Blog

For Colored Girls vs For White Girls – Who…

The fans of Tyler Perry films and Lena Dunham’s Girls probably do not have a large intersecting area in the Venn Diagram of entertainment.  One is a large black man who is a hero in the black Church community who writes horribly written films for an often neglected section of America (black middle class), starring an underemployed segment of Hollywood actors (black people not named Will or Denzel).  The other is large white woman who is a hero to the white girls who cannot find their footing in this big crazy world and find validation watching a show about unlikeable fu*k-ups.  But she is 26 and to accomplish what she has is impressive.  So Perry and Dunham are both remarkable role models, despite being creators of somewhat cringe-worthy content.

And to be fair, I do not have a gripe about Dunham writing a show that focuses on all white chicks, despite their saturation of music, television and movies.  I already wrote a defense of it here last year.  So that is not the point of this.  In fact I am not sure the point of this except after watching this week’s episode of Girls, I realized that Dunham and Tyler Perry could and should form an alliance.

Watching the episode that just passed it dawned on me that Girls and Tyler Perry’s colossal failure of a film For Colored Girls (not his original work, but definitely his bad film making and terrible adaptation of the source material) provide a duo that basically amounts to a mediocre comedian doing an extended bit called “Black women have problems like this!  But white women have problems like this!” (George Lopez trademark pending).

Taking the four memorable incidents from Perry’s For Colored Girls and the four big shifts for the characters in Girls so far this season let’s learn a little about what it is like to be in these different groups:

The Big Star Gets In Trouble With A Gay Man

Lena Dunham’s character has realized that she cannot date her socially awkward, but significantly more attractive boyfriend (a 5 to her .8), she bangs a black Republican and most shocking, her friend Marni banged her gay ex-boyfriend.  Pretty tragic all around.

Janet Jackson gets HIV from her down low husband and reveals that she knows her husband is gay when she throws her blood test result at the overly muscular man (a favorite of Perry) and says “And take your HIV with you!”

Slight edge to Janet. Ms. Jackson if you’re HIV positive.

Shy Sidekick Has Awkward Sex

David Mamet’s daughter, Eyebrows, loses her virginity at 21 and is dating a guy who turns out to be struggling with life and living out of his car, which is literally between the Holocaust and a nuclear-armed Iran in the fears of Jewish parents.

Yasmine, a dance instructor in FCG, starts dating a seemingly nice gentleman who rapes her on their first date.

Rape is bad, but is it really as sad as a Jewish chick dating an unemployed guy? Edge – Eyebrows

Family Problems For A Supporting Character

The British chick on Girls ends up embarrassing her husband (they got married after a few bad dates as a misplaced plot point) at a dinner in front of her in-laws.  They end up separating after 19 hours of marriage.

Crystal, one of the characters in FCG watches her two children get thrown out of a window to their deaths by her baby daddy.

Had it only be one child, Brit might take this one, but two kids definitely gives the edge to Crystal.

Working a Bad Job

Marni, the attractive one on Girls (though Brit’s rack turned out to be a surprise highlight of the last episode), is really having it rough, from letting a diminutive artist go raw inside of her to having to work as a hostess at a club where men treat her like an attractive hostess at a club.

Thandie Newton’s character in FCG is a sex addict with a past of sex abuse (or possibly just a super-empowered woman) to the point that dudes assume she is a prostitute.

Anytime you let a guy who wears fedoras, or at least seems like a guy who would wear a fedora, bang you – you lose.  Edge – Marni

So after taking in both of these artists, it is clear that Tyer Perry and Lena Dunham need to get together and, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, have a kid together.  They operate on the extremes of Hollywood.  On writes for black Church folk (a group that goes “Ummmm HMMM!” to signify that Perry has validated their beliefs) and the other writes for narcissistic white women (a group that goes “That is so us!” without realizing that just makes them unlikeable tools as well).  And both have ways of capturing the lives of their characters in opposite ways.  For Colored Girls shows that every character has an apocalyptic level event happen to them and can still carry on, while Girls shows that every problem, no matter how small becomes a time for self-discovery and personal enrichment.  It is like these people are from different planets (possibly Mars and Venus).  So let’s get these two crazy kids together and let them have a kid (its celebrity name could be some mix of Dunham and Perry – Dairy!).  So maybe one of you solves a series of tragedies with an empowering group hug and prayer while the other solves a marriage ending after 4 meals with a witty bathtub encounter.  But I still think you can find common ground.  The silver lining to these Hollywood clouds getting together is maybe, just maybe,  if their child is exposed to the horrific writing and tragedies in Perry’s mind with the witty drivel from Dunham’s, he or she might see the world as it actually is (and write an angry blog about it).

