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The New Yankee Stadium

If you thought the American Pastime needed more meatpacking district influence – here’s your baseball stadium.

A couple of days ago I received an amazing investment opportunity in the mail.  If I invest the GDP of a small country I can receive some entertaining sports surrounded by all the bells and whistles of a Manhattan club delivered in the form of a product that has had diminishing returns over the last decade.  That’s right I received my Yankees prospectus a/k/a ticket information and fan guide in the mail.

Like General Motors the Yankees have cost the American taxpayer more while providing less over the last several years.  There are several problems I have which were only augmented by the mailing I received.

The Prices

The Yankees, my second favorite team in all of sports, belong up there with the executives who received bonuses from AIG.  The ticket prices are absurd – it literally feels like what a night out to a Broadway play was before Broadway had to sell out to get seats filled in the theaters.  Baseball was not supposed to be high society  – it was supposed to be a day or night for families and working class folks who could enjoy entertainment with superstars without a bank loan or a blow job being involved.  There are now six (that’s six) special tiers of tickets for which the prospectus does not even list prices.   Presumably because they are so special and elite that only people with American Express black cards can even hear the prices without going deaf.

The Bronx

The Stadium was completely unnecessary and with the economy as it is , completely irresponsible.  What’s worse is that with the hollow promises brokered by the Yankees and the city and in part by former Bronx Borough President Adolpho Carrion, the Yankees got a subsidized stadium and in the process destroyed a massive, well-attended park with no equivalent replacement in waiting.  In one of the poorest communities in America, do you think destroying a quality outlet like a park with softball/baseball/soccer fields, a track and all sorts of other amenities is a wise decision?

The other promises that are often made – pumping money into the community, a school structured for high school students interested in sports management, etc.  seem to not be panning out.  Even worse is that all the restaurants (NYY Steak, Hard Rock Cafe) will actually probably take from the local businesses that thrived with the extra customers coming in for games.  Why would a tourist try local fare when they can go to the more familiar and ethnically-cleansed Hard Rock Cafe.

I would also love to know if Bronx residents were given priority for jobs created by the stadium and all its surrounding new businesses.  The Bronx has the highest unemployment rate in the city and this could have been an opportunity to make a small dent in it (very small, but at least meaningful as a step that says the Yankees will give something back – even if it is only salaries earned).

The Stadium

This thing looks beautiful.  Plush lounges, high end suites, a sports bar in centerfield, numerous quality food retailers at the stations in the stadium are just a few of the upgrades.  Hell, there’s so much at the Stadium that if they have a store producing Latino people they could render the Bronx completely obsolete.  However, isn’t this a fu-king baseball game?

Will there be a cover charge on top of tickets and techno blaring as you enter the stadium and some giant black dude frisks you and some sleazy grown-up prep school kid asks you if you party?  The American pastime should not be so slick and corporate looking.  People used to go to baseball games for the game – but now it seems that Manhattan spirit of needing to be seen has officially immersed itself in the Bronx, even if that immersion does not spread 20 feet outside the Stadium.  Now you can say “I have tickets to the Yankees” and it can mean more than “I like baseball and the Yankees.”  Now it can mean “I like status symbols and high fives.”  It won’t be long until Yankee fans become, due to financial restrictions and character depletion, like an LA Dodgers Crowd – famous for arriving in the 3rd inning and leaving in the 7th inning.

The old stadium used to be called The House That Ruth Built.  This one seems to be destined for The Club That Douchebags Inhabit.  Or maybe in the spirit of its apparent inspiration, just call it Stadium.  Or Douche.

I have my tickets for May 18th.

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Will Tell Jokes For Food

The toughest part of comedy is not in telling or writing jokes, at least for me.  The toughest part I have is with the marketing/self-promotion/getting actual money for doing comedy.  For example I am in the finals of a competition at Caroline’s where if I win I get a paid weekend opening for someone.  If I finished second, third or fourth I get to go home and take out my unpaid frustration in a game of Wii Tennis.

I have also received my fair share of guest spots, which translated into layman’s terms is, “You are pretty funny, but we have no real incentive to pay you and you cannot afford to refuse an unpaid spot because you secretly believe that you will be discovered, or at least appreciated by management and/or talent scouts, who are unlikely to be watching you.”  And that is true.

So the way to make money for an up and coming comic like myself is to take the show on the road.  Unfortunately this is proving rather difficult.  Here have been some of my favorite responses that I have received personally or through someone acting on my behalf:

“Please stop with the e-mails.  We will contact YOU if we are interested.” – this was sent after an obnoxious series of two e-mails sent a week apart (one with clips and one following up a week later – how rude of me).

“What do you bring to our club and how will you increase business?”- hopefully jokes

“He should just buy a car and travel the country for two years stopping by clubs.  Is he Jewish?  No, then he’s fu-ked.  He will probably have to get used to sucking men’s di-ks.” – yes this is an actual conversation that took place (mostly tongue-in-cheek, as opposed to cock-in-cheek),  apparently Hollywood casting agents have now re-located to help run comedy clubs in the Midwest.

