The Culture That Gave Birth To #OccupyWallStreet

I have been very happy to see the Occupy Wall Street movement gaining momentum.  I have posted some prescient, but possibly unduly pessimistic, blogs about some of the issues that are being brought up with the OWS movement (From Feb 2011 – https://jlcauvin.com/?p=2178), but I have yet to join the actual protest.  I have been travelling and dealing with some health issues with my Dad, but I plan on joining at some point.  But before I can, I guess I will make some points on why I think this movement is important and vital right now.

People Saying That This Is Just Anger At People With Money

This is the narrative that is being pushed by Republican and corporate masters and their less intelligent minions in the general public.  Like many things with Republicans it is a concise, easily understood and completely misguided description of what the issues are.  People do not resent the money.  It is the fact that the political system is now a full-fledged partner in the massive consolidation of wealth in a very small percentage of Americans.

First off let us not pretend that the bankers and investment houses are Apple (who for all the good it produced, American jobs was not high on the list) or General Motors in that they produce products people can use and employ lots of people to do so.   They are gamblers in a casino.  They are playing three card monty.  The problem is that not only are they counting cards that represent working families’ money, the Casino (the government aided by lobbyists) are helping them!  The Casino wins, the Wall Street gamblers win, and then the American people lose.  This is not anger about the money they earn; it is anger at how the system has been gamed and rigged to give them an unfair advantage in the form of government access.  And not only is it rigged – it is so rigged that it will only get exponentially worse.  They have more money, which allows them to buy our government, which will enact further advantages in tax breaks and loopholes (or de-regulate protections) which will reap more money that they can then use to… buy more protections from government and so on.  And this leads to my next point:

 

Lobbying Is A Bigger Enemy

To a certain extent the Wall Street culture and those who embrace it are the obvious villains in the current narrative.  But to be fair they are playing a game that our country has allowed to go on.  For anyone who has not read it, I strongly recommend “Winner Take All Politics.”  It is a book, that in more scientific terms, defends the premise of comedian George Carlin that elections are illusions of personal political power.  We are always obsessed with fund raising during big elections and voting for major candidates, but in between elections it is the lobbyist for the wealthy (yes to detractors on the right, unions have lobbyists too, but the influence of the Union has dwindled just like its membership and the status of the working man) and corporations that determine what actually happens.  Lobbying money is bigger than campaign money, it is more secret than campaign money and it has more effect than campaign money.  And after a while, the Senators and Representatives who work for us realize that their job is to be re-elected and that their best friends are their lobbyist and contributor buddies.  And there is only one way to break those shackles.

Congress Needs Term Limits

I still do not understand why the President has term limits, but Representatives and Senators can serve until they die.  These are the people that need term limits more than anyone!  The President’s office is much harder to operate in secret, whereas there are 535 members of Congress who are continually being offered things from their corporate suitors and unless you are like my Uncle and watch tons of CSPAN you are probably in the dark about Congress in general.  If they all had term limits (and this is PARTY NEUTRAL) then they could actually listen to the voice of Americans and not the voice of lobbyists.  And I actually do not resent the far right direction of the House.  The Framers intended the House to be the chamber that catered to the fickle will of the people.  And “right or wrong” the People wanted something different in 2010 and the House operated as it was intended to to a certain extent (if we ignore massive anonymous corporate campaign contributions).  The real prostitutes are the Senate.  The intent of the Senate was that it be a branch of government above the indignity of elections every two years, which would allow its members to make decisions based on long term needs.  But Senators of both parties have turned out to be the worst.  That is why even Democratic Senators like Mary Landrieu (La.) and Jay Rockefeller (W. Va) can support oil subsidies and coal mining because they enjoy their seats of power and therefore, will cater to to provincial corporate interests rather than the better long term environmental health of the United States.  Hate or love the tea party, but they were on politicians like hit squads that did not do what they wanted.  Perhaps it is time for Democrats to do some house (and Senate) cleaning as well.  But the Tea Party did not act alone.  It was aided by the judicial branch.

Citizens United

When the Supreme Court decided that restrictions on corporate donations violated the First Amendment it gave Tea Party backers (who either believed in their cause or simply could use them to enact an extremely business friendly political climate) the ability to become national political hitmen.  That is why from small local elections to disastrous Republican Senate nominations like Christine O’Donnell there was a dramatic shift right for the Republicans.  They could not actually flood every single primary with money, but they now had a weapon to make Republicans afraid that they COULD BE targeted.  But beyond all of these things, there is a fundamental problem in America and nothing short of a revolutionary movement will probably correct it.

Our Culture Has Become One of Greed and Ignorance

The most popular reality television shows (besides Jersey Shore) are the lot that feature “real, working Americans.”  From Coal, to Gold Diggers, to Deadliest Catch, the shows are in the dozens.  And it makes sense that they are on television because they represent an American fantasy.  See there is a market for all of these shows because we like to romanticize the working man.  These shows should be on Disney because they are bordering on fiction.  America is like the girl that dates the garage worker because it pisses off her father and she wants to “feel real,” but eventually she settles down with a lawyer or an investment banker.  She has experienced authenticity at a safe distance.  That is what we do.  People love watching these shows because they represent what America used to be, but when it comes to providing jobs and industry to people like the ones on television, well that is a little “too real.”

Or maybe you are one of the many Americans who enjoy watching pastors on television, like Joel Osteen, that have developed this prosperity gospel, where God wants and loves those who make lots of money (I believe it was Jesus Christ who said, “Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the Kingdom of Heaven”).  So now television is telling you that the rich are blessed by God and that the working men are fine and kicking ass on reality television, so who are these socialist scumbags trying to overturn a country that is supposed to be about making tons of money?

Many of them are people who cannot get jobs. Does that mean they are lazy?  Perhaps. Or is it also because we are an economy and a corporate structure that has one goal – pleasing shareholders and boards of directors?  We value stock price as not just the most important factor in corporate success, but the only one!  Need to raise your share price?  You could invent something, or layoff 1000 workers, either way you will be viewed as more attractive, more efficient and your shareholders will be happy.  Mission Accomplished.

Now I understand we are not and probably never again will be an industrial economy, but are there major initiatives to make our country better at math and science to create or build the next industry?  Of course not, because that might require tax money or deeper sacrifices from the wealthy or a belief in science from half of the country. We should be leading in green technologies.  Even if you are a climate change skeptic (i.e. moron) there is a huge market for energy efficient and carbon neutral products.  From a business perspective isn’t that enough of a reason to lead in that area?  Of course not, because too many industries have their hands deep into the souls of our lawmakers.  So they attack the science (which is settled) and never even address the fact that if done right we could become a power economically by leading this industry.

Or why not a high speed rail system?  There are laborers looking for work and our train system is ancient compared to Europe and Asia (Shock of shocks – America not #1 or #2 in this area!!!).  But there are industries that cannot possibly want this (oil and aviation to name two).

Of course money sometimes has a “good” effect, but I believe its influence, regardless of the cause, must be removed.  The power must be the people’s again.  When gay marriage passed in NY State it was a big moment and seemed like a triumph of good, but I saw it as a triumph of money.  Only the threat of campaign contributions from some wealthy businessmen who had changes of heart on gay marriage swung the necessary votes.  As AC/DC said, “Listen to the money talk.” I would have preferred marriage equality to come the way it should have because it is the right thing.  I am sure I do not speak for gay people who were thrilled to have the rights by any means necessary, but do not ignore the fact that that was money and not justice at work for those critical swing votes.

Who Is To Blame?

I have a friend named Martha who is always asking me why I do not blame Obama (or at least give him a “fair share,” to borrow his tax mantra) for the country’s economic problems.  One issue she had was with the original bailouts.  I am no economist, but I know Paul Krugman is a Nobel-Prize winning one and he wrote that without those original bailouts the country would have fallen off a cliff into a great depression.  Obama cannot change the entire system (hell he tried to give more people health care and was henceforth known as Hitler) and yet that is what I believe is necessary.  Obama has tried to be a great compromiser, but instead he has been portrayed as a Muslim, American hating socialist by the right and a gutless coward by the left.  The Republicans have had an obstructionist agenda from the beginning (a well calculated risk that would not have had as much traction with a caucasian president, because the most ignorant and radical elements of the tea party and Republican party are also the ones most likely to have antebellum notions of Negros).  If you doubt that then why did Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say that “Republicans’ top priority is to make President Obama a one-term president?”  So  given this incredibly hostile political climate I cannot blame Obama for not being or acting like a super hero.

Now some people will say “The climate in Washington is even worse, not better since Obama took office.  he promised better and it is worse.  he ruined it.”  Now that is correlation without causation.  Similarly to how banks started passing more fees after Dodd-Frank was passed.  Or how health insurance premiums started rising more after “Obamacare” passed.  These actions are no different than mob bosses who demand “protection money.”  Obama came with good intentions and perhaps too much naivete about Washington (the biggest reason Hilary Clinton may have been a more effective president), but the response to him and his initiatives are nothing less than a shakedown to convince dumb Americans that the correlation of their responses to Obama’s actions are in fact CAUSED by Obama, which they are not.