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

Blog

11 Best Righteous Prick Episodes of 2012

Why would I conform to a top 10 list, when the whole point of my podcast’s first year was to be defiant and contrary to popular trends?  My first year of podcasting I received just over 10,000 downloads and listens and angered dozens of people.  The idea behind the podcast was not to be another comedian interviewing comedians on their own terms or about themselves, but to debate, challenge and attack things people enjoy.  I wanted it to be funny, but also an extension of my comedy, which I try to make thoughtful and at times combative.   One person told me this year that I treat comedy like a bloodsport and perhaps this is too extreme, but the participation trophy culture both in comedy and in America is the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction in my opinion. So I thank you for supporting my own weekly culture war. I hope you enjoyed and I hope you can help the podcast gain a bigger following (more likes, comments and followers on Podomatic, more subscribers and reviewers on iTunes).  This list should be a good place to start and share with friends.  Happy New Year.

TOP 11 RIGHTEOUS PRICK EPISODES OF 2012

1. The  Louis CK Episode with Josh Homer – The most downloaded episode of my podcast by a mile for good reason – for all the claims of me being a CK hater, Josh and I engage in a very deep discussion of comedy and whether CK is as great in product (and not just work ethic) as people think. (the intro audio is bad, but the main audio is perfect)

 

2. The Lebron James Episode with Eric-I, Brian McGuinness & Rachel Arbeit – I flipped the script and actually defended LeBron James from an onslaught of irrational haters.  A few weeks later, James’Finals MVP validated plenty of what I said.  And you can hear me actually lose my cool for once on the podcast.

3. The Fantasy Football Episode wth Andrew Schwartztol & Luke Younger – I trash fantasy football and it is fun for haters and lovers of the “sport.”

4. The Walking Dead Episode with Dan Soder – I sit and debate with one of NYC’s rising talents (I am categorized as one of NYC’s sinking talents) about a zombie show that is wildly popular, takes place in Atlanta and manages to have about 8% black people.

5. The Adam Carolla Debate Episode with Justin Williams & Katrin Heir – I defend the “Podfather” concerning comments he made about the relative humor of women.  Second most downloaded episode and me at my lawyerly/Carolla-y best.

6. The Porn Episode with Kevin Bartini & Justin Williams – One of the funniest discussions of the year on the podcast concerning the merits of porn.  Highlight: Organic Porn.

7. The Golf Episode with Ray Field – I have never been a golf fan, but I am a huge fan of this fun and light conversation with golf writer Ray Field.

8. The Key and Peele Episode with Josh Homer – a probing discussion of race and comedy about a hit show that should embarrass us all.

9. The Wine Episode with Janelle Carter – I drink wine when socially necessary, but the snobbery surrounding wine culture just comes off as sexual frustration, and i tell that to wine lover/blogger and law school classmate Janelle Carter.

10. The Marathon Episode with Deanna Culbreath – 2012 brought Sandy, which brought disdain for marathoners who wanted to still run the NYC marathon. Well I was 6 months ahead of the curve with this debate versus super-marathon runner Deanna Culbreath.

11. The Chicken Wing Episode with “The Ultimate Wingman” – I almost felt bad about destroying the chicken wing and its number one fan because he was such a nice guest.

Blog

My First Comedy Nightmare!

A couple of nights ago I had one of the most terrifying dreams I can remember having.  The most terrifying of my life was a recurring dream I had when I was about 7 or 8 years old (I had it about ten times) where my Mom gets in a cab to share it with someone and that person, a woman, stabs her to death.  And it happened the same way every time and yet I could never change it.  It got so bad I one time woke up to ask my brother, sleeping in the bed next to mine, if Mom was going to live a long time and what would we do if someone murdered her.  My brother reassured me that our Mother would be around for along time and much to my Mother’s chagrin she has lived long enough to see what her younger son has become.  I know nothing about dream interpretation, but perhaps after seeing my mother murdered by a woman in my dreams as a youth I would never be able to laugh at another woman again, no matter how many times the Huffington Post told me to follower her tweets.

