I can admit that I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to cell phone etiquette, if cell phones are even old enough to have an old-fashioned division. I think a phone should be on silent or vibrate. I think if you watch shows or listen to music on your phone you should use headphones. And phone conversations in public should be like abortion for Democrats in the 90s: safe, legal and rare. I know… real Puritanical shit on my part. But as the smart phone midwifes society to engage and augment humanity’s worst impulses, I have noticed the speakerphone conversation becoming almost ubiquitous (not that everyone does it, but that at least one person will always be doing it no matter where you are). While I wallow in my post concert come down (last night was Bruce Springsteen in Vegas – no more details until the April 4th Rain on Your Parade podcast) I thought why not write this week about the most recent bane of my existence.
Many of us remember Nextel’s walkie talkie function, which allowed attention and cashed starved teens to engage in loud, public conversations with the added pleasure of walkie talkie beeps. But speakerphone, like so much tech, used to be something to enhance productivity (and the great sin of modern life – convenience). It would allow you to do something manual while also having a phone conversation (someone with what Mike Pence would call “broad shoulders” could always rest the phone in between your head and shoulder, but speakerphone was much more comfortable).
But as cell phones became more and more common we found new ways to be discourteous. I did an entire episode of Rain on Your Parade about smartphones, but regretted afterwards not even bringing up speakerphone. Walking and texting, ADD, using phones during movies, not silencing phones during theater, diminishing people’s abilities to have conversation or eye contact – the jury is in and smart phones are a net negative for humanity, aided in part by a generation of ruthless, manipulative billion dollar companies. But speakerphone? That’s on us.
A switch was clearly flipped during the rise of the smart phone. Rarely anyone, save the Radio Raheems of the world, listened to music out loud in public on their personal devices. Headphones and the more recent advance of wireless earbuds make it clear how you are supposed to listen to music in public. But perhaps with that advent of Tik Tok and streamers, people view their phones more like their TVs or computers and don’t instinctively reach for ear buds. I am sorry – let me correct that – stupid, fu*king, rude people view them that way. But J-L, it feels like you are calling a sizeable part of the population “stupid, fu*king rude”? Yes. Yes I am.
The inspiration for this post came yesterday as I took a Greyhound bus from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The bus driver made an explicit message at the beginning of the ride that phones should be used silently for the convenience of the passengers. I looked around and realized that I, in fact, was included among these “passengers” whose convenience was being protected. What occurred was a level of diversity that would make the most hard core progressive’s heart swell with pride and a rudeness display that made this less hard core progressive want to steer the bus into oncoming traffic.
First was the Latin couple who had a series of incredibly loud speaker phone conversations (when their stripper daughter picked them up at the bus station I felt a swell of forgiveness for them). I’d say it was a total of about 50 minutes. I had Beats noise cancelling headphones on (I gave up on reading on the ride due to the noise) and yet Beats has clearly never tested their merchandise on a crowded Greyhound bus.
The real MVP of the trip was the Black woman behind me who, after we left Barstow, California, proceeded to have a 2 hour loud, vulgarity and homophobia-laced conversation on speakerphone. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you can hear a short and full version of some of the audio I was able to capture, under the guise of recording video of America’s beautiful landscapes.
When I left Barstow the signs were all there that the ride was about to get a lot worse
And perhaps in the spirit of When in Rome, or in a more spiteful, MAGA-esque “why do the minorities get to have all the stuff?!” an elderly white woman got on a speakerphone conversation towards the end of the ride for 15 minutes. Now full disclosure, my mom is an 80 year old white woman with diminished hearing and this is how she prefers to use her cell phone. Now, based on both my sympathies for older people and the fact that they make up a majority of my fans based on YouTube algorithms, I often carve out exceptions for them with issues related to tech. But today is not that day. My Mom often says “I hate this thing” of her cell phone. Well to the Moms and Grandmothers of the world I say put your money where your hate is – no more speakerphone in public.