So who is to blame – well I think Wall Street, the lobbyists, the unyielding Republicans, the Democrats to a lesser extent all have a part to play, but (and Republicans should like this) I think we need to take individual and collective responsibility as American citizens.  The American Dream is a fantasy.  Take Steve Jobs as an American Rorschach Test.  For many Americans they saw it as the American Dream – any American, even one living in his parents’ garage, can rise to become a brilliant inventor and change the culture!  But that is looking at it through the eyes of an American Dream that does not exist.  He is the American Exception.  He was so brilliant and inspired that he would thrive and create anywhere.  He succeeded through his own exceptionalism.  Do not let Steve Jobs become a Pat Tillman for the business sector of America.  Are we saying that to make a decent way in America you now must be exceptional? Possibly because to millions of Americans, work ethic and responsibility are not enough any more.

Here is a hypothetical (at least to me – it may be very real to others) that I think sums up why I believe in the #OccupyWallStreet movement.

During one of the Republican debates, Ron Paul was asked about a healthy 30 year old man who chose not to get health insurance and subsequently got very sick.  This was the “let him die” moment during the debate, when a few crowd members shouted that.  The question I would have wanted to hear asked is, “What if a 45 year old father of two, who has worked for the same business for fifteen years, gets laid off.  He has COBRA benefits, but they run out before he can get a job again because of a tough job climate.  Then during a routine physical that he is paying for out of pocket it is determined that he, after some more tests, has a treatable, but eventually fatal, disease.  What should we do with THAT man?”  That is the question Americans should be asking.  What do we do when a man who believes in the system and plays by the rules, but falls on hard times.  What happens when THAT man is failed by our system?  What do we do then?  For me, all of these things, the imbalance of political power by gross inequality of wealth, the political bickering, the deceit, the game playing, the shameful politics and the ignorance in this  country all come down to the fate of that man.  The way the country is right now is a country where that man dies or if he doesn’t his family that he fought and worked for is homeless because of his crippling bills.  The country I want America to be and the country that I think Obama wants and that I believe the #OccupyWallStreet movement wants, is the one where the climate, the culture and the system in place create a country where he lives and lives the life he has worked for.  But to do that I think a lot will have to change first.

 

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3 Non-Partisan Things America Should Be Doing

1) Helping Somalian Children

I am fascinated by a few stories (or in some cases non-stories) in America today.  One is our non-involvement in Somalia.  We are all scarred by Black Hawk Down, both the actual incident in 1993 and the disappointing film by Ridley Scott.  But every day the news and the newspapers report the fact that around 500,000 children are close to starvation in Somalia.  The options for the innocent in Somalia are go to a Taliban-style Muslim section where freedom is non-existent, or live in a war zone.  Now that would seem to be all the things “real” Americans care about – there are children at stake.  After all, the Super Bowl was never the same after  “the children” saw Janet Jackson’s nipple, so naturally if half a million kids are dying we should surely care.  Plus, it is a chance to take on the scourge of radical Islam, which has provided a nice replacement for the Red Scare in post Cold War era (admittedly real in many cases, but used as a boogyman in others).  But we can do nothing?   It is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.  I was all for fighting in Afghanistan, but once again this is related to the decision to fight in Iraq.  All the money and international good will it cost us is still relevant even though people have “It’s Bush’s fault” fatigue.  Who gives a sh*t if you are tired of hearing that – it doesn’t make it any less true!  And why is it so hard for so many “real Americans” to wrap their heads around the idea that sometimes a problem that took between 7 and 30 years to develop (our Frankenstein-esque de-regulated capitalism), might take more than 2 1/2 years to solve?  As a country we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg of how warped a spoiled nation, with increasing ADD and an overflow of information sources, both credible and absurd, can become.

2) Building A  National High Speed Rail System

This could be the stimulus the country needs.  A WWII level stimulus project that employs people in 48 states, uses real American labor and builds something that doesn’t involve a dot-com, but rather a tangible product to be used by Americans.  It could help reduce the use of oil as a nice bonus.  And it would be a long-term project, not some 12 month replacement of a small bridge (I am talking to you Cleveland).  These are all the advantages I see for building a high speed national rail system.  Admittedly, I have only been to two foreign countries (and neither is Canada or Mexico), but my more well-traveled friends tell me that in developed nations in Europe and Asia the rail systems put ours to shame.  So if we pride ourselves as a nation as being number one (even if only in our own minds) why do we have such a substandard rail system.

I am a huge fan of rail travel and have travelled most of this country by Amtrak.  Imagine how many more people would if they tripled or quadrupled the speed of it.  Instead of 21 hours to Chicago from New York it was 6 or 7.  Instead of 17 hours to Atlanta, it was 5?  All presumably built with some form of updated green technology.  Why can’t Amtrak be this decade’s Man on the Moon?  Well, of course there are several reasons.  One is the oil lobby.  Another is the aviation lobby.  Another is we have been conditioned to see the rail as some sort of purgatory between the Heaven of aviation and the Hell of Greyhound.  But how could America not take a renewed pride in the rail system if it was a massive and beneficial national project?  Well, of course that probably sounds like socialism so I guess if we got beyond negative perceptions of Amtrak and intense lobbying we would still have to compete with American stupidity.

3) Use a Dictionary and an Encyclopedia

With the Internet providing any “fact” that anyone wants to support their pre-existing belief I think we need to get back to agreement that words and facts exist and are sometimes not up for interpretation.  A standard Merriam-Webster dictionary and an Encyclopedia Britannica should do (if we can agree that those are not tools of the radical left or right).  These texts used to provide a basic presentation of facts that we could all agree with if we bothered to read them.  I would not go as far as to suggest that the New York Times, which until the advent of Fox News Propaganda (which it is – brought to “real Americans” by an Australian with a pro-business agenda), was known as the public record because of its thorough and excellent worldwide reporting, could possibly be this in our current society.

I have a selfish reason for suggesting this.  Yesterday I made the mistake of getting into a Facebook discussion with a conservative on his Facebook page.  His ignorant cabal of friends then proceeded to jump on me with the usual Tea Party rhetoric that is more faith-based than historically based (random assertions of “The Constitution says” as if there are not actual words that can be verified).  Here are some of the highlights that I think an Encyclopedia and a dictionary would have helped:

  1. “Liberalism is all about socialism and stripping us of our Constitutional rights” – Funny, liberals are often accused of giving people too many rights (see the Warren Court).  You know who else is about socialism?  Your police department, your fire department, your public schools, your parks, your sanitation workers and your libraries to name a few.
  2. “What about groups like the Black Panthers that Obama endorses?”  – I am not sure a comment is needed here.
  3. “Liberals bringing socialism is definitely as dangerous a guy with a bomb strapped to his chest” – see #1
  4. “Ask the Brits how well gun control works for them… they can’t own anything to protect themselves. Even if they use a toy gun to seize a burglar the home owner gets arrested for assaulting the criminal. Thats what the liberals want for the USA.” – see also the murder rate and gun violence statistics for Britain.  I know it is Europe and that is “faggy” and “awful” for “real Americans” but fewer dead Americans would seem like a good thing for America.  As of 2000 their murder rate with firearms was 10 times less than ours.
  5. “This is laughable. As if the left hasn’t practiced these same exact tactics (referring to when I said the Tea Party nearly brought our government to default): gay rights, environmentalists, gun control, the list goes on and on. What was it we were talking about again? Small, well-financed groups of people holding a party hostage? – In other words this person (these comments were from several different individuals on the same comment stream) took an unprecedented event and claimed that there were several non-existent precedents.  When exactly did the left brink the country to the brink of economic disaster over “gay rights,” or the environment?  Even though perhaps they should since civil rights and the future of the planet are more important to America’s creed than low taxes for the wealthy.

So in sum, my platform is simple:

  • We should intervene on behalf of half a million dying children before we intervene on behalf of oil interests;
  • We should develop a national high speed rail system as a tangible stimulus plan and;
  • We should all read a major newspaper (that hopefully hasn’t been fact-raped by Rupert Murdoch’s minions – and despite his vast empire this DOES NOT exclude all conservative leaning publications) and occasionally open a dictionary or an Encyclopedia Britannica if we want to verify something that maybe sounds outrageous.

20 years ago this would have seemed sensible.  Today it seems too ambitious.  Sadly in another 20 years it may seem like a fantasy.