I give you that tiny, disturbing glimpse into my youth for two reasons. One, it sets up how disturbing my dreams can be (pretty bad for a little kid I think, so imagine my adult dreams) so that when I tell you how frightening my recent nightmare was you will grasp the magnitude. The other reason is it gave me a roundabout way to mock female comedians. Sorry ladies. I am trying to get better.

Anyway, the dream began as follows:  I received some e-mails from NYC clubs telling me that their rosters were full, that there were not enough spots for passed comics so that an audition would not be happening or that I would get an audition in the future.  Fair enough. Then I checked and saw that all 40 of my road work e-mails had not been replied to.  Started to feel antsy, so I e-mailed a bunch of friends who run shows at bars and found out most of them had been cancelled.  I then sat down and decided that maybe I should look into auditioning for things, but that I did not know where to look for parts or work and would be lucky to just get extra work.  I then started thinking I should go back to the law and then went into a full blown panic attack when i realized I had been out of practice for almost 4 years which is practically a death sentence to my legal career.  And then I woke up sweating.

This may read like a dream sequence from a comedy about a struggling comedian, but in fact it is terrifying.  Here is why: other than the full blown panic attack, which only occurred when I woke up from the nightmare and could not go back to sleep, the dream was a recap of my previous 48 hours of comedy work search.  In other words, my subconscious went looking for deep darkness in me to haunt me with and it realized that the worst nightmare it could find was the comedy career I am actually living! through.

So thank you stand up comedy, you are officially my nightmare.  Now I have to get Leonardo DiCaprio or Dennis Quaid (Dreamscape people!) to pull me out of this.  Someone spin a microphone and let’s see if it falls.

I’ll be in Indianapolis next week and Syracuse the week after. For more cheer check out my weekly podcast which just cracked the top 40 on Podomatic’s comedy chart.

Merry Christmas.

Blog

Comedy Hits Back in a Big Way

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog called “The Death of Stand Up Comedy” (https://jlcauvin.com/?p=4382).  Well apparently I was wrong because comedy woke up and beat the sh*t out of me in the last 6 days.  So maybe comedy is a zombie – sort of dead, but still able to inflict pain and humiliation.

Last Friday night I worked a room in Connecticut.  It was in the back of a restaurant opening for a ventriloquist.  And that was the highlight.  Upon arriving back in  New York City around 1:30 am I went to a bar near Grand Central Station to have a beer.  About halfway through my beer I felt a rub against my leg.  It was a seductive touch that immediately piqued my interest and seemed exactly like what the doctor ordered after closing my window of hope by opening for a ventriloquist.  Here’s a picture:

This slut tried to pick me up at a bar.

That is right – a dog was getting awfully frisky with me at the bar.  Perhaps it was my animal magnetism, or the peanut butter I use to wash my genitals or he just confused me for a tree to urinate on. Any of these would have been palatable alternatives to the truth.  The truth was that the dog’s 80 year old owner was about to begin courting the young, depressed buck known as Righteous Prick.  That is right, the gay dog slut was only playing wingman to Cruella DeVille.   She just sat next to me and kept asking me questions, including where I lived.  Naturally, when she went outside to let her dog urinate (at least the urine it had not already left on the bar room floor – what a sloppy drunk) I asked the bartender what her deal was.

Bartender: She is rich.

JL: Really?

Bartender: Big time.

JL: Do you have any date rape drugs?

Bartender: For her?

JL: No, for me.

Fortunately, my better angels won out and I went home alone, but I hope my moderate kindness got me into her will. Though asking people at the bar if they saw her also, to make sure I was not seeing dead people, could have been interpreted as insulting.

Then after the weekend I headed to New Orleans to perform for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.  The show was exactly as exciting as it sounded.  It was myself and two other members of Comedians at Law performing down there and we made a pact after the gig that our next gig should be for 9/11 widows because we need a more feel good show to participate in to pick up our spirits.  I already wrote the gig up for the Comedians at Law site so enjoy it here – http://comediansatlaw.com/2012/08/01/well-alright-comedians-at-law-go-to-the-big-easy-the-hard-way/

If any comedians want the short story and a tip to walk away with from the New Orleans gig it is that when the organizer of an event greets the three comedians after the show with, “Well… alright,” then something has gone horribly wrong.

