Blog

The Ballad of The 24 Year Root Canal

Last week I was basking in the glow of learning that my special, Half-Blackface, was streaming free on Amazon Prime, but like all things related to my comedy career, the basking was brief in duration. I woke up last Monday with a toothache and it only got worse until I finally made it to my dentist two days later.  It appeared that I had an infection, possibly stemming from a root canal I had had in college.  This was only the beginning of my problems, but first some background.

Fall 2000 – The First Root Canal

I was a senior in college. Having had a youth filled with candy, cavities were not something foreign to me, but the pain I had begun experiencing in one of my lower left teeth was something of a completely different order.  Having always hated the dentist, I did not want to go to the dentist in Williamstown, MA because if I am going to have someone go to war on my mouth I at least want it to be the Manhattan sadist I was used to.  I honestly think the original phrasing of “it’s the devil you know” was “it’s the dentist you know” and it got lost in translation throughout the years.

But by day 3 I was taking about 35 Advil to gain even temporary relief (Hulu has chosen not to go forward with me miniseries The Most Boring Drug Addiction Story Ever) and I thought, “internal organ failure seems like a steep price to pay to endure tooth pain.” I made an appointment for the dentist in Williamstown and I only remember two things: they had to basically inject through my tooth (top down through a small hole) to fully numb the area and that 2 seconds was the most painful 2 seconds of my life.  And the second thing I remember is that after they gave me a root canal and a crown and my pain was gone.

Fall 2000-2021: The Legacy of the Root Canal

For years  the dentists I would see would comment on what a good job the dentist had done with the root canal, but after the pandemic, perhaps sensing that I had gained immeasurable wealth and fame during Covid, my dentist said that the crown needed to be replaced (I kid my dentist – I have been seeing him for over a decade). He said that 20 years for a root canal and crown was an impressive amount of time, so we redid the crown and I hung the crown he had removed from the rafters of the dental museum.  I had dental insurance which covered a majority of the new crown and I left hoping for another 20 year run of root canal greatness.

April 2024 – The End is Nigh

My dentist, who squeezed me in on a busy day before he left for the week for his normal days off and the Passover holiday, took some x-rays and cleaned up a filling next to the root canal tooth suggesting that some space might have led to the infection, but that the root canal might also be infected. Either way he proscribed amoxicillin and Motrin and said I should feel better in a couple of days.

Sadly I did not feel better in a few days so I went to my brother’s dentist and was told the same thing – to let the amoxicillin work and if I did not feel better by Monday to see an endodontist.

But on Saturday I was in more pain so I went to a boutique dental office that had Saturday hours and emergency care.  The took x-rays and said that the root canal was failing (like all great athletes there is a time when you just haven’t got it anymore) and that there was clearly an infection around the root canal.  They recommended extraction, bone graft and implant. I am not going to tell you how much this cost, but when the dentist leaves so that the “patient care coordinator” can come in, you know it isn’t cheap.  When an office has someone whose job it is to tell people that their wallet pain may exceed their oral pain, you know you are in trouble.  I of course said yes.  And if you have not figured out my luck, of course I no longer have dental insurance, as I lost the job that came as a small requirement to keep said insurance.

What followed was a 45 minute ordeal that is the closest I will ever get to the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.  Of course I needed extra Novocain (because I am very large, a pussy, or both). But needless to say I had both long and stubborn roots (I like my teeth like I like my commitment to comedy) and it took quite a while to full remove the GOAT root canal tooth.  Now when I entered the office I had everyone laughing as I made gallows’ humor jokes. When it was done I was literally shaking from the trauma and basically had the body language of  Theo on Game of Thrones after he had fully been broken into Reek. When I sat up I noticed some tooth shavings and a tiny morsel of bloody root on my bib/shirt. I felt like the Nazi in The Zone of Interest when he sees his children bathing in Jewish remains in their river (minus all of the Nazism and atrocities against Jews, though some people have told me I look like Seinfeld).

When I finally made it out of the chair I saw that the dentist was fairly short and I thought, was this a “short king” flex?  Me strapped down like Gulliver while he went to work?  He was very friendly, but isn’t that how a truly confident short king would act? I envisioned him saying to the support staff after I left, “Guess who doesn’t have jokes anymore?”

The Aftermath

I made my way to my local CVS to pick up my stronger Amoxicillin and pain meds and when I walked in U2’s Beautiful Day was playing. You may think I am making this up, but I am not. In Fall 2000 when I got the root canal, U2 had just released their new single off there new album, Beautiful Day.  Now, as if a funeral hymn for the gone root canal tooth, here it was playing again.

As I sit here today, I am three hours away from a just scheduled appointment with Short King, DDS to look at my mouth because the swelling has not gone away and there is still a decent amount of pain radiating in my mouth. My guess is that I need a different antibiotic than Amoxicillin, because of course I would be unresponsive to an antibiotic I have not had in 3 decades.

The Lesson

I don’t know if a root canal can teach anything about life, but when i think about something lasting twenty years, exceeding expectations, people and experts commenting on its quality and then ending up in the trash I begin thinking, “has my comedy career just been one long root canal?”

Technically this s the first blog of 2024 that missed my self-imposed “one blog a week” New Year’s Resolution, but hopefully you will excuse it as it was the result of a medical issue.

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I Went to a High School Talent Show

This past week I watched the engaging and disturbing docuseries Quiet on The Set, about the awful and in some cases, criminal exploitation and abuse that went on during the Golden Age of Nickelodeon (as I said on this week’s legendary episode of Rain on Your Parade podcast – at 11 years old I was enjoying In Living Color, so I am not sure how children could enjoy the offerings of Nickelodeon, but alas, this was mere foreshadowing of the comedy stupidity that would come to define present day society).  So after watching all four episodes, I thought, “what better place for an unmarried, childless, struggling entertainer to go to than a local high school talent show?!”

