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Road Comedy Recap: Buffalo IQ

This weekend I was in Buffalo, NY performing at Helium Comedy Club. It had been a full three years since I had performed at Helium in Buffalo, but the city had not lost a step in my absence – it was still incredibly cold and dreary. I booked my hotel through hotwire.com – the Russian Roulette of travel booking sites and unfortunately landed in a hotel 2 miles from the club. The weekend would be one of missed laughs, terrible weather and poor sleep. So without further delay, let’s get into it from the café car of the Amtrak home:

Thursday: Country For Old Men

I hopped on the 7:15 am Amtrak to Buffalo, an 8 hour ride that ended up taking 9 hours. In my ever militant, old man style of life (I have a landline, 7 day a week hard copy newspaper delivery, a cannister of Folgers coffee that I dig into every morning and a dozen other old man habits) I took a cab at the train station instead of getting a Lyft. I immediately regretted my decision and not just because it was double the price. The 20 minute ride to my hotel featured AM talk radio. I could not tell if it was Rush Limbaugh or just another bloated, angry, pill-popping “conservative,” but the entire discussion for 20 minutes was three angry white dudes discussing abortion. I then realized that Fox News is really just the cool party drug version of GOP hate. AM radio is the uncut, pure, too potent for human consumption level hate that should have angry old white people ODing. “Jack was in the prime of his life. Collecting social security and Medicare. His wife of 40 years was calling police on black people selling bottled water. And then someone slipped him some bad AM radio and his heart was only prepared for what he thought was Fox News level hate. He is survived by his wife, 3 children who all owe child support and a bi-racial child he doesn’t acknowledge. RIP Jack.”

I checked into my hotel – the Wyndham, which was pretty nice for the broke-ass special price I got from Hotwire. A couple hours after checking in I got in the hotel shuttle to take me down to the club. Different middle-aged white guy, but same AM radio. This time it was just two angry white guys discussing “all the free college the illegals were getting.”

When I got to the club I had a splitting headache, probably from the overload of all the truth bombs I was bombarded with during my unexpected exposure to AM talk radio. The crowd was fairly light on Thursday, but the set went well (though I did make a video of various references falling on deaf ears for your pleasure below) and I sold exactly enough albums (2) to cover tips for the green room waitress and the MAGA shuttle to and from the club that night. #ComedyMogul

Friday: Ruth Bae Ginsburg

On Friday I was awoken from my slumber at 6am by the elderly couple next door blasting Fox News (I head the old man say “Pelosi has got to stop the shutdown already!”). After breakfast in the hotel I went to a Starbucks 0.8 miles from my hotel, which meant, in Buffalo temperatures, I looked like Leonardo DiCaprio at the end of The Revenant by the time I arrived. I did some reading, writing and arithmetic and then went to see On The Basis of Sex, the enjoyable new film based on the early life and work of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Young Ruth was cute AF so I didn’t think Felicity Jones was an out of bounds choice to play her, but I did have some small critiques. My review of the film and theater experience:

When I went into the theater it was a pleasant light flurry outside, as if Buffalo was saying “Well, you obviously want a touch of winter wonderland when you come to Buffalo!” but when I exited the theater 2 hours later it was a fu*king blizzard (video is available on my Twitter feed).

Attendance was lighter than normal for Friday shows, understandably given the weather. My sets were well received and I sold a few albums. Only one guy all weekend seemed to hate me (mid 50s biker wearing an American flag bandana, accompanied by his wife), but every show references to Biggie, A Star is Born and other pop culture items from a wide range fell on mostly deaf ears. Here is my brief plea to the crowd about A Star is Born:

And I got my allotment of strange racial comments as usual. A guy asked me where I was from in NYC and I said the Bronx and he replied “You’re the tallest white guy from the Bronx ever!” proving that he had not retained much from my set and that he had no idea how height or geography work. My favorite racially awkward line from road work is still is when the emcee was twerking on stage in Toledo back in 2010 (I was featuring for Steve Byrne) and I said to a white woman near me “he’s pretty good!” and she said without humor, “Well duh, he’s black.” #MAGA

