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I Went to an Elementary School Musical

After the wild success of my blog last month recapping a trip to my girlfriend’s nephew’s talent show at a local high school (the alma mater of GOAT Tom Cruise) I decided to see if lightning could strike twice and checked out an elementary school production of Seussical, a musical based on the stories of Dr. Seuss and not Phil Collins’ No Jacket Required.  Full disclosure, while I am an avid theater goer this show probably would not have been on my itinerary if one of the players in the show were not my girlfriend’s niece.  And fuller disclosure, I probably still would have skipped it if I had not gone to my girlfriend’s nephew’s show (equal work, equal aunt’s boyfriend attendance #Feminst #Ally).  So let’s break down this production of Seussical (which started 12 minutes late! Who the fu*k do you think you are, Madonna?!).

High Property Taxes, Low Microphone Budget

Glen Ridge, NJ is pretty pricey and you would expect a town that wealthy to have all the best stuff.  Well the best stuff does not include microphones apparently.  The first performer, in sort of a narrator role, had the mic cut off for about 40% of their time.  This would have been bad enough, but there was something else ruining my mood…

Elementary School Seats, Gigantic Human

When I went to the talent show I sat in the middle row, which was basically a massive aisle seat with about 5 feet of leg room. But for Seussical, the seats were assigned and though I had an aisle seat, it was an aisle seat that I outgrew sometime around 9th grade in terms of leg room and outgrew in terms of hip and waist girth in early 2023.  I would end up only sitting for the first thirty minutes before my right leg fell asleep “from the cheek to the feet” (that is my version of from the river to the sea).  I ended up watching the remaining hour standing in the back of the theater.  It was at this point that I realized I was at least 40 yards away from my girlfriend and her family so I was just a random, middle-aged dude watching a bunch of kids perform a musical. Speaking of a bunch of kids…

6th grade seats for a 38th grader

What is this The Ten Commandments?

I think the show featured every child in the town.  I have never seen a Broadway musical with a cast half this large.  And the quantity of the cast was only the second most disturbing thing about casting…

Live Aid + Band Aid + The March on Washington = Seussical cast

Is This Dr. Seuss or Dr. Wokeness?

The Cat in the Hat and Horton are two of the most well-known MALE Dr. Seuss characters. In the show they are both played by girls.  This is how it starts. Next thing you know we will have male elephants competing in high school swimming meets against female elephants and we will have let it happen!

The show was the abridged version (75 minutes) instead of the 2 hour, 30 minute Seussical that Lawrence Olivier made famous in the West End.  All the kids seemed to enjoy themselves and other than a few of the dads wearing their financial firm fleece jackets, the parents provided a pleasant audience.  And one day the 773 children who filled the stage will be able to say the performed in front of a comedy legend.

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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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Newark Nightmare: A Night with the NY Rangers

When it comes to hockey I am what a young person might label derisively, a “casual.” Or the median hockey fan (white, scruffy, 33 years old, pissed they missed January 6th to contest a date rape accusation) a “fa**ot.”  But hockey itself is an incredible sport, for all the athletic skills it requires of the athletes, the thrills of watching it, especially in person, and the great video games the sport almost always produces.  Outside of 1994, when my late uncle was wrapped up in Rangers hysteria (he was a huge fan and the 1994 championship, which broke a 54 year title-less streak, was a major milestone for all in his orbit), and the occasional Olympic game, I had barely paid attention to hockey until my Uncle’s passing in 2020.  I think part of that apathy had been augmented by the awful leadership of the NHL (even this “casual” knows that letting your contract with ESPN lapse so you could sign with VS network (WHO?) and then NBC Sports (HUH?) was a bad move, but also the lack of broad media exposure for NHL stars outside of commercials and ads during NHL games), but also growing older and having to prioritize a demeaning comedy career, 805 streaming programs, a day job and the deep frustration of supporting the Utah Jazz, there is only so much Jean-Louis to go around (my uncle always thought that given my size and French name I would have been a great defenseman, despite his occasionally calling me a “Mary.”).

But since my Uncle’s passing, which has coincided with a slight uptick in Ranger relevance (perhaps a post mortem connection), I have been paying attention a bit more. Me and the lady went to two games this year (record 1-1) at MSG, but we decided to splurge (me) for playoff tickets in New Jersey.  The series with the Devils was tied 2-2 and given 3 days off I figured perhaps the Rangers would make adjustments to counter the dramatic shift in the series that had the Rangers winning the first two games 5-1 and 5-1 and then only mustering 2 goals total in the next two games (as I would learn, changing goalies was only one factor as the Devils apparently took the Rangers’ skills and souls during that turnaround as well).  So I will present to you my day of Game 5 (as I write this we are hours away from Game 6, which I will miss because I have a show in Red Bank – see none of you there if past is prologue), where the Rangers’ horrid performance was only the 4th worst thing I saw.

The Last Beautiful Sight of the Day

On my way to New York Penn Station, after a day of law firming, to walk Cookie Cauvin in Bloomfield and get on a train to Newark I saw an Asian man who almost made me stop in my tracks.  To be clear, I am straight, but this man was the most beautiful Asian I have seen in person since my college girlfriend (and she was only half – we met at a mixed race mixer – no we didn’t – sorry I forget that many of my comedy fans do not get comedy).  This dude was about 6’3″ in very casual clothing but he looked like someone had taken Jason Mamoa and Chris Hemsworth (but with more Olympic swimmer build than bodybuilder), put him in an Asian Google translate filter gave him a more healthy-looking mane of Steve Aoki hair and put him in my path on the way to the train. He was accompanied by a Black woman, because on top of his other worldly presence he was clearly intent on making a Tiger Woods of attractiveness.  I am just assuming he was someone of fame that I was unaware of.  But I realized that this man was put before me by a higher power who knew I needed to see some form of natural beauty because of the man made horrors I was going to observe the rest of the night.

Welcome to The Rock

The Prudential Center is Newark, or “The Rock” as it is referred to in promotional rantings, is home of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, various major concerts and no interior design people (I assure you I am straight).  It feels like a half finished arena in the walkways throughout, though the arena itself is standard pro sports and concert quality.  As we made our way in I felt like Devils’ fans gave off a January 5th vibe.  Not quite insurrection, but close enough for me to be sure I knew all the exits.

Our seats for the execution of the Rangers

We lucked out with our seats because our row was mostly older and fairly subdued, relative to the crowd.  The only positive thing that would happen during the game from my perspective was a comedy fan recognized me (and instead of yelling “Trump!” he mentioned the comedy club he saw me at).  So after I walked around the arena feeling like I was at the bar in The Accused an hour before Jodie Foster showed up, I settled into my seat next to the lady and watched the Rangers get absolutely destroyed.  The Devils were faster, their passes crisper, their attack and defense more focused and effective… but other than that the Rangers played great!  With 7 minutes left in the game and a 20 minute walk to the train, the lady and I opted to give up hope that the Rangers would come back from a 3-0 deficit. In fact, as we were leaving the arena the Devils added a 4th goal.

Looking for Batman

As we walked from the arena through a few blocks of downtown Newark (the lines between “up and coming” Newark and “don’t go there Newark” felt obvious in an almost parody-like way, at least while we walked the 20 minutes) we saw the following:

  • An older woman shooting up
  • A man passed out in the street
  • 4 men getting into a physical fight over, perhaps, bootleg goods. One man had a weapon that sort of looked like a paddle.
  • 2 cop cars about half way to the train (where there seemed to be no more litter or homeless people) guarding a film set

Now when I posted the above observations on Facebook and Twitter my intention was to show what felt like a sadly ironic misallocation of resources that it seems up and coming cities are compelled (or feel compelled) to do in the interest of increasing exposure and tax revenue.  As we approached the train we heard multiple police cars going toward where we had come from (either to help with crime or to be extras in the movie/TV show) so perhaps better late than never.  But I was disappointed by how many people on social media (among my followers) jumped at the opportunity to interpret what I wrote as some callous denigration of urban struggle and crime and pile on.  One person went as far as to tell me, “Now do San Francisco, Chicago and New York” as if I was his replacement for Tucker Carlson in the “please replenish my IV of cherry-picked hate from cities with lots of Black people and/or Democrats.”  My point was to simply point out the tragic juxtaposition you can see in cities when they put expensive things (stadiums, film sets) in the middle of struggling communities, but the hardships are not alleviated – it simply makes it look more shameful than it already did before.  But the silver lining is the Rangers were no longer the worst thing I saw in Newark that night.