Full Hassan Minhaj disclosure – my girlfriend’s nephew was in a rock band participating in the talent show, so it is not as funny or creepy as my set up would have you think.

The show took place at the Glen Ridge elementary school.  Despite the wealth of Glen Ridge, apparently their high school does not have a large auditorium on its campus proper and uses the elementary school across the street (this is particularly galling when you consider that A THE graduate of Glen Ridge High School is the GOAT, Tom Cruise.  The only other factoid I know about Glen Ridge High School is that in the late 1980s a group of Glen Ridge jocks sexually abused a developmentally disabled girl (the first book I read, for pleasure, so to speak, in college was Our Guys – an absolutely tremendous book about that shocking case, which forever imprinted Glen Ridge in my mind in a way that even Tom Cruise could not undo with 40 movies and many more thetans).  So, with that on my mind I went to see the talent of Glen Ridge High!

Piranha performing under a sign that I thought about cropping to make for a controversial social media story.

I will not disparage any of the acts, which other than a dance troupe and a gymnast, were all musical.  I was largely impressed with the talent, and when not impressed with the talent, the courage to be mediocre in front of kids and parents.  My girlfriend’s nephew is only in 8th grade, but played drums in a very competent rock band named Piranha. I would have awarded them 3rd place, but they did not place at all.  Their music evokes Green Day and I was particularly amused by their bass player, who seemed furthest along in his rock identity and enthusiasm (a sort of Flea energy with Buddy Holly look… glasses, he wore glasses).

First place is where the judges and I agreed.  I am assuming the girl was a junior or senior and performed really well at the piano, even doing a non-cliche version of Feeling Good, a song that I have grown to hate due to its overexposure in commercials, singing contest shows and Michael Buble.  She seemed to have the talent and poise of someone who has ambitions and parents willing to fund them.

Second place went to a duet that was good (both were good, but one of the singers might have won first if she was solo – a voice of incredibly clarity and tone and other things that might make me sound like I know what I am talking about).  But here is where I had a big beef with the judges.  There was a small child – I do not know if he was an elementary school kid allowed to compete in the high school show, or if he is just a sort of Gary Coleman-Webster type kid because when I told him after the show that he was great I was alarmed at how small and young he seemed.  Well what he did was perform Piano Man on the piano, with a harmonica in his mouth. His harmonica looked like orthodontist head gear because of his age and size and he was great.  I kept thinking, I cannot do either of those things and he is pulling it off well, and had the savvy to pick a song right in the wheel house of the 40 something judges (I am only saying that to make me and my girlfriend feel better – we were probably older than at least two and possibly all 4 of the staff/teacher-judges.

After the show I felt myself projecting my own indignity and frustration on him, but the kid seemed very happy to talk to his friend and take compliments from giant strangers.

Third place went to a good singer who I had disqualified because she sang the song Never Enough from The Greatest Showman, a song so schmaltzy that the only thing that could ruin it more was having videos released of corrupt New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez singing it to his accomplice then-fiancée as he proposed to her.  I, in fact, have had enough *drops mic*.

So that was my night at the Glen Ridge Talent Show – and on an unexpected positive note – almost all the kids (and parents) were off their phones!  Perhaps that is the key to keeping the youth off screens: make everything about them and their friends.

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Las Vegas: Seeing The Boss and Feeling Like a…

I am currently sitting in a Hampton Inn in Salt Lake City, UT, blocks away from the Delta Center – The House That Ainge Destroyed.  I have a couple of hours before the Jazz-Mavericks massacre game so I figured I would recap an eventful, inspiring and cash-hemorrhaging couple of days in Sin City!

2 New Jersey Icons. One Arena.

I arrived in Vegas on Friday at 3pm on a bus trip that inspired last week’s blog on speakerphone usage.  The main purpose of my trip was to take part in the Stand Up Podjam – a day long festival built around the extended comedy and podcast community of Pete Dominick, and brought to fruition by the extraordinary efforts of Cassie Rice, a generous fan of Pete’s and mine.  I would be performing a live episode of Making Podcasts Great Again on Saturday afternoon and then performing stand-up comedy Saturday night.  But before that was time for my first Bruce Springsteen concert.

I have been a fan of Bruce Springsteen for most of my life, the way a Catholic who goes to Church on Christmas and Easter is a lifelong Catholic.  I have several of his albums, but also found his Broadway show boring (an apostasy that I think would get me the death penalty in parts of New Jersey) and have found the Opus Dei level worship (to keep the Catholic analogy going) among many of his fans to be off-putting (and fertile ground for jokes).  But with a night in Vegas to kill and The Boss in town, it felt like time for me to finally get baptized in the waters of The River.  It was also the second musical concert I would see featuring a Twitter follower of mine (Richard Marx – 1st, Stevie Van Zandt – 2nd).

Now to preserve a lot of the Springsteen adventure for my podcast (if you are a fan of me, my ideas or my comedy and don’t listen to Rain on Your Parade every week – amend immediately!), which will be completely dedicated to Springsteen on April 4th, I will simply say I enjoyed the show a lot. I still consider myself a secular Springsteen fan, but might attend a few more services than before. How many? TWO! THREE! FOUR!

Springsteen in Vegas

Making Podcasts Great Again and Stand Up 

When Jay Nog (my co-host) and I took the stage at 1pm I felt confident we would have a great live episode. I did not necessarily think it would be out best episode ever, but that is exactly what happened.  Now, with all due respect (which is not much) to anyone who thinks anyone on God’s Green Earth does a better Trump than me, this show was the death knell of that erroneous delusion.  Voice, mannerisms, hour of ad lib content and an extended jerk off dance were just some of the reasons why this taping should be a special on Netflix and why we should be performing it live in theaters every night until the 2024 election.