Blog

Comedian Speaks At South Bronx High School Career Fair…

A few months ago I was asked by a friend of a friend who had seen me perform at Gotham Comedy Club if I would be willing to discuss my career at their South Bronx high school career fair.  My first question was, “which career – my defunct practice of law or my depressing practice of comedy?”  The answer was all of the above.  Now truth be told it was rather ironic to ask me to speak to young people about my two careers, because other than print journalism I am not sure you could pick two careers more on a path to destruction than law and comedy.  My guess is that law will be the first white collar profession to start going the way of manufacturing in America.  Companies are looking to get leaner and reduce their legal expenditures, and other than the absolute top legal talent which will always be in demand and command top dollar, much of the grunt work done in private practice will eventually be automated.  Fortunately government work will always exist as long as we have a society that has both an increasingly large group of have-nots and for-profit prisons because people will always be needed to defend and prosecute crimes.

Not only did I bring this uplifting message about a career in law, but I also brought a wealth of knowledge on how to not succeed at comedy despite doing everything under the sun to increase exposure and develop one’s comedic skill set.  Thanks to Twitter and YouTube, which have everyone thinking they are hilarious, and a system that favors cheap labor force (newcomers who do bringers and local mediocre talent to emcee and feature without the need for lodging) and benefits the already established upper echelon of comedic talent (unlike many of the banking 1%, at least the comedic 1% still has to work hard and provide an actual product to people to maintain their elevated status), the ability of an up and coming, hard working talent to rise through the ranks by simply working hard as a comedian is becoming more and more difficult.

But despite this depressing duo of life failure I of course said yes for a couple of reasons.  The first reason was this had the potential finally to be my moment to plant the seed of an inspirational movie.  After all my father is Morgan Freeman black and my Mom is even whiter than Michelle Pfeiffer so let’s just get Lean On Dangerous Minds into production already!  The second and more serious reason is that it is important for inner city kids to see people from different walks of life and to get real exposure to careers that they might not encounter in great abundance, or at all, in their neighborhood.  Having been lucky enough to go to an elite private school, most kids have Ivy League on their minds from the first day of high school and even if your parents were not lawyers, bankers or doctors, many of your classmates’ parents were.  We often take this exposure for granted, but in some communities “college is a white people thing,” is a common idea, not because of some laziness, but because it is so unfamiliar to them (this was an actual quote a friend of heard at a Boys and Girls Club a few years back from a black teenager).  So before I resume mocking myself and the career fair, the idea behind the career fair is essential to broadening the minds of kids like those I met yesterday.

And of course the third reason I said yes is that I love the Bronx because it is full of Latin women.

So I arrived at the career fair and my name tag said J-L Cauvin – “Comedians At Law.” I chose to use Comedians At Law, my touring band of lawyers-turned-comedians, because at least it was an eye catching and semi-respectable title for an affiliation. My other options were “J-L Cauvin – 270 pounds of wasted potential” or “J-L Cauvin – ticking time bomb.”  In other words it may have said “career fair,” but I occuppied that thin line between “inspirational career fair” and “scared straight program.”

I sat down at a table flanked by an attorney, an actor/aspiring producer and a speech coach and waited for the kids to come in and soak up my years of bitter knowledge.  Of course I immediately became a softie when these kids came in. I underestimated how young 10th and 11th graders actually look and finally was willing to admit to myself that R. Kelly really may have been in the wrong.  Despite the youth of some of these kids their questions seemed oddly adult and parental.  Here’s a sample:

  • “What made you go from law to comedy?” Truth: Laid Off What I said: I wanted to follow my passion.
  • “Don’t you make more money as a lawyer?” Yes. (while holding back tears of rage)
  • “How come I never seen you on TV?” What I said: Because I was on at 130 in the morning. What I wanted to say: Who is Your English teacher?  And you are a 16 year old Latino with a tongue stud so you are not in my target demographic.
  • “What’s your best joke” What I said: I don’t really tell joke jokes, but more like funny mini stories that aren’t safe for high school.  What I wanted to say: Well it starts with anal sex with an ex girlfriend…
  • “Have you been on Comedy Central?” (no answer – I just walked out and went to the train to go home)

This was just a sampling of the interactions I had, but it was a worthwhile event for these kids.  They were able to meet many people in different fields from acting to PR to computer science to medicine, and that is all well and good, but I would like to think that I may have done the best work of anyone.  Thanks to me, dozens of kids in the South Bronx met me and will now probably avoid attempting careers in law and stand up comedy like the plague.  Now they have a fighting chance at a good life.