In re Bob Hellener

A couple of months ago I wrote a post about feature work.  For those of you who read my site, but do not know the terminology, the “feature” is the middle performer on comedy shows – a bridge from the introductory remarks of the emcee and the main event of the headliner.  The bulk of the post concerned my feelings working in and observing the comedy business across America the last few years and how I feel that the changing business model of stand up comedy will in time, have a negative impact on the quality and growth of the art of stand up comedy.  I made some forceful points, as I tend to because, although I love performing stand up comedy, I have little love for the business of stand up comedy.  Agree or disagree with me I am doing it so I have a somewhat valid first person experience to draw on when I write complaints.

Well, on the post a man named “Bob Hellener” introduced himself to me – here was his first comment:

Have you stopped to think that perhaps you haven’t gotten very far because you’re not as funny as you think you are?  There are plenty of comedians who’ve been doing comedy for much less than eight years who are setting the world on fire.

Now I approved his comment because, despite the lack of social graces in the first part I thought that maybe it was someone with a valid point to share and I did not want to censor dialogue in the name of saving face.  What then occurred was a sad man who had no outlet for his own frustrations or jealousies and he began to pour forth comments and insults with increasing hostility, never able to actually provide support or evidence for any of his statements (he still has yet to name one inexperienced comedian “setting the world on fire,” one of a dozen unsubstantiated claims he made).  Here is one of the key ones:

You have no idea who I am.  But, for purposes of this discussion, that is of no importance.  What’s truly sad, but in this case laughable, is that without changing your material one iota, you could be much more successful – artistically, financially, and by any criteria that you could want.  But instead, because of your sanctimonious, holier than thou, arrogant attitude, you will unfortunately never be able to break out of the cellar of comedy.  You clearly have a tremendous amount of time on your hands.  It’s truly unfortunate that you spend it criticizing other, highly successful artists and attempting to dictate what kind of art they should produce, instead of improving your own.  You could change your attitude, and be more successful, but you won’t.  You know too much, but not enough.  You are unteachable.  You will be gone from the comedy scene within a year.  And, quite honestly, that will be good riddance.

For a more complete idea of just how absurd this was refer to the link below:

https://jlcauvin.com/?p=2304

As the weeks went on “Bob” continued to post comments on my blogs (including posts that were already a couple of weeks old) on things ranging from my shows to my weight – it was like arguing with a teenage girl with special needs.  I then offered to meet “Bob” at a comedy show and allow him to perform to teach me the finer points of being a comedian (because you know a guy who anonymously posts on blogs certainly is brave enough to take some really exciting chances on stage).  If he did not show up, however (and this was not an invitation to violence) I promised I would spam all his future comments.  Well, he did not show up so I kept my word.  But that did not stop “Bob” from posting comments on new and old posts.  Here are some of his comments that never saw the light of day outside of my spam folder that he still insisted on posting:

“How dare you block my comments you coward!” – posted at 5:55 am on a Sunday

“Savor it because it will never happen again” – in response to my joy at having 5 great shows in Philly

I wracked my brain to figure out who it could be and most comedians kept coming up with the same name as to who Bob Hellener actually was:  a mental patient named Dan Nainan.

THE CASE AGAINST DAN NAINAN

If you are a comedian in NYC or DC or a tech company with a terrible sense of humor you probably know the name Dan Nainan.  He is a comedian who defines sour grapes.  And for the purposes of this argument I will accept all that Dan says to be true about his comedy career.  Dan is a successful corporate comedian who consistently gets paid very well by doing shows, the overwhelming majority of which appear to be for tech companies in Asia, which, as everyone knows, is a sector of the globe notorious for their sense of humor and advancement of comedy.  The reason I am aware of Dan’s exploits is because he sends comedians that he deems have insulted or offended him occasional e-mails that brag about how much he is getting paid halfway around the world to do comedy.  He is like a modern day Roman Polanski – forced into exile for raping Americans’ sense of humor.

Here are the two main topics he mentions, like a boilerplate document, in his e-mails:

  • comedians in NY are fighting for cheap spots at cocaine-riddled comedy club
  • He is living a life of luxury around the globe performing his comedy

But in a recent string of e-mails to a friend of mine he recently wrote too much.  The words read too much like a comedy villain I was all too familiar with:

My bookings in Singapore and Malaysia last week, and Dubai, Hong Kong, Trinidad, Tobago earlier this year, and India, Japan, Aruba, Netherlands, South Africa and elsewhere, have all came about because of my YouTube and my Internet presence, not because of some chimp like Roger Paul or Jason Steinberg.  Steinberg tried for a year to get me to sign with him – yeah right, pay him 15 percent of a $15,000 corporate show that he didn’t even get me, just so he can get me on Craig Ferguson.  Please. (I was on Ferguson and Hellener kept trying to diminish it)

As I’ve mentioned, my YouTube video has gotten me booked all over the United States and the globe for high-paying shows.  What do the TV credits get your friends?  Hosting spots at Wisecrackers in Scranton, Pennsylvania? Unbelievable. (I’m featuring in Scranton in August and I have the aforementioned TV credit)

For every chump like you, there are many who contact me for advice – comedy has been fantastic to me and as a result I feel the obligation to give back.  You can’t possibly imagine how many aspiring comedians I have helped.  There’s so much you don’t know about this business that you could, but you and your buddies are so closed off and you think you know everything – you know too much but not enough – you are unteachable.  Fine – less competition for me. (reads almost like a cut and paste job from the Hellener comment I posted above)

Given these quotes, among others, it is pretty damn obvious that Bob Hellener is actually Dan Nainan.  Or there are two dumb, unfunny assholes separated at birth.

He has e-mailed many other comedians using different e-mails and I guess Bob Hellener is his newest.  He signs off his e-mails “sent from my ridiculously overpriced iPad 2” – there are literally millions of teenage girls and Porsche drivers who are more secure about themselves than Dan Nainan.  If you come off as insecure to a roomful of comedians there is something truly wrong with you.  So with a guilty verdict of Dan Nainan I thought it appropriate for me to write him a victim impact statement.  It will probably not affect his sentencing because he is already an exiled comedian in America, but here it is anyway:

Dear Dan Bob Hellener Nainan,

The last couple of months you have caused me a decent amount of frustration,  first, with your inability to argue points coherently on my website because you simply had an agenda to eventually insult me and second, with your false identity.  But now that we know who you are I feel it is necessary to tell you a few things.

Comedy is an art form first, and a business second.  Every great comedian in America came up the tough way.  From Lenny Bruce to Bill Cosby to Richard Pryor to Jerry Seinfeld to Chris Rock to Louis CK to Patrice O’Neal, they all did it a certain way.  They hustled, struggled and fought their way up by simply becoming great comedians in the greatest comedy market in the world.  America may not export as much today as it once did in many industries, but in comedy we are still king.  The crucible of American comedy is not for the faint of heart.  It is frustrating and disappointing.  And I will say what you will inevitably say – I will probably not achieve the level of success I hope for.  But at least I am trying and fighting.  My ceiling is Chris Rock.  It is lofty at best and completely delusional at worst.  But you have already set your comedy ceiling at David Hasselhoff.  You have fled to foreign markets (and markets not really known for their depth or wealth of humor) to avoid being a disappointed and unsuccessful loser.  Because American comedy has already spit you out.

Perhaps you will claim to be a clean comedian and that has hurt you.  Jerry Seinfeld was clean an he did alright.

Perhaps you will say the business is too bitter and jaded to accept someone who haters call a “hack.”  Bill Engvall seems to be doing alright.

The truth is you are the worst thing a comedian can be – a coward – and no amount of money or filet mignon can change that.  You anonymously write on blogs, you’ve told the same jokes your entire career (I may have some multi-racial humor in my set, but even in my first weeks of performing comedy in 2003 I knew not to write something as awful as your “I am Indian and Japanese, so I buy my sushi at 7-11” gem), and you brag to people who are financially less secure than you (assuming you tell the truth, which is sometimes hard to believe from someone with multiple Internet identities) to validate yourself for basically becoming a corporate lackey with Power Point instead of an artist.

Your comedy reminds me of the show Alf.  I thought it was hysterical when I was young, but as I matured it turns out I no longer found it funny.  And then as more time went on I realized I did not even think it was that funny when I was young.  You have every excuse for why you are not embraced by the American comedy community but the two main ones are you are not funny and you are a terrible, possibly unstable, person.  So continue to bring up gigs or tv spots as weapons against me and other comedians who are fighting the good fight.  You wreak of sour grapes.   People openly speak about your e-mail harassment of Eddie Brill (the Letterman booker) and of Marc Maron (the booker of the WTF podcast) so don’t act like you do not want to be part of, and embraced by, the comedy community.  You just know that between your shitty routine and your cowardly form of bridge burning you never will be.

