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Climate, Health and Failing to Act, But I Still…

Yesterday I read an article in the New York Times about frustration coming from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries that feel they are going to bear the brunt of the increasingly devastating ecological disasters that have been brought on, or at least enhanced, by pollutants produced disproportionately by global powers.  In other words, the countries devastated worst are the most susceptible to even greater ecological damage, but they lack both the industry to be blamed as one of the chief causes as well as the economic power to battle and influence those that are the driving forces.  It’s literally the worst of both worlds.  As I read this article I thought of what a great parallel it made with states like Texas with regards to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Now I am no wonk like Ezra Klein, but I do my best to keep up with CNN and the New York Times on a daily basis.  If this reveals some horrible bias on my part then so be it, but I cannot spend my whole day reading every conspiracy conservative blog post or every hyperbolic, meant-to-be-thought-provoking-and/or-inspiring post from Upworthy on my Facebook feed, so it is the best I can do.  I also resent the idea that the New York Times, held as the public standard and public record for such a long time, all of a sudden became a bastion of liberal untruth (in their news reporting – yes their editorial page is liberal, but editorials and op-eds are on their face opinion pieces) when a cable station known as Fox News came to power.  The New York Times stood for “2 + 2 = 4” for most of my life. Then Fox News came around and told its minions “2+2 = 9 and anyone who thinks it is less than that is a liberal monster and a liar, but we will ‘compromise’ and say 2+2=7. But if you cannot agree on that then you are uncompromising and wrong.”

But back to the task at hand.  Texas has the most uninsured people of any state in America, by percentage (followed closely by Louisiana, to whom this analysis, if I can call it that, also applies). But their Governor Rick Perry, a staunch opponent of Obamacare, refused to expand Medicaid (once the Supreme Court made that part of Obamacare optional for states, but remember, a court is only activist when a LIBERAL court overturns or changes laws).  The decision to uphold Obamacare by the Supreme Court is really a terrible decision regardless of what your political leanings are.  It achieved the result of upholding the law, but it did so in a way that gutted the Commerce Clause powers of Congress far beyond what the Rehnquist Court ever did and it also made the Medicaid expansion optional, which was just the first way of rendering the decision a Pyrrhic victory for President Obama.

So Texas, with lots of uninsured people, and a federal guarantee to pick up 100% of the Medicaid costs for three years, and 90% of them after that, opted not to expand the rolls to the people who need it most.  Now, governors like Rick Perry like to say they are doing what is best for their state when the federal government comes a knockin’ because that sounds tough and full of leadership.  But in this case, it is not what is best for Texas that is driving Rick Perry, it is the new Republican governor motto – We do whatever is worse for President Obama.

 

And why did I start with the reference to the tragedy in the Philippines?  Because, just as their voices and wallets are insufficient to change the world community’s direction on climate change, so too are the poor people who would most benefit from an expansion of Medicaid in Texas.  Especially since Texas is one of several states, mostly southern, enacting stringent voter ID laws, since the Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.  It has been well documented that the plague of voter fraud is a mirage created by Republicans.  Now one cannot sensibly argue for voter fraud, so that makes it an easy argument to make for anti-voter fraud measures.  As if voting against stringent requirements MAKES you pro-voter fraud.  But these laws are almost entirely a pre-text to limit the voting rights of communities who are more likely to vote Democratic.  So in states like Texas you have created an almost perfect circle.  The poor are denied health benefits out of political spite, but are then more likely to have voting impeded so that men like Governor Rick Perry can claim a mandate for their policies when the poor end up not voting in sufficient numbers to influence political change (several states like these are also ones seeking to limit early voting as well).

Do I think the requirements are too stringent? No. But I also am a very educated person with (diminishing) means.  They do not seem too harsh to someone in my position, but the real issue is why would one party be the overwhelmingly driving force behind a law that purports to solve a problem that does not exist unless it is a pre-text for something else?

Does this have to do with President Obama? Of course.  In 2008 lots of people were inspired and motivated to vote in larger numbers than before.  And a lot of those first time voters may not have looked the same as some of the regulars.  And there is your iron clad case for widespread voter fraud.

Now, as a supporter of President Obama I am both angry and disappointed that the healthcare.gov website was and is such a flop.  The way I feel about this website is how I felt about Eliot Spitzer getting caught with hookers.  Spitzer went after Wall St harder than just about anyone and was on the ball well before Wall St imploded. But he was messing with powerful people and by sleeping with high end hookers he gave them an Achilles’ heel to exploit.  Now President Obama clearly has not fu*ked around on Michelle because there is no way Republicans would have taken the high ground while looking for dirt if they learned that he had cheated.  But he challenged a massive industry and a powerful political party and with a faulty website he gave them Achilles’ entire leg to exploit.

