Blog

Kobe Beef

Last night I watched the Boston Celtics get out-hustled and out-played by the Los Angeles Lakers.  As if it wasn’t enough to see Kobe Bryant have a solid game I was forced to swallow my own vomit several times as I watched Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar make quality contributions.  Rumor has it in the off-season they will be filming a buddy cop flick called Euro Trash and Shrek Ears.  But as much as Kobe has played the villain in my NBA story for the last 4 years, last night it got personal.  Because of the Laker victory, they will now play Game 7 on Thursday, my first night in Atlanta at The Punchline.

The Punchline is a big club and a chance for me to atone with Southern audiences for a minor debacle in Birmingham last Summer.

Backstory – Last Summer I featured at The Stardome, a huge club owned by some nice people.  6 of the seven shows went somewhere in the B- to B+ range, but one show, the Saturday show led to only the second time I have been boo’d on stage (the other time being Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn – a disgrace to higher education and the Civil Rights’ Leader’s memory, whose student attendees thought it was “boo every comedian that dares step on stage – like Amateur Night at The Apollo, without the credit of The Apollo. To put it in television analogies – if my comedy career was the show Homicide – Medgar Evers College would be Adeena Watson).  I said nothing offensive at The Stardome – I was just neither BET nor rednecky enough for the racially diverse, intellectual bottom feeders that occupied a few of the tables at the club that night.

So going to Atlanta was to be a bit of redemption for me and I actually booked the gig on the strength of my Always Be Funny/Glengary Glen Ross spoof video, which also restored my faith that YouTube was not entirely useless for my career.

But then the Lakers won because they seemed to finally discover that Rajon Rondo has the jumpshot of Shaquille O’Neal.  So that means Thursday night’s show will be empty of just about all basketball fans.  Now my routine has very fewbasketball references in it, but there is a correlation between people who are aware of basketball and people who enjoy my comedy.  Those people will not be there Thursday because Kobe & Co. won.  So who is going to be there Thursday night?  Southern comedy fans who do not like basketball.  Hmmmmmm, I just hope after the show I don’t have to tell anyone, “In New York they call me Missssster Cauvin!”

But the obvious point is that Kobe Bryant is to blame.  (I just wish LeBron James was at Game 6 and walked up to Kobe a la Maximus to Commodus in Gladiator and said, “The Time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end.” Because Kobe should know that when the LeBron James era will begin the moment LeBron gets a teammate(s) that is/are not terrible or fu*king his Mom…

Sidebar – For those of you that do not know – LeBron James mother is rumored (strong rumors) to have slept with LeBron’s bipolar, shotgun-carrying teammate Delonte West.  However, not a word has been uttered on this by ESPN , which is rather frightening.  My theory is that ESPN has marching orders from Nike not to say another word (what would ESPN be without Nike athletes and Nike advertising dollars?).  The story was discussed all over the Internet and on The Huffington Post, but not a peep from the premier sports news network in the world about one of the 10 most famous athletes on the planet?  Just makes you think if people including “The People’s Sports Reporter” Bill Simmons a/k/a The Sports Guy can be silenced (he gave a token – “absolutely false” comment on the story even though when I was in Cleveland everyone seemed to believe the story) by corporate titans (my friend Mike told me this has all the makings of a Michael Mann sports themed sequel to The Insider), what chance is there that news isn’t corrupted all the time by even bigger corporations (obviously it is).  And if you think this has nothing to do with sports – LeBron James disappeared against the Celtics after the rumors started flying, so unlike Tiger Woods’ Blasian fallace, LeBron’s story actually has sports-related salaciousness.

Back to Kobe- Is there anything more absurd than Kobe’s wife and future stripper daughters (when your Mom is a hot gold digger and your Dad is a wealthy rapist aren’t your employment prospects limited psychologically?) standing in the tunnel at halftime to greet him with adoration before he goes into the locker room?  “Look Nike and McDonald’s I am done with the butt rape and the cheating because here is my family right here.  But at the same time I am so driven to win that I take time out of halftime to greet my family?”  Anyone else’s wives or girlfriends meeting them in the tunnel?  Did Michael Jordan have Juanita waiting at halftime? No – he was too busy thinking about winning and killing the other team.  Now he might have had sex with his opponent’s wife in the tunnel as a competitive advantage, but he would never waste time to kiss his own wife mid-game.

So now for this horsesh*t I have to see potential fans not show up tot he first show in Atlanta.  It looks like me and the Celtics are going to have to put in a strong effort Thursday to make sure Kobe does not win.  Odds are the Celtics will have a tougher time than me.

Blog

Midwest

“Skinny models you can keep those, I like big corn-fed Midwestern hos” – Kid Rock

This has nothing to do with my most recent trip, but it is my second favorite rap lyric and it is relevant since I just returned from two shows in Columbus, Ohio.  (my favorite rap lyric is a Notorious B.I.G. lyric from the contemporary classic “Big Booty Hos” – “Biggie bang bitches from bar-b-ques to bar mitzvahs” … Interesting bar mitzvah, “hey what’s Estelle doing over there with the 300 pound cock-eyed hip hopper?”

Anyway I digress.

I returned today from Columbus, Ohio (the C-Bus as my law school classmate told me it was referred to) from two kick ass shows at the Columbus Funny Bone.  Having been in a long distance relationship involving C-Bus for 3 years I am very familiar with the Easton Shopping Mall (30 screen theater and a rumored target of terrorists, conveniently right before the 2004 Presidential Election – because the terrorists hate movies and jail bait teenagers) where the club is located.

Well two and a half years ago I went to the club and had a very mediocre set.  Perhaps it was because before my set I went to see Norbit as a way to kill time.  Nothing kills funny like that movie.  This year I went to see Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, a very good movie, which perhaps made the difference.  I had a very strong set on my audition and even made a few fans (including the woman I sat next to on my flight to C-Bus, who brought herself and her mother to the show).  The message: J-L’s Comedy – Fun for the Whole Family.

My set went well (in front of a 96% white crowd) and I got good news from the club manager.  Then he offered me a set on the next show – the urban show.  In comedy parlance urban is a club’s tactful way of saying Black and Latino people will find this show on average more to their liking.  Without hesitating I told the manager yes (when a comedy manager asks you if you want to do a set at his club you say yes, says Winston Zeddmore).  Then I thought through my routine and realized most of my jokes should work for most crowds.  However two of the crowds they don’t work on are conservative, low third of the IQ scale whites and Mike Epps fan blacks.  And having just performed for some of the former I was afraid my bad streak might continue with the latter.

They began the urban show with a 5 comic tribute to Michael Jackson, with five black guys doing dance moves, etc. to Jackson 5 tunes.  Then there was a montage of earnest MJ clips and I thought, great now I get to follow that.  But the crowd (96% black) gave me an even better response than the white crowd (perhaps inspired by the death of Michael Jackson they were more open to ignore whiter features in favor of whoever would have been considered black for Jim Crow purposes).  I even got away with my Stevie Wonder-is-the-next-to-go joke.  What I learned is as a half white, half black guy you cannot go wrong talking about Asian and Latin women to a crowd full of black women.  And I think some patrons had religious moments during my Obama impression.  I think if comedy doesn’t stat paying I might be able to be the first impressionist-escort.