Blog

Last night was a one-night gig at Allentown Brew Works in… you guessed it – Allentown, PA.  It was a typically glamorous gig – round trip bus ride with knees feeling like a 40 year old Major League Baseball catcher’s after each trip, 4 hours sleep on a friend’s couch, a Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast feast.  But amidst this is a new bit that I am happy with, so I will leave you with part of my set, which could have been a Father’s Day blog, but instead will live on with dozens of YouTube hits.  Enjoy:

Of Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner I think only one of these Democrat’s actions were shameful for their office.  All three acted inappropriately and have earned ire from their spouses.  But at least Clinton and Spitzer acted like adults.  Bad adults, but adults nonetheless.   We live in an increasingly juvenile state of adulthood (guilty as charged here), but at least if our politicians are going to continue to disappoint us, it would be nice if they did it in an adult fashion.  Have sex with  groupie-colleagues (Clinton), have sex with high priced escorts (Spitzer), but tweeting pictures?  Our politicians cannot respect the office they have been given, but they can at least respect our sense of what kind of lewd behavior they should engage in.

I would vote for Eliot Spitzer today, but I am not sure I would vote for Weiner.  Obviously Weiner’s conduct was far less egregious than Spitzer’s, but it was also old school.  A busy man like Spitzer was being efficient and trying to use discretion (when these guys use escorts they are paying less for the quality of the women, although usually high quality, and more for the guarantee of discretion) to protect his family’s sensibilities, even if he was sacrificing their integrity.  On the other hand Anthony Weiner is a Congressman, but had half a dozen Twitter relationships? That is brazen and time consuming.  Have you no sense of decency?  American values are no longer about being a good person. It’s “be a piece of sh*t in private.”  Weiner violated that sacred trust we as a nation hold so dearly.

America seems destined to be some sort of mentally challenged version of Europe when it comes to sex.  We are becoming more and more immune to sexual impropriety, which we think demonstrates some sort of intellectual sophistication, but at the same time becoming more and more distasteful and lewd in the conduct we expose ourselves too.  We seem to accept that celebrities and people of power, almost always men, will engage in tawdry behavior.  But if we are headed down that road I think we should have some guidelines.  If you are a person of fame or power then it should be as Uncle Ben said in Spider Man, “with great access to pussy comes great responsibility.”  For the extra vagina that will come your way you should be able to comfortably offset that by limiting the public access of your indiscretions.  And Weiner violated this as badly as one could – via Twitter, the 21st Century’s Town Cryer.

And I know this is a lame point, but if your name is Weiner you really should be on guard to always guard your penis privacy.  For example, if my name was John Rape I would get written consent every time I had sex with a woman. Just to be safe.  Even if it was pronounced RaPAY.

So I am not morally outraged by Weiner’s conduct in any way.  It just feels sort of insulting.  A private citizen can be as stupid as they want on social media, but a politician should have the decency to mess around with skanks in private.  That is the America I believe in.

I just got back from the first truly excellent movie of the Summer (please calm down fans of Bridesmaids and Midnight In Paris, both of which I enjoyed, but not as much as X-Men: First Class).  I was not sure about X-Men: First Class, mainly because the trend established by the extremely disappointing X-Men 3 and the crime against humanity that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine seemed to indicate that a 5th X-Men film would lead to mass suicide.  Instead it is a near-perfect Summer movie.  There will be no spoilers in this review, but here is the general breakdown of my X-Men experience:

Kips Bay 10:45 am: The Prelude

I arrived at the theater at 10:45 and the good news for the makers of the movie is that the theater was nearly packed, which I rarely see for the pre-noon $6 movies at AMC Theaters.  As the lights came down I was nervous about the crowd.  A young woman in the back row was texting and some older man yelled, “Turn that fu*king thing off!” To which she replied, “Hey, there are little children present,” speaking of the young children with her.  She was right, but I was fixated on the old man who appeared to be the Ghost of J-L Future.  And by future I mean me at the next movie I see.

As if the rumble behind me was not enough, to my right was a woman who shockingly turned off her phone before the movie began.  I say shockingly because, much like Austin Powers after he was unfrozen, she had no inner-monologue.  She spoke during every preview to herself and approximately every 3 minutes during the movie.  But I think she may have had some mild cognitive impairment (or was just sort of dumb) so I only threw one soda at her to try and make her shut up.