The episode should be available on audio soon for our podcast subscribers and the video, of which I just learned only 26 minutes of the hour taped unfortunately – (resume blog from new computer that was not smashed to smithereens) – will be available to view for subscribers of MPGA as well (standing ovation at the end not featured).

After the podcast we had a few hours to have Chick Fil A and rest –

Sidenote – the great thing about a place like Vegas, much like Los Angeles, is that even the regular folk are sort of a trickle down hot.  While getting coffee at Starbucks the students at a local beauty school kept coming in and I kept wondering are you the students or the finished products?  at which point hot coffee was thrown in my face.  And the aforementioned Chick Fil A felt a little less like Christian chicken and a lot more like a guy who liked women who looked good in glasses and form fitting red polo shirts (seriously it was clear that the God-fearing manager of the restaurant had a busty, Filipina librarian fetish) –

We went back to the venue for the stand up show and musical performance.  The show began to take on the feel of almost a memorial service for Pete, though Pete was alive, healthy and emceeing the show.  It is just that Pete has been a big part of his fans’ lives for well over a decade and there is a deep appreciation for his work, his character and most importantly, his showcasing of world class talent on his show, me.  I just want my fans to actually buy tickets (or anything above free that I do), so hoping for a warm community of heartfelt tribute seems like an absurd ask for this life.  Though to be fair, two of my biggest fans made the trip from the land of Latter-Day-Saints to Sin City to see me and brought a friend as well (thus clearing my “wherever two or more are gathered in my name” requirement for me to perform)! So that felt good in a way that an arena of 20K fans screaming your name cannot match (take that Bruce!).

On the lineup was Pete, followed by Ophira Eisenberg who killed (I was last on a show with her over a decade ago and she always just has impeccable polish, without seeming too prepped or inauthentic). Then Christian Finnegan went up and, while I was hoping that since he had recently discussed how little he was doing stand-up while on Pete’s show he would lower the bar, he promptly murdered.  So then I went up as the literal and figurative half-Black sheep of the lineup and did well (better than I felt according to the audience) but it was an overall superb show.

Once we were done, musician Gareth Sever performed several songs, the overwhelming highlight of which was The Ballad of Pete Dominick, which was basically like Bob Dylan’s Hurricane if it were twice as long, funnier than Weird Al’s funniest and featured a sizeable roast of J-L Cauvin that was so good I can’t wait to share it when an MP3 is available (on my patreon he finishes … as 99% of the people who know J-L sighed as they would never give 3 dollars for lots of hilarious J-L related work). Finishing the evening was Jon Carroll, singer-songwriter, who among his smallest credits is the theme song for Pete’s show, Stand Up, which he performed with back-up from a local group of high school musical students (I think they were high school – at this point every one 16-23 looks like a child to me).

The event was awesome. The fans were awesome and I am very proud to have been included in the event and with my contributions to the event.  The next day it was time to go the Vegas strip and destroy all those good feelings.

Wheel of Fortune and Roulette

I met the girlfriend at the Venetian for a day of more official Vegas activities. To sum it up I spent a large amount on a return visit to Wolfgang Puck’s Cut (excellent again and somehow even more expensive than just 5 months ago), was treated to the Darren Aronofsky movie at the Sphere (incredible experience, incredibly expensive – but beware awful people – it involves climate change so it might be “woke” – i.e. stating obvious things about climate and nature that would make a normal human feel slightly guilty and/or distressed) and some gambling – the girlfriend, on her first ever time playing roulette, devised a roulette system that had her slowly accumulating chips over an hour until she left up $200 (I genuinely think whatever her system is she could have made $2k if she sat there for 6 hours).  My gambling consisted of massive losses on slots, medium losses on roulette and major losses of self-esteem.

Ok – remember – to join both of my podcasts for some of the best sh*t you will ever listen to this week. Off to the Utah Jazz game!

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24 Hours In Pittsburgh

On my way out west I took an eventful 24 hour stop in Pittsburgh, PA to see the New York Rangers take on the Pittsburgh Penguins.  With less than 5 hours to keep my New Year’s Resolution of resuming weekly blogging for the whole year and less than 5 hours until my midnight train to Chicago to see a green river for Saint Patrick’s Day here is my last 24 hours recapped in (mostly) photo format. Enjoy!

The girlfriend and I boarded the Pennsylvanian in Newark, NJ at 11:19 (ten minutes late, not a great start), which traverses the entire state of Pennsylvania, concluding at 8:05pm (835 pm in our case).  I promptly blamed my girlfriend for Amtrak’s tardiness as the Pennsylvanian has never failed me until this time.  We did see something very cool that I aspire to, but will surely never achieve: attached to the train was a luxury, custom-made train car for one man with a guest.  Apparently if you like trains and have time and a boatload of money you can have your own train car attached to an Amtrak and taken on routes.

When we arrived at our hotel we were greeted by news that the credit card machine was down, so I had to fill out a credit card form like some peasant.  Then we saw a man randomly drop 3 forks while walking through the lobby.  We then got in the elevator with a man who seemed unstable and kept cursing about how his room card was not working to activate the elevator.  We left our hotel for the nearby Capital Grille, a good steakhouse of less use to Catholics on Fridays during Lent.  So I ordered salmon and the portrait of Roberto Clemente staring at me the whole meal was definitely judging me for not having a steak.

3000 hits and I have to watch you eat fish at a steakhouse?