Blog

Sticker Stupidity: My Made Up, But Plausible History of…

I am not a fashionable person. I was wearing flannel before, during and twenty years after the grunge movement of the early 1990s.  I wear New Balance sneakers and sweatpants a majority of the week.  I buy my suits at Jos. A Bank (how can you beat “buy 1, get 47” free sales?).  But sometimes things are so awful that even my primitive fashion sense is offended.  One thing that has been number for many years on my “fashion items I hate” are babydoll dresses, or as I refer to them “FUPA” covering dresses.   The most misleading item in fashion basically begin at the end of a woman’s breasts and then finish at the conclusion of the woman’s flaws or bloating, depending on whether she is on a permanent or 4 day expansion, respectively.   For several years this Trojan Horse of fashion has been my least favorite item of clothing, but over the last couple years it has been bumped out of the #1 spot buy New Era baseball caps with stickers on the brims.

I own a New Era baseball cap.  It is a Yankee fitted (the game version, not one of the 477 varieties of Yankee caps that have been released – you know so that you have a specific Yankee fitted hat for every holiday from 4th of July to St Patrick’s Day to Arbor Day) and I have owned it for several years.  It is broken in and lacks any price tags or stickers because I am not a fu*king moron.

I do not know the day the trend of leaving stickers on a cap began but I know it has emerged in the last couple of years.  Here are the many different explanations I have seen on-line:

  • Emulating athletes who receive brand new caps on draft day
  • Maintaining a “fresh” cap to symbolize the freshness of the person wearing it
  • Wearing the sticker to pretend that you have so much money that you don’t care

One explanation that a friend of mine had offered, not by way of knowledge, but just hypothesis, was that maybe it started as an act of civil disobedience.  Since it is a trend that began among black people, the idea was that with mall security and store employees discriminating against black youth in stores (questioning, following around suspiciously, etc.) keeping the sticker on after purchasing would act as a deterrent to being questioned, or would at least make people who are eyeing young black men suspiciously could be made to look foolish.  I thought this would be a great reason… if it were at all true.  However, I could find no evidence that this fashion AIDS has any root in civil disobedience.  Sorry, but when you look at Martin Luther King Jr.’s brim in any old photos you will not see a tag or sticker still on it.

Another explanation that I have pondered, (and at the risk of accidentally stealing material, I think comedian Yannis Pappas may have said this before I did in my presence at his show in Brooklyn), is that black people were simply doing the dumbest thing they could think of and seeing if white people would still steal/copy it. (If Yannis tells me he did not say this, consider it a new joke of mine).

But assuming none of these are true, all I can think is that this trend started out of sheer stupidity.  It is this generation’s pet rock.  But it is also evidence of the power black people have on influencing our culture.  Enough talk about “Girls” on HBO, black people can take some (non-compensated) comfort that they still disproportionately influence the culture (and in most cases is good, but not in this one).  Here’s is my brief, informal history of the sticker-on-brim phenomenon across racial lines:

  • Black youth start wearing stickers on their brims for some unexplained or unjustifiable reason
  • Latinos, as with the N word, quickly begin using it  as well to get grandfathered in when the race war begins
  • White people resist and mock
  • White people begin to actually market stickers and the hats now have bigger and more ornate stickers KNOWING that people will not leave the sticker on the hat (perhaps googly eyes or scratch n sniff are next)
  • Dumb white teens begin doing it, as evidenced by J-L Cauvin seeing no less than 7 white youths wearing stickered brims at the Yankee Game on April 27, 2012 (and only 2 were Guido-types!)

