap anywhere is an improvement at this point).  As odd as that sounds it is what I observed and it is what I will tell myself to go to sleep for the next 6 months until the trauma of that bathroom subsides.

Cleveland Improv & The Birth of Vanilla Coke

By 730 last night, after I had scrubbed my back with alcohol and sandpaper it was time to perform at the Cleveland Improv.  What is normally a fairly diverse crowd (on average the crowds I’ve had at the club have been 60% black, 40% white + other) was almost 100% black.  And female.  And that can be a tough crowd for me.  If I don’t say some things that bush buttons racially (while urban crowds are still determining whether to consider me one of them or too close to a white dude talking sh*t) I will generally push some buttons gender-wise.  But the crowd was fantastic.  The last time I was in a room of black people that happy I was at IHOP with my Dad.  As I have always said there is no greater feeling than killing in a black room and no worse feeling than doing badly in a black room.  And last night felt great.

Here are some of the highlights (because this weekend will probably provide me with five opportunities to experience the full spectrum of urban comedy):

• I finally came up with my stage name if I decide to go the BET circuit.  Vanilla Coke (alluding to my half-black, Algerian-at-best appearance).  At least half a dozen women shouted it at me as they left the club.  I will gladly change that to my officially name if Coca Cola wants to pay me $250,000 annually for the next 30 years.
• When I said my Mom was white a woman shouted, “You look good anyway!”  Never has a compliment felt so weird.
• When I discussed how my Dad was a tough disciplinarian when I was a kid there was no response.  I then asked, “Anybody know their Dad here?” Huge laugh.  When in doubt, in a room of 200+ black women, it is safe to rip irresponsible black men, as long as they already like you.

It is a weird phenomenon, but when you kill with mostly white crowds you feel like they want to buy you a beer or bang their girlfriend in Verona, NY.  But when you kill with a black crowd it feels like they want you to join their family.  Hopefully the good times keep rolling.

So that has been the trip so far, but with gigs spread over the next 10 days in Cleveland I am sure there will be more to discuss, but hopefully no more bloody toilet seats.