Saturday: Mass and Bad Tourist

Saturday I woke up at 6am (I generally haven’t slept well most of this decade, but this was different – the alarm in the Fox News elderly room next door was blaring). Apparently, the geezers who left the day before had set their room alarm for daily and I had to call the front desk to shut it off (also Wyndham – please get thicker walls). After some rest and watching various shows on my computer I made my way back to Starbucks for more comedy due diligence and then it was time for Mass. The Church was a cathedral named St Louis. It is beautiful and obviously harkens back to a time of greater prominence since many of the kneelers had cobwebs and it was only about 15% full. And as I do in my never ending tour of Catholic Churches in America I gave my collection money to a homeless woman outside – Philadelphia, DC and now Buffalo are the cities with the savviest homeless people apparently. I don’t know how you can waslk into a Church and not give your money to a homeless person outside the Church. Sure it’s savvy marketing, but Jesus never put an asterisk on the Beatitudes “Unless they are smartly guilting you.”

Jean-Louis at St Louis

After Mass I walked to Wendy’s near the hotel when I saw the bar that birthed Buffalo Wings. I thought, “What luck – I should obviously go here for dinner… except chicken wings are worthless pieces of shit, so on to that spicy chicken value meal at Wendy’s!” Seriously, wings suck and were basically trash that the bar had to use when they ran out of good food 80 years ago (this was covered on an early episode of my deceased Righteous Prick Podcast). Show me the home of the breaded chicken tender and I will support that local business.
Birthplace of Buffalo Wings… PASS!

Birthplace of Buffalo Wings… PASS!

That night the shows were great, CD sales were trash and I went back to the hotel having made a profit of about $100 for the weekend and tried to fall asleep. I had this weird dream that I was in a store front with friends and some celebrities (Mark Wahlberg was one of them) when about a dozen armed gang members entered and shot and killed one person and the person they were there for, 6ix 9ine – a rapper who I’ve only been made aware of in news reports (I don’t know his music) and have not seen or read anything about in at least a month. Perhaps it was my subconscious mind’s way of saying how much I hate entertainers who have Internet fame. Or “It was all a dream…” – just kidding I know you don’t get that reference Buffalo.

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Judgment Day: Sonia & Paula

Today one respected jurist will be confirmed to the Supreme Court as “one of America’s most respected judges” according to comedian Ted Alexandro, makes an exit.

Sonia Sotomayor is set to become only the third female justice, and probably first drinker of Bustello Coffee, to the Supreme Court.  But like some sad zero sum game for women, the feminist and special needs movements were dealt a severe blow with Paula Abdul’s exit from American Idol.

For the Supreme Court it means a possibly dose of empathy and wise Latina judgement, which have jointly replaced gays and blacks as the scariest things to Republicans.  For American Idol fans it means less empathy from the nicest judge and more of Kara Dioguardi speaking angrily about how much she likes someone’s “artistry.”

For Clarence Thomas it means another desperate opportunity to place pubic hairs on Coca-Cola cans (sorry Ruth Bader, you appeared to be a nice looking woman in your youth, but Justice Long Dong needs something fresh).  For Simon Cowell it means no more drugged up grabs of his chest hairs during broadcasts.

For the country Sonia Sotomayor’s replacing of David Souter may mean very little in the balance of issues.  For the country, Paula Abdul’s exit will mean very little in American Idol’s ratings.

Kept it short today – writing other stuff.  River Bar tonight if you are in NYC.  The aforementioned Ted Alexandro is headlining (Letterman, Comedy Central specials) with myself, Myq Kaplan (Just for Laughs Festival), Ryan Connor & Joe List (Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham).  42nd and 10th ave @ 9 pm.  Drink specials and no cover.