There you have it – white people stole blacks from Africa, stole their music for Elvis and stole golf back from Tiger Woods.  But now they have tipped their hand too much.  It is now clear that white people will try to copy any trend from black people no matter how dumb.  Just three years after a black man got the Presidency, a white dude is trying to take it back, despite clearly being an awful job.  But the brim sticker phenomenon is inexcusable.  No one can offer a legitimate explanation for why people do it and the people who do it refuse to acknowledge that it is absurdly dumb looking.  So shame on you black people for starting a stupid trend and shame on you Latinos and white for copying it.

But thank you Jeremy Lin for not doing it. Yet.

Blog

An Extra Classy Weekend Of Comedy

I had two shows in venues that are classier than the places I generally perform in.  The first was Thursday at Tenjune, a New York City club and then at the Mohegan Sun Casino on Saturday.  Considering the last couple of bar gigs I had, simply the fact that no death threats were involved was a major upgrade.  Here’s the recap:

Tenjune Thursday

The gig at Tenjune, which I believe is an ancient term from the Far East that roughly translates to “douchey ‘brahs’ with loot and coke,” was actually organized by Williams College alumni to highlight the charity work of a couple of alums.  I was the comedy interlude in between the open bar hour and the Tenjune gang rape known as “cash bar.”  I was actually surprised to even get in to the club because I just thought these clubs took place entirely outside.  My experience is that you show up with one or two friends, a large black man (these clubs do not seem to hire white bouncers because black men with freedom are the only thing known to effectively intimidate the merchants of arrogance known as investment bankers), looks at you, notices that you are not famous or accompanied by eight women and then says “nah.”  Apparently these establishments do let people inside.

The event was from 8pm to 11pm so that the club could scrub out our liberal arts college nerdiness before the cool crowd showed up.  I knew I was in a different league when I went to the bathroom.  When I entered the bathroom there was, predictably, a West African man with an assortment of colognes and gums.  He was on his cell phone and standing in front of a urinal.  I said excuse me.  He glanced at me and continued talking into his phone.  I said excuse me again and he finally moved.  I was impressed, “Man these clubs are so cool and exclusive, even their bathroom attendants are arrogant pieces of sh*t!”  Maybe I was not on the list for the urinal.  Or maybe he knew I was a comedian.

After catching up with a few friends I took to the stage aroun 915 and did 20 minutes.  It went great.  I was really happy with the set and even happier to have the club comp me a few drinks because when I actually paid for one I needed a bank loan.  I am not saying it was too expensive, but when I asked one of the bouncers how much a bottle was for a table our of pure intellectual curiosity, he said “Your first born. And $550.”

An even cooler thing than being one-upped by a bathroom attendant happened after the set.  I was talking to some younger alums and a woman from the Class of 2009 (every time someone mentioned a class after 2008 from college I unnecessarily did math in my head to wonder if it was even legal for me to speak to them – worrying signs of both old age and saying perverted things on a daily basis) asked me about my lawyering days (I mentioned being a lawyer in my set as sort of a “this is what can happen if you fu*k up a Williams education/scared straight” sort of message).  I told her my first job out of law school was as an ADA in the Bronx.  She said, “Oh my Dad worked in the Bronx.”  As my slightly impaired mind started to piece it together I asked, “as what?”  She said, “He’s a judge,” and before I could ask (my brain was digging through information 6 years old) she said Judge Barrett.  Here is what transpired next:

Me: Holy sh*t!!!! He was the judge me and my bureau were in front of every day!

Judge B’s Daughter (JBD): Shut the fu*k up (if the Judge reads this she actually said “heck”)

Me: Judge STEVEN Barrett!

Both of us: Shrieking like teenage girls.

Me: Oh my God – I forgot – Judge Barrett was so nice to me and it was definitely because he told me in my first year that his daughter got into Williams and he was so happy.  It had to be that because I was a shi*ty lawyer!

JBD: And I remember him speaking nicely of this ADA from Williams!

ME: This is awesome! (this may be why people of my ilk don’t get into clubs like this.  No one has ever called anything close to this mundane as “awesome” in a shrine of coolness like Tenjune).

(Contrast this entire exchange with my set three days earlier where I nearly got into a fight to the death at a midtown pub – COMEDY!!!)