Of course in states that cooperated and were efficient enough, the roll out of state run exchanges have been a success with Kentucky, of all places, being a shining example (wacko Senators, but a Democratic governor who believed it would help his state and that once it worked, would give him political cover).  I live in New York. I enrolled in a health plan yesterday in about 60 minutes (the biggest snafu I had was that New York State apparently does not recognize the hyphen in my name, Jean-Louis).  I was able to find plans that offered me better coverage than my current plan (which is pretty solid), is accepted by the doctors I see, and will save me about $160 per month over what I am paying now.  And it was offered by a new provider that emerged in 23 states, specifically because of the market opportunities created by the Affordable Care Act.  To me, the act is a clear cut success.

But I also understand that many (most?) people had their care go up and are also still having problems with the site.  And the President has taken responsibility for both the site and the misrepresentation made to people about keeping their health care.  But the fact is this is a plan on the scale of some of the biggest social programs in America’s history.  Everyone agrees that health care costs are a monstrous problem for the present and future of this country. Everyone sees problems with it.  The President pushed forward a plan, championed by Congressional Republicans in the 1990s and implemented by a Republican governor in Massachusetts in the 200s, but because the main political objective of Republicans in power nationwide has been “What’s Worse for Obama” they never made the best of it or worked with it (though some governors like Kasich in Ohio have).  So a majority of states never set up exchanges, many did not expand Medicaid and just waited for something to fail. And the website gave them that opening, but having over 30 states needing the federal site cannot help its efficacy (even though that is not an excuse).  But when one party stands as a roadblock out of principle than out of practicality and the betterment of their constituents, how is that a recipe for anything to be a full-fledged success?

From all that I have read the stimulus in 2009 staved off a worse recession, but many economists believed a much bigger stimulus was the key to reversing the economy’s woes.  However, Republicans (and their Blue Dog Democrat buddies) tempered it and forced a half measure, just as they have with every initiative Obama has put forth, even when the measures he put forth were Republican idea (cap and trade, health care marketplace, Middle East intervention, etc.)!  So you deliver half a solution and when it delivers half or less of a result the party that caused the failure then gets up and screams “It’s a failure!”  It is the political equivalent of another darling of Republicans – stand your ground laws.  You can pick a fight, begin losing a fight and then kill the person winning the fight and it is all legal, according to the state of Florida.  Republicans have governed with a sort of suicide bomber mentality with regards to President Obama.  “We cannot win because the President is personally popular and we have antiquated ideas and no policies (except for our libertarian brethren who are also assholes, but call themselves libertarians because they want to appear principled instead of selfish), but we can create a losing environment for the President.”

The point of all this is just like the climate change deniers or selfish industrial nations, while the haves argue policy and theory (ether honestly or cynically) there are have-nots being hurt, in reality, with the consequences of actions.  And the ACA is a real effort to help the have-nots.  The website and the President’s false statement are not small problems, but while complaining about those, maybe it is also worth asking what people like Gov. Rick Perry really want with their actions.  Is it what is best for Texans, or is it what’s worse for President Obama?  Best to ask this now while the poor, most likely to be helped or hurt by these actions, still have a voice.

Check out my web series fund raising campaign here – http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/comedy-academy

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic, iTunes and NOW on STICHER. New Every Tuesday so subscribe on one or more platforms today – all for free!

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San Antonio Recap – Week 1

A fun week is in the books in San Antonio, but it was not without its ups and downs.  The lineup consisted of a clean, Christian, 47 year old Mom of three headliner (the shows were billed as “clean” so I said no curses all week, though I did say “cockblock” in three of my seven sets), a 54 year old male father of three emcee who was getting back into the comedy game and a 34 year old comedic genius featuring.  It felt like Major League, with the emcee as Lou Brown, the headliner was Harris – the Christian pitcher at odds with Cerano, and myself as Rick Vaughn minus the invigorating entrance music or the groupies.  So the shows were an interesting mix – here are some other interesting tidbits related to the shows.

1. Clean comedy audiences do not buy merchandise like regular audiences.  Jews and Blacks – time to welcome a new group into the cheap stereotype fold – Evangelical comedy fans.  I sold a ton of CDs last time I was at this club (LOL Club), but this week it was like I was passing around a 3rd collection plate at Church.  I also lost one sale because of my parental guidance sticker on the album cover.  She asked me if the CD had “D’s” or “F’s”  and I said it has a few “F’s” but look out for my new alum this Fall which will have some “C’s”.