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Why Diversity Is Still Important

When Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President it felt like a prescription for the foreign policy of the Bush administration.  Although I was leaning towards voting for John Edwards I thought then-nominee Obama provided the best counter to terrorists and extremists around the world: a man with an appearance, a name and a family history that could immediately alter perceptions about America under the Bush regime.  And the news reports of his Cairo speech yesterday seem to be proving this correct.   I think what more and more people have to recognize is that there is an incredibly high value to Obama’s appearance and racial background, no matter how many conservative politicians and jurists want to move quickly (and conveniently) to a race-blind society.   Since the Warren Court, the conservative wing of the Supreme Court and many pockets of the country have been in an all out sprint to become race neutral (because once you have a 400+ year head start, there is really no threat of actual equality for the injured party without some substantial assistance).  Hopefully that trend will slow or stop.

And although the 43rd presidnet provides the greatest contrast to the 44th, this is not merely a Bush vs. Obama issue.  If Bill Clinton gave a speech equivalent to that of Obama’s, it could not have the same effect because he would still be white, which would prevent the instinctive affinity and pride people of color around the world feel towards Obama.  However, because of Obama, when we have our next white president (I am pretty sure in Presidential politics “once we go black, we’ll probably go white again at some point” is the axiom) America will be looked at differently because we will be a country where people of different races succeed to the highest level in reality and not just in a series of truisms.  But make no mistake, our bombs and guns cannot have the same long term effect in changing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world (and marginalizing its radical and violent subset) that having a leader more representative of the world does.  And this is not just an international effect – this is an important lesson for every community in America.

At the Eagle Academy, a school of predominantly inner city African-American and Latino males, in the South Bronx, where I am a mentor, they began the mentoring program with the idea that young men will become what they see.  So the school made an intense effort to draw mentors from various professional communities.   Perhaps the young men will see drug dealers and gang members during their day, but they will also see lawyers and doctors during their day.  And yes, most of the mentors are men of color as well, because that emphasizes the most important lesson, which is not that other people (i.e. white) can have success via traditional paths (college, grad school, etc.) , but that they can have that same success too. 

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has come under fire for some of her comments indicating that her background will help her appreciate different viewpoints, especially those of women and people of color.  People are less charged up over her female point of view because sexism has never gained the stigma that racism has (even on the Supreme Court gender discrimination has never attained the “strict scrutiny” standard that racial discrimination cases have attained, despite the efforts of Justice Ginsburg.).  People do not mind as much when a “women’s perspective” is cited because it does not evoke the horrible sensations of guilt and horror that the legacy of race relations in this country does.   But different perspectives, especially racial, are important.   Do I agree with Judge Sotomayor’s opinion on the firefighter tests in New Haven, CT?  No – but do I think her perspective as a Latina is important in deciding legal issues concerning race? Absolutely.  As she put it in 1998: “We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity, recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence.  Yet we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race-and color-blind way that ignores those very differences that in other contexts we laud.”  Appreciating and understanding our differences can only come from inclusion and interaction.

The most tragic example of this is the fatal shooting of Officer Omar Edwards, an African-American police officer in Brooklyn by a fellow officer, Andrew Dunton, who is white.  Many people think that this tragedy could have been averted by more training techniques, but training alone cannot undo the subtle prejudices that lead to these rare, but not rare enough, incidents. 

And this is not to say that this incident could have been avoided if Officer Dunton had not been white.  But perhaps if in a couple of decades a white officer’s first instinct (the way it may have been for an African-American officer because of his life experiences) will be to think, maybe that black guy is a cop I’ll hold off another second or two until I am certain one way or the other.  And many officers would rightly say those two seconds could cost a police officer his life.  And right now, they may be right.  But perhaps as we continue to evolve in our race relations other factors will become more salient beyond race in identifying a police officer form a perpetrator. 

From all the newspaper articles I’ve read on it, Officer Dunton is not some cliche, bigoted cop, which makes the situation all the more dire.  The overt and malicious racist is easy to spot and punish or avoid, but subtle and somewhat benign prejudices, if there are such things, are more dangerous because they are harder to guard against, both for the victim and the perpetrator.  The only way things like this will disappear is for major cultural changes to take effect.  And those changes will take decades to occur.  But the key to that change is interaction and diversity (the fact that Latino, African-American and Asian members the NYPD now comprise a majority bodes well I think).