We spoke for a little bit more, basically in awe of this tremendous coincidence.  Somehow I brought up Breaking Bad (I have an amazing array of avenues with which to introduce that show into conversation – example: Hey, did you see that Obama’s poll numbers are down?  “Yeah, but you know what’s up – Breaking Bad’s ratings!”) and she informed me that Judge Barrett was a big fan of Breaking Bad.  All I could think was, damn – if I was still an ADA in the Bronx, not only would I have health care paid for by NY, a steady salary,some  pride and a mother who did not worry about me as much, but also ANOTHER thing besides Williams College for Judge Barrett and me to bond over.  Then JBD told me that the Judge was also a fan of Hawaii Five-0 and the good feelings subsided.

So Tenjune went well and like they say the best things in life are free because I did not get paid a cent.  But I was comped three gin and tonics, which according to Tenjune is a $458 value so I guess I made out like a bandit.

Mohegan Sun

Saturday was a trip to Mohegan Sun (via Greyhound/Peter Pan bus lines in conjunction with my endorsement for Poverty) to open for Michael Winslow, also known as the sound guy from Police Academy.  When I arrived to Mohegan Sun a woman at the casino said, “You look just like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.”  I said, “Yeah I get that. And Adam Sandler” And then she howled with laughter.  And I cried inside. Naturally no one would confuse me with either of those multi-millionaires at Mohegan Sun for a number of reasons.  Ballers don’t arrive on Greyhound, don’t make their first meal at the casino a trip to Johnny Rockets and definitely don’t play $5 on the penny slot machine and call it a night.

 

I went to check in and was informed that I was to go to the VIP check in.  I then asked them to send a reference letter to the bouncers at Tenjune to let them know that I am, in fact, a VIP.  I went up to my room, wrote out my set and then soaked up the Mohegan Sun ambiance:

  • I enjoy casinos.  They are like the south.  People are either bringing their A game physically or their F game.  Not a lot of people putting in B+ effort.  That is where I come in.  My fashion line/taste could simply be called B-
  • Asians dominate the casino!  If you love Asians casinos are a great place (I don’t mean if you want to have sex with ironing board shaped Asian women because you “like” tiny, boyish figures i.e. you have not yet come to grips with your homosexuality).  They are everywhere.  And don’t take this negatively.  It is just a fact.  Which I guess means if you really hate Asians, Mohegan Sun is also a great place because you get to see lots of Asians losing money.
  • A Ben And Jerry’s open until 330 am – noted.

So I got to the Cabaret theater, which seemed like it held 400 or so people (much bigger than a comedy club of that same capacity, but the people are not herded together like slaves on a slave ship to maximize club profit).  The crowd was full by showtime which was cool, but Michael Winslow was not there yet.  He arrived at 915 but said the 6 credit introduction I was given to say when bringing him (only a two person show so I was an emcee/feature hybrid) was “too much.”  So he accommodated me by typing up an 11 credit introduction with jokes for me to read before bringing him up.  And he typed with only his index fingers.  So as soon as it printed I ran out on stage with it like it was a Supreme Court order to stop the execution of Troy Davis (too soon?) and the show began.

I did my set and made only two mistakes.  One was a momentum killing new jokes about halfway through the set.  They were warmed up and I sabotaged myself.  It was like DeNiro in Heat when he is about to escape with his girlfriend, but makes the fatal mistake of going after Waingro – success was right in front of me and I took it off course.

I got the crowd back pretty quickly though and then a few minutes later I got the 5 minute light.  Then I made a decision that ruined my weekend.  I opted to end with my Good WIll Hunting bit, which does well in clubs, but for a big theater-sized space was an iffy choice.  It got laughs throughout, but the final line fell completely flat.  And that was it.  For that crowd my Obama closer was the obvious choice and I just didn’t do it.  Part of me thought, maybe I will have time and part of me must have wanted to to take the risk (the House won per usual).  I knew better and yet I closed with the wrong bit.  I felt like the pitcher in this historic baseball game from 2001:

But unlike that scenario no one was clapping when I delivered my final pitch.  They eventually clapped in recognition for the 26 minutes that we shared that were enjoyable but sometimes, like a sporting event, it does not matter how well you played the game if your final play loses the game.

Michael Winslow went up and crushed and I have to say, his sound effects are frighteningly good (it’s been a while since I saw Spaceballs or Police Academy).  After the show some people went out of there way to tell me I was awesome which felt good.  Perhaps they went to the bathroom for my last three minutes.