You may get paid well, you may have legions of fans in places where comedy is an afterthought and you may have the word comedian on every one of your YouTube videos, but you are no comedian.  You are a coward.  I will never mention you or your pseudonyms on anything I write ever again because I don’t want you to infect actual comedy fans as a result of something I do.  You are someone with real mental problems beyond a lame sense of humor.  Many comedians (in between bouts of laughter) have said that you have threatened them physically (from the safety of the Internet), you sent one comedian a video of you cutting a steak to prove how awesome your life is and you create false identities to criticize people.  I’d be meaner in this post but even I can recognize when someone is too pathetic to insult.

But for everyone who is still curious about Dan I will post one more thing on his behalf.  Below is the link for a mentorship/teaching offer he has for aspiring comedians.  Turns out Dan subscribes to that old saying, “Those that can’t do, teach.”

http://vocationvacations.com/DreamJobHolidays/dan-nainan.php

The End Of The Diet Jordan Era

Yesterday I experienced a joy from an NBA game that I had not felt since seeing Paul Millsap drop 46 points on the Miami Heat In November.  I watched Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers get torched by the Dallas Mavericks, effectively ending the Kobe Bryant, a/k/a Diet Jordan, era in the NBA.  The first joy was in seeing the Lakers lose badly.  If we cannot see video of Seal Team 6 invading Bin Laden’s compound, then I suppose seeing Jason Terry, Peja Stojakovich and Dirk Nowitzki (“an international coalition of the willing” if you will) destroy Kobe and Company is a good second best.  But the other part of the defeat that was so great was seeing the increasingly dirty and frustrated play of the Lakers as the game wound down.  First was Lamar Odom’s cheap shot on Dirk Nowitzki, a clear boiling over of the frustration of being the third Laker married to the third Kardashian (oddly, psychologists say that bronze medalists are often happier than silver medalists, but that wannabe Christian Bale, Scott, who is married to Kourtney, seems happier than Lamar).  Then there was Andrew Bynum’s mid air takedown of JJ Barea that will earn Bynum a suspension next season and a prescription of P90X, based on his jersey removal while leaving the court.  I was actually convinced that the game would end with Ron Artest running down the court on a fast break shooting Dallas Mavericks with a handgun like the opening scene in The Last Boy Scout.

Before analyzing the Kobe Era, a moment to reflect on Phil Jackson, the greatest coach of all time in professional sports (to never coach without 2 of the top 5 players in the NBA).  Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen never won without Phil Jackson.  They also entered their prime as basketball players as Phil Jackson showed up.  Ditto for LA.  Shaq, from 2000-2003, was the most dominant physical presence since Wilt Chamberlain and by the third title, Kobe had emerged as the best wing player in the NBA.  They also had Robert Horry, the most clutch role player in NBA history.   But by sheer volume of winning he has to be considered one of the greats.

But now onto the eulogy for the Kobe Bryant era because make no mistake, he is done being the top dog on a title team.  So if in the 2012-2013 season Kobe Bryant is playing with Chris Paul and Dwight Howard or some combination of star power like that, Michael Jordan’s legacy as the single greatest player/winner (all due respect to Bill Russell) is under no threat.  If Michael Jordan had joined the San Antonio Spurs instead of the Washington Wizards in his third career, those would have still been Tim Duncan-led titles.  But let’s not talk about Kobe’s inevitable and impossible quest to pass Michael Jordan.  Let us examine the Kobe era, which Kobe fans would have you believe spanned from 1999 until the day Kobe Bryant dies.  I would argue that, if I were generous, the Kobe Era int he NBA was from 2003 to 2009.  But whether you agree on these years or not, a reasonable person should agree that it is over now.

Kobe – The Early Years

Everyone knows about Lebron’s “Decision” but have people forgotten how Kobe refused to go to Charlotte and said he would only play for the LA Lakers?  Kobe fans like to mythologize or lie and pretend that teams “passed” on Kobe, but most teams were scared off by the threat of a petulant 18 year old to not sign with anyone besides the Lakers.  Lebron told Cleveland to fu*k off after 7 seasons.  Kobe told Charlotte to fu*k off on day 1.

Kobe – The Shaq Years

One of the keys to making the Shaq-Kobe alliance was Phil Jackson’s admission that he needed to handle Kobe with kid gloves for the early stage of his career.  That nursery school treatment of his fragile ego (ahem, I mean competitive fire) plus playing alongside the most physically dominant player since Wilt Chamberlain allowed Kobe to get three titles.  Shaq collected three Finals MVP trophies, deservingly so, but I will admit, that by the third title they had gone from 1, 2 to 1A, 1B.  But Kobe, like any Shakespearean or Disney villain, decided that after 4 straight trips to the NBA Finals it was time to make the Lakers decide between Shaq and Kobe (team first, right?).  So the Lakers picked wisely in the long run (I will admit) by sticking with the younger player less likely to pack on pounds.

The Kobe Only Years (a/k/a What Lebron took the Cavs to the Finals with in 2007)

2004-05 – 37-45 (missed playoffs, but beat a rape charge)

2005-06 45-37 (1st round loss to the Phoenix Suns)

Let’s not forget that the series against the Suns went 7 games and Kobe quit during the second half against the Suns (taking 3 shots the entire second half, apparently to prove that a shi*ty team would lose without it’s best player – very Jordan-esque).

The Pau Gasol Years (2006-2009)

Kobe finally got an All Star big man to compliment him again (but fortunately not to overshadow him).  Three trips to the finals (with another memorable quit performance when Paul Pierce took Kobe’s will and the decisive Game 5 in 2008.  By the way that same year Lebron led Mo Williams and Anderson Verajao 7 games against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals).  But then Kobe took the title in 2009 and 2010, but taken in the context of 2011 there are a couple of reasons why I think the Kobe era (as individual best player) cannot be reasonably extended beyond the 2009 victory (even though I personally think it ended the year LeBron won his first MVP in 2008-09).

First, look at the box scores of the 2010 Finals.  Kobe averaged 28 pts per game on 40.5% FG shooting.  Meanwhile, Pau Gasol, who led the Lakers in minutes that series and had to do battle with Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins inside led the series in rebounding, blocked shots, was second on the Lakers in scoring and shot 48% from the field.  Not to mention that Kobe shot 6-24 from the field in the decisive Game 7.  Meanwhile Lebron, who was leading the squad of diabetically-fat Shaq & Co. had just had back-to-back Jordan-prime level seasons.  (Yes he got blasted from the playoffs by the Celtics and yes he appeared to quit on his team in the final game – making Kobe the 2-1 split decision winner in games quit), but based on many trips to Cleveland there really appeared to have been truth to the “Delonte West, or one of his personalities, fu*ked Lebron’s crazy mom” rumors.  Imagine Karl Malone had fu*ked Kobe’s wife in 2004 when he was “hunting little Mexican girls.”  I bet Kobe would have more than 2 quits under his belt.

But the Mavericks series that just ended really exposed the end of the Kobe era.  Admittedly his supporting cast played terribly.  But there was not even a fight.  The lesson – when Kobe has the supporting cast he can be a champion – this is true of any champion, so this is not a shot at Kobe.  But when Kobe has had underperforming supporting casts (2004-05, 05-06, 10-11) he lies down with the rest of his team.  He may get his stats, but unlike Magic Johnson or LeBron James, or obviously Michael Jordan, his stats do not necessarily make those around him better.

2009-Present – The Lebron James Era

I believe LeBron James is the most dominant player in the NBA and has been for the last three years.  The same way from 2000-2003 Shaq may not have been the “most skilled” player on his tea or the league, he was the single best player in the league during that span based on the simple criteria “no one can guard him or stop him.”  It cannot be understated how awful LeBron’s supporting cast was.  He took the equivalent of Kobe’s 2004-06 team (yes Smush Parker and Chris Mihm, but also Lamar Odom was on the team too) to an NBA Finals appearance and twice had the best regular season record in the league.  He left Cleveland ringless and in a poor fashion to say the least, but remove Kobe from the 2009/09 Lakers you have a 50 win playoff team (in case you doubt me from 2004 to 2006 Pau Gasol won between 45 and 50 games each year as the star for the Memphis Grizzlies).  Remove LeBron from a 66 win Cleveland Cavaliers team and you have… well you have the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers.

Now LeBron decided to take his talents to South Beach, probably for two reasons.  One is that many people refused to acknowledge his greatness without the currency of championships.  Fair enough I suppose.  The other is he wanted to play with his friends.  Sort of lame in the Michael Jordan model of champions.  But neither of these things stop LeBron from being the single most impressive force in the NBA today.  And for the next several years it will be his league, no matter who they give MVP trophies to.

To put it into James Bond terms – Michael Jordan is Sean Connery, Kobe Is Roger Moore and LeBron James is Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig (in Casino Royale only) combined.  And yes, I think we need to acknowledge Tim Duncan here as a 4 time champion so he is George Lazenby.