Lastly, before the movie began, I saw a preview for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is now my most anticipated movie of the Summer (no offense Transformers 3 and your Birth of a Nation portrayal of black men-inspired robots). Here is the preview:

So after hearing an old man curse out a young mom in front of her kids, sitting next to a woman who could not shut up and seeing a preview about apes taking over the world it was time for X Men.

The Main Event: X-Men First Class

For my money the greatest movie I have ever seen in a Summer is The Dark Knight.  It worked on any level – as a great film that could have been released during Oscar season or as a great popcorn Summer film experience.  X-Men: First Class is not at that level, but it still scores very high as a Summer movie.  And it is a good movie overall, but my effusive praise for it must be considered relatively.  That said,  it is the best movie of the Summer so far and I don’t think second place is close.

The movie delivers everything you want from a Summer movie and it delivers it well.  The acting is very good across the board, the effects are big and exciting, there are funny cameos and funny dialogue, neither of which feel forced or cheesy (contrast this to the humor found in most moments of the Transformer films).  Additionally, as expected, there are origin stories, which always make first installments of superhero movies fun (contrast this to one of the things I hated about Thor – it told his origin of how he came to Earth, but not how he got jacked (P90X?) and how his hammer became the baddest weapon in the universe).  And lastly X-Men: First Class has training montages, which any fan of Rocky IV can tell you make for fun viewing:

The stand outs

The cast is loaded with both stars and people that you will go – “Oh that guy/girl is in this too?!”  But there are three that stand out for me.  James McAvoy is great as the young Charles Xavier, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar nominee from Winter’s Bone, is great as Mystique, mainly because it is just a matter of time before she is named Esquire’s sexiest woman alive.

And lastly, Michael Fassbender is the dominant force in the movie as the man who becomes Magneto.  He literally looks like Don Draper if Don Draper gave up cigarettes and booze for a personal trainer and a GNC.  He dominates the screen and has the most depth of any character in the movie (besides seeing how the villain becomes the villain is always great).  Sadly, his accent becomes very inconsistent in the last half hour of the movie, which was sort of disappointing given how great he was for most of the movie.

The only negative in the movie is the jumping from location to location in the first hour of the movie is a little cluttered.  It feels like there are about 17 different locations in the first 40 minutes of the movie.  The jumping around does not make the film confusing, but rather, gives the early moments a slightly cheap feeling, as if someone was trying to make shortcuts in the screenplay.

Overall, if you are a fan of superhero movies, summer blockbusters or well-made action movies I find it hard to believe that you will leave disappointed.  Grade: A-

Last night I had a show in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which meant taking the L Train.  I have been on the L train many times and they were all uneventful (they even were generally void of homeless A Capella groups, black teens selling “M & M Peanut,” and Mexican bands with accordions).  Until yesterday.

L Train Adventure Part 1 – Bible Thumper vs. Shrill Gay Guy (“Gaytheist”)

At 740 pm I hopped on the L train at 1st Avenue and entering right behind me was  a young black woman with a book.  The Good Book.  She stood right next to me by the center of the train and said, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” and then began reading aloud from the Book of Revelations.  After a few minutes she sort of became white noise, but then my ears perked up when she began speaking of unnatural acts.  When she said “men began doing unnatural acts with other men,” I looked up for signs of a shrill gay man to start arguing with her.  And about ten seconds after I looked up, right on cue, a chubby gay man began yelling at her in a shrill voice.  Central casting could not have provided a better gay man – chubby, purple shirt, goatee, more lispy than Sylvester the Cat and a self-righteous atheist.  Here is a recreation of that event:

Sylvester:  Excussssssssssse me. Please ssssssssstop reading your book out loud.

Scripture lady: (Reading Bible out loud.)

Sylvester: Thissssssss isssssss rude and I would like you to sssssssstop reading.

Scripture Lady: (Reading Bible out loud.)

Sylvester: Excusssssssse me, excusssssssse me, excusssssssssse me – you are bothering me and I want you to sssssstop reading!

Scripture Lady: (Begins reading Bible slightly louder)

Sylvester: Excusssssssse me – you are not a good Chrisssssstian.  Is that what a good Chrissssssstian does when ssssssssomeone is speaking to you?  You ignore them?  You are a horrible Chrissssssssstian

J-L inner thought: What does a woman ignoring a shrill man yelling at them have to do with being a good Christian?

Scripture Lady: (Still reading louder version of the Bible.)

Sylvester: I can ssssssssspeak louder too.  I can do thisssssssss because I won’t stop until you sssssssstop you hypocrite.  You terrible Chrisssssssssstian.  I don’t believe in your book, but I do know that you are a terrible Chrisssssssstian.

Scripture Lady: (Still reading loud version of the Bible)

Sylvester: No one wants to hear thissssssss.  I don’t believe in your book and no one on this train doesssssss and it is a book of bullsh*t and I want you to ssssssssstop reading it.

J-L inner thought:  You know what.  Fu*k this dude.  Keep reading.

Sylvester: It’s a ssssssssssstupid book and you are annoying everyone.

Scripture Lady: (still reading Bible, now at normal volume again.)

At this point two different women asked the gay man to shut up.

Sylvester: My ssssssstop is next, but this issssssss rude and I want her to stop reading her ssssssssstupid book.

J-L inner thought: My stop is next.  Anyway this could continue for a few minutes longer?

And then I got off the train and it was over.  So I learned a few things on my trip.

1. Loud Bible thumpers are annoying
2. Shrill, flaming dudes who think they have a point to make – more annoying.
3. Bible woman started badly, but eventually won the battle simply by never responding or looking at Sylvester and by not being an angry version of Nathan Lane.

Intermission

I did a 10 minute set in the backyard of a Brooklyn restaurant.  I received several laughs over the sound of cars travelling along the highway that was about 40 yards from the performance space.  Then I went back to the L Train for more unexpected adventures:

L Train Adventure Part 2 – Shakespeare on the Train

As the doors closed on the L Train a man began quoting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  He was wearing a t shirt, shorts and knee and elbow pads, in other words, traditional Shakespearean garb.  And after his first few lines, a shout from the other end of the train from a similarly dressed man.  As I learned after it was Act V, Scene 3 of the play.  It took about six stops for them to act it out, including using the woman sitting next to me as an embarrassed, but flattered Juliet.  Then the train applauded and gave them donations.

All I could think was, “this is why Brooklyn is a pack of hipster douchebags.”  The people that dig this are the same people who “like” jazz music, and make a point to watch street performers and buy crappy goods at street markets.  Yes, we are sooooo cool because only in NY can you get Shakespeare on a train.  And the L train is also the train line, featured in the NY Times a few weeks ago, because occasionally impromptu dinner service happens on the train.  What a precious, hipster heaven of “only in NY!”

But what was most remarkable about the Shakespeare performance was that the woman who had been picked as Juliet had the “I would fu*k those guys” glow on her face the rest of the train ride.  So now I have to adjust my rankings of respected/lusted after artists:

1. Musicians (with Rock Stars being on top)
2. Actors
3. Writers
4. Shakespearean Train Actors
5. Courtroom sketch artists
6. Comedians
7. Def Poets

Thank God for the def poets.  And thank God for shrill, gay atheists.

I have written a few times on the experience (and pitfalls) of being an opening comedian.  When it comes to headliners there are those that like to have strong opening acts (the best example I can think of is how Seinfeld had Brian Regan open for him during a run on Broadway several years ago), those that like weak openers (these are the headliners who despite fame, or a loyal fan base, still cannot have a strong opener for fear that they will be crushed, even when it is unlikely), and those that don’t allow black comedians to open for them.

Yes, hopefully that third one startled you.

I learned about this phenomenon (but apparently not something that has just emerged in the last 12 months when I became aware of it) when an owner of a club wanted to use me as a test case (sort of a Plessy v. Ferguson of comedy) last year.  Knowing that I was half-black, but not very obvious to the untrained eye, he wondered if I could be acceptable despite a contract that specifically stated that there were to be no other black comedians on the lineup.  It never happened, but I have heard of at least one other fairly prominent black comedian who specifically requests no other black comedians on their lineup.  So 60 years ago I would have been trying to “pass” as white to drink at a water fountain, now it is a question of whether I can “pass” to open up for some self-hating brothers.  Sort of like a passive aggressive way of fulfilling Martin Luther King’s dream.

Now, mind you, this is not someone asking that a particular style of comedians is off limits (perhaps you don’t want a Def Jam style comedian because you don’t like that style, or think it would be redundant, or don’t think it would mesh with your show, but that would not preclude many other black comedians). These are black comedians who have achieved success and want to prevent other black comedians from sharing in it.  In some cases, if in front of a largely black crowd, they want to make sure no other comics get any of “their love” from “their people.”  In other cases, in whiter crowds, they want to make sure they get 100% of the “soul bounce” (the soul bounce is my term for the automatic love white crowds give a black comedian just for being black across much of this country).  Who knows how many examples there actually are, but if two relatively prominent comedians do it, that means comedy clubs are willing collectively to accept between 40 and 60 weeks of performances from comedians who are discriminating based solely on skin color.  And that is just assuming it is only two.