I then ordered the Coconut Creme Pie for dessert. I am usually a chocolate cake or cheesecake eater after a meal, but I remembered and told a story about a late friend, David Lee Nelson, who was a comedian and actor I knew for years in NY. He also was one of the few people to reach out to me during the pandemic to congratulate me on my success from a deeply genuine place (i.e. he was pursuing theater in South Carolina so there was no incentive or ulterior motive to his kindness and good cheer). Well before all that and his tragic loss to Cancer he had been a waiter at the Capital Grille near the Chrysler Building in NYC, near the law firm I worked at at the time.  He was not my waiter but he asked to comp me a dessert and he said the coconut creme pie was his favorite. I remember liking it, but after talking about him at dinner with my girlfriend I said, well I have to order it now and my goodness it was one of the best desserts I’ve ever had.

Thanks David Lee Nelson

Another funny story about the NYC capital grille was I went in there with a date within a year of David comping me the dessert and the hostess, an attractive and personable woman looked at me while checking in and asked, “are you a comedian? You’re so funny-” and before I could fully look at my date, puff out my (at the time) considerable pecs and say “should we just skip dinner?” the hostess finished, “David Lee Nelson is my brother.” I could not pretend to be a celebrity any longer and simply said “oh wow!” But I was genuinely happy to hear his name and to meet his sister.

Today we went to a pretty terrible breakfast at our hotel (not really the hotel’s fault as the hotel was PACKED with St Patrick’s Day parade visitors and Penguins-Rangers visitors) where most of it was cold.  We then went to the Andy Warhol museum and to the Penguins-Rangers game, so rather than delay dinner tonight any longer, here is the rest of the day in pictures with witty captions.

The Andy Warhol Bridge where you are guaranteed 15 minutes of traffic

 

One of the many exhibits in the Andy Warhol Museum

 

I found Warhol’s description of my conception offensive and disgusting

 

This piece was entitled bi-racial elephant with dog dick tusks I think

 

2 large heads

 

I was sad to see Anti-Semitism had made the Penguins mascot hide by pretending his name is Irish. DO BETTER PITTSBURGH

 

The game had a lot less feet washing than I expected

 

                                               RANGERS WIN
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How The GOP Chose Katie Britt

This week should have been about how Joe Biden put an orthopedic shoe up the ass of every hater and doubter with an energetic and overall strong State of the Union. Yes, he referred to an undocumented worker as an “illegal,’ but perhaps we could carve a progressive exception out for an undocumented worker, whose work appears to have been the murder of a nursing student, to allowing an 81 year old man on the right side of most issues to say “illegal.”  But just as Joe was about to celebrate and text Jill “get ready for some Corn Pop tonight,” enter Katie Britt.

Katie Britt, whose performance I would describe as “phone sex operator having a bipolar episode” was a standout terrible performance in a role that often leads to bad performances.  She was so bad and trending for so long I thought there was a chance that Trump might get angry at her for occupying too much bandwidth.  As I said on Twitter (and found out was stolen by someone), her performance was what you expect from someone who could only afford Kirk Cameron acting class.  Katie Britt, a pretty, young Senator, seemed like a solid option to the GOP, because they are as dumb as they are vicious.  Perhaps they thought she would give off that classic Republican combo of “GOP men want to violate her, and GOP women want to be her” but instead she gave off Handmaid’s Tale as envisioned by Jordan Peele.

But for everyone criticizing the GOP’s choice of Britt and the performance of Britt, perhaps you’ll feel different when you see the other options that made the final cut:

Tim Scott – In an effort to prove that they are not a party of racists and self-hating people of color, the GOP wanted Tim Scott to deliver the message. However, just at Britt decided to deliver her message from a kitchen, Scott wanted to do the message while tap dancing for Donald Trump at Mar A Lago.  The GOP believed that, while entertaining, it would detract from the message of lying about Joe Biden.

Lauren Boebert – For purely personal reasons I would have enjoyed more Lauren Boebert screen time, but apparently censors would not allow her to show either of the penises she planned on holding during her attack on Biden.

Barron Trump – With his 18th birthday looming like his 14 foot shadow, Barron Trump would show a new generation of potential Hitler Youth to the nation, while reminding them that he is Donald Trump’s son and not a drug addict like Hunter Biden.  However, Donald Trump had no idea who he was and did not want someone taller than him to deliver the message.

Kyle Rittenhouse – This was actually very close to happening, but only Truth Social would allow Rittenhouse to bring his emotional support AR-15 with him, thus eliminating mainstream coverage.

The Sound of Freedom – Given Katie Britt’s largely false and misleading (and extensive) discussion of rape and sex trafficking, the GOP were close to just playing the two hour movie starring guy-too-extreme-for-Opus-Dei Jim Caviezel about child sex trafficking as their rebuttal.  But the GOP eventually decided that nothing could me more unnerving than Katie Britt talking. About anything.

Matt Gaetz – This is actually my serious suggestion to the GOP.  Matt Gaetz stinks. Let’s be clear.  But he is sharp, ready for prime time as a TV personality, is all in on Trump and can connect to younger generations, whether through Only Fans, Venmo or Thai vacations.  The GOP is a completely amoral, hypocritical bag of garbage, but when it is time for a rebuttal to Joe Biden, they decided to go with some think tank-consensus-algorithm choice like Katie Britt?  At least do Joe Biden the courtesy of being who you are and pick your worst best. Instead you picked your Britt.