2. Attached women are devious at comedy clubs.  A lot of clubs have bars within their property, but not in the showroom.  I had a woman come up to me drunk at the Sunday show during the headliner’s set while I was sitting at the bar, which often happens, and say great set and then flirt a little bit and go back inside.  She then did the common thing in these circumstances – she went back in and emerged at the end of the show with her boyfriend or husband and said nothing as they left (e.g. “good show”, “you were funny,” “thanks for the quickie in the bathroom”) – nothing!  Comedy club attendees of the world – don’t trust your chicks if they take too long at the bathroom at the comedy club!  Though, I must admit this is still preferable for me to the chick that is inappropriately huggy (hand on chest of comedian versus a more neutral hand on arm or shoulder as an example) or flirty in front of their man after the show.  I often think, “Don’t get me mixed up in your husband’s future murder-suicide of you! I don’t want to be on his hit list when he realizes you are a skank!”

3. The manager of the club is a nice guy named Jeff.  Very pleasant to talk to and to work with.  One problem – he is a soft spoken British man and he has the worst hype game of all time.  When he gets the crowd pumped up for the emcee it sounds like a shy butler from Downton Abbey asking if anyone wants more tea.

4. A young woman gave me a weird look when I referenced The Godfather in my set – 2nd time in two weeks – now this was not to the joke, which was admittedly obscure – it was when I explained it to laughs and the chicks still looked at me like “How the fack would I know what the fack The Godfather is?”  I am not asking young women (and especially attractive women who in America are often so uninformed because the market of partners does not require them to know or think anything – still waiting to meet a hot woman under 35 with a subscription to a newspaper  – print or digital – I am not sure she exists any more) to quote The Godfather, but recognize that if I reference that movie I am referencing a cultural touchstone and not some obscure flick.  You don’t have to know quotes from Charles Dickens, but you should not look at me weirdly when I say Charles Dickens and go “Who???”

5. Last, but not least I did very well.  Here is a clean 30 minute set of mine from one of the shows if you are bored, have time or know anyone at Comedy Central:

Rounding out the usual road news I also saw three movies (for free MOM) this weekend so here are the quick reviews:

The Conjuring – excellent.  real throwback to well acted, occult terror of 1970s horror movies.

Pacific Rim – amazing effects – too much bad acting.  still worth the visuals.

RIPD – Ryan Reynolds is now down to his last 6 chances to succeed in Hollywood.  Funny Jeff Bridges, bad effects, lazy movie and the worst performance of Kevin Bacon’s career.

So now I have a big week ahead of me.  Here is a preview of what is to come in JLComedy world

  • The launch of Comedian Esquire – a new Facebook page, twitter account and section of my website dedicated to legal humor and booking law school gigs.  In case you did not know I quit Comedians at Law a while ago, so please do not associate me with them any longer.  You want funny humor with legal knowledge look no further than me.
  • Scared Straight: New Comedians Edition – the JLC video of the month goes up Tuesday – it is AWESOME
  • The Dog Yoga episode of the Righteous Prick Podcast goes up Tuesday also.  Coming off the big week of downloads for my Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman analysis I am back to debate and humor discussing and dissecting a woman who runs a successful dog yoga practice in Florida.  Another win for the state of Florida!
  • And before the end of the month my criminal law-comedy web series with Investigation Discovery “Dumb Criminals” launches.

And if you are one of my 10 fans in Texas or know someone near San Antonio, remind them that I am at the Rivercenter Comedy Club this week from Wednesday to Sunday.

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A Beard Saves the Houston Comedy Trip

Comedy can be cruel.  For example, after last week’s ridiculously great set of shows at Helium in Philadelphia, I found out within a span of 2 hours this past Monday that a show at the Houston Improv on Feb 20th was cancelled and that the club I was supposed to perform near Baltimore on February 22-23rd had closed.  The comedy lord giveth and he taketh away.  But I still had a private gig in Houston on the 21st (tonight as I write this) which was the reason for going to Houston in the first place.  And changing flights would have been more than 5x the cost of the hotel for one night (I stay in really classy joints) so I decided to check if the Houston Rockets were playing.  There were and tickets were available.  More on this in a minute.

I was flying to Houston by Southwest because flights are dirt cheap to Hobby, because it is a hub of Southwest (I think).  I just had to get an 8 am flight to Midway, wait 3 hours and then catch my flight to Houston, arriving at 2:50 pm with plenty of time to spare before the Rockets-Oklahoma City Thunder game at 7pm local.

I woke up at 430 am because I am now committed to making trips as cheap as possible, which means the 6 train to the M60 bus to LaGuardia.  $2.25 for only 375 minutes of travel.  The flight to Midway took off on time and arrived early.  Then bad sh*t started happening.

I already had a 2 hour and 50 minute layover, but that was before my flight got delayed an additional 3 hours and 45 minutes.  Even when I factored in Southwest’s “we are super cheap, so don’t depend on us that much” motto I did not think they would actually put me in jeopardy of missing the game.  The lesson here is no matter how big a lead your team has, never doubt that Southwest Airlines can turn it into a deficit.