The fact that comedians who employ this blatant discrimination (these guys would have probably been African chiefs selling their people to slave traders centuries back) are still in demand and hired by clubs is just another example of the almighty buck triumphing over any sense of decency.  Kramer may have called a couple of black guys niggers, but I believe he is not 1/10th the piece of shit these comedians are.  But if they can make a club an extra $5,000 per weekend they perform so what if they are discriminating against and trying to hold down black comics (and the stories are never about titans like Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock – they’re about B Team players, which makes putting up with their bullsh*t even less pragmatic, if solely thinking from a business perspective)?  If a white comedian banned black comics from his shows there would be outrage, and simultaneously there would be anger if a black comic banned white comics from his shows, but there is no reaction from a black comic banning black comics?  It reminds me of the meeting in The Godfather where one of the Dons says to keep the drug trade in “the dark people – they’re animals anyway.  Let them lose their souls.”

The comedy business once again proves that it is already one step ahead.

This weekend is a major showdown at the box office between two highly anticipated sequels (at least for me who appreciates both drunken adult comedies and the adventures of fat, animated panda bears.  Both Kung Fu Panda and The Hangover were surprise smash hits, each earning over $200 million domestically, which means both have incredible potential to fail miserably in their second efforts.  So here’s the breakdown from what I saw.

Kung Fu Panda 2

I first must disclose that I am a huge fan of Jack Black (I even looked favorably on Gulliver’s Travels) so that needs to be taken into account with any assessment I offer of a Jack Black film.  I loved the first Kung Fu Panda, but because KFP is not a Pixar film, but rather a Dreamworks film, I was wary of their ability to maintain the first film’s level of quality (after all they took Shrek from a classic first installment into a piece of total sh*t by the third film, thus ensuring that I would never see the 4th and final Shrek).

I got to the theater Thursday night and it was only about 40% full, almost entirely made up of Asians, with more Asians following me in.  I did not realize Kung Fu Panda was such a niche film, but I felt like I was sitting at the Asian table in a high school cafeteria.

The movie was solid, but unlike the first film this one was a majority action-oriented.  The first film was so good because, although it had a few well done action sequences, the bulk of the film was the joy of seeing Jack Black’s wit and energy translated into a giant animated panda.  The second film sort of reverses the ratio as Po, the main character, searches for answers to his birth origins, while trying to stop an evil peacock from taking over China (you aren’t sold yet?).  In animation, because anything is possible as long as you can draw/design it, it is less impressive to me to make an action packed animated movie, than to make a truly witty and intelligent animated movie.

The movie is still solid, but it is not nearly the same level as the first, despite having Jean Claude Van Damme voice one of the characters.  And given the lessons of the film, if you are a Dad with young kids, it will make a decent early father’s day trip, especially if they are not biologically yours.

Grade: B-

 

The Hangover Part 2

This movie had me laughing steadily throughout, but with about 20 minutes to go it dawned on me that the reviews I had read were spot on – the movie is identical to the first one.  So much so, that it feels as if the screenwriters just cut and pasted the original screenplay and then changed names, locations and drugs.  It is a slightly more outrageous film than the first and on its own very funny.  However, it feels slightly cheap when you realize how easy the movie must have been to write (Thailand and missing brother in law replace Vegas and missing groom as the only two substantive differences).  But judging by the previews for all the frat bro films coming out this Summer, it appears that The Hangover is spurring on other filmmakers to create their own original take on Hangover-style comedies, even if The Hangover people are being lazy about it.

Grade: B

Last night I watched the season finale of The Event.  It was one of the few new shows I made it through this season and I was very happy with it (the other two were Onion Sports Dome on Comedy Central, which was better and FX’s Lights Out, which I would rate below The Event, but was still solid).  Game of Thrones is only halfway through its first season, but that appears to be the rival with Onion Sports Dome for my favorite new show of this television season (and last one –  The Killing is quite good as well to round out the top 5).  But at best only 60% of my favorite new shows will be back.  And The Event is not one of them.