Why Kobe is Diet Jordan

With the passing of the Kobe Era I feel it is time for me to acknowledge something out of Kobe’s control.  He grew up in the shadow of the NBA’s greatest player, playing the same position as MJ.  If he played small forward, or point guard or power forward there would have been room for him to carve out his own image and transform the position.  But playing shooting guard he just played out as the greatest Michale Jordan cover band of all time.  For example, if someone was a Whitney Houston impersonator in Las Vegas, they would have to have incredible vocal talent.  But they would still not quite be Whitney Houston.  That is how I look at Kobe.  He is better than almost anyone in NBA history (but I would have him behind both Jordan and Lebron), but his comparison is to the greatest and he is wanting.  Fewer titles, fewer Finals MVPs, fewer regular season MVPs (I am making this comparison because they have had equal career totals – comparisons with LeBron on career statistical measures is not realistic yet) more games quit and lower career averages.  Plus, all his copycatting of MJ and most awfully the “Jaw Face” is far inferior to “the tongue.”

So Kobe had a great career and was the closest thing we had to Jordan since Jordan.   But LeBron is a new mold of player – a sort of genetic hybrid, evolutionary step forward of Karl Malone and Magic Johnson.  Kobe was a descendant of Jordan and a worthy heir, but not quite as good as the original.  That said, if Kobe’s Hall of Fame speech is a list of people he didn’t like I will start booing and chanting “MJ!”

But in case you forgot, there is one other reason Kobe can never be as great as Michael Jordan…

How To Fail In Comedy While Really Trying –…

As much as  I complain about being a comedian (literally the lyrics of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top” feel like a diary of my comedy career), it is probably tougher being in musical theater.  I mean, first there’s telling your parents that you are gay, so that is tough in many cases, but there is also an embarrassing lack of integrity.  It seems, despite being a cherished art form in this country’s history, you can barely make a musical today unless it is based on a pre-existing work and/or if you have some marginal to well-known celebrity in at least one of the roles.  I am sure if I were a talented singer/actor I’d be sort of disappointed that the only things available to me were Fast and Furious The Musical or South Pacific starring Lil’ Wayne.  But Broadway musicals still have comedy beat in one aspect.  Because they charge so much per ticket, they actually require people to laugh.  At $10 a ticket, the joke is on us, at $150 a ticket the joke is on the audience if they don’t laugh.  In a modification of the old saying about banks “If you pay $10 to watch a performance and you don’t like it the performer has the problem.  If you pay $150 per ticket and you don’t like it, you have the problem.”

In comedy, we give our product away for free so often (often to no avail) that we have helped devalue it.  Sort of like women’s vaginas this decade.  A slightly revealed ankle in 1940 had more value than a fully exposed woman in 2011 because the market has been flooded with them (of course what I mean is that there has been a great advancement in the empowerment of women).

Part of the problem is that comedy shows can be very expensive with the drink minimums, but the percentage of the bill that goes to the comedy is the part that influences the crowd.  If the bill were 100% toward the show, there might be a different mentality, but when you are being served overpriced drinks, which account for no less than 50% of your bill, the mindset is “Man, that $15 dollar show sucked, and $22 for two drinks!”  There is no need for one to justify paying fifteen dollars by laughing extra, the way there is for a $100 ticket on Broadway.  It should be noted here that The Book of Mormon, currently on Broadway is an exception to this, in that you are unlikely to find any stand up comedy in New York funnier than that musical.

So the comedy business in many ways has contributed to its own status as the second lowest art form, just ahead of poetry slamming.  But I don’t think people  realize how emblematic of America’s capitalistic society comedy is, at least in one significant aspect.  The feature act, normally the middle act at clubs around the country, is like the middle class laborer in America.  And it is a fading prospect for steady work in comedy.

If comedy were politics then presidential candidates would talk about supporting the feature acts.  They are literally the middle class in comedy.  And like the middle class in America, the feature is important to keep the machine going, but wholly irrelevant when it comes to actual business planning.  For example, anecdotal evidence has revealed to me that 20 years ago feature acts were getting $100 per set (in many cases actually more than this during the comedy boom of the late 1980s).  Guess what features get paid per set today – $100.  Is there any job in America where making the same salary (not in adjusted dollars, but the actual same salary) for 20 years is acceptable?

Here is why feature work is important – it helps comedians get good the old-fashioned way – through experience at clubs in front of different crowds.  It allows emerging comedians to get paid and continue to work and it ensures that comedy will have an ever ready supply of comedians who have honed their skills doing actual stand up comedy, rather than by being in movies or on reality television shows.   I am only 8 years into comedy, so I have no illusions that I have enough experience to “tell it like it is” in comedy, but I have been travelling a fair amount and I am smart, so that is at least a start.  Here are two stories that will help you realize what I am beginning to realize, that the feature act is merely the Wisconsin public school teacher of the comedy business.

A year ago I travelled to Detroit to feature at a club.  The terms of the feature work were as follows: $300 for 5 shows, no hotel room provided.  To translate for non-comedians this is like saying: “We can offer you the job you are looking for, but there will be no benefits, the salary is 40% lower than the industry base rate and you will have to lick my ball bag at least twice a week.”  If an employer offered you those details you would  infer that the job was not actually available and you were being pranked or messed with.

Well I took the job because (like Americans who believe in the reality of the American Dream) I have a foolishly optimistic side of me that believes that by meeting different club owners and performing all over the country, sometimes at a loss financially, I will eventually become a better comedian and gain networking opportunities in the business.  So I went to Detroit by Amtrak (17 hours), stayed in a very cheap hotel and took Greyhound bus back to NYC (18 hours).  For that trip I netted $13.  It was one of the proudest moments of my career because I felt like I had just stuck it to the man.  But in reality I had done nothing but waste my time.  It felt like that moment when Jerry Maguire leaves his office and believes that many will follow him, only to find out that Renee Zellweger is the only one.  The truth is I was never wanted at the club, nor is any other feature act worth his salt who does not live in that town.  For the record, attendance for the weekend was well over 1000 people so I am pretty sure twenty cents per person would not have been a major business sacrifice to ensure the standard 1988 rate for a feature act (I just realized that my next sketch may have to be a UNICEF or ASPCA style ad for comedians – “For just twenty cents a customer, you too can ensure that this comedian will not have to be completely embarrassed at school alumni or family functions.  In the arms ooooooof an aaaaangel…”

 Another club experience demonstrates that sometimes a club will not even have the decency to tell you that they are screwing you when you take a job.  I travelled to an audition at a club in Chicago on short notice on my own dime.  It was a fairly expensive plane ride and I had to put myself up in a hotel, but I have enough experience and confidence in my material to do those sort of things.  I performed for a half hour on the show and did very well.  I was told that the booker enjoyed my set and I could expect work out of it as a feature at their clubs (I had already asked for this assurance before booking my flight).  Well, after various immediate emails and prompt replies regarding payment for my performance at the audition, the line went silent.  It has now been 9 months since I received a reply to an e-mail (which means approximately 15 unanswered booking inquiries – including – “Please save me the trouble of not e-mailing you if work is not available – no hard feelings, just want to know where I stand.”  It is one thing if you do not think my comedy is worthy, but as someone who has worked the club, even if just for one show, I should be accorded the dignity and respect of a response.  But the irony that this showed me is that to some clubs the most important person is the headliner and the least important person is any other comedian that is not headlining.  This feels more like a story of a bitter Hollywood writer than a middle stand up comedian, but comedy is becoming more Hollywood anyway so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the shit-eating-grin  has migrated to the heartland.

Now don’t get me wrong there are definitely some club that get good comedians booked for shows and take an interest in the overall quality of the show, not just the headliner.  But there are still a lot of terrible emcees and features out there for sure – and the message is “who cares?”  The same way a majority of Americans vote with their wallets when push comes to shove, clubs and audiences vote with the headliner

But this post is not without a slightly positive story.  I was booked to emcee shows for Patrice O’Neal at the DC Improv, which I just finished up Sunday.  It turns out he had requested me.  That felt great, to have one of the current giants of stand up comedy request me because he liked the job I did last August when I opened for him.  But despite my high opinion of my own comedy (and it is substantial) I might not have stood out or have been as memorable as an emcee if other clubs around the country were lining up solid emcees for their shows.  This exchange solidified to me that clubs are not putting a premium on developing emcees and features (if I were making an American analogy – this is the outsourcing of products to China or India, based solely on cost, regardless of quality or customer satisfaction, i.e. even Apple might not use China if every fifth iPod were broken).  I have travelled many clubs and I have seen a good share of awful emcees and features.  This is a travesty.  There are a lot of talented comedians out there who are not given financial incentive to travel by clubs, and many clubs have no desire to book quality out-of-town comedians because it might cost $100-$200 more per week than the local guy they have do jokes (when he is not making the mozzarella sticks in the back).