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The Republican Party Is Anti-American

Observing the Democratic Party for the last decade, it has become clear that it represents America. This is not about economic, racial, religious or ethnic demographics, though by those measurements, the statement would be true as well.  I simply mean from both political and governing standpoints, the Democratic Party represents America. We have politicians and voters who are on most sides of many issues, from economic policy, affirmative action, abortion, Israel, law enforcement, climate change (thanks Joe Manchin for helping us be diverse here) and everything else.  The common threads binding Democrats are a belief in democracy and a belief that the people elected to govern, should govern.  And it is these last two things that now mark the biggest distinction between the Democratic and Republicans parties.  I believe Mark Wahlberg described the GOP best in The Departed:

Before I go further, I recommend you listen to this weeks episode of Rain On Your Parade podcast (find it on the podcast tab). The episode was focused on American democracy and covers what I will not be covering today (how to make America more democratic – it was not a very hopeful episode, but I believe it is the best one so far of my rebranded show).  This blog, is more about how congressional Republicans no longer are interested in the two pillars of their jobs: democracy and governing.

Imagine a basketball team if you will. In practice, you scrimmage, run drills and try to compete for your own individual success to secure more playing time for yourself.  But in the end, once the coaches have selected playing time based on those results, the team is then unified in the goal of winning games together.  There will be disagreements sometimes on who is playing well, who deserves more time, etc. but the overall goal never changes: winning as a team.

Now imagine a basketball team, where two members of the starting five do not like what the way the coaches are drawing plays and distributing playing time, so they proceed to injure their teammates… during games.  That might be disturbing to see, wouldn’t it? That is what the Republican Party is at this point.  There is an element of the GOP that cannot govern, but the vast majority do not want to govern. And that is why it is time to do away with the fallacy that “we all play for the same team: America.” We don’t.  Democrats are trying to do the work of the American people for the benefit the American people (they may disagree within the ranks on how to do it, but there is not an “anti-governing” wing of the Democratic Party). Now you could be the rare, principled Republican team player like Mitt Romney, who might have genuine disagreements on policy. But that is because he might think he has a better path to success. But the vast majority of Republicans are driven by nothing more than appeasing Trump and schadenfreude – seeing Democrats fail, no matter how much it hurts America, is the joy.  Republicans will cut of your nose to spite the Democrats’ face.

Congrats GOP!

The Republican Party is not an “opposition party” anymore. It is an anti-American party.  Their inactions and obstructions are not based on policy (see the border legislation as a good example) and they are not really based on fact (if you can say the Biden economy is a disaster you are either a liar or dangerously ignorant).  They are based on stopping the very workings of democracy and impeding the function of government: to govern for the benefit of its constituents.

But the American people seem all to willing to indulge in the fantasy that “Democrats and Biden” can’t get things done.  For example, when the child supplemental income failed to renew (despite slashing childhood poverty by 30% I believe), it was 48 Democrats who voted for it, 1 or 2 who voted against it (Joe Manchin – basically a Reagan Democrat) and 50 Republican Senators who voted against it.  If you think 96% of Democrats voting for something to help children and 0% of Republicans is a DEMOCRAT problem, then you are doing the GOP’s work for them.  The Republican party has lowered the bar for themselves so much that America basically looks at Democrats to do 100% of the work with 50% of the workforce and then blames them for not doing the LITERALLY impossible (if you believe in math and constitutional law).  Here is the comparison I made in my special, TALL BOY, last year:

So, to say this for the 1000th time, if you care about American principles and American people, there is one party that both wants to help people and is doing/trying things to help people. The other party, if they sat and did nothing, would be improving upon their current stance, which is to actively impede progress.  In fact every time Republicans actually are able to do something (with permission from their dominatrix Donald Trump) it ends up unpopular (tax cuts for the rich, getting rid of Roe v Wade). Republicans cannot govern and they don’t want to govern. The only thing more contemptible that what the Republicans are currently doing, would be knowing who they are and returning them to power.

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Starbucks Mobile Ordering Is The Enemy

Most days of the week I will take a break from watching shows, being depressed and working a day job (the three things most common among self-described “comedians”) to go to my local Starbucks for a reading break (which now also doubles as a “listen to 4 or 5 people watch and listen to things on their phones without earphones” break).  My order is pretty consistent (green tea and either a croissant or a cookie) and even if it wasn’t, they would know me by the fact that I am super tall and in there about 5.5x a week.  But as I have had plenty of time to observe how Starbucks works, I must say that one true enemy has emerged: mobile ordering.  Child trafficking, Trump and climate change are all bad, but I don’t think modernity’s problems can be so succinctly summarized as they are in Starbucks mobile ordering.

Labor

I often find myself harmlessly jealous of the comradery that the employees at my NJ Starbucks display.  As a comedian I work alone and travel alone and can assure you I am horrible company and a horrible co-worker for myself.  But the workers at my Starbucks seem to treat each other well and be friendly with each other, which I would guess, in the absence of union protections, is a reflection of their manager.  Obviously one of the benefits of unionization would be not having to depend on the variances in franchise leadership for a solid work environment, but in the case of mine, her style and leadership seem to be working.  But mobile ordering cannot be fixed by a local manager.

I have joked on my podcast, Rain on Your Parade, that Starbucks baristas have basically become bartenders that we pay like Wal-Mart greeters. Now I know the pay is better, joke killers, but the volume of orders that flood in on the mobile system are absurd sometimes.  Whereas, a line would keep the pace manageable, and sometimes discourage people who don’t want to wait 20 minutes for a coffee or a milkshake masquerading as a coffee, mobile order allows you to make a wish like Aladdin, as if it is consequence and labor free.

One diabetesappuccino please!

I do not know the numbers, and I am too lazy to google them right now, but I am sure that the volume of increased orders thanks to mobile ordering is outpacing the increase in pay and benefits to workers at Starbucks.  So, just like corporate greed squeezing more out of less, Starbucks is likely doing the same and we are the sole driver of it.  I have never ordered something mobile and never will and that brings me to the next point.