It is Sunday morning in the Beaver Creek, Ohio Panera Bread as I write this. Because I will be on a 16 hour Greyhound bus ride tomorrow I will not have access to Internet (or personal space and drinkable water) all day tomorrow so the road recap goes up this morning. Besides, with most of Ohio presumably staying home tonight to watch the GOAT Lebron James, I assume tonight’s show will not warrant much consideration anyway. This was my first time to Dayton giving me all the Ohio comedy merit badges (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus were already completed) so this will be chock full as I recall the loss of my Dayton virginity. And like so many of these recaps it begins with a travel story full of pain.
Greyhound to Dayton
I do not like flying. I don’t have a crippling fear, but I do not like it. And I have not been on a small plane (smaller than a MD-88 and usually not smaller than a 737) since 2009 when I did a gig in Destin, Florida. We transferred in Atlanta for a 50 seater to go to Fort Walton Beach, FL. It was a beautiful, sunny day and it was one of the bumpiest flights of my life (raising the question – WHAT THE FU*K ARE THESE PLANES LIKE IN BAD WEATHER?). Additionally, the size of seats on those planes are slightly less roomy than overhead baggage space. So I just decided that when I can’t travel on a normal sized plane (737 or bigger) I would go via other means, which means my beloved Amtrak (I am known as “The Joe Biden of Amtrak riders you don’t give a shit about” in rail transit circles) or Greyhound. Well, at $120 round trip and 16 hours Greyhound beat Amtrak in both price and time so that is how I travelled.
My bus left Port Authority bus terminal at 9:15pm on Wednesday night. I was loaded up with healthy snacks, podcasts and a hazmat suit for the 15.5 hour journey. I probably slept a total of 90 minutes during the journey, but I had my own seat for most of the trip, which was the best case scenario. And I smelled only 2 farts throughout the journey. Neither were mine.
When I arrived at Dayton I ordered a Lyft. This is what transpired next:
My Lyft driver was a 67 year old black man that gave me his Motown cover band’s card when I told him I was a comedian. Turns out his group, Touch, finished 3rd on an NBC show hosted by Nick Lachey, so you know a trip is off to a bad start when your Lyft driver in Dayton, Ohio has more entertainment juice than you do. I arrived at the club around 1:45 and got walked over to the comedy condo.
Condo Glory
In stand up comedy there is only one C word that offends comedians and that is “Condo.” If you, as the middle act, get a hotel you have won. There is usually a minimum standard of care delivered by even the crappiest of hotels, but a comedy condo can range from “Hey this is solid!” to “Hey, this comforter is solid frozen with other comedians’ semen!” Well, the new standard for comedy condo excellence has been set by the Dayton Funny Bone (suck on it Rivercenter Comedy Club in San Antonio – the awful condo since abandoned that resembled the bug room in Temple of Doom – and the subject of a blog that got me banned from there). The apartment, which is located in a new building in the mall where the club is (literally a stone’s throw from the club) is basically a slick 1 bedroom loft type apartment with a full cable package (all the HBOs, etc). It is pretty much a better set up than 95% of hotels, so good job Dayton FB! It allows me to creepily spy on patrons of the club:
Alfred Hitchcock style!
For dinner I went to The Cheesecake Factory, located a dangerous 400 feet from the condo (it is the preferred restaurant for NBA players and NBA-sized middle acts) and then I went to the club. Thursday’s show went well, sold a few albums, watched the first half of Game 1 of the NBA FInals (I could not stay up for the JR Smith debacle because even my love for Lebron must succumb to 90 minutes of Greyhound sleep.
Greyhound is worse for you than crack and meth combined. This was me at 1030pm Thursday night
Friday: One Good Crowd
Friday I went to LA Fitness and got swole AF. I also went to the Cheesecake Factory again (I went with a sensible dessert of Vanilla Bean Cheesecake, which is one of the lower calorie cheesecakes they offer at only 13,880 calories per slice). I watched the outstanding season finale of The Americans (thanks for not spoiling (*watching) it Black Twitter!) in Panera Bread and then, just like that, it was time for two shows at the Funny Bone.
The first audience was so so. I know that because when I was selling albums after the first show (right outside the bathrooms like some African bathroom attendant offering you CDs instead of cologne and breath mints) two young guys came up to me, bought the albums and said “We want to be comedians and I don’t know what was wrong with that crowd. You were awesome.” This proves that I perform to the back of the room, even if they are just in comedian fetus form. The second audience was awesome – they were a smaller crowd, but they bought a lot of my albums, which after 15 years (June 2nd was 15 years since I picked up a mic at the Takoma Station Tavern in D.C.) is the cynical way I judged the quality of a crowd – you can boo me, but if you buy my albums you are a good crowd.
The only blemish after the first audience was a black who came up to me and said “That ain’t your race. (proceeded to touch my hair) Nah – show me your stomach hair. Niggas got nappy stomach hair.” Now, as I have said, if I wanted to use the N word (which I don’t – there goes my shot at a Trump cabinet position) I could make a legal case in N Word Court (my new show I am pitching) presenting DNA evidence, a picture of my father and my Sprint Mobile bill as compelling proof of my half-blackness. However, I have lived my life as an HGH infused Adam Sandler with a tan so even if the N Word Constitution accords me a right to say it, in the real world I do not have license to use it. My point is writing this is that I tell my story not to take liberties with language or to “get away with” saying things. I tell my story because it is my story. But increasingly (and I have noticed a lot more skepticism in the age of Trump from black people, just like many more white people commented and asked about my race after shows during Obama’s presidency) I am having these uncomfortable interactions. My theory is that under Obama, white people were wondering if I was cashing in on the cache of being bi-racial (if they can’t be cool then why should this Italian looking guy get to be), whereas black people have been saying a lot more things to me since Trump’s election – perhaps wary of whether I am a racial and political ally or just someone trafficking in race. But whatever the case, don’t touch my hair! #BlackGirlMagic
Missed References, Guns, Thots and Prayers: Saturday
Saturday I went to LA Fitness again and got even more swole AF. I emailed the cast and crew of Comedian Combine the final script (filming June 16th – this will be one of my best sketches) and then walked 2.5 miles to the closest Catholic Church for vigil Mass. Now the weather was beautiful, but it was also 80+ degrees and after a while 2.5 miles starts to get super hot. I arrived at Church looking, as I often do in summer months, like an ISIS operative having a panic attack. Another weird thing about the Church, was the demographics of the attendees. Not an exaggeration – there was one beige dude (me), 4 Asians and about 800 extremely white people. I have noticed this more and more on the road and after reading Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law (which made my last blog – my recommended U.S. History reading list) I can’t help but think of the historical shame of how segregated our cities are (and how the book thoroughly explains was done by design at the highest levels of federal and state government, in addition to local and personal prejudices that created, and sustain, a world of white middle class wealth). I wanted to ask the people around me “Don’t YOU think it is weird that EVERYONE looks the same in here?”
The Passion of Christ… was FREEDOM!
As I walked back from Mass I stopped in a Wendy’s for a chicken sandwich. It was just me and these two people:
I will have a #6 meal and ONE REASON – I DARE YOU TO GIVE ME ONE REASON!
Coupled with my Mass experience I almost want to ask “If you moved to a town without scary minorities to feel safe, why the need for the gun you paranoid, fat Nick Offerman-looking cuck!? Al Qaeda is not coming for you, no matter what your Greyhound Bus Depot security thinks (see video above). And you probably have zoning laws that would bar people that have the same skin color as people in MS13 or the Crips from moving here. Besides I could take that from you if I wanted to – I AM THE CAPTAIN NOW!” During my meal two girls came in and ordered food and then one proceeded to sit with her bare feet on the seat and I thought, “Excuse me Donald Glover, but THIS IS AMERICA – an old, scared white dude with a glock on his side and a millennial putting her bare feet up in a restaurant.”
The first show went OK that night, but in the same set I made an Alex Jones reference (and then polled the crowd and only 1/3 had even heard of him) and a Nino Brown reference (and only about 7 people knew what I was talking about) in the same set and thought America’s ability to get references has to be somewhere between those two, but alas it was an epic fail. I also made a Rocky IV reference on the late show and almost no one had seen it. And they call themselves patriots?
I went back to the condo after the first show to upload the video to my computer and by the time I got back to the club everyone had left (the headliner did a shorter set than he had been doing) so I sold nothing after the first show. Fortunately the late show would be the best crowd (only heckling I got was on the late crowd, so they sucked under normal definitions of crowd quality, but as I wrote earlier, albums sales are the sole factor determining a crowd’s quality form here on out). I did get a good new bit, as well as a pop culture phrase I have invented. Enjoy “”Tater Thots”:
As my set was winding down I started going into my bit about how it is tough to ask a guy to settle down in 2018. A bit that has been doing well for me and was 4/4 in Dayton, but then some dumb, attractive woman and her tatted up, sleeveless shirt, dip swallowing boyfriend/man/friend decided to chime in (I think she was also a Trump supporter, so let’s just use another one of my linguistic inventions – she was a Trunt). I do not hate stupid people. They were stupid based on their support of Trump and their inability to understand the premise of a joke. But they were confident stupid people and I hate those mfers. So I aborted the joke, but I think it helped propel album sales because when I made my self-deprecating album pitch a black man yelled out “We Got You!” and I thought “I don’t believe in Wakanda Forever, but perhaps today we are all Wakandans!” I sold well after the show and even gave two black men (I believe one of them was the man who shouted his support) and their dates a breakdown of their relationships as Trump (I gave my endorsement to the black man dating a black woman, but told the black man dating a white woman that I did not approve, which had them all laughing). I then went back to the condo to find The Dark Knight was on. I stayed up til 2am watching it because it was only Wakanda for a day – it is The Dark Knight forever. And here is a beautiful shot of Beaver Creek I took on my way to Church:
This weekend I was featuring at Magooby’s Joke House in the greater Baltimore area. I emphasize “greater” and “area” because if you are thinking an urban crowd (a/k/a Omar, Bodie and the rest of the cast of The Wire) would show up you would be mistaken. There were four shows. The two shows Saturday were my kind of crowd and I was very happy with my sets. But Friday offered many lessons in comedy and life, which is why I will share those with you now.
Friday April 9, 2010 – 830 pm Show
First show demographics 2.5 people of color, including myself (.5), 160 white people. 50% of the crowd was over the age of 48. This would not damn me because I have been pleasantly surprised by crowds with not so different stats before, but this crowd would be an animal that I have never had before. If the show were a children’s book it would be called “Where’s Negro?”
My second bit of the night was this:
So Sandra Bullock’s husband cheated on her. Let’s just be honest – if you marry a tattooed man-whore and he goes out and sleeps with a bunch of whores that have tattoos, can you really claim to be surprised? (Laughter) And come one Sandra – 46, no tits and expects to keep a man in Hollywood? (Silence with start of murmuring) How arrogant Sandra! You obviously made a deal with the Devil to win an Oscar of Meryl Streep and now it’s time to pay the price. (Silence broken by a couple of boos).
My girlfriend had warned me about making any jokes that got near the star of The Blind Side, which is treated by white people in Maryland with the same reverence that Hoosiers is treated with by rural basketball players in Indiana. But one of the decisions I made with these shows this weekend was that I was going to do my best to not compromise a lot on the road. I have the material to do NYC rooms and road rooms, but who I am as a comic is closer to the NYC material and I need to make crowds meet me a little bit more so at least my reputation will start to be based on who I really am as a comic and not just on an ability to be Jay Leno-ish one night and then more personal and edgy when I feel safer doing so. But this crowd obviously loved Sandra Bullock because she saved a big black dude from eternal damnation, etc.
They probably would hate my short film, The Blind Side 2:
I took Megabus here tonight… I can’t take Greyhound anymore because it is like travelling with Hollywood celebrities – Hey there’s Precious (HUGE LAUGHTER), there’s a creature from Avatar and there’s that dude from that old movie Mask (laughter almost completely dies).
My comedy can sometimes be conservative, but it does not necessarily mean I want the support of fringe conservatives. Another parallel is when I watch Jim Norton perform comedy. I think the guys is absolutely brilliant, but he is also dirty, which draws a lot of fans to him that I don’t like. He may tell a joke involving the words “pussy” and “cock,” but it is also brilliant comedy in there. Some of his fans get it and some of his fans I think just get off on the usage of the words “pussy” and “cock.” I feel the same way about some of my jokes that maybe take more conservative angles on abortion or entertainment or religion. I want comedy fans to appreciate the comedy and thought in the joke, not necessarily to take it as an endorsement or a statement for a certain group. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, so the real point is to not bring all your agendas to the show and just laugh if it is funny.
However, when I heard the all white crowd almost cackle at the Precious reference what I heard was, “Yeah, that fat black bitch is gross.” Which of course, she is but that is not the point. This crowd was so sensitive to a millionaire white lady who helped an exaggeratedly helpless black man, but not to an impoverished obese black teenager. You laugh at both or you laugh at neither in my book.
My final exchange of the evening:
I know you may not like this, but I’m not being political when I say I like Obama-
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Hey – great I just turned the show into a Tea Party rally –
a few laughs and some claps
Your closing act – Sarah Palin (joking)
Applause Break
I eventually got to my Obama bit and it went over well enough, but I was startled to be what amounted to a Tea Party rally. I genuinely don’t understand people who are Sarah Palin fans. I understand (diminishing every day), but disagree with many Republicans, but Tea Party people are from another planet to me. Booing Obama, but an applause break for Sarah Palin, who is that magical combination of stupid and increasingly smug/arrogant the more money that gets thrown in her face for “speaking” engagements. But that also explained why my comedy went over so poorly at that first show. I was performing for a Tea Party. Because I like the owner of Magoobys and enjoy playing there I will not connect the dots, but if you have read my blog I think you know what other “R’s” I associate with Tea Partiers besides Republican.
Oddly enough on the 1030 pm show that same night – the Precious joke got near silence because about half the crowd was black. That did not anger me as much, but it still angered me a lot because the joke is funny and the same way the Tea Party crowd let their cruel humor run rampant on Precious, the second crowd decided, as if they were a liberal arts college in the northeast, that they would let me know how attuned to the plight of poor and sad people they are and would not laugh. The second crowd was overall 100 times better than the first crowd, so one annoyance did not break an otherwise good show and good crowd, but I still thought I should mention it lest a Tea Party Comedy member read the blog and comment, “See he’s letting all the African-American Nig-ers get off without any complaint.”
Overall it was a fun weekend at Magoobys (3 out of 4 shows a success – previous lessons of shaking off bad shows quickly came in handy), but just another reason for me to hate the Tea Party. Before it was just business, but now… it’s personal.
Blog
I can admit that I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to cell phone etiquette, if cell phones are even old enough to have an old-fashioned division. I think a phone should be on silent or vibrate. I think if you watch shows or listen to music on your phone you should use headphones. And phone conversations in public should be like abortion for Democrats in the 90s: safe, legal and rare. I know… real Puritanical shit on my part. But as the smart phone midwifes society to engage and augment humanity’s worst impulses, I have noticed the speakerphone conversation becoming almost ubiquitous (not that everyone does it, but that at least one person will always be doing it no matter where you are). While I wallow in my post concert come down (last night was Bruce Springsteen in Vegas – no more details until the April 4th Rain on Your Parade podcast) I thought why not write this week about the most recent bane of my existence.
It is Sunday morning in the Beaver Creek, Ohio Panera Bread as I write this. Because I will be on a 16 hour Greyhound bus ride tomorrow I will not have access to Internet (or personal space and drinkable water) all day tomorrow so the road recap goes up this morning. Besides, with most of Ohio presumably staying home tonight to watch the GOAT Lebron James, I assume tonight’s show will not warrant much consideration anyway. This was my first time to Dayton giving me all the Ohio comedy merit badges (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus were already completed) so this will be chock full as I recall the loss of my Dayton virginity. And like so many of these recaps it begins with a travel story full of pain.
