Blog

Southern Discomfort

This past week I did my first shows in the real South in Destin, Florida.  A nice vacation spot on the panhandle where the temperature varied from disgustingly humid to just shoot me to put me out of my misery.  But the most sweating I did during the weekend was on stage.  Now the club is located on a resort so I thought I would end up being the comedic equivalent of Johnny in Dirty Dancing.

Not quite.

Here are the highlights:

  • “I do not care for the cussing.”  One woman who was enjoying my set for the first 6 or 7 minutes then frowned at me for the next 20 because I said a few curses (about 6 in 25 minutes).  I looked at her after a joke that worked and said, what’s wrong?  And she responded with the above quote.  So I mocked her for the rest of the show whenever a natural moment for a curse would come up I would shout something like darn tootin’ or its equivalent, which delighted the nine or ten audience members who understood that I was being sarcastic.
  • An innocent joke comparing myself and Obama to Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen was greeted with 2 silences and 2 rounds of boos.  So on the last show I finally snapped and asked the crowd, “what is it with you people and New Jersey rockers?  Is it because they vote Democratic?  is it because Springsteen sings about selfish things like Vietnam vets and working class struggles?  Sorry – from now I will just talk about Toby Keith putting boots in people’s asses.”  That got a big laugh.
  • One of the biggest laughs I got all week was on an anal sex joke.
  • On only 1 of 5 shows Obama references got booed.  They started shouting things like “I wish I could print money,”and “I don’t want to pay all my money in taxes.”  Then I realized this is what went for comedy on the Glen Beck/Fox News Comedy Tour.

It became clear to me that these shows were like some other shows I’ve done and it took me too long to realize it.  Some comedy shows (the majority, most taking place at clubs) are the type where people arrive to laugh at someone’s routine or act.  I prefer those because I actually write jokes to perform them, not for exercises in penmanship and typing.  Other shows tend to be those where the crowd wants a clown.  Someone that will take them and tweak their nose and make them verbal balloon animals.  Except for my anal sex joke and Obama impression, the biggest laughs I got were when I ripped on people because they wanted to be the show.

Oh well, next time I head down there (which may be unlikely if only because my tiny plane departing Florida Sunday was a top 3 unnerving flight of my life) I will just bring a suitcase of Don Rickles’ material.  “Look at this guy!  I tell ya…”

Blog

Women’s Studies

With a historic nomination, a Pulitzer Prize winning play and a GQ interview all creating different buzz around different women I decided to dedicate today’s entry to women, sort of.  This will not become a regular thing.

First, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the bench, which became the instant rags to riches story of Bronx project girl made good.  However, it is important to note that she still had a father and a mother working, setting a strong example and instilling in her the values and hard work that would propel her to where she is today.  Not every kid from the projects will have a Princeton or Yale Law intellect (in fact many of the sons and daughters of privilege do not have them either), and worse still is that not every kid will have the kind of guidance that Justice Sotomayor had (I know her father died when she was nine, but that is still a different situation than the incessant problem of deadbeat or non-existent fathers).  So while I hope she is confirmed and can’t wait to make jokes about the Supreme Court being stocked with Bustelo Coffee and Clarence Thomas hoping to be the Supreme Court’s P Diddy to Sotomayor’s Jennifer Lopez I just hope this is not another chance for angry conservatives to pull the “anyone can do it” schtick.

Second, I saw a play called Ruined (this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama), which focuses on the ravages that Civil War in Congo has taken on young women.  Those featured in the play actually find some refuge in being prostitutes inside of a brothel, because it is shamefully safer and more comfortable than being easy prey for soldiers and rebels or facing scorn and shame from their villages.  The play was quite powerful, but all I could think of was how it inspired in me a new reality series for Bravo: The Real Housewives of New York… in Congo.  If they are successful there you could then send the Real Housewives of Orange County to Afghanistan, etc.  Just a thought.

Lastly I saw a story about Levi Johnston yesterday, who inexplicably continues to get press coverage.  I will say it few times, but I feel bad for Sarah and Bristol Palin (more for Bristol, but some for Sarah as well).  Why this Kevin Federline wannabe, with the same face and respect for women as a young John Wayne Bobbit**, is still getting press is beyond me.  But it is making me believe that people do enjoy beating up Sarah Palin beyond the norm for politicians.  The clip I saw on television yesterday concerned his interview with GQ (“gentleman?”), in which he talks about how he and Bristol drifted apart (wow – after a pregnancy it’s amazing how he lost interest in her) and he says that that it’s “weird” going over to the Palins house to see his kid, but Sarah Palin puts on a “fake smile” for him because she is a politician.  Only an idiot would buy the GQ specifically for his interview and only the most blindly idiotic partisan Democrat would actually read it and say, “Yeah – Palin is such a fake politician!”  Perhaps it’s “weird” around the Palins because you got their daughter pregnant and now badmouth your kid’s grandmother.   So if I have to choose between Obama and Palin I take Obama without thinking, but I’ll take the Palins over Levi Johnston.