Social Interaction

I like talking to people.  I also like ordering something from a human and being able to hold them accountable if and when they fu*k it up!  But just like remote work (which is a forthcoming topic on the aforementioned Rain on Your Parade podcast), I am a fan of person-to-person interaction.  For all the wonders that technology has given us, the idea that person-to-person interaction is unnecessary or weird or “ok boomer” is just not true. It is part of us as human beings.  People will simultaneously decry the uselessness of in person work or communication or interaction, while lamenting the depression and loneliness of large segments of the population and not see a connection.  From dating to work, the avoidance of in person interaction is detrimental to society and individuals.

I quote this from Gary Gulman’s special The Great Depresh often, but he said that small, pleasant interactions boost serotonin. Yet we seem determined to avoid something that our bodies biologically tell us is good for us.

But J-L, what if they suck and you don’t want to deal with shitty people???

Oh STFU! As someone who often rubs people the wrong way, only assholes presume that their Starbucks interaction will suck.  Sure there are plenty of bad employees in lots of places, but Starbucks is closer to Chick Fil A than the DMV when it comes to solid interpersonal exchanges.  That is excuse making for the fact that society is in an interpersonal death spiral where the first wave were the socially awkward and emotionally crippled, but then the apps and “convenience” (the most harmful concept to our planet’s well-being) started to turn the normal into the dependent.  You can see this during a rain storm in Manhattan when people are not hailing a cab driving right by them because their app-brain tells them to wait 10 minutes for an Uber. Instead of the blind leading the blind, society is now the app-dependent leading the app-obsessed.  Of course dating is more difficult for people who find ordering a coffee with eye contact and voice as too personal.

I’m sorry, but I am not used to having to speak to a human while at a coffee shop

Hidden Costs of Convenience

As alluded to before, like so many things in our society, Starbucks mobile ordering makes very immediate the idea that we don’t care how the beyond sausage egg sandwich gets made.  I walked into my Starbucks last week and saw 1 person on line and over 20 people waiting for the mobile orders.  And that one person was going to be last to be taken care of, despite having the (courage? if not now, we are a few years away from face to face communication being deemed brave by default) decency to order their beverage in real time and not in some digital fantasy where workers whose workload you do not know, and definitely do not care about, have to make complicated drinks (as I have said, if your coffee order has more than two instructions, you don’t like coffee, you like giving orders) at breakneck speed because they are no longer just handling orders, they are handling whims.  And that is what our society has become – a place of wish fulfillment on the backs of increasingly burdened service workers with absolutely no connection or interest in how the things get made by those requesting them.

On my most recent visit to Starbucks, the place was about half full and only 2 people in line, and then in walked an entire high school girls’ team (couldn’t tell what sport because I only acknowledge Caitlin Clark and Simon Biles when it comes to women’s sports). Now I don’t mean to damage the feminist movement or Title IX, but I am guessing that post game on a Saturday afternoon in a ritzy NJ town (I cross town borders to go to my Starbucks, like Billy Joel wooing Christie Brinkley in the Uptown Girl video) the girls could have just come in and ordered their drinks. But instead, in a basic combination of all three of my complaints, they came in with 12 simultaneous orders.  As has happened to me, I can be the only person in line and still have to wait 10 minutes for a cookie because everyone else cannot wait.

I would suggest charging extra for mobile orders, but that won’t work because it might cost Starbucks money if enough coffee warriors “boycotted” because they did not want to be charged for the extra workload they were creating. But even if it did get instituted, and it made extra money to be split between the store and the workers, it would still never happen because it would only improve the ordering experience for the most thoughtful and considerate customers – LIKE ME.

Confusing Convenience with Goodness

Like so many things I joke, speak and write about, I do not think this will get better and I don’t think it will stop. The things in our society seem designed to make us more awkward, less social, more consumerist and less connected. But the reason we let those things happen is because they all come with that magical word “convenient.”  We, as a society have confused convenience with goodness.  We have confused convenience with efficiency. And we have confused convenience with importance.  And as long as we keep doing that (and I don’t see how or why we won’t) we will all become either the overworked barista or the consumer who cannot make eye contact.

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Road Comedy Recap: A Tale of Two St Pete’s

This weekend I was on the road in St Pete’s Beach at the Sunshine Comedy Club. The gig involved two 25 hour train rides, a lot of walking and two shows that would both surprise me.  Let’s just get to it!

The Ride Down

I hopped on the SIlver Star (NY-Miami Amtrak) on Thursday at 11:30am. I was happy to see that I was in the newer of the two sleeper cars.  The east coast long distance trains often have one old sleeper car and one new sleeper car. What is the difference you ask?  The new sleeper cars slightly nicer rooms, mainly because each room is missing an individual toilet.  In the older car, each room has its own toilet, which is great if you don’t mind 14 separate rooms smelling like obese and/or elderly feces. No judgement, but I do mind that so I was happy to be in the newer car where the toilets all reside at the end of the car, and on the Silver Star, thankfully, that end was not my end.

I spent my next day reading and watching shows on my tablet and after a night of not the worst sleep I arrived in Tampa, from where I took an Amtrak shuttle bus to St Petersburg, from where I then took a Lyft to arrive at the club.  Exhausted I checked in to the club’s air bnb and then went for a leisurely walk near the beach. I passed several people who said hello, which made me realize the blue state-red state tradeoff. Sure some of these people may love a racist dictator and want to control women’s bodies, but I got more hellos and eye contact from strangers in St Pete’s Beach in an hour than I have from my neighbors in New Jersey in 4 years.  Obviously I will still take my state where the majority does not support racist dictators, but the everyday feelings of courtesy and warm sunshine (in the Winter) makes it a closer race than it should be.