When I finally arrived in Houston greeted by fellow comedian Alex Barnett who informed me that Brian Jian, the third comedian who would be performing Thursday (tonight) had flown in to Houston’s other airport.  So we arrived at the arena only 8 minutes after tip off, but in Texas, everything is bigger, especially the lines of people driving into parking lots because public transit does not exist here because public stuff is part of a socialist plot – AMUUURRRRRICA!

So the three of us arrived and we absolutely were representative of the Rockets organization.  We had Brian, representing the Asian community, which was in full force to support Jeremy Lin, or as they call him in Houston, Yao .5. Then there was me at 6’7″ the average height of an NBA player. Then we had Alex, a short Jewish attorney to represent the agents and ownership ranks of the NBA.  And lastly we had Alex’s friend Chuck, who was black.  We could have been a promotional ad for the NBA.

 

A tall guy, a Jewish lawyer and an Asian – it must be NBA action in Houston!

As soon as we arrived we discovered that some people were in our seats.  They asked if they could stay because they were part of an office party and they had nearly identical seats on the other side of the arena and were willing to pay us $20 each to exchange (naturally that deal was orchestrated by Alex). We did and the seats were almost as good; I still had an aisle seat to stretch my awkward legs.

At this point, after being up for 16 hours and travelling for 12 of them I was beat and don’t forget we were at the game because a show was cancelled.  And then, in one of the greatest ironies in my 10 years of comedy, a man with a beard made it all worth it.  James Harden, the immensely talented well-bearded star of the Houston Rockets put in one of the greatest performances I have seen live (for the record I have only been able to watch myself perform stand up on recorded video, for obvious reasons).

We were enjoying the game which featured Harden’s old team, the Oklahoma City Thunder and it was back and forth all game, but with the Thunder always in the lead.  Here are some of the highlights up until Harden and Lin went legend:

  • Harden hits a half court shot at the buzzer of halftime.  We all missed it because we were arguing over something.
  • But fortunately the INCREDIBLE HD scoreboard of the Toyota Center replayed it for us several times – seriously the scoreboard at that place is incredible and the producer of it is so good it looks like he is producing highlight reels and music videos live.  Seriously, if you are in Hollywood I would snatch up the Toyota Center Jumbotron segment producer now.  He (or she, but probably he) most likely has a cheap price tag.
  • The giveaway people are really good at the Toyota center.  We were in the cheap seats (which are $69, so not that cheap) but the t shirt giveaway people run up there and hand out free t-shirts since we are out of range of the 16 year old girl with the t-shirt gun. Also, there is “parachute time” when some guy in the scaffolding (I dubbed him “The Phantom of the Giveaways”) starts dropping down prizes in mini parachutes.  Unfortunately our seats were behind, and practically above him so we did not get any.
  • Speaking of giveaway teams – wouldn’t this be a great place for Al Qaeda to launch their next team?  The stadium gives you t-shirt gun firepower, the opportunity to stand in the middle of the court and a chance to drop miniature parachute bombs all over the crowd.  You get a motivated sleeper cell of energetic Al Qaeda teens (the jungle gym workout is great for auditioning as a halftime tumbling act as well) and next thing you know you have 9/11 x 6 at a sports arena.  In other words I think we need to screen these arena employees more carefully.
  • And last thing I noticed at the arena is that during the game they highlighted a “Suite of the Game.” This is where the arena takes the richest people in the stadium, who have luxury boxes, and puts them on the screen for the masses to cheer and appreciate their success.  WE DID BUILD THAT!
Here they are Houston… your rich people of the night!!!

So with all those highlights the game was coming to its conclusion the Thunder were leading by a dozen or so points with less than five minutes and Brian, who earlier in the game met up with Jeremy Lin’s agent for China-related dealings (they are friends, proving that the Chinese are the Jews of China) said words that must have reached Lin on some sort of cosmic, Asian, telepathic level.  He said “The Rockets better make their move now.  Time is running out.” It was like when Drago’s trainer yelled “SHOSHYA!” right before Drago murdered Apollo.  And just like that James Harden and Jeremy Lin put on a display of brilliance that had me going “HOUSTON IMPROV WHO???!!!”  Harden put on a dazzling display of shooting and testicular fortitude on his way to a career high of 46 points and Lin dropped in two three pointers in the last few minutes, ending the game with 29.  Rockets win by three.  And comedy disappointment was unexpectedly handed its second straight week of defeat.  Nice win rockets.

And now tonight it is time to a show for the Houston Intellectual Property Bar Association.  Dammit – maybe I should wait til tomorrow to gloat over the comedy gods.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes.