Friday Round Up

Hey there, 'Redheads... For all of you who were working for the weekend, congratulations, you've arrived. I just got back from a show at my alma mater, the University of Maryland, to judge a preliminary round of the District's Funniest College competition and tell jokes to the disaffected youth. Not only was the audience packed, but all of the fifteen contestants acquitted themselves nicely. Go Terps. Afterwards, I got to talking to a couple current members of the sketch comedy group I helped found, Sketchup. They'll be having their 15th anniversary show in April. I feel proud and old at the same time.

Apparently, Charlie Sheen has gone Busey on us. If you haven't heard his radio rant from yesterday, he referred to himself as a "Vatican assassin warlock." If that's not the next movie on SyFy Channel, I'll be sorely disappointed. He can fight Sharktopus. He rambled for about twenty minutes about how he's healed himself with his mind and how he's unappreciated for polishing turds into comedy gold. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen. It makes Mel Gibson sound like Frasier Crane. Now CBS has halted production on Two and a Half Men and everyone is worried what will become of one of the highest rated sitcoms on TV. I have a simple solution for them. Something that has worked for shows like Happy Days and Married with Children. Two words: Ted McGinley. He's plug and play. Give him a call. I bet his schedule is wide open.

The Oscars are Sunday and the only thing I'm really looking forward to is the In Memoriam segment. I've only seen two of the flicks that are up for Best Picture, Inception and The Fighter. All I know is, Inception was one of the most satisfying movie going experiences I've had in about five years. It was original and well made. Right now, my opinion of the movie industry isn't great. So many remakes and reboots and regurgitated crap in 3-D. There are plans in the works to remake Fletch, Highlander, and to reboot Spider-man and Superman. Hollywood, reboot thyself. Just re-release the original movies. You're just trying to mine the nostalgia anyway. Howabout you leave our memories alone and go make some new ones, huh? By the way, if you pay money to see Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, we can't be friends anymore. Just putting that out there.

See you Monday.

Home Stretch

Hey hey, 'Redheads... Long time, no type...what else is new? Actually, I only recently awakened from my Thanksgiving food coma. I hope everyone had a trytophantastic Turkey Day. We had turducken at our feast. For those unfamiliar, that's a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. If you ever get the chance to eat an animal with two other animals stuffed into it, treat yourself. It's as delicious as a triple murder gets. But, hardly an excuse to keep you guys waiting two weeks for another helping of this corn and tripe casserole.

Big news for all of you who've been clamoring to see me live on a local stage. I got word today that I've been asked back to open for Good For The Jews at The Birchmere. The show is Sunday, the 21st, the first night of Hanukkah. Click the links to get an idea of what you're in for. Let's light this menorah...

Once again, I've started the cycle of frittering away five bucks worth of false hope on the ever growing lottery jackpot. In these tough times, it's just about as reliable as the stock market. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 million smackers. I've gone with my usual fortune cookie numbers. And they hit. Five dollars worth of tickets won me seven bucks. I'm in the black and I'm letting it ride. Here's hoping I'll be having my manservant, Punjab, type the next installment while I dictate to him from atop a pile of money and hookers.

I took in some college b-ball last week at the BB&T Classic and watched the Terps knock George Washington's wooden teeth down their throat in a 30 point blowout. One of the sponsors of the night's game was the U.S. Navy, who's logo flashed up on the jumbotron with the slogan: Defending freedom for 200 years. Does the Navy need a slogan? It's not like they're selling something...if we don't like what they're selling, we're not going to take our business elsewhere. Here are some other completely unnecessary slogans...

Food: What's in your mouth?
Oxygen: It's in every breath you take.
Gravity: Keeping you grounded.

I had a pretty funny conversation with one of my co-workers the other day. He wanted to know what I thought of some of the new movies that had come out on DVD. The talk turned to the recent Indiana Jones opus. Some of you readers may remember I had some pretty strong opinions about that flick. You can click on the link for the long version (scroll down), but I told him that I thought it was a badly told story with a bunch of rehashed chase scenes. I qualified it with, "but this is coming from a guy who considers the first three classics." To which he replied, "Well, you're talking to a guy who saw White Chicks twice..." Touche.

Speaking of classic videos, here's a musical gem that'll stick with you...

Kinda reminds me of the dream I had after eating that turducken.

See ya soon...

JOKE/BIT/PREMISE/TAG-A-DAY IN MAY 3

Howdy 'Redheads... Oy vey, the pollen is kickin' my ass today. You can set a clock by my sneezing fits today. Speaking of clocks, I woke up this morning in a time warp. When I got in my car and turned on the radio, who did I hear blaring out the business end? The Greaseman. He's back on DC101 doing Saturday mornings, doing the same waddle-doodle shtick I grew up listening to in the late 80's and early 90's...

Oh, the magic of radio. Happy not to be pulling those rabbits out of my hat anymore.

Enough of that. To help put the turd in Saturday, it's time once again for
JOKE/BIT/PREMISE/TAG-A-DAY IN MAY
Where I foist my feeble hackery upon you, the ever tolerant populace. And away we go...

I think it's time for movies to stop using the phrase, "From the people who brought you..." to sell a flick to the movie-going public. Judd Apatow has had one or two critically acclaimed funny movies...and alot of people were involved in bringing them to you. So, now, every piece of celluloid that has anyone from those movies attached to it is, "from the people who brought you Super Bad and Knocked Up." Just because a gaffer from one of those flicks is holding the boom mic for the next one off the Apatow assembly line doesn't make it good. Remember, the people who brought you Star Wars also shoveled Howard The Duck into theaters. It reminds me of my mail man. The same person who brings me my Urkel toaster cozy that I bought on Ebay also brings me my bills. Joy and pain. Yin and yang. Starsky and Hutch.

I think that one has legs. Short, stubby, polio-ridden legs, but it's a start. Any thoughts?

See you Sunday...

The Buckeye of the Beholder

Hey there 'Redheads... Greetings from beyond the PA turnpike. I'm back from a great weekend of shows at the Funny Farm in Youngstown, OH. Big thanks to Tony and the rest of the staff for making my first time there a pleasant one. Before I get into the details of the trip, I'd like to let those who care know that my impossibly cute nephew, Mo, has said his first word. That word? Wow. That's one of the things I love about the little guy, he appreciates what it means to be a baby...exploration, discovery, and drooling on those discoveries. Everything is pretty new to him, so it figures that he should be in a constant state of amazement...now he can voice it.

Wow, my uncle is a dork...

I can't wait to talk to him about last weekend, so it can sound like someone gives a wet Huggie. Until then, I'll settle for assuming that you guys do...

So, Youngstown was a fun trip. The club is in a Holiday Inn, nestled in the back of the hotel's dance club. It had it's own room, of course, but as the clock struck ten, you could feel bass that could dissolve kidney stones thumping through the back wall. It wasn't terribly disruptive to the headliner, the very funny Steve Iott, but those of us sitting in the back had The Tell-Tale Heart told by C & C Music Factory (I Love the 1850's). And the lights on stage were HOT. I'm pretty sure my shadow was burned on the back curtain. Steve had a great line, "I feel like I'm a boxer trying to make weight." There wasn't any blood or tears, but we sweat buckets.
I got a chance to buddy up with local Ohio comics, Katrina Brown, who was popping her club MC cherry on this gig, and Michael Malone, who did a guest set on the Saturday show. Both were very cool and funny, so I was batting 1.000 with nice folk to work with.

When it came to killing my Saturday, I defaulted to the local mall/movie theater. Usually a safe bet to shampoo the boredom out of a 3 to 5 hour rug. I had to catch up on my cinematic blockbuster viewing, so I plunked down $6.50 for a noon matinee of the flick that would test my fragile childhood memories, Transformers. Overall, I enjoyed it. The good outweighed the bad. First, the good: Hearing Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime made me feel 10 years old again. There were also some nice little touches, like the phrase printed on the Decepticon cop car, "To punish and enslave." The movie was a pinata of eye candy, and Michael Bay took his directing stick and beat it until every piece of digital Dubble Bubble hit the floor. Action is his forte and every dizzying robotic clash was expertly executed...the final dust-up rattled my eyeballs in a martini shaker of metallic mayhem (alliteration, baby). Now for the dork complaints. Three words: Too many humans. The only two who were remotely compelling was John Turturro's slightly eccentric head of secret group Sector 7 and the smoking hot love interest of Shia LeBeouf...but only because she was hot...seriously, her belly button had a separate credit. Also, it took way too long to get to Megatron and Starscream...it was a 2+ hour flick and they were first shown with about 20 minutes to go. Of course, they took some liberties with a couple of the characters, most notably turning Megatron into a jet instead of a gun, which is forgivable. What did bother me was the conversion of Devastator from a giant 6-robot wrecking machine into just a suped up tank. Overall, my childhood remained relatively unscathed. I sat through the entire length of the credits to see if they slipped in any extra footage, then left the theater. I was heading for the exit, when I noticed a father and son going to the adjacent theater to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I still had a couple hours to kill, so I slipped in for a double feature. I hadn't snuck into a movie since The Lost World at a sold out Uptown ten years ago...ah, memories...me and my buddy sitting in our seats while two paying customers frantically searched for a spot. So, two first run flicks for $6.50...that'll help the healing after paying full price to see The Hills Have Eyes awhile back. The new Harry Potter flick followed the same formula of the previous five, but this one was easily the darkest of the series so far. Ralph Fiennes did his best impression of a Marilyn Manson stunt double as Voldemort and they didn't waste the talents of Alan Rickman for once...he was Hans-tastic. After spending roughly 5 hours in a dark theater, being bombarded by special effects, my peepers hurt somethin' fierce. But I got my money's worth.

This weekend will be a "Hilarious romp!"--Earl Dittman, Wireless Magazine. I'll be featuring at the Baltimore Comedy Factory with the Hollywood Crushers, Adam Jacobs and T-Rexx. Do yourself a favor check out one of the seven shows on the slate. One show on Thursday and 3 on Friday and Saturday. It's a much better comedy investment than seeing that new piece of garbage Adam Sandler opus...trust me on this one.

See you in Charm City.

To be continued...

Grindblog

Hey there 'Redheads... Check out what damn well better be coming soon to a theater near you...

DEAD NOON


EL JARDINERO


BIG DEKE 6: UNFUCKWITHABLE


NIGHT OF THE LIVING JEWS


BLACK MANTIS

The balcony is closed.

To be continued...