Martin Van Buren: Myth or Legend?

I'll probably end up on a government blacklist for posting this, but here are some looks at the hard truths about Martin Van Buren. Assisting me are Jared Stern and Michael Graham.

Tags: presidents, movies

Baltimore Comedy Factory DEAL!

See how I put "deal" in all caps? That means it's IMPORTANT!

I am performing at the Baltimore Comedy Factory this weekend, Thursday-Saturday. The headliner is Bob Levy, who is a regular on Howard Stern's show.

Here's the cool part -- if you want to come out, when you make the reservation, tell them you're coming to see me and you want the drink special. That means that for $17, you get your admission, PLUS all you can drink (top-shelf liquor excluded, sorry hard-core drunks). Make sure you mention my name. The number for reservations is 410-547-7798.

You should be there! If not I'll be sad.

Movie Review: Tropic Thunder

I am a professional comedian, and I endorse this movie. I could give you a lengthy explanation about people playing to well-defined comedic roles (as opposed to the directionless mugging in many modern comedies), but instead, I will just tell you that Tom Cruise dances in a fat suit.

I laughed out loud about ten times. There's a 20-minute stretch near the beginning that's a little flat, but after that it's all gravy. GO! I COMMAND YOU!

Tags: Baltimore, movies

Hey Friday!

It's Friday! I'd say it's time to relax but I haven't worked that hard this week. Relaxing might slow my heartbeat down to complete stop.

What Brown Did For Me

I ordered my first ever set of photos from Snapfish this week. I was a little late to the digital camera craze, relying on a hand-cranked, diesel-motor camera with hand-held exploding flash bulbs until early 2008. It was impractical, and it took up a lot of space in the jalopy, but the flappers seemed to love it.

But I'll wired for sound now! And so I had about 150 priceless memories committed to contact paper at the very reasonable price of 9 cents a print. Either computers or a Chinese sweatshop were handing this order, because it must have shipped about 30 seconds after I placed it. Here's how it arrived at my house:

I was working at my desk when I heard a thud outside, like something being thrown on the ground. I went to the window and saw a UPS guy crossing the street to his truck. Since no one rang my doorbell, and I couldn't see a package on the doorstep from my window, I went back to work. I figured he delivered something next door.

Then, there was a really nasty thunderstorm. After the rain, I went outside to check on the front 40, and hey! There's a package on my doorstep. It was the photos, in a cardboard box which was soaked almost all the way through. So, the UPS guy came to my house but didn't knock or ring the bell; opted not to use my mailbox even though the non-water-resistant cardboard box would have fit and there was a thunderstorm coming; and then decided to top things off by throwing or dropping the package.

The photos were OK, but from a customer service perspective, yikes. This ranks up there with the time when I caught a FedEx guy, after ringing the doorbell and then waiting about five seconds for an answer, getting ready to leave a pacakge in my recycling bin, thinking that I would naturally check for packages there. Because I always sort through the garbage for my mail! It's the first place I check! You never know when the latest issue of empty beer-bottle monthly might show.

United We Stand!

It's almost convention week! When people with a strong affinity for buttons, ugly hats and an irrational faith in representative democracy can finally blow off four years of steam and actually get lucky discussing policy in a Ramada Inn bar. Huzzah.

The big issue for Democrats going into Denver was whether Hillary Clinton would have her name nominated on the convention floor, in recognition of her historic campaign. Historic, in that she spent the entire GDP of some third world nations and still managed to lose to a guy with almost no experience, ties to a crazy religious leader and no policy positions discernibly different from her own. That's never been done before.

And oh yeah, she's also a lady! It has been a groundbreaking campaign for the Democratic party, and much of the broken ground was picked up and thrown at other Democrats. To a lot of people, if you don't like Hillary, you're a sexist, and if you don't like Obama, you're a racist. And therein lies the beauty of this campaign. It's brought us all together.

The conventional wisdom in the minds of a lot of Democrats, at least the self-righteous ones around DC, is that if you're a racist or a sexist, then you're also a Republican. A Republican who just sits around oppressing people, twirling your monocle, sloshing champagne on your waistcoat, kicking the orphans who gave you a bad shoe shine. Or a Republican who loves guns and owns at least one Dale Earnhardt shirt. It's quite the power bloc we've formed in the GOP.