The people who suffer are audiences who want to see good comedy and are not, much like my observation in my recent Charlie Sheen post, just the fame hungry buffoons that are multiplying like Gremlins.  The good fans then learn to pursue only well-established comedians they like or ignore the club when they book famous people who are not funny.  But the no name people, trying to make a name for themselves through old fashioned stand up are not bookable acts because the club has established a tradition of not consistently booking funny people for the “no name” spots.  It is sort of a chicken-or-the-egg scenario, did clubs get lazy or did people get stupid first, but either way, it is hurting the grass roots of comedy.   Specific comedians will always have fans, but the business will only truly thrive if clubs foster fans of comedy, not just comedians.

The other people who suffer are comedians.  It is becoming harder, both due to volume of comedians and lack of nurturing on the part of the establishment to make a living being a feature act. In fact it is actually impossible.  So, instead of creating a new class of headliners through old fashioned work and opportunity you have comedians trying to become YouTube sensations or focus more on acting (www.YouTube.com/JLCauvin).  That way, when they have the fame, it won’t matter how good their stand up actually is – they will be headliners.   Simultaneously more and more headliners bring their own opening act, which further cuts down on opportunities for “freelance” comedians if you will.  Now I have seen a couple of comedians bring their own feature because they are dominated by insecurities and want to know the level of the feature so they can assure themselves that they can surpass it, but a majority bring their own feature because they do not seem to trust the clubs to book solid people in front of them.  And why should they?

I have been told that a few years ago some comedians in NYC tried to start a Union for comedians.  I guess it failed because you would need to have exactly the things that are lacking in America today:

1) The upper class would have to give a shit.  Bill Burr, Chris Rock, Dave Attell, etc. would have to be on the picket lines along with everyone else.  But they, rightfully so, would feel that they have paid their dues (some in a much more encouraging time for stand up) and would probably not.

2) People outside of the industry would have to give a shit.  Probably wouldn’t happen.  Not while Adam Sandler and Tyler Perry are still successful filmmakers.

3) Comedians would have to accept that the America Dream is a fantasy and not a blueprint of success.  Better pay and a higher standard of quality for emcee and feature performers would have a good impact because for a majority of comedians this is as high as they should aspire to.  It is not mathematically possible for all features to become headliners.  But if people continue to think that the corner office and the Greenwich house will be theirs eventually then they will never fight the fight that they are currently losing.  That is why so many blue collar people seem to be anti-Union and why so many comedians don’t seem to give a shit about the highway robbery that is occurring.

We have a society now where news organizations care about ratings above information, where companies care more about stock prices than workers and products and a comedy business that only cares about comedy when it is convenient.  Hopefully some of these things change.  This just in – I was just told that for my upcoming gigs in New Haven, CT I will be receiving a hotel room.  That was fast.

Charlie Sheen – The Comedy America Deserves

The Twitterverse has been buzzing with Charlie Sheen’s terrible comedy performance last night in Detroit (seriously hasn’t that city suffered enough?).  Well, apparently the “My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option” was not the groundbreaking comedy experience that so many stupid, fame-hungry, comedy-ignorant people were hoping for.  But, just like the Rolling Stones said, they may not have gotten what they wanted, but they got what they needed.  Or at least deserved.  OK, so that is not exactly a Rolling Stones song anymore.  Just keep reading.

For me, the Charlie Sheen tour represents a new low for comedy in America, but also something else: it is the convergence of that low with America’s morbid new pastime: voyeuristic fascination with self-destruction.

Starting with comedy, his tour sold out across America because of a series of bizarre (and admittedly quite funny – both intentionally and unintentionally) interviews he did following his firing from CBS’ “comedy” Two and a Half Men.  Well, mainstream America never had the most sophisticated sense of humor, but several things in the last several years have further eroded that sense of humor.  From America’s Home Videos (I will admit – I enjoyed it when I was 10) to YouTube, ridicule and bodily harm have increasingly replaced nuance and creativity as the humor America responds to.  Shots to the nuts have made Adam Sandler and Kevin James bankable movie stars and when people turn to their computers they seem more likely to laugh at someone’s expense than at someone’s creativity.

Couple that with America’s increasing, almost faith-based devotion to famous people, irrespective of talent or quality, and you have the two main ingredients in the recipe that is hurting comedy.  One of my favorite comments I received from a fan in Iowa last month was, “You guys were great and I had never heard of you.  Last month I came with my girlfriend to see Pauly Shore and he sucked.”  That was just one man’s opinion, but it illistrates something larger that I see in comedy.  Comedy clubs, like much of corporate America, are increasingly more concerned with the bottom line at the expense of the quality of their product and the workers that provide it.   Clubs are more than willing to bring in acts like Pauly Shore, largely on name recognition alone because they will fill seats.  However, what happens is that clubs continue to bring in acts solely on name recognition, so they continue to draw reality show, fame-hungry morons to their clubs, but the real, substantive comedy fans stop going, except to see acts they already know.  Comedians in my position are reliant on real comedy fans to build their base.  People who like famous people will not come to see me perform.  People who are real comedy fans and looking to find new voices and new perspectives will, but they cannot if they stay home because they have been turned off by the Steve-Os of the world.

So Charlie Sheen represents the apex of these trends in comedy: fame-hungry people who laugh at train wrecks.  But there is a more insidious side to these crowds as well.

I was recently watching an ESPN 30 For 30 documentary about June 17, 1994.  It was a day with an incredible mix of high profile sporting events, but the overwhelming headliner of the day was the infamous White Bronco Chase featuring a suicidal OJ Simpson.   I remember sitting in a hotel in Evanston, Ill. for my brother’s college graduation watching the Knicks-Rockets NBA finals game with my Patrick Ewing-worshipping family and being interrupted by the car chase.  But what I did not realize at the time, but was made clear from the documentary, was that was the turning point for American popular culture.  If there is any moment where our voyeurism hit an awful point of no return it was that car chase.  People were stopping their cars on highways in LA to watch the chase and every news network was covering it.  I believe that it was simply with the hope of catching a suicide of a famous person on camera.  It was intense, but it was also shameless and disgusting.  If a no-name serial killer were fleeing they would not have covered it so intensely, but to see a famous person flee justice and maybe kill himself – what a rare chance on television!

Fast forward – reality television now features people having sex on camera (Real World, Jersey Shore), people dying (Deadliest Catch and the new reality show “Coal” which is less “appreciate the working man” and more “hopefully we can see poor people die or get in dangerous situations”), and just generally elevating and tearing down insignificant people.

Well, once again Charlie Sheen is at the peak of this as well.  He is a drug-addicted, crazy ego maniac.  People tune in to him to see him rant, but also to possibly see him self-destruct fatally.

Charlie Sheen represents the combination of the worst trends in comedy and in our popular culture.  And after raising him up, people are now eager to boo him and act as if they are not getting exactly what they paid for.  Because if there is a national pastime in this country it is not baseball or football; it is raising someone up beyond where they should be and then tearing them down to lower than they deserve to be.  And now I am sure all the “comedy fans” who have tickets to upcoming Sheen shows are already rationalizing  their purchase by saying – “I hear he sucks.  I can’t wait to boo the dude!”

I feel the same way about people who go to see Charlie Sheen’s tour that I do about people who vote for Sarah Palin.  If you support it then you, more than anyone, actually deserve to get what you want.  Good luck to everyone with tickets.

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Arby’s Is a Huge Piece of Sh*t

Well, I hoped to write my first blog of the week tomorrow about Charlie Sheen, but due to emergency circumstances I have to write today.  I arrived at the Microtel (the actual name of my hotel)in Des Moines this afternoon.  Despite the quite comfy accommodations, I was hoping to be near a shopping mall or at least a strip mall, but instead I am across a highway from a gas station.  The only two eateries near me and that won’t get me killed traversing a highway are Ruby Tuesdays (can’t eat every lunch and dinner there – I’m not made of money!) and Arby’s.

As I write this I just finished a “meal” at Arby’s.  It was the second time I have ever been to an Arby’s because, like the first time, I was compelled to by lack of access to another cheap restaurant or a bag of garbage.  I went in, starving and saw that I was the only one there.  I looked around to make sure there was not a hostage situation or something going on and then I realized it was worse than that – the cashier was a Western European Unibrow chick with limited English skills and even more limited Arby’s skills.  And she was a trainee.   If she was at least a south of the border immigrant I could deal with that because I have enough exposure to them in NYC, but this chick felt alien to me.