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Weekend Comedy Recap: Wine, Comedy and a New Jersey…

I was a last minute addition to a gig on Saturday and just the way I got it was illuminating in terms of how different generations and experience levels of comics can perceive road work. The gig was a paying gig, with transportation and a hotel room. This is what is known in road comedy as, “The Holy Trinity” or more accurately, “Whoa, did I get a time machine back to 1990?”  I was asked a week before the gig, which was to take place at Willow Creek Winery, in Cape May, NJ, by the young comic booking it who seemed apologetic for the relatively last minute notice.  See, he is approaching comedy like Bernie Sanders approaching a 19 year old black college student at Berkeley, who has a different world view on The Struggle. What he didn’t realize is that my career has felt much more like the experience of John Lewis (not just because of our similar names), except my comedy career has endured more pain and struggle than his work during the Civil Rights Movement. So in my mind, when I hear money… and a ride… and a hotel room, I don’t need to concern myself with anything else about the gig. Hell, I might have ditched a gig for this gig. But fortunately he caught me on one of my 361 nights a year when I am not booked. #Blessed

We all (Sam (the young comic/booker), his girlfriend (not a comedian) and Anthony DeVito (funny comedian) met in Hoboken around 1:30 on Saturday and made our way to Cape May in Sam’s car.  The drive was very fun and pleasant, though I realized I have the tendency like a dog that has been crate trained (my studio apartment being my human crate) to thoroughly/overly enjoy interaction with comedians when no longer solitary. I think if you asked comedians their opinion of me it would be “asshole” from (mostly) people who have never met me and “pretty cool, but holy sh*t does he talk” from people who have worked with me.  So at least I enjoyed the ride down to Cape May and then we arrived at the Southern Mansion.

Southern Mansion is the hotel where Anthony and I would be staying. Below is a picture of the bed situation, with Anthony doing some pre-show reading.  The Southern mansion looks and feels like somewhere Leonardo Dicaprio would have lived in Django Unchained and the living situation illustrated that. I had wished the bed situation was a little more equitable, but since I could not physically lie down on the small bed/lounge I got the humungous, gay Asian bed.

When we got to the show it was a beautiful event space full of elderly white people.  We got fed a nice dinner and drank free wine at which point I wondered if we were just being feted before we were ritualistically sacrificed. That is how un-road comedy this gig felt.  But then the show started and the crowd was great. Chrissie, the 4th comedian on the show, who drove up separately with her boyfriend, went up after Sam emceed. She did very well and set a dirty tone for the show. Like a comedian canary in an old, white people coal mine she let Anthony and I see that we would not have to operate on a perfectly clean level.  Anthony then went up and did well, especially when the microphone broke for 10 minutes (NOW it is feeling like a road gig!) and then it was time for me.

Before I went up Sam mentioned that Willow Creek Winery is the best winery in all of New Jersey. So in an effort to dig myself a hole, I announced that this gig was a perfect compliment for my bucket list because I had just performed at the best Olive Garden in Paris.  But it got some polite chuckles and the set went well. It was a weird feeling when I did my Election year run through of Trump-Sanders-Obama impressions realizing that this crowd of old white people did not seem to like Trump, Chris Christie, Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton (maybe a Jeb Bush crowd?). And in the middle of one bit about Spirit Airlines one woman yelled at me “They don’t support the troops!” which I thought an odd policy for an airline.  But they were a nice crowd and laughed a lot despite being drunk and understandably tired (hour long dinner before a 110 minute comedy show).  We then went to a bar nearby that had possible the best chicken fingers and fries I had ever had.

The next morning Anthony and I went to brunch looking like a closeted couple of gay men on a secret getaway from our heteronormative fake lives in NYC. There was a nice continental spread, as well as on the house a la carte service to choose from (omelets, pancakes or French toast). After eating, but before departing, we got a nice compliment from a woman who was at the show and then some guy asked me to “do Bernie Sanders at brunch”… before telling me “last night was pretty good.” As I have said, pretty is the ugliest word in comedy, but when a gruff white dude with a mustache tells you any kind of compliment you have to realize that anything more than “pretty good” and his VFW buddies might accuse him of being queer, so I will take the compliment in the spirit in which it was intended.