I think we all know who is to blame for The Event not being renewed.

The Cape.

The Event had it all going – some solid star power, science fiction, 24-esque action-drama.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was very very good.  It drew some comparisons to Lost because of the mystery aspects to the story, but unlike Lost, The Event did not make promises it could not (and would not) keep.  It is easy for shows like Lost to offer the world, but disappointment is assured then when it only delivers Rhode Island.  For a bait and switch like that, you feel more cheated out of your time because you believed it would wrap up its bigger promises.  By contrast, The Event promised smaller, but was so far, delivering on it.  For example, in the first couple of episodes it is revealed that the adversaries are actually aliens.  Now if that is not your bag, I understand, but at least they did not string it along for seasons and then cop out with, “Oh and by the way, they’re aliens,” which would have felt more Lost-like to me.  But then late winter NBC decided to pause The Event and use the time slot to offer several episodes of perhaps the worst show ever made.

The Cape.

The Cape was the equivalent of being up 5 in the third quarter of a playoff basketball game and then inserting your ball boy for the next 9 minutes of the game in place of your second best player.  It was an epic failure, from weak acting, weaker plots, and special effects so weak I think “special” was being used ironically or to indicate an actual handicap.

So when The Cape experiment failed it did not only fail itself it failed The Event too.  I had been an enthusiast of The Event and even I needed a couple of episodes to get back into it again this Spring.  But by then the fate of The Event had been sealed and it was to be cancelled after the first season finale.  The Cape may have actually been television’s first suicide bomber.  It was not content enough to be irrelevant and miserable so instead it took out The Event just for standing too close.

So last night was the final episode of The Event and it was actually an excellent season finale – so if it ever comes out on DVD – it is worth a rental.  However, The Event’s demise is only a sad prologue to the possible ascension of Scotty McCreery as American Idol on Wednesday night.

Scotty McCreery is the 17 year old country singer from North Carolina who manages to juxtapose increasingly prominent cross wearing (seriously, I have no problem with religion, but given his trend of increasing his religious and cross prominence in his performances I expect him to be crucified on stage by his third song tonight) with the scumbag smirk of a investment banker that just fu*ked your pension fund and daughter simultaneously.  Granted, the kid has an impressive voice that is sort of comically low, especially when you consider it is coming out of someone who is a dead ringer for Alfred E. Neuman (or What Me Worry for my older readers).

Scotty will be competing with Lauren Alaina, who is a 16 year old girl going on 39 who sings more “fun” country music, versus Scotty’s more traditional country crooning.  Now from a business perspective I understand why American Idol would be happy to have these two goobers in the finals.  Their biggest selling winner ever is Carrie Underwood, which makes sense because the people most likely to buy records today are poor (i.e., less access to computers).  That is just my theory, but by and large the CDs that I have seen top the charts over the last 5-10 years, barring some huge release, tend to be rap and country: poor black people and poor white people are less likely to download onto iTunes.  So without a hip hop category for American Idol, country is the safe route to go.

I had actually assumed that adding Internet voting might diminish the country vote on American Idol (the way adding a non-incest requirement to vote might have as well), but they have delivered a 1-2 punch of syrupy, awww shucks-ness to tonight and Wednesday’s two-part finale.  The final three should have been Pia Toscano, James Durbin and Haley Reinhart, but none of these singers could have given middle and southern America the 1883 feeling that they still had a say in this country.  Pia was Italian, but probably resembled a hot Latin woman to too many voters (immigration concerns), James’s high pitch vocals had to have reminded America of Adam Lambert (gays are a no no) and Haley Reinhart – perhaps the name sounded Jewish (I have no idea if she is)?  Whatever the reason, they may want to change the title of the show officially to Middle & Southern American Idol or perhaps “Singers To Take Your Mind Off Of Having A Muslim President.”

And if the news wasn’t good enough for these folks, I am sure they are esctatic that Tim Allen has another sitcom coming this Fall.

With all due respect to the many excellent clubs that I have performed at over the years, but this past weekend in Philadelphia was the best sustained comedy experience of my life.  It was not a weekend without challenges, but never have I had more fun on stage than I did for the five shows at Helium Comedy Club from Thursday through Saturday.

Thursday – May 19th

Despite my plans to take Megabus down to Philly on Thursday afternoon I was still writing out my set for the show (I like to type out my entire set before a feature spot – both old jokes and newer ones as a way to beat them into my brain –  plus in ensures I have most of my material archived on my computer).  It was taking me longer than usual because I was putting in about 6 new minutes in that I felt good about.  So instead I had to take New Jersey Transit to Trenton and then SEPTA to Philly.

Taking New Jersey Transit in the late afternoon from Penn Station reminds me of the scene of any Armageddon-style movie where the world is coming to an end and people begin acting like desperate animals only interested in self-preservation.  I was actually pushed out of the way by a woman on her way to get a whole two people ahead of me in the mob going towards Gate 7 (as in she was standing behind me and just decided, “fuck this dude”).  Now I will never hit a woman, which was exhibited many months ago when a young woman tried to trip me at Karma Lounge in NYC after I did some jokes she apparently did not approve of.  Or, when last Winter a waitress at the Village Lantern pushed me in anger in the back because I was in her way on a narrow stairwell.  But I would like to find some way to inspire fear in them (that apparently being 6’7″ and looking angry does not do) so that they at least think I might have OJ tendencies.

But I made it on safely to the NJ Transit train and managed to leave my camera tripod underneath my seat.  So as I arrived in Philly, hating both myself and women (a wellspring of comedy brilliance) I got to Helium.  Of course starring right at me is a giant picture of Myq Kaplan, that seemed to be staring at me saying, “Maybe if you had beaten me at Carolines or in Boston anytime since 2005 YOU’d have a poster in here instead of your name misspelled on a piece of paper outside.”

Well the first show went great.  Philadelphia sports fans have a reputation as being, what is the term I am trying to think of… oh yeah… pieces of sh*t.  Well, perhaps that anger, cruelty and intensity is exactly the perfect place for my humor because I have never felt more in sync with a crowd.  It was like we were female roommates for the weekend.  Part of that may also be because the headliner Steve Rannazzisi attracted a certain fan base because of his fantasy-sports comedy The League.  And I should note that it was good to work with Steve.  The man killed every show, so it was refreshing to see a comedian who had television celebrity, but still had stand up chops, instead of guys who are hogging stand up spots because of television success but cannot back it up (which I complain about every other week on this site).  Well, here was one of the new bits I did the first night (I wrote it that morning so it felt good to know it might have legs).  I think it tells you a lot about me and Philadelphia that the idea of giving AIDS to people who text in the middle of the sidewalk made us all so happy:

After the show I sold a couple of CDs and made my way home on NJ Transit without getting assault by any skanks.

Saturday – May 20th

I had been nervous all day that the shows would be cancelled on account of Rapture, but when it reached 8:00pm I realized we were all safe.  First show was great and then for the second show I was greeted with a surprise.  A good friend of Steve’s, a Philly based comic also named Steve, was in attendance with Pauly Shore.  Philly Steve and Pauly had a gig on Thursday night and decided to stop by and watch the Friday late show.  You can imagine my surprise.  Having a healthy ego I immediately thought, “I wonder if Pauly has read my blog and knows that some people in Des Moines thought he sucked and that I think comedians working largely on name recognition are destroying the future of comedy?”  Obviously he had not.  Or unlike women on NJ Transit, he was afraid to confront me.  After the show, which I performed hopped up and several gallons of Red Bull Vodkas, Pauly told me that he thought I was funny and then asked everyone in sight where the nearest strip club was because he “wanted to see pussy.”  Speaking of vagina here is another new bit that did well with the Philly folk on Friday night:

I sadly informed Pauly that I already had a date with 18 unattractive vaginas on the 2:40 AM Megabus and would not be joining him.  So working on little sleep I got on a packed Megabus where I had to sit sidesaddle for two hours because I literally cannot fit into the top deck Megabus seats.   When you are as tall as I am it feels as if you are so not handicapped that you eventually have the same effect as being handicapped.  Until you walk off the bus.  Then you feel properly capped again.

Saturday May 21st

The final day began with another night of nearly no sleep (I do not have the gift of some of my friends to sleep 8-10 hours regardless of when they actually go to sleep – I always seem to wake up around 8 am).  I touched up my set and sat around for 5 hours thinking about going to the gym.  When I finally left myself no time to go to the gym I showered and headed down to Philly for the last night of gigs.