Well, now we know for a FACT, that the Democratic party has just as many racists and sexists as any other party. We have the primary polling results to prove it! Tons of Democratic primary voters pulled a lever, not because of a sincere analysis of candidate's qualifications, but because of their particular hatred of, or affinity for, a gender or race. And in a time when Democrats and Republicans can't agree on taxes, or oil, or the war on terrorism, isn't it good to know that there's some common bond to build on? Bigotry and sexism aren't Republican problems, or Democratic problems. They're American problems. United we stand!

Ageism, however, is pretty much exclusively a Democratic party problem. Republicans did the noble thing and nominated an old white guy to show their support for the gray horde. Get with the program, donkeys.

The Dream Begins to Die

If you're in a political mood, you can also read this neat Washington Post article about people "energized" by the Obama campaign getting smacked around by the Democratic party establishment when they try to run for D.C. government posts.

JFK inspired a generation of people to public service, and once that generation became firmly stuck in the swamp that is government bureaucracy, their dreams were choked out. Those people became the dispirited, bitter government employees whose lethargy and bitterness prevented anything of value from happening at a federal level for decades to follow, as other people made an actual difference in the private sector or through direct charity.

I'm glad to hear that Obama is restocking the streams! We are the ones we've been waiting for!

Golden Girls

Also amusing, a column where a guy says the IOC loses all credibility if it doesn't investigate the ages of Chinese gymnasts.

The IOC is supposedly one of the most corrupt international organizations in existence. It exists primarily so commissioners can get nice bribes. This is a public secret. But I guess they have SOME credibility to lose. Huh.

If you're following this story at all, then you probably know deep in your heart that the Chinese cheated, because, oh yeah, THEY'RE EVIL. Those little girls aren't at fault, but the Chinese government is a pseudo-Stalinist propaganda machine that invested all of its national pride in the the Olympics and enjoys getting in pissing contests with the West. Chances are no one is going to mess with them, though. They have the numbers.

In conclusion, Nastia is the most unfortunate name in Olympic competition since Irina Slutskaya.

Suit Up

Michael Phelps is great and all, but it's sort of hard to be THAT impressed when he breaks the world record every single race. The big difference from years gone by is the suit, made from baby seals, which has less resistance in the water than skin.

This is a definite case of clothes making the man, and I feel that we all should be given specially designed outfits to improve our job performance. For example, I could use a unitard that makes me look like a 22-year-old Mexican woman with crossover appeal. I'm pretty sure I'd have an agent within a week with that outfit. If the suit could also decrease my resistance to begging for work, that would be great.

Sadly, NASA isn't really focusing on this sort of thing, and so I guess for now, I'm stuck with the classic push-up bra and a smile. Yowza.

Tags: politics, Olympics

New Video: The Ginger Fund

First and foremost, I am a philanthropist, and so I offer you my latest charitable cause. My thanks to Jared Stern, who threw his big-time celebrity muscle behind this worthy, noble project.

Tags: video

Movie Review: Superman

I saw "Superman" on the National Mall last night as part of the annual "Screen on the Green" festivities. I had forgotten what a great movie this is.

• As Superfriend Jared Stern points out, Jor-El is the Al Gore of Krypton. If only he had put together a slide show, maybe they would have evacuated that planet.
• Lex Luthor's evil plan involves buying worthless land at exorbitant prices, then destroying California to increase the value of his real estate holdings, even though, as the man who destroyed California, he would have probably have no legal way to keep that land.
• Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind on the planet, has a master plan that hinges on wigs and a large-breasted woman creating enough of a distraction so that a moron can reprogram a nuclear missile. Also, the plan relies on no one bothering to double-check the targeting system on that missile before a nuclear warhead test.
• Lois wins Clark's heart by being indisputably awful and rude to him from their very first meeting.
• Superman has the ability to reverse time, and he uses this ability to save Lois Lane from suffocating. Not to prevent the nuclear strike a few minutes earlier which leads to Lois' suffocation, mind you. Just to save Lois. In saving Lois, he also presumably lets Lake Mead drain.

The premise of the movie requires you to accept that an alien sent to our planet gets superpowers from the yellow sun. And yet there are still about five moments where you have to say, "Well that's a load of crap." That takes some doing. Great stuff.

A Note to the Frisbee Guys ...

... on the National Mall last night. It's nice that you can catch a frisbee between your legs, and backwards, and by leaping even when you don't have to. But you'd be MORE impressive if you didn't repeatedly throw the frisbee into groups of strangers, and also if you wore shoes. The thing about throwing a frisbee is this: YOU ARE THROWING A FRISBEE. You're hitting the maximum possible respect level once it's clear you can throw in a straight line. Divert your energy to hydroponic farming. Do some good in the world.

That is all.

Tags: movies