The best part is that two of these quotes came from what are known as “B clubs” meaning not the city’s primary venue for stand up comedy.  That is not a knock on these places, but goes to show that some of these clubs seem to have a Napoleonic complex.  And it introduces a Catch 22.  I would love to tell clubs that cannot act or respond with some decency or respect to go fu-k themselves or threaten some sort of No Country For Old Men-style cross country trip, but they do have the power and they hold the keys to what I want – a chance to tell lots of people my jokes and to get paid for it.

I’d like to think that if I ever attained star status or mega star status that I would vilify the reputations of these clubs or simply buy them and bulldoze them, a la the trailer home of Jenny at the end of Forrest Gump, but that probably won’t happen for two reasons.  I will be too busy counting Benjamins and the clubs will be too busy kissing my ass (hence the Catch 22 – I lash out now I never attain success.  I attain success – reason for lashing out abates).  But as someone who was able to maintain a healthy grudge against their high school basketball coach for over a decade (not to mention how long I will get material out of more recent slights) I think my friends can attest that if anyone can hold on to that morbid fantasy in spite of success it is me.

But in the meantime anyone know where I can get some cheap knee pads?

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Sunday Bloody Sunday

First Rihanna, then an anti-“Gentile” heckler.

This weekend I learned of a few widespread rumors concerning Rihanna and Chris Brown.  Apparently love has a lot to do with it for the 21st century’s Ike and Tina.  Or at least daddy issues.  Rihanna is said to be taking Chris Brown back, which sends an awful message to young women in abusive relationships.  After sitting in the complaint room of the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for 3 1/2 years telling abused women that they should leave their abusive boyfriends or husbands it will be a tougher sell to to get Maria to leave Jorge if Rihanna won’t leave Chris.  Furthermore, as if trying to undo the symbolic value of Barack Obama in a one-two punch, Rihanna is also rumored to be preggers with Chris Brown’s spawn.  So I guess Rihanna is getting kicked inside and out.  I assume either Pharell or Timbaland is mixing a beat for Chris Brown’s newest single “Forgive Me” or some ridiculous song like that.  We have forgiven men peeing on women (R Kelly), men hitting women (Tommy Lee) and men swallowing women whole (Macy Gray) so I see no reason that with the right PR campaign, the right beat and the right stupid American public why Chris Brown can’t make a comeback.

Well, last night I wanted to make a few current event jokes (hoping certain Jews lost money with Madoff, Chris Brown/Rihanna jokes, talking about Obama shattering MC Hammer’s record for most money spent by a black man in one day), but I was interrupted by a heckler at the Goldhawk before I could start a joke.  I have a sort of repressed temper that used to be really bad.  Last night it almost came out, but instead this heckler simply ruined the end of what was a ridiculously great show.  Here’s a recap:

  • Jim Dodge led off the show brilliantly.  We have our 3rd big crowd in a row – woo-hoo.
  • Pat Breslin steps up and talked about his new engagement – laughs ensue, everybody happy.
  • Jess Burkle, who may be one of the quickest, sharpest comics I’ve ever seen on any level absolutely destroyed the room.
  • Mark Normand – with the toughest job of the night is equal to the challenge and killed.
  • Helen Hong goes up and this is where I start to smell trouble.  Retarded drunk guy comes in and is speaking a little loudly and trying to inject himself into Helen’s routine, but she dealt with him quickly and powered through her routine maintaining the great energy of the room while he sort of stayed quiet.  But like a bad plot of 24 he was just the opening plot line that ends around episode 15 to be usurped by an even worse plot.  Helen Hong’s set ends, enter the The Heckling Jewish Guy (HJG)
  • Jim brings me up to my Craig Ferguson credit:

HJG: Ferguson sucks

J-L: Alright – thanks man.  Any Jewish people here pissed about Madoff(about to go into a Madoff joke)?

HJG: I’m Jewish – right here. Fu-king gentiles are mad because they lost all their money with Madoff.

J-L: OK buddy, let’s be serious.  (scowling at him so that his entire party is telling him to be quiet and apologize for him – mood lost for the show which was one of our best ever)

HJG: Yes, let’s be serious.

J-L (wanting to plant the base of the mic stand through his skull and give him the worst beating a Jew has seen since Jesus): Jim, can we get some staff in here please (sitting meditating, forehead vein pulsing)?

HJG: (leaving with friends): I’m Jewish, Fu-k you gentile (these were the words I heard, perhaps in different order).

I do not deal well with hecklers, especially drunk and stupid ones – they are sort of like the Terminator – “they can’t be bargained with. they can’t be reasoned with.  they won’t stop ever, until the show is dead.”  My response is all or nothing.  Either I let it pass with no response or I really ruin the show by saying something like “SHUT YOUR FU-KING MOUT MOTHERFU-KER!”  I have found the passive route more likely to give me an aneurysm, but maintains a better show.  

I should have probably left the stage and yelled at Pat and Jim – “keep him here!” and then come back while Jim and Pat are having drinks with him and gone Goodfellas on him.  There’s always next show.