We had an uneventful drive back to NJ and then caught a PATH and a Subway train right away, which is pretty crazy on a Sunday. So, without being hyperbolic, this might have been one of the best gigs I have ever had in my entire career when taking into account free perks, crowd, pay and overall comfort from start to finish.  And it might even still make the top 10 if I had a comedy career that wasn’t on life support!

 TWO NEW EPISODES OF MY PODCAST THIS WEEK OSCAR RECAP (TUESDAY) & SUPER TUESDAY RECAP (THURSDAY)- Check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on iTunes and/or STITCHER. Subscribe for free!

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Dishonorable Discharge

Last night I did a show at a club in Princeton, New Jersey.  I was the feature act (the middle act doing about 25 minutes) and it went so well that I woke up with an e-mail from the owner/manager telling me that I was now demoted to emcee the shows tonight (instead of featuring) because I did not “look comfortable” and referred to a cheat sheet on stage.  I think I would have been happier if I were banned from the club and arrested for indecent exposure than being demoted.  Unfortunately, being demoted to emcee one night after featuring (with the same headliner) is like being fired from a job, but then still having to show up to work for another couple of weeks.  Obviously an awkward situation.

The sad part was last night’s show did not resemble a club gig.  That is because 65% of the 30 patrons were all doctors in some medical consortium.  Their average age was 55 and their favorite topic was themselves (for the record, the headliner is pretty dirty, but she scored big time points with the crowd by doing, drumroll please… lots of crowd work).  The emcee automatically does crowd work as part of his/her job description – “get the crowd involved and excited” and the headliner can see the tone of the show through the feature, which leaves the feature to figure out where he or she can go.  Sort of like being a set up man in baseball.  Your job is just not to fu-k up the show before Mariano Rivera.

So after my first four jokes (tried and true from San Fran to Denver to Boston and every sh*thole open mic in NY so like I said, tried and true) fell flat I realized that just a handful of people and the comics were giving me any consistent laughter.  So at that point I took a long hard look at my set list.  Far from a memory helper it was more like a temporary examination of the choices I have made in my life.   Then I just continued to rip through jokes that usually work with everyone outside of conservative medical professionals staying at Princeton, NJ hotels.  I was comfortbale the whole time, but I guess I can’t say the same for the crowd.  Some things went well and they even laughed a lot at the Obama impression (despite being almost unanimous in their displeasure for him – aside – I hope most of them lose their jobs with a public option if that is possible), but their laughter stopped just in time to give me an awkward exit off of the stage.

I think my main problem is that I confused the show’s proximity to New York as “non-road.”  With my exponentially heavier travel schedule this year I have seen what works and what doesn’t work outside of major urban centers.  Sometimes I have been surprised (Denver in particular), but most places and most people are content with the same old stuff (blacks and whites are different, black comics who are loud and animated versus calm and thought provoking, crowd work, women and men are so different, etc.).  It is as if people do not go to comedy clubs to hear something original in these places, but to hear the same jokes that they have always liked from different people.  This is not necessarily “wrong,” but it is irritating. Oh, fu-k it’s wrong. Dumbasses.  Buy a CD if that is what you like.  But either way it would have been nice to have one show to make the adjustment from “comedy club set” to the “older white people who do not get pop culture or sports after 1985 set/love crowd work about themselves and are possibly the intellectually slowest group of doctors in America” set.  I guess not.

What’s absurd is that although I feel my stuff is on the whole fairly original, I am not re-inventing the wheel on stage.

I guess what I have to figure out (and what I fought with my girlfriend about – I turn into a verbal Jake LaMotta after a bad show) is how to get paid: infrequently for somewhat original concepts, without being a self-righteous Hedberg or Carlin rip off that abound in “alt” scenes or more frequently for a routine that makes me want to kill myself but that comedy “fans” eat up on the road while I hope for a big break that will allow me to be my own voice.

But first I have to sludge through rain/snow to host two shows tonight.  Cold, wet and demoted – sounds like I’ll be much more comfortable tonight.