**In terms of look-alikes I am aware that Levi Johnston looks more like the lead singer of 3 Doors Down and Michael Shannon (from Revolutionary Road among other films), but JW Bobbitt is more appropriate and funnier.

Blog

Who Killed The White American NBA Player?

For years the Endangered Species Act has been protecting animals in America from becoming extinct at the hands of man.  But one species seems to have avoided being placed on the list despite an incredibly rapid descent: the White American NBA player.  In keeping with my new obsession (NBA playoffs have replaced American Idol seamlessly), I will be focusing on some NBA issues in my blog.

It is hard to believe that 17 years ago four white players and a played on the original Dream Team (Larry Bird, John Stockton, Chris Mullin and the Ringo Star of the Dream Team – Christian Laettner).   Earlier than that were legends like Pete Marivich and Jerry West who were studs.  And in the 1980s and 1990s you had guys like Tom Chambers and Dan Majerle who were all stars and as athletic as any black basketball player.  Now the only white Americans who get near an all star game are Jack Nicholson and the referees.

The question is why?  Well – some possible theories:

RACE

Race can be eliminated right away.  Three of the last five MVPs have been white.  Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash are elite level talents and are white.  But they are German and Canadian, respectively.

DUKE UNIVERSITY

No single institution may be more responsible for flooding the NBA market with overrated white talent.  They are like a tech stock after the bubble burst.  Jay Bilas, Chris Collins, Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, JJ Reddick, and Josh McRoberts are just some of the guys who have been great at the college level and then been astounding failures in the NBA (Fool me once shame on you, fool me 14 times – shame on me).   But Duke is only one school and there are plenty of other white players who do not play for the most hated team in college sports.  (We will address Mike Dunleavey Jr. later who as it turns out is the exception that proves the rule).

REVERSE EVOLUTION

Dolph Schayes was a Jewish basketball player (probably included in the leaflet Ted receives on “Famous Jewish Athletes” in Airplane!) in the 1950s and 1960s who dominated the league and is a Hall of Famer (but not a doctor).  His son, Danny Schayes was a mediocre back up center (and not a doctor, but now is a financial investor).  Rumor has it Danny’s son David just got cut from his Hebrew School team, but may become a doctor.  So as success has opened new opportunities for the sons and grandsons of old white people, their skills/desire have lessened with each generation.

CULTURAL

This I think is the answer.  Our sports are becoming very compartmentalized based on our assumptions on race.  I had an Irish bartender tell me last night while laughing that white guys shouldn’t play basketball.  He did not mean anything malicious by it (but still sort of a dumb comment), but his perception was that white guys were something weird and unfamiliar in the NBA (it did not help that he was looking at Chris “Birdman” Andersen, who looks like a meth addict who also happens to have a ridiculous vertical leap.

But all of our sports have become self-fulfilling racial prophecies.  Latinos are King in baseball, whites are right there with them and those are the players most marketed (despite a recent black MVP in the National League) so not coincidentally there is a relatively minuscule number of black players in the MLB.   NBA commercialsnow resemble a Chinese Restaurant in Harlem – one Chinese guy (Yao Ming), a bunch of black guys with tattoos (almost everyone) and a few Europeans who wandered in from some hostel.  Hockey is for – they still play hockey?  I think that is for Russians and Canadians.  The point is that the marketing of the sports may have influenced the people who play.  Just look at the Top 5 American born players from 1989 and 2009:

1989

Larry Bird, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Tom Chambers, Kevin McHale (6th man – Mark Price)

2009

Mike Dunleavey Jr. (looked like a typical Duke Dookie, but has developed into a quality NBA player), Troy Murphy, Kyle Korver, Kirk Hinrich, Chris Kaman (David Lee off the bench)

In this match up the score would be 145-82 in favor of 1989.  How is this possible?  Well for many years basketball has become associated with the inner city, probably because it has been able to deliver so many people out of struggles and poverty (albeit a microscopic percentage, but enough of a Horatio Alger style tale for communities to believe in) that it has become a game for foreigners and for inner city youth to excel at.  White Americans, perhaps, no longer have the same hunger on a mass scale (except for the poor ones who may harbor gun-clinging resentment towards things like affirmative action,which would make the NBA unappealing to them because of all the black people and the fact that they themselves might be viewed as affirmative action sports cases) and have given up on basketball as a serious choice because of all the cultural bias (is it a coincidence that the decline of white American basketball players accelerated after the release of White Men Can’t Jump?).

If this is what has happened then the reverse could be beginning now.  If Obama serves two terms and someone like Corey Booker, the Mayor of Newark, is president after him then perhaps black men that would be looking to go to the NBA will go into politics and vice versa for white American men.  That would be a very tall Congress.

Blog

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.