At this point I realized that commuting by Megabus at the odd hours I was, with almost no sleep, for a few days consecutively, was probably the equivalent of Navy Seal Training, if they had a comedy division.  I think the 30 hour train ride I have scheduled coming back from New Orleans in September will be my Comedy Seal Team 6 training.  “YOU WILL HAVE TO SIT NEXT TO OBESE PEOPLE IN TINY SEATS!  YOU WILL BE SO TIRED YOU WILL START TO TWITCH AS IF YOU IN DRUG WITHDRAWAL!!  THEN YOU WILL HAVE TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE AGAIN AFTER GETTING ALMOST NO SLEEP!  THEN JUST WHEN THE WHOLE PROCESS IS OVER YOU WILL BECOME DEPRESSED BECAUSE DESPITE ALL THE DRAWBACKS TO THE GIG IT MADE YOU MUCH HAPPIER THAN DOING OPEN MICS AND BAR SHOWS!  ANY QUESTIONS?!”

The two shows went great Saturday night.  In fact they went so well that I took Myq Kaplan’s poster and Rocky IV’d it like he was my personal Drago (despite the physical reversal of roles) (2:01 mark of the video, but the whole scene is awesome):

Ok, so I did not actually do that because I like Myq and destruction of property probably trumps “good sets” as the lasting memory for features when it comes to comedy clubs.  But here are the last two clips (these from Saturday’s shows):

Nothing could have gone better under the circumstances (circumstances being travelling on Megabuses that were so hot and uncomfortable that I just assumed that the driver’s background was in human trafficking).  After the show I went to a nearby bar and someone from Friday’s show was at the bar with friends.  he immediately turned to his friends and said, “THIS WAS THE DUDE I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT!”  He started reciting a couple of jokes back to me and it felt really awesome.  And then he said to his friend, while pointing at me, “Dude – this guy is right there with Aziz for me!”  I think when he saw the confused look on my face (I love Parks and Recreation and Tom Haverford, but I have yet to dig Aziz’s stand up) he clarified and said, “‘Cause I saw Aziz a little while back and he is fu*king hilarious!”  Phew, because he could have gone either way with that and I would have understood.

So I learned many things this week in Philly.  One is that Philly is neck and neck with DC as my favorite places to perform.  The second was that if I criticize a comedian on my blog it appears that I will either meet them or be compared to them.  But seriously I thank Steve, Lawrence Mullaney the emcee, everyone at Helium and all the people that came out to the shows.  It was the type of weekend that can give new energy to a cynical comedian to keep at it in this business.  And one day that comedian will perform at Helium and it will make a world of difference.  🙂

So yesterday I saw Will Ferrel’s new film Everything Must Go.  In case you do not have the patience to read the entire blog here is a quick summary.  Imagine if Will Ferrel’s character from Old School, Frank The Tank, were the same person, but with real world consequences.  It is occasionally funny, but mostly sort of sad.  And it is a pretty good movie, which was a relief because I half saw this as a protest against the sure-fire success of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film.  I just couldn’t bring myself to see a 4th Pirates of the Caribbean film.  The franchise started great and then films two and three were abominations.  With film series my motto is “Fool me once, ok if you had a good first film.  Fool me twice, now I will no longer support your films.”  This applies well to the Shrek franchise as well, and may apply to Transformers and Iron Man franchises in the future.

Everything Must Go, which is a step back from the norm for Will Ferrel, is about a relatively successful businessman whose entire life falls apart in a short amount of time because of a relapse in his battle with alcohol.  The amount of Pabst Blue Ribbon consumed by Ferrel’s character, Nick Halsey, represents the most alcohol consumed by any one film character not played by Nicholas Cage.

So when locked out of his house by his wife, with all his belongings strewn about his front lawn, Ferrel enlists the help of a neighborhood kid named Kenny, played by the son of the late Notorious B.I.G., to sell his belongings.  There is of course some mentoring that happens here, but fortunately it never has the feel of a “white guy helping poor black kid,” primarily because the kid seems to have his sh*t together better than the adult.  But vice versa, there is also never that one cheesy moment of Nick saying “NO kid, you taught ME” to Kenny.

The movie is basically about moving on with your life when you are the one who has messed things up and I think it does a nice job.  Ferrel’s character is wronged and you root for him, but it is still he who is most responsible for his own wronging.  Nothing feels forced in the movie, not the friendship between Nick and Kenny, not the fight with alcoholism (and since he drinks PBR he rarely has to go through big dramatic withdrawal because of how cheap it is) and not the humor, which is very organic.