So 54 minutes after placing my order I got my meal and Unibrow gave me a knife and fork, possibly for my soda, or however they eat in Unibrowistan.  If you do not know about Arby’s they are the fast food franchise that lost a bet and were forced to dedicate themselves to the roast beef sandwich.  As the fry accompaniment they have decided to go with curly fries.  Here are the problems with this:

  • Roast beef, unlike hamburgers cannot be replicated to resemble their best product outside the fast food context.  A Burger King hamburger is still tasty, even if they use chemicals to get there, but Arby’s awful, slimy, undercooked roast beef will never come within 1000 miles of a Boar’s Head roast beef sandwich from a deli.  They add some awful cheddar cheese and a watery bbq sauce (I think that is what it was).
  • They dedicated their whole store to this awful “raost beef.”  By comparison, Chic Fil-A dedicated themselves to preventing gay marriage and chicken – a much more versatile meat product for fast food purposes.  They also added the under-used but excellent waffle fries to get privide support to the chicken, which brings me to Arby’s 2nd flaw…
  • Curly fries suck.  They were cool in college when the dining hall or snack bar would surprise you, just for variety, but they suck.  Curly fries were the highlight of this awful meal, however, so it was like Brook Lopez on the pre-Deron Williams Nets, a player getting his because of the terrible circumstances he found himself in.

And for the next 5 days I will be held hostage by Arby’s.  There is nothing around here.  It is like I am Johnny Fontaine and Arby’s in Woltz, the producer who denied him work in The Godfather out of spite.  I am surrounded by fields and highways.  I guess I will have to stick a horse’s head in Unibrow chick’s bed to get another cheap restaurant around here.

Economics For Dummies

I received a B in Economics 101 in college.  I never took another economics class.  I took calculus in high school and have never done anything above algebra since then.  My brain over the last several years has basically been conditioned to say funny things or things I think are funny.  So I never expected to be able to synthesize the big economic events that have taken place in the United States over the last few years.  Except for the fact that I have done some reading and have looked at the obvious.  So why is everything so hard for people to see and who is to blame for the predicament?  Well there are only three possible reasons: people don’t read, people are liars or people don’t care.

I was never much of a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe in my lifetime, without major significant changes to our economic and political systems, the United States will fall and fall hard in world standing (except in our own collective consciousness).  I fall short of saying there will be a revolution, but something close will occur.

What is happening across the Middle East right now, in my estimation from what I have read and seen is not so much about some anti-religious fervor or some clamoring for USA-style democracy, but more about people not being able to share in some form of economic prosperity.  Now if the Middle East is rising up having never experienced American level prosperity (but able to learn and see it through the Internet), what will happen in this country when people wake up one day and realize that they cannot get what they once believed was a right, or at least a viable opportunity?  Better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, but NOT better to have once been prosperous and realize you aren’t anymore.  The American Dream is moving towards becoming the American Lottery Ticket – it can happen, but it is no longer the odds-on-favorite for a have-not who works hard.  If you are born poor, odds are you will die poor, regardless of how hard you work.  But more than that, this is the generation that is going to be dumber and poorer than its parents’ generation.

In this country we have video games, flat screen televisions, reality television, iPods and a million other gadgets that, despite their considerable cost, have become must-haves from the rich to the barely scraping by.  And even newsworthy issues that seem so divisive, like gay rights, abortion, even war all are mere distractions compared to the economic disparity that is occurring in our country.  I know as a heterosexual man who has never served in the military it may seem wrong to be so dismissive of these issues, but look at any country that has had major uprisings – economics is always what spurs it.  Lack of personal resources.  It just happens that in this country we have all the distractions that come with wealth so there is no massive movement to make issue.  Add up all the people in this country that are gay, having an abortion or in the military and it will still be a smaller number that the people who will be adversely affected by the inequality bomb that will go off without change.  I just always hate how some liberals give a pass to someone who says, “Well sure, I am fiscally conservative, but I am pro choice and pro gay marriage.”  Well all I hear is, “I am OK with corporate America and political whores fu*king over women and gays, whether they have kids and are married or not.”  But here are all the pieces to this puzzle from what I have seen and read:

Companies in the United States used to make things.  They used to have a relationship with workers.  Now the only thing American companies are beholden to are stock prices.  Everything is secondary to stock prices.  Because if a company is successful and productive they can only make stock holders comfortable and CEOS rich, which is not good enough.  But if all else is sacrificed to stock price then that upper crust can become REALLY rich.  How else can one explain how corporate profits hit record highs in 2010, but unemployment did not budge?  But one party will have you believe that more tax cuts and deregulation are needed to improve employment.  So if record profits are not enough to spur employment, the question is how much profit is needed before a company is safe enough to share?

This explosion helped make banking a lot more lucrative than it should be (in addition to an incredible amount of greedy and corrupt individuals).  So you had intelligent people flocking to finance, but not all motivated by a love of numbers, but a love of money.  So when you become an industry attracting disproportionately greedy people, nothing can go wrong, right?  There is a reason everyone is familiar with the stereotype that spawned my comedy bit  “Todd the hedge fund douchebag.”

Meanwhile, since the 198os, big business has been on a two pronged attack to de-unionize workers and curry political favor by investing of money into lobbying efforts (I finally learned this year that the US Chamber of Commerce was not an official body of the government, but an incredibly pro-business lobbying think tank hell hole).  Whether you agree with unions or not (we can all agree that some pensions and benefit plans are too generous and not tenable in this economy), they have always represented a powerful bulwark against corporate overreaching.  Many important worker protections have been brought about because of unions.  And has corporate America (I know that the particular issue in Wisconsin is about government worker unions, but still the GOP has been dedicated to eradicating unions for 30 years) ever shown to act in the benefit of the worker or public in general without prodding or regulation?  Oh, so maybe if we get rid of taxes and unions, maybe THEN corporate America will let us into their party.  I worked at the Bronx DA’s office for 3 1/2 years and anyone who believes this is like a battered spouse who believes this will be the time their husband stops hitting them.  They don’t stop – it only gets worse.

Throw in last year’s Supreme Court Decision in the Citizens United case, which allowed for the flooding of last year’s elections with millions upon millions of anonymous donations from corporations and you have a perfect storm for fu*king over the average American.

Of course this might not be possible without a sizable amount of the population being stupid or apathetic.  So it is not corporate America full on raping the average American in all cases.  It is somewhat consensual.

For example, the Tea Party was brought into life, in part, because of anger against the bank bailouts.  Of course these are the same people that are protesting public sector unions, despite, as one Tea Party protester said when quoted by the New York Times, “I am not sure about all the issues here.”  They are not for the banks, nor are they for union workers.  In other words, they are for whoever the well funded corporate ads tell them to be for, even if they are not sure why.  And to be sure, the Muslim President is on the side of the unions, right?

Or articles I read late last year about Detroit car sales improving.  Great news, right?  Except that, with the exception of the Volt, many of the cars that saw big increases were SUVs.  In America, it seems, everything has become YouTube – our attention span and memory last 5 to 10 minutes at best.  We were going to become leaders in new types of cars, not reliant on oil, but do you think Detroit will really have the foresight for that, if they can jack up stock prices in the short term?  Just today, there were big articles on the price of oil rising because of the unrest in the Middle East.  So now will begin the cry for getting of Middle East oil and Thomas Friedman suggesting gas taxes (a great idea, but one that would probably get President Obama assassinated).  In this country people think with their wallet and fight for their wallet and that is the only way to communicate with people.  If gas were $9 a gallon the people would demand new forms of power for cars.  At $4 a gallon they bitch.  At $2.50 a gallon they shut the fu*k up and drive.  But a gas tax would mean government regulation – boo hoo.  So instead we will wait until the benevolent oil and car companies listen to the market (that they saturate with ads assuring us of their commitment to science and new clean technology to pacify us into silence) to ask for new cars.   We are more likely to run out of oil before that plan would work.

And I have been able to work and go to school and even date people of economic means and one thing I have learned is that many of the people of means in this country do not realize that they are of means.  For example I dated a woman whose family lived in a multi-million dollar home in an affluent neighborhood, owned the property the land was on and lost a ton of money on WorldCom stock.  She insisted that they were upper-middle class, even though by definition, if you are rich enough to have lost a ton of money in the stock market and still own a multi-million dollar home you are not middle anything.  Another time someone mocked a blog of mine encouraging the Obama tax increase for people making $250,000 or more by saying “Oh those people making $250,000 are really making a killing!”  Well, YES!!!!  In the world and in this country, just because you live in an affluent neighborhood or work with even richer people does not mean that making $250,000 as an individual makes you less rich.

Over the last year I have read Winner-Takes-All Politics, The Big Short, the New York Times (particularly columnists Paul Krugman and Bob Herbet- two of the few men I am aware of who seem to have the appropriate level of rage on this topic) regularly and seen the movies Inside Job and Capitalism: A Love Story.  Now some may see this list (which I recommend to everyone reading this) that there is some liberal bias.  But what have I said that is false?  There are basic facts that have happened in this country – CEOS make much more relative to their workforce than they ever had and the top 1% of the country owns a larger portion of the economy than ever before.  And at this time of peak economic inequality in America, corporations have had their handcuffs taken off instead of putting them on – less regulation over the past 30 years, calls for even LESS regulation and lower taxes NOW, Supreme Court decisions allowing a free flow of anonymous, corporate advertising for political candidates and brazen attempts to crush unions for good.  How is this not obvious to everyone?