Friday Show

When I arrived to the club on Friday I caught up with the owner, Kenny, a successful comedian and all around solid guy. I noticed very quickly his term “good for you” is a nice way of saying “I think you have mental issues” because no one has ever said to me “good for you” after I just told them I spent 26 hours on a train to get to central Florida, besides Kenny.

As I watched the crowd come in, it was a little bit of what I expected demographically (white, no young people), but it was not until close to showtime that I saw what I really wanted: a super jacked dude in a wife beater, who would independently be referred to by me and the feature act as “Goldberg” (the famed wrestler) and his girlfriend or wife who appeared to have, apparently keeping with the WWE branding, an HHH bra.  They had a decidedly Trump vibe (conservative bearing with hedonistic undertones), so I prepared myself for anything ranging from heckling to them treating me like the Capitol in a sequel to January 6th.

And what happened?  A great show!  The emcee, Bart, turned out to be a longtime admirer of mine (pre-Trump stuff) because he discovered me as a fellow lawyer-comedian (the same way Greg Giraldo inspired me to hope for great things, I think I comforted Bart by showing him that one could be a lawyer, a good comedian and deeply unsuccessful and it was not the end of the world). The feature, Jay Legend (which really is tough to follow as merely J-L(sans egend), did great and then I had a blast.  I did not shy away from politics, but as I have learned through trial and error – when MAGA people feel they are in control of a room, they are happy with me as irreverent lib-cuck-beta-bitch court jester. However, in a divided crowd (I am talking to you 2023 Governors in Levittown) they get much more snowflakey about jokes concerning their golden idol.  The show was fun and I got a great, much needed night of sleep afterward.  Here is an extended clip from Friday’s show:

Saturday

On Saturday I woke up at 630am (rise n whine bro) and walked to the nearby Starbucks to read and write (I skipped arithmetic). I then went for a 3 mile walk on the beach and then went back to the Starbucks for a lunchtime Frappuccino.  I then went for a 1.5 mile walk (3 miles round trip) to St John’s Catholic Church for the 4pm vigil Mass.  I expected it to be Mary Magdalene Church – the patron saint of Only Fans, but perhaps that is only in Miami and Tampa.  I must confess that I often like going to places that I dislike politically.  I like people saying hello to neighbors and strangers and I like going into a Church that is full, even if I arrived beige and sweaty like either a giant Jesus or a giant terrorist. And one other thing – on my walk I saw a truck with a Co-exist bumper sticker, but all the letters comprised of different types of guns, instead of religious symbols. Now perhaps the truck owner is a gun owning psycho, but at the same time I thought it was absolutely hilarious.  But J-L, why didn’t you take a picture of it? Because I left my cell phone in the air bnb so I can be at one with nature and the women on the beach who have augmented nature. Namaste.

Some people have fun in the sun… I have regret in the sunset

After Mass I walked back to Chick Fil A for dinner (that’s double the power of the Lord before the show) and not to quote Christ on the Cross (not to be confused with Christopher Cross) but by the end of the Saturday show I was asking “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

St John’s – the official Catholic Church of St Pete’s comedian visitors

Saturday Shows Show

When I got to the club Saturday I was told I had not sold enough tickets to justify a third show. I understood (no one is more familiar with my fans than me and it was really on brand on the way home from St Pete’s that one of these so-called fans told me on X/Twitter, “Oh I would have gone if I had known.”  If only there were 6 social media sites, my Twitter NAME which said “St Pete’s 2/9-2/10 for almost to months, or a monthly newsletter I put out that could better inform my fans…).

When I saw the crowd I immediately thought looking at them, “Man if I won over that WWE porn parody and MAGA orgy crowd last night, these people will be eating out of my hand!”  This was the show where fans of mine (or more accurately, mostly fans of The Black Guy Who Tips Podcast and Stand Up With Pete Dominick who like me as a side character) came to the show, along with people who did not look like wrestlers and retired porn stars.  Well folks, I think you know where this is going, but this was a crowd that did a lot of smiling, several “huh?”s and only a decent amount of laughing.  Friday’s crowd was definitely better, which I informed the Saturday crowd of multiple times (to laughs, in case you think I was just blaming them without humor).  After the show people kept saying to me “why did you think it was bad?” and I realized it may have been one of those shows where the crowd did not meet my expectations, but most of them still enjoyed the show.  Maybe.

After the show I had a very enlightening conversation with Kenny, during which he informed me (after hoping I would not take offense) that I am someone he uses as an example to comics of how hard the comedy business is.  I said I cannot take offense, when that is basically my mantra (hard work + talent + prolific production + good manners = miserable frustration). I then went to sleep.

Sunday

I woke up at 6am on Sunday and decided to go for a 3 mile walk (younger me would have gone for a run, but I am old me) and rewarded myself for my geriatric workout with 7am IHOP. Bart (the aforementioned emcee) picked me up and drove me to shopping mall where the bus would pick me up to take me to Orlando to catch the Silver Meteor (the Silver Star’s much more pessimistic cousin).  And to complete the pessimism, I was in the old sleeper car so all the rooms in my car had a toilet and only 45 minutes into the trip my neighbor wrecked shop (seriously, how do you leave your own toilet without shitting and then as soon as you are on an Amtrak, you feel relaxed enough to take an abusive dump – I left the car for the lounge for 2 hours because I felt like I was choking).  But J-L, do you ever go #2 on these long train rides you take?  No and to to quote DeNiro in Heat, “that’s the discipline.”

In the old sleeper cars, your toilet and head are very close

I then read, watched shows and read tweets about the Super Bowl before falling asleep. I woke up Monday morning in Washington DC and was home by 1130 am. Cookie greeted me in her usual whimpering, enthusiastic way, but I am starting to think she likes the smell of Amtrak funk almost as much as she likes me.

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Road Comedy Recap: The King of Princeton

This weekend I returned to Catch A Rising Star in Princeton, New Jersey for a pair of shows.  It has been far too long since I did a road recap blog, but there have been good reasons why I have not written a road recap blog in a while. The first is that I did not have as many gigs as I would like. The second is most of my fans seem to detest reading.  The third is I did not want to.  But other than those three small impediments, I was pumped to write! And now, with part of my New Year’s Resolutions was to resume blogging once a week, here we are!

Friday was a surprise sell out (usually Saturdays sell out but Fridays can be a tough draw) and the crowd was superb (good laughers, hecklers that were brought to heel easily, and big merch purchasers).  After the show I rewarded myself with a Haagen Dazs ice cream bar and a smart water (better known as “the gentleman’s threesome”)  and fell asleep. Here’s a fun clip from the Friday show:

I woke up Saturday with a full day ahead of me in Princeton, but I opted to catch up on a lot of writing that I needed to do (these brilliant, lightly-viewed sketches do not write themselves folks!).  So I was holed up in my room in the Hyatt and managed to write so much I had no time left for the gym (nothing like avoiding something to make me productive). I did make it out for a brief meal at PF Chang’s, where I received the most J-L on brand fortune cookie of all time:

It’s good to know that my 20 years doing stand-up will pay off somewhere

The show Saturday night was a sell out as well, but the crowd had a few more annoying people in it than Friday  And though they did not buy merch, several people expressed their disappointment that my merch cost $20 (one guy said “Hey I gotta be honest.” Really? I mean you can offer me your unsolicited opinion, but I don’t think you were subpoenaed. You always had the option of saying nothing. And with the prices of hats right now, I am not sure $20 is the sticker shock for the rest of the country (or the show 24 hours earlier) that it was for the trolls on Saturday.

Despite having a hotel provided for another night I went to the Princeton NJ transit station to go home that night.  I  Shortly before midnight I was greeted by my dog Cookie with whimpers and spins because my 30 hour absence felt like a month to her.

Tell your friends in the Tampa, FL area that I am headed their way! Because what comedy fan wouldn’t want to be part of comedy blog history?

 

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Why Is The National Anthem Still Played at Games?

Last week I attended the Knicks-Jazz game at Madison Square Garden.  I have been to three events there recently,  a Rangers game and a Madonna concert being the other two. If you are not new to American pop culture than you know that the only event of the three that did not begin with the Star Spangled Banner was the Madonna concert, unless you count Bob The Drag Queen calling a sold out crowd “bitches” to be a national anthem.  Of course if the Madonna concert had begun with the SSB it would be assumed that it was some subversive attempt by Madonna to “go woke” or “tarnish our nation,” because coupled with the faux outrage by Fox News would also be a fairly obvious truth: it is absurd to begin events like this with the National Anthem. This is not about racism arguments about the anthem itself, or the military funding to have it played, or any other issue beyond the fact that it is a total farce.

Several years ago (2017 or 2018 perhaps –  I cannot quite remember) I began a headlining set by getting on stage to a Kanye West song and decided to stand with my hand over my heart for an extended period of time (whenever it was, it was before Kanye’s extended fling with Anti-Semitism). The idea was born during a conversation I had had on my podcast to show the absurdity of beginning a pop culture event with any kind of salute to a song.  Of course in reality the bit was 1) not as funny as I thought it was, 2) missed by many in the crowd and 3) not looked upon kindly by some in the crowd who believe that mocking the sanctity of saluting the flag before a baseball game is blasphemous.

But, despite half the country having racist seizures due to Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the anthem to protest police brutality against Black people, it seems to me that saluting the flag at sporting events is actually, based on observing the attendees, not that important.

During the Knicks game various men shouted out during the anthem.  It seems there are always a dozen or so (white) men at sporting events who use silent moments to scream support for the team, presumably to maximize their moment for either ego or humor.  It is the sort of disrespect and hypocrisy during the presumed moment of secular reverence that I would analogize to partisan political speeches given by pastors in houses of worship. And a majority of every sports arena cheer and clap before the song is over.  Yet none of the above mentioned men (or women) are scolded, shunned, escorted out of the arena or fired by their bosses.

But basketball is a “woke” sport (translation: full of Black people who occasionally speak their minds for social justice).  A better example is the hockey games I have attended.  NY Ranger games are diverse when compared to Sebastian Maniscalco crowds, but not much else (I am a fan of Maniscalco, but when I attended his MSG show in 2019 I thought I was at a “Don’t Cancel Columbus Day” rally).  And boy do those January 6th alternates in attendance of Ranger games LOVE to scream and shout during the anthem.  Where is this respect for anthem?  I understand that they are being joyful for their team, but what does that have to do with respecting the troops, or whatever the reason given for the flag salute and Kaepernick’s banishment?  Kaepernick was being silent and reflective, but that is more disrespectful than shouting “Let’s fu*king go Rangers!”?

My simple point (which I cannot be the first to make, but I promised the fans a blog every week this year – PROMISES MADE, PROMISES KEPT!) is what the hell is the anthem still doing being played during games?  This forced patriotism (where aggressive, rude white guys are presumed to be in the right spirit, no matter how uncouth their behavior and vocals during the anthem) would seem dumb before a concert (and was, in fact, dumb before a comedy show) but simply because of tradition (and an undoubtedly apocalyptic reaction from right wing media if it was ever stopped) we are held hostage by it before every sporting event. It should stop.