My favorite thing about the movie was that it was an indie film, but because of the format of it it lacked some of the more odious cliches of indie films (no shots of characters on airport walkways or on escalators looking off brainless into the distance, not too much indie film music, no Parker Posey or Zooey Deschanel).  So thanks to a strong performance from Will Ferrel and a simple approach to showing someone’s life crumbling and re-building I give it a B+ – it is the indie film for people who don’t particularly like indie films.

Next week – Kung Fu Panda 2 and/or The Hangover 2

I should focus on the good news in comedy and that is the fact that I am co-producing a fun show in Brooklyn, that will be weekly starting in June (“Work In Progress” at Smith’s Tavern in Park Slope).  So far we have had good audience and good comedians.  But I can’t help but be depressed over the two-venue show that I had produced, Always Be Funny, which died twice in unceremonious fashion.

The first venue for Always Be Funny was River Bar in a part of New Jersey known as 10th Avenue and 43rd Street.  I had been hooked up with the place through a friend.  He had a friend who owned a bar and they wanted some comedy to drum up some business (you know a bar is struggling when they WANT comedy to BUILD business.  Adding comedy to a bar is akin to arson for insurance in terms of what it usually does to a bar crowd).  So we started a show, which began very strongly, but ended sort of like that guy in Metallica’s One video who was begging for someone to kill him, but had no means of communicating that desire.  So we turned it into an open mic, which actually was, on average, more successful than the booked shows because all the comedians had to do was buy one drink and they got a free buffet and 5 minutes stage time.

And then one day I showed up to the bar and was told by the bartender that the show was over.  Fortunately I was given 10 minutes advance warning, which is about the same amount of professional courtesy I’d expect if I were a maid in Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s hotel room.  I heard it through the grapevine that my friend, who I saw less regularly than the bar owner, had had a falling out with the bar owner (no idea if this is true) and that he cancelled my show, which had been running for over a year between the booked show and open mic.  I e-mailed the bar owner, but failed to get a response.  It was like two parents had a fight and then in anger, one parent killed their brother-in-law’s kid.  It may not have been quite that dramatic, but it certainly felt rude and unjustified.  Now the only historical evidence of the show’s existence is this Glengary Glen Ross spoof we filmed to promote it:

And for reference – here is the original:

But just because one show died did not mean I was without a venue (isn’t that why people have more than one kid?).  I still had my monthly show at the Village Lantern.  Well, if the River Bar show was murdered, then the Village Lantern show was kidnapped and presumed dead even though no body was ever recovered.  Allow me to explain.

I never ran the show as a bringer because there was a cover and drink minimum.  If people are going to do that they should save it for a club.  So most of our traffic was derived from friends, Time Out NY or people barked in.  The showed hummed along fairly consistently, ranging from full to half full, but never empty (and not on a downward trend the way the showcase shows at River Bar show had been).  But as time went on I kept getting told that “management really wants it full” and then I had two straight shows cancelled, one a day in advance, the other 6 hours ahead of time.  So I became The Douche That Cried Comedy Show.  It felt like that scene where Woody Harrelson has to make a hook shot in White Men Can’t Jump.  Already a difficult proposition, the guy then tells Woody that he also must shoot at the basket on the other end of the court (a 60 foot hook shot being near impossible).  So I am given a late show, that gets cancelled last minute on me several times and I am still expected to fill the place.   Their house, their rules, but why have it it anyway if you do what you can to make it fail:

If those were the criteria I would be fine with having the show cancelled, but instead what I got was no response from the go-between at the venue.  Perhaps it is because I am a big dude and people assume I will strangle them if I get bad news, but that is not the case.  I remember I asked about an April date and received one response that said he was behind on Facebook e-mails because of travel (I did not mention that travel did not seem to preclude Facebook status updates featuring dick jokes for the bridge and tunnel crowd, but it crossed my mind).  Then I asked a follow up about my show in April or May and received no response (still waiting for that response).  This kind of treatment would be understandable, or even expected, coming from a bar owner, but the person was a comedian that was acting as the go-between.  I guess professional courtesy is harder to find in shi*ty professions.

RIP “Always Be Funny.”  Long Live “Work In Progress!”

Off to Philadelphia for the weekend and the I’ll be posting the Movie of the Week blog Saturday (either Will Ferrel’s new movie because I heard it is good or the new Pirates of the Caribbean because it probably will be terrible) and a recap (hopefully with video) of my Philly shows on Monday.  AND BE SURE TO BECOME A FAN OF “RIGHTEOUS PRICK” ON FACEBOOK