The problem is that too many people still believe in the American Dream.  It is now more an article of religious faith than reasonable expectation based on fact.  Without that faith all this would be awfully disturbing.  But the Revolution (which will also be pacified by Twitter and Facebook – why do anything when you can just complain?) will have to wait until people can no longer afford their distractions.  And when more people see Inside Job than saw the Justin Bieber movie.

So to answer my question of who it is in this country should be blamed?  All of the above – the stupid people who act and vote against their own interests, the people in political and economic power who lie to us and ourselves for doing and saying nothing while it continues to happen.

The Movies That Explain America

I have a joke about the Rocky films (which has been added to recently) that they can tell us about Race and American History because Rocky is always fighting and defeating  whoever white people fear.  Here is the proof:

1976 & 1979 – post Civil Rights Movement, Rocky defeats an articulate black man

1982 – Rocky defeats an angry urban black male

1985 – Rocky defeats a Communist

1990 – Rocky defeats a redneck (perhaps prescient of Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh)

2006 – Rocky loses to a black man, but with dignity (sort of the foreshadowing of John McCain’s “hey white people we gave it a good try, but you can’t keep darkies down forever”)

My joke was that Rocky will eventually have to fight a gay Arab (with perhaps a Mexican trainer) to continue this trend.

However, the Rocky series also demonstrates an important lesson about gender relations.  When Rocky met his wife Adrian, she was an autistic pet store employee, but thanks to fame and wealth she was able to speak and look prettier and tell Rocky what to do – it really tells you what is possible when a woman gets a taste of money.  When she told Rocky “YOU CAN’T WIN!” in Rocky IV, his response should have been, “Ohhhh, look who can talk all of a sudden – you couldn’t even look me in the eye in ’76, but now you live in a big mansion and you are talking all this sh*t!”

Well, Rocky now has some important additions to my list of  movies that explain what this country is all about (and I honestly believe should be shown in schools).  Let’s welcome the Class of 2010:

1) The Distinguished Gentleman– Every year this movie becomes more and more relevant.  I honestly believe it is Eddie Murphy’s best movie and unquestionably his most meaningful (sorry Pluto Nash).  How is this movie not holding a more honored place (maybe because it is a re-make)?  Congress has now become an even bigger joke than it was in this film that is around 15 years old.  Money has become too powerful and we need term limits (for example – politicians that often have made major legacies by helping lots of people, Roosevelt, Kennedy – and even Spitzer, at least as Attorney General of NY,  were independently wealthy).  Money corrupts the process and the only way to curtail that is to eliminate some of the incentive for powerful interests to set up office in Congress.  The quote from TDG that best represents our government:

Jeff Johnson: “With all this money coming from both sides, how does anything ever get done?”

Lobbyist: “It doesn’t.  That’s the beauty of the system.”

2) Wall-E– Though I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda more in 2008, the story of a panda doing kung fu does not have quite the impact of Wall E.  Watching Wall-E and then seeing the greatest innovations in America being, in a nutshell, “Look at the new and awesome ways we have developed for you to get all you want without getting off of your ass” is only a few steps away from living on floating chairs.

3) Inside Job– In comedy it is very popular to bash traditional religion, but no one (sans George Carlin who did it exceedingly well) ever truly attacks the most harmful and invidious faith based ideology in America – capitalism.  This documentary, and my favorite movie of the year so far (that’s right Inception – you are #2) basically shows that the American dream has simply become the “you cannot understand God’s will” of the priesthood that is corporate America.  Unchecked capitalism for the last 30 years (ushered in by Reagan, but guided by two Bushes and a Clinton) has helped bring America down from its pedestal.  But don’t tell Americans that.  The American dream no longer exists.  it is now more like the American lottery or the American delusion.  Corporate America has bought our government and the trajectory of our economy is an ever-widening equality gap. It is a scary and depressing film if you really see what it’s about: that greed runs this country and that too many people are too stupid or too scared to see it.

So there you have it: Rocky, The Distinguished Gentleman, Wall-E and Inside Job.  A round of applause for the Classof 2010.  Now you can skip History class.

Greg Giraldo: An Appreciation

Yesterday my favorite comedian, Greg Giraldo, died from a drug overdose.   The first time I saw Giraldo perform was at the Columbus Funny Bone.  I was in law school at the time and was visiting my then-girlfriend in Ohio.  It was only my second time to a comedy club and he delivered the goods.  The guy clearly had a great mind, but also the talent to convey his strong opinions on subjects without alienating audience members (though at this point he was big enough in comedy to bring some of his own audience).  I would start doing comedy shortly thereafter and Giraldo has been the standard I have measured myself against ever since.

 

He was an attorney before pursuing comedy, but it was not just personal parallels that I felt connected to.  It was the sharp way he took down people and institutions without once seeming like one of the lefty zealot Carlin-wannabe hacks that dominate the political discourse in comedy these days.  To borrow from politics, he thought like a liberal, but seemed to deliver from the center.

What bothers me most about the loss of Giraldo is that I wonder if the comedy climate will allow or develop another comic in the same mold as Giraldo.  More than ever I feel like comedy is about niche markets.  The more people I see getting breaks these days, the more I feel like producers are simply trying to re-create The Hangover – if you look half crazy (Alans), nerdy (Stus) or are very telegenic (Phils) you are even money.  And if you are a social critic, “truth” is acceptable as long as it is is delivered by some far left, “daring and brave” comic who preaches consistently to his own choir, but beyond that – good luck.

But Giraldo was the comic who achieved success while not fitting any mold or focus group.  He could mock the Church in one joke and then mock gay marriage in the next and never feel preachy about either.  He was just a comedian who could look on the handsome side of normal (when not disheveled), speak intelligently without being consistently left or right, and could just write the best fu*king jokes.  He was just so good as a comedian that he did not need a niche.  I hate when I read about him being pigeon-holed as an “insult comic.”  He was so much more than that.  But even Giraldo, a comedian who while alive did not need a niche to make it big, is now being shelved into a niche so he can be neatly categorized in death.

But I wonder if the direction of modern culture will restrict or constrain the next Giraldo (or the next great comedian to be inspired by Giraldo’s voice) from reaching his or her potential.  Much like I never think another Michael Jordan can be fostered because nowadays anyone with Jordan’s talent would be exalted as a superhero from the age of 14 (see LeBron James) and would thereby lack the insecurity, drive, and chip-on-shoulder syndrome that drove Jordan.  Similarly, Giraldo came up in a pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook age in comedy, where a comedian’s mind was his chat room, complete with insecurities and fears, which, for anyone who read the Psychology Today article featuring Giraldo, knows helped drive him, even if he never felt as focused as he should have been.

Now, more than ever, comedy, especially for up and comers, is a big circle jerk of artificial support and well wishing and just generally a cyber world of sycophants.  Anyone who has been to an open mic in NYC knows that there is such a cliquish and tribal nature that is utterly nauseating.    Giraldo was so deep in his own head, at least from what I read about him, that he fell into addiction.  But sometimes I feel like great comedy can only be borne from minds that go into places that most people don’t like venture into.  Instead the comedy world I live in is full of young comics with lots of friends, lots of “likes”, and lots of meaningless drivel.

My favorite compliments I have ever received as a comedian were the few times when people have told me that my comedy reminded them of Greg Giraldo.  It meant that I was funny and what I was saying actually had meaning.  One time a club manager asked me who my favorite comedians were and the first answer I had was Giraldo.  He dismissed my choice and replied that Giraldo was not making nearly the money that some other comedians were making.  And I replied that that spoke poorly of clubs and the business, not of Giraldo.

I abhor people’s inability to have feelings anymore without posting a Tweet or status update.  I felt no need to express what I felt about Giraldo yesterday because anyone who is worth anything intellectually or comedically would mourn the loss of Giraldo and his immense talent and originality.  But since I am a comedian and I had not written anything in a while I figured readers or fans of this blog would not know me as a comedian without knowing how I felt about Giraldo.

I remember when I lived on the Upper West Side a few years ago I was working out at Equinox on 92nd st and Broadway and I saw Greg Giraldo on an elliptical machine.  I had never actually met him and I was very excited.   I smiled at him and pointed as if to say “Hey – I’m a big fan.” He removed his headphones and sort of nodded a thanks and that was the only exchange.  I guess if I had known all his internal struggles I would have told him he was worth more than a drug addiction and that he meant a lot to me and to a lot of people.   He may have just written a joke about some weird, preachy douchebag at the gym.   But maybe he just didn’t hear that enough.