I ended the night how any comedian living free in a casino for a night would end – by walking around looking at machines and tables that would get me in trouble and then settling on an ice cream sundae from Ben and Jerry’s (at midnight, so my finding out that they close at 330 am was a little over-confident on my part).  I sat alone on a bench while eating it and people-watched while people watched me.  What I realized is that if you are a grown man with a bizarre look of comfort and confidence sitting alone on a bench in a casino eating ice cream people (esp women) will only give you two looks: 1) is that guy special needs? or 2) that guy is the coolest customer in this place.  I got plenty of both.

So thanks to the Williams College alums at the show, the people with kind words after the Mohegan Sun gig and the Ben and Jerrys folks.  They helped make yet another week of comedy a fun and interesting experience.  Just kidding, comedy is still misery.

IF YOU LIKE READING THESE POSTS PLEASE GO TO FACEBOOK AND BECOME A FAN OF “RIGHTEOUS PRICK: THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF J-L CAUVIN” THANKS

 

Blog

Movie of the Week: Harry Potter 7.2 (Plus a…

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

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

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

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

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

Grade – B+

Blog

Cleveland Part 3: Extremeties

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blog

What About Bob? An Invitation to “Bob Hellener”

I was going to write on a different topic today, but thanks to Comedy Blog Terrorist – “Bob Hellener,” there has been a change of plans.

For the past several weeks “Bob Hellener,” who claims to actually be named Bob Hellener, has been making comments on my comedy-business related posts.  Now I originally approved “Bob’s” posts because they seemed somewhat on the topic I was writing about (how feature work is dying as a way to make a living in comedy, which will inevitably change the landscape of live stand up comedy – or as comedian Josh Homer commented “the changing of the business of comedy will have a negative impact on the art of comedy.”  But along the way “Bob” began a middle school girl-style attack on me.  Normally I would have stopped the comments once they got mean spirited, but there was something so profoundly stupid and deranged about “Bob” – it became like reading a blog-equivalent of a horrific car accident every time he put fingers to keyboard.

One  of “his” bi-polar highlights wassuggesting that comedy may be going well for me if Patrice O’Neal requestedme as an opening act and then several comments later calling me an unfunny failure (hmmm Patrice O’Neal or “Bob Hellener.” who do I trust more when giving opinions on my comedy?).

Then there was the Single White Female-esque analysis of my website photos (I believe “Bob” referred to me as “fit, buff and trim” in my website photos).  “He” was claiming that I was deceiving the public with my photos (and perhaps personally violating the trust “Bob” felt with me in “his” stalker mind) even though the photo section is literally a progression of me putting on weight (my photos fromAtlanta have me at my current CC Sabathia-esque frame).  But there is no reasoning with someone who clearly hate-masturbates to your photos and YouTube clips.

“Bob” consistently misconstrued simple points I was making because there was clearly some personal motive at stake.  But I assume after a stream of 80 comments on a blog it was over.  But low and behold, “Bob” made a comeback appearance on a more recent blog post:

https://jlcauvin.com/?p=2387

As you can see I was called a failure with limited job prospects inside and out of comedy.  So, to be fair to “Bob”, before I permanently spam “his” comments I wanted to offer an opportunity to “Bob” to clear the air and perhaps offer me some pointers on comedy and even show me how a real comedian is supposed to perform.  So I am inviting “Bob” to Smith’s Tavern on Monday, May 16th for the show I co-produce with Jessie Geller.  It is a low pressure environment, very laid back, in case “Bob” wants to work out some new material – I mean we cannot expect “Bob Hellener” to always do the “Bob Hellener classics,” right?  But it would be great to meet the heretofore unknown and unseen “Bob Hellener” and to learn from a true master of the art form.  Working with some profilers, we were able to come up with the following pictures of what “Bob” probably looks like, depending on gender.

If a man:

And if a woman:

This Monday, May 16th at 830 pm at Smith’s Tavern 440 5th Avenue Brooklyn, NY.  The show is free, but given “Bob’s” “gainful employment” I am sure a cover would have made no difference.  So hopefully “Bob” can show up or I will know that “he” is a fake person and will just treat his comments as I should have originally.  As spam.  OH NO I DIIIIIIIIIIIN”T!!!